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ghosthan · 4 years ago

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what would you say are the differences between 616 Tony and MCU Tony? 🤔

Hi anon! Many people have talked about this and I'm certainly not the authority on the topic, but I’ll try my best to explain some of the major differences that I have noticed! Thank you for asking and I’m sorry it took me so long to answer you.

Important to note: neither version of Tony has had a totally consistent characterization. Depending on who you ask and which comics/movies they've consumed, they might give you a different answer here and not be wrong.

616 Tony is even harder to put into one box because his character has been around since Tales of Suspense in the 1950s. That’s a long time. Things have changed over time, under different writers, changing political atmospheres, and outside pop culture influence (including influence from the MCU, unfortunately, in recent years.) You get the picture. So I’ll be making some generalizations and try to be clear about which eras I’m speaking when I make these comparisons, but ultimately, if someone wanted to be contrarian, you could probably refute a lot of what I say here if you cherry pick canon. Which is fair enough! That’s sort of the fun of comics, there’s so much to choose from and something for everyone.

So here are some observations from me, under the ‘read more’.

1. Physical Appearance

This is sort of an easy one, but worth mentioning!

MCU Tony does not look like 616 Tony. RDJ is great, but he would not be most 616 fans’ casting choice on looks alone. MCU Tony is tan, a Malibu man, with brown hair and brown eyes, and RDJ has sort of round facial features (a funny sloped nose, big, round eyes, round forehead, not a particularly sharp or classically “superhero masculine” face.) As you may know, this lends well to certain fanworks and tropes, such as Tony having Bambi eyes.

Or Tiny Tony. He is not actually canonically small, but he's smaller in the MCU than in 616 and from what I can tell, a portion of fandom has latched onto that. He’s a grown man, but RDJ is pretty short, and of slighter build than 616 Tony. RDJ is 5′9, but they make him act in heels, and I believe his canon MCU height is 5′11. Another popular trope I’ve seen is shrinking Tony in fanfic/fanart for a dramatized height difference with Steve, making him weak or fragile; this is fine because everyone has their own taste, but for the official record, he’s a capable, strong guy! Especially in earlier stages of the MCU, in which he’s a bit younger. Tony isn’t just a brain; he carries out his plans with his own two hands! He builds his armor, he remodels his lab, he survives hand to hand combat when he doesn’t have the armor. Muscles!

616 Tony is 6′1 without armor and 6′6 in armor (making him taller than his 616 Steve counterpart in armor and very close to the same height out of armor!) 616 Tony is generally paler with black hair (sometimes the classic blue-black I love so much) and blue eyes, and it obviously depends on the artist, but he has a pretty typically ‘masculine’ face and build. Generally he is drawn with a squared jaw and a high bridged nose (such as in the Extremis storyline, or drawn by Marquez), but again, this varies from artist to artist! Here's some examples of 616 Tonys.

Wait, you might be saying, but I have seen comic panels where Tony has brown hair/brown eyes!

Yep. Due to a combination of forgetfulness, inconsistency, and the MCU bleeding into the general consciousness of the comics, sometimes Tony is randomly depicted in the image of RDJ, or if not in his image, at least visually inspired by the MCU-- hair color and style, eye color, dialogue, etc.

616 fans don’t typically love this; he’s very handsome when drawn this way, of course, (look at him!) But it isn’t really the same character.

Also, MCU Tony has (at least for some of his movies) a reactor built into his chest. While 616 Tony has, at times, been more or less physically connected/dependent to his tech, he doesn’t have the built in reactor (most generally speaking, there are times in comics when he temporarily has the tech built in, but this isn’t really the status quo.)

2. Relationship with parents/ family history

While it is definitely implied in the MCU that Howard was not a good father to Tony, (such as in Iron Man 2 when Tony says “You're talking about a man whose happiest day of his life was shipping me off to boarding school” and “He was cold, calculating, never told me he loved me, never even told me he liked me”), Tony has a different sort of attitude toward Howard in MCU than in 616. It’s kind of weird, and hard to discuss. To me, it seems implied that MCU Howard was emotionally abusive to Tony based on what Tony does say about his childhood, and yet, the films kind of randomly give Howard weird moments of “Well, he tried his best and deep down he loved me the whole time!” forgiveness. MCU has a Howard kink and I'm very cringe-face emoji about it.

For example, Iron Man 2 shows that old film reel of Howard talking about how Tony is the greatest thing he ever created, and in Endgame, when Tony goes back in time, he meets Howard and has a very weird interaction with him in which Howard declares he would do anything for his son, (to his deeply damaged son who is a new father himself.) Yet, for all his talk, it's his actions that speak, and his actions left Tony damaged, traumatized, and emotionally inept at forming healthy relationships. So.

Sorry. I’m a little bitter. I'm just uncomfortable with how they sort of set up an abuse history but then treated it kind of lightly and Howard gets off the hook as "well, he tried his best" without really acknowledging the hurt he caused.

Avengers: Endgame 2019

I won't go super in depth into the abuse stuff because it's a little touchy and could take up a lot of this post. But.

I’m not against any reconciliation and I do appreciate the fact that a lot of times, victims of abuse feel a desire to forgive and reconnect with their abuser-- my issue with the MCU depiction of Tony and Howard is that Tony never really gets the vindication of his abuse being recognized for what it was before he forgives Howard. To me, that’s not forgiveness as kind of... gaslighting himself that it wasn't as bad as he remembered his own experience being, because of a sense of nostalgia and grief. It’s not the same, and I have issues with it.

However, a lot of my opinion is based on subtext and it is just my opinion; with depictions of abuse, different people are going to react differently, and other people may have found these scenes touching and gotten something positive out of them, and that's totally fine too!

It’s also a bit difficult to talk about Tony’s relationship with Howard in 616, for a few reasons: shifting timelines, lots of canon that I have not read all of, and the fact that it really is difficult to sum up such a complicated relationship.

Right off the bat, I’ll address the basics. I used the same scene in another ask, and I think it's frequently cited in any meta regarding Howard, but in Iron Man Vol. 1, we see more into Tony’s childhood and see Howard verbally abusing his family, drunk, at the dinner table.

Iron Man Vol. 1 #285

We get this scene with adult Tony’s retrospective commentary on how his own issues that he blamed himself for were actually a cycle starting with his father, the insecurity and abuse and alcohol, and that he realizes how much this has influenced him. Both MCU Tony and 616 Tony have some form of “stop the cycle of shame” arcs, but I don’t really see how this works narratively in the MCU because Tony makes excuses for Howard and continues to blame himself for a lot of his own personal struggles, whereas I think there’s just a bit more nuance in 616.

But uh. This isn’t totally true, and in recent years, things got real weird. I choose to ignore this chapter of canon, but in the Dan Slott run, Tony Stark: Iron Man, Tony’s whole backstory gets imploded. For one thing, the little of Tony’s childhood it shows in a flashback is uh. Uh. Well, it’s certainly out of character compared with previous 616 material, depicting Tony as an overly confident poor sport.

Basically, Tony is adopted. Tony has an evil brother. Tony’s biological parents make an appearance, as do his ‘classic’ parents, Howard and Maria. It’s just weird. It’s kind of out there. I’m honestly not a huge fan of this and ignore a lot of it, but it is certainly a difference between MCU and 616.

3. Personality

I’m going to be very general. Both Tony’s have an outer self which they present to the public and an inner self, but they’re a bit different. Both Tony’s have struggled with self loathing, but I think MCU Tony’s actual self worth is a bit higher, even just at some points in time. Even if his ego is part of his facade, I think he does believe some amount of the “I’m awesome”, even if just when it applies to his own work/inventions/saving people. Not to say that these moments of fluctuating self esteem make him egotistical, but this combined with his egotistical act and snarky, non-stop sassy dialogue, he’s quite different in general personality from 616 Tony, who is much more reserved.

Some more recent iterations of 616 Tony have been adapted to reflect the snark of the MCU, but he’s not so snarky and he tends to approach things more seriously. This is not a dis on MCU Tony; I think MCU Tony uses false ego and excessive sassy jokes as a means to deflect and control, which I think is very interesting and it’s nice to see this explored more in depth in fic where you get to see the thought process behind the bravado. MCU Tony is a partier, a good times guy, especially during Iron Man 2, in which he really does disregard consequences to have fun (driving his race car, partying drunk in his suit, letting pretty girls play with the armor, shooting off repulsor blasts for fun in a crowded room); I’m not bashing MCU Tony-- I think he had psychologically understandable reasons for behaving this way, the man was dying-- but 616 Tony really doesn’t act this way generally, and I think it’s a personality difference more than a difference of one being “better.”

616 Tony handles his stress differently, and they just have different psychological patterns, I think. I’m coming up kind of blank trying to think of a good comparable 616 arc, (sorry, I’m brain dead) but a less-than-perfect example might be Tony’s brain delete arc; he’s “dying”, like in Iron Man 2 he knows his expiration date, (circumstances are quite a bit different), but he throws himself more into work, into a cause, and as he really fall apart, we see him spiral into self doubt, remorse, fear, and insecurity, sort of falling into himself with lots of manly tears and calling himself pathetic.

(Some things happen in this arc that a lot of people find Gross. I also find these events gross. But. I don’t count the sex in “World’s Most Wanted” as partying to cope with personal mortality, because I think both character involved are in “end of the world” mode, and it’s more seeking intimacy for comfort than partying to numb the hurt. Does this distinction make sense? No? Perfect, moving on.) 616 Tony is generally much more humble.

Whereas MCU Tony, I think, tries to outrun those feelings via parties or making dozens of new suits, or seeking comfort by comforting others! Gifting things to people, building things for people, highly personalized individual living quarters, teaching Nebula games and trying to show her a fun time when they were in peril together.

They have some traits in common, for sure! But canon being inconsistent both in the MCU and in 616, my observations aren’t the rule, because I’m kind of cherry picking and going based on limited memory. But off the top of my head, they’re both extravagant gift givers! Recall Tony gifting Pepper the giant bunny in Iron Man 3, and compare this with Tony carrying a mile high pile of Christmas gifts after shopping with Rumiko in Iron Man Vol. #3.

I would say that while both Tony Starks are considered humanitarians, this is much more fleshed out and supported by canon in 616. Some examples of his philanthropy in the MCU: Tony makes charitable donations of art and money, Tony has an organization which provides disaster relief/cleanup which is referenced in Spider-Man Homecoming, Tony has an MIT grant for students and staff members. But to be honest, a lot of his MCU philanthropy is only mentioned in passing, or is largely handled by other people on his behalf and on his dollar.

In 616, we see Tony using charity almost as a means of therapy: it’s something he does very privately, not in the public eye (at least, not always), and it’s something deeply personal to him. One example that immediately comes to mind is Tony’s home for disadvantaged girls in Iron Man Vol. 3, and we see scenes of Tony basically driving the streets at night, picking up underage prostitutes, feeding them and listening to their stories before bringing them to a home he’s established where he knows all the residents, and provides educational opportunities and protection.

Another more recent example in canon that the Tony fandom loves is that Tony canonically holds babies at an orphanage. Sorry I don’t have panels for all of this, this section got long and I have been working on answering this ask in a very scattered way for a very long time.

Both Tony’s are romantics, I literally could write a whole other post about their canon love life similarities and differences, but I will briefly say that while MCU Tony does the long on and off, and eventual ultimate commitment, to Pepper Potts, 616 Tony is a serial monogamist; he is always falling in love, and he’s definitely not a playboy, but the hero-ing, self loathing, and lifestyle make it very hard for him to keep anyone in his life, and most of his partners fuck his life up and betray him. Needless to say, 616 Tony is not married, and certainly not to Pepper Potts.

Oh, and I guess this is so obvious I almost forgot to include it, but a huge similarity between both iterations of Tony is that they both constantly use their own life as a bargaining chip, and will pretty much die for anything. Or be the bad guy for a good reason (at least, in his own mind... see Civil War, or Hickmanvengers; 616 Tony, especially, does not shy away from making the hard decisions, and this leads to a lot of guilt and tension in his relationships-- often with Steve because 616 Steve/Tony angst fans are well fed, I guess)

Remember that time Tony had Steve’s mind wiped because Tony felt that Steve’s inflexible morality might hinder the Illuminati’s ability to save the world? And it eats Tony up inside and erupts into a homicidal fight when Steve finally gets his memory back? Me too.

Tony Stark as a character is defined by sacrifice, both of his own life but also of his own happiness and reputation and conscience, I think, in a lot of ways, and we see this in many universes. I could go on about Tony’s propensity for sacrifice in the less obvious ways, because I think in terms of heroic sacrifice, Tony has done a lot that other heroes wouldn’t be able to do because of moral inflexibility and conflicting philosophical schools of thought; Tony really is the “whatever it takes” type, and often believes the ends justify the means if he deems a threat worse than the potential wrong that could be done in preventing the threat. We see this a little bit in the MCU in the creation of Ultron, and in Civil War with the Accords. But there’s a whole lot more going on there I don’t want to get into.

4. Alcohol

MCU Tony’s alcoholism is never really explicitly explored. He is shown drinking in Iron Man 1, and in Iron Man 2 he drinks a lot and makes a fool of himself publicly, but MCU Tony doesn’t get any specific narrative arc focused on his drinking, and if I recall correctly, I don’t think he ever refers to his drinking as alcoholism in the movies? Also, while his binge drinking and embarrassing behaviors ostensibly stop after the events of Iron Man 2, he is shown drinking on screen at least one other time after that which I can remember, and it wasn’t a “falling off the wagon” moment, and an alcoholic in recovery such as 616 Tony would not take a drink casually. This article sheds a little light on some decisions made about Tony and alcohol in the MCU.

Alcoholism is a huge part of 616 Tony’s personality, which I went a bit more into depth about in this post, so I won’t repeat myself too much.

5. Their relationships with the Iron Man armor

A few points here: MCU Tony is famous for the “I am Iron Man” line being repeated throughout the franchise after he blows his own secret in the end of the first movie. MCU Tony sees himself as one with Iron Man, and the suit is the tech that enables him to be this version of himself. He sees Tony Stark and Iron Man as inextricable: you cannot separate them, and his identity is public. He, as Tony Stark, is an Avenger.

You may remember MCU Tony’s induction into the Avengers; in Iron Man 2, Nick Fury is forming the Avengers and tasks the Black Widow with going undercover to assess Tony to be a part of a hypothetical initiative. “Iron Man yes, Tony Stark no” and the comments about Tony as a narcissist may be funny, but the fact is, the snark and erratic personality of MCU Tony at the time of the formation of the Avengers in the movies is not at all like the Tony of the comics, at the time of the Avengers being formed.

In 616, things are quite a bit different! Tony invents the Iron man armor to save himself (like in the MCU) and uses it for hero-ing, but in secret. He works very hard to protect his identity as Iron Man, and for a long time, as far as the world is concerned, Iron man is a mystery man piloting armor built by Tony, hired as Tony’s personal body guard, (hence the 616 Steve/Tony fandom’s proclivity for identity porn as a trope!) When the Avengers form, Iron Man is the Avenger, close friends with the Avengers, (particularly Steve!) and Tony Stark is just the benefactor of the Avengers, providing them with a place to live and finances with which to operate.

In the very early days, Tony did not have the “reactor” like in the MCU, but his chest plate did keep him alive, leading to some very dramatic shots of Tony charging up using a wall socket, lamenting the plight of a secret hero.

616 Tony, generally, and especially in some of these earlier comics, was quite reserved, rather serious, and very angsty, (in private of course.) He may be wealthy, but speaking generally, he’s much less ostentatious than MCU Tony, less of a show off, less into flashy things and grand gestures. Of course, this isn’t always true in the comics, and some iterations of Tony are more like this than others, but MCU Tony is showier, sillier, and more of a fun-times guy. Any MCU fan would find those panels quite contrary to the Tony Stark you know:

Iron Man 1

Iron Man 2

I think I would say that while MCU Tony sees himself and the Iron Man identity and the armor as all being inextricably connected, we see a bit more compartmentalization with 616 Tony, who pretends that the armor is a whole separate person for years when his identity was private, and we see instances in older and newer comics, in which Tony is uncomfortable with some aspect of himself as Iron Man (for instance, during the second drinking arc, Tony temporarily swears off being Iron Man entirely, or for another example, when Tony is in a comma and Tony AI exists during Secret Empire, Tony “lives” in the Iron Man suit, and I think this could be interpreted as a meta parallel to Steve during this arc; Steve has had some core aspect of his character inverted, Captain America becoming Captain Hydra, so Tony experiences a similar inversion-- Tony Stark and Iron Man are forcibly merged, in a way that Tony seems deeply uncomfortable with, if his digital drinking relapse is any indication. But I digress; sorry for the tangent.)

Okay this post is inexcusable long, and very, very tangential, and I don’t feel like I’ve really covered everything I wanted to. But it has been sitting in my inbox for too long and if I don’t post it now I never will, so I hope this long, rambling thing has been a little bit helpful to you! Thank you so much for asking, I had a lot of fun rambling about this.

If you want to read a similar post, but well written and organized, with other insights, this post by Sineala answers a similar question!

#Anonymous #han reads comics #han meta #meta #iron man #tony stark #616 tony stark #616 #mcu #long post #han speaks #ask #sorry this definitely gets more incomprehensible as it goes on but i have been writing and rewriting and editing and fretting about this #for so long that if i dont just post it i probably never will and i sunk too many hours into it #to throw it away now 😅#abuse tw #abuse #alcoholism tw #alcoholism

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unexpectedreylo · 5 years ago

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How Ben Solo Became A Martyr

If anyone were to pull me into a Hollywood studio office or lunch at some see-and-be-seen L.A.-area restaurant (personally, I like The Ivy) and ask me, a lifelong t.v. and movie viewer, what should show runners, directors, writers, and anyone who has a creative say in a production avoid doing, one thing I would say is, “Don’t unintentionally make a character a martyr.”

I don’t mean the sense of being a martyr in-universe but being a martyr to the audience.

First I should define what I mean by “martyr.” In a Christian sense, it’s a particular kind of saint who suffers and dies a horrible death for his or her faith. In a secular sense it can describe anyone who suffers and/or dies horribly for a cause or that suffering/death calls attention to a matter of injustice. This can also be applied in a more colloquial sense, such as when anyone suffers in some way or tries to use the impression of suffering to elicit sympathy.

If anyone at Lucasfilm is wondering why there’s a tribe of people on social media doing Ben Solo hashtags, making pins, and putting blue butterfly emojis on their handles, I’m here to tell Lucasfilm it’s because you guys made Ben Solo into a martyr to the audience.

First, they made Kylo Ren/Ben Solo Han and Leia’s son/Anakin and Padmé’s grandson. This makes him an easy investment for fans who have loved those characters for decades. The killing Han Solo part might have made a certain segment of longtime fans so angry at Kylo they not only couldn’t forgive him but they didn’t even want him redeemed but others could see how the death clearly affected him which elicits sympathy and compassion.

Second, they got an extremely talented, charismatic actor to play Kylo/Ben. Adam Driver refused to play Kylo as a one-dimensional mustache-twirling killing-machine villain. He added subtlety, nuance, and humanity to the role, all the while captivating the audience. That he’s also sexy didn’t hurt. As bad as Kylo could be, we also see the soft underbelly, the hints of the real Ben Solo hiding behind the persona. He managed to create the kind of hero we’d been hoping to see in the ST within a short amount of time and practically no dialogue. That’s extraordinary. Driver took Kylo as seriously as he takes any other role. He could’ve been making a bunch of other Oscar-nominated movies instead and we all know it. Getting him was a gift and some fans out there think it was ultimately kind of wasted.

Third, if TFA hinted at Kylo’s humanity, Rian Johnson made it entirely the point of Kylo’s arc in TLJ. When Kylo destroyed his helmet, Johnson was able to let Driver go nuts with a script that treated its characters like human beings instead of caricatures. While Kylo was still capable of evil and all-around bad guy-ness, we also saw someone who could be gentle and caring, a tortured young man struggling with deep remorse, a lonely soul who can only find connection with someone who’s supposed to be his enemy, and sometimes, a hero. Those pleading puppy dog eyes and trembling lips did a lot to elicit sympathy from filmgoers. That he’s also sexy didn’t hurt.

Fourth, both the films and ancillary material showed Ben was subjected to abuse and suffered greatly for the mistakes of his elders. Ben was targeted at conception and suffered with voices in his head most of his life. A kitchen droid tried to take him out. His parents were too busy doing whatever to really give him the attention he needed, even though Leia was aware some outside force was after her son. His parents ultimately feared him and his emotional freak outs. Han and Leia shipped him off to Luke’s poor man’s version of Hogwarts, leading to some deep abandonment issues. Luke almost killed him in his sleep. The very popular The Rise of Kylo Ren comics series basically acquitted Ben of everything he supposedly did leading up to his fall. Then Kylo is verbally and physically abused by Snoke. This has created a tremendous amount of sympathy for Ben, especially by those who have struggled with any number of real-world problems. They identified with him. Hollywood as of late has coded a lot of villainous or antihero characters as having mental illness or being neurodiverse or having addiction problems as well as enduring physical and verbal abuse. I get that writers want to enrich these characters and make them relevant to a modern audience and that actors like the challenge in playing them but I also think Hollywood is being a little irresponsible about it. Not only is it potentially stigmatizing it also seldom has a solution to those characters’ arcs other than death. How is someone living with bipolar disorder or autism finding a kindred spirit of sorts in Kylo/Ben going to feel about the constant message that such a life isn’t worth living? Ben just suffers and suffers and suffers and gets nothing for it.

Fifth, we’re presented with material depicting Ben’s youth. Ben, when he’s not getting the stuffing kicked out of him by life, is quite lovable and as a child, adorable. At least with Anakin Skywalker, we’re supposed to appreciate the tragedy of a good person who was loved falling to the Dark Side. With Ben it makes us love him 10x more and at the same time make us even more upset they unceremoniously killed off that darling little moppet who played with butterflies, ran around the house naked, and begged his daddy to come home.

Sixth, it didn’t seem like Ben was sufficiently loved either in the films or by Lucasfilm. Or, to put it this way, whatever gestures Han, Leia, or Luke tried to throw Ben’s way were cases of too little too late. I always wondered why, if Leia knew Snoke was manipulating Ben, she didn’t go out to find the mo-fo and kill him? I would! Leia tries to reach out to Ben in TROS but in the movie it comes off as her distracting him so Rey could inflict a fatal wound. In fact, the weird thing about TROS is it feels like Leia was trying to take out Ben all along: the distraction, ensuring Rey takes up her “Jedi path” which Leia knew full well this would somehow lead to Ben’s death, and finally her disappearing the same time he does. It’s weird! Han tries to save Ben but he’s a muggle who’s no match against his unstable son gifted with magic powers and lightsaber abilities. Luke apologizes in TLJ but never had anything to say to his nephew again. Adding insult to injury, the Blue Ghostie Exposition Scene From Hell establishes Luke and Leia as resigned to Ben’s fate all along, kicking their flesh and blood to the curb for a surrogate more to their liking. It’s horrible! The worst is of course his soulmate barely reacting to his death. In the end nobody cared. He’s like the kid who cleans up his act, gets good grades, gets into a decent college, and his family couldn’t care less. The movie abruptly kills him off and it’s on to cheering and celebrations. Nobody remembers or speaks of Ben and he’s not seen again in any form. Four-five months after the film has come out, there’s no official Ben merchandise or collectibles. It’s like “Ben Solo? Don’t know him.” You just know that every time the Star Wars social media team has to mention him or post something with him in it, they’re muttering under their breath, “Oh God, here it comes again.”

So they got a number of fans to empathize with Kylo/Ben and hope for his redemption as well as a chance at happiness after a lifetime of abuse and suffering, only to kill him off in a sudden and graceless manner. There’s no payoff for Ben or the audience. He’s just...gone. To us it doesn’t seem right. It seems cruel and unjust. But fans are also a tenacious lot so they’re hoping Lucasfilm will realize it made a mistake and correct it. In the meantime, Ben lives on in our fan fics, edits, fan art, and fan merchandise.

#ben solo #ben deserves better #reylo #kylo ren #adam driver

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soyouareandrewdobson · 5 years ago

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The first comic: Maturity or rather the lack thereoff.

Something I commonly saw within the last decade was people arguing that animation has reached a new peak by the amount of quality in storywriting put into them and some even claiming cartoons have become more mature, particularly compared to shows of the 80s and 90s. Dobson too joined the trend and as such made this little comic in 2015 titled “Mature”, in which he argues that cartoons for children are more mature and handle serious subjects better than any media tagged with an r-rating or not following the format of animation.

While I admit that the comic is not the most offensive and insulting thing Dobson has ever created when soapboxing about nerd/american culture, I do think “Mature” actually in composes quite a good insight in how Dobson does not understand concepts of storytelling and overhypes the achievements and merits of children entertainment to a degree that is hurting the “cause”. Which greatly annoys me as a fan of storytelling and animation in general and paints Dobson as incompetent in the field of work (cartoonist, comic writer/artist) he tries to engage in. And I can bring this lack of understanding by Dobson down by just one simple question:

What exactly counts as a mature subject here?

Dobson randomly accuses any form of fiction that is not a children’s cartoon or comic to have no idea how to approach a “mature” subject, but he can’t even give an example of what he defines by this term.

See, for me a mature subject is e.g. an social, emotional or political issue we as humans can correlate to in the real world. Either as a result of personal experience or a bigger picture in our history and culture (such as racism, poverty, existential dreed, personal/emotional growth, any form of oppression etc.) Something that does not only drive a story forward as a source of conflict or a character’s backstory/arc for the sake of entertainment, but may even make us think afterwards.

And as much as I like cartoons, I do not think this is something children cartoons do most of the time.

And before I get accused of thinking cartoons are only something for kids or that a thoughtful story can not be told via the medium of animation, let me put a few things into perspective.

Unlike Dobson, I do not have an educational background in animation. However, I grew up with a lot of cartoons, animated movies and comics from all over the world and thanks to the wonders of the internet read up here and there on the different ages of animation and certain tidbits in what went into the making of certain works of fiction and why they may have been a huge thing in the time periods they emerged in.

As such I know that the medium of animation can be used to not only create “child appropriate” content, but also movies like Barefoot Gen, Fritz the Cat, Felidae, Animal Farm and so on, which tackled themes of social issues, political worldviews and personal/historical tragedies.

Then there is the fact, that depending on the culture, there are very different interpretations in what can be considered “child appropriate” in certain parts of the world and therefore what themes a cartoon may tackle. Like how in European children cartoons such as Alfred J. Quack there was a story arc resembling the rise of Adolf Hitler in power, to tell about the heroes of the show working in the underground against an obvious fascist regime. Or how in certain Japanese children shows the subject of death can be rather common, while in American cartoons just mentioning the word “die” seems a red flag to some studio executives. Lastly, a lot of early animation, (particularly western animation) did not even start off as something targeted primarily at children. Animation started off as a technique to tell a story through “moving pictures” and some of the first animated shorts ever had a huge fanbase of adults and children. “Snow White”, Disney’s first animated movie back in 1933 was a technical marvel at the time. A movie we nowadays mostly consider a children’s movie with a slightly dull story compared to other Disney outings, was back then a risk that earned Disney multiple Oscars and was appreciated more by adults than it was by children, despite being based on a fairy tale. A type of story mostly considered “appropriate” for kids.

What I am trying to say is, that I am aware of how not all children cartoons are the same and can vary in terms of “maturity”. Something I think Dobson can’t, because he also can’t see that there is a huge variety of “children” cartoons.

Despite his background and claims to consider animation an art, Dobson has shown a huge lack of knowledge or admiration for shows/movies that do not fit into the specific mold of “western animation primarily targeted for children and airing on american television”.

And that is not a claim I make half-heartedly. I have done research on the guy, I know how he likes to brag when he considers he found a great cartoon or something interesting. So I find it telling that aside of nostalgia for certain 80s and 90s cartoons we all know, Dobson’s recommendations and taste in shows seems to be primarily focused on just the most recent stuff everybody else likes/a very small pool of rather generic shows. I am not saying he should be contrarian on principal and e.g. dislike Gravity Falls, but he lacks initiative to look out for new and old stuff himself.

I in fact remember when he asked twitter first if he should give Wander over Yonder, one of the best cartoons of the last decade, a chance, cause it seemed he was too chicken to have an opinion on his own.

Then again, weirdly enough, Dobson actually tends to be contrarian for the sake of it, till someone he respects or sucks up to tends to have a different opinion on a show/movie. For example, while he acts like Frozen is a great movie franchise and defends the second movie to the point he becomes anti-feministic when a woman has a different opinion than him on it, he actually gave the first movie a terrible review on deviantart back in 2014. Accusing it of “same face syndrome” and a shame to the name of Disney. Obviously that was also before the hashtag #GiveElsaaGirlfriend became popular and he went so far as to hint he thinks an incest ship with Anna was great. And Legend of Korra? According to first deviantart posts by him garbage. Which was an opinion swiftly changed the moment Korrasami became popular in the fandom by season 3.

The point I want to make with this digression is, that there are a lot of past actions by him hinting on the fact that Dobson kinda despises animation, when it does not fit within a very narrow niche of things he likes. Further indicated by his disdain for “adult” animated shows or hostility towards foreign animation, except the occasional movie by Studio Ghibli for example.

Because of this lack of a bigger picture, I do not think Dobson is aware how in terms of story, cartoons can heavily vary. And when it comes to mature subjects, you can’t really engage with them if you lack a story carrying them in turn. Let’s look again at the comic. What cartoon characters do you see in it, when Dobson talks about how he believes children cartoons “treat these (non-defined) mature subjects with FAR more respect than the hardest “dark, grim and gritty” stories”?

Pinkie Pie from My Little Pony, three main characters of Spongebob, Steven Universe, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Blossom from the Powerpuff Girls and Mickey Mouse. You want my opinion on them? None of them are from any cartoons tackling mature subjects in a huge manner.

However, they are from great shows. (Well, everyone but Steven, but I explain that later.)

See, this is where putting cartoons into perspective within the vast history of animation, comes in handy. Cause looking at them it is undeniable that people put effort into these shows. Effort in the animation and the writing in order to create an entertaining product, decent enough that not only little kids can enjoy it as a mindless distraction, but even older people can find merit in it, thanks to characters with decent personality, good humor, world building and even an engaging story. But all of that doesn’t make these shows or any story necessarily tackle a “mature subject”. Sure, the latest incarnation of My little pony was not as saccharine as its predecessor but rather cartoony as a good 90s show, but that doesn’t mean the new version is the Schindler’s List of animation (excuse the hyperbole). Same for the other cartoons, with Dobson also not acknowledging the fact that Spongebob e.g. had quite some dips in quality over the years (and even made pretty awful jokes about serious subjects such as suicide) or that Steven Universe, while tending to tackle mature subjects for its story (like trauma, war, abuse, self esteem issues, racism, rape and homosexuality) has failed multiple times over its run (even back when this comic was made) to treat these subjects not just as plot and drama points, but also with enough respect within the narrative, to the point a lot of former fans of the show turned their back on it, cause they had enough of the issues they could relate to being simplified and resolved in a cookie cutter manner so Rebeca Sugar could tell a whimsical story about gay space rocks and forgiveness.

Let us not even forget the fact, that while there is a huge number of cartoons with decent writing and value to them (and that those were not only created within the last 10 years or so), there is also just a lot of garbage out there that counts as “kids animation”. Cartoons and movies that were written with not a care in the world and at times outright more mean spirited as some of the stuff Dobson likely hates in life action. Are you telling me those toilet humor driven garbage piles of creativity are mature?

The point I try to make is, Dobson’s GENERAL statement that kids cartoons tackle mature subjects better than other form of media, is factually wrong, because a lot of shows don’t even try to be mature in the first place. Which however does not mean, there aren’t attempts made at being mature or tackle a mature subject.

Growing up with cartoons since the 90s, I saw quite a few cartoons once in a while having episodes with themes to them that were surprisingly “dark”, dramatic or related to issues I and other kids could also see and relate to in the real world. Bullying going out of control, eating disorders, school violence (even school shootings), dealing with the passing of a loved one, to name a few basic ones. Gargoyles and Hey Arnold were two very important cartoons for me in that regard, with Gargoyles showing me how dramatic a good action cartoon could be when compared to other action cartoons at the time (like Ninja Turtles) and Hey Arnold episodes like “Helga on the Couch” giving me a rather somber look into what “therapy” looks like closer to reality, while normally being a show with the slice of life adventures of a kid in the big city.

And I do highly appreciate that nowadays there are more cartoons doing ongoing storyarcs and as a result of actually having more drama to them, adding tension and character development to their plots. Things we did not quite have to the degree we have nowadays back then in the average show. But it is debatable if those things are equal to “mature subjects” such as racism, abuse or trauma. Cause at the end of the day, a lot of kids cartoons tend to only scratch the surface of those things in order to flesh out a plot, instead of making the plot about those issues. Which at times is even for the best if you ask me. Cause we should not forget, these shows and movies are made for kids. And because of their age, a lot of kids lack at times the knowledge and experience in life to properly understand the themes and subjects some people may try to convey with their work. Particularly when you want to tackle subjects such as trauma, abuse and war which lets be honest, a lot of people can’t even comprehend in their complexity as adults. So how are kids supposed to comprehend them? One way, in my opinion, is by simplifying them and turning them into part of a narrative instead of the main focus of the narrative. But that in itself doesn’t always work and can have negative consequences in multiple ways. For example by making the story suddenly non engaging, delivering the subject in such a manner that people can get the wrong message of what you are trying to say or (at worst) simplifying it to such a degree, it becomes outright offensive to others.

A good example that comes to my mind for that would be how Captain Planet back in the 90s tried to tackle the subject of AIDS in one episode. On one hand, considering how the disease was a big deal back then but no one openly talked about it, you kinda have to give credit to Captain Planet to tackle it. On the other hand, is a subject such as a deadly disease that back then was barely researched and killed millions, really something you want to tackle on an overly preachy (but considering whose company produced it, also very hypocritical) kids show, where most of the time the solution to a problem was not even grounded in reality? And spoilers, the episode treated AIDS not even as the big deal it was, but as something the villain would exploit to spread a rumor on the ill kid, because that somehow equaled a chance to pollute the world more. Not really mature, if you ask me.

What all of this ranting is boiling down to, is that Dobson failed to make a case for how kids animation is able to tackle mature subjects, by not putting his opinion in the bigger context of what animation is/can be and what he means by the term “mature theme”. All he did was just indirectly soapbox that he thinks every other form of media is incapable of being about a serious issue, in doing so also insulting the art of storytelling in itself by disregarding anything not expressed in funny pictures specifically made for children or manchildren on tumblr who want to act they are the big boys, cause a cartoon horse made them feel sad.

He did so by making a very weak argument, not being able to present it in a manner that was hard to debunk and by drawing a comic in which everything looks surprisingly lifeless and like the least amount of quality and effort (things I argued can make a great cartoon) was put into it.

Which ironically, is the total opposite, of being mature.

And lastly, can’t believe I have to say that, but Dobson, the Pokemon’s name is Butterfree, not Butterfry. Butterfry is what you get when you make a statue of a Futurama character made out of something you put on your bread.

#comic #my little pony #adobsonartworks #maturity #western animation #steven universe #syac

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mobius-prime · 4 years ago

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222. Sonic the Hedgehog #154

Songoose (Part 2 of 2)

Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: Ron Lim Colors: Jason Jensen

Today's issue is a bit bittersweet. While Karl Bollers hasn't always been the most popular writer, and I've definitely had my fair share of problems with certain aspects of his writing, it's hard to deny the heavy impact he had on the world of the comic. And this just so happens to be his last issue as a writer! That's right, though we've seen various writers come and go, this is the first time we're truly saying goodbye to a head writer. (You might be wondering about Michael Gallagher given his increasingly infrequent involvement with the series, but fear not, he's still got a few more future issues left in 'im.) Apparently he actually had quite a few plans for the storyline and characters post-StH#134, which was a while ago, but for one reason or another these never came to fruition, and never even had a chance to be salvaged for future issues by other writers due to his leaving the comic. So let's dedicate this issue to ol' Karl and the hard work he put into this comic, and appreciate what he brought to the table over the years. Onward!

It's the night of Mina's second concert, and the various Freedom Fighters are positioned at strategic points around and behind the stage and crowd to guard the venue from any more assassination attempts. Mina is pleased with Sonic's involvement in her protection detail, but Ash is considerably less so, and asks to speak to Mina privately before her performance. Sonic initially tries to refuse to leave her side given his duty to her, but when Ash gets in his face about it Mina steps in and tells Sonic she'll be okay to have a quick chat. Sonic reluctantly leaves the dressing room, and Ash confronts Mina about her decision to go through with tonight's concert, as he really feels it's too dangerous. She reiterates her feeling of security with Sonic around, and Ash's feelings of jealousy finally spill out as he details Sonic's perceived failings, including how he (totally unintentionally mind you) broke her heart a year ago by kissing Sally in front of her. He paradoxically refuses to "forgive" Sonic for… not dating Mina, I guess? Which you'd think he'd be pleased about considering that's the only reason he ever got to date her, but she stands firm against his tirade.

Really bad timing on this, Ash. Honestly, though, as abrasive and jealous as Ash can be, he's not wrong at all about his accusations, and in my opinion has every right to feel slighted and upset. He really does seem like a guy who's flawed yet genuinely likable - I mean, put yourself in his shoes (assuming you're not down for open relationships) and tell me you wouldn't feel the exact same way upon seeing your girlfriend routinely eyeing up another guy. Plus, he isn't flaky - notice that despite breaking up with Mina, he explicitly states his intentions to remain as her band manager. A lesser person might have left their ex high and dry out of spite, but despite their disagreement he's still completely ready and willing to help her organize everything she needs to remain a pop star. Careful, Mina, you better remember "Aly's" advice to you from a few issues ago before you let this guy slip through your fingers…

Outside the room, Sonic gets a call from Sally looking for an update, and when he lets slip that he let her stay in her dressing room alone Sally scolds him for not sticking to her like glue, ordering him back into the room to check on her. When he enters he's surprised to see her sitting alone with a sad expression, asking her what's bothering her. You'd think he'd have some clue of what was wrong considering he would have just seen Ash angrily stomping right through the very door he was guarding, but Mina just says she doesn't know how to explain, which Sonic quietly agrees with the sentiment of. She's able to collect herself for her performance, though, and begins by singing another song that definitely feels inspired by her crush on Sonic. However, Eggman's plan to kill her is still moving ahead, and he sends out Heavy and Bomb (well, Bombs, there's a lot of them) to infiltrate the concert crowd once the concert is well underway.

Sonic immediately grabs Mina and pulls her away from the edge of the stage while the rest of the Freedom Fighters rush in to battle the Bombs, something which I find funnier than it should be considering they're, well, bombs, and the best plan for dealing with bombs on legs would usually be to run the hell away from them before they blow up. Nevertheless, they seem to be holding their own by throwing or smacking the Bombs away before they explode, though Ash finds an excuse in the situation to insist once more than Sonic leave so he can protect Mina on his own, even somewhat spitefully pointing out that Mina was fine without Sonic for an entire year before now. Sonic initially refuses, but when Heavy himself arrives, crashing down onto the stage to target Mina directly, Sonic concedes and tells Ash to take her somewhere safe while he fights the robot one on one. At first Sonic teases and trash talks as normal, but when Heavy gives him more trouble than he bargained for he concocts a plan to drill into the earth and bait Heavy into following him, then drill straight into the nearby lake from below. This washes them both out into the open waters, disabling Heavy in the process. I'm not sure exactly how this plan even works, considering we've seen in previous issues that Heavy is waterproof - I mean, did Eggman take out that feature when he rebuilt him? - but either way, it does work, though Sonic falls unconscious once he gets washed out. Man, between his first battle against M in StH#132 and his easy escape from a watery grave in Anti-Mobius just a few issues ago, it really seems like later comic issues like to play fast and loose with the whole "he can't swim" character trait. Sometimes he can detangle himself from tight rope bonds and swim to safety without a problem, and other times he blacks out within scant seconds of touching water, and you never know which one you're gonna get till the plot calls for it. Of course, he's fine after waking up on shore, having been rescued by Bunnie, and the Freedom Fighters tell him that as far as they can tell they disabled or destroyed every Bomb in the area, meaning Mina is safe once more. With the threat ended, Sonic and Mina say goodbye to each other for the night, with Sonic making Mina promise they'll go out for chili dogs sometime soon. However, this wouldn't be a story if something didn't go wrong…

I like to think that this isn't even a case of the Freedom Fighters randomly missing a Bomb, rather being part of Eggman's plan - send in the big, obvious cavalry first to be fought and predictably defeated, then send in one last little Bomb to finish the job once everyone's guard is down. The explosion alerts everyone outside the backstage area, and they rush in to find Mina sobbing over Ash's body. Don't worry, though - when they rush him to the hospital Dr. Quack is able to get him in a stable condition, meaning that though he has a long slow recovery ahead he'll ultimately be fine. Sonic escorts a distraught Mina into Ash's room, where she admits her true feelings to his sleeping form.

I'm surprised that Sonic genuinely seems a little disappointed at their reconciliation, but then again, he and Mina were clearly shown to have some chemistry even before the time skip, though Sonic was obviously drawn more to Sally. It seems that with he and Sally currently being on the outs, and Mina having split from Ash, he had actually considered taking the chance with her - I mean, they did agree to a chili dog date after all - but now that's obviously not happening. Well, maybe the chili dog date is, but not Sonic and Mina becoming an item. What I'm trying to say is, this page has just sunk your Sonic/Mina ship. Fortunately, with this second failure Eggman has decided that trying to kill Mina is too hard and not worth his time, so she should be safe for now. He still finds himself lamenting the loss of his robotic body, however (something that you'd think should be child's play for him to fix considering previously roboticizing himself is literally part of his backstory), finding his current organic body too breakable. The use of that word suddenly makes him pause, having just come up with a new idea… but Karl certainly won't be the one writing about it, as with that final line of dialogue, he's officially completed his time as head writer for the Archie Sonic comics! Sayonara, Karl Bollers - though there were certainly some rough patches, on the whole I enjoyed your work on the comic, and we'll miss ya!

More Than Meets the Eye

Writer/Pencils: Ken Penders Colors: Josh Ray

…though remember, we are still dealing with Penders for a few more issues yet. Since the mission into Megaopolis a couple issues ago, Rotor, Uncle Chuck, Tommy, Tails, and Snively (plus apparently Fiona, for some reason) have all been hard at work studying and trying to understand the nanites. They try blasting them with a ton of electricity, but when that elicits no response from the nanites Tommy worriedly thinks Snively killed them with the zap, though Snively corrects him that biologically speaking, they're not really "alive," nor is anything that Eggman makes. While you may be technically correct from a scientific standpoint, Snively, I think Nicole might have a thing or two to say about your assertion that machines can't be alive…

Well! It seems Tommy was also unconvinced by Snively's words, and his tear splashing down into the nanite goo triggers some kind of reaction, prompting them to rapidly spread out and reach tendrils of themselves towards him. He's understandably a little freaked out and retreats into his shell, but the nanites don't hurt him as they make contact with the shell - in fact, the sensation is ticklish and causes him to start giggling uncontrollably, which must make for a very weird sight as Uncle Chuck reenters the room to investigate the noise. Tommy assures him that he's all right - and then from out of nowhere, his shell sprouts a pair of goddamn wings, because why the hell not?

I initially took issue with this concept due to it being established canon that the nanites can only absorb and reshape non-living matter, whereas turtle shells are definitely living matter, being full of nerve endings and basically being formed from repurposed bone matter from the turtle's ribs and pelvis. However, the above dialogue seems to indicate that they were able to fuse with Tommy's shell anyway by connecting straight into his nervous system. I would guess that after Sonic introduced the nanites to the concept of organic and synthetic coexistence a couple issues ago, they were just waiting for the chance to "study" an organic specimen in their own weird way, and Tommy just happened to end up as their test subject. Chuck and Tommy call everyone else in, where he notes that the nanites seem to react to his thoughts without said thoughts actually controlling the nanites directly. He demonstrates this by thinking vaguely that he wants to go somewhere, prompting a pair of jetpack engines to sprout from his shell and ignite, carrying him straight out of the lab and into the sky above Knothole. The others watch with an odd mixture of bemusement and amusement as the nanites fly Tommy's body in a pattern, using contrails to write "We're just going for a test drive" in the air. Well Tommy, looks like you have a really cool and unique new ability! It'd certainly be interesting to be fused with self-replicating nanomachines that react to your thoughts and wishes by morphing themselves in ways to grant those wishes, especially when they seem to actively like their host.

#nala reads archie sonic preboot #archie sonic #archie sonic preboot #sonic the hedgehog #sth 154 #writer: karl bollers #writer: ken penders #pencils: ron lim #pencils: ken penders #colors: jason jensen #colors: joshua d ray

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digikate813 · 6 years ago

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Fanfiction Writer Appreciation Recs

I’ve seen a bunch of people doing these, and i really wanted to too. I may be late to the party here, but I hope I can point you towards some cool stuff to check out. Most of what I read in the fanfiction circle is Gravity Falls, so this post is mostly just multi chapter fics from the Gravity Falls fandom! I might do one for one-shots, and I’m sorry if I forget any major ones, but this is what immediately comes to mind that I highly recommend.

Stanswap by @orangeoctopi7

Reverse Portal AU at it’s best! The Reverse Portal AU was popular for a while (almost on par with Blind Faith) and a lot of people tried to grab onto the idea, but after all this time, it just seems to have left a lot of incomplete works in it’s wake. That is not the case here. It’s still going, but it shows no sign of stopping until it tells it’s entire story. And this story has been insanely detailed and well executed. Retelling almost the entire series as if Ford was the one taking care of the kids, and the dilemmas he faces with the fact that Stan is stuck on the other side of the portal. Not to mention most of the jokes are on point with something you’d hear in Gravity Falls. The author is someone I am proud to call my friend, and that all started when this fic was recommended to me.

30 Seconds Later by @invisibletinkerer

A pretty recent one that i really hope gets more attention. I’ve seen people do fanart and stuff of Ford being the same age as when he got sucked into the portal, while his home dimension and Stan aged, but I didn’t really see much potential for a full story in that idea. That changes with this fic, which again is still ongoing, but updates fairly regularly. The interactions between the Grunkle Stan we know and love and a Ford who is still fresh from his sleep deprived paranoia days, and still susceptible to Bill’s possession brings so much engaging conflict that i cannot get enough of!

My Demons by @kazriku

An oldie but a goodie. This one is basically a Mystery Trio story that focuses mostly on Stan and Ford, and the first chapter was written before A Tale of Two Stans came out. Adjustments were made after that episode came out, but this fic is very much telling it’s own story on how the Stans became so distant, and the incident that lead to Ford being trapped on the other side of the portal. Filled with mysterious suspense and some entertaining brotherly bonding, even if it hasn’t updated in a while, if we’re talking about fanfics I appreciate, there was no way i couldn’t include this one. It was the first major GF Fanfic I read from the person who would become my first mutual, and chances are this fic lead to me reading all the ones you see here!

By the skin of your teeth by @apathetic-revenant

I didn’t realize just how popular this one was until today, but it deserves it. It’s so good! When Stan gets into his argument with Ford after Ford calls him for the first time in 10 years, he realizes that something's wrong with Ford. He’s very sick and his house is a wreck. There is so much tension and angst in this one as Stan puts the pieces together about what’s been going on with his brother, and Ford continuing to fight what seems like a losing battle. There’s a happy ending, but it takes quite a bit to get there, and it is glorious!

And Then There Were Three by @kalajorn

I’m just going to say it. This is one of my favorite Mystery Trio stories. Ever! With an author who I think really is under the radar in the community. Mystery Trio is probably my favorite AU for Gravity Falls, but depending on who you ask, it either got stronger or weaker once A Tale of Two Stans came out. For me, it only got stronger, and this fic is an excellent example of why. I adore the scenario presented here of how Stan and Ford eventually reunite. How there is some spark of their connection as brothers still there, but there are still forces interfering with that, and using the material from canon to build some great tension. Updates take some time, but i promise you it’s worth it. This story only gets more engaging with each chapter and i’m hoping it’ll stay that way.

A Little Bit Lost by @impishnature

Impish is really a beacon of life for the GF fandom. Regularly producing high quality content of all kinds. I could have put any number of her stories on here. If you miss Gravity Falls, and you want to reminisce about it over a weekend, scroll through her AO3. You’ll find a lot to enjoy. But one of my personal favorites is this compilation of fics surrounding the Feral Ford AU. An AU that vanished as quickly as it arrived. I was even going to write something small on it, but i just never got to it. Anyway, these stories of a paranoid, almost animalistic Ford from what trauma he faced on the other side of the portal is just so powerful. Every idea has a new obstacle. Sometimes it’s comforting. Sometimes it’s heartbreaking. But there’s always something to grab your attention and not let go. I come back to these a lot, and they are always a great read.

I’d also recommend her Mystery Trio fic Phobos, but that one hasn’t updated for a while. But I still really like it so here ya go!

Maybe it’s Not Too Late by @rum-and-shattered-dreams

Why was this one so hard to find? It’s awesome! One of the reasons I’ve dived so deeply into Gravity Falls fanfiction more then any other fandom I’ve been in, is because even after the official shows credits rolled, it still left us with so much potential for what other adventures were out there. And this is one of the best examples of that. It’s a great, insanely engaging post series adventure involving pretty much the entire main cast and the return of the Shapeshifter, with Fiddleford and Ford as the main focus. Yes, it is partly a Ship Fic, which I’m not crazy about, but I don’t really find it distracting. There is so much in this story, and the shipping is just another element of it. And FiddAuthor is one of the ships I tolerate more, so I don’t really mind that much. The rest is just too dang good!!

Better Kept Secret by BadonKaDank

Another one that nearly alluded my radar until a friend mentioned it to me back when it had just completed, and I’m glad they did because this story is AMAZING! Having someone from one of the boys’ past come back for revenge is another premise that was circulating for a while that I freaking adored!! There were a few good pieces of writing out there on this (and even a comic currently going on), but this fic is at the top of the chart for me. Filled with drama, action, intense and suspenseful moments, it’s one that really stuck with me that i can’t believe I almost missed.

Goodnight Stanley by Kitsunesocks

I haven’t seen many people mention this one, and while it may not be the most angst filled story involving the Stan Bros, it’s still a great one. Without giving too much away, while Stan and Ford are getting ready to head back to Gravity Falls, they discover that Bill might not be entirely gone, and that he may be plotting a way to come back right under their noses. Despite how common it is, this is a premise I’ve never been crazy about. I think @thesnadger Axolotl is the only story like this to engage me past the first chapter. Except this one. This is a great adventure of a story. The pacing is excellent and the characters are on point. Some of the most accurate I think I’ve seen in a Gravity Falls fic. I especially appreciate how proactive Dipper and Mabel are in this story. A lot of fics like this tend to push them to the side to make room for the Stans. But this story makes good use of everyone involved. It’s not the most emotionally driven story out there, but it’s one of the most well put together stories I’ve seen in a GF fic.

Blind Faith by @pinesinthewoods

Oh my God! This one! I originally wasn’t going to include this one because I know the author is no longer active in the fandom, but again, appreciation post. And this story deserves to be appreciated no matter what. You all know this AU, where Stan and Ford both wind up on the other side of the portal, and have to face the horrors on the other side together. Blind Faith was already fairly popular at this point, but this story propelled it to something else. Something stronger. Something with depth. Leaving you with chills as you finish every chapter. Aside from My Demons, this is probably the first fanfic I was checking for updates on, daily. This brought many new ideas to the AU that you still see in the occasional new content today, and that is something truly special. This is from yet another author who I am proud to call a friend, and it’s weird to think that back then, I was just a fan of something a lot of other people were. I’m sure most of you have read this one, but if you haven’t, go read it! It’s one of the best out there.

Stanley McGucket by @thelastspeecher

This is the sort of fic I don’t normally care for. Tons of original characters and a lot of shipping. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just not for me. But the premise was just too intriguing to resist. The idea of Stan being offered a job from Fiddleford’s parents and basically becoming an honorary member of the McGucket family is a really endearing premise. And when certain characters reunite or put the pieces together about who they are to each other, it really gets the ball rolling. You’re just waiting to see how everything will turn out, and it’s a pretty great ride. I followed this story and it’s expansions for a while. Then it branched into multiple AUs on it’s own and it just got way too confusing to keep up with the tag. But the main story is still a enjoyable ride from a type of fic that usually doesn’t grab me. But it had an interesting idea that pulled me in, and followed through on it. Welcome to the McGucket Family Tree Stanley

Amnesia by @ducksalive

Okay, yeah. This one isn’t technically a Gravity Falls fic. But I’m really into Ducktales right now and i was running out of Gravity Falls stories. So yeah, I’ve started diving into Ducktales fan fiction. Even wrote one of my own which you should definitely check out. Please? There’s not much out there that’s grabbed me as much as these other stories yet (if anybody knows any good Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera/Gizmoduck stuff out there, let me know), but something about this one had my attention.

I’m one of those people who is immediately intrigued by amnesia stories but the reason most people aren’t is because of how often they can go wrong. So far, that’s not the case here. In this story, Donald is the one with amnesia, and Glomgold finds him and convinces him that he’s his uncle, and that Scrooge is the enemy. From there it’s a race to try and help rescue Donald from a trap he doesn’t even know he’s in. While Donald constantly suffers for it. If you’re the type of person who likes family angst (which chances are you do if you’re a fan of any of the above fics) then you’ll get a kick out of this. Every time you think the family is going to get Donald back, Glomgold manages to snatch him away. And realizing just how far he’s willing to go to keep Scrooge’s nephew on his side is just shocking. This is another story that’s still ongoing, so there’s no telling how this will conclude yet, but at the moment, I am very emotionally invested in this one.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve gotten way more into fanfiction then I ever would have imagined. I never looked twice at it before, but now I’ve been a spectator to many creative stories, the authors of some of my favorites have become some of my closest friends, and I’ve even written a couple myself. I may be late to the actual day, but I hope this shows my appreciation for all the fanfic writers above and a few dozen I’m probably forgetting at the moment.

#fanfiction #reccomendations #gravity falls #ducktales #fanfic #fanfiction appreciation

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dauntless-dragayn · 7 years ago

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Life is Strange fanfiction: All Wounds

HEY ALL, somethin different for today. I will honestly say I don't read tons of fanfic, call me picky or just, see the truth as being i don't have much spare time to read, period so I've never reviewed one. BUT. I really want to call attention to one this time, and what better way to do that then by helping out the author with a review? I don't think people realize how much criticism is worth to writers, even taking the time to type out something small is great. (quick note: this review contains spoilers for Lis and BtS. spoilers for the fic itself will be left to the end) All Wounds by @destiny-smasher is a fic taking place in the Life is Strange universe, almost directly after the 'bae' ending. Throughout, it switches between Max and Chloe's PoVs, however Max is still the main protagonist here. But this is no fluffy feel-good fic (though there is some spots of fluff here and there) it's real and it's painful. It deals with the trauma and emotions that have built up in these women over that fateful week, even their teenage years - stuff that doesn't just magically disappear after the climax. That premise hooked me, because the kind of nitty gritty that often gets ignored in the fandom is exactly what tends to interest me. It actually (minor spoiler!) timeskips after a bit to when they're adults, and when things finally start crashing around their heads .. again. I will say outright, this isn't for the faint of hearted. It's lonnnng, at 3.5 k words, which rivals many novels!! And it deals with PTSD, mental illness, suicidal ideation, and even a certain amount of psychological horror. Themes present in both games definitely come up again. And no, Max and Chloe's relationship isn't without its bumps. Or rather catastrophic crashes. Don't worry, it'll hurt you but patch those wounds up, by the end. see what i did there Truthfully, I tried to read it in a RIDICULOUSLY short time frame for Reasons™ (unrelating to the piece) but just could not. I would continuously find myself compelled to slow down, sink into each sentence, into Max’s head or Chloe’s frustrations. I was living in their world more than mine for a few days. It was great - a piece of fresh writing hasn’t done that to me in a while. I highly recommend taking the time to appreciate this story; it’s ups and downs, romance and time fuckery. If you loved Life is Strange (duh) there’s little reason you wouldn’t love this, too. You can absolutely tell that this is a project woven together of heart and struggle. Art is never easy when you truly care about the outcome and the fact that this took years of the creator's time and attention stuns me. She did all that mind you, for FREE. Not for publishing, not for profit, not for fame. For a fandom she cares about. Serious writing for fandom is tough, because frankly it's not the easiest medium to sell (sell being used nonliterally here of course, and also, this applies outside of fandom too, just especially so in it) I have an INCREDIBLE amount of admiration for creators like her who dive into these characters they love - but did not create! developing them further, taking them in new directions or continuing them on paths they were already set on - and write novel length stories or comics for absolutely nothing. You have thoroughly earned my respect. That’s not to say it’s flawless! Nothing ever is, psh. I do have criticisms here and there, but with those I’ll be more specific, which means they’ll be put under the cut. This is mostly for Destiny-Smasher’s sake, since she is in the process of turning the fic into a visual novel! I’ve read the first few chapters of that too, it’s a cool adaption. So yeah, if ya haven’t read it, please stop here. (Also before you go, check out her girlfriend’s art, I’m in love with that too!!)

SPOILERS BEYOND

Some of these tend to be on the side of minor and nitpicky, I feel, but I'll still go into them. Not trying to be annoying !

Okay so OBVIOUSLY the repetitiveness of certain scenes or conversations was purposeful, and a big part of how you told this story. And that's GREAT I think you used that unusual element well, certainly paying attention to details. There were some times when it felt repetitive in the wrong places though I think, and I guess I mostly mean some conversations. Or sometimes rather than being repetitive they just felt unnecessary as a whole. If I'm remembering correctly sorry its been a little while by now the conversation between Chloe and Steph in the diner before Chloe realizes she can rewind time now felt like that - just unneeded, like if you had cut or shortened it nothing would be lost. I can't think of any more examples right now, but maybe just keep that in mind? In general there are definitely a few filler scenes but I hesitate to condemn that because like I said, this world really breaths and feels genuine, and I think those are part of why. The addition of quotes and especially linked songs was an awesome touch I thought, since ya don't normally get auditory nods like that in writing. There were a few times it broke my immersion but for the most part it was a very appealing layer to your storytelling, so I look forward to seeing that carried out with the adaption. One thing I didn't like much in general were Chloe's pirate dreams in the second half. I understand that there were some important nods and revelations about what was going on in her psyche, not to mention the role of dream weaving being hinted at, but for the most part they just left me pretty confused. As far as inconsistencies, I know you were worried about that, but I really think you're fine? Like other than the stuff involving Before the Storm and what that revealed/changed (which you can't be blamed for because this story was written over yEARS) there was nothing major that I noticed. And considering the utter insanity of the timelines n shit, I'm seriously in awe you kept it relatively smooth. I have a HUGLY less complicated story in the works (no time travel) and I still managed to fuck up the timeline. Moving on. :') I’m embarrassingly forgetful, and that’s all my initial notes on the subject had to say, so I may be missing some things? But yeah, I honestly don’t have much in the negative to say. So let’s talk about THE plot twist. Yes that one. I remember around, chapter 16.4, the idea piecing together in my mind .. the title of the chapter, her behavior, speaking patterns, the fact that yes, this wasn’t a deviation like any of the others, it was in fact the canon divergence of timeline.... hoLY CRAP ITS OTHER MAX SHES REAL AND - yeah I fangirled a bit. (I was freaking so badly about my theory that I was so sure had to be true - and I was right, heh - that I tried to explain it to my dad. Who, FYI, has minimal knowledge on Life is Strange’s plot, and no hope of understanding the convoluted details of the fic thus far. I finally gave up and went back to reading while squealing excitedly over it in my head. And then I shut up because things got dark) Just, gods, the details! That was the most satisfying fucking feeling, seeing all these seemingly little or random things come to be crucial. Things like Max clinging to her reality with the wedding bands on her finger, or like Other Max’s particular personality, from being aggressive and upfront more than Max has ever been, to her freaking sexual behavior. Her having red streaks in her hair to represent both sides to her, the cover of the fic and the visual novel not being a symbolic picture but an actual look at the End of Time and Other Max!! Her falling in love with Stella was definitely a curveball I did not expect, and admittedly I was pRETTY weirded out. Cuz like.. she's engaged to Chloe in the other timeline, and obviously I ship them over anyone else.. I'm not complaining! Just, a very fresh take on Stella and their relationship. Speaking of- it did seem a little strange to me that, after the awkward start to their dating and the mention of how it was going right after, that it never came up again. Obviously things got cut short, but, how was it really working? Did Stella turn out to actually be gay? I interpreted that she was doing it out of a sort of obligation and platonic love for Max, and that she was 1000% straight. Maybe you left that open on purpose? It seemed coded that way, though.. All in all I loved what you did with Other Max. She was an edge of a concept in Life is Strange, in that confrontation scene after the nightmare of episode five - which I loved for its implications - and you took that and RAN with it. So I go in thinking "okay. she's a more literal form of this mental battle Max faces, made so much worse by death shes surrounded by after the storm" And for a while that holds up.. Max finds herself moving on, as a teenager, with Chloe's pushing, and things get better for a while. Great!! Woohoo! Except .. the past will always find you .. especially when that past is yourself ... and not even time travel can keep it away forever. That's the shit you don't see delved into. This power is like, a drug. A limb she's gotten used to and relies on as much as any other. I've never believed she would just, drop it. Does it go away when the storm hits / chloe dies? Maybe, I always thought. But that's so convenient. And without an explanation for why it showed up, we have no basis for why it would go away. And why not use it, Max convinces herself. ‘I must still have the power for a reason.’ Maybe so, and you've certainly grown, Caulfield, but you are still avoiding consequences. You are still a god amongst mortals, but guess what? That immortal facade can only be contained by a human body for so long. Things start crumbling, and as a reader you see the inevitability of all, feel the hopelessness. She's keeping things from Chloe, BIG fucking things, and I want to reach over and grab her by the shoulder and shake her. "CHLOE YOUR GIRLFRIEND IS MINDFUCKED" I literally couldn't breath for a minute when I realized the implications of the car crash scene, where Max says she's been regularly getting lost in time for months. But, no biggie. Quick weed, call, and you’re right back where you should be. Right? Just wipe the blood off your face, no one will notice. Damn. Anyway, enough about that. Remember earlier, when I said 'psychological horror'? Truthfully I don't know if that's the right word for it, or even if its a real thing. But whatever it is, I live for it. People's mind are their own worst enemies, and that bit is ultimately and personally relatable. Max is constantly arguing with herself. But this time, the nightmare - mine, and hers - is creeping into real life. The Other is ripping control from her shaky hands. Its twisting her into someone she never wanted to be - a literal worst version of herself, and, we find out - a real version, just from a different timeline. A broken one. A nonhuman one .. or that's what she says. But as we see this Other raise her voice, and read on in bafflement alongside Max, we get to see that her intentions, aren't necessarily evil. Has she done evil things? Yes. Did Max see her as evil? Yes, and even Chloe did for a while. But the big question I found myself asking, and Chloe eventually challenging is.. is the Other.. still Max? Is the worst reality, the worst view in the mirror, still us? All Wounds says yes. But not to give up hope, far from it - instead that we MUST confront these self made demons, we MUST accept these wounds for them to ever heal. While spurred by a morality grounding near-death experience, that last fight at the End of Time - while a supernatural slew of symbolism, time travel, and dreamscapes - also sung to me of reality. That's what the best fantastical fiction is. Amazing.

To top it all off, the ending chapter was perfect. I'm not gonna lie, I teared up a bit. It felt right, and more importantly, real. Not some overdone fictional fanservice crap. But still the happy ending these women MORE than earned. Through it all, the exploration of characters who didn't probably get what they deserved in LiS (I'm thinking about Victoria, but also Stella and even Joyce..) was really satisfying and ultimately shifted my perception of them.

Honestly, there are so many quotable moments throughout this thing. (I have a ton of screenshots of some on my phone, actually.) But I'll go with .. "You Power isn't what makes you special, Max. Stop worrying about fixing. Focus on being. Yes, even those parts. That's all in the past. All I care about now is the future. And I want to share that future with you."

-Chloe

What you called experimental bullshit, I applaud. So.. Thanks for writing All Wounds.

#Life is Strange #Max Caulfield #Chloe Price #Pricefield #LiS #Life is Strange fanfiction #LiS fanfiction #fanfiction #fanfic #fanfic review #fanfic rec #fanfic reccomendation #All Wounds #destiny-smasher #Before the Storm #my post #ThisDragonisNerdy #hey i had some formatting issues while copying this over to tumblr so uh.. lemme know if thats still an issue!

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archivingspn · 4 years ago

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Nerds and Beyond: “Interview: Robbie Thompson Talks ‘Silk’, ‘Supernatural’, ‘Star Wars’ and More! [EXCLUSIVE]”

(...)

Nerds and Beyond: So, starting with San Diego Comic Con. You were on a panel about shipping at San Diego Comic Con.

Robbie: Yes.

Nerds and Beyond: What role do you think shipping has on the viewer experience and on your writing? And also, who is your OTP?

Robbie: My OTP… I was on a shipping panel in San Diego that my friend Sam put together — Sam Maggs. It was an interesting panel to be on because I am an older human being and shipping is very new to me. I didn’t really know anything about it until I got on a show called Supernatural and joined Twitter. And then I was instantly informed by a lot of people what shipping was.

I think my only real brush with shipping before that was probably the original slash, I guess, which is Kirk and Spock. Which I had heard about as, like, a teenager going to Star Trek conventions. I was like, “Oh, that’s cool. That sounds lovely.” As far as shipping goes, I think I have sort of an antiquated point of view, because when they asked me on that panel, “Who’s your OTP?”, for me it was Dave and Maddie on Moonlighting.

Which has the unfortunate portmanteau– is that how you say it? You’re French, you know. Portmanteau? Is that right?

Nerds and Beyond: Portmanteau.

Robbie: Dave and Maddie would be “Daddy”, which is not that great. Or, it’s great. I don’t know. And then that transferred to Herbert Viola’s character and Agnes DiPesto. Herbert being, of course, played by Curtis Armstrong, who played Metatron on Supernatural.

Nerds and Beyond: Yeah. He’s a phenomenal actor.

Robbie: I was invested in those couples getting together, that was my understanding of shipping. So, as an audience member… I was just talking about this with a Supernatural fan yesterday, because she asked me, “Do you ship characters on Supernatural?” And I don’t. And not really on shows in general. I think the lens that I look through it, as both a fan and sometimes as a writer, is just a little bit different.

And it’s — Again, my point of view is probably a little bit antiquated, I don’t know because people seem really tuned into romance or potential for romance. I feel like every show that comes out now, every scene that happens on a show, people are instantly online with “Make them kiss”, or one of those kind of things. And that’s not always the first lens through which I view a lot of content.

But as a fellow fan and as a writer, what I respond to is people’s passion. And people are passionate about romantic entanglements, or potential romantic entanglements. They’re excited about it and that’s getting them to, you know, talk about the show or create their own fiction or create their own fanfiction. I think that is awesome. I think it’s fantastic. Not that anybody needs my approval, or not that anybody needs my acceptance or anything like that, but I certainly welcome it. I think it’s great. As far as it affecting me as a writer, it doesn’t really affect me at all.

To me, I’m telling a story and I know… I have enough of a, I don’t know if this is the right expression, but an understanding of the audience, especially when I was working on a show like Supernatural, that there are gonna be things I write that people are gonna see in a certain light no matter what story I might be telling.

Nerds and Beyond: Mm-hmm.

Robbie: You know, if you take 24 hours in a day, you watch the 42 minutes of the show, if it’s a network show, and then you spend the rest of the 23 hours in your day engaging in fandom, which isn’t always the text of the show. It’s fan fiction, fan art, long discussions and posts online. I think it can create a really interesting relationship where the audience is in much more control of the narrative from their own standpoint than they have been in the past.

But it does sometimes, I think, create a disconnect. The 42 minutes does not always line up with the other 23 hours. And I hear about it because people are not shy online. We were talking about that the other day — where it’s like, you all aren’t hiding it; it’s on the internet. You’re posting it and sometimes tagging me.

So, I saw a lot of that stuff. But it never affected the writing. You know, I had a story I needed to tell. And it’s also almost impossible for me to react in real time, ‘cause I know in advance what’s going to happen in the story. Again, if I was on a network show like Supernatural, the writing you’re seeing air was done sometimes six months, sometimes a year before you guys would watch it. So when people would comment, “Oh, they listened to what we were saying last week and they made adjustments,” it’s like, no, we wrote that story months ago. I’m glad that you expressed yourself online, and you should — you totally should — but there’s really no way to react in real time. And I don’t think it’s always a good thing to try even if you could. You wanna make sure that you’re telling the story you want to tell.

Nerds and Beyond: Without it being, like, molded by whatever you’re hearing.

Robbie: I like to say that I like to engage with fans because I am a fan myself and I like the dialogue. I like to be able to interact with people. But I like to say that I’m listening, but I’m not taking dictation. And ultimately, I couldn’t even if I wanted to. On a show like Supernatural, I’m also not in charge. I don’t get to make all of the decisions. The feedback is important, but it doesn’t change the week to week. The show is months ahead of you guys. I think a new Supernatural’s on next week. That was probably written in April or May of last year. I would imagine they’re probably, let’s see it’s October? They’re probably nearing the end of the season, I think, just ‘cause it’s a shorter order this year – it’s 20.

I bet you they’re probably on 17 or 18 right now. Somewhere around there. ‘Cause they work really fast. That’s always been a very fast show and a very efficient show. So, yeah, it doesn’t really affect me as a writer. I’ve worked on other things like comics, where I know that people have an expectation of certain relationships and sometimes you will lean on that a little bit. But that’s also just me responding to the text. Like, you know, if I was writing X-Men back when I was a kid, Kitty and Colossus were like a thing, so I could respond to that but I’m also responding as a fan as well.

Nerds and Beyond: Mm-hmm.

Robbie: I guess I ship them, too, by the way. I think shipping is fantastic. I just think I come at it from a different perspective because I’m older. And, I think I engage in fandom in a way that doesn’t match the passion of current fandom. I thought I was a fan of stuff. I thought I was like a big, passionate fan and then I met Supernatural fans and was like, “I am remedial at best.” You know, people will tell me episode number, scenes, frame numbers… all this stuff, and again. I am a diehard Star Wars fan. I love Star Trek. I love Marvel comics and DC comics. But there is a level of fandom that I am not able to reach ‘cause I don’t have the skill set. Like, the skill set amongst specifically Supernatural fans and fandom is incredible high level shit. This is AP all the way, and I’m sort of like in third grade math over here. So, yeah in conclusion, I think I come at it from a slightly different perspective, but no, it never really affected my writing.

Nerds and Beyond: Have you heard of the phrase BrOTP?

Robbie: I have. I think broment is another one I heard. What was the other one….? BrOTP is one. I didn’t know any of these things. Like OT3s I didn’t know.

Nerds and Beyond: Yeah.

Robbie: I didn’t know. I had to look up OTP, I had to look up… I mean, there was a lot of things I had to look up. And I put it into the 200th episode, there was BMs and stuff like that. Internally, we would call them BMs. And I was like, “Uh, that’s kind of gross.”

Nerds and Beyond: Bowel movements.

Robbie: But it was a, you know…

Nerds and Beyond: Broment.

Robbie: And bromance I hadn’t really heard of before. I know that some people are not fans of that phrase.

Nerds and Beyond: Yeah.

Robbie: But, yeah, Supernatural was extremely educational for me as a writer because I was very inexperienced when I joined that staff, but I was also, I think, very inexperienced as a writer interacting online. I like to think I did okay, but I’m sure I made a lot of mistakes along the way and I’m still learning. I am still learning all these phrases.

Nerds and Beyond: We think you did fabulously.

Robbie: I appreciate that. I tried my best.

(...)

Nerds and Beyond: What character have you written that you most identify with?

Robbie: (...)When I was writing Dean, I was trying to relate to his perspective. You know, a guy who is deeply dedicated to family. Sam was probably the one I probably, if you wanted to get Psych 101, probably the character on that show I most related to, just because he’s the youngest of two boys and I’m the youngest of two boys. And he rebelled against his dad, I rebelled against my dad, but they ended up very similar people. I ended up like my dad, which I’m grateful for, because my dad was a fucking rockstar. He was a great dude. I’m not an older brother. My brother is very much like Dean. Just as handsome. But also very protective and also looked up to dad as well, but became his own guy, too, and all that good stuff. So, there was a core part of that show that I really, I thought Kripke baked into the Pilot, that really resonated with me in a very emotional level.

But I wouldn’t say that there’s any one character more than the other. If I had to pick one, I guess it would probably be Sam. There’s a great deal to relate to with Castiel. Again, sort of this outsider. He’s a guy that rebelled against his family in a way that I think we all kind of do. No matter how much you love your family, or not, there’s gonna be a little bit of friction there. I just try to find whatever aspect of them that I can relate to, and then I try to defend their point of view, even if it’s, you know, I wrote on shows with demons and monsters. You gotta defend their points of view. Again, it’s kind of a pretentious answer, but I try to, like actors do, I try to inhabit the character as I’m writing them and be their advocate, and be like, “No, no, no, they would say this, they wouldn’t say this, they wouldn’t do that.” I think if you can find that sort of sweet spot, where you’re kind of advocating for them but not just totally taking dictation or whatever, then I think that you’re in a good spot to steer them in the right direction. (...)

[source]

#2019-Jan #2019:January8 #*CCTOF #*SMT #Robbie Thompson #author: Paulina #Nerds and Beyond

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philcoulsonismyhero · 7 years ago

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Rules: List ten of your favourite characters in ten different fandoms and then tag ten other victims to do the same!

@roguelibrarian did this thing a while ago and I decided to steal it because it looked like fun, and then I promptly saved this post in my drafts and forgot all about it. But then I got tagged by @jimmyfission (thanks!) and it reminded me, so here goes...

This is the first 10 major faves that came to mind rather than a definitive top ten (since my comprehensive favourites list is currently 76 characters long...), but most of these folks rank really highly.

1) Obi-Wan Kenobi (Star Wars)

If you force me to pick a single favourite character, it’ll be Obi-Wan every time. He’s been really important to me ever since I was a kid, and he’s one of a bunch of love-interest-less characters (in the movies, at least...) that I credit with the fact that I’ve never felt insecure over my aroace-ness. Also he was a formative influence on my sense of humour.

2) Phil Coulson (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

(Duh...) As much as I love MCU Captain America, Coulson is my fave by far. He cares about people so much, and I have so much respect for his stubborn insistence on doing the right thing despite SHIELD being full of grey areas. There’s a reason I’ve kept this url even though I moved away from Marvel being my biggest fandom.

3) Remus Lupin (Harry Potter)

(This gif is hilarious.)

I never really had a fave from HP when I was a kid and reading/listening to them for the first time, but I latched onto Lupin as a teenager for Reasons and he’s been an important fave ever since.

4) Aaron Hotchner (Criminal Minds)

You may be noticing that there’s a pattern of my faves being Sad Dads(TM) who are deeply moral and Care A Lot despite being awkward with expressing emotions, and Hotch couldn’t be more my Type if he tried. He’s also lowkey ambiguously autistic (another common trait in my faves) in a way that just makes him even more relatable.

5) Eobard Thawne (DCTV)

I was surprised by how deeply attached to Eobard I became, but it honestly was kind of predictable. He pretended to be the sort of character that I really love, and then revealed himself to be a fascinatingly complex villain who still had a lot of the traits that I liked him for underneath the anger and lack of morals. He’s one of my very few villainous faves.

6) Lin Beifong (Avatar: The Legend of Korra)

Again with the cranky/emotionally constipated law enforcement characters... Lin was actually a rare instance of an archetype I love showing up as a woman, and that endeared her to me instantly. Also she’s a total badass and I am About that.

7) Carol Danvers (Marvel comics/Avengers EMH)

Sure, this is cheating slightly, but the versions of Carol that I love are from different continuities to the MCU so it’s fine. I got fond of Carol thanks to her portrayal in the cartoon ‘Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’, but it was Kelly Sue DeConnick’s Captain Marvel run that made her a really significant fave. She’s a space nerd, her powers are really cool, and her stories have themes of being the best that you can be and reaching for the stars and the power of symbols of hope, and I just love her a lot.

8) Malcolm Reed (Star Trek Enterprise)

I’ve awfully fond of a lot of Star Trek characters, but I think Malcolm slightly edges the rest of them out of the top spot. He’s an awkward, socially useless, self-sacrificing disaster, and his character development allowed him to grow as a person without forcing him out of his comfort zone, and I really appreciated that. (The novels handle his character really well, too.) Plus, I rather enjoyed the fact that the one British guy on the ship full of Americans felt more like the classic Star Trek outsider character than either of the aliens.

9) Steve Jinks (Warehouse 13)

Steve is just a Good Dude, and his friendship with Claudia is one of my very favourite parts of the show. (I’m actually wearing a t-shirt with one of their iconic lines on it right now: “Fool, we are not the B-Team, we’re the second A-Team.”) He’s kind and he’s hopeful but he was allowed to get angry about things, and he had so many good found family moments with the whole Warehouse team. And the scene that shall not be named still breaks my heart to this day even though I know it turns out okay in the end.

10) Roy Mustang (Fullmetal Alchemist)

It took me a while to pin down who my fave from FMAB was because all the characters are wonderful, but really Roy was inevitable. I’m such a sucker for high-minded idealists who are also cranky disasters, and I will never be remotely over the scene where (thanks to a very effective three-way talking down) he draws on the power of friendship in order to pull himself back from the brink of taking murderous revenge.

Okay so the meme said 10 and I was going to leave these two as honourable mentions, but I can’t because I love them too much...

11) Harry Cunningham (Silent Witness)

The thing I love the most about Harry (other than his irrepressible and irreverent sense of humour) is that he’s the Spock of Harry-Nikki-Leo trio, and yet he’s also a character that feels things very strong and cares very deeply. He’s the rational one, the atheist, the one driven primarily by scientific curiosity, and all that comfortably coexists with his temper and his emotions and his big stubborn heart. I’m fairly certain he was my first queer headcanon, too.

12) Richard Poole (Death in Paradise)

Richard is the ultimate relatable, cranky-but-well-meaning, obviously autistic detective. Well, I say obviously. It’s one of those cases where the writers probably didn’t intend for him to be autistic, but managed to write a really well rounded autistic character anyway. I’m pretty certain it took less than an episode for me to become incurably fond of him.

It could not be more obvious that I have a type...

#personal stuff #favourite characters #i got tagged #long post

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pkmnjesus · 7 years ago

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My experience/review watching Pokémon the Movie: I Choose You! in theaters (NO SPOILERS)

The day has finally come...I WAS LOOKING FOWARD TO THIS ALL WEEK! After it was first announced in December 2016 that the 20th Pokémon movie would be paying homage to Ash’s origins, I GOT SUPER EXCITED! I was always updated with the news surrounding this film, and got excited every time new information came out (despite some negative reaction by some fans). You can tell by searching through my blog archive...so I pre-ordered the tickets by September, and got the earliest showing with the best seats in the house!

When the day finally came (which was yesterday lol), I got my good ol’ high school buddy to go with me, who was a fan of Pokémon and the anime. Of course, it was a special premiere day, and had to dress for the occasion by wearing my Ash Kalos hat, and the original Team Rocket shirt.

Now for my thoughts on the movie...is it my favorite out of all Pokémon movies? Nope, but it’s definitely up there! First off let me just say, that THERE ARE SOOOO MANY EASTER EGGS (a.k.a. past anime/movie references) IN THIS MOVIE! When I get the Blu-ray copy for this (hopefully there is one?), I will be going back to multiple scenes pausing so many shots!

Anyway, the movie overall was really awesome and a fun adventure to watch! It was (as advertised) a retelling of Ash’s journey starting out as a Pokémon trainer, and his road to becoming a Pokémon Master. The ultimate goal in this movie was to see Ho-Oh after it left its Rainbow Wing for Ash to pick up. To be honest, I’m not really sure if majority of the movie even takes place in the Kanto region o_O A couple nostalgic scenes were re-done beautifully, and teary :’( Some of those scenes really took me back to my childhood watching the old episodes in my VHS player. It wasn't exactly as portrayed in the canon anime, which makes this alternative universe really interesting to think about Ash’s journey. The most notable thing I would have to say about this movie is Charmander’s development. It’s really surprising how different it is from the disobedient one we knew when it evolved as a Charmeleon. At one point of the movie (I won’t say much), Ash really did something UNCHARACTERISTIC of him that really caught me off guard with his Pokémon and friends. Then again this is an AU, so I shouldn't be surprised if his attitude is not exactly like the character I grew up with. Definitely keep your eyes on it when watching!

One of my favorite parts was definitely towards the climax when Ash was is in this BIZARRE but familiar environment that really didn’t seem to fit when you usually watch Pokémon (you’ll have to see it to find out). Again SO MANY REFERENCES caught my eye during that scene, and it doesn't just apply to Pokémon. But I’m pretty sure what EVERYONE in the theater was shocked about, EVEN ME, was what happened between Ash and Pikachu at the very end of the film...very touching and very cute is all I can say. One final thing I would like to say is THE ENDING + CREDITS SCENE WAS A BLESSING. I WILL NEED TO GIF THOSE WHEN THE DVD COMES OUT (ᗒᗨᗕ)

As for the characters, the main supporting stars take spotlight! Verity and Sorrel...LOVE THEM! A lot of people might say how rushed their characters were rushed, but it was a 90+ minute movie and they could only do so much. Ash is the main star, and most of the story should revolve around him, so I honestly think both they had enough time to show off who they are, and what their purpose is in the film. Besides both of them being from Sinnoh, Sinnoh Confirmed their backstories...OH MY GOD BRO! I may got spoiled beforehand why Verity was traveling alone with her Piplup (this Piplup really gave me a lot of vibes similar to Dawn’s Piplup), but I DID NOT anticipate one of Sorrel’s flashback scenes which pretty much broke everyone’s heart in the cinema including mine (it’s still sad thinking about it ಥ_ಥ). Both have solid goals, although Verity’s seems to be more of a personal issue she wants to avoid. Also you definitely have to pay attention to Verity’s scenes since her personal issue with a certain someone wasn't directly given to the audience nor even Ash and Sorrel...just pay attention to detail 👀 Oh yeah, and if you’re a shipping type of person (multishippers to be exact), there’s definitely some cute scenes that Verity has with her companions ;) It just makes me wish that Verity and Sorrel can be future canon traveling partners because all three have great chemistry in the movie together as friends, even though if it was just for a short period. Their Ho-Oh adventure/journey is what really made them close.

Although Team Rocket’s involvement was very minimal in the movie, and was really there for comic relief background, it made me happy that they didn’t really interfere with the main storyline of Ash’s quest to find Ho-Oh. Ash and Pikachu developed well without their involvement, and writers probably didn’t want to put too much time giving a battle scene with them. Sure, I wish they could be used better, but better have them there than not at all right? They were still lovable as always with their goofy antics shown throughout the movie.

Cross, who served to be the big bad rival in the movie, really proved himself to be a real jerk. He is a bit like Paul, only thing is that Cross is more aggressive with his claims. He’s the type of trainer who is a self-centered brat and believes everything should go his way or else he does things by force. He does share a similarity with Ash though, but I’m not saying what it is since it is a spoiler. He served as the Alolan flavor of this movie since he was the only one carrying Gen. VII Pokémon. On the other hand we have the cute but mysterious new Pokémon, Marshadow that actually plays a bigger role in the movie than what you initially thought of. You’d think it’s just there all the time in the background, but you know something is going on as it lurks everywhere throughout the film.

Now there really isn’t that much to say about Bonjī since he only appears at the later part of the movie. I just wish that the old man had more of a backstory and a reason why he was chasing Ho-Oh all his life. Speaking of which, I was happy that the all of the Legendary Beasts get their big screen spotlight along with Ho-Oh. The other thing I wish was that we get to see what really happened with Ho-Oh in the end since the epic final battle of the movie was a bit questionable.

At the end of the day, me and my friend had such a blast! We even got the promotional TCG card of Ash’s Pikachu (FYI this is a really useful card in competitive play if you play the TCG) We both have A LOT of disagreements when it comes to the Pokémon anime, but both of us really loved and enjoyed the movie. Funny story, there were these 4 girls probably around my age (fangirls to be exact) beside me who were absolutely having a blast watching the movie. They screamed out of joy, shouted when Cross was being an ass, squealed in cute moments, cried in the sad moments, and basically were really into the scenes and characters like singing the Pokémon theme song at the beginning of the movie. Annoying? Yes, but I can’t really blame if they had a good time, and I think that’s the most important thing when you watch things you love with friends to share the moments with (though they probably could have toned it down a bit...I’m sure they were self-aware they were loud). My friend couldn't stand them, but I just tried to distract him with my noise since I didn’t want to ruin the girls’ fun time beside me. Plus I was a bit talkative too in several scenes of the film. Honestly I wanted to shout at the beginning of the movie because I WAS THAT HYPED, but didn’t want to embarrass my friend :p *Shoutout to the girl with the Charmander plush beside me at the AMC Fullerton theater if you’re reading this xD Hope you didn’t get too much tears on your plush from some emotional scenes in the movie (⋟﹏⋞)

The ultimate question is, should you go see this movie?

ABSOLUTELY! If you’re just a casual fan who doesn’t really keep up with the anime or movies after the original, you probably wouldn’t enjoy this movie that much. But I would say still watch it if you really love Pokémon! I count each movie as its own thing because none of them are really canon with the main series storyline. Movie 20 really stands out on its own because of how different it is from the rest, notably Ash’s journey getting a brand new fresh reboot, and the fact that there really isn’t an antagonist here who is trying to “rule the world” by getting an enormous power or whatever. This movie was a celebration of what the series has accomplished over the past 20 years.

However, this is just my opinion, and everyone has different tastes. All I’m saying is that you’ll only know how you truly feel when you see it! If you ask me, the best review of this movie is YOUR REVIEW. And from what I’m seeing, it really makes me happy to hear most of you guys are seeing it in theaters, and saying how much you enjoyed it. Let's support a great movie with a great dub! If you can’t, you can always wait for the DVD release and support them that way! If you want to watch the original Japanese version with English subtitles, be sure to buy the DVD too! Just support any way you can to show your appreciation and love for the Pokémon franchise.

As for my thoughts on spoilers, I will keep that to myself for the time being probably until a couple of weeks after the DVD release...will probably be making some GIFs or reblogging posts about it since I’m always late to the GIF making game LOL! However if you want to chat about it, feel free to message me OR join my Discord server and chat about it with other people who have seen the movie under the spoiler channel: https://discord.gg/mVSgxbp

Welp that was a long post! I’m pretty sure I have some text/grammar errors here, but whatever I’m tired and I want to get this posted already ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ My next long post will probably be my 2017 PokéAni highlights...’til then, PEACE

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ladybuvelle · 8 years ago

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// So yesterday I was in a horrible, horrible mood. I was stressed. Really stressed. And unfortunately that’s kinda common these days. But this ended up being a stress/depression mix where all I wanted to do was lay in bed and stare at the ceiling while rain sounds played on my computer, the lights were low, and I had a fan blowing on me. It was a bad time. I felt lethargic and on the verge of crying every other moment for no explainable reason.

I was like that all day more-or-less. I wanted to draw but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I wanted to hang out with people but I just felt like if I did I’d exhaust myself more. Then the evening came and I was sad I’d done a whole lotta nothing all day.

Then, for no real reason at all, I randomly thought to look up Sona x Yasuo stuff. I do that now and then, since (if you’ve known me long enough) I really like the idea of the ship. I’ve drawn it and written for it a bit, but it’s not a “mainstream” ship so sometimes it feels like I’m the one who owns the tag on Tumblr. But sometimes, sometimes, I’ll find artwork or writing of these two. It’s so, so rare, and often not the “best”, but I still always appreciate seeing it and it never fails to cheer me up when I happen to stumble on something I haven’t seen before.

Last night, I found a fic I’d never seen before. And it changed my fucking life.

I present to you: The Mute and the Wanderer by CarrotFarmer.

From the very first opening line I knew I was in for something special. I laughed for the first time all day. I laughed until I fucking cried. And it only got BETTER the more I read! I was in a call with @communistofzaun at that point and my god we were both gasping for air over certain parts.

And I want to say this upfront; I unironically love it. I love it so much. It’s so silly but so sincere and it’s obvious the author probably isn’t the best or most experienced writer, but god dammit they still tried. They still wrote the story they wanted to write. Some people, professional people, struggle with even that sometimes! I’m only sad that they seem to have forgotten about it because the story’s over a year old now, but god damn does it leave on the strangest cliffhanger.

Favorite highlights include:

Draven banging on Sona’s apartment door begging her to take him back (they were in a relationship months ago but he cheated on her with Miss Fortune. Scandalous!)

Sona finds Yasuo laying face-down on the ground passed out. He gets up and assures her he’s ok. Why he was just laying on the ground like that is never lead up to or explained. I think the author just wanted an excuse for Sona to cry and hug him. It’s adorable.

Zed shows up, goes all Darth Vader on Yasuo and is like “Join me!”, Yasuo says no, Zed kidnaps Sona for no reason.

Yasuo casually rocks up to Syndra’s place, she’s like “Sup? Heard you got a girlfriend!”, Yasuo’s like “lol no but Zed took Sona”, and Syndra proceeds to brow-beat a cowering Zed into giving Sona back. This whole sequence is, again, not explained as to why it happens.

Yasuo’s weird and inconsistent way of speaking. He calls Draven “sir” ffs.

Sona is perfect and beautiful and innocent and can do no wrong and cries at everything (whoa, am I sure I didn’t write this fic?).

Shen constantly showing up and going Batman on Yasuo like “WHERE IS SHE?!”. He stabs Yas at one point.

Yasuo KNOCKING SONA UNCONSCIOUS WITH A PILLOW during an impromptu pillow fight (that passive tho).

This fic gave me life when I was fucking dead. It’s so quotable to me now even after only a day. Just the OPENING LINES ALONE make me laugh so, so much, so I’m going to share them with you:

“When she first met him, she didn’t know what to think. She probably thought he was some kind of drag-queen, because of his ponytail, but then she saw how masculine he was.”

I just want to make a mad-libs version of those two sentences because god damn I was substituting so many words there for other people, and I just... I’m so happy I found this fic.

I was gunna do some sort of meme thing about it, but the more I thought about it the more that seemed disrespectful. The original author was probably trying their best and, as I said, writing the story they wanted to write regardless of what other people thought. I’ve always admired people that do things, even if they aren’t the best of the best at it. You’ll never get better if you don’t try, right? I often browse amateur comics and I’m amazed at the amount of effort I see in a lot of them even when most people would just say “That’s a bad drawing” or “That’s bad writing”. They still put in that effort. They still saw it through. And someday, someone’s bound to stumble on their work and be inspired or have their spirits lifted.

Yeah it’s a silly fanfic, but I happened to find it precisely when I needed it most. And if the writer had never written it I never would have found it. My night could have gone any other way, Maybe I would have found something else to cheer me up. Maybe not. But this is what happened, and I’m still smiling about it the next day.

So if you’re feeling bad about your writing, your artwork, your creative projects - don’t. Just do it. Even if you think it’s bad, just do it. Put it out there. Even if it’s embarrassing or silly or you think it’s dumb, be brave. You will never know just how you’ve changed the world around you, but you will have. And that’s amazing.

#art talk #I love it #I utterly love it

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powerdragonmoon · 8 years ago

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I want to know your Paon! Nathaneäl and Bee! Chloe Headcannons please! I just saw that you had a hand in Kara's beautiful PaonBee kiss. Also, I'd love to see Chloenath drabbles or anything too. I'll try to comment on your stories ASAP!!

FIRST OF ALL!, **pets head** thank you for initially requesting the great @karawek in the first place with that Paon!Nathanael and Bee!Chloe ask, because look at what beautifulness it gave us all!!! ^__^ i seriously never really entertained the idea of Le Paon!Nath but look how dapper and smooth he looks!?!?! amazing

And I’m so happy you’re asking about our headcannons… my overall ship name for the this ChloNath hatessquare is Buzzkill so that’s the name of the fic… I’m about half way through a first chapter for it but I’ll share some of the notes I got going on!! I’ll tag you once i post the first chapter!

Cracks knuckles… so if you’re interested this is a-not-so-brief summary of our headcannons thus far … you can read them (there are some spoilers for the fic I’m writing) but if you want to wait for a fic THAT’LL TAKE ME FOREVER TO WRITE or get a head start on everything… it’s your choice :D also if you have any ideas or thoughts send them to me and we can edit this for sure:

Buzzkill - A Summary

This is an aged up AU, kids arein final year of school

Over the years, Hawkmoth hasbeen fighting Ladybug and Chat Noir… to similar lack of success as we’ve seenof him so far

Desperate, Hawkmoth decides thathe needs to change up his strategy maybe??? and looks to enlist in getting somehelp in dealing with LB and CN

He starts to look at possiblepeople that could take on the peacock miraculous – someone weak andcontrollable, that he can manipulate to help him, because of cause he’ll needthe miraculous back once he has his wife back

Looks through his mostsuccessful akumas

Volpina- his obvious firstchoice, she hates Ladybug, thereforewould probably be very motivated in his mission. However one fear in giving herthe peacock miraculous, that worries Hawkmoth, is that she would must likelybecome overly attached to the power, and Hawkmoth needs someone he can control,Lila is too unpredictable and unstable.

Dark Blade – almost successful,but as a politician, public figure, and adult, would probably be difficult tocontrol

Lady Wifi – super OP, but tooattached to Ladybug.

Puppetteer – nah, a kid?Probably wouldn’t make the best henchmen

The Bubbler – no, can’t standthat kid -___- probably wouldn’t take instruction well either… toorebellious

Mr. Pigeon – just no. That guywas weird

etc, etc, etc… he goes throughlots of past victims… no one seems right for the situation and also needssomeone who can wield the peacock miraculous, so they need to have that certainje ne sais quoi? a creative mind and big heart.

Suddenly Hawkmoth senses thenegative feelings of someone in the city

It’s Nathanael … poor boy is having a bad day/week/life

He’s pretty sure his old crush,Marinette, is in love with Adrien Agreste, how can he compete with that?!!?

His life is not going how heenvisions it in his comics and art. In his comics, he’s a hero, he wins theaffections of Marinette, and he stands up to bullies. But in real life he’s shyand introverted, can barely make it through class without sleeping. AND CHLOEIS A BULLY, mean.

Gets rejection letters for artschools he applied to … this is like the last straw, poor boy

SAD. MY TOMATO SON IS SAD ANDNEEDS A HUG

EVILLUSTRATOR, Hawkmoth senseshis negative feelings and is reminded of Evillustrator… sigh… such a promisingakuma, the ability to draw up anything?? an artist only limited by hisimagination?? Could make for an interesting Le Paon…

Not only that, but this boy isvery “weak”, someone that Hawkmoth can easily control and manipulate, and evenbetter he can promise him the chance for power and even then if he must, hecan threaten him via blackmail, what better motivation is there than doingsomething in order to keep a loved one safe (Marinette)

Enter Le Paon!Nathanael Villian

His mission from Hawky: to capture the Ladybug and Chat Noirmiraculouses… Hawkmoth will send out an akuma to distract them, Le Paon will goin for the kill

Basically do as Hawky says, or bad things will happen

Nath is super bummed, but with the miraculous and power, Nathanael slowly gains confidence inhimself, he is re-given the power to bring to life what he draws like when hewas Evillustrator, but now with a magical peacock quill… he hates to admit it, cause he hates Hawkmoth and everything, but he’s enjoying being Le Paon (apart from the whole evil henchman thing)

He starts to question what Hawky’s plans are with the miraculous… he doesn’t know how powerful they are together (Hawk obviously kept the godlike powers tidbit to himself) but Nathanael starts to get intrigued… questions he’s kwami about it

Meanwhile…

Queen Bee!Chloe’s Hero Origin

Chloe finds Bee Comb amongsther mother’s old things (DUN, DUN, DUN!!!!) ????

Wants to join Ladybug and ChatNoir team! SUPER PUMPED, this is like her dream come true!!! LADYBUG IS GOING TO BE HER BEST FRIEND FOR REALS NOW

But every time she goes out tofight an akuma, she runs into some peacock a**hole (huhuhu) who is planning onattacking Ladybug and Chat Noir during akuma attacks

She foils his plan every time,cause she’s awesome

But gets more and morefrustrated though that she can’t manage to meet Ladybug because she’s too busy kickingpeacock boy’s a**

Also struggling with being ahero that’s going unnoticed, and being a good person, her kwami appreciates hersassiness, but scolds her quite a bit for her “stingy” behaviour

So she tries being a better person as both Chloe and Queen Bee, but hold habits die hard

Also I now present to you TheHATESQUARE – (PLS send help, these ship names are just… well, they’re not good guys! >___

Nathchlo (Nathanael//Chloe)

Chloe bullies and makes fun ofNathanael (kinda like how a preschooler pulls the pigtails of the girl helikes, but grown up), Nathanael does not appreciate the treatment, but afterbeing akumatized (the first time), just tries to stay out of Chloe’s way

However, as he gainsconfidence, over time he starts to stand up for himself and others… and Chloeis like “Uhhh, what now?” **internally** “he’s kinda cute’ *___* wait??! what?!?!

In her civilian form�� Chloetries to be nicer… it’s hard. But she starts to become more guilty about all theakumas and hurt she has caused, all the trouble she’s cause Paris, when she always thought of herself as Paris’ Princess, and all the work she’s made for Ladybug

Nathbee (Nathanael//Queen Bee)

Nathanael hates Queen Bee, but in order to hide his identity as LePaon, he tries not to make it obvious… also out of costume he’s not able tofight her, he’s at a disadvantage… but damn if she doesn’t look good in hercostume…

Beon (Queen Bee//Le Paon) OMGPLS I DON’T DO WELL MAKING SHIP NAMES… but uhhhhh, this is the ship we’re allhere for **insert Jason Mamoa gif of him folding out chair to take a seat***

HATE FIGHT HATE FIGHT **angry makeout** HATE, FIGHT (this is theirrelationship in a nutshell)

They fight, they bicker, they border line flirt while trying topunch each other’s face

This is also kind of an exploration of their characters…Chloe,usually the bully is now face to face with a super villain and it scares herthat she sees a bit of herself in this peacock creep… she tries to get him to see that what he’s doing is wrong… why would he want to hurt Ladybug?? be a hero, not Hawkmoth’s pawn!

Le Paon on the other hand, doesn’t see himself as a Hawky’s henchman… over time he realizes that Hawky isn’t even a threat to him… he’s basically just in it now to keep his miraculous, to keep his powers… because for him, he’s a hero…. who’s to say when he gets the ladybug and chat miraculous that he’ll actually give them to Hawkmoth?? and hey maybe he can add a bright shiny comb to his growing collection…

Paochlo (Le Paon//Chloe) … actually no, it’s Cholaon (pronounced Cologne cause for some reason I think that’s the funniest thing ever!)

Le Paon HATES CHLOE and is notafraid to show it

Chloe HATES LE PAON and isdefinitely not afraid to show it

This is like the inversebizzaro version of Marichat

Hope you like it!! Pls send me any thoughts/ideas!!! I’m only half way through ch 1 so changes can easily be made… or other writers can soooo go ahead with whatever awesome idea they have!!

EDIT: We got a first chapter now!! :D posted here on tumblr and also on ao3

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ramblesandmumblesofanerd · 8 years ago

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Transformers IDW: Last Stand of The Wreckers Review

As I continue to read IDW’s Transformers comics, I become all the more impressed by what the writers can do with what they are given. While More Than Meets The Eye certainly gave me a lot to appreciate (as seen in some of my previous entries in this blog), this is only a small portion of the overall story and holds some continuity from previous comics. Case in point, the appearance of the Decepticon madman known as Overlord. To first time readers of IDW’s comic series, while his presence is mysterious considering that he is a Decepticon on a ship mostly populated by Autobots, his power and previous story was all but unknown even when he eventually escaped his prison, as briefly talked about in entry three of the IDW Transformers Review. His story took place in a previous comic taking place years before Rodimus took the helm of the Lost Light, which went by the name of “Transformers: Last Stand of The Wreckers.”

The story starts off in a grim fashion, as the Decepticons are in the middle of conquering Autobot outposts across the galaxy, including the prison complex on Garrus-9, which holds both captured Decepticons and Autobots too dangerous to be in the war. While the Decepticons attack, Overlord makes his first appearance, taking over what was supposed to be a simple “Capture the Base” mission and turning it into a bloodbath...or Energon-bath. Autobots are massacred left and right, leaving a few alive as hostages to be tortured, including future Lost Light crew mate Fortress Maximus, who Overlord personally tortures himself. Fast forward a couple months later, as four Autobots named Ironfist, Pyro, Guzzle and Rotorstorm join a special combat team led by the Autobot triple-changer Springer called “The Wreckers”, as they embark on a mission to reclaim Garrus-9 from the twisted Overlord and his ravenous Decepticons.

The story wastes no time in establishing that the situation these Autobots find themselves in is extremely dangerous. Even the hardback book containing the complete story says (and I couldn’t make this up if I tried) “this is a story about redshirts.” Those of you who are well versed in Star Trek lingo know this means not all of the protagonists are making it out of this mission alive if not in tact. In fact, if you are looking for a comic with as many calm, peaceful and even adorable moments as MTMTE, you will not find it in Last Stand, as almost every page is littered with much more violence and gore than MTMTE will only occasionally provide. You thought you saw the extent of Overlord’s brutality in MTMTE? Oh, no. That was just a sneak peek.

Speaking of the massive murderer, Overlord is a horrifying villain who makes pre-Autobot Megatron look like the most harmless character of the franchise. Towering above friend and foe, gazing down upon them with piercing red eyes and a constant grin, it is quite obvious that Overlord is one of the most insane Decepticons of the fleet who loves his work. Actually, that statement is partially true, as Overlord is one of the few Decepticons who actually deserted the Megatron and his armada, yet still holds his badge with pride. It turns out the brute was what is now known as a “Phase Sixer”, a Decepticon created by Megatron and his scientists, mainly Shockwave, to essentially destroy what was left of the planets the lesser Decepticons had claimed in the name of their leader. The only problem was that Overlord wanted to take part in the earlier phases of Megatron’s Six Stage Infiltration Protocol, not come in right at the end when there was no-one left to murder. So, eager to face an angry Megatron, Overlord deserted the Decepticons, raising hell across the galaxy to lead his former leader to their climactic battle, thus his presence on Garrus-9.

But a villain is not anything without a hero or two to stand up against them. Enter The Wreckers, the Autobots who do the missions no-one else would dare to think about. This group led by the triple-changer Springer, who made his debut in the 1986 animated Transformers movie, is mostly comprised of bots most fans may not have any knowledge of, such as the twins Topspin and Twin Twist and the new recruits mentioned previously. Seriously, most of these B-List characters never made an appearance in IDW’s comics prior to Last Stand. While this would normally not give one a reason to care about these characters, much like how DC Comics’ 2016 film “Suicide Squad” gave us a ton of characters no one really cared who were just there to die, Last Stand takes it’s time to establish character traits and personalities, even if they seem somewhat one dimensional. Pyro wants to be just like his hero Optimus Prime, thus his similar design, Rotorstorm is the comedian with a dark past he tries to laugh away, Guzzle joins to team to face the bot who he blames for the death of his friends, and Ironfist is a munitions inventor who has a fascination with the Wreckers. In spite of these descriptions, I did have fun with these characters and the banter they shared between one another and the more iconic characters like the veteran Kup and the sniper scientist Perceptor. There’s even a human character I enjoyed and certainly wish I knew a little bit more about, Verity Carlo. This girl is incredibly capable of handling herself on the field after dealing with the event in previous stories I unfortunately do not have the context for, clad in special armor made to help her survive on hostile planets and being under the guidance of “Uncle” Magnus, who does make a passing appearance at the beginning of the story. Together, these characters make a colorful roster that you want to become attached to, in spite of how horrifyingly deadly this mission will be.

Speaking of horror, the imagery in this comic quite possibly the most terrifying I have seen in recent Transformer comics. You thought More Than Meets The Eye could be scary with all the catastrophes the crew has endured for over fifty comics? So did I, until Last Stand of The Wreckers came to my attention. I was not exaggerating when I said Overlord turned Garrus-9 into a massacre, as the comic goes out of it’s way to show Autobots being torn apart, brutally murdered or tortured in gruesome manners. Even some of the Wreckers themselves are subjected to sadism perpetrated by Stalker, particularly poor Twin Twist, whose face is torn apart by his captor, much to his twin’s dismay. And believe it or not, that is only the tip of the iceberg as to what nightmare inducing imagery this book of madness provides for any curious readers. So, when I say this series is not for the faint of heart and or stomach, I mean that with an obscene amount of sincerity.

So, the main characters range from iconic to obscure, the villain is absolutely deranged and the imagery he and his fellow Decepticons is just about as obscene if not more so. All this is well and good, but characters and imagery are nothing without a cohesive and alluring story that will keep the reader interested until the end. How does Last Stand of The Wreckers hold up in this regard? The best way I can describe it is a much better version of the previously referenced Suicide Squad film. For one thing, the comic takes it’s time to establish all of the characters rather than just say their name once and then kill them off, actually attempting to get us invested in them. The plot follows this pattern by not playing it’s hand too early, allowing events to build up while dropping hints every so often to develop mystery and suspense. Characters will drop names that bring a chill into the room, certain details once thought superfluous will come into play much later and the variety of flashbacks do provide more to the story and it’s characters than just unnecessary padding. Last Stand is one of those stories that starts off small and escalates higher and higher, feeling very much like a roller coaster ride with various twists and turns which may both amaze and terrify you depending on your point of view.

Last Stand of The Wreckers is, in my honest opinion, a fantastic story that is worth one’s time. While it is certainly less of a space adventure than More Than Meets The Eye, this series does certainly does it’s best to entice readers with a plot that certainly has a lot of weight to it, which is not surprising see as how Last Stand and MTMTE were written by the same two people: Nick Roche and James Roberts. These two men continue to impress me with just how far they can go in terms of writing a story and creating the perfect imagery and tone to go alongside it. This time around they have created a dark, gritty, violent story which features a bunch of B-List Autobots confronting a psychopathic Decepticon head-on to accomplish a goal that might just result in most of them getting killed brutally. The villain is a despicable madman whose only goal is to put on enough of a show to get the attention of his former master, but I did enjoy his work in a strange, sadistic way. That’s not to say I enjoyed him wanting to tear apart the Autobots, disregarding their overall position in the war, as I did like them for what they were: a somewhat expendable, yet fun crew of Wreckers. So, if you are interested in a story that balances violence and character development to varying degrees of success, do try to find a copy wherever possible. Thankfully, you can either purchase a digital copy via iTunes or a physical copy (hardback or paperback) via Amazon, each for reasonable prices, so it should not be too difficult or expensive to find.

In the meantime, Wreck and Rule, TM

Last Stand of The Wreckers and all associated artwork property of IDW Comics and created by Nick Roche, Guido Guidi, John Wycough, Andrew Griffith, Josh Burcham and Joana Lafuente

#transformers last stand of the wreckers #last stand of the wreckers #transformers idw

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krinsbez · 6 years ago

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Book Recommendations: Da Big List, Non-Fiction Edition

(same disclaimer applies)

-The Seven Lives of Colonel Patterson: How an Irish Lion Hunter Led the Jewish Legion to Victory by Denis Brian. A slim biography of Colonel John Henry Patterson, a man who, among other things, led the hunt for not one but TWO man-eating lions, got involved in a scandal that inspired a story by Hemingway, and helped form what eventually evolved into the core of the Israeli Defense Force. -The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires from Nosferatu to Count Chocula by Eric Nuzum. A fun little book in which the author tries to explore vampires in pop culture from every possible angle (at the time; it was written pre-Twilight); he goes on a tour of Transylvania, visits a Dark Shadows con, watches all of Buffy, reads Dracula and Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, plays Vampire: The Masquerade, works as a vampire at a haunted house, makes a noble effort to watch every vampire movie ever made, and more. -Popular Crime: Reflections on the Celebration of Violence by Bill James. A somewhat weightier tome, in which the creator of sabermetrics turns his attention from studying baseball to studying murder, or at least the pop culture appreciation of murder. It's rather more entertaining than you'd expect, and includes lots of good stuff; my favorites are how he explains that it is simultaneously impossible for Lizzie Borden to have murdered her parents AND for anyone else to have done it, and the bit at the end when he suggests a novel approach to prison reform. -The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson. You've probably heard of this one, which explores the efforts to build the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and juxtaposes 'em with the crimes of serial killer H. H. Holmes in the same time and place. -The Golden Age of Quackery by Stuart H. Holbrook. Everything you can ever want to know about the age of patent medicines is in this book. -Sacred Monsters: Mysterious and Mythical Creatures of Scripture, Talmud, and Midrash by Rabbi Natan Slifkin. In this book, banned by several Haredi Rabbis, the author discusses various creatures mentioned in Jewish holy texts that are known not to exist and tries to figure out what it's talking about; was the term for a mundane creature mistranslated? was it a metaphor? or were the Sages of old mistaken? -1920: The Year of the Six Presidents by David Pietrusza. A fascinating look at the US presidential race for 1920, in which, as the title notes, six men who were or would become President were majorly involved. -The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America by David Hadju. A marvelous book that is exactly what is says on the tin. -Gun Guys: A Road Trip by Dan Baum. In which a man who is somehow both a liberal and a gun-lover travels America exploring various facets of American gun culture. As close to an unbiased look on the subject you're liable to get, and fun besides. -Triumph in a White Suburb: The Dramatic Story of Teaneck, N.J., the First Town in the Nation to Vote for Integrated Schools by Reginald G. Damerell. Exactly what it says on the tin. Admission; I have family in Teaneck (though they moved in much later), so my enjoyment of the book may have been skewed. -Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris by David King. As it says, the tale of a serial killer who used the climate of fear created by the Nazi occupation of Paris to lure his victims and cover up his crimes, and afterwards tried to escape justice by claiming to be a resistance fighter. -The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century by Edward Dolnick. The tale of Dutch art forger Hans van Meegren, who's counterfeit Vermeers were only exposed when he was put on trial for selling one to Goering. -Operation Mincemeat: The True Spy Story That Changed the Course of WWII by Ben Macintyre. The story of how British Intelligence used a corpse to convince the Nazis that the Allies were planning to invade Sardinia instead of Sicily. -Charlemagne's Tablecloth: A Piquant History of Feasting by Nichola Fletcher. As the subtitle suggests, this book looks at feasting throughout history, exploring not only what people of different times and places chose to ate when they feasted and why, but the cultural activities that accompanied the eating. -Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel. Tells the story of the 18th Cenutry quest to create a reliable method of telling time at sea, and of John Harrison, the man whose invention of the chronometer solved the problem. The book was later re-released as The Illustrated Longitude, with a lavish array of photos and such, which is what I read. -Why Did the Chicken Cross the World?: The Epic Saga of the Bird That Powers Civilization by Andrew Lawler. In which the origins of the world's most common barnyard fowl are explored and it's surprisingly powerful impact on history are explicated. -Connections by James Burke. Written as companion to a 1978 TV documentary, this is a marvelous history of science and invention, showing how seemingly disparate discoveries and events led to many of the cornerstones of the modern world. -A. J. Jacobs is a writer for Esquire magazine who will periodically spend a year doing...something, and then write a book about the experience, spiced up with interviews with relevant experts. I've read four of these books; they are vastly better than they have any right to be and I adore them. In order (seriously, read them in order, some of the best stuff is seeing what lifestyle changes stick between stunts), they are The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest To Become the Smartest Person in the World (in which he reads the entire Encyclopedia Britannica); The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest To Follow The Bible As Literally As Possible (the subtitle is fairly self-explanatory); The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life As An Experiment (a collection of shorter stunts, EG the time he impersonated a C-List movie star and crashed the Oscars, a week where he tried to live according to the precepts of Radical Honesty, stuff like that); Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest For Bodily Perfection (where he tries out a bunch of fad diets and exercise regimes and so forth); and It's All Relative: Adventures Up and Down the World's Family Tree (genealogy, the fact that ultimately everyone is related ot everyone else, which fact leads him to attempt to create a "Global Family Reunion") -Moveable Feasts: From Ancient Rome to the 21st Century, the Incredible Journeys of the Food We Eat by Sarah Murray. A collection of essays that explores, of all subjects, the transportation of food. Ranging from ancient Roman amphorae to modern refrigerated shipping containers, and subjects as diverse as the influence of the grain elevators of Buffalo, New York on Bauhaus architecture, the logistics of the Berlin Airlift, and the science of making MREs. -The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food by Jennifer 8 Lee (no, that's not a typo, her middle initial is the number eight). This is another one of those "layman author looks at a particular subject from a wide array of angles" books that I'm so fond of. In this case, as the title suggests, the subject is Chinese food, ranging from investigating the true origins of the fortune cookie and discovering who the hell General Tso was to documenting how running a Chinese restaurant caused one immigrant family to disintegrate and delving into the Great Kosher Duck Scandal of 1989. -Kosher Nation: Why More and More of America's Food Answers To A Higher Authority by Susie Fishkoff. And speaking of Kosher food, that's the subject here. I admit to being somewhat biased for obvious reasons, but this is actually a really interesting subject, and there's a lot of ground here for Fishkoff to cover; the Agriprocessors scandal, the current "kosher revival" in the Reform and Conservative movements, the intersection of Jewish kashrut and Islamic halal, the sometimes surprisingly cutthroat competition between kosher certification agencies, not to mention the nitty-gritty details of being a kashrut supervisor from the Midwest to China. -Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs by Ken Jennings. After achieving national prominence for having the longest winning streak in the history of the game show Jeopardy!, Ken Jennings was naturally paid to write a book about it. Rather than simply produce a memoir of his experience, he decided to explore the world of trivia in general. The result is thoroughly entertaining, and of course introduces one to loads of fascinating, if useless, information. He later went on to write Maphead: Charting the Wide Weird World of Geography Wonks, which is equally entertaining. -Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and A Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human by Grant Morrison. This one's actually a bit difficult to define; it's partially a history of superhero comics, partially the autobiography of an acclaimed comics writer, and partially a somewhat rambling philosophical interrogation of superhero comics. It's great fun AND makes you look at certain aspects of superherodom in new ways. -Storm Kings: The Untold History of America's First Tornado Chasers by Lee Sandlin. This book chronicles the long and twisted path of tornado research. While it starts with the first documented cyclones of colonial America, the bulk of the text is taken up covering the great scientific debates of the early and mid 19th century over the nature of tornadoes. Men long forgotten, such as Espy, Hare, and Redfield are brought back to life, along with their bitter rivalries. Later sections on the efforts of the Army Signal Corps to predicate tornadoes and of the political battles on the nature of weather forecasting are equally fascinating, though are cut somewhat short - I really wish the book lasted a bit longer. Either way, Storm Kings was a truly great look at a little-known facet of history. (NOTE: This review was originally written by Alamo, but I second every word) -The Inventor and the Tycoon: A Gilded Age Murder and the Birth of Moving Pictures by Edward Ball. You've probably heard of the story about how the motion-picture was invented, and how it involved a bet made by the Governor of California on how horses galloped. However, the tale of Eadweard Muybridge, the actual inventor, is often ignored, or glossed over. As one reads this book, the reasons for that become increasingly clear. Ball chronicles the long and twisted journey that brought Muybridge from his native Britain to the wild west, and the then-famous murder he committed. (NOTE: This review was also originally written by Alamo, but again I completely agree) -Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures by Robert K. Wittman. This is an inside look at the FBI's efforts to recover rare pieces of art and antiquities. (NOTE: This one was also one of Alamo's, etc.) -The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore. A fascinating biography of William Moulton Marston, the idiosyncratic creator of the world's most famous superheroine. Really fascinating stuff. -Banquet at Delmonico's: Great Minds, the Gilded Age, and the Triumph of Evolution In America by Barry Werth. The story of how the theory of evolution became accepted a smainstream by the American elite, and the corollary origins of Social Darwinism. -Engines of Change: A History of the American Dream in Fifteen Cars by Paul Ingrassia. Honestly, the subtitle is fairly self-explanatory. -The Great Detective: The Amazing Rise and Immortal Life of Sherlock Holmes by Zach Dundas. This is another one of those "layman author looks at subject from multiple angles" books, that I'm so fond of. Very well written, occasional insightful, and with lots of cool trivia.

#Book Recommendations #Book Recs #Non-Fiction

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