#after the clone saga

[vertigoartgore]

Spider-Man VS. Doctor Octopus by artist Steve Skroce and Bud LaRosa. From the cover of 1997's Amazing Spider-Man Vol.#1 #428.

[gadmiral-thrawn]

One of my fav things about star wars is that's its so fucking huge that u physically cannot know all of it so u just kinda like pick a section amd become obsessed. Like me with the Chiss. Like i have seen only one other fandom come even close to this amd that's Marvel. I have no idea y. And we all still bond over the skywalker saga (not the ones that shan't be spoken). And its like we all know a bit of each other sections. Like clone fans know a bit about ahsoka. Ahsoka fans know a bit about the Rebels fans. Rebels fans know about Thrawn. Thrawn fans know some deep shit about Padmes handmaiden and wild space yokels. And it pretty much goes on forever and i find that very cool.

[victoriousscarf]

Alright up next on the clone commander shawl project is dearly beloved Commander Ponds!

One of my main goals with this project was to mostly use up stash yarn, which I succeeded with in both Cody and Fox! (However very quickly I ran out of white, so most shawls from here on out will be stash+white bought specifically for it lol). But with Ponds... I could not for the life of me find a brown that matched him, and then when I did it was only in Sport weight, so he's the exception to the rule: his yarn was bought entirely specially for this project!

Commander Cody * Commander Fox * Commander Ponds

Also I sent a quick shot of this shawl right after I got it off my needles to @hastalavistabyebye before I even got it blocked or its beauty pics and they immediately got back to me with a fanart of cosy Ponds wearing it so please go tell them they're amazing for that too.

[clonerightsagenda]

me earlier in this liveblog: where are the people of color in this spacefuture?

Bujold: "Pleasantly ugly, pushing middle-aged, she had the bright mongolian eyes, broad nose and lips, and coffee-and-cream skin of her mixed race heritage".

me: never mind I take it back

[regallibellbright]

“Killing you was the entire reason for my existence. Two years ago I was all primed to do it. I endured all those years of Galen for no other purpose.”

“Take heart,” advised the Countess. “Most people exist for no reason at all.”

There’s really not much to say here except: Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan. An icon.

But yeah, despite how this sounds Mark’s first meeting with his parents is going extremely well. Sure, he might have been cloned and raised with the express purpose of killing them, but where Vorkosigans are concerned that just translates to “surprise bonus family.”

[jaca3rys]

GUYS. GUYS. QUICK REMINDER THAT I WRITE FOR ANAKIN, PADMÉ, LUKE, LEIA AND REY!! PLS SEND REQUESTS I BEG IM SO HYPERFIXATED MY BLOG IS @angellieque

[lonniemachin]

the sheer and utter torment of finding a marvel supervillain funny and interesting and reading some comics with them in it and wanting to know more about them and then finding out about the past 9-ish years of their continued existence picture unrelated

[clonerightsenthusiast]

happy one year anniversary to the day i ruined my life <3

[genius11rare]

In regards to the 'How the Fenton parents take Phantom' id imagine when Phantom was announced to be joining the JL they were paranoid , but had to admit that if hes seemingly vetted by:

Superman who is the practical epitome of Heroism

Mr. 'i have a contingency for that' Batman

and Wonder Woman who literally has a Lasso of Truth....

Between overall public perception since Phantom isnt just in Amity , the GIW either being disbanded or having to go even more into hiding / cut ties with Fentons due to all eyes on Phantom so they cant really control the narrative , and just so many stories from all kinds of people and demographics (instead of 'pretty much the teenage student body of Casper High + plus some notable adults' , others being mostly indifferent instead of hateful) around the world

At somepoint even they had to admit 'Either weve stumbled upon the biggest conspiracy ever known.... or Phantom really is just Some Guy (TM) trying his best'

Id imagine its around this time Danny reveals himself.... they need a bit to process their work

DP x DC prompt #78

There's a reason why the black lantern ring turns all who encounter it into mindless, crazed zombies. It's because the black lantern ring wasn't designed for living people, it was designed for ghosts. Enter Danny Fenton, the newest member of the Black Lantern Corps.

[vertigoartgore]

1997's Spider-Man #85 cover by John Romita Jr. & Scott Hanna.

[the-far-bright-center]

Today I learned that this infamously stupid take (re: the 2003 Tartakovsky Clone Wars scene in which Anakin gifts his padawan braid to Padme after being knighted) is apparently not as uncommon as one would hope...

Ah yes, a prime example of "Obi-Wan-stan-itis", aka the condition of demanding that Anakin, Padme, the Anidala relationship, and the entirety of Star Wars canon center Obi-Wan Kenobi at all times. This is quite a serious conditon that leads affected fans to throw delusional, misogynistic tantrums when they learn that George Lucas' Star Wars does not, in fact, center Obi-Wan, and that it's actually about *gasp* Anakin and the Skywalker family!

On a more serious note, insane takes like these illustrate what, in my opinion, is one of the biggest divides in contemporary Star Wars fandom: aka, whether people view Star Wars as Lucas intended, as being a generational saga about Anakin/Vader and the Skywalker family, OR whether they view it as some kind of free-for-all where they can pretend their personal fave is the main character and that everything must revolve around them, instead. This phenomenon is found most frequently amongst the more unhinged section of the Obi-Wan fandom, but it is also common amongst rabidly pro-Jedi types who operate under the mistaken impression that 'the Jedi' as a concept exist separately from the Skywalker saga. When in reality, features like 'Padawan braids' were created FOR scenarios just like this one.... for Anakin to ignore or not even give two shits about the custom and do his own thing, to show his love for Padme above all. Lucas enjoyed showing how much Anakin and Padme care about each other via these kinds of small but significant romantic details. After all, it's 'love can ignite the stars', not 'strictly adhering to Jedi traditions can ignite the stars', folks. ;p

[satoshy12]

The Ghost and the Amazon:

Danny ends up in the world of gods and monsters and is having more fun than he should. But to his defense, he only knows these beings from books and the ghost zone. And, having been fascinated by this world for around ten years, he adored it! He was struck in his prime of 21 years, so he had in truth no idea how many years he really was here, but you could say after 5 he no longer cared much about it. (His father His height, as he had his growth spurt, was pretty muscular too, but not super massive. (Think of Thor, Steve Rogers, or Goku, yeah, Goku Piccolo Saga.)

After an attack by Circe, Wonder Woman too ended up in this new realm, seeing monsters wreaking havoc on the mortal realm. Being a hero, she will help them, and so she joined this Son of Hades?? in fighting against them. They had become fast friends over the years through adventure and fighting. Diana noticed he, just like her, didn't age. + It had been a shame that after a new portal opened, they could leave but were needed, but Diana would visit him and he would visit her. + Amity Park had changed not much; as he had fallen through the portal, the whole town thought he was Isekai'd and now could return. And man, the whole town was surprised as they saw Danny, that massive and full-of-muscle Fenton man. Not sure what to do. But the Fentons were happy to see him back. Danny, too, was happy to see his mom, dad, Tucker, Sam, Jazz, and Ellie. Ellie told him how she protected the town while he was gone, and Tucker and Sam told him what he missed in school and similar. Jazz was now his tiny, big sister, as he was taller than her by 1 head. Mom and Dad learned about him being a phantom and were pretty accepting of it; they were just sad he was gone for so long. He been missed 3 years, but the doctors said he was around the start of his 20s in body age but much older. And seem to be prime of his body; the isekai'd changed him. maybe Magic. As Ellie learned by talking with Danny, whom he met in the realm! She wanted to really meet her her Wonder Woman!, but Danny thought first to wait more than a month. She told him about the Space Station. Well, time to visit Diana! She never told him in all the years about the Space Station! + For Diana True to his words, Danny came to visit her maybe to wait one month was much, but here he was in the Watch Tower. It turned out his adorable cutie pie baby clone (his words not her, but she is adorable), Ellie, was a fan. So while she talked to the tiny girl, Danny looked out the window at the stars. She could spend later time with her Danny. Time to tell Ellie about their adventures in the last the last few years in the Realms with Danny.

[abduloki]

Saw some people saying how Anakin has fallen to the "dark" side in this scene but to me it's not as simple because war changes you.

When you first lost someone, it broke you and you doubt yourself if you are doing the right thing, just like Ahsoka is feeling here.

But as you continue to lose more people you realise that it's inevitable and you "shield" yourself from getting hurt emotionally.

Because you don't have time to wallow in self-pity reflecting on your actions when there are people who are still depending on you.

People under your command looking up to you to lead them, people you're supposed to protect waiting for your arrival to rescue.

Every second you hesitate, more lives are lost. And he's trying the best he can to save as many lives as quickly as possible.

As much as he want to protect every single one of his men from dying, he realised it's impossible with enemies on every side.

The more time you spend mourning the lives that have been lost, the less time you have to save the lives of others that are in danger.

That's what Anakin is trying to tell Ahsoka in this scene but he could not find the right words because his mind is all messed up by the war.

You can see how tired he looks by the never ending war and how affected he is by it but pretends it didn't bother him in order to lead.

He even uses humour as a defense mechanism so those around him does not fell to despair and depression by the senseless war.

He's frustrated that Ahsoka does not get what he is trying to teach her as he doesn't want to lose her like the clone troopers.

Nobody wants to fight but the enemy doesn't care about that and will continue killing whether or not you lay down your weapon.

So what else can you do in such situations when the politicians failed to reach a peaceful solution? If you stop fighting, then what happens to the people are being attacked and killed by the enemy?

That's one thing I love about this flashback scene as it shows you the horrors of war in a span of a few minutes that you do not see in the Clone Wars animated series.

After all the things he had seen on the battlefield, you understand how he lost faith in the Jedi and the Republic, finally pushing him off the edge in Revenge of the Sith.

Palpatine conveniently orchestrated the whole saga, even removing Ahsoka and Obi-Wan from his side, to isolate him from the others so he could make his move on Anakin.

That's what Palpatine has been planning all along, to push Anakin into the brink of despair just so he could push him off easily to the dark side and gave in to the dark side.

[maxwell-grant]

(VENTURE BROS FINALE SPOILERS)

There's this thing I keep thinking back to in The Venture Bros, that is the way everyone talks about Jonas Venture. The early myth of Jonas Venture, the great man and hero beloved by everyone who has been succeeded by a less-than-great failure of a son, is eventually twisted around with the gradual reveal of Jonas as a horrible man who did horrible things to his son that made him the way he is, and with every subsequent appearence unveiling more and more about the depths of depravity Jonas was actively capable of. We get to see how much Jonas is responsible for many of the issues all the characters find themselves envolved in, how much can be traced back to him, and we see things he's done that even appalled the rest of the old Team Venture who seemed mostly fine with all the other things he was doing. Rusty even gets a couple of moments of catharsis where he's shown to be making progress in having moved past his dad.

But the way people talk about Jonas Venture never changes. There is no reckoning for anyone other than maybe Rusty. Jonas Venture is the biggest and most successful and influential character even after his death, and his perception at large never remotely changes. He is the biggest monster, and so he has the best public image out of everyone. All the little monsters are just playing in his pool, and even all the other not-monsters will cover for him and praise him no matter what he did, no matter how many people he killed, no matter how many children's lives he ruined or how much destruction he left everywhere he went.

When we're introduced to Professor Victor von Helping, the kindest and most helpful person Dean's ever had in his life, he expresses open admiration for Jonas as an inspiration for getting into science, something he will explain to Dean was what saved him and allowed him to take control of his life from his horrible father, and this is directly after the Morpho saga that had shown us Jonas at his absolute worst. And the thing is, we're not meant to think less of Von Helping for it. He is not malicious, he doesn't worship science or Jonas for any nefarious or ignorant reason, he just knows what everyone does: that Jonas Venture was a great scientist who changed the world and has been succeeded by a not very impressive son.

Ben, who personally assisted Jonas in the cloning process and who knows what else and now lives in a graveyard of hundreds of people whose deaths he directly attributes to both Rusty and Jonas, is still about as benevolent as a super scientist can really be in the setting, and in the movie he helps cap off the show with a message to Hank Venture that he delivers based on what Jonas passed onto him. He attributes "Blood doesn't make a family; love does", a closing statement on the show, as heartfelt wisdom from Hank's granddad. It's not played for irony. We can debate whether it's meant to have some or the degree to which that statement can be read as malicious coming from Jonas or someone who was that closely affiliated with him, but none of that even really matters in that moment of Hank's closure and Ben being able to provide some with what he claims to be Jonas' teachings.

None of this takes away from all the horrible things Jonas did. None of this is meant to be any kind of redemption for him or his legacy. His legacy may be complicated, but Jonas Venture was not a complicated man. Complications and moral dillemmas are things he invented for the little people around him to deal with, whether they fought for the Guild or the OSI, or they are little Ventures scurrying in his shadow. Moral greyness was just a thing for chumps to be concerned about while Jonas ruled the world unimpeded from doing whatever he wanted to whoever he wanted.

Usually when shows have this big, massive force behind so many unfolding events and characters and traumas, there's a degree to which their comeuppance involves some kind of larger reckoning. They get exposed for who they are, their legacy crumbles, their great deeds are rendered lesser, they are given ignoble fates or some kind of retributive punishment, society can rest easier with the great evil exposed and defeated, and the audience can rest easier knowing that, if some great evil like this was made public and exposed, we'd do something about it. We'd so something about it on a scale that matters and stops it from happening again.

We need to believe that's what happens because we can't, and maybe we must never, accept that it doesn't work that way, that all around us are monuments and reminders that celebrate the monstrosities of our forefathers and their grip on our current lives, even when everything they've done and continue doing is public record, even when you tell someone about it and they still keep doing it, and everyone around you gives them a pass to do it so long as it (and by "it", they mean you) doesn't bother them.

And it's not like none of those things happened with Jonas, he did get a deserving comeuppance of sorts in the Morpho trilogy. But nobody really cared. Nobody that mattered cared. Only Rusty cares, and Rusty doesn't matter. Certainly not as much as his dad matters. Jonas gets the approval of the world and all the accolades and statues that follow, and he gets to crush his children forever under the weight of his legacy because of that. All they can do is try and survive past him, and even that is enough of a struggle.

But even with all of that, even with Ben's gentle and comforting parting words being another reminder that history exonerates Jonas for everything he's done while looking down on those he victimized, I find myself thinking of the fact that the last we ever see of Jonas' image is that accursed statue finally being toppled off it's pedestal, and the entire cast banding together to rescue The Monarch, his other son and victim, from it. They may not even like him (and for good reasons), but they don't let the invincible grip of his father take him to the grave. It takes them all to push back Jonas, but they push him back nonetheless, and Monarch lives another day.

It's not what the movie ends on, it's more of a funny moment than anything. It's just I was going to end this ramble pessimistically, until I remembered this frame. The true final word on him.

May we all survive the Jonas Ventures of our lives and push those fuckers back into the trash where they belong.

[gophergal]

Behold, a flock of Medics

(Rambling under the cut)

Ok so y'all know about that semi-canon compliant AU I have that I've mentioned before in tags n shit? Fortress Rising? Well, Corey (my dear older sib, @cursed--alien ) and I talk about it like it's a real piece of media (or as though its something I actually make fanworks for ffs) rather than us mutually bullshitting cool ideas for our Blorbos. One such Idea we have bullshit about is that basically EVERY medic that meets becomes part of a group the Teams call the "Trauma Unit," they just get along so well lol

Here's some bulletpoints about the Medics

Ludwig Humboldt - RED Medic, hired 1964, born 1918. Introduced in Arc 1: Teambuilding. The most canon compliant of the four. Literally just my default take on Medic

Fredrich "Fritz" Humboldt - BLU Medic, clone of Ludwig, "Hired" 1964. Introduced in Arc 2: The Clone Saga. A more reserved man than his counterpart, he hides his madness behind a veneer of normalcy. Honestly Jealous of Ludwig for how freely he expresses himself. Suffers from anxiety, which he began treating himself. Has since spiraled into a dependency on diazepam that puts strain on his relationship with Dimitri, the BLU Heavy.

Sean Hickey - Former BLU Medic, served with the "Classic" team, born 1908. Introduced in Arc 3: Unfinished Business. A man who who has a genuine passion for healing and the youngest on his team. Unfortunately, his time with BLU has left him with deep emotional scars, most stemming from his abuse at the hands of Chevy, the team leader. His only solace was in his friendship with Fred Conagher, though they lost contact after his contract ended. For the past 30 years, he's lived peacefully, though meeting the Humboldts has left him feeling bitter about his past experiences.

Hertz - Prototype Medibot, serial no. 110623-DAR. Introduced in Arc 4: Test Your Metal. The final prototype created by Gray Mann's robotics division before his untimely death forced the labs to shut their doors. Adopted by the Teams after RED Team found him while clearing out a Gray Gravel Co. warehouse. As with all the Graybots, he was programmed based on a combination of compromised respawn data and intel uncovered by both teams' respective Spies. Unlike the others, however, his dataset is incomplete, which has left him with numerous bugs in his programming. His speech (modeled off Ludwig and Fritz's) often cuts out, becoming interspersed with a combination of default responses for older Graybot models and medical textbook jargon all modulated in emotionless text-to-speech