#This is also why I ultimately scrapped my crossover idea

[aquaburst3]

Possibly Super Cursed Thought: One of the things about my and @stormkitty97 fic universes is that "Disney Adjacent" properties exist as TV shows in the TWST universe as well with loads of differences. For example, the show Doctor Who exists in our TWST universe, since it's on Disney+ and is kinda tied with Disney outside of the UK now. However, there are key differences like the Doctor being a different style of changeling fae from that world instead of a time lord from another planet.

What does this have to do with anything? Well, YuGiOh Sevens and some of the other series, including the original, aired on various different Disney channels over the years. That technically means that YuGiOh exists in our TWST universe. Since Land of Black Sands is an analog for Egypt and is usually ruled by cat beastmen, usually lions or black cats, that would mean that Yugi, Atem and Kaiba would all be lion or cat "furries" in their version of the anime. As someone who had YuGiOh as my first fandom, I have no idea what to think of that. Hell, I'm not even sure if that means the Ishtars are beastpeople in their universe, too.

(Then again, this isn't the first time this has happened. In their version of Cardcaptor Sakura, Yukito and Yue are fox beastman while Syaoran and Meiling are grey wolf beastpeople. Which I don't think is too bad, and I can see that.)

[cha-melodius]

🤡, 🎢, and ⛔ for the emoji asks!

🤡 What's a line, scene, or exchange you've written that made you laugh?

I don't know why I was reminded of this recently but this is one that always makes me laugh, mostly the last sentence: "Where did you even get that, the nineteen-seventies? Loki had sneered, the first time he’d seen it. That tie makes you look like an aging hipster. Mobius had not asked how Loki knew what a hipster was, given that he hardly seemed to care about Midgardian trends. He’s also never admitted that he has no idea where he got the suit, only that he likes it no matter how unfashionable it makes him look. Anyway, once some punk in the Village had yelled ‘dope suit’ at him from across the street, so it couldn’t be all bad." — (From Once in a Lifetime) ... and also, from the same fic, the phrase, "kissed his way across the Mobiusverse." 😂

🎢 Which of your fics would you call your wildest ride?

Oh man. All of my long fics are ultimately rollercoasters. That's just what I do, I love to take people on crazy journeys. That said, I think the single biggest whiplash rollercoaster comes in chapter 5 of Amor Magnus Doctor Est, which has pining and fluff and then some pretty serious angst. I think you could also make a case for the above fic, Once in a Lifetime, because of the twist in the second chapter.

⛔ Do you have a fic you started, but scrapped?

I have several. Two crossovers, a couple from old ships/fandoms that I'm never coming back to. I've got one where I like the idea in theory but what I have written feels kinda meh. I, uh. Also might have one that's partially published on AO3 that I set to anonymous because I'll probably never finish. (It's also the only story I've written that I actively hate, lol. It's such a mess. I didn't plan anything and it really, really shows. Hence anonymizing it.) That one I feel the worst about. Pretty sure every writer ends up with a few if you keep at it long enough, though, sometimes ideas just don't pan out or you lose interest.

Thanks for sending these in! (Fic Writer Emoji Asks)

[knxfesck]

Whos your favorite tf character and why

I legit just noticed that I had shit in my inbox (SORRY) but uhm. uhhhhhhhhhhh. hm. This might need a read more.

Out of the more "classic" characters I like starscream because 1) plane 2) villain. I think his character arcs in idw were pretty good overall and even though he's often used for comic relief (esp in g1) I like that he's a villain who doesn't know what he's doing all the time, who's desperate, who's kind of a mess, who keeps making bad decisions and who ultimately has to try and turn his life around himself, and its HARD and he shows that.

ANYWAYS he's not even my main favorite my main favorite character is Drift-formerly-Deadlock and I'm calling him that because I honestly find deadlock more interesting. I find I relate to him a lot in terms of how he sees and navigates the world, the anger that he tries to decide is righteous or not. His patterns of addiction, and especially his comittment to the decepticon cause. If this is what you decided was right and its falling apart what else do you do except go down with the ship? etc etc. Also the way he earns megatrons utmost trust but almost doesn't recognise it? like he's willing to leave whatever isn't working for him behind and megatron has this almost worshipping attachment (which is something I've experienced in relationships).

He's kind of on his own plane of reality and I like that that idea is taken further with his transition into being Drift and redemption. It gets a little muddy here because of Roberts' narrative plans for him that got scrapped but I am. A Huge fan of the whole Who do you have to be to redeem yourself? who are you redeeming yourself to and why? where is the line between the you that you are, the you that you want, and the you that you project so people will see you a certain way?? Can you get lost in becoming better? if you're lying to yourself and everyone else its just delusion right? How do you know you aren't lying if that's all you've ever known? thing.

Drift is so searching, he wants to find a way to make the world right and then he wants to find himself and that's a journey that will never end completely, no matter how agressive or determined he is about it. You finally put down the gun and you take up the sword, and you need to know what's stopping you from going back to bullets when shit gets tough, yk?

His design from drift: empire of stone is one of my favorite designs in tf (even though I'm biased towards deadlock and his fangs and lego block shoulders lol). The crossover part of my brain reaaally likes that he turns into a jdm racecar because. I like those a lot. Speaking of racecars I also find his relationship with rodimus really compelling because of their similarities and differences. I think it would be interesting to have a rodimus in my life. And ofc he's in a gay marriage with ratchet which is pretty cool even if it ascends him to fandom yaoi mischaracterization glory.

Overall I think my attachment to him is probably based more on other people's similar neurotices than on his comics even though I've read 95% of them (shoutout to @weapon-up-wallflower haha). Funnily enough I don't have any drift models or figures but I'm hoping to change that soon.

There are a lot of other characters that make the favorites list that I'd be able to tell you more about if I brushed up on my comic knowledge (cyclonus, sixshot, skywarp & TC, tarn, misfire, brainstorm, etc) but I think this is enough text.

But yeah, thank you for asking and triggering my long lost transformers brainrot :)

⬆️ the empire of stone design I was thinking of bc I'm not a huge fan of his mtmte bbl

and my favorite official art for deadlock

[arctimon]

The Beta Team That Never Was - Fanfiction Corner (BH6 Edition)

So all of this Peni Parker comic talk actually got me thinking about the process of her being included in my fanfiction.

I wish I could tell you it was a long and arduous process, but...

OK, maybe some of it was hard.  But when you have a virtually endless supply of Marvel characters that you can use for possible teammates for Big Hero 6, you have to go with your gut.

We all know that the team will be Robbie, Aspen, Peni, Doreen (eventually), and Kate.  But there were six other candidates that could have been in the mix as well.

And five of them have their emblems here:

These were made before I actually knew how to make hero emblems properly.

Some of them you might recognize.  Some you may not.  But we’re going to go through them all, from left to right.

And to start...it’s really hard to draw tiny hearts.

1.) Riri Williams/Ironheart - Ironically enough, it was around the time that Hiro started chasing Sirque around the town in “Portal Enemy” that I started brainstorming her.  A teenage genius, stuck as to what to make, sees “Captain Cutie” and the chase on the news and gets brainstorming.

Thus, the Power Armor is born.

And she gets so excited that she bolts off to San Fransokyo to show her idol what she’s created.

And then, as per the Big Hero 6 Fanfiction Clause states...shenanigans ensue.

It was an interesting possibility, but the thought of Ironheart was really late into me doing the backstories of the people that I had chosen, so she was pushed aside.  I don’t personally see me revisiting her in the future, but who knows?

2.) Nadia Van Dyne/The Wasp - Back when Karmi had first been pulled out of SFIT, there was a young woman who wanted to recruit her into a special organization.  It was one that brought together the greatest female minds in their fields, and Karmi was on said recruitment list.

The organization?

Genius In action Research Labs, or G.I.R.L. for short.  And it was led by the Wasp’s daughter, Nadia Pym (later changed to Nadia Van Dyne).

Plot-wise, this was probably the person that I got the farthest with, since the story would’ve been more of a focus on Karmi than anyone else.  Also, the idea of writing someone with Bipolar Disorder (which Nadia was confirmed to have in her latest solo run) was intriguing if nothing else.

Unfortunately, it sort of dried up from there.  A lack of a central conflict, uncertainty as to how many of the other girls (Taina, Priya, Shay, and Ying) to have, and how to handle her actual powers stopped it cold.

But seriously, how do you write in the ability to shrink to microscopic size?  That’s not really a thing, even in a world as futuristic as San Fransokyo.

3.) America Chavez/Ms. America - The mere idea of a Superman-esque Latina teenager was enticing, especially because America, in her relatively short comic history, was with the Ultimates and the West Coast Avengers (meaning there was a possible Kate/Hawkeye angle).  Making start-shaped portals was the Silent Sparrow angle, and the all-around badass, headstrong attitude would be the counter to Honey Lemon’s more nurturing personality.

But being from an alternate universe (which has very recently been retconned in the comics in part because she will be appearing in the MCU and Doctor Strange 2), no real villain to play off of, and becoming possibly way too overpowered for the BH6 universe, she was scrapped.

It’s quite a shame.  I really like her in the comics that she’s in.  Perhaps there will be an opportunity for her somewhere down the line...

4.) Alison Blaire/Dazzler - A pop star with light-based powers?

Or better yet, a struggling artist with acoustikinesis?

Her power to convert sound into light was what originally drew me to her.  Something that could be made into a technological ability, unique enough to put a (pardon the pun) spotlight on it.

An actual blonde instead of whatever HL’s hair color is.

Heck, she even has a half-sister named Lois that could have been the antagonist (death tough, destruction waves, and the like).

But she quickly got lost in the fold.  Better ideas (like Kate and Doreen) got more of my brainstorming, and she was eventually given up on.

But funnily enough...

It’s almost like she’s already in the show.

(See, for the people who may be new, one of the many Marvel theories that I’ve touched upon is that High Voltage is actually this universe’s version of Dazzler.  Juniper is Alison and Barb is...well...Barbara London, Alison’s mom).

Hey, @baymaksu​ totally agrees with me kinda sort of.

5.) Cindy Moon/Silk - I knew right from the get-go that I wanted a Spider-person on the beta team.  I also knew that I didn’t want Peter.

No offense to Peter Parker.  He’s fine.  But there’s a billion other Spiders out there, and I wanted someone out of the normal vein of Peter, as well as even Miles and Gwen.

And in came Cindy.

Locked away in The Bunker because of her spider powers manifesting, she was eventually released by Peter and thus began her entrance into the main Marvel world.

Her “unique ability” is her improved Spider-Sense, which Peter has said is even better than his own.  That, plus her other powers, brought her the closest out of anyone to being a member of the Big Hero 6 Beta Team.

As we all know, however, Peni ended up getting the spot over Cindy (for the family angle with Hiro and the giant robot that she pilots).  On the other hand, Cindy would later make her debut in the stinger of the last chapter of Along Came The S.P.I.D.E.R., along with Miles, Anya, and Joey.

Unlike Riri, Nadia, America, and Alison, Cindy and the rest of Peni’s little Spider Society are going to be showing up in future stories.  And if I can get everything in order, they will be starring in their own story set in the Big Hero 6 universe.

Finally, I have no emblem for them, but the honorable mention goes to...

6.) Lunella Lafayette/Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur - Yes, there was a point in time where I was seriously considering putting a nine-year-old super genius and a giant red T-rex into my stories.

Ignoring the giant...”red flag” here, the reason why Luna never made it is the same reason why I haven’t put Rishi in anything yet.  It’s because I don’t really know what to do with supergeniuses that young.  Hiro is at least a teenager and thus has teenager-y problems to fall back on (like puberty and Karmi and all that jazz), but a nine-year-old?  That’s a little too extreme for me.

When I was nine, I was busy playing with sticks in my backyard with my brother, not solving unsolvable puzzles from Bruce Banner.

...All that, and the giant dinosaur.

But hey, at least Disney is jumping on the MG/DD train.  That’s good to see.

Crossover potential, perhaps?

P.S. - As I was finishing putting this post together, it occurred to me that I may get this possible question in the comments, so I’m going to head it off at the pass.

“You know that all of your possible superheroes are girls, right?”

First of all...sexist.

Second of all...true.

That was about 90% on accident.  The actual team (Robbie, Aspen, Peni, Doreen, and Kate) has only one guy on it (two if you count Eli, three if you count Tippy-Toe).

I don’t really have a good explanation for that.  I like all superheroes, but I think that the girl and woman superheroes need some spotlight, you know?  I could have pulled people like Namor or Miles or the male Hawkeye into the mix, but to be honest, I find the characters I chose more interesting than a lot of the guy characters I was contemplating.

Of course, nothing is stopping any of you from using those characters in your stories.  Be my guest, not that you really need my permission or anything.

But you can’t take Aspen.  Aspen is mine. (Spoiler: Aspen is not mine.)

[definitely-not-karen]

My unnecessary and irrelevant reviews about the transformers media I have consumed.

Please let me have this. I was doom scrolling and transformers is my comfort fandom.

G1: I have not watched all of it, I do plan on doing so but I did watch it when I was younger and does invoke nostolgia. I watched it on Teletoon Retro (does that even exist anymore?) ((just googled it, rip teletoon retro)). For some reason I really like the episode The Ultimate Weapon. I am a huge fan of First Aid and it was because of this episode and I have no idea why. Rodimus is the main character of that episode with First Aid just having a very prominent role in the side story of that episode. I really liked the Aerialbots and their storyline with the time traveling and the not knowing if they’re on the right side was really cool. Honestly the animation errors and weird inconsistent story are part of the charm I guess.

RID 2001: another show I’ve only seen tidbits of. I watched this one via random episodes illegally uploaded to YouTube in the early to mid 2010s and now all those videos are taken down. As a lover of camp, this is camp. I love it. Transformers as a concept is pretty camp (which is why I adore it) and I definitely will watch all of this one day. Though Sideburn is cool and all, I do wish he didn’t chase a red sports car every episode. Otherwise he’s one of my favourites cause himbo rights I guess.

Transformers IDW 2005: So... I read the entirety of the idw comics purely because I found out Thundercracker was a screenplay writer and I wanted to read the entire story so I got the complete context of his development from scary fighter jet to an Oscar winner. I was not disappointed, I was met with queer and trans representation of all sorts, a diverse storyline with action filled parts, comedy elements, slice of life, political drama, adventure, horror, and the best road trip through space. Honestly I was not expecting transformers of all things to have queerness represented so casually and quite well in my opinion (though technically they are guilty of bury your gays, I don’t count it cause there was a clear reason for that death) Thundercracker was marked as one of my favourites cause of this series. I did experience a wonderful story because I wanted to see how he got his happy ending. My biggest criticism of idw transformers is that I love their interpretations of characters and sadly I know I’ll probably never get to seen them like that again. But if I want to experience those characters like that, I’ll just re read it I guess.

Transformers Animated: I have watched the entirety of this great show twice and it still love it. Funny characters, a human character that has a purpose, and a fun change to the formula, Transformers Animated has one of my favourite Optimus and made a Bumblebee so lovably loud they had to take away his voice so he wouldn’t become too powerful. Loved all of the characters except the human villains, Headmaster did not age well and I wasn’t in love with Ratchet’s design but his personality more than made up for it. If you want more animated, I love Transformers ReAnimated the void is filled by that series and channel. While I wish it got another season, it’s ending was satisfying enough I guess.

Transformers Prime: Smokescreen is great and was underutilizes -100/10. Just kidding, kind of I really enjoyed Prime. I’ve only watched through it completely once cause when I was a child I did not like the designs since apparently as a child I was a G1 loyalist I guess. Though now Prime has one of my favourite styles that still holds up today. Dramatic story with actual character development, I can over look that the plots a tad slow. I wish Breakdown was utilized more and it also could have benefited from an extra season but the movie wrapped it up much better than animated’s ending. Knockout is an amazing character and I was spoiled while I was watching it that he turns Autobot though I didn’t realize that wasn’t until the literal end of the series. Would’ve like a completely fleshed out Breakdown and Knockout or at least Knockout redemption arc but there’s always fanfiction I guess.

Robots in Disguise 2015: I didn’t hate it? It definitely helped that I watched this before Prime for some reason. I liked the designs, Sideswipe... himbo rights. Biggest flaw is the lack of character growth. I just want nice things for Sideswipe, Strongarm and Fixit. Grimlock was fun, I like Bumblebee trying to be a good leader and Optimus should have stayed dead. The crossover and referenced to Rescue Bots was fun and Blurr and Sideswipe was the rivalry I didn’t know I needed. But the one I really needed was Smokescreen in there too. The ending arc was interesting though not executed the best and Steeljaw did a lot of the heavy lifting for the villain side to a point where they over utilized him and his character suffered as a result. Windblade was not as bad as people online said she was, splitting the group up into two was stupid cause I’m bitter and still don’t want Optimus there. Also long list of underutilization: Denny and Russel Clay, Jazz, all the characters from prime except Optimus and Bee, Jetfire and Jetstorm, More Rescue bots, and many more! Like that girl that’s Russel’s friend that I literally don’t remember because I’m pretty sure the writers forgot about her! Anyways, in retrospect the show probably wasn’t great but I liked it I guess.

Rescue Bots: This show is way better than it needed to be. I actually love the no Decelticons and war. I’m a sucker for slice of life and especially slice of life with a twist. Human villains that were actually interesting, actual character development, continuity (somewhat), great human characters all while being target for children. I’m so happy I watched this show while I was kind of the target age and rewatching it for the third time was great cause some of the science jargon actually made sense to me. Satisfying ending too and honestly it can just appeal to everyone. Love all four of the main rescue bots and constantly wish they made evergreen designs and toys for them so they could at least make cameos in other transformers media. Sometimes it’s nice to have transformers being wholesome I guess.

Rescue Bots Academy: ... I was not the age democratic for this show and I somehow still liked it? Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been gravitating to more wholesome content due to current events but it was actually good? Love all the students, I do miss the old crew and characters like Doc Green and Frankie are under utilized and the Burns family is almost nowhere to be found :(. Once again there’s some actual character development and Hot Shot’s mentor relationship with Heatwave is super sweet. Also actually having positive post war Decepticon and Autobot relationships in this children’s show? Woah. Biggest issue is like RID 2015; the lack of continuity and characters completely disappearing. Perceptor was fun and I was not expecting him to appear. And I love me some microscope dude. It was a good send off for the aligned continuity I guess.

Cyberverse: ending too soon. I was about to be upset that bumblebee didn’t have his voice but he had his voice in his head which was great. Episodes like the velocitron one was really good and it definitely got better with each season and peaked in the Quintesson arc and then rolled to the cancellation date. Thundercracker shouldn’t have been killed off but I’m very biased. Seeing the rebuilding of Cybertron was cool. Windblade and Bumblebee had a fun relationship. I really liked this iteration of Grimlock. Perceptor was super interesting but then they did nothing with him after the Quintesson arc which was a shame and I would have liked to see better relationships between the Autobots and Decepticons after the team up. Also wholesome Whirl was fun. Honestly this needed one more season so bad. I just think it could have been great if it got one. But it’s still good I guess.

War for Cybertron: ...let’s see how I feel after Kingdom comes out but right now, meh. For me my favourite transformers characters usually end up being side characters due to me wishing they had more screen time so in this case, Red Alert is great please show me more of Red Alert. I get what all the people are saying about the voice acting and whatever but I can look past it (though please give us Peter Cullen or let the current VC make his own Optimus voice). But one thing is that all the YouTube reviewers be saying that I completely agree with is that it’s dark. Like lighting wise. I occasionally had trouble making out what was happening because it was dark. Honestly my biggest issue isn’t a fault of the show. I like development of multiple characters to be shown so I can fall in love with a multitude of characters but due to short seasons, it makes sense to focus in completely on one character at a time. Siege in my opinion at least let me see more of the background characters rather than Earthrise but I’d probably like Earthwise more if I was a bigger fan of Optimus. I’m going to watch Kingdom but I’m not expecting to be wowed I guess.

In conclusion, I should watch Beast Wars, I’m going to re read the ending of Lost Light again and revel in the melancholic ending I adore and I really like Thundercracker and First Aid. One great thing about transformers and other franchises that have been around for awhile, if you don’t like the current thing, there’s plenty of last media and you probably won’t need to wait too long for the next piece of media you’ll hopefully like.

Please be good idw 2019, I’ve read a bit of you and I have a scrap of hope. Oh please please please be good. Give some characters the Thundercracker treatment.

[gems-of-lirema]

What were they thinking? For Guzma, AZ and Lysandre ((also hi friendo!!))

What were they thinking!? (Currently accepting)

❤️ ...I headcanoned AZ to be raised by Pearl from Steven Universe after his mom passed away. As a result, the Ultimate Weapon incorporated a bit of Gem technology that was stolen by Pearl. While the main verse involves a lot of crossovers, it seemed pretty random to have this as a headcanon, and since I’m no longer into Steven Universe, this was quickly scrapped. Instead, AZ was raised by no one but the maids and teachers in his kingdom, living a luxurious but empty life indeed...

🖤 As I look back, one of the main reasons why I have issues with the main verse is because I wrote Guzma as an alcoholic. I don’t really think it’s beneficial towards his character, other than to make him appear more thug/gangsta, and I noticed that in my writing, it was kinda forced, as if everything Guzma did all stemmed down to an addiction. I don’t want something so powerful to be a central point to his character when there are plenty of other things that contribute to his behavior (i.e. bad parenting, strong ambition, the need for affection/validation from others), so that’s why I scrapped it.

💔 This isn’t really a scrapped idea, but more of a...future plan/rp wishlist? I don’t want Lysandre to be depressed forever, and at some point he does get a complete makeover (and by complete I mean “he just learns how to tie his hair and gets better clothes) and changes his life around (as a Pyromaniac/traveling fire breathing performer...probably). The reason I don’t want to RP as a redeemed/positive Lysandre is because I want to write the process of him actually learning from his mistakes and slowly being changed by whoever he interacts with. I try not to make any future plans for characters and leave everything in rp up to chance, but I think our depressing lion deserves a redemption arc, no?

[violethowler]

What the Kingdom Hearts Series Means to Me

Holding the physical copy of Kingdom Hearts III that I pre-ordered and paid extra to have delivered on release day is a surreal experience. It feels like a dream in all honesty. Kingdom Hearts III used to be a formless thing. A cryptid that fans hoped to catch a glimpse of but didn’t really believe existed. To put it into perspective, Kingdom Hearts II first released when I was in third grade, and I’m currently approaching my graduation from college. Six games have been released in the last decade and a half to expand on the series’ lore and set up the major pieces for the next “main” installment, but only now are we getting Kingdom Hearts III. This franchise has been with me through middle school, high school, and college. It’s a big freaking deal.

I had never been passionately into video games as a kid. My first game system was the Nintendo GameBoy Advance, and the only games I was interested in playing were movie tie-in games that adapted the plot of a specific movie. The Incredibles. The Polar Express. Ice Age: The Meltdown, Madagascar. The only other game I can remember that wasn’t an adaptation of an existing film was a weird 3D Pacman game, but I don’t remember ever playing it as fervently as I did those old movie games.

Even after receiving a PlayStation 2 for either my birthday or Christmas in 2006, the only games I would play that weren’t movie adaptations were the NickToons crossover games like Battle for Volcano Island or Attack of the Toybots. But I only played them because they featured my favorite TV character. I was never interested in the storyline. That would change one day in late-summer/early autumn 2007, when, after seeing an advertisement for it in my old Disney Adventures magazines, I rented a PlayStation title I’d never heard of called Kingdom Hearts II.  

In the beginning, I didn’t pay attention to the story. I just skipped through the cutscenes and focused exclusively on the gameplay. But as I got to the more difficult portions of the game, I started to watch the cutscenes and pay attention to the story. And the more I did, the more I fell in love with it. Once I had fully digested the story of Kingdom Hearts II, I wanted more. I went back and played the original Kingdom Hearts, then I bought Chain of Memories for my GBA. I was hooked. I started buying and reading the manga adaptations of the games. I bought a couple of collectible figurines. I. Was. Obsessed.

I spent much of my computer time in those days scouring the internet for every scrap of information I could find on the next games in the franchise. Kingdom Hearts III wasn’t in the cards yet, so I focused my attention on the three titles that I vaguely recall being collectively referred to at the time as “the handheld trilogy”: 358/2 Days, Birth by Sleep, and Coded. I searched with a fine-tooth comb on websites dedicated to gaming news in general and Kingdom Hearts specifically, hoping to find out more about these next three games.

In many ways, Kingdom Hearts helped me take my first tentative steps into the wider community of fandom. My search for news on the next games in the series unearthed funny fan-made comic strips about my favorite characters. Even though Kingdom Hearts III was still a fantasy by that point, I found people using Photoshop, or whatever image-editing software was popular around 2008 or so, to create ideas for what the cover art would look like. I found detailed fan art of potential new outfits for all the major characters. I found theories and ideas and the ever-raging bonfire of speculation that grows larger with each new game released. I found fan-made music videos and fanfiction to sate my hunger for more content between games. I wasn’t as involved in fandom to the extent that I am today, but my experience with Kingdom Hearts helped me dip my toes in the water, so to speak, as I started to engage more with my favorite media beyond simply consuming it once and then going back to watch/play it again when I needed something to do.

And what makes this day so much sweeter is how much effort Disney is clearly putting into promoting this game. Almost a decade ago, and the most advertising any Kingdom Hearts title got outside of dedicated gaming magazines or events was maybe a single tv commercial per game. The only way to know a new game was coming otherwise was if you were actively following the development of each title before they even locked in when it would come out. In the last six months of waiting for Kingdom Hearts III, there’s been a concert tour, multiple commercials and advertisements on both TV and social media, and even ads playing before the previews at movie theaters. After years of trying to share my love for this series, only for a handful of people to have ever heard of it, it’s a tremendous thrill to see the games I love finally getting mainstream recognition.

It’s because of this series that I even consider myself a gamer in the first place. Before Kingdom Hearts, I just plowed through every game I had, treating each level as just another puzzle or challenge to complete. But Kingdom Hearts II exposed me to the possibility of video games as a medium for storytelling, and it was through my engagement with the Kingdom Hearts storyline that I found myself seeking out other games with their own compelling stories. Final Fantasy, The World Ends with You, Horizon: Zero Dawn… These are some of the many games with stories and worlds that have enthralled me as someone who loves to both experience stories and create them. And without Kingdom Hearts, I would probably never been enough of a gamer to know or care that they existed.

When I was younger, I was only interested in games if they were available on the systems I had. But Kingdom Hearts wasn’t limited to only one console. In the early years of the franchise, the series was spread across the GameBoy Advance, PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and smartphones. So, whenever my research uncovered that the next title would be on a console I didn’t own, I would go out of my way to get it, either by putting it on my holiday wish list, or by saving up the money for it myself. And usually, I would buy these platforms years in advance of the Kingdom Hearts game I’d got it for came out, so I would search for interesting games to play on it while I waited. And unlike before, now I was actively looking for things to play.

When it was just my GameBoy, PlayStation, and a handful of movie/TV show tie-ins, I didn’t go out of my way to look for new games. I relied on advertisements in my trusty Disney Adventures magazine to tell me what games that were out that might interest me. Nowadays, I annually watch live coverage of E3, the entertainment expo where game developers show off the status of their current projects or unveil their next main title. And I keep my eyes out for every title that looks entertaining from both a gameplay and story perspective, whether I see ads in a magainze, footage at E3, a trailer on YouTube, or fanart online.  

Before I realized that animation was what I wanted to do as a career, my first dream job was to be a game designer. And if your first guess as to why I wanted to pursue that career path isn’t Kingdom Hearts, then in the words of one of the franchise’s original villains, “You have come this far, and still, you understand nothing.” While I ultimately realized that animation was my true passion as an artist, it was Kingdom Hearts that set me on the idea of turning my art skills into a career. Without Kingdom Hearts, I might not have ended up where I am today. 

Most of the fandom knows that Kingdom Hearts III isn’t the end of the road for the franchise. Even aside from its immense popularity, series director Tetsuya Nomura has spoken about the fact that the series will continue beyond III, but that this represents the conclusion of the current story arc that has been going on since the original Kingdom Hearts game back in 2002. It’s fitting that this arc of the series is ending the same year that I graduate from college. This series has seen me through multiple chapters of my life. Middle school. High School. College. And in May, I’ll be a college graduate looking for a job. Each time I moved from one stage of life to the next, it always felt like the end. But it never is. But life goes on. The story will go on, but this chapter of it is over.

You can imagine, then, why today is such a big deal. This series has been with me for more than half my life. These games, and other media I obsess over to a similar degree, mean so much to be precisely because the story and characters connect with me on such a deep emotional level. My opinion on storytelling in any medium is that the ones that put your emotions in a blender and take you from screaming in anguish to crying tears of joy in the span of a few hours or less are the ones that deserve to be remembered. The best stories should leave you wanting to know more, not just out of curiosity over what happens next, but also for the satisfaction of knowing that the characters you’ve grown to love will be alright.

Kingdom Hearts has consistently checked every single one of those boxes for me for as long as I’ve been playing it. Even the prequels and midquels that ended in tragedy and heartbreak still had a note of assurance that there was still hope. Even if the games that inevitably come out post-KHIII hypothetically don’t have the same emotional impact on me that the pre-III ones did, I will never be able to stop loving the series I grew up with. I’ve been invested in it for so long that it feels like it’s woven into my DNA. This series has grown over the last eleven years just as I have, and whatever the future holds for the franchise, good or bad, I will never regret the time I’ve spent with this incredible saga.

[davidmann95]

What are your thoughts on Infinity War and do you think the portrayal of Thanos is gonna make it harder for DC to do Darkseid in a future move due to comparisons?

Extended disconnected musings below the cut because world-shaking spoilers fucking obviously, but for the section of my audience that hasn’t seen it yet but is fine with simply seeing my immediate reaction and placement of it: it’s so very good, y’all. Hype as modern blockbuster filmmaking gets. Not a top-5 MCU flick (which is a credit to the MCU, not in any way a ding against this), but if you only count the Avengers movies that actually have “Avengers” in the title, this is definitely the best of that lot.

* I had been, while not concerned per say, very curious how the Captain America team would handle this - the writers might have been there from the beginning and done some pretty bombastic pulpy action in the first Cap movie, but the Russo Brothers had been entirely on the grounded side of the franchise, even doing the relatively grounded Avengers movie in Civil War - given this would be the most cosmic and superheroey of the bunch, and they acquitted themselves magnificently in every way imaginable. It’s big, it’s funny, it’s ballsy, it’s engaging, it’s fun, it’s weighty as hell, it’s emotional, it’s the gold standard of this sort of thing. I have no idea what they’ll do if they ever stop doing Avengers movies, because at this point the sky is the absolute limit for them.

* I know people have already inevitably been complaining about this being dependent on previous movies for continuity and character, to which I say

1. Fuck you, this is the sequel to a once-in-a-generation filmmaking blockbuster that completely changed the game, of course you’re going to know who the goddamn Avengers are, most especially if you’re going to see this movie. Don’t act like you’re that cool. You’re not that fuckin’ cool.

2. This may not have been a movie of character development, but it’s by no means a movie short on character. It’s very much in the vein of Grant Morrison’s JLA, in that it banks on familiarity and iconography not to change our understanding of these characters, but to do the most conspicuously *them* moments possible. Captain America might be a minor presence, but he’s Captain America as heck in this, and so forth.

3. This only banks on you having seen the first Avengers. Banner is our entrypoint character because he himself doesn’t know what’s going on so the Avengers breakup can be recapped in broad terms, the initial conflict you don’t really have to know about Ragnarok to understand (they could’ve been fleeing Thanos destroying Asgard for all a casual viewer would know), Spider-Man’s role is obvious even aside from him being a cultural icon, Panther is Cap’s secret ally the rest of the team barely knows about so and Wakanda are broadly understood, and the Guardians and Strange are reintroduced. Strange you immediately know all you need: Wong defers to him so he’s clearly a big deal, but he’s also still telling him things about magic - even if jokingly - so clearly Strange is not the most seasoned veteran and hasn’t been in this hidden mystic world forever. The Guardians are space bozos, and based on Star-Lord’s manchild nature and 80s nostalgia and lack of familiarity with the Avengers you can guess he hasn’t been to Earth in a long time even if he clearly hails from there.

* Thanos was…good? Though I would have yelled “BULLSHIT!” at my monitor when I saw Starlin declared Thanos in an interview to be exactly as he had always envisioned him had I seen this at the time, because this is very much from the Slade-in-Teen-Titans “scrap everything, and it’ll wind up better because there’s nowhere to go but up” school of villainous improvement. But seriously, while surely people will write eye-rolling thinkpieces on his nature and goals, he’s a proper vile bastard of the sort we haven’t quite gotten in these movies before that more than justifies his place after 6 years of buildup, with humanity to spare keeping him from being a caricature; it should avoid Darkseid comparisons quite deftly (and vice-versa), even if none of what made this work can translate back into the comics. And as much as the sidekick baddies might have been traditional uncanny-valley CG, this guy might be the most amazing effect I’ve ever seen in a blockbuster: I totally bought this was a real flesh-and-blood living being existing in recognizable 3-dimensional space whenever they zoomed in on his expressions. And more importantly, they acknowledged he has a nutsack for a chin.

* Speaking of effects, that’s how you do a fuckin’ magic fight!

* And speaking of villains: SKULL. What a payoff, and I sure hope he stays and fills the role Mephisto did in the original Infinity Gauntlet as Thanos’s right hand man, because I want to see him face down with Steve as Captain America one more time. In a very different movie/s, I could have seen him seizing the Gauntlet and promising Thanos he too will wipe out half the universe, but much less indiscriminately, with the great tyrant dying with the ultimate monstrosity his endeavor has brought about evident to him at last. And then you’d have the ultimate Nazi as the final boss, since not only are he and Cap enemies, but he battled Iron Man’s dad, was well-versed in Asgardian mythology and stole one of Odin’s treasures, and is like Hulk a failed Super Soldier. What we got should be pretty good too though. Fingers crossed he at least sticks around to menace Bucky and Sam once one of them takes over as Cap.

* Outside the villain, boy, who would have expected Thor would basically be the closest thing to a main character of this movie? I guess Marvel rightly expected Ragnarok would be fire, and knowing that he’ll now be the major remaining original Avenger, are trying to build him up in double-quick time. And with only half of Asgard gone, they can keep the setup Waititi provided after this (even if I wish they hadn’t brought back his eye. I’m not worried for him personally though; his godly constitution should be more than capable of resisting mere alien raccoon ass germs). And given Ultron was the Iron Man-centric flick and Civil War was literally a Captain America movie, it feels fair they gave this to the third member of the core trio. By contrast, I’m not sure whether Black Panther was too late for them to account properly for him, or they did know, and that’s why the final action was set in Wakanda even though it’s relatively irrelevant.

* The characters getting to bounce off each other was much of the heart of this, and while Downey vs. Cumberbatch was totally reasonable - I wish Strange and Spidey had more time together as promised as fellow Ditko creations, but doing Sherlock vs. Holmes makes sense, with “Do you concur, Doctor?” almost feeling deliberately evocative - I never would have expected Thor and Star-Lord to be the standout comedic pairing. And yet, as Drax put it, it entirely makes sense: “He is not a dude. You are a dude. He is a man.”

* What most leapt out at me as signalling this is the post-Trump movie relative to Civil War’s summer 2016 blockbuster? There, the question of whether or not the government can be trusted is the inciting incident that drives everything. Here, that the government is actively working against the right thing is so plain that Rhodes - who had previously said his critical injuries were more than worth standing up for the Accords, so passionately did he believe in all they stood for - immediately, casually acknowledges that the entire thing is fucked and bails with no fanfare, and that’s the end of it.

* I’d expected this to be an all-out invasion flick and so had been disappointed no Defenders or whatnot would at least cameo, but as it really turned out I’m not surprised there wasn’t a place for Daredevil to stick his horns in. And despite assurances, no Hawkeye! I’m sure as many as 5 or 6 people were quite disappointed.

* Betting pool on who’s actually dead? Obviously everyone vanished will be okay, but the others? Gamorra looks pretty stiffed, but she seems a safe bet to return. Vision’s end felt gruesomely final, but they put so much effort into implying he might be able to survive without the stone, and now they have a seminal story to draw on for a potential solo movie of his. Loki, I think, is most likely to remain in the ground. A last-minute return and final prank against Thanos wouldn’t be out of place for him by any means, but his character has come full circle, and I think it’s more likely that if he returns it’ll be as Kid Loki.

* Speaking of the vanishing, I really appreciate the thought that clearly went into who was taken off the board. The castoffs either really had nothing to do with the Thanos conflict, even and indeed especially if they were big for maximum shock value (Black Panther, Spider-Man, White Wolf, Falcon, Mantis), or DID have something to do with Thanos but whose arcs in terms of physical confrontations with him reached their logical climaxes (Star-Lord vented regarding their shared relationship to Gamorra, Drax tried and failed as he was always going to because that one-sided hate he wanted fulfilled isn’t as much at the core of his character as Gamorra’s relationship with Thanos is). Or in Strange’s specific case, the enigmatic type with an ace up his sleeve who could logically leave a final mystery and hope for others to have to rely on. And as a whole, it means the final OG Avengers movie ISN’T going to be an even bigger crossover movie than this the way we thought. This, for the MCU’s 10th anniversary, was the big crossover movie. The last Avengers movie as we’ve known it up to that point is mostly just going to be the founders (plus Captain Marvel, a mandatory Wakandan representative or two, and Rhody since he’s the other hero who was introduced in Phase One) getting one last hurrah. And it makes sense to go with that smaller cast, because they’ll want space to really zero in on Steve and Tony before they go, and since going at Thanos head-on is no longer an option, there’s not really going to be an opportunity for the same kind of massive super-war we got in here anyway, because then he’d simply de-create them.

* Steve and Tony are going to die, and going into pure fanfic, I think I know how it’ll happen. Steve will get the Gauntlet, and it’ll kill him to use it, but in an homage to the climax of Kree-Skrull War, he’ll use his last breath to not only revive everyone, but bring together an army of superheroes to defeat a depowered Thanos once and for all (Gamora or maybe Nebula almost certainly striking the final blow), raising his returned shield high, exchanging a last look with Bucky, and finally crying out “AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!” And Tony? Tony is going to knowingly walk to death in a doomed fight against Thanos as a distraction to give Steve that chance, becoming the guy who lays down on the wire and lets someone else crawl over him. It not only reaffirms his partnership with Steve and the idea behind the original Avengers just as both die, but brings his character arc totally full circle: he faces down the embodiment of his nightmares, and after having lived as the ultimate egotist, he dies as the man who sacrifices himself so someone else can secure the win. And Thanos was I believe introduced in an Iron Man comic, so that aspect’s pretty appropriate too.

* Jackson finally almost got to say motherfucker in one of these! And that’s the second Marvel movie with a character nearly saying fuck. Take the leap Disney, I believe in you. And much as that last shot in the stinger was neat, and much as this alternative would have been literally impossible, how much cooler would it have been if that screen had shown a “4″?

* My #4 title prediction? Avengers: The End. There was a big Thanos story by Starlin titled Marvel: The End where he destroys everything but ultimately turns it back, and that’d be both ominous enough to fit the warning that we should be scared of this title, and spiritually truthful. And since the Spider-Man movie right afterwards will according to Feige mark the start of the new MCU, they can title that Spider-Man: Brand New Day in accordance with said new beginning.

* Post-all this? It’ll be awhile yet before the Fantastic Four and X-Men come on stage, so ‘Phase 4′ will basically have to stall until they can bring in Doom to be the true final boss before the inevitable reboot a decade or so down the line. Spider-Man’s the new lead (hence the Iron Spider armor, which in Homecoming seemed deliberately to be overly gaudy as Tony’s vision of a Spidey remade in his image but now seems an indicating as his leading man status, the red/yellow/blue color scheme marking him as Peak Superhero) along with Panther, Captain Marvel, and likely Thor as the old standby. The Avengers likely disband for a bit due to losing the core and break up into different teams - your Ultimates, Champions, Young Avengers, etc. - before coming back together in New Avengers, managing to make the Avengers movie after the next one an event by making it about the reformation. Osborn leading the Cabal’s the big bad; he’s the leading man’s leading villain, he has the pedigree thanks to Dark Reign while still being able to put on a Goblin suit at the end, he lets them do the inevitable “all the bad guys get together to fight the Avengers” story, and while it might not work as well as it would have post-BvS pre-Justice League, using Sentry/the Void - a compromised, frightening, unsure, ‘realistic’ Superman figure - as his muscle and the true threat would be hella charged at the moment in a way I could see the MCU being cocky enough to go for, even if they never outright do Avengers V Squadron Supreme.

That’s what I got. As the god of thunder would say, farewell and good luck, morons.

[mushroomhedgehog]

GAME REVIEW: Marvel VS Capcom: Infinite (2017) The latest entry in the iconic Marvel VS Capcom series has finally arrived, and since at least the past summer, the game has been notably bashed by a large number of gamers. But the question remains of whether this hate is justified. Without further ado, let's dive into the other major superhero fighter of 2017, Marvel VS Capcom: Infinite. Marvel VS Capcom: Infinite is the sixth crossover between the characters of Capcom and the Marvel Comics universe, originally beginning with X-Men VS Street Fighter in 1996. In this entry, we return to the original format of two-man teams, but like the aforementioned first game, returns to sidekick characters no longer being able to provide assist attacks. This is a bit of a shame compared to previous games, but it at least shows that Capcom knows how the series got started. What is also worth noting is that due to Marvel's recent policy on certain characters whose film rights are currently controlled by Fox, all characters associated with the X-Men and Fantastic Four have been excluded, leading to multiple mainstay characters such as Wolverine, Doctor Doom, and Magneto not returning for this game. This marks the first time in the history of the MvC series that Wolverine does not appear as a playable character. In addition to changes made by Marvel, this game marks a major change to the series, as Capcom has altered the gameplay to allow newcomers to not get overwhelmed by its mechanics. This has resulted in many special move motions being altered from previous games. For instance, my usual character, Spider-Man (no surprise there) has a different motion for his Spider-Sting attack. Originally this was a reversed motion of the same input used to perform Ryu's Shoryuken, a very similar uppercut move that Spider Sting is likely based off of. Now, the input requires you to press down twice before pressing the attack button. Other characters such as Captain America have also been affected by this. Ironically, Ryu's Shoryuken was not affected by this. In addition, Capcom has scrapped the previous game's format in which four attack buttons could all be used for special attacks, aside from the uppercut that launched opponents into the air. The game now has two punch and two kick buttons, allowing for new special moves such as Spider-Man's Spider-Cannon attack, Ryu able to charge his Hadouken to create a short beam-like version, and Captain America able to throw his shield in different ways, as well as reflect projectiles with it. This is important to know, for everyone claiming the game was just like UMvC3, when in actuality, the characters play nearly nothing like they do in that game due to various aspects like new moves and button layouts. While I appreciate that Capcom recognized that learning how to play this series is difficult, I was hoping they'd offer more detailed tutorials split into sections like NetherRealm Studios has done. The game is still a bit difficult to learn, and an easy combo mode isn't a good way to learn how the game works, since it teaches nothing. There is an area of mission mode that does focus on the basics of gameplay, but the character-specific missions focus more on doing nearly impossible combos instead of certain special moves or basic combos. Injustice was much better at teaching new players how to play as certain characters in its mission mode. Putting that aside, the combat has greatly improved. It's much easier for players to perform combos, and while it won't help them for previous entries in the series, it will be a nice introduction to fighting games, particularly if you've gotten comfortable with Super Smash Bros, which doesn't require much effort in its special move inputs. Next up are the graphics. Contrary to what most are claiming, the graphics aren't nearly as bad as they are made out to be. The characters have had a major facelift since the last entry in the game. One of the biggest issues with Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3's graphics was hair on certain characters. Not only does character hair look magnificent this time around, but plenty of details are visible that weren't on past incarnations of the series. For instance, incredibly strong characters like Mike Haggar and Hulk have visible veins on their bodies. Characters with metal suits such as Iron Man, Thanos, X, and Arthur, also have detailed shining on their metal suits, making them look better than ever. A lot of people have even gone as far as comparing Captain America's appearance to that infamous drawing by Rob Liefeld, which, even for exaggerations, is ludicrous. If there is one complaint I have about the graphics, it's definitely that the alternate costumes for most of the characters in the game are massive disappointments. Unlike the previous game, which featured full recolors with new patterns, many of which were based on actual alternate costumes, this game merely recolors the characters, texture patterns and all. This makes for some notably sloppy edits of costumes that would otherwise be something like Spider-Man's symbiote suit. So far, only Hulk has been the one to feature skins that match the quality of his UMvC3 skins, particularly the skins of his original grey appearance, and of his enemy, Red Hulk. Finally, with this being the first game in the series to feature a cinematic story mode akin to Mortal Kombat and Injustice, the cinematics and voice acting need to be taken into question. Many actors from UMvC3 have returned to voice their respective characters, but the most notable characters that feature new actors include Spider-Man, Chun-Li, and Ghost Rider, to name a few. The replacement actors for these three arguably gave these characters better voices, especially Robbie Daymond as Spider-Man, who now has a more fitting voice of the geeky kid that doesn't just sound like a generic teenager like Josh Keaton does. Ghost Rider also sounds a bit more demonic, though some might consider it corny compared to his previous voice actor. Other characters that have new actors such as Doctor Strange, Rocket Raccoon, and Dormammu, aren't bad either. Frank West of the Dead Rising series, also sees the return of his original voice actor after the disappointing portrayal by a new actor in Dead Rising 4. Other characters who see the return of their actors, such as Morrigan and Arthur, now feature a lot more emotion behind their lines, rather than all of their lines sounding like fitting their personality instead of emotion. It's also nice to see that Capcom wants to pursue a bigger story in their games, considering the character interaction in previous games like Street Fighter IV and UMvC3. But it should definitely be noted that there's likely a reason why Capcom and Marvel have been such a significant match in the past. The story is being criticized for various aspects, and it seems people were expecting something of Injustice or Mortal Kombat quality. Even when Capcom was featuring story cutscenes through arcade mode, it was clear that they aren't nearly as dark as NetherRealm is. Just as it would be ridiculous to compare certain aspects of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to those of the DC Extended Universe, it's not a good idea to compare certain aspects of Injustice to those of Marvel VS Capcom. As a matter of fact, the storyline to this game is significantly similar to Mortal Kombat VS DC Universe, but done much better, as unlike Darkseid and Shao Kahn, who have next to nothing in common, Ultron and Sigma are both robots focused on destroying all of humanity, among other issues that are addressed such as the better combinations that have resulted from the worlds of Marvel and Capcom colliding. The only real issue with the story mode is that there is not much of an explanation as to how Ultron and Sigma were able to merge the Marvel and Capcom universes, and that the game isn't played in chapters focusing on certain characters to allow us to familiarize ourselves with them. If you do wish to play the story mode, I would definitely recommend you do some reading on the history of these characters in the various media they originally came from, as the game seems to expect you to already understand the backstories and original works of the characters. Despite the inclusion of more single player modes and the roster featuring more starter characters than Injustice 2 at launch, there's a lot of complaints that Capcom hasn't learned from Street Fighter V. This is not the case. The game feels like a full game this time around with what there is to do. Now this doesn't mean there's not room for improvement, like featuring endings for arcade mode other than a simple "Congratulations", and there could have been more characters since many like Black Panther and MODOK appear in the story mode, but also because unlike Injustice, MvC has more than one player character per match, so the argument of having more playable characters is somewhat obsolete when this is considered. Another issue regarding characters that should be pointed out is that several characters who have deserved a spot in this series for a long time like Demitri Maximoff, The Punisher, M. Bison, and Daredevil, are still nowhere to be found. Hopefully somewhere down the line, Marvel VS Capcom: Infinite will be updated similarly to Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition, which will be available at no cost to players who had already purchased the original version of the game and on a separate disc for new players this January. Until then, Marvel VS Capcom: Infinite gets a grade of a solid B from me. It's not as exciting as Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3 was, but it's a welcome title to the MvC series that surprisingly does well despite its shortcomings. It's just a shame that Marvel was too picky with film rights to allow series mainstays like Wolverine, Magneto, and Doctor Doom, to return.

[robertkstone]

Hail the Underdogs – Reference Mark

I’ve always had a place in my heart for the downtrodden. I attended Northwestern University back when the football team was so awful that defeating equally cruddy Illinois was cause for tearing down the goalposts and for the campus radio to play Tom Petty’s “Even the Losers.”

I’m also a fan of the Cubs baseball and Tottenham soccer clubs—organizations with well-worn records in futility. But rejoicing when your lovable losers finally succeed is that much sweeter. As a sports journalist earlier in my career, I much preferred interviewing the losing team—more pathos, more pithy quotes, and more determination to get back out on the damn field the very next day. Eventually, they know they’re gonna win it all.

For that reason, I’ve enjoyed watching automotive backmarkers elbow their way into the conversation. Sure, it’s easy to join the 350,000-plus people every year who dutifully buy a reliable appliance such as the Toyota Corolla. But it fills me with glee when the folks from Hiroshima roll out a Mazda3 that’s cooler, looks better, and is more fun to drive than the sales leader.

Which is why, during this year’s Of The Year competitions, it was so gratifying to see the blazing entrance of Alfa Romeo, the resurgence of Honda, and the rise of Kia.

Had a couple votes gone the other way, we could have seen either Alfa Romeo or Honda take both the Car and SUV of the Year Calipers. Both automakers showed consistent excellence with vehicles in vastly different segments. Meanwhile, although not winning any awards, Kia showed newfound strength in creating innovative vehicles across disparate price bands.

Alfa’s Giorgio platform that supports both the Giulia sedan and Stelvio crossover gives both vehicles fine bone structure, but it underpins vastly different vehicle types. Trying to balance dynamics and comfort for both a passenger car and an SUV might be the toughest assignment for a chassis and suspension engineering team—yet both vehicles do so flawlessly. Combine that with a 2.0-liter engine that delivers class-leading horsepower and acceleration numbers, and BMW might have to relinquish its Ultimate Driving Machine tagline.

Then there’s Honda, which won the calipers with its CR-V compact crossover and was in the finalist conversation with its Accord midsize sedan. Like the Alfas, both the CR-V and the Accord share underpinnings, with the Accord stretching the astonishing 2016 Civic platform into midsize dimensions—again another magnificent engineering feat. But it’s more than just the engineering. Look back a few years. The last two generations of Accord were competent but unexciting. The rest of the lineup was in disarray. This was a company that had lost its mojo. The 2018 vintage Accord brings back the original Honda idea of giving owners a sense they bought a snazzy car that should have cost a lot more money, loaded with a supple suspension and full of elegant touches. The CR-V, meanwhile, is plain excellent—from its remarkable packaging efficiency to its ride and handling. It should be a blueprint for all others to follow. And don’t get me started on the Civic Type R, which looks like a Tooner Karz cartoon but has incredible performance while being absolutely serene in traffic.

Had a couple votes gone the other way, we could have seen either Alfa Romeo or Honda take both the Car and SUV of the Year Calipers

Which brings us to Kia—which 20 years ago was claimed off the insolvency scrap heap by Hyundai Motor. Confined to “cheap and cheerful” branding by a new parent wanting to ensure its higher status in the order, Kia has found its footing in recent years as the noisy neighbor to Hyundai’s more refined status. We at Motor Trend cling to the belief that it is orders of magnitude harder to build a great $20,000 car than a decent $40,000 one. So although Kia’s creation of its rear-drive fastback Stinger sedan is a magnificent assault on the dominant German triad, we were even more impressed by the affordable brilliance of Kia’s Rio econobox. It shows how far, how quickly, Kia has come.

What about Tesla as the ultimate disruptor, you ask? Well, there are many questions still to be asked about its “affordable EV” entry, but a successful launch of the Model 3 could shake everything we know about the auto industry off its foundation.

So be wary, those who believe in the stability of the status quo. There are newcomers and resurgent automakers barking at the gate.

Read about our winners here:

2018 Car of the Year

2018 SUV of the Year

2018 Truck of the Year

Person of the Year (and the Power List)

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