#all the surprise cameos

[piratefishmama]

i think Hugh Jackman needs to be studied, did scientists make him in a LAB?

[aroaceleovaldez]

yknow i was gonna make a post about how happy I was to see the show acknowledge adhd/dyslexia/learning disability stuff and the way they handled and showed Percy's experience with that system, and how it influenced his reactions to things. But i'm honestly glad I didn't because WOW the show completely ditched all of that immediately. There was set-up for a really interesting arc about the demigods = neurodivergence metaphor and "You are singular" (pun off of "half-blood"/"demigod" and a very direct rejection of the "puzzle" metaphor for things like autism) and a very quick acknowledgement in like episode 2 of an off-hand "oh yeah all demigods are like that (adhd/dyslexic)" and then. nothing. absolutely nothing.

heck, they even changed the design of the zoo van (in the books very explicitly a black van with white text, which Percy notes specifically because white-on-black text is more dyslexia-friendly) which is a personal affront to me because That's My Dyslexia-Friendly Van, How Dare You.

i know some people have argued that maybe Annabeth pausing in the store was supposed to be her having a dyslexia moment, but if it was then we would have gotten the Dyslexia Effect™ on the text (and dont tell me they didn't have the budget for it cause HAVE YOU SEEN THEIR BUDGET FOR THE SHOW? They clearly haven't been using all of that). It's almost definitely supposed to show that Annabeth hasn't been in mortal spaces in a very long time and is, yknow, a kid, being indecisive of which snacks to buy.

i have said it before and i'll say it again: the core of PJO is disability. You can never remove that, or else it is no longer PJO. The heart of the series will always be a story made for an ADHD/dyslexic kid to help them learn about and be interested in mythology, and if you stray from that it's going to be very noticeable very fast. Almost every character in PJO has a learning disability. The entire series is framed as a way to introduce kids to mythology in a fun way and emphasize those themes of mythology being important even in modern day with how it still affects our lives, to ask you to look at what lessons we can still learn from these myths and how they apply to modern lives, and that you can be a hero not despite your disability, but alongside it. That is the core of PJO, always and forever. And the show failed that.

[lyriumsings]

The assumptions people are making on Veilguard bc ALL decisions won’t carry over are insane to me “OH so morrigan won’t mention her ONLY SON!! or her roMANCE??”. We have no idea what context or capacity she’s going to be in the game? In skyhold, she stayed at skyhold for a while, so it made sense to chat her up and ask about her life. Also Kieran was THERE bc he was TEN. Kieran is now in his twenties and most likely living his own life. If we’re saving the world and fighting darkspawn WHY would her grown ass son come up? Esp when she doesn’t even know Rook?? Like i would understand if we had veilguard in our hands and people were complaining bc Morrigan actually had dialogue invalidating their canon but for fuck’s sake the game isn’t even out yet. They’re saying it doesn’t matter as in it’s not gonna come up bc Rook is busy doing other shit, rather than quizzing characters who aren’t companions on their lives. “What about Varric”. Varric seems to have a pre-established relationship with Rook which means you can headcanon that they already had the talk about Varric’s life story considering he called them his “second in command”. Like cancel your preorders, preorder, do whatever you want no one on the internet is the boss of you. But oh my fucking god complaining about something you don’t even fully know about is already getting so old. Best case scenario, you’re right and i guess your bitching is validated yay for you ig. Worst case, you’re wrong and like wasted so much time and energy bitching for nothing. Like I completely understand being upset the choices don’t carry over, it IS disappointing! But we don’t even KNOW what it’s going to affect if anything at all. It’s just so funny how everyone was like “it’s not about the Inquisitor” and now that the focus is confirmed to be pretty much entirely on Rook and the inquistor’s choices barely seem to matter in game and half of everybody has lost the plot bc of it and we don’t even actually know how this will affect the game like ????

[scarletspider2the2ndpower]

Chasm: Curse of Kaine (Vol. 1/2024), #1.

Writer: Steve Foxe; Penciler and Inker: Andrea Broccardo; Colorist: Brian Reber; Letterer: Joe Caramagna

[invested-in-your-future]

The most hilarious thing for me is the apologia of some fans who have come to tout Arcane S2 ending as "realistic.".

An entire show worth of build-up of police brutality and division culminating in majority of government body being assassinated (and then next person in power literally gassing the poor) got written off because the show dedicated the second half of its final season to a subplot of everyone uniting against interesting-character-suddenly-turned-magic-technogod-villain and an Evil Other Empire from Outside in a conclusion that involved a character spending entire season away to develop superpowers, dead characters being retconned as alive(and then not used because gotta set up an MCU of More Shows rather than telling a story), magic robot zombies being fought, world-wide robot apocalypse, parallel universes, and time travel as the class struggle, character psychology, prominent LGBTQ+ romance(gotta love sidelining the queer for the centrist nonsense) and the nature of the class division that the first season intricately built up all take a backseat to deliver the most worn-down MCU style trope.

Like, can y'all not?

For some, S2 worked; for some, it absolutely didn't, but like or dislike the messy season 2, it's not debatable that it's a completely different show than many fell in love with in S1.

And certainly not because "it got more realistic.".

[lorelilly]

Spencer: “I don’t think I have imposter syndrome.”

Also Spencer:

[winteriron-trash]

rdj the (whitewashed) electric boogaloo

This is a reminder to everyone who's excited about RDJ's casting as Doctor Doom that this casting is whitewashing. Victor Von Doom is a Romani character and has been a Romani character since his introduction in the 1960s. (Fantastic Four Annual #2 [1964]) Not only that, but his Roma identity and the persecution he and his family faced due to it is integral to his character, it is what forms his identity. (Books of Doom by Ed Brubaker) Even if on the off chance this casting is meant to not be Victor but instead be some variant of Tony or whomever else becoming Doctor Doom, it is damaging to the character to rob him of that important cultural background. Doctor Doom does not exist without that history. Fans have been pushing hard to cast Doom as a Romani actor for years, especially since the MCU has whitewashed other Romani characters. (Wanda, Pietro, etc) This casting is not a celebration moment, it's fucking heartbreaking that the MCU repeatedly ignores the important and nuanced cultural backstories of characters.

I know I can't change anybody's mind on whether or not you want to be excited about RDJ's return to the MCU. But I do think at the very least you should be mad that the MCU is baiting us all and destroying nuanced and interesting characters for the sake of self-referential easter eggs and nostalgia bait. Because that's what it is. Feel how you'd like to feel about RDJ's return, but personally, this is soul-sucking. I had such a deep love for the MCU as a teenager, it was obviously something incredibly formative to me, especially Tony Stark. This isn't recreating what I fell in love with the MCU for. This is turning a well-planned and artistic storyline of adaptations into cheap cash grabs and fan service. Because, I think we're past the point of being able to call the MCU an adaptation of anything. They can use existing characters' names and powers, but to say they're being properly adapted is laughable.

This is not an adaptation of Doctor Doom. This is RDJ the Electric Boogaloo because Marvel's fear of losing the interest of dedicated MCU fans overrides their willingness to tell stories that are genuine to the characters. I don't know what there is to be excited about that. The MCU has lost its authenticity and aside from a few projects, feels heartless. Every movie is a copy of a copy. This announcement isn't something celebratory, it feels like a death knell of a cinematic universe that's so desperate to cling to relevancy it's resorting to nostalgia for a character/actor who hasn't even been dead for a decade. We're not getting anything new, we're just rinsing and repeating the same song and dance.

I get it. I love Tony Stark, his death destroyed me and I to this day, rue the ending he got in Endgame. It misunderstood his arc and it robbed him of a satisfying conclusion. But the solution to that isn't dragging the corpse out of the grave five years later to whitewash an existing character with rich and interesting nuance, just to forcibly tie his existence in the MCU to Tony. Whether he is a variant or not. Why would you want someone else's fave's legacy to be destroyed simply so your fave's legacy can go on? Hell, if we were really all so hellbent on the return of RDJ and/or Tony to the MCU, we have the multiverse for a reason. There were other ways to do it that didn't whitewash and ruin someone else. This just. Isn't something to be happy about.

[ultraweirdgirl13]

I just wanna say Evan Peters is an absolutely insane actor. Like his range is DIABOLICALLY LARGE i hate how much i love it

[kit-kat-bard]

@aquaquadrant and @lunarcrown 's Hels to Pay has had me absolutely captivated, especially the recent tidbit of Imagine Dragon's Sharks being an apt Bravo song...

The fic has got me in enough of a choke hold to finish my first ever animatic! Even though my art level is below doodle and more into scribble territory lol. This idea simply would not let me rest until I brought it into the world, well done or not.

[moreaujeans]

quite pleasantly surprised by wicked movie but i Will say we were robbed of elphaba leaning in close to glinda saying “come with me to the emerald city” followed by glinda’s “i’ve always wanted to see the emerald city” while looking deep into her eyes arms around her shoulders twirling elphaba’s hair

[mwagneto]

anyway like fun movie made 4 me coz i get to point at the screen and go holy shit thing from the thing!!! 🫵 roughly 10 times per second but still an mcu movie which is so sad... no heart just an insane amount of references + whatever cameos they need to make ppl wanna watch it

[ratatatastic]

"Battle of Alberta, right? It was my first game: Calgary, Edmonton. We would play them in the preseason, and you know—trying to make the team I'd always be asking him to fight in preseason, always. I'd be runnin' my mouth—like, tryna fight the biggest, baddest guys, tryna make an impression.

And he would never fight me. He'd always tell me, like If you make the team, I'll fight ya. You don't have to worry about that, but I'm not fightin' ya preseason. And I totally respect it, I'm not gonna chase him down. It is what it is. He's established—I'm looking for my chance.

So I get called up, we're playing Edmonton in Edmonton: Battle of Alberta. [He's] over there on the other side, and it's like the coolest thing ever... you know, the buildup was crazy 'cuz I knew if the opportunity presented itself—if the game went the way I hoped it would, I would get an opportunity to fight him.

I remembered in warmups tryna skate by the redline initially just kind-of gettin' a feel for it—to see if I have to say something or whatever... He's got no bucket on, his big, bald head is glarin' around, he skates by the redline with the biggest smile on his face, and just gives me the biggest wink...

At that moment I knew Okay, he remembers. It's gonna happen at some point.

We were up 1, I think it was 2-1 going into intermission or whatever—Oh, no, I think it was 1-1 and we had just scored so the position I'm like Yeah, I don't know if I can fight him now because we have the momentum and we're winning the game. I don't want to lose a fight, then we lose a game and now I'm, like, never getting a chance again.

You kind-of gotta play the game within the game like [...] there's an opportunity to fight, and there's an opportunities where you shouldn't fight. Things weren't looking good, then they score and now we need a spark. I'm like Fucking perfect.

I just skate by their bench and I'm like It's time, big boy! He jumps out, we line up, and he goes We squarin' up or we goin' right away?

I'm like I'm not fuckin' squarin' up with you right now! We're goin' right away!

Drop em, we go right away, grab each other. I know he's a lefty so he's gonna let go—let's go of my right arm before he throws one. I threw one. Big boy went down, he jumped back up pretty quick. I don't know, I tell people all the time, I'm like I would've been in the league fuckin' 2 years earlier if there was good footage of this fuckin' fight!

For some reason—For some reason, the cameras cut out. I don't know if [he] had his cousins working the cameras or something that night, or if they're in the video room or what happened.

That was my first NHL game.

It's funny 'cuz Chucky was there—Chucky's there and he knows, he saw, he always laugh when I say that I would've been in the league earlier 'cuz he knows how things like that go. You get a little bit of energy and buzz around ya, and then kind-of momentum takes you a little bit further but unfortunate[ly], I missed that opportunity but I don't regret a thing.

[...]

The opportunity was there, I just—unfortunately, for whatever reason, the Hockey Gods said not yet." (Ryan Lomberg reminiscing over his first NHL game/fight) (x)(x) (please go watch the second link to see lombos giant smile as he tells this story jfc)

and other genuinely bonkers things to say about a hockey player in your first fight... like why did this need to be said like that...what

[sesamenom]

Some design sketches for Bilbo and Lobelia, plus a bonus thorin

[age-of-moonknight]

love ur blog!!! so curious how you keep up with every new moon knight and even just moon knight adjacent comic, do you get notified from somewhere/thing or do you just read all new comics 😂

Thank you for sending in an ask and I'm so glad you enjoy this blog! :D As for how I keep up with comics, 😅 well uuuuuuh

but no, in all seriousness hahaha, I'm not quite the most well-informed comic reader out there, as there are plenty of fans who are far more attuned to upcoming solicits, while I tend to let myself be surprised week to week (perhaps why I was late to Moon Squire's official debut by a several months hahaha). I usually start with the Marvel wiki, though. I poke around in the "Appearances" and "Minor Appearances" sections for the characters I'm interested in to see what issues they show up in, read those issues, and then get an idea of what sort of series they're involved in. I'll also use the more general search function to investigate related characters or non-616 "variants." I'll branch out from there to whatever other fan sources I can dig up to see if I missed anything. Then it's just a weekly thing! I check what issues are dropping each Wednesday, particularly keeping an eye out for the monthly releases of ongoing series I'm tracking (which btw MOON KNIGHT: FIST OF KHONSHU VOL. 2 THIS WEDNESDAY LET'S GOOOOO), but I'll also skim through anything I think might be interesting or looks promising. Then throughout the week I will occasionally refresh those "Appearances" pages on the Marvel wiki to catch any late updates or cameos I completely did not foresee happening. Personally though, I only track that closely for the characters I have read every appearance of and would like to stay caught up on (e.g. Moon Knight, 616!Peter Parker, Kaine, Robbie Reyes, and someday, SOMEDAY I'll get caught up on Man-Thing comics too).

So yeah, my process, if you can call it that, doesn't involve any sort of notifications, I just have,,,,,Many tabs open in a designated "comics" section that I frequently refresh hahaha

[an-obligatory-blog]

had a vision that infinite's best chance of entering the movieverse is if stobotnik adopts a dog they named infinite and for tom and maddie to get a dog that looks like the rookie. while the movie plays out, there's a subplot of rookie dog and infinite dog biting each other in the background while the world is falling apart

like who cares if the god of time is ripping space-time apart and three whole ass hedgehogs need to go super to save it, these dogs have better priorities like determining who gets to chew on maria's bones or whatever

[oopey-doopey]

The only thing missing from across the spiderverse was a Man-Spider cameo where all the Spider-people (including Miguel) being either terrified of him EXECPT Miles who is more like “So how does his secret identity work?”