#shes so interesting i loved her morally ambiguous era it was so fun of all the chimeras to have varying levels of evil moments | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

morethanonepage · 2 years

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@youandthemountains tagged me in a “talk about five favorite fics you've written” meme, so here we go, in descending order for the ~suspense of it all. also i’m tagging @aimmyarrowshigh , @jessicamiriamdrew, @lotus0kid, @whatever-you-can-give-me and anyone else who wants to do this meme, it’s fun, if more time consuming than expected.

also this is just going to be AO3 era stuff -- some of my peter/claude from heroes fic remains very close to my heart but i cannot and will not go and find it to link to ATM. i’m perfectly happy to see it disappear w/ the rest of LJ fandom.

5. Proprioception

this is the most popular fic i’ve ever written (2375 kudos and counting) so i feel like it HAS to be on this list by default, but i’m not really that fond of it. the gimmick was, clint and phil’s relationship through the years and through various people’s eyes (until the end, where it’s through phil and then clint’s eyes). as a writer i’m proud of my attempt to write the POV of characters i never would’ve written otherwise, and people seemed to like how i portrayed them, so that was good to know. i think the best chapter by far is the natasha one -- the others are a little bit hokey w not my fav dialogue (but like, given mcu dialogue in canon....). but even though it’s not my favorite or my best writing i do appreciate that the fandom enjoyed something i actually did something new and (to me) interesting with -- the POV switching and like, dramatic irony of who knows what about whom (esp in pepper’s chapter). plus look i eventually came to really hate tony stark as a character but both* times i’ve written him (see #4 as well) i think i was very fair and i think no one would’ve guessed i kind of found him very annoying in all the avengers movies (i liked him better in his own movies/thought he was better balanced w pepper and rhodey around).

representative passage:

Her nose has stopped bleeding. She removes the handkerchief that's been keeping her from...she's not sure what, really, it's not like her clothes aren't bloodstained and ruined already. She hands it over. Is she supposed to be expressing gratitude? Blue eyes are watching her warily, but she's past worrying about making an effort.

"It looks okay now," he says, and he's a terrible, terrible liar, but at least he didn't say it wasn't broken, and at least he hasn't apologized for it. He fiddles with the ruined white cloth for a while, twisting it between his fingers, and glances, just once, toward the man it belongs to. The man in the suit, whose pacing is probably wearing very neat tracks into the filthy hotel room carpet while he makes clipped, deliberate statements into his cell phone.

He is a much better liar.

*just remembered i’ve actually written him three times but the other was a v short rhodey/tony thing that’s not really worth talking about.

4. The Ice Is Getting Thinner

honestly i’m going to say this is the best clintcoulson fic i ever wrote. there’s a lot of moral ambiguity to it and (not to toot my own horn lmfao) a lot of just plain ambiguity to parts of the plot (i take a twisted amount of pleasure in my refusal to stating things directly sometimes), to the point that a few of the bookmark notes/comments mentioned that they had to read it twice to figure out exactly what was going on.

there are parts i still cringe at -- i was again very complementary to tony stark in his portrayal here but i think the dialogue i wrote for him was. not great. but overall i think it’s a fic that portrays a complicated long term relationship w ups and downs and breakups and makeups and secrets and lies and love and just -- the DRAMA of it all. also i think the structure of the thing -- parts of it are moving backwards and parts of it are moving forwards chronologically -- was to me very clever. like you’re getting the backstory of the thing and how it relates to the current narrative, until they meet up. very the last five years, though i’m not sure if i’d seen that before i wrote it.

and phil is a little darker/more morally grey than i usually wrote him/he was usually written by the fandom, which was also fun for me. it’s also a fic that’s about redemption and forgiveness and like...self forgiveness and making up for bad things you’ve done and also how SHIELD was/is pretty sketch at its core so even the well-meaning people within it are a little more complicated than all that. and there’s some good natasha stuff i think -- and some great like friendship stuff between clint, phil, and natasha that i wish i had explored more when i wrote this ship. i always found the ‘natasha just stands around shaking her head at the stupid boys who can’t get it together’ portrayal that showed up in fic a lot really annoying but i was so afraid of falling into that myself that i didn’t really write her a lot. but that’s a shame bc the potential for her to have a friendship with both phil AND clint was really great, even though we didn’t get much of it in canon.

representative passage:

Phil thought about it. Thought, later, that it might have been the closest he ever got to telling him.

But when Clint got off the plane, he draped one arm around Phil's shoulders, and the other around Natasha's. He was sunburned, smelled of salt and the sea and things Phil would never have associated with Clint, but it wasn't unpleasant. It was a reminder that everything he'd once known about Clint wasn't everything he'd ever be.

"My two favorite people in the world," Clint mumbled, voice weak from disuse. He kissed Phil's cheek, then ducked to kiss Natasha's, putting him slightly off balance. Phil wrapped an arm around his waist to steady him and Clint beamed, his side warm and jostling against Phil's. "Man, am I glad to be home."

Phil didn't tell him.

He began to understand that he never would.

3. a strong enough foundation

[obviously the title of this fic is inspired by the hamilton song “Dear Theodosia” (the Hamilton Mixtape version is the one i see as THEE shara bey dameron song) but i also pulled from the ~feels that come from ben folds’ “still fighting it”]

okay WELL this is purely a sentimental favorite. the travelogue fic. it’s one of the few gen fics i’ve ever written. and it’s a story that is incredibly personal to me, which requires a bit of backstory to explain:

basically up until she passed way, one of my aunts in Mexico was really devoted to taking me to like, important cultural places in Mexico whenever i went to visit her. so amongst other things, back when i was in middle school (so early 2000s i think?) we took a trip to Chiapas, which is the southernmost state in the Mexican republic that borders on Guatemala; it’s very rainforest/jungle heavy, lots of mayan pyramids just like. plopped down in the middle of a bunch of trees and vines and monkeys etc. it’s also very humid and green and there’s beautiful rivers and we slept in a little wooden hut with no electricity or a/c or anything, just a roof and a floor mosquito netting penning the space in/keeping us from getting malaria or w/e.

it was an amazing experience that really affected me and that i still think about a lot -- sadly, i went there before i had a good digital camera, so while i took a lot of pictures they were all on film and were not as good at capturing just how beautiful everything was. a part of me wants to go back someday, but i haven’t yet, so it still very much exists in my memory alone right now.

anyway! this fic is about Yavin IV and Poe returning to it to basically spend some time with his father and it’s about that family connection, too, but mostly for me it was about -- coming up with Yavin IV headcanons, which was a delight. there’s a lot about the mayan ruins (again, i’ve never been to Guatemala but i was in the jungles of Chiapas, which are very close, and the mayan empire in mexico vs the mayan empire in guatemala are not that different) which comes from my experience in the mayan ruins, and a lot about the town i kind of imagined as existing ties into my experiences in small mexican towns. there’s a lot about the market culture there, which was based on primarily the market in my mom’s hometown. one of the funniest/most personal bits for me was where poe and his dad go to a stand that sells fruit juices:

He makes it to Val’s before his father does and settles onto one of the red plasto stools in front of the counter. Makes idle conversation with New Val, who was a year ahead of him in school and was well known, even then, as the artistic sort. This seems to have born out: her stall is adorned with meticulously realized depictions of Massassi warriors and anthropomorphized trees sharing plasto-bubble drinks with a variety of alien races and such distinguished company as a young Leia Organa and Luke Skywalker in a well-intentioned approximation of Jedi robes.

this is a reference to a lot of food stalls in mexican markets, which often have drawings of all sorts of IP they definitely don’t have the rights to, like a lot of disney characters and so on. it’s also referencing the tradition of serving aguas frescas in plastic bags w a straw poking out, which is just a nice bit of nostalgia for me.

i did feel a little -- something -- about this fic being based so much on my experience as a mexican and thus very little on like, actual guatemala, which i could not really speak to, though i did include some references to actual guatemalan alcoholic drinks at least?

this isn’t a perfect fic -- every time i have to write OCs i feel like i’m floundering a bit, and this fic didn’t really have a plot so when it came time to end it i just --didn’t really know how to wrap it up. but in general it’s such a personal fic to me that i will always have a great deal of love for it.

representative passage:

“You’re so much like your mom.” That’s nothing he hasn’t heard before, but his dad keeps going. “I mean, you look like her, fly like her. When you’re pissed, you do this thing, with your jaw…” he reaches over to tap lightly at Poe’s chin; Poe ducks his head, a little embarrassed that his father’s noticed it. “Pure Shara Bey. And you’re smart, so damn smart, always were, and that’s all her. Sure as hell didn’t get it from me.” Kes father chuckles, shaking his head.

“Dad—"

“Thing is, that makes me forget, sometimes, how much you’re like me, too."

Poe turns to look at him — Kes is watching him, and his expression is worried, but more sad than anything.

“That’s not a bad thing,” he says, too quickly, but he means it.

(oh also lest i forget: the running thing about poe looking so much like his mom is there because a) it’s true, canonically but also b) when i was little but also now, whenever i’d visit mexico i’d hear over and over how much i look like my dad/my dad’s side of the family. so again this was a very self inserty fic in a way i’m usually embarrassed to admit and i guess am still kind of embarrassed to admit, but w/e, i’m doing this meme, might as well talk about it.)

2. Washington Square

WELL what can i SAY about this and its 50352 words? it’s the first NaNoWriMo thing i ever completed, and the only one i’ve ever actually posted. it genuinely did have a plot (which obviously i took from the movie it’s based on, so yknow). it’s an AU premise i love (i’m a sucker for Famous Person/Normie things), it’s explicitly queer in a way that actually affects the plot. i think a lot of fusion AUs like this one can be a bit find and replace character names w the same dialogue and exact same plot, so i took care not to do that. first of all the shifting of the setting -- from England to the US -- shifted the dynamic a lot, and at least partly exploring the issue of Finn’s sexuality and him being outed also felt like a much more modern and to me interesting take. (in fact if/when notting hill gets its eventual reboot/remake, it would make so much more sense for it to be a queer story).

i also feel like i did some subtle character stuff that maybe didn’t always pay off but that i was proud of: both poe and finn are kind of a mess in it, poe bc he’s been through a bunch of failed relationships (partly bc he puts his partners on a pedestal but is also a deeply moral person so if they show a moment of moral greyness he doesn’t react well) and finn bc well he’s bi and black and young and only just starting to make it in ~hollywood~ and he’s got a lot of pressure on him to be perfect on every level. and i thought that was a fitting adaptation of his FO backstory (i mention it in one of the last author’s notes, but the sunglasses he pointedly takes on and off are meant to call back to Finn’s stormtrooper helmet, while also being based on how julia roberts’ character wears sunglasses in the first scene w hugh grant in that movie).

i was also thrilled to be able to write so much of Black Squadron in as poe’s awesome/amazing/fun friends, using them to recreate on of the best parts of notting hill to me, ie, the fact that hugh grant has a wide circle of friends that chime in about his life and relationships etc. i’m not the biggest fan of rey but i also felt like i had to include her (and made her much nicer than her notting hill counterpart, obviously). and this was like, right amidst the small poe/c’ai era, so of course i had to include c’ai in there as the also-ran that would’ve been great for poe if he wasn’t so hung up on finn.

also, again, look: i wrote kyle ron in this and yes he WAS a bad roommate but i didn’t write him as mustache twirling evil/stupid AF, which is more than most reylo authors who write poe into their fics ever give me. so i deserve extra points for that.

there’s really only two points i’m kind of eh about for this fic: first, bc i didn’t think nude photos/video alone would be enough of a career jeopardizing event as it is in notting hill, i added a plot point where it was an m/m encounter, AND an element of dubious consent. this is the kind of thing that i think writers in general should tread lightly on/really be sure is necessary when they’re including it as a plot point. i’m not sure i would include it if i were writing it today, but when i was writing the fic we were in the midst of one of the earliest #MeToo pushes, PLUS i didn’t want to minimize the potential vulnerability Finn would have, as an actor and a black man and someone who came out of the foster system and wouldn’t’ve had that many people in his corner. so i tried to take it seriously and not be flippant about it, BUT i am still uncertain if i did a good enough job dealing w whether or not (or how much) finn saw it all as a traumatic experience.

the second thing i’m pretty uncertain about is the ending. i love the movie but even i find the ending a little unearned -- hugh grant’s character ends up being the one to apologize and basically beg for julie roberts’ to give the relationship another try, and her apology earlier on doesn’t feel like quite enough, to me. and so in my version i tried to...idk, given that the fight they have is a lot more tied to the sexuality issues, and finn is very early in his career and thus way more vulnerable, ultimately, than anna scott in the original, sets up a weird dynamic that a lot of commenters got caught up on: it’s funny though bc the two most upset comments i got about it were on opposite sides. One thought that Poe had been too much of a jerk in their fight and didn’t do a good enough job of apologizing at the end, while the other thought that Finn was too much of a jerk and Poe deserved better. so idk, maybe it did hit the happy medium after all.

(another thought poe saying “i love you” at the end was not built up to enough in the fic itself -- i disagree, imo poe was very obviously falling in love w finn from very early on, but since it was his POV he was trying to keep himself from admitting it until the very end).

representative passage:

Finn reaches out, cradles the back of Poe’s head with his free hand. Leans in, slow but inevitable. His fingers card through the Poe’s hair as they kiss, soft and sweet, almost chaste.

After a moment, Finn pulls back. Rubs his thumb at the side of Poe’s head. “You’ve got a — you’ve got this curl that sticks out the wrong way, here."*

“Yeah,” says Poe, still stunned — at this point he doesn’t know why, it’s not like Finn hasn’t done this before — and swallows. “Yeah, it does that."

Finn leans in and kisses him again. Longer this time, with a hint of tongue. Poe sighs, drops his hand to Finn’s chest, needing something to anchor him as the world starts spinning.

(also, i had originally planned to write a sequel from finn’s POV, which ideally would’ve allowed me to explore his character/backstory/trauma more, but some of the comments to the fic kind of dissuaded me from it and now i’m just -- so far removed from it i think it would be hard).

*this part is really reminiscent of a bit from song of achilles, which i still have not even read -- just saw that passage quoted somewhere -- and anyway that also struck me. i wonder if people noticed it/thought it was deliberate reference -- it was not! but i wish i could’ve said it was.

1. Adrift

OKAY so on some level i think of this as the best fic i’ve ever written. maybe it’s not even that good but it’s just -- genuinely, sometimes, i’m amazed i wrote it. i finished it surprisingly fast, for me, and it came much easier than almost anything ever has (writing is like pulling teeth for me most of the time). but basically it was just, as i said in the tags, a fix-it where what i was fixing was the cancellation of constantine (2014).

It’s what i would’ve wanted the show to end on, in an ideal world where i had like. control of the whole thing. both bc it’s based around the most famous hellblazer/John Constantine arc -- dangerous habits -- but it deals exclusively with the fallout and not the actual events around john’s having and “curing” lung cancer. mostly bc i didn’t want to figure out how to re-write that, tbh -- i feel like i would’ve had to do something to update it but i’m so bad at plot.

anyway it’s also a bit of a mystery story -- starting in media res does set up that question of, why is chas living alone in the middle of nowhere? why is he so mad at john? where has JOHN been? where’s zed? and it all just kind of...unfolds from there.

it’s got the domesticity, it’s got the two of them sort of finding each other again, it’s got the start of a relationship they both know is probably a bad idea but that eventually turns out to be more functional than either of them expected (no matter how much john keeps panicking about it eventually falling apart). i think i hit a good balance of john being snarky but self loathing but an unreliable narrator but also really observant at times.

in general i also feel like the sex scenes are earned and work very well with the actual plot/narrative arc -- like they start off very awks and distant and not mutually satisfying; and then they’re in a honeymoon place of, both finally having regular sex with someone and it being good but also still a little distant; and then finally just much more open and with a real connection (demonstrated through eye contact bc i’m basic and weak). and after that point all of the sex scenes are more vague/fade to black bc the explicit content isn’t the ~point anymore. for me it’s very well balanced.

and i like where they end up. both in terms of their relationship -- it feeling pretty well established and healthy as it could be, for both of them -- and in terms of their place in the world (about to get back into the ~solving spooky shit~ business, and also on better terms with zed to the point that she might also come back and join the ~team).

again not to toot my own horn but to me, this is how the characters eventually ended up, after the show ended, and that’s really just how i chose to see them.

Bonus Runners Up:

A Battle, A War, A Growing Up - STILL the only alex/darwin (xmfc) fic i’ve written, which i HATE MYSELF for, but at least if this is going to be the only one i’ll ever write, i’m proud of it.

inosculation, or, that time Javert panicked and stole a small child - really the summary alone makes this one worthwhile. the title is inspired by the POI fandom meme of “that time harold panicked and stole a small child”

want who you want (boys and boys and girls and girls) - the jake peralta/john constantine fic LITERALLY NO ONE would’ve ever thought to ask for, and that i’m still amazed anyone has actually read

Equuleus - the best thing russell crowe brought to les mis was making javert a horsegirl. i will die on this hill.

the fire and the flood - quality wise, i think this is pretty even with adrift in terms of chastantine fic. it’s only not included in the favorites list because it TOOK SO FUCKING LONG TO WRITE and i really hated it by the end there. at least i did something interesting w the timelines and vignettes.

#writing meme #YESH talk about a long post #i'm not going to cut bc tumblr is doing automatic trimming anyway but #ANYWAY here we are lots to talk about

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kimisfinallyreadingagain · 9 months

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I liked this one!! I’m actually kind of surprised with how much I got into it. It’s not the best world-building I’ve ever seen but it’s fun and the romance was enjoyable.

I will say, I’m noticing once again that the enemies-to-lovers of it all is kind of a tough needle to thread. In an era when we want complex, independent, intelligent female leads, it’s very difficult to create a male lead who can truly scratch the itch of the trope. Our heroine needs to hate him, but she needs to be wrong for hating him, or else we’d never root for her to actually end up with him. And while that all makes sense—it’s hard to root for a romance with a truly evil character—it means authors have to kind of jump through narrative hoops (to varying degrees of success) to justify why these characters are enemies…but not really.

I actually really liked what Rebecca Yarros did with the forced proximity. It is extremely fascinating to force these two characters together in such a way that they cannot survive without the other. But then it turns out that Xaden has always been morally good, in fact pristinely so, and suddenly all of the fun tension is sucked out of the room. (Though, don’t get me wrong, the spicy scenes were spicy.)

Sometimes I wish these stories were more comfortable creating truly morally ambiguous characters on both sides. A morally complex female lead and a morally complex male lead can have a much more interesting enemies-to-lovers turn, in my opinion, than a morally righteous female lead who just has some negative preconceived notions about what is in fact another morally righteous person. But sometimes it feels like we’re still stuck in the era of the “strong female lead,” where the author is singularly focused on demonstrating her superior strength and intellect and kindness. And so, we must never doubt her moral superiority until she realizes she was wrong about the male lead. What I’m saying is, I would love to read an enemies-to-lovers fiction about two people who are both kind of assholes and who have the hots for each other. Is that so much to ask?

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your-lips-are-very-red · 3 years

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St. Vincent x Emma Madden Interview

This is the text from the St. Vincent interview that Emma Madden was asked to not use. Since Miss Madden has decided to take it down, I wanted it to be available somewhere online - in case she manages to get all the cached versions taken down, too.

SOURCE: https://archive.is/wFkLN

About a fortnight ago I was commissioned to interview St. Vincent, an artist I have been inspired by, impressed by, turned on by, compelled by, curious of, in awe of, occasionally suspicious of—for the better half of a decade. I try not to think about other journalists too much, but St. Vincent has developed a reputation for intimidating us. For her last press cycle, she made her interviewers crawl into a pink box; she would play a pre-recorded message on a tape recorder if a question bored or irked her. I found that quite funny—irresistibly imperious—but I considered it an act of degradation rather than an interesting switch of power. I love famous people but I also find them quite silly, like a Schnauzer wearing a bowtie.

I didn’t know why, but for around two hours after our call ended, I was reeling with nervous energy. I was vocalising it and trying to get to the other side of it, the way I sing songs when I’m walking through a haunted house. I woke up the next morning with a voice message from the editor who assigned this piece. I am fond of this person and I will not name them. MBC, the team in charge of St. Vincent’s publicity (which is helmed by Barbara Charone, who also works for Madonna, and is considered one of the more powerful and intimidating publicists in the industry) had been on the phone to this editor, demanding the piece be pulled. My editor’s words: “They said she’s terrified of this interview coming out.” The publication didn’t have a leg to stand on.

"Terrified"? That word didn't seem to square. I thought I had done a not-so-good job the night before. I ended the call thinking I hadn’t asked the right questions. St. Vincent and I didn’t feel like a good match in conversation (or at least not in this conversational setup set-up, for which I was given thirty minutes, and continual reminders from the person on St. Vincent’s team, who remained on the call with us, that we’d need to wrap up well in time for St. Vincent’s Instagram Live session with Paul McCartney, which directly followed our interview.) St. Vincent tended to interpret my questions in bad faith. I assumed she believed me to be a Bad Reader; presumptuous, judgemental, simple, anti-curious—all qualities that her latest album ‘Daddy’s Home’, which I’ve interpreted as a counter to the folly, inadequacy and meretriciousness of moral purity—counters. Anyway, she read me wrong. I love Lana Del Rey.

I got a call from MBC later that morning by a man who sounded quite nervous. I told him I was confused, I asked him what the matter seemed to be. He wasn't totally sure, he said, "she found the interview aggressive." Aggressive? I complimented her and cowed to her and laughed at her jokes. "Well, the message has been passed down a line of many messengers, she might not have actually said that." The man on the phone said that this—one of his artists demanding an interview to be pulled—had never happened to him before. It hadn't happened to me either. I felt annoyed by how easy it was for St. Vincent to kill something I had researched and expected money for. But the interview started to seem valuable to me after I was told that she didn't want it out in the world. "Can we draw a line under this and just kill the piece here?" said the man on the phone.

Below is the full transcript of my interview with St. Vincent (save for a short and-forth about Tool which didn’t make sense when turned into text). My questions are in bold, her responses are in italics.

**for the sake of this post, Madden’s questions are bold and Annie’s answers are not** Hi, how are you? Good how’s it going?

Not too bad. What’s your mood for today? My mood for today, well it’s good, I’m getting on an Instagram Live chat with Paul McCartney in a couple minutes so my mood is a little bit nervous but good.

I’m excited to talk about this album, I think it has a sick sense of humor that I appreciate a lot. I’ve had a really fun time listening to it.

Oh I’m glad, thank you.

I’m sensing there’s kind of a 70s trend at the moment in terms of fashion and the ways some other bands are presenting themselves. Is that something you were anticipating, is that something you feel you belong to, or was it just kind of accidental?

Accidental.

Do you feel bummed about that? No I don’t, I always just kind of do my own thing.

Do you think there’s a reason why people might be inspired by the 70s today? Do you see an analog with our world today and with the 70s? I guess this album is based in 1973, right?

Between ‘71 and ‘76, so post flower children idealism, post the Summer of Love hangover, but pre escapism of gay disco and pre nihilism of punk. Life was bad but music was good, kind of vibe.

Kind of when the trash aesthetic was taking hold, especially by Andy Warhol. Does trash inspire you? Um like literal rubbish?

No like the trash aesthetic, I guess in the PR you call it sleazy, grimy. Yeah but the difference with sleazy is that sleazy tries to present as glamorous but there’s something off, trash is just trash. I don’t know if trash pretends to be anything other.

Can you have glamour without sleaze? Sure, absolutely. I mean, like the 20s Greta Garbo way, I would say Golden Era Hollywood, I mean behind the scenes it was probably a nightmare but you look at it and it is very genuinely shiny and beautiful.

I love the sitar on this album especially on ‘Down’, the riff is so sick. How did you get to the sitar? Well it’s not a sitar per se, it’s a choral electric sitar guitar and so it was I think George Harrison made them kind of popular in the ‘60s, I think the one I have is from ’67 and it plays like a guitar but it has a resonating body on it so it sounds sitar-esque. It was made very famous in the Steely Dan Do it Again solo.

I guess the main PR bulletin point of this album is about your dad coming out of jail. Why did you want that to be the main way that people might read this album? More like an entry point, the title Daddy’s Home to me I mean one, it is literal but also it’s funny and cringy and pervy and also I think more than anything kind of refers to my own transformation into Daddy as it were. Yeah it’s probably not anything I would’ve really thrown out there except that it was made public without my consent but I didn’t really get to tell that side of the story and I don’t bring it up for sympathy. It simply is my story, it’s not intended to be indicative of necessarily anything, it’s just my story and I was gonna tell it with humor and compassion, all of that.

Did you anticipate a lack of sympathy for your dad’s crimes and the subject matter of this album and did that factor into how you shaped this record? That’s the tail wagging the dog my dear. No, no. A lack of sympathy, well, which crime would be the most sympathetic? I didn’t do anything, I’m simply writing about something that I think on some level everyone who’s ever had a parent can understand in the sense of you’re often going “How much of you am I?” and we kind of do identity projection through all these things so no, it’s again, it’s not really there for anything other than my own anecdotal story.

At what point did you transform into this daddy character? For how much of your adult life have you been the daddy? Oh I would just say over the past few years, I’ve just been quite a bit more leaned back and shoulder shrug and say let’s just sit down in the old beat up leather armchair and have a tequila and chat it out you know. Life is complicated, human beings are complicated and I wanted to just write stories about flawed people. There’s a whole lot of judgement going around and not a whole lot of understanding. And judgement is anti-curious. There are some people, perhaps the more sanctimonious and morally pure, who might not be interested in an artist’s reflection on their father’s white collar crimes. Do you have much sympathy for those kinds of people? I mean I think I can get sympathy for all people. If that is the reason why they decide not to spend 46 minutes with my work then I’m sure there’s plenty of other work out there for them that they can enjoy that is morally pure. They should find pure work from pure people and enjoy it.

I guess last year’s riots brought abolition towards the mainstream, during the time you were making this record, which is partially about your father’s time in prison. How did that square with your thoughts on prison and the US carceral system? Well I have plenty of thoughts on it, I’m not totally sure how it’s relevant to this.

Well I was wondering if you have a standpoint on it or if you’d rather just be ambiguous? I have so many thoughts and opinions, I don’t presume that my thoughts and opinions are relevant on every subject though. I don’t have that much hubris.

I understand. I was wondering about the Candy Darling inspiration, how does she come into the fold? Oh I just, Candy Darling to me is such a beautiful heroine in that she came from Queens and went not geographically far but worlds away to Manhattan and became her true self and in that particular kind of combination of glamour and toughness, where you feel like her name should be on the marquee and yet she could stick you with a shiv if you said the wrong thing. And I just find her inspiring and really beautiful, and I didn’t know but I found out a friend of mine was close with her and was at her bedside when she died so I was just picturing Candy Darling’s ascent to heaven as taking the final uptown train.

Wow. Did you feel like you were embodying her on this album or presenting as her? No not as such, but definitely taking inspiration from some of her energy for sure. I do hear a bit of her voice on the title track, I was wondering if you were kind of modeling your voice after her? On Daddy’s Home? Oh, no.

I love the sultriness of that song, even though it’s just about signing autographs in prison. I found it really funny. Yeah it’s definitely again, I’m writing about my own story with humor and compassion and self-effacement, all that.

Do you see this album as a movement, does it have a narrative? Yeah. It’s a full story, it’s a full collection of short stories. It has a shape and everything.

That’s just how I listened to this album, as a series of short stories. I was wondering how they interlink in your mind? I guess you have the person on Broadway, you have your dad, you have the person who’s maybe thinking of having a baby or not having a baby. I just could write stories of flawed people doing their best to get by because I’ve been most of the people on this album at one point of my life or another. And again I could write about them without condemnation and judgement just, here we are.

Are you a nostalgic person? No not generally.

Not even during the creation of this album? I’m thinking of the humming tracks, your mum cooking in the kitchen. Not exactly, I think that this particular kind of music with its sophistication and some of the jazz language in the harmony and its sense of time, it was a kind of music that I’d loved for so long but never really dipped into myself, and I think we kind of learn things a lot of times when we’re ready to, and I think I was kind of ready to learn some of the lessons that this kind of music had to teach me.

Do you think about shame a lot? Um, I think that shame is the reason why most people do the violence that they do. I think violence is an expression of impotence.

What was it about the post-idealist era in particular that you were drawn to, why not go through the flower power utopia sort of 60s route? I think that there’s an intellectual orthodoxy that is involved in utopian thinking and a lot of times it doesn’t allow for either a complex set of incentives or it doesn’t allow for the totality of human nature in its equation, and then it fails and because the structure of any kind of power is really complicated so I think in general the desire… and I understand that we’re living in, in some ways, I think just with the internet part of it, in some ways unprecedented times. And I understand people’s desire for certainty in times economic strife, cultural upheaval, all this stuff. I completely understand the desire for certainty. But I don’t think it’s as simple as demanding moral purity and punishing anyone who doesn’t fix the orthodox criteria. I understand the desire but I’m not sure it’s gonna get to where I think we want to be, which is just general more equality, whether it’s wealth equality, wealth disparity, all that kind of stuff I just think the matrices of power are really complicated.

You were saying earlier about Daddy and how you were thinking about your dad and the overlap between you two and how we all possibly become our parents. I was wondering how you consolidate the influences of your parents? I don’t know anything about them obviously but I know that your mum was a social worker, your dad was an entrepreneur, and those seem like two totally opposing worlds. Yes, my mother is a social worker and she instilled in all of us I think the idea that the work we do should be meaningful and she’s definitely really humanistic and that kind of thinking I think, that had an impression on me. My dad wasn’t an entrepreneur, my dad was a stock broker I think? But I grew up with my mom and my stepdad and my stepdad was a very different kind of guy, just was an army brat and grew up really poor, and was just coming from a different mindset and they’re just very different kinds of people. Not a judgement thing, just very different. Yeah my mom definitely errs on the very humble side. And yeah, my dad is a complicated, charismatic person who’s also very intelligent, and who went down a path that was full of consequence. Yeah they’re really, really different people so it’s funny to kind of square who was who.

What does your dad think of this album? Oh he loves it!

Yay, that’s good to know. Did you ever rebel against your dad’s lifestyle growing up as a teenager? I didn’t grow up with him, and he was in Tulsa Oklahoma. I don’t know what lifestyle you’re necessarily presuming but..

No I’m not presuming, just wanted a little background on your relationship with him I guess. So he wasn’t in your life that much where you were younger? I would go and we would spend summers there and Christmas, but I grew up in Dallas for the most part with my mom and my stepdad.

Was this album in any way an opportunity to get closer to your dad? Not in any way consciously, no.

But are you finding with age and with time you’re getting closer to him? Well him being out of prison helps in terms of just proximity. Yeah, here’s what I’m finding. I’m finding that we live by the stories that we tell ourselves and that sometimes we realize that the story we’ve been telling ourselves for a long time was either wrong or lacked a certain amount of information, and then we have the choice of whether to reject the new information because it’s too painful to rethink the story that we’ve been telling ourselves, or assimilate the new information and go, wow life is complicated, this is an interesting wrinkle. I choose to do the latter.

Yeah, it’s very easy to bullshit yourself, right? Yeah, it's true in all kind of ways you know?

This story, the story of your dad, it almost seems redemptive. I mean I would say so, and that’s not in any way what I intended and you know, a lot of times when you’re making something, I mean you’re a writer you know, you have the compulsion to make it but you’re not necessarily sure where it’s coming from or why or any of those kind of questions, but I think there is the possibility of redemption, I do, I think there is the possibility of people to change and I think there is a possibility of things like forgiveness and growth. And if I didn’t think that there was a possibility for human beings to change, to grow, to take in new information and then continue to write their story, then I don’t know what we’d really be doing, you know? And that’s not really the world I want to live in, we’re a moving picture we’re not a still photograph.

Do you want to try and change the world, do you feel like you have that power, do you feel hopeful that there can be a better future? Sorry for the cheesy language. No, I mean I don’t think that many people would accuse me of being an optimist in a lot of ways, and I don’t think in terms of my “power to change the world” I mean I think all I can do is try to study the human condition and write about the human condition in some way that resonates and then maybe people will hear that and that will resonate with them and I think that ultimately the best case scenario for music is empathy because it’s like psychologically this is why we like to listen to stories or this is why we like to watch movies is so we can go down the empathy exercise and you can see yourself as that person in the film, see someone who isn’t like you in any way, shape or form from a just box ticking kind of way, but then realize oh, we’re very similar in some ways or what would I do if I was in that situation, we do all these things and we live by these stories and I think those stories well-told can encourage empathy and empathy can go out into the world and have a kind of transformative experience. I don’t really think about, I mean I think once I make a thing and then it’s out in the world and it’s for other people to assimilate or enjoy or not, whatever, however they take it, is absolutely fine by me. But it’s for them, it’s not my place in any way to say how people should or should not enjoy it or assimilate it.

Yeah the reason I brought up prison abolition earlier is because that might be how some people contextualize this album. I would say that that’s one lens. That to me would not be the main lens.

[I’m told to wrap it up]

Yeah let’s wrap up. So Tool cover album next? No, I wish.

Someday I’m hoping. I love Tool.

I feel your Paul McCartney nerves Yeah, I’m gonna go shower.

That’s always a good idea. Okay take care, thank you again for you time Thanks, bye.

#st vincent #emma madden #interview #daddys home

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legobiwan · 3 years

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Alright people, I am finally caught up with the Mandalorian Season 2. My reaction thus far:

(spoilers ahoy)

So far, this season doesn’t seem to have a strong direction. It’s mostly Din getting sent from sidequest to sidequest featuring “this week’s special guest stars(s).” I realize that this is all supposed to be building up to something, but I hope the payoff is worth it.

I love Cobb Vanth. This is probably because I love Timothy Olyphant. I dearly hope he returns and gets a bit more material to work with before the end of the season. Kind of annoying that we had to go back to Tatooine again, but Star Wars just can’t seem to kick its legacy characters (which is something I’ll get into later).

Speaking of Tatooine...while I loved the introduction of the idea of the moisture farmers and the Sandpeople working together, we never really...saw any of it happening? Show, don’t tell, as the old adage goes. While there wasn’t time for a treatment of Tatooine’s complicated social issues as was done in the Kenobi novel, the whole concept seemed pretty perfunctory as a way for Mando to blow up a krayt dragon.

(and I had to laugh, whatever “prize” organ the Sandperson found was 100% one of those bouncy balls you’d find in Ralph’s or Von’s or something at the beach sale bucket for $4.99. Along those lines, the effects - both practical and VFX - have not been anywhere near as high quality this season.)

Frog episode. Fun! It was one of my favorite episodes even though it accomplished very little in terms of pushing the narrative forward. Funny characterization of baby Yoda (I kept expecting him to go full-on Yoshi with those spiders), great introduction of the Frog species, and the spiders were pretty cool.

Bo-Katan episode. A PORT CITY! Something DIFFERENT! Finally!

Mando seems to suffer from power creep and relapse which is a persistent issue in Star Wars in general (see the Ahsoka episode for more discussion revolving around that). He blew up the krayt dragon almost single-handedly, fought off all those spiders, and yet was pretty taken down by the Mon Calamari pirate gang.

I had no issue with Bo-Katan showing up, and I think her reference to Mando being in a religious cult is fascinating and I would like to know a lot more about that. (Also interesting in how it can also be an oblique reference to the Jedi who were considered, by some, to also be an esoteric religious cult.)

So because of this, does Mando seriously not know who Bo-Katan is? I’m guessing all that history was erased, even something as simple as the fact that Bo-Katan was the sister of a Mandalorian ruler.

And funny enough, I feel kind of bad for her. She wants that Darksaber, wants to rule Mandalore and it feels like she has been fighting the same fight with the same words since we were introduced to her in TCW. I don’t know if that was the intended effect (likely not), but she strikes me as a character almost stuck in her own narrative, unable to move on. Although I do appreciate that she still seems rather morally grey here, which is a nice change of pace from characters who masquerade as morally grey (read: Mando and clan) but who are really coded as the “good guys” (fighting - again - against the “bad guys”.)

(Which gets me into a whole other discussion in that I find that only the Prequels and TCW really delve into that uncertain area where the good guys - even the Jedi - are not 100% good. And that the Legends material really dug at the fracture while the new material - books, movies, shows - tends to shy away from moral complexity. It’s frustrating, as the ambiguity is what is so appealing about the whole damn thing.)

So if the Frog Couple’s children were the last of their kind, was Baby Yoda about to perpetuate a genocide because he was hungry? Because, that’s honestly pretty damn funny.

Oh, the New Republic isn’t learning from the Old Republic. Much like Russia, you never try to invade and control the Outer Rim. It just ends up in tears.

Okay, the macaron scene was pretty damn funny and wholly superfluous and petty use of the Force that I could see...wait for it...Obi-wan perpetuating in his youth.

So. Clones. M-blood. Shadows of Jen Zanna Arbor and Plageius’s experiments. Plus Gideon looking on at his Death Trooper clones who look a bit like Vader. Is Gideon trying to create a Force-sensitive army that can be controlled via these suits in TIE Fighters that look A LOT like Thrawn’s defenders? Does Gideon know about the Chiss Navigators and is this how he got the idea? Because that would tie some things together.

Alright. Ahsoka’s episode. Sigh...

Dave Filoni needs to let go. I love Ahsoka, she’s a fantastic character, but at this point, she sucks the oxygen out the room for any other storyline. I never liked the way she was brought back in Rebels, I thought her existence on that other plane after the battle of Malachor was a perfect ending for her.

(I’m not going to get into the costuming too much. It didn’t work. Disney has enough money to do effects, I don’t why they couldn’t have touched this up just a hair while keeping with the “gritty realism” aesthetic of this show. The whole thing was rather jarring.)

And the thing is, she’s taken on Vader, has come back from the dead twice, has defeated Maul and then suddenly this weird Magistrate Lady is giving her issues? Like, I get getting older and not being as on top of your game but if Ben Kenobi of the desert could take down Maul in three slashes, you would thing Ahsoka wouldn’t be having these issues.

Along those lines, that fight sequence was painful to watch. I’m 1000% certain Filoni was referencing either some Western or Kurosawa flick which I am too film-illiterate to know offhand, but it just...didn’t work. Especially seeing as the VFX wasn’t strong enough to support the questionable choreography/blocking.

I have no issue with Ahsoka coming to terms with the Jedi at an older age, that’s what happens. You have to drop at least some of your grudges. And I don’t even mind Mando and Grogu meeting up with a Jedi like this. But I wish it had been a different Jedi or maybe one we hadn’t even known before.

And that’s the thing. Star Wars gets so bogged down in its legacy characters (see: the Sequels) that it gets in its own narrative way. (And ironically enough, most of these “legacy” characters are from the much-maligned Prequel-era). Look at the popularity of Rebels, of Fallen Order, of the Thrawn books (and ELI VANTO, ahem). There’s so much room to expand and play with new themes, new ideas rather than fall back on this “good rebels” vs. “evil empire” with the “very good Jedi” helping mystically along the way. Give me more religious cults, more conspiracy theories, more politics and taxation and trade routes. That’s what made the Prequels so great. I’m hoping this Moff Gideon storyline will go off in an interesting direction as will Mando’s culty background but we’ll see.

So...five episodes into the season I give it a 6/10 so far. We’ll see how it all goes.

#hello there #the mandalorian #the mandalorian spoilers #baby yoda #bo katan kryze #ahsoka tano #and now i'm going for a run #back later tumblr #legobiwan watches a television show

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cartoon-savant · 4 years

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Ducktales "Let's Get Dangerous" Watch Ramblings

Okay, so. That was amazing.

WHO DID THIS!? WHAT MAD GENIUS SNIPED IN BONKERS!? I CAME TO THIS PARTY FOR SPECIFICALLY INFORMED FUN AND THEN THE HOST JUST THROWS GOLD AT MY FACE!!

- The episode feels like a proper dedication to everything Darkwing Duck. The atmosphere of St.Canard still feels like Gotham City so much. If Launchpad is doing double time moving between Duckberg daytime and St.Canard nighttime it’ll hold that vibe the city and DW have. But I can’t help but believe this is the start of his transition to St.Canard. The responsibilities may just be too big to juggle together. Also, this found family of Drake, Launchpad, and Gosalyn is just too good together. Like Launchpad creates a different vibe for himself when he’s with him. He just taps into a whole different side to care for and support them.

- So yeah, I’m glad Darkwing is still somewhat underappreciated in St.Canard since it didn’t seem like anyone knows about his efforts in the lab. Gizmoduck didn’t even make it halfway across the bridge into the city and gets all the credit. So now we get to see DW work towards that recognition he deserves.

- It was the best blending of nostalgia and new age. They drop a massive Easter egg in one of my favorite scenes, from one of my favorite episodes “A Whale of A Bad Time”, of my favorite story arc where Scrooge and Glomgold race to deliver their fortunes for weighing in a bet to win a lucrative contract. Also love the Fluppy Dogs shot-out. Wasn’t my jam but I gotta respect that attention given.

- F.O.W.L. involvement made the Missing Mysteries tie-in more logical. Huey is getting more involved here since this season is supposed to be this triplet’s turn in the spotlight. I bet this encounter spurs him into action now that F.O.W.L. is exposed to have interest in the mysteries. Speaking of exposed, poor Bradford. Like he would be more successful in his organized bureaucratic villainy if everyone who works for him didn’t revel in the theatrics.

- With Taurus Bulba falling out with F.O.W.L. it leaves me to believe he’ll stay in St. Canard to be a recurring villain for him. If he keeps the “Bulba’s Super Villain Solutions” thing I expect something like the Spectacular Spiderman animated series. Like Norman Osborn he’ll turn out villains for profit while acting behind the scenes and exploiting the chaos. Bonus points if his cybernetic enhancements keep coming in via collateral damage like with Major Bludd in G.I. Joe: Renegades. Since only Megavolt, Quackerjack, Liquidator, and Bushroot seem to be the only returning OG villains (aside from a couple of cool cameos from some C-Listers, haha) now the writers have a nice say in picking and choosing who gets rolled into the reboot reality. Negaduck is basically confirmed as a reboot villain now since they called themselves the Fearsome Four and Justice Ducks got a name drop but not who’s in it. Gizmoduck was a member but is here as a reboot character and they can just grab Neptunia, Stegmutt and Morgana. Real talk, they’ll probably redo all their designs but I hope we keep Morgana’s vibe close to her original which had such a wonderful goofy Elvira feel. Also let’s get a good Batman/Catwoman thing going.

- Bushroot’s redesign and dialogue silence may have been out of respect to his original voice actor Tino Insana’s passing, also the same year the Ducktales reboot came out. Everyone else is alive but the only reprised role was Michael Bell’s Quackerjack and everyone sounded great. Still hope he left like a seedling clone of himself behind so we can explore more of him.

- Gosalyn was well handled. I loved her reboot personality still feeling like OG but with more smarts and skill. Giving her skill with a crossbow was great (she gets a matching outfit and Huntress much) as well as leaning into the Batman & Robin parallels by making her a proper partner/sidekick, instead of a stubborn tag-along. I want to see her meet Webby because I feel like she will complete a certain dynamic. Webby is an all rounder being good with magic, quite smart and a top fighter. Webby doesn’t hold top mark in any particular area. Lena is basically becoming sorceress supreme and Violet is very intelligent and composed with her reading situations better than the others. So I want Gosalyn to be surprisingly good at keeping up with Webby in a fight.

The second other series that may actually get this kind of dedication in the reboot feels to me like Talespin.

- We have plenty of mentions of Cape Suzette and a Don Karnage. I say “a” because the Season 3 poster revealed what looked like an older Kit and Molly. This leads me to believe the OG Talespin adventures do take place decades prior to closer match the aesthetics of the OGand current era Karnage is a descendant. Della may have also learned to pilot from or was a fan of Baloo so that can be a good background to add to her character. I feel like Shere Khan will be a David Xanatos type character. He was already a fierce, morally ambiguous self serving businessman. But give him that Xanatos pizazz, keen intellect and foresight to make him be the sharpest of the sharpies that Scrooge will ever deal with.

- So all in all it was everything I didn’t know I wanted and gives me such joy for heights this show can reach being this successful in its ambition. I hope further inclusions from other Disney Afternoon characters will start building themselves up in this reboot just as well. I’m excited for more of the world explored from the sides of the Rescue Rangers and Goofy’s suburban slice of life. Oh, and of course cop/detective work from freaking Bonkers! Like this is how you know your reboot is in good hands. When you keep the appeal of and appreciate the old while introducing well defined new takes, bridging the gap between generations so everyone enjoys it. Man, I need that Animaniacs reboot right now.

#ducktales 2017 #darkwing duck #ducktales #launchpad mcquack #drake mallard #gosalyn mallard #disney afternoon #let's get dangerous

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hellyeahheroes · 4 years

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Eve Ewing Interview for Outlawed

Newsarama: Eve, Outlawed kicks off a whole new era of Marvel stories with big ramifications. We know there’s an incident involving Kamala Khan that leads to teen heroes being illegal. What can you tell us about that big crucial turning point?

Eve L. Ewing: Ahhh, unfortunately not much! If it were up to me we wouldn't even do previews.

The only thing I can say is that we're trying to avoid easy answers or a clear sense of what's right or what's wrong in this story, and trying to make it a little more complex than "mean government guy oppresses kid." I'm hoping for some real moral ambiguity.

Credit: Marvel Comics Nrama: The obvious comparison here is to the original Civil War, which started with a tragedy involving young heroes leading to a fracture between Marvel’s superheroes. What’s different about this conflict and the fallout?

Ewing: Yeah, it's interesting to me that people have been making that comparison, because to me, although the inciting incident is familiar, the ramifications are so different because the people impacted are young people. In Civil War, we see adults with different moral centers, different ethics, different relationships to the government and to power, but they all are operating in a way from a place of power.

In this case, we're talking about superheroes, but they're still teens. Which means that they're sort of marginalized and disempowered by mainstream American society, and they're marginalized and disempowered by the adult superhero community. Some of the adult superheroes are sympathetic to them, but at the end of the day, they don't actually stand to lose that much from the law. It's more of a "tsk tsk, that's too bad, seems unfair" thing rather than something where they're willing to fight tooth and nail. Because why would they?

Credit: Marvel Comics So the teens are essentially on their own. So to me the stakes are quite different. That being said, I also hope this run will appeal to some of our readers who were literally like three years old when Civil War happened, and maybe we can have some intergenerational conversations among fans about where they see similar or divergent themes.

Nrama: The law that outlaws teen vigilantes is called “Kamala’s Law” – but Kamala Khan herself seems pretty willing to break her own law. How does Kamala’s specific POV and morality inform how this story develops?

Ewing: A recurring theme in Champions and in her solo title is how Kamala wrestles with being a leader, moments where she kind of fails in her leadership and moments where she steps up to the plate even when she'd rather not. I hope to extend that in this story, and have Kamala grapple with other people - people she respects and cares about - genuinely questioning not only her leadership, but her basic sense of right and wrong, her moral compass.

Credit: Marvel Comics The Champions position themselves as being in service of regular, vulnerable people, but what happens when those people are not a monolith, and when they have real critique of Kamala's choices?

Nrama: We know there will be a new status quo following Outlawed, and that similar to the post-Civil War Marvel Universe there will be factions. How does that affect these teen heroes who have been through so much together? Will we see friends take different sides?

Ewing: Sure, but I'm not as much interested in the whole "There are two sides! which one are you on?!" thing. I'm more interested in... let's say you have a certain political stance on something, something you believe to your core, and there's a friend with you, someone you deeply love and care for, and you want the best for them, and you see that they have a different perspective, not because they're bad or they're unintelligent or need to be convinced, but because they're actually a different human with a different life that means they'll be differently impacted by whatever happens? What do you do then?

This is less a story of the teens going to war with each other as much as trying to figure out how to care for each other across real difference in an environment of terror. So, you know, pretty chill and lighthearted!

Credit: Marvel Comics Nrama: What are the advantages of shaking things up with this kind of a story in a one-shot, versus a longer format limited series or arc?

Ewing: A one-shot is cool because it's just action-oriented, high-stakes, we get to mix it up a little bit on the art side, and I think it provides a clear entry point for readers. Should be fun.

Nrama: You’re launching a new volume of Champions following Outlawed. The Champions originally formed with an ethos of using their powers to improve the world. How does Outlawed shake up that perspective? What’s their mantra as they move into a new era as fugitives?

Credit: Marvel Comics Ewing: They're trying to figure that out themselves!

Nrama: Outlawed is the latest chapter in an ongoing saga of tension between the different philosophies of superheroing for Marvel’s heroes. If Civil War was about being responsible for your actions and Civil War II was about freedom of choice, what is the theme behind Outlawed? What questions are you hoping to raise for readers?

Ewing: Wow, that's an excellent question. I think the theme is that, while it's easy to call for revolution or easy to say you're fighting for something, when it comes down to it, there's rarely one clear path to get where you're going, and you have to figure out what values you really share with the person alongside you.

There's no one way to liberation, and you have to decide what allyship means, what friendship means, what camaraderie means. Because if you don't know, when it all comes down to it, you'll be ripped apart.

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gizkasparadise · 5 years

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kdrama rec: arthdal chronicles

Master Kdrama rec list.

Series: Arthdal Chronicles/Chronicles of Arthdal Episodes: 18 (with an opening for another season) SEASON 2 IS ON! (one..day) Genres: fantasy, pseudo-historical, politics, romance, action/adventure/Quests Spoilers in the Review: yes regarding one character :/ they’re a main and their existence is a spoiler If You Like, You’ll Like: spartacus, REVERSE HAREMS, villain couples with functional macbeth realness, male characters with hair better than the female characters, but female characters generally being far far more competent, moon lovers but not as sad, dictatorships for the Aesthetic, blood+, anything with Mystic God Priest Power, Destiny

Rank: 10/10

“owning the land is equal to owning the sky and the wind.”

Premise (spoilers for the first episode and the existence of a major character).

in the pseudo-Bronze Age, two races of people (the sarams and the neanthals) live in an uneasy co-existence. the sarams want an alliance for the neanthal’s lands so that they can farm and mine, the neanthals are like lol we don’t need any of that because we actually have survivalist skills so keep your agriculture you nerds b y e.

the leader of the saram is Not Having That, and sends an envoy (asa hon) to allegedly act as a diplomat. what she actually does is unknowingly carries a plague that wipes out a huge chunk of the neanthals. because that is not enough, the leader sends his son (tagon) to wrap up the rest of this genocide.

asa hon is betrayed and upset and doesn’t return to the sarams. instead, she shacks up with a surviving neanthal named ragaz and they have spoilers twin boys spoilers, hybrids known as igutu. based on Prophecy, any children born under the blue flame comet are Destined to bring calamity. so, doom babies. they are two doom babies.

after killing ragaz, tagon snatches one of the babies For Reasons, and asa hon flees with the other

flashforward about a decade.

the neanthals are extinct OR ARE THEY we get a pretty Quick understanding of who tagon is as a human as he’s re-introduced drinking out of one of their skulls before being surrounded by his hypemen who chant his name Gaston style. he’s joined by taeahla, and they are a Match Made in Hell. it’s quickly revealed that taeahl is raising the other twin baby, who is kept hidden because he’s igutu. and, like, tagon’s famous because he killed all of the neanthal, so having one of their hybrid babies is ngl

asa hon makes it to a land beyond the saram’s influence, where she and eunseom come across a tribe called wahan. they’re lead by a ten-year-old tanya, who had a dream that eunseom would arrive. which is a big deal, because sarams can’t dream. it turns out tanya was also born on Blue Comet Doom Prophecy Day. asa hon dies from the injuries she obtained saving her son, and eunseom is raised by the wahan tribe. it’s a very idyllic existence for them.

until tagon and his men invade in a manifest-destiny-realness bid to capture slaves and conquer land and ruin wahan’s coachella festival before enslaving all of them and bringing what survives of the tribe to arthdal.

the plot then centers around eunseom trying to rescue the wahan tribe, the wahan tribe trying to survive arthdal, and something about gods being reborn, political backstabbing, a church cult being absolute dicks, and a lot of interchangeable evil old men

it’s a fucking awesome show.

Characters.

Eunseom

A PRECIOUS BEAN BABY

eunseom’s been a part of the wahan tribe since he was ten, but everyone (especially him) is aware he’s Different From The Rest of the Reindeer. the only one who treats him the same is tanya, and it’s clear these two are joined at the hip. he has dreams of being locked away in a tower, has a bunch of ~strange~ ideas like trying to ride horses, and is totes crushing on the soon-to-be village wise woman. once the wahan village is attacked, he makes it his mission to save the tribe and his One True Love tanya

pure. does not think things through. just wants to believe in people, god damn it.

tanya

my wife daughter of the wahanian version of “crazy old maurice,” and apprentice to the Great Mother of the Tribe. as another child born under the Doom Comet, she’s been known as the Prophesied One since birth (the One Who Will Break the Shell). we meet her as she’s struggling to follow in the Great Mother’s footsteps, and her journey is grounded in uncovering her mystical destiny. naive and a fish out of water, she leads her people in surviving arthdal after their enslavement

moves like jagger. center of a reverse harem. by her pretty flower crown she can end you

tagon

this bitch but also that bitch. almost single-handedly responsible for the genocide of the neanthals, tagon’s grown into the leader of an army that is the definition of ride-or-die for him. he has a 100% approval rating in arthdal due to defeating the neanthal, defeating the ago tribe, and defeating the will to live for the thousands of slaves he supplies for arthdal’s terrible economic system. he starts the series off with Pure Intentions, in that he wants to rule but he wants to do it by The Love of The People. because that works out well for people who habitually wear black cloaks

poster child #1 for arthdal’s fantastic hair products for men, will smirk you to death, you feel sorry for him a lot and you’re like why?? but then yeaaah, can only stare in heart eyes at his partner in subterfuge...

taeahla

MY WIFE said partner in subterfuge. i cannot spell her fucking name ever. her and tagon have been Not Together for over ten years. she’s the heiress to the hae tribe, who are known for their inventions and are the only tribe that knows how to smith bronze into weapons. therefore she’s hot shit. and also just hot. she seems like the character You’re Not Going to Like but she became one of my favorites after the first episode.

she wants to help tagon in his ambitions, but she also v much wants to see his ambitions help herself. her and tagon made an Oath to never sacrifice their survival for the other and that’s the most metal thing i’ve ever heard. she wears couture. would get a pre-nup. can and will fuck you up. and she also raises the Hidden Igutu Twin Doom Baby...SPOILERS

saya

so at this point you’re probably thinking a few things: this show needs more beautiful hair and pro fashion sense, a complete shit stirrer, and a morally ambiguous pretty boy.

well well well

saya is eunseom’s twin brother, although neither of them know about the other’s existence. because of their neanthal blood, they can see snapshots of each other’s lives in their dreams. as his existence would lead to death, and would DEFINITELY garner tagon some bad PR, saya’s been locked away in his princess tower for the majority of his life. he views tagon and taeahla as his father and mother, and that’s not necessarily a good thing.

daddy’s boy. wants to kill birds for fun. has the hots for the girl who can teach him how to kill birds for fun. surprisingly religious???

Other support characters selected by how much they are my favorites.

mubaek. an OG warrior and tired wine uncle

chae eun. daughter of the somehow singular doctor in arthdal and the only one who actually wants to help people. INCREDIBLE knit wear

xabara WARRIOR QUEEN OF A TRIBE OF MERMEN

yangcha. like. just look at him. you already know he was your favorite character in the 923840923 angsty anime you watched in 2010. Ultimate Warrior for tagon who has Taken a Vow of Silence and Wears A Half Mask So You Know He’s Actually Hot. the mask is torn off his face dramatically at least once. there’s a quota for that kind of thing, you know

this horse.

Drawbacks.

it’s very much an Ensemble show, which means if you’re only watching for 1-2 characters you’re likely going to get frustrated. there’s several plot lines going on

there’s a lot of Interchangeable Evil Old Men and i dont care about any of them

IT ENDS ON A CLIFFHANGER AND SEASON 2 ISNT CONFIRMED YET ISNT GONNA BE UNTIL LIKE 2022

Reasons to Watch.

WORLD BUILDING. im a huge nerd for world building and the lore in this makes me so happy.

AESTHETICS. find me a more beautiful cast with more beautiful scenery and costumes. you can’t.

i love?? all the leads???? like normally i get frustrated with the second leads in dramas, but i genuinely love all of them and was interested in all of their stories. this show has an incredible cast/set of actors and they bring it home

im a sucker for romance. there’s some great ones. and omg do you know how rare it is to see a reverse harem?! get it, tanya

the time era is cool!!

Gods doing Mystical God Shit

so many female characters!!!!!! AND NONE OF THEM FIGHT OVER A MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND THEY’RE ALL BETTER AT THEIR JOBS

Final Thoughts.

WATCH THE THING

IT’S ON NETFLIX

#arthdal chronicles #arthdal #song joong ki #kim ji won #kdrama #gizkarec #gizka does kdrama #!my post

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dailymilesmorales · 4 years

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The life of a teenaged superhero is never easy, but it’s about to get a lot harder for the young vigilantes of the Marvel Universe. March’s Outlawed one-shot introduces a new status quo that has the government cracking down on superheroes under the age of 21, and these events will have repercussions across the publisher’s entire line. Written by Eve L. Ewing with art by Kim Jacinto, colorist Espen Grundetjern, and letterer Clayton Cowles, Outlawed sees the country rocked by a tragedy involving the Champions that compels politicians to take drastic actions. The set-up is reminiscent of 2006’s Civil War, which similarly began with a tragedy surrounding a young superhero team leading to federal restrictions on superheroes.

“Civil War was meant to be (among other things) about curtailing personal liberties in the name of safety,” says Outlawed editor Alanna Smith. “Outlawed is tapping into different social anxieties. There’s been a lot of debate lately about the role of the youth in our society—whether they should partake in activism, how much their voices should be valued, whether they’re old and learned enough to have a say in their future, and what responsibility the older generations have to keep them safe. When you boil it down, Outlawed is about the conflict that arises when widespread decisions that affect an entire generation are made by people outside that generation, while ignoring the input of people who will have to live with those decisions. In this case, there are real, heartfelt concerns on both sides of the conflict that make it that much more complicated for our heroes to overcome. It’s not a problem they can punch.”

“To me, this story isn’t just about young people being in conflict with the government, but much bigger questions about what we ask of young people, how they’re expected to be independent sometimes and subservient other times,” says Ewing. “Every era of history brings new challenges, and young people today are coming of age in the era of mass shootings, the era of the climate crisis—things that in some ways are unprecedented in history. Yet we often don’t recognize their wisdom and their insights. It’s like we get above a certain age and lose all empathy. I just wanted to explore that tension, and them being superheroes really ups the stakes because they’re literally out there saving lives every day, but aren’t seen as full people or full citizens. And, at the same time, maybe the law is a good idea? Maybe it really is for everyone’s protection? It’s intentionally kind of morally ambiguous.”

“Eve is really skilled at getting into the psyche of our younger characters without pulling punches,” says Smith. “Her run on Ironheart had a really dark undercurrent of coping with loss and self-doubt that elevated it beyond what I think people expected. Outlawed needed someone who could write about kids dealing with a world that’s turned against them and make it feel visceral and real and urgent. She brought that intensity, and she’s also incredible at capturing the charm and personality that has made these characters so beloved in recent years.”

“I feel really grateful that the editorial team saw how much I enjoy writing adolescent characters and decided to give me this opportunity,” says Ewing. “I used to teach middle school, and as a teenager myself I was really angsty and dramatic but also, I think, had a lot of genuine emotional and intellectual perspectives, as all young people do. So I’ve tried to bring those experiences to bear in the way I wrote Ironheart, and the way I wrote Spider-Man and the Unstoppable Wasp when they paid a visit to the Ironheart world, and with Marvel Team-Up I got to really explore questions about what it means to be an adolescent because in that story, not only was I writing Ms. Marvel, but Kamala and Peter Parker actually switched bodies. So Peter had to remember what it was like to be a teenager. In a sense, I’ve kind of been in his shoes, putting myself in the head of a 15- or 16-year-old and trying to make sense of what it’s like in there, with real respect and care. So I’m excited to keep flexing that muscle.”

“When we first started talking about this story I was really excited about it from a character perspective, because I love the Champions, I love what Mark Waid and Jim Zub and Grek Pak and Jeremy Whitley and Saladin Ahmed have done with these characters individually and as a team,” says Ewing. “And I was also really excited about it from a sociological perspective, because I think the story presents some big questions about young people and politics and society and citizenship and government control and surveillance and what we think of as safety. All of that. But I did not anticipate that the powers that be would want to make this into a more far-reaching story that will really ripple across the MU. So I’m very humbled by that and definitely working up my nerves to just try to tell a good story that’s worthy of all that.”

This exclusive first look at Outlawed #1 highlights the complicated ethical dynamics at the core of this story, showing the perspectives of both adult and teen heroes. Jacinto’s dramatic body language and Grundetjern’s bold color palette charges these talking heads with emotion and urgency, and the final page of this excerpt highlights how well they capture heroes in action. “Kim’s style has evolved in really dynamic and exciting ways in the past few years,” says Smith. “I wanted someone who could draw intense, visceral action and also someone who would make our younger characters look like total badasses, and Kim delivered on all fronts. He’s got flair, and this is a book that needed flair. We’ve also got Espen Grundetjern killing it on colors, and longtime Champions mainstay Clayton Cowles on lettering, so you’re going to want to feast your eyes on these pages!”

Jacinto’s artwork has gone through some significant shifts over the years, and he has a talent for adjusting his style to match the tone of his projects. “I’m trying a different approach on this book,” says Jacinto. “My taste typically leans towards a dark and gritty style so I changed it a bit and I’m experimenting on this book. Since most of the characters are young superheroes, I wanted to give the characters more energy and dynamic poses. This book made me explore new ideas and go out my comfort zone and that excites me the most. Eve is very easy and fun to work with and straightforward. She will tell you if something is off and that makes it easy.”

“We’re bringing the next generation of heroes to the forefront in a major way and swinging for the fences in terms of story, stakes and scale,” says Smith. “Outlawed introduces an ongoing status quo that will be reflected in books across the line—almost every active character who’s under 21 (and even a few who are older) will be affected by the decisions made in Outlawed, and they won’t all agree on whether the new world order is good or bad. But there are real, serious consequences now for those who go against the ruling passed down in Outlawed, and it’ll interfere with their lives in a way they’ve never experienced, leading to some really interesting stories.”

#miles morales #kamala khan #sam alexander #group: champions #comics #comics: outlawed #news #long post

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buttonpanels · 4 years

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So far, I’ve looked at the biggest shake-ups in comics status quos in the 2010s. Of course, I think those were important. They’re paradigm shifts that allow for different stories. But sometimes, you need to go smaller, and that’s what this is. This time, I’m going to be highlighting specific moments in comics that I feel were the best in the 2010s.

These can range from a single scene to a single panel, but they’re what I consider the best the 2010s have to offer. They might stand on their own or be the payoff for years of storytelling, but these are the ones that had the biggest impact on me as a reader. As a rule: it can’t be an entire issue. I’m also trying to avoid placing similar scenes on this list. So yes, it’s a loose criterion, but it’s mine. Anyway, let’s see what we have for arbitrarily ranked my personal best comic book moments of the 2010s…

15. “He was an Adventure”, Die #2

Die is a comic that embodies the best of Kieron Gillen. His knack for clever dialogue, interesting ideas, strong characterisation and self-aware contemplative narration are felt in every issue, bolstered by Stephanie Hans’ beautiful art. The concept of a role-playing game that sucks its players in is a bit derivative, but Gillen leans into the RPG side of things and really shows what an RPG made and played by a bunch of pretentious, conflicted teenagers would be like, and the world that would result. Nowhere is that better shown than when Dominic (or rather, Ash) reunites with Sir Lane.

After the cast return to their game as adults after having escaped it as teenagers, they run into immediate trouble. After dealing with it, the party discusses whether to take a horrible route to their destination or the one they used years prior, where everyone knows them. Before they can decide, Ash runs into an old flame of sorts — Sir Lane, a typical knight in shining armour who she was in a relationship with and said she would come back to. She teasingly cursed him so that he couldn’t rest until he saw her again, and now she’s come back… after over a decade and he’s a zombie. They’re forced to kill him, and decide to avoid taking the same path, lest they run into more from their past.

Die is a great series that captures the spirit and fun of RPGs while giving things just enough edge to feel interesting but not like the creative team is going out of their way to be edgy. This here is a great instance of that, bringing a dark edge to a fantasy cliché and taking full advantage of the setting and characters. The first issue of Die didn’t fully land with me, but this issue definitely did, with this dark and morbid scene and the poetic narration. Just a wonderfully executed moment.

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14. “You can’t help yourself… you are Apocalypse”, Uncanny X-Force (2010) #4

Here’s a moment that is heavily carried by the art. Rick Remender’s Uncanny X-Force is great, but this moment, which is otherwise not that spectacular, is elevated by an understated use of layouts and not only established that this would be a very different X-Force run, but the threat to come.

After the new, black ops and secretive X-Force team has hunted down the rejuvenated form of Apocalypse, they are at a crossroads when Psylocke refuses to allow them to kill the now child despot. The team debates before falling to infighting, before Angel finally gets the upper hand after wrestling with his inner demon, Archangel. When Apocalypse says he won’t become who they think he’ll become, Angel says he won’t be able to stop himself and goes in for the kill… only to hesitate… then Fantomex kills Apocalypse anyway. The team leaves with no fanfare or celebration.

The art is what really sells this scene. The fight between the X-Force members is well done and easy to follow, and the narration from Warren is executed very well with some great lettering, but that moment when Angel says that Apocalypse will always be a monster, and the art slows things down with wide panels and extreme close-ups and a peak into Warren’s soul, that is what sells this moment. It is a powerful pause in time that and scene that is emblematic of what the run would entail — wrestling with morality, nature vs. nurture and struggling with one’s inner demons.

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13. “I think about it every day”, Grayson #12

Grayson is a series I will never shut up about, because it just works so much better than it should. Taking Dick Grayson out of the world of superheroes and putting him in the more morally ambiguous and backstab-prone spy world allowed Tom King and Tim Seeley to get to the root of his character, and make it all the more satisfying when he returned to the world of capes and tights. Case in point: Grayson #12, where Dick reunites with the Batfamily. While every reunion is great, the one that was the bet executed in my mind is Dick’s reunion with Barbara Gordon.

Dick is reuniting with his family after his boss at Spyral forces him to come back to the organisation. She lets him get in his goodbyes, however. Having already spoken to an amnesiac Bruce Wayne, he went on to talk to Jason Todd and Tim Drake and gave them a gift of two batarangs, and is now talking to Barbara. Dick had previously run into her in his secret Spyral identity, but she didn’t really know it was him. He tries to explain why he did what he did, but she’s not having it and leaves. Dick jumps after her… off a bridge, and gives her the trapeze pole from when they swung together after she was crippled in The Killing Joke, and confesses all his unspoken feelings for her.

There’s really nothing more to this moment than that, it’s just Dick and Babs reuniting and Dick telling her what she means to him. It’s heart-warming and cute, and the whole “Cluemaster’s Code” that Dick is using — the first letter of every sentence will spell out the real message — is used really well this issue, but I like that Dick repeats himself when he says he’ll come back to her. It’s as if he’s willing to muddle the message and Barbara understanding it just to reiterate how important she is to him. This moment wouldn’t properly go anywhere, since Tim Seeley set Dick up with a new love interest in a terribly executed romantic subplot in his Nightwing run, but for a moment, one of the best relationships in comics got a moment in the sun.

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12. “You’re poison”, The Sandman Universe Presents: Hellblazer #1

Hellblazer is at its best when it acknowledges what a toxic influence John Constantine is on his friends and family. Very few people come out of their interactions with him unscathed, and his addiction to magic only guarantees that those around him will have a rough time of it. Nowhere is that better demonstrated than with how his long-time friendship with Chas Chandler ends, which ushered in a return to form for Constantine.

After coming back from a terrible future and promising his future self to live his best life, Constantine goes to visit his friend Chas. He learns that, since his absence, Chas has contracted cancer and is now in the cancer ward of a hospital. Upon his visit, he finds demons possessing Chas and goes to free his friend, using the bodies of other cancer patients, only for Chas himself to call John out on his years of being a prick, his abandonment and the fact that John gave him cancer. Constantine’s constant smoking in Chas’ cab is what it’s attributed to and he tells John to leave him alone and fuck off. John respects his friend’s wishes just before Chas dies and John is left truly alone.

Despite how their friendship ended, this issue also did a great job giving it something of a heart-warming ending… sort of, as in the future, John tricks Chas into essentially performing a magic suicide bombing, but Chas, ignorant of this, tells John that sometimes you need to step up and be a hero. Both scenes work together to show the nature of this friendship — Chas is a good person at heart and one whom Constantine values and trusts… but he’s still someone Constantine will manipulate, and who will call John out on his bullshit. It’s a fitting end to the character and a great way to kick off this new era of Hellblazer.

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11. “I thought you loved me”, Venom (2018) #11

The relationship between Eddie Brock and the Venom symbiote has always been some level of abusive, but whether or not it’s a romantic relationship has generally not been touched on where it can be avoided. Maybe it’s the idea that Venom fans wouldn’t want a gay relationship, maybe it’s fear of the repercussions of a negatively portrayed gay relationship — the symbiote is identified as male a few times, after all — or maybe it’s just weird that Eddie is in a romantic relationship with alien ooze. But in the end, it’s usually more allegory and not so much a literal romantic relationship… until now, and it is glorious.

After a handful of issues of the Venom symbiote lacking its voice and Eddie’s cancer resurfacing, the Maker is able to “fix” Eddie while he goes through his memories and learns that certain parts were fake — his sister and initial cancer diagnosis being the primary ones he focuses on. He confronts the Venom symbiote, which can speak again, about why it changed his memories and it says Eddie needed to need it. They argue and Eddie wakes up to protect Dylan Brock, who he has just learned is his son.

Eddie’s relationship with the symbiote has always been destructive and unhealthy, and Cates fully leans into that here. The symbiote has manipulated Eddie into staying with it, forced him to become Venom and lied to him about his son. It has fully become an abusive lover and the sheer superhero-ness of this scene lends it a sense of self-awareness in what could otherwise have devolved into melodrama. However, Donny Cates is still able to end the scene with such conviction that it carries all the weight it was supposed to.

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10. “Smoke the meat”, Animosity #7

The biggest strength of Animosity is Marguerite Bennett’s keen eye for worldbuilding. The basic premise of “what if animals suddenly became fully aware” is explored for all it’s worth, with small bits of worldbuilding that truly make the world of Animosity feel alive yet relatable. The way Bennett uses these little pieces of worldbuilding to craft a nuanced and morally grey story is what really sells this series, and nowhere is that more apparent than in Animosity #7.

The scene in question deals with the aftermath of a fight the main characters get into, where they run into some carnivores. While everyone else tends to their wounds and gets some rest, main dog Sandor and the cat Pallas go to deal with the aftermath. They find their dead friends and we learn what they’re actually doing, and that it’s not uncommon — they eat the corpses of the dead. This time, they bury their friends, but the other animals that were killed are eaten all the same, and this isn’t the first time Sandor and Pal have done this, nor is it expected to be the last, and Sandor reminds Pal that, when Sandor himself dies, to feed him to his owner Jesse.

The scene is a wonderfully dark revelation, in a story where we learned more and more about what Sandor will do to protect his owner. It plays really well off the previous issues and does a great job escalating the moral ambiguity of the story. It not only adds more moral complexity to the wider world of Animosity, but furthers the story and characters. Every part of Animosity feels well thought out, and this moment not only advances the world but the story, in an unexpected and dark way.

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9. “He has you and me”, Doomsday Clock #12

DC Rebirth was a relaunch that truly returned some of what the DC universe had lost that made it so great. It lamented the loss of love, legacy and optimism, all of which were indeed sorely lacking, and told a story of how corrupting outside forces altered the DCU’s history and characters to better reflect a cynical outlook. Well, Doomsday Clock finally ended last week, and for all its faults and the discussions that can be had concerning creator rights and Watchmen, I think it delivered on its promise — the return of love, legacy and optimism, the latter of which was best exemplified in the return of the JSA and, as a result, of the Legion of Super-Heroes and Ma and Pa Kent.

After Flashpoint, it was established that Clark Kent had lost his parents at a young age, after they were hit by a drunk driver. Even after the Superman Reborn crossover patched up Superman’s history to essentially be the post-Crisis one — with some New 52 stuff sprinkled in here and there — he still had dead parents. Doomsday Clock revealed that Doctor Manhattan had caused the Kents’ accident, in order to transform Superman into a more cynical figure that he could relate to. However, after Superman inspires him, Manhattan believes in the ideals of love, legacy and optimism and undoes his changes to the timeline — or at least most of them, since DC’s plans clearly changed as this story was being published — and the restoration of the Justice Society of America is what kicks things into gear. Not only are the JSA my favourite superhero team, but their existence now changes Jonathan Kent’s outlook — instead of a cynical, protective outlook that causes him to discourage Clark using his abilities, the JSA’s existence causes Jonathan to encourage Clark instead, and he saves his parents as Superboy. The emergence of Superboy in turn causes the Legion of Super-Heroes to exist again. And they save the day, and all ends well, and Clark goes to reunite with his parents.

This moment is the perfect pay off to the entire Rebirth saga. There’s some wonkiness here as a result of rewrites, clearly. The Legion of Super-Heroes, as written now, are not inspired by Clark as Superboy but by Jonathan Samuel Kent as Superboy helping to found the United Planets, but the dialogue pretends like this is the Retroboot Legion from a few years back. Ignoring that, however, this moment just works. After the darkest parts of the story, with Imra fading away and Johnny Thunder broken and defeated, Superman’s inspiration is what undoes the changes and brings those people back. The legacy of the JSA that creates a new world of optimism, one that extends into the far future, and the return of the Kents is just makes it that much more satisfying that optimism and hope won out. This is a perfect ending to the story that Geoff Johns began in 2016, one that embraces what the DCU is about, even through its various reboots.

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8. “I’ll still hold your hand”, Doom Patrol (2016) #1

Gerard Way’s Doom Patrol run is a bit uneven, at least if you read it as it was ongoing like I did (you know, when every issue after the second was released late). But the first issue is a great introduction to the Doom Patrol, and the opening scene does a wonderful job setting the tone for Way’s run and introducing a character who is probably one of the best audience surrogate characters in comics.

The scene is pretty short and simple, giving a quick intro to Casey Brinke as she drives an ambulance during her day job. The narration is what sells it, as it carries this sense of poetry and angst that feels like it has enough conviction to be done well. Casey’s narration doesn’t feel ironic, self-defeating or cliché, but oddly reassuring — fitting, given she talks about what her job means to her. There’s some fun, of course, helped by the cartoony visuals and the neon colours, but otherwise it is just a relatively quiet intro to a character.

This introduction to Casey really does set the tone for the rest of Way’s Doom Patrol run, the more modern, straightforward and character-focused run. While there are stranger elements, such as when Casey and Terry None (a woman) have a biological son together and the cult that wants to transport itself inside Crazy Jane, at its core Way’s run was about the characters moving forward with their lives and Casey finding a place on the team. This introduction is great for setting that up, especially since some of the poetic narration is actually literally true, which was a very unexpected twist.

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7. “Batman punches people in the face”, Batman (2016) #53

Tom King’s Batman run is a thoroughly mixed bag, but it has moments of brilliance. One such moment is during the “Cold Days” arc, where Mr. Freeze is on trial after being captured by Batman, and a jury discusses his potential conviction. All are in favour of a guilty verdict but one — Bruce Wayne, who laments Gotham’s worship of Batman. This moment is probably the best culmination of Tom King’s Batman run up until this point, and gave real hope that his run would recover after the controversial wedding issue.

With Mr. Freeze arrested and on trial, Gotham’s jury is quick to label him as guilty despite the lack of evidence. Bruce attributes this to Gotham’s hero worship of Batman that he compares to worship of a god, because of the jurors’ perception of Batman is all-knowing, with his will having power over life and death. When asked what Batman means to him, Bruce tells the jurors that after his parents’ deaths, Batman was something he could believe in to keep him going, something he could rely on to always be there and save him. Not anymore; now that being Batman has taken Catwoman away from him, Bruce has become disillusioned with Batman.

This moment, as understated as it is, does a wonderful job paying off what had come in King’s Batman run. Bruce’s suicidal nature, his reliance on Batman as a means of achieving peace, his own obsession to keep fighting as Batman and the recent dissolution of his engagement with Catwoman resulting from his need to be miserable in order to be Batman, it’s all wonderfully played off by this moment that gives the readers a peak into how his breakup has shaken his foundation and made him doubt Batman. King’s run has a lot of flaws, but every now and then it delivered a powerhouse moment.

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6. “A man shouldn’t…”, Redneck #16

Redneck‘s core concept is relatively simple: vampires in the South of America. Donny Cates milks this for all its worth, with engaging characters and interesting lore. But what makes Redneck great is the characters, and how Cates is able to imbue them with a real sense of life. After a long string of tragedies, Cates gives his characters a few issues to breathe, and the result is one of the best scenes of the 2010s that deftly defies expectations.

The central family of the Bowmans is given a chance to breathe after their home is destroyed, they are betrayed from within and their generosity almost gets them killed. One character who is given a bit of a spotlight is Greg, who we learn is gay and who has a cute fling with minor character Winny. They talk about it becoming more when the patriarch of the Bowmans, his father JV, walks in on the two. What follows Greg trying to calm his father down, who walks away in shock, and Greg assumes his dad isn’t okay with his sexuality and ends up verbalising it for the first time ever… and it turns out his dad was more shocked because, well, he just saw his son after said son had just fucked someone. The two bond for a bit and JV says Greg should do whatever makes him happy.

The scene is just a really heart-warming moment and well-done, in addition to playing with expectations. The southern dad having a problem with his son’s homosexuality is pretty played out, but this series has its roots in the south, from its characters to its dialogue, so it wouldn’t be out of place for that trope to be played straight — especially given that JV is very old. But Cates defies expectations — and rather than think that is what makes a good story, actually does something with it, delivering what one of my favourite gay scenes of the 2010s. Cates gets a lot of praise for his narratives, but I don’t think his dialogue and character work gets as much praise as it deserves.

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5. “Everything lives”, Secret Wars (2015) #9

Jonathan Hickman’s multi-series Marvel saga is a sight to behold. A grand story told across multiple series, spanning the entire Marvel Multiverse, the sheer scale of it is unprecedented and expertly executed. Secret Wars (2015) was the culmination of his Marvel work, but rather than a gigantic event that stood on its own, it — for better or worse — served as the grand finale to his saga and specifically an ending to his Fantastic Four run. Taken like that, it hits it out of the park.

Secret Wars (2015) follows the birth and destruction of Battleworld, a patchwork world created from the remnants of the multiverse by Doctor Doom. Doom saved what he could, but has taken to ruling over everything with an iron fist, and a surviving Reed Richards ends up fighting him for the right to fix the world — at great risk, possibly destroying what remains. The fight ends when Doom admits that Reed would have done a better job, and the Molecule Man ends the fight and gives Reed the power. There’s an epilogue where Valeria Richards explains what happened, but the last scene is of a smiling Victor von Doom, mask removed and face restored by his friend Reed.

This ending is a perfect ending to the themes of Hickman’s Fantastic Four run. The idea of believing in the future and not being fearful of saving what’s left, but instead building what comes next is the given a literalisation in the final battle between Reed and Victor. Reed and Franklin rebuild the multiverse together as one last act of father-son bonding, after the theme of fatherhood was so central to Hickman’s run. And, finally, Reed proves himself the better man, that his morality is what makes him who he is, as he gives Victor one last gift and a new lease on life, setting up stories for the future. This ending is so emblematic of all things good about Hickman that it was the perfect note for him to leave the universe on… but then he came back and reinvigorated the X-Men, and that’s also a great thing.

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4. “How could I ever forget you?”, DC Universe: Rebirth #1

It wasn’t too long ago that DC Universe: Rebirth #1 released and heralded the return of much of what made the pre-Flashpoint DCU so great. A return of love, legacy and optimism, Rebirth truly revitalised DC’s comics and moved things forward, while not neglecting the past. And it all took the form of the Flash fan from Blue Valley, Nebraska coming home.

After years of questionable output from DC, Rebirth was the much-promoted revitalisation of the line. It was leaked that Wally would be returning, but given that it’s literally the premise of the issue, it doesn’t really affect the comic — in fact, it probably got more people excited for the relaunch than anything (especially since they teased his return beforehand but excluded him from the Rebirth panel). And when Wally finally returned, it was glorious. Wally traverses the New 52 and laments the loss of what fans loved, while simultaneously embracing the new. And after Linda fails to remember him in this issue, Wally goes to say goodbye to Barry in a heartfelt monologue, and it’s possible this really was going to be the end for Wally, but then he’s saved from the Speed Force.

Wally is the perfect character to usher in the Rebirth era. He is a character defined by his connection to the Flash legacy, whose love for his wife Linda has saved him on countless occasions and he’s a character who has never been defined by the tragedy in his life. Wally is the character that was all about moving forward, embracing the new — he represents what was so great about the DCU. As a long-time Flash and DC fan, this was everything I wanted — essentially an apology for how these two things were treated for most of the 2010s. Johns’ dialogue is sentimental and earnest, and it really resonates as a result. There are a lot of meta moments like this in the 2010s, but this one landed with me the most.

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3. “Did we do a good job, son?”, FF (2011) #23

While Jonathan Hickman is known for his epic scope, I think what doesn’t get enough attention is his keen eye for human emotion. His aforementioned Fantastic Four run spans the multiverse, but at its core is about family. The larger than life scale of his run lends a grandeur to the sentiment, but in the end, the stories are about family — and it all ends with Reed and Sue talking to their son in his bedroom, before he’s gone forever.

There’s comic book science involved, obviously, but an adult Franklin Richards spends the day with his younger self before telling his past parents that he needs to return to his own time. What follows is a heartfelt, earnest scene that anyone who even has a passing interest in parenthood can relate to — Reed and Sue tell Franklin about their worries, their concerns if they did things right, and ask Franklin if they were good parents, and Franklin tells them yes.

Hickman’s Fantastic Four run was about the family, but a running element was Reed and Franklin’s relationship, and how they just aren’t similar. Sue expresses the concerns that a mother would express, but Reed getting to the root of it is a beautiful way for Hickman’s run to end. After he neglected Franklin and they’ve bonded, after he gained a broader view of his children, he’s finally able to reconcile his parenting with every other part of him.

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2. “You’re the fastest man alive!”, The Flash (2016) #50

Yes, another Wally West moment. After Wally returned in DC Universe: Rebirth #1, it was assumed by many that he would be given a greater role in the DC Universe. Instead, he appeared in a mediocre-to-bad Titans series where nobody seemed to know what to do with him. After several badly received stories, Wally was returned to the Flash book, where he was given a lot of prominence and importance, and Joshua Williamson showed a strong love and affinity for the character. Then came “Flash War”, a story that I dreaded for its tagline of “there can only be one fastest man alive”, and anyone familiar with DC’s heavily contrasting treatments of Wally West and Barry Allen can tell you why.

However… “Flash War” was great. It mined Flash lore for interesting ideas, tackled the plot point of Wally’s forgotten children when it seemed like writers forgot about them, and delivered a triumphant moment of Wally. As Barry and Wally start losing sight of a Speed Force-empowered Hunter Zolomon, Barry speaks the words that we all knew to be true — that Wally is the fastest man alive. Wally catches up to Hunter and, in a way that gets to the core of the character and what the Flash legacy means to him and to readers, defeats Hunter.

The epilogue issue that followed was also great, with some great meta-commentary, but I’m keeping it to one issue per series. So, make it an honourable mention. And sure, what followed “Flash War” for Wally was terrible and speaks of how badly creators can screw up characters, but for a brief time, Wally West was where he belonged — with his family, as the fastest man alive. Instead of Titans encouraging him to let go of his memories, The Flash has him embrace them and his past, because that’s what makes him who he is.

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1. “Dawn”, Silver Surfer (2016) #14

Dan Slott’s Silver Surfer run is a joyful ride through the strangeness of space and is a soaring tribute to the Silver Age. However, at its core, Silver Surfer is about the relationship between Norrin Radd, the Sentinel of the Spaceways, and Dawn Greenwood, an average girl from Earth. This moment typifies that in the best way possible.

After Norrin and Dawn travel to before the Big Bang, they are stranded and decide to live their lives there. They get married and Dawn eventually passes away from old age, and Norrin doesn’t. As the old universe dies, Norrin travels through the event and ends up in the current universe once again, throwing Dawn’s essence into the Big Bang, creating the signature red and black dots of the power cosmic from her ladybug motif. Later, we see that every species has the same word for the sun rising: “Dawn”.

This moment is a perfect ending to a perfect run. It is goofy and weird, but also epic and heart-warming, paying tribute to Jack Kirby’s art and honing in on what made this run so great. If Dan Slott’s Silver Surfer was a tribute to the Silver Age, this moment is a testament that, for all the high concepts and strangeness, the Silver Age was about joy and wonderment.

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There you have it, my personal best comic book moments of the 2010s. Probably nobody is going to agree with me on these, but these are the ones I liked the most. There were others, but I had to be a bit strict, so this is what is left. Hopefully the 2020s will have just as many good moments, and of just as high a quality. But I don’t know, I don’t have 2020 vision.

(Sorry).

As the decade comes to a close, I've decided to look at the best moments in comic books from the 2010s, a decade which delivered some of my favourite moments in comics. So far, I've looked at the biggest shake-ups in comics status quos in the 2010s. Of course, I think those were important.

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masterghandalf · 2 years

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Game of the Ancients: Introduction

Game of the Ancients is a writing project of mine I've been working on in various forms for the last several years and is very near and dear to my heart. Its basic concept is a large-scale fanfic series set in the Eberron Dungeons and Dragons campaign setting, following a team of adventurers (or technically, a couple of teams with different agendas) as they travel across the world and find themselves enmeshed in the designs of an ancient evil. I thought I'd make a series of posts here covering some of the basics of the characters and ideas, hopefully in preparation for a return to actually writing it. If that sounds interesting, more after the cut!

Why Eberron?

Eberron is a setting I've found intriguing ever since it first launched back in the mid-2000s. It's at once immediately recognizable as a D&D setting, while also being something very distinct from, say, Dragonlance or the Forgotten Realms. Part of that is the general conceit; rather than a faux-Medieval or Renaissance based world, it's a world of industrialized magic that's just come off it's rough equivalent of World War I and is now in an era of uneasy peace. There's also it's greater focus on moral greyness and ambiguity, including largely dispensing with the notion of "always evil" races before that idea became mainstream, allowing for greater complexity in conflicts, while still allowing room for some genuinely dastardly villains. There's the general lack of high-powered heroic NPCs running around, firmly protagonizing the PCs (or just the protagonists, in the case of my story;)) in a way that say, the Forgotten Realms sometimes struggled with. And, of course, it has a bunch of unique concepts that are just dang cool.

Unfortunately, the Eberron novel line petered out after only about forty novels (in contrast to the Realms, that has almost 300 and counting) and while some of them were fun, they didn't necessarily deal with the concepts that I really liked about the setting. Perhaps most obviously, the Eberron writing staff and fandom seemed to really love the warforged (for those not familiar, essentially sapient magical automatons created to fight in the Last War, who have to deal with their identity and newfound freedom now that the war is over) but they never quite clicked with me, despite seemingly every novel having its token warforged character. What really grabbed me were less-explored concepts - the kalashtar and their struggle with the Dreaming Dark (not only my favorite aspect of the setting, but one of my favorite fantasy concepts period!); the Aereni elves with their reverence for their magically-preserved ancestors and cultural fascination with the interplay of life and death; the lich Erands Vol, a tragic, broken messiah manipulating a whole religion in a vain attempt to realize her destiny; the Lords of Dust and the Chamber of Dragons pulling strings from the shadows, and the mortals caught between them. And so much more.

And so I decided, if nobody else would write the Eberron epic of my dreams, I'd just have to do it myself:). After toying with some of these ideas for literally years, I finally got them into a form I mostly liked, and Game of the Ancients was born.

So what is Game of the Ancients, anyway?

Game of the Ancients is the story of a girl cursed with a power she never wanted, trying to find her place in the world; a bunch of mercenaries with issues of their own who she falls in with and maybe finds a home with; an aging warlord and his necromancer sidekick, who have their own interests in things; the ancient evil pulling all their strings for its own inscrutable ends; and all the people they meet along the way as their journey takes them across the face of the known world, and maybe beyond...

That melodramatic enough for you? To be more direct, Game of the Ancients is a series of fanfics; only the first fic and about half the second are actually written, though I know everything I want to do with the plot and the major character beats. I'd initially envisioned five fics (set on the continents of Khorvaire, Sarlona, Xen'drik, Argonessen and Aerenal, respectively) but am currently toying with splitting the last volume in two to give the plot enough breathing room, with the last volume focusing on the underworld of Khyber. Beginning with the "default setting" of Khorvaire, the goal is to take the characters across the setting and delve into various major locales and conflicts - and run afoul of some of the setting's major villains.

If you're interested in checking out what's already written, Volume I: Khorvaire is here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1293652/chapters/2683129

Volume II, Sarlona (unfinished) is here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10565145/chapters/23342292

From here, I'd like to take a deeper dive into some of my major characters, themes, plot choices and so on, as well as some of where I want to go with the series in the future and some aspects I'm not quite satisfied with, in individual posts. And I'll include some pics, too! We'll start off with one of the very first characters I created for this project, the one who, though she isn't really the main protagonist, nonetheless is in many ways the one who holds the whole thing together - Captain Len of the Wandering Blades mercenary company. See you there!

#fanfic #D&D #Eberron #original characters #writing #writing thoughts #game of the ancients #fantasy #epic #MG's writing #MG's fanfiction #MG's original characters #heroic fantasy #female protagonist #multiple protagonists

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rachelbethhines · 6 years

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The Antoine and Bunnie Retrospective - 144

“Round Up” - Sonic the Hedgehog 173

This is it! The beginning of the most important Buntione story ever!

They get engage!

Of course we’ve expected Antoine would propose since issue 168, but it took awhile for him to work up the courage to do it and he wanted Sonic and Amy to be present and provide support which is sweet.

However celebrations are short as this a action comic and we have to shoehorn some fighting in somewhere.

The Master Emerald has been stolen supposedly and Sally offers to track it down for Knuckles as he’s currently occupied elsewhere. She sets up a sting operation with Bunnie, Ant and Sonic in tow.

I have to commend Flynn for finally getting both Sonic and Sally to open up and talk about their issues. It’s just a shame that, A. it’s cut short and B. for such an important development in their relationship Bunnie and Ant sure take the back seat in this story. But still it’s a step in the right direction and more then we’ve seen in the last, what 3 eras, now? Geesh!

Anyways Team Hooligan, (that’s Nack, Bean, and Bark) show up and a decent fight ensues, though it’s more comedic then anything exciting or ground breaking. However I am amused that once again it’s Antoine to defeat Bark just like he did the Birthday Bash arc.

I’m liking their little semi-rivalry. I would totally have loved it if this was some running gag that popped up in the background from time to time but sadly I think this is the last time they face off against one another.

Some more big bads show up and some more comedy commences. The villains are easily disposed of while Rouge is revealed to be the real culprit; only not really.

Oh this dumb.

Lets step aside for a moment and forget Rouge's obvious lapse in logic here and talk about the real problem. Rouge is by far the most ill served Sega character in the pre-reboot Archie comic. From her lame introduction to her ill conceived moral ambiguity the Archie version of Rouge is nothing like her game counterpart. Gone is the compassion, the empathy, and the insight that made the character stand out from other Femme Fatale stereotypes. And the lowest point for the her is the misjudged Knuckles/Julie-Su/Rouge triangle.

Yeah that’s right, not even Ian Flynn can escape from the forced love triangle bullshit that has plagued this comic since it’s creation. But make no mistake this particular romantic drama is all of his own creation.

I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but the Rouge and Knuckles pairing does not work the same in the pre-reboot comics as it does in other Sonic media. For starters the events of SA2 didn’t happen for Knuckles. He was too busy being green at the time, remember, and the Master Emerald along with Angel Island was sucked into another dimension. So therefore he and Rouge don’t even meet officially until the Home arc. All she does there is offer him a lift. Hardly the stuff to build off a relationship with. The only hint we get that Juile-Su looks annoyed by it but that could easily because she didn’t want Knuckles fighting in the battle without his powers.

Which leads into the second issue with the pairing. Kunckles has been in a committed relationship for years by this point. In the very next issue we see that he and Julie-Su consider themselves to be in a common law marriage. That’s how serious they are. Not only does the Rouge’s out of nowhere attraction cause a forced love triangle. But she knows it. Rouge flat out states to Julie-Su that she doesn't care about being a homewrecker. That she’ll willing try to break them up just for the challenge. The whole thing is tasteless and tacky and even more insulting when you realize that the game Rouge had a little something called class.

Which leads into into the third problem. By changing Rouge’s base motivations and making her the unrequited love interest you undermine the very dynamic that made the Rouge/Knuckles pairing appealing in the first place. They’re suppose to both mutually like each other but unwilling to admit it due to pride. Half the fun is meant to be their unspoken sexual tension, like with Cheers or Leia and Han before they got together.

Oh and did I mention that she made out with his dad once. (eww)

My only guess as to why Flynn would ever think of adding this ship in the first place is either he’s personally a fan of the pairing and/or Sonic X was running at the time and the ship is pretty obvious there. However since Archie was also currently handling the Sonic X comic at this time fans could have just gone there to get their fix. Making the inclusion into the main continuity all the more pointless; dragging an already much maligned character down ever further.

Thankfully Flynn wises up and realizes this ship isn’t working drops the whole thing after this issue. At least until reboot.

But enough talking about other pairings lets back to the real reason we’re here.

This is pretty big. Sally being the maid of honor was always a given, but Sonic as the best man really showcases how far his and Antoine’s friendship has come over the years. They’re brothers, along with Tails and Rotor, and it’s important to remember that from time to time.

Next time; the wedding proper.

#antoine d'coolette #bunnie rabbot #sally acorn #sonic the hedgehog #archie sonic #Rouge the Bat #Knuckles the Echidna #bean the dynamite #bark the polar bear #nack the weasle

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Star Wars: The Bad Batch Episode 16 Review: Kamino Lost

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This Star Wars: The Bad Batch review contains spoilers.

Star Wars: The Bad Batch Episode 16

The Bad Batch has answered its central question: “What happened to the clones during the Empire?” As with many things in Star Wars, the answer is that a lot ended in fire. Like most of the show, it’s fun but inconsequential, a bingeable, cinematic adventure that is lovely to watch on a big screen the first time and starts to get stale on the second.

Part 1 of the finale saw the Batchers return to their former home, and the Empire open fire. “Kamino Lost,” directed by Saul Ruiz and written by Jennifer Corbett, returns to them in an even worse spot. Now, they need to escape a crumbling city that has fallen all the way to the ocean floor (or at least an outcropping of the underwater tunnels). As they make their tense way toward the surface, they’re forced into close proximity to team traitor Crosshair, who tries to convince them of his righteousness while the team wonders whether he’s still under the influence of the chip that made Order 66 work.

Stream your Star Wars favorites right here!

Kamino is the clones’ homeworld, and its loss signals another one of the many ends of the Prequel era. This is the place where they all were born and trained, where they made friends. It’s not a bad choice for a finale that maybe knows some of Star Wars‘ best lately (The Clone Wars, Rogue One) ended in tragedy. But I wish we saw a bit more of the clones reacting here initially instead of the show using music and distant views to rather artificially create that sense of loss. Sure, they don’t have a lot of time. But this show has always been good at gesture, which here is spare. (I do love the image of Hunter ending Crosshair’s fall with his foot, trying to save his brother but not being excessively nice about it.)

Overall, the animation is gorgeous, explosions of water, glass and debris like a demo reel of just what the art teams can do now. Omega’s hair alone is a marvel, as is the clutter and texture of the clones’ surroundings.

And later, when they find their own quarters, the pathos ramps up, as does the action. As much as I love a creature feature, and the water keeps the pressure on, it’s all not particularly memorable. It’s certainly claustrophobic and tense, though, especially the clones nearly drowning in pods never meant to be rescue ships. While heavily telegraphed, AZI-3’s contribution was especially frightening.

Although she’s not exactly complicated, I do love that Omega’s motivations are so selfless and heroic. She just wants to help people, and that means everyone, from AZI to Crosshair. At best, she reminds me of Star Wars Rebels‘ Ezra Bridger; she has her own quirky weapon, her own affiliation (clones instead of Jedi and animals), and a good-hearted energy that’s just fun to watch. The show has done it right in giving her her own relationships, beliefs and agency, while also making her connection to her brothers clear. Still, she might have to grow up a bit before she can truly arrive on a list of the best Star Wars heroes.

Star Wars: The Bad Batch Episode 16 Easter Eggs Explained

By Megan Crouse

Will Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 2 Happen?

By John Saavedra

As for Crosshair, his motivations finally become a bit clearer. “All those missions together, and you threw it away,” Crosshair accuses. “We made a choice. And so did you,” Hunter replies. Hunter argues for independent thought, while Crosshair believes following orders keeps soldiers alive. Crosshair’s ambiguity in the first episode bothered me, and still weakens the plot: did he remove his chip or not? Whether or not a character made a choice on their own is really important, and in my opinion doesn’t work as a twist to be withheld. We do get more of his motivation here, and I like the idea that at the core he does want to protect people (and himself) in his own way. A clever coward, he thinks the Empire will protect him. It’s neat how everything else about the episode shows that it won’t.

Some of my favorite dialogue in the episode addresses this. “Crosshair has always been severe and unyielding,” Tech says. The team computer guy then remains one of my favorite characters with the line “Understanding you does not mean I agree with you.” Like any good villain, Crosshair has a twisted version of the truth: he sees the Empire as the future.

He also doesn’t like Omega. There’s an interesting parallel between them: while her first major act on the show was to try to find her “brothers,” Crosshair never really felt attached to anyone: not to his brothers, not to Kamino. His rootlessness has made him cold. This rings true in a way that helps both of them feel both more like real people and like a more coherent moral underpinning for the show.

AZI is a delightful addition, and I’m glad he became a major part of the crew for the finale. What can I say? He’s a chipper little droid who’s good at welding his way out of problems.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Ultimately, I think The Bad Batch failed to engage with questions about the clones in a lot of ways. What harm did the Republic also do to them? How does Echo being a “reg” change how he develops? What future do the Batchers really want for themselves? The ethics of cloning people for war, the optics of a show about brown men voiced by a white actor … it’s just not interested. At the same time, a show about mostly men has done a great job making its lone female character complex and capable. It’s still possible to address deeper questions in a secondary-world cartoon, even as The Bad Batch functions pretty much as a sequel to the equally self-contained The Clone Wars.

Already renewed for a second season, it’s perhaps too early to say how The Bad Batch will age. But it makes me think of Star Wars Resistance, a show with some passionate fans and accomplished animation experiments that nevertheless doesn’t go down in history as the best Star Wars has to offer. Even if The Bad Batch does fill in a major hole in the clones’ stories.

The post Star Wars: The Bad Batch Episode 16 Review: Kamino Lost appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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mermaidsirennikita · 6 years

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Valentine’s Day Reads

Happy Valentine’s Day! As I often gripe about badly done romance on this blog, I thought I’d list a few books that actually do it well. Some are classics; some are decidedly not. But I love the love stories in all of them. I tried to cover my bases, and while I won’t say that all of these are all-time favorites for me, they do stick out in my head for their romantic plotlines and the chemistry between the leads. Hopefully, something here will appeal to you.

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. Scarlett is a spoiled, vivacious southern belle on the eve of the Civil War. She wants Ashley, a gentleman whose romanticism and genteel nature embody the antebellum era they’ve grown up; he’s the one man she can’t have, engaged to his sweet, kindhearted cousin Melanie. As the war begins and becomes increasingly brutal, Scarlett must grow up and become a survivor, pining for Ashley while engaging in a game of wits and and emotion with Rhett, a man whose cynical and opportunist nature makes him a pariah in the south--but perhaps might also make him Scarlett’s true match. The love/hate narrative is really defined by GWTW, which is less a tragedy than it is a coming of age story. Scarlett and Rhett’s chemistry and rightness for each other is undeniable, but held back by the fact that she can’t recognize her own true feelings, committed to an idea rather than reality, and he is too protective of his own feelings to admit that he loves her. GWTW is one of the few “classics” out there that is truly and compulsively readable, and it suggests a lot of Deep Things while at the same time entertaining you with a frustrating, gorgeous romance.

Cinder by Marissa Meyer. Cinder is a cyborg, shunned by society and neglected by her stepmother and stepsister--despite her status as a gifted mechanic. When the stepsister she loves grows fatally ill, she catches the blame, putting her in a precarious position. At the same time, however, she finds herself as the mechanic of none other than Prince Kai, heir to the throne of the Eastern Commonwealth. As Cinder becomes more entwined in political intrigue through Kai, she must also fight her feelings for him, and her lack of self-worth. It’s hard to explain this series without spoiling a lot--and while The Lunar Chronicles is one of my favorites series, I’ll admit that Cinder--though the first book--isn’t my favorite (that honor goes to Scarlet, the second book in the series). But Cinder and Kai have a fantastic, sweet romance that of course draws from Cinderella, as every book in the series draws from a different fairy tale. Yes, there is a lot of sci-fi going on in The Lunar Chronicles, and various space politics, but ultimately, each novel is a love story, and the couples you meet in one book return in the next. (Except for Fairest, the excellent villain origin story prequel, which is an obsession story.) Highly recommend if you’re on the lookout for some fun, romantic YA with a sci-fi spin.

Beauty by Robin McKinley. The awkward Beauty doesn’t much feel like she deserves her nickname, especially when she pales in comparison to her gorgeous sisters. But when her father returns from the castle of a mysterious beats, she rises to the occasion, offering to be the beasts’s prisoner in his place--and determined that she can tame it. Obviously, this is a Beauty and the Beast retelling--but it’s a definitive one. This a slow-burn romance, and the book is as much about Beauty learning to love herself as the beast. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some excellent moments between the two of them. When you’re looking for something with a bit less heat and a bit more gentle romance, check this out.

When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore. Miel and Sam are childhood friends, having weathered prejudice--Miel is an immigrant, and Sam is a trans man--together, as well as the strange roses that grow out of Miel’s skin and the attention that attracts. But just after their relationship crosses a line--going from pining to physical--confusing the two of them, the Bonner sisters return to town. Rumored to be witches, they want Miel’s roses, and will do whatever it takes to get them. McLemore is really, really good at magical realism. And there’s a lot of that in this book. But the central story here is Miel and Sam’s relationship, their pasts, and how they’re struggling to come to terms with who they are. The story is both romantic and erotic, and perhaps part of why it feels so incredibly real is that parts of it reflect McLemore’s own life. Whether or not that’s true, however, is irrelevant--it’s impossible to not love her dreamy prose and the intensity of Miel and Sam’s feelings for each other.

Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones. Liesl is underappreciated and in many ways repressed, taking on a lot of responsibility at the family inn. Her sister Kathe is the beautiful one, and her brother Josef, a gifted musician, is the talented one--regardless of the fact that Liesl herself is a driven composer. Ever since they were children, the siblings have been preoccupied with the Goblin King, but though he inspires her music, Liesl has dismissed him as a childhood fancy. Until, that is, Kathe is taken by goblins--and the Goblin King needs a bride. To save her sister, Liesl takes her place as the Goblin Queen. While initially repulsed by the Underground, she becomes enthralled by her new husband’s world, and their shared passion for music. Wintersong is well-written and thoroughly addictive, laced with a kind of erotic intoxication. You fall for the Goblin King as Liesl does; you fall for his world as she does. It’s morally ambiguous and dark and strange, and quite perfect for those who never got over David Bowie in Labyrinth.

A Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Deveraux. Jilted by her self-obsessed boyfriend and left penniless, Dougless asks for a knight in shining armor and gets one--in the form of Nicholas, a medieval knight sent forward in time. Dougless is initially disbelieving, but as she and Nicholas learn about his real legacy--which falls short of what he expected--they gradually fall in love. However, their relationship is cut short by his sudden disappearance, sending Dougless back in time to find him. This is a classic 80s romance novel, and therefore I had to include it. It’s silly; it’s problematic; it has quite a few sex scenes, some of which may or may not involve ice cream. But there’s a kind of purity to its cheese and silliness that is lighthearted and unique to the era.

The Girl in 6E by A.R. Torre. Deanna Madden wants to kill people. So, she stays in her apartment all day, making a living as a cam girl. As a result, she has to have a lot of things delivered to her--prompting the interest of the delivery guy, who just wants to get to know this woman he’s never even seen. Too bad Deanna wants to murder him. Basically, this is an erotic novel; there are a lot a lot a lot of explicit sex scenes, and a few different men who may or may not have a romantic interest in Deanna beyond her body (and if the series continues beyond the three books it’s already had, I wouldn’t be shocked if the author expands upon that). But there’s something sweet about a guy and a girl who really don’t know each other being genuinely intrigued by one another--and the fact that the relationship’s main obstacle is Deanna’s own desire to kill makes it all the more interesting.

The Hating Game by Sally Thorn. Lucy and Josh are work rivals at their publishing company--though “rivals” may be putting it lightly. They loathe each other, regularly taunting one another throughout the day while competing. That competition gets ramped up a notch by a promised promotion that only one of them can get. But as they each struggle for the job, Lucy and Josh begin to realize that the tension between them may not just be professional. The Hating Game is a rom com, but like... a sexy one. There are plenty of UST-filled moments throughout the book. And the great thing is that Josh isn’t an asshole, like most men in these sorts of books are. He doesn’t want to ruin Lucy’s life; he actually seems into her, not into dominating her. If you want something light and lovely and hot, go for The Hating Game.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Heathcliff is an orphan, brought to Wuthering Heights by Mr. Earnshaw and raised as a “lesser than” sort of foster child alongside Earnshaw’s children, the abusive Hindley and spirited Cathy. Equally wild, Heathcliff and Cathy become childhood best friends, and their feelings gradually deepen into intense romantic love as they grow up. But Heathcliff is socially unsuitable for the upper-class Cathy, and when she agrees to marry her shy neighbor Linton--while vowing to love Heathcliff forever, out of his earshot--he runs away. When he returns, Heathcliff is wealthy and bent on revenge; but the feelings between himself and Cathy remain, leading two families and multiple generations into ruin. I feel like a lot of people are immediately put off by WH because it’s not told from Heathcliff and Cathy’s perspectives, exactly. In fact, the story is told long after their children have grown up, by Nelly, a housekeeper who observed much of the story’s events, to Lockwood, a visitor to Wuthering Heights. It’s also a really twisted love story--as much of a hate story as anything else. Heathcliff and Cathy resent and adore each other in equal measure. They thwart their own happiness over and over, and both are beasts to those that love them. But this novel is so significant precisely because it shows that two hideous people can love each other--and it conveys a haunting sort of passion that seems almost out of place in a novel of its time. The strain of morality running through Jane Eyre--tempering its subversive plot--isn’t present in Wuthering Heights. Even when the cycle of abuse that consumed Heathcliff and Cathy finally is broken, the people that do so are hardly angels. It’s a sad, angering, obsessive story. But at its core, this is a book about love--and the things both terrible and great that it drives people to.

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater. As a little girl, Grace was attacked by wolves--and since then has been somewhat obsessed with the yellow-eyed wolf in the woods behind her house. Sam is a wolf in the winter and a boy in the summer, his transformation completely involuntary and based on the temperature. This time, when the weather warms, he finally meets Grace, and they begin a tentative relationship--but if Sam can’t figure out how to stop himself from changing, he runs the risk of becoming a wolf forever, and losing not just Grace but himself. Maggie Stiefvater has become increasingly famous for her Raven Boys series, and don’t get me wrong, I love that series. But I love The Wolves of Mercy Falls more, and not just because it was the first book of hers that I ever read. There’s a lovely approachable, understanding tone to Shiver--her writing is still beautiful and lyrical, but the simplicity of Grace and Sam’s love story set against the backdrop of a complicated, fraught situation is impossible to resist. As the series continues, another very good, contrasting romance is added in--but I can’t really get over how incredibly soft Sam and Grace are, and how much this series feels like young love to me.

#books #book recs

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courage-a-word-of-justice · 5 years

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Astra 4

How does anyone wash their hands with a spacesuit on?

Those exaggerated faces (reaction to candy plants) weren’t in the manga. Good thing too – they improve on the source.

Hey, man (Ulgar)! “Big girl” is offensive. (I’m probably saying that because I’m not too big myself.)

The *ding ding ding!* was pretty hilarious…LOL.

I remember this was pretty harsh to read for me the first time…because y’know what they say about representation mattering in feminist studies/articles? Yeah, that. (Exactly how I’m represented? That I’ll leave to your imagination…)

Aw, the Gruppie sounds adorable!

I think I’ve said this already, but Kanata uses the word “zetsubou” – despair, not necessarily “hopeless” – to say what he says.

Demon Slayer 17

I was a bit confused as to why Inosuke was majorly angry all the time, but then I realised that he’s not necessarily angry, per se - he is just majorly competitive.

*head on spider legs appears* ARGHHHHHHHHHHH! That reminds me of that head on spider legs from Toy Story…I seem to remember that freaked me out to some degree. I’m actually not afraid of spiders, but show me an image for “trypophobia” (fear of tiny holes) or stick me somewhere high up without secure footing…and I’m gone.

This episode is…great! I’m cursing as I watch, but it’s great! The CGI is adding to the creepiness! Also, I so didn’t expect Zenitsu to have black hair.

I agree with Zenitsu’s master, he is a moron…

…but truth be told, I think I see myself in him. That’s probably why I find him so annoying. Lately, I’ve found there are periods where I resent myself more than anyone else…and that’s the scariest part about living life. But I can’t complain, because I put my name down to help others in the same situation.

Z-Zenitsu! I-I’m sorry I ever doubted you! I’m so sorry…! I promise I’ll stop thinking you’re annoying, because you remind me of meeeeeeeeeee…! *sob, snivel, sob…*

Ukogiiiiiiiiii! Wahhhhhhhhh!

Hmm…you can smell rain. I’ve smelt it before. But thunderclouds…? Not so much.

Demon Slayer 18

“Rookie Mizunoto join the battle!” – The Smash Bros intro is a fun way to introduce people, no?

I thought Shinobu Kocho was Naruto running, but instead she has her jacket on her shoulders…so it only looks like Naruto running.

CG models are back to being awkward again…

“If you can’t slash something with one sword, you just gotta pound it with another sword!” – Basically, the philosophy of the entire shonen genre when dealing with swords.

“I’m gonna die.” – Well, there’s some words I thought I’d never hear from Inosuke…

Oh yeah…I forgot Inosuke’s never met Giyu.

Hmm…I’ve been suspecting Rui is the member of the 12 Kizuki as a demon with lower possibility of being so (but being raised by Ply’s hint during our collab and Tanjiro’s fight), but I’m more certain of the father being the 12 Kizuki based on what the series has shown us already. Hmm…so who is it???

*starts watching Taisho Secret* Wait, where did Giyu come from??? *watches again* Oh, he appears from above…! Interesting…

Hmm…I like salmon onigiri myself. I also like tuna…most flavours, really.

Cop Craft 4

The man (?) with the purplish hair who called Kei over is meant to be a gay stereotype or at least close to one. Aside from his (?) appearance, you can tell by him (?) nding his sentences with “wa”.

Marth’s post for ep. 4 said “And Suddenly, Vampires”, so…I’m thinking about how Cop Craft actually does the horror vibe really well as I watch.

Aw, these cliffhangers suck! I’m starting to thank myself that I ran behind on every show but Demon Slayer.

Cop Craft 5

O-Oh, the CG is getting worse…

Who was the 2nd person dead? The 1st was Chapman…

Astra 5

As I’m laughing at the reactions from the makeover (because I knew this was coming), I’m simultaneously wondering…holding those scissors in the way you’re doing is dangerous, Luca!!!

Oh great…midseason animation slump. This is only the 2nd show to suffer from that this season…and I’ve only caught up on 3 shows so far.

“Mine is bigger!” “No, mine is!” – Ah, anime boys and their ability to make things vaguely Freudian when out of context…*slight sweatdrop*

*slow pan, with a final shot on Aries’s boobs* - Oh, really…? *grumpy*

*…then proceeds to do boob shots of all the girls* Oh, really?!? You wanna go, show?! You were doing so well, up until this episode!!! I didn’t read past volume 2 of the manga, so this beach stuff is all new to me!!! Plus, it sucks because boob shots are everywhere!!!

“…approach him like that…”

People have been pointing this out, but McPa = Camp, Shummoor = Mushroom, Vilavurs = Survival…so Arispade = Paradise.

Ulgar really reminds me of Tooi, even though he came first…

Dr Stone 3

Taiju’s ugly tears make me go “d’aww” now that this scene is animated…it was nice in manga format, but even better when it was moving and with colour.

Now that I think about it, Tsukasa’s “benefit of the new world” talk reminds me of Death Note.

Senku trying to steal Kamakura Buddha bronze looks like Bart Simpson…

Boueibu should’ve taught you that Hakone is home to hot springs.

Dr Stone 4

You don’t fire a smoke signal…

Oh wow, Mecha Senku! Wouldya lookit that! *points at him* He answers questions in the manga, so I didn’t think he’d get adapted!

Are those…CGI trees? Oh great, why does all shonen these days need CGI trees???

Fighting over established interests means a Thucydides trap (a mini version of which seems to be playing out here with Tsukasa)…that’s basically the only thing I remember from my old politics classes.

I just noticed Yuzuriha refers to all the boys with –kun. She wants to stay friends with all of them…I guess even Tsukasa’s on that list, huh?

Hmm…Senku’s eyes are a reddish colour, but otherwise he’s normally representd with blue to Taiju’s red…

I just realised Senku has a red pen and a black pen in one of his breast pockets.

Aww…it’s nice to have rivals who aren’t 100% evil for once. Sure, pure evil rivals are easy to write but hard to justify. Good guys with one morally wrong aspect to them are harder to write, but easier to get behind. (Plus, at least they’re not Sasuke-style angsty.)

Dr Stone 5

So…I went searching…and I was wondering why I wanted to claim Tsukasa as husbando (but man, he’s a bit more stereotypical for a gal to fall in love with – all girls like bad guys, amirite???), but as it turns out, Senku and his buds from our era (Tsukasa included) are 18 and so are ripe for the husbando/waifu picking (not to mention they’re technically over 3700 years old, which more than makes them legal for things like drinking alcohol, as Senku himself pointed out a few eps back).

D’aww…this was in the manga, but now I find Tsukasa inserting himself into Senku’s flashback cute.

Notably, Gen Asagiri appears on the front of the book this student is asking the question from. Who’s Gen Asagiri, you ask, my dear anime-only random nonexistent entity I type these notes for? You’ll find out…soon.

Hmm…Yuzuriha is more observant than we give her credit for. Also, Senku pulled a Gen Asagiri right there…LOL.

LOL…those ‘shrooms seem massively symbolic. They were also in the manga, IIRC.

Why does Yuzuriha wear a neck scarf, anyway?

Hey, they even managed to get the game-like text box right! Awesome! (It reminds me of Little Alchemy, to be honest.)

“Himo” translates to rope…or a cord. Just FYI.

Astra 6

Eyyy…this show is calling me out.

Eyyyyy…Toi vibes from Ulgar!!!

Eyyyyy…wut? I can’t believe Anime Feminist was on the money here??? (Context: The reviewer for Astra said Luca was “one ambiguously-gendered character”.)

Hey…I once read a book with a 50% similarity to this plot. (There was a gay character – not intersex - and all the characters are adopted.)

I think Xenodude said this, but…in space, nobody can hear you scream.

I’m laughing so hard…why are Kanata’s abs the thing that hurt the most? (It’s because he’s got the harness in that region…forget I asked. It’s still funny though.)

“MILD THING” – Yep, Ulgar’s gonna be mild after what happened this episode…

Ohhhhh, I didn’t understand the “hairpiece” thing until it was revealed it was a toupee through context.

Ooh, 50% chance of lying here. Who to trust, who to trust? Charce or Aries? (I trust Aries, by the way.)

Dr Stone 6

The alien explanation etc. was in the manga, but…why do all the attackers look like Senku???

Senku does his best Thinker impression.

Eyyy! Fighter vs. fighter. I love this scene, even if only because Tsukasa (and his muscles) have the upper hand in both the visual angle and the power balance, although [BLEEP <- no spoilers!] has the surprise factor.

I remember learning once blonde hair is recessive…so does that mean most of the community is blonde? (I know the answer to that, but you, my non-existent anime-discussing entity, don’t.)

I’m tempted to hear Senku scream, “This. Is. SCIENCE!!!”

Fruits Basket 15

For some reason, videos run much faster on my phone than my laptop…

Hmm…this is the first time I’m properly listening to the 2nd ED…It’s kinda like how you’d expect an ED to be: quieter than an ED, but still serving up cuteness.

Fruits Basket 16

This episode’s visually very dark…

Middle School!Tohru reminds me of Hitori Bocchi.

Smol Uo looks like Kyo.

Fruits Basket 17

(nothing this time, sorry!)

Fruits Basket 18

Oh! I remember the matching scene in the manga (where Kisa bites Tohru for the first time).

I also remember the manga Hatsuharu is reading is called “Mogeta and the Ant” (Ari).

Now you see why Tohru is Kyoko’s daughter…

“…what her hair and eye colour were.”

Fruits Basket 19

The ep is called “I’m So Sorry!”…I think I know who’s going to star in this episode, alright…

For some reason, when I see Ritsu and Mitchan apologising to each other, I think of me and Astral…(LOL…?)

…Or maybe it reminds me of Zenitsu…?

Eyyyyyyyy, A-ya is A-ya…

This overly-apologetic character of Ritsu…this is why Martin was my favourite character back in the original Ro.Te.O days…*sighs while basking in nostalgia*

Demon Slayer 19

This episode’s been hyped since last week. Let’s get on with it!

Ooh, no pattern on this title card…

Wow (sarcastic), talk about infighting…but amazingly, I found Inosuke’s art shift to be funny for once in my life! (Amazing!...and yes, the exclamation of “Amazing!” is sincere)

Using terror is…well, Machiavellian. Hard power. You get my drift, right?

So basically, Rui breaks down the nuclear family for us.

Wait a flippin’ second…Hinokami (god of fire)? Charcoal selling? Water Breathing??? One of these is not like the others, for sure.

I get the feeling the father’s dance was recorded as video then converted to animation by ufotable staff…that’s what they did for YoI, no?

“The cold won’t bother you, either.” - Well, due to his fire theming, the cold never bothered Tanjiro anyway…*echoes of “Let It Go” suddenly play in the background*

Go for it, Nezuko! Be the Bakugo of the Demon Slayer world!

According to the credits, Tanjiro’s dad’s name is Tanjuro…that’s confusing, to say the least…

(Sorry Astral, the background noise while I was watching meant I did’t watch it with sound on…Also, is it wrong that I think the dad is hot??? Another thing: why do Tanjuro and Tanjiro have matching scars on their temples…?)

One of Tanjiro’s bros looks like Zenitsu??? Wuh???

Ooh, insert song “Kamado Tanjiro’s Song” by Go Shiina ft Nami Nakagawa. I’ll have to listen to it when I can. (Ever since SGRS, I’ve loved Go Shiina’s work…guess I didn’t expect it here, though.) Update: Misattributed the work. Go Shiina does videogame work, Sheens Ringo did SGRS stuf.

Given 3

I never knew that asking someone into a band was like asking someone out…(probably because I’ve never been in a band).

Given’s a frickin’ riot – that’s one reason I stuck with it.

I forgot Mafuyu was underage…!

Cop Craft 6

That car chase was basically Need for Speed…with worse graphics…

“Prayboy”…hmm…

I followed Kei’s advice to Google Jeffrey Dahmer…and I regret it.

The text says “Someone from the Semanian gang of thieves made contact.”

I didn’t make sense of “I hate being McCloud” until I rewound a bit and found that’s a disguise or alter ego of Tony’s.

“Shift the transmission into ‘Reverse’. The car will begin to roll backward sharply…” - The driving instructions are real, at least.

Given 4

Ehhhhh…still shots…

Kaji sure looks tough for a violinist…but a music major? Never thought he’d be one…(I saw some spoilers saying Kaji was a violinist before I watched the episode, hence my lack of surprise in that department.)

Not everyone’s in a band, y’know…

$120…? Nasty…

$70…

Ah, a layby? I don’t actually know what other countries call it, but where I am they’re called laybys, not layaways. (At the charity store I volunteer at, they call ‘em “holds”, though…which makes things even more confusing.)

Watching th first ep at the anime club made me realise that one had a piano version of Marutsuke, while this one is standard Marutsuke.

Given 5

Ooh, I see English-translated lyrics! Nice one, subbers! By the way, the title of the OP “Kizuato” sounds like it should translate to “Traces of Scars/Wounds” in English, but it’s in katakana, so I can’t confirm that…

It seems joining a band is a metaphor for love in this show…(see ep. 3 notes for more on that)

Holy moly! I’m still fairly new to BL/yaoi in general, so two-timing the boyfriend is not a trope ‘ve seen before, let alone dealt with in my head…

Ooh, more translated lyrics! That (ED singer) does sound like Mafuyu, come to think of it…

#simulcast commentary #Given #Dr Stone #Astra: Lost in Space #Kanata no Astra #Demon Slayer #Kimetsu no Yaiba #Fruits Basket #Fruits Basket (2019)#Cop Craft #Chesarka watches Given #Chesarka watches KnY #Chesarka watches Kanata no Astra #Chesarka watches Furuba #Chesarka watches Cop Craft #Chesarka watches Dr Stone

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