My dog, Indy(Indiana Jones)

She is old, adorable and gave us a scare because her legs have started to collapse but she's ours.

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck: The Last of the Clan McDuck!  Review “It Was Worth THE Dime”

This is one of my faviorite comic book stories of all time. Given i’m a massive comics nerd, for both books and strips, that is the highest praise I can give this wonderful, epic, beautifully drawn and deeply emotoinal story. I first discovered it in the local library that had the second volume, and found the rest online at a now long dead fan site. And while it took me longer than I care to admit to really dig into Duck Comics, and even now i’ve only scratched the surface, I can say without a doubt this story is the reason I’m so deeply attached to Scrooge as a character, and that I was excited as  I was for Ducktales 2017. This comic showed me just what Scrooge McDuck should be at his core as a character, and showed me what a wonderful character that is. So with all that glowing praise as you can guess i’ve been wanting to cover this for years, and even considered though back when I was more primarily a comic book reviewer last year. Any time i’ve reviewed stuff before now, i’ve considered it, and with Scrooge’s Sisters Hortense and Matilda presumably and definitely debuting on Ducktales soon, and it’s about damn time, the timing could not be better or clearer to dig into this utter triumph.  But before we can take a look at the story itself we naturally have to take a look at the man behind it: Writer and Artist Don Rosa. Don Rosa is easily one of the best Duck Comics writer out there, seen by many as only second to his own faviorite duck comics writer and God of Ducks, Carl Barks. For those 1 of you who do not know, Barks was the man who created pretty much everything in the duck universe comics wise and a bit in animation too: He created Daisy, Scrooge, Gladstone, Magica, The Beagle Boys, The Junior Woodchucks, Gyro, Little Bulb, Glomgold, Rockerduck, and the list goes on. While he didn’t make EVERY duck, he made so many that it’d be impossible to imagine either version of Ducktales being possible without him.  So of course Rosa was a fan and while he took up the family buisness, he was also an artist and duck comics fanboy on the side. So when, even if it meant a paycut, the opportunity to actually write and draw them came up, he lept at it and thus became one of their publishers go to guys, even if said publisher published the stories overseas where the Duck Comics are far more popular and still going to this day, and ironically where most duck comics printed nowadays get their stories from. Rosa was known for his meticous historical research and gorgeous art that he took his time drawing to get just perfect and showed on the page. The man has easily some of hte best and most detailed duck art around and I still haven’t found a duck artist that can match him.. and if you have or found one close i’d genuinely love to see that. He is a genuinely talented, spirited guy who was sadly mistreated by disney and that, coupled with tragically failing eyesight, eventually ended his career. He’s still around and I genuinely hope to meet him some day as he still does conventions.  The man is not without fault: I don’t get his hatred of superhero comics, as while I get them overshadowing funnybooks and that around the time of his career they were in decline, but it’s just as unfair to write off Superhero comics as mindless.  garbage as it is for people to write off the Duck Comics as “only for kids” and I genuinely wish he’d see that and see how the medium has evolved so much since then. I also grumble a bit as his refusal to allow anything besides barks into his bubble, and having to be forced to include fethry on the family tree, but that’s more personal preference. I like using as much material as you got. IT’s why i’ve wanted to, and hopefully will eventually get around to, write a sonic fanfic using bits of all the various universes that for legal, ken penders being an absolute waste of a human being, and sega being stupid reasons can’t be used anymore. I like taking everything in a franchise and putting it in a blender and it’s why I love the reboot. But there’s nothing wrong with taking things as is, not stepping on toes canon wise, but still being awesome. We’re just diffrent people and that’s okay.  And a lot of his fanboy showing actually lead to REALLY good things: Goldie O’Gilt was a one off character, and while used ocasoinally overseas, didn’t really pick up as a character again until a combination of Ducktales 87 and Rosa’s work with her, as he always loved the character, and fleshing her out lead to her being used more, and gaining a sizeable fandom. He also gained the Cablleros an even bigger fandom by giving them two stories of their own, and fleshing them out a bit more.  And this very comic is the peak of that, taking EVERY mention of scrooge’s past from various backstories to set up adventures, every tiny scrap, and to his credit going to both Barks Himself and various other Barks Experts Rosa was friends with to check his work, especially difficult given he likey had to find these stories in issue or pullt hem from disney archives, and complied it into one long epic that not only uses all this info effortlessly, but spins a compelling story that gives us a clear vision of what Scrooge should be, how he became the man he is, and how he lost himself only to find himself again with the help of three precocious boys and a cynical 30 something duck. So taint all bad is what i’m saying.  As for how this got started, thankfully rosa himself provided the origin story for this project in the back of the volume of his works that contained the first 7 chapters of life and times, as well as detailed notes for every chapter. At the time Rosa was working for Egmont, the big european publisher who handles Disney’s much larger european comics market, hence why most of his stories appeared years earlier in Europe before debuting here. The american publisher at the time , and an old friend of his, called Rosa with an idea: A 12 issue Maxi-Series focusing on Scrooge’s history, since at the time they were all the rage.. and really even today mini series are still a viable market and many indie titles just have several minis instead of an ongoing. So it wasn’t a bad idea, Rosa just simply offered a tweak: He’d tell his publisher at Egmont about the idea, and let her get a crack team of writers and artists to do this proper, and thus Disney could publish it for free once it was done and for no extra cost. Rosa gave his publisher a fax detaling both the idea and the fact that it needed to be done right, given to the best person possible, and done with the greatest care. She agreed.. and naturally handed it to him, as he admits he hoped. She made the right call, a legend was born and here we are.  One last bit before the read more and before I get to the first story itself at last: Since barks wrote a lot of side stories that fit into the canon, I COULD slot them in between chapters, but have instead chosen to review the original 12 part story as was, and do the various side stories and two epilogues, the utterly fantastic “Dream of a Life Time”, easiliy one of my faviorite comics ever, and the also really great “Letter From Home”, which will likely on some level be the basis for the upcoming at the time of this review “Battle for Castle McDuck!”, after completing the story. In other words i’m probably going to be at this for years. so join me under the read more won’t you as I begin the journey of a thousand miles with a single step as we look at the humble start of a legend. 

We begin, after a fun short teaser with present Day scrooge saying his past is no one’s buisness only to get hit with an oh yeah?,  with a scrap book title for the issue, something I want to bring up since while I got that’s what it was what I never got, and  must’ve glanced over when I first read rosa’s notes when I got this copy, was that it isn’t SCROOGE’S scrap book, but his sister Matilda’s who dutifully and happily catologued her brother’s adventures. It’s a really sweet moment.. and something that will hit VERY hard when we reach Chapter 11. If you haven’t read this story or heard of it.. .that’s this story’s equilvent of “Last Crash of the Sunchaser” and clearly Frank and Matt drew from that story a bit for it, but we can get more into the parallels when we get there. A smaller but fun note is that Rosa had specific coin drawing templates, for different indentions and what not he used, and used them for the coins in these intro bits. Yes he admitted he has a problem and yes that’s damn impressive anyway. 

It’s Scrooge’s 10th birthday, and his father Fergus has taken him up to see the family land, Dismal Downs to tell him of the mighty Clan McDuck and show him the ancestral lands, graveyards and Castle. He admits to having taken this long because the Clan McDuck currently lives in Glasgow so it’s kind of a long trip just to show your son “Hey look at the decay and rot that’s our ancestral homeland”. The Clan is on hard times, as a bad shipping deal, the backbone of a rather good barks story and I wont’ be interjecting for every barks reference as it’d get rather tiring though for what it’s worth Rosa provided tons of detailed footnotes in the back of each Fantagraphics collection, so good on him. Speaking of which though they do include 10 pages of Mc Duck family history that was supposed to open this story.. until Rosa’s editor wisely pointed out the story isn’t about them but scrooge and having read his roug draft, yeah.. there’s a good gag here and there, as well as “Dirty” Dingus McDuck, scrooge’s Grandpa and the reason Dewey is cursed with that middle name. Why anyone thought Dingus was a good name is beyond me, nor why Donald thought that was a good middle name back in 2009 is again, beyond me. Good on Don though for getting that past the censors.  But yeah with no money they can’t buy the land back and they were scared off it years ago by a mystical ghost dog, the hound of the whiskervilles. There is treasure in the castle, Sir Quackly’s gold, but he accidently sealed himself into a wall while sealing his treasure in there. Their interrupted by the town assholes, the Whiskervilles who have been grazing sheep on the land and are naturally behind the hound, using the sound of it to scare off Fergus once they realize he’s a McDuck. Because apparently you can keep a Scooby Doo style hoax up for Centuries if you don’t have meddling kids around. Who knew.  Back in Glasgow, we meet the rest of Scrooge’s family: His Uncle Jake, his sisters Matilda and Hortense, and his mother Downy. Jake hasn’t really been mentioned at all in Ducktales and I know next to nothing about him, which given I share a name with the guy you’d THINK I would. I mean I know a decent amount about this Jake. 

But nothing about who the hell Jake McDuck is or why he lives with his brother and his family. Here, you guys watch the dancing Jake, i’m going to probably do that for hours after this review is done, i’m going to go sort this out.  Okay one google and finding the Scrooge Mcduck wiki page on him, Jake shows up here likely because he was referenced in the story “A Christmas For Shacktown” and apparently borrowed from Scrooge and never paid it back. Otherwise.. there’s not a lot about him and unlike the rest of Scrooge’s family he really dosen’t do much that I can remember. Except like 2017 Scrooge, he apparently has become extremely long lived, as Scrooge and Donald STILL think he’s alive in the 1950′s.. and likely is STILL alive in some form in the Don Rosa stories, given his take place after Barks and thus in the 40′s and 50′s where Barks stories were set. Hence why unlike the Reboot, Scrooge isn’t inexpecilbly over 210. But Jake McDuck sure as heck is. Maybe this highlander is a highlander.. you know the movie and tv show type. Maybe someone cut off his head. That’s what i’m going with.

This does bring me to another point about this story: While Barks gave all of scrooge’s family their names, it’s where Rosa got them after all, it’s Rosa who really made them into characters. Fergus as a loving father ashamed his family legacy has fallen and wanting his son to do better than him, Downy as an equally loving wife and mother, Matilda as his sweet and caring sister and later her brother’s moral center, and Hortense.. well here she’s just a babbling baby but her character will become clear and glorious as we go. She is adorable here though and we do get some great bits with her.  Getting back to the plot now i’ve made my points, Jake is riled up wanting to understandably kick the Whiskerville’s asses with Scrooge, who even as a sweet innocent ten year old still has the family temper already, agreeing.. but Downy gently shoots them out pointing that two middle aged-ish men and a 10-year old just aren’t enough to fight an army of them and while she doesn’t mention it the fight would just tire them out for work and accomplish nothing as while it is the McDuck’s land the combination of the hound and the lack of money to move back means it’s pointless. She also mentions their younger brother Pothole, who went to America. This will be important later. 

Scrooge storms off and Fergus laments, in a scene that’s more painful the more I think about it, how his clan has fallen, with he and his brother lamenting their chances at glory are long gone.. but Fergus has hope his son can do better, and for his son’s birthday makes him a shoeshine kit in the hopes of inspiring him to greatness. This scene still resonates since many of us are poor, struggling and not doing so good money wise. I’m sure many parents have doubts and regrets about not being able to do more for their kid.

 Not only that but the story carefully avoids the trap of Fergus accidently being abusive by you know, pinning his family’s future on one 10 year old. While yes he is asking a lot of Scrooge, to restore their family name.. it’s very clear he mostly just wants his son to do better than him. Even if Scrooge was just slightly more successful, Fergus would likely be happy with that. He’s not using the legacy as a “This what you must be” like say the Gems in steven universe did for Steven with Rose’s Legacy, the kind where it sort of suffocates you till youc an make it your own. He’s just saying “this is what you can be” He believes his child can be great and simply once him to reach his full potetial and is simply giving him a means to hopefully do so, a simple home made shoe shine kit. While Jake scoffs, the narration notes the idea isn’t worth a dime.. it’s worth THE dime. The dime that would set Scrooge’s destiny in motion. 

The next morning, Fergus goes to check up on his son and his new buisness but Scroogey’s having no luck and about ready to just quit, the poor child. Also Matilda is dragging her baby sister around like a doll and it’s entirely precious as it is funny. 

But as for those Dorty Boots, Matilda wonders why her dad dosen’t just tell Scrooge that Burt the Ditch Digger is coming. Fergus tells her to quite and then explains his plan: he’s sending Burt to scrooge, with an American dime Fergus and Matilda found, to teach his son a lesson: By giving him a hard days work, he’ll teach him what hard work truly means.. and by having Burt “cheat” him with the American dime, it’ll give him the motivation to keep going and to nto be as wide eyed and trusting. It’s a well meaning if harsh lesson, and the kind you’d expect from 1900′s parenting and fits the origin well: Scrooge still earned his first money square, as he still did work.. but his getting cheated being a lesson dosen’t diminish what it taught scrooge, and helps flesh out what I talked about above, Fergus knowing his son has great potential he just needs inspiration to reach it. And instead of just telling him that he does a con job but it’s the 1900′s. This orign, and Fergus’ part in it would be entirely untouched in Ducktales 2017, the first scrooge based adaptation since this comic came out, and I bless them for it. Frank even said this comic was used as a bible by the writers and while theirs clear deviations, and we’ll get to that, they were mainly done for good reason, and it’s very clear that while scrooge’s history is very VERY diffrent in the reboot, the core of his past is still there. 

So the plan is on and young scrooge spends half an hour killing himself to get Burt’s shoes clean before getting his dime.. and realizing he’s been had, makes this proud decleration that will be the bedrock of his entire life and character. 

Scrooge being naturally stubborn as you can see takes his cheats a leson: There will always be hard honest work, and he will be there to do it and he’ll be tougher and sharper than anyone trying to cheat him out of his pay. Fergus’ plan has the intended effect, and Scrooge having learned a hard lesson now has the drive and determination we know him for. As for why it gives it to him.. I had to think on it a bit but it makes sense: For some a setback like this would make them quit.. for Scrooge it’s just proof he CAN find customers, he CAN do this job, or any at his hardest and instead takes this as a lesson to be prepared ot out think and outfight anyone who dares cheat him again, and to not earn his money by being the kind of guy who cheats a kid out of an honest days pay, but as a good honest duck like his father and his father before him. =He will make his money square so he can be the kind of person this seeming stranger SHOULD have been. Granted we’ll see Scrooge doesn’t end up as the best person at times but .. we’ll get there.  So with the fire inside turned from a spark into the flame Scrooge soon got to work, and by the next panel we see he’s eventually worked his stand up from a small box given to him by his dad, to a three seater shoeshining bench, who he wipes all at once by stretching one of his mother’s girldes over a light pole, a detail I didn’t get the first time around but now love. Naturally being a good kind boy much like his Nephews, Scrooge always gave his proud father a portion of his earnings, if with a full receipt for tax purposes. Because he’s still scrooge after all. His dad wonders he did too good a job while Hortense glxbit’s in agreement. 

As the years go on, a now tween Scrooge is eventually able to save up for a horse cart, and starts selling Fire Wood up in the city. He eventually realizes Peat, an earthy subtance found in bogs I only know about because I had to look it up for this review, is more profitable and with some snappy marketing moves into selling Peat for the rich instead, also showing the young lad already has a grasp of how to sell to obnoxious rich people. 

But while his business is booming, our young hero can’t resist visiting his family’s ancestral home and longing for it, hoping one day to have it for himself and in a nice show of how despite his temper and tenacity forged over the last few years he’s still at hear the kind, sweet optimistic lad he was just a few pages ago, he decides to tidy up the Clan’s Cemetary while he’s here. 

Unfortunately as proof that Donald and Della’s terrible luck comes from both sides of the family the Whiskervilles are sub-glomgold levels of human beings.. or Dogfaces in this case, and are digging up the McDuck Clan’s graves to hunt for treasure. Scrooge tries to simply do the smart thing and flee, but the asshole brigade catch sight of him and mistkaing him for a peat burgalar chase after him.. and spend WAY too much time and energy chasing a teenage boy over some fucking bog grass you clearly aren’t selling yourselves. I mean spare a thought for how dumb this is: They could easily sell of of that peat to put up a fence or chop down some trees to get the material if their really that concerned about someone getting in the bog. Then again this isn the 1800 and 1900′s where the child death toll was simply “Yes”, so they likely thought whose gonna notice one more dead child on our property?

Scrooge heads toward the castle and is gestured in by a friendly mystery duck who gladly shows him around and can tell he’s a McDuck just by look, showing the castle is still in glorious condition as the whiskervilles are too spooked to go in, hence why they didn’t chase Scrooge inside. I’d say being afraid of ghosts but not murdering a child is weird but these are the same guys who thought murdering a child was plan A. We’re not dealing with a brain trust is what i’m saying.  So the mystery duck shows Scroogey around, showing off some colorful stories about his ancestors recycled from that scrapped prologue I mentioned. THe mystery man, who brushes off Scrooge thinking he’s a McDuck asks Scrooge what he’s doing to restore the family glory and while Scrooge points out he’s already working on it, Mystery Duck points out he’s still missing something: He has the drive and the dream, but peat and shoeshining, while getting him good money for his family, aren’t the thing you can build a fortune or a future off of. He then points out where Scrooge’s dime comes from: America.. and that gives the boy the idea to head to the states. As for what he could possibly DO there to start, the mystery guy mentions his uncle pothole. So Scrooge has the dream, the drive.. and now a plan: Go to america, work for his uncle on the riverboats, and work his way up from there till he finds his fortune and restores his family name.  But while his future is settled, the present is still an issue and Scrooge wants to teach the child murder club a lesson and thus borrows, though MM wisely points out it’s all his property a horse and some armor, and stuffs the armor with peat. As for what his plan is.. welllll

That.. is fucking awesome. And far from the last fucking awesome moment in this thing. It also shows off even as not quite a teen yet, Scrooge is still a badass already, and while he doesn’t have his trademark strength or fighting skills quite yet, his ingenuity is already there.. and that will always trump both. The Whiskervilles run away and into some quicksand and Scrooge vows to return one day as laird and reclaim his family land. But that’s a story for a few chapters down the line. As for who the mystery duck is, he’s naturally Sir Quackely himself, or rather his ghost, who was simply guiding Scrooge and didn’t give him the treasure as simply handing him the money wouldnn’t restore their family’s good name or continue their bloodline now would it? 

For now Scrooge returns to work for a bit before finding his way to America: A cattleboat to New Orleans looking for a Cabin Boy. And so Scrooge bids farewell to his family. His Dad, feeling bad he can’t even give his boy shilling, gives him the family pocketwatch with jake pitching in with the family gold dentures. While Scrooge naturally refuses to sell the watch, he does plan to sell the teeth as soon as possible for good reason. We then get some sweet goodbyes with him, his sisters (With hortense uttering her first words to everyone’s astonishment) and loving mother as he wonders just what awaits him in America. 

And there he stands on the bow of a ship, heading for a new land, in New Orleans he can be a new man. And we’ll see just what kind of man he becomes as this series continues. For now this is the end of a chapter but the beginning of a lifetime. 

Final Thoughts on Last of the Clan McDuck:

This story is excellent. While there are even better chapters to come, this one is still one of the most memorable and most joyous, showing just how Scrooge became what he is, where some of his values come from, others will be instilled along the way , and beginning to flesh out his family. We see Scrooge’s love of wealth comes from starting from the bottom, growing up with a family that barely had anything and badly needed everything, but was loving and instilled fine morals in him. We also see a Scrooge far removed from the bitter old man he is in present day, an optimistic naïve young lad who only wants best for his family. It’s a nice stark contrast to who he’ll become, good and bad, and a nice way to both compare him to Huey Dewey and Louie and break your heart as his own hardens before briefly turning black later on.  The art, as is standard for this series and Rosa, is breathtaking, and the story isn’t lacking in good jokes, their just downplayed so the story itself can take center stage. There’s nothing really more to say: it’s an excellent start to an even more excellent tale and stands proud among an already stellar story as one of it’s finest outings. 

NEXT RAINBOW: Scrooge goes down to the mighty Missipi to work on the riverboats and meets one of his signature Rogue’s for the first time in their first form, as well as Gyro’s dad.. or grandpa.. or possibly both I don’t know his family tree. Point is, tune in next time for some riverboat hyjinks.  Until then if you’d like to comission an episode of any animated show, especially ducktales and the various other duck related disney shows, or another Duck Comics story you really like from Rosa, Barks or whoever you want really, I take commissions for 5 dollars a review, with 5 dollars off your full order when you put in for more than one episode or issue. You can also follow me on patreon.com/popculturebuffet and for just two bucks a month get access to polls (which i’ll start once we have at least three patreons), and my exclusive discord server. And if you liked this review be sure to reblog it to show off. My self promotion done until next time: There’s always another rainbow. 

Fátima I’ll have you know that I wasn’t actually going to drop all of this but then you told me to and I can’t fucking resist you. This is really long I’m sorry. Percy Jackson tiktok au:

This au is like 99% fluff. The only thing that keeps it from being 100% is that I’m maintaining Percy’s history of child abuse, Annabeth's tenuous relationship with her parents, Leo’s mom’s death, The death of Carter and Sadie’s parents, as well as Hazel’s issues (minus the dying), but these things don’t actually come into play.

As you can deduce above, the characters are Percy, Carter, Sadie, Hazel, Annabeth, and Leo. For the sake of my sanity, they are all sophomores in high school.

Character Histories

Percy and Hazel met when he was five and she was four. Hazel’s mom brought her into Sweet on America while Percy was hanging around Sally. They quickly became inseparable, had playdates most weekends until they could control their own schedules, and at around 8/9 years old they started referring to each other as siblings.

Percy: *standing, having a serious conversation with another child at the park*

Hazel: *climbing him*

Percy: WHy are you doing this? The jungle gym is right over there?

Hazel: *continues to climb him*

Percy: You’re a gremlin *pats her affectionately*

      Annabeth and Leo met when they started middle school. Annabeth’s relationship with her father and stepmother has reached a nice area, not perfect, but good, and she doesn’t really talk with her birth mother. Leo’s mom died when he was in fourth grade, he’s fostered by a middle class family, and goes to private school with Annabeth on an academic scholarship.

Leo: ��so the problem is that this formula doesn’t work with the diameter of a cylinder but I need...

Annabeth: speak english please

*fifteen minutes later* Annabeth: I think I’ll put vertical supports her, although triangular would be more stable, but according to the building codes...

Leo: I beg of you,,,

     Cater and Sadie’s history stays much the same, they were raised separately until Julius died, except he died during a cave in on one of his digs, and Ruby died in a construction accident. (She was walking by when the supports failed) They started living with Amos in eighth grade. Yes, Amos still has a baboon, an alligator, and an indoor basketball court.

Carter: And so that’s why Amos named his baboon Kufu.

Sadie: You are literally the most annoying person alive, can I have your fries?

    Carter and Percy met on the subway when they were ten, going to a day camp in the summer while Julius was giving some lectures in the city. They were inseparable for the week, and then didn’t speak to each other for four years.

Hazel’s mom has a few mental illnesses that developed when Hazel was around 10, she’s still present in Hazel’s life, and they live together, but she’s not always all there. Once Gabe is out of the picture Hazel spends a lot of time at the Jacksons’ apartment, enough where she keeps a toothbrush there.

As for Gabe, he remains his normal abusive self. Things come to a climax when Percy is 11/12 after Gabe throws a bottle at him. There’s no reasonable excuse for this, and Sally comes home while Percy’s still crying. Gabe’s dealt with swiftly, but Percy has some scarring on the left side of his face.

Also quick note: in this au Percy is 1/2 black, 1/4 moreno, and 1/4 native american. (Moreno and native from Sally and black from his dad)

Their Accounts

So as in the post that got this all started, Percy’s account is largely Ancient Greek and Roman mythology and history. He also does some stuff for indigenous mythology, but he’s super into the greek and roman stuff. (Insert this meme (it’s the thirteenth one down)) He also does skateboarding and some light gymnastics/parkour/acrobatics.

    Hazel is a gymnast. She’s also just super nice and supportive so she makes those motivational videos, but mostly it’s gym stuff and her and Percy hanging out. She’s not quite as popular but she doesn’t really care. She is also the #1 horse girl, and rates horses. Percy would tease her, but he’s also a horse girl.

    Sadie does comedy. Some if it’s scripted or little skits, but there’s a lot of her just ranting at her camera. Also her life is just weird (*cough* alligator and baboon *cough*) so people just like to see what she’s doing. Also a theatre kid™, sorry, I don’t make the rules.

    Carter gives detailed accounts of every Egyptian myth he thinks is cool (all of them), but he makes more comedic abridged versions too. He’s also known to make videos laying out archeological digs. About a quarter of his videos feature Sadie insulting him in the background.

  Leoooooo! He has a lot of comedy, the first video of his to do well was a situational comedy, he always has a sarcastic comment or a bad joke. Most of his stuff now is for robotics. He’s on the robotics team at his and Annabeth’s school, but he does a lot of stuff on the side just making crazy cool contraptions. He has a series of him going scrounging for parts because he doesn’t exactly have the money for a lot of his stuff. Also skateboards occasionally.

 Annabeth’s account in verging on booktok. Every time she reads a book she reviews it, and if it’s popular she’ll record herself reading it and put the best clips together. She’s still really into architecture, she talks about it often, shows some of her sketches, and has a series where her followers can pick videos in New York and she’ll go and critique them. Also has some lifestyle videos about staying organized, but only for school stuff because otherwise she’s pretty messy.

Prequel Stuff

Carter and Percy reconnect when they start duetting each other’s mythology busting videos. They have two series together, one on parallels between Greek and Egyptian myths (called Percy and Carter’s Mythological Mashup) and another about hellenistic culture, specifically about Egypt during the Ptolemaic Dynasty. (Working title: Colonizers suck,,, but the Aesthetics)

Them getting closer forms a friend group of Percy, Hazel, Sadie, and Carter, and they hang out most weekends. Their parents are all friends now.

Okay, The Actual Thing

I lied, there’s a prologue: everything starts at the very end of freshman year when Percy posts a video of him, Hazel, Carter, and Sadie at central park. (caption yet to be determined). It ends up on Leo’s fyp and his though process goes something like ‘oh, it’s a bunch of pretty people who aren’t white.’ He follows Percy and forgets about it.

 So Leo’s life is going pretty normal, Percy’s videos pop up on his following and for you pages. Nothing really happens until Percy makes a video detailing a type of ancient greek technology (im thinking torsion catapult but its not set in stone). Leo thinks it sounds really cool, so he makes it and duets Percy’s video

From there, their friendship develops. Leo keeps making models and prototypes of ancient tech for some of Percy’s videos, and eventually he starts doing his own research. And in turn, Percy duets Leos videos and talks about the historical significance of certain mechanisms or their origins. By now, they’re mutuals and talk pretty often. 

 Annabeth also follows Percy after one of his videos appears on her fyp, but much later then Leo. In fact, he’s on her page because she follows Leo. She’s with Leo when this happens, and asks him about Percy and checks his profile before following him. He follows her back the next day. 

The first time they interact beyond liking each others videos is when Annabeth takes part in one of those ‘creators are struggling like you’ with her ADHD and dyslexia, which Percy continues from her.

 One day Percy and Leo (quite literally) run into each other, and as they’re mutuals and do text, they decide they might as well hang out in person, thus Leo is indicted into Percy’s friend group.

Leo eventually brings Annabeth along too

And the rest of it would be shorter 4+ panel comics and maybe a few mini arcs. I have specific videos outlined for each of them.

BTTF Headcanons

As suggested by the wonderful @tsukinikawatteus, I’ve put together some of my headcanons. Honestly, these are going to revolve solely around Doc & Marty, because I don’t really have any developed ones involving other characters.

I’ll hide it under a ‘read more ’ in case it gets too long and ramble-y. Which it will, because this is me we’re talking about.

First, I’ll answer the ones I got in the ask.

- How Doc & Marty met: For this one, I just go by the official Bob Gale answer that Marty was 13 or 14, had heard rumors about the crazy old scientist in town, & snuck into Doc’s lab one day & got caught. The comic series actually shows this event happening, but I tend to dismiss that version because honestly, I don’t like the way it’s handled. (Plus Bob Gale has said that the comics/game/etc can be take it or leave it as considered canon, so yay) Anyway, I imagine a young Marty hearing all these whispers around town about Doc and being curious. Maybe he was looking for danger/adventure in going to investigate, but I also like to think that part of Marty felt sorry for this guy who everyone seemed to look down on. So he made his way over to Doc’s lab to see what the deal was & was initially scared when he got caught. But he saw all the cool experiments and the general chaos & was totally into it.  (And btw, in my headcanon, Marty is the one who first refers to him as Doc & establishes it as his “name,” unlike the comic version where Doc tells Marty to call him that?? Def didn’t like that part.)

- When they started to consider each other best friends/what impact did they have on each other’s life: I’d say they considered the other a best friend pretty quickly. Doc was absolutely thrilled to discover that this kid thought he was awesome & was so interested in his work. After spending so much of his life without true connections or relationships, having Marty around really changed Doc’s life. He finally had someone (aside from Einstein) to talk to about all of his experiments and the science behind them.

The same goes for Marty considering Doc a best friend. Seeing as he was growing up in such a dysfunctional environment, with parents who probably weren’t super attentive or close to him, he loved being around Doc. Not only was he treated as an equal, he also had someone to listen to him, which he didn’t get at home. He found encouragement and felt respected around Doc. Plus, my general headcanon is that Marty really doesn’t have other friends & was always kind of an outsider.

Now onto some of my other headcanons....

- As I mentioned above, I don’t see Marty as a guy with many friends. He’s friendly towards a lot of people, but doesn’t have a specific group he belongs to. He really only interacts with his band mates while he’s at practice & it’s more of a business situation than a friendship. Marty gets to practice, runs the show (playing sick guitar riffs) & then just leaves. His band mates serve as a convenient cover story for when he wants to go somewhere with Jennifer, but that’s pretty much it. He has three friends, ok? And one of them is an animal.

- Upon finally settling into the improved ‘85 timeline, once all the time-traveling was over, things were understandably very jarring to Marty. One of the things he found hardest to adjust to was the sudden affection from his parents, namely the good morning hugs & kisses like we see Lorraine give him at the end of the first movie. Marty was previously used to spending the mornings in solitude since his father would already be at work & his mom would sleep in (often because she was still out of it from drinking the night before). The idea of family breakfasts & being greeted so warmly when he woke up, and when he got home from school, was super weird to him at first.

- Marty has ADHD. (this seems to be a very common headcanon, lol). Doc, being the kind of guy who’s interested in a wide variety of topics, came across some research & information on it at some point & instantly recognized the signs in his friend. When Marty came over one day, frustrated after a particularly rough day at school, he sat him down & talked to him about his suspicions. And since Doc was well aware of the lack of potential support (because this is the 80s after all, & SO many people with ADHD just didn’t have resources to get help), he took on the role of giving Marty advice and tips on how he could cope with it.

- Related to above point: Marty found that wearing layers helped keep him calm/feel grounded, hence why our boy rocks the t-shirt/button up/jean jacket/puffy vest look. And honestly, the suspenders might play a role in that too, since they put subtle pressure on part of the chest/shoulders/back. This also explains the leather jacket from part II! Aside from just thinking it looked awesome (and perfectly inconspicuous), Marty liked that it was a thick, weighted material.

-Doc is autistic. As he was diving into the world of research concerning ADHD & other various conditions, he came across a series of studies on Asperger’s syndrome & instantly connected the information with his own childhood and current life. Since he grew up feeling isolated from his peers & like nobody understood him, reading through the studies made him feel like he had found an answer. (A fact nobody asked for: the first study printed in English on Asperger’s syndrome was released in 1981. Yes, I checked to make sure this headcanon would be possible.)

-Doc set up a bed for Marty in the garage partially for the nights they were working late & his friend was too tired to head home, but also because he realized that a lot of the time, Marty simply didn’t want to be at home. Marty got into the habit of sleeping in his clothes so that at any given moment he could head over to Doc’s garage if he needed to. Doc made it clear to him that he was welcome anytime & doesn’t bat an eye when the boy wanders in at night & flops down into the bed.

-For Doc’s birthday, Marty went out & bought him the most colorful, “loudest” Hawaiian shirt he could find. It was sort of a joke, but Doc absolutely loved it.

-On Marty’s birthday, Doc asked him to come over under the guise of needing help with an experiment, but it was really a mini party with the lab decorated with streamers & balloons & cupcakes Doc had gone to pick up. Einstein wore a party hat. 

- We all know Doc & Marty eat a lot of Burger King. When they eat it in Doc’s garage, Marty takes pieces of the fries and slips them under the table to Einstein. Doc does not appreciate Marty encouraging Einstein’s begging but the boy can’t resist sharing with the dog.

- Occasionally, when they’re taking a break from working or are just hanging out, Marty takes out his guitar & Doc takes out his saxophone & they jam. Sometimes they play actual songs & other times they create their own. Whenever they try to make up lyrics, it quickly devolves into complete nonsense, usually ending up with the two of them laughing so hard that they can’t even play anymore.

-Marty also sometimes puts on a Huey Lewis tape while the two of them are working. Doc initially wasn’t really into the music, but he eventually found himself singing along to the songs with Marty. 

Okay, I need to stop myself because. Wow. If anyone actually reads this thing, I commend you on the effort. Kai, you had no idea what you were unleashing when you sent me that ask the other day.

Hey! What are your favorite fantasy/fairytale books, shows and movies?

Well, that is a very broad question. So... let’s structure this and tackle it.

Phoe’s Favorite Fantasy Books!

I don’t read much, so that’s a very short list. Seeing as you’re on my blog, I assume you know I read and loved Percy Jackson and the Olympians so that. However, there are fantasy series that I love way more than that.

For one the Wicked Years by Gregory Maguire, my favorite author who I adore and worship. Takes the Wicked Witch of the West from Wizard of Oz and goes “but what if she was actually a restistance fighter trying to overthrow a corrupt government under their dictator, the Wizard?”. It’s amazing, I love it. Hardest recommend for the first two books. Been not too big on the third and fourth though, but that’s what happens when these things aren’t born out of being intended as a series but rather just... sequels... happening.

Golden classic that seems silly to even mention but I love these books - Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. I. Love. Them. I love Alice, I love the world, I love the fantasy. One of only three books that I personally allow to classify as modern fairy tales (Peter Pan and Wizard of Oz being the other two. I just... I do think that there is a difference between “fairy tale” and just general “fantasy book(s)”, but these three I do think deserve a place in the canon of fairy tale classics). Also, fun fact: my above mentioned favorite author wrote a third installment for this series for the original book’s anniversary, it’s called After Alice. (I own a signed copy. I squealed very loudly when I opened it.)

My favorite fantasy book series though is the Bartimaeus series by Jonathan Stroud. I adore these books. Yes, if taken as a singular book, the first installment of the Wicked Years, which works as a standalone too due to the series’ nature of having sequels instead of being an intended series, takes the crown, however as a whole, coherent series, including all books in the series, no fantasy franchise beats Bartimaeus for me. It is sarcastic, snarky, fun, filled with heart, totally lacking unnecessary forced romance, has a fascinating world, the writing is a great read. I love this series to bits and pieces.

Now, since you specifically said fantasy/fairytale, I’d be a fool not to mention William Joyce’s Guardians of Childhood, the book-series that Rise of the Guardians is... let’s say a sequel to? While not necessarily fairy tales in the traditional sense, having the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, Sandman and Santa as its main characters, it does go very much into fairy tale elements. It’s a really fun read, I personally think that Joyce has a delightful and enjoyable style.

So, that’d be the five book series that I’d recommend for fantasy.

Unless you meant actual literal fairy tale books - then I will have to disappoint you, unless you’re German. Because being German, my fairy tale collection is... well... German. I got this one. Mainly, I admit, for the illustrations - Tony Wolf worked on the majority of them and I love his illustrations, he was the author and illustrator of my favorite children’s book series when I was a kid. Which, talking about fantasy, fairy tales and books, I will absolutely also recommend here. Their English name is The Woodland Folk and it is very adorable and also very scaring for small children because fairies die in it. I was very traumatized as a kid but I still loved it a lot.

Phoe’s Favorite Fantasy Movies!

Now, movies are... it depends on what movies you want; live-action or animated. I do feel that those are vastly different categories that set vastly different expectations. And then there’s the overlapping between fantasy and supernatural in many such movies.

Let’s start with live-action, which is going to be a very short list because I am really not huge when it comes to movies - I barely watch any movies and if, then they are animated in 80% of the cases.

Lord of the Rings. Yes, I know, book-people would have filed that in the category above, but look... I am not a huge reader. And the movies have pretty blonde Orlando Bloom. But I do truly love these movies, I try to rewatch them regularly but consider I less see them as a trilogy and more as one 12 hour movie, it’s always quite the time-commitment.

And, with this one I am never quite sure whether to count it as a movie series or as a mini TV series, but the way they were released on TV, they were a movie series - so The 10th Kingdom, which is basically Once Upon a Time before that came out and without the Disney. It’s about the grandson of Snow White ending up in modern day New York and getting the help of a waitress and her dad to take down his evil stepmother, who is trying to take over the 9 fairy tale kingdoms. I love this series so very, very much.

Also The Librarian, which is a fun fantasy relic hunting movie series. But more on that when we get to TV shows, because the trilogy has a tie-in series.

I do realize that actually the majority of movies in my fantasy/supernatural section are... in fact... more supernatural than fantasy. So, pathetically enough, that is... kind of it.

Now, animated movies is harder because I quite literally have a list with 360 animated movies I saw and liked to various degrees of which the majority would qualify as fantasy due to the nature of most Western animated movies. So I’ll try to “best of” as narrow as possible (seeing as I once successfully managed to narrow my favorite animated movies down to 65...). So, a shorter version of that.

Now, when it comes to fairy tales and animated movies, Disney goes without saying so I’m not even going to say it because it’s very obvious, we all know the movies, seeing the tales. I love most of them, especially their princess movies, with one huge exception. So let’s only name-drop Sleeping Beauty because I adore it, and assume you’ve already seen all other Disney animated fantasy and fairy tale movies and move on from that.

I am also morally obligated to say “Barbie movies” here, because they did a ton of fairy tale adaptations too and the majority of them are fantasy - but to keep it brief, here is a link to my ultimate Barbie movie ranking for more individual recommendations from the Barbie canon and let me also only name-drop my favorite - Diamond Castle.

Don Bluth’s Thumbelina, as well as his Anastasia are two absolute must-sees when we’re talking fantasy (and fairy tale in Tumbles’ case).

DreamWorks wise I love and adore Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, The Road to El Dorado and Rise of the Guardians.

Now we’re getting into what I like to think of as “deep dive” territory because they’re not mainstream, they’re not big names. But I still love them.

Naturally have to say Swan Princess (1994) - the first three movies anyway, I ignore those 3D animated chep looking sequels. But the OG trilogy is a very perfect trilogy, I adore it so very much.

Another total classic would be The Last Unicorn (1998).

FernGully (1992) is a beautiful tale about fairies and one of my absolute favorite movies of all time.

A newer entry here would be Epic (2013), which is also about fairies and was written by William Joyce!

And, even if it may sound silly. The original Care Bears movies. The three from the 80s. I love them a lot, I think they’re great fantasy fun, who doesn’t love a Care Bear they are adorable, seriously.

Phoe’s Favorite Fantasy Shows!

And we move on to our last segment of this ask. I like a lot of TV shows, so I will try to keep this to my actual favorites.

My absolute favorite is Relic Hunter, it is and always will be my favorite TV show. Even if it’s cheesy at times and only has three seasons. I love it a lot. It’s... very much as it says on the tin; hot archeologist and her nerdy assistant search for magical relics.

If you like that genre, you have to also watch The Librarians - the tie-in sequel series to the movies. More librarians! More magic! More artifacts! More fun. I really love this and I mourn that they cancelled it.

Naturally Once Upon a Time - fairy tales and fantasy and I just love this TV show. Skip the last season though.

And all-time classic for me is the original Charmed - three witch-sisters discovering magic together. This was... the first ever show I actually... really consumed, with everything around it. I was totally obsessed with this, I love it. Which is why I won’t touch the reboot at all, because there’s “I loved this thing. Now there’s a new version of it! Fun!” but there is also “I loved this thing, as it is, there is no need to make a new one, why are you touching this?” - and this one was so very near and dear to my heart growing up that it is definitely the second category for me.

Definitely gotta mention BBC’s Merlin, even if it’s very, very, very flawed. It’s still fun, the characters are lovable. It has a scary fandom... in that it’s still alive and thriving, even so many years after the show’s end.

Also Grimm, though more supernatural than fantasy, it is a fairy tale show. In a way. It’s dumb but fun, because the Grimms were actually not just scholars, they were monster hunters and now modern day descendants of them are still out there hunting the same Big Bad Wolves (who aren’t all bad). I don’t know, I love it, despite the occasional cringe.

Now, lastly on the fantasy - Galavant. A musical comedy about a knight. Very fairy tale-y. Very hilarious and lovable. Sadly cancelled after two seasons.

There are many, many more fantasy shows I watch(ed), but those would be my favorites. Though I do have to tag on that elements such as vampires and werewolves are something I categorize as supernatural so they wouldn’t find mention here in fantasy (Grimm aside, due to the fairy tale theme).

I... hope I could provide a good recommendation or two!

Dragon Warrior/Quest ramblings/collective review

I rant about the Dragon Quest franchise a lot.

Two of my video game pet peeves are when people laude the original Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest as ground breaking (it’s not, see Wizardy/Ultima), or the great grandfather of JRPGs (it’s not, see Hydlide/Dragon Slayer/Fantasian/) I’m generally not a fan of silent protagonists. I rarely identify enough with a character to feel like I’m “in” the game, so I prefer to be playing the role of a character with some kind of dialogue and a personality. Every dragon quest (that I’ve played) has a silent protagonist. That said, I do have some love for the series. I’ve suddenly found myself interested in giving Dragon Quest XI a spin, but instead I went back to Dragon Warrior IV. I remembered liking it as a kid and I’m happy to say I’ve been having as much fun playing it now as I remember having back then. Here are my thoughts on the dragon quest games separated into the ones I’ve finished and the ones I haven’t (mainline only).

Games I’ve Finished

Dragon Quest: This is grinding the game.

Strategy is almost nonexistent in the battle system outside of “Grind XP to LVL UP/Gold to buy better equipment”. You have 1 character and you never fight more than 1 enemy, so all fights are one-on-one. There isn’t any equipment with special traits or functions (just better Attack/Defense). You get access to a total of 6 spells in the game: Heal Heal More Heal Most Hurt Hurt More Hurt Most (these last 3 are usually a waste of MP) The plot is linear (except for potentially at the very end of the game). At least there’s a decent amount of exploration. Worse than Final fantasy I and Phantasy Star I by far, but to be fair, Enix did better with Dragon Quest II, which beat both of these competitors to the punch. Dragon Quest II: So much better than the original.

The grind is mediated by choices that matter in regards to equipment and combat. Also, you have an actual party this time (of 3), Also, Also, you can fight multiple enemies at the same time. Dragon Quest II added a much wider variety of spells (buff, debuff, and elemental damage spells); Equipment that had special functions when used as an item in combat (e.g. the Lightning Staff can cast whoosh), and a smidge more plot. Many people say more grinding is required in II than in the original, but I would argue that Dragon Quest I is nothing but grinding whereas Dragon Quest II breaks up the monotony with a dose of strategy. Comparable to Final Fantasy I. Far worse than Phantasy Star I. Dragon Quest V: Decent.

Also the first game originating on the Super Famicom (although we didn’t get an official English translation till the DS remake)

Allows for a party of 3 (4 in the DS remake). Considered groundbreaking by many for it’s monster recruitment system but it wasn’t the first game to have one by any means (Megami Tensei beat it by 5 years and Wizardry IV by 4). The game is divided into sections based on time periods as you grow from a kid to a teen to an adult, which is a cool way of pacing the games content, and gives you a little more perspective on the setting than you typically get in a Dragon Quest game. Characters are mostly boring outside of one (or two) of the love interests. Did I mention this game has love interests? I think I would have liked it better if there was only one, because it punched me in the heart for not picking the one it leads up to as the primary love interest (who also happens to be the canon one). Has really frustrating setting/plot-gender dynamics with two characters late in the game who I won’t name because spoilers.

Games I’ve Played but haven’t finished

Dragon Quest III: My least favorite game in the series (out of the ones I’ve played).

This time you have a protagonist and you can hire adventures to join you on your quest. They are all nobody characters. Their personalities are assigned at random, and (from what I can tell) only effect their growth. There’s no fucking dialogue with them (which is something I expected after DQ II). Personalities and seeds are fucking annoying, because both of them are random, have huge differences in their effects, and their effects make a huge difference in character capabilities, so it makes me want to spend hours saving/reloading until I get the effects I want. Fuck this game for introducing seeds to the series which appeared in many Dragon Quest games after this (thankfully I haven’t run into personalities again yet). Often lauded for having the “groundbreaking” option of changing character classes/jobs. Yes this came out before Final Fantasy III (Japan), but I would like to make the following points: - Final Fantasy I let you pick your character classes (which came out beforehand) - Final Fantasy III had a class change system you could actually make use of throughout the game (unlike DQ III where you need to get about halfway through the game first) - The original Wizardry came out 7 years earlier and also had a much more accessible class change system than DQ III I played very little of Dragon Quest III (I dropped it before even getting to my 2nd town). Two great thing about this games: It’s the first in the series to give you the option of playing as a woman, and I heard it’s the game that introduced the casino/mini games to the franchise. Dragon Quest IV: This game is Great! Also, Unlike the first three games in the series, Dragon Quest IV might actually be groundbreaking. You ever play Wild Arms I, II, or III? Did you enjoy playing through the prologues that introduce your early party members? Well Dragon Quest IV does a similar thing: The game is divided into chapters. Each chapter has a different protagonist. In their chapter you play them as silent protagonist, but when you encounter them later in the game they have dialogue. This does a lot to develop much of the cast, because you can see how people react to/talk with them and later on you can see how they engage with the player character (who you’re actually introduced to last). The cast is great and falls into a mix of both very old school and very uncommon tropes for a JRPG: You have an aging knight who goes on a mission to rescue children and then goes on a journey to find more about the ominous forces behind their kidnappers (Ragnar). Then there’s a princess who wants to go on an adventure against her fathers wishes so she kicks a hole in the wall of her room and jumps out of the castle (Alena); she’s joined by a young priest (Cristo) and an elderly mage (Brey) employed by her father, who give up on bringing her home and instead ask to travel with her to help her out. Next you have a merchant who wants to raise enough money to buy his own storefront (Taloon). After that you play a Fortune Teller (Nara) who travels with her dancer sister (Mara) on a quest to avenge the death of their father (an alchemist who was murdered by his apprentice).  Each chapter ends on a climax related to motivations/goals of its lead character and each chapter shows more of the world/gives out more info on what is going on behind the scenes. While you actively control the primary characters of a chapter other characters are either controlled completely by AI (in chapters I-IV), or loosely follow a tactical strategy you select (chapter V). I’ve been getting on fine with it, but this might be a deal breaker for some. The music is better than any of the Dragon Quest games I’ve finished (and what I’ve heard from any of the ones I’ve played, but not finished). A remake of this game has an interesting flaw: they cut all the party chart dialogue from the foreign language versions of the DS version; so if you don’t know Japanese, you’ll probably miss out on a lot of character interaction with that version. (I heard this had something to do with concerns that the game wouldn’t make enough sales to cover translation costs of the party chart [which was reputedly two thirds of the game’s script]). Dragon Quest VI Honestly I’ve barely played this one. You have actual characters for party members (a big plus in my book). I’ve heard there’s a job system as well. Plot/setting seem decently interesting on first glance. I might come back to this one later. Dragon Quest VIII I got about halfway through this one.

They included a character-specific skill tree system which is cool, except that there are objectively best routes to take for some (possibly all?) characters and these best routes are not even close to obvious from the outset. It introduced a pretty fun crafting system.

There’s  a decent cast of characters, but they don’t have quite enough going on for my tastes (my fave is Yangus). Plot has an interesting premise, but feels very barebones, and the environments/towns/npcs aren’t very interesting (maybe about as good as DQV, but worse than IV).

This game gets lauded for the 3D models of characters/enemies, but honestly I’ve never been a fan of the character designs of Dragon Quest (especially the monsters), so I feel pretty “meh” about it outside of being able to see your party members in combat (for I think the first time in the series), which is very nice. The music is very ambient a lot of the time. It does a good job of fitting melancholy moments, but doesn’t do such a great job of building excitement during battles and high-tension events. Dragon Quest IX This game feels a lot like Dragon Quest III.

You don’t have any actual characters, you just recruit them and use them in battle (no meaningful intraparty dialogue, character development, etc.) I think I played around 10-20 hours before dropping it.

Final Thoughts

Dragon Quest games vary from game to game in terms of gameplay mechanics, but they vary a great deal more when it comes to characters.

If you like having a lot of control over your party composition and don’t care about having characters with personality, you might like Dragon Quest III, V, or IX.

If you want a party comprised of characters who interact, have personalities, and might even develop over time, you might like Dragon Quest IV, or (sort of) VIII (I haven’t played much of VI, or any of VII or XI, but I heard they also fall into this camp). If you want to play an old school, 8-Bit JRPG that launched a spectacular franchise, might have actually been ground-breaking for its time, and is still fun to play today, check out the original Phantasy Star. . . . . . . (at least, for me it’s still fun to this day) [notes: - edited some typos, and mistakes most notably regarding the Hurt series of spells in Dragon Quest I - Revised some word choices - Added a comment about being able to see your party in combat in Dragon Quest VIII]

MARMAR CAN I ASK FOR ANSWERS TO ALL THE META SELF SHIP QUESTIONS??? I wanna know it all owo

Oh damn lol, *cracks knuckles* here we go I guess! x’D you’re so sweet Ari

1. how did you discover your f/o’s content?

Well Jojo, in general, I had started watching in April 2019, Vento Aureo in particular I started near the end of August/early September. Over the summer the friends I was watching it with were huge VA fans and kept talking about the gang so I was excited to get to that part for sure lol

2. how old were you when you discovered your f/o’s content?

21!

3. describe the first time you watched/played/read your f/o’s source content.

Well as usual with every part of Jojo, I always think things are really freaking weird when I start it, but it was a quick adjustment lol. I had latched on Bruno originally, then episode 5 came and it was all over lol

4. who was your first favorite character when you initially got into your f/o’s source content? was it your f/o from the very beginning?

Jojo in general, it was Dio, Part 5, Bruno but that’s mainly because like, Abbacchio wasn’t introduced until 5 episodes in and Bruno was so entertaining from his first appearance.

5. if your f/o is from a series, were you into the source content from the start or did you come in later? if you came in later, what was the most recent release when you got into it?

I mean, considering Jojo became a manga 10 years before I was born, to the day (another reason I’m so connected to Phantom Blood, we have the same birthday lol!), I came into the series around 30 years after the source material came out lol. Part 5 I got into just as it was wrapping up and the dub was announced!

6. if your f/o is from a series, which episode/movie/game/book of their source content is your favorite?

Episode 6 probably because we get to see his backstory and Moody Blue’s reveal was really cool! I love the Pompeii episodes too!

7. are there any specific scenes/chapters/moments of your f/o that you find yourself going back to revisit more often than any other?

The Pompeii episodes! I love those so much, they’re great and honestly, it 1000000% solidified my love for him. Moody Blues vs Man in the Mirror is one of my favorite parts of VA! I also enjoy his moments in the Clash and Talking Head arc! Him sipping wine and joining the others to beat the shit out of that guy and getting visibly upset at Narancia with watching him piss lmao “is this some kind of new fetish!?”, all of them are good moments.

8. are there any scenes/chapters/moments your f/o is in that you skip when you revisit their source content?

Not really, mainly because he’s not super prominent in the part, though most consider him a Jobro for some reason, I’ll take everything I can get of him though lol! As it is I wanna get the PS2 VA game just so I can play as him because he’s not in Eyes of Heaven lol!

9. if your f/o has been represented in more than one way (i.e. in a book AND a movie, in a movie and then recasted for a reboot later, etc.), which version of them is your favorite?

He’s relatively the same in all versions from what I can tell. I haven’t read much of Jolyne Flies High With Gucci, and from what I read of Purple Haze Feedback, I feel they skewed his character just a little, so I guess what I know from the anime though I wanna get the VA manga and read that to see what they had changed and stuff lol

10. if you could change one thing about your f/o’s source content, would you? what would you change?

That he didn’t die and got the true redemption arc he deserved <_< I still have my fanfiction though hahaha

11. do your friends/family know that you’re into the content that your f/o comes from or do you keep this interest to yourself?

Oh no, everyone knows I love Jjba and Abbacchio. I’ve gotten countless nicknames too. To them, I’m currently The CEO of Abbacchio lmao. My mom has even been watching Jojo from start to what we have now lol.

12. did you know what self shipping was when you first discovered your f/o’s source content?

Yeah, I knew about that, not by that name exactly, but I was really shy about it because I had bad experiences with self inserts when I was a kid, but I found some sweet and fun self shippers here and I gained the confidence to have some fun and give it a try again uwu

13. do you have a favorite line your f/o has ever said?

Eh, not really surprisingly, though in episode 28 when he’s talking to his old partner after he dies, “You see, people like me are worthless. We never see things to the end. We always mess up somewhere along the way” hit me hard because I kinda relate. Not my favorite, but the line just stands out.

14. what’s your favorite outfit your f/o has ever worn?

Out of the, what? 3 we get? I guess his main outfit is p iconic lol. But I also like his Fly High With Gucci one too. I like his anime color scheme though, his eyes are prettier and I like the purple over the green, but the belt buckle in the manga looks better which is why I fused the two versions for my cosplay

15. do you own any merchandise from your f/o’s source content? what is it?

Haha, yep, I have a keychain and pin I bought at a cosplay event, a bruabba fanzine that came with a print and sticker set, one of the gachapon mini figurine things, my microorganism, the shirt I got off of crunchyroll, and soon I’ll be getting the nendoroid! (thought that won’t be getting to my house until January hahaha ;u;)

The 7 Greatest Comic Series Based on Toy Lines

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Set your nostalgia rays to the '80s. Some toy lines actually ended up as even better comic book series.

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Comic book icons and heroes have been appearing on toy shelves since the days of Captain Action and Mego. But sometimes, toys that win the hearts and minds of kids of all ages are given their own comics, allowing toy fans to see their favorite bits of plastic in action by some of the best writers and artists in comics.

Many toys have graced the pages of comics over the years, including memorable curiosities like Sectaurs, Madballs, Visionaries, Go-Bots, and so many more, but there have been a few properties that have transcended their humble plastic roots to become the stuff of comic book legend.

Here are but a sampling:

The Saga of Crystar: Crystal Warrior

Back in 1983, Marvel published Crystar, a concept they had developed specifically to sell the license to a toy manufacturer. Remco was wowed by the world Marvel had created and produced one line of figures in 1982. Marvel then followed the toys up with a comic written by Mary Jo Duffy with absolutely stunning covers by the great Michael Golden.

The toys were things of beauty, produced in translucent plastic, and the Crystal Warriors stood out on the toy shelves. Remco produced a bunch of good Crystal Warriors and an array of evil Magma people. The toy company also produced two dragons, one magma and one crystal (which is a sight to behold), a castle, and some accessories.

The story of Crystar was pretty simple: the good agents of order, the crystal warriors, faced off against the agents of chaos, the Magma people, led by Crystar’s brother, Moltar (because what else would you named the leader of the Magma people?). The world of the comic was well built and functioned within the parameters of the toys and still holds up pretty well today. Marvel must have wanted the book and toy line to succeed because there were frequent Marvel Universe guest stars in the Crystar comic including Dr. Strange, Nightcrawler (from X-Men), and Alpha Flight.

It seems that Marvel still holds the right to Crystar as the character made a cameo appearance in one of the six million Marvel Zombies series. The  property might be obscure, but as far as toy/comic tie ins go, Crystar was a (I shouldn’t) diamond in the rough (I did).

Shogun Warriors

Is there anything cooler than giant Mechs? How about giant Mechs based on an ultra-popular Japanese toy line stomping around the Marvel Universe? For two years, Marvel fans got to experience Shogun Warriors as a legitimate part of the Marvel Universe proper.

Shogun Warriors was a Mattel property that united a bunch of robot toys from Japan under the same banner. There were tons of toys and vehicles produced by Mattel, in many different sizes, but Marvel only had the license for three of the robots, Raydeen, Combattra, and Dangard Ace, piloted by an American stuntman, a Japanese test pilot, and an oceanographer from Madagascar, respectively. The humans and their Mechs had many adventures written by the great Doug Moench with pitch perfect artwork by Hulk legend Herb Trimpe.

Things took an odd turn in Shogun Warriors #16, when the Warriors’ human handlers were slaughtered by the villainous Primal One creating an odd last few issues that were kind of ponderously depressing. Marvel’s Shogun Warriors had an ignominious end, as all three Warriors were destroyed off panel by the Samurai Destroyer in the pages of Fantastic Four once Marvel lost the license.

While it lasted, the Shogun Warriors was an entertaining book that really displayed the talents of Trimpe, a man born to draw '70 eras Japanese robots, and featured luminary guest stars like Reed Richards and Tony Stark. The oddity of Marvel destroying an in-continuity property to explain a lapsed license makes Marvel’s Shogun Warriors a great point of curiosity of the Bronze Age.

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe

The original Masters of the Universe toys, produced by Mattel, came packed with mini-comics of their own. These mini-tomes fleshed out the world of He-Man and his allies and enemies, and they were just the beginning of a long standing relationship between He-Man and the world of comics.

In 1982, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe appeared in a miniseries from DC that saw He-Man dwell in a much more Robert E. Howard world. He-Man was introduced in DC Comics Presents #47 written by Paul Kupperberg and drawn by iconic Superman artist Curt Swan. With Swan on board, you know that He-Man went toe-to-toe with Superman, as the Man of Steel was mystically transported to Eternia. The special team-up introduced the world to Skeletor, Beast-Man, Teela, Man at Arms, and Battle Cat. The issue, which remains a hotly sought after back issue to this day, led into a three issue series written by Kupperberg, with art by George Tuska and Alfredo Alcala which briefly established He-Man’s world as an alternate dimension to the DC Universe. DC only published five He-Man stories in the '80s but they established the foundation for everything that would follow. 

After DC, Marvel’s Star imprint, a line of comics for young readers, tried their hand at He-Man, but the books were watered down versions of the already watered down cartoon. Marvel also featured an odd little adaptation of the 1987 Dolph Lundgren movie where all the characters looked like their toy counterparts instead of the actors that portrayed them on the big screen (except Beast Man for some reason). The property returned to the edgier roots a bit in the early 2000s series published by MV Creations before returning back to DC in recent years, which features revamped versions of the classic characters.

But those original DC books remain some of the most beloved toy comics of all time as DC really fleshed out a back story that would become the inspiration for cartoons, films, and future comics. DC was the first to give life to Mattel’s enduring line of heroes, warriors, monsters, wizards, and whatever the heck an Orko is.

Micronauts

According to legend, one Christmas, the son of comic book great Bill Mantlo opened his Christmas presents, and lo and behold, Micronauts! As Mantlo watched his son open his toys, the writer supposedly began constructing a backstory for the little metal men. At Mantlo’s request, then Marvel got the Micronauts license from Mego and the rest is history.

Like Shogun Warriors and Transformers, Micronauts were Japanese toys from a number of different toy lines joined together under one branding umbrella. The toys were cool, but unlike many toys of that era, they arrived on shelves without much of a backstory, until Mantlo came along and crafted one of the finest examples of innovative world building of the era.

Once again, Marvel incorporated Mantlo’s Micronauts into the Marvel Universe as the heroic team consisting of Acroyear, Bug, Commander Rann, Biotron, Princess Mari, and Prince Argon, took on established Marvel villains Plant Man, Psycho Mann, Dr. Doom, Molecule Man, and Hydra agents Fixer and Mentallo, plus their own adversary Baron Karza. The ‘nauts even teamed with the X-Men in an early '80s mini-series that was quite a big deal at the time. The book featured complex characters that often flipped sides between good and evil and firmly established the team as important parts of the Marvel Universe.

It was so enduring that, despite not having the Micronauts license anymore, many of the characters that Mantlo created that never had their own toy remain part of the Marvel Universe, like Bug for instance, who was a founding member of the modern Guardians of the Galaxy! Micronauts stands as one of the greatest examples of what a skilled creative team can do with toy property. Despite its simple premise, Micronauts remains one of the best executed comics of its day.

Rom, Spaceknight

The toys covered in this article all were very successful and each made their respective companies a great deal of money. That’s what’s so amazing about Rom, which had a very successful comic series that ran an amazing seven years, yet, the Rom toy arrived on toy shelves stillborn, selling only 200,000 - 300,000 units for Parker Brothers in the U.S. The toy barely survived a year, but the comic thrived and became a regular part of Marvel’s publishing schedule for the better part of the decade.

This was thanks in part to writer Bill Mantlo and artist Sal Buscema, who brought the character to life in a way that the noisy and stiff toy never could. Yes, the same writer who breathed fresh life into Micronauts, wielded the same world building magic with Rom. Rom the toy was a barely articulated hunk of plastic that made noises, Rom the comic was a richly detailed science fiction epic centered on a group of brave Space Knights taking on the evil of the vile Dire Wraiths.

Rom’s war with the Wraiths brought more than one major Marvel character into the battle and Rom was even summoned to the first Contest of Champions. Even though he didn't participate, his inclusion in Marvel’s first event book shows how important Rom was to the tapestry of the Marvel Universe in his day. The Spaceknights and the Dire Wraiths are still part of the Marvel Universe, while Rom has moved on to IDW.

Oh, and both Rom and the Micronauts are now part of Hasbro's shared movie universe that includes the Transformers, GI Joe, MASK, and others. 

Transformers

Transformers is one of those toy properties that lives in perfect symbiosis with the world of comics. The comics, first published by Marvel for a good nine years, before other companies like Dreamwave and IDW took over the license, all fueled the stories and histories of Hasbro’s Robots in Disguise.

You might think that robots that disguise themselves and vehicles would be hard to justify in any sensible plot, but one would be wrong. Writers, particularly Simon Furman for Marvel, fleshed out their world in the pages of the Transformers comics, and gave each Transformer human motivations and personalities that went hand in glove with the toys kids were consuming at an unheard of rate. As Transformers remains a huge part of the cultural consciousness, the stories and characterization of the robots continue to be fed and informed by the work Marvel did for so many years. 

Like many other Marvel licensed properties, the Transformers started as part of the Marvel Universe, with guest appearences by Spider-Man and Death’s Head (who first appeared in Transformers) but the Autobots and Decepticons were soon shunted off to their own reality. Dreamwave and IDW continue the legacy in many different forms and iterations feeding multiple generations of Transformers fanatics.

G.I. Joe: A Real America Hero

There has seemingly always been a comic called G.I. Joe on the stands in one form or another even before anyone heard the term Kung Fu Grip. From a syndicated strip from King Features in 1941, to a comic published by Ziff-Davis in set in the Korean War beginning in 1950, to two issues of DC’s Showcase published in 1964-1965. But it was in 1982 that Marvel began publishing a comic series based on Hasbro’s new line of G.I. Joe toys that the entire comic industry changed. 

Writer Larry Hama was tasked by Hasbro and Marvel to create a group of modern day soldiers with specialties, codenames, and personalities that could drive the new toy line. Hama and a host of artists also came up with adversary for his Joes; a colorful group of terrorists with a perfectly colorful array of gimmicks. This new enemy, Cobra, would come to define the modern day Joes and bring to life a story that continues to this day in toys, films, comics, and television.

The Marvel Comics series allowed these characters to grow far beyond their static plastic origins. This was no easy task, as Hasbro continued to introduce new toys that had to be inserted into the story no matter how far-fetched they might be. At the time, ninjas like Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow became as popular as Wolverine and Spider-Man.

Many kids who grew to love comics in the '80s owe this love to G.I. Joe. Marvel even went so far as to advertise each new issue on television bringing in droves of new fans to the newsstands and into the comic shops with each animated advertisement. The G.I. Joe comic legacy continues today with multiple titles by IDW, but the original Marvel series shaped a generation of comic book lovers, making it the most important toy to comic adaptation ever published.

Read and download the Den of Geek Lost in Space Special Edition Magazine right here!

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Feature

Culture

Marc Buxton

Dec 18, 2019

G.I. Joe

Transformers

from Books https://ift.tt/2PCSa0u

my bmc au's that are very, very closely linked to minecraft

for that anon who asked some time ago

a little context to these: i love minecraft fan content. roleplays, fanfics, alternate forms of gameplay, the like. and, of course, bmc is severely lacking minecraft content, so i decided to remedy that just a bit with these seven au's !

(please note: the endgame for every one of these is meremine, whether romantic or qpr. the other ships i'm not particularly picky on, but do keep in mind that that is the shipping context on those three. another thing of note is that jenna is aroace, and i tend to lean on making characters aro, just because i want to. they're all tight-knit, too, since i as an aro person desperately want them to be found family-esque. this "shippy" aspect is not up for discussion in any way)

1.

of course, a collection of minecraft au's wouldn't be complete without the ever-standard "they met online through a video game" au. i've got... quite a bit latched onto this au, honestly.

michael runs a faction, whereas jeremy plays on factions without one just raiding and doing whatever. jeremy and christine do a lot on creative, roleplaying their hearts out. and i feel the whole trio plays skyblock. i really like skyblock. it can't be helped.

the squip only appears momentarily in this au as a griefer. they're banned from minecraft forever for their crimes.

the whole squad eventually makes a town together. i forget what i decided the name was but it's funky and they have a blast !! towny is... a delight.

jake is a server staff member and mr. reyes owns the server ! jake enjoys some creative roleplay and he's probably in michael's faction.

eventually they do all meet up ! first they meet in their little mini groupings but they also definitely have a big old get-together where they're like hello fellow minecrafters !!!

it's honestly been a while since i've talked about this au, which is a shame, because it's great fun ! i adore it.

2.

the next au, one of my all-time fave au's, is based loosely on the pixel trapped series by ash schmidt.

i call it the earthcraft au, because the premise is that the worlds of minecraft and earth were once one world called earthcraft, but have since split.

jeremy, michael, rich, thomas (rich's brother), jenna, and chloe live in minecraft, while christine, dustin, jake, brooke, and madeline live on earth. squip is an evil wizard with an extended lifespan who lives in minecraft, but doesn't particularly interact with the squad outside of pulling them into different worlds or sending monsters that have been drained of personal magic after them.

eventually, squip gets shoved into the void, earthcraft is reformed (although.... it does have a bit of a split where all the people i don't want on earthcraft get to rot on a dying world), and the kids are reunited with their parents- except for jake and the goranskis, whose parents can rot in hell.

3.

this one is based off of the minecraft diaries roleplay series by aphmau ! i was a huge fan in middle school, and i'm quite fond of the premise and such. it might have some narrative decisions i disliked, but it was a good story, in my opinion.

so, jeremy wakes up in the middle of the woods, outside a village. he has.... no memory, of anything. in the village, he meets michael and christine, two guards who are glad he wants to join the village and help out.

the village's lord recently died, so they're trying to find a replacement while rebelling against a neighboring evil ruler that wants more territory who happens to be michael's brother (he has two)- squip.

there's also the whole shadow knights thing, which i don't feel like getting into right now, and also the thing where jeremy and his associates are literally godly beings.

(whether it be that they're the latest reincarnation.... or they wiped their memories recently in the hopes of not having to suffer as their closest friends died and reincarnated and died again.... the usual)

4.

this next one is a joyous adventure in learning ! it's based on the wonder quest series by stampylongnose, just the first season, really.

jeremy and christine are an adventuring duo on the search for cake ! just when they manage to find some, though, they fall into the world of wonderburg- a wonderful (hehe) town full of curiosity..... usually.

however, their sense of wonder has been stolen by a heinous wizard named squip, who desperately wants to be found funny ! his brother, another wizard named michael, has summoned the pair to help him track down the pieces of the wonder cube- a magical gem that provides wonderberg with its everlasting wonder- that squip broke.

there's many shenanigans, as squip tries to send his henchmen rich and jake after them- but they mostly just mess around,- and lots of learning ! it all comes to a close with squip realizing they can just subject themself to physical pain for laughs... which is, at the end of the day, all they really wanted.

(i feel i should clarify: the reason they haven't found another way to be funny is because they literally do not understand jokes. they just want people to laugh at their jokes. they do not care what it takes to get those laughs. if getting blasted with fireballs repeatedly gets laughs, they're down for it.)

5.

this au is also one of my all-time faves !! it's based on the fairytale fallout roleplay series by bbpaws and dangthatsalongname !!

(tw for: implications of/references to abuse, mentions of cannibalism, kidnapping, all particularly with children as the victims)

so, christine and michael are two friends that are trying to play some minigames in the multiverse of minecraft worlds, but when they try to jump through the portal into the lobby, they instead wind up in the world of misthaven. while trying to figure where they are and what's going on, the duo stumbles across a tower in the middle of the woods.

this tower is home to none other than jeremy heere, a kid with a really, really long scarf that he knit as a replacement for the lengthy hair he's chopped off. he sends michael and christine on a quest for enough dyes to change his scarf to rainbow, and in return he gives them a painting and joins them on their adventure.

as it turns out, misthaven has been cursed by a witch (note the pattern) so that all the fairytale characters who live there no longer have their happy endings. the town has also been left in ruin.

however, michael and christine were prophesied to arrive and save the land with the aid of jeremy so... now they're doing that. and what better way to fight evil magic than to help out its very victims ?

(rich and his brother are the witch's henchmen, but extremely unwillingly and only to the extent that they carry out her orders while also making it so they're essentially nonfunctional. the witch is rich's squip and her brother is the mother gothel to jeremy's rapunzel- and also jeremy's squip.)

6.

this one's a skyblock au ! i love them funky islands in the sky. basically, the whole squad lives in a skyblock version of the minecraft worlds, in a hub of islands. it's pretty simple, but it's nice. jeremy, michael, and christine are on a set of islands that are right next to each other, so they coordinate island expansion.

7.

this last one is a crack au. it's based off this one post by @/rockflavors, i believe, where minecraft diamonds are declared to have the taste of mountain dew baja blast. please, just... go with it.

naturally, i decided this meant jeremy could and would eat a minecraft diamond as an alternative to drinking mountain dew, given the chance. so, in this universe, minecraft is extra popular ! rock candy for minecraft diamonds that's made with mountain dew baja blast exists.

squip is activated Extra Chill™, fully decked out in vacation gear and a minecraft diamond shovel ! upgrade probably features jeremy eating a second diamond to upgrade the shovel into a sword.

the most important parts of this au are the kickoff and the party: the halloween party where everyone dresses up as minecraft mobs. and michael...... dresses up as a dolphin. the plan is to seduce jeremy into listening to him. i haven't actually thought about the showdown, so whether it works..... is up for debate.

to be frank with you, i have no idea how this one works out. it's weird and i really don't think about it all too much, but it is fun, too.

so that..... is the summation of my au's. i tried to not drown you in too much information, 'cause god knows i could. if you want to hear more about a specific one (not the crack au, though, since that one is mostly a throwaway i had fun brainstorming the basis of and not much more), you could hit me up in dms ? or send an ask. though, keep in mind, i prefer dms because i don't really like building posts about my au's. it makes me feel a lot more exposed.

Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #13-15 Thoughts

Previous thoughts here.

Yes I know I couldn’t be later to this party but I started this series so I’m going to finish giving my thoughts on it.

I tried very hard to finish Houser’s run on RYV in time to read Spider-Girls but it just didn’t happen, I only made it up until just before the penultimate arc and I didn’t write up a proper post of my thoughts back then. So I re-read her first arc today with ambitions of re-reading the next 2 stories before finally experiencing the final arc and then Spider-Girls as part of reading over most of Spider-Geddon. What you will read below are a mixture of some initial thoughts I jotted down during my first read through and my thoughts upon revisiting the story, mostly the latter.

Oh SPOILERS I guess

So let me immediately get some obvious business about Renew Your Vows’ direction from here on in. The book, sans its covers, desperately misses Stegman. It also misses Conway but that is not a condemnation of Houser at all.

Houser in this arc does a good job with the situation presented by the new direction. Whether that new direction was her idea or editorials is unknown, though likely the latter.

And really that is the absolute worst thing about this story, the new direction itself.

It isn’t so much that it is bad unto itself but it is reductive that after 12 issues building a certain status quo, the one also built by the RYV Secret Wars mini-series and was promoted by Marvel prior and during the book’s initial release that we are abruptly changing course in a big way.

The book is still unique, at least the Spider-Books on the stands (even now). But it is less unique for various reasons.

Firstly we simply have way more teen heroes than pre-teen ones. Secondly a book that pays much attention to Spider-Man’s super powered teen daughter is going to either tread upon familiar ground that Spider-Girl stood on or else it will evoke Spider-Girl in the memories of the readers. Annie unto herself innately did this anyway, but that was offset when she was much younger than Mayday.

It also throws away the world building and set up Conway enacted in his initial arc, not to mention it just fast forwards a lot of Annie’s potential character development.

Does this render Annie uninteresting or the premise less likable? No because Houser has a strong handle on both the characters and more specifically what RYV as a book is.

Perhaps this is nowhere more apparent in how she structures her opening arc. Each issue shifts the POV to one of the Parker family, starting with Peter, then handing off to MJ and concluding with Annie, exactly like Conway’s first three issues did. This is a pretty clever way of conveying to readers Houser ‘gets’ the book and reassure readers who might not be thrilled about the time skip that these are the same characters just at different points in their lives, and not even that different, sans Annie.

This is rather realistic because Peter and MJ being the adults are comparatively less likely to change all that much even within 8 years whereas Annie inevitably will drastically change going from a pre-teen to an out-and-out teenager. Fittingly Houser compensates for this by showcasing Annie’s new state of being throughout the issues that are about Peter and MJ.

On the one hand this does somewhat undermine the idea that this book is about the family collectively as opposed being about Annie or placing Annie as the ‘first among equals’ in the team dynamic of the book.

On the other hand since the book is about the Parker family it adds up that so much of Peter and MJ’s characterization will stem from their relation to Annie; your child is after all the most important thing in your life.

So we get Annie’s somewhat more salty and disconnected relationship with a Peter who is very much starting to feel his age. Which is GOOD, the obnoxious proliferation of teen Spider-Man renders almost any older portrayal interesting by default. With MJ though, Annie seems to have a much more conciliatory relationship, its more that she exhausts her mother and seems more comfortable going to her about stuff. Also as a nice way of distinguishing her from Mayday, Annie seems to share her mother’s passion for fashion which Mayday actively didn’t.

Speaking of fashion lets talk about Annie’s new costume. I’ll level you all..it looks better than her prior costume, but also less unique but neither is...all that great. I guess when you have Mayday Parker and Spider-Gwen and all the Spider-Women running around, coming up with something thing that fits the general Spider-Man motif, looks unique and also is really dynamic can be difficult. I can see where the designer was going though. Peter, MJ and Annie share the same outlines for where the chest areas of their suits turn into another colour. Peter’s is red and blue, MJ’s red and white and Annie’s is blue to black. So the ‘shape’ of the suit lends to the ‘unified family’ idea. The colours also make her stand out but maybe too much. If her parents had red chests and then she has blue it’s kinda weird. If the idea was she was trying to strike out on her own sure but I don’t get that impression at all. It is kinda cool she has MJ’s mask design but I preferred her old mask which was a compromise between her parents’ masks.

As for the main plot, I think Houser could’ve milked it much more than she did, we could’ve done with much more of the slice of life stuff and the Lizard was underutilized. There is a strong element of family defining the Lizard’s character because of his wife and child. In a book about family I presumed that was where we were going when he showed up. But...no he was just used as a monster amidst monsters.

I’m not saying Houser got the Lizard wrong just that there was an obvious and more compelling angle to exploited in the story.

The two big reveals surrounding the plot, that there is a zoo full of near-human people, and that it’s being run by Mister Sinister was also...underwhelming.

Spider-Man has the best supporting cast and rogue’s gallery within Marvel comics. Not only does this mean we don’t really need to see non-Spider-Man characters (like the X-Men) pop up, it’s frankly less interesting when we do because they have little-no history with Spider-Man or his family.

It was also just kind of a reveal that didn’t land for me, I could not care at all.

Mister Sinister was a little different because, I like Sinister as a bad guy I really do...but not in Spider-Man. I get including and referencing the X-Men in this arc because for some reason they were practically supporting cast members in Conway’s run, so paying that off makes sense. But why double down upon it with a major X-villain? Like the Jackal, even Doc Ock, either of them would be more fitting villains in this type of story or where the series implies it will be leading onto later.

It didn’t help that when we met Sinister initially in disguise there was just very little gravitas to him because he obviously looked like a no-name 18th century circus reject.

The ending let this arc down is what I guess I’m getting at. Issue #13 and #14 had pretty nice hooks for the next issues.

What was a letdown throughout though was the action sequences. They were pretty pedestrian along with the art overall. Like it wasn’t BAD per se (except Peter’s eyebrows...wtf?), it just was a major step down from Stegman and even Stockman, the latter of whom I think the artwork was chosen to be more like. It had this softer undefined element to it, and not in a Romita Senior way.

Returning to the character though, I do commend Houser for having a good grip on everyone and efficiently finding a way to distinguish them from one another across the three issues.

Peter dealing with being older and now decidedly less cool and engaging to his teen daughter is delightful..even if at points it feels like the narrative is kind of undermining him, especially in the Wolverine scene at the start of the story...still Dad Joke Spider-Man is awesome. Even more awesome is how together he over all is. This isn’t an angst ridden Peter Parker or one who is introspectively questioning himself. Throughout the story he gives off this air of relaxed experience, like he knows what he’s doing and can tell the situation allows for a few jokes and a bit of fun. Refrshingly he doesn’t angst about not pursuing the bad guy at all.

Moving on, Houser probably dissing MJ’s place in the Iron books at the time with her reprimanding and smack down of Tony was awesome (although I don’t get why she was so miffed at him). Her playing Spider-Mom, and more poignantly dejectedly owning it, was hilarious. Her sense of exhaustion is relatable whether you’ve been a parent or just been around them. It very much taps into Conway’s characterization of MJ as a juggler

Houser’s Annie also shines. She is believably an older version of the kid Annie we once knew but also stands firmly as her own person. She’s somewhat embarrassed by her Dad and wants greater independence. She loves being a superhero, but is (also in contrast to Mayday) a more of a punch first think later kind of gal with a dash of overconfidence.

She is untrustworthy of the Lizard and more gung ho, whilst MJ and especially Peter (to my delight) are both more reigned in and trusting.

This is nicely explored in the family’s single page descent underground where Houser gives Peter a really great speech about what it means for Annie to accept the great responsibility of the mask, that it might mean trusting those who are not trustworthy for the sake of others. This serves to nicely develop Annie as its her Dad treating her as more of an adult for the first time. the fact that it’s her Dad, the iconic hero Spider-Man conveying this wisedom onto her is very fitting and helps further legitimize Annie as a Spider-Hero to the readers of RYV and legitimize the new teen version to those jumping aboard at this point.

Not to be outdone, MJ an issue earlier got a wonderful piece of dialogue about how in spite of how their lives might be messed up by being heroes she and her family will still endeavour to make plans and live normal lives. Which is both a wonderfully inspiring heroic statement but also so very true to who she and Peter are as people.

Some other small points:

I saw Carrion amidst Sinister’s menagerie

The underground nature of the story’s conclusion nicely evokes the first arc by Conway

Overall Houser sells/sold you on the new dynamic with this arc as much as I preferred the older one and wish they hadn’t changed.

B+

Critical Role Miniature Rollout C2E51

With Andrew Harshman

An archive and review of the minis used on Critical Role.

This episode feels like when you’re playing a CRPG and you stumble into an area that’s too high a level for your character. Maybe the Mighty Nein should just go back through the underground load screen and return in a few levels. 

Try not to get upstaged when you move upstage, it’s time for Critical Role Miniature Rollout Campaign 2 Episode 51!

The List

Dungeons and Dragons Condition Markers by thelukec

Dwarven Forge Stone Ruins Add-On Pack

Dwarven Forge Mountain Cliff Pack

Dwarven Forge Mountain Mountain Floor Pack

Dwarven Forge Caverns Stalagmite Pack

Dwarven Forge Mountain Peak Pack

SteamForged Games Log

Steamforged Games Critical Role Miniatures

Prototype Steamforged Games Critical Role Miniatures

HeroForge Jester Duplicity Miniature

Archfiends #52 Gnoll Archer

Modified Reaper Miniatures Red Mantis Assassin

Elemental Evil #022 Gnoll Fighter

Blood War #46 Demonic Gnoll Priestess

Rage of Demons #023 Drow Archmage

Pathfinder Battles Iconic Heroes Set 5 Adowyn, Human Hunter

Desert of Desolation #44 Bar-Lgur

Waterdeep Dragon Heist #016b Spy

Archfiends #02 Dalelands Militia

Tomb of Annihilation #022 Artus Cimber

Dragoneye #28 Baaz Draconian

Human Ranger Epic Level Starter Set

Rusty Dragon Inn #009 Cutpurse

Invisible Lightfoot Halfling Rogue Epic Level Starter Set

Waterdeep Dragon Heist #002 Darkling

Pathfinder Battles Iconic Heroes Set 2 Harsk, Iconic Ranger

Archfiends #16 Graycloak Ranger

Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica #015 Duskmantle Assassin

Dungeons & Dragons Spell Effects: Wall of Fire & Wall of Ice

Tomb of Annihilation #040i Minsc & Boo (Invisible)

Tomb of Annihilation #018i Valindra Shadowmantle (Invisible)

Axe N Shield Single Flyer Risers - Clear Mithril

Desert of Desolation #32 Rot Scarab Swarm

Custom Lollipop Spiritual Weapon

Suspected Aquarium Decorations

Leafless Model Train Style Trees

Possible Model Train Boulders

The NPCs

The Mudmen Pathfinder Battles Iconic Heroes Set 5 Adowyn, Human Hunter,  Waterdeep Dragon Heist #016b Spy,  Dragoneye #28 Baaz Draconian, Human Ranger Epic Level Starter Set, Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica #015 Duskmantle Assassin, Archfiends #16 Graycloak Ranger, and Rusty Dragon Inn #009 Cutpurse

A handful of Mudfolk are represented by previously discussed minis. But there are quite a few new figures here, so let us get through them in a timely fashion. Start the clock.

Pathfinder Battles Iconic Heroes Set 5 Adowyn, Human Hunter

This ranger looks like she dressed by tripping into a pile of discount shag carpet samples. I like this mini, it’s a well executed classic archer pose.

Waterdeep Dragon Heist #016b Spy

This guy looks like a henchman from an alternate history martial arts film in which Chuck Norris fights pilgrim ninjas. Reasonably nice miniature, but the alternate sculpt is a practically indistinguishable waste of time (the knife is facing the other direction).

Dragoneye #28 Baaz Draconian

This figure looks like a bladesmith who loves violating the Geneva Convention and hates pants. Solid detail and wins the award for best value dragonborn mini.

Human Ranger Epic Level Starter Set

This character looks like an adventurer who doesn’t realize you need to use both hands to operation a bow and arrow. Good figure with a dramatic standing pose.

Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica #015 Duskmantle Assassin

This Magic the Gathering miniature looks like the cloak has gained sentience and is trying to fly away, taking the person’s head with it. Neat animated pose, but the head is too high up and the mini looks weird in-person.

Archfiends #16 Graycloak Ranger

This archer looks like he’s recoiling at the thought of being part of a terribly named group like “The Muck Men.” An unfortunately simple paint job on a crisp sculpt.

Rusty Dragon Inn #009 Cutpurse

This miniature looks like a rogue posing in the mirror unable to decide which sword to bring to work. Weird proportions, the arms are too long, still a good rogue though.

The Villains

Kryn Caster Rage of Demons #023 Drow Archmage

In my post last week I was hoping to see some drow. But I was looking forward to some old Hasbro prepainted drow, not the current Wizkids produced drow. There are only a handful of them and they range from unremarkable to kinda crummy. 

This is likely the best of the Wizkids drow figures, so I was prepared to write a fairly positive review. But after taking a closer look I found a lot to dislike about the Drow Archmage. From across a game table this mini is fine, it just doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny. 

Drow are known for having some killer fashion. This dude is rocking a neato spider staff, underdark stompin’ boots, and a sorta armored fanny pack thing. He has drow looking attire on most everywhere say for some place. All he has on his torso is a detail-less generic garment. It looks like he’s wearing a stuffy dad sweater. It’s as if he was on his way out the door clad in typical drow armor and his partner stopped him to give a reminder of the schlubby sweater his kid gave him for drow father’s day. Compounding these clothing troubles is an uncomfortable pose, craned neck posture, and strange torso proportions. This mini looks good on the CR stream, just don’t zoom in too far.

Oh also his ears are literally painted on! They aren’t part of the sculpt at all.

Kryn Warrior Modified Reaper Miniatures Red Mantis Assassin

A smart modification to make this miniature look unique. The classic Pathfinder Red Mantis color is red. Giving this Kryn Warrior the stygian black treatment makes it hardly recognizable, almost looks like a wholly unique design. There are a good number of Red Mantis Pathfinder figures at this point, I look forward to seeing more of them in upcoming episodes. I like this miniature, bonus points for looking like one of Gengi’s alt skins. 

The Monsters

Gnolls Archfiends #52 Gnoll Archer and Blood War #46 Demonic Gnoll Priestess

Two great minis that show both ends of the gnoll spectrum. The wiry ranged scavenger in the Gnoll Archer and the melee muscled brute in the Demonic Gnoll.

Gnoll Archer is an early Hasbro D&D Miniatures Game figure with pretty simple but effective paint. There is enough detail in the scupt’s fur that a simple two level effect of brown atop black looks quite good for how basic the paint is. The model resolution is high enough that you can make out the individual buckles on the archer’s fairly stylized gear. 

Demonic Gnoll Priestess is a serious business gnoll. This sculpt is legitimately intimidating. It is awesome in the old testament sense of the word. It’s a shame that it appears so briefly. The two gnolls using this mini basically get killed off immediately. 

Going back to the Gnoll Archer quickly, this character has a series of ponytails running along their head and back. I had previously commented on miniatures in Episode 34 and 35 with very specific haircuts. I have jokingly begun to theorize that this ponytail plus shaved sides of head hairdo is a current hair trend in Tal'dorei canon. So I’m wondering if this gnoll is sporting the Xhorhas gnoll version. Check it out:

Closing Remarks and Predictions

I’m thinking we’ll see some more drow and the introduction of Pathfinder Battles series Red Mantis figures. And I would appreciate the reuse of some Demonic Gnoll Priestesses.

It feels like the campaign has taken a difficulty escalation turn. I fear for the character’s lives. Let us collectively beseech the Traveler for favorable rolls.

#criticalroleminiaturerollout

Really intriguing yokai watch fact!!

Apparantly there's a bit of a translation flub between yokai watch 1 and later games in the series, but its actually more sorta the fault of the original writers for retconning something and the dub team probably lacked that wider context.

Apparantly the yokai world...isnt the yokai world!

????

Or rather the mechanics of how the yokai world work were only solidified in yw2 onwards, so a line was accidentally translated as referring to the entire yokai world on yw1 BUT like it really was referring to the entire yokai world in the original??

Basically its all to fill a plothole and allow future villains to be greater in scope than McKraken. He was originally presented as 'taking over the yokai world' but then when the game was successful enough to get sequels they solidified the worldbuilding and realized that this dude conquering the ENTIRE world kinda would limit them in that. Namely its a big plothole with the idea they had of the royal enma family and this new heir to the throne and etc etc blah. It wouldnt have made sense for all the characters related to that plot to be completely absent in yw1 when its a thing directly affecting them. Of course they were really absent cos they hadnt been invented yet and the only mention of the enma lineage was as a long dead singular dude with a very vaguely defined personality that nonetheless still got retconned in later games. (And also they FINALLY gave us some separate names for all these dudes all named Enma!! Srsly this is like how confusing british royalty gets...)

ANYWAY

The result of this retconning is... McKraken actually only took over the tri state area!

Because this REALLY SUPER COOL new worldbuilding is that the yokai world is made of multiple pocket dimensions each ruled by a different boss yokai, with the enma family just being the overall kings wrangling peace between all these bubble towns. And apparantly each mini world is tied to an area in the human world with strong spiritual connections, which is why McKraken had to specifically attack Springdale to gain full dominance over his particular town/country/whatever you call it.

But the confusion here is that the word used to describe what mckraken rules over in yw1 was one way of saying 'yokai world' and then the next game retconned it by giving a different name. So its like "the Afterlife is made of multiple Underworlds" or, well, "theres the yokai world and then there's yokai worlds, plural".

So you can totally understand how the retcon change flew over the dubbers heads when itd probably fly over mine too! So the dub seems to have never established that retcon and instead left us with the false impression that yw1's original version continued to be canon and McKraken's power level is actually equal to Enma. Yay for a promotion, i guess? I kinda find it more endearing to learn that for all his blustering and badassness he was actually a much lower threat than he seemed, it helps make later villains feel less inadequate compared to him. (Tho still he has the best battle song!!) Also it fits with how his leadership of his army is framed like being a politician instead of a king. He's literally just the local representative of the city council who somehow managed to go mad with power with the smallest amount of power possible.

Tho i wonder if anything in japanese ever mentions who took up the position of yokai-equivelant-of-your-town's new politician after mckraken was defeated? I wonder if it was Mr Barton/Kyubi cos he already kinda acts as the town's guardian. But it seems he spends all of his time guarding the human town so he's more like mckraken's good guy counterpart on this side of the void. Or maybe they'd send one of the Enmas over here as a sort of 'this one went wild, we need the higher governmen to reestablish order and act as temporary leader until a new election'. Which might cause further political unrest cos a populace that was already in disarrey migjt be inclined to cynically see this as the enmas trying to tighten the grasp of their power over this independant citystate. Especially cos Ancient Enma died and now his heir is totally unproven on how well he'll rule as a leader, also he's like 12. So that wpuld make a good explanation for why you only see kid Enma from yw2 onwards and why he's here in the first place. Tho still i would really like to revisit mckraken's world-city someday in a future game and get to see how its changed. Also would be nice to get an actual name for it! Yw3 seems to imply that all the yokai towns are just spooky puns on the original so i wonder what they'd come up with for Springdale? Springdoom?

Anyway this post has got all rambly and offtopic and now im imagining mckraken doing boring garbage inspections and giving out lanyards with his name on them and dealing with paperwork on bus schedules n shit. Srsly 'minor mayor of a small rural district' has COMPLETELY different connotations to 'big evil ruler', and i would love to see goofy ghost versions of all this mundane nonsense! I wonder if they even had an equivelant of the "vote vape party!" type shitty third party candidates? With yokai i can imagine those guys actually being legitimate political threats! "Mckraken, sir, the Nosepicking Party just exceeded you in votes" "NOT AGAIN"

Wow im really goin offtopic

Vote mckraken

followup on shiro

following up on my post about stereotypes, and now to talk specifically about Shiro... First off, he’s got too many unusual elements to be a stereotype. My suspicion is the problem you’re asking about has its roots in the EPs/writers thinking it’d be slick to play with story conventions, and didn’t realize their mistake until too late. It’s the most likely reason for their bewilderment that a not-insignificant chunk of the fandom assumed the story would be Lance-centric.

It’s not stereotypes. It’s more like a movie’s opening shots making you think it’s a Dracula movie, and you’re like, cool, except halfway through the movie forgets about Draclua to focus on his valet. You’re gonna be mighty pissed if you’d settled in for Dracula and suddenly you’re forced to watch some tertiary character mend buttonholes or press a dinner jacket until the credits roll.

Ultimately, what I think we have here is a conflict between conventions. The part of the audience brand-new to the story seems to also be the part using a pro-fic (published, original works) lens. The part of the audience who remembers some/most/all of the original story seems to be using a fanfic (derived works) lens. There’s a fundamental disconnect between the two, though, and both require seeing Shiro as expendable. 

It’s a huge risk to mess with convention -- especially if your intended audience is less-savvy/younger. It takes seeing/reading a wide range of stories to roll with reversals and subversions. Kids just haven’t had the exposure. But all you really need is a viewer most comfortable with conventional storytelling patterns, and you’ll have a viewer who’ll feel betrayed when the show doesn’t meet those unspoken expectations.

Behind the cut: the conventions of prologues and character introductions, S1 with Lance as implied protagonist, S1 with Keith as expected protagonist, and why neither works with Shiro in the frame. 

the conventions of prologues and character introductions

Basic rule of stories: introduce the core POV first. Although most often also the main character and the protagonist, that’s not necessarily so -- but it should be the character who’ll provide our ‘view’ of the story. It’s also the character who’ll go through the biggest arc, as a result of their experiences. Frex: Watson as core POV, while Holmes is main character; Aang is the hero but Katara’s arc as core POV is far larger. 

A prologue bypasses this ‘first introduced’ assumption. If we get a series of quick scenes (or a cold opening) and then a jump to seemingly-unrelated location, a significant timeskip, or whole new characters, we’re going to think ‘prologue’ and start over. 

VLD gives us prologue as background; the three characters are roughly equal. Sam speaks first, Matt is named first, Shiro has the bulk of screentime post-kidnapping. POV is mostly balanced between them. We’re given every reason to think them one-shot characters sacrificed to demonstrate the bad guys are really bad, and thus, our protagonist isn’t among them. So when we see the time/location stamp, we adjust and assume the story begins in earnest, here. 

Rewatch the opening ten minutes or so. Here’s how we’d categorize the characters, based on when and how they’re introduced: 

First to speak and be seen: Lance, protagonist/core POV. 

Next to speak and be seen will be secondary characters. Either sidekicks like Hunk, or contagonists (signaled by mysterious agenda and/or low-key antagonism) like Pidge and later, Keith.  

After that, antagonists like Iverson, and mentors/guides. 

Since Shiro is narratively identified as the same guy from the prologue, his return means he’s someone experienced with the monomyth’s underworld setting. That makes Shiro the guide who delivers the call to adventure. If your knowledge of story structure is relatively conventional, the combination of Shiro’s return and his positioning in the introduction-order means you could freely write him off as a plot device, existing solely to gets the hero (and the rest) involved. 

Except that’s not at all how it works out. 

profic lens: Lance as implied protagonist

For most of S1, you could watch and assume the categories I listed above, without having your expectations challenged. There’s contagonist development (Pidge’s family vs Voltron), with Lance getting some shiny moments (protecting Coran, shooting Sendak). Sidekick development for Hunk and the Balmera; again, Lance stays in the foreground: flirting with Nyma, coming up with a non-psycho way to deal with the sentries in the Balmera. One could reasonably write these off as minor arcs befitting secondary characters, and that this story’s chosen to front-load those rather than show them later.

Meanwhile, Keith only surfaces as a foil (racing the lions, getting needled), and Shiro can be seen as a placeholder leader. Given Lance’s introduction, we could expect a predictable arc: he starts as less-competent or less-valued, and by story-end he’ll be a capable, valuable, leader. In this light, Shiro represents the stasis that’ll get broken when Lance moves into true hero position.   

It wouldn’t have been hard to take this route: give Shiro a reason to stay with the rest when they infiltrate the space base, and have Lance go with Allura, instead. That would’ve put Lance at the emotional forefront, as the one she rescued. Follow that with Lance using Blue to break the station’s hull, and it’d close the circle with him rescuing Allura in turn. He’d move from core POV into main protagonist. Obvious next step is for Shiro to step down, the story would contrive for Lance to slide into place, and the remainder would focus on his growth. 

fanfic lens: Keith as expected protagonist

Let’s circle back to the fact that of our core five, Keith is introduced last. This is a sharp break with profic convention but totally in line with fanfic convention. Fanfic doesn’t need to waste time introducing and establishing a protagonist when readers already know who it is from canon. As a result, fanfic frequently delays the main character’s appearance while the story introduces the side characters who’ll be playing roles in the story.  

From this perspective, allotting time to Pidge and Hunk makes sense. Both have been greatly to moderately rewritten for this new version, so they get mini-arcs to showcase those changes. Viewers familiar with the original Voltron already have a ‘protagonist’ in their minds. They were probably confident that once that was of the way, that pre-existing protagonist would come to the forefront. 

Those viewers were expecting Keith to become a plot-driver by the end of S1, which he does, somewhat. He’s the one who discovers the druids and quintessence plot point, after all, and he does it solo. The rest work jointly, which is common for secondary characters. 

Note that once again, the obvious next step is for Shiro to step down, and the story should contrive for Keith to slide into place. Since the story’s also established a strong emotional bond between Keith and Shiro, it’s possible Shiro might stick around as a mentor. But still, if Keith’s going to claim the protagonist’s leadership position (per the source material), then Shiro’s got to vacate that slot. 

the real problem: Shiro doesn’t fit either lens

If they’d taken the profic lens, we’d have Lance in Black by now. If they’d taken the fanfic lens, we’d have Keith in Black... which we did, but now we don’t, again. For either convention, the Ulaz arc should’ve happened in S1, as another two-parter. By its conclusion, Shiro would’ve been gone completely, or at least relegated to the background as a mentor.    

But not only does Shiro never segue into that mentor-only role, he takes the lead, and holds it (and takes it back, too). And while he’s older than the rest by some amount (never fully defined, for inexplicable and frankly stupid reasons on the part of the EPs), he’s still not the seasoned adult; Coran fills that role. Shiro’s also visibly damaged inside and out, between his prosthetic and his struggles with PTSD -- and instead of returning with knowledge to impart per a guide, he returns with mostly questions and fuzzy guesses. On top of that, the narrative is quick to pit Shiro against Zarkon (although this is muddied by Keith taking on Zarkon solo, in the S1 finale).

And then in S2, Shiro provides almost all the plot movement. He remembers Ulaz, which sets off a chain of events (complicated by Zarkon, as much as that blunt-force character can complicate anything) that leads directly to the Marmora, the team’s first allies of note. The S2 finale pivots on Shiro, too; his recovery of Black’s bayard provides the last piece needed for the team to defeat Zarkon.  

Shiro’s disappearance at the end of S2 comes late, relatively speaking, but still, here we finally have a vacancy for the protagonist to fill. Except not: the lack of finality -- the disappearance, rather than death -- means there’s no closure. (For a good example of this, see Gurren Lagann, where a main character’s death-speech grants closure and thus doubles the emotional gut-punch.) That means questions linger, shadowing anyone who fills the empty spot, and those questions effectively make Shiro even more central, despite his absence. 

Any way you slice it, Shiro gets way too much noise for a secondary character. Especially if he’s meant to be a character that -- by conventional standards -- exists solely to validate, and give way to, the real protagonist’s leadership.  

This went on too long, but of course now I have thoughts on what prompted the story structure to end up like this. Another followup coming soon, stay tuned. 

February 24: Mr. Robot 3x08

I remember being really skeptical of this ep before I watched it the first time, but then I ended up really loving it. And it holds up on a re-watch.

I like that it's so simple and so focused. It's a breather of an episode after the last few, which have been really intense and really stylized, and after how long the show has spent juggling various story lines, with sometimes very little about Elliot himself.

So I liked that we got to focus on the main character, kinda check in with him and his emotional state at this point in the narrative. I didn't like a lot of the Elliot-centric eps of S2 but I think that's because they were often about his fight with Mr. Robot, or included a lot of speeches, or some stylized montage of his weird experiments on himself. Nothing against those flourishes, but I thought the simplicity of this episode was refreshing.

Like it sounds terrible on paper--young boy saves Elliot from killing himself by taking him out of himself, leading him on a NYC adventure, and reminding him of his greater purpose--but it worked!

I loved that little kid, too. He could have been so annoying, but he wasn't.

The first time I watched this, I never questioned that the entire adventure was real. This time... I did a little. Just because of certain too-weird-to-be-true aspects like Mohammed suddenly showing up at Coney Island, not knowing how to return home, being so On Point as a little mini-me, disappearing during the movie, etc. But overall... well first of I don't want to believe he's a hallucination or illusion. But also, Elliot's other hallucinations don't work like that. He has alters, and while they have no basis in actual psychological disorders at all, they do have internal logic: they tend to be different versions of himself or members of his family. He doesn't just... see things. And they tend to be long-term aspects of himself, not two-hour visions.

I think there is a bit of the surreal to the narrative, but that's a style choice, not a reflection of Mohammed's realness.

I was super aware this time of how much he was,symbolically, a little Elliot, though. The blue hoodie. The trip to the movies to parallel the opening, except now Elliot is the older figure, not the younger. How... weird this young boy is, and how independent. As we see in the flashback, Elliot was also the type of kid who'd just walk out of (or into) a movie and he probably would have been the type to follow an     interesting stranger to Coney Island too.

My mom said, and I agree, that this is the kid Elliot SHOULD have been. If Elliot had had a good childhood, if he hadn't been abused, he would have been this upbeat, curious, slightly strange, but caring and interesting little kid. This is Elliot if he hadn't retreated and fragmented to protect himself. (Also I know Elliot isn't Iranian but he also isn't white and this kid looked at least kinda more like him than the actual kids they cast to play young Elliot....)

I loved the use of Back to the Future. All the weird costumes contributing to the surreal nature of the setting. The reference to Back to the Future day (which I remember very well from real life.) The meta on the theme. (Also just loved seeing Biff make out with a movie theater employee lol.)

Similarly, the ice cream truck scene with War of the Worlds was like just my kinda meta moment.

The world building in this series is probably the best I've ever seen honestly, at least in the category of, like, real-world-canon divergent. They really thought through the implications of events like 5/9 or the City Bombings, all the way down to details like the trash pickup not happening, the curfews being put in place, the commemorative ribbon and the memorial wall, the increased police presence, the "Detention center" at the playground... and all of this just in the background as people continue to live their own lives as well as they can. Also... all the masks... I gotta say, really weirds me out to see that.

I legit cried during that scene in the mosque. This little kid! Wanting to be President, the only person in his family who can. A sort of twisted version of the American Dream in a way… Trenton was such a good scapegoat for the Dark Army specifically because she was an Iranian immigrant, but here’s her little brother saying, I could be President!!

When he said he was born in Trenton I legitimately cried. I bawled.

I feel like I still haven’t gotten to the point where I can understand Elliot and Angela’s relationship. I’m only starting to get Angela on a rewatch. But that scene where they’re on opposite sides of the door and he’s talking about their childhood… So much of this story involves them on separate paths but every now and then there are these glimpses of     how close they used to be and how important they are to each other. I also feel like I had some kinda half-formed theory about who Angela is to the Hacker versus who Darlene is, having to do with the finale… where Darlene had to be erased entirely but Angela was a central character. But I can’t quite articulate it yet. Anyway, that scene was beautiful is the point. He’s in some kind of surreal bright red heightened-sense universe, and she’s completely in the dark. He’s talking and she’s listening, and he can’t even be sure she hears. What does it mean? Can’t honestly say but I liked it.

And of course I knew the episode would end as it does but it’s still such a Moment. It just feels… well put together. The various call backs within the episode and to other episodes, the clarity of Elliot’s emotional journey, the set-up to the rest of the season. Elliot couldn’t have gone on from the twin blows of the City Bombings and Trenton and Mobley’s deaths without this episode. But now the final arc of the season is perfectly teed up.

I was looking for the correct spelling of Mohammed’s  name and I came across this interview, which is pretty cool.

Oh also I really want Elliot to join Big Brothers Big Sisters and get a new little sibling to bond with please.

So, because of the usual thing that happens when Spyro content gets relevant - as in, shitting on Skylanders with fake rumors and false information - it’s time for me to dig up the good old wall of text to tell you most of the reasoning to hate Skyro is bullshit.

I’m in no way telling you to like Skylanders - high price for small fun, dumbed down for children, gameplay is nothing special, weird artstyle between cartoon and high fantasy, all legitimate reasons! But on Skyro specifically? C’mere, I’ll tell you all about it.

False Information 1 - Spyro was put into Skylanders as a marketing ploy.

Boi. It’s a really easy way to drive people mad. It happened to Rayman, Starfox and so many other series, so it’s true, right? Nope.

Spyro was always part of the games, in fact, he was how TFB put themselves on the map years after Star Control was lost to them. To make it short, though they went through many ‘normal’ gimmicks, they eventually settled on a game with “toys with brains” with Spyro as your main quest giver, the literal king of the land - using the name Spyro’s Kingdom from another team’s concept, supposedly.

However, seeing the huge backlash of having Spyro be your boss rather than you in specific, they put him back in the roster, replacing another dragon character and having your mentor instead be Master Eon, which every piece of media goes out of its way to show Spyro is super fond of. It was never marketing or holding onto another IP to be popular(that’s what Guest Stars would later do), it was simply avoiding an even worse situation.

False Information 2 - Skyro is a PS1-era model abomination.

Everyione, I mean EVERYONE, brings up this picture when they talk about this game. It’s horrible, it’s an early version of the game, Activision screwed up by using this as the game’s first impression. And boy did it stick.

But... He didn’t look like that even in the first game’s final version.

And as the series progressed, so did his appearance.

Recently, the TV show that everyone equally hates? He was actually redesigned to be appealing and cute.

But that’s not easy to hate, that’s not easy to replace what people already hate. So they go for a 7 year+ old picture, and pass that as how he’ll always look.

False Information 3 - Spyro is not a character after Spyro’s Adventure

This one was spread over the whole fear that he wasn’t in the title anymore, which was panic from both sides of the issue. Pretty wrong.

Spyro, Series 1,2,3, can be played in ANY game, and his code is compatible where applicable. Same for his his Legendary and Dark versions.

Spry can be only played in Skylanders: Trap Team onwards. This Mini only existed from this game on, after all.

Spyro is STILL a thing in the plot. While the Skylanders games don’t focus on a main character, he is a major character in several of the books, at least two comic arcs, and now the main character of Skylanders Academy and your guide in several levels of Skylanders: Imaginators. Activision might not care if he’s relevant or not anymore, but the developers and other content creators do.

So, to end this big wall of text, yeah, you don’t have to like Skylanders, but please don’t shit on it and the kids who have no business in knowing your demands just because the existence of Skyro somehow ruins your day and kicks your dog. He doesn’t; he’s making kids happy and that’s not an affront to your nostalgia, and even if Activison never gets the awesome idea to continue the older series or do a Remastered Trilogy, that doesn’t mean the older games cease to have meaning or are gone forever. They’re still here, aren’t they?

'South Park: The Fractured But Whole' review: Disgusting, ridiculous and plenty of fun

‘The Fractured But Whole’ is a fantastic follow-up to ‘The Stick of Truth.’ Just make sire your stomach is strong enough to handle it.

For the past 20 years, “South Park” has not so much been pushing the boundaries of good taste and storytelling, as much as obliterating them. And after 2014’s “The Stick of Truth,” the minds behind the show proved they could push just as many limits when it came to the world of video games. Now, three years later, the team at Ubisoft and South Park Studios are back with “South Park: The Fractured But Whole.”

Taking on everything from the superhero movie genre and identity culture to the Catholic Church and common video game tropes, “The Fractured But Whole,” hits all the right notes from the show’s best episodes. The writing is some of the best you’ll find in a game, and it improves on “The Stick of Truth’s” combat and mechanics enough to make it well worth picking up.

There are still some minor flaws that carried over from the first game, namely how easy it is, but “The Fractured But Whole” easily overcomes them, making it a must-play for fans of the series.

The ‘Franchise Prequel’

If you want to get the full story behind “The Fractured But Whole,” you’re going to have to watch “South Park’s” fourth episode of the season titled “Franchise Prequel.” The episode follows the boys Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny as they play superheros as part of Cartman’s Coon and Friends team, from the show’s popular Coon and Friends story arc.

Eric Cartman’s Coon is back in action, and just as depraved and self-serving as ever.

The boys and their friend are working out their plans to launch a superhero movie franchise but end up splitting into two groups, Coon and Friends and the Freedom Pals, when they can’t agree over which kids get their own standalone movies. Butters has also reassumed his identity as Professor Chaos and is sowing discord throughout South Park with his chaos minions.

The game kicks off with you, the mute new kid, as you try to join up with Cartman’s team. Like any good role-playing game, you spend the first few missions shoring up your character selection. You can choose from three initial classes including Brutalist, a tank; Speedster, the movement-based class, and Blaster, a ranged character.

You’ll eventually be able to unlock additional classes and combine classes, letting you mix and match the character setup that best suits your play style. As you move through missions you’ll also gain new party members with their own unique abilities.

Leveling is handled via the game’s hero rank system, which sees you complete portions of the story, side quests, fight enemies and collect specific items, like the unsettling Yaoi-style pictures of Craig and Tweek, to gain experience points. Each new level allows you to equip a new type of artifact, which augments your party by improving members’ health, power and the effects of certain kinds of attacks. You acquire artifacts by collecting them in the world, crafting them or buying them from merchants.

The Human Kite and the alternate universe Human Kite.

Artifacts also impact your party’s might score, which you use to determine if enemies or missions are too advanced for your current ranking. I found the first few artifacts a bit lacking, especially when I purchased a far more powerful one at a nearby shop. That said, they do add another dimension to the gameplay that helps add a sense of depth that was missing from “The Stick of Truth.”

DNA upgrades provide you with additional boosts to your power, though you’ll have to balance the disadvantages they have to your character with their advantages.

Come on down to South Park

Like “The Stick of Truth,” “The Fractured But Whole” lets you explore the entire town of South Park. You’ll visit familiar locales like Tom’s Rhinoplasty and the Photo Dojo, as well as Unplanned Parenthood and, of course, South Park Elementary.

Simply traveling through the town, opening every door and finding every hidden item is a treat. It also helps that Ubisoft and South Park Studios add in more than enough fan service. From the songs playing on the radio to the ads on TV in your friends’ houses to the characters’ closets, the developers mined every bit of the show’s 20-year history to create a living, breathing version of South Park.

Professor Chaos and his minions are stirring up trouble in South Park.

Exploring the town provides you with plenty of opportunities to collect hidden items. Unfortunately, many of the puzzles that block your path are just too easy to solve. Most of the time, you’ll simply punch your way past an obstacle to access a special area.

Of course, your quest sees you come across all of your favorite towns folk including Stan’s dad Randy Marsh, the goth kids, Mr. Macky and Big Gay Al. You’ll need to find as many people in town as possible, take selfies with them using your smartphone, which doubles as your menu screen, and upload them to Coonstagram to ensure Coon and Friends have more followers than The Freedom Pals. Adding followers also adds to your experience, which helps you build your hero level.

Fighting evildoers

“The Fractured But Whole” plays like a classic turn-based RPG. Like games like “Earthbound,” you’ll want to initiate combat with enemies to ensure you attack first or your enemies will get the drop on you.

Ubisoft and South Park Studios largely reinvented the combat system from “The Stick of Truth,” adding a grid format that requires you to place your party members in the right positions to attack enemies. If, however, you’ve got a character that does close combat damage, and another party member is blocking his path, he won’t be able to attack.

Party members’ abilities can spread across multiple spaces on the battle grid, hitting enemies that are above or below your characters. If multiple enemies are lined up in a row, you’ll have the chance to knock them into each other, doing additional damage.

The Freedom Pals want their superhero franchise to be the best in the business.

The developers also added new battle animations for party members’ super attacks. Similar to the over-the-top super moves in NetherRealm Studios’ “Injustice” series, your super attacks will see your characters call in hamsters to charge enemies or fly into the clouds to launch a volley of laser blasts.

Then there are good old fashioned summonses, which let you call in special help from characters to take on enemies.

Who are the evil doers in “The Fractured But Whole”? Sixth graders, ninjas, chaos minions, pedophile priests, kids dresses as Hooters-style waitresses, strippers and a slew of others. Nothing is sacred in “South Park,” and that’s just the way fans like it.

Over time, you’ll gain special abilities that you can use in and outside of battle, helping you to access different areas of the game’s world and snag out of reach objects and upgrades. 

My one gripe with the game’s combat is that, like “The Stick of Truth,” it’s a bit too easy. Sure, there were some battles that had me sweating, but for the most part, I never felt like I was in danger of losing. Even when I bumped up the combat to the Mastermind setting, I was still able to largely blast through fights. That’s not to say they weren’t fun, but I’d appreciate something a bit more of a challenge.

Should you get it?

I loved “South Park: The Stick of Truth” and am a huge fan of the show, so I was fully prepared to at least enjoy “The Fractured But Whole.” But the developers managed to surpass my expectations by improving on the previous game’s flaws and creating a deeper experience.

And while combat and puzzles are still too easy compared to other RPGs, playing through “The Fractured But Whole” is well worth the time. If you’re a fan of the series, casual RPGs or just great games in general, you’ll want “The Fractured But Whole.”

Reviewed on the Xbox One

What’s hot: Like playing through a jumbo-sized episode of “South Park,” improved combat system, deeper character customizations

What’s not: Combat is still too easy for most seasoned gamers, puzzles could be more challenging

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Email Daniel at [email protected]; follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley.