#re. arc ↳ symbiote

[luckheist]

another tag drop !

[ihasafandom]

Carnage re-write

I'll add these all together into a single post and probably put it onto a03 and my artblog when I'm done with all of these, but for now we're going with this format.

Part 2/??

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So for Eddie’s arc let’s have him learn that he needs to open up and allow himself to listen to and rely on other people. He can’t go around behind other peoples’ backs, and he can’t lie to the people in his inner circle. This will connect back to his flaws in the first film, where he tried to do everything himself his own way without considering how other people would feel about/react to that or reaching out to any of his contacts or allies for help or anything like that.

Venom meanwhile got hints of it in the first film, but we need to double down on it learning the value and meaning of community and friends and allies and all that. In theory Eddie has some of that, but he also tends to throw them away so if we can have Venom glom on and stick that’ll be good for them both in the long run (not a necessity for a good story, but I like when partners fill eachothers’ weak spots.

As for the relationship, we need them both to go on a journey where they realize that/why they care about eachother, and come to value that enough to compromise and work to find their balance.

They also both need to temper their impulses and instinctive responses to be able to think thing through and not just rush in guns blazing, though that might be a series arc and not just for the one movie.

Probably makes the main thrust of this movie something along the lines of: People and relationships are important and irreplaceable, but also hard work and compromise. They are well worth the effort of doing things right.

Which gives us some nice points to invert for our villain trio.

And speaking of villains, the villains and side-characters need arcs too.

In the film, Cletus wants to tell his story, wants to escape, wants to find his girlfriend, wants to get married, and wants to wreak havoc and kill people.

Scream wants to escape, wants to find her boyfriend, wants to get married, and wants to wreak havoc and kill people.

That’s all perfect for what the film wants to do (I have not read the comics and know nothing about scream, don’t at me. But also do, maybe you’ve got some ways to sell all of this better) 100%, no notes.

Where this breaks down is when it comes to Carnage itself. We get very little of its motivations, and we don’t get much between the symbiote and Casady, and even less between it and Scream. And what we do get isn’t compelling. It seems clear to me that they were trying to do a parallel to Eddie and Venom here, but it lacks the clarity and follow-through to really work.

Also AFAIK Carnage symbiote is supposed to be she/her and it’s a bummer that it’s not in the movie though I am always gonna be a “symbiotes are it/its first and anything else second” truther.

So to fix it:

Carnage is newly born straight off of the “we should be able to do what we want with no morals/consequences/limits” argument that Eddie & Venom were having and bases its initial personality off of that. Its motivation is that it wants to murder-party its way across the Earth. It sees Cletus as a good time and it is covetous of him as a host. It wants a match at least as good as Venom’s, and it wants its host to have things that make them feel hedonistically good, but it does not respect Cletus and it doesn’t care about Scream herself.

Cletus loves Scream. And he appreciates the abilities and possibilities that Carnage brings to the table and the way that their goals and desires align, but nothing more than that. People are a means to an end, to be used as he sees fit. To be manipulated and lied to without a thought. He doesn’t care to tell Scream about Carnage being its own being, all the better to bask in the glory of saving her and being powered up all by himself. He doesn’t care to explain to Carnage how the world works, or to reel it in, preferring to ramp it up for the carnage and chaos and pretend that it was all his idea.

Scream loves Cletus, but she is jealous and suspicious. She acts up whenever Cletus seems to have anyone else important in his life, and is even more dismissive of the people around them as little more than backdressing and playthings at best. She has skills and knowledge, and tries to use them to plan their future, but gets ignored by Cletus overruling her opinions and choices unless he is in a “yes, anything for you, everything you say will be done” mood. When she finds out about Carnage she is HECKIN jealous. How dare he have someone even closer to him than she is?

The marriage going from the two of them to the three of them is a peace offering without solving the underlying issues. And when Cletus ignores one of Scream’s choices – the officiant or somethign and Scream gets mad and Carnage slaps her for ruining their big day and then Cletus fights with Carnage for hurting his love, that is the crack that weakens them enough for Eddie and Venom (with backup) to eventually win the day. Their bond is stronger, they have put in the work, they have laid out a support network and talked about their needs, and in the end they will prevail because they have a healthier relationship for it.

This is of course diametrically opposed to how the actual movie played it, where Eddie and V got back together with no actual changes and out of desperation but the movie still kind of tried to imply that they won because their bond was better? Nah, you gotta earn that, on both sides, and we’d seen more problems on the protagonist side than the antagonists’ by far at that point.

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[samasmith23]

Diving into The Abyss arc of Donny Cates' Venom!

I'm currently marathoning Donny Cates' Venom run in the "Venomnibus by Cates & Stegman" that I got as a birthday present this year. I re-read "The Abyss" arc published in Venom (2018) #9-12 just a few nights ago (which was the last arc from the run that I originally read back in 2019), and holy FREAKING crap... I had honestly forgotten just how effectively heavy and powerful this arc truly was!

When I first read this storyline back in 2019, it completely blew me away with its sheer amount of shocking twists and revelations, ranging from the backstory of a teenage Eddie Brock being involved in a drunk driving accident in which he ran over and killed a kid, but ultimately got off despite wanting to plead guilty due to Eddie's abusive father Carl Brock violently forcing him to plead innocent, to the revelation that his older sister Mary Brock and past experiences with cancer were actually false memories implanted by the symbiote in order to manipulate Eddie into staying with it, to the fact that he has a son named Dylan Brock who was accidentally conceived during that brief time his ex-wife Anne Weying bonded with Eddie's symbiote and briefly became "She-Venom" during the 90s miniseries Venom: Sinner Takes All.

But re-reading the story now I can look back and greatly appreciate the sheer amount of craft that's on display with Cates' writing in this arc, since he carefully foreshadows all of these plot twists all throughout the arc through subtle hints and double-meanings in the character's dialogue. Aside from the brilliant narrative subversion of fooling the reader into initially believing that Eddie is the kid who's run-over in the flashbacks before pulling to rug to reveal that in actuality Eddie was the one behind the wheel, the twist that Eddie's sister was simply a false memory was expertly foreshadowed through both Carl & Dylan being absolutely confused whenever Eddie mentioned the name "Mary."

Another that I really love about the drunk-driving backstory is how it not only recontextualizes Eddie’s motivations as both an anti-hero and as a supervillain. In regards to his anti-hero persona, Eddie's constant proclamations about wanting to "protect the innocent" were rather ill-defined back when the character received over a dozen miniseries' during the 90s. But here Cates' emphasizes how Eddie's guilt over accidentally killing a kid and being let off due to being manipulated by his abusive father has made him want to try to protect "real innocents" from people like himself. but also during his time as a villain pursuing Spider-Man. As for how this backstory recontextualizes Eddie's tenure as a Spider-Man villain, during in the original David Micheline era in which Venom first debuted, Eddie’s hatred for Spidey was connected to the classic Death of Jean DeWolfe storyline, wherein Eddie wrote a series of interviews for the Daily Globe with a man he believed to be the notorious serial killer, “the Sin Eater,” whilst hiding the killer’s true identity under the guise of “first amendment rights and protecting his journalistic source.” But Eddie was eventually forced to reveal his source’s identity due to mounting police pressure and the Sin Eater’s rising body-count, which led to Eddie outing the Sin Eater as Emil Gregg. But literally 30-minutes later it was revealed that Gregg was just a copycat, as Spidey caught the real Sin Eater who turned out to be policeman Stan Carter, which led to Eddie being fired and refusing to take responsibility for his own failures by projecting the blame onto Spider-Man. Additionally, the Micheline's Venom: Lethal Protector & Zeb Wells' Venom: Dark Origin miniseries highlighted how Eddie’s relationship with his estranged father partially influenced his writing of the Sin Eater interviews in an effort to bolster his reputation, but following his firing permanently destroyed any chances of reconciliation with Carl Brock.

And in those classic stories Eddie constantly proclaimed that he was “once an innocent whose life Spider-Man ruined,” even though his actions as a journalist were incredibly morally dubious and unethical. So the drunk driving backstory of Eddie being violently forced to plead innocent by his father and ultimately getting off? That only further fleshes out Eddie’s inability to accept responsibility and false projection of “innocence” onto himself during his villainous phase in those original stories, while also showing how much Eddie has grown since then by acknowledging that he’s not a “real innocent.”

Plus, there's also a strong thematic through-line in this arc about the nature of abusive relationships in the form of Eddie's co-dependent bond with the Venom Symbiote plus Carl's abusive behavior towards Eddie in the past & Dylan in the present day. Additionally, Cates also touches upon ideas of self-improvement and redemption, not only through the backstory of Eddie's motivation to "protect the innocent," but also through the story ending with Eddie deciding to raise Dylan himself after helping him escape Carl's influence, as well as the Venom symbiote willingly leaving Eddie & Dylan after the former denounces the symbiote's manipulative behavior, with the symbiote proclaiming that it's, "Trying... to... be... better... both... of... you... better... without... me..."

It shows that the key difference between Carl and both Eddie & the symbiote is that Venom at least acknowledges his past monstrous behavior and makes efforts to change unlike his coward of a father, thereby simultaneously allowing Eddie to overcome the demons of his past with his abusive father, as well as making the symbiote's later reunion with Eddie in Absolute Carnage more believable!

Like... hot dang! There's a reason why "The Abyss" arc in particular left such a lasting impression on me when I initially read the first 12-issues of Donny Cates' Venom series a few years ago! Not only does it still hold up phenomenally well from both a narrative and thematic standpoint, but it's gotten me even more excited to dive into the rest of Cates' Venom run and the corresponding Absolute Carnage and King In Black events, which will be my first time ever reading those stories!

However, I do have some thoughts regarding two minor points of contention about Cates' run as a whole and "The Abyss" arc in particular that I've encountered from toxic fandom spaces here on Tumblr that I also wanted to address, which I'll link to right here:

[lyledebeast]

Re your post on Thomas and a new era. I like that joh mentioned Thomas originally being angry and bitter. On one hand that was very unhealthy for himself and for the way he treated others BUT on the other I always felt a little uncomfortable about how a big part of his redemption arc is about him becoming grateful and being "tamed" so to speak. It wasnt "Thomas does some self exploration and releases that taking out his frustration on his peers is wrong and there are more productive ways to act out against the system" it was more like "Thomas accepts his station in life and learns that being nice and grateful regardless of the sh*t thrown your way is the right way to live because at the end of the day the symbiotic relationship between loyal servant and benevolent landowners is a public good and there are certainly no systemic issues which need to be addressed".

Yeah, I agree with you that it wasn't the healthiest possible way for Thomas to be, but it's still what I love and enjoy about him, lol! In their tags on that post, @junkshop-disco wrote "I think what I wanted for Thomas was for him to be angry and bitter with company and to slowly heal some of his wounds" (I hope you don't mind me responding to you here). And I agree! That would have been ideal. The trouble is that Lord Julian Fellowes was never going to write that because, for some reason, he seems to find the anger of marginalized people deeply disturbing (see also Tom Branson) even as he claims to support the results that anger helped to achieve.

Given the choice between Thomas as an angry, bitter, scheming footman and Thomas as leaving the country to live with a man he barely knows because he thinks it's "[his] best chance at happiness," I'll take the first any day!

It's also worth mentioning there was very little in the way of progress towards gay rights in 20th C Great Britain prior to the Wolfenden Report of 1957. Fellowes could not rewrite history, which makes linking Thomas's happiness to overturning systemic issues a bit problematic. But, all of these changes began with gay men, and other marginalized groups, coming together, in anger and bitterness but also love and solidarity, and there is no good reason why Fellowes couldn't have shown that.

[celestialknight9]

_universal_save_yz54846121b9n_phoenix_

(Translation: Prologue aka before literally everything else)

It's been three months since I've seen darkness. Three months of travelling through the blank white plane that is Zero Space running away from her. Three months of unease, not knowing when I'll draw my last breath.

I suppose we could run forever but my friends and I are done with running. We make our final stand today. Of course, 'day' is a planetary term. We're travelling through Zero Space where time and space are both irrelevant planes. Zero space is the definition of nothing. A white canvas that's been left unpainted between the fabric of space and time. The "place" where an eternal game of cat and mouse was playing out. We're the mouse. It's all my fault really. I shall carry the burden of my mistakes, knowing my incompetence may have spelled the end of our universe.

That is why I decided to stop running. I don't want to be remembered as the Guardian who ran for all eternity. If I'm going to die, I might as well go down with a fight and hope I make a difference. And if not, I hope the next generation's Guardian will succeed where I have failed.

I bring The Crusader to a halt, breaking back into reality. We re-materialised right at the centre of the Universe, between the two aspects; a Hyper Star and a Super-massive Black Hole. It's a spectacle to behold, even at my final hour. The two driving forces of the universe were each as large as small galaxies. Flares from the Hyper Star arced across and were immediately absorbed by the Black hole; The Symbol of Beginning and End. It's mesmerising to watch the endless cycle. Each of the two Aspects we're orbited by much smaller spheres. Universe cores. Generators of elements and forces. The Hyper Star is surrounded by three while the Black Hole has seven....

I didn't need that to remind me we're on the loosing side. Only me and three of my team are left alive, the other four didn't make it. They fought valiantly but, in the end, they were no match for her. They we're annihilated and I ran because I was too weak to do anything.

She caught up. Less than a minute after we arrived. She was closer than I thought. Reappearing out of a worm hole was a Celestial Shark. The Crusader was massive, even for star-ship standards, but it was but a fly to the celestial being capable of swallowing entire planets with ease. She however isn't the shark. That is simply her host. She is sitting inside the shark no doubt laughing at my decision, savoring every moment. She is my shadow. Tiamat. The embodiment of Entropy. The natural degree of randomness and disorder. Chaos. Her goal is to accelerate the growth of our universe. Particle interaction will decrease to the point where no new stars can be formed, and the universe falls into heat death.

Stars give off light and energy, but their main role is their affinity to the Hyper Star. Each planetary system, each star Tiamat destroys, loosens the forces holding the universe together.

I intended to stop her by creating stars and planets faster than she could destroy them, but my plan backfired. About a year ago, I had accidentally created a new type of life. Symbiotic celestial bodies. Enormous 'living' beings made up of small planets of pure elements that act as elements. They are naturally passive beings, roaming the galaxies absorbing starlight. Tiamat took advantage of this and infested a juvenile celestial shark. It was too young to fight back for control but even though it was young, it could devour planets faster than I could make them.

Everything fell apart from there. One day we tried freeing the celestial shark but that proved disastrous. We lost Chloe that day. Fighting it is impossible. We lost three others during our next few attempts. Running worked better but we can't run forever. There is one more option.

Seven shapes emerged from the shark's body. The shadows of my comrades. They all inhabited huge creatures, but they were all insignificant compared to Tiamat.

I finally look towards what’s left of my friends. Joanna, Lazarus and lastly Imma, all with long faces, the last of their hope evaporated. My final order for them was to take The Crusader and escape this nightmare. They refused.

I started with Imma. My Wife. I heated up her molecules until they were nothing but gamma radiation, preserving her life, her DNA as a wavelength. She screamed at me to let her fight with me, but I stopped her with a final kiss.

I turned to the others, but Tiamat bit the ship in half. I had no time left. Joanna and Lazarus too died because of me.

I will my universe core to let my body transform into my ethereal form. The next moment I'm a gigantic phoenix as large as the Celestial Shark and made entirely of star-fire.

We fought wildly tumbling through space and inadvertently destroy a couple of galaxies. A few minutes in and my heat was starting to take affect of the planets inside the celestial shark, but Tiamat was much more experienced with her body. She bit into my right shoulder. Her massive teeth pierced my universe core. My powers started to drain at an exponential rate. I said my final command to the universe core, Ultra Nova.

My body and everything around me turned to pure energy, even stronger than gamma, where there was no wavelength, just a wash of solid energy that engulfed everything hopefully destroying Tiamat and our shadows with me. In my final spark, brighter than Zero-Space, I see a slideshow of memories of my life.

My spark was fading. My legacy's end spells the start to a new Guardian's. I hope I made a difference.

- I was born on Milky Way024S178P3, Earth, 10000 years after the first human. My name is Yeshua. I was different from the rest of the humans. Some of people followed my philosophy but most of the men shunned me. It was fine though because I was soon proven I was right. I was a teacher at my time. I lived a nomadic life teaching about the workings of the universe.

One day, one of my students revealed himself to be a brass lion. He gave me a cloak, a sword and a shining sphere that looked like the stars.

Three years later I faked my death to escape my followers and ascended to space with my closest companions. The first year in space was exhilarating. No human has come close to even an idea of what space looked like.

Then Tiamat appeared. I thought she was good as she was a part of me, my shadow, but she soon proved herself to be absolute evil. We raced each other. Creation vs Destruction. Life vs. Death. Until now. I'm not even sure who won. Is there a point to winning? The Universe decides that, not me. I want to say I'm unlucky that Tiamat ended up so much stronger than me but there's no such thing as luck when it comes to the Universe. It was destined to be this way -

. . .

[spider-xan]

I wouldn't mind the whole Curt being an Oscorp scientist if: - he started working there when he was younger, more ambitious but also naive, thinking Oscorp might be the perfect opportunity for him

- he stayed there because it's a solid jumping off point for him so he can add it onto his CV if he wants to change jobs and let's be real, a lot of people accept jobs at corrupt corporations to get a career boost

- plays into the ambitious/naive idea - thought he could get access for good equipment for his research

- he needs the money to feed his family and can't get a better paying job at the moment

I can see Insomniac Curt working for Oscorp only because no one else wants to hire him after the Lizard fiasco and he's probably desperate to get a job. But a lot of adaptations don't really consider those factors, so we get this weird distilled version of him that is straying further away from the original. I do think it would be funny if him and Norman had this disgruntled colleagues thing going on, but that would require competent writers.

Yeah, this is basically how I feel about Curt being reimagined as an Oscorp scientist instead of a professor or independent researcher too, especially as someone who, despite my personal preferences, tries to be flexible, re: adaptations taking creative liberties with the source material to explore new ideas or make the story they want to tell work - I don't think it's off limits, but it's a choice that, like you said, needs thought put into it, not just trying to keep the cast as closely connected as possible, though that is a valid concern for adaptations, especially if there is a limited run time; not to bring up Shed, but when Curt was uncharacteristically working for a corporation in that story and its lead up, it was an interesting direction (one of the few positive things I will say about that arc) bc it was a way to show that he had hit rock bottom and was out of options as far as employment goes, but still needed a job to prove he could support his son.

And yeah, I like the ideas you listed here bc not only would it make sense for Curt to work for Oscorp under those circumstances, but they would allow for him to be a dynamic character who actually changes and grows over time, and he can still be a relatively good person and a sympathetic character, which, as I said, are crucial traits for him or else he's a generic shady corporate scientist who diverges too much.

As far as Insomniac!Curt goes, I definitely got the impression that he was technically a medical doctor as his day job while the Oscorp research thing was a secret, as suggested by the underground Oscorp lab for studying the symbiote being off the books, and from what little we saw of his younger self in the flashback, I can definitely see him initially having gotten taken in by the chance to do extremely groundbreaking medical research, only to get stuck under Norman's thumb even before the Lizard incident, and after that, he really had no other options but to continue working on the symbiote in secret (though I do feel like Curt genuinely cares about Harry as well, at least enough to have tried to stand up to Norman on Harry's behalf before getting bullied into releasing him) and having a day job at the EMF bc no one would hire him after his identity as the Lizard became public knowledge.

But yeah, I agree it could be interesting if an adaptation ever tried going in a different direction where they are colleagues who despise each other instead of a boss bullying his employee! I guess nowadays, that understandably ends up as a Norman versus Otto thing as two of the Big Three A-list villains, but if you draw from the 616 comics for inspiration, you could get an interesting dynamic out of Norman the militaristic all-American capitalist weapons developer versus Curt the former army medic humanitarian who radicalized against US militarism - though yeah, like you said, it would require competent writing, and with rare exceptions like the Insomniac games, that's not really the direction Norman and Curt have been going in lately.

[film-frederick-murray]

18/9/22

Welcome to my blog!

My name is Frederick Spike Murray and I am a year one undergraduate film student at Edinburgh Napier University. Other than this I have a Short Course certificate from the British Film Institute where I learned the basics of film making and film review before working on my own short film in a group.

This blog is to document my progress in the course and my overall relationship with film. I love cinema and I hope my writings portray this to whomever reads it.

In my first week we were split into groups for a warm-up exercise : we were to make a short film in two days with nothing but an adjective and a noun, picked at random. Ours was ‘Small Actor’. Our immediate thought was to turn to our smallest friend in the group, Luke. We next realised small actor could also mean an unknown actor and were surprised by how dumb we were. Combining the two we set off to tell the story of a small unknown actor trying to accomplish his dreams whilst having an abusive relationship with his deadbeat brother who is trying to hold him back. Here is the film. Small Actor I feel very proud of this film, as lead cinematographer I felt the camera movements, framing and composition to be very deliberate however I understand all of these had very surface level meanings. For example the shaking of the camera to show our lead is in a frantic scene with his brother, or sitting him off centre to show how out of place he feels. Another main critique is more just wishing we had more time in the editing room, there were so many ideas we were just too late to fit in which I feel would have elevated each scene. Overall I am impressed with our work in only 48 hours however understand we could have done more.

I recently re-watched ‘La Haine’, probably my second favourite film at the time I'm writing this, only beaten by ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower’. I respect that ‘La Haine’ is a far better constructed movie, however no film has moved me as much as ‘Perks’. I digress. After watching ‘La Haine’ for the 2nd time, I have little more to say than I did after my first watch. There were two main aspects of the movie which confused me after my initial watch: the fist was the cow that occupies Vince's mind, I could not figure out what the cow symbolised but I hope one day I will. The second thing I was confused on was the use of a dolly zoom as our leading characters enter central Paris. I now understand that the intention was not that of realisation or shock as the dolly zoom is often used, but instead to tell the audience that the youths and the city are one in the same, the shot slowly draws the background of the city closer to our characters, connecting the two, they are the future of their country. I doubt I have anything to say about 'La Haine' that hasn't been said and challenged hundreds of times over, but that wasn't the point of the watch, the point was to enjoy myself, and I did thoroughly. This movie is a perfect example of why I love cinema.

Today I went to the Edinburgh Filmhouse to see ‘Funny Pages’, a new A24 film written and directed by Owen Kline. The story follows a young aspiring cartoonist who, after the death of his questionable but encouraging art teacher, finds himself lost yet determined to devote his life to the art of comedy cartoons. Our protagonist soon latches himself to a mentally unstable man who worked within the comic book industry and views his life as that of a failure. The pairing of the two causes chaos to ensue as their un-symbiotic relationship collapses deeper than when they met. I felt the movie overall didn't have too much to say; the message was unclear and none of the characters had an arc, they all start fairly rotten and all end fairly rotten. However this is very clearly intentional and reflects the source material of funny pictures: the characters are all the exact same characters they were when the comic began as there is no further purpose than to make people laugh, what else can you do with three panels? Regardless, the film is one in which you can tell the filmmakers loved making it, there is lots of passion involved in every shot and every scene and that’s the main thing I look out for when watching a film.

[thevindicativevordan]

i’ve been hearing recently that Blue Beetle could be considered the DC character with the most untapped potential and that a movie/animated show could be a success story just waiting to happen for the company. Any thoughts on Jaime Reyes as a character and if he’s got enough meat on his bones (narratively) to pull something like that off?

Anonymous asked:

Blue Beetle = DC’s answer to Spider-Man?

Oh Jaime how I wish your push had worked. Give DC credit: they really did try hard to make Jaime into an A-Lister.

Outside of comics they paired him with Batman in The Brave & The Bold, he was one of the leads in S2 of Young Justice, they put him in Injustice 2, DC really worked hard to establish him in public awareness through outside media projects. His first comics run was pretty good! Where DC went wrong was that when they launched a new Blue Beetle series for Rebirth, they didn't get someone young and Latino. Instead they brought back Giffen again, who just didn't connect with audiences on the second try, and wasted a prime opportunity to re-establish Jaime in the comics verse. Since then editorial have sat on him and haven't done anything major with him, which is understandable, but regrettable nonetheless.

Blue Beetle's similarities to Spider-Man are both obvious and no doubt intentional. They're both down on their luck young men who are trying to make their way through life, when suddenly they're gifted with extraordinary powers, but Jamie's situation is complicated by the fact that the stage of Spider-Man's career he has the most in common with, is when Spidey wore the symbiote suit. Jaime is bonded with the Scarab which wants to resolve fights by launching tactical nukes to obliterate every living thing within a five mile radius, and he can't take it off! Removing the Scarab could kill him and there's a hostile alien civilization out there which created the Scarab - the Reach - which has it's eyes on conquering Earth and Jaime needs the Scarab to keep them at bay. He's forced to fight internally to keep the Scarab in check, hold back the Reach, deal with whatever other supervillains cross his path, and try to succeed in school so he can be a dentist in addition to maintaining his social life. Kid's got quite the balancing act to keep all those balls in the air.

DC has tried many times to have their own "Spidey" and Jaime is their best attempt at transplanting that archetype into the DCU. All the same kind of storytelling that Peter has, Jaime has too: the struggle to balance heroics and normal life, wrestling with your inner demons (literally in Jaime's case), but because it's DC Blue Beetle can explore cosmic storytelling that Spidey isn't as suited for. Want to take Blue Beetle into space for an arc? His suit (which by and by is one of DC's best designed) is alien tech which is all the justification you need for why he gets dragged out there. And because unlike the Justice League - who are all pros/adults when they head out beyond Earth - Beetle can restore some of that sense of wonder and terror at what lives amongst the stars because he hasn't been training to be a hero his whole life. An everyman's perspective to the cosmic spectacle is what Jaime brings, and that can be refreshing compared to the "seen/done it all" attitude of Superman/GL/Batman or whoever.

Getting a movie was a lucky break I didn't expect for him. Not familiar with the talent participating, and it's impossible to say whether the final product will be a hit or not, but I'm rooting for everyone involved. Between the movie and DC greenlighting the Round Robin Blue Beetle pitch with Jaime going to college, maybe this second push will fare better than the first. He's the only Blue Beetle I care about and the biggest Latino hero DC has, seeing him finally break out would be a cause for celebration.

[oliveroctavius]

hiya! i really love your ideas for your spiderverse, they’re great. 😊 in your spiderverse, are there any comic arcs you’re interested in re-imagining with oliver? how do things work out with harry after his fathers death? (noticed his line on the timeline turned shaky after that point 👀) hope you have a good day!!

OH boy. What a lovely question to get. Any place there's a solid line in the villains section on my little timeline, I have a bit of an arc in mind.

But Turning Point... Oh, do I have ideas for Turning Point and its fallout. Meet the Black Goblin!

For this to make sense, you should probably know the Peter-as-Venom lore, and also that he gave up the symbiote for good after starting to date Gwen.

First, Turning Point.

Basic setup is the same. Harry overdoses; Norman is incandescently angry and blaming everyone but himself. But Gwen is concerned that Harry isn't in a hospital, so she tries to bring a gift basket as an excuse to check on him. She runs into Norman and a terrible argument begins, her calling him neglectful, him dragging her away down a secret tunnel to a basement lab to prove exactly what an attentive father he is.

In this lab, he's been developing homebrew medications for his son, ones he can't allow a hospital blood test to detect. In fact, his ambitions have gone beyond simply medicating his son to normalcy. The lab's pièce de résistance: an enormous vat of oz-dosed radioactive spiders, hoping to replicate Oliver's powers.

Norman is angry. The spiders are hungry. And there's no way that Gwen can be allowed to tell anyone what she's just seen.

(Meanwhile, Peter wonders what's been taking Gwen so long and heads to the Osborn townhouse himself. He finds Harry having a panic attack. In this reality he stays with him, opting to send Gwen a text to let her know.)

Spider-Man, whose spider-sense has been ringing off the hook since the moment Gwen stepped across the Osborn threshold (and before, urging him to follow her just in case) hears a scream and abandons all attempts at subtlety, tearing the door off and setting off every alarm and security measure in the lab. All hell breaks loose. He rage-punches his way through everything including the Goblin and smashes the vat, spilling spiders everywhere, but at that point it's too late.

(In the pocket of what's left of her clothes, Gwen's phone buzzes. It's a text from Peter to let her know where he is, ending love u. Norman and Oliver lock eyes and know that only one of them is going to leave this room alive and each decides, above the clanging alarms, that it must be himself.)

Pete stays with Harry the whole night, sleeping in a large plush chair he's dragged to the bedside. He sleeps badly. Weird dreams and emergency vehicles outside at a building down the block.

The two are still together that morning when they turn on the news and get the story. A catastrophic fire in the basement of a building right down the street, Norman found dead right outside, along with Gwen's... well, they know they won't find a body. Spider-Man is seen, mysteriously, fleeing the scene.

Then things get juicy.

Spidey hasn't been seen for a week. Peter is keeping grief at bay by staying at the Osborn townhouse to fend off the press and lawyers and lurid rumors hounding Harry. Harry's getting erratic. He starts confronting Peter to tell him Spider-Man's identity, suspecting he knows. Pete is evasive, but has his own doubts.

(Oliver is practically sleepwalking these days, talking to almost nobody. He keeps thinking he sees spiders scuttling after him in the shadows. The arms are badly damaged but he can't un-fog himself enough to fix them.

His origin story was based on balancing knowledge with action, but he can't forgive himself for not rushing in faster. Or did that make it worse? Did triggering the security hold him up, losing precious time? Ollie is an overthinker. He's thinking about hanging up the arms forever.)

Eventually Peter caves and tells Harry who Spidey is.

Then it's Harry's turn to drop an identity-bomb. The things his father left him include passcodes to the Green Goblin lairs and instructions to continue his work and Harry doesn't know what to do. He insists that no matter what else his father was, his dad loved him enough at least to not hurt Gwen, knowing how much it would hurt him. It had to be a setup, framing Norman as an excuse to kill him.

It's a dark and stormy night. Harry brings Peter to a lab to show him everything left to him, then makes a request: for his sake, for his father's sake, for Gwen's sake, Peter has to do what Harry can't. Peter has to use what Norman left him to bring Spidey to justice.

I won't do it for you, Peter says, we will do it together.

"We" meaning: He's re-bonded with the symbiote, already intending to confront Spider-Man. But "we" also meaning: you're doing it with me. There's a Venom (2018) style, ah, mouth-to-mouth partial symbiote transfer as he lends Harry the anger and strength he's going to need to take on the mantle of the Goblin.

Lightning flashes and the coolest goddamn teamup against Spider-Man ever begins to unfold.

They ambush him at his apartment and Ollie is utterly unprepared. Peter is in full Venom form and Harry is on the glider, but Oliver doesn't have his arms, webs, even his suit. He jumps out the window in his PJs out of pure instinct, not wanting to fight them. He makes it a mile across rooftops on adrenaline and desperation alone before he's hit with the glider and Venom catches up.

Oliver is cornered and beaten and has Peter's claws around his neck but still protests his innocence. He can prove it: the events of that night are still recorded in the arms' short-term memory, if they'd let him go back to get it. They're skeptical.

Harry and Peter begin arguing. Harry wants Spidey dead to make this nightmare end, but is too scared to kill him himself. Peter would kill Spidey in a heartbeat if Gwen's death was his fault, but he has to be sure of the truth first. Harry starts sounding delusional and then incoherent, then faints dead away.

Pete and Ollie's fight is pushed aside as they both rush to make sure he's ok. The symbiote is rejecting Harry but he won't let go of it, and it's starting to consume him, killing him from the inside.

Peter grudgingly has to trust Ollie to go get his arm rig while he slowly, painfully convinces Harry to give up the symbiote at the cost of failing Norman's final instructions. Spider-Man returns as promised—he never breaks a promise—to rush Harry to the hospital.

Later, outside the hospital waiting room, Oliver silently gives Peter the footage of what happened that night. Peter realizes just how close he got to killing the two best friends he had left for nothing, and they both finally have a good cry that they've been sorely needing.

It will take a while for everyone to recover. But eventually Peter begins dating MJ, Harry gets out of the hospital, moves in with Flash and goes back to school, and Oliver repairs the arms and repeats his failed semester. From that point on Harry struggles with schizophrenia (though more disorganized than paranoid). They become closer friends than ever, but on the condition that they try to never ever bring any super-powered bullshit into Harry's life ever again.

And as Ollie will learn a couple months later, Gwen is a little less dead than everyone thinks, but that's a story for another post.

[luckheist]

ooc ↳ answered ooc ↳ crack

re. felicia ↳ abilities re. felicia ↳ aesthetic

ic ↳ answered ic ↳ crack ic ↳ commentary ic ↳ dash game

♡ ↳ ft. flash thompson ♡ ↳ ft. peter parker ♡ ↳ ft. stephen strange ♡ ↳ ft. tony stark

re. arc ↳ main verse re. arc ↳ queenpin re. arc ↳ symbiote re. arc ↳ noir

[marvelloussynergy]

COMIC BOOK REFERENCES & EASTER EGGS - Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

The following is a comprehensive guide to all the comic book references and Easter eggs I’ve spotted in Thor: Love and Thunder along with any deviations from the source material. Note that owing to the convoluted and complex nature of comic books, I’ve tried to include only the most essential information regarding a character’s history and backstories.

The film’s premise of Thor having to stop Gorr from killing all the gods is adapted from “The God Butcher” and “Godbomb” arcs (Thor: God of Thunder #1-5, 2012-13, and Thor: God of Thunder #7-11, 2013, respectively). “The God Butcher” tells three related stories: a young Thor’s early encounters with Gorr, the present-day Thor’s investigation of Gorr’s re-emergence, and a future King Thor’s battles against Gorr’s Black Berserkers. The story then continues in “Godbomb,” with the three Thors teaming up—thanks to time travel—to stop Gorr and his Godbomb (a weapon designed to kill all divine beings throughout time).

Notable moments taken from the two arcs include Gorr’s line “All gods will die” (which is something the character says to Thor in Thor: God of Thunder #5, 2013), an image of the dead Indigarrian gods hung from hooks (a recreation of a panel from Thor: God of Thunder #1, 2012), and Thor and Korg coming across the dead body of Falligar the Behemoth (a recreation of a panel from Thor: God of Thunder #3, 2012, although in the comic book Korg isn’t present).

In the comics, Gorr the God Butcher is an alien who sought revenge on all deities, slaughtering many of them over centuries. His hatred of all gods stemmed from the death of his pregnant wife, Arra, who died in an earthquake, and later his son, Agar, who died from starvation, despite his worship of his planet’s gods. Gorr is known for wielding the All-Black (also called the Necrosword), a symbiote that bonds to its host and grants them several abilities including increased strength and can be formed into bladed weapons and armour. He obtained the All-Black having found Knull (the then current wielder of the All-Black) and an unnamed god in gold armour who both fell from the sky onto his planet while battling each other. The gold armoured god asked for Gorr’s help, but Gorr’s anger at the gods for their lack of aid saw the All-Black leave Knull for Gorr who subsequently used it to kill Knull and the god clad in gold armour. Gorr has also used the All-Black to create semi-sentient minions which he’s dubbed Black Berserkers. While Gorr has two tentacles on his head in the source material, these are absent from his screen counterpart.

When we see teenage Thor wear running through the woods, he’s wearing a winged helmet, red cape, sleeveless top with discs, blue pants, and yellow wraps around the shins. This is Thor’s classic costume, first seen in Journey Into Mystery #83 (1962), the character’s debut issue.

In both media, Indigarr is a planet, home to a race of blue-skinned aliens, whose gods (referred to as the Sky Lords of Indigarr in the source material) were killed by Gorr. Indigarr made its first appearance in Thor: God of Thunder #1 (2012).

While on Indigarr, Thor wears a vest over a white tank top. Though not an exact match, the outfit brings to mind the costume worn by Eric Masterson/Thunderstrike. In the comics, Eric was for a time merged with Thor, but later separated and became the hero Thunderstrike, with a vest being a signature part of his outfit.

The comic book incarnations of Toothgnasher and Toothgrinder are Asgardian goats that pull Thor’s chariot. They’re capable of flight and can travel through space. In the MCU, the goats hail from Indigarr and are used to pull a New Asgardian tour boat. Of note, the boat is named Aegir, who in the comics is the God of the Seas.

Jane Foster becoming Thor is a plot taken from the comics. In the source material, Jane became Thor after picking up Mjolnir, the hammer having called out to her (Thor had become unworthy to wield Mjolnir in Original Sin #7, 2014). She made her first appearance as Thor in Thor: God of Thunder #25 published in September 2014, but the moment in which she picks up Mjolnir and transforms into Thor is first depicted in Thor #1 published in October 2014). As the Goddess of Thunder, Jane possesses superhuman strength and can use Mjolnir to fly and control the weather. Unfortunately, as Jane was being treated for breast cancer (she reveals her diagnosis to Thor in Thor: God of Thunder #12, 2013), every time she transforms into the Mighty Thor the process clears the chemotherapy from her body, meaning the cancer worsens each time she reverts back. Jane dies from cancer in The Mighty Thor #705 (2018) and in The Mighty Thor #706 (2018) we see her at the gates of Valhalla, however, she is soon revived by Thor and Odin (in the film Jane is welcomed into Valhalla by Heimdall).

The MCU version of Jane wields a Mjolnir with cracks in it. This is reminiscent of the time her comic book counterpart reformed the broken hammer used by the Thor of Earth-1610, resulting in it having a cracked appearance (Jane reforms the hammer in The War of the Realms #5, 2019, while we see its cracked look in The War of the Realms #6, 2019). The Mjolnir of Earth-616 acquired a cracked appearance in Thor #23 (2022), which was released a few months before Love and Thunder. It must be noted that the writer of the issue, Donny Cates, has revealed that the Earth-616 Mjolnir gaining a cracked appearance so close to the release of Love and Thunder was merely a coincidence.

Thor’s predominantly blue-coloured armour and gold helmet which covers most of his face in the film recalls the outfit Thor first dons in Thor #378 (1987). The armour, which was forged in a Pittsburgh steel mill, is made from Asgardian steel and has the runes of Odin engraved on it.

Many gods are named or seen in Love and Thunder. Those that have counterparts in the comics include Ra (Heliopolitan sun god), Quetzalcoatl (Teōtl God of the Sky), Tūmatauenga (Akua/Atua war god; also known as Kū), Dionysus (Olympian God of Wine), Artemis (Olympian Goddess of the hunt), Minerva (Olympian Goddess of Wisdom and Tactical Warfare; also known as Athena), and Bast (Heliopolitan God of Pleasure, Dancing, and Music).

In the source material, Omnipotence City is a place where gods and immortals can gather. Areas include the Genesis Bazaar, a vast library known as the Halls of All-Knowing, the Parliament of Pantheons (where laws are enacted), and the High Holy Court.

In both the film and the comics, Zeus is the ruler of the Olympians, a group worshipped by the ancient Greeks and Romans. In addition to his super strength, endurance, and regenerative healing factor, Zeus can generate lightning bolts from his hands.

Two Celestials can be spotted in Omnipotence City. The one with the prongs on the side of its head appears to be based on the combined form of four Mad Celestials from Earth-4280 (as seen in Fantastic Four #603, 2012). The one with the cylindrical head appears to be a Celestial Gardener. In the comics, Celestial Gardeners propagate life on new worlds using Life Seeds and give Death Seeds to those they task to ensure a species’ evolution occurs as intended.

The process by which Kronans reproduce is similar in both the comics and the MCU: two male Kronans hold hands, place them into lava, and after several days their hands crack apart and a rockling is revealed. Korg detailed the process in World War Hulk: Aftersmash! - Warbound #4 (2008).

The MCU version of the Shadow Realm is a planetary body devoid of colour. This is different to the Shadow Realm of the comics, which is a dimension home to a two-dimensional race that have discovered a way to alter their form and appear as dark solid shapes (“living shadows”). The concept of living shadows may have been combined with Gorr’s Black Berserkers to become the Shadow Monsters in the film.

In the comics, Eternity is an abstract entity that serves as the embodiment of time. Eternity is nigh-omnipotent and, while it does not have a physical form, it can appear as a humanoid with the cosmos within it when communicating with life forms.

At the Gates of Eternity are several statues of cosmic entities. These include Death (the personification of mortality), Eon (the comic book incarnation is a cosmic being who’s an alleged offspring of Eternity and known for appointing the Protector of the Universe), Infinity (the personification of space in the source material), the Living Tribunal, the One Above All (leader of the fourth Celestial Host), and a Watcher (possibly Uatu).

Both the comic book and film incarnations of Hercules are the son of Zeus. In the source material, he’s known as the God of Strength on account of his superhuman strength, and like other Olympian gods does not age and is nigh-invincible. Hercules made his debut in Journey Into Mystery Annual #1 (1965).

We also get a few references and callbacks to past MCU entries: Korg recaps the deaths of several characters (Frigga, Odin, Hogun, Thor), during his workout Thor wears a cap that claims he’s the strongest Avenger, Thor riding Stormbreaker like a broom recalls the time Korg mistakenly believed Thor flies by riding Mjolnir, Thor has Nick Fury listed in his phone as “Nick Furry,” Darryl (from the non-canon One-Shots Team Thor, Team Thor: Part 2, and Team Darryl) appears as a tour guide, in New Asgard there’s an ice cream parlour called Infinity Conez (a nod to the Infinity Gauntlet), and Thor has tattoos commemorating family and friends who have passed away.

Like the Facebook page. Follow on Instagram. Get the books: Phase One | Phase Two | Phase Three Listen to the podcast: Anchor | Google Podcasts | Spotify

[ramblingguy54]

Continuing with the Jeri parallels, what if the core convinces Marcy’s that her being possessed is her destiny? I mean, given how all her happiness in her life was at best bittersweet and at worst a total farce, it wouldn’t be hard for Marcy to believe fate itself is out to get her…

     Honestly, I wouldn't put it past the writers if they went for this approach. Depending on what kind of family problems Marcy has, not to mention how it could correlate toward her falling out with Anne & Sasha, the Core could very well go that route for dramatic exploration. It's why I'm so excited we're gonna finally see the household dynamic Marcy has dealt with well before Amphibia's story events kicked into high gear. What kind of life and expectations did Marcy have to deliver on before choosing to run from it all? How will the Core go about manipulating the kid into feeling this symbiotic connection is preferable to utter solitude?

     There's so much they could pull off with this heartbreaking, albeit disturbing concept, as seen well enough in what Tamers did for Jeri's traumatic study that Marcy's characterization could re-explore. Marcy's biggest existential struggle has been facing a life without Anne & Sasha. She didn't want to be alone, so now, in the most fucked up way possible, Marcy isn't going to be anymore with this Core's suggestions of staying together forever. The kid won't have to worry about complicated family matters, broken friendships, or fear of permanent separation because this amalgamation of Amphibia's greatest minds "accomplishes" her said issue. If Marcy still remains aware somewhere inside all those many voices from centuries past, then the probability of us getting a scene where she fights internally for control, while these others manipulate the girl would be haunting.

     Marcy's family background, the tension of Darcy's concept, more of Sasha's redemption arc, and seeing her own respective parents are some of the most anticipated stuff I'm beyond ready to see in the last batch of Amphibia's episodes. I got a feeling we're in for some damn good dramatic pay offs, no question about it.

[land-of-brains-and-chocolate]

Re-reading Marvel Knights: Spider-Man Vol 1, and the Venomous plotline has come up. During the auction, they mention that Eddie has seen a certain Mel Gibson movie and has a crisis of faith, thus resulting in his choice. And I've just realized that movie is The Passion of the Christ, and am screaming at the thought that Eddie takes his symbiote to see this film and immediately goes "wow, I'm just like Jesus - a victim and martyr. We're breaking up so I can go die".

so in conclusion, Symby is justified for its years of Disney villian debauchery proceeding this arc because imagine your ex dumped you because he loved The Passion of The Christ that much. I'd go feral. It's also a stupid and contrived breakup, and yet I begrudgingly have to accept that Eddie is 100% this dramatic and would feasibly do this. Hilarious and tragic. Just like the life of being a comic book fan.

IT'S REALLY FUNNY AS A CONCEPT but unfortunately it's not the only reason, the marriage was on the retcon rocks since spectacular spider-man i'm afraid.

[aquilinas]

(long basim/loki analysis ahead) 

rewatching the cent and suthsexe arcs and thinking about how much of the 'real' Basim we got to see in the game, and how much of it was Loki having already taken over, and just trying to picture the duality of this particular struggle in comparison to the evolution of Eivor and Odin's relationship and...  

when eivor and basim rescue sigurd and eivor asks how sigurd losing his arm might affect him and basim replies “so much stress can drive a man to despair” – this stuck out to me, because on one hand it might just have been a general statement on the significant impact of his trauma (what I thought on my first playthrough), but on a re-watch this immediately made me wonder something else – what if something similar happened to Basim to re-awaken Loki’s memories in him, like the real Basim losing his own son or some other kindred life event? 

since it seems that for reincarnated Isu, undergoing traumatic events that mirror what their Isu went through triggers, or at least accelerates, the recovery of the Isu’s memories – and if something like this did happen to the real Basim (which is very sad!! 😔), this brings me to the next thing: whether Loki was either able to manipulate this grief to take over Basim’s consciousness, or if Basim had willingly (!!) acquiesced to accepting Loki’s memories, a more symbiotic relationship if you will

I say this partly because I’m comparing this with Eivor’s relationship with Odin and how she eventually is able to/makes the choice to consciously shut him out completely, a reflection of her convictions and personality, which makes me wonder if Basim and Loki had a similar struggle, or if there was one at all – if Basim was unlike Eivor in being unable to resist Loki’s manipulation and succumbed to it during his darkest time (“driven to despair”), which opens up the very sad idea, using this comparison with Eivor/Odin, that if the real Basim indeed lost his son or family as Loki did, then he unlike Eivor had no family or friends to remember, to ground him, when it came to that confrontation with Loki’s consciousness...

OR a more enticing explanation, if Basim and Loki didn’t have such a struggle like Eivor and Odin did, and instead Basim willingly (key word is ‘willingly’, there is also that quote Loki as Basim says during the Cent arc about manipulating others to believe they’re still in control) allowed Loki’s memories to merge with his, willingly accepted and took him in even after seeing Loki for who he was – master manipulator, does nothing without it also being mutually beneficial for him – because that was a reflection of who Basim truly was, deeply empathetic to Loki’s cause, their kindred experiences, and also (!) being a seeker of truth and knowledge himself (more Basim backstory I have so many thoughts about – growing up frequently visiting the Grand Library of Baghdad? I imagine him being a scholar during the Islamic Golden Age would have greatly complemented his role as a Hidden One)

and of course, Basim is still a part of Loki’s consciousness (his subconscious, for lack of a better term), and I think it does seep out at times – the parts of the Cent arc where he’s having fun arguing with the church clerics about religion and truth in particular stood out as less Loki-like and more the old knowledge-seeking scholar Basim coming out.

especially when he says to Eivor “I am always at peace and never alone. I move among the people of the world with great joy, I watch them, study them, learn from them at all times – this is our duty, the Hidden Ones’ calling” and Eivor replies “For the first time since we’ve met, you sound more like Hytham than yourself” like??!?

this sounds like the real Basim leaking out, the Basim who mentored Hytham and the Basim that Hytham remembers, the empathetic scholar and wise mentor who loved people (“he loved sigurd, he loved you!”) and had a desire to learn more about them, to learn more about the truths of the world (Loki also would certainly have been tempting with his Isu knowledge…) and to use his understanding to help and protect others.

JUST ASFGJFKLGFNDV 🥺🥺😭😭😭

[elindae-writes]

Ok, this is all about your headcanons. Is Starscream the oldest/youngest/middle member of his trine? Did he get his trine before or after losing Skyfire? During his time in the Decepticons? How did he meet his trinemates? Was there a cool ceremony? Just tell me everything about Seekers! (Without major spoilers, of course.)

He’s the youngest and he trined Skywarp and Thundercracker after he lost Skyfire and also after he first met Megatron. So they were officially in a trine before they joined the Decepticons. He convinced them to join the ‘Cons and without spoiling too much now bitterly regrets roping them into joining Megatron.

The scenes in which he meets the boys and trines them are going to appear later on, maybe during the Orion Pax arc, so I don’t want to spoil those, but I will gladly indulge your request for cool Seeker facts.

Seekers think in three dimensions and not two due to them being flyers and always having to ascend/descend. This is part of the reason they are so claustrophobic, it’s because they are highly attuned to sensing what’s above them at all times and are therefore hyperaware of when the ceiling is too low.

In Seekercant the word for “grounder” is just “taxi-er” because whenever airplanes are about to take off they taxi around first, so Seekers basically just see grounders as wingless bots who taxi everywhere without taking off.

Seekers are unusual in that they see their alt-modes as their true natural forms and think of their bipedal root-modes as their actual alternate modes. This is weird even by flyer standards.

Seekers used to go on giant migrations. I haven’t entirely thought this out because I’m not sure where they’d actually migrate to--maybe they’d just all instinctively fly up and around Vos without leaving the city, or maybe they’d go off and visit ancient older nesting sites built by ancient Seekers. Either way I just like the imagery of thousands of Seekers blackening the skies with their numbers and then the sad image of Starscream trying to complete a grand Seeker migration all by himself because there is no one else left. But someone still needs to follow the ancient winds, so it’s gotta be him.

Starscream is tiny by Seeker standards and Dreadwing and Skyquake are actually more average-sized. It’s also my headcanon his RID frame used to be his old frame, so when Megs downsized him he got fussy about it because he genuinely felt like a bit of his Seeker heritage got taken away.

There were a bunch of different towers in Vos and they all had their own slightly different cultures. Seekers from one tower would whistle and chirp in Seekercant in slightly different tones than Seekers from another tower, like the way whales from different pods have their own unique dialects. Starscream’s fellow Seekers from his tower were infamous for speaking real fancy-like, I don’t know why but I just picture them as speaking in weirdly complex, vague, and mystical ways like the elves from the Lord of the Rings. Despite there being hundreds of different dialects each Seeker is capable of instinctively recognizing the dialect you’re speaking and can just tell what tower you’re from. There was also a Seeker equivalent of Australia somewhere in Vos and it was completely full of weird and intense Cybertronian animals, it was just like that one weird tower where all of the odd little drones and robots ended up. I just like the idea of Vosian Australian memes.

Starscream was from a really high-ranking family, aka the equivalent of Seeker nobility, and was maybe in line to become or at the very least is closely related to the Winglord. That’s why it was such a scandal when he got the heck out of Dodge and decided to abandon his proud noble military family so that he could go blow stuff up in a lab in Iacon.

Shuttles have their own culture, but are weirdly symbiotic with Seekers. I just like the imagery of throngs of tiny Seekers who wandered around their towers with the occasional giant shuttle just lumbering through. Shuttles adopted Seekers and vice versa. Seekers were extremely touchy about whoever adopts baby Seekerlings and shuttles were the only non-Seekers who were allowed to adopt them. When Starscream moved out of Vos and got himself a roommate in Iacon his family was like “who?? who is dwelling with you, I refuse to allow you to have a non-Seeker roommate, we’d much rather have you dwell alone then dirty yourself by living with an Iaconian--”

And then Starscream just sent over a picture of Skyfire and then his family just said  “we will make an exception for him because he looks very polite”

Seekers were infamous across Cybertronian for being--I’m not sure if this is the right word--cryptids? They hate using doors, so if you’re a grounder and your Seeker buddy is bopping by for a visit you’ll just hear a soft tap tap tap by your window and you’dlllook over and see your winged friend waiting for you to open it up and maybe you’d shout something along the lines of “THE DOOR WORKS FINE”

And then your Seeker friend would just flare his wings and get all offended and it would be a whole thing--

Seekers very rarely make non-Seeker friends, but when they do they tend to make friendships for life. That is not foreshadowing, no, not at all. Non-fliers back on Cybertron would even leave their windows unlocked for their Seeker friends--even though the door would work just fine.

Another weird thing about Seekers is that they hate it when people actually see them entering or exiting a room. You’ll just turn around and a Seeker will be there, and then suddenly they won’t be, hence their cryptic reputation around Cybertron. They are infamous for being overdramatic and theatrical, but they just think of everybody else as being underdramatic.

They have no concept of personal space when in bipedal mode. When flying they normally have to fly wide apart in order to avoid collisions (military trines or just trines that are really in-synch are the exception, they normally flew only a few inches apart) so when in bipedal mode they make up for the lack of physical contact during flying by skooching up real close to each other when back on the ground. Seekers are very very good at forming neat and orderly lines. They have a tendency to sandwich confused and surprised grounders who are shocked to have their personal space so suddenly taken up by a bunch of pairs of wings.

Back when Vos was intact there was a big debate going on as to the proper way to teach your Seekerling to fly. There were two schools of thought:

Send your Seekerling to a school with safety nets and attentive instructors and teach the Seekerlings to just hover, then ascend three feet off the ground, then five feet, and then so on.

Or just chuck your Seekerling out of a tower 10,000 feet in the air while shouting “fLAP” and then just hoping for the best. That was how Starscream was taught. It’s also how he taught Eradicons to fly. He’d have them walk up to the edge, he’d go behind and just give them a good kick, and then shout “THIS IS THE VOSIAN WAY”

And then they’d return to the deck of the Nemesis, cold and shaking, and ask “why?”

And then Starscream would whisper back even more gently “it’s  t r a d i t i o n”

Whenever Seekerlings were really really tiny, as in only a few weeks or months old, the adult Seekers would transform, then also have their Seekerling transform into a very smol plane, and then they would secure the Seekerling to their back before taking flight. It’s like when that Boeing jet carried space shuttle Endeavour around, but much cuter. Seekers carried their newsparks around on their backs between their wings and their wings would widen in order to create more room. You can actually tell if a Seeker has tended to newsparks by just looking at their back. Starscream babysitted a lot, so he has this modification. I just like the idea of Seekers walking around like possums with like six Seekerlings on their back, they gotta make room, it’s the only way I could think of to accomodate all the kiddos

Seekerlings are like newborn horses. They can get up and run--or in their case, transform and fly--right after being sparked. The moment their systems go online they then immediately fly off and crash somewhere. Seekerling caretakers had it rough.

Seekers had potlucks. Their systems require very fine and refined energon, so they are very good at tasting subtle flavors. In other words, Vos was home to the Cybertronian version of professional chefs. Their energon was famous for being gourmet and it would be served in fine-dining restaurants throughout the rest of Cybertron. But back in Vos they’d just casually serve each other what was essentially gourmet energon during potlucks like it was no big deal. Like imagine going to the neighbor’s potluck and they’re all eating caviar.

Seekers instinctively cluster around each other in multiples of three. Three’s a very a lucky number in their culture and they had a base-six counting system.

Trinebonds are mostly just full of a very intense and platonic brother love, but there were some trines in which you’d have two Seekers adopt a more parental role towards the third, and in some other trines there would be more romance involved, but for the most part they were just bros through and through.

When a Seeker dies the other two feel an agonizing pain, but will eventually re-trine with a new third in an attempt to feel whole again. Seekers who lose both trinemates will tend to have a full-on mental breakdown and will get so stressed that their spark will actually begin to flare erratically, which unfortunately prevents them from re-trining. Seekers who lost both trinemates and yet who managed to pull through the pain and trine again were treated with great respect.

Trined Seekers are capable of sensing what kind of vague mood their two buddies are feeling at any given time. They can detect when their trinemates are in root-mode or alt-mode or when they’re healthy or sick. Seekers will lose the ability to sense their trinebonds when there’s too much distance between them or whenever their trinemates go into a deep coma-like stasis that slows their spark down.

All of the Seekers in a tower would be almost always all distantly related. The Seekers who lived beneath you were your distant cousins on one side of your family and the Seekers who lived above you were your even more distant cousins but like 53 times removed, but still family and therefore still invited to the family potluck!! They’re all like hobbits in that they are obsessed with genealogy and will gladly talk about it for hours on end. Seekers will greet each other by explaining their genealogy. This really confuses grounders.

Some random grounder: “Oh, hi, how are you?”

Starscream, probably: “I AM STARSCREAM SON OF STARFLIGHT SON OF SKYECHO SON OF AIRHALO SON OF SWIFTWING--”

The poor grounder: *softly* “What the fuck”

If you don’t interrupt the Seeker then they will just keep recounting their genealogy on the assumption that you are actually intrigued. This can go for hours. Seekers are mortified when they learn that grounders do not know the names, personalities, likes, dislikes, and favorite childhood snacks of their distant great-great-great-great-great grandfathers.

Orphaned Seekers who didn’t know their genealogy had multiple options: get adopted, then just list off the adopted family’s bloodline, or if they didn’t get adopted then they’d just list off the names of Vos’s mythological heroes and figures, or maybe even just claim Primus as their ancestor (which isn’t even wrong.) This is kind of like how people in ancient times claimed to be descended from gods. The human equivalent of this would be some dude walking up to you and saying “I am Bob, son of Zeus!”

Some Seeker towers had certain naming conventions. Like you’d have one tower full of Seekers who are all named after cloud formations, and another tower full of Seekers named after noises, like “whistle” or “blast,” and you guessed it--maybe even “scream.”

To be honest I’m not sure if I want Starscream to be a very common or very rare name. Vos was made up of ancient warring clans that all united under the first Winglord (he/she took Vos under their “wing” hence the title) and maybe they could’ve been named Starscream? In most human societies everybody and their neighbor always would want to name their kiddos after the current ruler, but in Vos maybe it was very rare and very bold of Seekers to name their child after the current ruler because it would be seen as an attempt to snatch up that ruler’s glory. So to name your Seekerling Starscream would be the Vosian equivalent of naming your son Gaius Julius Caesar. He’s an intense bot so it makes sense that he’d also have a very intense name.

But then again I also like the idea of the Autobots just thinking of Starscream’s name as being weird and rich and odd and  e x o t i c  but then finding out it’s the Vosian equivalent of John Smith and that there were eight Starscreams on any block at any given time.

Maybe Seekers would change their name whenever they have a big event happen to them, like a trining for example. I think a culture obsessed around airflow would be fine with people changing aspects of their identity like that because then you’re being like the wind, flowing and changing with the same wind that carries you. It’s also my headcanon that this is why Seekers change their frames a lot more. Your frame isn’t you, it contains you, and if you change then it would be really weird not to change the way you look too. 

Despite being really lax about some things Seekers can be very very strict and traditional about other things, such as etiquette. If you’re meeting a new Seeker for the first time and you rotate your wings 70 degrees clockwise that means “may the skies of the holy 70th tower of Vos bless you” but if you rotate your wings anti-clockwise it means “I curse your grandfather!” And then Starscream would just gasp in horror and then shout “DO NOT BESMIRCH THE MEMORY OF SKYECHO”

Some Seeker names were common--like, too common. There were a few thousand Skyechoes, Windblasts, and Driftwings who drifted around at any given moment. This made role-call in school very painful. Some caretakers would try to be edgy about it. “Oh, my son isn’t named Driftwing, he’s named Dreadwing!”

Seekers cremated their dead but in the most intense way possible. They took their dead up and just let them burn up in the atmosphere so that they can become one with the sky. This resulted in some pretty spectacular meteor showers.

Same random grounder: “What a beautiful shooting star!”

Starscream, casually: “Oh, that’s my grandpa, SKYECHO SON OF AIRHALO SON OF SWIFTWING--”

Same unfortunate grounder: “wHAT--”

Seekers make noises all the time and are very rarely silent. They hum when content, beep when excited, chirp when riled up, rumble when confused, trill when happy, and so on. Starscream used to be a chatterbox but was forced to repress his chitterings because Megatron would always tell him to shut up. He’s going to trill more and more throughout Unburied, especially around Optimus.

Seeker towers were infamous for their weird architecture. They weren’t designed to ever be wandered around in while in your bipedal mode. No staircases, period. Just extremely tall ceilings and arches with curved corridors everybody flew through with lots of balconies you could land on. There were lots of holes in the wall that they could fly through that led to actual rooms where they would transform and be bipedal (berthrooms, washracks, etc) but then after they slept/ate/partied they were just like “that was fun guys, gotta go” and then just flung themselves out of a hole in the wall over a 1,000 foot drop and then just transformed in midair and flew off. Grounders couldn’t visit the towers due to there being no grounder-friendly infrastructure. Special buildings had to be built near the ground to help accommodate visiting grounders, but you only ever really saw these kinds of grounder-friendly accommodations in towers meant to receive diplomats.

They had bathhouses in their towers, like the ancient Romans but with robots instead of old dudes in togas. Just giant birdbaths basically. Just lots and lots of splashing and chittering.

Seekers preen themselves, their circuitry is delicate and even the slightest of contaminants can cause big problems. That’s why they have such sharp talons---for getting in the small spots. And for stabbing people. That’s a nice bonus, too. They preen each other all the time. There were some regions on their wings that could be preened by anybody, but some other parts of the wings that could only be preened by close friends such as trinemates. So the outer planes of the wing could be preened by just a general buddy, but the actual area where they connect to the back? That’s trinemate-only territory right there. It’s not a sexual thing, just a cultural taboo they had.

When Dreadwing makes his grand debut I think I might have a scene in which him and Starscream are preening each other while angrily bickering, not because they actually like each other, but just because they’re the only Seekers around and Starscream’s had a rock stuck in his wing seam and slag it, Dreadwing is the only bot who knows how to get it out--so it’d just be angry bird bickering and arguing preen time.

“You killed my brother!”

Starscream would then flutter angrily and say something like, “NO, BUMBLEBEE DID, STOP BLAMING ME--please get that rock out of my wing seam k thX--IT WAS THE SCOUT’S FAULT!”

And then Dreadwing would just be like, “Skyquake is dead, and it’s all YOUR FAULT--I also have a rather unfortunate rock located in my wing seam, can you remove that--and it’s because of your cowardice I am now brotherless!”

Seeker talons were actually retractable. Some Seekers would have their talons out literally all the time though, these were Seekers who were high-ranking in the military or who were just on some quest of personal revenge. After the war began they modified their talons to just always be sharp because you don’t want to accidentally retract them when in battle.

I am only just now realizing that this got kind of long, huh. I hope this wasn’t too much!! I might post more Seeker headcanons in the future.

[the-lightning-strikes-again]

The Search for the “Bluest Quintessence” and S6 - The Most Unnecessary Conspiracy In VLD?

Can somebody riddle me this? I’m rewatching Voltron: Legendary Defender, and I just…hm. Am confusion.

I’ve been thinking about the types of quintessence throughout the show, and how the show’s plots always revolve around energy harvesting. According to season 1, totally raw quintessence mined from worlds is yellow, and Haggar’s druids are the ones who filter it into its purple state: 

(Screenshots from Season 1, Episode 10: Collection and Extraction)

I feel safe in assuming that the filtering of raw, mined quintessence into its purple form is what turns it into a usable source of energy. But it also seems that this purple quintessence was still never “as good” as the enriched, concentrated blue quintessence that Alfor and Honerva originally discovered with the comet. Because if the purple version were so perfect, then no one would be desperately trying to get a better grade of quintessence, right?

Which sets the stage for Lotor’s whole arc:

(Screenshot from season 3, episode 7: The Legend Begins)

So here’s where I get confused: How does the need for specifically concentrated quintessence in any way result in the plot twist we got in s6 with the Altean colony? 

Please help me out here. So s6 was about Lotor having this totally secret and horrifying operation to harvest concentrated quintessence from “a few” Alteans, in order to specifically break into the rift. In season 4, Lotor himself even confirms Pidge’s s3 suspicions regarding the purpose of his agenda, that it’s all about getting to the rift using this special quintessence:

(Screenshots from season 4, episode 5: Begin the Blitz)

Lotor also admits to the goals he wants to achieve by piercing the barrier:

(Screenshots from season 5, episode 5: Bloodlines)

And throughout these endeavors, the purest, most concentrated quintessence always and specifically appears as blue:

(Screenshot from season 6, episode 2: Razor’s Edge)

In season 6, we see the show building up to this wild connection between Lotor and where he’s getting this secret, concentrated quintessence. Krolia and Keith confirm they’ve been trying to track it down in different ways:

(Screenshots from season 6, episode 2: Razor’s Edge)

And in this episode, Krolia builds this blue, enriched quintessence as being very scarce and from a totally unknown source:

But in rewatching earlier seasons, I get really confused as to why literally anyone was

so amazed

by this blue quintessence as a mystery energy source. Because...it seems to me like the show itself...didn’t even need an all-new secret source via the Alteans? It already had multiple potential sources? Like, everywhere?

So I guess, let’s talk Komar because it heavily affects the potential plot of the show.

Season 4 details Keith and Kolivan’s initial discovery of enriched quintessence. And the enriched quintessence they found wasn’t scarce or from a mysterious ship like Krolia’s experience in season 6. Instead, the Blades found massive vats of it in a major, well-known, and old but active Galra stronghold—with several Galran soldiers still guarding it and even moving the supply around:

(Screenshots from season 4, episode 1: Code of Honor)

Canon tries to excuse Komar tech from being the answer to the existence of this enriched quintessence, given that Voltron destroyed Haggar’s Komar Experiment in season 2. And it has to explain this away, because Komar tech is very, very good at harvesting vast amounts of that precious blue stuff, and we just can’t have a simple answer, can we:

(Screenshots from season 1, episode 6 – Take Flight)

But whether Komar had been destroyed or not, its very existence...never actually goes away in the larger show’s story. For example, Coran describes the Komar in a way that hauntingly reflects exactly what Lotor’s tech in the Altean colony does:

(Screenshots from season 2, episode 13: Blackout)

(Screenshot from season 6, episode 4: The Colony)

Idk if this is a “chicken or the egg” type of situation, but the technology for the Komar and the technology for harvesting Alteans seem to have the same result of procuring concentrated quintessence. Not just the yellow raw stuff or the somewhat better purple. But the enriched, blue quintessence that Lotor coveted so desperately for breaking into the rift.

So, conspiracies aside that Haggar stole Komar tech from Lotor or vice versa, I find it pretty wild that Lotor’s automatic go-to for harvesting energy was the Alteans. Because with the technology he had, he literally could have linked it up to....just about any other form of life on the universe. 

What the Komar, totally destroyed or not, ultimately suggests is that the pure, concentrated quintessence is not actually unique to special Alteans--but that the trick is simply being able to more purely harvest any given life force.

In which case, it makes turning survivors of omnicide of one’s own heritage into cattle and breeding them for more “special” victims seem so...utterly pointless on so many levels. Lotor could have just pointed said tech at plants and fish, and received a similar result. Haggar and Zarkon confirmed within season 1 that it could canonically be done. The show even depicts them taking pure, concentrated quintessence from specifically animals and a large body of water.

I suppose prior to this rewatch of earlier seasons, I did think that, in response to this, VLD was arguing for Alteans as the only beings in the universe who had the “bluest” quintessence. Which would maybe better explain Lotor’s exploitation of them despite the squicky master race/species vibes that such a concept gives off. But this concept also can’t explain the s6 plot twist to me anymore after my rewatch.

In looking back at previous seasons, Alteans originally were dependent on Balmeras for quintessence-based energy:

(Screenshots from season 1, episode 8: Rebirth)

Notice how Coran talks of the Balmera giving of the crystals as a gift, but yet Alteans repaid their “sacrifice” (same language Lotor used for the Alteans) by providing a token of their own pure life force. This episode reveals that Balmera ultimately function as concentrated quintessence generators and storages.

But even then, Alteans were also dependent on the people of the Balmera to complete this transfer of pure, concentrated quintessence, as they could manipulate the Balmera’s energy for symbiotic purposes:

In which case, if Balmeras were the original™ self-replenishing stores of pure, concentrated quintessence, and also so readily found across the universe with entire groups of people capable of transferring its energy, why even need to harvest Alteans? And since Balmeras can be convinced to willingly give of themselves for a good cause, would it not have made sense for Lotor to work alongside these gentle giants and their people, perhaps finding a way to extract its quintessence in a form other than a crystal? Perhaps even using his smaller-scale version of harvesting tech? Because clearly, he had an issue with just wiping out an entire planet or culture:

(Screenshots from season 5, episode 1: The Prisoner)

And Lotor is shown as canonically very interested in wanting to work alongside other cultures:

(Screenshots from season 5, episode 6: The While Lion)

I think it very likely that Balmera would have worked out some way for him to extract concentrated quintessence in the form he needed—and even better, this would have presented the opportunity to re-initiate the culture and repayment ceremonies of old sacred Alteans.

Because...why wouldn’t he have known about this Altean practice?

(Screenshot from season 5, episode 6: White Lion)

(Screenshot from season 6, episode 4: The Colony)

So despite Balmera being prevalent concentrated quintessence stores throughout the universe, and despite their people still knowing how to enact an Altean repayment ceremony, and despite Lotor having “deep knowledge,” he somehow missed this opportunity??

Lotor would have happily nerded out over being like his Altean ancestors and sustainably and respectfully extracting pure, concentrated energy while also achieving his end goals. And if he’d connected to a Balmera even once, just to try it, he would have discovered that he was a “sacred Altean” as well. Because canon confirms it:

(Screenshots from season 5, episode 6: White Lion)

So Lotor is, canonically, a magical “sacred Altean” with deep cultural knowledge that not even Allura or Coran were aware of. He had generally pretty immediate access to or the ability to find Balmeras across the universe, which are also canonically storages of pure, concentrated life force. And Balmera have canonically deep and respectful relationships with the Alteans who harvest their energy for their own purposes.

Through Balmera and perhaps a simple redesign of his own harvesting tech he was working on, Lotor had an easy way to secretly siphon blue concentrated quintessence in the form he needed, from a willing, self-sustainable source—and afterward, to also give back in thanks in the ways of his mother’s people, without having to actually “sacrifice” anyone.

And yet...malicious Altean harvesting was the only explainable option and the answer this show went with...??

I’m really tempted to just conclude that blue, concentrated quintessence is not as scarce in other life forms as the latter half of the show makes it out to be, that more forms of life can actually interface with it and manipulate it beyond Alteans, and that Lotor had very simple ways to hide and run a sustainable and culturally meaningful quintessence experiment. 

So to me, it seems that the search for the “bluest quintessence” represents just another example of VLD inconsistently manipulating its own inconsistent worldbuilding to arrive at outrageous, universe-contradicting and pointlessly evil plot twists like the s6 colony plot.

But I’m curious what you all think and if I’m just...missing something? 

(Also apologies if someone else has already brought this up somewhere and I’m just lagging behind, haha.)