#saving hope x the originals crossover

[mariegreen-2000]

Just a friendly reminder that these two are probably never gonna meet

¯\_(°ᴥ°)_/¯

[zapreportsblog]

The Last Of Us

➥ summary : young (m/n) was the last of the demon slayers, how he’s lived so long… well that’s his secret to tell

➥ a/n: a long time ago I wrote a story like this, be aware this is a twilight x male reader x demon slayer crossover story. This may seem a little confusing but hopefully it isn’t, I also haven’t read the original copy I made of this story but I remember one line that stuck out to me as hilarious so I’m recreating it enjoy :)

➥ chapter 1 : the act of an immortal life

In a world shrouded in darkness and inhabited by malevolent forces, a young male named (M/N) had his life forever altered by an unimaginable tragedy. From a tender age, he witnessed the harrowing death of his family at the hands of merciless demons.

The memory of that fateful night haunted (M/N)'s every waking moment. The flames engulfing his home, the agonized cries of his loved ones, and the malevolent laughter of the demonic beings replayed like a sinister melody in his mind. It was a night that plunged him into a world devoid of light, a world where shadows whispered secrets and fear clung to his every step.

After the tragic incident, (M/N) found himself alone, grappling with grief and an overwhelming sense of survivor's guilt. The weight of loss bore down on his young shoulders, threatening to crush him beneath its crushing force. The scars left behind, both visible and invisible, served as a constant reminder of the darkness that had consumed his once idyllic life.

Haunted by nightmares and plagued by a relentless thirst for justice, (M/N) became consumed by a single purpose—to avenge his family's tragic demise. He immersed himself in studying the occult and ancient texts, determined to uncover the secrets of the supernatural realm that had claimed his loved ones.

Years passed, and (M/N) honed his skills, his heart fuelled by an unquenchable desire for retribution. He became an adept hunter of the supernatural, seeking out the demonic beings responsible for his family's demise. Armed with knowledge, weapons, and a heart burning with determination, he ventured into the darkest corners of the world, chasing shadows and facing the very embodiment of evil.

But with each encounter, (M/N) found himself teetering on the edge of his own sanity. The line between hunter and hunted blurred, and the darkness he sought to eradicate threatened to consume him from within. He fought with ferocity, never faltering in his quest, but the scars he bore ran deeper than the physical wounds he inflicted upon his adversaries.

Amidst the bleakness of his existence, however, glimmers of hope emerged. He encountered individuals who offered a glimpse of light in the midst of his darkest days. Fellow hunters who understood the depths of his pain and stood by his side, they called themselves…demon slayers - lending strength when his own faltered. They became his newfound family, a beacon of solace in the tumultuous storm that raged within him.

As (M/N) continued his solitary crusade against the forces of darkness, he sought solace not only in vengeance but also in the belief that his family's legacy could be preserved through his actions. He vowed to protect others from experiencing the same pain he had endured, to ensure that no innocent lives would be claimed by the horrors that lurked in the shadows.

And so, (M/N) carried the weight of his tragic past upon his shoulders, his steps guided by both determination and a profound sense of loss. With each demon he banished and each life he saved, he inched closer to finding the closure he so desperately sought.

The journey ahead was treacherous, filled with danger and uncertainty, but (M/N) refused to be consumed by the darkness that had claimed his family. He would continue to fight, fueled by the memory of his loved ones and the hope that one day, he would find peace amidst the chaos that plagued his existence.

•••

(M/N) found himself lost in a realm of memories, where the echoes of a long and brutal war resonated deep within his soul. The clash of weapons, the screams of anguish, and the stench of blood filled his senses as he relived the relentless battle against the Demon King and his unholy forces.

As a demon slayer, (M/N) had fought alongside a brotherhood of warriors who shared his unwavering determination. Together, they stood as a beacon of hope against the encroaching darkness, their lives entwined by a common purpose—to protect humanity from the demonic scourge that threatened its very existence.

The war had been relentless, pushing (M/N) and his comrades to the limits of their physical and emotional endurance. They faced countless battles, each one marked by the possibility of death and the sacrifice of their brothers and sisters-in-arms. It was a time of profound loss, where the fallen were mourned, and the weight of survivor's guilt pressed heavily upon (M/N)'s heart.

But amid the chaos and despair, (M/N) found solace in his unwavering resolve. He refused to allow the sacrifices of his fallen comrades to be in vain. Their memory fueled his relentless pursuit of justice, and he continued to hone his skills with unwavering determination.

While some of his fellow demon slayers chose to retire after the Demon King's demise, seeking respite from the horrors they had endured, (M/N) could not quell the burning fire within him. He knew that his duty as a protector was far from over. The demons may have been vanquished, but the darkness they represented still lingered, waiting for an opportunity to resurface.

With each passing day, (M/N) pushed himself to the limit, refining his techniques, and seeking out new knowledge to fortify his arsenal against the unknown threats that lay in wait. He studied ancient texts, delved into forgotten rituals, and sought guidance from wise elders who held the secrets of the supernatural world.

As the years rolled by, (M/N) became a formidable force, wielding his armor and his skills with unparalleled precision. He grew as a warrior, but the memories of fallen comrades remained etched deep within his consciousness, a constant reminder of the sacrifices made during the war.

The path (M/N) had chosen was not an easy one. It demanded solitude, discipline, and an unwavering commitment to protecting the innocent. He encountered countless battles, vanquishing demons that threatened the fragile peace that had been won through the bloodshed of his brethren.

Amidst the battles, (M/N) found moments of respite, where he could reflect upon the sacrifices made and honor the memory of his fallen comrades. He knew that they would forever be a part of him, guiding him in his quest for justice and reminding him of the fragility of life.

The war had left scars, both visible and invisible, etched upon (M/N)'s body and soul. But he wore them with pride, a testament to his unwavering dedication to his cause. He knew that the fight against darkness would continue, and he would be at the forefront, a shield against the encroaching shadows.

As (M/N) continued to sharpen his skills and explore the depths of his abilities, he remained steadfast in his commitment to protect humanity. With the memories of the fallen close to his heart, he stood as a testament to their sacrifice, a living embodiment of the unbreakable spirit that had united them in the face of overwhelming odds.

And so, (M/N) pressed forward, his journey defined by his past and driven by the undying flame within him. He was a warrior, forged by war and remembrance, and his legacy would be one of resilience, courage, and the unyielding will to confront the darkness head-on.

•••

The passage of time had become an eternal enigma for (M/N), as he remained suspended in the perpetuity of youth. While the world around him aged and changed, he remained eternally fixed at the tender age of fifteen. It was a puzzling phenomenon that seemed inextricably linked to the mysterious liquid that his now-deceased "sister" Shinobu had injected into his veins.

(M/N) found himself deep in introspection, his mind weaving through the memories of his past. Shinobu, a brilliant and enigmatic scientist, had been his constant companion in his tireless fight against the forces of darkness. It was she who had administered the strange liquid into his bloodstream, imbuing him with an unforeseen gift or curse—the gift of immortality.

As he recalled the moment when the liquid coursed through his veins, (M/N) was flooded with mixed emotions. Fear had gripped his heart momentarily, questioning the repercussions of such a radical act. But Shinobu's unwavering conviction and promises of enhanced abilities had eclipsed his doubts, leading him to consent to the injection.

However, as the years rolled by, and he witnessed the fleeting nature of life surrounding him, (M/N) grew increasingly aware of the peculiarity of his situation. Friends and loved ones aged gracefully, their faces marked with the gentle touch of time, while he remained forever frozen in youth. It was a constant reminder of his otherness, his detachment from the natural course of existence.

With each passing year, (M/N) became plagued by a burning curiosity, a relentless desire to unravel the truth behind his immortal state. He embarked on a relentless quest for knowledge, poring over ancient tomes and scouring the annals of history in search of answers.

In his research, (M/N) discovered snippets of lore and whispered tales about the elixirs of life and the pursuit of everlasting youth. Legends spoke of mythical beings and alchemical secrets, tantalizing fragments of a puzzle that might hold the key to his condition. But amidst the ancient tales, one thing became clear—immortality came with a price.

Haunted by the thought of a life bereft of connection and enduring heartbreak, (M/N) grappled with the implications of his eternal youth. The weight of isolation grew heavy upon his shoulders, knowing that he would forever be separated from the natural progression of life, destined to wander through the tapestry of time as a solitary figure.

In the depths of his soul, (M/N) harbored a burning desire to understand Shinobu's role in his immortal state. He couldn't shake the suspicion that the mysterious liquid she had injected into his veins was the catalyst for his unending youth. But with Shinobu now gone, he felt a profound sense of loss and longing, knowing that the answers he sought lay buried within her secrets.

With a resolute determination, (M/N) resolved to uncover the truth that lay hidden within the shadows of his past. He would embark on a personal journey, delving into the remnants of Shinobu's research and seeking the counsel of ancient scholars and mystics who might possess the wisdom he craved.

As he ventured forth, (M/N) understood that the road ahead would be fraught with uncertainty and the weight of his own immortality. But he was willing to face the challenges, to confront the demons of his past and the enigma of his existence. In the depths of his heart, he held on to the hope that, one day, he would unearth the truth behind his unyielding youth and discover his place in a world that continued to evolve around him.

•••

Centuries had slipped away like sand through (M/N)'s fingers, leaving him a solitary witness to the ever-changing tides of time. The year was now 2005, and he found himself enrolled in an orphanage, a place that had become his refuge in this new era. Within its walls, (M/N) concealed his enigmatic past, the weight of his immortal existence known only to him.

To the staff and fellow orphans, he was a quiet and mysterious figure, known only as (M/N). They had heard whispers of a tragic past, of a family torn apart by violence, but the specifics remained elusive. (M/N) had chosen to keep the memories locked away, buried deep within his soul, as he dedicated himself to training relentlessly in the quiet corners of the orphanage's backyard.

Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years as (M/N) honed his skills, his body a well-oiled machine refined through the passage of time. The other orphans watched in awe and curiosity, sensing an air of strength and resilience that surrounded him. They marveled at his unwavering dedication, unaware of the centuries of training and battles that had shaped him.

Within the confines of the orphanage, (M/N) sought solace in his ceaseless pursuit of perfection. The echoes of his past mingled with the present, driving him to become a formidable force capable of protecting the innocent and upholding justice. The shadows that had haunted his existence had given birth to an unwavering resolve—a commitment to prevent others from experiencing the same tragedy he had endured.

As (M/N) immersed himself in his training, the bond between him and the orphans grew stronger. They found inspiration in his unwavering spirit, his quiet determination becoming a beacon of hope within the confines of the orphanage. He became a mentor, guiding them in their own journeys of self-discovery and self-improvement.

The other orphans sensed something extraordinary about (M/N), an aura of wisdom that belied his youthful appearance. They were drawn to his words of encouragement and the strength he exuded, finding solace in his presence. They admired his resilience, unaware of the countless battles he had fought and the trials he had overcome.

(M/N), in turn, found solace in the camaraderie he shared with his newfound family. Their innocence and joy helped fill the void in his heart, allowing him to experience a semblance of the connection he had lost so long ago. Through their laughter and companionship, he discovered that even in a world that perpetually changed, there were constants—love, friendship, and the indomitable human spirit.

As the days turned into months and the years rolled on, (M/N) found a semblance of peace within the walls of the orphanage. He channeled his immortality into protecting and guiding those who had crossed his path, providing a source of strength and inspiration to those who needed it most. In their eyes, he was a mentor, a protector, and a guardian angel—unaware of the depth of his immortal existence.

Amidst the passage of time, (M/N) embraced the duality of his existence. The echoes of his past intertwined with the present, shaping him into a beacon of hope for those around him. With each passing day, he continued to train, to refine his skills, and to prepare himself for the battles that awaited him.

As the world moved forward, (M/N) remained steadfast, bound by the weight of his own immortality. Yet, he found purpose in the quiet corners of the orphanage, his dedication to protecting the innocent guiding his every step. The echoes of his past were etched deep within his soul, propelling him to embrace the future and to forge a destiny worthy of his enduring spirit.

•••

Alice and Jasper stood before Carlisle, their hearts filled with a mixture of anticipation and nervousness. The couple had made a life-changing decision—one that would shape their future and bring new light into their immortal existence. They sought Carlisle's guidance and blessing as they discussed the possibility of adopting a child.

Carlisle, always the calm and composed figure, listened attentively to their request. He understood the weight of their desire and the responsibility that came with expanding their family. But he also knew the complexities of their lifestyle, the challenges they faced as immortal beings navigating the mortal world.

"Carlisle," Alice began, her voice gentle yet filled with determination, "we've talked extensively about this. We feel ready to embrace the gift of parenthood, to offer love and guidance to a child who needs it. We understand the risks and challenges, but we're confident in our abilities to provide a nurturing and safe environment."

Jasper, standing by Alice's side, nodded in agreement. "We've spent years adapting to our existence and learning to control our instincts. We've grown, and we believe we can be positive influences in a child's life. We want to offer them a family, a home where they can flourish."

Carlisle regarded the couple with a thoughtful expression, his golden eyes reflecting both caution and concern. He understood the depth of their love for one another and their desire to extend that love to a child in need. But he couldn't ignore the fact that Jasper was still relatively new to their lifestyle, his thirst for human blood a constant challenge that required careful management.

"Alice, Jasper," Carlisle began, his voice measured. "While I understand your longing to become parents, we must consider the potential risks involved. Jasper, you are still acclimating to our way of life. We must ensure the safety and well-being of a child above all else."

Alice, unwavering in her support for Jasper, interjected, her voice filled with conviction. "Carlisle, I have complete faith in Jasper's ability to control his urges. He has come a long way, and he has shown incredible strength and restraint. He won't hurt anyone while I'm around."

Carlisle regarded Alice with a mix of admiration and understanding. Her unwavering belief in Jasper's growth and her ability to read the future added a layer of assurance to their request. After a moment of contemplation, he finally spoke, his voice gentle yet cautious.

"I see the love and dedication you both possess, and I trust your judgment, Alice. You have a unique insight into the future, and if you vouch for Jasper's ability to control his urges, then I am inclined to support your decision."

A wave of relief washed over Alice and Jasper as Carlisle gave his blessing. They understood the responsibility they were undertaking, the need to be ever-vigilant in protecting their family. But they also recognized the potential for growth, for love to flourish within the walls of their home.

With gratitude in their hearts, Alice and Jasper embraced one another, their joy palpable. They knew the path ahead would be challenging, but they were prepared to face it together. As they thanked Carlisle for his guidance, they carried with them the blessing that would pave the way for a new chapter in their immortal lives—a chapter filled with love, compassion, and the joy of raising a child as part of their growing family.

[platinumrosetail]

So I have a different requests it a groups one

He so cam I request a yandere JTTW x toddler sesshormu half Demon daughter reader

Where the whole group are like uncles but Shadow peach is the mom and dad to the reader

The reader it's just like her uncle and nausea as a demon she has dog ears but has her papa powers but also has a little bit of spiritual powers like her mom could kagome ( I shipped them so hard don't blame me)

The reader fell into the the middle of a fight

Between Shadowpeach and other demon's

And everon just see a cute little puppy half Demon reader and is like baby must be protected. And they find out that she also has a jewel like her mama in side her.

But honestly they don't care about the jewel they care about the reader. ( Also the jewel is like stuck to her heart so it cannot be removed like a kagome unless one the boys knows about surgery)

I don’t ship kagome x sesshomaru but I hope I can do a good job on this anyway.

Warnings: noob author, female reader, yandere charcters, and others.

Characters: Tripitaka, sandy, pigsy, sun, and macaque.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The group plus macaque; who decided to join his mate after finding out that sun didn’t betray him like he originally thought,was against another demon that wanted to get tripitaka’s powers when they met you, a cute young half demon dog pup that randomly appear in front of the group and demon.

Unlike the group the demon didn’t care if you lived or died so they attacked not worrying if they hit you or not which didn’t sit well with the group and macaque quickly went in to save you while sun went after the demon.

Tripitaka shockingly didn’t punish sun but that’s because he was distracted with you and making sure you weren’t hurt before you came between the fight, macaque also made sure you’re alright and reassured that you’re safe now.

Sun noticed a faint pink glow around you with more of that glow focused to your heart but decided to let it go with you being blessed by a god or something in exchange to smother you with affection with how cute you are plus his mate sewed to already treat you like his cub now an so should he as well as he always wanted a family with macaque besides his subjects.

Pigsy is the uncle that needs to be supervised when around you as he has habits that shouldn’t be taught to you at al but he still cares and make sure you’re safe, because you’re both adorable and cause his life depends on as it’s either macaque or sun that will end his life he he gets you even a hair or paper cut on your body then he’s a roasted pig personally cooked by the demon monkey’s.

Now sandy is both uncle and god father as he’s the most responsible and mature of the group besides macaque so the two know he won’t let you get hurt, he will protect you, and raised you if anything happens too them which won’t happen for a long time.

Tripitaka is the older brother that you know to always gets kidnapped by demons until the other demons noticed the glow you seem to have that is only seen by strong demons which then is where both of you gets kidnapped, here’s a twist though since you’re now his little sister he will do things that’s against Buddhism just to protect you even try to practice martial arts just to be least inconveniencing the others and you but also to protect you from all the other threats that may come in the future.

(A/n: groped you like it!! I couldn’t do more than 7 paragraphs for this one as i didn’t know what else to put so hope you’re ok with that! Anyway hope ya’ll have a wonderful day/evening/night!! Oh! Also after i get done with the last of my draft (which is a lmk request) I’ll be putting the lmk masterlist on hold so please no more until i get out of my burned out state, you can still request for x lmk!reader (y’all can still request for jttw x reader, don’t worry) just use a different fandom if you want a crossover so please be mindful that I’m getting burned out of lmk at the moment, I’ll be sure to let y’all know when y’all can request for lmk again when I recover from this lmk burn out.)

[telomeke-bbs]

OUR SKYY 2 x BAD BUDDY x A TALE OF THOUSAND STARS – PA AMONG THE CALLBACKS

So how's everyone doing now that two of the four OS2 x BBS x ATOTS episodes have aired? 🥰 I'm treating this as a four-part miniseries because it's just easier for reference, although the fourth episode may possibly be solely an EarthMix vehicle (but I'm hoping it'll be crossover BBS x ATOTS all the way to the end 😍).

Ep.1 and much of Ep.2 were a really fun romp while Director Aof and his writers laid the groundwork for developments to come, and part of that fun was all the callbacks to the original series, lighting up the screen every time they made reference to scenes, plot points, themes and ideas in BBS and ATOTS.

These were loving gifts to loving fans, recreating some of the beloved originals' magic, while also distracting from the story-seeding going on. Some were visual callbacks, using similar onscreen vocabulary to recreate almost verbatim beloved tableaux from the original series, while others were more abstract, requiring you to think about the reference.

There are far too many to list in entirety (including some up at Pha Pun Dao after the crossover got fully going), but here's a sampling of callbacks to BBS from only OS2xBBSxATOTS Ep.1, that came in thick and fast one after another:

Kicking off the series with Wai, panning upwards from his shoes to his face – the same in both BBS and OS2xBBSxATOTS;

The Archi-Engine face-off at OS2xBBSxATOTS (that isn't quite what it seems) references a similar face-off at BBS Ep.1 [3I4] 7.38;

Louis crashing into Wai with news of Pran's (purported) fight with Pat (OS2xBBSxATOTS Ep.1 [1I4] 3.51) is an inverted replay of Safe crashing into Pran with news of Wai in a fight, that Pran at first thinks is Louis getting into trouble (BBS Ep.1 [1I4] 2.22);

PatPran's discussion behind the red backdrop at OS2xBBSxATOTS Ep.1 [1I4] 5.32 is of course a callback to their reconciliation backstage at the end of BBS Ep.8 (complete with red curtain drop);

Pat going "I signaled you to punch on the left, but you punched on the right" (OS2xBBSxATOTS Ep.1 [1I4] 8.46) of course echoes his "I offered you this cheek, but you punched me on this cheek" (BBS Ep.1 [4/4] 5.14);

Pa interrupting PatPran's kiss (OS2xBBSxATOTS Ep.1 [1I4] 9.45) calls out to BBS Ep.7 [2/4] 10.76 and Ep.7 [4/4] 7.50, and in turn gets called out and captioned by Pran at OS2xBBSxATOTS Ep.1 [1I4] 9.51; 😂

Pat, Pran, Ink and Pa's in-room sukiyaki (OS2xBBSxATOTS Ep.1 [1I4] 10.25) is callback to their hotpot in Tinidee (BBS Ep.9 [2/4] 0.17);

Ink peeling and feeding shrimp to Pa (OS2xBBSxATOTS Ep.1 [1I4] 10.28) is not only a Thai BL trope semi-subverted in its appropriation for GL 🥰, but is also a callback to their hotpot semi-date at BBS Ep.8 [2/4] 0.59.

But really Ink and Pa (especially Pa) turning up with the sukiyaki at OS2xBBSxATOTS Ep.1 [1I4] 9.47 was also a callout to Pa's own treatment as a character in Bad Buddy.

(above) Our Skyy 2 x Bad Buddy x A Tale of Thousand Stars Ep.1 [1I4] 10.04

It bears repeating that Ink as a character in BBS subverted the evil ex-girlfriend trope, turning out to be a supportive bestie instead of vengeance-bent villain. Pa's character also subverted another stereotype, but a lot more subtly.

Pa's line at OS2xBBSxATOTS Ep.1 [1I4] 9.47 especially ("Sukiyaki delivery!") brings us back to all the times she turned up to help her brother and the storyline along in Bad Buddy, usually by providing some help and/or delivering something. A list of examples:

Doing chores for Pat (highlighting his princeling status in the family), including delivering his laundry (Ep.1 [3I4] 2.40);

Driving Pat around in the earlier episodes (more spotlight on Princeling Pat), which then turned into a rescuer role when she and Pat saved Pran from Korn, Mo and Chang (Ep.1 [3I4] 1.49);

Delivering contact lenses (and the gift of clear vision) to Pat at Ink's photoshoot (Ep.4 [2/4] 4.02);

Delivering Pat's ranat ek mallets to him just in time for his audition as Riam (helping to clear the way on the road to PatPran's couplehood, Ep.7 [3I4] 1.38).

The extraneous character, who exists only for exposition and in service of the main couple's storyline, plagues many a BL drama (and this is a fate that falls particularly to any female supporting characters in the cast list, since they're mostly unnecessary to the romantic narrative of a BL, which is romance-driven). Director Aof certainly started off Pa's portrayal looking like she would be destined for a very similar trajectory. But as BBS unfolded, this set-up (like so many others) got rapidly turned on its head, and Pa, just like Ink, got to tell her own story too.

There's more in there than they had time to recount (e.g., Pa's refusal to help Ming in the family business, despite his recognition of her talent there) but most importantly Pa got to play Ink's love interest, iconoclastically breaking so much new ground. In 2023 GL drama is now a thing, and we have InkPa (and Director Aof) to thank for a lot of this.

Ink and Pa also saved Bad Buddy from failing the Bechdel Test, which (it must be said) isn't the best measure for how successful a show is at representing women – it's a rather low bar for that, but shamefully so many shows (especially BL ones) fail it regardless (KinnPorsche comes to mind). But I think BBS passes with flying colors, not least because Ink and Pa's characters were treated with such respect when they could so easily – especially Pa's character – have been given perfunctory template treatment, and turned into cardboard dispensables instead of the believably-rounded characters we got in the final product.

BBS draws a line under this within itself at Ep.5 [2/4] 4.42 when Pa cheekily says "Use a delivery service" with reference to Pat's new drumsticks, because she was not much more than a delivery service herself in the first five episodes, supplying information to aid the unfolding story of PatPran's relationship.

Thus, Pa calling out "Sukiyaki delivery!" in OS2xBBSxATOTS is a reminder of how she was lifted from the usual purgatory of flatly-rendered supporting characters, and given a story arc of her own. Symbolized by her glow-up at the start of BBS Ep.7, Pa was eventually unveiled to us as more than just a colorless wheel in the works, and given her own bit of spotlight as a character worthy of attention in her own right.

Just another example of Director Aof doing something quietly revolutionary within the 12 episodes of BBS! 😍

[emerxshiu]

[SIDE ORDER]

tw// slight blood and body horror

not sure if it could classify like it but im adding a warning just in case

Speedrun agent 8 for side order release

I remember mentioning in my instagram when posting for valentine's that i would be back when side order drops, i mostly meant it as kind of a joke since i had some drawing to post. i did not expect that to actually become true lol.

Im definitly staying up tonight (not like i could sleep these past days anyway)

It felt kinda nice drawing some splatoon stuff again, last time was in like december, wich were just doodles, and technically yesterday but that was me making a kirby x splatoon crossover so it doesnt count, so actually last time i did an actual finished drawing for splatoon was the fuzzy neo in november.

Im really hyped up for this, i have played basically just one roguelike in my life (candies n' curses, its fun you should play it too) so i dont have much experience in the genere, but its okay! tho having to restart from floor 1 makes me a bit nervous, wich is funny cuz in candies and curses i also had to restart from floor one yet i kept trying so im not really sure why im worrying, tho it did take me months just to finish the main story in that game, and i want to experience the entierity of side order as blind as i can, maybe thats why. but i managed to avoid magolor epilogue spoilers for a year this might not be that bad.

here's an inverted version i did just for fun.

Aight now i need to talk about the actual drawing, honestly i just sketched something quick with a vague idea of agent 8 with coral growing from them. the real struggle was the background, the colors werent looking nice togheter, it was hard to see what was going on etc, and in the end i decided it would be cool to add images for texture, and that saved it. i used the images from side order's teaser trailer, superimposed over the background and ink. and then i decided to add the side order text to add something, i originally drew some color chips but they looked off in there so i got rid of em

also version without text

btw my birthday is next monday (sobbing rn) this is the third time nintendo releases stuff around my birthday, im so lucky lol

I hope y'all have a nice day

Jambuhbye! :3

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Evolutionary War

1988

Oh, shit. Evolutionary War.

So at some point. Uh, at this point. Marvel decided to try a new thing to make their annuals more exciting.

The idea was that all the annuals would tell one story, one big story. Basically a company wide crossover without crossing over. A story so big that it would touch every hero or team that had an annual, even if they didn’t interact with the other heroes/teams.

So we get Evolutionary War.

The High Evolutionary has been around since the 60s. Mostly he just wants to make furries in peace. And you know what? Power to him. He’d have loved the internet.

Then he wanted to make a copy of Earth except no superheroes and also Adam Warlock was around as a Jesus allegory.

Uh, power to him?

I dunno. I liked the Evolutionary’s earlier stuff better. His later stuff gets weird. And he keeps being involved with Wanda and Pietro Maximoff but changing his mind on how involved he is.

At some point, the Beyonders steal his pet project Counter-Earth and put it in a museum and that just depressed the High Evolutionary so much that he turned into goo.

We’ve all been there.

But now he’s back with a new project. And since its called Evolutionary War, I imagine its not consumer friendly.

Consider instead making an Evolutionary Thermos.

Anyway. There are eleven annuals in this event. For books I don’t cover and have no desire to deep dive into for the sake of this post.

If I were to cover every annual in full, this event would take more of my time than Secret Wars did. But also, if I just cover the Avengers related stuff, that’s most of the story I’m leaving out.

So I’ll cover the West Coast and East Coast Avengers Annuals as I would normally. And I’ll cover in brief the relevant parts of the other annuals.

And I used the cover for Avengers Annual #17 because I’ve seen it used as the iconic image of Evolutionary War. And for a reason. Its the best cover of the bunch. Fight me.

We start our war with

X-Factor Annual #3: UNNATURAL SELECTION

In brief, X-Factor was a reunion book of the original five X-Men. It required bringing Jean Grey back to life which made Chris Claremont a bit sore. Also, since there was already X-Men and New Mutants, X-Factor distinguished itself by having a stupid premise.

The original five X-Men pretended to be a group called the X-Terminators who were mutant hunters. But really, they were a team called X-Factor and saved the mutants they were pretending to hunt. What does the factor stand for? Fuck you is what. X team names don’t have to make sense. Go to your room.

The premise of the comic was so stupid, X-Factor eventually realized that mutant hating business manager Cameron Hodge had made it up to worsen human-mutant relations.

X-Terminators itself later spun out into a new book because spinning out into new books is what X-books are best at. Did the new X-Terminators x-terminate people? I dunno. They were mostly kids and young adults so one hopes not.

Anyway, enough delay.

We’re past the fake mutant hunters thing and into the public mutant heroes. X-Factor thwarted an attack by Apocalypse and jacked his ride so now the fickle public loves them.

While rebuilding the Empire State Building from the attack, Jean Grey Marvel Girl (why not Marvel Woman, Jean?) senses a psychic scream FROM DEEP IN THE EARTH.

(In addition to Jean hearing it, several other psychically sensitive characters do. Mostly X-characters and also Franklin Richards but Dr Druid is also in the lineup. Which meas this is in the period before he falls into a time hole. So once again Dr Druid is here for some reason.)

The scream came from the Moloid caverns.

A group of armored men called the Purifiers are attacking the Moloids and Tryannoids. They’ve been ordered by their master (the High Evolutionary, ‘natch) not to use more violence than is necessary. But he’s still ordering a genocide because the Purifiers are using sterilizing rays and sterilizing baths to try to prevent the Moloids from reproducing any further.

Eugenics!

Dammit, the High Evolutionary! Go back to making furries!

X-Factor makes their way down to the caverns and winds up first fighting the Moloids as they don’t trust any strangers right now but then making peace with their leader, a mutant Moloid later called Val-Or. He can psychically direct the otherwise pretty passive Moloids. X-Factor helps him fight against the Purifiers when they swing back around.

Apocalypse also detected the scream but figures out that the High Evolutionary is behind everything and goes up to his space station to pay him a visit/beating/philosophical debate.

While both Apocalypse and the High Evolutionary claim to be working towards encouraging the evolution of humanity into something greater, they differ heavily on methods and timescale.

Apocalypse has been “guiding” humanity for thousands of years. Causing war and strife to encourage humanity grows strong.

Apocalypse: “You, superbly intelligent as you are, immortal as you are, powerful as you are... have existed for a mere instant of humanity’s past. I am as old as man... and time has taught me patience. You have that to learn.”

He considers the High Evolutionary’s plans to sterilize those he deems genetically unfit to be unnatural selection. HEY, TITLE DROP.

The High Evolutionary argues: “In less than a single lifetime, I have devolved to less than animal... and evolved to become like unto a god. I have seen where humanity is going... and on its own... it will advance... and then it will stop, as I have stopped. In controlling humanity’s destiny, I offer it a chance to become more than it can be.. by giving it a... boost.”

Apocalypse deduces that for some reason, the High Evolutionary is rushing towards his goals. He chalks it up to the impatience of youth. Because Apocalypse is super old. He would say that.

But he teleports the High Evolutionary to the Moloid caverns and shows him the Moloids and X-Factor vs the Purifiers.

For all that the Evolutionary judged the Moloids an evolutionary dead end, incapable of changing, too passive and pliant, Val-Or is something he would have overlooked in his haste.

The High Evolutionary tries to dismiss Val-Or as an animal lashing out instinctively but he has to concede the point when Apocalypse claims that the strife the Purifiers brought hastened Val-Or’s growth.

With his Purifiers being overwhelmed by the Moloids and X-Factor, the High Evolutionary teleports them to safety to continue his plans elsewhere.

The High Evolutionary: “The plan isn’t over. In fact... it has barely begun! And soon... soon... the entire Earth will feel the shaping hand of the High Evolutionary.”

So at the end of the first part of this Evolutionary War, we know that the High Evolutionary is in some kind of hurry. That he’s using Purifier troops to sterilize groups he doesn’t feel have evolutionary potential. And that he’s making some bad judgements.

Next,

Punisher Annual #1: EVOLUTIONARY JIHAD

Wait, Punisher in involved?

Geez, I think that shows one of the flaws of the tell one story with all the annuals approach. Evolutionary War does not seem like something that would impact Punisher a lot.

I guess I’ll see as I dig in.

The Punisher’s status quo is that he’s the Punisher. He shoots criminals to death with guns.

You don’t need to know a lot to know the Punisher.

Anyway, in this annual, he’s tracking down El Caiman, a drug kingpin in Bogota.

He absolutely did not expect to be attacked by a heavily armored man. His machine gun fire just bounces off the armor but Punisher is able to knock the armored goon over with a grenade and interrogate him.

The man claims that Punisher is on a list.

Eliminator: “We’re headed for the ultimate goal of human aspiration! And to get there, we have to weed out the junkies and the crazies, and you’re both!”

Huh, okay. So the Purifiers to sterilize populations the High Evolutionary deems dead ends. And the Eliminators to get rid of individuals within viable populations who would hamper the Evolutionary’s goals.

Sure.

More of the Eliminators show up and Punisher decides he’s not armed enough for this. He happened to save a girl in the firefight and she takes him to her dad... El Caiman.

They’re both being targeted so decide to make an alliance until the Eliminators are taken care of.

Punisher and El Caiman retreat to his drug farm where he has better weapons.

There’s a lot of Punisher shooting things and blowing up things and shooting other things but he gets to the last Eliminator.

The Last Eliminator: “The High Evolutionary! He will lead the human race to the next great plateau of achievement! But first we must eliminate all drugs and other genetic pollutants -- as well as anyone who stands in our way!”

Anyway, Punisher kills that guy too.

And El Caiman too when the drug lord decides to try to kill Frank before Frank can kill him. Then Punisher takes the drug lord’s daughter and begins looking for a way out of the jungle.

A very Punisher story. With a bit of tying into the big event.

Hm. You know, the High Evolutionary doesn’t seem short on finding people to hire that are big into eugenics. With a lot of supervillain mooks, you have to figure that the pay or benefits are worth getting punched by Captain America or whatever. But all the High Evolutionary’s men seemingly follow his ideals or just love having an excuse to kill people.

Next,

Silver Surfer Annual #1: ADAM

Silver Surfer context! He was finally released from his long imprisonment on Earth after doing Galactus a solid. Since then, he’s been having a lot of space adventures involving the Elders of the Universe trying to kill Galactus out of jealousy of him being older and also the Skrull/Kree War heating up again.

How could Evolutionary War have anything to do with him when he’s in space?

Well, Mantis was traveling around with him but she died. She didn’t really because she was telecommuting from Earth by making a body out of plants. But Silver Surfer thinks she died so he’s coming to Earth to find her son, the supposed Celestial Messiah.

Okay but what does Silver Surfer have to do with the Super-Skrull? Or the Eternals?

Well.

The High Evolutionary pops into the Eternal city of Olympia and claims that he’s a lot like the Celestials because they all like fucking with evolution and anyway, now that he’s buddies with the Eternals, do you mind doing him a favor and mapping the Silver Surfer’s DNA for the good of all mankind?

I assume because the Eternals had committed to trying to improve humanity in the Eternals book, they agree.

When the Silver Surfer arrived on Earth, the Super-Skrull popped into existence due to stuff that had earlier happened in Surfer’s book. The Super-Skrull is a fighty bastard so he starts fighting Silver Surfer but then both get caught by the Eternals.

They ask the Silver Surfer if he’ll voluntarily let his DNA be mapped but he has a big

to say to that.

So they just decide to force him. And fuck it. The High Evolutionary didn’t ask them to DNA scan the Super-Skrull but might as well do him too.

Super-Skrull learns that all Skrulls have lost their shape-shifting and that the Skrull empire has broken up into squabbling factions AND that the Skrull/Kree War is heating up again and feels despair. But Silver Surfer convinces him that they can work together to escape the DNA scan so that Super-Skrull can go back to his people because he still has his shapeshifting and maybe that can be used to fix everyone else’s.

They break free, there’s a fight scene, and Silver Surfer helps Super-Skrull escape by holding back the Eternals.

Then he convinces the Eternals to leave him the fuck alone and flies off to investigate what the hell the High Evolutionary is up to.

We don’t learn much more about that ourselves. The High Evolutionary claims that he’s studied all the peoples on Earth (humans, Eternal, deviants) but that he wants to study humanoids too. But makes it specifically about the Silver Surfer.

Does he want the Evolutionary War to make it so all humans possess the Power Cosmic? Who can say at this point.

Moving along.

New Mutants Annual #4: MIND GAMES

The New Mutants!

They are Mutants who are newer than the old mutants but not to be confused with the New X-Men who were newer than the original X-Men.

While the New Mutants studied and trained at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, their teacher was Magneto. Sort of the grand result of Claremont’s redemption arc of Magneto, where he took over for Xavier when Xavier had to go to space and be with his space girlfriend. At least until editorial pressure had Magneto turn supervillian again. But we’re not there yet! Although we’re nearly there because it happens after Inferno!

(Well it was editorial pressure and also the fact that the New Mutants were lemmings who were mad Magneto wouldn’t let them endanger themselves so snuck out under his nose and endangered themselves, and got mad at Magneto when they died of it. The New Mutants drove him back to supervillainy. Its quite sad.)

BUT WE’RE BEFORE THAT!

In this issue, the New Mutants sneak out under his nose and endanger themselves after he directly tells them not to, that he’ll handle the situation.

Anyway, we’re introduced to a new part of the High Evolutionary’s weird, evolution-based plan.

A group of his Purifiers are focused not on sterilizing Moloids but on the removal of dangerous mutant powers.

The High Evolutionary: “Those powers that will endanger the survival of the human race must be removed... if my great plan for humanity’s advancement is to succeed.”

The Purifiers track down and capture a pair of mutants named Glow Worm and Bulk because they’re highly radioactive and that just won’t do.

The High Evolutionary hopes that they survive the depowering process but he’s not going to not have it done. And indeed, removing their powers doesn’t remove the radiation they already have. So now they’re dying of radiation.

One of the Purifiers points out that this is a much worse death than just shooting them would have been. WHICH HE’S FINE WITH. He just wanted to point it out. But the High Evolutionary avoids killing wantonly. Supposedly.

Depowering dangerous mutants becomes the New Mutant’s problems when the Purifiers capture their ex-teammate Amara Aquilla aka Magma from Nova Roma (a secret roman colony in the Amazon unless its not. It goes back and forth.)

Magma’s powers to cause earthquakes and volcanoes and inability to control it perfectly bring her to the Purifiers attention.

The Hellfire Club and Magneto plan to go handle it but the New Mutants decide pssh those adults aren’t shit. Lets go endanger ourselves.

The New Mutants do save Magma from the depowering machine but then Moonstar gets thrown into the machine instead and almost dies but Glow Worm and Bulk turn the switch the other way and make Moonstar’s powers even more powerful instead.

The depowering machine gets smashed and Illyana winds up teleporting the entire group of Purifiers to very demon infested Limbo so the Purifiers won’t narc on them when Magneto and co show up late to the party.

The ones that the kids didn’t send to hell get teleported to safety by the High Evolutionary as he did in the X-Factor Annual.

And now,

Amazing Spider-Man Annual #22: DRUG WAR RAGES

Holy shit, Speedball was introduced in Evolutionary War?

Spider-Man annuals are always introducing new characters to try to give them a little boost out the door so its good to see that not even being roped into a big event will stop that.

Spider-Man is Spider-Man. If it helps, Peter and MJ are married. The Webs book of Peter’s Spider-Man photography comes out. Venom was only recently introduced. Spider-Man!

We actually have some influence from another annual in this event. The big linked story is actually acting like a linked story! Wild, I know.

Specifically, though, follow-up on the Punisher Annual. Between the Punisher and the High Evolutionary’s Eliminators, the supply of drugs from Bogota has been cut off, causing a drug war in New York.

Spider-Man beats up a warehouse full of drug dealers but when he leaves them webbed up, they’re sitting ducks for a rival gang and it looks like Spider-Man was involved in the murders.

But it wouldn’t be Evolutionary War if Spider-Man was just being impacted secondhand. The High Evolutionary’s Purifiers have also come to New York and are going around shooting drug dealers because the High Evolutionary’s goals still require saying no to drugs.

But that’s not all they’re up to. Under the High Evolutionary’s orders, the Purifiers in New York are planning Operation: Big Sleep. Where they’ll send out a sleepy signal from the Empire State Building and then sterilize anyone with “unacceptable DNA patterns” by morning.

Eugenics!

Speedball learns about this and is forced into action when the police assume his anonymous tip is malarky.

And Kingpin captures and interrogates a Purifier and has the information leaked to Spider-Man and Daredevil who are trying to clear Spider-Man’s name.

The Purifiers have nothing to do with the one drug gang wiping out the other one and inadvertently implicating Spider-Man. Kingpin just directed their attentions because he was annoyed that the Purifiers had killed some of his goons. But he does at least help clear Spider-Man’s name by forcing the actual killer to confess to the cops.

Mighty kind of Kingpin.

But that’s it! The Purifiers come to New York and Spider-Man and Daredevil beat them up for unrelated reasons!

One has to wonder if the High Evolutionary is pulling an Operation: Big Sleep on every city. Eugenics.

Fantastic Four Annual #21: Crystal Blue Persuasion!

Its Fantastic Four! Also, Inhumans! Also, Evolutionary War is squeezed in there somewhere.

So, the Fantastic Four isn’t quite in its usual status quo. Sue and Reed quit the team to pay more attention to Franklin. This won’t last long but it is the thought that counts.

Sharon Ventura, Ms Marvel, got exposed to cosmic rays and turned into a She-Thing and the Thing-Thing got exposed to more cosmic rays and turned into a pinecone. They’re dating and Ben is leading the team with Reed gone.

Johnny Storm Human Torch is married to Alicia Masters, who is unbeknownst to him actually a Skrull. There’s tension because Crystal Inhumans is the four in Fantastic Four and Johnny still has feelings for her.

Crystal is separated from her douchebag husband Quicksilver on account of him going all murdery but hasn’t been allowed to get a divorce because Inhuman society is pretty socially conservative.

So there’s a lot going on with the FF and the Evolutionary War is just another thing on the table that they don’t really notice because of everything else going on.

What happens is that Quicksilver has gone back to the Moon, depowered because of what happened in West Coast Avengers. He’s claimed he’s all sane now and that he was only evil because Maximus.

I have no idea if this is true or not but Quicksilver has a habit of claiming that whenever he pulls a dick move its because he’s being mind-controlled or identity thefted by a Skrull.

Since Quicksilver is a Good Boy again, the Inhuman Royal family come and try to kidnap Crystal and force her to get back together with her estranged husband. It becomes a big ol’ fight against the Fantastic Four.

But the Inhumans and Fantastic Four team up when Evolutionary War actually happens in this Evolutionary War tie-in.

The High Evolutionary brings a group of his Gatherers and Eliminators to the Moon and tasks them with obtaining a sample of the Terrigen Mist.

Instead of telling them to pull off a stealthy heist, he sends them to attack Attilan head-on and terrorize the populace.

I have no idea why when the High Evolutionary has had his people acting less blatantly before but that’s what is necessary to make this plot work.

Quicksilver leads the Inhuman militia in resistance and when the royal family and Fantastic Four show up, the tides turn and the armored men flee to the High Evolutionary who teleports them all away.

In the end, Crystal decides to stay on the Moon because Black Bolt writes the word family and because she has belatedly realized she’s making things difficult for Johnny.

There’s something involving some Watchers who know the High Evolutionary’s plans but being forbidden to comment on them when he asks for feedback or tell the Inhumans or Fantastic Four what is even going on.

Not much on the Evolutionary War side of things but Fantastic Four fans were probably relieved it didn’t much interrupt all the soap opera-y plot threads going on.

Moving right along.

X-Men Annual #12: Resurrection!

So, X-Men!

X-Men is complicated. We’re in the Australia-era. We’ve got a weird team and a weird situation. The X-Men died and then undied but let everyone think they were dead, especially their loved ones. They moved to Australia and took over a Reaver base (angry murder cyborgs that hate Wolverine specifically and mutants generally) and the old, Aborigine man that teleports them places but isn’t much for conversation.

The team is Storm, Wolverine, Rogue, Longshot, Dazzler, Colossus, Psylocke, Havok, and also Cyclops’ abandoned wife Madelyne Pryor who hangs around to be mission control.

Storm suddenly takes off to the Savage Land and the X-Men get Gateway to teleport them after her.

The X-Men discover that the vibrant, weird Savage Land and all the weird inhabitants are gone, scorched off the face of Antarctica. This happened in Avengers #257 and I thought it was a dumb plot decision.

The X-Men also find Terminus (despite the Avengers having killed him) fighting the High Evolutionary who had come to Antarctica to restore the Savage Land.

The X-Men bury Terminus in a landslide and then split up to investigate. Havok goes with the High Evolutionary, Psylocke and Rogue stay to psychically scan Terminus, and Longshot and then the rest trip into a hidden pocket dimension to discover that the Fall People are actually still alive.

Neat!

While Havok is given a tour of the High Evolutionary’s Savage Land HQ. When Havok is impressed by a flying vehicle, the Evolutionary explains a bit of what makes him tick.

High Evolutionary: “So was I, once. In those days, I tinkered with machines, tuning cars and bikes to their utmost peak of performance... and then putting them to the ultimate test. But no matter how good the vehicle... I was always limited by the body’s ability to control it. So it seemed a perfectly logical, natural step from the technological machine... to the biological one. To improve theo ne, I had to improve the other. How simple that equation seemed. How little I understood the consequences of such ambition. You see, with my mechanical experiments, mine was the only life at risk. Playing with life affects innocent lives. And too often, destroys them. Easy to tell yourself, the end justifies the means. Impossible to believe, though, when you look into the eyes of those who suffer as a result. Better to think, instead, of those who will benefit.”

The High Evolutionary also has the Savage Land mutates working for him so they also survived.

He explains to Havok that he has everything he needs to restore the Savage Land except “a living being -- preferably a mutant -- whose primal nature is in sync with the land’s.”

Terminus climbs out from under the rocks eventually and the X-Men and the Fall People attack. Rogue eventually borrows Longshot’s powers and blows a hole in Terminus to reveal Garokk, the Petrified Man.

They pry Garokk out and the Terminus armor crumbles.

The High Evolutionary reveals that the armor was controlling Garokk somehow and that the previous Terminus that destroyed the Savage Land was also a fake, suggesting that the real one will come back someday.

He does. I have no idea why people keep bringing Terminus back. He’s budget store Galactus. But he does come back. And Captain Universe!Spider-Man and Quasar yeeted him into space. Worth bringing him back for that??

Anyway, the High Evolutionary also announces that Garokk is the guy he can use to bring back the Savage Land and Garokk agrees to the sacrifice.

Hooray, Savage Land and its dinosaurs are back! At least one good thing came of Evolutionary War!

(Ka-Zar, Shanna the She-Devil, and their son immediately show up to claim to be in charge again. Damn, dudes.)

Wolverine also mutters that he senses that the High Evolutionary is up to no good but since he’s not doing anything dickish in this annual, Wolverine doesn’t start any beef.

Zaladane and the mutants seem to think that the Evolutionary War will end with them ruling the world. But the High Evolutionary is just using them and doesn’t like them very much.

Also, the X-Men mindwipe all the Fall People because they’re doing the thing where nobody can know they’re alive, not even people who live in the middle of Antarctica and especially not their own loved ones.

So, a more meaty entry in the Evolutionary War because the High Evolutionary actually shows up and accomplishes a thing he wants to accomplish. And we get some worldview.

Web of Spider-Man Annual #4: Sweet Poison!

Okay, I’m starting to see a problem with annual-based events. Sure, you can have different bits of the story for X-Men, X-Factor, and the New Mutants. Or East Coast and West Coast Avengers. They’re different teams so they can interact with different parts of the event.

But there’s three Spider-Man books so he’s really going to have three different parts in Evolutionary War?

Something similar happened with DC’s Armageddon 2001. Waverider kept returning to visit Superman and seeing a different alternate future every time. Which kind of undermined the whole point of the event but not more so than when DC changed the entire ending.

The Web of Spider-Man status quo? God, I don’t know. Why does Spider-Man need three books? That’s ridiculous. My guess is that he’s been Spider-Manning. Just Spider-Manning his little heart out!

There’s actually a lot going on here. Let me try to be brief about it.

WE’RE STILL IN THE DRUG SUBPLOT.

There may be more of this plot than any other part of Evolutionary War.

Peter Parker, Spider-Man is in Miami on a book tour to promote his WEBS photo book. But he can’t help but poke his nose in when he sees a drug dealer get beaten up by  people from the Slug’s gang because drug dealer Santo has drugs to sell despite the supply line being cut from Bogota.

Spider-Man saves him and then gets the location of his drug stockpile and evidence of a Latverian arms deal for some damn reason.

The High Evolutionary’s Purifiers are also in Miami and still on their usual shit and one of them sterilizes Santo because the High Evolutionary doesn’t want people who sell drugs to pass on their genes.

Eugenics.

These are nicer Purifiers than the ones in New York who were just murdering drug related criminals.

The High Evolutionary also sends some of the Purifiers to the Everglades to seal up the Nexus of All Realities. He’s worried about genetic pollutants leaking into the world from other realities.

Maybe he’s right to fret about that because a local woman, Cecilia Cardinale, is possessed by an alien named Ylandris who gives her the power to kill people by glaring at them. And she attacks the Purifiers in Miami and then flies out into the swamp to keep killing them.

The Slug’s men also go out into the swamp and try to get the drug stockpile and the Purifiers go out there to destroy the drugs and the gangsters and Spider-Man since he happened to be there.

The seal on the Nexus fails and Ylandris is able to flee home and Spider-Man webs up any of the gangsters or Purifiers that hadn’t killed each other or gotten killed by normal-sized Man-Thing.

So the Purifiers up to their old tricks still and the High Evolutionary trying to prevent cross-dimensional genetic contamination of whatever his end goal is.

Next, and finally some Essential Avengers in this Evolutionary War.

West Coast Avengers Annual #3: "Heads You Lose -- ! Tails You Win!”

Are you guys really bringing your divorce into this event? Geez, let it drop for like ten minutes.

Also, hi, Bill Foster. Hi, T’Challa.

Hi, Evolution the Living Planet?

Anyway, this is Avengers. We like the Avengers here. We usually like the Avengers here. It hasn’t been great lately. But Avengers is what we’re about. So this story actually gets covered in-depth.

Last time in West Coast Avengers: due to cowboy manslaughter and lying about cowboy manslaughter, Hawkeye and Mockingbird have split up. And caused the team to split up.

Mockingbird took Tigra and Moon Knight who both agreed that maybe murder is okay sometimes. They decided to go check out the South Pole due to a Master Pandemonium sighting. Wonder Man stayed with Hawkeye. Hank Pym quit for first wife reasons. And Scarlet Witch, Vision, and Mantis joined.

Last time in Evolutionary War: scroll up. C’mon.

So another wrinkle to the High Evolutionary’s big vague plan.

All the Gatherers and Purifiers and Eliminators? Are not people he hired who are really into eugenics. They’re New Men that he made. Probably in a lab.

But he couldn’t make people for everything so he has a bunch of technicians working for him that had to be recruited for their obscure specializations.

To build a bomb.

Dammit, Bill Foster!

But the bomb is missing one vital component. The High Evolutionary needs Wakandan vibranium so sends his Gatherers.

Despite my dammit, Bill doesn’t like what’s going on and secrets a tiny capsule into the armor of one of the Gatherers he’s apparently on name basis with.

The High Beyonder, meanwhile, goes on a walk and a bit of a motive rant.

We finally get to learn why he’s in such a big hurry when he’s been casually doing his own thing for decades now.

So, the Fantastic Four discovered that the Beyonders signed their name to the Savage Land. And that’s made the High Evolutionary all paranoid and anxious because the Beyonders stole Counter-Earth and put it in a museum. He’s worried because the Fantastic Four are actively seeking out the Beyonders and that might prompt them to do Something.

Reasonable worry. The Beyonders suuuuuck.

Anyway. The Gatherers arrive in Wakanda. And are immediately detected and confronted by Black Panther and his army.

When one scoffs at “savages with spears”, T’Challa kicks him in the face.

There’s a fight, fight, fight. The Wakandans activate the Black Panther’s THROB.

Which. Is. Apparently. A Trans-Human RObot.

And it absorbs attacks and punches back harder.

Anyway, the Gatherers get their asses kicked. They expect to be teleported to safety, as we’ve seen in previous installments of Evolutionary War. But Black Panther detected them when they teleported in and has set up preventative measures that stop them from escaping the same way.

Black Panther has the Gatherers searched for clues and finds the capsule Bill Foster hid. Which contains a note saying: “SOS! The world is in danger, from a base 72S, 65W! Contact Dr. Henry Pym in Los Angeles! - Dr William Foster”

So T’Challa is like, hey, sure! And contacts the (West Coast) Avengers.

Except when Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Vision, Wonder Man, and Mantis show up, they have to inform T’Challa that Hank.... isn’t quite or at all with the team right now.

T’Challa then asks hey why isn’t your wife with the team right now?

Hawkeye: “... Ssst...! I didn’t think I could slide it past you, T’Challa! Mock an’ I have split up! She’s out of my life an’ out of my team! Tigra an’ the Moon Knight, too!”

Black Panther: “Out -- ? But -- where -- ?”

Hawkeye: “I dunno! I don’t wanna know! We all made our decisions, and it’s done with now!”

T’Challa last saw Hawkeye for that David Letterman thing and he was newly married there so that adds some context for how surprised he is.

Also, I dunno what’s going on here. I’m like 90% sure that some dialogue Mantis is supposed to be having was erased.

Englehart will complain about editorial interference in his book and this is probably some of it.

It’s so blatant though! She gets a close-up where she’s clearly talking and nothing is coming out!

Anyway. T’Challa shares the note from Bill Foster and since its been like six years since he was an active superhero, that means its time for exposition.

Bill Foster was Hank Pym’s lab assistant. Unaddressed here so I’m going to bring it up: he was introduced and immediately got hate crimed by the not-KKK Sons of the Serpent. This made Hank Pym decide to destroy the not-KKK which involved pretending to support them, which made Bill Foster quit but he came back when Hank did, in fact, destroy them. Also, the not-KKK was a foreign psyop to cause strife in America because fuck comics are like that sometimes (derogatory).

Anyway, Bill Foster eventually managed to duplicate Hank’s growth serum and dubbed himself Black Goliath because black characters had to remind you they’re black or else you might not realize they’re black. He also had a belly window in his costume because. I don’t know why but belly windows or plunging necklines were just common for black characters.

T’Challa got away with a full coverage costume but that’s so it wasn’t obvious he was black, so as not to offend Southern states. In fact, T’Challa’s mask originally was supposed to show his mouth but it was inked over.

Comics!

So Bill Foster was a size changing hero. He immediately got cancer in his first ever adventure after running into a guy called Atom Smasher.

Bill Foster has no kind of luck. Did you know that he died in Civil War and is still dead? How fucked up is that.

Bill’s cancer was eventually treated with a blood transfusion from Spider-Woman who is apparently immune to poisons and I guess cancer counts? Whatever. Point being, he wasn’t dying but he couldn’t size-shift anymore because of the strain on his body.

Taking after Hank there, a little.

Hawkeye decides to use Black Panther inviting them to Wakanda to try to get him to sign up with the West Coast Avengers but Black Panther says now is not the time because he’s worried about the attempted vibranium theft.

And the panther totem alarm raises in alarm of yet more intruders, this time in the technological jungle.

So the High Evolutionary has the Gatherers, the Purifiers, the Eliminators, and also this quirky miniboss squad, the Sensors.

Who are, reasonably enough, themed after human senses. Sight, Touch, Sound, Smell, Taste, and Intuition.

What? No Proprioception? Git gud, the High Evolutionary.

Anyway, this group is so dumb I kind of love it. And tragically, this seems to be their only appearance. I’d love if they got out into the wild and just showed up as a goofy theme group of jobbers.

I want Spider-Man to fight them. He’d have a field day fighting someone called Smell or Taste.

Anyway.

Black Panther gets pinned down by Sound. Because sonics are just a weakness of his. That’s why Klaw is his nemesis. That and the whole dad killing thing. But mostly because T’Challa is sensitive to loud noises.

Scarlet Witch goes to fight Smell but finds herself having trouble.

Scarlet Witch: “I’m throwing hexes, but I can’t pinpoint her inside that cloud of stench!”

This is so god damn stupid =D

Sight is basically Budget Cyclops. Every photon that hits his eyes gets channeled into laser beams that blast out of his helmet antlers. Helmet prongs. Whatever you call those things.

Vision decides to get into a laser staring contest with Sight.

Which is fucking stupid. Vision fires Solar Beam. Which just powers up Sight who shoots lasers. Which Vision absorbs through his head gem to power his Solar Beam. They’re stalemated.

Wonder Man fights Touch. And I guess Touch is interpreted as meaning punches. Because she punches him.

Hawkeye fights Taste and... aw c’mon, you’re not even trying with the theme! His power is that his fingers shoot acid. That has nothing to do with tasting! He should be Touch and have a deadly touch! Do I have to do all the work for you?

Annyway, Hawkeye has one of those fights where he keeps shooting arrows and the opponent just keeps blasting the arrows before they can strike. And it takes him forever to think of doing something different.

Finally, Mantis is fighting Intuition. Who has mind reading abilities to anticipate what she’s going to do before she does it. Mantis is surprised that Intuition manages to dodge a blow because “only three have ever accomplished that!”

If I go back and read all the comics with you in them and find that more than three people have dodged an attack by you, I’m going to be very disappointed.

But also I’m not going to do that. I’m way too busy with Evolutionary War.

Okay, so we have a bunch of Avengers stymied against a bunch of opponents who counter their powers.

It’s time for a TRADE PLACES! Sorta.

Scarlet Witch has been trying to hex Smell through the stink cloud the whole time and finally goes fuck that. She instead magic(k)s the stink cloud and moves it to cover Sight, blocking him from absorbing any light.

So without lasers, Vision just punches him in the fucking head. Then he uses his eye lasers (which I’m pretty sure he’s not supposed to have, didn’t mention that earlier) to knock out Smell.

And forget about trade places, the other three West Coast Avengers just. Try harder. Than they were.

C’mon. Either trade places or don’t. Don’t tease me with it.

Wonder Man actually tries fighting back against Touch. He’d been letting her beat the shit out of him because Girl. As soon as he tries, he knocks her the fuck out.

Hawkeye finally thinks to do something other than fire arrows directly at this guy to be melted. Good ol’ boomerang arrow. Fire it wide so the guy dismisses it as no threat and then let it circle back and bonk him in the back of the head.

And Mantis goes into a meditative trance in which she empties her mind. Then, acting subconsciously, she chops Intuition in the throat.

... I’m fairly certain she’s dead now. That looked like a pretty solid hit.

As for Black Panther and Sound... Black Panther lures Sound onto the vibranium mound. And because of vibranium’s property of absorbing vibrations, it dampens the sonics Sound has been blasting at Black Panther.

But it turns out the whole thing was a double bluff.

Smell claimed that the Sensors were the ones who were really meant to obtain the vibranium. The Gatherers were only a distraction. But, welp, turns out that the Sensors were also distraction.

While T’Challa is distracted being smug about his victory over Sound and how the guy didn’t understand that you could set off an explosion on the vibranium mound and not hear or feel it... an agent of the High Evolutionary called Foks (clever like a) teleports in, blasts a big chunk of vibranium loose, and then teleports off with it.

With the threat seemingly ended?? the West Coast Avengers decide to go investigate the base that Bill Foster’s note mentioned. Black Panther decides not to go with them because he’s feeling a sense of trepidation. Like the whole world is under threat or something...

(Wouldn’t that be a good reason to go?)

But when the West Coast Avengers arrive they find two surprises.

One, the Savage Land is green and thriving the way it used to be, despite the report from the East Coast Avengers that Terminus had fucked it.

The West Coast Avengers haven’t read the X-Men Annual yet.

But two, there’s a big fucking hole in the ground at the coordinates Bill provided.

Wonder Man: “What could have happened, Hawk?”

Hawkeye: “Beats me, Simon! But whatever it was -- did we get here too late to save the world -- ?”

And to answer that, lets get into the second half of the Annual.

Because Mockingbird’s group have their own part to play. Remember how they were on the cover?

Also remember how they were going to go investigate a Master Pandemonium sighting at the South Pole?

Well, they also show up in Antarctica to get surprised that the Savage Land is back. But they arrive earlier because they didn’t get called to Wakanda.

(Also, they apparently stole a Quinjet. Mockingbird is just taking more and more in this divorce.)

When they land, they’re met by Ka-Zar. You might remember that Mockingbird has a lot of history with Ka-Zar. If you don’t, I’m reminding you that Mockingbird has a lot of personal history with Ka-Zar.

He summarizes the X-Men Annual for Mockingbird’s Notvengers. Except the part where the X-Men were involved because the X-Men mind-wiped everyone. Like dicks.

Point being, he tells them that the High Evolutionary is a cool guy that restored the Savage Land.

And also, Ka-Zar moved back to the Savage Land with his wife and baby son now that the place doesn’t suck anymore.

Bobbi gets to be catty about Ka-Zar and Shanna’s marriage going well. Its a pleasant visit until Bobbi drops the ‘by the way, my marriage has fallen apart but congrats on the happy family’ right before walking out.

And then she bemoans to her teammates “I don’t believe it! Kazar and Shanna are having babies while I’m on my way to divorce court?”

But anyway. Plot.

The Notvengers decide to investigate the High Evolutionary’s citadel. Even though he was cool enough to restore the Savage Land and Ka-Zar says he hasn’t done anything wrong that he knows about. The team decides to at least pay a courtesy call to find out what the guy’s about.

And because they have no cause to just kick the door down and get confrontational, they knock and ask to see the High Evolutionary please.

Foks, the guy that’s probably a fox (Tigra even says he smells like a fox) lets them in because the High Evolutionary has been expecting someone to eventually show up.

Bill Foster sees Mockingbird, Tigra, and Moon Knight from the lab floor. He figures that they got his message so he excuses himself to get a drink of water so he can make his own preparations.

When the Notvengers speak with him, the High Evolutionary doesn’t even try to play innocent.

Mockingbird: “We came to find out what you’re doing here!”

The High Evolutionary: “Certainly, Mockingbird! I’m building a bomb which, when detonated, will mutate everyone on Earth!”

Okay! So that answers WHAT he’s up to!

This annuals centric event isn’t paced very well. West Coast Avengers Annual #3 is the third from last part of the event. Out of eleven.

I guess it could have been revealed in the Fantastic Four Annual instead of Evolutionary War being an afterthought to everything else the FF were dealing with. But then... if its revealed to them, they’d want to address it. And that’s not how this thing is structured.

It’s just hard to tell a single story this way.

Anyway.

The Notvengers vow to stop him and the High Evolutionary is like, well, no. And just gases them.

Moon Knight is able to keep fighting after Tigra and Mockingbird almost immediately pass out because Khonshu is in the driver’s seat and can push the meat body to its breaking point.

He hurls some random bullshit at the High Evolutionary. It bounces harmlessly off his shields but still startles him.

So he calls in some guards that tangle with Moon Knight until he can’t hold his breath any longer, sucks in some gas, and passes out.

The High Evolutionary is intrigued that Moon Knight was able to go so long without air but he doesn’t have time for that right now.

His Wakanda operation, seen in the first half of this book, is in progress and requires him to be ready to take action. Coordinating Foks’ teleport to the vibranium mound, perhaps.

So he has the Notvengers thrown into... THE MAZE.

Outside the High Evolutionary’s throne room? Audience chamber? Whatever? Bill Foster was eavesdropping on the confrontation.

So he knows that the Notvengers weren’t here to rescue him but they’re his best bet so he’s got to rescue them.

Mockingbird wakes up in... THE MAZE. Which is a maze. Filled with robots. And traps.

Despite needing his full attention on the Wakanda operation, the High Evolutionary is also watching the Notvengers in the maze.

Maybe he finished with Wakanda while everyone was passed out?

Anyway. He’s impressed with how Mockingbird is acquitting herself.

The High Evolutionary: “Quite resourceful -- and dangerous -- I wonder if she’ll be the one of the three to escape my maze first  -- and earn the right to become the guinea pig for my evolutionary formula -- !”

Okay, so. He’s building a bomb that will force mutate humanity into a ‘more evolved form.’

But I’m guess he also planned on superhero interference and planned to select one of the superheroes to base the mutagenic compound in the bomb on?

And he has such shitty luck that he wound up with the Notvengers?

No offense but if you’re going to mutate humanity you can do better than Mockingbird, Moon Knight, and Tigra.

Although, turning everyone into catpeople. That’d get back to his furry making roots.

And to answer my own question, no, the Wakanda operation isn’t done.

Foks runs in and informs the High Evolutionary that the Sensors have run into trouble because the West Coast Avengers are helping Black Panther in Wakanda.

The High Evolutionary confirms that the Sensors were a double bluff to let him get information on Wakanda’s defenses around the vibranium mound and that he’ll teleport Foks in to get the actual task done when the time comes.

Meanwhile, in... THE MAZE, Tigra also is doing well fighting the robots and such. But she smells Moon Knight, OH YEAHs through a wall with her claws, finds him after he also broke a robot, and starts making out with him a lot. Through his mask.

Elsewhere meanwhile, Bill Foster tries to sneak into... THE MAZE area but runs into some guards that point out that he’s not supposed to be here.

He tries to claim he’s just using the little scientist’s room but since they plan to report him for being out of his designated area, he says nuts and punches them a lot.

Back with Mockingbird, she almost falls into a spiky pit trap but manages to pole vault herself to safety.

Relative safety.

She runs into the High Evolutionary.

He tries to congratulate her on getting to the finish line first because Tigra and Moon Knight were too busy making out but she smoothly transitions right into violence.

The High Evolutionary is super-duper cosmically powerful of course so he’s capable of some tricks. Like psychokinesis. Shooting MIND LASERS. And getting kicked in the face.

But after she’s knocked him down and is going to... kill him? Knock him out? One or the other.

He just decides no. We’re not doing that.

And he grows into a Giant-Sized High Evolutionary.

While Giant-Sized High Evolutionary berates Mockingbird for getting ahead of herself, Bill Foster has found them.

And seeing a Giant-Sized High Evolutionary reminds Bill of the serum he’s prepared. A Giant Man serum.

AND IT WORKS!

He can now tell the High Evolutionary to fight someone his own size!

And as the new Giant Man slams the High Evolutionary around the scenery, he explains.

Because of the cancer, he’d kinda sorta but not really lost his powers. Its complicated. I thought that the transfusion from Spider-Woman had cured the cancer but whatever.

Bill Foster was scouted for the High Evolutionary’s project. He didn’t realize he was a captive until he got here. But he signed up in the first place because A) he didn’t know that the High Evolutionary was going to build a bomb to mutate the world and B) he realized that with the technology available for a genetic project that the High Evolutionary was running, he (Bill Foster) could develop a serum to strengthen his body so he could stay giant-sized Giant-Man.

Since Pym size shifting takes mass from the mass dimension, if Bill stays big long enough, the pure mass from the mass dimension will cleanse the tainted cancer mass.

Sure! That sounds plausibly, maybe!

The High Evolutionary isn’t feeling this fight. Like, he doesn’t like fighting. And Bill’s big giant-sized brain is giving him resistance to the High Evolutionary’s psychic powers.

Plus, he likes the cut of Bill’s jib. He’s evolving and improving himself, just like the High Evolutionary wants to do to everyone!

(I think maybe the High Evolutionary doesn’t actually know what evolution is.)

But Foks reports that he’s retrieved the vibranium and the High Evolutionary goes ‘oh shit right my masterplan.’ Rather than deal with the headache of trying to deal with all the superheroes now running loose around his headquarters, he just decides to fuck off and complete the bomb elsewhere.

The High Evolutionary: “Good luck with your evolution, Giant-Man! It will stand you in good stead in the world to come! We shall NOT meet again!”

What a polite guy.

He flies through the ceiling. Bill realizes that the cliche in this situation is that the High Evolutionary will blow up his old base to conceal any clues to where he’s going.

So he rips open... THE MAZE to free Moon Knight and Tigra and then hustles everyone out of the building.

And yup. As soon as the High Evolutionary’s ship takes off, his Savage Land base explodes.

Giant-Bill wonders whether the Notvengers really showed up without his note and Mockingbird says yes. But they don’t have time for that right now, they need to warn everyone about the High Evolutionary’s Evolution Bomb full of Evolution Formula!

So they all pile into the Quinjet Mockingbird stole and take off. Shortly before the West Coast Avengers arrived from Wakanda, find the giant hole in the ground that was the High Evolutionary’s base, and wonder what the fuck happened.

Good times.

Now we move to the penultimate part of Evolutionary War YET ANOTHER SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL FOR FUCKS SAKE.

What more do you have to contribute, Peter??

Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #8: RETURN TO SENDER

"Oh, no! Not again! GWEN STACY is back!”

Yeah, we’re all sick of it too, Pete.

Again, I don’t know what distinguishes Spectacular Spider-Man from Amazing or Web of. But I bet Spider-Man spider-mans the hell out of this book.

Anyway. Evolutionary War.

Spider-Man is interrupted from musing about adopting a stray cat by a pair of the High Evolutionary’s Purifiers flying around in a UFO shooting at a random woman. But as you can guess from the cover, it’s not a random woman, it’s Gwen Stacy. Clone Gwen. Stacy.

Peter freaks out when he sees her but she freaks out worse, running away.

She later swings by his apartment but freaks out again when she sees Peter’s spider-costume (she knows he’s Spider-Man but Spider-Man still freaks her out). She runs off and with MJ’s sorta blessing, Spider-Man swings out after her.

She gets captured by the Purifiers and teleported to the High Evolutionary’s base, with Spider-Man in tow.

So now I have to backtrack a bit. While the Purifiers were making their second attempt to track down Clone Gwen, the High Evolutionary was making a quick visit to the Young Gods.

I don’t really want to explain them in depth because they’re both complicated and irrelevant.

But when the Eternals book was cancelled, its plot threads were picked up and tied off by the Thor book. The Celestials’ judgement of Earth was resolved by Gaia giving the Celestials the twelve best people on Earth to get the Celestials to go away.

Out in space, the so-called Young Gods train to become new gods but we can’t capitalize that because of trademark reasons.

The High Evolutionary goes to check up on them because as the genetic bomb nears completion, he wants to know if the Young Gods are humanity’s genetic future.

After watching them train, the High Evolutionary concludes (verbally, right in front of them) that they’re intriguing but not the genetic destiny he’s looking for.

But the Young Gods got a really rank vibe by psychically scanning the High Evolutionary and half of them follow him back to Earth to try to stop his plans of evolutionary genocide.

So after Clone Gwen is captured and transported to the High Evolutionary’s base, she’s put in some scanning device.

Spider-Man tries to fight through all the Purifiers and half of the Young Gods show up to help. But the other half of the Young Gods show up to hinder. And someone from group 1 accidentally mind crushes someone from group 2 and the Young Gods conclude that they’re too inexperienced to be fucking around without knowing what they’re doing.

Meanwhile, Spider-Man manages to rip Clone Gwen out of the device and saving her has given him a kind of emotional closure and he finally accepts she’s not Gwen and that he loves someone else.

HE COULD NOT BE MORE RIGHT!

The High Evolutionary finally interjects saying hey I don’t come to your place and break your nice stuff. But also: that Gwen is not Gwen.

The High Evolutionary: “I asked myself, how could a mere university biology professor accomplish a technical miracle such as nearly instantaneous cloning? My study of this woman’s genetic structure, compared to that of Gwen Stacy, shows that he did not.”

This will later be retconned but at the time, this new reveal was because of the advancement of knowledge about cloning and desire to finally tie off the loose thread of the Gwen clone.

So AT THIS MOMENT, Miles Warren didn’t create any real clones. Not with his budget and access to technology.

Instead, he created a genetic virus that transformed a random woman Joyce Delaney into a copy of Gwen. Presumably false memories were also implanted.

THIS IS CLEARLY MUCH MORE FEASIBLE FOR MILES WARREN, UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR, TO HAVE ACCOMPLISHED.

Oh the trouble we run into when we strive to make old stories more plausible.

Anyway, the High Evolutionary is tired of their faces so he teleports them back to New York.

One of the Young Gods shows up and transforms Gwen back into the woman she was. Because she can do that. And Joyce just wanders off somewhere. Until she magically transforms back into a Gwen clone because another Clone Saga is ongoing.

But the important thing is that Peter got emotional closure and that the High Evolutionary... uh, I don’t know why he cared. He says its because she’s a genetic impossibility so I guess he just has strong feelings about cloning.

And the retcon of this retcon will reveal that he was so mad jelly over Miles Warren’s cool cloning skills that he made up that business about the genetic virus. A retcon retcon that will itself cause more problems because an entire new character had been created since this annual using that genetic virus thing as its basis.

BUT ANYWAY.

WE’RE FINALLY.

AT THE LAST PART.

Avengers Annual #17: PROMETHEUS MUTANS!

Hello, you beautiful cover. Nice to see you again.

This is the last part so bring us home, Walt Simonson.

We start strong because the start has Jocasta.

Hi, Jocasta!

People who I have to assume are the High Evolutionary men pug Jocasta back together with captions quoting Frankenstein for some fucking reason.

Jocasta activates and attacks the technicians repairing her. Then she runs to grab a phone but gets blasted by some guards.

Dangit. If this book brought Jocasta back just to kill her, I’mma be peeved.

Meanwhile elsewhere, the abandoned Hydrobase.

I canNOT get over the Avengers extensively rebuiding Hydrobase to be a headquarters and then disbanding like five minutes later. Fuckin’ Thor.

Inside the abandoned base, a computer kicks into action in response to Jocasta’s phone call because, yes, she was trying to contact the Avengers.

But there are no Avengers to contact. Thor disbanded the team after everyone quit, got injured, fell into a time hole, or became super-cursed.

So the computer automatically reaches out to reservists.

You may be able to guess who is going to respond, based on the cover.

It’s actually kind of interesting that this annual coming at a point where there’s no Avengers team meant that Simonson could go with anyone. Fucking Yellowjacket II is in there and she’s not even an Avenger!

The Captain America is the first to respond to the call.

Between Avengers #298 (also written by Simonson), the Captain has completely forgotten what Jarvis told him about the team disbanding. So he reacts like what the heck why isn’t anyone here?

He checks the computer to find out why it contacted him and it reports an unknown caller that was maybe possibly Jocasta called the Avengers and said “the genetic bomb” and “evolutionary.”

The Captain says it couldn’t be Jocasta because she blew up. She blew up a lot. But the computer isn’t designed to argue. Just to relay data.

Cap(tain) decides to wait for other reservists to respond so he can tell people that the whole thing is just a hoax.

And he doesn’t have long to wait before Sam Wilson, the Falcon, shows up.

The Falcon jokes that he thought Cap had quit the Avengers and asked if he’s backsliding.

Then Hercules shows up, in shiny new armor with a belly window showing off his abs.

Remember how Zeus forbade any Olympian from going to Earth to make his hair trigger temper everyone’s problem? Yeah, Hercules don’t give a shit what dad said. He stole one of his thunderbolts and used it to go to Earth to respond to the emergency call.

WHICH HE RECEIVED IN OLYMPUS SOMEHOW.

The Captain explains to Falcon and Hercules that the call was probably a hoax. Hercules is a bit put out that he risked his dad’s wrath for nothing but then a whole lot of Hulk (and Beast) walk through the door.

So Hulk faked his death and has been operating as a gray Hulk called Joe Fixit. Beast convinced him to respond to the emergency Avengers call and in exchange, the Avengers won’t tell anyone about Hulk being alive.

Also, Beast is blue again. Instead of human looking and getting dumber every time he super strengths. I have no idea what happened between the X-Factor Annual and the Avengers Annual.

(Checking the wiki, apparently some lady called Infectia kissed him and that made him blue and smart again.)

And there’s another person responding to the emergency call as Hercules suddenly yoinks Yellowjacket II out of the closet.

Hercules has a reason to be suspicious of her. The one and only time they met, she was a member of the Masters of Evil, the group that beat him into a coma.

But Yellowjacket II, Rita DeMara, explains that the Yellowjacket helmet she stole started buzzing and directing her to report to the Avengers. It basically annoyed her into showing up to a team-up because she couldn’t turn it off.

(Beast finds the off button and stops the alert in like two seconds. But now she’s stuck with the group because Hercules doesn’t trust her to be out of his sight. Because of the Masters of Evil thing. WHICH, Y’KNOW, FAIR.)

Presumably Cap still thinks this emergency alert isn’t worth responding to. But Beast does a bit of electronic razzle-dazzle to trace the call to an abandoned laboratory site on Long Island that once belonged to Stark Industries.

This ad-hoc Avengers group busts out a moth-balled Quinjet and heads to the site.

Hulk OH YEAHs through the wall of the lab to the surprise and very alarm of the High Evolutionary’s guys. One of them goes hoh shit lets shoot first ask questions NEVER this guy scary even though their orders are to scan everyone’s DNA structure before killing them. Because eugenics.

Joe Hulk tags this guy the one smart guy in a bunch of dummies.

After he MURDERS EVERYONE ELSE IN THE ROOM (to the alarm of the ad-hoc Avengers team) he presents the smart guy to the rest to interrogate.

(Supposedly. The guy’s design changes from one page to the next but Hulk says its the same guy.

And the guy is eager to talk. Probably because he just saw a big gray hulk murder everyone else in the room.

He explains that he’s one of the High Evolutionary’s Gatherers with the job to “collect information about the genetic structure of humanity.”

The High Evolutionary is worried that humanity’s evolutionary progress has been stymied by modern society so he’s going to put his finger on the scale.

After the Eliminators and Purifiers are done getting rid or sterilizing the ones the High Evolutionary doesn’t want in his new version of humanity, he’ll set off the genetic bomb and forcibly jump humanity ahead a million years.

Even though that’s not how evolution works.

And also, it looks like he’s going to turn humanity into furries. The man loves his furries.

The Captain criticizes this eugenics plan for being so eugenics when the Captain hates eugenics and also Nazis.

But then the man explodes.

See, he’s a zealot. A true believer. He only partially spilled the beans to buy time until his... suit? recharged enough to blow him up. The Pacific is a big place and time is short so they’ll definitely never find the High Evolutionary!

Joe Hulk mocks the rest of the ad-hoc Avengers as “airheads” after just standing by and letting the guy blow himself up after Joe had gone to the trouble of saving one dude to interrogate.

That’s fair.

Upside though? They rescued Jocasta.

So now a bunch of Jocasta loose ends can be resolved. The Captain tells her that when she ran away from the Avengers, it was before they could tell her they were going to ask her to stay on as a special status. And Jocasta is able to clear up how she’s not blown up. Kinda.

She guesses that the High Evolutionary’s Gatherers found her parts and put her back together using recovered plans. So that they could use her memories to gain first-hand information about the Avengers.

Her cybernetic senses would be more in-depth than public records.

Of course, the Avengers team that recently existed and the Avengers team Jocasta knew were significantly different. But also the Avengers disbanded so basically she was brought back online for no reason.

Womp womp.

I’m just glad she’s alive again.

Rather than searching the entire Pacific, which is very big, the Captain decides he’ll just go talk to the Deviants of Lemuria, figuring that if anyone has a secret science base in the Pacific, they’ll know about it.

I assume that the Captain doesn’t bother with Atlantis because he’s heard that Attuma is in charge and figures they won’t be helpful.

And he’s right about Atlantis not being helpful.

When the apparently submarine capable Quinjet reaches Lemuria, the Ad-Hoc Avengers find an Atlantean fleet attacking the Deviant city.

The Avengers split up. Joe Hulk and Hercules break into the Atlantean flagship and beat the shit out of everyone. Everyone else stays in the Submarine Quinjet and contact the Lemurians.

Kro, the Deviant who has cool sunglasses sometimes, tells the Avengers that the Atlanteans accused the Deviants of sending a sea monster to destroy Atlantis. Kro has no fucking idea what that’s about, but we do. Remember? Marrina? So this is all Dr Druid’s fault.

Fuckin’ Dr Druid.

Then a giant ship belonging to neither Atlantis or Lemuria shows up and blasts both fleets with too much pink energy.

Hulk and Hercules break the giant pink shooting cannon but afterwards, the Avengers realize the damage was done.

The Captain tells both groups that, duh, Lemuria didn’t send a sea monster at Atlantis. And that the people that leaked the misinformation to Atlantis probably did it to draw out both the Atlanteans and Lemurians in one spot.

Because... according to Beast’s analysis... that giant pink energy blast was a sterilizing beam. A big chunk of the mature populations of both Pacific civilizations have been sterilized.

HIGH EVOLUTIONARYYYYYYYYYY!

Attuma and Kro are pissed to learn that their balls just got blasted or however the sterilizing beam worked. They agree to not only team up with each other but to team up with the Ah-Hoc Avengers to track down and stop the High Evolutionary.

And holy ship, uh, I mean holy shit.

That’s a really big ship.

Where does the High Evolutionary get such a mighty vessel?

The backup backstory stories that have been in each part of Evolutionary War reveals that his Wundagore lab/spaceship took years to finish and needed a slave force of Moloids to construct.

The Avengers are quite impressed. And worried. Its just their small group and two armadas against that monster? Do they even have enough guys?

But there’s a bit of a ticking clock.

Falcon is able to determine that the High Evolutionary’s big ship is heading toward the Sunda Strait. And based on that, Beast and the Captain realize that the High Evolutionary is going to re-explode Mount Krakatoa to spread the Genetic Bomb all around the world.

And they don’t have time to launch a full attack. So they ask the Deviants and Atlanteans to launch a diversionary assault that has no chance of succeeding while the Avengers sneak aboard the vessel to disarm the Genetic Bomb.

Inside the behemoth, the High Evolutionary is putting the finishing touches on his Genetic Bomb. Even at this late stage, he and his technicians are still doing genome manipulation. Readying recombinant DNA.

The Evolutionary is less than pleased when he hears of the Deviant/Atlantean attack.

He tells his men to secure the sacred genetic chamber, put the bomb in stasis, gather the priests in the temple, and for everyone to report to battle stations.

Wait.

He has priests? He has a temple?

Why?

Anyway, the Ad-Hoc Avengers happened to infiltrate into the airlock closest to the temple that the High Evolutionary has for some reason. So they get to witness the evolution cult’s services.

Priest: “The Lord High Evolutionary has decreed that there is no danger from the attacking fleets. Our holy vessel has more than enough firepower to destroy our enemies. But our lord has said that the possibility exists that the real threat to our sacred mission may lie elsewhere. As we revere nature and the High Evolutionary, those who would hinder his great plan must be forestalled! All security patrols are to be doubled at once! And any intruders must be captured alive and brought to the sacred genetic chamber! Now go!”

The Captain and Beast muse about the specifics of the High Evolutionary having his own cult with animal-masked priests before an overheard comment reminds Beast that the High Evolutionary loves making furries.

Falcon has an idea, based on a leap in logic. Clearly, based on no evidence so far, the High Evolutionary’s human men (?) have no idea that their priests are animal people. If they reveal this thing that Falcon is just assuming is a secret, it could cause a civil war within the High Evolutionary’s own forces!

AND IT JUST SO HAPPENS THAT THE AVENGERS HAVE SOMEONE WHO CAN PASS FOR AN ANIMAL PRIEST.

So the Avengers mug some priests for their robes. Then set up a situation where a group of the High Evolutionary’s men overhear Beast talking to himself.

Priest Beast: “Ah, the jest is almost too rich! Little do the Purifiers and the others suspect the truth behind their priests. How wise of the High Evolutionary to place animals in charge of humans. I wish I could see the look on the faces of our human stooges when they finally learn that we do not wear animal masks in honor of nature... but show our visages openly! The New-Men will rule the new world once the Genetic Bomb has done its real work... and the animals shall have dominion over the Earth!”

Okay, so this works.

Captain America is going to trick a priest while dressed in the white uniform of the Gatherers by claiming that some of the other dudes are plotting treason against the High Evolutionary.

This goat priest will run out and get shot by a group of Gatherers. Said group will then start spreading out to shoot as many priests as they can.

So in terms of a distraction, the Avengers succeeded.

I feel like they’d be less enthused about it if it weren’t animal people getting shot but that’s comic morality.

But it leaves me wondering why the High Evolutionary set it up this way. And how all of this works anyway.

I wondered before how the High Evolutionary found armies of dudes who were super psyched to do some eugenics. One of the dudes in his employ even blew himself up rather than betray his boss.

The West Coast Avengers annual suggested that all of the High Evolutionary’s dudes were made by him. And, y’know, that made sense. The logistics of it were wack but it made sense that they’d all be loyal to him and super into his eugenics plans.

But the Avengers Annual, this book, has gone back to suggesting that the High Evolutionary just hired armies of men who are super into eugenics. One of the dudes that shot the goat priest mentioned having to do a physical examination when he was hired.

So the High Evolutionary found literal armies of men religiously devoted to eugenics. Its religious devotion because the middle managers between the High Evolutionary and the rank-and-file are literal priests.

Various Purifiers or Gatherers or Eliminators or whatevers have spoken in glowing terms about the beautiful future that the High Evolutionary is planning.

Where did he find these goons?

And why the fuck did he make furry priests in vats to middle manage them?

Why the fuck haven’t they shown up in any other part of the story? He’s just been ordering his forces around himself. There’s been no hint of a religious element to his organization.

Beast dressing as a furry priest to sow distrust in the ranks is funny but it raises so many questions!

Moving on.

While Beast, the Captain, and Jocasta go to investigate what secrets lie at the heart of the temple, the other Ad-Hoc Avengers search elsewhere.

Rita DeMara Yellowjacket immediately runs into trouble. Where trouble is all the guards. With guns that can sometimes detect her even tiny sized. And she doesn’t even want to be here. She only agreed to search to get away from Hercules who is still incredibly pissed off at her.

I’d feel sorry for her except I don’t. Haha, get dunked on, Rita DeMara.

Falcon is nicer than I am and saves her from the guards because “winged folks should stick together!”

Meanwhile, some of the rebelling Gatherer dinguses try to kill the High Evolutionary. It’s not really a big threat to him but psychically probing their minds clues him in on Beast impersonating a priest. And since the High Evolutionary knows he doesn’t have any blue-furred dudes, he realizes that the external attack was a ruse to hide an infiltration.

He orders the decks to be sealed to slow down the spread of the rebellion. And orders full fast ahead because the bomb is almost ready and he’s tired of these shenanigans.

The High Evolutionary’s great behemoth of a submarine base just NYOOMS past the attacking fleets, tossing them out of the way with turbulence or just smashing them against the bigger ship.

Also, capsizing some surface ships because of the huge wave created.

Man, Simonson’s Avengers has so much ship sinking.

The Captain, Beast, and Jocasta find the High Evolutionary’s furry lab at the center of the temple. You know, the lab where he makes his furries. His New Men.

Falcon and Yellowjacket show up and announce they found the bomb. Off-panel.

The Captain verbally plans for the Ad-Hoc Avengers to go regroup with Hercules and Hulk and destroy the bomb.

That way he’ll look stupid when the High Evolutionary immediately after teleports into the Genesis Chamber and calls Cap’s plan “insipid.”

Ouch.

Also, he says he’s going to kill them because he’s sick of their shit.

Jocasta tries to rush him but the High Evolutionary zaps her FTSZAPT! blowing off her limbs.

The Captain is like oh shit, the High Evolutionary is a heavy hitter. We need our heavy hitters.

And the High Evolutionary very kindly teleports Hulk and Hercules to the Genesis Chamber because hey, why not gather everyone in one easily to destroy group. BECAUSE HE IS SICK OF THEIR SHIT.

The Captain tells Falcon to fly away and destroy the bomb while everyone else holds off the High Evolutionary.

(A plan that Yellowjacket II hates. She just hates it. She so doesn’t want to be here and is regretting ever stealing the costume in the first place. Ha ha.)

The High Evolutionary tries to zap Falcon as he flies away but misses. SO NOW HE HAS TO GO CHASE DOWN A BIRDESQUE MAN WHO DOESN’T EVEN HAVE THE DECENCY TO BE A BIRD MAN!

The Captain’s plan to hold off the High Evolutionary... well, that doesn’t last long.

Instead of fighting them, the High Evolutionary just summons a cage of omnium steel to hold them and then teleports off to find Falcon.

Joe Hulk isn’t as strong as your standard Hulk. So he can’t bust outta the cage by himself. Even when Hercules joins in, the bars don’t bend.

But Beast got a strength boost from all that not-hairy dumb-but-strong thing. And when he joins in, the three dudes are able to bend an exit.

So despite his first plan being not good, the Captain has another plan.

Its a good plan, a daring plan. He’s going to forever alter one of his friends by using mad science on him.

Yup.

Cap decides the only way to beat the High Evolutionary is to use the genetic accelerator to buff Hercules up to the High Evolutionary’s power level.

Sure.

I mean. The High Evolutionary evolved to become one with the universe when he used the process on himself. He had to choose a specific exposure amount to get cosmic strong but not energy being beyond material matters.

And Cap just wants Beast to blast Hercules with a random amount of evolution?

I’m not super thrilled on the genetic accelerator just being used as a power-up.

But Cap argues that if they just destroy the bomb, the High Evolutionary could build another one! He has no idea how long it took the High Evolutionary to build one or what rare materials he needed for it but he’s super sure that the High Evolutionary can just crank them out!

I don’t like this plan.

But Hercules seems game. So. Whatever.

But but Joe Hulk objects. If anyone is getting a power-up, its him. And he tosses Beast across the room for emphasis.

The Captain is worried Joe Hulk will blow the whole plan so decides to aggro the High Evolutionary back to take care of Hulk.

Uh. Kinda like the Old Lady who swallowed a fly with that one. The cure might be worse than the disease. Especially since Hercules should be stronger than Joe Hulk and he hasn’t even tried to stop him yet.

Anyway. The way Cap aggros the High Evolutionary is by broadcasting a message that the High Evolutionary has abandoned ship and that the Avengers are in control of the vessel.

The High Evolutionary immediately teleports back to the Genesis Chamber (with a knocked out Falcon in his arms), sees Hulk messing with his machinery, and declares “This farce has gone far enough!”

He blasts Joe Hulk but Joelk no sells it.

Remember that thing about the High Evolutionary not liking to fight? Well, rather than try escalating levels of violence until he beats Hulk, he just teleports Hulk the fuck out of his ship.

How the fuck out? All the way to Las Vegas.

Supposedly the High Evolutionary had to use a lot of his energy to do this. But if that were the case, we wouldn’t still be going with the put Hercules in the evolution machine gambit. And we are.

So the High Evolutionary is still next to invincible.

While the Captain holds the guy back, Beast hustles Hercules into the genetic accelerator.

The High Evolutionary blasts the Captain to the side and rants about how he thought the Avengers could have been useful to advance humanity’s genetic destiny but now he sees they’re just obsolete throwbacks.

Yellowjacket II still doesn’t even want to be here today but she decides to Try.

She flies into his ear and blasts the energy that makes up his material form. Apparently it works to distract him but the High Evolutionary boils his insides until Yellowjacket II flees and then he BLAKKPT! blasts her.

But Hercules in his fancy new armor is out of the evolutionary microwave and ready to throw down.

And ready to get thrown down.

The High Evolutionary just blasts him, saying he’s made himself superior to nature and gods.

The High Evolutionary: “You, my would-be god, cannot be permitted to live an instant longer! I have no interest in taking the full measure of your strength. Whatever powers my instruments have given, you die now before you can comprehend or control them!”

Then Beast kicks his ass.

Well, its more of a punch. But he distracts the guy so the Evolutionary summons up some improved restraints that Beast has no chance of OH YEAHing out of.

Then Hercules blasts the High Evolutionary with pink energy.

Super Hercules: “You claim to hold the destiny of mankind in your hand! Yet you would oppose those who oppose you and change those who do not! ‘Tis not mankind you would aid but your own overweening vanity!”

Don’t really follow that one but sure.

The High Evolutionary blasts Hercules right back, saying he’s going to kill him so hard and then wipe him from humanity’s memory. Brutal.

But instead of dying, Hercules does not die. In fact, he gets a power up.

The High Evolutionary blasts off Hercules’ armor, revealing that Beast strapped the master unit of the evolutionary chamber inside the armor so Hercules has been further evolving this whole time.

APPARENTLY.

How the fuck did Beast know what the master unit was when this is the first time he’s seen this machinery and only for like five minutes? How did the chamber keep working with the master unit removed? Because Beast was ‘upgrading’ Hercules’ armor while Hercules was still in the chamber. How is the master unit working when it doesn’t have a power source or y’know I’d assume that the rest of the genetic accelerator are actually important or the High Evolutionary would just streamline it down to the fucking master unit!

Whatever.

This nonsense plot is happening so lets roll with it.

Now Hercules is kicking the High Evolutionary’s ass.

The High Evolutionary: “It can’t happen now! Not when I’m so close to achieving my goal! I would have given mankind the future! I would have made gods of everyone! I would no longer have been alone!”

Hercules: “Thou should have aspired to less godhood! ... And more humanity! But you have shown me the way and the fate you would have bestowed upon Hercules is thine!”

Cool, the High Evolutionary. That has nothing to do with anything else you’ve stated your motivations to be but cool.

Then the High Evolutionary turns into a pink cloud.

But as he does, he zaps Hercules with eye beams (pink ones) that speed up Hercules’ evolution and he also turns into a pink cloud.

Very underwhelming.

Falcon, the Captain, and the Beast have a moment of silence for their Olympian bud before going ‘hey we should probably find Yellowjacket II and then beat up some goons.’

They do find Yellowjacket II. She’s with Jocasta. Neat, Jocasta is still alive.

And while everyone else has been doing the big stupid superhero punch-up, she’s been hacking the ship.

She can’t stop the ship from going full fast ahead and they’re almost at Krakatoa but she can make the matter/anti-matter engine blow the fuck up.

Which will destroy the ship, the genetic bomb, and also the army of mooks on board.

Yeah, the Avengers don’t even slightly try to tell these guys to abandon ship.

Superheroes preserving all life is just kind of a suggestion, y’know?

And for some reason, Jocasta has to stay behind plugged into the computer to make the engine blow up. She can’t just set a countdown or something.

>=[

So this annual brings back Hercules and Jocasta from character limbo and promptly kills them off again.

Okay cool fuck off.

Jocasta manages to blow up the ship before it reaches Krakatoa, if only just.

And to make sure the genetic bomb’s mutagenic compound was obliterated in the explosion, the Avengers fly into the explosion plume and open the vents?

THERE’S NOT A BETTER WAY TO TEST THAT, HANK MCCOY, GENIUS SCIENTIST??

Anyway, it’s all just a set-up for a fake-out where Beast sneezes to bookend him sneezing at the beginning of the story.

Alls well that ends well except for the two dead Avengers and this story being garbage.

Now to be fair, comics. Jocasta will be back. Hercules will be back. The High Evolutionary will be back. In fact, the High Evolutionary and Hercules wind up in the same place. For some reason, the Celestials grab their discorporated essence and imprison them in the Black Galaxy.

Celestials, amirite? Can’t figure them.

So this last part of the story, Avengers Annual #17, had the difficult task of bringing the Evolutionary War event home. Which was both easy and difficult because most of the parts had interacted with it subtly at best.

The X-Factor part had a philosophical brawl between the Evolutionary and Apocalypse that revealed that the Evolutionary’s behavior in this event is because he’s feeling urgency. The West Coast Avengers Annual revealed that urgency is likely to be because of the Beyonders, who screwed him over once.

So we get to the last part and the Beyonders don’t get mentioned and the High Evolutionary’s new motive is that he feels lonely and wants humanity to be as cool as him.

I don’t think its easy to organize a story spanning this many different creative teams. Marvel still has problems getting events to stay on the same page in the year of our lord this year and that’s with all kinds of new advances in communication.

But shouldn’t the person that had to land this unwieldy plane actually been able to land the plane?

God. I feel bad saying it but Simonson is not doing a good job on Avengers. The first bunch of issues I’ve covered there’s the mitigating factor that he’s dealing with picking up someone else’s abandoned plot threads, editorial pressure breathing down his neck, a roster he clearly has no interest in writing.

But in this Avengers Annual, he got to pick a bunch of Avengers. He got to make up his own dream team. Even including dead characters like Jocasta. Even including characters that aren’t technically Avengers like Yellowjacket II. This is a roster he got to handpick. And the story is boring.

Despite how much the Genetic Bomb got built up, it is never seen on panel in this issue. You’d think that the thrilling conclusion to the story would be fought around it or over it. The bomb-ass cover even features a bomb motif.

But the final fight is instead in a generic lab with Hercules having a pink-off against the High Evolutionary after having a free power-up machine taped to his back.

It feels wrong to have the High Evolutionary beaten in Dragonball “my power is maximum” style because he’s not a fighty character. He’s powerful. But he’s not fighty. Given his performance here, he could have mopped the floor with Giant-Sized Bill Foster but decided to fuck off instead.

This is a Kang Ending or a Doom Ending but it doesn’t feel like a High Evolutionary Ending.

He’s also a lot more dickish in this last part of the story. Not to say that doing a lot of eugenics isn’t dickish by itself. But he’s been avoiding killing people if he doesn’t have to. He realized he was wrong to write off the Moloids. He let Clone Gwen go when he got the information he needed. But in the last issue, he got up on the wrong side of the bed. Just feels inconsistent. Which... is kinda the problem with the whole event.

I expected more than that for a story that took 11 annuals to cover. And that’s my fault. For expecting much out of this.

Most of the tie-ins were “High Evolutionary’s goons try to gather something or kill someone or sterilize someone, most likely something involving the drug trade.”

It was very clear as I dug into this that most of the writers were going off a paragraph or so of overarching plot, leaving very few issues actually trying to go deeper than that.

If you imagine Evolutionary War instead as a couple issues of event comic, most of the books I read here are tie-ins with EVOLUTIONARY WAR proudly displayed across the top of the cover and then some armor dudes show up to interrupt whatever the hero is up to.

Although, limiting it to the Annuals does mean it was less obtrusive so I can say that.

Okay. To teal deer, the Annuals Event concept is more likely to be bad than not because of the difficulty in organizing so many creative teams onto the same page. Add on a number of creators who can barely be bothered to engage with the material and you’re not likely to get something very much worth reading.

There’s another EVEN BIGGER Annuals Event next year but after that, the Marvel books break off into little groups for smaller Annuals Events.

That’s the only thing that makes me commit to covering them. If there were many more Evolutionary War sized events to cover, I think I would ignore them. Or just cover the Avengers bits.

Honestly, would I have missed out on much had I skipped the three Spider-Man parts of the story? I don’t think so.

Follow @essential-avengers​. Like and reblog and comment and oh god please read this. This took so long. It was not worth it!

[ultraviolet-ink]

20 Questions for Fic Writers!

I was tagged by @aawrightworth, thank you so much for this!! <3

How many works do you have on Ao3? 117, but I have four more on the roster due to @aaholidayrare!

What's your total A03 word count? 427,315 (OH WOW???)

What fandoms do you write for? Ace Attorney/Great Ace Attorney!

What are your top five fics by kudos? 1) Once Upon a Christmas (2019)- NRMT first kiss prompt 2) 12:26 AM (2019)- Forbidden Hospital Scene 3) The Talk (2020)- Greg notices that Baby Miles has a crush 4) Oh Shirt! (2019)- Phoenix can't find his shirt at Miles' place 5) Litigation in the Streets... (2021)- Miles and Phoenix become the subjects of tabloid gossip NGL, I'm not surprised that my top rated fics are NRMT, they're oldies but goodies! I've definitely grown as a writer (not to mention grown UP since these were all written when I was 18-20), but it really is lovely to see that they're still getting love! <3

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? OMGOMGOMGOMG!! Yes!! I love doing it because it lets the commenter know that I've seen their comment, and that I really do appreciate them! No matter how old a fic is, I will comment back as soon as I get that email, haha! In all seriousness, it's my way of giving back a kudos, a sort of "kudos to the reader" if that makes sense. They really do make me smile and I like to print out some of the comments that made me cry happy tears and save them in a scrapbook so that I can read them when writer's block hits me. Also, commenting brought my some of my greatest friends <3

What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Ohhh DEFINITELY I Dreamed A Dream (2022)!! Not only is the title from the Les Mis song of the same name (where Fantine's life is just absolutely ruined), but I did the one thing I never thought I would be able to do... I KILLED one half of the otp!! It's a RyuuSusa fic, and of course, Major Character Death, proceed with caution!

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Oooohhh this is a really hard one since I'm such a sucker for happy endings! I think the one that makes me the happiest now is from The Caterpillar Man (2022). It's a fic I wrote to sort of conceptualize Yujin and Susato's relationship when the former came home from the original study trip, and it takes place over a year and among other tragedies and growth. It's from the perspective of Susato, and I think it's one that still makes me tear up (and I got fanart based on it once!!)

Do you get hate on fics? I've never been John Phoenix'd which is very rude, am I not GOOD enough for you DaKoolGuy?? but in all seriousness, I don't really get hate on specific fics, but because I'm so vocal about a certain pairing (being Ryuu X Susato.... if I'm not supposed to ship, why game make so cute?)

Do you write smut? Not on Ultraviolet_Ink, but I do on Infrared_Quill! Fun fact, Infrared got put on a blacklist when I only had one work, and Ultraviolet wasn't on it, I found it quite funny XD

Do you write crossovers? The Journal of Dr. Yujin Mikotoba (2022-????) is just one giant crossover with ACD canon, and I'm planning on having Raffles and Arsène Lupin making an important appearance in the future! It's very self indulgent XD

Have you ever had a fic stolen? God I hope not

Have you ever had a fic translated? Not to my knowledge, but I do have a blanket statement saying that I am a-okay with a translation of any of my works!

Have you ever co-written a fic before? It's always been in the "omg we should totally do this" phase, but given how I am with my own works, I feel like I would be a nightmare to work with XD

What's your all-time favourite ship? Honestly... It's between HomuMiko and RyuuSusa, especially since that's just what I've been writing recently XD

What's the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? That's a good question that I don't have a single answer for XD I have a notepad full of a WIP list, but I think one that intrigued me when I first started off was this sort of continuation of the JFA 2-4 bad ending, just kind of coming from the ashes and then De Killer eventually kills Phoenix for betraying Matt Engarde (just because of the principle). It's really interesting to think about, but I honestly don't know how I could workshop it, and I remember stopping because It made me too sad haha! If you come across this and like the idea, please feel free to adopt this bunny, no credit needed! I'm not the first person who came up with a continuation of Miracle Never Happen, and I'm sure I won't be the last!

What are your writing strengths? I think I'm getting a lot better at dialogue, especially since I have a very good friend who helps me workshop them through a sort of RP! I would say that I'm also good at making a sort of vibe/ambiance, I know how to dress a scene B-) (Yes I was a theatre kid)

What are your writing weaknesses? Dialogue is also something I struggle a lot with, but I would say I get into my own head too much, and I over think and try to over explain to cover up "holes" (Cracked.Com owes me reparations for this)

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? I'm a linguistics nerd, I love writing dialogue in other languages! I even wrote a fic entirely in Latin because I wanted to practice (Miles et Phoenix Romae Sunt (2021)). That being said, you have to use more than Google Translate, I've studied and majored in Spanish, so I'm confident enough in my own skill to write, but I don't really know German despite English being Germanic! So, while I do use Google Translate to get a base understanding, I try to run it by a native speaker, or at the very least, someone who has studied the language, to see if it makes sense haha. Or don't, I'm not your mom, and we're all just doing this for shits and giggles XD

First fandom you wrote for? ...... Oncest Those journals filled with Oncest have been burned since 2014 in the traditional "middle schoolers host a bonfire at the end of the year" that my friends hosted, and they will never see the light of day XD But then again..... how ba-a-a-ad COULD it have been? Tbh, I do regret getting rid of them, not because they were actually lost Great American Novels, but they were something I created and I could look back on and see how I've grown and what I've just stuck with over the years XD

Favourite fic you've ever written? It's honestly a tossup between The Journal of Yujin Mikotoba and The Caterpillar Man! I just love playing around with the empty playground canon left me haha

[repressedqueen]

20 questions for fic writers ✍️

Tagged by @spotsandsocks 💋

i should warn everyone that i am drunk so if any of the following doesn't make sense, you can blame the wine 🤫

How many works do you have on ao3?

18

What’s your total ao3 word count?

95,119

What fandoms do you write for?

9-1-1, Captain America Trilogy

Top five fics by kudos

(all of them are 9-1-1 )

I hardly know you—but sometimes things are so transparent (13,330 words)

(Sub)conscious habits (4,664 words)

you talk of the pain like it’s all alright (but I know) (2,260 words)

My soul is in the sky (1,378 words)

Testing the waters (4,686 words)

Do you respond to comments?

Always !

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I usually have happy endings. i guess the angstiest would be "Five", which is a very sad Bucky Barnes x reader oneshot.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

All of my buddie fics have happy endings, some ecstatic some simply hopeful. I guess the happiest would be (Sub)conscious Habits.

Also I hardly know you—but sometimes things are so transparent (bucktommy) us pretty happy :)

Do you get hate on fics?

thankful nothing so far

Do you write smut?

Oh I've tried it. Gay smut only once, for Buddie (fic: Testing the waters)

Then comes my SexWorker!Bucky x reader fic that is still ongoing. (i haven't forgotten about you my sweet Bucky girls, I swear! <3)

Craziest crossover:

Buddie + Patrochilles in Epic Bonds

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not as far as i know

Have you ever had a fic translated?

i doubt it

Have you ever co-written a fic?

No, but I'd be open to it.

All time favorite ship?

Oof, it's like choosing between your kids. When it comes to writing though, there is no doubt: BUDDIE <3

What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

There is one about jealous Eddie that has been sitting in my drafts since the lucy/buck kiss in season 5, so...

What are your writing strengths?

oh i don't know. i can't be objective. I have received comments about how the readers can deeply feel the characters' inner struggles and emotional state, so i guess that counts?

What are your writing weaknesses?

I am so basic! I hardly ever have original ideas.

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

nope, i hate writing in a language i am not fluent in

First fandom you ever wrote in?

the 100/bellarke but never published anything

Favorite fic you’ve written?

probably my lease popular buddie fic:

Nobody has ever been saved alone.

It's a tragic three times story that has to do with Buck and Eddie's PTSD and it contains my version of Eddie's 5b breakdown. I poured my heart and soul into this piece, i am extremely proud of it, it is deeply personal because I was in a the toughest mental state in my life.

Tagging -no pressure as always- @evansboyfriend @bidisasterevankinard @rogerzsteven @the-likesofus @v88sy

[nanuk-the-bat]

Tagged by the phenomenal @phenanthreneblue (I wasn’t gonna do it, cause I’ve only been at this for like a couple years, but why not :p ) thanks for the tag.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Technically 24, but only 17 are fics. The others are art/podfics as I jump around with my hobbies.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

198,671. Actual story words are probably about 198,000. Not terrible?

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Control. I wanted more Darling fics. So I got off my ass and learned how to write them myself. I do have a draft thing for Alan Wake but it’s little and will probably stay stashed away in my notes files for the rest of eternity.

4. Top five fics by kudos

I’m just astounded that people found my stories amusing enough to leave kudos in the first place. The most popular one is Anachronisms Welcome

5. Do you respond to comments?

Of course. Might not be eloquent, but I’ll respond in kind.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I’m more of a fluff and smut gal at heart…but anything I’ve written for Trench x Darling tends to lean that way.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I wouldn’t say my fics have happy endings, in the sense that the protagonists ride off into the sun set just that they have mundane or hopeful resolutions. For A Cup Full of Resonance I was originally going to have Darling sacrifice himself for Dylan to return and leave it ambiguous whether or not he survived corporeally. Like a coffee cup appears on Jesse’s desk after they save Dylan, just how Jesse likes it, as a sign that Darling is still watching over her, but I ended it on a happier note instead.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No. Thankfully people haven’t given me shit for my silly ideas.

9. Do you write smut?

Yes. But only when I’m in a specific headspace.

10. Craziest crossover?

Haven’t ventured there really. I included Scratch in one chapter of Anachronisms Welcome, but beyond that, no. Would love to do a Fallout or BG3 crossover with Control. But I don’t have the brainpower for it.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No one would want to steal my stuff XD

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but I like doing podfics sometimes.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Anachronisms Welcome turned into a collaboration when the shower scene happened and horny head voice Jesse was born. (because I can set up humor, but executing is not my specialty…I always want to explain the joke 🙄) My partner/familar/sometimes editor threw a dumb idea out there, we played with it, and head voice Jesse became his distinct recurring character. We refer to her as an extra planar being/ personality who manifests as Jesse’s id. Those internal monologues, the dialogue sections Jesse has with herself, those are cowritten with my familiar voicing that Jesse.

14. All time favourite ship?

Jesse x Darling. I know it’s not canon. And won’t ever be canon. But something about them appeals to my creativity and when I see stuff for them little confetti/ dopamine canons fire in my brain.

15. What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I feel like this applies to all my wip’s…I can only write when the stars align.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Not pacing or plot haha, but sometimes I can come up with decent metaphors and descriptions.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

All of it…I’m still a fledgling fic writer and it’s learn as I go. I really struggle with plot, which contributes to the shit pacing. With thinking in terms of tension and seeing a story as a whole and not a jumble of stuff I feel like writing about. If I ever write another long fic, I’ll plot it out with all the story beats, and the motifs, and actually have a solid plot line or two running through.

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

I’m personally not a huge fan of having to scroll to the bottom to look up translations but if it’s done sparingly or as in canon I don’t mind. Depends I guess.

19. First fandom you wrote in?

Control.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

In Contribution of Entropy it’s shameless fluff ridden smut, but for my craving at the time it was the equivalent of getting a free triple scoop of bubblegum ice cream mixed with cotton candy topped with rainbow sprinkles on a 102F summer day…and the last chapter is some of my best imagery.

Tagging: @blessedpictures @annachibi @laudanine and @wondrouswendy

[teecupangel]

I vote for AC x COD. Because of the Bleeding Effect, Desmond can speak his ancestor's fluentency of different languages. In Modern welfare one, what if Desmond's ancient arabic is noticed by Hadir and Farah and possibly by Captain Price because he spoke arabic in one scene.

The Leverage AU or Call of Duty Crossover sorta-poll for anyone interested

Leverage is still leading by 1 vote! Other than that...

So, according to Call of Duty wiki, Urzikstan is a fictional country based on many Middle-Eastern countries affected by terrorist groups and activities however the map that shows where Urzikstan is meant to be is in northern Syria.

I propose we make Urzikstan next to Syria or maybe even part of real-life Syria that was divided into two: Syria and Urzikstan in AC/COD universe.

Why is this important?

Because this would put Urzikstan in Levant. The image used is approximately 350 km from Masyaf as well (I checked because I was considering just smacking Masyaf as part of Urzikstan hahahaha).

Now, since Urzikstan is now part of Levant, if Desmond was to meet Hadir and Farah and speak his antiquated Arabic, they would notice it. And they would notice that Desmond’s Arabic is of Levantine origin. Maybe they’d even hear stories about the Assassins of old, of their white robes with hood shadowing their faces.

But Farah would be “Naaahh” because Desmond is such a chill dude.

Hadir would be suspicious because he has heard rumors that the Assassins still exist.

Farah used to believe in them as well, especially when she was still a child. But seeing how no one has saved their country from men like Barkov has made her believe that the Assassins are just fairytales told by the people to have hope.

Captain Price, on the other hand, has seen too much shit already that he wouldn’t put it past the realm of possibility that the Assassins and Templars exist but he’s not truly in the know. Only rumors and such. He wouldn’t hear Desmond’s Arabic and think “Oh, he’s an Assassin”. It’s a curious thing, yes, but the logical explanation would be that Desmond learned Arabic by reading really old books and maybe watching period dramas or something. (This, of course, is chalked by Gaz as another reason why Desmond is a posh kid with access to all those expensive weird shit rich people have)

[19burstraat]

six of crows x the locked tomb au concept?

I feel like this is a fairly narrow crossover area but I've been obsessed with both lately and I wanted to throw shit at the wall and see what sticks. Pretty sure there's no Nona spoilers, since it's a crossover AU. I don't know how many people have read both of these series but to hell with it someone must have done lmao. This is less plot and more concept but anyway

Kaz (the Ninth, for the tomb and all that was lost, Heretical Secrets, The Sewn Tongue. The Reverend Son out of We Have No Young People Left process of elimination.)

If Kaz is going to be any house it's got to be the freaks with the elaborate black costumes and the constructs that have no flesh on them (lucky for Kaz...), that tell people fuck all about anything and have scary customs.

Jordie died in the pursuit of lyctorhood; @bloodbroox just suggested to me that he could have been talked into being Pekka's cav without knowing what he was getting into, and then was killed and consumed so Pekka could ascend, so Kaz is now out to get up to that fucking Mithraeum and kill Pekka himself.

I imagine Kaz has a very similar backstory to the one in the books, since it's not like there's a shortage of corpses in this series hh. Probably tried to save Jordie and got left in the aftermath with his corpse and many, many others. I wonder if I could pull in a very literal appearance of the River... maybe Kaz interfered and briefly got stuck in the River (i.e. nearly died) before he clawed back out, out of sheer insane willpower.

(Yes you can tell I don't entirely understand the more scientific aspects of TLT just go w it lmao)

No one dares to point out to Kaz that some rando with no necromatic skill cannot kill a Lyctor, because they're worried he might acc find a way. He's literally only a badly trained cav, but he's... determined. By the time everyone else works out he's the one to get rid of it's too late.

(Matthias, Kuwei and Inej, well trained and courteous cavs, are eventually horrified to find out how Kaz fights lmao.)

I'm not sure how he'd have broken his leg but there's a lot of perilous bits on the Ninth. Maybe training. It just makes his cover better though. How could he be the cav, he's clearly the necro...

No he's not. He's being covered for by...

Jesper (the Fourth, fidelity, facing ahead, The Hope, The Sword Ninth)

Jesper escaped from the Fourth because he and his dad didn't want him to get sent onto the battlefield to be a living weapon and then die, like most Fourth house kids. He got caught, and got thrown into the Ninth house jail. He emphatically insists he is not a necromancer. Yes he is.

Kaz springs Jesper from the Ninth jail and makes a deal with him; they'll swap. Kaz isn't a necromancer and Jesper is, but Kaz will pretend to be the necro, Jesper will pretend to be the cav, and they both get what they want-- Jesper can be a cavalier and be free from jail/the Fourth, and Kaz can get out of the Ninth and into the scrum of attempted lyctorhood to hitch a ride somehow.

(Except they don't. because Jesper flat-out refuses to kill Kaz and ascend and Kaz is hysterically furious, because his original plan was to basically trick Jesper into doing it wrong and seize control of his body, but he got attached and abandoned that plan and now doesn't know what to do. Having said that, if anyone could figure out perfect lyctorhood, it would be Kaz... Hope you want brown eyes Jesper.)

Yes his offhand is a revolver lmao

Inej (the Fifth-- tradition and debts to the dead, the Heart, the Watchers over the River.)

Cavalier, ofc, very very dutiful to her necromancer (one of her saints in the books??? Alina? Petyr? idk.) We don't know a whole lot about the Fifth but they seem (SEEM.) the most well adjusted of the lot, instead of the fucking balls to walls crazy Eight and Ninth lmao. I considered making her Kaz's cav but the idea made me want to throw up and lie down for ten hours, also the Jesper one is a bit more out there, and I refuse to give Kaz that much power lmao he needs to be a normal man he'd be too much of a menace with any kind of magic

Respectful of the Ninth and their weirdo monks until Kaz and Jesper open their mouths and reveal that not only do they talk, that they are also really really annoying and heretical

She works out very quickly that Kaz and Jesper are running a con and gets roped into it lol

Again I refuse to eliminate her backstory so it's gotta be in there somewhere, though I haven't worked out how yet. Perhaps she wasn't always part of the Fifth House, and was under Tante Heleen's thumb off-world...

Nina (the Third, for the gleam of a jewel or a smile, The Mouth, The Procession, The Shining Dead. Princess of Ida.)

But of course. The house that looks frivolous but is a deep well of backstabbing politics and intelligence.

Necro with a particular talent for flesh magic, which obviously is very close to her canon power. Not sure who her cav would be tho...?

Kaz hates her for all of those reasons and she makes a sport out of winding up the little uptight Ninth weirdo

But it's not as fun as flirting with...

Matthias (the Second, discipline, heedless of trial, The Strength, The Crimson Shield)

Second sounds like the Druskelle, no? Matthias is def a carefully trained cavalier, I would suggest Jarl Brum is his necro. Until he gets either killed or disposed of before he can kill Matthias and ascend...

Unless he DOES do that, and we keep Matthias dead in every universe. Sorry Nina. You and Kaz now have a common goal which is Get To The Bastards In The Sky And Kill Them.

Wylan (the Sixth, for the truth over solace in lies, the Reason.)

Genius little kid like Palamedes ig! I can see him being more into the theory than the practice and then, like canon, being underestimated. like a lot of the Sixth. Jesper def thinks he's nothing special until... he is.

I did consider putting Kaz in the Sixth soley for the truth over solace in lies but ultimately Kaz belongs in the horrible places like the Ninth and the Barrel, not the civilised academic environments like the Sixth and the merch Districts. Sorry bud. Another life.

No one really knows in the Sixth that Wylan can't read, bc he covers it up so well, but Van Eck threatens to expose it so he legs it to the Lyctor Convention <3

Kuwei can be Wylan's cavalier? Might explain the Jesper beef more lmao if Jesper is also a supposed cav trying to curry favour with Kuwei's necro, Wylan, rather than 'his necro', Kaz

(Giada also suggested that Alina can be Alecto and the Darkling can be John tho I'm not going all the way there other than to say Kaz Would Definitely Open The Tomb Because The Darkling Said Not To because he's an evil little git and also fatefully nosey and possibly bc Inej asked. And a lockpick. why would I put him in the place with the locked tomb without expecting the funniest possible outcome. also that would def make Zoya one of the OG lyctors a-la Mercymorn! Probably Genya and David too)

[sayuricorner]

ROTTMNT x Monkie Kid crossover prompt idea: Teenage Mutant Ninja Monkey

Warning: English is not my first language so sorry if it’s confusing.

Warning 2: Spoilers for Monkie Kid S4

Hey everybody! ^^

So for a good time now, I have been obsessed with rise of the tmnt and Monkie Kid and when I learnt those two shows were from the same studios, I couldn’t just miss this opportunity for a crossover!!! ^^

So here’s a crossover idea with in addition an OC of my creation! ^^

If you want to use this AU go ahead, just tag/credite me in return please! ^^

----------------------------------------------------------------

Prompt concept:

So, times ago before the turtles’s “birth”, Draxum was still researching to create the perfect soldiers.

He found one day a way to travel through dimensions and time and decided to use this to travel in a dimension to find the “perfect DNA”.

This travel lead him in the Monkie Kid universe a very long time before the Monkie Kid events during the time Sun Wukong was still close sworn brother with Macaque, Azure Lion, DBK, Yellow Tusk Elephant and Golden-Winged Eagle.

Draxum met the demon group and “sympathized” with them, seeing this as a perfect opportunity to get the DNA he was searching for.

However, due to some circonstances, he was only able to get Sun Wukong’s and Macaque’s DNA and was forced to quickly disappear and go back to his world.

He tried to mix both monkies DNA with animals from his world to create powerful mutants without any success but was able to use the DNAs to create a monkie like Sun Wukong and Macaque.

Than thing go like in the ROTTMNT canon: Draxum found the perfect DNA in the form of Lou Jitsu, kidnap him and use his DNA to create the turtles.

He also use Lou Jitsu’s DNA on the young monkey he created to had another powerful mutant.

And like in canon, Lou Jitsu escape and burn the laboratory to the group and escape with the young mutants, the young Monkey include and mutated into a rat.

Lou Jitsu, now Splinter, adopt the four turtles and the monkey and the babies got named: Raphael, Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangello and Sandro.

Things go like in the ROTTMNT canon with Sandro being the fifth member of the Mad Dogs.

Fast forward to after the ROTTMNT movie, the Krangs were defeated, the planet was saved and the Hamato clan thought that things will be more peaceful.

That was until one day Sandro begin to develop abilities which, much to everyone’s confusion, had nothing to do with the Hamato Ninpo.

New abilities which powerful and that Sandro didn’t had contol at all making him dangerous for others around him and for himself.

Wanting to help their brother, the Mad Dogs turned to Draxum, hoping to get answers which could help and learnt about the origins of Sandro’s creation.

To the Hamato clan one thing was now clear, only two people would be able to help Sandro to control his abilities: The two monkies whose DNAs created Sandro, Sun Wukong and Macaque.

And to ask for their help they will had to go to them, in their dimension.

Prompt details:

-ROTTMNT setting: After the ROTTMNT movie

-Monkie Kid Setting: After season 3

-Sandro’s personnality: In the group, Sandro is the Sneaky Guy, often the one who scout around for traps and to discretly spy for informations, he is good at reading people’s personality types and had a smooth talk, which is why he often work with Leonardo when it’s come to do talking and negociations.

-Sandro’s appearance: Is a fusion of Sun Wukong and Macaque, his fur is dark brown with the fur on his head being long and tied in a low ponytail, he wear a ninja attire and his main color is yellow.

-Sandro's name is a reference to the artist Sandro Botticelli.

-Like his brothers, Sandro like to goof around and tend to do stupid things, by the end of the ROTTMNT movie, he and his brothers get more maturity.

-Because he is good at reading people, he often use it to either fool them either “encouraging them” to do something.

-The rest of the Mad dogs often describe him as a good manipulator while Sandro like to playfuly retorck he prefer the therm “good negociator”.

-Is one of the nicest in the group and is very social.

-His current weapon is a metallic bo staff, others often comment on the fact it’s the same weapon than Donatello’s to which the two always deny it.

-He love to eat fruits.

-Sandro love pizzas but had often debates with Leonardo on if hawaiian pizza is good or not(spoilers: Sandro think it’s disgusting while Leonardo love it)

-Sandro is very close with his brothers and is protective toward them.

-Sandro’s age: 16

-Abilities: Is the most agile of his brothers, at the start of ROTTMNT, he had a little shadow ability which permit him to litteraly fade in the shadows, at the end of ROTTMNT he develop his Hamato Ninpo, as well as new poweful abilities which he had no control.

-At the start of ROTTMNT, like his brothers, Sandro wasn’t a very good fighter.

-The Hamato clan finding a way to go to the Monkie King universe to find Sun Wukong and Macaque to ask them to help Sandro to learn to control his new abilities.

-The Hamato clan meeting the Monkie Kids group and befriending them.

-When Sun Wukong and Macaque meet the Hamato clan and saw Draxum, they had a “YOU!” reaction toward the Yokai.

-The lmk group being shocked to leanr that Sandro was created from Sun Wukong’s and Macaque DNA like “WHAT? SUN WUKONG AND MACAQUE HAD A KID?!”

-Sun Wukong and Macaque not being very happy to learn that Draxum had stolen their DNA, they’re not upset about Sandro himself but they’re still not happy to learn their DNA was stolen and experimented on.

-Michelangello being like “wait! Does that mean Sandro had FOUR DADS?”

-Akward moment regarding the situation.

-Comical shadowpeach references.

-The Hamato clan and the Monkie Kid group bonding and befriending.

-Sun Wukong and Macaque training Sandro and bonding with him.

-Sandro having difficulties to learn to control his new powers and feeling inferior to Sun Wukong and Macaque.

-Michelangello, April and Casey Jr getting along very well with MK and Mei.

-Raphael befriending Sandy.

-Raphael having the time of his life with the baby monkies from Flower fruit mountain and Sandy’s cats.

-Tang and Donatello being nerds with each other.

-Sun Wukong getting along with Leonardo.

-Splinter and Draxum bonding with Pigsy and Tang.

-The Hamato clan helping MK to fight demons who attack the city. 

-The Hamato clan meeting the Demon Bull family.

-Donatello and Red Son becoming rivals.

-How the rest of the prompt go and finish is up to whoever who use it! ^^

[jessy-the-martian-girl]

Untitled x-over drabble

Idk how this got into my head and got out in about two hours or so as a somewhat proper story (actually I was translating my Ice Skating story - even almost half-way through already). I'm still a bit shocked how fast this was born (considering the fact that I skipped "translating" part of writing and went straight for writing in English), but I honestly like it. Anyways...

This is a short story (prequel type, I guess, as I'm definitely planning on writing more in this setting in the future) on that wild crossover of Original RE4, Remake and a tint of Dino Crisis (no dinos here yet, though).

It's 693 words, and it starts in my old AU of RE4 OG, about six years after Luis survived his first encounter with Saddler in Leon's presence (well, almost: Leon was a bit late to the party, so Jess had to start saving Luis on her own), got out of the Island in one piece, got a girlfriend. Her name's Jessy Jones btw (I told you, I'm absolutely unoriginal with names) and at the moment of this story she and Luis are already married.

Warnings? Idk, mentions of death? Oh, and it's canon x OC type of story.

And - no worries, Luis will survive by any means necessary.

@fanficanatic-tw, I remember, you asked to be tagged if I get anything new))

Luis was mentally preparing to die. This time it was inevitable, unfortunately. All the odds were not in his favor – and even if he somehow could break free, his injured leg has made escape next to impossible. The cold from the floor and the pillar he was tied to was slowly creeping into his body, making him shiver. Luis closed his eyes, silently sending his last farewells to friends and family, but was abruptly brought back to reality by a sharp tug on the ropes that were holding him in place and an all too familiar voice of his wife, thickly laced with horror and despair, calling his name. - Jessy, - he gasped, realizing that she was really kneeling next to him and trying to set him free. - Por favor, no... Go, leave me. - I'm not going anywhere without you, - she retorted angrily, biting her lips to blood and frantically trying to untie her husband from the center column of this room, filled with equipment of unclear purpose. Luis desperately longed to know how could she possibly find him here, why she was here alone... But time was of an essence and the last thing he wanted was for his beloved to perish with him. He couldn't even tell her who was behind this as all he had was suspicions and a record with distorted voice, that had enlightened him on his fate in a mocking tone when he came to, already tied up. - This place is rigged to explode, - the Spaniard whispered. - And there's not much time left. The brunette just growled under her breath and doubled her efforts, regretting that she didn't get a habit of carrying a knife with her. - Think of our daughter, - Serra once again tried to call to reason. - Mel's only five and she needs at least one of her parents by her side. - But... Luis... - Jessica stopped and looked at him with teary eyes, rising her hand to caress his cheek. - I can't leave you. - I know, - he smiled weakly, too aware of the clock ticking away precious moments. - It's about hard choices. But, please... His wife sobbed and leaned into one desperate kiss, realizing all too well that this was their last goodbye. She knew that he was right and their little Melinda needed at least her mom. - Te quiero, Luis, - young woman whispered, reluctantly pulling away and getting to her feet. - Te quiero, Jessy, - he smiled at her and watched as she turned around and ran out of the doorway, sobbing and never looking back. He only hoped and prayed that she would get out in time and safely find her way home to their little hazel-eyed treasure. Time slowed down again, the wait of death becoming almost painful, but then a distant “click”, that seemed too loud in the silence of the facility, set the things into motion. The floor underneath him started trembling, the following heatwave washed over Serra's body, his ears were stricken with a loud “boom” and he flinched, awaiting the blast getting to him and the following pain before imminent death... Yet nothing happened, and he was deafened by the sudden silence... Sensation of short flight came next, sending Luis into air. He didn't have enough time to muse on where did his ropes disappear as he was blinded by the bright flash of light. Shortly after his back collided with something hard, eliciting a quiet moan from his throat, as he fell to the unexpectedly soft ground merely managing to turn his head sideways for not breaking his nose in addition to all the injuries he had already sustained. - How am I still alive? - the Spaniard quietly muttered to himself, as soon as he blinked away the involuntary tears of pain and was able to take into his surroundings. - ¿Y dónde demonios estoy?* Luis found himself alone and hurt in the middle of an unfamiliar forest with no signs of human life nearby and he had absolutely no idea of what to do now.

*"And where the hell I am?"

[ao3feed-fengqing]

Crossovers and Unfinished Oneshot Compilation

by Foopuff Sooooo I have a lot of ideas that I don't usually end up finishing, and as a consequence they end up rotting in my google docs. I kinda wanted to... change that? SO if you're interested in seeing what I wrote anyways, I'll post them here if I end up ultimately stuck in a rut. (Or it might even end up getting rescued if there's enough interest in one of them... I don't know yet lol) Anyways, hope you have fun! (I'll add to the list as more are posted here:) 1: Kung Fu Panda x Scum Villain Crossover 2. OG Bingjiu Holiday Special (halloween... bad ending) 3. Feng Xin and Mu Qing meet Liu Qingge LOL (crossover) 4. Unfinished FengQing High School AU   ALSO: Feel free to continue these on your own! Just please let me know somehow, so I can read it!!! :D Words: 4410, Chapters: 4/?, Language: English Fandoms: 人渣反派自救系统 - 墨香铜臭 | The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù, 天官赐福 - 墨香铜臭 | Tiān Guān Cì Fú - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù, 天官赐福 | Heaven Official's Blessing (Cartoon) Rating: Not Rated Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: Gen, Other Characters: Shěn Yuán | Shěn Qīngqiū, Liǔ Qīnggē, Shifu (Kung Fu Panda), Po (Kung Fu Panda), Luò Bīnghé, Fēng Xìn (Tiān Guān Cì Fú), Mù Qíng (Tiān Guān Cì Fú), Shěn Jiǔ | Original Shěn Qīngqiū Relationships: Liǔ Qīnggē & Shěn Yuán | Shěn Qīngqiū, luo binghe & Po, Master Shifu & Shen Yuan | Shen Qingqiu, Fēng Xìn & Mù Qíng, Fēng Xìn/Mù Qíng (Tiān Guān Cì Fú) Additional Tags: crackfic, compilation of oneshots and unfinished drabbles that I will probably never come back to, Friendship, Cooking, ongoing dumpsterfire, Horror, wips everywhere, a LOT of unfinished work via https://ift.tt/xYwK7aL

[songue85]

Questions for Fic Writers ✏📝💻

@faeriekit tagged...

1. How many works do you have on Ao3?

Only one! Most of mine are all in FF.net, maybe one day I'll post them there, but for now, yeah, single fic.

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count?

Today (10/30/2023), measly 45k, but I'll be posting two chapters this week, so... 50k soon?

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Now, Spider-Man and Batman, but I've mostly published Doctor Who fics, usually crossovers.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Just AO3, that is Arachnomaly. If I include the works in FF.net, then, by favorites, it would be:

5) Maelstrom in the Darkness - An Essay on Blindness: What if Uzumaki Naruto had been incurably blind from birth? Oh, I wish I had time to write more, so many ideas, so LITTLE TIME!

4) Smoke on the Water - The Untold Stories! Based on the popular "Smoke on the Water" story by Sir-Mercutio-McHuffer, who authorized me to publish chapters as a separate, sorta-not-exactly-canon bonus chapters!

3) Different Doctors Meet a Most Unique Universe: after a talk with @zaziecurie , I started writing this collection of short stories about The Doctor in Steven Universe's reality, different takes as his many incarnations (4, 10 and 12 posted, but I had other ideas)

2) Justice-Whimey : formerly my longest fic to date, it's a tie with the first place, The Tenth Doctor is a patient in Arkham Asylum, DC Universe, in an reality-altering adventure;

And at the top

1) ARACHNOMALY! Surprise, two months of posting and it is my most favorite story at the moment at FF.net, though it's always a one chapter behind from AO3's schedule (less than half of its ao3 equivalent in kudos as well).

5. Do you respond to comments?

Sure, always! I don't have too many comments, but what I get, I try to reply on the same day or the following, at most!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

My short story Destiny is Not A Game , in FF.net, based on the finale of the game X-Men: Destiny.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

What is this 'happy ending' people talk about so much?!

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Hate in ao3? Maybe... overzealous criticism?

The worst stuff, as expected, is in the reviews in FF.net, but, again, it's FF.net, so what can you do against great guest reviewers such as...

9. Do you write smut fic? If so, what kind?

Used to, but they are for my wife's eyes only !

10. Do you write crossovers? If so, what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Currently, Spider-Man x Batman comics, but the craziest were my forays into Doctor Whooves stories (my focus, as always, had been more of a whovian than ever a brony, I'll admit)

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I hope not!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope! Maybe I'll do it myself for Arachnomaly, one day!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes, long time ago, but never published it - it was a crossover with The Idealist 33. Actually, I fibbed, I heavily edited a chapter for their story, Doctor Whooves?, chapter 7, which almost makes it half mine, kinda?

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Oh, wow, let's see, there are so many... NaruHina ? Though I always had a spot for NaruIno? In RWBY, Dragonslayer, just for the fics I've read. Peter Parker x Kitty Pryde, just because of the Ultimate Comics, but PeterxMJ for life.

... and in my writing, yeah, The Doctor (Whooves) and Ditzy Doo.

... it was a phase, mom.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Well, "Spider-Man Must Not Ruin the Future" is an old project, Spectacular Spider-Man crossover with X-Men: Evolution, trying to integrate both realities in one story.

Also an untitled story where the six original Mighty Morphing Power Rangers get saved by the arrival of Black Dino Thunder Ranger, hilarity and feelings ensue (those who know, will understand the potential!)

16. What are your writing strengths?

I've been told that, when I get the character, I REEALLY get them. Like,

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

If I feel the chapter needs to be short, it will be short. Sometimes, I can get too concise for my own good.

Also mispeling, but I've been getting better, I think.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I'm always writing in another language, but I've been venturing on writing a character who communicates mostly in ASL.

19. First Fandom you wrote for?

Doctor Who!

20. Favorite Fic you’ve written?

Tie for Justice-Whimey , Arachnomaly and Charades 4 6, actually!

And that's all, folks!

Thanks once again to Faeriekit for the tag!

Whoever would like to continue, follower of mine or not, feel free to consider themselves tagged!

[pixiestickers]

I was tagged by @theangrypomeranian Thanks!!

1. How many works do you have on AO3: 52

2. What's your total word count? 813,389

3. What fandoms do you write for?

atm it's Hunter x Hunter with wips in Over the Garden Wall, Futurama, and Lord of the Rings. I got my start writing Twilight fanfic on fanfiction.net and occasionally write for Star Wars when the mood is right. There are past fandoms, but I don't feel like naming them all.

4. Top 5 fics by kudos:

Okay, there is a problem. Two of my fics that are in my top 5 are also like ptsd for me from a bad fandom, so I am leaving them off this list despite their high kudo count. Right now I have them viewable only to AO3 users and you can't comment on them bc I just don't want to be reminded of them, but also am not strong enough to take them down. So anyway ... here's my edited top 5.

Blame it on the Nargles (Harry Potter)

If You're Lonely, Press Play (Over the Garden Wall)

The One With The Slaps (Friends)

Change Heartache Into Courage (Twilight)

The L Word (Twilight)

5. Do you respond to comments?

I try to unless the comment is kinda unhinged. I once had a really nice comment that switched gears midway thru to start in on a campaign to save the show my fic was based on getting nasty abt the network that canceled it and it just went off the rails, so in my head I was like thank u for that nice beginning but I'm just gonna walk slowly backwards away from this.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Even my saddest fics have some sort of silver lining. I don't like leaving my characters suffering w/o any hope. So probably the AU I wrote to my own otgw canon where I kill Beatrice off (Not) A Happy Story is the angstiest, but there's some hope by the end.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

idk I'm kind of partial to the ending of my iasip fic My Fair Charlie bc these are two characters who have been thru a lot in their lives and the scene in Charlie's room where he shows Dee his memory box is just sorta cute and innocent and gives me feelings.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

In the fandom that shall not be named, I got some. I never got any hate when I originally wrote for Twilight on ff.net but when I updated my fic from there to AO3 I got some.

9. Do you write smut?

Not really no. A handful of times and it's just sorta okay. I'm more of a write an intense lead-up and then fade to black writer. I'll leave the smut to ppl who can actually write it well (ie not me).

10. Do you write crossovers?

No

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yes! It was so weird. There was another Twilight fic that I was writing that I had let sit for a few years and then someone messaged me that it had been stolen, the names changed and put on some anime fanfic website. The person knew bc the name Jasper kept popping up in that person's fic when there was no character named Jasper. They thought that was weird so they googled a portion of the fic and mine came up. Anways, I messaged the site, but who knows if they did anything abt it and anyway, I took that particular fic down since I'm not in the fandom anymore and won't ever finish it.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

My Twilight fic 'Change Heartache Into Courage' has been translated a few times.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? No. I'm a lone wolf.

14. What's your all time favorite ship?

I mean it changes all the time, but I suppose if you want to know the couple that has the highest word count from me since this is a fanfic meme then that would be Wirt and Beatrice.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you will?

I have a 38k 'Dragon Prince' fic that's been sitting since 2021. I'm not in the fandom anymore and got rid of Netflix, so even if I wanted to write my ability to watch the show is hindered. Still, I like the character development I wrote and maybe one day in the future I'll work on it again, but as of now, it's probably going to sit collecting dust for a v long time.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Long inner monologues and flirty, fluffy banter

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Action, smut, and moving plot forward. I just want these characters to talk, not actually get anything done.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language?

Haven't done it

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Created a gender-swapped Aladdin AU when I was 13. Wrote 'Hey Arnold' fic in a HA forum in my teens. Posted my first "official" fanfic (Twilight) to livejournal when I was 28 then moved it over the ff.net midway thru the year and a half it took me to write it.

20. Favorite fic you've ever written?

A Perfect Sonnet bc even tho it's like 8 fics deep into my iylpp universe, I worked really hard to world-build and make it more high fantasy than fluffy slice-of-life stuff like I usually did for them. I'm not sure if I succeeded but I am proud of the effort I made.

I am trying to remember my mutuals who also write fic. Most are barely on tumblr anymore, but I'll tag who I can remember: @justme--emily @trashangel-dee @221bdisneystreet @america-oreosandkitkats @spectraling