#published: 2010 to 2014

[haveyoureadthisdcfic]

Authour: @incogneat-oh (incogneat_oh)

Subfandom: Batman

Media: Comics

Relationships: Gen (Tim Drake-centric)

Year: 2012

Summary:

anyafishies said:Can we have Tim being hit by Ivy’s pollen, except reactions are not acute and the onset is slow, and now he is constantly more acutely afraid that people around him will be in danger/disappear (Kon, Bart, Bruce, Dick, Jason… even Damian). So he does all he can to protect them and double check on them more than he did already and eventually his body and mind just give out. Then they figure [it] out. If possible can I ask for a happy ending?

Submitted by @kiragecko

Perfect angst. Everyone is in character, the fear is very very relateable - it's just an incredibly skilled fic and one of my favourite things ever.

[kommabortsig]

JfSanNicolasChapel8326MasantolPpfvf_10.JPG

[weaselandfriends]

Sword Art Online (anime)

Sword Art Online is a Frankenstein monster. Here is every episode of the first arc and how it was adapted:

Episode 1 is from the original web novel, published in 2002.

Episode 2 is from a more detailed rewrite of the story, Sword Art Online Progressive, published in 2012 (only a few months before the anime aired).

Episode 3 is from the second volume of the light novel, published in 2009.

Episode 4 is from a side story published shortly after the original web novel, in either 2002 or 2003.

Episodes 5 and 6 combine a side story published in 2007 and another side story from the eighth volume of the light novel, published in 2011.

Episode 7 is from a side story published shortly after the original web novel, likely in 2003.

Episodes 8, 9, and 10 are from the original web novel, published in 2002.

Episode 11 and 12 are from a side story published in 2003.

Episodes 13 and 14 are from the original web novel, published in 2002.

By stitching together stories written across an entire decade, often with wildly different purposes and goals, the anime is tonally erratic, with glaring plot and character inconsistencies. For example, Episode 3 is a tragic episode in which Kirito brings several low-level players to a high-level floor, leading to their deaths. Kirito is traumatized; he later explains that this incident is why he plays as a solo player, so nobody else will ever get hurt because of him. Episode 4, by contrast, is a lighthearted episode in which Kirito—having learned nothing, because this story was written six years before the previous one—brings a low-level player to a high-level floor as bait for dangerous player-killers. When the low-level player is comedically groped by a tentacle monster and cries out for Kirito to save her, Kirito only shrugs and says, "Come on, it's not that powerful." He's ultimately correct, and this time the player survives, but what happened to his trauma?

These inconsistencies, combined with Sword Art Online's massive popularity, made it the favorite target of the fledgling anime video essay community circa 2014 to 2017. Though it's possible to do a longform video poring over every single plot hole for almost anything, Sword Art Online made it easy; half of its "plot" was never intended to be arranged in this way, and even when there was intent, it was the intent of an amateur author writing their first-ever story. You couldn't generate a work more perfect for endless nitpicking and angry rants in a lab.

But if the show is blatantly incompetent, what made it so popular?

It's tempting to ascribe its popularity to "right place, right time." By 2012, the year Sword Art Online came out, the internet had changed the primary way people interacted socially. Rather than being bound by family, proximity, race, creed, religion, or so on, people grouped together by hobby. "Gamer" was now a community-binding identity, an attribute that distinguished a person and their niche online space from the othered outside. And the Gamers craved legitimacy. They craved the approval and recognition of mainstream culture. They craved representation, that feeling of seeing yourself reflected in the world around you.

The world refused them. The mood of the entrenched pop cultural elite was best encapsulated by Roger Ebert, famous film critic, who had been waging a years-long crusade against video games as an artistic medium. In 2005, in response to the live-action Doom movie, Ebert said, "Video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized[,] and empathetic." He reiterated this claim in statements and essays in 2006 and 2010, and in March 2012, on the eve of Sword Art Online's airing, described Dark Souls—Dark Souls!—as a "soul-deadening experience." "Video games can never be art," he asserted plainly later that year.

In this milieu, it makes sense why Gamers glommed onto Sword Art Online. If nothing else, Sword Art Online takes video games seriously, more seriously than any non-video game media before it (asterisk; excepting .hack). This seriousness manifests in a consistent theme, a singular perpetually present thread that lingers even as plot, character, and tone skew wildly, stated by Kirito to Klein in Episode 1:

"This may be a virtual world, but I feel more alive here than I do in the real world."

This statement defines Asuna, who stops seeing her time trapped in the game as years stolen from her life, and instead learns to live each moment as if it were truly real. It defines Silica, mourning her dead Neopet and willing to risk her actual life to revive it. It defines Lisbeth, hurtling a million miles into the air but still for a moment enraptured by the beauty of a digital sun shining over a digital land. It defines Griselda, murdered by her husband Grimlock for motives he can only confusingly explain as related to how she "changed" in the game, how she became more confident, more self-realized, while he sank into despair (he was not a Gamer. He lacked the Gamer spirit). It defines Yui, the sentient NPC whom Kirito and Asuna adopt as part of a pantomimed marriage that the show's nauseatingly boring second arc is about protecting against an outside world that does not acknowledge it. And it defines Akihiko Kayaba, the game's creator, who when confronted at the end over why he trapped 10,000 people in this death game, can only say that he no longer remembers, before rhapsodizing about the "castle in the sky" he so achingly desired to bring to life. Unstated is that, to make it truly alive, he needed to make it—and the people inside it—capable of death. This logic is twisted, even more bizarre than Grimlock's murder confession, but neither the scene's wistfully poignant tone nor Kirito's responses reject it.

As the video essayists have done, it's pathetically easy to pick apart Kayaba's rationale. But to mire oneself in the story's logic is a mistake; Sword Art Online is not a story guided by logic. What matters is that Kayaba's illogical words are consistent with the ethos that underlies the narrative: The virtual world is as important as, or even more important than, the real world.

The anime's production values reflect this ethos, too. Sword Art Online looks strikingly cheap for its level of popularity. In almost every fight, still images with blur lines vibrate in tacky simulation of animation. There is no dynamism in the camerawork, and sword duels are often depicted in shot-reverse shot so only one participant is on screen at a time. Nobody interacts with their environment; every battle occurs on a flat, empty plane. Some of the monsters are CGI and look awful. The character designs are bland and generic. Even the music, by the otherwise-excellent Yuki Kajiura, sounds like phoned-in B-sides from her work on Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011) and its sequel film, Rebellion (2013).

But what the show does expend effort on is its backgrounds, which are both visually inventive—floating islands, towering columns that hold up the sky—and depicted with glimmering post-processing effects to bathe them in sunsets, sunrises, rainbows, and starry nights. First and foremost, Sword Art Online sells its virtual world to the viewer, makes them believe in that world the way the characters in the story do.

And in having that world sold to them, in expressing its legitimacy and the legitimacy of those (hero or villain) who believe in it, the Gamers had their rallying cry, the work of media that finally said: You are seen.

But was it really Gamers that Sword Art Online saw?

While Sword Art Online is invested in selling its virtual world, it is not invested in selling its virtual game. The in-universe Sword Art Online is primarily defined by its lack of gameplay mechanics, rather than those it actually has. In Episode 1, Klein explains that the game lacks a magic system, which he describes as a "bold choice." In Episode 2, members of the raid party state that the game also lacks a job or class system. There is no long-ranged weaponry; everyone uses melee weapons, usually swords. The only strategy during raids is human wave tactics, where armies of players charge in and attack at once. The only cooperative maneuver is "Switch," a mechanic that is never explicitly explained but seems to involve a player who has already charged in backing off so another player can charge in their place.

Compared to even basic single-player RPGs, these mechanics are primitive; for an MMORPG, they're antediluvian. The point isn't whether a game with these mechanics would be fun or not (in many ways, it's similar to Dark Souls, where the basic core gameplay of dodge-and-hit is rendered meaningful by the consequences for failure), but rather that the game's mechanics have little importance within the story.

They're so unimportant that it's never explained why Kirito is so good at the game, what he's doing differently from everyone else. He's not even a grinder. He spends most of the first half of the story slumming on floors far beneath his level. It's no-nonsense Asuna who grinds hard, who tries to exploit the game mechanics, like when she proposes using NPCs to lure a boss. The plan makes logical sense, but logic is absent from Sword Art Online's ethos; Kirito rejects it, not on the grounds it wouldn't work, but because the NPCs would be killed. He prioritizes respecting the game world, while Asuna—at least initially—prioritizes respecting the game mechanics. Kirito's philosophy is ultimately proven right when he and Asuna adopt an NPC daughter who turns out to be sentient.

Meanwhile, Kirito's most impressive feat involves him ignoring the game's rules entirely. The one mechanic described in detail is that if you die in the game, you die in real life; when Kirito dies, though, he wills himself back alive to defeat the final boss.

The game, the experience of gaming, being a Gamer—none of these are part of the underlying ethos that guides the narrative decisions of Sword Art Online. Kirito didn't tell Klein, "I feel more alive playing this game." He said, "I feel more alive in this virtual world." Asuna didn't find happiness by exploiting the game, but by learning to live in it as though it were her real life. Kayaba didn't design Sword Art Online because he loves games, but because he wanted to make his world real.

This isn't a story about Gamers. It's a story about a virtual world. It's a story about the internet. It's a story about online community.

In his introduction to Speaker for the Dead (1986), Orson Scott Card describes the heroes of most science fiction novels as "perpetual adolescents": "He belongs to no community; he is wandering from place to place, doing good (as he sees it), but then moving on. This is the life of the adolescent, full of passion, intensity, magic, and infinite possibility; but lacking responsibility, rarely expecting to have to stay and bear the consequences of error […] Who but the adolescent is free to have the adventures that most of us are looking for when we turn to storytellers to satisfy our hunger? And yet to me, at least, the most important stories are the ones that teach us how to be civilized: the stories about children and adults, about responsibility and dependency."

Card, of course, wrote Gamer fiction long before anyone craved it. Ender's Game (1985) is obsessed with the mechanical minutiae of its titular game in a way Sword Art Online is not; its protagonist is successful in the mold of Asuna, able to understand and exploit game mechanics better than anyone else. But in this quote, Card describes Kirito perfectly. Kirito is, of course, an actual adolescent, emphasized by his character design and Columbine trench coat ("Don't show up to the GameStop tomorrow," you can almost hear him say), but his character is also adolescent in terms of Card's model. He spends the first half of the story as a solo player, wandering from floor to floor, doing good (usually), moving on. He lacks—or rather, avoids—responsibility. While Asuna is second-in-command of a top guild organizing high-level raids, Kirito is off on his own reviving some girl's Neopet.

When viewed from this perspective, Sword Art Online actually does have a coherent and comprehensible character arc for its otherwise inconsistent protagonist. Kirito develops as a result of his relationship with Asuna, finding through his marriage to her the responsibility that he previously forsook. When Kirito's error causes Sachi to die in Episode 3, he moves on, immediately abandons even his own trauma by Episode 4; Sachi is never mentioned again. (Of course not, since her story was one of the last ones written.) He feels no lasting responsibility for his actions. But later, Kirito realizes he could not brush off the trauma if the same thing happened to Asuna. It is through his responsibility to her that he joins the final raid and thus bears, shoulder to shoulder with everyone else, the cooperative responsibility of the entire virtual community of Sword Art Online. He has become an adult, with wife and child. He has become "more cultured, civilized[,] and empathetic," as Ebert would put it.

(And isn't that what Ebert is really saying, when he criticizes video games? That they are adolescent, childish, playthings?)

Through Kirito's character arc, and its underlying ethos about virtual worlds, Sword Art Online depicts online community via the language of marriage and responsibility that is traditionally ascribed to real-life community. This too resonated with its audience. After all, it wasn't just Gamers who craved recognition. Teenagers in 2012 had lived their entire conscious life in a world defined by the internet, and yet the "real world" considered online relationships and communities to be a joke. Sword Art Online, rather than legitimizing Gamers, legitimizes the virtual world, the internet.

But does it really even do that?

Immediately, Sword Art Online rejects the notion of online identity. Kayaba's first move upon trapping everyone inside the game is to force them all to look like their real-world selves. As per Sword Art Online's anti-logic ethos, he does not explain why he does this. Shortly afterward, Kirito looks at his real-world finger, which received a paper cut before he entered the game; he imagines it bleeding profusely, before saying, "It's not a game. It's real." By enforcing real-world identity within the game world, Kayaba possibly intends players to see the world as more real too, the way Kirito does. This fits the monomaniacal focus of Kayaba, and Sword Art Online as a story, on the importance of virtual space over any other aspect of virtual experience, and it's not surprising that Kirito tacitly agrees with Kayaba's decision when he and Klein tell each other they look better as their real selves than as their avatars. But it also alienates Sword Art Online from its connection to the reality of the internet, where personal identity is far more fluid.

Furthermore, despite his character arc, Kirito ultimately stands apart from his online community. At the end of the story, everyone lies on the ground paralyzed as he alone is given the privilege to duel the final boss, one-on-one. At this climactic moment, Kirito returns to being a solo player, while every other member of the community lacks agency, including Asuna. Especially Asuna. Shortly before the final battle, Asuna claims she'll commit suicide if Kirito dies, which is already an unhealthily adolescent view of marriage (as seen in Romeo & Juliet). Then, before the duel, when Asuna is paralyzed, Kirito demands that Kayaba "fix it so Asuna can't kill herself." Not only has Kayaba, the villain, stolen Asuna's agency over her own body, but now her husband is requesting he steal even more of it.

This, too, is part of Sword Art Online's ethos. Though the game has 10,000 people, nobody except Kirito actually matters. He is a "Solo Player" in the sense of Solo Leveling, the most popular airing anime, which has a mistranslated title; it should be "Only I Level Up." The implication of the real title is clear: Only the protagonist has agency. Kirito is the same. Only he plays the game, in any meaningful sense. The game—reality—bends to him; none of its rules, even death, constrain him.

It is total self-centeredness, a complete rejection of the responsibility to society that Card describes. This ethos pervades the show. Kirito is never wrong, even when he obviously is, like when he rejects Asuna's proposal to use NPCs as bait. The entire reason he realizes Heathcliff is Kayaba is because, during an earlier duel, Heathcliff beat him; Kirito (correctly) posits that someone who beat him must have been cheating. Everyone who likes Kirito is good, everyone who dislikes him is evil; Kuradeel, who chafes with Kirito initially over bureaucratic guild regulations, eventually unmasks himself as a sadistic serial killer. Every girl is in love with him, a harem rendered vestigial because Kirito is married to Asuna and expresses zero interest in Silica or Lisbeth or his sister or the second season's Carne Asada; but it's not about whether Kirito wants a harem, it's about the prestige of his ability to command one.

This is where the true face of Sword Art Online shows itself, what truly made it so popular, and where the core of its long-lasting influence remains.

Only the virtual world matters. Not the game, not the online community, not online identity. Only a different world, one that isn't the real world. And in this world, only Kirito matters. Sure, he'll fight to protect other people. Exactly like he'll fight to protect NPCs. In this world, real people are worth the same as NPCs, compared to Kirito. His wife is a real person; his daughter is not. But really, both his marriage and his child are a form of playacting, pretending at adulthood. When convenient, they are disregarded and trampled upon. Asuna spends the next two arcs of Sword Art Online sidelined—even viciously sexually assaulted—so Kirito can hang out with girls he doesn't even like, just because they're shiny and new; Yui is almost completely forgotten after the second arc, like a discarded toy.

This is an ethos of pure, distilled escapism. It is an escape from the real world to a false one, where every conceivable selfish fantasy is rendered real, where every desire can be granted and then disposed of when no longer wanted. It is an ethos without responsibility, without consequence.

And without shame. Sword Art Online is remarkably devoid of self-consciousness. It treats as real its virtual world, but doesn't feel the need to justify that world with logic. It doesn't feel the need to justify anything with logic; what it says is so, self-evidently.

In my Kill la Kill essay, I mentioned Sword Art Online's vast influence, and someone wrote (and sadly deleted) a well-reasoned response that explained how the aesthetics and tropes of modern isekai are much more heavily influenced by Japanese webfic that predate Sword Art Online, like GATE or Overlord or Re:Zero. That's true; I'd add that modern Gamer fiction, which is often obsessively concerned with the rules and statistics underlying game logic, is also not very similar to Sword Art Online on a superficial level. But Sword Art Online's ethos transcends genre. It can be found in isekai, Gamer lit, or even genres popular long before Sword Art Online, like battle shounen. Sword Art Online created the web fiction to light novel to anime pipeline, and in doing so popularized amateur literature and its decidedly adolescent mentality of shameless and solipsistic self-indulgence. "Only I Play the Game."

[some-triangles]

This is the order of events as nearly as I can reconstruct them.

In 2008 I start following a webcomic called Problem Sleuth.

In 2009 Problem Sleuth wraps up. The author, Andrew Hussie, begins work on 🤡's next project, a mixed media piece called Homestuck.

In 2010 I become an evangelist for Homestuck. I spread the word to my college friend Stephen. He joins an online Homestuck RP group. I move to New York. That fall, Stephen visits me and introduces me to a guy from the group named Josh, who plays Rose. I am immediately infatuated.

In 2011 Stephen starts development on a real life Pesterchum app. I organize a Homestuck group cosplay and we go to Anime Central with our whole college anime club dressed up as trolls. I sit in a field with 50 Daves. I write my first Homestuck fanfiction, which is also my first anything fanfiction. Josh moves into my apartment. Stephen is dating a pair of bisexual cosplayers. Act 5 concludes. It is Peak Homestuck.

In 2012 my girlfriend tells me that I am no longer allowed to talk about Homestuck with her. The What Pumpkin organization - Homestuck is too big to be one person's project anymore - launches a kickstarter for a Homestuck video game, which raises 2.5 million dollars. At the same time, it is becoming clear that something is wrong with Homestuck itself. The author is fed up with the project but is now financially bound to it. The content becomes increasingly mean-spirited and critical of its audience as What Pumpkin tries to turn itself into a game company.

In 2013 What Pumpkin loses a significant chunk of its Kickstarter money - how much we'll never know - through a comical series of development boondoggles. Stephen launches a Kickstarter to fund an expansion of the Pesterchum app - now the haunt of a large online community - and What Pumpkin shuts it down. Josh no longer reads Homestuck but we're still living together and we start a podcast.

In 2014 Homestuck is mostly on hiatus. When it returns I start this blog, which was originally called "Two Triangles," after Dirk's shades. Most of the old crew have stopped caring about Homestuck but I am a die-hard. I write more fanfiction, mostly lesbian fluff. I begin to meet new people who are still invested in the whole thing. This and the podcast become the core of my new social world. Homestuck itself is getting more and more chaotic and diffuse but I still believe Andrew can tie it all together.

In 2015 I break. I write a fanfic called "Theatre of Coolty," which is my Dear John letter to Andrew Hussie. (I kill him in the story, which is par for the course.) It becomes the most popular thing I have ever made, and is most likely the most popular thing I ever will make. It is translated into multiple languages. A person called Naked Bee (who becomes another dear friend) turns it into a short film with puppets. I have grown to hate Homestuck but it is now my primary source of external validation and the foundation of my social media presence.

In 2016 Homestuck ends. The last year of its existence is an extraordinary act of creative self-erasure. Hussie vanishes by degrees, and by the time the finale rolls out no trace of 🤡's writing or art is left in the product. It is an abnegation worthy of Prospero. To complete this act of conceptual self-destruction, 🤡 ends up selling the entire product to Viz, who let it corrode. (Nine years later, homestuck.com is a dead link, mspaintadventures an abandoned swamp of broken pngs.) Meanwhile, I provide the narration for Bee's audio adaptation of a novel-length Homestuck fanfiction called Detective Pony, which she later turns into a feature film. The author of the fic/novel goes on to Kickstart a dating sim based on the 2016 Republican primary, which he calls Grand Old Academy. It has yet to be published.

In 2017 I leave New York. My friendship with Josh deteriorates and our podcast ends. I am no longer a Homestuck fan. As such I rebrand - the number of triangles I am is no longer anyone's business.

--

In 2021, Andrew Hussie releases a visual novel called Psycholonials. I do not read it.

--

In 2025, I am back in New York, albeit not in the city. I'm married to someone I met through this blog. Most of my closest friends are people I met either through Homestuck or through the projects that came out of it. Even my college friends - the ones I still talk to - are the ones who went through the wars with me. My wife thinks Psycholonials is worth reading. One night we sit down and play through it together.

Psycholonials is a nasty, nihilistic little story about a fucking idiot who accidentally creates a movement and then runs away like a bitch when it gets to be too much, back into the bosom of 🤡's trust fund. It's also really good. It has all the things I loved about Homestuck, all the stuff I missed as 🤡 left it to rot. It demonstrates that 🤡 is not washed, that the failure of Homestuck was not because 🤡 lost the juice. 🤡 abandoned us on purpose. 🤡 chose 🤡 over us.

This was objectively the correct decision. And when you come right down to it, 🤡 never signed up to change my life. It just happened.

Still, I can't say that it doesn't hurt a little, sitting here in my 40s. I guess everyone follows at least one failed messiah. So, yet another farewell to the cool big brother I never had. I hope this is the last one.

[dunmeshistash]

hey, do you know when dungeon meshi was conceptualized? theres a few very early sketches floating around and the original oneshot, but I can't find any dates or timeframes...

thank you!

The oldest concept art I could find was in an old deleted blog and the post was from 6/10/2012 (month/day/year), I don't think I've seen anything Dungeon Meshi related before that

The caption (ダンジョンRPG的な) is something like "Dungeon RPG-Like" and the designs are already pretty similar to what we got but she gives them wizardry classes instead of names

According to myanimelist the Dungeon Meshi oneshot came out in December 2013 a few months before it was serialized in February 2014

Dungeon Meshi was Kui's first serialization but it wasn't her first published manga! She had published the oneshot collections "The Dragon's School is on Top of the Mountain" in 2011 and "Seven Little Sons of the Dragon" in 2012, and I recently found out from pictures from the Ryoko Kui Exhibition that she also had at least 2 self published works (Doujinshi) from 2009 and 2010!

[heckcareoxytwit]

Rest in peace, Peter David....

Peter David had written a lot of comics and books over the years. Since this Tumblr has the limit of having 30 images, I have to include some of the Marvel comics he wrote for this post.

The long list of the comics he wrote are under the cut.

COMICS

Action Comics Weekly #608–620 (Green Lantern serial; #615, 619–620, plot with Richard Howell) (1988)

The Phantom #1–4 (1988)

Justice #15–32 (1988–1989)

Dreadstar #41–64 (1989–1991)

Creepy: The Limited Series #1–4 (1992)

Sachs and Violens #1–4 (1993)

Captain America Drug War (1994)

Dreadstar #0.5, 1–6 (1994)

DC vs. Marvel (#2 and #4 only) (1996)

Heroes Reborn: The Return #1–4 (1997)

Babylon 5: In Valen's Name (with J. Michael Straczynski), DC Comics, 1998. ISBN 185286981X

Powerpuff Girls: Hide and Go Mojo (2002) ISBN 0-439-33249-4

The Haunted #1–4 (2002)

The Haunted: Gray Matters #1 (2002)

Red Sonja vs. Thulsa Doom #1–4 (with Luke Lieberman and Will Conrad), Dynamite Entertainment, 2006. ISBN 1-933305-96-7

Spike: Old Times (with Scott Tipton and Fernando Goni), IDW Publishing, 2006. ISBN 1-60010-030-9

Spike vs. Dracula #1–5 (with Joe Corroney and Mike Ratera), IDW Publishing, 2006. ISBN 1-60010-012-0

Wonder Man: My Fair Super Hero #1–5 (2007)

The Scream #1–4 (2007)

Halo: Helljumper #1–5 (2009)

Deadpool’s Art of War #1–4 (2014)

The Phantom: Danger in the Forbidden City #1–6 (2014)

Marvel Comics #1000 (amongst others) (2019)

Elektra: Black, White & Blood #2 (2022)

Battlestar Galactica vs. Battlestar Galactica #1—6 (Crossover of the 1978 and 2004 series, January – June 2018)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) #1–7 (2003)

Aquaman

The Atlantis Chronicles #1–7 (1990)

Aquaman: Time and Tide #1–4 (with Kirk Jarvinen) (1993)

Aquaman Vol. 5 #0–46, Annual 1–4 (1994–1998)

Avengers

The Last Avengers Story #1–2 (1995)

Avengers: Season One (2012)

Avengers: Back to Basics #1–6 (2018)

Captain Marvel (Marvel Comics)

Captain Marvel Vol. 4 #1–35, 0 (1999–2002)

Captain Marvel Vol. 5 #1–25 (2002–2004)

Genis-Vell: Captain Marvel #1–5 (2022)

Fallen Angel

Fallen Angel #1–20 (DC) (2003–2005)

Fallen Angel #1–33 (IDW) (2005–2008)

Fallen Angel: Reborn #1–4 (2010)

Fallen Angel: Return of the Son #1–4 (2011)

Fantastic Four

Before the Fantastic Four: Reed Richards #1–3 (2000)

Marvel 1602: Fantastick Four #1–5 (2005)

Fantastic Four: The Prodigal Sun #1 (2019)

Silver Surfer: The Prodigal Sun #1 (2019)

Guardians of the Galaxy: The Prodigal Sun #1 (2019)

New Fantastic Four #1–5 (2022)

Marvel Cinematic Universe

Main article: Marvel Cinematic Universe tie-in comics

Iron Man: I Am Iron Man! #1–2 (2010)

Marvel's Captain America: The First Avenger #1–2 (2013)

Marvel's Captain America: The Winter Soldier Infinite Comic (2014)

Marvel's Black Widow Prelude #1–2 (2020)

The Incredible Hulk

Hulk Visionaries: Peter David, Volume 1 (with Todd McFarlane), Marvel Comics, 2005. ISBN 0-7851-1541-2. Collects Incredible Hulk #331–339 (1987–1988).

Hulk Visionaries: Peter David, Volume 2 (with Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen, and Jeff Purves), Marvel Comics, 2005. ISBN 0-7851-1878-0. Collects Incredible Hulk #340–348 (1988).

Hulk Visionaries: Peter David, Volume 3 (with Jeff Purves, Alex Saviuk, and Keith Pollard), Marvel Comics, 2006. ISBN 0-7851-2095-5. Collects Incredible Hulk #349–354 and Web of Spider-Man #44 (1988–1989).

Hulk Visionaries: Peter David, Volume 4 (with Bob Harras, Jeff Purves, and Dan Reed), Marvel Comics, 2007. ISBN 0-7851-2096-3. Collects Incredible Hulk #355–363 and Marvel Comics Presents #26 and #45 (1989–1990).

Hulk Visionaries: Peter David, Volume 5 (with Jeff Purves, Dale Keown, Sam Kieth, and Angel Medina), Marvel Comics, 2008. ISBN 978-0-7851-2757-4. Collects Incredible Hulk #364–372 and Incredible Hulk Annual #16 (1989–1990).

Hulk Visionaries: Peter David, Volume 6 (with Dale Keown,), Marvel Comics, 2009. ISBN 978-0-7851-3762-7. Collects Incredible Hulk #373–382 (1990–1991).

Hulk Visionaries: Peter David, Volume 7 (with Dale Keown,), Marvel Comics, 2010. ISBN 978-0-7851-4457-1. Collects Incredible Hulk #383–389 and Incredible Hulk Annual #17 (1991–1992).

Hulk Visionaries: Peter David, Volume 8 (with Dale Keown), Marvel Comics, 2011. ISBN 978-0-7851-5603-1. Collects Incredible Hulk #390–396, X-Factor #76 and Incredible Hulk Annual #18 (1992).

Epic Collection 19: Ghosts of the Past (with Dale Keown), Marvel Comics, 2015. ISBN 978-0-7851-9299-2. Collects Incredible Hulk #397–406 and Incredible Hulk Annual #18–19 (1992).

Epic Collection 20: Future Imperfect, Marvel Comics, 2017 ISBN 978-1302904708. Collects Incredible Hulk #407–419, Annual #20, Incredible Hulk: Future Imperfect #1–2 and material from Marvel Holiday Special #3

Epic Collection 21: Fall of the Pantheon, Marvel Comics 2018. Collects Tales to Astonish (1994) #1, Incredible Hulk vs. Venom #1, Incredible Hulk #420–435

Epic Collection 22: Ghosts of the Future, Marvel Comics, 2019. Collects Incredible Hulk #436–448, Savage Hulk #1 and more.

Tempest Fugit (with Lee Weeks), Marvel Comics, 2005. Collects Incredible Hulk Vol. 2 #77–82.

House of M: Incredible Hulk, Marvel Comics, 2006 Collects Incredible Hulk Vol. 2 #83–87

Incredible Hulk #328, 331–359, 361–467, -1 (1987–1998)

Incredible Hulk Annual #16–20 (1990–1994)

Incredible Hulk Vol. 2 #33 (reprints Incredible Hulk #335), #77–87 (2005)

Incredible Hulk: Future Imperfect #1–2 (1992)

Incredible Hulk vs. Venom #1 (1994)

Tales to Astonish vol. 3 #1 (1994)

Prime vs. The Incredible Hulk #0 (1995)

Savage Hulk #1 (1996)

Incredible Hulk/Hercules: Unleashed #1 (1996)

Hulk/Pitt #1 (1997)

Hulk: The End #1 (2002)

What If General Ross Had Become the Hulk? #1 (2005)

Hulk: Destruction #1–4 (2005)

Giant-Size Hulk #1 (2006)

World War Hulk Prologue: World Breaker #1 (2007)

Marvel Adventures: Hulk #13-16 (2008)

Hulk vs. Fin Fang Foom #1 (2008)

The Incredible Hulk: The Big Picture #1 (2008)

Hulk: Broken Worlds #1 (2009)

Future Imperfect: Warzones! #1–5 (2015)

Secret Wars: Battleworld #4 (2015)

Incredible Hulk: Last Call #1 (2019)

Maestro #1–5 (2020)

Maestro: War and Pax #1–5 (2021)

Maestro: World War M #1–5 (2022)

Joe Fixit #1–5 (2023)

She-Hulk

The Sensational She-Hulk #12 (1989)

She-Hulk Vol. 2 #22–38 (2007–2009)

She-Hulk: Cosmic Collision #1 (2009)

She-Hulk: Sensational #1 (2010)

Soulsearchers & Company

Soulsearchers & Company: On the Case! #1–82 (1993–2007) (with Richard Howell, Amanda Conner, Jim Mooney)

Spider-Man

The Death of Jean DeWolff (with Rich Buckler), Marvel Comics, 1991.

Amazing Spider-Man #266–267, 278, 289, 525

Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #103, 105–110, 112–113, 115-119, 121–123, 128–129

Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #5–6

The Spectacular Spider-Man #134–136

Web of Spider-Man #7, 12–13. 40–44, 49

Web of Spider-Man Annual #6

Spider-Man Special Edition #1 (1992)

Spider-Man 2099 #1–44 (1993–1996)

Spider-Man 2099 Annual #1

Spider-Man 2099 Meets Spider-Man #1

Spider-Man Gen13 #1 (1996)

Spider-Man Family Featuring Spider-Clan #1 (2005)

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #1, 4–23 (2005–2007)

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Annual #1

Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #19 (2005)

Spider-Man: The Other (with Reginald Hudlin, J. Michael Straczynski, Pat Lee, Mike Wieringo, and Mike Deodato), Marvel Comics, 2006.

Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man #17–19 (2006), 31 (2007)

What If? Spider-Man: The Other (2007)

Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 3 #1 (2014)

Spider-Man 2099 Vol. 2 #1–12 (2014–2015)

Spider-Man 2099 Vol. 3 #1–25 (2015–2017)

Secret Wars 2099 #1–5 (2015)

Ben Reilly: The Scarlet Spider #1–25 (2017–2018)

Sensational Spider-Man: Self-Improvement #1 (2019)

Symbiote Spider-Man #1–5 (2019)

Absolute Carnage: Symbiote Spider-Man #1 (2019)

Symbiote Spider-Man: Alien Reality #1–5 (2019–2020)

Symbiote Spider-Man: King in Black #1–5 (2020–2021)

Symbiote Spider-Man: Crossroads #1–5 (2021)

Symbiote Spider-Man 2099 #1–5 (2024)

Spyboy

Written with Pop Mhan and Norman Lee.

SpyBoy #1–12, 14–17 (1999–2001)

SpyBoy: Motorola Special (2000)

SpyBoy/Young Justice #1–3 (2002)

SpyBoy Special: The Manchurian Candy Date (2002)

SpyBoy: The M.A.N.G.A Affair (also known as SpyBoy #13.1–13.3, compiled The M.A.N.G.A Affair miniseries #1–3) (2003)

SpyBoy: Final Exam #1–4 (2004)

Supergirl

Supergirl Vol. 4 #1–80, Annual #1–2, Supergirl Plus #1, #1000000 (with Gary Frank and Terry Dodson), DC Comics (1996-2003)

Many Happy Returns (written with Ed Benes), DC Comics, 2003.

Wolverine

Wolverine vol. 2 #9, 11–16, 24, 44 (1989, 1990, 1991)

Wolverine: Rahne of Terra (1991)

Wolverine: Global Jeopardy #1 (1993)

Wolverine: Blood Hungry, collecting Marvel Comics Presents #85–92 (Wolverine serial) (1993)

Wolverine: First Class #13–21 (2009)

X-Factor

X-Factor vol. 1 #55, 70–89 (1990–1993)

X-Factor Annual #6–8

MadroX: Multiple Choice (with Pablo Raimondi), Marvel Comics, 2005.

X-Factor Vol. 3 #1–50, #200–262 (2005–2013)

X-Factor: The Quick and the Dead #1

X-Factor: Layla Miller #1

Nation X: X-Factor #1

All-New X-Factor #1–20 (2014–2015)

X-Men Legends vol. 1 #5–6 (2021)

Young Justice

Young Justice #1–7, 9–21, 23–55, #1000000, DC Comics (1998–2003)

Young Justice: Sins of Youth #1–2 (2000)

Young Justice: A League of Their Own (with Todd Nauck), DC Comics

[a-queenoffairys]

Code Lyoko Chronicles 2.0

The Code Lyoko Chronicles are a series of 4 sequel books originally released in Italian in around 2010. Set a short while after the season 4 finale, parts of book 1 recap a story similar to the TV series but with a number of small changes (there's no RTTP for example) while the gang uncover some new secrets in the Hermitage that set them on the path to finding Aelita's mother, Anthea. But XANA survived and is coming back for revenge, and the gang's investigation into the secret history of Franz Hopper, Project Carthage and the Supercomputer puts the men in black on their trail as well, not to mention the shady Green Phoenix organisation who funded Hopper's work.

The books were published in a number of languages, but not in English - so that's where the fans come in. As one of the first translation projects we did for CodeLyoko.fr, finishing in 2014, the original completed English release was pretty rough. 10 years later, armed with more translation sources, better resources and many years of translation experience, I decided to take another crack at it. And after many months of hard work and procrastination, I've produced a version 2.0 that I'm pretty happy with.

Links and notes on the various changes under the cut!

New translations!

My co-translator Kelsey and I didn't have a lot of serious translation experience when we picked up where Rhys Davies left off in his English translation project, and we were definitely prone to making mistakes. And it didn't help that for books 3 and 4, a few things got lost somewhere in the process of the text being translated from Italian > Spanish > French > English. I revised our original translation and this time I referenced multiple sources to try and make sure I got the interpretation right. It won't be perfect, but it's definitely better than our original attempt!

The second half of book 2 was based on the official French version, which I discovered was slightly condensed and abridged to lower the page count. The new English translation expands the text to restore the parts that were omitted. I also changed the title from The Nameless City to The City with No Name - there was never an official English translation, but I did find a marketing document with the titles listed in English, and that was the only one that differed.

Here's a page comparison with a few changes, mostly minor, but one big change to the context of Odd and Ulrich's conversation. With my apologies to Kiwi for the original mistranslation.

New formatting!

I got better at formatting Word docs and realised I should have the text alignment set to justify. The books look a lot neater now!

Accessibility!

I added alt text descriptions to all the images, and the PDFs all have a proper table of contents now so you don't have to scroll to the end of the book to find the navigation.

(Note I don't have a lot of experience with detailed image descriptions and I haven't done much testing with a screen reader - feedback is welcome from people who know more about it!)

New scans!

The centre of each book has several colour pages with images and text to supplement the story, and some of the original scans were quite small or had part of the image disappearing into the spine of the book. And the only way to fix it seemed to be to obtain physical copies of the books (probably in Spanish), pull the pages out and scan them flat. So I did. And I think they look great. (Black lines added to hide spoilers.)

My original intention was to upload these to CodeLyoko.fr, but I haven't been able to do that yet, so for now they'll just be available on Google Drive. This translation wouldn't have been possible if not for the other people on the fanslation team - not just my fellow translators, but also all the people who worked on scanning, formatting and editing. Special thanks also to Rhys Davies for kicking off the English translation. You can read more about the Chronicles and the fanslation project here on the website. (Yes I still need to revise the translation of those pages too. Someday.)

So yeah, it's taken a while, but I'm glad I can finally put out a better version of these books for people to discover. Enjoy!

Version 2.0 PDFs here! (Google Drive) ePub versions coming soon.

[i-just-give-you-the-vidya-songs]

The song is the track that plays from the radio in the game 'Portal', a 2007 puzzle platform game developed and published by Valve. Initially released on Windows / Xbox 360 / Playstation 3, later released on Mac OS X (2010) / Linux (2013) / Android (2014) / Nintendo Switch (2022).

-Submission by anonymous

[oh-my-wolfstar]

Can we talk about how amazing Uncle Rick is for a second? The diversity in his books is amazing, especially considering that many of his books were published before there was representation of anything like what he's done in middle-grade and YA novels.

The Lighting Thief (2005)- A book with neurodivergent main characters, and not only do they have ADHD and dyslexia, but it's a superpower. The smartest character in the book is also a girl.

Lost Hero (2010) & Son of Neptune (2011)- Features Latino, Chinese-Canadian, Black, and Native American main characters whose stories incorporate their ethnicities-races (and the prejudice they face) without becoming their only character trait.

House of Hades (2013)- Features a gay main character (this is before gay marriage was even legal in the US) who is also an Italian immigrant

Blood of Olympus (2014)- A female Puerto Rican immigrant main character who is also a leader

Magnus Chase and the Sword of Summer (2015)- Features a Muslum main character in a healthy arranged marriage. Also, a deaf main character.

The Hammer of Thor (2016)- A genderfluid Mexican main character who is also the love interest. This is the same year the word genderfluid is added to the dictionary.

Hidden Oracle (2016)- Features a Bisexual main character plus many of the previously mentioned main characters as secondary main characters. Also, a gay relationship.

And that's just what I can think of off the top of my head.

[haveyoureadthisdcfic]

Authour: @heartslogos

Subfandom: Batman

Media: Comics

Relationships: Gen (Bruce Wayne & Tim Drake)

Year: 2013

Summary:

It's nice to listen to Tim talk.

Submitted by @kiragecko

Bruce and Tim both know too much. But listening to someone isn't ABOUT getting new information. 6 scenes of the pair of them bonding. Wonderful, sweet, a little sad. After I finished rereading this time, I just sat and basked for a solid minute!

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Police Procedural

Police Procedural - a subgenre of detective fiction that focuses on police work and investigations.

This form of crime fiction is popular across a variety of mediums, including mystery novels, TV series, and films.

In police procedurals, the lead characters seek to solve a crime—most commonly a murder mystery.

Stories in this subgenre typically follow law enforcement officers or private investigators as they track down criminal suspects.

Depending on the detective story, the plot may revolve around crimes of passion or serial killers.

How to Write a Police Procedural

Research police protocols. To learn about proper police procedures, interview police officers and, if possible, go on a ride-along with your local police department. To avoid becoming overwhelmed with research, define the length of time you want to devote to this phase. Setting a timeline of a few weeks or months can help relieve the pressure of needing to know everything before you start writing.

Develop your main character. Determine whether your protagonist is a seasoned homicide detective or an amateur detective. Depending on the scope of your story, your main character may work with a local police force or a government agency like the FBI. Establishing a backstory will also help you determine their worldview and how they approach their work.

Choose a familiar setting. Police procedurals are deeply influenced by their specific settings. Choose a setting that you’re familiar with—whether rural, urban, or suburban—and use your knowledge of this place to infuse the world of your story with authenticity.

Outline a crime plot. Police procedurals are often plot-driven. Devise a complex and surprising crime to center your story around.

Define the tone. Although many police procedurals take a realistic and gritty approach with their tone, you can decide for yourself whether your story is best suited for comedic elements, dramatic elements, or a combination of both.

Write your first draft. Once you’ve laid out a plan for your police procedural, dive into your first draft. Avoid putting pressure on yourself to make it perfect and instead focus on simply finishing a rough draft.

Step away from your first draft. Once you’ve completed your first draft, take some time away from the work—ideally a few weeks—so you can return to it with fresh eyes.

Revise your draft. Try different approaches to self-editing to find one that works for you. For example, try printing out your script or novel or reading the work aloud. Once you have a shareable draft, consider sending it to a reader with knowledge of police procedures for feedback.

Examples of Police Procedurals

To learn more about police procedurals, explore some of these examples in TV and fiction.

Dublin Murder Squad (2007–2020) by Tana French: This book series follows various Irish detectives as they investigate harrowing murders.

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000–2015): Over the course of 15 seasons, this iconic TV show followed a task force in Las Vegas dedicated to solving a wide variety of crimes. The series was so popular it prompted several spinoff shows including CSI: Miami and CSI: NY.

87th Precinct (1956–2005) by Evan Hunter: Influenced by the classic TV show Dragnet, Evan Hunter (who often wrote under the pen name Ed McBain) published this long-running book series that followed a group of detectives in New York City. The books were later adapted into a TV series.

Law & Order (1990–2010): Inspired by real-life crimes, each episode in this police procedural TV series follows both the police investigation and legal trial of a different case.

Bosch (2014–2021): Based on Michael Connelly’s bestsellers, this cop show follows a detective who works for the Hollywood Division of the LAPD.

Source ⚜ More: Notes ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs ⚜ Detective Story

[warwickroyals]

Shelby Elizabeth Sykes was born OTD in 1985

On a rainy April afternoon, a little girl was born to a sales executive and his wife, who taught grade ten biology. The baby was named Shelby after her great-grandfather, a mechanic from King City, Missoria. Elizabeth was in honour of an aunt who'd died in a car accident four years prior. Shelby had a brother, Eric, who was five years older. As the youngest, Shelby was known as "Baby Bee", a nickname she would grow to resent.

The little girl grew up in a three-bedroom farmhouse nestled in the Sunderlandian pariries. Her hometown was described as "so flat you could see the horizon bend on a clear day." Fort Stone had a population of just under 3,000, the majority of them descendants of the Polish and Dutch immigrants that had made their way west in the early 20th century. The Sykeses were one of few WASP families in town and proud of it; the family shunned Fort Stone's Catholic chapel and drove every Sunday to an Episcopal church 20 kilometres south.

As Shelby grew, she outgrew Fort Stone. Schooling had consisted of a handful of co-ed prep schools—schools way nicer than the ones her mother taught at—and a neighbour girl who came over to tutor the Sykes children every Friday evening. In 2003, Shelby moved to Sunderland's largest city, Warwick, to pursue a career in communications. Her subsequent job in public relations careers took her around the world, from Austria to New Zealand, but by 2014, she had returned to Warwick. "She'd wanted to escape Fort Stone—not the whole country."

In 2016, Shelby was comfortable in her career at a mid-level public relations firm. Her red hair, still slightly fried from being bleached throughout her twenties, was long, and she made just enough money to afford a wardrobe inspired by Alexa Chung, who she described as "everything goals". She owned a condo with a balcony that overlooked Sunderland's King Street financial district. She Skyped her parents every weekend, and her brother was just thirty minutes away if she ever grew lonely, although she rarely did—Shelby also had a boyfriend. She had met Prince Henry, the youngest son of Louis V, in June 2013. Shelby's firm had been managing the promotion of one of Henry's non-profit events, and the pair got to talking during cocktail hour.

Henry was different from his two older brothers. He wore glasses. He had infamously flunked out of military school in September 2001. His degree was in musical theory, and he had no plans to return to the service, a fact that put him at loggerheads with his father. He worked, as best as any royal could, for the crown but was often overshadowed by his siblings. Even as a relatively handsome, thirty-something-year-old bachelor, Henry kept a low profile. Off-duty, he wore jeans and collared shirts underneath chunky wool sweaters made in Scotland. His mother called him Baby, a nickname he adored. When Henry finally brought Shelby home, the Prince of Danforth remarked, "even beside a redhead he disappers."

Rumours of marriage hounded the couple throughout the late 2010s. When news of an engagement broke in early 2019, Shelby generated significant interest. Louis V's biographer described her as the first "truly middle class" woman to marry into the family. In the runup to the wedding, the Daily Charlaten published several articles about "Shelby the all-Sunderlandian girl". The wedding was the first large royal gathering since the funerals of James, the Prince of Danforth, and Queen Katherine. The couple were created Duke and Duchess of Sherbourne after the ceremony.

On her 40th birthday, Tatler Sunderland ran a cover story entitled The Rise and Rise of the Duchess of Sherbourne, the Royals' Secret Weapon. As duchess, Shelby is patron of over 70 charities and undertakes over 400 engagements a year. Her charity work focuses on women's rights, especially in regard to fertility and post-partum care. She is widely believed to be the King and Queen's favourite daughter-in-law.

[outfitqueer]

🦄🌈💖🩵🤍💙The 2010s were a game-changer for trans visibility and representation. This decade was all about breaking into the mainstream and reshaping how the world saw trans people.

📺 Mainstream Breakthroughs:

Laverne Cox made history with Orange Is the New Black (2013), becoming the first openly trans person nominated for a Primetime Emmy.

Janet Mock published her memoir Redefining Realness (2014), opening minds and inspiring countless trans people to live authentically.

Shows like Pose (2018) brought Black and Latinx trans women to the forefront, highlighting ballroom culture and telling stories by, for, and about trans folks.

🌐 Social Media Power:

Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok became megaphones for trans voices.

Trans creators like Gigi Gorgeous, Kat Blaque, and Chella Man built massive followings, educating and entertaining while sharing their own journeys.

💪 Legal & Cultural Wins:

The Obama administration made steps toward trans inclusion, like allowing trans people to serve openly in the military (reversed later but still a big moment).

Trans rights became a mainstream conversation, with debates around bathroom bills, healthcare access, and legal recognition getting nationwide attention.

🎥 Documentaries & Media:

Disclosure (2020) looked back at trans representation in Hollywood, sparking conversations about how far we’ve come and how much work’s still needed.

More trans actors were being cast in trans roles, breaking the old habit of having cis actors tell trans stories.

The 2010s were about taking the mic and demanding the world pay attention. Trans voices were no longer just speaking—they were being heard loud and clear. 🏳️‍⚧️📣

🦄🌈💖🩵🤍💙

@outfitqueer

[inthefallofasparrow]

With all this discussion of Musk's various 'baby mamas/conquests', can we take a moment to talk about him and Talulah Riley, because there is so much going on there and as someone who only really knew her as an actor before, I'm sort of bewildered.

So, people probably best know Talulah from Pride and Prejudice (2005), St Trinian's, Westworld and other things. She's the only child of the former head of the British National Crime Squad, clearly born with a silver spoon in her mouth, and attended three different exclusive private girl's boarding schools, which seems kind of telling, and apt given her role in St Trinian's.

Anyway, Elon married her in 2010 and then divorced her in 2012, but then she kept living with him, so they got remarried in 2013, she having put her acting career on hold, so that she could look after Elon's five children from his previous marriage to Justine Wilson. She insists she wasn't a 'tradwife', in her words:

“I mean, there were the rockets and the cars, and there were things blowing up… there was a lot going on – a lot that was very stimulating."

“We were very involved in what was going on. It was a group effort. A family-wide effort.”

“He had me alongside for all of that. So it wasn’t like I was stuck in a mansion in Bel Air like a trophy wife, which would not have been fun." Elon filed for divorce again at the end of 2014, but withdrew the action later. Then, Talulah filed for divorce in 2016 after six months of separation. Despite Elon's reputation and them being off and on again for five years, they don't have children together. Given his clear view on progeny, I wonder if she perhaps wouldn't/couldn't have his kid, and that's why the whole thing was doomed from the start.

Then in 2022, she published a novel called 'The Quickening' about a dystopian matriarchal society where men are subjugated and harassed and women congregate to free bleed together. It was panned by many as poorly-conceived and anti-feminist. The same year it came to light that she had contacted Elon, asking him to buy Twitter and do something to 'fight woke-ism' and protect conservative freedom of speech.

Then, last year, she married Thomas Brodie-Sangster, the kid from Love Actually and voice of Ferb from Phineas & Ferb.

So, maybe that'll ... help?

[make-friends-with-the-rats]

@skinnycaats alright, here are the results of my investigation: The Newsies Libretto is not an official 92sies libretto/script, but it is no less intriguing.

I'll start with why it's not official.

"Newsies Libretto," pages 1-3.

There are several details on the first three pages of the libretto that drew my attention. First, the cover page which says "NOT FOR SALE PROPERTY OF Pikakee Music." There's also an address for New York and an email for a Philip L McBride. The same name is found on the second page where Philip McBride is credited for "Stage Adaptation and Score." Finally, there's a copyright and copyright warning with a "Music and Lyrics Copyright" dated 1992.

Compare this to the cover of a confirmed 1991 Newsies film script:

1991 Newsies film script, page 1.

My thoughts were essentially:

Why is this libretto "property of Pikakee Music" when Newsies (1992) is the "property of Walt Disney Pictures" as stated in the lower right corner of the 1991 script?

What is "Pikatee Music" and who is Philip McBride?

Why is there a copyright for 1992 when all scripts would have been from 1991? (As evidenced by the list of revisions in the upper right corner of the 1991 script and by the fact that all filming for Newsies was completed in 1991.)

The most interesting thing, however, was the fact that this libretto by Philip McBride was a "Stage Adaptation." Upon looking further into the pdf, it became clear that this was in fact for a stage, not the silver screen.

"Newsies Libretto," page 7.

"Newsies Libretto," page 66.

The libretto is split into two acts and gives stage directions, but is very clearly based on the 1992 film. This isn't the official film, nor is it the 2011 musical, so where on earth did this come from?

Well, I looked up 'Philip L McBride' and 'Pikatee Music' and I found where on earth it came from. It came from... this guy?

"About Me!" philiplmcbride.com.

According to his website, he is an actor and musician and Pikatee Music is his music publishing company. On his website he also provides his resume, which does not include writing Newsies scripts in his spare time. I personally would be boasting about it but you do you.

Though, there is one little thing about Mr. McBride's script that just might be damning, and it's the fact that he has included "Proud of Your Boy" that we know today from Broadway's Aladdin. (Which is actually wonderfully placed by the way!)

"Newsies Libretto," page 57.

For some context, "Proud of Your Boy" was written back in the 90s by Howard Ashman for the original 1992 Aladdin, however it was cut. Howard Ashman was also supposed to do the lyrics for Newsies (1992) before he passed away and Jack Feldman took on the job instead. The song was reincorporated into Aladdin when the story was adapted into a stage musical in 2010 and eventually made it to Broadway in 2014.

For two decades the song lay abandoned, orphaned if you will.

But this guy (Philip McBride) decided to adopt "Proud of Your Boy" and put it into Newsies.

So here's my theory: this unofficial Newsies Libretto by Pikatee Music was written sometime between 1992 and 2010, before "Proud of Your Boy" was returned to Aladdin and before Newsies was officially turned into a stage musical in 2011.

It is my theory that this libretto was one of the "illegal" Newsies scripts for the stage that filled the void until Disney produced their official, licensable show.

"Newsies - An Oral History: How it All Happened"

Basically, this literal, random guy is my hero and it's a shame that Disney passed him up for Harvey Fierstein.

[rjalker]

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, by Edwin Abbot Abbot, published in 1884, is public domain. That means it has no copyright, and belongs to everyone.

This post will have links to as many versions and adaptations of it as I can find, and will be updated whenver I find new links to add.

Feel free to copy and paste this whole entire post and make it a new post for your own blog too!

None of these links are piracy, because you literally cannot pirate what has no copyright. Anyone who tells you you must pay to read the original Flatland is scamming you.

The only time you should be spending money on Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, is if you find a cool physical copy that you want specifically.

Check the original post before reblogging to look for updates if you are seeing this post days, weeks, or months after I originally post it.

____

Visual books:

Public domain:

The Original Novel:

Read online or ownload the original book in multiple formats from Project Gutenberg

Read or download from Standard Ebooks

Read and download from the Internet Archive. This also includes a computer-generated audiobook.

_

The 2024 translation:

Read online or download the 2024 translation in multiple formats from the Internet Archive. This also includes a computer-voiced audiobook.

Read the 2024 translation here on tumblr @flatland-a-2024-translation

-

The 2024 Summary:

You can read and download this from the Internet Archive in multiple formats, including editable documents. Or read here on tumblr.

You can also buy a physical copy here, or purchase the files from Itch.io.

___

Audiobooks:

The original novel:

Listen to the original book on the Internet Archive, read by Ruth Golding

Listen to the original book on the Internet Archive read by David "Grizzly" Smith

The 2024 translation:

Listen and read-along with the lazy audiobook of the 2024 translation on Youtube

(no audiobook available for the summary....yet)

___

Free visual media with full stories:

Here’s an animation from 1965. Contains some flashing lights.

Here’s a stop motion film from 1982 in Italian with English subtitles

Here’s an animation from 2006

The 2007 Flatland film by Ladd Ehlinger is free on youtube. Unfortunately Ladd Ehlinger is a virulently racist and misogynistic conservative who thinks feeding school kids is the same thing as slavery. His film is filled with almost constant flashing lights and spinning cameras that cause headaches, motion sickness, migraines, and seizures.

Here is a link to timestamps for these if you still choose to watch it.

The film ignores all of the politics from the original novel because the creator of the film agrees with the bigotry the novel condemned. You are much better off watching another visual adaption or reading the original or translated book.

Especially if you suffer from photosensitivity or motion-sickness, this film will make you want to throw up.

___

Shorter visual media:

In-universe

Part 4 of a Korean animation. from 2010. Haven't found parts 1-3 yet.

A short animation from 2020 showing an Equilateral being taken away from his Isosceles parents

Flatland Heist from 2013, A short animation from 2013 where the Narrator and Sphere team up to rob a bank :)

Flatland a Romance of Many Dimensions Alternate Timeline (without audio yet) 2024 Here's the version with audio

No Nonbinary Door 2024

A Visit to Lineland 2024

Up, Up, and Away 2024

Meta:

A short TED-Ed summarizing the math parts of Flatland from 2014

Another short animation explaining the math of Flatland from 2012

A long presentation (38 mins) about the math in Flatland. from 2017

Youtube Shorts:

A very short animation about the narrator meeting the Sphere

___

Related books by other authors, in publishing order:

Public domain:

An Episode of Flatland: or How a Plane Folk Discovered the Third Dimension. With Which is Bound Up an Outline of the History of Unæa by Charles Howard Hinton. (1907) Public domain, unlimited reading and downloading. It's terrible. But you can rewrite it to make it not terrible.

The 4D Doodler, by Graph Waldeyer. Also on Youtube as an audiobook.

Other copyright:

The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics by Norton Juster (1963) Can be borrowed by 1 person at a time. A short....poem? Nothing to actually do with Flatland.

The Incredible Umbrella by Marvin Kaye (1980) Can be borrowed by 1 person at a time. I have not read it yet.

Sphereland: A Fantasy About Curved Spaces and an Expanding Universe, by Dionys Burger. (1983) Can be borrowed by 1 person at a time. It's racist. Was intended to be a sequel to Flatland, but the author's racist and failed every lesson Flatland tried to teach.

“Message Found in a Copy of Flatland” by Rudy Rucker (1983) free to read online from the author.

The Fourth Dimension, by Rudy Rucker (1984). Can be read for free online from the author. I have not read it yet.

The Planiverse: Computer Contact With a Two-dimensional World by Alexander Keewatin Dewdney (1984) Can be borrowed by 1 person at a time. Good 2D worldbuilding, nonexistant plot and boring abrupt ending.

Flatterland: Like Flatland, Only More So by Ian Stewart (2001) Can be borrowed by 1 person at a time. it's useless crap that unironically defends the bigotry against Irregulars from the original novel by pretending it's just natural selection that's totally natural and not at all artificialy and violently upheld to uphold the supremacy of the Circles.

Spaceland by Rudy Rucker (2002) Can be borrowed by 1 person at a time. I have not read it yet.

VAS: An Opera in Flatland (2002) by Steve Tomasula. no copies donated to the internet archive yet. I have not read it yet.

A 2024 Summary of Flatland. Buy a physical copy here. Buy a digital copy here.

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Neopronoun short stories:

The Breaking Point, a short story of a Line and Isosceles in another country of Flatland, attempting to deal with an abusive officer of the military who's invited himself into their home. Almost 4k words.

First Day of School, a young equilateral has zov first day at school, and discovers that the "specimen" they're supposed to be studying is someone zo knows.

Gaining a New Perspective, a short story of the Sphere contemplating everything that's happened after throwing the narrator of Flatland back down to his plane. Almost exactly 5k words.

Other short fiction:

[link me your stories and a short summary to go here!!]

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Please feel free to add more links and I'll add them to this original post.

Here's the first masterpost I made which has fewer links.