#I HAVE LITERALLY WANTED TO DO A CROSSOVER COMIC SERIES LIKE THIS SINCE THE FIRST SECRET SANTA

[accirax]

Come back for the first installment of Blind Date or Die tomorrow!💕

[evilwickedme]

hey it’s me from the Batman posts! (the one that left the tags abt wanting to get into Batman but having no clue where to start)

If its not too much trouble, I’d love any advice on where to start with Batman or Batfam(?) stuff, I saw someone suggest reading the Batman: Wayne Family Adventures thing on webtoon as an intro to the characters so I’ve been doing that, but I’ve got no clue about any of the official comics or shows/movies/etc. I’ve never read a comic series before so everything is super new to me.

I know different series(?)/versions(?) can be wildly different bc of different writers and stuff, I definitely trust your taste on what would be good / enjoyable bc the posts you’ve been reblogging are like 90% of whats gotten me interested in the first place

Thank you, and absolutely no rush!!

Hey I am legit SO happy that you sent me this ask this is literally my favorite thing to do!!!!

So to start with I do actually agree that wfa is a good starting point but for a different reason than I feel most people would recommend it. The thing about wfa is that it has a consistent design for every character, is humorous, touches not only on the main batfamily members but also many extended members, other noteworthy people in Gotham, and the batfamily's cast of friends and teammates as well. This means that while its approach to characterization is incredibly fanon-y, it's a good basis for how to continue. You read wfa, and you know that Dick is the first robin, wears ridiculous costumes, was batman for a bit, is nightwing, part of the teen titans... this isn't a lot, but it's just enough to orient yourself before jumping into some of the most convoluted art ever created, aka the comic world.

Another tip I'm gonna give you is to let yourself be confused. I think the people who end up sticking with comics are people who are aware that if they pick up a comic it's very likely the writers and artists have read and worked on comics that you haven't read yet or even heard of, so you're always going to be missing something. That's fine. If something is really important to the plot, it gets explained; if it's not, it's windowdressing. Often there'll be little boxes saying what comic and issue they're referencing, so if you find it interesting you can just go read it - otherwise, if it's not there, you can google it, or go to any comic fan and ask "hey do you know what this is about?" and if they know, they will answer. There is nothing a comic fan wants more than to explain how to get into their favorite character/s, trust me.

Anyway this has been a very wordy intro but here are some potential starting points for the batfamily!

Bruce Wayne

You know who he is. Pick up an issue of Batman or Detective Comics and he's there. Pick up an issue of any other DC comic and there's like a 30% chance he's there too.

Batman: The Long Halloween

Noir style, investigative, early in batman's career, two face's origin story

It has a sequel-ish story called Batman: Dark Victory that's almost as good

Batman: Hush

Batman: Year One

Frankly there's not going to be much information in this comic you don't already know, but also, it's a classic, so might as well

Batman: A Death in the Family & Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying (crossover with the new teen titans)

First story is Jason's death, second is Tim's introduction and arguably the start of the batfamily being a family

Tim drags Dick back into the fray in ALPOD. It's just sort of the kind of thing he does

Do NOT confuse A Death in the Family with Death OF the Family, which is a much newer story, and Not Good

Batman: Under the Red Hood

Jason's villain arc! More details below

Batman himself isn't actually my favorite but you know he's got some decent stuff since he's, uh, the main character. DC doesn't have a multiverse the way Marvel does - and getting into that would be a whole separate ask - but their elseworlds are stories about the characters in different situations. Some ones I've heard good things about include Gotham by Gaslight, Dark Knights of Steel, Batman: Last Knight on Earth, and I keep meaning to get into Batman: White Knight, which is a whole other universe on its own. I've been trying to get into more modern batman stuff and unfortunately I just haven't clicked with anything.

Dick Grayson

Guy has been in a lot of things. If you read a random Batman comics from before 1980, there's a good chance he'll be there.

Teen Titans and The New Teen Titans and Titans (1980s-2000s)

I haven't read enough of these to say much of anything, but he's a founding member of the TT

Nightwing

His post-Robin superhero identity. At first only present in NTT and occasional Batman comics, but eventually he gets his own miniseries in the early 90s, followed by an ongoing. Recently-ish started reading them and they're angsty and very 90s in a lot of ways but I'm enjoying it

Modern Nightwing titles also exist. For sure.

Batman & Robin by Morrison

In one of DC's ten million crises, Bruce "dies", and after a short story called Battle for the Cowl, Dick ends up becoming Batman. Damian is his Robin. It's an interesting time for batman comics, although not necessarily the best writing that Dick has ever gotten.

Batman: The Dark Mirror

Also a great story for the Gordons. Bruce is back from the dead, but Dick is still Batman in Gotham. This was my first even Batman comic and it's really good.

Obviously there's other stories, such as Grayson, where he becomes a super spy for a bit. There's a million and a half reading lists for Dick out there as he's a massively popular character and he's one of the characters DC is pushing the most right now. As with all the rest of these, these are good entry points; from there I trust you to find your way

Barbara Gordon

The original Batgirl, sort of (nobody really brings up bette kane unless they're pointing out that babs wasn't the original Batgirl, she's just not important). She appears sporadically in silver and bronze age batman comics and detective comics, but she quits being Batgirl shortly before being raped and shot in the spine by the joker in Batman: the Killing Joke, which I purposefully did not put on my rec list.

Birds of Prey

Babs-as-Oracle at her best.

Batman: The Dark Mirror

Babs' long lost brother comes back to town. It's fucked up.

I've been reliably told to stay away from her Batgirl runs - most people who are a fan of the character don't like that they retconned Oracle away and it's mostly not very well written. There's a comic called batgirls that lasted about a year that included her, and it's okay.

Jason Todd (my beloved)

MY MAN

Batman: Second Chances

Collected edition of Jason as Robin, so much fun. Extremely silly at times since it's the 80s.

Batman: A Death in the Family

For obvious reasons.

Then he's just sort of dead for 17 years. He shows up in heaven in a Green Arrow issue and is occasionally brought up or shown as a hallucination, but that's about it.

Batman: Under the Red Hood

There's a new crime lord in town and he's so smart and talented and hot omg I wonder who he is!!!!

The collected edition also comes with the annual that reveals how he came back to life

Task Force Z

This shouldn't be as good as it is.

Jason gets recruited to work with a team of undead villains

Jason gets called a hot a bunch of times, and is shirtless a lot. This doesn't matter but you know, like, yeah it does.

For Robin!Jason there's also Batman: The Cult - which I finally got my hands on recently but haven't read yet. For Red Hood!Jason there's lots of stuff, but most of it isn't very good or is actively bad. Most people will tell you to stay away from Red Hood and the Outlaws, and they're right, although the 2016 run is better. Most people will tell you to read Batman & Red Hood: Cheer, and they're wrong, it's ass.

Tim Drake

Frankly this boy has no flops. Or very close to it.

Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying

Tim figured out who Batman and Robin are at AGE NINE. Respect.

After this he appears in various Batman and detective comics issues, I haven't read any of these.

Robin

The first Robin to get his own ongoing! Like with Nightwing, it started with a miniseries (a few of them, actually) and got turned into a long running series from there. Lasted like 200 issues, too.

Tim FUCKS.

Not Steph's first appearance, but most of her appearances pre-2009 are in this series.

Young Justice 1998

It's insane in all the best ways. Cars have sex on panel. They play baseball to save the world on an alien planet. A power of friendship speech prevents the end of the world. In the first issue, a woman develops breasts so big she falls on her face.

This team eventually breaks apart and Tim along with 3 other teen heroes nicknamed the core four (Superboy, Impulse, & Wonder Girl II) become part of Teen Titans 2003, which I haven't read and is also a bit of a flop era fashion wise for everyone anyway. I do have the volume of TT03 where they meet the versions of themselves from the future and I plan on reading that soon-ish.

In the mid 2000s basically everyone Tim loves dies. Steph died in 2004 ish after a very short stint as Robin. Tim's mom dies, then his dad is murdered, and it's unclear what happened to his step mom, but she was in Bludhaven, which had an atomic bomb dropped on it. Impulse becomes kid flash becomes the flash becomes murdered, and superboy gets killed while saving the world. Steph does turn out to not be dead after all and Impulse and Superboy come back from the dead eventually but by God he's having a tough year BEFORE Bruce "dies".

Red Robin 2009

After Bruce "dies" and Dick becomes Batman, Dick makes Damian his Robin and nobody believes Tim that Bruce is still alive, so he steals the Red Robin costume and goes on a mission to save his dad!

Not a comic to read first because it's so uncharacteristic of Tim as a person, but definitely something to read as soon as possible, because it's ridiculously good.

After flashpoint/n52 Tim doesn't have his own ongoing for a while, but he does come out as bisexual in an early issue of Batman Urban Legends (2021) and he got his own ongoing called Tim Drake: Robin in 2022 which was ugly AF and yet cancelled far too soon. There's a Young Justice run from 2019 I haven't read yet.

Stephanie Brown

For her I would go to Google, bc I haven't gone down the rabbithole enough for her yet. I know her first appearance was in a batman comic where she became spoiler to spoil her dad's plans - her dad being a third rate villain called the cluemaster - and she almost kills him, so good for her. Afterwards she appears every once in a while in various comics, most notably in Robin, where she and Tim as Robin start dating despite him knowing her identity but not the other way around.

Robin 60s (I don't remember the exact issues)

Steph gives birth and gives her baby up for adoption

Robin 126-128

Steph becomes Robin when Tim quits for his still-alive-but-not-for-long dad.

War Games

Steph does a fucky wucky and accidentally starts a gang war which gets her killed

There's another Robin arc where she comes back and it turns out she was never dead, Leslie (the family doctor) simply faked her death and sent her to Africa to recover

Batgirl 2009

Her first and only solo ongoing, but it's really good

She also appears a lot in Cass's Batgirl ongoings, and occasionally shows up in yj98. Her most recent series in Batgirls, which isn't very good but her interactions with Cass are very gay, and we've all been shipping it for 20 years at this point, so frankly it's long overdue. Unlikely to become canon tho, unfortunately.

Cassandra Cain

She doesn't use a lot of words, so neither will I. Probably.

No Man's Land

Frankly I am terrified to read this, it's so many goddamn issues, but this is her first appearance. I have one "volume" and it's as big as the fucking Bible.

Batgirl 2000

She's the first Batgirl to get an ongoing. The one from 2008 I've been reliably told isn't very good. She's absolutely terrifying in the 2000 one, I approve.

Outsiders 2016

Supposed to also be good for Duke content. I think at this point she's going by Orphan? Idk she's had a lot of names.

Idk I prefer Black Bat

Spirit World

Mini series that recently ended. Soooooo good. Alyssa Wong is a top contender for favorite modern writer.

She's mostly a background character. Bc DC is both sexist AND racist. She was also in batgirls.

Damian Wayne

Frankly he's my least favorite of the batkids, but that's not his fault, he's been a victim of a lot of really racist writing.

Batman: Son of the Demon

Somehow both his origin AND an elseworlds that doesn't count. Not required reading, but Bruce and Talia are madly in love in this.

Batman by Grant Morrison

After UTRH and before Dick was forced to become Batman Morrison reintroduced Talia's son, who in this version was a rape baby bc apparently brutalia weren't in love and Talia drugged Bruce. Fucking fine, I guess.

His character growth during his time as robin is sweet tho.

Robin 2021

His only solo ongoing, pretty good

Super Sons

He had two team up comics with then fellow child Jon Kent, son of superman, and it was fucking adorable. Then they aged up Jon to 17, so they're still friends, but Jon has his own shit going on.

Duke Thomas

He's REALLY new, and I haven't read any of it, I'm sorry.

Robin War

Batman and the Signal - I finally got my hands on the first issue of this last week!

The Outsiders 2016

Frankly they should capitalize on the Duke & Cass friendship/siblingship more often.

Alfred Pennyworth

I haven't read it, but there's a series called Pennyworth about his days as a spy for the crown. Supposed to be pretty good.

Kate Kane

The Jewish lesbian batwoman of our dreams

Batwoman: Elegy

Her introduction

Also, it's written by Greg Rucka, and if he can do one thing, it's write sapphic women. I'm not even joking.

Get the newer edition that has both of her original Rucka stories

Batwoman ongoings

She's had a couple, they're both supposed to be pretty solid, I've only read a few issues here and there

Batman in other media

Animated: I'm currently watching Batman the Animated Series for the first time and it seems to really get Bruce as a character, even if Robin will be there one episode and his existence will be a plot hole in the next. The Justice League animated series has also been fun so far. Teen Titans have gotten a number of animated adaptations all of which have pretty strong followings. There's an animated show called "Young Justice" which is a Teen Titans show and I refuse to watch it (it has a very devout following, but all that means is that the Young Justice - All Media Types tag on ao3 is just the same as Young Justice Cartoon and I have to filter heavily when looking for yj98 fics). Lego Batman is a REALLY fun film, and I think it turned into a whole franchise.

Live action TV: I have watched the first season of both Titans and Gotham, but both of those were before I was into the batfamily as a concept. My impression of Titans is overall negative and my impression of Gotham is overall positive.

Live action movies: There are so many Goddamn Batman movies. I like the Dark Knight Trilogy, but even calling it "based on" the Dark Knight comic trilogy is giving it a lil more credit than it deserves. The Batman 2022 is massively popular with the comic fandom for a reason - I'm not a big fan of it, but I did enjoy laughing at the movie so at least there's that. Batfleck sucks. I haven't seen anything else, up to and including the Joker movie. Oh, and Birds of Prey was really good, but that's not Cass.

Video games: The Arkham trilogy is well loved and I have indeed just bought it, but I haven't gotten to it because I'm currently working on Gotham Knights and uh. Okay so listen. This game is a lot of fun and I will be finishing it. But it's like. Got a massively antisemitic plot point. I can't even say I don't recommend it, I'm genuinely enjoying the game a lot. But I've never seen anybody bring this up, and it's bugging me.

ANYWAY I'm sure I've missed a LOT but this is introductory so you know I'm giving myself grace. There's characters I completely skipped and I'm sure mega fans of characters I haven't read much of will be offended that I said such and such about them but you know it's only been about a year and a half since I started reading dc comics and I'm still figuring it all out. And I probably will still be figuring it out for the next decade. To me that's actually part of the fun of it.

[msookyspooky]

OMG YOU WATCHED LISA FRANKENSTIEN AND LOVED IT?! <33

I've been waiting for that especially since you've posted Gomez and Morticia (The goal of all goals) on your blog! It's an odd request but I still read and love your Set Up series so can we get a crossover with YN as Lisa Swallow's and the boys as The Creature? ( Cole Sprouse lowkey reminds me of young Skeet Ulrich which considering Riverdale it's no wonder)

Wait cause no this is such a good idea I cannot pass it up I got so much work to do but I REALLY wanna write for this! (I got so many request I'm trying to do in my inbox but uh...This is my current hyperfixation srry)

I wish I could draw better to make zombies of them fhjaafg ♡♡♡ If anyone wants to add onto this or request other characters please do (And anyone seeing this; watch Lisa Frankenstein I loved it)

🔪 Scream / Lisa Frankenstein Crossover 🧟‍♂️

Iⁿᶜˡᵘᵈᵉᵈ﹕ ʳᵃⁿᵈʸ ᵐᵉᵉᵏˢ, ˢᵗᵘ ᵐᵃᶜʰᵉʳ, ᵇⁱˡˡʸ ˡᵒᵒᵐⁱˢ, ᵐⁱᶜᵏᵉʸ ᵃˡᵗᵉʳⁱ

(Everyone is buried in this despite canon and set in the present. Fem!Reader TW: Corpse/Dead Body, Talk of Rot and Decay, Zombie BF)

🪦 Randy Meeks: Died 1998

♡ You loved his character in Stab. After you did some deep diving studying who the actual Randy was outside of the movie; you found his tombstone. (who would do this? Me and @f1nalboys Might do what Lisa did and write your name over his etched name *Meeks* on a piece of paper. Bc of course YN Meeks just has a nice ring to it)

♡ Heard you venting about life and fell in love in his restless but lucid slumber 6ft underground. Someone actually likes his character for more than comic relief? Someone understood him? They didn't think he was just the geek?

♡ After a terrible lightning storm...Guess who fumbled and broke through your window drenched in mud and decay?

♡ Is a little hurt you aren't head over heels for him in his current state. He accidentally cried even if his pride hates that he quite literally cried his own eyes out. He's used to not getting who he wants and...Well, he may not smell himself with his nostrils rotted out but considering his eye popped out; still attached to the retina and had to be pushed back in while you're covering your nose gagging; he understands even if it hurts.

♡ Takes a shower (I'd use Dawn. Bar soap or Dove ain't gonna cut it.) and wears your clothes or robe. He still smells like a dead body and has worms but he's trying. He's got a LOT of old stab wounds from dying in that van at Windsor...Holes...Things seep out so you might wanna get tape or something idk.

♡ Do not stress this undead man out if you mischaracterize a film; he cannot talk with a missing tongue to argue; it decayed decades ago.

♡ His dead, dull eyes actually have some spark of life to them when he sees streaming for the first time. So many movies he's missed out on! Give him the remote and you never gotta worry about him leaving your room while you're gone.

♡ He accidentally kills someone you definitely did not want killed after they smelled something awful in your room, went up there, screamed, Randy went to knock them out in a panic and accidentally kills them

♡ He feels awful about it and you both decide to hide the body and use their hand to replace his missing one (Fell off lol just dead things) and shock him back to circulation somehow

♡ If you do what Lisa did and let him do...Other things with a 'back massager'. He's so madly in love and yearning for you it's insane. But if you got a crush you're yearning for; he is rolling his eyes with a grunt at this being Sid and Billy or Sid and Derek allllll over again.

♡ Less corpsey he gets with each shock session; more he can't help his feelings for you. YOU have to be the one to admit your feelings to him though because what would you want with an undead geek like him? At least in his mind.

♡ Would cry his eyes out (Not literally this time) if you were killed and 100% would resurrect your body and take care of you like you did him

♡ Is as loyal as they come. Will worship you accepting him at his geekiest, dead, grossest versions of himself and you're still here

🪦 Stu Macher: Died 1996

♡ You found his tombstone as a dare to 'bring him back' like bloody mary....No duh, it didn't work. But Stu was still aware of it in a dream like state sorta way. You didn't believe in that stuff rolling your eyes at people badgering you on where you lived.

♡ A car hits a power line and the line of electricity zaps his grave and he goes home just to see...Holy shit, you own his house!

♡ He thinks he's still the playboy man slut he was in life that can get anyone he wants so he's really offended you aren't wanting him to kiss you. Why!? Cause he has worms and his lips are a little dry from sinking into rot, he's a little bit dirty with body fluid stained clothes and he smells like a dead body? Picky!

♡ Is even more offended you're gagging and covering your nose demanding he bathe. Begrudgingly takes your dumb shower and your entire tub smells like dead bird and covered in dirt.

♡ When he comes out you see his face is very scarred under all that mud he had on him. Maybe the rumor he died via a tv crashing on his head and shocking him was true?

♡ If you piss him off...Well he can't kill you cause he needs you. But he WILL hack up a worm like a hairball just to gross you out out of pure pettiness.

♡ Just steals your clothes without asking. Lounging in your best clothes that can fit while he's leaking fluids. If not, he's stealing some guys clothes in your home. Catch him lounging in your Dad/Step Dad/Brothers/Friends best fit.

♡ Tries to steal your bed till you yell at him to get in the closet before someone sees. He guards your clothes and forces you to wear the sluttiest sexiest clothes you have...What? He's helping!

♡ He is soooooooo elated they made Stab! A whole movie with him portrayed in it by a good looking actor? He is over the moon watching it on repeat.

♡ Gets lonely easily...And bored! He's sighing to himself when you're gone and thinking how Billy is dead now and all the people he once knew, knew him as a murderer and were in their 40's. In fact, don't leave him alone long; its disastrous.

♡ Not able to yap HURTS HIM. Expect a lot of hand gestures and getting him a note pad to write on because he can't handle this

♡ Kills someone after you have an issue with them not even second guessing it. What? Problem solved! AND he gets a new body part to replace the one that rotted. Win win.

♡ He is very aware and depressed his manhood rotted off decades ago and that's probably the first body part he's going for. Especially a crush/boyfriend of yours. He can handle no ear or hand or even a tongue but his dick!? No.

♡ Sits in bed painting your nails while you rant about boys. He nods at everything when it comes to guys having their mind on one thing because well...Yeah. Especially in his case

♡ HE is the one smirking if he finds any massager and even if you want a back rub that thing is going lower. Just cause he doesn't have a peen rn doesn't mean his mind isn't in the gutter still

♡ He thinks your a girlfriend of his right away so casually without even asking you so; of course any guy coming near you is dead. Of course he's resurrecting you if you die because...Well he's starting to realize you're the only girl that doesn't scream when you see him so he's gonna hang up his player towel.

♡ Even fully restored he still has scars on his face and feels indebted to you that you don't care about his murderous ways or his face now. He takes care of you if you're dead and the roles reverse...Hell, he finds it hot you need him now.

Billy Loomis: Died 1996

♡ You were a bit odd yourself and found yourself studying the murders. Feeling conflicted about Billy because yeah he was an awful incel but researching his background you felt a bit bad he felt so alone and abandoned even with people around him. You clean off vandalism on his grave and talk to him for hours.

♡ A storm occurs after you have an awful day and cry to his grave 'I wish I was with you'...You meant dead. But well...

♡ That night lightning hits the grave and you wake up in bed to the god awful smell and his dead dirty face looking down at you. You go to scream and he covers your mouth with a cold clammy hand. Going to talk to you and a centipede falls out his mouth making you scream even louder.

♡ You almost knock his head off before he points to a picture on your desk you took of his grave surrounded by newspaper articles of his death.

♡ He thinks he finally has a person that's not a 'whore, bitch, or poser' in his eyes. A bit in love with you and is bitter you don't exactly want an ex serial killer from the 90's like that...

♡ He almost wants to kill you thinking of the betrayal till he sees his reflection and is completely defeated. Sunken dead eyes, matted dirty hair missing in places, longer haggered dirty nails, skin looking ready to fall off.

♡ He sits in your bathroom and you try to comfort him till you smell what smells like...Sewage and death and embalming fluid and your trying not to throw up.

♡ He takes a shower without being told to. Disgusted by his own rot and grime. His gun shot wound in the middle of his forehead a reminder of his failure almost 3 decades ago...Might have scrambled his brain a bit.

♡ He's a manipulator and user but he's not as...Tactless and spoiled as Stu. He feels grateful you offered him to stay despite the smell and the misunderstanding even if he's not happy sleeping on the floor or closet.

♡ He feels even more defeated when you tell him his Mom died in 1998 at Windsor College trying to avenge his death. He's beside himself over it and honestly just wants to crawl back in his icky coffin and die again.

♡ He wanders your home despite being told not to. Goes through all of your things. The lack of speaking doesn't bother him. Especially when it means he can hear you spill your guts more. He wants to observe everything.

♡ Like Randy he's pleased by the movies on streaming but not as obsessed as he was. Whether that bullet was like a lobotomy or just laying in the ground so long to 'think' in the afterlife; he's not the same guy he was in 96...Not completely. Is annoyed at his portrayal in Stab. His hair never looked like that! (Yes it did)

♡ He does kill someone when they bully or mistreat you. He feels possessive of you already and he just doesn't like assholes. He's the one that decides to steal a body part while you're staring in horror.

♡ He gets shocked and you see him a little less dead and a working body part now. So it becomes a thing for you both but you tell him 'Only those that deserve it' and he shrugs. He ain't following that but okay.

♡ Is pinning over you but hides it well. Enjoying just listening to you or watching you. HATES with a passion when you talk about guys but hides it with grunts and subtle glares.

♡ Is your ride or die when he hears police are investigating you for murder after he was the one killing them. I mean...What will they do? Re-kill him? He will do anything he can especially the more 'alive' he becomes to protect you.

♡ Once he's...Fully equipped he actually refuses to sleep with you. Still thinking 'virgins live, sluts die' like he use to. You have to tell him 'You know Sidney is still alive, right? That rule is dumb and not true.' he may get over it and sleep with you or it might still take time.

♡ He wants to go after Sid but also what's the point now? He's not exactly in tip top shape...Don't even tell him about Sam being rumored to possibly being his daughter by mega Stab fans. His undead brain will stop working.

♡ If you die he will resurrect you not out of convenience and want like Stu or devotion like Randy but more possessive ownership. You're his. Whether that's love or to control you (Both). Not even death will seperate you from him.

♡ Once he's fully recovered he has a migraine till that bullet eventually is pushed out by that one last shock and his body starts bleeding again.

♡ More than happy to be together away from everyone just you and him.

Mickey Alteri: Died 1998

♡ Everyone knows Mickey as the freak that was so obsessed with Stab and the original killers he imitated them. But what they don't realize is he killed even before Nancy found him. He was just wired different and it made him feel alive...How ironic now.

♡ You accidentally stumbled upon his grave after trying to find a different one. And...Why is it empty? Well, you had nothing to do with his resurrection just wrong place wrong time as a corpse is lumbering towards you from behind a tombstone with bullet wounds all over him.

♡ He wanted to snap your neck just to fell something again till his own leg fell off and he face planted on the ground.

♡ You of course didn't know he was trying to kill you. You still tried to get away before you saw him just sitting there and...Sighing? It wasn't a mindless zombie after you? Even worse; he grabbed your keys when you ran.

♡ Ask for them back and like a damn child he shakes his head with grunts. You swear to God you heard 'nuh uh' in his grunt. (Keep his leg away give me the keys or I'm yeeting your leg)

♡ Takes a shower at your house and like Randy all those holes are leaking...Icky stuff. He had more muscle before he died so his body mass shockingly is thinner but not as much as it should be? You're talking to a corpse it doesn't have to make sense. All you know is he just walked around naked and you saw disgusting things on the human body you never wanna know after death. You gotta make him wear clothes!

♡ You're in this awkward situation where...The dead guy has feelings and thoughts and is urging he wants to go home with you. Whether you say yes or no he knows your car and will find you.

♡ Sew his leg back on or give him a funny replacement like a peg leg and tell him deal with it. What are you? A surgeon?

♡ Little did you know the second you came for your keys and talked to him he claimed you as his just for being different than most victims. More eager than Stu, falling even faster than Randy, more obsessive than Billy and POSSIBLY crazier than the og Ghostface's...You're having a corpse that is already planning to make you his (Might even kill you so you have to be with him when he resurrects you like he was.)

♡ Other than killing and movies you're the first thing to make him feel something and he is not letting that go.

♡ Wears your clothes, watches your tv, listens to you talk, plans to kill anyone that fucks with you, watches you when you sleep, dresses you up.

♡ The first kill is a guy interested in you. You are his now! He doesn't hesitate to take a few body parts to have you sew on him. Finds the whole process endearing. He's nuts guys idk. You just gotta drill it in his head not to kill a family member, close friend or pet or you won't forgive him because he cannot have that. He wants your affection and attention so he'll be good when it comes to that.

♡ With each shock he gets more lively and bolder. Dancing with you and ignoring the worm that you don't know where it fell out of. Trying to cuddle you even if you gotta start smearing vicks under your nose. Won't hesitate to kiss all over you once he's not as rotten and tries to think of your pleasure before his.

♡ He never hides his obsession and will let you know with a hand on your throat not to talk about guys around him before lovingly caressing your cheek afterwards as an apology.

♡ If you die, not by him, he is furious and will kill anyone in his path before resurrecting you. He'll take care of you in the most yanadere way. You're his forever now.

[the-holo]

Before I start this, I'm pretty new to comics, but from what little (and I mean LITTLE I got into the game late 😔) I HAVE read, I do like IDWs Transformers run. All the cool cybertronian lore, cultural things, social hangups things like that? THAT is what's interesting to me about stories based around aliens. Whats their culture? What is typical for them that would be so wild here? What is considered tradition? What is taboo? (Fighting is also REALLY cool but without some sort of emotional backdrop it kinda just turns into taking ur action figures and smashing then together randomly for me.) So since I missed the IDW arc, I thought I'd try the reboot. (Rest below the read more)

ALRIGHT, SO THE MEAT AND POTATOES OF THE POST: I've been debating on getting the skybound TF comics. I don't want to miss out if later on they reach more...interesting, to me, plot beats but I really really don't care about the "oooh back on Eaaaaarth" plot...AGAIN. I care even LESS about the forced G.I. Joe on the horizon. Hasbro. Let it GO. No one cares about the random American military propaganda franchise that literally never does well in ur crossovers.

I'm reading Transformers FOR Transformers, not "you too can help fight evil IRL, join the military!"

Furthermore the art style is uuuuh...not bad just definitely not for me. The random WWE moves are just kinda awkward, especially when paired with the art style (I understand its trying to emulate the G1 style but no). I get some people like em and that's fine but...yeah.

And so far, emotionally I don't really feel anything? From what people have tried to tell me is "good" about it, Its just "starscream is a menace". Which would be perfect as a sideplot, if anything else interesting was going on, but after getting an overview of the first 3 issues, it just seems like its: "fight fight fight", starscream does a war crime, "fight fight fight", the humans get in the way, "fight fight", Starscream is being very naughty, also the humans don't understand anything as usual and have decided the best course of action us to get in the way AGAIN (please ur are the size of this guy's EYE. MOVE)

I dunno, again my interest in the reboot has more to do with POSSIBLE on Cybertron plots that may or may not even happen, so is it even worth it?

If anyone has anything more to say on the Skybound reboot (in favor or against) please feel free to comment or anything, I wanna be more informed before investing in a series I'm just not gonna like or something.

I want something that has...feeling I guess it boils down to. Im not getting that from it so far from what people are trying to use to sell it to me.

[ploppythespaceship]

Arrowverse Review - Year 4 (2015-2016)

I figure no one reads these, but I enjoy writing them, so here I am. I have finished another year of the Arrowverse! With a whole lot more going on this time.

This post will cover:

Vixen - Season 1

Arrow - Season 4

The Flash - Season 2

Crossover Event - Heroes Join Forces

Legends of Tomorrow - Season 1

Supergirl - Season 1

I also briefly hopped back to try out Constantine, since he showed up on Arrow with very little context. But that series turned out to be very much not my thing. I'm not into horror or spooky supernatural, so this did not appeal. I tapped out five episodes in. But I got the impression none of the plot points were really relevant to the wider Arrowverse, so I feel fine doing that.

Vixen - Season 1

If your first question is, "Wait... what the hell is Vixen?" I can't really blame you. This is an animated web series featuring Mari McCabe, AKA Vixen, as she discovers her magical powers to channel the abilities of animals and uses them to become a superhero. Mari does later feature in an episode of Arrow, that would probably not make any sense if you didn't watch this.

Anyway, this is fine. Mari herself seems pretty cool, her powers are interesting enough -- and definitely lend themselves better to animation than live-action -- and this is a solid introduction to her as a character.

Unfortunately, the Arrowverse elements are the weakest part of the story. Barry and Oliver are very shoehorned into the story, and mess with the pacing big-time. Frankly, this would have been stronger as a standalone series. Also, as a short film instead of six mini episodes.

Arrow - Season 4

This season is... eh? It's definitely better than Season 3. But I think the show just has fundamental flaws that aren't ever going to be addressed. All the characters feel same-y, and largely uninteresting. There's a severe tonal mismatch between the dark and gritty drama the writers want and the comic book silliness that's actually happening.

I will say, Damien Darhk is a fairly fun villain. The actor has a good presence, and he feels like a consistent threat for the duration of the season.

I also really enjoyed Oliver and Felicity's relationship. Firstly, it's wonderful to finally not have any sort of love triangle. Second, Oliver and Felicity have excellent chemistry, and seeing their committed relationship allows for so many great moments between the pair of them. Their breakup is also well done -- I've complained before how frustrating it is when the characters on this show keep secrets from each other for stupid reasons, but this is an instance of doing that well. It's understandable why Oliver made the decision he did, and equally understandable why Felicity would be upset. It's all solid stuff.

In fact, this is probably Oliver's strongest season, character-wise. He gets a lot of good stuff here.

Curtis is okay. Honestly, I'd probably like him more if he wasn't the fourth or fifth Arrowverse character introduced with the exact same "quirky nerd" personality. That archetype has really worn thin.

Laurel is, as usual, the actual worst. At the start of the season she resolves to bring Sara back to life, despite literally everyone telling her it's a terrible idea. And when that backfires, she acts like she did nothing wrong. When she isn't being completely asinine, she still doesn't bring anything to the show. Her character does not work, has never worked, and I was genuinely glad to see her get killed off. Which was not the response I was meant to have.

I think it's time to write Malcolm Merlyn out of the show. He's worn out his welcome. And the League of Assassins could be retired for a while, as well. Every time they show up, they feel considerably less cool.

The flashbacks this season are also really boring. Oliver's trying to find this magic idol and stop a military group with some Russian slaves, and every time an episode cut back to that I wanted to go to sleep. The idol does tie back in with Darhk, but the story line felt so pointless and inconsequential.

The ending was also pretty anti-climactic. It should have worked on paper, everyone in Star City standing up to Darhk, but something just never quite clicked. But I did like the ending, with John and Thea both independently taking a break from Team Arrow. Both choices felt well-earned and it let things end on a suitably somber note.

I feel like I just complained the whole time, but this season really wasn't that bad. Just not very good either. Definitely the weakest season out of this year.

The Flash - Season 2

Many of the strengths of Season 1 continue here. The characters and cast are all still great. The simple and cozy formula works wonders. This show just has the right vibes.

We have several new characters, and they're great. Patty is unexpectedly excellent as a new love interest for Barry, and it was a shame to see her written out so soon. Wally is a fun new addition to the West family, and only gets better as the season progresses. And I did not expect Earth-2 Wells to work at all, but it absolutely did -- he has a unique dynamic with Team Flash, completely distinct from Earth-1 Wells of last season.

In fact, all the multiverse stuff is just fun. Dumb fun, but that's literally all I want these shows to be. Give me a parallel universe where Barry is a helpless nerd, Iris is a badass cop, and Caitlin is a supervillain. Why the hell not?

Another thing I appreciate is, again, the lack of love triangles. And I appreciate that both the writers and characters respect that Iris is mourning Eddie. They actually let her grieve.

If there's one thing about this season that doesn't work, it's ironically the two characters who turn out to be one and the same. Jay Garrick is bland as hell and doesn't add much to the team, while Zoom has no real presence or personality. Things improve slightly when they reveal that Jay is Zoom, and the villain can finally have a face, but it's too little too late. I think they wanted to repeat the twist of Season 1, but it just didn't land in quite the same way.

Still, everything works well enough, and I had a good time with it. No real complaints.

Crossover Event - Heroes Join Forces

As always, the crossover event is a good time. But I didn't enjoy this one quite as much as the previous year's.

This event revolves around the introduction of Hawkgirl, Hawkman, and Vandal Savage... all of whom are boring and feel weirdly miscast. It's really just setup for Legends of Tomorrow, where they also don't really work.

It's ultimately the character interactions and dynamics that carry this one. Barry and Oliver pair so well together that it's a shame to only do it once or twice a year. And I think the Arrow cast just works better when they're paired with The Flash's ensemble.

Legends of Tomorrow - Season 1

This show definitely has its issues. It took a while to grow on me. But honestly... I'm coming around to it. Admittedly, I've always had a soft spot for time travel stories, so I am biased in its favor.

The main issue I have with this season is the core plot. Vandal Savage feels woefully miscast, not really having the malicious presence needed for the part (and his inconsistent accent is incredibly distracting).

Then so much of the show revolves around Kendra and Carter, who are so boring. They're meant to be star-crossed lovers, but they cast two actors with zero chemistry, and wrote that romance as though fate is forcing Kendra to be with this man against her will. It adds an uncomfortable undercurrent to their romance, and I could not figure out what they were going for.

And of course, we have another badly written romance! Kendra and Ray have no chemistry. It's like they pull two names out of a hat to decide who should date. And managing to make it a love triangle with Carter, despite him being dead for most of the season, is truly impressive.

Apart from that, though, the season really did grow on me as it went. The characters feel so random and mismatched at the start, but that actually worked in the show's favor -- seeing them become a more cohesive team felt well-earned. And all these interesting dynamics start to emerge that you wouldn't expect -- Snart and Sara, Rory and Ray, etc. And leading them all is Rip Hunter, who grew on me a lot as we learned more and more about him. (And yes, having Arthur Darvill basically playing a Time Lord is extremely fun.)

The twist of Rory being Chronos worked very well. Snart and Rory felt like the two characters that had no reason to be there, and that single twist tied them into events so cohesively. Snart's ultimate sacrifice was also very well done. (Snart and Rory were totally in love. I am not accepting other arguments.)

Overall, the setup was very fun, and it was just the main plot that didn't work. I'm hopeful that Season 2 will pick up in that respect -- especially since it looks like Kendra and Carter aren't in it.

Supergirl - Season 1

Full confession -- I have already seen this show in its entirety. And rewatching this season honestly felt like coming home. This is my TV comfort food. It has such an atmosphere of hope and love and overall good vibes. I could genuinely rewatch this season any time.

The cast is all excellent, but Melissa Benoist as Kara is on another level. This role requires a lot of things that can be contradictory at times -- gentleness and strength in equal measure -- and Benoist just nails it every time. The role is wonderfully well-written, as well. I'm definitely biased here as a Superman fan, but I do think Kara is the strongest of all these show's leads.

Calista Flockhart also steals every scene that she's in as Cat Grant. It would be so easy for her to be detestable, but her acerbic nature is always tempered by her genuine compassion. Winn is wonderful as Kara's best friend. J'onn becomes this excellent father figure to both Kara and Alex as the season progresses. I think the only weak member of the cast here is James -- he's not bad, but he is sort of bland compared to everyone else.

The single best thing this show did was give Kara an adopted sister. Kara and Alex's relationship is everything to me. It's the driving force of the entire show, and I simply adore that.

Unfortunately, like a lot of these shows, this season has a pretty annoying romance. We have not just a love triangle, but a love quartet! In the form of Kara/James/Winn/Lucy. Winn's portion of this isn't too bad -- he really just has a crush which is eventually dealt with -- but everything with Lucy is mildly agonizing. There's a lot of melodrama for the sake of melodrama, and the endgame couple of Kara/James isn't even that interesting. They very much feel like they're together for the sake of having a romance, not because they have actual chemistry.

But that truly is my only complaint. Everything else about this season works beautifully.

The crossover episode with The Flash is super cute. Barry and Oliver pair well because they're so different, but Barry and Kara pair well because they're so similar. It's just a good time all around.

[moonsheen]

fic writer meme

1. how many works do you have on ao3? 112. And thank god that doesn't include the REAL old stuff.

2. what's your total ao3 wordcount? 552,904 ...that's...both more and less than I was expecting

3. what fandoms do you write for?

...a...lot. Most recently? MDZS/SVSSS, Trigun (er, sorry for the weird stuff), and 13 Sentinels (PLAY 13 SENTINELS). Long term oldies but goodies? Kingdom Hearts, Devil May Cry, Overwatch, Supergiant games, Evangelion

4. what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Recovery (SVSS, Qijiu --woah, that one pulled ahead in the last few months) Husband x Husband (Hunter x Hunter -- I did this as a yuletide treat to make up for defaulting one year and it's the gift that keeps giving) Minor Delays (SVSS, Qijiu -- wait really?) The Way Back Home (SVSS, Qijiu -- ....Qijiu nation represent. This one doesn't surprise me though, Chira did an amazing comic for it) Hold the Baby (MDZS -- okay this one was just where I was dumping the old twitter threads of a VERY specific Xiyao fix-it AU but you know what, thanks everyone)

5. do you respond to comments?

I try to. If I don't succeed it's often because life kicked my ass.

6. what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Probably On Your Six (Reaper & Soldier 76, Overwatch)

7. what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

This is hard mostly because all of my fic tends to be some kind of fix-it in some way to give someone an obscenely happy ending. If you had to have me narrow it down based on what my most blatant fix-it to some miserable canon character ending was? I'd go with either Happiness Exists (As Long As You Believe in the Possibility) (Qijiu again!), and the Recovery-verse as a whole, or maybe Abstraction White Rose (Revolutionary Girl Utena), because by god I needed Utena and Anthy to kiss and I MADE THEM DO THAT, A LOT.

8. do you get hate on fics?

Xiyao troll hit me once or twice and I got a few cranky dudebros who got mad at me for my Eva fic on a message board once, but nothing all that bad if I'm honest.

9. do you write smut?

...well, I've tried but the plot gets in the way.

10. do you write crossovers? what's the craziest one you have written?

The first that come to mind are the MDZS/TGCF crossovers, but those are the same authors so I don't know that that counts. I DID write a very silly How The Grinch Stole Christmas/Nightmare Before Christmas short once upon an internet. It has since been lost to the great yawning of time and collapse of several social media platforms.

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

Someone once scraped the awful Naruto fic I wrote when I was like 15 and changed the names to make it a Samurai Champloo fic which, um. Why? But that was pretty damn funny in hindsight.

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! In Russian, Chinese, and French. And I love every time it happens.

13. have you ever co-written a fic before?

My dayjob these days is cowriting with people. But on the fanfic side -- well, in short, yes. With the usual suspect (that would be Chira) and with my wife, who has once or twice dictated an entire story outline to me which I write in a day.

14. what's your all time favorite ship? Internet, I am old and you cannot expect me to pick one. Utena/Anthy maybe?

15. what is a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I still need to do the last story for the A Troublesome Charge series which I SWEAR will happen it's just I had a literal baby.

16. what are your writing strengths?

Character voice. I love character voice and I am told I am good at it.

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

Smut.

18. thoughts of writing dialogue in another language in fics?

To be honest if I don't know it I don't try. But I like bilingual writing when it's done well (see also: Everything, Everywhere, All At Once) -- but when it comes to fangirl Japanese or Chinese, I tend to leave that to the experts.

19. first fandom you wrote for?

mumblesBeastWars and thank god that was on a platform that crashed and burned. The Beast Wars fic I wrote for Yuletide was way better.

20. favorite fic you have written?

On Your Six, despite how I feel about Overwatch nowadays, I feel was probably one of the punchiest stories I've ever written. I would have absolutely used this story to audition to write for Blizzard's tie-in novellas if Blizzard hadn't...well, read the news on what happened at Blizzard.

The other one I'd probably say is Ghost Roads in my Troublesome Charge series (MDZS). I just feel like I nailed all the multiple plotlines and characters involved in that one and I'm super proud of it. I'm not tagging anyone because I have anxiety about this kind of thing, but please feel free to do this meme yourself if it crosses your dash!

[skepsiss]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

I was tagged by @strangersteddierthings, I've never even thought about half of these questions, so.... we're gunna go on a journey together. I MISSED SEVERAL QUESTIONS LMAO. LEMME UPDATE.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

18 (I only post like 1/3 of my fics on AO3)

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

66,922. I pay such little attention to this kinda stuff xD

3. What fandoms do you write for?

A lot... and a lot more than what is listed on my AO3. If we're friends I'll literally just message you a 2k+ fic in a DM for funsies.

Stranger Things (TV 2016) (8)

Overwatch (Video Game) (5)

Teen Wolf (TV) (1)

Castlevania (Cartoon 2017-2021) (1)

Critical Role (Web Series) (1)

Promare (2019) (1)

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018) (1)

DC Comics / Batman (Tim Drake / Kon-El)

Orphan Black

Marvel (Steve/Tony)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Basket Ball Shorts

Roadrat: The Fire that Covered the World

The Comfort of Warmth (Lio/Galo)

Fifty-fifty (Roadhog / Junkrat)

Perspective (Caleb / Essek)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes. As soon as I see them I will reply with a thank you or to engage with someone's question/musings/etc.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Probably a Roadrat one. It's been a while since I've read my work, but The Things They Lost is a Roadrat fic where I explored a bunch of like... when Junkrat lost his arm and stuff like that. Brutal, tbh. Next closest is my Alucard (OT3) Castlevania fic where he is BIG SAD about Trevor and Sypha not being there. Nights Spent Alone.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

UUuhhhuhuhuh..... I mostly write sad shit LOL. Milkshakes has a happy ending. It's a 2 part modern-day Steddie fic about the boys asking each other out on a date over Instagram.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I've never seen any hate on my fics before.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Uhh, yeah. I do. PWP or With Plot. I like full stories that have smut that BELONGS there, but then we've got just straight-up PWP. That is what Basketball short is tbh.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

No, never written a crossover. I've written lots of AUs though.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No. Dunno how I'd figure that out.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope. Dunno what that would look like tbh.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Steddie; for right now. My other top 3 are Harley/Ivy, Tim/Kon-El, and Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

NO IDEA. Lol, all my unfinished WIPs are either ones I have no interest in finishing (Roadrat), or ones I can complete faith in being able to finish (Steddie)

16. What are your writing strengths?

Speed. I can compose a story very quickly and put it together.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I never promote myself/share. I'm really bad at sharing my works. Additionally, I'm bad at finishing things before I lose interest.... eep.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Uuhh maybe. I def have some Ancient Greek and Latin in my up-coming Robin (Stobin platonic) fic.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

I'm not sure... maybe Batman (Tim/Jason or Tim/Kon). I RP'd A LOT from ages 13-18 and had like 5-8 rps going at once for a whole bunch of fandoms. (Naruto, OCs in the Star Wars universe, Tim/Kon, and more I can't remember atm).

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Ooohhh, I dunno. I'm bad at picking favourites. Right now I'm pretty proud of my Because I Want You Steddie fic. It's Steve and Eddie as 30-year-olds with kids. They broke up in their 20s and are trying to get back together in their 30s. Eddie has a complete breakdown in it, but Steve is there to tell him that he loves him.

I don't think about this stuff at all xDDD Fic writing is just a pass time for me. This will be the first time EVER in over 18 years of writing fic that I've EVER participated in an exchange/Big Bang. I'll tag @medusapelagia @oh-stars @br0ck-eddie @kallisto-k

[alder-saan]

20 author questions

Tagged by @yourlocaldisneyvillain, thank youuuu

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

1, lol

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

6199 words

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Carterwood

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

well...

Of scars and fresh blood, with an enormous amount of 15 kudos!!!!

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

All of them. I don't like when I leave a comment and the author doesn't reply, so I reply. And that's why I have more comments than kudos.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Well... Of scars and fresh blood this is a hurt/hurt fanfiction, no comfort and major character death so. Yeah, kinda angsty?

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I don't have a fic with a happy ending on AO3, I do however have some fics with happy endings on Tumblr, like Hide and Need, but they aren't good at all. You can check on my profile but I hate every single fic I wrote before my Carterwood one.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

nope. I mean, Gwen fandom used to be the kindest fandom, everything I wrote, even trashy, was welcomed with a lot of love. After some drama™ happened, I kinda decided to go because... Ugh. I don't like drama. And now I am in a dead fandom, with 2 people and a shoelace (I am the shoelace)

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I try. The kind that isn't smut but more spicy romance.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

nope, never and I usually don't like them.

11. Have you ever had a fiction stolen?

Lol, who would want to steal my fanfictions? My Gwen ones are terrible and my Carterwood one... has 15 kudos.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

well technically my first first first fanfictions were since I wrote them in French before translating them in English. Then I did translate (from English to French this time) the Path of Poisons (an abandonned multichapter Larissa/oc fic)

13. Have you ever co-writtten a fic before?

curently doing it! with the amazing @tanith-rhea, we're working on Agent Carter season 3 (the first chapter isn't finished yet so... it won't be there until a long time loool)

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

????? I don't know? I changed a lot my tastes about ships since... Well I'm still young™ so I didn't spend much time in communities, and the ones I was in before were... Straight ships I don't like now. BUT there is this one ship. About a French/Belgium comic no one knows about. That is very specific to two of the books in the series. Nastasia Wardynksa and Francis Blake. Of course I had to ship them. It's a middle school ship so yeah, it's straight, but I still love it. It's one of my comfort ships and there is 0 work about it, I have a whole story about it in my head but won't write it because... why doing it?

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Oh! A LOT of them. Like... prolly all of them, I don't feel like writing these days (actually I want to write but I just don't manage to do it)

16. What are your writing strengths?

idk lol

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Dialogues? Characterisations? Descriptions?

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

UGH STOP WRITING IN FRENCH PLEASE!!!! Or at least ask some French speakers because sometimes it's just... I want to cry but it's cute and it can be great but most of the time it's terrible like... "ma chérie fille" as a translation of "my darling girl"... NO. Just NO. it'd be "ma fille chérie", and NO, because it's for your literal CHILD so NO.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Warrior Cats I was 10 and I had a note book I would FILL with a fanfiction and I wanted it to be an actual book

20. Favorite fic you've ever written?

Of scars and fresh blood. The only acceptable one I have.

Idk who to tag so tagging anyone who wants to be.

[nerdby]

Loki Season 2, Episodes 2&3

Theories & Breakdowns

Okay, I just finished watched episode three of the second season of the Loki series and I know that there is A LOT to keep track of in the Marvelverse and that it can be confusing. Trust me, peeps, I started getting into Marvel in a hardcore way all the back in 2004 back when google was practically useless cause it was bogged down by ads and every other link led to a porn website. The only advice I got when I asked for help on getting into the comics was, "Just pick one."

It was very unhelpful advice because X-Men was my jam back then and this was before House Of M had been written to clean up the Marvelverse. So there were literally a dozen different X-Men stories going at once and ALL of them were set in alternate universes in alternate timelines with various tie-ins to the Avengers, Spiderman, Fantastic Four, ect. Forums and the Marvel online encyclopedia was a gift from the Gods.

So I wanted to talk about some theories and tie-ins to the comics and other aspects of the MCU. That way people aren't confused and there will be less bitching.

Narnia Time

One thing that I noticed a lot of people were confused by is Loki referencing the events of Avengers (2012) like it happened a long time ago even though it had really only been a few weeks. If you go back and watch the first two episodes, though, you will notice that Brad has much longer hair in the second episode. This means that he probably has been in that particular universe or time branch for a while and remember

Time passes differently in the TVA.

In C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles Of Narnia -- specifically The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe -- the Pevensie children disappear through the magical wardrobe into the land of Narnia where they reside for YEARS after defeating the White Witch and becoming the new monarchs of Narnia. But at the end of the book, the Pevensies wander out of the wardrobe and back into their own world where it turns where only a few MINUTES have passed. Cause time passes differently.

Brad's new do and the fact that time passes differently in the TVA has me wondering if the TVA doesn't also operate on Narnia time. It wouldn't be all that surprising because the Loki series would not be the first piece of media to borrow this particular element of the Narnia saga. It was also a very important plot point in the 1999 anime Digimon Adventure01 (AKA Digimon: Digital Monsters) which was based off of the Japanese handheld toy and PlayStation 1 video game.

Both of which predate the Pokemon manga and anime, by the way.

It would be incredibly, laughably ironic though because the TVA is a pretty obvious metaphor for Christofascism and Narnia was written by C.S. Lewis to indoctrinate children into Christianity. Seriously, one of the books in the series called The Horse & His Boy is an Islamophobic shitrag about a boy from Narnia that rescues a girl from a very obviously Middle Eastern-inspired desert nation and brings her back to Narnia. Which at the end of the series we find out is some sort of metaphor for purgatory and Aslan is Jesus, I think.

It's been a long time since I read the books.

I just think that's hilarious and also 100% logical given that the Loki series seems to be a crossover of Agent Of Asgard and the Kang Dynasty that's building up to Avengers Forever. I'll talk about that more in a bit.

Amnesia?

The other thing that people seemed confused by when Loki referenced Avengers (2012) is that he seemed to be taking full responsibility for the ordeal. I mentioned in another post that in the first Avengers movie Thanos more than likely told Loki about the Infinity Stones, but very conveniently left out the fact that the Mind Stone which was encased in his staff would make him act like a giant, tantrum throwing douchenozzle and very easy to manipulate. I think that Loki taking responsibility for the Chitauri invasion supports that theory somewhat and also suggests that

Loki still hasn't figured out that the Mind Stone had any effect on him and therefore blames himself for the events that took place in the first Avengers movie.

Because it is canon that he was being controlled by the Mind Stone and manipulated by Thanos. This was confirmed by Marvel back in 2019.

If this is confusing then go back and do a very thorough rewatch of Avengers (2012) and Avengers: Age Of Ultron. It is in AoU that we find out that the Mind Stone is encased in the staff that was given to Loki by Thanos in the first Avengers film.

Who Built Miss Minutes?

In episode three, Miss Minutes said that Kang built her as an AI program to play chess with, but history has proven that Miss Minutes doesn't exactly have a great a track record and might not actually be trustworthy. Not only that but there is a theory trending that the Loki series building up to the Avengers Forever story arc from the comics. In the Avengers Forever story, Avengers from across the multiverse are brought together to take down a team of evil super villains by the Avenger Prime who is none other than Loki himself. And the guy leading the villains is Viktor von Doom -- AKA Doctor Doom who is the Big Bad in the Fantastic Four, but also a prevalent villain in other characters' arcs. Like everyone has gone head-to-head with Doom and his Doom Bots.

So is it possible that in an alternate timeline Kang and Doctor Doom knew each other, and Doom built or helped build Miss Minutes's AI program and Kang took credit for Doom's work? Or could a Doom variant using Miss Minutes to communicate with Kang and manipulate him?

Also there is a Fantastic Four movie in the works at Marvel, but it is still in pre-production. It would make sense that there would be some sort of a tie-in with all the multiverse shenanigans. Kingo from the Eternals was even briefly referenced in an easter egg in episode two of the Loki series.

Fascism

This is something I don't particularly like to talk about on this blog because it gets into my own personal religious beliefs. Which I have been mocked and discriminated against because of by asshole atheists on this app.

If you're an atheist with a bone to pick with religious people because you refuse to get therapy for your PTSD this is your opportunity to kindly fuck off👌🏻

But since Loki is based off of the Norse God it's kind of unavoidable. Especially with the giant looming statues of Thor, Odin, and Baldr in episode three. I know people are gonna have questions.

Those statues were a nod to modern day Norse Paganism and Loki sneering at them, I think, is Tom Hiddleston's and Marvel's way of saying they don't exactly approve of how things are going in the community.

That is because there is a very serious problem with Nazis and fascism in the Norse Pagan and Pagan community in general.

What the Loki series was referencing in episode three is called Folkish/Volkish Heathenry -- Heathenry is a synonym for Norse Paganism. Folkish Heathenry is basically Christofascist Norse Paganism. It is Norse Paganism that was inspired by Adolf Hitler's Nazi occultism blended with misappropriated Wicca, Norse Paganism, and Christianity. Folkish Heathens -- also called Odinists which are NOT the same thing as Odin devotees -- adhere to The Nine Noble Virtues which were written in the 1970s by members of the British fascist party before they became extremely popular in N. America.

The Nine Noble Virtues teach that good Norse Pagans must be white, cishet, and able to pull their own weight in society. That is eugenics -- racism, queerphobia, ableism, and there's no shortage of misogyny or toxic masculinity, either. Its white supremacy.

If that also sounds a lot like rightwing evangelicalism that's because it is. See, Folkish Heathens have blended Christofascism with their own completely bullshit version of Norse Paganism to make the actual Norse God Loki into a Satan-esque character. They have done this by placing heavy emphasis on the story of Ragnarok where Loki instigates war against the Aesir -- Odin and his allies -- after Odin punished Loki for the death of Baldr by forcing Loki's toddler son Vali to murder his twin brother Narfi by turning Vali into a rabid wolf.

I'm not gonna lie. That is an oversimplification because there is a HUGE list of bullshit that Odin put Loki through in The Eddas, including ruining his marriage and banishing three of his children essentially orphaning them. There is also a lot of political metaphors that play into the story because The Eddas were put to paper for the first time in the 11th century right in the middle of the Roman conversion to Christianity, and there were a lot of practicing Pagans back then that did not want to convert. Norway started a motherfucking war, so they could keep practicing Paganism and some historians believe that Loki is a metaphor for the Pagans who did not want to convert. Many of whom may have also been part of the Sami who are the indigenous people of Scandinavia. Cause, yeah, Scandinavia was colonized.

But the oversimplification is kind of the point because Folkish Heathens rely on the naivete of new converts and ex-Christians looking to get into Paganism to lure them into their cults. And, yes, I do mean actual cults that exist both in N. America and in Europe. They use the story of Ragnarok to turn Loki into this evil Satan-esque character while painting Odin, Thor, and Baldr as Yahweh and Jesus.

That is because the Norse God Loki spits in the face of heteronormative Christian values. He is a bisexual, polyamorous, nonbinary genderfluid shapeshifter that is capable of getting pregnant, giving birth, and getting other people pregnant. Folkish Heathens do not recognize Loki as a God worth worshipping because they hate queer, trans (nonbinary people are trans -- look it up), intersex, and poly people as well as disabled and BIPOC people. And the Norse God Loki Laufeyjarson -- AKA the God of outcasts, stories, playtime, the hearthfire, home, and the family -- represents all of those things.

That is why in tonight's episode of Loki there was no Loki statue up there with Thor and Odin.

I know these things because I am a Norse Pagan that worships Loki. I used to run a blog dedicated to exploring the subject of Loki's transness and kinda preventing the erasure of transgender history. I have watched the Nazi problem in the Pagan community get steadily worse since 2018, starting with the Lokean community. For three years, I got hate mail and death threats from Nazis and TERFs and ignorant puriteen mini fascists.

If you've ever wondered why I take the politics of the Marvel comics and fandom so seriously now you know.

I've been suicidal since I was twelve years old. The X-Men: Evolution cartoon series started to air on KidsWB around that time, and that was the first piece of media that taught me that it was okay to be different from everyone else. And that I did not deserve to be dead or ostracized because of my differences. X-Men is a Marvel property, so I am not exaggerating when I say that Marvel kept me from killing myself as a child.

That's why I'm so happy and so proud that Loki scoffed at Folkish Heathenry. It also confirms a suspicion that I and many other Heathens have had that Tom Hiddleston knows about Lokean Norse Paganism. Because there are also a ton of references to Norse Paganism in the first season and in post-2008 Marvel books.

I'm going to post a link to the Southern Poverty Law Center's information on Folkish Heathenry and the Asatru Folk Assembly -- AKA the AFA. The AFA is the largest white supremacist Norse Pagan cult in the US with four all white churches or hofs. The second largest cult is The Odinic Rite, and the largest European Folkish cult that I know of is called Norsk and it is based in Norway.

I'm doing this because I know a lot of people reading this will think I'm insane or exaggerating and not take the issue seriously.

Peeps, that's exactly what they want.

Please, read this article about the 2019 Christchurch mosque shooting in New Zealand. It goes into detail about how Nazis use "off-color" jokes and memes to normalize white supremacy. Those jokes and memes are the reason why you're rolling your eyes right now, and they are also the reason for the book bans here in the US, the Don't Say Gay Bill in Florida, and why JK Rowling has any fandom left at all. Even though she said she supports Nazis.

[fernsnailz]

hello! i really like your archie explanations! i was wondering if you could point out the issues where the werehog appears since ive seen some ss of the art and it looks really awesome! also do you think they can be read on its own ? or would someone need context to follow along ?

oooo yes!! there’s some good werehog stuff in archie even though he didn’t appear in the series until 2014-ish (6 years after unleashed was released). and good news - the werehog doesn’t show up until after the archie series rebooted its continuity, so you can read these without having to worry much about missing context! no wacky lore for this one, you can read these on their own.

sonic gets exposed to dark gaia material in issue 254, but the werehog’s first appearance in the story isn’t until issue 264. definitely check 264 out - the issue has one of the rawest covers i’ve ever seen and is penciled by tyson hesse. you’re in for a treat

you can skim through issues 254-263 for more context if you’d like, but the main stuff you need to know is that the world shattered because the universe literally rebooted itself (long story) and the gang is trying to get all of the chaos emeralds to fix it. sonic accidentally inhales a sample of dark gaia gas along the way, which is what eventually gives him werehog abilities and leads to him having a few near-werehog moments in times of stress (like in issue 257 while carrying vennie from ghosts of the future lmao)

sonic is in his nightly werehog form for most of the comic after 264, so if you want the FULL werehog experience he's in issues 264-272 (which covers the tournament arc of the series, one of my favs), and 276-286. the main thing that happens inbetween those is a mega man crossover that you don’t need to worry about, and the issues cover a lot of other non-werehog content you can skim.

[birbsandbats]

intro and fanfic links

Hiya! I’m Spee (she/her) and I write stuff. I got my start eons ago writing for the Star Wars fandom. After a long break, I’ve begun to write again focusing on the DC Comics universe, including the DC/White Collar (TV) crossover. I hope you enjoy!

Please carefully mind the Ao3 tags on all the below fics.

A Defense Mechanism -- A DC/White Collar crossover. Longfic.

Neal Caffrey is a nonviolent con who doesn’t care about breaking the law.

Before, he was Dick Grayson, a violent vigilante who did.

He's running from his past.

What will he do when the past comes to him?

Magic

Being Robin gives Jason magic.

Tim wants some of that magic, too.

For DC Dark Week Day 4--Interpersonal Dynamics

Deadman

Alfred Pennyworth waited.

He knew the man in the mask would come for him soon.

For DC Dark Week Day 2--Major Character Death

Golden Boy -- Part 1 of a ? part series

The first and last time Batman fires Dick Grayson as Robin, Dick is 13 years old.

He never comes back.

What does this mean for Dick's life--and Jason Todd's?

Day 6: Never returns after getting fired

One Spiteful Speedster — a DC/White Collar crossover

Peter Burke is about to learn what happens when he messes with Wally West's boyfriend. 

Training Day: Gotham City 911 Edition

“Could you at least help me out here? The mall is about to explode!”

“Meh. It’s gone downhill since the Macy’s closed,” Pilar said.

“Meh??” Eric sputtered. “How can you not take this seriously?”

“The Riddler isn’t even an A level villain anymore. I think you and Robin can handle him, newbie.”

or: Eric Richards knows nothing about Gotham City--which would be fine, if he weren't its newest 911 operator.

Watch This -- Part 1 of a ? part series

 Jim Gordon sighed into his club soda.

 He wasn’t a schmoozer. He didn’t like to schmooze. He was a cop, dammit, not some show pony to be trotted out by the city when they needed more funds or higher approval ratings. Yet here he was, at the seasonal GCPD/Wayne gala, shaking hands and kissing babies. Well, not literally the last part; there were no babies here. They cried through speeches and weren’t big into shrimp cocktail anyway.

 He liked to think his job was one of action, not politics, but who was he kidding? His fate had been sealed the moment he decided it would be cheaper to buy a tux than to keep renting.

or: Jim Gordon mingles with Bruce Wayne and his young ward at a gala. Later that night, he briefs Batman and Robin on the GCPD rooftop. He might notice some similarities.

Batgirl Fills Out the FAFSA

Dick did a little forehead wrinkle that, in Stephanie’s professional opinion as a bat, looked too adorably clueless for him to pass as Batman at the moment, despite being in the suit. “Right. I know what the FAFSA is. But why are you filling it out?”

Could…Dick be secretly dumb? Like, she knew he wasn’t the World’s Greatest Detective, or even the World’s Second Greatest Detective (an honor belonging to her ex), but she had pretty much assumed he was the Third.

Or: Stephanie is applying to colleges. Who knew that Bruce's emotional incompetence could make the process more tricky even when he's not there. Dick attempts to help out.

The Essential Arkham Asylum Playlist

"No!" Nightwing said. "It's just--and don't take this the wrong way--have you considered listening to something more, uh...cheerful?"

“Get the fuck out of my room."

Or: Naomi expected some weirdness when she checked herself into Arkham Lite™, but unconscious costumed vigilantes, visitors coming in through the windows, and critiques of her taste in music had not been on her list.

[kyluxtrashpit]

Okay so I’ve been unable to stop thinking about the crossover since the last issue and there’s several things I just can’t seem to wrap my head around, so I’m writing a ramble that is basically me just trying to figure it out. This is kind of a review but more of just me dumping all my thoughts just so they’re not bouncing around in my head anymore lmao. I can’t really talk to many people about it because I don’t want to rain on the parade of people who loved it, but I also liked a lot of things and don’t want to just listen to someone bash it completely so rambling to myself on tumblr is how we go. Though, if you DO want to discuss any of this with me, PLEASE send me an ask or a dm or reply or whatever, because I would love to so much omg

I’m gonna start with the things I loved, then go into things that I didn’t like as much or concern me, then into the questions I have and the stuff I didn’t understand. I know there’s still the epilogue to come, which may wrap all of this up (please, please wrap all of this up lmao) and maybe some of these questions aren’t supposed to have answers yet, but I have to get it out somewhere cause I literally had trouble sleeping last night because of this lmao. And if you do have answers to some of these questions, PLEASE reach out to me and answer them because I am just. So perplexed. I’ve read IG and I feel like I still only understood maybe 30% of what actually happened so skskdjs

I don’t think this leans either negatively or positively in terms of my overall opinion, but if you’re hard on the “I love it, it’s flawless” or “I hate it, it has no redeeming features”, then you’ll probably disagree with like half of this either way so. Don’t get mad at me, these are just my opinions and you’re completely free to disagree with some or all of it

(under a cut cause this is more than 3 THOUSAND FUCKING WORDS somehow, what the hell, send help. Also spoilers galore for the Plague Doctor and Igor Grom series’)

What I loved

So first off, THE ART!!! I’ve always loved phobs’ art but goddamn, seeing the evolution is just something else. Every panel is downright gorgeous. It was such a treat to get an entire arc from phobs, truly a blessed event. All of it is just *chef’s kiss*

Secondly, the serovolk feels 🥺. They really hit so hard. Oleg being ready to go get Sergey right now immediately even though he’s still injured himself, then Sergey literally falling into his arms when he gets home all bloody and hurt. Guuuuh my feels 😭. I adored it. And the little hints, like Poet saying how ‘your loved ones don’t turn away from you’ and then the panel showing Sergey is just. So good. That really filled my heart

Another thing is that, if you were on twitter when the crossover was first announced, you’ll probably know one of the heaviest criticisms basically boiled down to ‘why do we need Igor and Sergey to fight again, we’re done with this, they’re done with this, why do that’ and I admit to being on that team. So I was really glad to see they didn’t, and also I enjoyed that they basically had the same reaction to being shoved together again lmao. They’re done with each other and neither have any interest in that. So I appreciated that solution to it, it felt really natural and needed

I also appreciated Igor’s character in general. If you’ve read the entirety of both MG and IG, plus any of MIG, you know he has some absolutely beautiful moments, and some that are uhhhh… very bland lmao. He’s a character that I don’t really gravitate towards personally, at least in the comics, but he has his moments. IG itself is a mixed bag for me, but I adored the Loci Method. I love the moments when he uses his words, when he’s more focused on protecting others than going after the villain, and overall the calm, compassionate, less punchy version of himself. This didn’t feel like a regression from IG, like many say MIG is. I really liked it. He’s grown, and this shows it well, in terms of how he handled everything and everyone he encountered

Chrysalis was also very intriguing to me. I really did not expect him to show up on the more heroic side, as I remember him being arguably the most violent of the Rubenstein trio in IG, but I will say it does make me breathe easier to know team Plague Doctor probably won’t have to fight him now lmao. I’m also really intrigued as to what’s going on with him and Poet (more on Poet in the questions section later) and Fireguy like. So Fireguy and Chrysalis are just buddies? And Poet is their unruly friend they have to go reign in now and again cause he’s the only one of the three still into murder? I haven’t the foggiest what’s going on there, but I am intensely curious. Also the like… sad lovey eyes Poet and Chrysalis were making at each other at the end there??? I know people ship them but wow what is happening lmfao

(Also ngl when Chrysalis first burst in my first thought somehow was it was Danila, cause grey hoodie with the hood up + superhuman strength but you know XD)

Things I didn’t like as much

I’m honestly not sure whether to put this in the questions section or here, but I think it’s more critical, so I’ll start by saying that, from day 1, I was on the team of ‘okay but what is the purpose of this’. And while that changed for a lot of people with this last issue, and that’s great, it didn’t change for me. It did clearly introduce new characters, which is all well and good and I knew would happen eventually (though, who is going to get slotted into PD vs MIG vs maybe another series remains unclear), but otherwise… I’m not really sure how it serves the narrative and moves either the plot or the character arcs in any direction?

For Igor, I think it had more of an effect. Much as he already seemed to have decided he was done with Sergey and Plague Doctor and all of it before the encounter, he did have that moment afterwards where he says “he didn’t seem crazy to me anymore”. And that… while I think he was already at that point before where he’d really let go of all that, I think he now knows it for sure himself. Which is something he learned that served his personal development and character arc. However, much as this was a crossover, it is only listed in the PD section, not the MIG section so… it’s kind of odd to me that Igor got more out of this emotionally than Sergey did lmao. Especially when it is a fairly minor development for him

Sergey, however… I don’t really see what he learned? He learned that Oleg took Rubenstein, yes, and that is sure to come up later, but I’m going to talk more about that in the ‘questions I have’ section. But that’s a piece of information, not something that has a real strong effect on his character. He also says that Oleg was right about that he shouldn’t have gone out, which is true but… again, he already learned a lesson about carefulness with Altan. I don’t think that’s a big character change moment either, especially because we know he was influenced to go and likely wouldn’t have solely of his own volition. So how can he be learning a lesson about going, when he didn’t actually make the choice to go of his own free will anyway?

Encountering Igor didn’t seem to affect Sergey at all, so that really didn’t do anything. And that makes sense, as considering the outcome of their previous 2 meetings, Sergey had a much stronger effect on Igor than the other way around. Poet just gave him information. The whole situation really just led to him getting mildly injured and saying again ‘okay, yes, I need to be more careful’ (even though this really wasn’t his fault cause he was influenced to go). And that’s it? That’s the entire effect on who, really, is the main protagonist of this arc? Idk, that feels weak to me. Like Sergey wasn’t much affected by this other than some minor injuries, so why did he even need to be there at all, in terms of the narrative, except to torture Igor by existing and have something he needs to talk to Oleg about later? I don’t understand that

(And maybe the purpose will become clear later, but right now I just don’t understand why this needed to happen at all, narratively speaking. It’s just odd, as the first arc was so good at setting things up and closing them perfectly, while this only seems to set things up for new characters, not for the existing ones)

…okay, I lied, there’s one other thing that did change for Sergey, and this is the thing that is making me very, very worried about the future: everyone now knows he’s alive. And this, this was really what made me very unsure about this crossover from the start. Much as the second issue confirmed Igor had no interest in chasing Sergey himself now, this issue pretty much confirmed my worst fear. If only Igor knew he was there, k, whatever, he’ll tell Max and Banu (who will surely show up again as investigating PD), but they have no proof. That could even be a plot point, them trying to convince everyone Sergey’s alive and not being believed. That could be fun. But. All the hostages saw him. Poet said his full name in front of everyone. Basically the entire world now knows Sergey Razumovsky is alive

“But,” you say, “KTP, that was surely inevitable, why are you upset about this?” Because, whether it was inevitable or not (and I truly don’t think it was), this means it’s not just Max and Banu knowing/suspecting he’s alive, or the Dagbaev’s having some personal beef with him. This is the entire world. This is FSB, Interpol, those white arrow people, and who the fuck else knows. Like. Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself here by worrying about something that won’t happen for 30-40 issues, but how am I to believe Sergey and Oleg will get to have a happy ending now that they’re internationally wanted criminals again? Keep in mind, Sergey is a very prolific serial killer in both Russia and Italy, and they’re both terrorists as well. A handful of people knowing or suspecting Sergey is alive without proof is one thing, but now everyone knows. Which means they’re pretty much fucked

Which is why I wish I could love this because everyone’s like ‘oh, look, such a beautiful happy ending for serovolk, together again, of course they will always have that’ but… honestly, I can’t even really enjoy that page at the end because now I fear it’s all temporary and that we’re all going to have our hearts broken in the worst possible way. How can they ever have peace now that it’s not just a couple of people looking for them, but the whole goddamn world? How can they ever have lasting happiness? How can they end this story alive and not inside a jail cell? I never doubted before that they would get a happy ending, cause they have to, they’re the fan favourites but now… I really, really don’t want this comic to end with them dead. I’m literally tearing up a little as I type this just thinking about it. And I’m now really, really worried it will happen

(God, someone please tell me serovolk will be alive and together and not in jail at the end of this comic. If they won’t be, I would genuinely rather stop reading right now and give up and find something else than have my heart broken like that again. I can’t do it again, okay)

(And, again, if the epilogue confirms that somehow not /everyone/ knows and they’re only suspected and they won’t have every law enforcement agency out there banging on doors trying to find them for the rest of the series, then I take all of this back and will shut up forever lmao. I don’t think this is likely to happen, because it feels too impossible, but please, I would really, really want that)

Also, as a last note, I’m not sure if this is a criticism per se, but I do find it funny that Sergey got his ass kicked so hard by like one random cultist when he was able to take out like 15 trained mercenaries in that warehouse considering he started with nothing but a charge cord and a sharp necklace lmao. But you know, maybe the lack of Oleg being in danger didn’t give him enough adrenaline sdklskdslks

Things I’m confused about

Now, onto things I have questions about. Some of these may be read as criticism, but I don’t consider them such. These are things I didn’t understand and am confused about, some of which may be answered in the epilogue or a future issue, or some of which could be things I’m just too dumb to see the obvious answer to lmao

So first off, Poet. Like all of Poet. I have read IG, in fact I read most of it twice to refresh my memory. And while I understood Poet’s deal in the first bit he was in, to be fair, the second bit with the plastic surgery was very confusing for me as well lmao like. Why was he going along with that? What did he get out of it? What was his motivation? But anyway, whatever, this isn’t about IG, this is about the crossover

But my questions remain kind of the same here. What was Poet actually trying to do there? Goal 1: get Igor to the museum and he needs the cultists to capture people as bait. K, cool, got that. Goal 2: bring Sergey there to ask about Rubenstein. K, cool, got that. Goal 3: put Sergey and Igor in the same room to… have a very awkward little chat? Okay, now you’ve lost me

Like Poet straight up says if he wanted them to kill each other, he’d just make that happen with the hypnosis. Cool, so that’s not what he wanted. He wants them to talk. To what end though? To make them uncomfortable? Why? And isn’t there a better way to do that? And it does seem like he’s going to kill them after, but like. Wouldn’t it be more fun to make them kill each other if you want them dead anyway? If I were him, I would’ve controlled Sergey and used him to attack Igor, cause Igor doesn’t like to kill people but also this is /Sergey/, so mmm conflicted. But he didn’t want to do that. So what did he want? Was it just like… to gloat? Make them talk cause he can? He didn’t even seem upset that they didn’t have much to say, he only got mad when they redirected the conversation at him. I don’t get it. I have no idea why Poet did literally any of this when the things that are clear he wanted had much easier solutions

Rubenstein info? Lure Sergey, ask him, when he says he doesn’t know, mind control him back to the apartment and ask Oleg. When Oleg refuses, have Sergey put a knife to his own neck and Oleg will spill it all. Kill Igor? Well, do exactly what he did but without Sergey there and then boom, kill him in whatever fashion you prefer. Easy peasy

Anyway, if you can tell me what Poet’s goal actually was, I’d love to hear it, because I don’t have the foggiest lmfao. And considering the entire crossover was incited by him doing all this for reasons, I’d probably enjoy it more if I knew what those reasons were. And right now, I have no idea, and neither did the like half dozen people in the server I’m in where I asked this lmao

(I also find it curious that so much of the fandom criticizes Lera, saying she doesn’t have clear motives, when she very much does, meanwhile Poet’s are completely inscrutable here yet everyone loves him. Really makes you think, hm)

Also Oleg not telling Sergey about Rubenstein is weird. Really weird. People have said it’s not, but it’s really freaking weird. Cause these two are pretty much always together, which means Oleg said he was doing something else when he did it. Or did it while actually being there to do something else. And then didn’t tell Sergey for… reasons? My suspicion is that Rubenstein said something Oleg didn’t like and doesn’t want Sergey to hear, so he just omitted the whole thing, but I do hope we find out for sure soon. I’m almost positive this question will be answered lmao, but it still bothers me

And, although I’m sure this will be answered too, I’m curious who is going to end up being who’s problem. Will the cultists show up in PD or MIG? Tbh I’d prefer MIG, I think they’d fit the vibes better, but who knows. And the Rubenstein trio? Well, they were previously Igor’s problem, but they could be Sergey’s now too (and, by extension, Oleg’s and Lera’s), or maybe they’re getting their own series? I have no clue. Max and Banu are clearly going to stick around. So we’ll see how all that goes

I feel like I had more questions when I started typing this lmao, but I think the big ones really are Poet’s motivations and then the purpose question, which I put in the criticism section. I also feel like… Idk, after the first arc, I felt I had a very clear picture of the kinds of things that would come up later and what this series would look like and what it would largely be about. But now? I feel like I know nothing. And that scares me a little, because when I can’t predict how a story will go, then how can I know it’ll end okay? I think that’s what really gets me. Is now I have doubts I didn’t before. So. I do hope the epilogue clears a lot of this up, or maybe when the issue after that comes out, it’ll just forget 90% of this happened lmao as sometimes happens. Idk, I guess we shall see

And, like I said at the top, if you actually read all this (or if you didn’t cause it’s stupidly fucking long lmao but are seeing this paragraph anyway), then please, please feel free to reach out and chat with me about any of it. Cause I would LOVE to talk to someone about some of these feelings and I really don’t have anyone right now cause most of my friends really liked it and I don’t want to upset them, or they have the same questions I do with no answers. Anyway, that’s my ramble, hopefully this will leave my brain and I can relax in peace now lmfao

[wickedpact]

heres a transcript of that gina & greg interview i mentioned yesterday. literally nothing new is in this, but theres a lot of info in this that was scattered in varying interviews/podcasts and i like having all of it in one place for future reference purposes

(link to vid)

Patrick: Hey everybody, this is Patrick Cavanaugh from comicbook.com here to bring you a very special conversation about Netflix's The Old Guard, which just debuted last week, and everybody has seen it-- I believe people have seen it by now, so that's very exciting. And to dive deep into this film, we're actually very lucky to have the film's director Gina Prince-Bythewood, who also directed Love And Basketball and Beyond The Lights here. Hello, Gina.

Gina: Hey.

P: And we're also joined by the film's writer, as well as the writer of the original comic book series, The Old Guard. Also, you might know him from his DC Comics work, Batwoman, and Lazarus, to name a few of his titles. We have Greg Rucka! Hello, Greg.

Greg: Hello!

P: So this film just first debuted last week, and I know you guys have been inundated with fans, just loving it. And let's just get to what fans want to know, right off the bat; I'm sure you're getting daily questions about this because there's so much for an expanded universe. So let's set the record straight: will there be a Tiger King crossover?

[everyone laughs]

Greg: Uh, we're planning an animated series with giant Mech suits, and, unbeknownst to a certain franchise, we're going to crossover with Transformers and-- no. Come on. [laughs]

P: Okay, alright, we’ll hold onto that big crossover stuff. And I know Netflix, of course, hasn’t fully announced what the future might be for Old Guard, but I'm just kind of curious if you guys have had any recent conversations about what you'd like to do in the future—theoretical, nothing concrete, of course. But since the film has come out and you've seen fan feedback…?

Gina: I will just say, obviously, it's an incredible compliment that people want to see more. It means we did our job in this. It was very important that this film has a beginning middle and end. We wanted to focus on this.

Greg: Yeah.

Gina: And get it right. Having people want more is an incredible gift and I would say those conversations were really… Greg and I, early on in talking through the story... knowing Greg knows where this thing goes --and it's pretty incredible-- helped me in terms of directing this one. So I will say we've had those conversations early on.

Greg: Yeah Gina’s absolutely right. One of the things that I'm really-- one of the many things I am proud of is that the movie is a whole, you certainly leave it going ‘okay, there could be more, I can see how there is more’. But it is a complete work. It is not contingent and does not need anything else. That said, there were plenty of times we were having conversations and would jokingly be like, ‘oh that'll be in the next one, we'll do that in the next one. We had to cut this so we’ll put it in the next one’.

P: I'm sure people would be very thrilled, as would I. So we’ll try to remain patient since it's only been out a week--

Greg: I think that's reasonable.

P: [sarcastic] I mean, fans are nothing but reasonable--

Greg: [very loud laughter] You know what 'fan' is short for right? Fanatic.

P: [laughs] So Greg, I'm curious. You know, since this is a pretty unique situation where you wrote the original books but then also came to write the script-- which doesn't always happen all that often. I was kind of curious what that process was like and if, when revisiting that core story, if you were tempted to kind of go off into a new directions, you know, uncharted territory? And how you managed to stay faithful to that story.

Greg: So when Skydance initially acquired The Old Guard, Matt Grimm and Don Granger were the guys that I was working with. And they were very clear that they had acquired it because they loved the source material. So when I was doing the adaptation, it was ‘adapt this story to be told in a screen format, there are changes that have to be made’. I didn't see it so much as like ‘I can go in a different direction!’ as ‘it's a really rare opportunity to have a second bite at the apple’. Most writers don't get to tell the same story twice. And even with the collaborative nature of comics, making a movie is far more collaborative. So… being able to benefit from a lot of very smart people-- and then when Gina came aboard, and working very closely with her on the screenplay, you know, taking her notes, and talking at length about it was… I mean, I love the comic we made, I'm very proud of it. But I think this is a superior story. Because it allowed me to fix mistakes I had made. And I think that it certainly works as the film that we wanted it to be, but it has a lot more nuance and a lot more ‘shading’ than the comics ever could have had. So yeah, I mean, I'm very proud of the work we've done.

P: Yeah, as you should be, definitely agree with that. And I know, Gina, you've spoken about how you treated the source material essentially as a Bible as the blueprint for adapting the movie. So a question kind of for both of you, I was curious what scene or sequence were you most excited to bring to life? And then what scene were you most apprehensive about whether or not you could pull it off as faithful to that original?

Gina: For me, I mean, there was there were certainly a couple... Joe and Nicky in the van.

Greg: [nodding] Yeah.

Gina: Such a beautiful moment in the comic. And I wanted to get it right. I knew the actors really wanted to get it right. As soon as we started shooting, I was like, 'oh yeah, they're killing it'. Also Booker in the mine, the speech that he gives to Nile, it's everything to his character. It explains both Booker and Andy; where they are, and why they are the way that they are in that moment of time. And I know that as a director, I saw a perfect take. But going into those, you hope that, ‘am I able to evoke what I need to evoke in the audience?’ I think that the hardest really was the Kill Floor, given how iconic it is in the comic. It's just so beautifully drawn by Leandro, it pops off the page. So ‘how am I going to be able to do the same thing on film?’ But it really kind of boiled down to ‘what is the story [of the scene]’ and really focus on that first, but also wanting to really give a bit of a homage to what Leandro did too, which was my use of silhouette throughout it.

Greg: Yeah, I think that… Gina just listed all of the scenes. I mean, I wanted to see the armored car, that was enormously rewarding for me… I couldn't wait to see the killing room floor... You know, when we talk about moments of adaptation, I actually —and I thought this was really well handled in the movie in particular— Nile’s death wasn't wasn't easy in the comic, because it needed to have heart. You know, Kiki's performance and the way it's shot is just, it's phenomenal.

P: And obviously you can't really talk about this movie, which is this big action-fantasy movie, without talking about that scene between Joe and Nicky. I'm curious what both of your reactions have been to seeing that moment hit so hard with so many fans.

Greg: I'm overjoyed that we're able to give that to so many people. I am also frustrated that it's so overdue. While I don't think that either Gina or I felt that this was… It was important and special because it was important and special between these characters. But, you know, I mean I’m in that place where I recognize why we are getting the response that we are, and, I'm frustrated by the fact that it's 2020. And… apparently we're the first people to have done this? And you can say that about a lot of the reactions, you can say that about the reactions to Kiki's Nile. You can say that about reactions about Charlize portraying Andy. There’s a piece of me that's like ‘guys, we didn't invent the wheel here. All we did was show you, THERE’S A WHEEL HERE!’. So.

P: Yeah, it's interesting and it is frustrating that it is 2020 and we have to refer to this as an anomaly. That this is not the norm, that as you said, this is we're showing people that the wheel exists. And so Gina, you know, between having a film with two powered, seemingly super-powered characters, in a comic book adaptation, which is largely been devoid of such characters. [I think he meant to say female powered characters?] and being a black woman, directing a comic book adaptation— again, something in 2020 that we have to treat as a shocking revelation— I was curious, if you felt any sort of pressure about that on set, or if it was like just a confidence in the material, and support from your collaborators, that it wasn't even an issue?

Gina: Um, are you talking about the scene-?

P: Just the project as a whole.

Gina: There was a reason I took this film, because it moved me. It has to start there. There's all these things; I love putting a black female in the world, I love putting Nicky and Joe in the world, I love putting Joe’s character in the world. Those are all such incredible driving forces. But foremost, I have to feel and care about the characters in the story. And I did. And so, for me, it felt... I mean I was honored to be able to be the one to give these characters a life up on screen... or in that big screen in your living room. There's, of course, enormous pressure. Not only just doing a film, like the bigness of it. Certainly me being a woman, me being a black woman, and doing this when nobody has done it before… It's about proving myself and proving that women like me can do this, that we do like action, that we can shoot action… Just changing that narrative. So there's pressure to get it right and do a good job, but I feed off of that. It made me work harder because I felt like I absolutely had a responsibility to get it right.

P: And we've talked about Kiki a few times as Nile, of course. And Gina, I know you said it was within five seconds of meeting her that you knew she was the right one to play Nile. I was curious, how did the rest of the casting process go? Did everybody get hired that easily? Or was it a harder search to round out the ensemble?

Greg: Yes. I’m curious too!

Gina: You know, I knew going into this that I wanted great actors for every role and it's pretty amazing how many of my first choices are in this film. I mean Matthias Schoenaerts who plays Booker is an incredible actor and I knew I wanted him from the get-go. We were told he doesn't do films like this, but he wanted to meet, which was the first thing, like, ‘oh my gosh it’s on me, don't blow this meeting’ and he said again to my face, ‘I don't do these movies, but I love this movie’ and he loved the character Booker. And after that conversation and hearing my vision, he was in, which was amazing. Marwan Kenzari, I saw him in this independent film called Wolf—

Greg: Yeahhhhhh.

Gina: Phenomenal. And he was supposed to read for the part. We had a meeting over FaceTime. Then, Zoom was not what it is now. And it was such an incredible meeting. He was so passionate about the material. So passionate about the character Joe. So passionate about wanting to give that speech. His energy… I just said 'you don't need to read, like, you're Joe'. Luca Marinelli, who plays Nicky, I saw his audition. He has this depth to him, those eyes.. where you just, you felt everything, you felt his soul. But I needed to do a chemistry reading, as I would with any love story. And so, we flew him in to read with Marwan. They did this incredible improv, and it was so obvious that these two were Joe and Nicky. It was a really beautiful moment as a director to just… know, and I was so excited to show everybody what they had. It leapt off the screen, their connection; they’d never met before but, immediate connection. Chiwetel Ejiofor, I mean… [awed silence]

Greg: Chiwetel... yeah.

Gina: Yeah. To hear that he wanted to be in this and work with me on this, I didn't need anything else at that point. He's truly a genius. Charlize, you know, there are very few women who can work in the space and we believe them. And that's the thing about her work, and her action, we believe her. And we needed that for Andy. And of course she's a great actress, so it was, you know, that was kind of a no-brainer. So, lastly Harry Melling, you know our villain. It's funny, Don Granger, at Skydance, says you've done a good job with your villain if the audience wants to punch him in the face. Harry brought that reality of those templates of Mark Zuckerberg and Martin Shkreli and really rocked it.

Greg: I had, you know, I'm the screenwriter, right? And I am pretty much involved in the production at the director’s sufferance, and Gina was so gracious to want me present-- and more than that, want me present and say things, right? As opposed to ‘stand here and be quiet’, but I remember when Kiki… when they knew they wanted Kiki, like in that window before all the paperwork was done and so on. Throughout most of the casting I wasn't hearing a lot from Gina, just the occasional update. Like ‘I think we've got…’ and then the Kiki audition came in, and Gina, you called me, Granger texted me, Grimm texted me. And it was all the same thing. It was all ‘we have found Nile, oh my god, there were these two scenes and she had us howling in one and weeping in the other and she is perfect’. And the exuberant joy, you know, I remember you on that call being like ‘NO, THIS IS HER!!’. It's like, this is gonna be awesome.

P: So, and to open things up a little bit more to the actual mythology of the film and the comic book series, I think one of the coolest things is that this film doesn't entirely explore is why these characters come back to life? But we also don't entirely need to know that to just… witness this slice of time in their journey. So I'm kind of curious, maybe Greg you have more insight on this, but I'm curious if either of you have those ideas in your head of what the root of this, you know, blessing or curse, the curse of immortality? Or is that just stuff that's entirely irrelevant to this journey?

Greg: I think it's irrelevant… to the journey of the first film. That the story is a self-contained story and you don't need to know why they are immortal. And I think that the film actually does tell you, not specifically, but the film does provide you with enough information to allow you to draw certain conclusions. Because there are really a limited number of ways that they're going to get this way, right? We do not, for instance, see Nile fall into a vat of regeneration juice, right? That's not why Nile comes back. There is a mythology. We know the mythology. We know the why and that's for later. Yes, maybe it will become relevant to the story, but for this story that was told as it was told? No, you don't need to know why.

Gina: The striking thing, when I read the script for the first time was I didn't… I didn't care. Like, I didn't need it. And that surprised me because I know Greg had talked about another company who was interested in the project [Gina doesn’t say, but it was Sony lmao] kept asking ‘you have to tell us why though, in this story, an audience needs to know why’. He was absolutely right [for disagreeing with Sony]. Because I didn't need to know why.

Greg: It's the Rian Johnson School of, you know, it's Looper. ‘We can spend two hours talking about time travel or you can accept that we're in time travel. Which is it going to be?’ And I think that that is one of the most brilliant storytelling decisions made in the last 20 years in film! Literally 'here it is—DOESN’T MATTER, MOVING ON!’ you know.

P: Yeah. It's definitely a bold direction to take. And to have an issue with 'oh, well, we never learn [about the] immortality!' proves that you just miss the point of what the movie is, and that that stuff is kind of irrelevant for right now. Although I do kind of hope that because it's on Netflix someone's expecting like a post credit scene, but it's the autoplay feature, right? [Greg and Patrick talk over eachother, laughing]

Greg: We did talk about that button as a post-credit scene, the Booker [scene]—

Gina: That was originally supposed to be a tag.

Greg: And there was, for a while, the contemplation of ‘maybe we can still [put the Booker scene in as a post-credit scene] and really that'll be like a great big reward for those people who actually watch credits on Netflix. It’s like, you got a bonus scene!’

P: So another, you know, people are loving the characters, they're loving the performances, but also the action is so cool in it, and it feels reminiscent of some other films. But the urgency and efficiency of all of the action sequences always feel like they have a point, and they're not just ‘look what we can pull off this week!’ You know, it's not John Wick on a horse fighting motorcycles because we don't need to do that. It's, you know, always to a point. So I'm kind of curious Greg, what does an action scene look like in your script? And then Gina, what was your whole motivation for putting these action scenes together?

Greg: I had two approaches in this script and used both. Sometimes I would write the sequence as you know, as a series-- this is what is happening, ‘he swings and then his head goes flying’ or whatnot. But knowing very well that unless the script needed to see-- because the script has to specify what is a must. It's a must. It's a must document. ‘We must see this’. ‘We must know this information’. So for a lot of the time, I would sort of drop into a narrative voice and say, ‘okay, now we watch the five of them proceeded to kick every ass and take every name that they come across and please bear in mind you are watching over 10,000 years of combat experience, combined between them’. And then that's the description of an action sequence, right? The screenplay… it's a construction document. It's not the interior decorator’s document. It's not even the Foreman's document. It's an architectural document. And then you give it to the Foreman of the whole production, who then goes, ‘I agree, these are the important things’, and then you get out of their way and watch them do the thing that they have, you know, become an expert at doing to make it happen.

P: Gina, what's your reaction when you read Greg’s script saying, ‘oh, you know, just five immortal warriors demonstrating 10,000 years of combat experience’?

Gina: It's like ‘oh shit’. [everyone laughs] Like that's a very cool thing to read—

Greg: But how do you film it?

Gina: Yeah, exactly! Then you start at the beginning of the scene and 'what character can we reveal in the scene'? And when you start like that, it's less overwhelming. Because the best action sequences for me, when I go to the movies, are those that have a story to them and that are character driven, that have an emotion. So I really started there in the vision of what they should be and just working with my incredible, incredible stunt team, Jeff Habberstad and Danny Hernandez and Bryson Counts[? I dont know who that is]. Designing these fights to tell this story, to showcase this part of character, to further the story. And that was important as well, that we never wanted this film to feel like… rushing through the story to get to each action sequence. All of this works seamlessly. The quiet moments are just as important as the action moments. And so that was exciting to me. But being able to tell the story, reveal character, that was fun. And then it's ‘yeah, how do we choreograph so it feels as if these characters finish each other sentences, so to speak, in terms of action, knowing where the other is going to be, knowing when somebody's out of bullets and need another clip?' Like all those things, the way that they're always picking up used guns and used clips, just this dance. And it was very cool, you know, to really put that together and see what the team came up with. And then to see the actors embody that, bring character, bring performance to that. Which is why it was so great that I had the actual actors doing most of the work, so that we can see that performance.

Greg: I think you used a word that I think clearly came from what Gina’s describing and talking about with working with Danny and Jeff and Bryson. Which is 'efficient'. Like, if you watch the film, you will see that there is only one sequence where Andy is ever firing more than twice, and it is on the killing room floor. After that, whenever she fires a gun, it's one bullet. It goes exactly where she wants it to go. Everything she does becomes an issue of ‘her style is efficiency—‘

Gina: Yeah, that was a big—‘brutal efficiency’ is a term we talked about often, where they know a kill shot. They are not the type that are going to go in an environment and spray. It's lazy and not who they are. They are not going to ever hit someone by accident. They are too good. And their moral code is not like an ordinary For Hire who are just trying to get the target by any means necessary.

P: Yeah, and also speaking to what I feel set these action sequences apart from other action films is, we're used to, you know, like thumping techno or hard rock or something kick in. You know, I don't think anyone had like, you know, Frank Ocean being in an action film on Netflix on their 2020 Bingo cards. So I'm just kind of curious how you put that soundtrack together and what that process was like.

Gina: Yeah. I love music so much. It's so much a part of me as an artist. And for me, I love songs for scores, songs that can evoke an emotion, and elevate a scene or the emotion of a scene without taking it over. And music for this film was so important, to the tone. It was such a balance. This is a violent film, yet I never wanted it to feel like a celebration of violence. The fact that there was a cost to the killing and then motion to the killing. So always wanted to keep that in mind-- and music really helped with that. There's also a thing of, you know, I'm the first audience and I actually don't like heavy metal. So, it annoys me when I watch a movie and it's this non-stop thump. In the rectory —spoiler alert— when Andy kills 19 people, the music I chose was important because it took away the sting of that. I didn't want an audience to revel in ‘oh my God, she killed 19 people’. No, it was ‘she killed 19 people and you see on her face that this was not fun, this was not easy’. You see that on Nile’s face when she walks out, and the music helped that. I wanted the music to feel operatic, because what happened in that room did have that depth of emotion, so music again— so important for vibe and tone and it was fun to find these songs that could do exactly what I wanted them to do.

P: Greg, the narrative is definitely very faithful to the first two Old Guard series and, you know, blends together in this compelling and unique way… Just as a —you know, we are comicbook.com— so coming from the purest sense of interpreting the narrative... [Greg laughs] like there's definitely the flashback with Achilles from the comic book, and then also the flashback to Booker's hanging scene. Those are our absent from the film. And I was just curious if those were ever in the script or if you want to rework them for the future…?

Greg: No, I mean we also had, in the original series, the flashback that sort of accounts the Joe and Nicky, ‘we killed each other’, ‘many times’ sequence as well. There were drafts where all of that was there. And sometimes in greater detail than others. There was a version where that hospital scene— [in the movie] you get just the right amount of… when Booker's relaying it to Nile in the mine. But, you know, there was more to that, and you can see sort of Achilles' story’s presence in the mine, right? There's a glimpse of the painting. So those things weren't erased as much as… when you make a comic, every choice you are making is an efficiency choice. ‘You have X many pages, how are you going to spend them?’ And I'm not a filmmaker. I'm the guy who wrote the thing. But one of the things I can tell you when watching is that it's the same calculus but exponentially. It is— every single thing you are doing is asking if it's serving your narrative. And I think the trade —because it is a trade— of the Achilles backstory to build the Quynh story has a benefit that the Achilles story alone didn't have, in that the Quynh story —especially as it's relayed in the movie— not only does it illuminate Joe, Nicky, Booker, and of course Andy, but it's also Illuminating to Nile, in a way that… talking about Achilles would have been repeating a beat. Because as beautiful, and as important, Achilles is to Andy's character… Booker conveys that heartbreak with his story, right? So it becomes an efficiency question as much as anything else. I mean, that that's really what it comes down to.

P: Speaking to some of the changes again, I don't want to get to spoiler heavy but there's definitely a big change with one character and their possible fate. Don't want to ruin anything for anyone, so trying to play it safe.

Greg: [laughing] Yeah, how are we supposed to answer this, Patrick?

P: Why don't we just text each other? [everyone laughs] Well, I'm kind of curious. One character's trajectory has changed a little bit. What were the discussions like over, you know, altering their trajectory and what that could mean, you know, for their future adventures?

Greg: Well, how do we talk around this?

P: Also, if anyone's been watching this for 40 minutes and hasn't seen the movie, they've got to adjust their priorities.

Gina: I would say, it was about adding more jeopardy and stakes. It absolutely did that. What I love so much about the story and what Greg created is that these characters are mostly immortal. So there is always that threat. But it just added another level to that. But it also crystallized so well… the fact that the moment that Andy is truly saying ‘I'm done’ a new Immortal shows up in Nile. So it just seemed to work really well and, you know, obviously having Greg be so on board with that and take it and run with it was really important.

Greg: It externalizes the conflict beautifully. And I believe I think David Ellison at Skydance likes the term downward pressure, I believe. [Gina smiles, Greg sees] Did you hear that? Did you hear that during editing? [Gina nods] But it does. Look, here's a fundamental problem; it's actually one of the problems at the heart of Force Multiplied: what's jeopardy to an immortal? Cuz it's kind of, you know, as Joe says, ‘what are you gonna do, tough guy? Kill me?’ You know, ‘if I go, I go. I don't know when I'm going’. So you you need to be able to inject into the story some level of jeopardy. You want to heighten the stakes. And it also externalizes that particular character’s conflict.

P: Gina, hopefully I don't put you too much on the spot with this question. But, you know, any time there's a big comic book project announced its, you know, fans start saying, oh, I'd love this person who's done action movies to do it’ or ‘this person who’s already done 10 Sci-Fi movies…’, you know, like Taika Waititi can't direct every movie.

Gina: I would love him to!

P: I'm just actually kind of curious, Gina, if there are any directors that you're particularly a fan of who don't necessarily have the same, you know, Marvel DC, Star Wars experience that that you'd love to hear get announced as tackling, you know, a big budget comic book movie.

Greg: I would like to know too.

Gina: Certainly, I'm excited about what Victoria Mahoney's going to be doing-- she just did second unit [director] on Star Wars, first woman to ever do that. I dig her brain so much and her aesthetic. I'm really excited to see what she's going to do in the action space, certainly.

P: Yeah, very cool. Really looking forward to her career for sure. And I think we're just about out of time here. We were down—

Gina: [raising her hand] Can I ask a question real quick? Sorry, I just need a definitive answer on this because I got called out on Twitter and I asked Greg--

Greg: [laughing] Ohhhhhhh—

Gina: So is Old Guard, is it a graphic novel? Or is it a comic?

Greg: You got to answer that Patrick.

P: Oh boy.

Greg: [laughing] Literally he's watching all credibility start to evaporate if he doesn't get this right. [holding up a comic of Opening Fire] This is a what?

P: I mean… part of me, knowing that it is part one of a three-part overall series… You know, my brain goes to ‘trade paperback’, you know, like it's a volume collecting a certain amount of issues. But if you ask me before volume 2 came out, it would be collected as a graphic novel, but… they're all comic books. They're all just comic books, everybody. Let's just take it easy.

Gina: Okay, thank you.

P: That's my answer.

Greg: Thank you. Thank you. I think that is the appropriate answer.

P: They're all just comic books. Take it easy.

P: Yeah, but I am curious. Of course, one of the interesting things about the film is that over the course of hundreds… thousands of years, these characters, the old guard have kind of influenced humanity in some definitely interesting ways… And ultimately for good, is a little bit of what we're seeing in the film. And I can't help but wonder… is it possible that the old guard could have unintentionally influenced the world for bad? And have some negative ripples come from their actions, or do I have to wait for a sequel for that?

Greg: I think that is a very reasonable and logical question to ask, especially when you know, there are 19 dead bodies lying in a church. You know what I mean? There is a certain amount— and it's almost fatuous to talk about it but there is always the doctrine of unintended consequences. I will say this goes to something else— and I'll say it really quickly because I know we're running out of time. I think one of the things that I really, really loved about what's being said, in the movie, is that at the end of the film… The definitive statement is, if you take away everything about immortality, what it's saying is that… our choices matter and our actions matter and they matter in ways and to people that we will never see and never know of. We try to put right in the world by doing right. And we do that without ever seeing what the ramifications of it are. And sometimes we're going to succeed, gloriously, and sometimes we're going to fail and we may never know that either, right? It's the choice paralysis that that you get from cheating in The Good Place, right? I can't eat or drink or move because morally it's all wrong, right? But the takeaway from the film is that, ‘yeah, your life matters and what you do with it matters and it matters to people that you're never ever going to see.’

P: So yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that's a great positive, you know, message for us to leave on. And I definitely think that comes across in the film, especially, you know, from the characters like Joe and Nicky just professing… you know, it's about the time that you have. And you don't know when your number is going to be up. So you just try and do as many good things before that happens as you can, and hopefully the world responds to that. So I really connected with that message in the film. Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with me. The Old Guard has been out for��� five days. So I look forward to reuniting--

Greg: Does it feel longer to you. Gina? It feels like it's longer for me. [Gina laughs]

P: I look forward to reuniting in maybe 10 more days to talk about the sequel and spin-off and the prequel and all that sort of thing. [Greg laughs] But for now, The Old Guard is still on Netflix. And of course don't be tricked into watching any post-credit scenes because you might end up watching, you know, The Great British Bake Off. Well, thanks so much guys, it was a pleasure.

[lucifer-is-a-bag-of-dicks]

I am ABSOLUTELY overjoyed with all the new OP Danny content. Thank you ;3; I've been casually stalking your "overpowered danny" tag for like half a decade so NEW CONTENT got me excited. Love it all, plz give more. (That said! All the recent posts have been rather DC Comics/Heroes centric! How about a take on those with other heroes, like Marvel/Avengers or, like, idk, Miraculous Ladybug since that has literal gods in it?)

oh my gosh I actually love the idea of Miraculous Ladybug happening in the same universe, like I just love the concept of there being little localised pockets of superheroes all over the place that like may happen to cross paths due to shenanigans

Marvel would be a different beast, more than likely Shield has had their eye on Danny for a while, like they do with most potential threats, they've probably left Amity alone because everything seems to be holding together okay and also they have aliens and supervillians to deal with and don't have time to check in on this one localised threat that's pretty much in good hands anyway

eventually they'd start paying close attention though, probably notice this one kid hero's list of observed powers is racking up, that could be a problem, or an asset

only issue is convincing him to leave town for more than a few hours, because he seems pretty convinced it'll all go to shit without him

if they pull him in for the first Avengers movie meetup, I'm pretty sure a lot of them would have issues about him being a kid, Nick Fury would probably just tell them something like 'yeah look do not worry about trying to protect him he is absolutely in no danger, actually he's here to protect you chaotic chucklefucks'

could you imagine how that movie would go with Danny in the mix?

also if you want some good Danny Phantom/Spiderman interaction you HAVE to go read the Ghost in the NYC series from ASharksReadingGlasses

https://archiveofourown.org/series/2045206

it dabbles in other marvel heroes and is my current favourite crossover fic of all time (sans Spirited Away the absolute banger of a harry potter crossover that I've read like fifty times and I laugh my ass off every time) actually I'll link that too while I'm at it because why not, it deserves love too

https://m.fanfiction.net/s/7865548/1/Spirited-Away

[traincat]

I feel like I've read a ton, but I'm honestly still pretty new to comics rn. That being said... What is one more day? Ik we don't like it and it happened a while ago, but that's about it [,=

Time for Spider-Man History With Traincat: Highly Controversial Storylines! And that feeling is totally normal with comics with huge canons -- you can read a ton and still have some fairly big blindspots in your understanding of the total picture. That being said, this is kind of a big one, both in terms of Spider-Man history/canon and in terms of how Spider-Man fandom functions. I would say probably no other storyline has had quite as much impact on how the fandom views and interacts with the source material as One More Day/Brand New Day. It's been the Wild West out here ever since it happened. (Which was in 2007, so like, yes, fairly long ago, especially when you look at how Spider-Man canon has evolved since, but in the grand scheme of things, also kind of recent. One More Day is not old enough to rent a car.)

So when people talk about Spider-Man's One More Day, they're usually actually talking about two related arcs: One More Day and Brand New Day. For the sake of simplicity, I'm going to be covering both. For the sake of transparency, I am going to admit that I think One More Day, as a self-contained story, is good, actually. This is controversial! I admit that! But I stand by my stupid opinions on this blog, for some reason. I think One More Day when you examine it on its own, by which I mean you ignore the decade and a half worth of canon that came after it, as a Spider-Man story and as a PeterMJ-centric story holds up under scrutiny and that people who don't like it don't like complicated love stories and might actually throw their own mothers under buses. No offense to the OMD haters. Little bit of offense to the OMD haters. Brand New Day, which is the continuation of One More Day, on the other hand -- largely bad. Very largely bad.

But let's backtrack. One More Day is a four issue crossover storyline that takes place directly after Civil War, during which Iron Man and Captain America got divorced and divvied up the superhero community and Spider-Man made some startlingly bad decisions and made a fugitive out of himself and his family in a manner that got Aunt May shot, and Spider-Man: Back in Black (Amazing Spider-Man #539–543) which examines Peter's actions immediately after Aunt May is shot and ends with him humiliating the Kingpin in front of an entire prison. One More Day consists of Amazing Spider-Man #544 -> Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #24 -> Sensational Spider-Man v2 #41 -> Amazing Spider-Man #545. In One More Day, Aunt May is dying, all of Peter's efforts to save her have thus far failed, and, consumed by guilt, he is rapidly running out of time. Approached by Mephisto, a literal demon from hell, Peter is offered a deal: Aunt May will live -- and Peter's identity, which was previously revealed to the world at large during Civil War, will once again be hidden from the memories of all but a select few -- if Peter trades him his marriage to Mary Jane. Peter and Mary Jane struggle with this, but eventually both agree to the deal. The clock strikes twelve, the deal is done, and Peter and Mary Jane's marriage fades into history.

(ASM #545) A reasonably simple premise for a story that caused so many problems -- most, I would argue, not actually the original story's fault. So obviously, this was an unpopular move -- Peter and Mary Jane had for a long time been a fan favorite Marvel couple, and in a fictional universe where most relationships are doomed as soon as they begin, the enduring Spider-Marriage was sacred ground. And then, with a snap of its fingers, it was gone: Peter wakes up in Aunt May's house, no longer married, with Mary Jane out of the picture. (She would not return to the book on any sort of consistent basis for over 50 issues.) In the wake of One More Day began Brand New Day, which is basically what it sounds like: a promised "brand new day" of "exciting" Spider-Man content and a publishing schedule where Amazing Spider-Man came out three times a month. (Which sounds good on paper but I think in practice caused more problems than it created good storylines.) Peter, newly single again, had new love interests! And also Harry Osborn was alive again for some reason! I generally like Harry's post-BND stories so that part's fine with me.

But overall? Brand New Day is a mess. It knows it wants to tread new and exciting ground with Peter -- tell new stories! ensnare new readers! make them fork out for a book three times a month. -- but it doesn't know what those stories should be. Readers who were invested in Peter and Mary Jane's relationship -- a major facet of Spider-Man comics for decades at that point -- felt rightfully betrayed that the marriage could be so easily traded in and that Mary Jane herself, perhaps the second most important figure in Spider-Man comics after Peter, could be tossed aside. From a personal point of view, I think Brand New Day fails in large part because it abandons what has always made Spider-Man such a compelling series, and that's the mix of Peter's personal life with his vigilante life. BND sees Peter with new friends, new jobs, new love interests, etc -- it is very much a brand new day! But it isn't a better day compared to the stories that came before it. I do like some post-BND stories, especially American Son (ASM #595-599) and Grim Hunt (ASM #634-637), but compared to pre-BND where I think the majority of canon is good, it's a very lacking body of work that is hurt by the way it divorced itself from the PeterMJ marriage as Spider-Man's central relationship.

"But Traincat, I thought you said you liked One More Day?" Yeaaaaah. I do. This is why I keep saying I like One More Day on its own merits, and not on the merits of the stories it opened the doors for. I like a good romantic tragedy in fiction, and the way Peter and Mary Jane's final scene in One More Day plays out is beautiful. I like the idea of Peter caught in this impossible situation, being asked to choose between two women he loves more than his own life. A really common criticism I see leveled against One More Day is that Peter should have chosen his relationship with Mary Jane over May's life, which is -- okay, I think it's weird that people keep insisting on this, not in the least because by asking Peter to sacrifice his aunt's life they're essentially demanding he commit a callous, out of character act in order to further his own interests. It's also weird because the thing is, Peter already chose Mary Jane over May -- that's what gets them into this situation. It's literally in the scene where May is shot:

(ASM #538) When the gun goes off, Peter's spider-sense kicks in, and he covers Mary Jane, leaving May in the path of the bullet. He does choose Mary Jane over May, regardless of whether he realized what he was doing. And that's why he can't make that choice a second time. His actions in One More Day do make sense for him as a character, whether or not any individual reader likes them, and Mary Jane's actions make sense, too -- after all, she's the one who ultimately tells Mephisto that they agree to the deal when Peter can't bring himself to voice it.

A lot of people also like to nitpick One More Day by going, well, why could (x) or (y) with life saving powers save Aunt May which is like -- yeah, I guess, but if we're going to ask that about this specific comic book near death setup, you kind of have to do it with every single one, and I'm not going to stake every single moment of comic book drama on whether or not that gold kid from the X-Men was busy at the time. Comics are soap operas in flimsy paper form: serialized longform storytelling that relies heavily on melodrama. Sometimes you have to go with things. Sometimes you sell your marriage to the devil. Stuff happens. That in and of itself doesn't make One More Day a bad story -- and while some people blame the Spider-Marriage's dissolution entirely on One More Day, I think that's a little shortsighted when you look at the history of Spider-Man since the turn of the century. It's clear -- and Marvel themselves have been perhaps a little too open about this -- that Marvel in the past few decades has had trouble with the direction they want to take Spider-Man. They WANTED Spider-Man to appeal to a distinctly youthful audience that they didn't think they were actually reaching -- understandable, considering that Marvel nearly went bankrupt around 2000 and was saved by Ultimate Spider-Man, an out of main continuity series which retold Spider-Man from the beginning and focused heavily on Peter as a teen -- but the problem was Spider-Man in the main continuity was at that point in canon a happily married man who was pushing the dreaded 30 whether or not they wanted to admit that. This is also why Marvel has continually pivoted away from Spider-Man having kids, because they feared that making him a dad would age him too much and make him unrelatable to their coveted audience of Teens. (This is also why almost every new Spider-Man property, especially the live action movies, perpetually stick him back into high school, despite that occupying a very small slice of 616 canon.) So around the year 2000, they started trying things in relation to the Spider-Marriage, which was viewed as a major problem -- after all, what's more adult than being married and liking your wife. First, they had Mary Jane presumed dead. Then, they had Mary Jane and Peter separate. Then, when Mary Jane and Peter had only recently gotten back together, One More Day struck. If One More Day specifically hadn't gone the way it had, it's pretty clear that the Spider-Marriage was going to go one way or another -- it's a little bit of a shame it happened when it did, because OMD is the end of J Michael Straczynski's run, and JMS wrote a really beautiful Peter and MJ relationship. But Marvel as a company and especially editor in chief at the time Joe Quesada viewed Peter and Mary Jane's relationship as a major problem in how they wanted to portray Spider-Man and thought that striking the relationship from the books would allow them more freedom in their portrayal of him as younger and more relatable to their Desired Audience of people who I guess really wanted to see Peter sleep with characters who weren't Mary Jane.

(ASM #546. Younger! Fresher! Less attached! Kissing random women in the club!)

The problem with One More Day has always been in the follow through -- from the content of Brand New Day to the pacing of events to the fact that Marvel withheld key information for such a long time that it allowed misinformation to thrive. After all, what does it MEAN to trade Peter and Mary Jane's marriage to the devil? It altered the events of canon in Peter and the majority of other characters' memories so that the marriage didn't exist, but it left people wondering -- did the relationship as they remembered it existed? How much of Spider-Man canon was altered? And the answers didn't come for over 100 issues of Amazing Spider-Man. One Moment In Time or OMIT (Amazing Spider-Man #638-641), which revealed that while Peter and Mary Jane never got married in the altered canon they did continue their long committed relationship up until just after Civil War, was published in 2010, so essentially readers were hung out to dry without answers for three years. That's a long time to string people along, but not as long as it took Marvel to confirm that the popular fan theory that Mary Jane retained her memories of the original timeline as part of her own deal with Mephisto was also true, which happened this year. I would say, at least from my perspective, a lot of the frustration doesn't come from the individual One More Day storyline so much as how Marvel has continually dragged out the aftermath, using the promise of a Spider-Marriage return to keep fans on the hook. Which is why One More Day continually comes up in discussion of current Spider-Man, because Spencer's run has relied very heavily on imagery from that period with a serious question of whether or not there actually was going to be payoff, something which is still up in the air.

This has been Spider-Man History With Traincat, brought to you by anonymice like you.

[some-stars]

Fic writer questionnaire! Tagged by @deputychairman, thank you!

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

65....just waiting for 69 so i can celebrate

2) What's your total AO3 word count?

288,609

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

okay, so, there's a lot so we're gonna collapse some. So, 16: The Witcher (games and show), Supernatural, Dark Angel, Glee, Stargate (both SG1 and SGA), MCU, Vampire Diaries, Teen Wolf, due South, DC (comics and movies), House of Leaves, Sense8, Harry Potter, Les Miserables (book), Doctor Who, and X-Men movies. Oh, and I wrote a lot of NSYNC RPF back in the day but you will never see it. (Unless you literally read it back then and remember one and want to reread it, I’m not ashamed of them if you were also in the pit with me. If that is the case feel free to ask.)

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?  

all some children do is work: this one surprised me, i did NOT think there was this kind of appetite for almost-gen turned-into-a-kid fic, but i do really like the fic itself so i'm contented with its acclaim

method: i mean, it's fake dating, written back when there wasn't much non-modern-AU fake dating in witcher fandom (possibly there still isn't?) so, not surprised

Emergency Pants: this is the one that the Claw chose back in 2012 bc i had written very pornographic tony/bruce about a month after Avengers came out so there was a big appetite for it. i don't much care for it these days except i do still think the tony voice is good

warm you like the sunshine: deeply unsurprised this one is popular (and it's one of my own fics that i reread a lot), it's extremely tender BDSM with a juggernaut pairing, that gets the readers

As often as from thee I go: honestly kinda surprised about this one, which is just a 2500 word confection i wrote for my own satisfaction, but it does have explicit sex and jaskier crying about his feelings so maybe it makes sense

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I almost always do, but usually just with "Thanks!" unless it's a detailed or lengthy comment.

6) What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

"Long black night, morning frost" (Les Miserables) for absolute certain. One of the very few fics I've written with an outright unhappy and pessimistic ending (although I found it very cathartic to write). For Witcher fics, "Kind" and "go ask alice" are about as sad as I get.

7) What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

Almost all of them, honestly. There's a point in happiness of endings where you really can't distinguish degrees. Probably the most--not saccharine, but distinctly Happy Ending-ish is either "Water like a stone" or "Darling, if you only knew," which to my eternal shame are both Glee fics. In terms of Witcher fics...it's still hard to pick! I think the kidfic trilogy ended very, very happily; I think "If you live through this with me" ended TOO happily.

8) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you've written?

I do not, and I don't read them, at least not since the days of the late 90s/early 2000s when I once read a really good Highlander/X-Files crossover (oh, and Martha's cosmic horror fic where Stargate and Angel and I think something else all cross over but it feels quite natural and right). I don't like fusions, either, most of the time.

9) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Never! In 20 years! I've been extremely lucky.

10) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

ahahahahahahahhaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

yes...yes you could say i write smut. on occasion. you know, when the urge comes on me. i write mostly kink or at least kink-adjacent fic, but i've done some vanilla scenes too, and i write m/m and m/f and (occasionally) f/f. fun fact, my only rimming scene to date was in a f/f/f threesome!

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

I think so? I can't remember, honestly, which sounds dreadful but like...I don't READ the translation, because I am sadly monolingual, but I get a burst of delight when someone asks to do it (or to make a podfic).

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have tried--me and a friend once got like 12k deep into a co-written Tiger and Bunny fic--but it doesn't really work out for me. I am a massive control freak when it comes to writing and absolutely miserable to work with. (Although I wasn't so bad back when we wrote the T&B fic, we just sort of never got around to finishing it. Which is sad, because it was GREAT.)

14) What's your all time favorite ship?

Max/Alec from Dark Angel. I shipped it when I only started watching DA for Jensen's episodes, I shipped it when I fell in love with Max, I shipped it when I frantically hand-wrote notes about the fic I wanted to write, I ship it right now as I'm typing, I will ship it in my grave. Also it's not a het ship bc neither of them are heterosexual, thank you very much.

15) What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

I only post finished fics, but in terms of things I haven't posted, I still think my "For A Good Time Call" fem!jaskier/yennefer(/geralt) AU would have been truly incredible. If you haven't watched that movie go watch it immediately so you can share this beautiful idea with me.

16) What are your writing strengths?

Ohhh, this and the next one are hard, because I truly don't know. Well, besides "porn." I am genuinely good at porn, which is HILARIOUS considering how many more sex scenes I've written than participated in. But overall, I have so much angst and neurosis and tenuous self-worth tied up in writing, I'm a very bad judge of my own skills. Also, it depends on the fandom! In some fandoms I'm good at dialogue, in others not so much. In some fandoms I'm good at pastiching the tone of the source and in others...Not So Much.

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

If I had to pick a weakness, though, I'd say concrete imagery/detail. Like, the things that characters are physically doing either out of emotional reaction or just, they're doing something in that scene. Dialogue is usually easier (not sure if it comes out better, but it's easier).

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?  

I used to be mildly annoyed at it but! Now! On AO3! You can put a footnote by the French or whatever, so the reader can jump down to read a translation and then jump right back up. I now feel that if you choose to include dialogue (or any words) in another language from the rest of the story, this is the only acceptable method.

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

I remember vaguely in 1996 or so writing a couple pages of Kit whump for the Young Wizards books. I wrote some execrable nonsense in X-Files, but in my defense I had just turned 13. I don't THINK I wrote anything for Star Trek, which was my first fandom. Oh, and I attempted to write fic for Homicide, which I watched in 7th and 8th grade and lied about my age to get onto the good mailing lists (they were actually the bad, racist mailing lists, I would later realize, but again I was 13).

20) What's your favorite fic you've written?

Sorry to disappoint anyone who follows me for Witcher content, but it's either "The absolute absurdity of end-series items" (House of Leaves) or "A quite unlosable game" (Dark Angel). They are both Big Idea fics, and I feel like in both of them I got the Idea across brilliantly, and I'm truly proud of them and think they're the best things I've ever made. (In terms of Witcher fic, it's the kidfic trilogy for sure.)

I am not going to tag anyone because that always makes me mildly anxious, but if you read this and you want to do it you can say you were tagged by me! :D? :D?