#i just think that danny is so brilliant and i want to see the writers use his full potential
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🚨OBLIGATORY MYTHIC QUEST SEASON 3 POST🚨
i’ve had some time to think about it and i enjoyed s3 overall - there was some really funny stuff, great performances (especially from charlotte and rob) and some really great episodes. it’s nothing that people haven’t said before (and probably a lot better), but if there’s one criticism i have, it’s the lack of character development/arcs for anyone other than poppy & ian. i love their dyanmic and it’s always been the central dyanmic of the show, but mq has such a great talented ensemble cast with such varied rich characters and most of them were criminally underused this season, ESPECIALLY brad in my extremely biased yet valid opinion. (more under the cut)
it’s just frustrating bc the s2 finale set up so many interesting things that didn’t really matter in the end. how did brad going to prison for jo not matter? why did rachel give up on writing so easily, espeically after cw died? why is dana suddenly just another version of ian now who somehow has the power and resources to start her own studio? tbh i’m mainly mad that they called an episode “to catch a mouse” AND had a brad/jo subplot and didn’t explore their wonderful unhinged mouse/shark dyanmic. it was right there!!! and why completely scrap the movie subplot in the last episode, becuase that just made it feel like a big waste of time. i think mythic quest: playpen is a great way of compromising and a great way to get ian and poppy to rejoin mq, i’m much more into the plot of mq vs another rival studio (i’m assuming we might see that with studio dana in s4) as i thought mq vs grimpop was going to be a thing this season that we...didn’t see at all
i really liked the christmas episode (reminded me of everlight, my favourite ep) and sarian (holy shit that was some insanely perfect casting for young poppy). charlotte was fantastic as poppy the whole season, she had some of the funniest stuff and she nailed the sadder scenes too. i just thought s2 built on s1 so perfectly by playing with new dyanmics and showing whole new sides to characters (specifically brad and cw) so it’s frustrating to watch what felt like a backwards step in that sense, especially when it comes to brad, who felt like he was just...there. the “oh i’m just the janitor definitely not up to something nefarious” and david being so paranoid thing at the start of the season was so funny, so why did that go nowhere? brad and rachel is a really funny dyanmic, but brad saying he manipulated rachel into abandoning her ethics for the rewards of capitalism felt so much like tell, don’t show. like where is the evidence for that? also fuck nfts lol but this post is already far too long
i really like this show, that’s still true after this season. i think the two season renewal was probably a blessing and a curse and season 3 will end up being a transitionary season, maybe it was a little directionless because they knew they had another one guaranteed, i don’t know. the s3 finale did set up a lot of cool potential arcs for s4, i’m paticularly intersted in how that brad/dana/jo dyanmic will play out and i also love poppy/ian/david as a trio so that could be really fun. i just wanna see more from the whole cast, there’s so much potential for comedy and drama too with all of these characters!
#mythic quest#shut up sian#i just think that danny is so brilliant and i want to see the writers use his full potential#like lbr a brad flashback ep is the dream#manifesting a real breaking brad 2 for s4#but s3 didn't just have a brad problem it had a nearly everyone problem#i still liked it a lot and so did my dad so that's the main thing. my dad finds mq extra hilarious now that he's watched welcome to wrexham#and knows that rob is essentially just playing an exaggerated version of himself#ANYWAY. it's nice to be unhinged about a workplace sitcom again brings me right back to the b99 days#to catch a mouse literally haunts me i still can't believe it wasn't even a mouse#okay BYE#no-one i know irl (except my dad) watches mq can you tell i needed to get this out somewhere
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Since I’ve been encouraged to actually share my funny little blorbo ideas here’s another one gang;
Danny moves to Gotham on scholarship for engineering, because the Fentons may be infamous but they’re also insanely brilliant and besides both he and Jazz are showing every sign of embarrassed child of a super genius syndrome, so while the bats are keeping a close eye on him Just In Case, duke is also thinking of introducing him to the Our Parents Are Maniacs But Anyway club maybe after the first month or so.
Gotham does not go for standard dorm living bc of his ‘condition’ and lack of wanting to constantly spook/gaslight a roommate. Besides, living with two small children is a dorm sounds like a disaster in action.
So Danny signs up as a mechanic in Crime Alley, buys himself a teeny weensy lil apartment and Makes It Work. He has been all year after showing up with a de aged Dani and Dan in Amnity after all, and that had gone,,, fine? (The entire town, observing how Danny had been getting increasingly more uncomfortable around his godfather prior to the cloning incident, then just dropped off the face of the earth for several months, the first two weeks stuck in Vlad’s basement enduring horrors and the next Too Many desperately fapping around in the Ghost Zone to get everything handled. All the clones live, all 13 of them. Bunch of them are stuck in the Ghost Zone due to constant need for ectoplasm, but eh, plenty of Zone born never leave, so. One, in the future, apprentices under a green warrior lady on Pandora’s suggestion, another is working in the Eternal Library with Ghost Writer, etc etc. so Danny eventually came back to Amnity with one small child under each arm very obviously traumatized by Somethingn with vlad and doesn’t like being alone with him,,, or touched without warning,, and immediately and passionately proclaims the kids his but struggles to explain how or why,, look some very reasonable assumptions are drawn okay. So the town does the very reasonable thing and does the midwestern equivilant of excommunicating Vlad, except it’s a lot more run him out with pitchforks vibes since he’s the Mayor. Anyway)
He is immediately loved, because while non Gothamites are usually more of a pain than they’re worth, everyone in a while someone even from out of town will just fit in so nicely it’s uncanny for everyone involved. Addams family vibes, it’s referred to as ‘making it home’, just personal hc. He is protective of all the kids playing in the parks and street girls that can totally take care of themselves on their corners but find it HILARIOUS when he just tackles a dick like a wild animal full force no warning. He can fix anything it seems, but refuses to work with weapons. Reasonable enough, people get twitchy about gangs sometimes. Danny mentions being not against Hood or anything, but he’s not going to work for him, littles to take care of and all, but had past experience with ‘Dora and that inheritance mess with her brother he was being a real prick about’ so everyone assumes it’s the equivilant of him having Done His Time and being plenty good for a life time and respects it as long as none of that petty midwestern small town hotshots bring any of that shit over here. And they don’t, because said individuals are on the other side of the mortal veil, so happy day.
See I really love deaged!Dan because he’s just a grumpy lil guy. But he’s also killed millions. He’s so protective of his loved ones, but held back by blending in and also being Smol that it comes off more bitey kitten than anything else. Dani, of course, is a terror, so she fits right in with the crowd.
And sorry gang, but a bunch of kids on their own in Gotham in a poor side of the city just isn’t going to get any attention: that’s just business as usual really. What first gets attention on Danny is not his ‘condition’ or being mistaken for a meta (which he legally probs has an argument for even without the gene bc like these bitches don’t know how metaism works anyway so) or alien (I’m 90% sure he’d be covered by the alien protection act by virtue of being half ‘not from earth’), but because Danny despite best efforts is a Weird Guy.
He grew up in what could only be described as a low level villain level and spent most of high school dealing with smack downs and spiritual invasion. He’s never really processed that any of that is not in fact Normal. Also, he’s capable of making Anything if given the insides of a toaster, blender and alarm clock, and could probably rewrite the circuits of the apartment blindfolded and improve them 1000% even if it ABSOLUTELY would not be up to code.
And sure, things slip every once in a while, bits of spectral ice here, small floating incident there, but everyone just Minds Their Buisness ya know? You really gunna mess with the guy that personally ensured that when your car got flattened by a fight with Killer Croc, you were still able to get in to work the next day by some wizardry? Really?
But Gotham is a city so cursed it’s probably in the exponents countwise, so of course there is a) a flourishing community of magic users and assorted supernatural weirdos and b) a whole lot of shit for Mega Overpowered Ghost King Danny to idly pick at day to day in order to help with his protecting other Obsession. Gotham has plenty of heroes, but by god do they need the spiritual equivilant of an electrician/priest.
Still, Danny, as a baby ancient under a facet of Kronos and KING OF THE DEAD is like, way, way out of their scope to be able to grok, so it mostly just comes off as you know, a family of banshees or something. When asked, Danny very haltingly says he was briefly dead but then revived, which neatly explains his Weird Ass aura and makes it SPECTACULARLY AWKWARD to ask further about. So everyone nods politely, and goes back to their lives after double checking no nefarious bullshit was being pulled.
Then, of course, Vlad finally tracks them down. The whole neighborhood is altered in short order because he doesn’t bother trying to hide being a Rich Bitch or how he’s sneering down his nose at people on the sidewalk. Every connects the dots when Danny paniks. Dani and Dan’s daycare are staffed with some extra, very buff set of hands within the hour. Jerry, Hood’s third in command, personally shows up to the garage Danny is working at to talk things out with him bc he knows he does t like the deal with this stuff due to past unspecified circumstances but well, they guys had already started fucking with him, you see. Stole his tires, spray painted the windows, pickpocketed him blind, and when he retreated tipped off the police to the drugs they’d planted in the glove box.
Danny might not have been born in Gotham, but he was one of them. And the Alley takes care of it own.
#basically I want a fic where it’s not the Batfam but Gotham itself latching onto Danny#also more angy lil baby man Dan in big puffy coats being protective#dp x dc#dc x dp#gotham
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Okay... so it COULD be because, as a writer, I'm an ASSHOLE to my Characters...
BUT YOU KNOW WHAT'D BE FUNNY?
Danny, innocent, gets YEETED into DC. As ya do. And he's a bit messed up. But! He's a Baby Ancient in the making. Gonna be master of Spaaaaaace(~~~☆!) one day. Very exciting, only slightly relevant.
See, Ectoplasm? Dumb. That's why we need Cores and Brains etc. Never let Ectoplasm decide things. It WILL chose the "technically correct but now the buildings on fire" option EVERY SINGLE TIME. And you are running out of fire extinguishers.
Because it is dumb.
Very, VERY No Brain, Just Goo, Dumb.
And THIS Goo has a life to save. A Halfa too maintain in Peak Performance(tm). Because THIS Goo is VERY smart Goo(according only to itself) and TOTALLY knows what it's doing! Damaged meat bits? Oh that's EASY! You just FIX that! Replace with meat bits! See? It's BRILLIANT Goo. 10 out of 10 stars, me!
Small problem.
The instructions have been damaged.
PANIC.
Wait! No! We got this! We are Very Smart Goo(tm). And have Space Powers. This is FINE. We'll... we'll just FIX the instructions! Hand me a hammer! If we smash enough bits together, it'll sort? Of look right? Close ENOUGH? Yeeeeeah. We're GENIUS Goo~
Use THAT!
But where did they GET their ill begotten DNA? Well OBVIOUSLY the place all the OTHER DNA they had was stored, DUH? Keep up, says the Goo with literally no braincells making horrifying choices for an unconscious man. It's Earth.
As in... the planet.
It's not even HIS planet. It's AN Earth. A Planet CALLED "Earth" that dwells in the DC universe, not his, and is covered with ZERO(0) Fentons but plenty of superhumans and aliens. THAT planet.
The Goo grabbed the Very BESTEST Meat Instructions it could FIND! The Goo is also a collective and did not AGREE on what the "Best" WAS. But it's... okay, no, I can't lie to you, it is NOT fine.
But thankfully it IS stable.
Because Ectoplasm may be dumb and indiscriminate as super-bacteria with a flamethrower, but it is a MASTER at the jigsaw of Life. It can reanimate ANYTHING.
Including the now SINGLE MOST CHIMERAD MAN you've ever SEEN. Who is he related too? YES. His left knee is Kryptonian, the fingers on his right hand are Tameranian, his skin tone has shifted to the most ambiguously multi-ethnic tone imaginable (think that future of humanity mock up, where they combine every ethnicity on the premise that inter-racial marriage will becoming increasingly common up to the point where we all just kinda look averaged out thanks to the ease of travel) because it's trying to do all of them at once and none of them are willing to back down, because all of them got the instructions "Be Skin". He might have Slade Wilson's cheek bones and hair.
Danny wakes up and basicly is half Ectoplasmic Goo, half the extended Super Community.
AND CANT GET BACK HOME TO FIX IT.
Because of course this IS fixable. It's just medical shape-shifting. But without HIS template, undamaged. His body is REFUSING to change from what is OBVIOUSLY the CORRECT form. And he keeps getting clocked as "probably related to me".
With the Fenton Luck kicking in? The parts of him people manage to swab and/or get DNA from? Keep MATCHING them. Danny doesn't know WHO is behind this but-! *spots a giggle child with a cat* !!!!!!
You.
Klarion you little SHIT!
So now he's wearing a face that's BARELY his, running from very determined superhumans who want to parent him, trying to steal enough technology to build a portal. AND vowing to kick the witch boy's ASS.
This ISNT FUNNY, KLARION.
His body is Frankenstein's FEVER DREAM! Every time he gets hurt, it tries to "FIX" itself! He lost a chunk of his should back there and HIS ENTIRE BODY CHANGED SKIN TONES. He's pretty sure if he SITS funny, his teeth might fall out and regrow POINTY! He's handing you over to WALKER you horrible little gremlin child!
Just? Take the "Danny is related to X" and "Danny is sick" and turn them uuuuup. Make EVERYBODY concerned except Danny. This is just another fucked up adventure in a long string of fucked up adventures. Give him his DNA back. If he has to suffer the Fenton Luck then he should AT LEAST get to keep the Fenton "built like a tank"!
*gets hit again*
*is GREEN now for some reason* The fuck?
Garfield, aka Beast Boy: I HAVE A CLONE SON!?
Danny: Zone DAMN IT not another one!
@ailithnight @hdgnj @nerdpoe @the-witchhunter
#tw body horror#dpxdc#dp x dc#dc x dp#dcxdp#dc x dp prompt#danny phantom#never let the Goo drive#chimera au#Danny looks A BIT like everyone#just enough to be suspicious#chaos happens and klarion laughs
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Favorite characters of 2022
For posterity, here are the characters I (re)discovered in 2022 that really stuck with me. I hope I can do this for several years and see if I can find a trend or if my tastes evolve with time. (This post's purpose is mostly to study myself, ngl)
Homer Jackson - Ripper Street
All the characters in Ripper Street are worthy of this list, but I relate to Jackson particularly. He's a scruffy, alcoholic, genius, messy jack of all trades, a brilliant doctor and a broken human being. And he's bisexual, of course.
I liked him from the first second, but I really fell in love with him when this 19th-century doctor said "Oh by the way, there was semen in these men's rectums, but I didn't think it was important." and "I know big stevedores who would make you feel like a princess, Sergeant."
His story in the show is a beautiful, funny and tragic one I won't forget soon.
Fetch Phillips - The Fetch Phillips Archives
I relate to Fetch so much it's concerning. Guilt is one of the five emotions I have on speed dial, so...
But it's also fascinating to see him grow and painstakingly become a better man. I love what Luke Arnold is doing with this character and the series.
I don't need to say much about him here because the Writers of Sunder City discord server is where I discuss him the most, but yeah, he makes the list this year.
Max - Black Sails
She makes me think of Connor Walsh from HTGAWM because he looked out for himself and his loved one above everything else and wasn't above lying and manipulating people to achieve his ends. And the people I watched HTGAWM with disliked him just like they disliked Max when we watched Black Sails. But they forget that, among a group of murderers, Connor was the innocent one (I haven't watched S6 yet, don't spoil). He didn't kill Sam. He didn't crush a district attorney under his car. He didn't have a homosexual man deported back to Pakistan. He was just the mean guy of the group, was used to cover up these murders again and again, and nobody cared when it destroyed him slowly because he was "the mean guy". And I've seen plenty of people treat Max the same way.
She's the kindest, most compassionate character on this show. She values human life and all she wants is safety and happiness for herself and the ones she loves. She is one the best-written female characters I've ever encountered in any type of media.
Long John Silver - Black Sails
I don't have words. I know him intimately. He's a complete mystery to me. He's burned into my mind. I'm not the same after watching this show.
An interesting thing is that I like all John Silvers so far. Tim Curry in the Muppets movie, Treasure Planet John Silver, book John Silver. But to me he will always have Luke Arnold's face, voice and body language. It's a character I won't stop thinking about for a long while. I might write a thesis on the character and his different incarnations someday, just to entertain myself.
Steve McGarrett - Hawaii Five-0
Hear me out.
(Look at how fucking sad he looks in that uniform I love it)
I know this show is mediocre on average, I know it's copaganda and the ethics of it are dystopian. It's so far from my political views you'd think I'm joking.
But I still love it.
And while Danny used to be my favorite character, I now relate to Steve more. My whole life, I've wanted to be a soldier. Because of my relationship with my father, because of my transness, and for other bullshit reasons. I have now given up on this aspiration because of health issues (and other stuff), with great regret.
So when I see in a show a man like Steve, who didn't necessarily enlist for the right reasons, who exists through his usefulness to his community - his found family - and who shares my issues with showing emotion/letting people in, feeling worthy on one's own, and being terrified of being alone, when I see that man grow, find love and learn to open up and live his own life... Well I just turn off my critical mind a little and enjoy the ride. And it's fine. I just love this character 🤷
Notes:
Out of these five, at least three are queer (all of them if you count headcanons)
80% of them are cis men. I don't think it's for lack of encountering and liking characters of other genders, it's just what I liked this year
Boy, this hasn't been a great year reading-wise, on the whole (with a few stellar exceptions)
#favorite characters 2022#ripper street#black sails#john silver#treasure island#long john silver#homer jackson#fetch phillips archives#hawaii five 0#h50#steve mcgarrett#max black sails
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Chilling Adventures Presents... Strange Science, cover by Butch Mapa
Just this once, I'll copy Archie's full press release:
With a string of top-selling comics establishing Jinx Holliday as the latest star of the Archie Horror imprint from Archie Comics, supporting character Danni Malloy will be next to take center stage. The duo embarks on a new terrifying adventure in CHILLING ADVENTURES PRESENTS... STRANGE SCIENCE, a one-shot comic book releasing in August.
Writer Magdalene Visaggio (Eternity Girl)—whose run on a modern update of the classic character Li'l Jinx began with the instant sell-out anthology JINX: GRIM FAIRY TALES last fall—teams with artist Butch Mapa (Star Wars) for this latest entry, a turn towards dark sci-fi. In a story about being true to yourself and what matters most to you, STRANGE SCIENCE will also reveal that Danni is transgender.
"I've been wanting to make this happen for a long time, and it's really cool to see it finally come to fruition," Visaggio said. "I never wanted Danni's trans identity to be gimmicky, or for her to feel like she was only created to be trans. So, I'd like to apologize for sneaking her over the line like this! I wanted you to have a chance to fall in love with her for who she is, not what she is. I'm honored I got to make it happen, and I'm grateful to Archie for never, not even once, pushing back on my insistence on making their books a little bit more queer. I hope Danni finds a good home at Archie with supportive writers and artists helping to keep her alive for years to come."
The new one-shot takes its title from the 1989 comic book series DILTON'S STRANGE SCIENCE, which introduced Danni, a science genius who rivaled tech expert Dilton Doiley's prodigious talent. In Visaggio's story, Danni has left that life behind to become an artist and musician, exposing her to criticism from Dilton as the teens try to save themselves from a bizarre time travel accident.
"STRANGE SCIENCE is one of, if not the, most important one-shots we've released to date. It also showcases how versatile horror can be, as it deftly blends sci-fi with horror and tells a beautiful, poignant tale about confronting the past," said Archie Comics Senior Director of Editorial Jamie L. Rotante. "That’s all thanks to writer Magdalene Visaggio, who had the idea to have Danni Malloy tell her own story about her transition. We just needed to figure out the best way to make it fit, and a callback to her character's classic origins mixed with the new horror surroundings she's been re-introduced in just made the most sense."
Mapa added, "Magdalene wrote a story that is vital and poignant and brilliant at the same time, while also being a fantastic piece of horror/sci-fi. Expect lots of weirdness, emotion, action, and character."
Danni's first appearance in the modern Archie Horror universe was THE CURSED LIBRARY, a one-shot released on Free Comic Book Day earlier this month, and she reappears alongside Jinx in their first full-length solo adventure this week in JINX: A CURSED LIFE, both with art by Craig Cermak (Red Team). The sequence subtly establishes linked continuity in Archie Horror for the first time with references to events in other titles, and serves as a starting point for all horror fans looking for a new storytelling universe to explore.
"I think it's clear to anyone reading this that there is a ton of passion and heart in this story, which was demonstrated on every script page," Rotante said. "I'm so proud of this book, but moreover, it's an honor to help bring this beautiful story to life, and I'm consistently awed by the amazing talent I have the opportunity to work with."
STRANGE SCIENCE, with an open-to-order variant cover by Skylar Patridge, colors by Ellie Wright, and lettering by Jack Morelli, releases August 16 in comic shops nationwide and will be available for pre-order in comics shops this Friday.
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1, 63,64 and 86 please ^^
Again, what is it with you and asking the hard questions?
do you know how you want the story to end when you start, or are you just stumbling through the figurative wilderness hoping to find a road?
Well, that depends entirely on the story, but 99% of the time, I know where I want to end it. Whether that's where I actually end up is another thing entirely, but I do usually have an end point in mind.
Not that I generally have any idea how they're going to get there, mind you.
63. what’s the best insult you’ve read in a fic?
That is a tough one. I have read so many things, and a lot of good insults that only make sense within the context of the story and the fandom, not to mention things that I have discussed with writer friends that are brilliant but never actually make it into the final fics.
That being said, I think I'm going to have to go with this gem from from sugar cookies by aloera (BNHA fic)
“The bar is so low for you guys,” Hitoshi says, shaking his head. “And yet, you managed to tunnel beneath it each time.”
64. what is your favourite title for a fic you’ve read?
Another tough one, though I will admit I am influenced by the fic attached to the title most of the time. Also, I couldn't pick just one
My favourite Naturo series, Kishimoto Did The Girls Wrong, has some brilliant ones;
A Weaponized Smile
Quiet Competence (and Vicious Resolve)
My Fury Will End A War
Carrying A Concealed Weapon (and other crimes to commit while being Adora Belle Dearheart) is another fun fic title (a Discworld fic)
Giant Ducks and Tiny Trolls makes me giggle every time I see it (LOTR)
A Shot In The Dark Aimed Right At My Throat (Discworld)
like a weird, murdery uncle you don’t invite to thanksgiving (Batman)
How to Summon Eldritch Entities with Strawberry Jam (a crossover between Rise of the Guardians and Danny Phantom)
Last but not least, Small Problems, because god is that title an understatement.
86. which season best matches the mood of your wip(s)?
Depending on how you look at it, all of them. Every season has both good and bad in it. I'm an angst writer, I make no secret of this, but the angst makes the happy times happier, just like a dark winter makes the spring seem even brighter.
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FIC WRITER INTERVIEW
this meme was stolen from @sunoficarus, so thank you! I've barely written a jot in months so it felt nice to write about what I have done in the past.
1. How many works do you have on AO3?
185
2. What’s your total AO3 word count?
Is there a way to know that without having to count? Haha, up to or more than 300,000 I'd say. No probably definitely more. ETA: okay I figured it out, haha, and it's 482,890.
3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?
the blind side (mcdanno)
breathe for two (mcdanno)
tell me with your body (skam)
safe at anchor (mcdanno)
outside the lines (mcdanno)
4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?
For the most part. Sometimes I read a comment when I'm in a rush and don't have time to reply, and then forget to do it. But I always see it and they mean everything to me!
5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?
There hasn't been many, I'm not built for unhappy endings haha. There was this one though, as part of a collection of robron AUs that I wrote. It got a lot of traction too and people seemed to like it!
6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?
There are SO many I don't have a clue how to narrow down 'happiest'.
7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?
No, I haven't written any! They're not something I dabble in, writing or reading.
8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?
Not hate per se, but in the due South fandom there's this anonymous person who's notorious for leaving negative comments on fics that feature Fraser/Ray K. And I've had a number of those haha.
9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?
I'm not sure what that means, what kind? Haha. I write MLM, but mostly vanilla stuff. I'm not really into much more than that.
10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?
Not that I'm aware of?
11. Have you ever had a fic translated?
Yes! I've been so lucky to have some amazing people translate my works into Russian, Italian, and Chinese.
12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?
I did once, it was fun! It was for the Jongens fandom a few years back, called Count on Me.
13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?
Thats really hard to say. I'd say my top ones are Steve/Danny, Fraser/Ray K, Robert/Aaron, Ben/Callum. Although I have a lot. A lot.
14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?
None that are published, but I have a Midomer Murders fic in the works that I really hope I can be inspired to finish one day. I also have an SGA fic that I want to complete. They're both longer fics so, I'd need time and energy I just can't seem to find much of these days.
15. What are your writing strengths?
I feel like it's probably dialogue. Also maybe turns of phrase, making sentences have a rhythm. I just like that way of writing.
16. What are your writing weaknesses?
Let me count the ways! Haha, no, no. I guess I find the descriptive, showing not telling part of writing pretty difficult. Just setting scenes and tying everything together.
17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?
I do that a little bit when I'm writing for a fandom that's not English, such as jongens or skam. I just like to add a little here and there of what you come to know from the source material. Maybe people find it inauthentic or jarring? I'm not sure.
18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?
That's going back a ways! The first thing I think I posted fic for on AO3 was a soap pairing Will/Sonny, but I was posting stuff for Criminal Minds and MASH way before that on LiveJournal, haha.
19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?
Oooh thats easy, I really want to write some Luis/Moritz fic, I'm following their storyline from a German soap. If you're interested you can watch it at the blog @moritzandluis, they have done a brilliant job of uploading it with English subtitles!
20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?
I honestly couldn't say. I do enjoy going back and reading my stuff, but I'm not sure there's any that I like a lot more than another. Anything longer and plottier I guess I get prouder of, just because it's not my strong point and it feels more of an achievement.
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Thoughts on Shetland s7e2
Danny is a jerk and why his wife stayed with him is a mystery worth its own series.
Hmm… is the green jumper new? I like it on him and found the blue/green combo an interesting statement on Tosh. (I have complex and deep thoughts/feelings about blue and green on Shetland.)
I love Tosh stepping up and being brilliant.
Cora!! Good to see Cora back. Question: are dental records not a thing in Scotland? And sending the picture to Dundee is giving me Traces feels and reminds that I need to see Series 2.
Wow, that DCI is either stupid or currupt.
Why do they always make librarians creepy? Especially gay librarians? They are most always lovely.
I am not sure if it is because I am used to Shetland's twists or because the writers are brilliant, but I suspect everyone right now.
Hunter's is definitely not going to fail considering literally everyone goes there.
Tosh's sympathetic face compared to Sandy's confused face is so adorable. She just looks so at peace having figured out one puzzle. Sandy on the other hand looks like he has never met a gay man and is so oblivious. They are both perfect faces for their characters.
Knew the DCI was evil.
Hmm… Danny was inside for two years after being framed for a death. Am I drawing parallels with Duncan?
Oh! I didn't see that coming from Jill, but I think I was too distracted trying to figure out who she was. I still don't know, too!
Duncan has taught Jimmy to cook for sure. Also, no just no. I mean I get that Meg is likely end game for Jimmy, but it just doesn't work. It feels way too shoehorned into the narrative.
Poor Bryd. Her eyes were just haunting.
Good episode, but…
Not enough Duncan. I need to know he is okay in prison.
Where the hell is Cassie? We have been in Hunter's multiple times without seeing her and I am sure she is still managing it. We didn't even get to see Alex this episode.
Why was Maggie draped all over Sandy?
Where were Donnie and Louise (hate that name)?
Rhona needs to show up soon.
The case is getting better, but I want the Soap Opera-y bits (without Meg) back.
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Terry smiling and thinking about Daniel after stalking him for the 246739th time
There's a crazy kind of pattern
A routine that always happens
Where a lovesick guy is crazy
Over a girl...
And his world begins to suffer
'Cause each day he finds it tougher
To concentrate on anything but her...
Those are actual lyrics that play over this specific scene in the movie
I MEAN. I get it. I too make that face while thinking about Daniel LaRusso.
BUT WHAT IN THE GAY HEAVENS IS THE MOVIE'S HETERO EXPLANATION. HUH? THERE ISN'T ONE
First, Terry follows Daniel to this club for some unknown reason, watches him from behind a pillar, and then thinks about Daniel while making that face??
Somebody explain.
Ok so, besides the stalking, which, gay, the director or writer or whoever made a specific choice to use that song and those lyrics for that particular moment! Things don't happen in movies by accident!
And we never get a reason why Terry was there. He lies to a confused Daniel that he told him he'd be there, but I guess we just have to chalk it up to Terry following Daniel around throughout the whole movie. Just like he knew Daniel was jogging in the park that one time. And it's not like Terry couldn't hire people to follow Daniel for him, no, he has to do it himself lmao.
It's also the same night after Daniel breaks all the boards on that dummy and he and Terry celebrate. I am forced to come to the conclusion that Terry was proud of his boy and wanted to enjoy the night some more. 👀
Here's the song by the way if anyone wants a listen:
youtube
Oh. Right. I forgot it's called 'I CAN'T HELP MYSELF'
But we already know Terry has no chill when it comes to Daniel.
And then for some reason Terry feels the need to 'test' Daniel. Or make things interesting. Or break up Daniel's night with Jessica...
Anyway, Terry pays a random guy(he never actually pays him lmao) to pick on Daniel, who in turn punches the guy in the face, breaking his nose. While Terry watches with a smile on his face. I mean, the random guy deserved it clearly. Part of me thinks Terry picked him because he was pushing that woman around.
Terry was like, "How dare you interrupt my private Daniel reflection" 🤣
And it's funny that it looks like Kreese and Silver do not tolerate sexual harassment, and yet they were totally fine doing it to Daniel. Ok fellas.
So then security comes, and instead of letting Daniel run off with Jessica, Terry grabs Daniel and drags him outside through the back door and through the alleyway. Daniel feels bad about punching that dude and leaves Terry but like... what was Terry's plan exactly. I am dying to know. Was he going to take Daniel back to the Cobra Kai dojo? Was he going to drive him home? Take him somewhere else?
It's interesting to note that Terry is beyond thrilled. He's having the time of his life now that he thinks Daniel is like him. It's part of the reason I feel like Terry really wanted Daniel to join Cobra Kai. I think Terry thought he was brilliant enough that Daniel would pick him over Mr. Miyagi and in the end was furious that he was wrong.
I could talk more about it, but just quickly-- even when Daniel goes to see Terry in the dojo later that night(the "break up" scene), Terry was still acting super friendly and even had Mike Barnes and John Kreese stay hidden. He had them hide until Daniel declared he wouldn't be training anymore. It's amazing. I would love to know what they discussed before Daniel got there.
Maybe CK will address all these unknowns as Silver comes back and gets fleshed out more as a character.
Anyway, here's the alleyway scene after Terry and Daniel run from security:
Is that not the face of a man obsessed
And I'll never get over Terry calling him "Danny" all the time. You can't tell me he won't be excited to see Daniel again.
I just can't wait for this maniac to come back. And for Johnny to punch him and be like, "His name is Daniel!!"
Protecc the twink
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Part One: Terry and Daniel Ask
Part Two: Terry Silver's Theme Songs
#he better bring the same chaotic energy we know and love#add that with Daniel and they're likely to blow up a building or something#can't wait#RIP to the valley#karate kid iii#silverusso#daniel larusso#terry silver#when gay subtext is just plain text#somebody save daniel#my post
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FINAL THOUGHTS ON FATE
I just finished Fate and.......... boy do I have thoughts about it. It wasn’t TERRIBLE, just meh. There were somethings I liked, somethings I didn’t like, and somethings I hated. This will contain SPOILERS.
Things I liked:
The sets. Some of the locations were really pretty such as the Greenhouse and outside of the school.
The performances of some of the cast were passable at best. Precious Mustapha’s Aisha and Danny Griffin’s Sky are among the standouts for me.
Bloom vs The Burned Ones: The transformation was a nice callout to the transformations of the original. The fire surrounding her and the fire wings were are really nice and cool touch.
Beatrix was an interesting villain to say the least. I like how she’s a bit of a mystery. I’ve noticed that she’s mostly like Darcy with some powers of Stormy.
The cast interactions: Watching behind the scenes videos and seeing their Instagrams, you can tell that the main girls are really close. You can tell in the Netflix interview that the cast really loved and cares for each other.
The music: I like how they used lesser known songs and others in the scenes, especially in the party scene.
The special effects: How they did the effects for the magic is pretty cool.
Things I didn’t like(strap in):
The Whitewashing: Of course this can’t be ignored or swept under the rug. The is a major issue on the directors and the creative team’s part. One of the things that makes the original so amazingly brilliant is in its diversity, having 3 of the main characters being WOC. This was and still is a bit step in representation on every shows. Winx Club is one of the first shows that I’ve seen where half of the main characters and lots of other characters didn’t look like me, and I LOVED that. The way they casted a white woman in the roles of both Musa and Flora is extremely shocking l and disappointing. Both Elisha and Elliot definitely tried their best with these characters, but this is still a huge issue. Netflix and the creators KNEW about this. The only reason why Flora’s name got changed to Terra is because of the backlash and the fandom calling them out on their bullshit. The way that Aisha’s role has been changed to a stereotype is simply disappointing but not surprising
The Characters: Not going to lie, lots of characters have been messed with and changed in many ways, none are really on a positive way. Bloom is extremely clueless and annoying. She only thinks of herself and whenever she’s on screen, it’s always like she’s internally saying “Everything’s about me. Let’s focus on me.” It just left a bad taste in my mouth. Stella’s just a bitch in this version. She just goes along acting like she’s above it all. This Stella acts like she doesn’t care about the rest of the girls and it’s really infuriating. She just insults these girls that are supposed to be her friends. She just fills the cliche of “ the bitchy blonde” and thanks, I hate it.
The Writing: Where do I start with this? It isn’t later seasons Riverdale bad, but, it’s still terrible. It’s like the writers haven’t even seen or heard of the source material. Just, the lines must’ve felt so awkward for the actors to say. The actors defientley tied their best with what they were given, but that didn’t really make it better in my opinion. They get old fast, especially the way how Bloom kept on saying “mansplaning” whenever she was taking to Sky was just so cringy. They referenced Harry Potter, Earth culture, and movies so many times and I didn’t like it. In the original, the Specilists, Winx, and Trix don’t know a lot about earth culture such as social media, and Harry Potter. I think this helps separate Earth with Magix. The Netflix adaptation decided to yeet that out the window and was like “Lets make this world like our own.” Part of the charm of the original is the even fusion between futuristic and fantasy aesthetics. Guess, they messed up....wow
The fashion: This is obvious. There’s no transformations, no cute and iconic outfits, just clothes that make the cast look bulky. The cast literally look like soccer moms omg. Stella? Wearing black? I don’t know her. Bloom? Wearing red? I don’t know her. Bloom is only shown wearing red ONCE. The whole reason why she mainly wears blue is to contrast her red head, and fire powers. Stella is APPALED, good sir, HOW DARE YOU!!
The character erasures: There’s no Winx Club without Tecna. Our tecnomagic icon is one of the pillars of the group. She makes sure descisons are thought through logically and comes up with amazing plans. Her powers are extremely powerful and useful in lots of situations. Also, the lack of Helia, Brandon, and Timmy disappointed me. Those guys are amazing characters and Brandon has an amazing personality and character growth that he goes through. Smh Netflix
The pace: The way scenes and storylines would progress was just awkward. The show starts off with Bloom at Alfea, then meeting Sky and I was just like......”What?” Scenes that are more “down to earth” and “chill went by kinda quickly to get to the “darker” and “edgier” scenes. It just weird and boring sometimes
Miscellaneous: The biphobia in Riven’s character and the fat phobia in the first 20 minutes. Seeing Elliot’s character constantly being bullied, not only broke my heart, but left a really bad taste in my mouth.
Now, these are just my opinions and scratch the surface of my feelings about this. As an adaptation of a preexisting property, I give it a 4/10 and as an independent show, I give it a 5/10. There were some good points and character growth, like the whole thing with Stella and her mom, but it was mostly disappointing.
According to Ignio, he and Brian Young think that animation is only for kids. He has literally said in an interview that this is “for the older fans who grew up with Winx” and “ They would like the darker and edgier version.” This makes me mad since I prefer animation to live action. These showrunners, creators, etc are in the wrong here. There are still lots of other cartoons that have a bright and colorful aesthetic and tell dark stories(I.e Madoka Magica). We don’t want another Vampire Diaries or Riverdale. We’ve already seen enough teens shows that are dark and edgy. What we need/want is a show that tells a story and honors the source material in an appropriate and special way. What we wanted and needed is a Winx Club adaptation that respects the source material, and keeps its fun, bright, and colorful aesthetic. Not, whatever Netwinx gave us. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go rewatch the Nick/4kids/Cinelume dubs and WoW so I can cleanse my palette from what I just watched.
PSA: PLEASE don’t bully or harass any of the actors. They clearly tried their best with what they were given. It isn’t their fault at all.
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Andy Griffith: An Underrated Movie Star By Susan King
Andy Griffith was one of the greatest actors of the 20th century. He didn’t make the impact of his peers Marlon Brando, James Dean and Paul Newman when they all burst onto the scene in the 1950s, but Griffith demonstrated he was an actor of depth, complexity and, at times, brilliance during his 50-plus year career. His depth is especially on display in his greatest role as Lonesome Rhodes, the odious hard-living, hard-loving Arkansas drifter who becomes a television sensation in Elia Kazan’s A FACE IN THE CROWD (’57).
A dark social commentary about power and the media, A FACE IN THE CROWD is as prescient today as it was 63 years ago. It wasn’t a hit upon release but has grown in reputation over the years. And, it’s head scratching to believe that Griffith wasn’t nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his performance.
Perhaps he’s not uttered in the same breath as a Brando because Griffith achieved his greatest success on the small screen. He starred as the gentle widower Sheriff Andy Taylor in the beloved 1960-68 sitcom The Andy Griffith Show and as the folksy but brilliant and often cantankerous attorney Ben Matlock in the 1986-95 legal eagle series Matlock. Despite his popular, genial and understated turn as Andy Taylor (who many kids thought was the best father around), Griffith didn’t even earn an Emmy nomination.
Griffith originally wanted to be a singer or a preacher but ended up teaching at a local high school after graduating from college. But the lure of performing was too great, and he left the chalkboard behind to become a comic monologist. And he was funny. Check out his most famous routine, “What It Was, Was Football” from a 1954 The Ed Sullivan Show on YouTube. He’s so believable as the backwoods rube, audiences undoubtedly thought that was Griffith’s real character.
The year of 1955 was life-changing for Griffith. He became an overnight sensation after he was cast in the lead role as the naïve Air Force Private Will Stockdale in the live TV comedy No Time for Sergeants. He’s so mirthful as the good old boy that members of the crew can be heard laughing. Later that year, he made his Broadway debut in the stage version of No Time for Sergeants earning rave reviews and a Tony nomination. It was while he was the toast of Broadway that he was approached by Oscar-winning screenwriter Budd Schulberg (ON THE WATERFRONT, ‘54) about playing Lonesome Rhodes.
Griffith told me in a 2005 L.A. Times interview that Schulberg and his mother came to see the play and soon after Griffith met the writer at a bar. Ironically, Schulberg didn’t think Griffith could handle such a ruthless character. “We were sitting there talking and drinking,” Griffith recalled. “He told me, ‘you can’t play this role.’ I had never read the script or his short story on which it was based at that time, but I just kind of envisioned the character. I said, ‘I can’t provide it to you…but I can play it.’”
Kazan also had his doubts, but quickly changed his mind when Griffith did an impression of evangelist Oral Roberts “healing” the filmmaker. “At that moment, he and Budd could see that I had a little wild side – that is, I can create a wild side. So Gadge [Kazan’s nickname] used that. He used that part of me to find the emotions of evil, the various thousands of moods that this man had.”
Kazan and Schulberg, Griffith noted, “were trying to make the social commentary that the medium and the people who control it can control the thoughts of the country and how dangerous that can be,” Griffith said. The director told Griffith to drink some whiskey for this film’s conclusion when Rhodes is unveiled as a phony and a demagogue. “They brought me a bottle of Jack Daniels Black Label,” he said. “I would shoot a little bit and drink a little bit. I thought I was great. Gadge pulled the plug around 3 o’clock. The next day he said, ‘Andy, we have to shoot most of that over again. Today, just smell the cork!’”
The 1958 film version of NO TIME FOR SERGEANTS and another 1958 service comedy, ONIONHEAD just didn’t work and bombed with both critics and audiences. “I basically struck out in Hollywood,” Griffith told me in 1993. He returned to Broadway, earning another Tony nomination for the musical version of Destry Rides Again. Griffith admitted, though, the show wasn’t very good. So, he decided to do television. The pilot for The Andy Griffith Show, which also starred Ron Howard as his young son Opie, Frances Bavier as Aunt Bee and Don Knotts as the ultra-nervous deputy Barney Fife, aired on the popular The Danny Thomas Show. The show was quickly snapped up by CBS to develop into a series.
Knotts, who won five Emmys as Fife, wasn’t in the pilot. Knotts, who appeared with Griffith in NO TIME FOR SERGEANTS, called him and said, “Don’t you need a deputy?” “I was supposed to have been the comic, the funny one,” said Griffith. “It might not have lasted even half of season that way, but when Don came on, I realized by the second episode, he should be funny, and I should play straight to him. “
Despite the fact the series was the no. 1 show, Griffith wanted to stretch his acting muscles and the series ended in 1968. But Hollywood still didn’t know what to do with him. He signed a three-picture deal with Universal, but the first film ANGEL IN MY POCKET (’69) had a devil of a time trying to find an audience and the critics were not impressed. He struck out again and returned to the small screen. In between series work, TV movies and guest spots, Griffith appeared on the big screen, most notably in the sweet nostalgic comedy HEARTS OF THE WEST (’75) with Jeff Bridges and Alan Arkin.
He finally earned an Emmy nomination in 1981 for the TV movie MURDER IN TEXAS, in which he got the opportunity to show his dramatic chops as a wealthy Texan who thinks his daughter’s new husband isn’t exactly who he appears to be. His turn in Matlock gave him a renewed popularity. Griffith was doing guest spot on TV and had just released a hymns and spirituals CD when I interviewed him in 2005. Two years later, Griffith was perfectly cast in WAITRESS (2007) as Joe, the elderly and curmudgeonly owner of a small café who had a generous and kind heart. The role fit him like a comfortable glove.
Baby boomers felt they had lost a big part of their childhood when Griffith died in 2012 at the age of 86. Ron Howard summed up what so many of his fans were feeling: “His pursuit of excellence and the joy he took in creating served generations and shaped my life. I’m forever grateful. RIP Andy.”
#Andy Griffith#Sherriff andy#Matlock#A Face in the Crowd#Budd Schulberg#classic actor#old hollywood#TCM#Turner Classic Movies#Susan King
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Is Rob Thomas Jealous of Taylor Sheridan’s Success?
Remember when Taylor Sheridan was nominated for an Oscar for ‘Hell Or High Water’? Although Rob Thomas did congratulate him for his nomination, some people detected some sarcastic undertone within his tweet. Don’t know whether they are friends in real life or not, but many suspected that RT was a bit envious that TS was nominated for Best Writing.
Before he was famous as a great screenwriter who also wrote the acclaimed ‘Sicario’ franchise, he appeared as a recurring character Danny Boyd in VMars. You may remember Danny Boyd; one of the cousins of the Fitzpatrick and specifically Liam’s right-hand man. He also played the great Sheriff/Deputy Chief Hale from Sons of Anarchy. After many stints as recurring characters in many shows, he started to write a screenplay. Sicario is a film about Cartel hitmen and Narcos. Very well written and made, and it made him a household name.
This is why fans took notice when Rob started to inserted many Narcos-style storylines about a cartel hitman in Neptune (season 4 VMars). The plot was weak and seemed out of place from the whole VMars vibe. Rob wanted to put every ingredient that made Cartel drama, Noir, Comedy, and Romance into this one miniseries, he forgot about the characters and what made it good in the first place. He wanted to be taken as a “serious” writer so much, he forgot that he was using an existing show with a different vibe and insisted that the show was matured. He wanted the show to be Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Sons of Anarchy, Sicario... but he ended up using all the tropes into this blender and the result is a mess. It’s like making ice cream but then he decided to add some onions just to spice things up.
Rob is well known to ‘borrow’ many plots and storylines from his favorite movies into his shows. He claims that it’s more of a homage. But when every episode of his shows is some kind of homage of something, it bears a question of whether he could write an original story or not.
Taylor Sheridan’s Sicario was less about the hitmen plot but more about the characters. Many shows like Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and many more are about the characters and how much they are written brilliantly. Fans love the shows not just because of the plots (although they are good), but because of the characters. Fans care about them and want to see more of them. The plots are there to accompany them, not the other way around.
Rob thinks to get taken seriously is to have all those plots into one giant bowl. He forgot about the characters; therefore he forgot what made the show brilliant. He forgot (or ignore) why the show was great; it was all about the characters. And the fact that he is also jealous (based on his tweets back then) about his fellow creators, kinda cemented the idea that he is stuck in an old school writing that he is accustomed to and not liking the idea that other writers from his generation are more successful and more acclaimed than him.
What he said about Taylor Sheridan made people frown. He said, “Hey remember this guy who played this loser Danny Boyd?” (Paraphrasing, of course) and then he posted an unflattering picture of the character. “I made him!” I think many fans pointed out on Twitter that he was only joking, but could feel the jealousy seeping through the tweet.
When Jessica Chastain was nominated for an Oscar, he also tweeted, “I am assuming Jessica Chastain will thank me profusely in her acceptance speech tonight. Veronica Mars made her career!” Fans of Chastain (who didn’t know who he was and thought that he was the singer of Matchbox 20) immediately roasted him on Twitter, calling him out, and got angry because this man claiming that her success was because of him. He immediately said that he was only joking and that he was proud of her, that an Oscar nominee used to be on his show.
But this has become a pattern, that when someone he knew suddenly become successful, he would joke that they should thank him. Fans were surprised that he never said anything about Tessa Thompson’s success and soaring career when he was on Twitter, but glad that he didn’t. The only actors that always praising Tessa Thompson are Percy Daggs III, Erica Gimpel, Francis Capra, Jason Dohring, and Kyle Gallner. Fans never heard Rob Thomas said anything about her, but maybe that was a good thing. Tessa Thompson mentioned that she had a bad experience on the set of VMars because of the way they treated her character and the fact that they straightened her curly hair so it wouldn't look “ghetto”, and the fact that Rob wrote her character as a punching bag.
Back to Taylor Sheridan, the man is now known as a successful writer-director who directed “Wind River”, a movie about the rape and murder of a Native American girl on tribal lands, and is meant to provoke conversation about the exploitation experienced by indigenous women. When the movie was bought by The Weinstein Company, Taylor Sheridan threatened to destroy the movie after Harvey Weinstein's scandals. “I said, if my movie’s going to die, I’ll be the one to kill it,” Sheridan said in an interview. “I will take my name off it, and publicly denounce it. I would have said, don’t go see this movie, don’t rent it, don’t watch it. If he was going to remain publicly attached if he was going to benefit from a film highlighting the atrocity he perpetrated? No.” He also demanded that the proceeds from the movie would be given to charity and women’s organizations.
He was ready to nuke his own movie before letting it live on with Weinstein branding. Some of us always pondered... Whether Rob would even do the same thing (denounce his movie, giving the film money to charity, etc)? Judging by his own scandalous iZombie tv show when Robert Knepper guest-starred in the show it seems he wouldn't nor care. He never publicly comment about Robert Knepper and his rape allegations. The only people who commented were the actors like Rahul Kohli, Malcolm Goodwin, Robert Buckley, and Rose McIver. Maybe the people (Rob and Diane) who write rape in every show as plot devices but not as raising awareness are not really feminists as they claimed to be.
Taylor Sheridan might not be the next great screenwriter; occasionally his works are problematic. He is this manly Marlboro man writer who writes about men even when he writes about feminist stuff. His female characters sometimes are white and pretty with the tendency of damsel in distress or white saviors. But at least he is trying to hone his skill to be a better writer. We will see more about his future in interest. In conclusion, Taylor Sheridan, the glorified extra from Veronica Mars probably deserves those recognitions. Rob Thomas can steam.
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New X-Men Xtrospective Part 2: Germ Free Generation (Annual, #117-120)
Hello all you happy mutants! And welcome back to my look one of my faviorite runs of one of my faviorite super teams by one of my faviorite comic book writers!
For those of you just joining us.. it’s been a while. I did the first instalment of this retrospective back in early January as a present to my friend for christmas, as he had never read E is for Extinctoin and what with this run being vital to the current, utterly brilliant Krakoa era of X-Men. But with both Black History Month and Valentine’s day, February had no real room for this one and march ended up being just as crammed with me doing essentially the entire della arc of ducktales in one month. I didn’t mean for this retrospective to get pushed so far back, but since I gave up doing weekly coverage of Final Space I had some room on the schedule so this retrospective is back with a vengance with two entries this month and hopefully at least one a month afterword to keep it at a decent clip.
Last time I covered the background of this run and didn’t really find much for the issues after, so I won’t have to spend as much time on background.
So since i’ts been a few months, a refresher is probably in order
PREVIOUSLY, ON X-MEN:
Our merry mutants enterted a marvelous new era. As Charles redidciated to the dream with new equipment and a new uniforms our hero encounter a new villian: The Mysterious Cassandra Nova, a powerful telepath who used an uwitting patsy from the trask family and a defucnt sentinel factory to slaughter the mutant nation of Genosha, killing 16 million mutants in the most horrific act of genocide against mutants ever known. And the fact there has been more than one genocide against mutant kind MIGHT, just MIGHT be the reason they blackmailed for peace with life saving drugs instead of helping willingly and freely in the current comics. Just maybe.
Cassandra was captured by the X-Men soon after but escaped and nearly got a hold of Cerebra only to be stopped thanks to a combination of former enemy, genoshan resident at the time of the genocide, and that bitch Emma Frost who snapped her neck and Charles himself who uncharacteristically shot Cassandra in the head. That night Charles took a bold step over that would change the X-Men forever and told the world on live tv:
While all of this was going on we got caught up on the team’s personal struggles, currently consisting of Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast and Wolverine with Emma joining as of the issue we’re about to cover. Beast is grappling with a secondary mutation that makes him look like Aslan, the jesus of narnia and all lions. Meanwhile Scott and Jean are grappling with their non existant sex life as Cyclops possesion by Apocalypse shortly before this story has severely rattled him and caused him to close himself off emotionally.
So that’s where we pick up. Our heroes are now no longer hiden saftely in the shadows from a world that hates and fear them but are out front and center with the world watching. And we’ll see both how that helps their cause and how it puts them directly in the cross hairs under the cut.
Content Warning: This review discusses Transphobia and a scene involving a school shooting. If either of these are a trigger for you or something you do not want to read about please skip this part of the retrospective for your own well being. Thank you and have a lovely day.
The Man From Room X:
We have three stories today: an annual that introduces our final team member and the main villians of our next arc, a one off that moves the main plot for the first 12 issues along, and a three part arc about said villains.
Before we get into the Annual, I have to talk about it’s weird gimmick: The issue is entirely sideways. I don’t mean it’s bad though some parts are problematic I mean when bought it’d be on it’s side and in my trade I have to flip the whole thing over on it’s side to read it. It’s just a .. weird choice. Not the weirdest thing about this issue somehow but not unexpected from Grant as they like to play with the formula.
We open in said Room X, a location in China where a mutant named Xorn is kept and showed off to a mysterious group of dickweeds in suits representing “Mr. Sublime”. His jailer, General Aao Jun,, shows him off as most bad guys would : By undoing his helmet and thus disntegrating two innocent children just by looking at them. Sublime says they have a deal.
Meanwhile also in China the X-Men are there for a funeral and Emma and Scott trade insulting questions back in forth: She mocks him about his lack of sex with Jean lately and he brings up her criminal past. As for why Emma’s still with the x-men.. it’s out of pragmatisim. WIth Genosha gone, the x-men are the saftest faction to throw in with.
As for why the X-Men are in China, Charles has rapidly expanded his operations now he’s public by setting up X-Corps, a multinational humantarian aid organization dedicated to helping mutants in need wherever they sprout up. He’s set up offices in Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Mumbai and Melborne.
He’s also half assed it, at least for the Hong Kong office and only gave them two employees: Domino, who those of you not as familiar with the comics may remember from deadpool and Risque.. who I honestly had never heard of before New X-Men and frequently forget existed. I just looked her up for the first time and she’s a minor mutant who was an associate of X-Force and Warpath’s love intrest. She could compress matter causing it to implode. My assumption here is that Morrison simply picked a minor mutant at random for the job.
But yeah naturally with only two mutants charged with, according to domino “All of asia” went horribly and the x-men are there for Risque’s funeral and to find out what happened. Unsuprisingly it’s tied into our cold open: Risque had found evidence of a mutant trafficking operation and died fighting them off and Dom is naturally f eeling in over her head since said operation involves the chinese goverment, who according to her exccute most mutants at birth and John Sublime and his cult.
We soon see a press confrence from this asshole and find out what his deal is: Sublime is the head of the U-Men, a group that belivies they are a “third species” of mutants trapped in human bodies that deserve to have the surgery to make them into mutants, and thus wear weird suits until the world is pure and allows them to have surgery for it.
Yeahhhh this.. this is really fucking uncomfortable and is going to be present throughout today’s piece so let’s just go ahead and rip that band-aid off:
The U-Men come off as HIGHLY transphobic. They use terms similar to trans people call themselves trans species and are trapped inside a body they don’t belong in. It’s VERY uncomfortable to read as a result and something that hadn’t really sunk into till thsi reading but once it had.. oh god does this not age well.
The one thing that keeps this from runing the run and Grant Morrison as a whole for me.. is that I do not think for one second it was intentional. Grant themself is genderqueer, nonbinary and a cross dresser. None of this means they CAN’T be prejudice, being Queer does not magically make you immune to being prejudiced. But before this Grant had the genderqueer sentient street Danny the Street over in doom patrol and a trans main character in his book the invisibles, Lord Fanny. And given New X-Men’s biggest flaw as a whole is clumsy early 2000′s unforutnate implications such as a good chunk of the things about Cyclops affair with Emma, we’ll get to that at the right time, Angel in the next arc and Dust, who was introduced as from afganastan wearing an outfit not seen in the country and speaking a language not spoken in the country. Grant didn’t make these mistakes TWICE, it’s why I still have respect for them, and this won’t be the first or last comic i’ve forgiven for being stupid for it’s time. But I will still call Grant out when I see it. Just because I respect an author just because they changed my life does not mean I won’t call them out when they fuck up. And if they prove to be truly vile, have harmed someone or what have you I will cut them the fuck out of my life. I’ve done it with JK Rowling, Warren Ellis, Brad Jones and Joss Whedon. I would do it with Grant if I truly belivied they were transphobic and instead didn’t just write something very stupid without thinking the metaphor through 20 years ago.
So anyway back to the comic book bollocks as Wolvie and Dominio prepare for an infiltration and flirt a bunch. We also find out Jun is a mutant himself with a power only Grant could dream up: his skin, hair and what have you that falls off him turns into a naked golem for a bit before expiring. And if you hadn’t read this issue before reading this review, yes that actually happened. While the first arc had a BIT of Grant’s trademark batshit insanity, the series REALLY starts to pick it up from here: This issue has a mutant with functioning star for a head, a poorly thought out bucnh of sci fi new age organ theives, and a general whose power is “makes naked clones out of his dandruff”. Oh and his fondest wish?
I just... I don’t know how to respond to that. I don’t know how you respond to an old man’s weird murder fetish that he tells a somehow even creepier cult leader while said cult leader is paying him to buy a star man, and their both surronded by the creepy old guy’s skin golems that weirdly look like mudokons. Look i’ve read Grant’s entire utterly bonkers run on doom patrol. I’ve seen a man who looks like a question mark use a bicycle that makes everyone high like their on LSD for president. And THIS is what breaks me.
So while.. THIS is going on, Dom and Wolverine plan to do it all night long on the professor’s credit card, no really he gives all his professors carte blanch to use school fun, and inflitrate, Dom through the elvator this horrorshow just took place in and Wolvie james bond style. Also I gotta say I REALLY love how Morrison writes Domino. She’s wittiy, entertaining and her power is as awesome as always, super luck if you didn’t know. It’s a real shame he didn’t add her to the team: She wasn’t on any other x-teams, with X-Force having been rebranded into X-Statix by this point. She would’ve been a fun addition to the cast.
Naturally wolverine is found out.. but that was the entire plan, for him to serve as a distraction then cut his way to domino while she steals something from the vault. As for the rest of the X-Men, Cyclops, Beast and Emma are all downstairs in the parking garage and find a secret entrance. Jean is not on this trip and that’s a major plot point for this run. This is where Risque died.. and it only get’s worse when Hank goes inside, finding a bug like child, basically htink a giant caterpillar but with tons of human arms inttead of legs with her wings cut off.
Thankfully as Logan and Dom escape above, the U-Men are dumb enough to storm down bellow.. and while they incapacitate beast with some launched tiny knives, designed to incapcicate but leave them in tact for harvest, Emma beats the shit out of them and get the info out as only she can....
Granted she could’ve just turned back to normal and used her telepathy.. but what fun would that be? Plus they have blockers and you know CUT UP A FUCKING CHILD. SO yeah fuck them, let emma have her fun.
Thanks to her they find out the U-Men are a front for illegal organ harvest, and while they can’t prove sublimes attached Emma suggests killing him. Good idea but Scott suggests the lighter approach and we find out what Dom stole, a key, something Emma can psychcially scan. She warns it might take her a bit to get something.. only to be flooded instantly and we find out who the man in the box was. Shen Xorn... i’ll let emma tell you more herself.
It’s stuff like this why, despite some serious flaws like the U-Men debacle and some stuff to come, some I mentioned above other that’s just with the plot that i love this run. Morrison just gets how to really tell an x-men story and the real tragedy of being a mutant. That just for being diffrent, you get shut out, or in this case thrown into a box when you could’ve and should’ve been something more. As emma turns herself to diamond to deal with the psychic backlash, Beast has some solemn words to share.
That night Scott rests in his bedroom while presumibly hearing some truly horrific and sexy things next door while talking to jean before clocking out.. only for Emma to head in in a sexy dress with champagne. What happened? Well we won’t know for sure for most of the run.
The next day the U-Men prepare to load and we get some scrap of what the idea was supposed to be: John talks to Ao Jun about his procedures. We see wings crudely sewen to his back and his throat implaants hurting “But one day I will fly”. THe IDEA is their supposed to be lunatics, people who envy mutantkind but don’t actually respect their culture or their sense of personhood. It’s not the worst idea and had Grant not used trans termnology for htis, it would’ve been a great one. I think he INTENDED for them to be coopting the idea of being trans and what not to maks their true intentions.. which is problematic due to debates like the ones on bathrooms where a lot of transphobic asshats make the bad faith argument a bunch of people are going to pretend to be trans to assault people.
We’re.. we;’re not even to the main storyarc yet.
But things soon go wrong as Xorn’s starhead starts to collapse into a black hole, with no solution as the x-men took the key to his helmet.. and assault the compound. Turns out the star collapse thing is Jun’s revenge on humanity for lockig him down here and he gets his neck snapped.
Scott has a solution though.. and it’s stuff like this why I fucking love Scott Summers and get annoyed when people call him “boring”: He realizes Xorn is comitting sucicide.. so he’s going to talk him out of it. Not just for everyone else but he deserves to live. And while Emma points out only logan among htem knows chinese and she can’t get through to Xorns’ head due to the way his brain works, Scott has a simple workaround: Use the nearest chineses speaker to teach Scott chinese. So.. with that he talks to Xorn.
And that my friend is Scott Summers. A man who faced with powerful man whose given up, whose lost all hope... convinces him he can still go on. That living’s better than dying.. and that it does get better. The issue closes with Xorn basking in the sunlight for the first time in decades while Domino sweats having an extremley powerful unknown mutant out in the world. Scott’s already thought of that.. and signed him up with the x-men. Granted it won’t be until our next article that he actually fully joins the team, but w’ell get to that next time.
This issue is great... while the U-Men stuff is pretty bad and isn’t going to get better, the tale of xorn is excitiong, Aao Jun is an intresting antagonist and the sideways gimmick suprisingly works. So now we’ve finshed our apitizer let’s get on to the main course.
Danger Rooms:
We open in well.. the Danger Room with Beast training a new student.
This is Beak. Beak is my faviorite character Morrison came up with and one of my faviorite X-Characters. Beak is a bird like boy who can fly, it’s just a struggle and due to looking diffrent and not having the most impressive power has very low self esteem. It’s also part of something Morrison took a concerted effort to do: introduce more mutants with genuinely odd apperances and drawbacks. Like we saw with Ugly John last time and Aao Jun in the previous issue, Morriosn really likes adding weird mutants but he also uses it to give a genuine downside to being one. While this isn’t NEW to x-men, Morriosn upped the scale and number of characters like this with weird powers and apperances. We see a bunch of human passing ones too but the backgrounds just jammed with all sorts of unique designs and students. It’s also the point where the school became far more crowded like the movies, a good call on my part both to help those coming in from the movies, and to help sell the mutant baby boom going on. After all it wouldn’t make sense if the school was just about 5-7 students and a bunch of grown adults doing superhero stuff like usual would it.
But we get to see that Hank is a good teacher, as he reminds the boy that he’s getting better and won’t be an x-man overnight, and worries about him to the professor, wanting the boy not to slip through the cracks, figuratively, and not to feel like an outcast.. especaily here. But Hank dosen’t feel blue for long, metaphorically he was blue long before he became the lion minus the witch and the wardrobe, as he has a date to night.. and so does Charles.
Or rather he did.. his girlfriend trish, a long time love intrest of his and a reporter.. breaks up with him. Over voice mail. While in washington. And the reasons she gives are not great
Yes Hank’s transformation is radical.. but not only was it not his choice... she’s being a coward, sending the message it’s okay to dump someone because hteir a mutant or because they happen tobe diffrent and that efffects your career. Again it’s moments like this that make the run soar over the more awkward bits.
Meanwhile Logan’s off doing logan stuff, i.e. gazing at a deer. Wow. Jean followed him. Both notice a space ship: Despite recently outing himself as a mutant, leading to an increased number of students and a bunch of rioting morons at the gates, Charles has decided NOW’S a good time to take a vacation to the Shiar empire. As for why Jean’s really out here, her marriage to Scott isn’t doing so good and while Logan encourages her to stay it’s just not that simple: Her telekenisis is coming back, stronger than ever. She feels the most alive she’s been while he’s shutting her out and feeling his deadest. She tries to turn to logan for comfort but he shuts her down. Just wait two decades jean... he’ll open up to a threesome. In all seriousness though having Jean try and come onto Logan .. will backfire slightly on later storylines. But we’ll get to that eventually.
In the basement Hank is studying Cassandra or rather a virtual version of her since her body is naturally in storage. And he’s found out something disturbing: She’s Charles Genetic Twin.. oh and it gets way worse. The Professor’s weird behavior? Barely staffing the hong kong office, leaving suddenly with rioters t the gates, outing himself? About that...
Cassandra tourtures Hank with the possiblity he’s devovling and then tries to mind controlli him into cleaning himself with his diploma when Beak enters. The good news is this allows hank to shake off her control and tackle her, showing off why hank mccoy is fucking awesome in the process.
That is the Hank McCoy I know, love.. and miss dearly. The one we’ll probably never get back sadly after what others did and what Percy’s had to do to reconclie with all they did.
Unfortunately beak being around means cassandra can force him to beat beast into a coma with his bat. She plans to tear Charles dream down around him and make him watch.. and cryptically says he tried to kill her. She then cheerfully leaves Jean in charge.. and talks about just how much damage one could do with an entire interstellar empire in the wrong hands....
This issue is also excellent and sets up the next two arcs nicely while giving us a nice peak in hank’s head. Great stuff. The artist also hid the word sex in a lot of the images see if you can find them.
Germ Free Generation Issue 1:
So now we get into our main story for today. This story and the one before it were drawn by Ethan Van Sciver whose a talented artist.. but also highly contrversial for being a conservative. I myself.. don’t know what he’s said or did, though calling himself “Canceld Superstar’ on twitter really isn’t a good sign. So I really can’t comment on it but I also know someone would mention it if I didn’t bring it up and if you know what he did please enlighten me.
So we open with a school shooter who also scooped out a guys eyes and is part of the U-Men. He get shot by the swat team while making his speech> it’s an effective opening but one that’s become more uncomfortable to read with each passing day due to school shootings going up and up in number. And mass shootings in general and I... I need a second. I need something to relax me
Thank you Stoopy. Your doing Odd’s Work.
So the news reports on this and we soon see how Jean watches the news.. by using Cerebra to read the minds of every person on the planet. Neat. Everyone’s talking about them. We also get a hint for later as we hear on the suicide of one martha johanson who wrote the note in her own blood. She’ll be important later.... and I mean that both in the context of this retrospective and for the fact she’ll go on to be part of x-men in perpetuity.
This is also where another great concept of Morrison’s pops up: Mutant culture. After all mutants are a minority, they should have their own culture. It’s something Hickman’s era has taken and ran with, but it’s a damn good idea and one that it shoudln’t of taken almost 20 years for someone else to use given Decimation was undone way back around 2012 in Avengers Vs X-Men, aka that event half hte articles on the mcu around the fox sale used as either their image for the article or asked about happneing. And yes that is a pet peeve of mine: while I do think like Civil War AVX could use a movie version to make it better, I don’t think it’s an event that could be done right away and would have to be almost entirely redone anyway given the context for AvX is entirely couched in decimation i.e. something NO ONE wants in any x-adaptation.
So it turns out while watching the news in a next level way Jean is also talking to Logan. “Stay out of my personal fantasies”. Yeah I .. I don’t think your ready for a hairy canadian dry humping a transformer.. specifically killbison. And yes.. that is an actual transformer and why yes, I have been waiting to bring him up.
And he is , and I am not making any of this up, part of a group of decpticons known as the breastforce. Your life is better for knowing that and you are welcome.
Anyway as you’d imagine a genocidal old woman in her brothers’ body leaving the X-Men to fend for themselves after having a teenager bludgeon one into a coma after publicly outing them with a rabid bunch of bigoted morons at the gates has not gone great. Henry is still out and despite the short staffing Jean needs logan to stay where he is as he’s close to an emerging mutant and within range to go get her.
Emma of course has never been so fucking irate in her whole life and is plotting various forms of psychic tourture with the help of her proteges the Stepford Cucokoo, 5 teenage mutants who functoin best as a unit and are easily some of MOrrison’s most prominent additions to the x-cast. Unlike a lot of the x-kids, they’ve been featured prominently in every era of x-men after this including the current one.
Jean decides for a less “Make them hate us even more” approach, but no less pissed off, opening the gates and going out directly to chew out the assembled bigoted morons, pointing out the ones carrying “Mutants Go Home!” signs are especailly dumb as this IS her home. And while she dosen’t point this part out, it’ the same for all of them: most of the mutants are either adults who choose to live here, teenagers who along with their parents choose to live here, or in the majority teens who have no where else to go due to either being abandoned by their families or it being way to dangerous for said families for them to stay due to bigoted assholes like the ones holding mutants go home signs.
A member of the press asks if she’s willing to talk to the media and she refutes most of his bullshit allegations: He asks if their building an army, she and Scott respond they are not and are simply educating mutants and protecting them. When he counters with the fact their living weapons and wearing uniforms... she counters with the fact she’s wearing them to protect herself, rightfully, from people like her, and the x-men are an aid orginzation going where needed to protect the world and while asshole points out no one apointed them.. jean shuts him down by pointing out there are no mutants in goverment and a genocide just happened, so someone has to do the job. Another random asshole tries to pipe up with “Genosha declared war on us” and Emma senses this is just going to go round and round and round and simply presses the assembled mob’s “bliss buttons” in their brains to knock them out. Non violent but honestly warranted: A dangerous part of bigoted assholes is they’l bring up racist bullshit to try and couch it like an actual conversation. None of these complaints really hold water if you looked at the x-men’s history for more than 5 minutes. Yes Charles is training them to fight and yes hte ingial class was an army but every class since has only been trained for self defense: they still got into adventures and what not, but it was usually by their own choice or because they were thrust into them by circumstance. Xaviers is exactly what jean said and endudgling these morons, while good on paper, only makes them seem legit.
Jean retreats to the infirmary where she’s on the verge of breaking down from the sheer weight of everything. Cyclops proves that despite not being the best husband right now... he still loves his wife, offering to go look into Sublime with Emma and hoping Hank wakes up. Turns out his mind for now is a big blank room.
So she can’t get any info off his skull, and neither of the two think what happened with Beak adds up. Something is up here. Their also coming down with colds which will be important later. And just as important.. Magneto is becoming a symbol among people and merch sales with his image are on the rise. We then get this.
So Jean is trying to be a supportive, honest wife, and while the questions incredibly insulting.. his answer is equally so. Spoilers, as mentioned we do get an answer long after this.. and they did not. So Jean is wrong to be suspcious, at this point, but is at least trying to be polite about it and gave him the benifit of the doubt.. and Scott basically said he slept with her without actually saying it despite not having to. You could’ve said “no we did not have sex, we simply talked all night”. It’s not ENTIRELY better given the horrible state of their relationship right now, but it’s still better than HEAVILY implying he rocked her body to the break of dawn for no damn reason.
So we meet our next major addition to the cast Angel Salvador, an abused teen who is a mutant.. and whose abusive and molesting step dad beats her and throws her out over this. The scene’s a bit overdone, coming off like an after school special.. but it’s what happens AFTER that’s truly heartwrenching.
A poor scared teenager clutching herself, finding herself homeless alone and desperatly wishing she wasn’t what she was. It’s just a striking image and shows how well Grant uses the mutant metaphor. I could easily see myself in that position had my parents not been good peopl and had I come out far sooner as bi. The idea of desperatly hoping your not what you are simply becaus eof what hell it brings, despite all the joy it can bring too. . it’s heartbreaking to hear.
Naturally though things don’t get much better as the next morning the U-Men have found her, calling her a freak and successfully kidnapping her.. if only because while she uses acid spit to escape, she flies into a power line.
We then get Sublimes meeting with Emma and Scott and a BETTER use of teh u-men as while Grant made the horrible mistake of calling them “transpecies”, seriously what the fuck were you thinking, the way sublime frames it here is a MUCH better, much less accidently bigoted concept.
The idea isn’t bad: A group of humans jealous of the mutants powers, blatantly ignoring the horrible downsides and mountain of persecution that comes with being one. Grant just made the mistake of couching in in Trans metaphors, clearly trying to have the U-Men steal from Trans People too as a way to make themselves seem legit. And I say if you want superpowers.. fine.. wanting to be a superhero or a mutant is fine, the issue with the U-Men is their copoting a culture, trying to be part of mutantkind without having any of the drawbacks and by actively butchering them. It’s why the concept HAS shown up elsewhere; it’s not TERRIBLE, Grant just made a bad creative choice that’s only gotten worse as Transphobia has ramped up further and further.
Sublime denies it when our heroes bring up Hong Kong.. but naturally he’s simply just keeping them talking long enough to bring out his trump cards, an army of u-men and a brain in a jar he uses to incapacitate them.. and announces his plan to use the school as an organ farm for his third species.
Meanwhile Logan finds the U-Men in their truck preparing to rip angel apart.. and given he snikit’s soon after.. i’ts very clear whose REALLY about to get ripped apart.
Germ Free Generation Part 2:
Part two begins wth Sublime monologoging about how Mutantkind are just cattle to them and reveals the brain is martha’s, her sucicide having been faked and her brain currently being controlled to use as a weapon.
So while Johnny monlogues we find out what happened with Wolverine last issue he didn’t cut up the guys yet as they fired their little flichete guns at him... it was about as useful and effective as you’d expect and the massacre you were expecting occurs. Though in a nice bit of reality the fact wolverine’s soaked in blood and just killed a bunch of blood shockingly does not make the already frighttend teen feel he’s safe and she spits acid on him. Logan pours some stuff on the acid, figuring rightly a black ops murder farmacy would have something to counteract it and tells her she’s safe now .. and tells the guy behind him not to try it. He’s stupid and does anyway and likely gets a claw to the head off panel.
They go to a diner to eat and find a local asshole who threatens them with a shot gun to leave once angel uses her power to digest and goes on a rant about how he snapped his own son’s neck to prevent him being born a freak. Just.. fucking hell this arc is not good for my depression. We get some more angst from Angel and whiel her dialouge is not the best, i’ts a too bit mark millar flavored edgelordy for my taste and if I wanted that i’d go read Ultimates or Ultimate X-Me, her pain is real and Logan helps her through it.
Back at the Mansion the U-Men are on their way to strike, whlie Jean unaware continues to buckle under the weight of all the shit she’s had to deal with, feeling SOMETHING is making them weak with the colds and something worse is going on and thus tries going to Beak’s mind instead and gently helps talk him through it, showing her grace and empathy.. and in return finding out Charles was the one responsible. The alarms flair up and Jean tries calling the police now that’s an option.. but it goes exactly how you’d expect.
Also a second artist took over for this issue and the next Igor Kordey. He’s fine, but not nearly as good as Quitely or Van Sciver and it shows. Meanwhile Beast awakens and heads for the body drawer with Cassandra’s body, and professor’s mind in it.
However Jean’s finally had enough and got her second wind. She’s outgunned, outmanned and left to her own devices. And she’s fucking fed up with it. She steels herself and assembles the students. This is obviously a last resort.. but some of them can defend themselves and their going to need to. But today they won’t be learning.. they’ll be teaching and as the U-Men call them defensless Jeans simply asks “Are you sure about that?”
Germ Free Generation Part 3:
So we come to the finale of this arc. Angel is once again an ungreatful brat to logan and he opts to just leave her there if sh’es going to be like that pointing out being a mutant sucks, it’s going to keep sucking.. and she needs to deal with it instead of lashing out at him and herself over it.
We get back to the U-Men, one of whom is utterly flabergasted they want to him to cut of Cyclops head... only for Emma to awaken.. and take back her regular form meaning she has her telepathy back. The only reason they were able to get her ealier is she was in diamond mode which is stronger but lacks that, a nice way to check and ballance her new powers. She quickly takes them out and disables Martha.
Back at the school we get one of Jean’s definting moments for me and a true chance to show how badass she can be. Before this while Morrison wrote her well, and his version’s still my favoirite, she didn’t really get to do much and was motly in the background. This arc has been her time in the limelight, having trouble grappling with all the stress of running this place by herself.. and emerging from it stronger, more capable and ready to kick some racist weirdo ass. She tries a few diffrent tactics first, having a mutant with a voice power project it to make them think their san invisible army and having the cuckoos fuck with their heads but when both fail, Jean REALLY gets to show off. Thier blade ammo gets turned into a cool looking 3 dimensioinal shape with her telekneisis, and in a cool moment and a wise use of something gross makes the only one of them with useable powers throw up, before issuing a badass boast, wreathed in flames all while she crumples their guns into uselessness. and tears open their suits.
Bad ass.. and logan and Angel arrive just in time for the cecendo as hte u-men flee in terror
The Phoenix has been Reborn. Jean Grey has risen from the ashes and returned to full power.
Meanwhile Sublime is pankcing.. and it gets worse when Emma shows up, fully enraged after all of this and has some words for him.
Iconic. Emma prepares to drop him out of a building but Scott rightly tries to get her to back off, pointing out the pr nightmare it’d create and the fact that they have enough evidence ot shut him down. Martha however has other ideas and gets him to let go of his own accord, falling to his death.. but given he’d aranged a stunt for the press apparently this gives our heroes deniability and Martha her revenge.
So we end this three parter as Jean revels in her new power, and Beast returns with an announcment:
Final Thoughts for Germ Free Generation:
This arc is pretty good if forgetable. The struggle of Jean to run the school herself and her rising from the ashes of her own pain at the end with the power of the phoenix at the end is fantastic, finally both giving her a chance to shine.. and a worrying sign for her friends given what her phoenix force copy whose memories she has a copy of, long story, did is awesome. The other parts are okay and ehhhhhhhhh though. Scott and Emma’s investigation into the u-men while having a really good climax, is pretty standard x-men stuff, and Wolverin’es trek with angel is just okay with Angel being highly intolerable during this arc, with Morrison trying a bit TOO hard to make her a “realistic” teen instead coming off as horribly unplesant. She’s supposed to just be lashing out but comes off obnxious as a result. That said this arc does furhter a lot of Morrisons best idea and introduce more, and is a great setup for our next arc, which we’ll get to in two weeks. Soooo
Next Time On X-Men: We find out just what the hell Cassandra Nova is, what her plans are, and what happened with her and charles as our heroes come down with a cold as the might of the shiar empire bears down on them. It’s IMperial in two weeks.
Next Time ON This BLog: Speaking of long Delayed Projects, I finally return to The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck as a young Scrooge starts his prospecting career, learning the ins and outs from a rich new mentor, and finding the price tag striking it rich comes with. Raid a copper hill with me tommorow.
If you liked this review, subscirbe for more, join my patreon, and if there’s a comic you’d like me to cover suggest it in the comments or outright comission a review from me via ask. See you at the next rainbow
#new x-men#grant morrison#cassandra nova#shen xorn#beast#hank mccoy#jean grey#cyclops#scott summers#wolverine#logan howlett#angel salvadore#beak#barnell bohsk#the stepford cuckoos#the u-men#john sublime#marthan johanson#ethan van sciver
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I wasn’t tagged in this, but I think it’s a neat concept, so here it is for anyone who’s interested.
Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favorite opening line. Then tag 10 authors!
All links to the stories can be found Here or in my bio: DRHPaints on AO3
1.) Sitting in the cramped waiting room bedecked with blue and white chevron wallpaper, Barry’s foot bounced and his fingers twiddled on his thick thigh as he held the clipboard atop his lap. Dual Relationship-Barry Berkman/OFC
2.) Padding down the hall in boxers and an ancient Woodland Rock Festival shirt, Bill sleepily scratched a large hand over his pasty belly pudge, yawning. Cup Of T-Bill RPF/Transmasc OC
3.) "BRING ME THE PRISONER!” The Hand That Feeds-Unnamed King-Queen/Transmasc OC
4.) Spreadsheets. Undercover Office Naughty-Mr. Anderson/OFC
5.) Newspaper crinkling beneath his knees, Pete peered around the filthy walls, habitually ticking his tiny bowtie before removing the strip of fabric to tuck in the pocket of his wool suit. Road To Glory-Pete Reynolds/OMCs
6.) Barry didn’t want to think about earlier that night. Touch Me, Not Feel Me-Barry Berkman/OFC
7.) Sipping his water and bobbing awkwardly to the classic rock music overhead, Bill couldn’t help but rifle through a half dozen ‘what do you get when you put a roomful of comedy writers together for a birthday party’ jokes before he realized everyone else present likely did the same. Give It To Me Right-Bill Hader RPF/OFC
8.) Licking her lips and limbs swimming in her slumber, Lily’s eyelids fluttered open and she screamed. Work Is Never Over-The Alan/OFC
9.) Silverburst Les Paul Custom slung across one shoulder, Conan leaned into the microphone. Disciples Of Boston- Conan O'Brien/OFC
10.) Pressurized doors closing behind, Leila wove through the knot of bodies with downcast eyes and a polite smile until she could claim a space, grabbing the bar overhead in preparation for the journey to Boston. Riding The T-Eric Pearson (Conan O'Brien character)/OFC
11.) Heel of his boot rattlesnaking across the floor tile, Robbie sat on the bench, big hands splaying and clenching over the knees of his tight black jeans as he glanced at the doors to the courtroom for he-didn’t-know-which-time. Sprung-Robbie Wheadlan/OFC
12.) Hauling in far too many groceries at once, Nadine scoffed when her phone rang, shifting the loops bearing a bag of fruit to her other hand and answering the unfamiliar number without looking. Renew-Bill Hader RPF/OFC
13.) Knocking, Bill hurriedly adjusted the hem of his navy hoodie and smoothed a large hand over his chestnut hair, fingers rattling atop his thick thigh as he heard shuffling from inside. Fornication Plea!-Bill Hader/Conan O'Brien RPF/OFC
14.) Beer bottle clattering to the ground before his tan boot hit the asphalt, Clark winced, shielding himself from the harsh afternoon Chicago sunlight with a wide palm as he stumbled into Binny’s for the fourth time that week. Lip Service-Clark Honus/OFC
15.) Rifling through the files, Avery scoffed, wondering which incompetent asshat around the 99th precinct put the cases in an order she couldn’t begin to discern, when the creak of the evidence room door caused her to turn. Meticulous Misdemeanors-Seth Dozerman/OFC, Officer Slater/OFC
16.) Knock three times on the door. Location Is Everything-Parker Gail/Partners of Multiple Genders
17.) Sitting in the circle, Milo shifted uncomfortably in his chair, suppressing a yawn. Be Your Fire When You're Cold-Milo Dean/OMC
18.) Thanking Danny as he handed him a fresh pint, Tom sighed, looking at the rest of the ‘Getting Over It Gang’ surrounding their table at Sawdust Murphy’s. Reunion-Tom McDougall/OFC
19.) Just stare straight ahead. Fall From Grace-Barry Berkman/OFC
20.) Keys jingling in the lock, Vivvy skipped to the door, silk robe failing to conceal her fuschia lingerie before she slammed full body into Declan, peppering pink puckers over his cheeks as she bounced up and down with glee. Sugarpie, Honeybunch-Little Vivvy/Transmasc OC
I didn't notice any particular trends, but I find 'Spreadsheets' amusing. Sentences in italics indicate internal monologue. My favorite is #20. I couldn't help myself. I love my gorgeous wife Vivvy with my whole heart and seeing her happy brings me endless joy.
The brilliant and beautiful @martymcdie88mph chose #11. And I love her even more now than I thought possible, as I wrote this Robbie fic for her as a surprise.
Apologies, I don't know many other fic writers to tag. But please feel free to participate!
#bill hader#thirsty for haderade#fan fiction#ao3 fanfic#minors dni#fan fic first lines#barry berkman#barry block#hbo barry#barry hbo#saturday night live#documentary now!#doc now#pete reynolds#the alan#conan o'brien#conan obrien#ginger smokeshow#robbie wheadlan#clark honus#gentle and soft: the story of the blue jean committee#the eye doesn't lie#seth dozerman#dozerman#officer slater#little vivvy#tom mcdougall#milo dean#parker gail#sandy passage
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Fanon!Stiles so often has me wondering why he's oh so surprised when his friends/pack ~ditch~ him. This is a guy who casually thinks how utterly stupid his ~friends~ but especially Scott are, that it almost seems like a chore just to be around them, he insults them freely. But I'm supposed to feel bad when they kick him out? It's.... so funny. Fanon!Stiles talks about how unfit Scott is as leader but is heartbroken when he can't be in his pack
This is where you get me in trouble.
One of the ways that people deflect criticism of the way Stiles Stilinski is written – both in the show and in fan fiction – is by claiming that any attempt by a reader or a critic of holding Stiles to a level of behavior that one would expect of a character who is a secondary protagonist is ableism. Consequently, that word appears a lot in my inbox.
Stiles is neurodivergent. While its portrayal in the production was sketchy at best – during the entire series of medical scenes in 3B, the only reference to his ADHD was Stiles saying “No, the Adderall’s not working.” One would think that – especially when Noah talked to Melissa or Noah and Melissa talked to the doctor -- it would come up at least tangentially in a discussion of his symptoms or his diagnosis. But there is more enough evidence to say that Stiles has ADHD and probably some form of anxiety.
What does that mean for my criticism of him? I have to be careful about how I describe the sources of his behavior. Luckily, I feel confident that I can still criticize Stiles for his behavior, because even if neurodivergence is one source of some of his behavior, I can still discern other motives for other instances of behavior.
Because, beyond missing social cues, beyond impulsivity, and beyond lack of emotional control, Stiles is mean. He’s mean to Scott, he’s mean to Derek, he’s mean to Jackson, he’s mean to Matt, he’s mean to Isaac, he’s mean to Lydia, he’s mean to Ashley, he’s mean to Jared, he’s mean to Liam, and he’s even mean to Theo. (Yes, two of those people are villains, but they were not revealed as villains to the characters when Stiles interacted with them). Beyond those things, he’s still consciously rude. He’s deliberately rude to Boyd, Ethan, Danny, and Deaton. He deliberately insults people in ways that demonstrate that he’s fully aware of what is going on. He deliberately disregards other people’s needs in order to fulfill his own. Note, because for some reason this needs to be said, he’s not always mean or rude to these individuals; it’s never an all-or-nothing thing. You can love a person and still be mean to them.
And again, this isn’t speaking to underlying factors, such as he’s a sixteen-year-old boy or that he’s in the middle of supernatural clusterfuck. As has been pointed out to me, we only get to see Stiles in crisis mode throughout the series. We don’t see pre-Scott-Bite Stiles. We don’t get to see Summer-of-2011 Stiles. We don’t get to see Six-Months-of-No-One-Trying-to-Kill-Us Stiles. We don’t get to see Post-Canon Stiles. Probably, when he’s not being pursued by murderous alphas or mad scientists, he’s a lot more pleasant to be around.
But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s still mean, and that the fandom enjoys the power fantasy that Stiles can be mean (can lie, can violate boundaries, can break the law with impunity) and no one should ever hold it against him. In both the production and the fanfiction, there’s often the premise that people are in the wrong if they hold this behavior against him.
Take Season 1. As much as the anti-Scott brigade might love making hay out of Scott’s comment “Well, then they had a reason,” as the height of depravity, they consciously and steadfastly ignore the cruel things that Stiles says to Derek throughout the seasons, such as “Hey, try not to bleed out on my seats, okay?” (As an aside, it’s amazing to me how fanon creates Stiles as this brilliant thinker who is so much smarter and better than Scott in every way, except Stiles spends the entirety of Magic Bullet (1x04) and The Tell (1x05) screaming at Scott on the phone because he doesn’t know what to do. But I digress.)
Or Take Season 5. In the rain argument in Lies of Omission (5x09), Stiles famous speech is one of the meanest, cruelest manipulations I’ve ever seen a television character deliver to another television character they supposedly cared about. And, of course, most of fandom focuses exclusively on the idea that Scott didn’t behave perfectly in that scene, and cannot entertain for one moment the idea that Stiles provoked that response. After all, it’s part of the fantasy.
Stiles being pushed out of the pack serves another type of fantasy: the oppression fantasy. It doesn’t matter why Stiles is pushed out of the pack or who is pushing Stiles out of the pack, it’s about Stiles’s right to be in the pack without having to account for his own behavior. Look at some these stories. One common variation is that Stiles is reckless in battle and constantly gets injured, and the alpha, whether Derek or Scott, determines that it’s better for him and the pack that he not be involved. This is often – and strangely enough – paired with Scott not recognizing that Stiles is human and not capable of what a werewolf can do. (Derek is left out of these, because they chose to forget that the only person to actually reject Stiles’s help, to call him ‘skinny and defenseless’ and ‘a hyperactive spaz’ is Derek.) They ignore the inherent contradictions in this position, and there is seldom if ever valid recognition that the alpha has a responsibility to more than just Stiles. Only Stiles is important here. Hilariously, a common resolution is that Stiles goes somewhere and does something to become powerful and instead of saying “I’m okay now to help” decides to rub it in people’s faces. It had nothing to do with powerlessness – it had to do with Stiles’s feelings and motivations.
And that’s the point – Only Stiles is Important and Damn Scott/Derek/Noah/Other Character for having motivations that don’t revolve around Stiles. The pack exists not to serve all its members, but to validate Stiles. Because, after all, that’s what the writers want for themselves – validation in the face of shortcomings and bad behavior.
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Ever wanted to watch geothermal escapism for the first time again? Now you can live vicariously through me.
My first-time reaction to geothermal escapism (but already knowing the main plot points of the episode):
Immediately noticed Abed wasn't with the group
Abed already sitting on the counter in preparation for the yet-to-announced game is such a smart detail. But Abed sitting on the counter because the lava isn't a game at all is a heartbreaking realization.
Different color filter = concept episode is *chef's kiss*
The locker boys i'm cackling
Troy and Abed's entrance? Gay rights 🏳️🌈
Shirley's Island as a concept is so good. The board with "the fallen" organized by religious affiliation. The story telling with magnitude on the percussion. The butter defense mechanism. I am in awe.
Oh...when Abed repeats "last day"....yeah..
Okay I could talk for a long time about the WORLD BUILDING that took place in this episode. The god Troy mentioned in passing means they've developed an entire mythology. "The Orb" is a mysterious object rumoured to be hidden on Shirley's Island. "Chair walkers." The developed travel and fighting techniques. I could go on. But the fact that they did this in less than 21 minutes is fucking genius. The ability of this show to tell fast-paced, yet fleshed-out, satisfying stories is part of what makes this show so special.
Ngl Britta's pretty hot in this ep. Ngl everyone's pretty hot in this ep.
Britta and Jeff's banter is superb as always. They're my "if I had to pick a het couple"
When Troy and Abed appeared in the bubble I said "this is excellent" out loud
"sorry that our butts are touching" more like the writers saying "haha no homo please believe us 🥺"
Do I even need to tell u how I felt watching the scene in the basement. You know what they said. You know I cried.
Danny Pudi's acting is so damn good here. I mean his face and his VOICE when Abed tells Troy about the lava - I have never heard nor seen so much emotion from Abed and it hurts. Where's the emmy award.
Troy seeing the lava for just a moment, because Troy's the only one who's ever been able to see what Abed sees.
I fyickn hate Hickey so much that comment about Abed and knowing what happens two episodes later fuck you go to hell
Britta realizing immediately just how serious this is for Abed when Troy tells her the lava is real and how she messed up trying to force Abed into different coping mechanisms and shoving Hickey off the bookshelf and finally trying to understand how Abed works and use his method of coping with the world...I appreciated that.
I can't tell if Troy's desperate "i'm not leaving anymore" is real or a lie to save Abed. I don't know which is worse.
I loved that Clone Abed refered to Original Abed's "wild emotionality." Because he's never been the robot or a computer that people who don't know him think he is. He is emotional. He's the emotional core of the group. And I like that we get that insight into Abed's emotions and how he perceives them.
I'm sorry but didn't that hurt when Troy fell..??
All of Troy's goodbye's were perfect. "You're the best and I love you" "I got to live with you" "you're becoming much cooler than me" "you're the badass" just tears. Just utter weeping.
But Troy and Abed's goodbye. You don't need me to analyze this for you. You already know.
Troy's confidence upon seeing Levar again :) :) I love Troy loving himself. And it's like, Troy is already his own man, he just needed this to prove it to himself. And now he's beginning to own and love who he is - who he has been all along.
Okay I said I wouldn't go into specifics of their goodbye but look at both of them staring at each other as Troy leaves and tell me that's not true love
Troy in the end tag 💛💛💛
This was a brilliant episode, and such a lovely way to celebrate Troy and Abed's relationship and send Troy off on his journey to find himself. Having seen this episode definitely makes all those reunion fics and headcannons much more special.
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