#Anti-Greg Weisman

[mimeparadox]

Boy, I really wish the Gargoyles comics would give Elisa something to do.

(Remembers that the last time the Gargoyles comics gave Elisa something to do, it was to break up with Goliath over a heretofore unvoiced desire to be a tradwife, only to give up all of those things two issues later as if her desires weren't important.)

Okay, maybe I don't.

[short-wooloo]

I now believe that we can confidently say that Clone Wars and Rebels are good in spite of filoni, not because of him

[threewaysdivided]

How Different do you think Young Justice Season 3 would have been had Jay Olivia and Michael Chang returned?

[For context, we’re referring to this post where I broke down the major writing/directing credits for each episode of Young Justice Season 1 and found that former Teen Titans 2003 directors Jay Oliva and Michael Chang had handled over 75% of the episodes in Young Justice Season 1 before vanishing from the credits of all later entries, and this post where I summarise how those later entries actively destroyed the arcs, themes and narrative of the original season.]

TBH it’s kind of hard to tell.  I have a few ideas, but like I was saying in that first post, it can be unwise to pedestal one or two members of a creative team when there are so many factors that can impact the final quality of a work.

Here I think it’s important to mention what a director does.  In situations where the director and writer are separate roles, the job of the director is to adapt the script to a visual form – working with the writers/editors to make changes as needed.  Directors direct how scenes are constructed, presented, acted and “shot” – which affords them a great deal of subtle influence over the pacing, focus and framing of a story.  The visual language of film can do a lot to control what information the audience prioritises as important, and how they interpret/perceive it.  Unsurprisingly, when you have bad, fragmented or inconsistent directing, you end up with stories that lack direction.

While Chang and Oliva having such a presence in the direction of Season 1 definitely lent it some of their specific personal creative flavour, I also think a lot of the major benefit came purely from having two people (and likely others who formed part of the S1-specific creative team) who were experienced in working together and had direct input/oversight of more than 75% of the season from start to finish.  That kind of creative cohesion makes it easier to track and maintain the continuity and progression of a narrative.  Compare and contrast with Outsiders, where you have a rotating shift of three less-experienced directors and a huge revolving door of new writers, with no-one working on more than a single episode in a row, the same directors almost never getting paired with the same writer twice, and a general sense that the story was being produced episode-by-episode with very few people having a clear sense of what had come before or would follow after.

One of the challenges is that the declining quality from Season 2 onwards points to something being fundamentally broken in the creative process at DC Comics/ Time Warner productions.  Young Justice Season 3 was the straw that finally broke my trust in Detective Comics Comics but it came on the heels of things like the original Suicide Squad movie (see this Folding Ideas video for an excellent dissection of those production and editing issues) and the transparently marketing-driven disaster that was Batman vs Superman.  It feels rather like modern-day DC is producing the in-house equivalent of shovelware: underinvesting in the timing and budget that its creative teams need for proper writing, editing, revisions and post-production in favour of churning out superficially saleable high-profit-margin products to cash in on recognisable IP’s and existing fandom markets.  Faced with that kind of incentive structure and production-crunch it can be very hard for a single (or handful of) creative team members to make course-corrections.

That isn’t to say that good media can’t be produced under tight conditions, but doing so generally requires a well-thought-out creative plan for the project.  And unfortunately, that kind of plan is something Greg “I don’t write endings” Weisman is notoriously bad at both creating and sticking to.  This was one of the problems I ran into when doing my YJ: Invasion autopsy: while you can correct some of the surface level problems, the root issue lies in a core story that’s bad from base principles and fundamentally incompatible with what came before.  Again, this can be overcome if other production team members are given enough time and creative authority to review and revise that story-core, but that doesn’t seem to be the production environment S2+ was allowed.

With all that said, I think it’s safe to conclude that, under the circumstances, Young Justice: Outsiders was likely always doomed to be a mess.  The combination of a lack (or even discarding) of a clear show-bible to act as a guide, a lack of clear project-plan (or, at least, plan-communication) from the showrunners,and a lack of pre-/post-production time for other team members to figure out what story they were even telling is pretty much a guaranteed recipe for narrative failure.

However, assuming that a pair of Oliva/Chang-like directors had been on the revival team, with input into most of the episodes, I think we might have at least seen some improvements to execution:

Firstly, we may have seen better cohesion and focus.  In the multi-layered onion of bad storytelling decisions that is the later seasons, the outer layer that many people seem to have bounced off is that it’s hard to care about what’s happening.  YJS2+ are boring and badly paced on rewatch, and a not-insubstantial part of that is bloat.  There is a plague of random new characters, exposition and world-details that don’t meaningfully contribute to the narrative (and for the record, I should clarify that ‘narrative purpose’ is a lot more than just ‘plot advancement’ – the problem here is that these elements are actually purposeless to the point of being distracting), scenes and ‘jokes’ that overstay their welcome due to a lack of proper substance, and ‘twists’ that exist for expectation-subverting ‘shock bait’ rather than moving the story. 

At a surface level, the later seasons desperately needed someone to ask: both ‘what is the focal point?’ AND ‘what is the purpose of this moment/scene for the story?’ and actually make Greg Weisman give them a coherent answer beyond ‘just trust me, it’ll be totes smart when you (read: I) figure it out later’.  Like I’ve said before, there’s a lot of fat that could have been trimmed; shallow scenes that could have been reworked to serve characterisation and themeing, ‘references’ that could have had their screen-time reduced to passing easter-eggs, and other wasted time that could have been better allocated to developing a core cast of ‘focus characters’ with an understandable dynamic to help anchor the broader character web in a relational status quo.  Considering what we saw of Season 1’s character-focus, and Oliva and Chang’s previous involvement in Teen Titans 2003 (which was also very good at prioritising, reinforcing and maintaining characterisation/ character dynamics) I think some improvement in story-focus, especially towards characterisation, could have been achievable.

The other gain we could have potentially seen is more sensitivity and tactfulness in the presentation of certain story beats/ characters.  For this I want to highlight framing:  whether something is respectful or offensive comes down less to the inclusion/exclusion of particular elements and more to the way in which those elements are presented to the audience – the priorities, assumptions and worldview revealed by the delivery.   

Let’s do a couple of case studies just to get our heads around the idea:

For Example One, we’re going to make the point by jumping straight in the deep end of sexual assault and fanservice in media feel free to scroll to the next paragraph if this is a no-fly topic for you.  Our contrasting studies will be The Millenium Trilogy (a noir series I’ve previous referenced in contrast to the YJ revival) and the shounen anime Sword Art Online, both of which contain assault and rape scenes.  Millenium’s depictions of assault keep the perspective on the victims, focusing on the pain/ powerlessness/ degradation/ anger they experience during and after the violation, and examining their reluctance/ aversion to reporting these crimes, while maintaining a respectful detachment towards describing the acts themselves.  In contrast SAO contains an infamous scene where an arc villain attempts to rape the female lead, while the camera fixates on the fanservice of her breasts quivering as he tears her shirt off (in addition to a concerning amount of other fanservice scenes where female characters are penetrated, groped or “peeped on” in ways that are clearly nonconsensual and unwelcome).  From this we can conclude that the issue isn’t inherently with sexual assault being present in a story – how it’s framed makes the difference.  The Millenium Trilogy respects the autonomy of its female characters, using assault scenes as an important narrative device to confront the audience with the violence of systemic sexism and condemn the cowardly entitlement it enables as part of its wider critique of misogyny; Sword Art Online degrades, objectifies and disregards the autonomy of its female characters by using narratively unnecessary sexual assault as a vehicle to ‘reward’ its target audience with fanservice.  What matters is how the subject is handled: is the sexual assault of women treated as a serious problem in need of criticism or as a guilty-pleasure ‘treat’ for boys to enjoy?

Moving to a gentler and more home-field example, let’s compare how pregnancy is handled in Young Justice Season 1 vs Outsiders.  It’s easy to overlook in the wake of the brick-to-the-face that was “you got a baby in there!” but Season 1 also included pregnancy as a plot-beat; Queen Mera announcing the news that she is “with child” during the episode Downtime.  However, there’s that difference in framing:  after it’s announced, Downtime quickly moves past the physicality of Mera’s pregnancy to focus on why it’s narratively important - because Mera and Orin are the royals of a hereditary monarchy and their child will be first in line to the throne of Atlantis.  Despite this being her only episode in Season 1, Downtime also gives Mera multiple characterising moments outside of child-bearing; introduced her first as a Queen and teacher/mentor to the students of the Conservatory, and later demonstrating her power as a battle-mage during the Manta-trooper attack – her pregnancy being almost a footnote outside its narrative-relevance.  By contrast, I think the reason that “baby in there” line from Amistad gets memed so heavily is because it highlights Outsiders unnecessary fixation on the physicality of female characters being pregnant, in addition to a disproportionate tendency to depict female characters as married, pregnant or mothering in the absence (or even at the cost) of narratively meaningful plot or character development – reducing these characters to little more than “pregnant sexy lamps” (as @mimeparadox so eloquently put it in their recent review of similar issues with the Gargoyles revival).  Again, the difference is execution: where Season 1 used pregnancy in a character-specific and narratively-relevant way, Outsiders not only assumes but enforces it as the expected path for female characters – sacrificing both characterisation and screentime for a subtler form of fanservice: one that reinforces and validates a specific worldview of gender (and which has been increasingly revealed to lurk beneath the surface of performative ‘feminists’ like Eric Schneiderman and Joss Whedon).

At this point, I think it’s worth noting that Jay Oliva and Michael Chang are both Asian-American men (i.e. less likely to be blinded by privilege a problem that Greg Weisman has always struggled with), that Chang himself was lead director on TT2003’s anti-bigotry episode Troq and that TT2003 on the whole is often praised for its respectful depiction of female characters (and also Victor’s cyborg status).

Given this, I think similar direction could have resulted in more respectful depictions of non-white and disabled characters.  As it exists, the revival at large (and Outsiders in particular) has a HUGE issue with unnecessary and disproportionate violence towards and villainization of characters-of-colour in a way that inadvertently reveals the bias of the creators; shock-value violence towards marginalised characters being treated as more acceptable and less needing of commentary because they clearly weren’t expected to be as relatable or worthy of empathy as the “main” characters.  Different direction could have seen some of the more needless violence removed in favoured of equally-shocking-but-more-narratively-purposeful elements, some of the narratively-justified violence reframed in a way that was more empathetic to the personalities and bodily autonomy of the victimised characters, or - given more time for revision - used to make a critique of in-story bigotry by presenting the disproportionate targeting of marginalised protagonists as being the product of systemically prejudiced antagonists (rather than casually-bigoted producers).

Similarly, I think better direction could helped respect female/femme characters more.  From Season 2 onwards Young Justice has an increasing problem with the male gaze in how it frames and poses women; Outsider’s borderline-fetishistic obsession with depicting late-term pregnancies again being a particularly egregious example.  Many of these scenes either didn’t need to be included (hence the meme-potential of wasting screen time on a toddler explaining how pregnancy works to a mature audience) or could have been made more narratively meaningful by prioritising specific characterisation over generic ring-fingers and pregnant bellies.   This male gaze issue was at its most insulting with Halo; even if different directors couldn’t change the incredibly disrespectful character-design decision to vacuum-seal a nonbinary, hijab-wearing minor inside a boob-socking, ass-grabbing, wasp-waisted super-suit, they could have worked to preserve Halo’s modesty and gender identity with posing and camera choices that minimised the attention drawn to Halo’s sexual features, and presented their body-language and posture in a less-feminising way.  

This likely wouldn’t have fixed the underlying biases baked into Outsiders’ plotlines but I think there was the potential to soften the execution to the point that they could have felt more like a “missed the mark” than the farcical offensiveness that we got.

That said, I don’t think anything could have truly saved this series.

As I said at the start, I think the thing that ultimately doomed Young Justice was the lack of a long-term story vision; the ego and overambition of showrunners trying to build a story that runs on teasing twists, mysteries and future-resolutions while also openly wanting it to go on forever.  Those two elements are fundamentally incompatible if you want a satisfying experience, and without a clear guiding plan you can’t expect the underlying creative team to successfully find a story’s identity during a rushed pre-production.  You can’t provide direction if you don’t know where you’re going.  It would be like trying to invent an entirely new plane and build it as it’s taking off: a crash is inevitable, the only question is the extent of the damage.

At best, I think we could have seen another Invasion-level non-story: a few isolated good character moments bogged down within a season that, while not overtly offensive, was still thematically confused, overstuffed with characters, driven by contrivance and insulting to the intelligence of anyone actually trying to follow the narrative.  A slow zombification, riding out a few extra seasons on plausible deniability, rather than Outsiders’ rapid crash-and-burn seasonal rot into an offensive cash-grab parody of itself.

And, in a way, I’m kind of glad that Oliva, Chang and the other Season-1-only creative team members didn’t come back for that.  Because, even if it would have resulted in a more palatable product, it would have come from forcing a group of marginalised creators to salvage a privileged dude’s mess.

I’ve spent far too many words over the last few years trying to unpick the layers of why Young Justice is such a narrative failure post Season 1 and now I feel like Benoir Blanc.  Because these problems are a glass onion and at their clear centre, Greg Weisman is an idiot.  He’s a demonstrable bigot, who had a publisher back away after he trashed their franchise with misogynistic queerphobia.  He’s a sex-obsessed loser who tried to launch a Not-Safe-For-Work production company writing Gargoyles Parody Porn while wearing an eye-patch and pretending to be a ‘fan collaborator’.  His writing reveals a consistently toxic attitude towards abuse, consent, boundaries and power dynamics.  Based on some of the creepier things he’s said/written, he could be potentially unsafe for certain fans to be around.  And even setting all that aside (and it’s a lot to set aside) he’s just obviously a hack: he claims things that are neither present in or even supported by the text, he promises future developments and fixes/explanations that he rarely if ever delivers, and he uses those holes as a springboard to pitch separate-purchase side-content that also seldom delivers, in a way that suggests he either has no idea what he’s talking about or is intentionally lying to grift his fans.

And, look, this problem is far from exclusive to Weisman: it certainly didn’t start with him, and it’s not even exclusive to the arts.  Across industries we are currently realising that we’ve let privileged guys who can talk a good game coast by on an assumption that they were qualified to hold their positions of influence, even as we held them to far lower standards of scrutiny than we would equivalent people of any other demographic.

Young Justice was never going to survive long-term (any more than the Gargoyles revival is) because the creative load was always resting on that rotten core.  I think we as a fandom were very lucky that Season 1 had both a sincere creative team and the production schedule needed to overcome it and give us something as good as they did.

I wish we could have seen that quality continue. But, at the end of it all, I’ll make peace with the disaster we got.  Because it was at least a somewhat honest reflection of its lead creator, rather than enabling him to keep failing upwards on the back of his colleagues' contributions.

So yeah. Better directors would probably have resulted in better surface-level polish... but you know what they say about polishing turds. No matter how much sugar they added, Outsiders couldn't be turned into a brownie. You'd still be being fed crap.

And frankly, whether it’s his characters, his audience or his co-creators, I’d rather not continue the pattern of letting Weisman shove the burden of dealing with and correcting for his bullshit onto less-privileged people.

[onlylonelylatino]

Monitor and Anti-Monitor by George Pérez

[margridarnauds]

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG

YOU LIKE GARGOYLES AS WELL?????

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOGMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG

THE WAY I WAS *ABSOLUTELY* OBSESSED WITH THEM WHEN I WAS A WEE LASSIE, AND HOW GOLIATH AND ALL THE NEW YORK CLAN HAS BASICALLY CHANGED ME AS A PERSON.

AND YOU LIKE THEM AS WELL.

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOGMOGMOGMOGMOGMOGMGOMGOMGOMGOG

ONE THOUSAND YEARS AGO, SUPERSTITION AND THE SWORD RULED. IT WAS A TIME OF DARKNESS. IT WAS A WORLD OF FEAR. IT WAS THE AGE. OF. GARGOYLES.

No, but between it, the Mummy, and The Magic Treehouse, it's the reason I am the way I am now. I remember watching reruns growing up and it was my FAVORITE. (Also made me a bi villainfucker between Xanatos, Demona, and Fox, but THAT'S beside the point.) Like, this was how I learned about MACBETH and a MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM for the first time (also I maintain that Macbeth's backstory is just. Some of the best writing I've still seen for an anti-hero/anti-villain in an animated series. The City of Stone arc WRECKED me as a child.) Best animated series ever, I won't take corrections or criticisms.

(Also did you know that Greg Weisman's been continuing the series in comic book form?)

[tuxedaaron]

With Christmas and New Years upon us at the time, it just felt like the time to pull the trigger on a pic I’d been meaning to get off my plate for quite some time.  After all, this always felt like a Christmas/New Years-type scene in my mind.  You know, redemption, rebirth, togetherness...all that fun stuff. ^_^ For those who are wondering, this is loosely based on a scene I was planning for, late in my Spectacular Spider-Man fanfic series (which I'm STLL looking for co-writers for, so if you're at all interested or KNOW anyone who might be interested, my door is always open ^_^).  But first, a little bit of background/spoilers, to put this picture in context.  Throughout the course of my fics, Peter and Gwen find themselves slowly inching closer back together.  But between finding out that Peter is Spider-Man, gaining Spider Powers of her own, after being experimented on by Miles Warren (who becomes the Jackal, after being exposed to the Globulin Green) and barely surviving an attack by Harry Osborn, as the new Green Goblin (and attack where her father, George Stacy, is crippled), Gwen reaches a breaking point.  As such, she heads abroad and away from Peter, in the desperate hope that some soul searching will help her decide if a life with Spider-Man is really something she can handle.  She tells no one where's she's going, save for Mary Jane. However, months later, Peter has his mind swapped with Otto Octavius, who places his old body in a chemical-induced coma and proceeds to take Spider-Man's life for his own.  Mary Jane, sensing that something is horribly wrong, contacts Gwen, telling her that she can't wait anymore and it's time for her to come home.  Returning to New York, now as Spider-Woman, Gwen fights alongside Anti-Venom to defeat Octavius and restore Peter's mind to its rightful body.  But when Anti-Venom leaves to return to California, Peter and Gwen are left behind to deal with the fallout of her leaving.  In the ensuing discussion, Gwen reveals what prompted her to become Spider-Woman and how the resulting transformation has left her feeling more confident to return home. Which brings us to the image in question.  The basic image is Peter and Gwen finally reconciling, at the perfect time of year to do it, no less.  This was more or less how I've wanted it to look for years.  However, when a DA member came to me, with the same basic idea, only including Peter and Gwen being inadvertently spied upon by a character from another series Greg Weisman was very closely tied to (bonus points if you can guess who), I thought it was too good to pass up, so I gladly stole the idea (don't worry, he didn't mind).  So basically, we had romance, a bit of humor and enough of a holiday theme to make it timely. ^_^ Oh, and yes, the background is a photograph.  I'll admit, I got lazy and took a shortcut.  I just didn't have the time (or the strength) to draw a background that detailed.   Still, the quality is low enough that you really can barely tell. Well, that's all for now.  Hope to like what you see.

[idontreadheartbeats]

Started rewatching Gargoyles on Disney+ to remind myself what consistent writing in a show with excellent creative direction from someone who cares about their fandom actually feels like.

Greg Weisman never did anything wrong and any fandom would be blessed to have him. I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise.

Fuck Bryke. Fuck D&D.

[gritsandbrits]

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

But instead the gargoyles are replaced by the ones from Greg Weisman's Gargoyles.

[astergrayson]

a disjointed rant about my young justice season 4 theories

bc i have nowhere else to put them (THIS BECAME A MONSTER RANT, So sorry but i needed a space for this lol and there is a tdlr at the end if you are even interested)!

also this is mostly about artemis and dick and also jade and jason by extension.

spoilers for the trailer and first two eps below! 

i was, of course, if you keep an eye on any of my content, which is probably 2 of you, disappointed to see no sign of dick or tim and maybe that ninja was jason (?) and that was cassandra fighting lady shiva, which fuck yes, i hope the show gives cassandra some screen time this season!

but i actually wanted to talk about artemis and dick specifically. They are my favorite characters consistently in the main team, followed closely by wally and kaldur and zatanna (and okay yes thats most of them, actually i love all of them). i would ofc love to see artemis have some happiness for once in her life, but if they are going to give her mostly angst im glad they are exploring what looks like an anti-hero path and her relationship with her sister Jade. Which again, if you know me, you know fictional complex sibling relationships are my LIFEBLOOD.

which brings me to the second thing that popped out the most to me: i fucking love jason todd and dick grayson and their relationship and i have always been very curious as to how the yj universe changes would change that dynamic. What i mean by that is greg weisman (which if you’ve gotten this far you probably know he is one of the main producers of the show) said in one of the questions on his q&a website way back in s2 that he and the writers didn’t see a reason for bruce and dick to have a major falling out re his transition from robin to nightwing, and that they wanted them to have bruce support dick and continue to have a healthier relationship than is portrayed elsewhere. i am all for this, we love to see it, but that rift is what creates the distance between jason and dick pre jason’s death. dick didn’t live in the manor when jason did, he wasn’t there when jason became robin, so how would this change in yj, especially when it comes to their relationship? A lot of people have discussed and made fanfic regarding this ofc, but this would probably mean dick and jason lived in the manor together while he was alive? that dick would’ve been a part of, or at least present when jason becomes robin (if it was done right)? So how much closer were and are they? We see hints of dick’s grief for jason and dick is definitely a lot more somber and mature so to speak after the s1 time skip, so you could theorize that they were closer, which i hope is the case.

All that to say that because of all this i have been so looking forward to seeing jason’s return and possible reveal beyond what we saw in season 3. since season 4 is more character focused (along the lines of season 1) i know that a lot of the other characters outside of the core 7 from the original team are going to be through the core 7′s storylines rather than so much of stuffing a ton of storylines in at once. I did enjoy seasons 2 and 3 of course, but not as much as season 1, which i love very deeply, so this is exciting. I’m hoping this means we will be seeing a lot of the bat family characters with meaningful screen time through dick’s storyline and that dick’s story is going to have a lot to do with jason and everything surrounding that. I know there are other programs out there and other ways the red hood storyline has been done but i am still anxious to see yj’s take on it. Given the amount people that have discussed jason in yj in the fandom, even since his small appearance and the nods to him in s2, i know the writer’s and creator’s are aware there would be a lot riding on this if they took this path. i also think that’s probably why they didn’t show dick, because they don’t want to give anything away, so even though i was disappointed, it also piques my interest.

SO SORRY THIS IS SO LONG I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS AB THIS SPECIFICALLY. but this is all circling back to make a larger point I PROMISE. As someone’s whose favorite episode is Homefront (season 1 episode 12) which, if you don’t know or remember, that is the artemis and dick co-centric episode that really showed how dick thinks and how capable he is and the weight of being a sidekick who has done this for so long and being the first one. it also shows artemis’ vulnerability in this beautiful way and explores her relationship with jade and her past and they both kind of grow through each other and their similarities as non-powered members of the team who were traumatized so young, i think in a different way, than the other team members. I really loved this episode because i love the two characters individually. I love both of their relationships with wally, and i like their relationships with zatanna too, but that is kind of neither here nor there. I also really love their relationship as friends, and the potential i think it has, esp. because i think young justice could go a lot further with it. I have been alluding to this but i think dick and artemis are so similar in ways that are so interesting story wise: they are both very capable, highly trained, non powered individuals who have been using that training one way or another since they were 9 years old, which as far as i know, is younger than the rest of the team. they both started this due to heavy family traumas that while different, manifest similarly as compared to the rest of the team. re; they are both more secretive, hide a lot more of their emotions, etc. they were also both the closest people to wally his age and they both lost him. Like there’s just so much shared stuff there and i want to see that explored more. I know they had a good amount of screentime together last season, but a lot of it was plot frst, and not necessarily focusing on their dynamic, and as a character study whore i want more deep scenes between them. 

Now we are getting even CLOSER to my main point (jesus i need a life). i think one of the last and biggest things they share is the complicated sibling relationships they have and are going to have in the show.  I think it would be so interesting to see artemis struggling and working through her past, particularly when it comes to jade in parallel with a storyline about dick dealing with jason, his resurrection and his kind of murderer to anti hero journey. I think artemis and dick would be great for each other during this as friends who, to some degree, understand what the other is going through. Especially because I think jade and jason are so similar. i think this will also be interesting for Will and Roy, but that is a different, though very related, rant. When I saw artemis in the trailer and saw the emphasis on her struggles and jade i found myself hoping that the show makes enough space to show the complex relationship jade and artemis have, in a way they have done to a degree in the past, and i think they could do even more of. In terms of dick and jason, i think IF they are closer in the yj universe (i might be blowing this out of proportion as huge fans of both these characters so that’s okay) then a redhood esque storyline would pack even more angst and even though that would hurt it is also what i want to seee !!!!! so that an antihero redemption is just that much juicier. I think what other red hood storyline adaptations have lacked a little bit, especially when they heavily involve dick, is not focusing on the character/relationship angst and the love they could have for one another as brothers and dick’s grief for jason and meaningfully exploring jason feeling all his resurrection feelings, but focusing more on the plot of redhood with their relationship as an aside. I’m hoping that given the nature of this season, and the things they’ve done with artemis and jade, that they will shed light and focus on dick and jason’s relationship in the yj universe and that they give us some sort of beautiful emotional reunion or reveal scene (i know this might be a lot to be asking for but hey it is my dream here). Not to mention that if they are going to heavily mention wally or pursue bringing him back, focusing on dick and artemis’ friendship, and letting them at least discuss these things together, would be even more necessary.

I had even more thoughts about this after watching the first two episodes of sesaon 4 that showed both M’Gann and M’Comm’s relationship and M’Gann and Gar’s. Again, we love a good complex platonic relationship! Familial angst that has an undercurrent of immense love and at least previous closeness! Let’s see where this season goes, I’m cautiously optimistic and also just generally very excited to have the show back!

TLDR: I am excited to see artemis’ past and relationship with jade explored, and i hope that yj is paralelling this with dick and jason’s return and that they focus on the sibling love, resulting situational angst, and eventual (though maybe not this season) closure and/or redemption to some degree. i hope that through this, artemis and dick’s friendship has emotional development that is shown more explicitly on screen. i am very excited ab this possibility and have been waiting a long time so we shall see!!

ALSO PS: I have written large portions of what could be one long one shot or a series that served as a character study of sorts that explored dick and artemis, respectively, and as friends. it gives pieces of season 1, explores the 5 year gap, and then season 2 and after (up until s3). it focuses a lot on their shared trauma, their respective relationships and grief over wally and jason, and also heavily features zatanna. I have not finished it and I only work on it for me when i have an idea that needs. to be written, but i would consider posting it. but i dont know if anyone would be interested? esp if the show does it to some degree? anyways if you even started to read this let alone made it here i’m floored. thanks

[gavillain]

Spider-Man: TAS or Spectacular Spider-Man?

I hate this question XD No, I really hate it. I love both of the shows, and comparing the two is like comparing apples and oranges. One was blessed with five whole seasons but had to deal with ridiculous levels of executive meddling and a garbage animation budget, while the other was blessed with a much more amicable network and a better animation budget but was cut tragically short. They both had to deal with unique problems that the other didn’t have to contend with, but they both were lucky enough that showrunners John Semper and Greg Weisman both fundamentally GET Spider-Man and his mythos. And after the trainwrecks of the Amazing Spider-Man movies and the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon showing how badly Spider-Man media can misfire, these two shows are both breaths of fresh Spidey air.

Like I think the general consensus in the fandom is that SSM is better because the writing was more consistently good and the tone took the subject matter a bit more seriously and more in line with the DCAU-esque tone that's been such a winning playbook in comicbook cartoons. But I think SM:TAS took a lot more risks (even when some didn’t pay off), had a lot more development for Peter, and I think the campy Power Rangers esque tone that it takes ultimately does work for the stories it’s telling and gives the show a certain charm. So for me it comes down to comparing a more consistently quality product to one that may have had a fair share of cringe but also got to do a lot more interesting things. And I don’t really have a good answer to what’s better.

I will say that if I had to pick one, I’d probably end up picking SM:TAS, yes, partially for nostalgia (though I have nostalgia for both so big whoop), but mostly because I like its Peter better. I find him funnier to follow, his struggles to be a bit more engaging since they're not just high school drama, and his ultimate arc and getting to the point of him saying that he finally likes himself in the final episode to just be more rewarding. And it may just be because I'm a gay theater geek who likes camp as an artistic sensibility, but I have more fun with the campier take on Spidey. Like the show has an over-the-top 90s rock-n-roll remix of the 60s Spider-Man song as its theme song. That's the type of goofy fun stuff that's right up my alley. Also this show has Roscoe Lee Browne as Kingpin and that's really all you need to know XD

[mimeparadox]

Flooding a story with characters is not the same thing as world-building.

This is a post about the Gargoyles comic.

[gregxb]

I started reading some old Gargoyles fanfic and I was curious, why is Macbeth so anti-Shakespeare in them? I thought Greg Weisman said Macbeth was amused by the play and that he and Shakespeare were drinking buddies?

Hi anon! I hope you’re washing your hands.

As for your question, I think a lot of that fanfic was written before Greg made that reveal.

As for why some fans assumed Macbeth would be anti-Shakespeare, I guess it comes down to a couple of things. The depiction of his wife in the play, for starters. And, well... let’s be honest, look at how fans react in adaptations of books or comics if a character so much as has the wrong eye-color. So a combination of believing Macbeth would feel like he’s been tarnished by the play and some fan Douchey McNitpick attitude... I seriously once saw somebody throw a fit because the horse portraying Shadowfax in “Lord of the Rings” was a female horse, when Shadowfax was a male horse. 

... at least that’s my read. Personally, I like Greg’s idea better. Macbeth and Will being drinking buddies without Will ever knowing who his buddy really was. Also, considering how much Greg mined Shakespeare for “Gargoyles”, I think it would be in bad taste to have one of his characters give the Bard the finger that way.

[threewaysdivided]

Hey ! i'm a longtime follower of your blog and I've read a lot of your YJ analysis and why the latter seasons totally flopped. I haven't seen you comment on Young Justice Phantoms, although I guess your opinion remains the same. However I'd love to read it one day.

PS : I do think Greg Weisman is a decent writer, but not that good at characterization and desperatly needs editors and not enablers *sigh*

Hey nonnie!

Glad you’ve found my YJ writing critiques interesting. 

The reason why I haven’t commented on Young Justice: Phantoms (or the final Targets comic) is that I haven’t watched it, haven’t read a synopsis and have no plans to ever do so.  My interest in the series went pretty cold as far back as Invasion but at the time I was willing to give the showrunners good faith on their claims that they had a plan to bring things together and that the problems were mostly production issues.  However, after how bad Outsiders was (and having seen similar awfulness from Greg Weisman in other franchises) I don’t have any good faith or trust left to give them.

I talked at length about how Outsiders left the show with no compelling narrative as part of this big Invasion breakdown (grumpier TL:DR version here), but here are the most relevant sections:

In terms of the Central Conflict, the Light are proved utterly correct: by Outsiders the Original Team are callous, hollow husks of their former selves, who have replicated a worse version of the same status quo the Team originally formed in response to. Dick, Kaldur and M’gann’s Anti-Light are a new upper echelon of older heroes who keep even more secrets from the next generations, who exclude the new generations far more strongly from knowing their plans, who give them even less reason to trust or communicate with them, and who do so for less just, less honest and less narratively justified reasons than their own mentors’ understandable (if condescending) desire to shield the proteges from the parts of the Life they may not yet have been equipped to face. Not only that but their constant lying with the intent to control others, and refusal to hold themselves accountable for those actions goes directly against both the League’s stated heroic ideals of “Truth, Liberty and Justice” and Red Tornado’s conclusion that caring is “the human thing to do”. By the end of Outsiders, even the existence of the Team itself is undone; decommissioned into the exact kind of safe training space that the Season 1 characters were desperate for it never to be. […] With Outsiders, any actual narrative set by Young Justice Season 1 is over. By their own standards the Team have lost, and lost entirely.

The meta-narrative of Young Justice Animated is that of a show that started with a promising initial season and strong sense of narrative identity, only to discard every part of that identity.  With Invasion the show discarded its original characterisations, themes and ideologies; replacing them with contradictory and often antithetical ones.  Outsiders would then shed even the surface trappings of its aesthetic (in favour of the more generic “modern DC” art-style) and mission-based narrative structure.  There is nothing left, save for some superficial proper nouns and call-back references: the textbook definition of an In Name Only Sequel.

I didn’t bother with Phantoms (and am frankly a little artistically insulted by its existence) because I knew it was doomed from the start to be a narrative stillbirth.  Having actively abandoned its original identity, Young Justice was left desperately scrambling to forge a new one, by clawing at the one thing it had left: people’s nostalgic attachment to the Season 1 iterations of the cast.  But this could never work because every season since has been engaged in a performative pretense of not acknowledging the character-breaking contradictions and hypocrisies forced upon the original cast by the poor writing decisions.  Phantoms would have to thread an impossible needle: wanting to be about the “journey” of the original cast for nostalgia reasons, while not being able to acknowledge that the last two seasons (and attaché comics) have resulted in all of them either actively failing or being tragically soft-locked out of their explicit character arcs without breaking that kayfabe of performative ignorance.  And, in trying to tell a story without engaging with that story's content or how broken it had become, what would they have left but to fall back yet again on canonical filler, sidequests and references held loosely together by contrivance? 

It could only ever be a zombie-fic of itself: having long-since concluded or abandoned any remaining character or plot threads, driven forward solely by the stream-of-consciousness compulsive-writing of a production team desperate to remain present, relevant and profitable.  And from the feedback I’ve heard from the general community and fandom friends who kept watching, it seems like Phantoms did indeed pull down the curtain on that empty, directionless, hollow-automaton-filled narrative for a lot of people.

As for Greg Weisman himself, while I agree that he is a particularly poor character-writer, I will respectfully but firmly disagree that he’s otherwise decent.  I think the fact that we have to caveat “he’s a decent writer” with the condition “so long as he’s surrounded by a team of strong editors and directors to keep him from being awful” kind of reveals that he isn’t.   I also don’t really accept the premise that the main fault lies with the people around him for not stopping that.  They certainly haven’t helped but he’s a grown adult who can make his own decisions. Enablers don’t generally induce behaviours; they simply amplify or become complicit in the behaviours that are already there.

In the video Plagiarism and You(tube), Hbomberguy did a great job of laying out the difference between “honest mistakes” – which can be easily cleared up by good-faith apologies and explanations – and “dishonest behaviour” – where the person(s) is aware that what they are doing is not appropriate and falls back on reputation-protecting deflections and “non-apologies” to avoid consequences when caught.  Weisman would not so-frequently disrespect his colleagues’ work with contradictions, or write patterns of misogyny, queerphobia, casual racism/ableism and abuse apologism into his stories if he did not fundamentally feel entitled to do so, was not comfortable and in agreement with those beliefs, or did not think he could get away with it.  And the way he has routinely responded to even gentle, good-faith comments by fans expressing frustration/confusion with inconsistent characterisation/structure indicates someone who knows he has done the wrong thing but resents being questioned or held accountable.  And then we see him continuing the same behaviours.  A “decent writer” should not need an editor to hold their hand and explain why directly contracting explicitly-stated characterisation is bad practice.  A “good ally” should not need someone to tell them that disproportionately subjecting queer/non-white characters to shock-value violence, writing minority characters to be dirty/dangerous/less valid in their identities, erasing/demonising/misgendering AFAB trans and bisexual identities, rewriting strong female characters to need motherhood or men to “tell them who they are”, writing gay men to be secretly misogynistic/racist, and framing victims as being equally responsible for their abuse is offensive.  All of which he has either directly done or tacitly allowed under his lead.  Multiple times.  Across multiple series.

These are not isolated incidents of “good-faith mistakes” from a newcomer learning the ropes (if they were, it wouldn’t bother me like this).  Weisman has had multiple seasons - multiple franchises even - and decades to show himself to be the kind of sincere ally and visionary artist of integrity that myself and his fans wanted him to be… and that he has so benefited from presenting himself as.  He has chosen not to. Say what you want about their stories, but you can’t claim that marginalised creators like ND Stevenson, Rebecca Sugar, Dana Terrace and allies like Neil Gaiman didn’t push back hard against their own publishers and make a lot of careful compromises in order to tell those stories in a way they felt was respectful. Weisman is in a very privileged position, with a resume that carries a decent amount of clout. He could have held himself to the creative standards he publicly expresses; could have worked improve his craft, could have examined his own biases and actually learned from the communities his stories speak about/over.  But he didn’t – because obviously it's easier and more comfortable to keep being lazy, keep relying on his colleagues to carry him, to not question his own biases/privileges and then lie when caught.  And with the money he makes, and all the second chances and new jobs he keeps getting handed, what incentive does he have to change that behaviour? 

So, personally I don’t buy his attempts to position himself as an UwU Nice Guy Ally whose haters are taking him out of context and whose nasty publishers keep forcing him to do incoherent bigotry.  He’s a grown-up, who can own his own behaviour.  And, even with a generous reading, this is at best the behaviour of a fair-weather sell-out who is willing to abandon his principles at the slightest hint of pressure from above.  That is not what respect looks like.  I wanted to give him good faith, but in light of all this, I find I can no longer trust him to keep his word or be honest about his intentions.

This is kind of the other reason why I choose not to support or engage with YJ Phantoms (or the revival in general): on top of being utterly disinterested, I just don’t want to incentivise this kind of creative behaviour with more money or attention.  I also can’t ignore what could be a pattern where Weisman makes grand promises that he likely never has a plan or intent to fulfill, then deliberately leaves holes/timeskips/inconsistencies in his narratives in order to generate ongoing demand for separate-purchase side content which promises to “fill those gaps”… but which never does because there isn’t actually a plan to facilitate that (thus creating an endless cycle of demand and profit).  To me that cuts a little too close to the potential for a privileged creator to be exploiting their clout and the good-faith belief of their fanbase in order to grift those fans out of their time and money.  I don’t find that acceptable.

So, yeah.  Not to deploy the GIF again but:

It'll be a big, fat doughnut on YJ Phantoms content from me 🍩. Sorry!

[godzillajuniorreborn]

My Review of War of the Spark: Ravnica

For Christmas I got the novelization of the War of the Spark event written by Greg Weisman. And, note that this is MY opinion. If you didn’t like the book, that’s fine. I only have a passing knowledge of MTG from the trading card game and the only lore I know stems from my brother. 

Personally, I liked it. It wasn’t a GREAT book by any means, don’t get me wrong, but it isn’t what I’d call terrible either. It works as a good Popcorn flick book, something you can read to kill some time or if you’re bored and want to read about a multi-dimensional-spanning slugfest. There ARE some cons though.

Cons:

Niv-Mizzet is just... dead. No real fanfare, no build-up as to what happened, all that’s mentioned is that Nicol Bolas burned him to his bones. Niv doesn’t even play a major part until he is revived and goes mano-e-mano with a God-Eternal before delivering the killing blow to Bolas. 

The fight with Tezzeret felt a bit anti-climactic. He just fights Gatewatch for a little bit before saying “You know what? Screw it. You want Bolas’ head on a platter? Be my guest, I’m outta here.”  I get Tezzeret hates Nicol Bolas’ guts, but he could’ve put up a bit more of a fight. 

Jace and Lilliana could’ve had a scene where he confronted her and she’s trying to explain why she’s helping Nicol Bolas. 

The book has WAY too much action (albeit good action). Once Nicol Bolas arrives in Ravnica, the action gets going and there’s nary a moment to give the reader a moment of respite. 

Pros:

The book has some really great dialogue, especially the end when Nicol Bolas is talking to Ugin after all his machinations fail. 

There are some moments that are really emotional, including some parts centering around Gideon and Lilliana. 

Chandra is still a badass, hotheaded smartass both figuratively and literally.  

Granted there’s too much of it, the action is spectacular, especially a scene involving Rhonas duking it out with some Roc-Riders. 

Some moments really made me laugh out loud. 

Nicol Bolas is every bit the slimy, conniving, power-hungry monster we love to hate and you can’t help but enjoy how despicably deprived he can be and it is incredibly cathartic to see him fail. 

There’s an interesting subplot involving Vraska. 

All in all, the book fails to capture the gravitas of the event, but it’s still an enjoyable read. 

I give it 7.5/10

[geek-patient-zero]

Part 1, Chapter 4

Or:  AAAAARRRRRRRRRTTT!!!

Blood War: Masquerade of the Red Death Trilogy Volume 1

Washington, DC--March 11, 1994

Meet Makish, another Assamite assassin. He’s waiting in front of Union Station for a two o’clock AM meeting with his “mysterious employer.” It’s 1:59.

A small, slender male, with mahogany skin, slicked-down black hair, and too-wide smile, Makish attracted little attention other than that of an occasional bum asking for a handout. Or a hooker hoping to make some spare change. The few policemen, anxious to make it through the shift without any trouble, treated him as if he was invisible. Whenever one of them walked by, Makish grinned widely and sang out in a high-pitched, nasal voice, “Good evening, officer. I am waiting for my ride home, officer. Good to see you, sir.”

The “act annoyingly nice” method of getting city people to avoid you works, but I’m not sure it’d go so well for a clearly non-white dude doing it to a cop.

Union Station is the most secure building in DC’s southeast side. Half of the capitol is apparently like something out of a Snake Plisskin movie, or the beginning of Demolition Man where the street gang had anti-aircraft weapons.

The nation’s capital was infested with drug lords, crime bosses, and crooked politicians. Each controlled packs of thugs who engaged in a violent, ruthless war for territory. The small, outmanned, and outgunned District of Columbia police force had long conceded the street to the outlaws. North and West, where the major government buildings stood, were comparatively safe. The National Guard helped keep the peace. South and East, near Capitol Hill and the train station, justice came from the muzzle of a gun.

Remember the author’s note at the start of the book: the setting is a harsher, crueler version of our own world. What this usually means when it comes to Vampire: The Masquerade is that even ignoring the vampires, demons, etc., things are worse than in real life. The gap between rich and poor is larger. Slums are more run down and unlivable. The crime rate, especially homicide, is higher. The politicians and police are more corrupt. Corporations are more untouchable and all-powerful. There’re more specific examples too, like the levees in New Orleans being more poorly built and prone to breaking and flooding the city. Obviously that bit didn’t age well after 2005.

I know what you’re thinking. The most obvious and cynical take here’s that, except for all the supernatural crap, there’s no actual difference between real life and the World of Darkness. It’s 2019, and Poe’s Law reigns.

But whatever the case, this theme is usually subtler elsewhere than here in Blood War, where the fucking capital of the United States is under siege by street gangs to the point where the National Guard has to defend the seat of power but leave the rest to the street gangs and the drug lords and politicians they secretly or not so secretly work for.

Makish looks down on DC’s criminal element. See, he’s not just an assassin. He’s an artist.

Makish couldn’t understand the senseless violence. The cheap hoods who killed for gang honor and loose change disgusted him. They acted like wild animals, with no appreciation for art. Murder needed to be done with style, with panache. Makish was a connoisseur of extermination. Most Kindred thrived on blood. Makish drew his sustenance from murder. He was the supreme assassin in the world of the undead.

Fun fact. In later editions of the tabletop, the Assamites have three different castes: warriors, sorcerers, and viziers. Viziers are the “scholars and artisans” of the clan. Like Makish, they take their art seriously and obsess over it. Unlike Makish, the art doesn’t have to involve killing people. It’s easy to think Makish is a vizier, but since this book came out early in the tabletop’s existence I don’t think viziers were a thing yet. At least not like how they’re described in the link. So he’s more likely just an eccentric warrior.

“I believe you are waiting for me?” asked a voice slightly behind and to the right of Makish. It was exactly two hours past midnight.

“That’s how you arrive exactly on time, McCann, you wuss.”

Makish is caught off guard, since no one’s passed by him for a few minutes. The speaker, a tall and lean figure in a raincoat and slouch hat that hides their identity, appeared from nowhere. He beckons for Makish to walk with him out to the streets, saying that it’s more private outside and “there is work to be done.”

Their destination is east, in Washington’s worst slums. During their walk, they talk business, and we learn that Makish was the one who hired McCann’s would-be assassins on his employer’s orders. The employer’s aware that the assassins died, but he’s all “as expected, things are going exactly as planned” about it like a Greg Weisman villain.

“The other arrangements you requested proceed on schedule,” said Makish. “The work will be finished tomorrow.”

“Excellent,” said the stranger. “Though I expect no less. You come highly recommended. And cost too much for the services you provide.”

“I charge what I am worth,” replied Makish. “Success cannot be measured in mere dollars.”

“A wonderful sentiment for these times,” said the other dryly. “You have an artist’s temperament. In a few minutes, we shall discover if your skills match your arrogance.”

Then raincoat guy’s stripping.

Reaching up, the stranger removed his hat. Makish’s eyes widened when he saw his employer’s features. The speaker’s chalk-white face was that of a long-dead corpse, with decayed skin stretched across his hairless skull. Streaks of crimson stained his cheeks and forehead. With a smile, the horror turned to the assassin. “I am known as The Red Death. Touching my flesh would be a terrible mistake.”

Ah. It’s just Red D. revealing his identity to Makish.

Makish nodded, watching the stranger remove his raincoat.

Underneath the raincoat, the Red Death is still wearing the tattered shroud held together with moldering bandages he had on at The Club Diabolique. He knows enough to hide his identity in public with a coat and hat, but doesn’t want to compromise on his ancient horror look by putting on a pair of sweats or some shoes. The narration said earlier that the streets are empty because it’s the middle of the night and there’s a cold snap, but that’s no guarantee someone isn’t watching. If I were hanging around a slum at two AM, an ugly stranger wearing a coat but no pants or shoes would draw my attention more. I’d think he’s a flasher and I was about to get an eyeful of his withered zombie penis.

Or, that he’s a sitcom protagonist on his way to his girlfriend-of-the-season’s place with a sexy surprise, but uh oh, her parents are visiting, and after some wacky misunderstandings and pratfalls they’ll get an eyeful of his withered zombie penis.

No, wait, you know what he looks like, with his coat and hat over his shroud and wrappings? Imagine a cosplayer who’s been walking the floor of a convention for hours. They’re tired, their makeup and costume’s getting messed up, they’re cold, and they clearly don’t give a shit anymore so they just put on a coat over their elaborate get-up and wander around for another half hour before calling it a day.

They’re still walking east through this crime-infested neighborhood, Makish presumably dressed like a normal person and the Red Death like a half-naked mummy (though not a World of Darkness mummy, as they’re yet another creature that exists in it). The coat and hat aren’t mentioned again, so it seems that Red D. just dumped them on the sidewalk somewhere, like a normal person would. He’s also got his Body of Fire discipline activated.

Though he stood several feet away from the grim figure, Makish could feel the heat emanating from the Red Death’s body. It felt as if the mysterious vampire was on fire, without the flames.

Things have gotta feel awkward for Makish right now. The Red Death makes things even more uncomfortable by changing the subject immediately after revealing himself to grill Makish about his past.

“You are a renegade, no longer obeying the commands of your clan?” said the Red Death. It was more statement than question.

“The Society of Leopold killed my sire,” declared Makish defensively. There was little respect among the Kindred for those vampires without a clan.

They don’t use the word here, but Makish may be what Kindred call an antitribu. Antitribus are vampires who reject the political loyalties and culture of their clan, usually by joining the opposing sect or going independent. Think of a Brujah in the Sabbat, or a Lasombra in the Camarilla. Makish has left the already independent Assamites to become a free agent. Next book, we'll learn he's willing to take contracts on other Assamites, which is forbidden in the clan. While I’m not sure if that makes him an antitribu if you go by the strictest definition, I think it’s close enough that you can call him one.

Makish was one of those vampires who’re close to their sire. He wanted revenge on the Society of Leopold for killing them, but the Assamite elders at their main base in Alamut, Iran refused, concerned that letting him go all Death Wish on human enemies would jeopardize the Masquerade. Remember, while the Camarilla are the sect most obsessed with upholding the Masquerade, according to this book it was first started by the methuselahs after the fall of the Second City, so all vampires are supposed to follow it. Makish ignored orders and killed the humans involved in the hit. And the humans who ordered the hit. And their families. In total, Indian Charles Bronson here killed one hundred and fourteen people to avenge his sire.

“I thought it only proper to make a personal statement of my grief. My sire deserved a fitting memorial.”

Phht. Artists...

The elders at Alamut don’t tolerate loose cannons even if they’re damn good cops assassins, and attempted to summon Makish back to “explain [his] actions.”

“I politely but firmly declined the invitation. That was when I began working as an independent contractor.”

“Six Kindred disappeared delivering that request,” said the Red Death, chuckling.

“They refused to accept my decision as final,” replied Makish. He spread his arms out, as if appealing to a jury. “I had no choice but to convince them that I meant what I said. Five further failed attempts finally convinced Hasan’s minions to leave me alone.”

Makish notes that the Red Death knows quite a lot about him.

“My plans involve both the Camarilla and the Sabbat,” said the Red Death. “While the Camarilla claim this city, there are traces of the Sabbat here as well. I require an assistant loyal to neither sect. You are the best available choice.”

Remember back in the previous chapter when I was ranting about how some of the mystery around the Red Death was compromised so soon after his introduction? You notice how I never brought up how he just straight up announces his Sabbat affiliation? That’s because he was lying about that.

They’ve walked three blocks since the start of their conversation. The narration gives us another taste of the World of Darkness’s version of Washington, DC.

They were deep in the heart of gang territory. With the ruins of rusted cars, weed-infested lots, and seedy tenements, the street resembled photos of war-torn Sarajevo more than the capital of the United States.

Laying it on a little thick there, Mr. Weinberg.

The Red Death stops in front of a deserted-looking building, described as a “gutted brick structure.” He senses some vampires inside.

“The Camarilla rules the capital, but they cannot be everywhere. A Sabbat pack controls the drug traffic in this part of the city. It is time for them to learn the meaning of fear.”

The plan’s simple, but a classic villain move. Red D. will deal with the vampires, Makish with the ghouls except one. They’ll need a survivor to tell the story.

Question is, why does Red D. need Makish for this part of the plan at all? He was perfectly capable of leaving witnesses during his rampage at the Club Diabolique, and he shouldn’t have any problems handling mortals. It might have to do with how the Sabbat operates. Their low level cannon fodder troops tend to be vicious, stupid, and treated as disposable. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d do that fight scene thing where there’s one mook standing who’d just watched one guy take down all of their buddies but charge him anyway, kamikazeing on the Red Death’s literally hot bod.

They enter the building and eventually come to a basement stairway, but it’s guarded by two security cameras. The Red Death’ll probably have Makish hack them. In Bloodlines, you’d have to find a computer and have a high enough hacking stat (or more likely just look up the passwords on Gamefaqs, because why waste the experience points when you could just do that). Or he’ll just destroy them. Beyond teleporting, it’s not like the Red Death is big on stealth, dramatic bastard that he is. Or-

“Childish toys,” said the Red Death. “I assume you can neutralize them.”

Makish nodded and pointed a finger at the devices. After a few seconds, he smiled. “I froze the picture on their screen,” he declared. “Anyone monitoring the hall will see nothing unusual. I disabled the traps in the floor and walls at the same time.”

...Or Makish could use his psychic powers to remotely hack the cameras and eliminate all the traps. The fuck!? What discipline is that!? If this were the tabletop this would lead to a long derailing argument with the storyteller.

“Fools,” said the Red Death. “Depending on machinery for protection is the mark of incompetents. They deserve to perish.”

People who say shit like this tend to have had laptop trouble--or since this is 1994, VCR trouble--a few minutes beforehand and are being passive aggressive about it. The Red Death’s probably just pissed that his technological illiteracy made him miss an episode of Beverly Hills, 90210.

They head downstairs to a small foyer with all the security stuff, including the video monitors Makish psychic hacked, and a large biker-looking ghoul.

His first glimpse of Makish was his last. He died silently, his head twisted about a full 360 degrees. Though not very big, the Assamite assassin had incredibly strong wrists.

Impressive, but how did he achieve that? Did he twist the ghoul’s head a few times like a bottle cap? Or did he just smack him so hard his head spun around like that scene from Kung Fu Hustle?

They enter this Sabbat pack’s main headquarters, and Red D. flexes his inner drama student again.

“Greetings from the Camarilla,” he announced in a harsh voice. “I am the Red Death.”

"Yes, 'tis I! The Red Death of The Camarilla! I like to do Camarilla things! Antediluvians don't exist! Diablerie is baaaaad!"

Compared to the Club Diabolique, this drug den is a sad little affair. There’s just two vampires, finishing off a victim, and eight more biker or punk-looking ghouls gathered around a TV and watching Beavis and Butthead. No, really, I’m not making a joke. They’re watching Beavis and Butthead. It’s to show that they’re “typical young punks” but to be fair there’s no proof that the Camarilla vampires from earlier also don’t watch B&B during their free time. They just wouldn’t watch it at the club because the parts where Beavis and Butthead riff on rock music videos would piss off old man Vargoss. 

Anyway, Makish immediately gets to work.

Ghouls were tough, stronger and quicker than normal human beings. The taste of vampire blood heightened their awareness and physical abilities. But they were helpless as children against the assassin.

Again, no mention of the whole “no free will, slaves to their master” deal with ghouls.

Makish moved so fast that his motions blurred. He raced from punk to punk in an intricate pattern, resembling a complex dance. His fingers, hard as steel, ripped and tore at the bodies of his foes.

There’s several sentences about all the geysers of blood he’s causing and how it’s splashing everywhere and how the drug den looks like a slaughterhouse now. Normally a vampire would have trouble controlling themselves around so much spilled blood.

Unlike most vampires, Makish held the beast within his soul under tight control. So much warm blood would have sent other Kindred into a mad frenzy. Not Makish. He drank blood when necessary, for the physical nourishment it provided his body. Killing gave him life.

Sounds like someone’s been getting good hunger rolls. Or is it willpower rolls? I’ve never played the tabletop game.

The Beast. It doesn’t get brought up that often in this book. It’s the name Kindred use to refer to the bundle of monstrous urges and compulsions they constantly have to keep in check. Here’s what the White Wolf wiki had to say about it:

“Beast is a term used by vampires to describe the inner predator that strives for control over a cainite's mind.

[...]

The Beast is an innate demonic predator that awakens within each and every vampire upon their Embrace. It stands in direct opposition to a vampire’s Humanity (and in some cases the Paths of Enlightenment) and is responsible for many of the debased urges Cainites feel on a nightly basis. In times of extreme distress the Beast can overwhelm a vampire forcing them into a state of pure animalistic fight or flight, which is referred to as Frenzy or Rötschreck.”

If they don’t keep their inner beast under control, a vampire ends up going into a frenzy, uncontrollably killing anyone they either perceive as a threat or who they can feed on, consequences and Masquerade be damned. For example, if Makish were to frenzy right now, he’d kill every ghoul in the room against the Red Death’s wishes and then ravenously try to slurp up all the blood he spilled. Or he’d just run away because there’s a fire monster in the room and fire is bad.

All the other Vampire: The Masquerade media I’ve seen, like Bloodlines and L.A. by Night, tend to focus on the Beast with all the drama and pathos you can expect from monsters trying to keep their humanity. Sometimes they get too wanky about it. Blood War is different in this regard. Maybe it wasn’t as focused on in the early days of the franchise.

We get several paragraphs describing Makish’s kills, and learn more about his “artistic” mentality.

“To the assassin, art meant style and substance. Makish served as his own worst critic.

Don’t we all, buddy. Don’t we all.

A satisfactory murder required a minimum of effort with a maximum result. He strove to waste not a motion. Death was a broad canvas on which he painted his masterpieces of destruction. Whenever possible, he worked with Thermit. The explosive powder provided flash and color to an otherwise drab business. Though the assassin’s expression as he worked remained fixed, mentally he strove to attain the blessed state of the perfect kill.

He kills the first three ghouls in thirty seconds, each in different ways.

The first ghoul died with its throat torn out, nearly decapitated. The second collapsed on the floor in a steaming pile of its own insides, ripped from it with a disemboweling stroke of needle-like claws. The third screamed once, then choked to death on his own blood as Makish slammed his nose into his brain.

This is how Makish’s kills are typically described. The ones that don’t involve explosives, anyway. A simple move, and the victim explodes into a pile of gore, described graphically but almost offhandedly by the narration. He’s dancing around killing these guys in varying ways, and the way it’s portrayed I can see how it could be “artistic”. It still gets tiring after a while seeing yet another description like: “Makish slapped the ghoul on the back, causing his entire digestive tract to rocket out of his mouth. AAAAARRRRRRRRRTTT!!!”

The fourth ghoul is the one Makish spares to tell the story later. He smacks him out of the room, into the foyer. Instead of running, the fool conveniently watches in horror as Makish finishes off his buddies in under a minute.

The triumph of his art rushed through him like a powerful drug. He found the exercise an invigorating, if short, encounter. Simple, uncomplicated deaths, they required little effort. The truly satisfying kills, those done with explosives, would come later.

Yadda, yadda, yadda, you get the point. AAAAARRRRRRRRRTTT!!!

Makish checks to see how the Red Death’s doing. The big guy’s got the two Kindred by the throat, one in each hand, and, in contrast to his quicker Diabolique Club kills, is slowly cooking them alive. Soon, though...

The monstrous figure laughed. A wave of incredible heat poured out of his body, sending the temperature of the room soaring. With a faint popping sound, a trace of fire appeared around the Red Death’s fingers, like a crimson set of brass knuckles. The imprisoned Kindred shrieked in unbelievable agony as the tiny flames touched their cheeks, setting them ablaze.

They burned like dry, rotted wood. Flesh melted, eyeballs exploded, bones crackled and burst like rotted sticks. Makish, no stranger to violence, shook his head in amazement.  In a thousand years of murder he had never witnessed anything like this before. The Red Death was approriately named. He was flame incarnate.

Impressive, but remember that during all of this Beavis and Butthead is playing on the nearby TV. Their uhhhhuhuhuhs and hehehehehes would be heard over the Red Death’s little show. It ruins the moment a little.

(Heheheh! Fire! Fire! Fire!)

Their chosen witness runs away, and everyone else is dead. The Red Death is pleased. He expects news of this will spread.

“The Sabbat anarchs will demand immediate revenge against the Camarilla.”

Sabbat “Anarchs” huh? Well, that’s another thing I’ll have to rant about later. This chapter recap’s long enough.

"Prince Vitel and his council of advisors will retaliate swiftly to any such action. They know the Sabbat hungers to control the capital. A push or two in the right direction should finish the job. A single incident will escalate quickly into a major battle between the rival cults.”

[...]

“A Sabbat attack is assured. Leaving me free to pursue my objectives without interruptions.”

The Red Death smiled. “It is almost too easy.”

So Red D.’s acting out false flag operations in order to start a war (a blood war, you could say, and Makish does) between the Camarilla and the Sabbat, which’ll distract both of them from whatever he’s planning. Makish points out that hundreds, maybe thousands of vampires will die. The Red Death concludes by hinting at his true goals.

“The existence of the entire Cainite race depends on the success of my mission,” said the Red Death, all humor gone from its voice. “If I fail, entire generations of vampires will die in a slaughter unmatched in history. I must succeed, no matter the cost.”

*softly, from the other side of the room* “Settle down, Beavis.”

Now there’s one major flaw in Red D.’s plan I can point out. So far, his false flag attacks involved him arriving at a faction’s haven, introducing himself and declaring his allegiance to the other faction before killing a few people. But why is he exposing himself at all? Last chapter, Tyrus Benedict mentioned that the Camarilla has spies in the Sabbat, and presumably the Sabbat has spies in the Camarilla as well. Wouldn’t those spies discover that the same horrible fire vampire is attacking both sides, and come to the conclusion that he’s trying to start a conflict? Even without the spies, wouldn’t they discover the deception when one side, I don’t know, demands that the other side turn over the Red Death or something? Maybe Red D.’s counting on the tit for tat bullshit between the factions crossing the point of no return before it could make a difference? And the Camarilla and Sabbat would never actually team up against him. But he’s still drawing unwanted attention to himself, and at least some resources will be used against him that wouldn’t otherwise if he stuck to the shadows and kept his big dumb mouth shut.

Or maybe I should follow Makish’s lead.

Makish, who had been employed by fanatics many times in the past, knew better than to respond.

[tuxedaaron]

Well, here we come with another SSM pic, just to give you an idea of where some of my fanfic ideas are going.  This one, I daresay, is a little bit obscure, mostly because I'm not really planning to do much with him, outside of an initial appearance.  But I came up with a design inspiration and was eager to test it out.  So for your viewing pleasure (for lack of a better term), I give you Carnage. I actually found myself going to a lot of sources of inspiration when coming up with the design for this.  Obviously, when you're thinking of an animated series, you have to give some thought to how well something can be animated.  And when it comes to Carnage, his original look has just NEVER been conducive to an animated program.  I mean, the suit's constantly moving and shifting, there's tendrils and droplets of Symbiote goop whipping around and sloughing off of him.  So unless you did him entirely in CG, it would be virtually IMPOSSIBLE to even ATTEMPT.  That's why, when he appeared in the 90s series, they never even bothered to TRY. Still, the question became, how could I come up with a stable design that could be easily animated, but would still retain the spirit of the original design?  And that was when a lot of things started coming together.  The main thing I came up with, that I really wanted to try, was how his chest looks.  It kind of has the traditional goopy Symbiote look going on, but if you look very closely, you'll see that it forms a crude shape.  Some thing that, with this generation, has been watered down and diluted to the point where it's virtually indistinguishable from the others.  And seeing how it ties in with the rest of the costume, it actually works pretty well. The hands and feet were easy, taking a lot of cures from the Ultimate Spider-Man incarnation of Carnage (the clawed hands and talon toes were also kind of a nod to Greg Weisman and Gargoyles as well).  But at the same time, I still wanted to have that "symbiotic tendril look" to be somewhat represented.  But what was a way that would work that would be animated easily?  That's when I remembered Anti-Venom and how, when he was introduced, he had spikes and spines jutting out from his shoulders, his arms his legs, you name it.  I remember thinking at the time, that was kind of an odd look for him, but with Carnage, I actually thought it would work quite well.  So I gave it a shot.  Offhand, I'd say it works. But, as always, don't take MY word for it.  Feel free to let me know what you think.  And if this should get you interested in hearing more of my fanfic ideas (and hopefully helping me out), so much the better.  Either way, look forward to hearing from you. ^_^