#the rest of the worldbuilding and minor details can come later :P

[hyliancourage]

VERSE DETAILS POST :  THE FIERCE DEITY

please note: this verse is mainly self interpretation, based off of what we know about the fierce deity from majora’s mask and the manga! it’s also mixed with information of the ancient ones and the interlopers as mentioned in MM and TP. since there is very little known about the fierce deity, most of his backstory will be my own portrayal and imagining of him. 🤗

BASICS

name: unknown

age: unknown, easily over 10 millennia old

race: an unknown form of a god, but appears to be Hylian

birthplace: not of this earth

status: spirit, trapped in a mask

height: 6′7″

build: MUSCULAR he is beefcake city 💪

appearance: white hair that reaches his lower back, pale blue eyes. after death and being sealed into the mask, his eyes are completely white and glow.

ABILITIES / WEAPONS

double helix sword: a two handed greatsword with incredible power, strong enough to cut air. able to fire magic-powered blasts shaped like buzzsaws, as well as sword beams.

drums of time: when played, they are able to stop, speed up, or reverse time. can be narrowed down to a single area as well to work on a single target (as seen in the manga).

self-healing: regenerates health and heals wounds over time.

enhanced durability: most attacks do little to no damage on him. magical attacks with great strength need to be backed by power from another deity, god, or goddess to really harm him.

three stone necklace: three blue stones filled with the captured essence of powerful creatures from beyond, whose powers grant high magical resistance

PERSONALITY

lawful neutral: he takes a middle ground between good and evil. this causes problems with cosmos as time goes on and he goes against their rules to follow his own, as he sees fit to intervene whenever he feels that balance and justice is unfairly shifted or maliciously disrupted.

cunning / sneaky: it’s easy for him to play a role, to act innocent and unassuming when he wants (as seen in mm manga), in order to get the answers or results that he’s looking for. however, this is only ever when in search of those answers or a goal. when he doesn’t have to play a role to get answers or restore balance, fierce deity is incredibly honest, as he sees no reason to lie.

bold / brave: he shows very little sense of fear, and is able to remain calm even in the face of danger. 

calculating

strong sense of justice

fierce deity, in the beginning, was very warm to people. he was kind and welcoming, especially towards friends and family. he cared very much for people and their well being. as time went on however, and as he became more fierce deity than human, he became more aloof and cold. he isn’t mean or rude or malicious towards people, but he can be rather dismissive. it’s only when someone catches his eye or interests him, or if they can help him carry out his plan and sense of justice that he talks to someone. 

he doesn’t harm innocents either. he can be intimidating with his silence, stature and power, but he has no interest in hurting people, and is in fact vehemently against it. part of his humanity remains still in the sense that he does care whether people get hurt or not, and will stop it. 

HISTORY

fierce deity is a godlike creature originating from beyond hyrule, beyond termina, and beyond the three goddesses. he knows of the goddesses din, nayru, and farore, but is not bound to them nor does he serve them. the cosmos created him, alongside the power of the goddess of time. he was originally part of a race called The Ancient Ones. they were a tribe of powerful sorcerers and magical ability. eventually, when he was 20, he was chosen by the goddess of Time to serve her and the cosmos. It granted him new abilities and godlihood. Since then, he has traveled many worlds and lands in their name, carrying out their plans, returning home when he can.

over time, however, he began to question the cosmos’ methods of justice, seeing them as unnecessarily cruel or excessive. the ancient ones believed in balance, but with a sense of justice and fairness, and despite being a servant of the cosmos, the fierce deity could not look past this or ignore all that he had been taught and raised to believe before. this culminated upon hearing of and meeting the evil being, majora.

when fierce deity killed majora, it hadn’t been out of hatred or fear or dislike: nor empathy. it had been out of pity, and his own sense of justice. he knew majora needed to be stopped, but thought it cruel and unnecessary to trap it in time forever. he knew that keeping majora alive and in a world where time didn’t move wouldn’t stop others from seeking majora out either, and would only cause the cycle to repeat. so he went against the plans of the cosmos, and stopped majora himself. 

" I heard there was a monster here that called himself a man-eater. And I wondered, how much time he had spent here alone...? Not able to vanish from this world, but not able to live, either. Have you been in this frozen world ever since you were left here by the cosmos? To remain? A thousand years? Ten thousand years? Forever? How...harsh. "

“ Is that how you see me?! I am a fierce, evil man-eater! ”

“ There’s no one left to eat. ”

                                                      - fierce deity and majora

he followed the wishes of his people, The Ancient Ones, and using the method taught to him by them, sealed Majora away in a mask - created with his own hide - so that he would kill no longer. 

he considered both a mercy and a punishment to majora, who would no longer be forced to suffer a timeless existence, but also never be able to act upon his greed and bloodlust any longer either.

" Your power has been firmly sealed into this mask. Your power will no longer be a menace. I hope you sleep forever. "  

                                   - fierce deity to majora’s mask

however, this caused a shift in the cosmos, upsetting the powers that be. the cosmos were unhappy by his actions, but the fierce deity found himself protected by the goddess of time herself, backed by the powerful wishes of the ancient ones who sought to protect him as well. the cosmos relented, allowing him to live, but not without a price. for his actions and selfishness, he would never be able to return home. his people were no longer his. and to ensure he should never transgress again, he would no longer be a part of his people either. he would have no memory of them, no memory of his life before his duty to uphold and protect the cosmos. his true name would be lost to time, and he would only know himself as the fierce deity from thereon.

so the fierce deity continued serving the cosmos and doing as asked for a few millennia longer, but despite the seal on his memories, he continued to serve with a sense of wrongness and anger, his sense of justice disagreeing with all he heard of and saw occurring in other lands and worlds. eventually, the seal on his memories cracked, and he remembered what had happened: his people, and majora and the mask. however, he kept quiet of his revelation, choosing instead to quietly forge his own path in secrecy but with no lack of determination, boldness, and self-righteousness.

as he was her champion, fierce deity had his current armor (as seen in MM) blessed by the goddess of time, with a prophecy inscribed into both breastplates in the form of a crescent moon and triangle. she wouldn’t tell him the prophecy in full, only giving him a clue and a warning. the clue: one day, his past will catch up to him. and a warning: should he continue in his quest against the cosmos, he will surely seal his own fate away.

not long after, the fierce deity acquired his double helix sword through a series of trials. each trial served a purpose -- to show his worth, his power, and whether he was of true intentions or not. they tested him and his abilities, often pushing him to his physical and mental limit as the trials were not only in the beasts and monsters he defeated, but also in whether he was capable of handling the power that they wielded. he would need to seal that power away and carry it with him, without succumbing to want or desire or greed, back to the trial master at the end of all the trials. after successfully completing all the trials, the seals were then imbued into the metal that would become his double helix sword, granting him all of that immense power. it also is the reason behind the blue and red markings on his face, and the white of his eyes: in order to be able to wield and handle all of that power without succumbing to madness or being completely destroyed by it, enchantments, blessings, and powerful magic was stored into his being.

despite the goddess of time’s warning to him, fierce deity continued, and eventually it became known to the powers above that he was working against the cosmos, a rogue deity that had accumulated a vast amount of power and used it to deliver justice that often did not align with what had been predetermined or agreed upon.

he was too powerful to stop for a long time, but eventually was found and bound into the form of a mask -- the same as majora. the goddess of time’s warning had come true after all. 

however, he was not bound by the cosmos or any other power. he bound himself, to trick the cosmos into thinking he was no longer a threat. he lives on still in the mask because of it, incredibly powerful and waiting to return.

[krixwell-liveblogs]

Arc Thoughts: Infestation

(Mid-Arc Thoughts)

So! That’s all the members of the Slaughterhouse Nine accounted for!

Let’s take a look at the second half of Infestation, as well as Infestation as a whole!

A jumble of recap (part 2) and predictions, whoops

Part 2 of Infestation has been significantly less continuous than part 1, consisting of eight largely separate chapters following roughly the same format - a POV character is approached by a member of the Slaughterhouse Nine, the Fellowship member in most cases wanting the POV character to join the team.

Besides the introductions of upcoming antagonists, the most important chapters for the main perspective of the story outside the Interludes are definitely 11a and 11g. Because of the events of these chapters - or rather, the nominations leading to them - Rachel and Alec will both be targeted by the Slaughterhouse Nine in upcoming chapters, something that will likely cause all of the Undersiders to get involved even though they’ve been divided into their own territories. Notably, Rachel is willing to “see what this test is all about”, and is probably the Undersider most fit to actually succeed without help, so there is genuinely a risk that she might end up joining the enemy.

The only other nominees we saw who accepted the offer of becoming Slaughterhouse members were Oni Lee and Hookwolf. Oni didn’t work out, but I could see Hookwolf actually successfully becoming a member and then backstabbing the rest of the team.

Meanwhile, however, the Slaughterhouse Nine apparently don’t give a shit about whether you want to join them, even though they have a habit of showing enough courtesy to ask/warn the nominees. If you’ve been nominated, they’ll test you, no matter what, so Colin, Amy and Noelle (and by extension Coil) need to watch out as well.

Judgment

I think I was right to do Mid-Arc Thoughts. Part 2 of Infestation, the Interludes, could very easily have been a separate Arc. Sentinel and Parasite are more interconnected than Infestation proper and its Interludes. As a result, Arc 11 as a whole feels quite bisected, and it’s hard for me to think of it as a whole at all.

Part 1 was a pretty decent Taylor story about bystanderism and dealing with the infestation that was the Merchants, with the looming threat of the Slaughterhouse Nine being very much in the background. It had solid throughlines, bookends (Taylor waking up from a nightmare at the beginning, feeling optimistic about the same things at the end), and worldbuilding re: the Dandelions and Cauldron, and generally works excellently as a standalone Arc.

Part 2 was more formulaic, in a sense, but in a good way. It let me loosely know what to expect but still left room for each Interlude to do its own thing, and what they did was usually pretty good. There were some fantastic chapters in there, most notably Interlude 11h.

And while the Interludes were largely separate from each other, the formula and the minor pieces of continuity connecting the chapters - from small details like Coil acknowledging Leah’s death to bigger things like 11a and 11h taking place at the same time, or the mystery of the Newbie and what happened to Hatchet Face, or Oni Lee being taken in 11b and showing up again as part of Hack Job in 11h - made the sequence of Interludes feel like a whole rather than just... a set of events.

Overall, Arc 11 is very good, but I do feel it works better seen as two stories, two Arcs.

The Arc title

I don’t think this has changed much since the Mid-Arc Thoughts. Infestation still refers primarily to the Merchants. You could argue that it also covers the Slaughterhouse Nine, but I don’t think that fits anywhere near as well.

Prediction review

From Arc Thoughts: Parasite:

So what do we have coming up?

As mentioned earlier in the post, this Arc ended with Dragon finding out Taylor’s identity and starting a search for her. I don’t think that’s a plot that’s going to be left dormant for too long, so there’s a good chance Dragon will play a role in Arc 11, or maybe Arc 12.

She did appear, but not for this particular plotline.

Meanwhile, the Undersiders will need to try to stay away from the Slaughterhouse Nine. They will fail, that much I’m certain of, but whether they’ll fail in the next Arc or later remains to be seen.

Two of them were specifically sought out by Slaughterhouse Nine members, and the rest are coming after those Undersiders to test them.

So yeah. They absolutely failed to stay away from the Slaughterhouse Nine, and it’s gonna get worse. :P

When it happens, though… well, there’s little reason to hold back against Jack Slash in particular. But even if someone does try to kill him, I think they’ll fail. I could see the story’s climax happening in two years, but I highly doubt we’ll be skipping ahead enough for it to happen in fifteen.

We didn’t quite get to this point yet. This prediction’s gonna have to carry over to Arc 12.

We might also learn more about Imp/Aisha (though with the reveal that Imp was Aisha, that’s become less of pressing matter since we’ve had a chapter getting to know Aisha as a civilian before) and how she ended up on the team… I wish I could see Brian’s face the moment Aisha probably told him straight that she has powers now and she knows about the Undersiders. :P

No luck there. Aisha is the one Undersider we didn’t see in this Arc at some point or other - almost like Wildbow forgot to include her... ;)

And now, predictions from the Mid-Arc Thoughts:

Given the number of Interludes, my main prediction is that these Interludes are for the Slaughterhouse Nine, starting or more likely ending with Jack Slash. Eight members, eight Interludes.

Correct, besides the part about Jack Slash. Though he did show up in the first one to start after the gimmick of the Interludes had been confirmed.

Knowing that the Interludes were done for the purpose of celebrating the anniversary of Gestation 1.1, the number might just be the result of 1 regular Interlude plus 7 bonus Interludes for the week of celebration, but that seems too perfect for Wildbow not to use that for the Fellowship even if that was the case. (If this is how it shook out, I do feel like that slightly increases the chances of Jack Slash going first, though that depends on when Wildbow got the idea for the week-long marathon of Interludes.)

I don’t know if this was the case - though the lack of “(Anniversary Bonus)” on Interlude 11a suggests it might’ve been, that tag was also missing from 11d and 11h. (I don’t know if that was by accident or to indicate that he would’ve done them even if he hadn’t decided to do an Interlude marathon to celebrate the anniversary. If it’s the latter, then why 11h rather than 11g?)

But if it was that way, it still makes a lot of sense that Siberian went first, with 11a being one of the two most important Interludes in the Arc. The parenthetical comment was caused by the assumption that Jack Slash’s Interlude would be most important, so while I was wrong about which one it’d be, I was correct about the underlying idea - that one of the most important Interludes would come first.

That said, I could still be wrong. If the Interludes aren’t for the Slaughterhouse Nine, I don’t have a clue who they’d be for. Maybe some of the other villains in town? Maybe one of the Wards or Protectorate members as they learn of the Merchants’ collapse? Perhaps even a short check-in on Dragon’s progress in finding Taylor?

Nope.

Also, given the marathon, I suspect these Interludes might each be a bit shorter than the average recent chapter.

I don’t know. They didn’t feel any shorter, at least. Maybe he wrote them in advance?

So yeah, whatever Wildbow has in store for me, I’m sure it’ll be good. If perhaps brutal. :)

That it was!

Predictions for Arc 12

I’ve kind of accidentally covered just about everything already, but let’s summarize:

We know that Bitch, Armmaster, Hookwolf, Noelle, Regent and Panacea are all now targets for Slaughterhouse testing. This might be lethal for some of them, as I doubt the Slaughterhouse members will hold back. However, I doubt we’re losing Bitch, Hookwolf or Regent - Bitch and Regent because plot armor and Hookwolf because he’s probably the most competent fighter out of all of them, besides maybe Armmaster, and better equipped defensively than anyone except maybe Noelle. Besides plot armor, it would be more interesting to have Bitch actually join the Slaughterhouse Nine and become an antagonist - at least temporarily - than to have her just die.

Other than that, a couple predictions from the end of Arc 10 remain active:

Dragon’s attempts to locate Taylor and communicate with her may come back in Arc 12. However, it might end up being a bit much to have that on top of the Slaughterhouse plot (though that didn’t stop us from learning about Dandelions in the middle of a Merchant brawl), so it’s possible that gets pushed back to Arc 13.

And, if someone attempts to kill Jack Slash, they will either fail, or do it too late.

But yeah, if I were to describe what I think Arc 12 will be like in one word, it’d have to be intense.

I am pretty curious to see how the Arc deals with the fact that there are other characters we care about who are going through the same thing as two of the Undersiders. Maybe we’ll have some Interludes to help out with that? Though it is worth noting that Wildbow seems to have a rule against using the same POV character for two Interludes (which is probably part of why Alec wasn’t the POV in 11g, besides Cherish’s power and personality being better illustrated from within her own head), so he’d have to show us the perspective of someone else close to the action. Perhaps even one of the attacking Slaughterhouse members, though that might be a tad redundant.

Primarily, though, I think we’ll be focusing on Taylor and the other Undersiders doing what they can to protect Alec, and maybe Rachel if she does eventually decide to tell the others anything.

So yeah. See you soon, as I dive into Arc 12!

[callmearcturus]

Hi! I was wondering if you could give me some tips on outlining a fic? I have my character backgrounds down to a t, and I've been working on world building, but I've still been having trouble getting my ideas organized in a story format. Yours are always so well written and flow so nicely, I was hoping you had some advice! Thank you! 💕 (PS your newest fic is amazing and I can't wait for more!!!)

God I have been putting off answering this one too long because I Take Outlines So Seriously. In the last week I’ve probably written 30K words, and only about 7K was fic. The rest was the outline rough draft and then the outline final.

HOW TO WRITE MASSIVE FICS LIKE A FUCKING BOSS: THE ARCTURUS METHODOLOGY

So I have literally a Process I use. My larger fics literally have a pre-production period that I have to work through before they are ready to be written.

Stage One: Conceptualize.

Start with the core idea. “What happens when Jake continues to live in Derse, and the trolls come to visit.” “What if Jake was a faerie and Dirk was just tailor made for enthrallment.” “What if--” actually the Core Idea of sex magic island AU is a spoiler, lol.

Write out everything you know about the plot in a paragraph or two.

Write out the cast list with little blurbs by each character. These should be longer than the plot summary. Let this meander and expand your concepts. Characters are the driving force of writing, so some cool ideas should start to form.

See, from my off the cuff Dramatis Personae, I came to several conclusions about the AU:

1. My central characters were Jane/Roxy/Dirk, and the story was happening to them. This is different from ASAFAF in which Jake was the vehicle of the story or the fae AU where it was Dirk. Or TES where fuck me that was complicated.

2. The idea of Dirk’s tattoos happened here, and suddenly a lot of the universe snapped into focus. Small ideas become world-shaping concepts, spinning out and gaining important and providing scope.

3. Dirk would be POV and everyone around him would be the aggressors of the plot. It’s Jane’s discovery of the island that is the impetus of the story, and it’s Roxy’s later discoveries that drive the story. Dirk is more of a reactant.

The ideas from here might get dropped and changed over time. Like, Roxy having a cat. I don’t care. Dirk’s glasses exist but will not be a Thing. etc.

Figure out setting shit. This can take as much time as you want. With ASAFAF I had a basic setting backloaded by A House Built. With the fae AU, the heavy lifting was in the setting’s magic rules, not the setting itself since it was p much Dublin. With sex island AU, there was a fucking lot of worldbuilding. As soon as I was talking to Rosa and figured out “noble = muggle,” everything started domino-ing.

Stage Two: Outline the Lesser.

Write the shittiest outline. Just don’t even bother with chapter cuts or blocking out scenes. Write out what the fuck happens and move on to the next thing that happens. Figure out the plot as far as you can.

If you have a brainwave and need to revise, don’t fucking bother doing it. Highlight the area that needs revision, add a comment/note with what it needs, and move on.

This is a bad outline. But it is the ugly mottled kakuna that is gonna evolve into a beautiful asskicking beedrill.

You finished the outline? Good. Put it away from the night, stop looking at it. If you get any more brainwaves, shove ‘em in a notepad file.

Go build a playlist or pinterest board or something.

Stage Three: Outline the Greater.

Open that bitch in another window and rewrite the entire thing.

Start marking out chapter beats, where you think each one starts and ends.

Integrate all of the notes you left yourself in stage two.

Block shit out on a scene-by-scene basis. Your leftmost bullet should be your chapter heading and maybe a brief What Happens This Chapter sentence.

Your next bullet is essentially your “INT: Dirk’s office.” scene setting.

And then you need to block out the action in the next bullet.

Make sure you space things out so the flow is obvious.

If you have important but minor details to work in, put in another indented bullet.

Then continue with your blocking.

You can and should get as deep into this shit as you can. For a 50K-90K story, my outline is always between 7K-15K. I think my longest outline was either The Hunters Initiative plot outline or The Eurydice Suite. I had everything lined up.

A weird thing that tends to happen: Midway through the doc, I start drafting important twists and conversations. I’ll have a scene going on, and then realize I need it to go perfectly.

“So I start just doing it.”“Writing it in a new indented bullet?”“Yeah. It helps a fucking lot to make sure I hit the beats later. I might have a fabulous idea for how a scene in chapter six is going to do while outlining. I won’t reach that chapter for weeks, but this way, I won’t lose that shit.”

The finished outline should be basically the Cliff Note’s Reader’s Guide to the fic. If you have a friend or beta, show this to them to get their thoughts on it. Listen to the feedback and adjust as needed.

Here is what a single scene in the Final Outline looks like:

It’s like this all the way down. (Or, okay, admittedly, the ending of this fic is not like, but I have the plan written out blow for blow. But that’s for a reason with this one, don’t worry about it.)

Stage Four: Make this shit happen.

Open a new GDoc. Copy the outline for chapter one into it. Above that, start writing it, following the outline. Delete every scene as you complete it, so the next part of the plan is always visible. Write it. Write it all until you have deleted the outline.

Enter enter enter. Type “chapter two.” Copy the relevant part of the outline under it. Continue on.

Congrats! You are now a machine that can churn out a 50k-90k fic in a month or three! Which is great because man I want more fic to read. /fistpump

This is how I do it. This is a method I’ve literally been honing since I was 20. I am aware it is not everyone’s method. Like, I have had several people ask me to beta their outlines and I always always always caution them that, yo, I know what works for me. And I do not stray from that shit. Are you sure you want me in on this.

But I know that for me, this works. I have never posted a fic without someone asking me “how the fuck do you write this quality at this speed” and the answer is literally that I have put in a lot of foundation work before I even start writing.

This process, the outlining, literally takes about a week or two on its own. And that’s pretty consistent, daily work on it.

That is my secret. I worship at the altar of outlines.

I hope this helps.

[litrapod]

I love superheroes and I love to hear what people love, if you’re so inclined, please take the time to share your Top Three (3) Lists of a) Live Action Superhero Movies b) Live Action Superhero TV Series c) Animated Superhero Movies and d) Animated Superhero TV Series. Invite others to share by tagging or copy/pasting this into a friend’s ask and of course everyone should feel free to gush! (If you’re feeling extra kind tag your post “a superhero lover’s top three” so people know where to look.)

Okay you asked for it…

Needless to say, Here be spoilers.

Top 3 Live Action Movies:

Avengers (2012): First Group movies are hard. I’ve tried to write group stories and that’s hard enough when you don’t have to worry about fitting everything into 2 -2 ½ hours, And balancing out story arcs, and screen time. This movie may not be perfect, but it comes damn close. There was a whole lot of pressure on this movie, because everyone know they were building up to it, and while I would have loved to see more of certain characters *cough* Clint *cough*, It managed to set up basically the entire MCU world from then on. It may not have been a traditional origin story, but this is the movie that kicked everything off.

The Dark Knight (2008): Okay storytime. My first job was as a lifeguard, and we rotated around the pool in increments of about an hour and a half per circuit. In the break room there was a small Tv with an old VCR. We had exactly 2 movies,  The Matrix and the old 1989 Batman movie with Jack Nicholson as the Joker. By the end of the summer everyone hated those two movies, myself included, because they were the only things we ever watched. I, myself managed to see the scene in Batman where the Joker defeces the museum over twenty times. To this day that it the only scene I can remember from that movie (and I can remember it in crystal clarity) because with a 15 minute break that’s all I got to see.

I bring this up because that’s what I had in my head as the joker for a long time, and I hated it. I hated the movie, I hated the character, I hated everything about it. There was the occasional flashback to Batman the animated series, but overall, yeah, hate.

Then this movie came out. The first one was good, but this one was going to have the joker, and I detested the Joker (honestly he’s a very good character to hate) and I was floored. Not only was a sequel just as good if not better than the original, but it took the Joker in a different direction. This was something I hadn’t seen before and while I still hated him, this is a portrayal that didn’t make me drown in it and ruin the movie.

Unbreakable: This movie, I don’t even have words for this movie. I know people go on about M. Night Shyamalan plot twists, but forget that for a moment.

Just look at the opening scene. A guy on a train, a little girl making faces. A woman sits down next to him and they start to talk. He takes off his wedding ring. It gets awkward, and things start to fall apart, then boom train crash.

The attention to detail, and character building are amazing. So many superhero movies just don’t bother. They’re too caught up in the CGI or in finding a way to revamp an old character. Don’t get me wrong I love origin stories, but there’s only so many ways you can play them.  Instead of making everything bigger in scale in order to keep things interesting and challenging it keeps the focus on the internal and personal conflicts just as much as the external ones, so that they feed into each other.

This movie manages to give us a truly human superhero.

A common failing of superhero movies is that the character development seems forced or clunky because the focus is to get to the big ending fight scene. Not so here. The final big fight scene is important because of what it means to the characters, not because of someone’s powers or who/what they’re threatening. Which is why the ending twist actually really works.

I can’t even describe how much I love this movie.

Top 3 Live Action TV Series:

Daredevil: So I’m going to focus on season one here.

This series took risks and they paid off in spades. It focuses on the villains almost at the expense of the heroes, but because of that we know the full scope of what Matt is facing. This isn’t just “oh I stopped a mugging” it’s full on organized crime. For half the season Matt doesn’t even know who’s in charge, or that there even is one person in charge.

The cinematography is gorgeous. Pay attention to the colors. Everything is clearly chosen for a reason. By the end of the season I was getting nervous when Vanessa wore black. There have been a couple other movies that tried to play up the color thing, but most of them had crappy scripts. It this series, the stark color contrasts only amplify what is already a great show.

It eases you into the weird. This show is canonically in the same universe as the Avengers. Thor, Hulk, Aliens, they all exist, but it’s a distant presence to the average guy on the street. And this series shows that. When an honest to god Ninja showed up I was flabbergasted, because while I knew that they could be a thing in this universe, it still felt like something i’d never seen before. ( This is also a part of my disappointment about season 2 but I’m not going to get into that here. )

In a lot of ways this is actually a season long origin story. We got the time and breadth to fully explore how Matt became Daredevil. Training montages are fun and all, but this gave it depth.

I could go on. The catholic themes, the brutality that never seemed unnecessary or over the top.

This is a wonderful show that set an extremely high bar for the rest of the Netfix originals.

Heroes: I loved this show (before the writers strike ruined it) because there were so many good characters and none of them seemed to know what they were doing. The way everything slowly wove together in the first season was great. The recurring themes that were the paintings and the company.

This show had a lot of potential and it was clear the writers had a lot of ideas. Not many of those ideas actually made it to the screen in later seasons, but despite that, this was a fun show to watch every week and a fun show to binge watch when I need to lift my spirits.

Flash:  I had a hard time picking among the CW Flash/Arrow/Legends/Supergirl set.

Supergirl was the show I wished I had as a young girl. Legends has just the right amount of over the top that I love.

Flash ended up winning because Flash is my favorite superhero.

Wally was the Flash I grew up with and when the show came out I kind of wanted to hate it because DC had written him out of existence  ( in both the comics and Young Justice… Seriously DC what do you have against him? ) Barry, had featured in Arrow of course, which i Loved to Death, But that didn’t mean he’d be written well or be able to carry his own show…  The core of Barry’s character in any universe is that he’s hopeful. He will see the best in people and bring it out in those around him. Despite him being incredibly awkward in the first season he had that. It worked.

And then in episode four they gave us Len and he was so well done I just melted. After that I was sold.

Top 3 Animated Superhero movies:

Justice League New Frontier: If you watch nothing else on this list, watch this one.

The interweaving storylines, the art style, the plot, everything about this movie is gold. I’m a long time DC fan and the number of subtle hints, and worldbuilding they do is amazing, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a movie new fans can enjoy. Because it’s a sort of coming together of the Justice League, you don’t need to know anything beyond who Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman are. All the lesser known characters are given their own small arcs so you know what they’re about.

Then on a deeper layer it’s a social commentary on the cold war, and the space race, and the fear of the unknown. I have watched this movie dozens of times. I own an autographed copy of the DVD. Every time I watch it I notice something new.

Batman: Under the Red Hood: The Red Hood storyline in the comics is a bit of a monster. You have to be a fan and know the history in order to understand all the implications. The movie has a bit of that, but in my opinion it does a good job filling in most of the gaps.

While the Joker is the main villain he’s more of a foil for Jason and to a lesser degree Bruce. (which is definitely a plus in my book, see above rant of hatred regarded the Joker)

It’s hard to pin down exactly what I love about this one. It’s strange to say, but if I had to pick one thing it’d be the pacing. There are individual lines that are amazing but it’s the culmination that makes this a great movie. There’s a balance to it. Lighter moments even though the plot is very dark. Action and quieter moments each given their place.

Planet Hulk: This one makes the list because I have a soft spot for the Hulk and this is the first comic storyline for the hulk that I ever read. The movie isn’t as complex as the comics of course and they have to wrap everything up in a bow rather then lead into the next comic story, but it’s a good depiction nevertheless.

Top 3 Animated Superhero TV Series:

I realize this is kind of a cop out, but they really are my favorites.

Batman the animated series: It set the standard for all other superhero shows for the next few decades. It invented Detective Montoya, Harley Quinn and several other minor characters. It gave several villains backstories that are still used today, Freeze being the one that comes to mind. It was the start of the whole DC animated universe ( Batman animated, Superman animated, Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, Static Shock, Batman Beyond and possibly a few more I’m forgetting )

If there’s a top ten list of superhero shows that doesn’t have the Batman animated Series, then it was probably disqualified for being too awesome.

Justice League Unlimited: Everything Batman was but with a bigger cast. Minor heroes got a place to shine. While still shown as being important to the larger plot, and oh those plots. The Legion of Doom, Doomsday, Brainiac. As much as the hero’s got to shine so did the villains.

Keep in mind a lot of these characters (on both sides) hadn’t been portrayed on screen before this, and for a lot of the lesser known ones the portrayal here is still what people who don’t read the comics think of first.

Batman Beyond: It was my first fandom, so yes, I’m biased. My first multi-chapter fic is still up on ff.net.

Batman is a huge character. He’s the bread and butter of the DCU, so much so that people don’t treat him like he’s human. This show not only admitted he was human, it started asking questions, and opened a whole new world of possibilities because of it.

The first scene still gets me every time, the gun, and shutting down the cave.

Add to that that this was not only in the same world but created by the same team that did the batman animated series and you get a wealth of history that other shows can only dream of. The costumes in the cases, the trophies, they’re all the same ones from the other show. When Terry finally meets the Justice League, Superman references thing that happened in the Justice League show. And you can’t get the end of Mr. Freeze’s character arc unless you watch Batman Beyond.

Not that it’s tied down. It has a history, but with a new Batman it’s a whole different ball game. And Terry is a different Batman. He’s not dark and brooding. He sasses back to his villains like Dick. He’s got street smarts like Jason. He’s got the drive like Bruce. He may still be figuring things out but it’s clear he’ll be just as impressive.