#would anyone want me to rank them? would literally anyone on planet earth be interested in that? fuck it i might do it anyway

[fingertipsmp3]

This book I’m reading is so good I’m genuinely mad that I put off reading it

[los-ninos-tortugas]

Still collecting my thoughts, but im kinda obsessed with the idea of the turtles living to maybe see at least early TOS

And I'm still thinking more about that too.

*drinks shot* imagine if they did have multi-century long life spans tho?

They'd get to see a lot of stuff (insert relevant events from ENT, DISCO, and SNW here) and they'd probably venture off planet eventually.

I can see Mikey being an ambassador, especially during the early days of the federation and by the time of the TOS era he'd be very well known throughout the alpha quadrant. I think there could be a really interesting adventure where Kirk's Enterprise has to escort him somewhere and everyone's all like "we will protect you with our lives Ambassador," and he's just like, "Aw that's cute, you think you're here to protect me?"

If Raph isn't doing something directly involved with Starfleet security then I feel like he and Leo are kinda just like the Federation's cool retired uncles and they just do a lot of planet hopping. Maybe everyonce in a while they give a talk or a seminar about leadership or something but I think they more than anyone want to just chill out, which also means by law they constantly get dragged into shenanigans against their will and it always fall to the nearest hapless starfleet vessel to come bail them out. It's all very lowstakes but very inconvenient. Kirk probably has a story from when he was still an ensign and his ship got sent to go pick up the famous Hamato brothers.

Donnie is directly involved with Starfleet but it's like having your really intimidating grandpa hanging around aaaaaallllll the time. Cuz Cochrane just mysteriously disappeared one day but his old lab partner is still kickin around and he's literally the co-inventor of warp flight (for earth) and he will not stop backseat driving. No one is even actually sure what his title is because he's definitely not an admiral but he's been around so long no one is going to question him. (he has no official rank or title, when Starfleet was founded he just showed up and no one has been able to get him to stop hanging around for the past century but also he keeps improving the starships so they're not really eager to kick him out either). In this version all Starfleet ships come with an option for a male or female voice, the female voice obviously is still Majel Baret's voice but the male version is just Shelldon, Donnie is a very proud father.

Now the boys are very long lived but unfortunately the same can't be said of their human companions, but they of course still keep up with all of their descendants and they're all still considered a part of the Hamato family. If I were less sleepy I would maybe try to flesh out what Ensigns O'Neil and Jones could be like but that's gonna have to be a story for another day.

[irresistiibles]

was that im jinah? oh no no, that was just pearl, a canon character from steven universe. they are ten thousand+ years old, use she/her, and are aware that they are not actually from washington dc. too bad they can’t stray from this city for long.

how long has your character been here

around a month or two. she’s used to the basics and has settled into a job but she’s still pretty upset about everything going on

what is your character’s job

works part time as a mechanic and part time as a ballet teacher. a weird mix but she likes it. she probably also occasionally tutors. listen pearl has plenty of money saved up and very few things she actually needs to buy, so she just does whatever interests her.

where has your character been pulled from in their fandom

after the movie but before steven universe future cause i had some mixed thoughts about that.

has any magic affected your character

nope!

any other info!

part of an alien race that essentially are sentient gemstones that can create humanoid forms to exist in so her name is pearl but she is also quite literally a pearl

immortal but not indestructible, it’s just difficult. her gem has to be shattered to get rid of her as she can simply reform her physical body

back on homeworld all gems have a purpose based on their gems, and pearls were basically made to order servants, there to look pretty and open doors and hold things.

and pearl did this job happily for a little while, however the diamond she served under fell in love with earth, and since the other diamonds were using the planet to train it’s nutrients she rebelled, and pearl rebelled along with her

pearl definitely did this partially for herself, for the freedom and ability to decide what she wanted to do and think for herself, not just because she was definitely in love with her diamond, but it took her a couple centuries to realize that

so she trained herself in combat, in mechanics, in just about everything she could get her hands on

in order to win the rebellion her diamond masqueraded as a lower rank gem and eventually she and pearl faked the diamond’s death to scare off the others. it worked but it ended in almost all of the other rebel gems being destroyed and was a large source of guilt and grief in her life for a long time

eventually the diamonds left earth and she stayed with just a few other gems, and they lived there for thousands of years with little change until her diamond (now pretending to be a rose quartz) decided to have a baby

this ultimately killed her as her gem had to become a part of her kid, and pearl had a Rough time with that between losing her to a man and then literally losing her but she is such a mom at heart she really grew to love steven

anyway that is just a quick flash of the general background what is there to say about pearl

so gay so incredibly gay i love her so much

has a pile of trauma and self esteem issues but from where i’ve taken her she is genuinely doing better at working through them

a little weirdo. very blunt and sometimes rude as a result since she never was all that compelled by humans

wanted plots:

anyone she knows from her variety of jobs

and younger muses who could use a parental figure she is happy to be there

some poor human who has to help explain human things to her on the regular you would think after being on earth so long she would know and yet

any ladies she’s gone on casual dates with perhaps? listen in the show she canonically gets a bunch of phone numbers from people i don’t know how she does it

roller skate buddies! she loves a roller rink! let her have fun

literally anything this is the character who got me into multifandom rps i have a lot of love for her

[itwoodbeprefect]

decided to just compile a bunch of comments about my sga 1x01 rising rewatch into a single post because i don’t actually want to make a hundred posts in a row, so here, under the cut, many rambles:

announcer guy does, in fact, speak english upon a second attempt. well done on not forgetting to not speak german, announcer guy.

“i’m afraid of the thing” elizabeth says, about the drone chair, while standing next to it and looking like she wants to fuck it

rodney in that orange sweater! very orange! very warm!

john is on screen. john’s first words are helicopters he knows how to fly. john KINDA LIKES IT in antarctica. john has barely done anything and i already feel like crying a little bit about this guy who LIKES ANTARCTICA because he just wants to fly

POOR CARSON when he almost kills two people. “ai told ya ai was the wrong pursohn” :(

i really love how john sees the drone coming at the (landed) helicopter and yells “get out!” and they throw open their doors and john JUMPS and then it’s just “ugh.” and he’s belly-down on the floor and still like, almost under the helicopter. an attempt was made, for sure. just not a very succesful one.

the way john looks around like he’s never seen a ceiling before when he enters the base is just. very funny. and then some guy in particular is looking at him because he’s a bit of a weirdo and john looks back and the guy sort of looks him up and down and john looks away as if to check if anybody saw that. hmm.

john’s face of “oops” after he sits down in the chair and it ACTIVATES and carson RUNS OFF to go get literally everyone and john is realizing he MAY have just made a very giant big mistake. PRICELESS

teyla: my people have long believed the wraith will come if we venture into the ancient city. sumner, when the wraith come after he ventures into the ancient city: [surprised pikachu face]

gotta love how john insisting on saving his people is what wakes up the wraith, and saving his people is also what landed john in antarctica in the first place because he tried it in afghanistan once before. which wouldn’t have happened if there hadn’t been an american war in afghanistan in the first place, which there wouldn’t have been if bush hadn’t thrown the us into it, which wouldn’t have happened without 9/11, so... bin laden woke the wraith?

on the other hand john would never have had to go on a rescue mission on his first day in pegasus if sumner hadn’t gone into that city against the wishes of the people that already lived there and had a history dating back thousands of years with the place, so more realistically, the expeditions’ colonizer mentality woke the wraith. and then they just kinda... kept going with that for the rest of the show, because it worked out so well on that first day.

anyway i’m not even there yet - puddlejumper! it jumps puddles!

have to love the moment john realizes the puddlejumper is pretty literally reading his mind and giving him anything he can think of that is within its power (so no turkey sandwiches, but that’s okay). john is already in love with it just based on the fact that IT CAN FLY AND GO FAST (“i kinda like it here”, restored) but then all the ancient technology just seems to know him and love him back and gives him way more than he even thinks to ask for. which, for john, who doesn’t really do well expressing desires? a FLYING SHIP that then READS HIS MIND? starstruck. love at first sight. john&puddlejumper, instant bffs. i bet it would have popped a compartment with some stray bits of wire if he’d asked for a friendship bracelet right then and there. ford sitting there witnessing this doesn’t even know how hard he’s thirdwheeling it in that moment.

now i am at the bit where sumner is taken from the wraith prison to see the actual wraith, and look, obviously they’re evil and feed on humans etc etc, but this particular wraith’s sense of dramatics? unparalleled. she has them bring her victims one by one to a large foggy room with a looong table set with a wonderful dinner and then she LEAVES a DEAD BODY sitting at the head of the table (implied to be the athosian that was taken before sumner?) and drops down from the ceiling while sumner has his back turned for no reason except the spectacle of it all, and dracula himself literally couldn’t have made a better display out of this. it’s maybe scary in the way that it makes clear she’s a cat toying with a helpless mouse before she eats it, but it’s also hilarious in the way that this is absolutely a very bored immortal being who had to stay up while the rest went to sleep and is inventing high school improv plays with her dinner for some diversion. don’t play with your food, wraith queen. you’re scaring your dinner.

life signs detector!!! ford didn’t get to name the puddlejumpers gateships, but that one stuck, no matter how much “we can name it later” john was trying to throw at it!!!

(god. there’s a ficlet somewhere in there about season 2 john having a moment where he realizes he’s on the hunt for ford using the thing they first discovered together and that ford gave its name.)

getting sidetracked here, but when john and ford find the group of humans caught by the wraith teyla goes “major!” and it makes me think that. well. how are the athosians supposed to know things like “major” and “colonel” are military ranks? what are the chances the pegasus galaxy uses the same designations? (don’t really know how the language thing works here - we’re hopefully not supposed to think they’re all speaking english, are they? i’ve never watched sg1, there’s probably lore about this, i assume. maybe alien titles somehow get perfect translations to earth ones and vice versa.) but i mean, teyla is too smart, she’d have it figured out already even if those words don’t exist in her galaxy, but some athosian somewhere is going to be very confused by this earth tendency to name way too many kids private and lieutenant, and then put all of them into the army. strange, to have your job decided for you at birth like that. earth people are weeeeird.

fjdkl john is like bye, gonna go find colonel sumner all on my own, run if you don’t hear from me in twenty minutes, and ford’s like “you’re the only one who can fly these people out of here” and “i’m saying i should be the one to go, sir” and john, with his savior can’t-leave-anyone-behind-gotta-do-this-personally-or-i-will-literally-die-from-not-almost-dying complex DOES NOT LISTEN to ford’s EXTREMELY ACCURATE objection. which is his right, as ranking officer, but is also a perfect showcase of why john Should Not Ever be in charge of atlantis, and why sam saying he was totally on the shortlist when she takes over command in s4 is funny but frightening if you’re on atlantis and like being alive.

sumner: “we travel through the stargate as peaceful explorers.” FDJKFD. god, that line, from that character, hilarious.

rodney comes to elizabeth full of enthusiasm about all the interesting stuff they’re finding in the city only to find her staring at the empty gate and when she says she should never have let them (the rescue party) go, he sobers up and says awkwardly “for what it’s worth, you made the right decision” and that’s GOOD that’s KIND.

back on the planet with the wraith everyone is running to the jumper while there are wraith darts whizzing through the air and teyla turns back, catches up with ford who was told to cover their six, disarms him (because he was firing at illusions, revealing their position), hands him back his weapon, pulls him in the direction of the puddlejumper, and PUSHES HIM ASIDE when they’re almost scooped up by a wraith dart, and i’m so here for teyla being allowed a moment of heroics that saves specifically ford, guy with a gun, and not a random athosian damsel in distress. teyla is fully on their level. teyla is perhaps above their level. thank you.

that scene at the end of this episode!! in which there’s a sort of party on atlantis and it’s all buzzing and relaxed while the athosians are mingling freely with the expedition members and they’re talking of friendship and ugh. UGH. there’s a better version of sga in an alternate universe where the expedition didn’t decide atlantis was totally theirs, actually, and they cooperate with the people that were already in the galaxy when they came there and learn from sumner’s mistake to actually respect what they have to say and form a single front and teyla takes over as head of the expedition in s4 when there’s a void left by elizabeth’s absence.

final thought that has always haunted me a little: john suddenly becoming the ranking military member on atlantis after sumner’s death is ?? one of those things where i wonder what the sgc was thinking in their personnel assignments. john wasn’t even supposed to BE THERE. if john hadn’t gone and sumner had still died (which was something they should have considered as a possiblitiy! they didn’t know what they were walking into at all! sumner is apparently the type to lead his own missions!), then what exactly would they have done? i don’t know much about how the us military operates but i’ve watched enough mash to have figured out the order of the ranks and it just seems. very odd to me? to take one (1) colonel on this mission and then ZERO lieutenant colonels OR majors (if john hadn’t stumbled his way into it, that is). like, are there any captains on atlantis? (i think there are?) or would ford, a lieutenant, have ended up ranking military member? this is like the surely-they-only-need-a-single-medical-doctor-right thing. WHAT IS THE SGC THINKING.

anyway. this was good. i liked this. i hadn’t rewatched the pilot in a while, and i only just now figured out how much of a while, because there was a bunch in here i didn’t remember. ON TO EPISODE TWO.

[fightmeyeats]

ACNH: Colonial Desires in the Context of Quarantine

Since finishing up my undergraduate studies in June, one of the major things I've been doing with my free time is playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons (please don't @ me but I've already logged something like 400 hours). As much fun as the game is, one of the things that's really stood out to me is how much AC:NH depends on and reifies colonial logics, and how important it is to unpack this in the context of the game's popularity and the ongoing pandemic.

One of the first ways I want to address colonialism in AC:NH this is through the way I was first introduced to it, namely through its connection to my thesis and what I refer to as the "terraforming imaginary". Before I started playing or had even decided to buy the game, I was working on my thesis "Constructing New Worlds: An Investigation of Climate Change and the Terraforming Imaginary" (which, shameless self plug but if you're interested you can check out my 10 minute video presentation for symposium at Johns Hopkins University here). During this time I was talking about my thesis pretty non-stop with anyone who would listen and as a result probably about half of my friends independently sent me this meme

[ID: meme from @animalcrossingmemes which shows two children; the one on the left is smiling and looking off into the distance with the label "daydreaming about terraforming" while the child on the right looks stressed and upset with the label "actually terraforming". Beneath this meme is text from @kaijuno which reads "I realize this is an animal crossing meme but as an astrophysicist I was really excited for a second that someone was finally seeing the light on how fricking difficult an a huge waste of time it would be to try to terraform Mars". Beneath this text is another meme with four hands gripping each other's wrists to make a circle. In the center is the initial animalcrossingmemes image and each arm is labeled, respectively, "Minecraft Players," "Sims Players," "Animal Crossing Players," and "Astrophysicists apparently"]

Although my thesis addresses terraforming in the context of space exploration/colonization, AC:NH's engagement with "terraforming" (alongside other aspects of colonial practices and desires) helps to expand on the stakes of this. The reason I put "terraforming" in scare-quotes is because…technically, there isn't any terraforming in AC:NH, given that terraforming is "the operation consisting of rendering other stellar bodies—mainly planets and eventually asteroids—appropriate for human life" (Frédéric Neyrat, 46). While I'm all down for an interpretation of the Animal Crossing world as a non-Earth planet and the villagers as aliens, the island is already suitable for human life and the use of "terraforming" in the game is generally more readily identifiable as geoconstructivism: players redesign and restructure their islands, shaping waterways and topography to create idealistic spaces (as opposed to making the island literally livable). Either way, it speaks to the terraforming imaginary—the underlying set of logics and desires conducive to the imagining and desiring of “terraforming”, ie the logics and desires of colonization. Even though AC:NH's terraforming isn't technically terraforming, it is an embodiment of the terraforming imaginary, centering desires for the "civilizing"/"cultivating" of a space into an orderly, colonized ideal. On even a very surface level it is useful to think about this through the island rating system: islands are ranked out of five stars, with deductions made for things such as having "too many" weeds or not "cleaning up" by leaving items lying around rather than placed with intention. 

Another, perhaps more obvious, way in which AC:NH embodies colonial logics is through the "Nook Miles Tickets". Players trade in Nook Miles (an achievement based currency) for tickets which they can take to the airport and use to visit other, uninhabited islands which they can destroy to extract all of the resources slash-and-burn style. Players also have an increased likelihood of catching rare insects, fish, and sea animals to display to their own island museum or sell. As Wilbur, a dodo pilot, explains about this process: "we run the 'finders keepers' protocol here. Lumber, fruit, fish, whatever? Yours if you can carry it", going on to emphasize the importance of not leaving anything behind as there will be no returning; they "burn the flight plans" after each flight.

Although the rampantly destructive extraction of resources is the most apparent embodiment of colonial logics, the centrality of the museum and the imperative to complete each wing by finding and identifying all of the bugs, fish/sea creatures, fossils, and artworks in the game is an equally significant connection to colonialism. Benedict Anderson argues in Imagined Communities that the museum, along with the census and the map, "shaped the way in which the colonial state imagined its dominion—the nature of the human beings it ruled, the geography of its domain, and the legitimacy of its ancestry" (164). The specifics Anderson goes into differ of course, because he's talking about actual colonial states while AC:NH has the fluidity of embodying the underpinning desires which colonialism as process requires to function, but what holds true is that these specific forms of producing, organizing, and displaying knowledge which produced "a totalizing classificatory grid, which could be applied with endless flexibility...to be able to say of anything that it was this, not that; it belonged here, not there" (Anderson 184). Essentially, in AC:NH part of a player's ownership of the island occurs through a player's ability to classify and collect artefacts for the museum. Furthermore, this imperative to collect and preserve fossils, art work, bugs, fish, and sea creatures is part of the way the player's island is positioned as a place of value. 

The museum also implicitly functions to reify positions of authority, legitimizing a kind of monopoly of knowledge. In AC:NH, this primarily means the positions of the museum curator (Blathers) and, to a degree, Tom Nook (who selected and invited Blathers) are secured as the authorities on knowledge. When Tom Nook tells the player that the island(s) are deserted, we must take this as truth...yet fishing both on the player's island and the Nook Miles islands can turn up trash items like old tires, tin cans, and boots. Colonial logics depend on a management of who counts as "people" and what counts as "inhabited" and the myth of empty lands; Tom Nook's instance that these islands are all deserted is haunted by these lingering traces of some other inhabitation prior to the game's start. 

Okay, so you might be asking what does this all mean and why should we care? Let's talk about both the game's popularity and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic which contextualized its release (and continues to shape daily life). Animal Crossing: New Horizons has not only received overwhelmingly positive critical reception, but is one of the best selling games both for the Switch console and the Animal Crossing series. According to freelance journalist Imad Khan's New York Times article "Why Animal Crossing Is the Game for the Coronavirus Moment," the game's appeal centers in its function as an escape to an "island paradise where bags of money fall out of trees and a talking raccoon can approve you for a mortgage". Khan quotes Dr. Ramzan (a professor of game narrative at Glasgow Caledonian University) who refers to it as "the universe you’ve always wanted, but can’t get." Given the significantly decreased mobility and connection that has accompanied social distancing, as well as the increased stress and heightened inequality which have accompanied COVID-19, this probably isn’t particularly surprising. It makes sense that a cute, low-stress video game would be a valuable form of escapism.

Mobility is a particularly fraught discourse in this context: on the one hand, concerns surrounding containment/immobility are heightened in the context of neoliberalism and within colonial societies, which depend upon discourses of individualism and independence to demarcate the “freedom” which comes from capitalist economies. At the same time, the desire for things like connection/community, movement, and spatial autonomy/sovereignty are not inherently colonial, even as colonialist logics frequently position colonial/capitalist/neoliberal expansion as the solution. Animal Crossing is heavily situated within this entanglement, simultaneously offering a very real form of connection (and even protest) for many people while also implicitly speaking to latent beliefs that colonization is a legitimate form of mobility and escapism. To say that AC:NH is the universe we’ve always wanted but can’t get is to refuse to engage with the inherent contradictions of neoliberalism and reafirm the notion that colonial capitalist worlds are worth wanting; that the fantasy of individual wealth and success through destructive extraction and market freedom, when obtainable, is good.

None of this is to say that playing AC:NH is the same as colonization, because of course it isn't. However, the colonial undertones of the game reflect the pervasiveness of colonial logics and desires in our daily lives, subsequently further normalizing them. Journalist Kazuma Hashimoto, for example, emphasizes the importance of contextualizing AC:NH's colonial undertones within Japanese Colonialism in "Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Japanese Colonialism". As Hashimoto argues, "I am only asking that people familiarize themselves with Japanese colonialism and why something as innocuous as discovering a deserted island can be read as colonialism — especially within the context of a Japanese game".

Inattentiveness to the more subdued, invisibilized manifestations of violence facilitates their internalization and acceptance; educating ourselves and paying attention to and challenging places where we feel comfortable with these kinds of escapist fantasies is an important exercise in critical thinking which can help us to continue to refuse their real life manifestations. 

[agentmanatee]

AOS 30 Day Challenge

Since I'm late to the party, I will be using this post to catch up.

Day 1: Favorite Season: S4 had the tightest story-telling with the pod structure. For a 22 episode season not to have a filler episode is quite a feat. Aida/Ophelia/Madame Hydra is my favorite Marvel - not just AOS - villian. Mallory Hansen's ability to play 4 different characters in one season in one show (sometimes multiple characters in the same scene) should have won her an Emmy hands-down. All of the cast should have won Emmy's for the performance in Self-Control (Everybody was on their A-game). My love for Robbie Reyes knows no bounds, and Gabriel Luna has mad chemistry with everyone (I pretty much ship Robbie with everybody he's not related to).

Day 3: Favorite story-line: Maveth. When I told my niece the story of FitzSimmons, she declared it "too much!" when I got to Maveth, specifically Hive and we stopped there. In a lot of ways it was the writers dipping their toes in adding more focus to Fitz and Simmons, who are portrayed by the show's strongest actors. I know a lot of people don't like the Will Daniels twist, but other than some hand-waveable plot holes, it really wasn't that bad. It was literally a "only two people on a planet" situation, and they thought that they would never see another human being again and that they were effectively dead to anyone on Earth; so their actions were understandable. Jemma didn't show interest in Will until she gave up seeing Fitz again, and Will initially did not act on his attraction because he respected and even appreciated Jemma's feelings for Fitz; he knew - even if Jemma didn't - that if given the opportunity to choose she would ultimately choose to Fitz ("No wonder Jemma loves you" was Hive channeling Will). If he survived and wasn't a villain I would ship him with either Joey or FitzSimmons (Fitz is canonically bi, Jemma deserves all the love, and the way Will talked about Fitz could be interpreted as romantic interest. He couldn't help falling for Fitz with the way Jemma talked about him), but I never submit prompt requests because I know how people feel about the character.

Also the planet of Maveth was a character unto itself, which is so cool. I really want to know what the light under its surface is; I don't but that it was a only heat source. Since sandstorms turned out not to be one of Hive's powers, Maveth or the cloaked figure (the personification of the planet a la Ego?) Jemma saw had to be the source of those. I suspect the civilization they saw evidence of were tied to the Confederation in season 5. Did they try to settle down and it backfired due to their culture? It very likely was how they knew there were Hydra leaders on Earth for them to manipulate. Will they ever confirm this? Doubtful. Finally, the mystery of Hive and what he was worked and exceeded expectations (his power set of terrifying!).

Day 2: Favorite episode: Inescapable. I was so excited for this episode I paid for it because Hulu was taking its time posting the episode. Of course a FitzSimmons episode would be amazing. The mind prison forced FitzSimmons to deal with issues they've avoided and together to boot. Seeing the turning point in their friendship at the academy and Coulson Recruiting them prior to season 1 was a hoot. I love how they revealed the other Fitz's death to him; he needed to see how the team mourned for him, to understand how much they loved him. Of course the whole scene was painful from him opening the bodybag to seeing the wedding ring to learning of Coulson's passing, but it was necessary and reflected how everything happens at once irl. Seeing their trust and loyalty in their bffs was heartening. And there is no doubt how much they are meant for eachother than when their darksides fall for and on eachother. They certainly learned some things there.

Honorable mention to Self-Control. That was the first episode I have ever purchased. It felt like a movie, and the story is insulated enough I think I may suggest it as the episode to watch when trying to get people to watch the show (either this or Orientation). The entire episode was so gripping I held a pillow to my chest the whole time once it was revealed that either Jemma or Fitz was an LMD. It was such a good Daisy and Jemma episode team-up and jump-started a whole arc of them supporting eachother. It was also a phenomenal Daisy episode. She showcased her powers, and Chloe knocked it out of the park. The scenes between May and Coulson's LMD-selves were so very moving. Ming did such a good job of portraying how May's LMD differed from the others. The episode also revealed what Fitz and Coulson would change if given a choice (not that AIDA gave Fitz such courtesy).

I just realized I switched Days 2 and 3, but don't want to bother with copying/pasting on my phone

Day 4: Favorite male character: Leopold James Fitz. Fitz was my favorite early on and hands-down my favorite character after FZZT. I saw myself in his mannerisms and could relate to his hesitancy to throw himself in the field but doing so because it is the right thing to do. His passion and loyalty to his friends is unparalleled. I also wanted to give Ward a chance. And it's interesting that Fitz was the first of the bus kids to understand how "No one is born evil." It took the Framework arc for Daisy to really understand that. He even has a leg up on Mack here since Mack's first instinct with anything alien is to kill it ("I'm the guy that kills Gordon" is not something someone who values all life, whether he views it as human or not.), which is understandable given his experiences. Fitz was the first person to show Daisy acceptance after terrigenesis, even if he was mistaken to hide it. I didn't realize it the time season 2 aired, but I get a similar aphasia during migraines (it's actually the first and last symptom when it happens). Seeing any appearance by the Doctor makes me feel sick to my stomach because I know how frightened and sick Fitz feels to have that as a part of himself. Fitz loves with his whole heart and he is always driven to do what he believes is the right thing, which is unfortunately what made the Doctor such a formidable villian. He also is always willing to give second chances but not third. He was the first person to joke around with Daisy after the Miles fiasco: he forgave Mack and Bobbi for the real Shield thing; he accepted Daisy back into the fold in seasons 2 & 4 despite how much her abandoning the team felt like betrayal; he formed a father-son relationship with Radcliffe after what he did for Hive; he trusted and befriended Enoch, knowing he kidnapped and sent his closest friends to a freakin future hellscape. Fitz is such a good person. Of course, all my love for Fitz doesn't mean I don't love the rest of Shield's men + Robbie Reyes.

Day 5: Favorite female character: Jemma Anne Simmons. Jemma is a close second for all around favorite (I just don't relate to her as much as Fitz). On a superficial note, Elizabeth Henstridge is so beautiful and hilarious, I have a giant girl crush on her (her smile is dang radiant). I love how they flipped gender stereotypes by making Fitz the emotional one who wears his heart on his sleeve and Jemma the practical one, who shoves her feelings in a box rather than express them. Jemma's cockiness is more real than Fitz's cocky front, too. I wish I had her confidence. Jemma also loves with her whole heart, as much as she has to hide it to function sometimes, and does what she believes is the right thing. She even revealed herself in the future dystopia because she could not stand aside when a stranger was hurt and she knew how to help/save him. Jemma jumped out of the Bus to save her team and jumped at a grenade to help them not thinking she would survive either occasion. She blamed Lash's murdering of inhumans on herself as she has the tendency to hold herself accountable for things that aren't her fault (she shares this trait with both Fitz and Daisy). She doesn't get lost exploring the details within the big picture, which is why she's so good at problem solving. She learned to kickass physically and has always done so mentally. She knows how to let her foes know to fear her. She has the self-awareness to know what traits she needs to work on to complete any mission. She does and would do anything for her team. She's also an incredible leader whether in the field, in the lab, or for the entirety of Shield. She is incredible.

Daisy Johnson is a very close second. And I can't rank May, Bobbi, and Elena. I also have girl crushes on all four of these ladies.

Day 6: Favorite relationship: S3 Shield Team (Coulson, May, Daisy, Fitz, Simmons, Mack, Bobbi, Hunter, Yoyo, Joey, Lincoln and Andrew). OK so I cheated here; we didn't even see everyone be in the same episode. So what? Season 3 had some of the best dynamics from the main team to Daisy's Secret Warriors it's no wonder people love season 3 so much. How can I pick just one? You have Coulson interacting with everyone (except for Joey), Lincoln's fear of May, Her mentorship of him, Fitz and Bobbi, Fitz and Hunter, FITZSIMMONS, Jemma and Andrew, Daisy and Mack, Mack and Huntingbird, MACKELENA, Doug, Fitz meeting his dad Holden Radcliffe, Radcliffe and Hive's "children"...Now I'm getting into characters that weren't on a Shield team. The characters and their relationships with eachother is what this show does best and what makes it such a good and beloved show, not the action or plot twists.

[angels17324]

The Violet Paladin (Keith x Reader) Ch. 15

Hows quarantine treating everyone? I know I don’t have to explain myself on not posting but guys I want you to know I am a health care worker I’ve been at work for almost 10 hours a day everyday for the last two weeks on both days and nights. So I love you all I know I am trying to keep writing but its hard. Guys if you don’t need to go out please don’t stay home find some new fics to binge read or shows to obsess over I don’t want to lose anyone to this virus.  Word Count:   Update Schedule: Unknown (Im gonna try and set myself a goal of updating on  Wednesdays call me out if I forget guys!!) [Masterlist] [Prev] 

When I got back on the castle I learned that Shiro would be in one of the healing pods for a while. I still hadn’t told them anything about what happened, but I’d rather tell them at the same time then one by one. We were all in the healing bay watching Shiro.

“Is he okay?” Hunk asked when we heard Shiro groaning. 

“Sometimes the healing process causes involuntary brain waves,” Allura explained. 

“It looks like he’s having a bad dream,” Hunk mumbled. 

“He just got blasted by a space witch and mauled by giant lizards, what dream could be worse than that?” Keith asked. We all waited for a short while longer before he started to wake up. We had all gathered closer and smiled at him when he opened his eyes. He told us about having a dream of a Galra soldier helping him and some coordinates in his arm. 

We waited for Shiro to get dressed before walking down to the green lions hanger. Lance was filling Shiro in on what had happened with him and Hunk and Mermaids? I wasn’t really sure, I was just thankful the attention wasn’t on me, I don’t even know how I’m going to tell them. 

“(Y/n)?” I heard Hunk called out. 

“Huh?” I looked to see everyone was staring at me. 

“You were kind of zoned out there,” Lance looked me. 

“Oh…” I breathed. 

“You know you’ve been acting really weird since you got back, you’re the only person who never shared what happened while we were all separated,” Pidge crossed her arms. 

I sighed, I was going to have to tell them sooner or later and I might as well just get it over with, “I don’t really even know where to start,” I stated. “A lot happened honestly,” I guess I should just ease the information in. “Well, I guess I can start with I crashed onto this planet where I was met by a girl who ended up being the planets princess,” I said I wasn’t trying to be vague but I’m still not sure how they will take it. “She ended up taking me to the queen, where I found out I was on the home of the original Violet Paladin, and at first the queen wasn’t very happy learning that I was the new paladin,”

I explained a bit of what I learned like how they had closed of all communication with the rest of the universe, and how the only reason I think they hadn’t been attacked is because in the Archives I learned that they never shared the location of their planet with anyone. Coran shared that not even Alfor or any of the other original paladins had been to the planet and that I was the first ‘outsider’ I bite my tongue to hold back from correcting him at least yet. “Okay but none of that explains why you’ve been acting weird,” Pidge said ever observant she is. 

“It might just be easier to show you then tell you.” I pulled out my phone I had snapped a photo of the picture that the Queen showed me and I showed it to the group. 

“It looks like you, but it’s not,” Pidge state. 

“Is this some creepy twin in space thing?” Lance asked. 

“No, how do I put this… it’s true it’s not me, but it’s also not a twin thing… I mean, except the actual picture in this is over 28 years old.” I explained, I could almost see the wheels turning in their heads. “It’s my mom!” I exclaimed not really being able to take it anymore. 

“How!” Pidge was the first to speak up since she was the only person here to ever meet my mom. 

“Wait what?” Lance was the next one to speak up. I explained to them as much as I knew which still wasn’t much other then the fact that she was the queen’s little sister. It felt so much better to have this off my chest. We continued to the hanger to find out what if anything was in Shiro’s arm. The whole way down Lance kept questioning me about everything, I was kind of annoyed but I just ignored him. 

While we were waiting for Pidge to find the coordinates I just kept thinking about everything that's happened. I wonder if my mother would have ever told me about this? And if that was why she was mad that I had joined the garrison.

 Eventually Pidge found the coordinates, but Allura didn’t seem too happy about trusting something from the Galra but we went ahead and used a  wormhole to get to the base. In front of us were these large crystals they were kinda cool. 

“Well this is it. No signs of life, living or otherwise.” Coran said. “I don’t want to bring the castle any closer those xanthorium chucks contain highly unstable nitrate salts even bumping one can blow us straight to Wozblay,” Okay slightly less cool. 

“Are you sure this is right?” Shiro asked. 

“These are the coordinates Number Six gave me.” Coran said.

“Hey! My decryption is solid,” Pidge defended glaring at Coran. 

“We’ve gotta be missing something,” Shiro said. We ended up waiting a few minutes before alarms began blaring. 

“There’s an intruder in the Castle!” Coran shouted. Allura found him on level five. We all suited up and went down. We each began running through the halls to find this guy. Lance was the first to find him. I began to head back towards Lance listening to Corans commentary. Next they ran by Pidge. I soon found him dragging Pidge and being followed by Lance, and I joined following them. 

Then Hunk who somewhat blasted at us. We all chased him but kinda lost him as he ran towards Keith. That was the only good part of Coran’s commentary is we knew where this guy was. By the time Hunk, Lance and I caught up with Keith was quite literally hurled at us knocking the four of us down. 

We watched as Shiro and the guy were at each other’s throats before they both backed down. And that’s when Allura slammed him into the wall. When Shiro explained that the guy was the Galra soldier he’d remembered. 

We eventually had him chained up in our common room. Ulaz was apparently a Galra soldier in this secret underground revolution called the Blade of Marmora. The coordinates we had were actually corrected its just the base was hidden in a space fold. Honestly you could feel the tension between everyone from Allura’s mistrust of Ulaz, to the rest of us kinda being on the same side as her, except Shiro. 

Everyone except Lance, Allura, and Coran took the Red Lion to the base. We learned that they had several members in the ranks of Zarkon’s army including his main ship which is why we got away last time. Pidge asked about her family, which Ulaz agreed to transfer prison data to the castle of lions. 

“What’s that weapon you carry?” Keith asked. 

“It’s a ceremonial blade that each of our members carry,” Ulaz explained. “Oh, nice,” Keith said. Alarms began blaring again. We opened a screen to see another one of those stupid robeasts, but how did it find us this time? Before we left, Ulaz gave Shiro coordinates. Allura blamed Ulaz for us being found, but this time I think I agree with Shiro I don’t think Ulaz told Zarkon we were here. 

We waited in our lions but soon the fight was on. But this thing was nearly impossible to beat, it sucked in the crystals before blasting us, or it tried to suck us in. Ulaz left after the base was revealed… maybe he’s not one of the good guys. No time for that though as the beast tried to suck in the castle. We managed to stop that, but our plan to blow it up after didn’t work. It tried to suck us in again. 

“I’m going to take this down from the inside!” We heard Ulaz call. 

“No let us handle this!” Shiro tried. 

“Voltron is too important,” was the last thing he said to us before he flew into the beasts mouth, just as we thought it didn’t work it started to fold in on itself. He opened a space pocket inside the beast.

When we returned to the castle no one seemed in too high of spirits. I decided to walk around for a bit too maybe clear my head. So much has happened in the last couple of days its been a lot to process. Honestly, how long had it been since we’d left earth? It didn’t seem like that long but there was no day in night in space, we had a schedule but it was more like we slept for a few hours and we stayed up until we were ready to pass out. 

I finally decided maybe going to bed would be the best option right now to clear my mind. I slowly walked down the hall being quiet because I’m sure everyone else is probably trying to sleep now. I was almost to my room when I noticed Keith in front of my door. 

“You need something?” I asked. 

“Oh yeah, I just wanted to talk,” He said.

“About?” I wondered what he wanted to talk about. 

“A few things actually,” He said. “Would you mind if we went in my room for a minute?” I blushed a bit at the request but nodded I did tell him we could talk if he ever needed to. We went to his room. We both sat on his bed. 

“Alright what’s up? I’m not the only one who’s been acting kind of weird lately you’ve gotten more reckless,” I said noting his behavior from the last few days? Weeks? But it was more than that almost like he was also being protective. “Remember that sword Ulaz had?” He asked.

“Yeah, you seemed pretty interested in it,” 

“Well it’s because of this,” Keith pulled out a dagger from under his pillow, it had a weird marking, kinda like Ulaz. 

“Where or how’d you get it if you don’t mind my asking?” I looked at him. “I’ve kind of always had it, I thought it was weird but now it's even weirder because the marking is similar to Ulaz,” Keith explained. “That means the Galra were on earth at some point,” 

“But Ulaz also did say that only the Blades of Marmora had them,” I said. “And I’d reason that if my mom and possibly my dad made it to earth without being detected by the garrison then who’s to say someone else couldn’t? And for all we know, maybe it was imbedded in a meteorite or something and your parents found it and thought it was cool,” 

“You might be right,” He smiled a bit. 

“What else do you want to talk about?” I asked. I could tell there was something else, we didn’t know about the Blades until today so he hasn’t been acting weird because of that. 

“Oh, well, how do I put this…” He said looking down. 

“Keith-” I was cut off, I was so shocked Keith was kissing me! 

[Next]

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@somebodytouchedmysaeran @ittie-bittie-tittie @izabellah816 @zanysouleggstudent @rickxreader1shots @chewymoustachio

[kodigriffinofficial20]

As promised here is the filled out version of the character sheet. I know it has been a whole day later but here it is.

“Extremely detailed character sheet template”

Character Chart

Character’s full name: Benjamin Rose Steven Rodgers

Reason or meaning of name: “Benjamin” was his grandfathers name (on his fathers side) “Rose” was his grandmothers name (on his mother’s side) and because his last name is Rodgers the family wanted to put Steven in there somewhere because of Captain America.

Character’s nickname: Captain of America.

Reason for nickname: He was in the military and because of last name and rank of Captain he was dubbed “Captain America”

Birth date: November 30th 2030

Physical appearance

Age: He is 29 at the beginning of my book.

How old does he/she appear: 25ish-ish

Weight: 265

Height: 6 foot 3

Body build: very muscular.

Shape of face: I don’t know, think Steven Amell-ish

Eye color: blue

Glasses or contacts: neither.

Skin tone: kinda light but tans well. Think Alycia debnam Carey

Distinguishing marks: I don’t remember any right now.

Predominant features: I don’t know what this means.

Hair color: brown

Type of hair: I don’t know, very over grown and long. you would have to read the book to understand why.

Hairstyle: I don’t know, very over grown and long. you would have to read the book to understand why.

Voice: kinda deep but not like James earl jones. Again think Steven Amell

Overall attractiveness: Again think Steven Amell mixed with Chris Evans and a little bit of grant gustin? I don’t know that’s what I see when I picture him anyway.

Physical disabilities: can’t draw, afraid of heights, overly sarcastic, bad luck, gets injured a lot, kinda clumsy.

Usual fashion of dress: prison clothes for now.

Favorite outfit: pajamas.

Jewelry or accessories: watch, AR-15, shotgun, .45 ACP, 9mm, m4 carbine, and Kevin.

Personality

Good personality traits: loyal, stubborn, fight till last dying breath, survivor, sarcastic, funny, a leader, wise, adapts well, a good friend, trusting, trustworthy, and Macgyver like.

Bad personality traits: stubborn, sarcastic, trusting, puts himself into danger to often, not cautious enough, unlucky, clumsy, self deprecating, impatient,

Mood character is most often in: sarcastic anger and story telling indifference.

Sense of humor: sarcastic, self deprecating, light hearted.

Character’s greatest joy in life: Kevin.

Character’s greatest fear: Heights.

Why? Because heights are freaking scary man, that’s why.

What single event would most throw this character’s life into complete turmoil?

There are a lot of different things that could happen that could do that. But I can’t say any of them without spoiling the book.

Character is most at ease when: petting Kevin while reading him a book.

Most ill at ease when: when Kevin takes to long to come back from his outings.

Enraged when: a crop dies or an earthquake happens.

Depressed or sad when: one of the birds dies or When thinking about everything that has happened to him.

Priorities: escape

Life philosophy: survival and petting Kevin (which was a new addition)

If granted one wish, it would be: freedom from where he is

Why? Because he doesn’t like it there

Character’s soft spot: Kevin or an old friend from the Army named Flash.

Is this soft spot obvious to others? If it’s Kevin than no because there are no others. If it’s Flash than yes it’s very obvious.

Greatest strength: his gun abilities.

Greatest vulnerability or weakness: heights.

Biggest regret: going to prison

Minor regret: not asking some questions of Certain people.

Biggest accomplishment: Winning the Medal of Honor/silver star/Purple Heart.

Minor accomplishment: Saving America

Past failures he/she would be embarrassed to have people know about: none that I have put into the book or can think of.

Why? Because I can’t think of any.

Character’s darkest secret: I can’t tell you that.

Does anyone else know? Not even me.

Just kidding, but no, literally no one on planet earth knows but me.

Goals

Drives and motivations: survival

Immediate goals: getting out of there.

Long term goals: finding out what happened then finding Jimmy and getting revenge.

How the character plans to accomplish these goals: by blowing stuff to smithereens and walking out and then hunting him down and shooting him in the face.

How other characters will be affected: they will also be shot in the face.

Past

Hometown: Denver Nebraska USA

Type of childhood: Nice? I don’t know what the question wants from me.

Pets: one golden retriever when he was six but it died when he was 13.

First memory: going to court with his father

Most important childhood memory: his parents dying when he was 14

Why: because his parents died when he was 14

Childhood hero: his “uncle” Greg

Dream job: Army soldier

Education: high school

Religion: Christian

Finances: very good.

Present

Current location: undisclosed location in in the USA

Currently living with: Kevin

Pets: several birds

Religion: Christian

Occupation: none

Finances: none

Family

Mother: dead

Relationship with her: none but before she died it was very good

Father: dead

Relationship with him: none but before he died it was very good

Siblings: none

Relationship with them: none

Spouse: none

Relationship with him/her: none

Children: none

Relationship with them: none

Other important family members: none

Favorites

Color: blue

Least favorite color: yellow

Music: Dan+Shay

Food: Chicken Alfredo, fried chicken, steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, cheddar and broccoli soup are his favorite foods.

Literature: anything by Jules Verne or Kodi Griffin

Form of entertainment: reading

Expressions: “We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it” or when asked how things are done or how he did that he replies “fermentation”

Mode of transportation: truck or walking

Most prized possession: Kevin or AR-15

Habits

Hobbies: working out, reading, meditating, listening to music, and writing in a journal.

Plays a musical instrument? The drums but that was a long time ago.

Plays a sport? American football back in high school.

How he/she would spend a rainy day: playing in the rain or on his bed reading with Kevin.

Spending habits: none anymore.

Smokes: absolutely not.

Drinks: occasionally but not really.

Other drugs: absolutely not.

What does he/she do too much of? Danger, working out, and reading.

What does he/she do too little of? Safety

Extremely skilled at: shooting, fighting, blowing things up, surviving, getting hurt, and petting Kevin.

Extremely unskilled at: doing nothing, waiting, art, and cooking.

Nervous tics: sarcasm and biting nails.

Usual body posture: that of a soldier but sometimes a teenager.

Mannerisms: Not really sure.

Peculiarities: I don’t know.

Traits

Optimist or pessimist? A realist which I guess means he leans more on the pessimist side

Introvert or extrovert? An introverted extrovert?

Daredevil or cautious? Daredevil

Logical or emotional? Logical

Disorderly and messy or methodical and neat? Methodical and neath

Prefers working or relaxing? Working

Confident or unsure of himself/herself? Confident

Animal lover? Yes siree

Self-perception

How he/she feels about himself/herself: wants himself to live confident about his looks and doesn’t care what people think about him or his looks.

One word the character would use to describe self: fighter

One paragraph description of how the character would describe self: “A survivor until the bitter end. A fighter for freedom, peace, justice, and the American way. And if all else fails kill everything I see and be the last one standing.”

What does the character consider his/her best personality trait? His sense of humor

What does the character consider his/her worst personality trait? Judge of character.

What does the character consider his/her best physical characteristic? Eyebrows

What does the character consider his/her worst physical characteristic? Hands

How does the character think others perceive him/her: He doesn’t care about what others think of him because he is his own man and his own self worth is what truly matters.

What would the character most like to change about himself/herself: the way he approaches certain things

Relationships with others

Opinion of other people in general: doesn’t like them all that much. yes people are needed but most of them he don’t care for

Does the character hide his/her true opinions and emotions from others? Yes

Person character most hates: jimmy

Best friend(s): Flash and Kevin

Love interest(s): none, at any point in my book

Person character goes to for advice: none maybe Kevin

Person character feels responsible for or takes care of: Kevin

Person character feels shy or awkward around: none

Person character openly admires: Kevin

Person character secretly admires: Kevin

Most important person in character’s life before story starts: Flash

After story starts: Kevin

[thanagariansnarebeast]

Top 15 villains: Part 1

I’ve been meaning to do this list for a while, but kept getting distracted. Villains are very different for me to rank compared to the heroes; heroes I ranked based on personality and morality; but villains I’m ranking on personality, entertainment, and relationship to hero. After all, villains by nature are almost always the antagonists, and they play off of the hero; so that factor is important. Most of them see themselves as the heroes of their own story in some way, but I would definitely not call any of these characters heroic. Some of these characters have different versions of them over the decades, but I’ll talk about my favorite versions of them.

15. Ozymandias

“ My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! “  That quote does quite nicely define this character, someone who did a monstrous act to try to save the world. I have already featured him on my fallen heroes list, because for most of his life he was a hero; the terrible thing that he did was really surprising to me when I first read it; and I did feel his betrayal. He’s lonely, calm, and extremely intelligent; and you can really tell that he understands that what he did was awful. You might be thinking “Does doing one terrible thing really make you a villain?” and I would argue that yes it does. He didn’t like doing what he had to do, but he doesn’t consider it a mistake, he would do it again if he felt that he had to. Also spoiler for this list, he’s the only one that isn’t a main DC or Marvel villain, I think him being on this list for only being in one book ever really speaks to how interesting he is and how fucking good the Watchmen comic is. I refuse to read the DC Watchmen stuff, so it is possible he shows up in that; but I don’t like how DC keeps unironically using characters meant as a take down of the genre itself. (The HBO Watchmen series is fantastic though, I highly recommend).

14. Deathstroke

Deathstroke seems to be thought of by a lot of people as mainly a Batman villain, and while I think he is a great villain for Batman; I think he’s better as a Teen Titans villain. Some of the plans and tactics he uses to fight them are absolutely brutal. The Judas Contract is one of the best Titans stories, and he is the mastermind behind all of it; he really knows how to twist the knife. Some writers make him more of an anti-hero, but I think he is far better when he is using his intimidating physical prowess, cunning, and ruthless intelligence to do everything he can do destroy a hero.

13. The Anti-Monitor

“Worlds lived, worlds died. Nothing will ever be the same.“ Holy shit is this guy bad news; Thanos and Darkseid showing up is enough for you to understand that the world might be about to end; but this guy destroys entire realities. He is the big bad for one of my favorite comic book stories, and the consequences of his actions shaped the DC multiverse for decades, and his actions sill can be felt to this day. The first villain on this list that is just pure, absolute evil, he is responsible for the deaths of countless DC universes, as well as Supergirl and the Flash. DC really likes bringing dead characters back to life, building off of (and sometimes ruining) the legacy of characters, but they almost never do it with Anti-Monitor; because he’s such a cataclysmic threat that there is not a lot of stories you can even have with him. The CW did a great job with the Crisis on Infinite Earths adaptation they did, though they didn’t really make Anti-Monitor look as intimidating as I would have liked, and they didn’t make him nearly as big as he should be.

12. Kingpin

The kingpin of crime does live up to his name; not all crime in New York is his doing, but much of it is. He is a fantastic villain, and one who really seems to enjoy what he does. He’s just fun to watch and is so good as an antagonist for Daredevil and Spider-Man. His size makes him seem slow and intimidating, but his body is all muscle; and he has come close to crushing Spider-Man to death. When I was very young I was first exposed to him on the fantastic show Spider-Man: The Animated Series, and he’s been one of my favorites ever sense. Vincent D’Onofrio absolutely blew me away with his portrayal of this character in the Daredevil Netflix series, and I really hope we get to see him again in the MCU.

11. Brainiac

Another villain that is a massive threat, Brainiac has had many different incarnations in the comics, but his incredible intelligence is his defining trait. Another cold, calculating villain, he collects cities full of people because to him; they have to be preserved and studied. The idea of being shrunken down and living in an isolated world just to amuse an alien robot is a pretty scary concept. Superman is his main adversary, but many times it takes the entire Justice League (And sometimes some of the more helpful villains) to take him down. He has such a perverse logic to him that I really enjoy, and when he someday shows up in a film I really hope they do him justice.

10. Mr. Freeze

Doctor Victor Fries is one of the most sympathetic villains on this list, he really just wants to save his wife. Batman: The Animated Series wrote that origin story for him, and its stuck ever sense. There is a deep and beautiful tragedy to the character, and you completely understand why he is doing what he is doing, even if you personally wouldn’t go that far. His character makes you think “How far would I go to help the person I love most in the world?” and any villain that makes you introspective about yourself is a great character. His ice theme and very distinct look really makes it fun to see how different artists design him. He’s one of Batman’s more popular villains, and Batman has some of the best villains in comics. He makes Batman question himself and his motivations, because he doesn’t really want to hurt anyone; he just wants to survive and cure his wife, and if no one ever got in his way he would probably do exactly that. His story is a tragedy of circumstances, but his inability to go about getting what he wants in any other way, and his uncaring attitude for most other people definitely makes him a villain. 

9. Doomsday

This character really is the polar (pun intended) opposite of the last character on this list. Doomsday is a big, unstoppable killing machine; and he defeated most of the Justice League with one hand tied behind his back. He is just such a raw, brutal character that I love seeing him show up. This thing has the power to come back to life, unable to be hurt by what killed it before; and spent decades wiping out entire planets before it came to Earth. His biggest and scariest feat is literally beating Superman to death! His best story was his first one, but every time he shows up and Superman fights him, in the back of his mind he has to be thinking “This thing killed me before, and its stronger now.” which is just absolutely terrifying. His striking visual design and brutal nature are always enjoyable, and he was one of my favorite characters to play as in Injustice: Gods Among Us.

[ahagia-sophia]

Story Time

Vlog? Episode 1: A Man of Constant Sorrow

 Hey guys, I’m Jacob. I’ve always wanted to do a sort of blog type thing. But, I could never figure out what I wanted to make it about, you know? I like history, mostly. But then again so does literally every white guy on the planet. [rambling] Not to say that my love of history is basic, or that anyone’s passions and interests are basic its just- Never mind, that’s not what we’re here for.

I had considered doing a history sort of thing, but I decided against it for various reasons. Sadly, I didn’t have any other passions that might be interesting to other people. At least, that’s what I thought. Until the other day when my friend was going on about how I was a central point in a lot of the stories he was telling his new girlfriend. Specifically, I was what he described as, ‘the unluckiest man on earth.’

And you know what? People love real stories. Stories of people having terrible no-good very bad times adventures. And buddy, I’ve gone on a few adventures. So, I figured I’d tell a story or two. Mostly because I really love telling stories, but also because I crave attention love entertaining people.

I have a few eye-catching stories, like; Getting Cornered In a Carpet Shop, Getting Robbed by a Rapist(?), Civil War Reenacting, The Rape Accusation, Accidentally Becoming A Harem Anime Protagonist, Being a Terrible Person, and others. But I thought I’d start with something relatively tame.

Jacob Utterly Fails and Gets Congratulated Publicly For It.

Okay so this one takes place in a small-town high school in 2015. Which should already set off some alarm bells for people who were in small-town high schools in 2015. It was senior year and I was the Battalion S-5 for our school’s Army JROTC branch. The S-5 was basically the media officer, and the place where you threw useless seniors who had stuck with the program for four years and hadn’t done anything that could get them thrown out. Which was me. I was seniors.

I was the pale skinny white kid in high school who had charisma, but was too angsty to use it, you know? I didn’t have any real self-confidence; I would flinch if someone threw a ball toward me while playing Sport. I listened to metal and Irish folk music. I spent all my time playing video games with my friends and actively pretending that the future didn’t exist.

                                   Here I am, in all my glory

Not much has changed.

Anyway, these qualities did not lend themselves to what was essentially a military recruitment program. What I did have going for me was an intense need to please authority figures and a slightly above average mind.

To fully demonstrate my inadequacy, allow me to take you back in time to the distant year of 2011 and lay out how I could not master walking.

This is not a joke.

One of the key components of JROTC is walking in straight lines in various directions and formations. This practice was called Drill. Drill cover such intense concepts as, ‘turn while standing still’ and, ‘turn while moving.’ These advanced maneuvers were, however, based on one simple principle. Walking. Specifically, the advanced form of walking referred to by professionals as, ‘walking without stepping on other people’s feet.’ Or, more concisely, ‘walking in step.’

I was utterly unable to do this. Just completely, totally, categorically unable to do this. Even with such helpful aids as a person walking next to me actively telling me which foot should be hitting the ground. I just could not do it. I would walk in step for a few paces and then immediately fall out of step and have to perform what is called a ‘change step’ which I interpreted at the time as kicking yourself in the back of the heel in order to skip and land back on the correct step. In hindsight I was probably supposed to just drag the heel of my foot. There’s an allegory in there somewhere.

So, I couldn’t master walking. This has been established. This has been abundantly established. And it had been established at the time too. Everyone knew that my drill scores were terrible. Everyone knew that I was very unable to walk. However, I aced the academic side of things, and managed to get my shit together enough to pass the Walking Final with a solid B+, which in retrospect was absolutely a pity grade from the students who were grading the final. My legacy of mediocrity was secured, and I advanced on to the next year.

I was given the coveted position of Assistant Squad Leader and the enviable rank of Cadet Sergeant. What this meant was that everyone acknowledged my lack of ability on the drill pad and also the fact that this wasn’t the real military and they couldn’t drum me out for gross incompetence. Very quickly, however, everyone came to realize that despite having absolutely no actual responsibilities, I was failing terribly in my task of ‘Be the guy at the front of the line while we walk.’ For all of the above-mentioned reasons.

This began my career as what soldierly-types would call ‘regimental bitch.’ I worked exclusively inside. I wrote memos for the Officers (read: upperclassmen), I did numbers for fundraisers, I made lists of names and T-shirt sizes, and generally fucked about in my new walking free paradise. For an entire school year, I was behind the scenes, only going outside for Inspection on Thursday’s.

This, of course, meant the everyone had forgotten that I no ability with the ordered walking. And what little ability I might have possessed had absolutely gone to rust as I spent the year (or two, my memory is hazy) hiding from the sun. (This was in Louisiana, so hiding from the sun was not as shameful as it could have been.) Logically, therefore, the higher up types decided that on one of the last drill days of the year good old Jacob should take the reins and march the assembled company (Class, about 30 people) in a straight line, a turn, and then another straight line.

Sub Story: How I Caused a 30-Person Pile Up, Literally

Pretty much what the title says, really. I was given command of the company. I said ‘Forward, March!’ and everyone started to walk forward. A result which I was completely unprepared for. They started walking, you know, at the pace the people walking in, like, a bit of a hurry would walk. Which was entirely too fast for me.

They walked far too fast. So fast that by the time they had reached the point where I was supposed to tell them to turn, I had completely lost the plot. And the front rank, in one of those moments of blind obedience that you can never recreate when you need blind obedience, walked directly into a brick wall. And then the rank behind them, and the rank behind them, and the rank behind them.

It was a slow-motion pile of human idiocy with me as its conductor. In that moment I could almost hear the the universe stand proudly from her director’s chair and loudly call, ‘Scene!’

I was never given command again.

Sub Story: A Principal’s Principles

Alright, its 2015 or so at this point. I’ve skulked my way up to Cadet Captain and a position of theoretical importance. It’s Veterans Day. I have to do exactly two things. Read a script and put people’s names on chairs. I’ve got this. There’s no possible way I could fuck this up, right?

Did you know that there are two different spellings for the word Principal? I sure didn’t. I was given a very sudden and unforgettable lesson when First Sergeant (one of the two JROTC instructors) burst into the office with my sins printed on paper and asked me if I had passed 3rd Grade spelling. (Which I had, but only because I cheated.) Picture a 6-foot-tall, well-muscled, angry veteran yelling at a pale white kid who flinched when stuff fell off the table. It is not a lesson that will ever leave my mind.

Thankfully, my spelling error was corrected before anyone important could see it. Crisis averted. Now I just had to deliver a speech about a table set for a soldier or something. I was literate, it didn’t have to be fantastic. There’s no way I could fuck this up, right? Well, two things. I had rehearsed this speech, but I had only rehearsed this speech alone with the script. Not with anyone who knew how the speech was supposed to sound. So, they dim the lights, the spotlight falls on the table in the center of the gym, and I read my speech. I gave a damn good speech. It was rousing, it was passionate, and I’m pretty sure I got genuine applause at the end of it.

However.

I stepped down from the podium, awash in the afterglow of a Genuine Success, when First Sergeant pulled me aside and in a very forced whisper informed me that this was supposed to be a somber speech given in mourning for those who would never come home.

Fuck.

It is a common theme in my life that if I do something really well, I have invariably done it wrong. This is a phenomenon that I first noticed in second grade when I proudly presented my beautiful handwriting (I normally have terrible handwriting) to the teacher only to be informed that I had spelled the word wrong.

Now whenever my handwriting looks particularly good, I double check all my spelling.

               It was around this time that it was unilaterally decided (without my consent) that Jacob would never be put in charge of anything ever again. Which was something that was honestly a long time coming. But still hurt when I was informed.

               It hurt my pride so much that I fought it. I fought it hard. I demanded, in no uncertain terms, that I should be in charge of the Very Big and Important Slideshow at the banquet that we hold at the end of the year.

Jacob Utterly Fails and Gets Congratulated Publicly For It.

This was no normal end of the year banquet. These were not your average cold beans and dry chicken. Oh no. I cannot fail during such a mundane affair. This was the year that Colonel, a much beloved man who had held the program together through sheer competence and wisdom, was retiring. This was his last banquet. This was his send off, the blow out, the thank you for all of his years of service and sage advice.

This meant that graduates of the program were coming in from across the country to send off their beloved father figure. And, on top of that, this banquet hadn’t really deviated from its standard form in the past few years. So absolutely everyone knew how this was going to go.

Food, Slideshow, Speeches, Send-off.

This is how the banquet had gone since like 2004. Perhaps earlier, I don’t really know.

I was, as a result of my own arguing and everyone else’s poor judgement, solely in charge of The Slideshow. You know, 1/4 of the entire evening was entirely at my mercy.

Two weeks before the big event I put together my slideshow. I spend hours on the stupid thing. I comb the picture archives from each of the ‘Companies’ and make sure that absolutely everyone appears in the slideshow at least once. Then I go through all the old photo albums and scan in a bunch of pictures of Young Colonel and stuff. To really just nail it, you know?

If you can see where this is going, kudos, because I somehow missed all the signs.

One week before the event I submit my flash drive to First Sergeant to make sure that everything checks out. He gives me some corrections and sends it back. I make the corrections and save it all on the flash drive.

I save it all on the flash drive and only on the flash drive.

Yeah.

The flash drive, as is the way of things, dies. Can’t access the files. Can’t open the power-point, can’t do anything. I spend a solid day trying to unfuck this situation before I admit defeat and tell everyone what’s happened. At this point we’re two or so days out from the banquet and there simply isn’t enough time to make a new one. The slideshow is cut from the evening, and literally every single senior wants to hang me by my guts. Which was fair.

We come to the night of the event, it goes pretty smoothly. I think that maybe I can just slide by and no one will ask questions about the mysteriously absent slideshow.

Boy was I wrong.

In front of all the graduating seniors a few of the returning cadets (probably in their mid/late 20s) publicly praise me for having the clout and balls to cut the slideshow out of the formula. As they had never liked it and thought it was a massive drag on the evening.

I’m pretty sure I’m still living under some of the curses that the other seniors hurled at me over that.

That’s it. That’s the story.

No one chewed me out, no one came to afterward to tell me what a useless idiot I was. No one said anything.

Which was probably the worst part. My general incompetence had become such a common feature in the JROTC program that everyone who actually knew what happened was just. Totally unsurprised.

[deliciouslyswaggytrashcan]

can I ask for Allura/ Lotor / Coran and Krolia's s/o introducing earth's cuisine and culture and what kind of food would they like.

Why am I suddenly craving tacos as I write this one haha xD So sorry it took me so long to get to your request hun!

Allura: 

She’s always open to trying new things and experiencing new cultures

So when her S/O introduces her to Earth food, she’s very excited to try them all

Allura also likes to know what ingredients are in each dish she tries and where she may find them

Of course she is confused by some of them and their names but she just accepts it

Hamburgers, steaks, stew, and other dishes that are made by beef make her cry because of when she learns what meat is used to make them

She grew rather fond of Kaltenecker and can’t believe how humans could eat cows when they already get milk from them

All together, she really doesn’t want to eat something that once had a face because she finds all animals on Earth cute

One day, her S/O takes her to a bakery to try a bunch of sweets, cakes, and more 

Allura tries a strawberry cake first and it instantly becomes one of her favorites

Then she tries all sort of cakes and sweets and those become her all time favorites

If it wasn’t for her S/O, she’d have cake and sweets for every meal almost like Honey Senpai from Ouran

Lotor:

Like Allura, he is always open to experiencing new cultures and trying the food as well

When he arrives to Earth with his S/O, he is very interested in all the cultures on the planet and ask his S/O to educate him on them all

He tries almost anything but it’s rather hard to please a Prince as he grew up basically on fine dining

His S/O even tried bringing him to fancy restaurants hoping he’d enjoy it but he found each dish small and bland

His S/O had almost given up completely so they decided to take a break and his S/O one day cooked some homemade mac and cheese

Lotor of coursed tried it and had to almost stop for a one to take it all in because never before had he enjoyed food before

Never before had anyone he loved cooked for him before and it was almost like he could taste the love his S/O put into the dish

He just felt so happy as he ate, complimenting his S/O on their cooking skills even asking for seconds and thirds

He wants to learn how to cook from his S/O now

Every dish his S/O cooks quickly become his favorites regardless of what they cook

Date night for him and his S/O now include them cooking together and trying new recipes Hunk or the internet give them

Coran:

He had talked about and even had his S/O try all sorts of Altean food and teaching them about Altean culture so now it was his turn

Coran is very VERY excited to Earth food and learn about the all the different cultures

His S/O may have to tell him what is food and what is not food because he will try literally ANYTHING

Literally ANYTHING

His S/O almost vomits at some of things he eats but Coran just compares the taste to other dishes he tries

Coran quite enjoys fast food chains like Taco Bell, Wendy’s, and McDonalds and even ranks them

But perhaps his all time favorite foods are pasta

The noodles are what fascinate him the most and he like how they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes

His S/O will have to stop him from playing with the noodles and remind him that they are food and not a toy

Don’t let Coran be alone in the Macaroni isle in the store because otherwise, he’s coming home with a 100 boxes of Spongebob shaped noodles from Kraft Mac and cheese

They’ll be eating it for the next few months and Coran really won’t care

Krolia:

She had tried Earth once a long time ago and had forgotten the taste of it so she was happy to taste once again

Krolia would try all her S/O’s favorite foods first just because she wants to learn what they like and the culture around it

She doesn’t really have a favorite food or foods in general, she’ll eat almost anything put in front of her as long as it’s cooked properly

She’s certainly has had gross foods before but that was mostly during desperate times 

So when her S/O asks her what she likes, she just shrugs

If you really press her, she really enjoys spicy foods especially hot sauces or peppers

Her S/O of course tries to make some spicy food for her to enjoy and Krolia loves it

Hell her and her S/O try ghost peppers and the carolina reaper together

Her S/O is practically in tears, nose running, has hiccups, and is begging for milk while Krolia just shrugs it off

You could give Krolia anything extremely spicy and she will just shrug it off and enjoy the food

She doesn’t want to cook for her S/O because she fears making it too spicy for them and then they’d suffer for it

Thanks for the request hun! Hope these were alright! ~Admin Mae

[0poole]

LGBTQABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

 Gee, I hate being the first one to say this, but it’s Pride month. Wow. How could no one be talking about this? Crazy.

Okay but like, it’s impossible to avoid this stuff, and it probably won’t stop till the end of next month, so might as well dish out some thoughts on everything here. Just thoughts, with no agenda behind them. Gotta make that clear because people tend to go ham with stuff otherwise.

First of all, I’m bi, and basically on the edge of being trans as well. Basically, here’s where I am on that spectrum:

I want to become a girl for fetish purposes. Maybe not entirely that, but it’s close enough to say it. Or, you know, maybe just wanting to get fucked by a dude in a different hole is just what every male-to-female transsexual wants? Apart from that, the only thing stopping me from going through with that is the technology. Basically, what they’ll be doing is giving me a vagina, and that’s pretty much it, unless I want to slap some plastic on my face. It’s not satisfying enough, and considering I’m totally okay with being male, It’s extremely not worth it for me. But, if I woke up one day and by chance I had magically turned into a girl overnight, then I am IN THE MONEY. Sounds dope. Why fondle other peoples’ tits when I can fondle my own?

As for bisexual-ism, I’d have to go far as to say that I’m not just ignoring the concept of pansexuality in lieu of something more familiar (even though that’s kinda-sorta also the reason but not really). I’m actually just not attracted to trans people for some reason. I’m obviously okay with it on a moral standpoint, but like... I just don’t feel it. Maybe it’s just something deep in the back of my mind going like “ehhhh.... something ain’t right here.” What’s weird is that I would DIE for futa girls. Maybe I just like dick and also every womanly part. Who knows.

And, if you’re asking yourself, “why’s this guy bringing up his porn tastes all of a sudden?” then literally WHAT DO YOU THINK SEXUALITY IS? Also thank you kind strawman, for letting me tie this into my main point of how I hope all sexuality will eventually become as pointless and irrelevant to a person’s being as their hair color.

Seriously, sexuality is a sex thing. And as far as I understand it, romantic interest is a different field from sexuality? That’s fair. Some people just want to fuck, others don’t want to fuck. Makes sense, but it kind of ties into one thing I hate about this whole movement: everything’s gotta be a title. Every slight iteration from another thing has it’s own entire label to it. How do you expect people to care about your movement if they have to learn a whole new language to understand what’s going on? It’s kinda the same thing with politics. Instead of saying I’m a “democrat” or whatever, all I want to do is tell you what I believe and go from there, no preconceived notions about things other people with the same title did or said or whatever. Instead of being a “aromantic pansexual,” you could just say “Everyone’s on the table, but I’m not much into dating and all that” and suddenly you as a being become a lot more tangible to other people. Obviously there are worse things people are doing for the cause, but even I’m getting annoyed at some of these extremely specific titles people are using. (I was about to type “demisexual” into that stereotypical example, but I looked it up, and it turns out it’s more on the romantic side of things, I guess? Look it up, it’s literally a “””sexuality””” that applies to most of the population, and yet it needs a label too)

And if you want to make things super specific, you know, to clarify that you’re into literally EVERYONE and not just “”everyone,”” then just realize it doesn’t actually matter to anyone who you’re not considering as a significant other. Like I said, sexuality is a sex thing. You wouldn’t want someone going around saying “Man, I really wish someone would tie me to a table and fuck me with a giant horsecock dildo right about now!” because that’s sex stuff, and we keep that on the DL, as the kids say. Although, I’d have to imagine that people bring it up out of the political-ness of it all, since that’s just how things are nowadays. 

And obviously you got the people who make their sexuality a major part of their person. Everyone knows they suck at this point, no need to beat a dead horse.

Here’s another thing I hate: People who make assumptions on a fictional characters sexuality/gender based on their personality. Like, “Oh, she’s a tomboy? Must be a lesbian.” sort of thing. Believe me, I’m a-go on lesbo porn 100%, but actually seriously assuming a character is gay or something just because of their personality? Isn’t that one of the things we’re trying to avoid? Stereotyping? No? Maybe? It’s even worse when people get angry about other people saying they’re something else, but that ties into my next thing:

When someone sees one person saying/doing something stupid on the internet, and assuming that a tangible amount of people actually do stuff like that. There’s probably a term for it. Like, if you see someone on r/Tumblrinaction or whatever going “It’s okay to rape boys but not girls.” a good number of people would instantly assume even a vaguely noticeable number of people believe that, just because they saw a meme of it online. Then, you get an actually tangible number of people getting angry about the original thing, even though, proportionally speaking, so many more people are angry about it then there are people actually saying/doing the thing. 

Where does it apply here? Well, last I checked there’s like 90K tweets about a so-called “Straight Pride Parade” going on somewhere on planet Earth. Checked the tab, everyone’s exclusively complaining about the concept. No actual news, only people reacting to other people reacting to other people reacting, etc. No, actually, guess what, here’s the news, from good ol’ Twitter Moments themselves: “THREE men in Boston...” THREE. It’s literally a tiny friend group of mindless white guys going “Hey, we should have a pride parade too!” and suddenly the entire internet folds upon them. And now, guess what? Now all the worse straight guys know about it, and feel vindicated to advocate for it, so guess what? You played yoselves.

But, there’s the tie-in to the next thought: What about these “Straight Pride,” “It’s okay to be White,” “It’s okay to be Male” types? You know, people at the top of the charts trying to start the same movements as the people below them. To be honest, I really don’t think these people are worth getting so goddamn uppity about. I mean, assholes aren’t worth getting uppity about in any case, but specifically in this case. The thing about those ideas is that they’re “”””””literally””””””” true and fair, but the thing is that that’s not the issue here. Yes, it’s okay to be white, straight, and male, but like... That’s not the discussion. The whole point of what’s going on is people trying to rise up in the rankings. Some idiots on the internet may want to put the top people below them, but as mentioned 2 ideas ago, that’s not the majority. Reasonable people would only want to put the straight, white, male people below them if they, specifically, individually, are being an asshole about everything. Then, that’s about you as a person, not what you are. 

Back to the Straight Pride Parade specifically, aren’t these “pride parades” supposed to exist to make you feel better about your body and whatnot? If some jackasses feel better about themselves, and do so in a fashion that isn’t harmful to other people, then who cares? I’m assuming it’s not in the spirit of things to go to a normal pride parade and be like “FUCK STRAIGHT PEOPLE” so as long as the straight people don’t do the opposite either, who cares? It’s a net increase of happiness in the world. Sure, they haven’t gone through as many hardships throughout history, but should you really need to go through hardship to get together with other people to feel better about themselves? I hope the answer is no. You know, just because the idea I mentioned 3 ideas ago is bullshit doesn’t mean it doesn’t actually affect people.

Frankly, why can’t we just have a Sexuality Pride Parade, where literally everyone, no matter what, can join in? If unity’s the goal, why not actually be all-inclusive? I mean, like I said, I want to live my life around the idea that sexuality/gender matters as much to any random person as their hair color, but until that becomes the norm at least try and make it fit for everyone to join in. You can’t exactly fix anything if you just keep it all to the people who’d support you anyway because they’re in the same boat. 

Oh and expect me to gush about Pokemon tomorrow, because I most certainly will.

[klimpaloon-loves-superwholock]

I know this is a bit late, and I don’t usually make original posts, but I want to gather my thoughts on VLD s7, even though I literally never participate in fandom discourse lol. So I guess we’ll see how this goes. 

There were great parts of this season. Let’s start with that. 

First of all, Hunk was incredible and I’m so glad he finally got an arc where he could shine, even if I feel like it was long overdue. Seriously, I feel like Hunk was the best part of this season and I cannot state enough how much effect he had on my overall impression of the season. He basically carried the season singlehandedly and I don’t understand why searching through the tag rn I can hardly find any appreciation for him this season. (yeah jk I know why ha)

Everything they did with the Paladins’ families (from Hunk’s arc about rescuing his parents to Lance reuniting with his family and his relationship with Veronica to freaking Colleen!!!! just straight up stealing the show for two episodes!!! What an icon I love her so much!) was absolutely perfect. (I will say I’ve seen speculation that Hunk’s sister and her kids died since they weren’t there in his hospital room, which I desperately hope is not the case since that really should have been mentioned.) 

I also loved seeing Shiro take charge and become Captain of the Atlas without even seeming to realize that he was the man for the job. 

Sendak was a formidable and interesting villain who raised the stakes, which made it more satisfying when they defeated him. 

I enjoyed getting to know Romelle more and see her in action.

Coran and the mice’s team up to break out the rest of the gang was very good and funny.

KOSMO!!!!!!! A GOOD PUPPY!!!!!! HE HAS A NAME!! I LOVE HIM SO!!!

I enjoyed seeing Lotor’s ex-generals again (because I love them), although I do have some issues which I’ll get to later.

The new characters they introduced, mainly Rizavi, Leifsdottir, Kinkade, Veronica, and Griffin were all great and I loved them! They did a great job of making me care about these new people. (And Kinkade is drawn so pretty what the heck y’all sleepin on this beautiful dude)

Seriously Colleen was so great I cannot stress this enough. I’ve been feeling for this poor woman who thought that she’d lost her whole family since season 1 so I’m so glad to finally see her in action, fighting for her family and her planet.

They did a good job of setting up Admiral Sanda’s inevitable betrayal, even if it was a really stupid thing for her to do.

Ep 5 was great; I was super excited to see what the Druids looked like under their masks, Macidus and Keith’s teleporting fight was awesome, and it’s always great to see Allura’s magic develop more, even when I wish it wasn’t so unclear how/what she’s doing.

Lots of the fights were so cool, from the Voltron team taking down the Galra drones in the cave system in Ep 2 to all the MFE fights to Shiro’s rematch against Sendak to even Voltron’s fight against the Robeast. These fights, I’ve noticed, are always especially cool when they unlock a new ability like Hunk’s turrets and Voltron’s double swords. Also I forgot how strong Alteans are until Romelle just straight up ripped apart a drone.

As much as I overall didn’t like The Feud as an episode, it did have some great moments with Pidge taking down Bob, Allura and Hunk being cute in the background, and the team being overall really supportive and loving of each other. 

Shay came to visit Hunk!!!!!!!

Unfortunately, as you may have guessed, I also have a lot of problems with this season. Ones that, for me, are too serious to ignore. But let’s start with my more minor grievances, then work our way up to the big ones, shall we?

I don’t like Shiro’s new arm. It reminds me too much of Sendak’s and is too bulky/strange looking for for my taste. And for some reason my eyes have a hard time finding it? Like they’re drawn to the light emanating from his shoulder and not the forearm/hand. Idk, but I’m not a fan.

I wish Griffin had apologized to Keith for being such a jerk about his parents. I kept waiting for it since they had all these long glances with each other. I came to like him despite the bad initial impression only because he proved to be a good leader who valued every member of his team and knew when to step aside because someone else was better at a job. But I still kinda needed resolution for his rudeness, especially since he’s obviously grown since then and should want to make amends. 

Admiral Sanda’s just so freaking stupid????? Like, how did she get that high in ranking when she consistently makes such bad decisions???? Clearly the dictator who’s controlling earth who comes from a war-mongering culture that enslaves and destroys planets isn’t just gonna let y’all go once he gets Voltron. He’s either gonna continue using you as slaves because nothing’s stopping him or destroy you because you’re no longer useful. Listen to people who know the Galra better than you!!

I saw somewhere that Matt has a girlfriend now???? When did this happen????

They somehow got the ENTIRE BALMERA to Earth?!!!????!!?!?!?!? How did they build a teleduv big enough to do that!?!

Also, where did they get a teleduv? Did the Atlas have one? Or was that something that they built during the epilogue montage??

How did Keith summon his bayard telepathically?? Was that a Galra thing or a new Paladin ability?

How did Shiro manage to survive falling from space to earth on the outside of a ship while fighting Sendak?? I mean I’m really glad he lived, but??? How??

I don’t think we needed so much time dedicated to Sam Holt updating the Garrison and then the rest of earth on what happened in space. I kinda appreciated it since it’s been a long time since I watched the early seasons, but at the same time he didn’t tell them anything that was new information to us as viewers. The only things we gained from those scenes were how others reacted to this info. (And we still didn’t get to see the reaction of the person I was most interested in, Adam, but I’ll get to that later.)

This is a problem I’ve been having with the show since like season 3 or so, but how much time has passed? They actually explicitly said it at a couple of points this season, what with 3 years having gone by for most people but only a few weeks for the Voltron team, but why did that time difference happen? Also, how much time passed between the team leaving Earth and them fighting Lotor in last season’s finale? Because I could believe any time frame between 6 months to a few years for that, which makes a big difference in how old the paladins are. According to the show, Sam landed on earth 4 years before the team gets back to the Milky Way, so I guess Sam left the team a year before they faught Lotor??

I didn’t get the thing with Allura’s crown gem? Since when is that a power source? And I was really struck by the imagery of her literally throwing her crown away to help her friend, but I feel like it would’ve been more powerful if we had been given some information about what exactly that gem is and what it means for her. Just make this more clear for me. Also, Shiro has already lashed out and hurt people against his will, so I really didn’t need that angsty moment for him.

The B-plot in Ep 1 was tonally dissonant from the A-plot of Shiro’s flashbacks, and it ended up being totally useless anyway. As much as I enjoyed Romelle and Hunk’s banter in those parts, they would’ve been better placed somewhere else. They should’ve just dedicated the whole episode to Shiro’s flashbacks and given us more information about him.

If they were going to mention that Shiro had a progressive disease in his flashbacks, then they need to explicitly mention in the show that he doesn’t have it anymore. As it is, people who don’t know about the SDCC announcements are just gonna assume he still has it. If it doesn’t happen in the show, it’s not canon. Also, if he’s had this disease the whole time, then why is s7 the first time it’s mentioned? The way he held his arm in the flashback reminded me of the way he held it when his Galra arm activated for the first time. Did the arm help fight the progression of the disease like that lil wristband did? If so, that should’ve been explained and made clear a long time ago. It just bothers me that this is the first time we’re hearing about this major part of Shiro’s life that he’s been fighting with, and that in show we’re given absolutely no resolution for it.

I guess the gem powering Shiro’s arm and the Castleship diamond powering the Atlas connected somehow?? Which is how Shiro turned it into a giant robot?     ??????????????? I’m genuinely very confused on what was going on there. It needed to be made more clear. I was on board for whatever they were doing at first just because Shiro looked so pretty in that lighting, but they took it in the weirdest direction possible. Why would anyone care about Voltron anymore when you’ve got a bigger, stronger robot now? Voltron’s no longer the most powerful weapon in the universe - the Atlas is. And it only became such by coincidence. Which is just. Irritating.

The Feud episode. Oh boy. First of all, I got some serious emotional whiplash from the change to this episode. It just didn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the season at all. Second, they just really did not have to spend that much time making fun of Lance for being stupid. Especially when he’s not. Also, the first two of the people he had to identify had masks on, and Lance had only met them briefly. ALSO you’re telling me that Lance, the most social and outgoing of the Voltron team, is the one who’s bad with names/faces????? ALSO spending less time teasing Lance would’ve opened up more time for giving Hunk and Allura their own activities. ALSO everyone else on the team gets a little speech about how they’re valuable, but Lance just gets “I don’t want to be stuck with him forever”?????? That’s so freaking messed up. Third, the whole premise of the episode was strange to me. Like why would an all powerful being who tests heroes do it in this way? It seems to me that that premise fits Ep 6, where they were stranded in space, much better. They were genuinely tested then, and the forces that attacked them and propelled them through lightyears of space were never explained, so saying that Bob did it and propelled them towards their goal as a reward for passing the test could’ve been a satisfying answer to those questions. And fourth, can I also ask why Morvok was the fourth player?? Like he’s a nonentity in terms of villains. And they still didn’t have the same number of players as team Voltron. Haggar’s still alive, so they could’ve put Sendak on there too. And for the fifth player they could’ve put on a fan favorite villain character. One who showed up in more episodes than Morvok did. One who died a while back and who the fans have wanted to see again ever since. Like, I don’t know, NARTI!! Ugh.

The Robeast. I just. This season could’ve ended on a pretty high note if they had just cut that out and just went straight to the lil epilogue after defeating Sendak. As cool as that fight was at parts, it caused a pretty low finale, which is pretty disappointing after last season’s incredible finale. I get that they needed to foreshadow Haggar’s return to this fight or whatever they’re doing for next season and that she’s been working on the lost Alteans, apparently, but it was just a strange note to end on. Especially with the weird addition of Atlas to the Giant Robot Squad. And Allura’s line “Seriously? We just defeated Sendak and now we gotta deal with this?!?!” (I’m paraphrasing) was a MOOD.

Okay, so this post has gotten kinda out of control, so I’m gonna have to save the biggest issue I had (betcha can guess what it is) for another post. So. Look out for Part 2 of this nonsense. Feel free to reblog with your own ideas/input!

[vultruntrash]

Review Part II, Giant Robot Edition

Now that I’ve gushed about everything Voltron had actually done VERY well this season, much to my delightful surprise, it’s time for everything they did wrong.

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within reason. Because there were many moments that were clearly used to set up for a later thing.

Season seven opens up with an episode dedicated to flashbacks between Keith and Shiro and how they became so close, as well as mentions of Shiro’s disease. Being oddly vague about exactly what he has, as well as being just too subtle of a romance between him and Adam for it to really stick to anyone who isn’t object to Representation. Now, I’ve had my fair share of relationships with both men and women in the past, but you can be way more obvious without actually stating it outright than you actually did.

You know what a lot of these flashbacks would have been great for, though?

THE ENTIRE TWO YEARS WORTH OF MOTHER SON BONDING WE DIDN’T GET TO WITNESS. I mean, how on earth do you miss an opporunity as perfect as that to explain the backstory of three characters we know less about than anyone else? Tell me how, because I would very much like to know why a perfect duo-episode setup like that was allowed to slip away.

Also: what the hell was the hell was the point of that Game Show? To waste time? Filler Content? A break in the monotony? Feels a hell of a lot like 4-4, and you know how I feel about 4-4. While it wasn’t nearly as painful, it was still mind-numbing and difficult to sit through for longer than five minutes at a time. And I mean that literally.

Now, Adam.

He died too fast.

There was barely anything to get a read off of him besides “This guy was once important in Shiro’s past, and now he’s going to defend the planet!- oh wait, he’s dead”

It was too fast, very unnecessary unless half the people taken out in the first wave are going to turn up again later. ALIVE. Like Veronica did. And in the even he’s actually, for real, dead, I Feel as much for him as I did for Rover. Heck, i think I felt more for Rover simply because that little droid wasn’t a huge dickbag

AND SPEAKING OF DICKBAGS

I don’t care what your name actually is. It could be Gary, it could be Johnathan. You are now Dickbag, and that is your name, your occupation, and your marital status. He’s logical and semi-considerate of his team, but the entire time when any paladin is in the room, he’s nothing but an asshole! He’s stuck in the same area as Keith more often than not, and he’s done nothing but stay sullen and bitter and glary-eyed the entire damn time.

I do not like him, is what I’m saying.

Same goes for the Admiral.

She blatently put the entire planet at risk because she wanted to ‘save Earth,’ without taking into the account she had been very clearly told the Galra DO NOT FIGHT FAIR. And despite multiple warnings that this alien race is both hostile and invasive, she decides to give them the benefit of the doubt and let it happen, only to have it completely backfire on her. She, the Bitch. The Admiral! Who should know the tactics of warfare cover to cover(assuming she gained that rank behind a desk) made a monumental tactical error that cost not only her life, but the potential lives of millions of people. Because of her pride.

Her noble sacrifice did not salvage remorse. She got what she deserved.

AND WHERE WAS THE WOLF THE ENTIRE BATTLE? WHERE WERE PIDGE’S TRASHAPILLARS? Nowhere. Wolfy could have helped, he wasn’t there. Where was he? We don’t know, the animals take a back seat when it comes to voltron battles. (Makes me wonder how they fared when the lions did actually fight. Must have been interesting to say the least.)

And last but not least, I want to talk about the Giant robot fight at the end of the season.

You remember the logic question, right? How do you defeat a giant heavily armed and deadly robot?

With a BIGGER one, of course! And with HEELS!

AND IT DIDN’T EVEN WORK! It got it’s giant-ass ass handed to it by that itty bitty flybot because it was huge and lumbering and slow, and how the hell did that even happen, even Shiro doesn’t know.

Flybot was probably the one thing I actually hated about the show so far. After all the crap everyone just went through, getting knocked out multiple times and being physically and psychically exhausted for hours on end, going on five episodes in a row, and finally managing to save the Earth from Sendak’s forces, they pulled THIS out of NOWHERE.

I would have been satisfied with Sendak being killed off, and then ended it with them prepping for another potential attack and then STARTING the next season with Flybot. That would have been fine! FLYBOT COULD HAVE WAITED!

I understand that you need to build hype for the upcoming season with cliffhangers and barely-noted hints throughout the series, and yes, it was quite a blow to see that Flybot was piloted by an Altean of all things.

But note that it’s very difficult to acknowledge the significance of that when you look at this:

And all you see is this:

So long story short: You are learning, Team Avatar

While I was very impressed by a lot I saw, there’s still a lot I’m not happy about, and I hope that plotholes like these are, at the very least, smaller by the time the fangirls start drooling over the season 8 trailer.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have fanfics to read and fanart to create. unfortunately. Kinda. It’s complicated.

See you all alter

~Wolf

[fly-pow-bye]

Powerpuff Girls 2016 - “Never Been Blissed”

Written by: Jake Goldman, Haley Mancini

Written & Storyboarded by: John West, Alicia Chan, Angela Zhang, Caitlin Vanarsdale

Directed by: Nick Jennings, Bob Boyle

Yeah, it's not much of a blessing.

A decade ago, the Professor, out of jealousy of another scientist who did the same thing, concocted the original, and most powerful Powerpuff Girl. Her name was Blisstina Francesca Francia Mariam Alicia Utonium, or Bliss for short! She's the most powerful Powerpuff Girl ever, but she causes problems because she can't control her powers. Ultimately, she has to learn to not try so hard, and soon she would be moving entire planets back into orbit!

No, this is not an excerpt from a fanfiction, this is an official character from a official reboot. Because of the fans' frothing demand for new Bliss, Cartoon Network decided that the world needed a second Bliss episode.

Well, maybe that's not entirely the story. This episode had one scene already ready to go by the end of 2017 to be featured in a promo dedicated to 2018. Either the draft to air for this show is extremely short for an animated cartoon, or the crew and/or Cartoon Network already assumed that Bliss was going to be a beloved new character and greenlit another episode. I have more than a few hunches that it is the latter.

While her first special was a 50% mess, I would be lying if I said I was not interested to see what happened to Bliss. Bliss isn't in my top 5 worst characters. To make a long story short, I wish I could expect better. To make this short story long, let's get into the episode.

The episode starts with a janitor talking to his mop about how the kids these days make such a mess, comparing it to a meteor hitting the ground. Sure enough, a meteor hits the school. Nobody reports on this meteor hitting a random school, and nobody seems to care about it. Speaking of not caring, this janitor does not really do much and actually disappears halfway through the episode, only offering a few attempts at humor and nothing else. This is something the episode does a lot.

We immediately cut to the Powerpuff Girls home the next morning, I assume, where Blossom is making a batch of cookies for the upcoming Spring Fling. Because she is a nerd, these are soy mash cookies that taste horrific. Before we can get an awkward yet fitting scene where the Professor tries to lie to keep his children's spirits up, the door bursts open. Literally.

Bliss is back from space, and my standards were so low that I was surprised to not see Bliss be on Earth with no explanation whatsoever. Bubbles immediately wants gifts, and she gets one: a wanted poster with a picture of an alien named Sporde. While she was in space, she was hunting down this alien, and it happened to crash land right near the school.

The Professor decides to join in, too, as he just got a job as a substitute teacher! He wants to shape those young minds, and he learns that he's just out of touch with today's cool youth. You're better off not knowing what the self-proclaimed "King Cool of Daddy-O Street" does in this episode, it never leads to anything funny. Add him to the list of useless characters in this episode, alongside that janitor.

Speaking of "out of touch with our cool youth", we get another potential plot alongside the cookies and the Sporde: Bliss has never went to school. This plot is immediately thrown out when all the popular girls accept her because she has cool hair and a wicked dress. The Powerpuff Girls have that same wicked dress; I guess it is all about those...thigh-to-knee socks? White pants? They still never really explain what those are.

After that plot was wrapped up, and thrown downtown into the nearest garbage can, we go back to the “Powerpuff Girls trying to look for Sporde” plot. Buttercup hangs Barry upside down, dropping his lunch money and candy. Bubbles literally just pounces on Big Joey. One will never believe who Blossom gets to fool around with with far more time than the other two!

Of course, good ol' Jared Shapiro. His last major appearance had him be this awkward nerdy friend, but he's back to being the generic love interest brick here. Just look at how subtle this romantic plot is displayed.

Blossom: Jared, if you're not an alien, then you'll eat these cookies and tell me you love me...uh, I mean, them!

Jared Shapiro: (completely avoiding to acknowledge...anything) Yummers!

Yuck-ers. There is some good news: while everyone else manages to survive Blossom's cookies, Jared is not so lucky. Blossom asks him if he wants seconds, not realizing that her soy cookies just make Jared have a bad reaction.

No, really, Jared falls to the ground and remains nearly motionless in a pit of his own drool. This is the last time he ever appears in this special, not even appearing in the big dance. Good, the less needless romance scenes, the better. Blossom decides to take this as a no, not really worried about it. Being oblivious appears to be a common trait with the Powerpuff Girls in this episode, and a few other characters, too.

That may even include Bliss, as she does what could be the most expected "joke" you can think of when she encounters a girl with orthodontic headgear. She proceeds to roughhouse her. No worries, the girl tells everyone that the new kid touched her hand, and everyone wants to touch it. Bliss: so awesome, she could bully someone and still be popular!

Bliss talks about how there's no possible way to unless we see a trail of slime. Only in this one scene, we see a trail of slime, and immediately after, she gets tackled into a broom closet by a new character. This is as subtle as it gets, and you'll know what I mean later.

After fighting each other and accusing each other of being the alien, they decide to introduce themselves. This guy, who looks like if Ben Tennyson was a contestant on Total Drama Island, introduces himself as Logan of the Universal Protection Bureau.

Yes, Logan. This special was in production long before the Logan Paul Youtube scandal, but that is a sad coincidence. A coincidence that will not get even worse later, surely. Anyway, he's an alien fighter from the Universal Protection Bureau, and he's also looking for the Sporde. He's top-ranked, he's also an outsider, and he's already starting to flirt with Bliss.

They almost immediately get lost in each other's eyes, because we got to have some romance in this. There's even a running gag where they almost kiss until they get interrupted by someone, in the first case it's the wacky janitor and his wacky mop. This episode does re-confirm that this is an elementary school in a completely random Sherlock Holmes reference; Logan may as well be the only other teenager here.

That never really seems to come up, by the way. Everyone is just fine with these people who are 6-10 years older than everyone else hanging out in elementary school. Considering a lot of the students look like high school students already, I could see how it would not cross even the viewer's minds.

They meet up with the Powerpuff Girls, who have yet to get a single lead on Sporde. They're not consistent on whether or not there's a "The" in his name, so neither will I. The Powerpuff Girls have no idea what this Universal Protection Agency is, but they seem to agree that this Logan is completely trustworthy! I was almost worried.

As an aside, Blossom is happy that the cookies are surprisingly doing well with all of the kids that aren't Jared. Buttercup tries another one, only to find out that they really are still terrible. But do not tell this to Jennifray, who is really getting into the cookies, shoveling them into her mouth. She's also turning purple and growing fangs!

It turns out, only an alien would want to eat Blossom's cookies, but Blossom still does not realize this means her cookies were really terrible. Buttercup does her best by flying in to bash this aliens head in. I always imagine that one scene in Three Girls and a Monster whenever these scenes pop up where Bubbles just counts down to the inevitable Monster Punch Girls Down.

Sure enough, Monster Punch Girls Down, womp womp. Every fight scene in this episode is just a slideshow slow motion beatdown. Two exceptions, the second will come later, and the first being a shot where the Professor is listening to 80's music while this carnage is going on.

What is surprising is even Bliss gets knocked out. In fact, Sporde manages to pin her to the ground. I guess they had to counter all of those people who accused her of being this overpowered original fan character by showing that, yes, Bliss can get a terrible face reaction shot, too! She even has to be saved by one of the Powerpuff Girls. Just one of them, in fact, though she does get some help from the plan master.

Blossom tells Bubbles to use a battering ram, and she hits Sporde with a ram aura. And...that's it. Once hit by a ram aura, Sporde spits out a maggot, which Logan zaps with his ray gun. Mission accomplished, says Logan.

I can just imagine Sporde just being this tiny little maggot trying to take over the universe. However, it does contradict a little on what has been said about Sporde being a shapeshifting alien himself. There's still 13 minutes of special left, and there will be an explanation.

The first part ends with this shot of a bunch of those Sporde maggots coming out of a water fountain. This is a decent hook, though I could imagine that what it led to already happened, considering, you know, Jennifray.

The second part is where it "goes off the rails", quoting one of the characters here, not my own opinion. If you wanted to watch this episode without being spoiled on the main twist, then stop reading now. Don't worry, your expectations are not going to be entirely subverted.

← The Trouble With Bubbles ☆ Sugar, Spice, and Super Lice→

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We cut to the still-unnamed-outside-of-that-one-short-but-at-least-Elementary-school Spring Fling, and Bliss is wearing her best outfit and a new hairstyle that would actually work on making her not fail the Matt Groening Sillohuette Test. By the way, have you noticed they forgot her headband this whole time?

Bliss and Logan are still doing their lovey-dovey shtick, and outside of some talk about beating up trash lizards, there is not much talk about his role as a space defender. It's still a better romance story than Blossred, which, as mentioned before, never shows up in this episode again. Logan, as a gift to make her even more beautiful, decides to give her something special.

Huh, a necklace. Just like the one from the title image, except the heart isn't broken here. It is almost as if it will eventually be broken in away that will be detrimental to Bliss. That can not possibly be the case, especially if we do not consider that the Powerpuff Girls were victims to this exact thing before. Bliss even tries to do another kiss, only to be interrupted by...wanting punch? They throw that running gag away, too.

What are the other Powerpuff Girls doing? Blossom is trying to sell these cookies, which are still doing surprisingly well. Despite being the genius, she never suspects a thing about it. Buttercup acts as the party's bouncer, a perfect job for someone who can lift people upside and steal their lunch money.

Bubbles gets to be on trash duty, because, as also mentioned before, the Janitor just disappeared from existence. While Bubbles is singing a song about taking out the trash, she eventually notices, also via song, that she's surrounded by a bunch of alien pods, which look like the Sporde ones Bliss was telling her about. Hey, it could have been something else. This is Townsville, after all. I think.

Bubbles gets Blossom and Buttercup to investigate this. She gets Logan too, as she still remembers he is supposed to be this space detective and not the love interest.

See, Logan makes a slasher smile, and fires his ray gun three times. We weren't clued in by that puddle of goo, or the fact that he's that one character we haven't seen before. Well, that and the janitor, but we already saw that he existed before the meteor, so it couldn't be him.

Logan goes back to Bliss, hoping we all forgot about that last scene, and decides to sing her a song by turning his ray gun into a guitar. Of course, Bliss is loving it, making that face. All I'm thinking of is when this guy is going to transform. And sure enough, Bliss's necklace starts to glow green and starts to sap her energy. Before she can ask what is going on, we get to see the real twist.

Logan: Sorry to cut this chord...

Logan: ...because I AM THE SPOOOOORDE! (transforms)

Bliss: What...you’re The Sporde?

Really, he was The Sporde the whole time? One of the first reactions anyone had to that description was that Logan was going to be the alien. It was not even a matter of if he was going to turn into the alien, but a. how they were going to do the reveal, and b. if they were going to add anything on top of it.

They did, actually. That "Sporde" reveal in part 1, possibly the one without the "the", was an admittedly clever bit of misdirection. I could see this reboot completely changing direction from a superhero action comedy to a generic romance, and, of course, they don't entirely do this.

Also, cool transformation scene.

Right after this big reveal, we get a quip from the Professor. Oh yeah, he’s the DJ now. It is as if they cannot ever go full action; we have to remind people this is a comedy by interrupting it constantly with these scenes. Anything is better than the intentionally poorly animated wacky faces, but this is not much of a step up.

Another riff from the ray gun guitar, and the other students turn into the Spordelings. It even rips apart their clothes. Sporde finally explains that the cookies were the source of their energy. Blossom's response to this is to cry about how nobody really liked her cookies.

The Reboot Puff we know and love interrupt this dramatic scene, revealing that they survived. The best we get is one line about how the ray gun just was not powerful enough to keep them down. That ray gun scene turned out to be pointless, and, much like to this episode's twist, I am not surprised.

The Reboot Puffs actually do a good job fighting the minions this time, even though just one of them was able to beat down the Most Powerful Puff. Maybe they didn't have as many cookies. That seems to be a general Season 2 trait; good at fighting the minor guys, but once the big guy starts attacking, the Puffs are as good as captured.

Sure enough, they do get captured, as The Sporde has the ability to spit sticky green goo, putting the Powerpuff Girls that saved Bliss in the first part of this special out of commission. It turns out, there's no room for the main three in this episode. Really, outside of saving her in that one scene they only put in to give Bliss some form of weakness, they don't do much outside of being oblivous.

With all hope lost, The Sporde airs his greivances about Bliss. He's not here to take over the Earth, he's only here because Bliss keeps going from planet to planet, destroying his pods. I do like how Bliss looks demented here. This is Sporde’s point of view, after all, that should be more common with villain flashbacks.

He also calls Bliss worthless. That came out of nowhere, though I can not exactly disagree with that notion. Maybe it was related to that "Bliss trying to fit in to this school" plot that they really did not get into. Sporde tries to deliver the final blow with his scorpion tail, only for Bliss to use the last of her power to move the guitar that was powering that necklace in front of her.

I am glad to see that Bliss punching the ground wasn't the result of a Katie Kaboom-style teenage meltdown. Do not remember Katie Kaboom. That is not a question, you should not. Instead, this punch is the equivalent of about 50 battering ram auras, making all of the Spordelings spit out their maggots, tranforming all of the students back to their former selves. It magically makes their clothes grow back, thankfully.

There is a huge contrast. Power of Four, the Powerpuff Girls had to team up to fight the main villain. Here, they’re stuck in Sporde’s...mouth goo. Bliss has to save herself in this situation, and she does. Considering how they built this alien up as this dangerous shapeshifting menace, the whole Sporde fight scene is just him getting whacked across the walls with telekinesis and that's it.

While they had to prove "The Power of Four" in her first episode, this scene shows off that Bliss can handle a huge fight all by herself. This even comes with Bliss thanking Sporde for showing what her purpose is: to be her own superhero in a spinoff series. Okay, they don't put it that way, but that's how it came off to me.

Bliss is not going to stay, of course. I'm not going to spoil how they write her off this time, but there is a reason why Bliss would be handing out wanted posters, and destroying pods. I kind of wish they would have focused more on that backstory than this school dance plot, really. To not give everything away, it would have been more honest.

Bliss leaves, the Powerpuff Girls and even the Professor begging for her not to. She tells them not to worry, because she'll be back for Sunday brunch. Yeah, that and the Bliss spinoff that this is not a pilot of. Judging by this episode's ratings, I would not hold my breath for that.

Does the title fit?

Despite the running gag, Bliss never actually gets a kiss. Not even from her own father figure!

How does it stack up?

A half hour “alien invading a school prom” plot was obviously going to be a let down compared to an hour and fifteen minute duel with the devil. Thinking back, this episode does manage to be better than most of Power of Four; there's no terrible retcons, and Bliss isn't necessarily that bad here.

I have softened up from my initial first impression, but this episode has its fair share of problems. It’s predictable, there’s a lot of wasted time for bad humor, and the ending just seems like it insults the original Puffs for the almighty glory of this new original character. Compared to the first Bliss special, it doesn’t become as much of a mess as the middle, but it never really gets as good as its beginning and end. A Neutral.

Next week, the Powerpuff Girls have to fight a different sort of evil invertebrate than usual.

← The Trouble With Bubbles ☆ Sugar, Spice, and Super Lice →

[thecarlonethatalsowrites]

Day 3 Nerd Sisters

Day three of Danvers Sisters Week for @queercapwriting . I know this is behind, but I’m a little swamped at college right now, so this is happening. May or may not get around to writing day 4, we’ll see. read on ao3

Alex absolutely loathes to admit it, but she’s a total nerd. She had more titles ending with -ist than Kara can even count, can probably list every single Star Trek episode in order , and delights in new scientific challenges- even though she can never say so because often they are a direct result of extraterrestrial or Cadmus activity.

Kara is pretty sure all this and more qualify her as a nerd, and that means she’s without a doubt the best person to go to with this. Because, yes, Kara technically qualifies as a nerd as well, what with the way she can calculate crazy complex equations on the regular in her head and being a Trekkie along with Alex, but she probably doesn't qualify for this .

“Hey, Alex,” she says sweetly, flouncing up to her sister when she spies her on the main floor of the DEO. “You look amazing today.” Alex looks down at her black uniform, the same one she wears every day.

“Not that I don’t appreciate the compliment, but what do you need?” She asks. Rats Kara curses silently to herself, but her attempt at flattery was a long shot anyway. Alex knows her too well to be fooled by any sneakiness she may attempt (and, yes, she can be sneaky...sometimes.)

“Okay, so I kind of need something that requires you give up your Saturday afternoon next week,” she says. “Will you help me?”

“Depends. What is it?” Ok, Alex is suspicious. Maybe that wasn’t the best opener.

“Well, Lena is hosting a science fair at L-Corp for teenage girls who have interest in pursuing scientific careers or hobbies, and she kind of asked me to ask Supergirl to make an appearance. You know, to promote science and everything. And I totally want to, but I’m not exactly up to date on Earth’s sciences, so I thought you could come along and talk about some stuff.”

It’s a good plan. Over the past few months, Lena has worked with the DEO on multiple occasions and witnessed Alex’s work up close. She agreed immediately when Supergirl asked if she could bring in an expert, especially when she told her it would be Alex. The hard part was actually convincing Alex to do it.

Which might be harder than Kara thought it would be if Alex’s incredulous look is anything to go by.

“You want me to go talk to a bunch of teenagers who don’t have a clue that the organization we work for even exists about...stuff?” She talks slowly as if giving Kara the opportunity to realize how ridiculous this all was.

“Teenage girls,” Kara clarifies, determined not to be shut down on this. “Who could really be helped by talking to a woman with a crazy amount of scientific credentials.” Alex narrows her eyes, but Kara can see that she’s got her convinced.

“Fine.” She says, confirming her agreement which Kara saw seconds before she spoke. “Tell Lena I’ll be there.”

“Yes!” Kara does a small fist pump before rushing over to the balcony. “Thank you for not making me do this alone! I’ll text you the details when I get them!” She launches herself out of the DEO, excited to tell Lena the news.

***

Alex expected a lot of things about this fair, but what she did not expect was to be standing awkwardly next to Lena Luthor at the head of a gigantic conference room in the LCorp building while Lena introduces her to almost a hundred girls ages twelve to nineteen. With Kara nowhere in sight.At least she’s only doing an hour long panel, rather than the all day fair Kara had promised.

“It’s my pleasure to introduce Dr. Alexandra Danvers, an accomplished bio-engineer, neuroscientist, and xenobiologist. Much of her recent work has been to increase our understanding of alien life, and she agreed to come in today to answer some of your questions. So without further ado, Dr. Danvers, everyone.” Lena looks to her and Alex takes a deep breath. The alien mention in Lena’s speech was fought tooth and nail against J’onn, who only approved because it didn’t mention exactly what Alex did. However, that wasn’t the part that made Alex uncomfortable.

“At the risk of sounding like a cliche, Dr. Danvers is my mother. Just call me Alex,” she says quietly. Lena shoots her a look because most of Alex’s words have been directed at Lena rather than the girls before them. Alex forces herself to look out over the crowd. “Or, Dr. Alex, if you wish.”

Why is this so damn hard? Alex addressed a hundred people on every given day, many of them high ranking government officials. Hell, she’s even spoken directly to the President. More than once. So why is speaking to 80 teenage girls so much more difficult?”

“As Ms. Luthor said, I mainly study biological components of alien life. I earned my Ph.D. at 24, not much older than some of you.” This is more information about herself than she’s told anyone in years, but the girls before her are looking at her so expectantly she has to give them something. “So, um, it’s reasonable to believe that some of you may complete similar programs in the next few years.” That’s what she’s here for, isn’t she? To encourage these girls to pursue their interest in science.

Thankfully, Lena interrupts before she has to say anything else. “Speaking of aliens, there’s one more person who’s supposed to be here for this panel.” Lena walks over to the window and places a hand on the latch. “Supposedly any minute…” It’s incredibly cheesy, but Lena somehow makes the words sound more than that. And, well, when Kara floats into view awe overwhelms any perception of cheapness.

Lena opens the window and Kara flies in with a wave and such incredible heart eyes towards Lena that Alex sends up a silent prayer that she’ll keep it in her pants. She lands next to Alex in her smiling hero pose and there are literal gasps from the crowd.

“Hey, ladies, I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation here. Now, I’m no scientist myself, but I definitely appreciate the discipline.” As enthralled as the girls look at the appearance of Supergirl, her words bring them right back to cheesy and make them almost disinterested. “Also, I’m here to help Dr. Alex blow some stuff up.” The girls cheer loudly at that, and Alex is glad Lena reserved one of the downstairs labs for the last fifteen minutes of the panel.

“On a more serious note, there are more important aspects of science than explosions, believe it or not. I was shocked to find out.” She elicits a short laugh from the crowd. “On my planet, I was supposed to be a scientist. But instead, Krypton died and I ended up on Earth, and that’s because the very few people who were scientists didn’t share what they knew about our world dying.

“I’m here in this room to prevent another disaster like that from happening because it’s you all who are going to save the Earth. Science is our most important tool to combat dangers to this world, both from outer space and right here on the surface of the planet. It’s one that Dr. Alex and I use every day.” Kara looks to Alex to let her know it’s her turn, but Alex is dumbstruck.

Luckily, so is the audience. Kara probably overshared about Alex’s part in her adventures, but she sure could give a speech. Alex was not expecting her to share so much of her story, and apparently neither were her listeners. She can see several girls who look visibly affected by Kara’s words. Alex is nowhere near as good with words, but she feels obligated to follow up in some way.

“The three of us, yes, Ms. Luthor too, are here to talk to you about different areas of science and the kinds of fields you can go into should you pursue a career, and to answer any questions you may have to the best of our ability. And who knows? Maybe you’ll ask some questions we can’t answer, but that will be answered in the future by one of you.” And with that, the questions started flowing.

Most are directed at Kars, but Alex is pleased that several girls ask her about her accelerated Ph.D. program and studies in biology. Lena answers a few inquiries about Earth’s current level of technology compared to other known planets, and somehow everyone avoids talking about threats from other worlds, too caught up in their passion for science.

Their time is almost up when Alex notices a girl in the back frantically waving her hand. She stands out from the crowd, many of whom are sporting various college or college preparatory wear to represent their varied schools, in her highly fashionable outfit and professional looking makeup. In fact, Alex doesn’t think she’s been called on once, even though this can’t be the first time she’s raised her hand.

“How about you in the back?” She says when Kara finishes answering a question and almost everyone’s hands fly up, including the girl Alex noticed and called on. The room quiets as the girl stands.

“Hello, my name is Desha Ramone, I’m a high school senior and I’ve been studying material sciences, particularly how they can be applied to fashion and clothing.” There are a few groans and Alex is impressed that Desha is not cowed. “My question is about Supergirl’s suit; mainly, how does it stay intact under major stress, yet still be comfortable enough to wear for extended periods of time?”

Kara looks like she’s been presented with a box of potstickers. She’s incredibly proud of Winn and his work and launches into a detailed explanation about interwoven fibers and fire resistant fabric. Desha soaks in her words, writing everything down in a little notebook with a fuzzy pink pen. It’s when Kara’s explanation starts to wind down that Alex speaks up.

“You said mainly,” she says and Desha knows exactly what she’s talking about.

“That’s right.” She nods. “I don’t mean to be rude, but have you ever considered something more practical?” The room gasps and Desha rushes to explain herself. “I mean, I wear skirts all the time, and you can’t do anything in them. And I’m totally for wearing whatever the hell you want, but even light armor would be an asset in your line of work, even if you are practically invincible.”

“You know, you have a point. I have friends in the media, do you know how many times they’ve warned me about upskirt pictures? I wear shorts under this for a reason, so yes I’ve considered practicality,” Kara says. There are sympathetic chuckles and groans from the crowd.

“Superman wears a chin to toe suit,” someone shouts, and there are mutters about equality and “the damn patriarchy,” which Alex can’t help but agree with. She continues to watch Desha, who seems proud to have facilitated the discussion, and Alex can’t help to think she’s not through yet.

“I have a question,” she says over the noise. The room quiets down and she continues. “Desha, what would you do differently?”

“Me?” She asks shocked. Alex is glad she’s confident enough despite her initial reaction to continue. “Well, probably something that offers more mobility and protection. Like, the same kind of durable fabric, but maybe with plating around the heart or…” she trails off, unsure of what else, but someone picks up the slack.

“Femoral artery!”

“Spine support!”

“Protect the kidneys!”

Suggestion after suggestion is shouted out, and they’re all so good that Lena rolls in a whiteboard. She offers the marker up between Kara and Alex. Kara is the better artist, so she accepts it and draws out three human figures from the front, back, and side. Lena takes point in organizing suggestions and mediating disputes, and Alex takes it upon herself to add what she knows of Kryptonian physiology to hash out where Kara needs the most protection (not that there are many places, but this is her sister.)

They’re having so much fun designing suits and debating the merits of each that they forget all about the set aside lab time and promised explosions. By the time the discussion has died down, Kara has drawn almost a dozen ideas for a new suit that range from extremely practical to completely unreasonable, yet totally badass, and they’ve run twenty minutes over their allotted panel time.

When the ideas stop flowing Lena deftly takes control of the room again, leaving it open for closing remarks. Alex is blunt, Kara is inspiring, and then all the girls are filing out of the room behind Lena, shouting their thank yous behind them. Kara and Alex are left alone with the sketches and each other, and Alex thinks it all ended too quickly for her taste.

“So what do you think? Not that bad, huh?” Kara says when they’re finally alone. Alex runs a critical eye over the whiteboard drawings. Kara has done a remarkable job on them.

“I want to get Winn on this. I bet he could make a lot of improvements to your suit,” she says, turning away from Kara and pulling out her phone to call him.

“But you liked the panel, right? Right, Alex?” With her back to Kara, Alex lets herself smile. Yeah, she liked the panel. The nerdy panel full of nerdy people.

Huh.

Guess that makes her a nerd too.