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aion-rsa · 3 years ago

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A Beginner’s Guide to Marvel Zombies

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This article contains spoilers for Marvel’s What If…?

Man, Marvel’s What If…? series really does draw you in with a false sense of security, doesn’t it? The first episode is an adorable romance story laced with punching Nazis. The second is a tribute to a late actor in the form of galactic utopia. Then we get the Avengers being murdered, the universe being melted, and now Captain America eating human flesh. Enjoy your nightmares, kids!

The fifth episode of What If…? is a bit of a fanservice choice. For the latter half of the 2000s, Marvel was riding the Marvel Zombies train like nothing else.

While the first use of the concept came in 2005, one could consider What If…? v.2 #24 (What If Wolverine Was Lord of the Vampires?) to be the prototype. The story involved Dracula turning the X-Men into vampires, but Wolverine’s healing factor allowed him to overwhelm Dracula’s control and fight back. He then littered New York City with vampire heroes and humanity’s last hope came in the form of the Punisher wearing Dr. Strange’s cape.

Mark Millar

The first real use of Marvel Zombies was more of a prank than anything else. Mark Millar and Greg Land were doing Ultimate Fantastic Four and all signs pointed to the idea that they were setting up a crossover. Not just any crossover, but THE crossover. Marvel had been adamant about the Ultimate Universe being separated from main continuity, but solicitations and covers made it seem like the two Reed Richards counterparts were going to meet up. Much of Ultimate Fantastic Four #21 played into this with Ultimate Reed conversing with an alternate universe Reed who very much resembled the mainstream one. Ultimate Reed created a portal to go visit him.

What he found was zombie incarnations of the Fantastic Four with Reed asking, “Ever had the feeling you’ve been had?”

Robert Kirkman

The rest of the arc was about Ultimate Reed trying to survive and escape that world with the help of that world’s Magneto. This set the stage for the first Marvel Zombies miniseries, written by The Walking Dead’s Robert Kirkman with art by Sean Phillips (Arthur Suydam did zombie parody covers of classic Marvel art, which would continue for several more miniseries). Initially, Kirkman wanted to do a story about Luke Cage being the last hero alive, playing up his unbreakable skin as a deterrent, but since the Ultimate Fantastic Four arc already depicted Zombie Luke Cage, that was off the table.

Instead, his story involved two main arcs. One was the survival of Black Panther, who – much like the animated What If…? episode – was kept alive, albeit with his limbs being gradually removed for the sake of being zombie food without infecting the body. While the cartoon had Scott Lang’s disembodied head, the comic had a decapitated Zombie Wasp as Panther’s ally. She was never cured of the disease, but she did stop being hungry after a while and came to her senses.

The other story was about Earth’s zombified heroes dealing with the coming of the Silver Surfer and Galactus. A handful of them went on to devour the invaders and absorb their cosmic powers, along with their cosmic hunger. Hank Pym, Iron Man, Luke Cage, Wolverine, Spider-Man, and the Hulk went on to wipe out nearly all life in the universe as the Zombie Galacti. The follow-up was the basis for Marvel Zombies 2.

As for what caused the zombie outbreak in the beginning, that’s where things get a little hairy. The Ultimate Fantastic Four story revealed that a Zombie Superman (recolored to be the Sentry so as not to piss off DC) got so hungry that he punched reality until breaking into an alternate universe and infecting its heroes.

Kirkman and Phillips did a one-shot prequel called Marvel Zombies: Dead Days that suggested that Magneto bartered with some force to unleash the virus on Earth, thinking that it would only target humans and not mutants. Then a later miniseries called Marvel Zombies Return created an alternate universe time-loop where the zombies from Marvel Zombies continuity ended up in another universe, where they caused an outbreak, infected that world’s Sentry, and Zombie Sentry ended up popping into the Marvel Zombies universe to cause the initial outbreak.

Did anybody follow that? I hope so. Either way, Zombie Sentry was never mentioned again. He infected the heroes and then…nothing. Just a loose plot thread. Weird. Though fitting that the Sentry stopped being a threat because people forgot about him.

Crossovers

The initial Marvel Zombies universe was revisited here and there in several ways. Black Panther’s comic (during when he was leader of the Fantastic Four) journeyed into that universe and dealt with the Zombie Galacti. Ash from Army of Darkness got his own cool crossover miniseries taking place during the initial outbreak. Zombie Wolverine showed up in an Exiles story about a team made entirely out of Wolverine variants. Zombie Deadpool (Headpool) became a major part of the short-lived Deadpool Corps. Marvel Zombies also did a crossover with Marvel Apes.

There was also a one-shot called Marvel Zombies Halloween that revealed that Kitty Pryde and her son survived, while also showing what Mephisto was up to in this reality.

Fred Van Lente

With Marvel Zombies 3, Fred Van Lente started writing and brought the series in a different direction. He introduced ARMOR, a SHIELD offshoot based on dealing with alternate realities. While it still dealt with the Marvel Zombies universe, focus was more on the mainstream Marvel universe as it tried to prevent an invasion. The protagonists for the story were Machine Man and Jocasta. In the follow-up, Marvel Zombies 4, Morbius brought the Midnight Sons back together to save the world from a possible outbreak.

Van Lente’s swansong was Marvel Zombies 5, which was about Machine Man and Howard the Duck venturing into different zombie universes for reasons. After that came Marvel Zombies Supreme, taking place in regular Marvel continuity and featuring Battlestar and Jack of Hearts fighting zombie versions of the Squadron Supreme. Then came the last gasp for the line with 2012’s Marvel Zombies Destroy, where ARMOR sends Howard the Duck and Dum Dum Dugan to fight an alternate reality filled with zombie Nazis.

The Zombie Saga Continues

They did get a shot in the arm a few years later with Secret Wars. The event featured a world made up pieces of alternate Earths, haphazardly connected together. There’s a No Man’s Land on this Earth that’s filled with zombies and homicidal robots. It’s basically a place to dump criminals for execution.

A couple more stories were released, though neither had any connection to the original Marvel Zombies or the stuff with ARMOR. Marvel Zombie was a one-shot about a band of heroes trying to survive a zombie apocalypse, who end up teaming with Simon Garth, Marvel’s Zombie. The ending is…well, it sure is something.

More recently is Marvel Zombies: Resurrection. This one is about the Brood infesting and killing Galactus. The race evolves into a hivemind of zombies, all very interested in infecting Franklin Richards. The heroes for this one include Spider-Man, a Sentinel reprogrammed to be Franklin and Valeria’s nanny, a blind Wolverine, a techno-organic Frank Castle, and a SUPER EXCITED Blade.

Also of note is Marvel Universe vs. The Punisher and its sequels (Marvel Universe vs. Wolverine and Marvel Universe vs. The Avengers). This reality also dealt with a zombie superhero apocalypse, but in a different and more coherent way. Instead of being a virus, it was a bio weapon let loose into the ecosystem. That meant that presumably everyone was going to succumb to it eventually, turning into a savage cannibal. The Punisher, who was inadvertently behind the mess and was immune, would spend his days hunting down and beheading heroes. Also, he’d have to kill Deadpool on a nearly daily basis.

That’s Marvel Zombies in a nutshell.

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theres-a-goldensky · 4 years ago

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26 + 2 Various BL Series Fic Recs

Fandoms included in this fic rec list: Love By Chance, TharnType, Until We Meet Again, My Engineer, 2 Moons, HIStory3: Trapped (plus a bit of bonus Theory of Love and WHY R U?)

I’ve found a handful of good fics for all of these tiny pairings that I am newly obsessed with, and I thought I’d share them with you if you’re also looking for something good to read. Please, if you have recs of your own, point me in the direction of any other good stuff!

As ever, feel free to reblog and check out my other rec lists for the following fandoms:

The Untamed list one and two - various pairings, mostly Wangxian

IT chapter 2 list one and two - Reddie

Good Omens - Aziraphale/Crowley

Or just head over to my bookmarks on AO3.

(All recs are complete) (I’ve noted pairings, length, and rating, but not any warnings or additional tags.)

** denotes personal favorite

LOVE BY CHANCE / THARNTYPE

1. the count up series by sweetiejelly - Tin/Can - ~34,000 words, explicit - A fix-it fic post-canon where Tin and Can slowly work out their issues with some missteps and learning along the way.

So two weeks later, when Can first does it, Tin doesn't know what to do. For the longest while, he just turns off his phone screen. And then turns it back on.

good night, tin. it's been a while but i promised to say good night. so, good night, sleep well.

Every damn time the text is still there.

In the end, Tin deletes it.

The next morning, Can does it again.

good morning, tin. looks like rain today. don't forget your umbrella.

Tin deletes it.

The texts keep coming.

2. ** LBC Aftermath series by Mara - LBC/TharnType crossover- ~6700 words, mature - Were you too horrified by Techno’s ending in LBC? This author feels your pain and did her part to get some justice for Techno. This fic has zero sympathy for Kengkla, which I deeply appreciated. This will help you work out some of your anger. It features LBC!Techno and the TharnType versions of Tharn and Type. Mind the warnings, since this deals with the serious consequences of Kengkla’s actions.

Kengkla stayed at the house through the morning and Techno was so jumpy he nearly leaped out of his skin every time Kla looked at him or talked to him. Even though Kla had explained what happened and how he wasn’t upset to be dating, Techno still felt weird. He kind of wished he remembered what had happened. A guy should remember how he lost his virginity, right?

Kla grabbed him in a big hug and Techno froze, managing a weak grin when Kla pulled back to smile at him. “I’ve got to go home now. But I’ll call you later. Let me know if you go somewhere.”

“O-okay.” Techno stared as the boy let himself out the front door.

3. 5 + 1 by strokeofluck - Tin/Can- ~3600 words, rated general - This is a sweet story about the times when Pete sees Tin having feelings for Can.

Pete weighed his options as he glanced back and forth between Tin and Can. Can didn’t seem to be bothered by the whole thing, he even had a shy smile on his face. Or at least, Pete thought it was a shy smile, he had never really seen this kind of expression coming from Can before.

He could let this whole thing go, he supposed, but he didn’t really want to. It was time for him to finally say to Tin: I told you so.

“You were born in Bangkok,” he said, casting a wide net and hoping Can would find himself caught in it.

Can did.

4. That Testified Surprise by Mara - Techno/Tharn/Type - ~7000 words, mature - This is a LBC canon rewrite that stars the TharnType version of all three characters. Type realizes something is not...quite...right with Kengkla and invites Techno to stay with him and Tharn instead of going home drunk.

Pouring Techno into the passenger seat, Type sat down in the driver’s seat and pulled the phone out to check it, entering the passcode. (The passcode was the birthday of Thai national football team captain Siwarak Tedsungnoen, of course. Duh.)

Fuck, it looked like Nic had been either texting or calling every 20 minutes since they got to the bar. What was up there?

Scrolling back through the evening’s texts, Type scowled harder. Loving brother or not, this was fucking creepy. Going back farther, it looked like it was a pattern. Did the kid do anything other than pester his brother about his whereabouts?

THARNTYPE

5. everything he wants by minkit - ~5100 words, explicit - Type accidentally ruins one of Tharn’s shirts and agrees to do whatever Tharn wants to make up for it. Which means it’s porn stretched over the bare bones of a plot, and it’s great.

Tharn’s hands moved across the bed, slowly, inch by inch and it was frustrating because Type knew they were heading to him, but Tharn took his sweet time. And then they were covering his hands and Tharn’s face was mere centimeters from his and Type could barely breathe. It took everything he had not to lean forward and capture those lips that also belonged to him, but he had a feeling if he tried, Tharn wouldn’t let him. He had that look on his face and Type knew what it meant.

He knew he was in for a long rest of the night.

6. You’ve Got Mail by perthbysaint - ~7800 words, explicit - Type sends Tharn nudes at the most inconvenient times.

A selfie? From Type? Tharn was thanking all of his lucky stars as he happily taps to load the image. The picture loads and Tharn’s phone slips from his suddenly lax grip. Convinced he couldn’t have just seen what he thought he just saw, he picks his phone up hastily and stares very intently at the picture.

It’s a mirror selfie, obviously taken in a changing room, but that thought comes secondary to thighs. Type is holding the camera in front of his face to take the picture, shirt clenched in his other hand and pulled up slightly to show off the shorts. The fucking shorts. He had seen Type in his soccer gear before and yes, Type has most definitely asked for the wrong size and Tharn is more grateful than he’s ever been for anything in his whole life. The shorts are riding up so high they can’t cover more than a few inches of skin, Type’s smooth, powerful thighs on full display. On the inside of his left thigh, there’s a tiny purple mark peeking out from under the bottom of the shorts. Tharn knows exactly what it is because he was the one who left it there just two days ago when he sucked marks into Type’s thighs for a half-hour before he slung Type’s legs over his shoulders and ate him out until Type was sobbing fat tears and begging Tharn to let him come.

7. pet names series by LokelaniRose - ~50,000 words, explicit - A series of post-episode fics that gives us the sex that the show only hinted at, starting with the shower scene.

Tharn prides himself on his self-control. All his passion and intensity is saved for his music, when he’s safely behind a drum kit and can let it all out. He’s never been as irritated by anyone else as he is by Type and all his playground bullying nonsense. Something about the other boy just shakes something loose inside him, rattles at Tharn’s iron discipline until he has to grit his teeth constantly not to just – what? Kiss him? Kill him? Tharn has enough composure (and pride) to put up a front that’s all smiles and wry amusement, but really he regularly skips between one of two daydreams – twisting Type’s head off or fucking him into the ground.

(Tharn is absolutely not going to admit to the third set of daydreams, of curling up around Type when he’s cold or cheering him on at matches or bringing him home to meet Tharn’s father. Nope, no, definitely not.)

2MOONS SERIES

8. ** The universe where we do not commit reckless, unlubricated buttsex by startledoctopus - Forth/Beam - ~8700 words, explicit - This is a great story about Beam giving in and trying to seduce Forth the same way he seduced all of those girls in his past. This Forth is great, and the story retcons their first time to something far more pleasant for Beam.

"We're heading into a unit on disorders of the spine and I need to review my basic skeletal and muscular anatomy. But it feels stupid to keep studying these weird-looking diagrams and drawings." None of this was, strictly speaking, factual, but an engineering major wouldn't know any different. Beam gathered up all his bravado, walked behind Forth, and began rucking up his shirts as if this were completely normal.

"What! I..."

"Shut up, I need to look at a real back so I know what I'll be looking at as a doctor." Forth let him take the shirts off, glancing back at him several times but giving in meekly to Beam's stern look. Forth shuffled the papers some more.

"All right. Okay, um...Ah!" Beam smirked at Forth's reaction as he ran his thumbs down the nape of his neck.

9. Good Things Come To by sweetiejelly - Ming/Kit - ~4300 words, explicit - Kit gets drunk and reveals more of his feelings for Ming than he probably means to.

"Hmm." Kit closes his eyes and leans his head back on the headrest. "Ming, Ming, Ming. Do you know your name's a kiss? I'm kissing the air everytime I say 'Ming'!" Kit pops his mouth and it pops Ming's mind a bit. "And then I think about kissing you. Why do you make me think about you so damn much? You're so annoying, Ming. No one's ever..." and Kit leans to the side, almost like he's going to conk out or throw up, only to straighten back up. "... made me this crazy."

Oh shit. Ming doesn't know what to do with all of this information. He knew somewhere deep down that Kit likes him. Kit's eyes can't lie. Kit's mouth can't either, the cusses coming out whenever he's keyed up and flustered, and then there are his kisses.

10 + 11. ** how to fail flirt your way into his heart (a guide by Kit) and a little conversation (and a little action please) by sweetiejelly - Ming/Kit - ~30,000 words, explicit in the second part - This story makes a tiny plot divergence. It has Kit put a little more effort into finding out if Ming is really into Yo and then from there, it loosely follows the plot of the show with some key differences. I really enjoyed this.

"Can I have your number?" Kit mentally face-palms. Why? Damn Pha. Damn Beam. Just damn everything, ugh. He has never flirted in his life. Pin asked him out, okay? He doesn't know how to do this. "I'm Kit, Phana's friend," he says, trying to make it less weird.

"I'm Ming. And of course, P'Kit!" Ming flashes him an easy grin and holds out his hand.

Oh right, the phone. Kit shoves it at Ming, nearly hitting him in the chest. Great, he's acing this.

Ming smiles at him, bemused or confused, probably both, and brushes his hand, totally unnecessarily, over the back of Kit's hand as he takes the phone. "In case of emergency, right?" Ming looks up at him from under his lashes and boy, this nong is brazen.

12. ** In Control series by LokelaniRose - Ming/Kit - ~27,000 words, explicit - Kit struggles to tell Ming that he wants something other than the careful, gentle sex they’ve been having. Ming discovers that Kit has some anxiety and panic problems. He also discovers what helps him feel better. [spoilers: these two things are connected.] I love how attentive and caring Ming is throughout this series. The anxious Kit also rings true to the character we saw on the show.

But now that Kit is fretting over things, he might as well fret over this as well. So Ming is great in bed. And let’s be honest, Kit probably isn’t. He hasn’t had a hundred previous partners – okay, tiny exaggeration, but still – and doesn’t know all the fancy moves and techniques and tricks…and just like everything else, in bed Ming is somehow casual and sincere at the same time. He never seems to want anything except what Kit wants, is always happy to do whatever, to take his time making slow, gentle love to Kit. Kit knows that he always comes at least – he secretly really likes it when Ming comes, he’s not quite sure why – but what if there’s more that Kit could be doing, to make it better for him? If Kit was better in bed maybe it would make up for being a shitty boyfriend in other areas, one who can’t be nice in public or talk about his feelings.

UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN

13. another nightmare fic by itsmylifekay - Win/Team - ~2300 words, not rated - Team tries to sleep without Win and it doesn’t go well.

Team’s room feels suffocating, the air too thick and the space too dark and the covers sticking to his skin with sweat. His breaths are too loud in the quiet, but the quiet itself is deafening. It reminds him of the water. The muted sounds. The frantic pounding of his heart. (The same one he feels now echoed in his chest.)

Flashes of the dream come back to him unbidden.

Everything is too dark, too bright, no way to see what way is up or what way is down. He’s trapped. Can’t get out. Can’t breathe.

14. ** Different With You by blackrose9212 - Win/Team - ~6900 words, teen - It’s open swim week, which means that the swimming club offers free lessons to any of the students who would like to participate. Team doesn’t understand why his teammates hate it so much - until he does. Great jealousy in this one from both sides.

“Nice to meet you,” the boy gushes. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’d like to join your group. Auntie said there needs to be at least three people, and no one was sitting across from you two. I’ve been paying attention so I already have ideas. Is that okay?” Team watches as he pulls out his books and drops them onto the table, pushing them a little farther out so they’re nearly touching Win’s notebook.

Team shrugs. “Sure, that’s fine. I don’t think Win has been paying attention so I’m glad you have an idea of what’s going on.”

Win hits him lightly at the back of the hand and Film giggles behind his hand. “Oh, no, P’Win looks very smart. I’m sure he’s been listening.” He looks at Win and smiles a little, blushing when Win gives him a smile back.

Team looks between the two of them. Then back at Film, who’s watching Win leaf through his literature textbook like he’s never seen anything so beautiful, and then past Film at the table he left from, where he sees three boys, laughing behind their hands and making cooing faces.

15. seven hundred thirteen by Kiranokira - Win/Team - ~6800 words, mature - Win spends two years abroad in England, and he and Team have to navigate a long distance relationship. It’s very sweet and written very true to life.

“I kind of hoped you were going to show up at the airport tomorrow morning and chase the plane,” Win says. He kisses Team’s hair, lingering there to memorize the fresh, clear scent.

Team says, “Is it weird that I thought about doing that?” and Win feels him smile against his shoulder.

It’s late, nearly nine thirty, and Win had plans of how to spend tonight that can’t be realized anymore. He wanted to invite Team to dinner with his family. He wanted to play video games with Team and View. He wanted to talk about London with Waan and Team. He wanted to include Team in his family’s warmth in some small way, to make him feel less lonely.

He can’t do any of that now but he still wants to sneak Team upstairs and have him in his arms all night. He wouldn’t, but he wants to. It’s been a month since he moved off campus permanently, and weeks since he was last able to spend a night alone with Team.

16. ** You Can Cry by Kiranokira - Win/Team - ~19,600 words, mature - Win goes missing while on vacation with some friends. Team is left at home trying to handle it. I like the way the author built up to the accident happening. They did a good job creating tension and showing us exactly how Team felt about Win. And spoilers, this story has a happy ending.

“You’re going to fail out of university,” Team tells him. “You’re not really going, are you?”

Win rolls onto his side and perches his cheek on his hand. “What if I say yes?” he asks. “Will you miss me?”

Team’s warning look is more venomous than usual. “Not at all,” Team says, and Win smirks because that isn’t true and they both know it. “You still shouldn’t go. What if you miss the flight back? You’ll fail out and I’ll break up with you for being a dumbass.”

The very recent phenomenon of Team acknowledging that they’re a couple has its usual melting effect on Win’s heart.

2GETHER

17. ** Love Songs on Our Skin series by Kari_Kurofai - Sarawat/Tine - ~15,700 words, explicit - A soulmark AU where Tine is born with the notes to a song that hasn’t yet been written wrapped around his chest. I enjoyed how Tine’s obliviousness in the show carries over to this fic.

Only Mr. Chic would have a song no one had ever fucking heard of permanently etched on his chest. For fuck's sake .

Still, he waves it off, and he tries not to look too closely at other people's marks. Tries being the key word. He doesn't envy the elegant watercolors of a guitar pick and an open novel he catches sight of on the wrists of some couple's interlinked hands when he's in town. And he certainly doesn't envy the dude he once saw in a coffee shop with the words " I hate you " scrawled across the back of his neck. But yeah, okay, he might be a little jealous of the people who are lucky enough to have something as simple as their soulmate's name on their skin. That definitely isn't fair.

"Why couldn't it at least have been a Scrubb song?" he asks the mirror as he wipes it clear shower-born condensation. The mirror and him are well acquainted with this conversation by now. In fact, the mirror sees the stupid mark more than anyone, so it might as well put up with his equally stupid questions. "It could have been 'Together.' Just think of it, how romantic it would be to meet some cute girl's eyes after bumping into them at a concert, my favorite song playing . . ." He draws a nail over the winding bars of the music on his chest, frowning. "That would be so much easier."

18. Drown Your Sorrows by HyacinthsSoul - 2gether/Theory of Love - Sarawat and Third meet at a bar and bond over being in love with oblivious men.

“No, he’s an angel,” Sarawat says. “Unfortunately he’s a very stupid, very straight angel.”

“Mine’s stupid too,” the other man admits. “But definitely no angel. I’m Third, by the way,” he adds, offering a slender hand to shake.

“Sarawat,” says Sarawat. “Can I buy you another? I think we’re drinking the same thing, although I can’t remember what it’s called.”

20. ** Your Body Is My Instrument by Kari_Kurofai - Sarawat/Tine - ~12,000 words, explicit - This fic does a good job doing what, in this reccer’s humble opinion, the series failed to: showing Tine attracted to Sarawat. There’s great first time sex and some fun sexual tension. Plus, we get to see them switch off, which is extremely rare in BL. And most importantly: hand kink.

It starts innocently enough. Or, well, innocently enough for a guy whose first words to him were, “Keep looking at me like that and I’ll kiss you till you drop.” So, you know. It starts kinda like that.

They’ve been officially dating for a grand sum total of three days and altogether not that much has changed. Except that Sarawat touches him more now. Normally this would be fine, no big deal, right? But Sarawat has magic, evil hands, and apparently all he has to do is glance Tine’s way to deduce the exact right places and ways to touch Tine to drive him up the fucking wall.

And the worst part is it’s almost never the same place or the same way twice, and the only warning Tine ever gets is that sneaky little glint Sarawat gets in his eyes just before he does it, the bastard.

MY ENGINEER

21. Cool Boy(friend) by HyacinthsSoul - Ram/King - ~22,000 words, explicit - So this is technically a WIP, but each chapter feels like a completed fic without a cliffhanger or anything. This is a very sweet, comfortable story about King and Ram getting to know each other as their relationship develops.

In the selfie King sends, he’s holding up a full shot glass while someone’s arm reaches into the frame to hand him another kind of drink, something tall with a straw and a paper umbrella. Ram frowns. Whose arm is that? The person is wearing a red long-sleeved shirt, which doesn’t match what any of their friend group was wearing, and the engineer bar doesn’t offer table service.

Frowning, Ram looks back through the previous photos until he spots a detail he’d overlooked before: a red-shirted man at a neighboring table. He’s visible in the background of two or three pictures taken by Tee, and in each of them he’s staring intently at King.

Not that it’s any of Ram’s business. Not that he cares.

HISTORY3: TRAPPED

22. it’s too late (to turn back now) by stebeee - Tang Yi/Meng Shao Fei - ~7200 words, general audiences - Canon divergence fic where Tang Yi pushes Shao Fei away after he saves Hong Ye in order to try and protect him. Shao Fei reacts to that about as well as you’d expect.

“Tang Yi, what do you mean-“

“I think you’ve fooled around for long enough,” Tang Yi interrupts, his voice cold, nothing like the man who had dabbed at his lips with a cotton bud last night, the man who had smiled at him when he made the cannon joke.

“You’ve disrupted my life, and the life of my family and friends in the past few weeks, Meng Shao Fei. This has gone for long enough,” he continues, unwavering. “I don’t want to have anything more to do with you. Take a good rest here in the hospital, and I’ll get someone to pack up your things back at the house. Jack will deliver it back to your apartment.”

23 + 24. ** just waiting, waiting (on you) and between you and me by stebeee - Tang Yi/Meng Shao Fei - ~16,000 words, general audiences - These are stories about how Shao Fei and the rest of the gang deal over the years when Tang Yi is in jail. Found family fics are my jam, so I loved this.

The thing is, it’s been almost three months of this. 90 days, give or take. 2,160 hours. 129,600 minutes. And more than 7 million seconds of this — not having Tang Yi at his side.

Shao Fei wonders for a moment if he will ever stop seeing Tang Yi in every corner of the house. When he comes down the stairs in the morning, some part of him expects to see Tang Yi standing at the kitchen island with a bright smile, asking him if he wants jam with his toast that morning. Shao Fei sees Tang Yi in that apron he loves, cooking at the stove when he fixes himself dinner, alone in the spacious kitchen. Seeing Tang Yi’s favourite blue bathrobe, Shao Fei can almost see Tang Yi leaving the bathroom, his hair all wet and falling over his eyes.

25. amuse bouche by sarahyyy - Jack/Zhao Zi - ~2400 words, general audiences - This is more of Jack seducing Zhao Zi through food and attention. So basically an extension of the show. Mother hen Jack is the cutest.

“Jack?” Zhao Zi murmurs blearily. “Why are you here?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were sick?” Jack shoots back, herding Zhao Zi back into the house. He checks for Zhao Zi’s temperature with the back of his hand. “Fever?”

“Just the flu for now, I think?” Zhao Zi says.

Jack purses his lips. “Have you had anything to eat?”

“I had some bread earlier?” Zhao Zi says, but he also looks shifty enough that Jack mostly takes it with a grain of salt.

26. Absolutely Nothing Goes Wrong by anon - Jack/Zhao Zi - ~4500 words, teen - This is an AU where Zhao Zi is the son of a rival mob boss, but he’s still, you know HIMSELF. And when his father says he’s useless, he decides to prove him wrong by seducing Tang Yi’s second-in-command. It’s absolutely adorable.

The man pulled him by the arm, resisting Zhao Zi’s attempts to unhook his claws without causing a scene.

“Hey, stop grabbing me!” he shouted, as the other man played deaf.

“While I admit this is a very loud bar, I didn’t think it was quite so easy to mishear what this young man just yelled straight into your ear,” a newcomer who’d witnessed their conflict said lightly as he walked up to them. His words were accompanied by a wide, almost chilling smile. Zhao Zi blinked once and the odd peculiarity of that smile vanished, leaving just a regular smile in its place. He must’ve just been imagining things under the harsh shadows of the dimly lit bar.

AND +2

Because I’m shameless, I’ll add my own two fics to the end, if you’re interested.

WHY R U?

27. Sorry A Thousand Times - Fighter/Tutor - ~3200 words, explicit - This is a canon divergence for the series finale. I needed more catharsis after the intensity of episode 12.

Tutor narrowed his eyes and clenched his fists at his sides. He took a deep breath. “How many times do I have to tell you to leave me alone before you listen?” he asked. I don’t know how many more times I can bring myself to say it.

“Only once,” Fight said and then added, “if you mean it.”

Tutor crossed his arms over his chest and said, “What makes you think I don’t mean it now?”

The corner of Fight’s mouth turned up and he took a step closer. Tutor stumbled back until he was stopped by his legs hitting the edge of the bed. Fight reached out a hand and gently ran the back of his fingers over the line of Tutor’s jaw.

Until We Meet Again

28. Dream On - Win/Team - 8900 words, explicit - Takes place alongside show canon, so that we see how the bed sharing began and how Win and Team’s relationship developed over that year.

“Do you want to do well tomorrow?” Win asked, throwing one of his legs over both of Team’s.

“Yes,” Team said as he did his best to put some space between them on the tiny mattress.

“Then you need to get some sleep. I’m helping.”

“How is this helping?” Team demanded.

“Would you stop…” Win said, shifting closer every time Team pulled away. “Five minutes, Team. Just be still for five minutes, okay?”

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keyofjetwolf · 4 years ago

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Bonus Question Answers! (non-anime animated noms)

This was SO. FUCKING. HARD. This question went so much better than I expected, and I’m only sad I lack the artistic skills to make it all a reality.

Below, my PAINSTAKINGLY selected top answers, If yours is listed below, you’ve earned an entry in a random draw to win a GIFTENING liveblog OF YOUR CHOICE

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Q: The Senshi suddenly find themselves in a very different animated world. Which cartoon power (think Looney Tunes) do they each now possess?

* Usagi can make literal rainbows happen when she smiles. Rei can set anything on fire with her mind (she feels a bit cheated because she can do that at home too). Ami can write down anything in her special notebook and it literally changes reality around her (she does not share this with her fellow Senshi, because she knows the full weight of this power. She did, however, write Michiru having a bad hair day for just one day. Just one.) Makoto has the ability to pull out any ingredient she wants from any pantry/door/closet. She usually uses this for cooking purposes, so she won't have to purchase groceries. Minako has the ability to mimic any voice in the world, whether she has heard it or not. Hijinks ensue. The Outer Senshi sensibly escaped from the new animated world right after Michiru recovered from her bad hair day. They don't speak of the experience. -- @amberlilly [The whole thing was so solid, but what absolutely sent it over the top for me was Ami using her powers to fuck with Michiru in the most petty benign way, which is EVERYTHING.]

* Usagi is definitely rocking the exaggerated tear gushers. Ami can pull charts/diagrams out of nowhere at any time. Rei combusts when she gets sufficiently mad. Makoto has birds fly around when she sings while cooking or cleaning. Minako breaks the fourth wall to make jokes and asides to the audience. Chibi-Usa is somehow able to walk through ludicrous danger without getting touched, because the censors won't allow kids to be hurt in this show. Haruka can make girls melt into puddles of goo with her flirting. Michiru can summon a servant at any time to take care of an unpleasant or potentially dirty task for her (including to take the slapstick comedy for her). Setsuna has access to the script. Hotaru just sort of appears sometimes, just standing there, silently and menacingly, but never does anything on-screen (though you may hear the occasional off-screen screaming). Oh, and while I'd like to say Mamoru gains the power of inexplicable entrances... he kinda already has that one. --Darkcloud k'California [Again, I loved all these, but particularly Chibs saved by the censors, Michiru’s poor hapless slapstick avatar, and everything about Hotaru, thank you.]

* Usagi: The power to be found charming by every character she encounters and somehow escape all consequences and damage by simply remaining oblivious, a la Tweety Bird.

Rei: The power to explode, reducing her surroundings to charred wasteland, but remain relatively unscathed (perhaps a bit singed)

Ami: The power to grow multiple arms, hands, and hundreds of fingers in order to do tech stuff

Makoto: The power to punch someone through a brick wall, possibly several, and into someone's family dinner. It's always some surprised-looking family's private event. Often the same family.

Minako: the power to, Bugs Bunny style, apply lipstick and seduce ANYTHING. Which, according to her, is a power she already has.

Haruka: The power to run off a cliff and keep going until she looks down. She never learns to not look down.

Michiru: The power to stick a pin into any other character and cause them to deflate like a balloon

Hotaru: She just gets to actually be used. It is thrilling.

Pluto: She will observe this strange planet from afar with her huge telescope and breathe the Martian air and look great in a kilt and Roman-style helmet. -- @incorrecttact [Your set-up and punchline delivery style on all of these was perfection, and I legit lol’d at Mako and the poor family she continually interrupts.]

* to make dynamite go BOOM (Rei obviously); to have their opponent chase them to the point where they're floating in midair and then their opponent falls 5000 feet but they calmly walk back to land (like Wil E Coyote & the Roadrunner) (Usagi); the power to blow kisses to their opponent (which are clearly poisonous and end up killing the chap) (Minako); the power to have their opponent's entire arm shattered if they try to even punch them lightly on the arm (Makoto - this is canon anyways, but moreso exaggerated here hehe); to open a book and start reading it out loud and words start showing up on screen, confusing tf out of their opponent (Ami - also canon already) --@midnightdrops [Each of these were great, but Usagi and Mako as you described them totally sold me.]

* usagi: can now float on yummy aromas, so long as they lead her somewhere tasty! the others play a quick tournament of jun-ken-pon each time it happens to determine who will be responsible for steering her from blissfully drifting into traffic. again.

ami: is now possessed of x-ray vision! only she can neither turn it off, nor control its intensity. she is working on developing a set of goggles to dampen the effect, and secretly hopes they will make her look like geordi laforge.

rei: rei-chan is now blessed with the power of song! her heartfelt melodies soften the malice of even the most one-dimensional baddie, and influence public policy on a global scale. international success life, yo! i guess she's really a hard worker!

makoto: has become something of a cartoon cupid! in a poorly-ventilated room, her mere presence has bystanders declaring their love for one another within minutes*; and her decadent wedding cakes are the hit of second marriages across the country. *all of them so like her old senpai, and none of them falling for her, alas!

minako: employs her considerable powers of confidence and charm to convince the others she now has access to Plot Manipulation, mainly by engineering and taking ownership of a series of happy accidents. her real power is to literally jump out of her skin when she's startled*, and she has no intention of EVER letting the others know about it. *minako discovered this new ability while she was changing a roll of toilet paper, and a spider dropped onto her hand. the leader of the inner senshi had never been so horrified. her bones were so slick and cold, her skin a hideous unwiped pile, and then THE SPIDER CRAWLED INTO THE PILE and she STILL doesn't know if it ever got out and sometimes her skin itches REALLY bad and you know what let's stop talking about this right now okay???

setsuna: can now manifest a giant pencil and erase the enemy! but doing so would be breaking The Greatest Taboo, and leave her impaled upon the pencil.

haruka: her new empathetic ability is remarkably similar to Ma-Ti's "heart" ring (Captain Planet and the Planeteers, 1990 - 1996). basically, she's just like really soft at you, and it inspires you to take more positive actions toward yourself and the world at large? she protests about wishing she'd received something tough and intimidating, but secretly is very moved by being made an instrument of kindness.

michiru: her intuition has mutated into fourth wall awareness, and the subtlety with which she makes this known to you is SO GODDAMN UNCOMFORTABLE OH MY GOD

hotaru: can now not only communicate with inanimate objects, but also render them permanently animate! you should have been there during the princess tutu crossover episode when she met lamp-chan - they're STILL inseparable, and chibiusa is SUPER jealous. speaking of which,

chibiusa: can now use hammerspace to store her endless series of magical geegaws and weird animal boyfriends. -- @rasiqra-revulva [Dude, you have got to stop making me snort laugh, it’s RUDE. Pure solid gold, every word, with a special nod to Haruka, MICHIRU, and Minako’s extended tragic cartoon backstory.]

* Usagi - like her name suggests, she is now Bunny. By which I mean she is now a very pink and blonde bunny (somewhere between Bugs and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit), but with super-elastic limbs to accompany her new form. Ami - Magical Science Powers up to and including ‘mix one brightly colored liquid in flask with another brightly colored liquid in flask, explosion, get hammer.’ Rei - An infinite supply of dynamite she can pull out of nowhere. This shouldn’t be as useful as it is. Mako - Literally suplexed a giant metallic youma not just untransformed, but before she has Senshi powers at all. I fully believe she could lift an anvil in canon. Minako - While Usagi looks like a rabbit, Mina now has the supernatural trickster abilities of Bugs Bunny. Implausibly effective bad disguises, persuasion, showing up out of nowhere. Chibs - Now that gun from her first appearance is a real gun, but it shoots anything from normal bullets to pies in the face to live birds. Pluto - The fourth wall is a real and tangible thing. Pluto can not just break it, but control it. If she wants to remove a layer of cel or suddenly turn things into sketch, she can do it. If she wants to teleport, she can skip in the animation. If she wants to suddenly appear as a Roger Rabbit-style cartoon in a live action field, or vice versa? Yeah, she can do that too. She basically uses this power to warp the layers of her cartoonish reality for pastry acquisition. Haruka - You’d think it would be Roadrunner speed. Haruka thinks it will be Roadrunner speed. But no, it isn’t. Space Jam is Looney Tunes, and Haruka’s power is Basketball. Michiru - Another power that’s just canonical: Wealth. Ridiculous, tremendous wealth. Hotaru - The funniest thing for Hotaru to be in a zany cartoon world is Even More Spooky. Nothing changes except the artstyle and a ridiculous supervillain cape. -- Regalli [Pluto, man. Fantastic and brilliant and I legit WANT THIS. Also though, Hotaru with a cape.]

* Usagi gains the ability to eat anything and everything like the Tazmanian Devil, though she shares none of his aggressive personality; Minako enjoys fucking with people by bending reality (you know, diving into painted tunnels and stuff like that); Ami is able to utilize and test unreal technology without harm, like jet boots, massive bombs, tornado seeds, etc.; Mako uses body manipulations to change her size and shape--especially for blocking attacks to protect people or grabbing people (coupled with her immense strength); and Rei is the only one aware of the audience beyond the Fourth Wall... She tries not to talk to them but sometimes she just can't help it, especially when Usagi is getting on her nerves. -- @thehubby [I said pander to me, and you absolutely did. I can’t stop thinking about Rei trying not to make fourth wall eye contact, then just whirling around all “CAN YOU FUCKING BELIEVE THIS SHIT??!?” and as it turns out, that IS precisely what I wanted.]

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I’ll be drawing for the bonus liveblog around the start of THE GIFTENING 2020 (currently looking to be Monday, 11 January 2021). Each bonus question is another chance to earn an entry, so keep those answers coming! I CAN ABSOLUTELY AND SHAMELESSLY BE BOUGHT.

#THE GIFTENING 2020 #THE GIFTENING 2020 admin shit #THE GIFTENING 2020 bonus q

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aaronmaurer · 4 years ago

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TV I Liked in 2020

Every year I reflect on the pop culture I enjoyed and put it in some sort of order.

Was there ever a year more unpredictably tailor-made for peak TV than 2020? Lockdowns/quarantines/stay-at-home orders meant a lot more time at home and the occasion to check out new and old favorites. (I recognize that if you’re lucky enough to have kids or roommates or a S.O., your amount of actual downtime may have been wildly different). While the pandemic resulted in production delays and truncated seasons for many shows, the continued streaming-era trends of limited series and 8-13 episode seasons mean that a lot of great and satisfying storytelling still made its way to the screen. As always, I in no way lay any claims to “best-ness” or completeness – this is just a list of the shows that brought me the most joy and escapism in a tough year and therefore might be worth putting on your radar.

10 Favorites

10. The Right Stuff: Season 1 (Disney+)

As a space program enthusiast, even I had to wonder, does the world really need another retelling of NASA’s early days? Especially since Tom Wolfe’s book has already been adapted as the riveting and iconoclastic Philip Kaufman film of the same name? While some may disagree, I find that this Disney+ series does justify its existence by focusing more on the relationships of the astronauts and their personal lives than the technical science (which may be partially attributable to budget limitations?). The series is kind of like Mad Men but with NASA instead of advertising (and real people, of course), so if that sounds intriguing, I encourage you to give it a whirl.

9. Fargo: Season 4 (FX)

As a big fan of Noah Hawley’s Coen Brothers pastiche/crime anthology series, I was somewhat let down by this latest season. Drawing its influence primarily from the likes of gangster drama Miller’s Crossing – one of the Coens’ least comedic/idiosyncratic efforts – this season is more straightforward than its predecessors and includes a lot of characters and plot-threads that never quite cohere. That said, it is still amongst the year’s most ambitious television with another stacked cast, and the (more-or-less) standalone episode “East/West” is enough to make the season worthwhile.

8. The Last Dance (ESPN)

Ostensibly a 10-episode documentary about the 1990s Chicago Bulls’ sixth and final NBA Championship run, The Last Dance actually broadens that scope to survey the entire history of Michael Jordan and coach Phil Jackson’s careers with the team. Cleverly structured with twin narratives that chart that final season as well as an earlier timeframe, each episode also shifts the spotlight to a different person, which provides focus and variety throughout the series. And frankly, it’s also just an incredible ride to relive the Jordan era and bask in his immeasurable talent and charisma – while also getting a snapshot of his outsized ego and vices (though he had sign-off on everything, so it’s not exactly a warts-and-all telling).

7. The Queen’s Gambit (Netflix)

This miniseries adaptation of the Walter Tevis coming-of-age novel about a chess prodigy and her various addictions is compulsively watchable and avoids the bloat of many other streaming series (both in running time and number of episodes). The 1960s production design is stunning and the performances, including Anya Taylor-Joy in the lead role, are convincing and compelling.

6. The Great: Season 1 (hulu)

Much like his screenplay for The Favourite, Tony McNamara’s series about Catherine the Great rewrites history with a thoroughly modern and irreverent sensibility (see also: Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette). Elle Fanning brings a winning charm and strength to the title role and Nicholas Hoult is riotously entertaining as her absurdly clueless and ribald husband, Emperor Peter III. Its 10-episodes occasionally tilt into repetitiveness, but when the ride is this fun, why complain? Huzzah!

5. Dispatches From Elsewhere (AMC)

A limited (but possibly anthology-to-be?) series from creator/writer/director/actor Jason Segal, Dispatches From Elsewhere is a beautiful and creative affirmation of life and celebration of humanity. The first 9 episodes form a fulfilling and complete arc, while the tenth branches into fourth wall-breaking meta territory, which may be a bridge too far for some (but is certainly ambitious if nothing else). Either way, it’s a movingly realized portrait of honesty, vulnerability and empathy, and I highly recommend visiting whenever it inevitably makes its way to Netflix, or elsewhere…

4. What We Do in the Shadows: Season 2 (FX)

The second season of WWDITS is more self-assured and expansive than the first, extending a premise I loved from its antecedent film – but was skeptical could be sustained – to new and reinvigorated (after)life. Each episode packs plenty of laughs, but for my money, there is no better encapsulation of the series’ potential and Matt Berry’s comic genius than “On The Run,” which guest-stars Mark Hamill and features Laszlo’s alter ego Jackie Daytona, regular human bartender.

3. Ted Lasso: Season 1 (AppleTV+)

Much more than your average fish-out-of-water comedy, Jason Sudeikis’ Ted Lasso is a brilliant tribute to humaneness, decency, emotional intelligence and good coaching – not just on the field. The fact that its backdrop is English Premier League Soccer is just gravy (even if that’s not necessarily represented 100% proficiently). A true surprise and gem of the year.

2. Mrs. America (hulu)

This FX miniseries explores the women’s liberation movement and fight for the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and its opposition by conservative women including Phyllis Schlafly. One of the most ingenious aspects of the series is centering each episode on a different character, which rotates the point of view and helps things from getting same-y. With a slate of directors including Ryan Bowden and Anna Fleck (Half-Nelson, Sugar, Captain Marvel) and an A-List cast including Cate Blanchett, Rose Byrne, Uzo Aduba, Sarah Paulson, Margo Martindale, Tracey Ulman and Elizabeth Banks, its quality is right up there with anything on the big screen. And its message remains (sadly) relevant as ever in our current era.

1. The Good Place: Season 4 (NBC)

It was tempting to omit The Good Place this year or shunt it to a side category since only the final 4 episodes aired in 2020, but that would have been disingenuous. This show is one of my all-time favorites and it ended perfectly. The series finale is a representative mix of absurdist humor and tear-jerking emotion, built on themes of morality, self-improvement, community and humanity. (And this last run of eps also includes a pretty fantastic Timothy Olyphant/Justified quasi-crossover.) Now that the entire series is available to stream on Netflix (or purchase in a nice Blu-ray set), it’s a perfect time to revisit the Good Place, or check it out for the first time if you’ve never had the pleasure.

5 of the Best Things I Caught Up With

Anne With An E (Netflix/CBC)

Another example of classic literature I had no prior knowledge of (see also Little Women and Emma), this Netflix/CBC adaptation of Anne of Green Gables was strongly recommended by several friends so I finally gave it a shot. While this is apparently slightly more grown-up than the source material, it’s not overly grimdark or self-serious but rather humane and heartfelt, expanding the story’s scope to include Black and First Nations peoples in early 1800s Canada, among other identities and themes. It has sadly been canceled, but the three seasons that exist are heart-warming and life-affirming storytelling. Fingers crossed that someday we’ll be gifted with a follow-up movie or two to tie up some of the dangling threads.

Better Call Saul (AMC)

I liked Breaking Bad, but I didn’t have much interest in an extended “Breaking Bad Universe,” as much as I appreciate star Bob Odenkirk’s multitalents. Multiple recommendations and lockdown finally provided me the opportunity to catch up on this prequel series and I’m glad I did. Just as expertly plotted and acted as its predecessor, the series follows Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman on his own journey to disrepute but really makes it hard not to root for his redemption (even as you know that’s not where this story ends).

Joe Pera Talks With You (Adult Swim)

It’s hard to really describe the deadpan and oddly soothing humor of comedian Joe Pera whose persona, in the series at least, combines something like the earnestness of Mr. Rogers with the calm enthusiasm of Bob Ross. Sharing his knowledge on the likes of how to get the best bite out of your breakfast combo, growing a bean arch and this amazing song “Baba O’Reilly” by the Who – have you heard it?!? – Pera provides arch comfort that remains solidly on the side of sincerity. The surprise special he released during lockdown, “Relaxing Old Footage with Joe Pera,” was a true gift in the middle of a strange and isolated year.

The Mandalorian (Disney+)

One of the few recent Star Wars properties that lives up to its potential, the adventures of Mando and Grogu is a real thrill-ride of a series with outstanding production values (you definitely want to check out the behind-the-scenes documentary series if you haven’t). I personally prefer the first season, appreciating its Western-influenced vibes and somewhat-more-siloed story. The back half of the second season veers a little too much into fan service and video game-y plotting IMHO but still has several excellent episodes on offer, especially the Timothy Olyphant-infused energy of premiere “The Marshall” and stunning cinematography of “The Jedi.” And, you know, Grogu.

The Tick (Amazon Prime)

I’ve been a fan of the Tick since the character’s Fox cartoon and indie comic book days and also loved the short-lived Patrick Warburton series from 2001. I was skeptical about this Amazon Prime reboot, especially upon seeing the pilot episode’s off-putting costumes. Finally gaining access to Prime this year, I decided to catch up and it gets quite good!, especially in Season 2. First, the costumes are upgraded; second, Peter Serafinowicz’s initially shaky characterization improves; and third, it begins to come into its own identity. The only real issue is yet another premature cancellation for the property, meaning Season 2’s tease of interdimensional alien Thrakkorzog will never be fulfilled. 😢

Bonus! 5 More Honorable Mentions:

City So Real (National Geographic)

The Good Lord Bird (Showtime)

How To with John Wilson: Season 1 (HBO)

Kidding: Season 2 (Showtime)

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy Vs The Reverend (Netflix)

#tv #television

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boom-fanfic-a-latta · 3 years ago

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RANDOM QUESTIONS TIME!! Question 1: When did you first get your love for drawing? Question 2: What was the first fanfic you ever read? Question 3: If you were able to dye your hair and color, what would you dye it? Question 4: What is your clothing aesthetic? Question 5: What is your favorite head canon for each fandom? These are all the question I can fit here, but rest assured, I shall be back with more!!

Oh chaos this is gonna be keeping me busy XD

My love of drawing honestly has been a near constant in my life (remind me to talk about “Lily’s Fish” sometime), though middle school is where I really started getting into it/improving, and high school even more so.

Honestly I don’t even remember, but I’m pretty sure it was a Harry Potter/Percy Jackson crossover of some sort. The one I first REMEMBER was a Ninjago fic involving a pair of girls ending up in the tv show and becoming part of the ninja team, but I don’t remember the title. The one that remember most from back then was amberdiamondswords’s “Diamond Dare Show” series. It’s no longer on the fanfiction.net site, but it was hilarious, involving the writer’s self-insert, with freaking RACHET AND CLANK as cohosts (the first I ever heard of those characters), forcing the ninja to do reader-submitted dares. It was glorious.

I wouldn’t change my hair color for the world, it’s a freaking beautiful rare red, but I wouldn’t mind adding a streak or two of like aqua green or magenta or both.

Casual, casual, casual all the way. Give me a hoodie and denim capris or shorts or some sweats, give me a comfy tee-shirt and some slip-on shoes, and let me relax on my giant chair-sized teddy bear and browse the web.

Oh boy…I have too many interests to give a headcanon for everything so I’ll just hit some highlights:

Zelda: BOTW Link has flashes of PTSD around Guardians. Even if he doesn’t completely understand why until the whole “final memory”, he can’t help but feel like he’s on the verge of a panic attack when encountering them.

Ninjago: Pixal being Master of Snow, even though it his idea isn’t technically my own. I unintentionally sparked a discussion that led to this idea after watching the last episode of the Fire Chapter, and it was awesome to watch.

Miraculous: A Miraculous holder, when transformed, is able to bypass any language barriers. This also extends to Sentimonsters and the Akumatized.

Pokémon: Ash and Goh are both Autistic, and Ash has extreme ADHD. I might self-project onto these two way too much, to be honest.

Mario: Toadara, my headcanon version of the purple Captain Toad palette-swap from co-op Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. She’s amazing and I love her. Also she has a companion, Logan, who is a talking notebook.

#to tag later

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the-desolated-quill · 7 years ago

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Quill’s Swill - The Worst Of 2017

I love all kinds of fiction. Books, movies, TV shows, you name it. They have the power to transport you to whole other worlds, make you connect with whole new people and expose you to ideas and philosophies you wouldn’t normally think about in real life. Which is why it angers and frustrates me when someone gets it so spectacularly wrong, either through corporate greed, utter laziness or general incompetence.

By popular demand, I’ve been asked to do an end of year post about the worst stories of 2017. The lowest of the low. The most shallow and soulless the creative industry has to offer. The stories that made me so angry that I damn near blew my top on a number of occasions because of how monumentally bad they were. (God knows why any of you would want to read this. I would have thought you’d have had more than enough of me moaning and complaining for a year).

Before I start, three things. First of all, special thanks has to go to @loremasterloryn for coming up with the title ‘Quill’s Swill.’ That’s a very good title. You’re right. Calling these worst of the year awards or associating these with any kind of award at all would be too generous. Second, this is my list of the stories that specifically angered and disappointed me. Obviously tastes differ, and if you disagree with my list or like any of the stories I mention, that’s absolutely fine. You’re entitled to your opinion just as I’m entitled to mine. And third, full disclosure, I haven’t seen everything 2017 had to offer for one reason or another. So if you’re wondering why things like The Mummy reboot or the Inhumans TV series aren’t on this list, that’s probably why. I’m sure they are as terrible as everyone says they are. I just never got around to watching them this year.

So, since I’ve mentioned Inhumans, let’s start with another Marvel TV show written by Scott Buck:

Iron Fist

The long awaited Netflix adaptation of the Living Weapon had been mired in controversy since the very start with the news that Marvel were sticking to their guns and casting a white actor as Danny Rand, but Scott Buck and co reassured us that they were going to do their very best to make an Iron Fist adaptation that was more progressive and respectful to the Asian community than the original comics were.

Well that didn’t go to plan, did it?

Not only did the show double down on the casual racism of the source material, it also took the concept of supernatural ninjas that can use their chi to punch through walls, and somehow made it boring. That’s almost impressive. I got the impression that Iron Fist was almost ashamed of the fact that it was a superhero show, hence why it seemed to focus on everything but that. Who reads an Iron Fist comic for the fucking corporate subplots? That would be like an adaptation of Batman that focuses solely on Bruce Wayne filling out his tax returns.

The show was borderline incomprehensible, plots and character motivations seemed to keep changing from episode to episode, and Finn Jones was simply a horrible choice for a leading man. And no it’s not because he’s white. It’s because his performance was as wooden as Pinocchio and he was so bad at the fight choreography that it actually started to hamper the other performers, forcing them to slow down to accommodate him. If he was the best actor who auditioned, I shudder to think how bad the other actors were.

Iron Fist was shit, but it’s okay. I’m sure The Defenders would make up for it, right?

The Defenders

Wrong.

‘Hey. You know these four Netflix shows we’re doing? Let’s do a crossover at the end of it. Wouldn’t that be neat?’ This is what I imagine someone within Marvel’s writing staff said, and that’s probably where the conversation ended.

The Defenders was utter pants, let’s be honest. No effort was put into that whatsoever. You’d think by reducing the episode count from 13 to 8, we could get to the meat of the story quicker. Instead it’s almost as if The Defenders consisted of nothing but padding, with whole episodes where virtually nothing happened. There was no effort to actually develop the characters or establish relationships between any of them. In fact the characters seemed to be almost caricatures of themselves at times. Luke Cage in particular got the worst treatment as he was effectively reduced to being the equivalent of a bouncer that just stands around in the background looking tough. And when the characters weren’t sat on their arses doing nothing, they were bickering and arguing like tiny schoolchildren. This doesn’t exactly make for compelling viewing.

And as for the Hand, they’ve pretty much been a disaster since they were first introduced back in Daredevil Season 2. Vague motives, poorly thought out plans, literally no tension because you haven’t the faintest idea what’s actually at stake should the Hand ever win, and just to add insult to injury, Marvel’s resident sociopath Elektra came back. A fundamentally unlikeable and nonsensical character that bears little to no resemblance to her comic book counterpart and who Daredevil was still attracted to despite the fact she had all the charm and sex appeal of a Rottweiler.

The Defenders were ostensibly the anti-Avengers. Everything Avengers got right, Defenders got wrong. Four series of buildup for this? What a waste of time.

Middle-earth: Shadow Of War

We enter the realm of video games now with Middle-earth: Shadow Of War. The sequel to the critically acclaimed Shadow Of Mordor and a major player in the loot box controversy of 2017. Set in-between The Hobbit and Lord Of The Rings trilogies, the writing is beyond ridiculous, playing fast and loose with the Tolkien canon and inserting random callbacks and characters for no reason other than as fanservice. (Also they turned Shelob the spider into a sexy sorceress. Only a video game developer would look at a giant spider and think ‘how can we make her sexy to draw in the young male demographic?’).

But having said that, the writing wasn’t very good in Shadow Of Mordor neither. Nobody really cares about that. It’s the gameplay everybody loved. Specifically the Nemesis System, where the orcs you fight actually remember your encounters, thereby adding a personal touch to your playthrough. You could create rivalries, establish relationships with friendly (or ‘dominated’) orcs to cause friction with rival captains, and manipulate the chain of command. It added a whole new dimension to the game and was incredibly rewarding. So naturally the AAA gaming industry wanted to find some way of ruining it.

Shadow Of War decided to tie the Nemesis System in with loot boxes. Glorified gambling simulators that require you to pay actual money for the chance at acquiring new armour, weapons and orcs for your orc army, thus stripping all the fun from the game entirely. Why bother finding orcs to dominate when you can just buy one? And if you choose not to buy any loot boxes, then the game punishes you for it by turning the whole experience into a grind-fest. Fortresses that can only be breached if you have orcs at a certain level. Except these higher level orcs are rare or legendary, so they’re very hard to find... unless you buy a loot box of course.

An absolute scam.

Lucifer Season 2

I’m cheating slightly because the first 10 or 12 episodes came out last year, but the thing is those episode were really good. The remainder of Lucifer Season 2 was, to put it mildly, utter shite. And it pains me to say it because, you may recall, I actually awarded the first season of Lucifer with a Quill Seal Of Approval award for its clever humour and intelligent satire of religion, theology and LA culture. Season 2 initially felt like it was going to continue this, with episodes that I wouldn’t hesitate in calling some of the best the show had to offer. But come the New Year, everything seemed to go disastrously wrong. The series arc involving Lucifer’s mum felt like it was being dragged on for way too long, whole aspects of the mythology were being contradicted, creating numerous plot holes, and it all culminated in a terrible finale that completely went against Mum’s motives and arc. Add to that the constant cock-tease of Lucifer and Chloe’s will they/won’t they relationship and the fact that Lucifer’s usual spiel was starting to seriously grate, it felt like the show had lost a lot of its sparkle. What was once an intelligent satire had become a limp parody of itself, and by the end I had completely lost interest in a prospective Season 3. It’s such a shame.

Sherlock Series 4

I had long stopped watching Sherlock, having struggled through its amateurish, pretentious writing for three series, but then my friend urged me to watch Series 4. Not because it was good, but because of how insanely terrible it was. And he was right. Oh my God, this was fucking dreadful. It’s almost comical. Sherlock had always been a terrible adaptation of the original source material, only really bearing a passing resemblance to it, but with Series 4 it seemed any and all pretence to call this an adaptation had officially gone out the window. The plots were so stupid and convoluted that it got to a point where Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss seemed to be almost drowning in their own pretentiousness. Their heads were shoved so firmly up their own arses that they even started to alienate their own fanbase. Yes. Even the diehard Sherlock fans hated this one. And I’m not surprised considering the final episode involved Sherlock’s secret sister and some plot about how she killed his super secret best friend that he remembers as a dog for some reason (I swear I’m not making this up). It’s so bad, a portion of the fanbase honestly thought that Series 4 was intentionally bad and that there was going to be a secret good fourth Sherlock episode that would fix everything, the poor saps. Even if there was a secret good fourth episode, it still wouldn’t justify the shit you had to sit through. An intentionally bad series is still a bad series, my dears.

People wonder how this could have happened. How a once great show could have gone so wrong. Well the answer is simple. Sherlock was never a good show. All that’s changed is your perception of it. Series 1-3 are just as bad as Series 4. It’s just that Series 4 was where Moffat and Gatiss’ bullshit became so blatant and so insulting that not even the diehard fans could possibly excuse it. All the problems in Series 4 exist in the previous series too. (Don’t believe me? Go back and check). The reason Series 4 had received such a backlash was because people had finally woken up and realised that all of these mysteries and narrative threads Moffat and Gatiss had been dangling in front of us weren’t going to have any payoff whatsoever, and now that we have all finally woken up and smelt the smelling salts, maybe we can now leave this pile of garbage behind and move on to a Sherlock Holmes adaptation that’s actually worthy of our attention. Like Elementary... Or Danger Mouse.

Kong: Skull Island

I was curious to see where Legendary Pictures would go next with their ‘MonsterVerse’ after the better than expected Godzilla reboot back in 2014. After Kong: Skull island, I wish they never bothered.

I know people weren’t taken by the Godzilla reboot, mostly because of the distinct lack of Godzilla (which didn’t bother me as such. I’d rather have 10 minutes of actual Godzilla that were really good and really memorable over an hour and a half of mindless destruction that just becomes boring and repetitive), and it felt like Kong: Skull Island was made with those people in mind. However by fixing the numerous ‘problems’ with Godzilla, you soon realised just how good it really was in comparison to this utter borefest. King Kong himself was just a CGI mess and you felt no sense of emotional investment in him whatsoever like you did with Godzilla, the film was so jam-packed with monsters that eventually you become desensitised to all the carnage, and there was no effort to explore any intelligent themes like Godzilla did. Ironically, in their misguided bid to course correct, the filmmakers failed to fix the one genuine problem Godzilla truly had. The characters. Big name actors like Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L Jackson and Brie Larson had absolutely nothing to work with because their characters were so flat and one dimensional. Jackson’s character in particular was painted with such broad strokes that it looked as though the script had been written with a paint roller. Maybe things could have been improved if the film delved deeper into its historical setting, exploring the psychological implications of the Vietnam War. As it stands, Kong: Skull Island was a pointless, mindless and utterly tedious blockbuster that’s inferior to Godzilla in every way imaginable.

Spider-Man: Homecoming

This is probably going to be the most controversial entry on the list, but I don’t care. I’m sorry, but Spider-Man: Homecoming was utter rubbish. I legitimately have no idea why people love this so much. I’ve never seen a movie so shallow, soulless and utterly lazy in my entire life. It feels like the product of a focus group. I fucking hate it.

Where do I even start? How about the fact that the plot was the most generic, formulaic piece of shit ever devised by a committee? How about the fact that the film seemed to consist of nothing but stereotypes and stock characters? How about the fact that the filmmakers seemed to have completely misinterpreted Spider-Man’s character and themes? How about the fact that, despite claims that Spidey was going to need to juggle his school and superhero lives, he never seemed to suffer any negative repercussions for his unreliability and general shitty behaviour? How about the fact that the love interest was utterly bland and one dimensional and that both she and Peter Parker had absolutely zero chemistry? How about the fact that Iron Man’s characterisation had been completely botched? Seriously, why the fuck do Marvel keep hiring the Russo Brothers if they’re just going to erase any and all contributions they make? Captain America: Civil War took the character in a very unexpected direction, effectively making him a secondary antagonist. Because of his paranoia and PTSD, Tony Stark had become more controlling and authoritarian, and there’s the very brief implication that he didn’t care about Spidey at all. Instead merely seeing him as a tool he could exploit. It’s dark, but it’s interesting, casting Iron Man in a very unsavoury light while still feeling very much in-character. Oh but no. It’s okay. We’re just meant to forget about all that. Iron Man has always got Peter’s best interests at heart. He cares about Peter. He’s the perfect mentor figure. And look! He’s back with Pepper now, all their relationship problems conveniently swept under the carpet. Don’t panic. There’s nothing remotely challenging or thought provoking here. You’re perfectly safe from actually having to think.

Best Spider-Man movie, my fucking arse.

Justice League

And the award for the most colossal cock-up goes to... Warner Bros and the DC Extended Universe! WOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

People were in high spirits after the success of Wonder Woman, until Justice League brought everyone back down to Earth with a horrible clang. Zack Snyder had to leave the production due to his recent bereavement, and so Joss Whedon took over post production. A filmmaker that had recently generated a lot of controversy after his sexist as shit Wonder Woman script leaked online (as well as all the other crap he’s done in general in his career). What followed was a complete and total disaster. Say what you like about Man Of Steel and Batman V Superman, at least those movies had substance to them. At least they tried to convey an intelligent message and explore interesting themes. Justice League on the other hand was so hollow and so paper thin, you could barely even consider it a movie. Bad plot, bad villain, rubbish characterisation, and all you were left with was a horrible realisation that all these years of hard work had been building up to precisely jack-shit in the end. In a bid to fix all the problems with the DCEU, they ended up making things worse, stripping all the substance from it entirely and now it appears to be damaged beyond repair. And to make matters worse, WB and DC had spent a ridiculous amount of money on the fucker with $300 million for the movie budget (including reshoots) and approximately $150 million on marketing. In other words, even if the film was good, it was unlikely to be a success because it would needed to have made over a billion dollars at the box office to make a decent profit, which let’s be brutally honest was unlikely to happen.

Thanks to the general incompetence of WB and DC, the future of the DCEU as we know it is now in very considerable doubt. Maybe it’s just as well we’re not seeing the Aquaman movie until Christmas next year. It’s going to take us that long to wash the bad taste left in our mouths.

Star Wars Battlefront II (2017)

And so we end our journey through compost with another video game. EA’s remake of Star Wars Battlefront II, which now lies at the very centre of the loot box controversy. Like with Shadow Of War, you could pay actual money to earn the chance to unlock weapons and upgrades and special characters like Darth Vader. Oh you could unlock Darth Vader without loot boxes, sure, but it would take a hell of a long time. Why not spend your hard earned cash on a loot box instead rather than wasting time actually playing the game?

Star Wars Battlefront II’s use of loot boxes was so insulting that it caused a huge backlash from fans. The story got picked up by several mainstream news sites and now countries around the world are considering legislation to put loot boxes under gambling laws (which up until now had been avoided due to certain loopholes and technicalities). The backlash got so bad, apparently Disney actually contacted EA and threatened to pull the Star Wars licence if this mess wasn’t fixed.

While EA has temporarily deactivated the loot boxes and reduced the cost to acquire characters like Darth Vader in-game, the game itself is still a bit of a grind-fest and contains a lot of the same problems with the previous instalment in the franchise. Namely limited maps, a rubbish single player, lack of variety in missions and play modes, and reportedly several bugs and glitches at launch that made the game virtually unplayable for some. How is it that the original Star Wars Battlefront games released over a decade ago on older consoles are somehow better than these shitty remakes on superior tech?

Star Wars Battlefront II was supposed to be an apology for the shortcomings of the previous instalment. Instead EA doubled down on their bullshit and tried to extract as much money from us as they thought they could get away with, the greedy bastards. They should be fucking ashamed of themselves.

And that’s it. That’s me finished moaning for 2017. Hope you enjoyed it (I know some of you probably didn’t. Namely Marvel fans). Be sure to come back tomorrow for the Quill Seal of Approval Awards... or don’t. It’s a free world. I won’t force you.

#quill's swill 2017 #quill's swill

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renaramblesaboutcomics · 7 years ago

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Wednesday Roundup 11.10.2017

It’s that time of a week again where I prove to be nothing if not a complete glutton for punishment, which apparently includes having way too many trades preordered on the same week by magical coincidence. It’s like the old saying, when it rain it pours. And sometimes it’s just ridiculous.

But we’re seeing the closing a few storylines, the beginning of a few, and just a general large array of comics at our disposal, including more of the Marvel Primers. So I say we just dig right into it.

Marvel’s All-New Wolverine, Marvel’s Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, DC’s Batgirl and the Birds of Prey, Marvel’s Captain America, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel’s Immortal Iron Fists, DC’s New Super-Man, Image’s Rat Queens, DC’s Red Hood and the Outlaws, Marvel’s Runaways, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Universe

Marvel’s All-New Wolverine (2015-present) #25 Tom Taylor, Juann Cabal, Nolan Woodard

Will I ever run out of good things to say about All-New Wolverine? No? Good. I wouldn’t want to be dishonest and that would be the only way I’d have negative things to say about my love for this series.

Story: So believe it or not, the relationship between Daken and Laura is something I have desperately wanted to see more of. In the Daken/X-23 crossover they had a few years ago, I really felt like we got somewhere with their relationship, and the bits and pieces since then have really helped my attitude only grow stronger on the subject. So seeing Taylor hint at it growing more in the last arc, and knowing it would be delivered on in this arc has me SO excited about what is to come.

You know. When Daken is around for more than an awesome bar fight that... leads to his dismembered arm being hung from a bridge. THAT old plot device. I’m a little sad to see that Gabby is being left behind (especially since her outfits never cease being adorable and hilarious) but knowing that we’re dealing with Mutant Bigots this time around somewhat made me appreciate that decision. I worry way too much about Gabby to take that at face value.

And then that cliffhanger hits like a freight train and it’s like WHAAAAT. But no like what. Oh my god. Is this real? I know we have to wait a month but. uh. Kudos, Tom Taylor. I am not often surprised by characters seemingly returning from the dead anymore. To say this was not expected is VASTLY underplaying my shock.

Art: There have been a lot of great artists on this title and I don’t think Juann Cabal is an exception to that rule. He has solid character art, lots of good control of backgrounds and paneling, and got pretty inventive with combining flashbacks with Laura’s current travels and actions. And the bar scene with Daken was just fantastic all around like, a simple but highly effective action sequence and I’m really excited to see what action he’ll draw Laura herself in as we carry on.

Marvel’s Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows (2016-present) #12 Ryan Stegman, Brian Level, Jesus Aburtov

We wrap up another storyline of what has quickly become my favorite Spidey series of the ‘10s and it comes with highest of highs and lowest of lows. And lots and lots of adorable hugs.

Story: I was concerned that with the pacing we had had for this storyline up to this point that there would be a lot of things that would have to be knitted together a bit too tight or not at all, and that definitely seemed to be the case. We flew through this issue with revelations hitting in waves. Ms. January was the villain all along, Normie is suddenly a perfectly normal kid who was just misled, the symbiote is removed from MJ using sonic waves, Annie saves her parents, and just overall there was a lot that happened within this single comic. It all made emotional sense, and the hug between Annie and Normie at the end, bringing their family feud at last to an end, felt completely right.

I liked small callouts like having Liz be the parent Normie needed, the X-Men coming to help the Parker family, and the amazing banter between MJ and Peter, but I think because there was so much fit into this last issue there felt like a bit of continuity bending to make logical sense where the emotions didn’t quite carry us. Like Normie’s... complete change in character. And Ms. January’s apparent obsession/love of Harry and need to avenge him. These things make sense if they fed into each other -- Ms. January’s influence inspiring Normie to cut his mother out of his life even more than she had been already and then feeding him more and more hatred toward Spider-Man by saying that it was his fault. But that doesn’t make so much sense with what we read in the issues before, specifically the issue where Normie took up arms to protect his company and revealed his backstory through his own internal monologue and flashbacks.

So while this confrontation has been 12 issues in the build up, the resolution mostly came... only from this issue. Maybe the last two issues, too, if we’re being generous.

The epilogue confuses me. It feels like Renew Your Vows is trying to wrap itself up and yet I know from solicits that it’s not, but we are justifying a timeskip to eight years in the future so that artists have an excuse to draw a teenage girl in a tighter costume -- I MEAN BECAUSE THEY WANT TO TELL MORE TEEN ORIENTED STORIES OBVIOUSLY. But I worry that this change is going to make what has been a unique take on the Parker-Watson family and turn it into Sider-Girl Lite, which is unfair to everyone all around. Also were they... not operating for those eight years? Why is the new costume a big deal for her eighteenth birthday? How much sense would it make for them to just... suddenly find a way to stop Annie from going out as a superhero with them when the whole point of the past 12 issues is that they couldn’t.

What about Dr. Connors and his son? What about Annie’s additional precognitive powers? Did she end up going to the Xavier institute?

I feel like I was asked to bite off a bit too much in this issue, and as much as I enjoyed it and enjoyed this series, I feel this is a rare storyline where I actually would have preferred an extra issue to set all of this up.

Art: The art is beautiful. Soft and textured but also sweeping and animatic like you would want for any good Spidey story. And considering that there has been a fair rotation of art teams on this book since the first issue, I really appreciate how much they worked toward giving the book a consistent style of its own. It was neat and helped even artist style changes feel coherent still and I’m really interested to see if this dedication to that continues, especially since the epilogue appeared to have a different feel to it.

It’ll be interesting to see next month either way.

DC’s Batgirl and the Birds of Prey (2016-present) #15 Julie Benson, Shawna Benson, Roge Antonio, Marcelo Maiolo

Well, I’m sure for 99% of you this is an unexpected addition to the roster. For those unaware, I have put the first volume of Batgirl and the Birds of Prey on blast on my personal blog @renaroo for having some things I consider to be insufferable in regards to the handling of Barbara and specifically the consistent villainization of Oracle. Which you know, I’m about sick of.

So why am I picking up BoP now? Simple: Cass is going to start appearing regularly beginning with this particular storyline and I will support her here since for finances I’ve had to move ‘Tec to trade wait.

and oh boy. This is. Something.

Story: So there’s this old episode of the animated Justice League series where an Amazon OC standing in for Donna Troy unleashed a plague on Earth that only affected men and it was putting all men in comas and the such and it left the only two women of a seven-person Justice League because of course there were only two women to deal with it and save the world... well half of it. It was broad strokes of feminism as written by men which included Diana being the strawwoman feminist who couldn’t understand if losing men (including her friends???) would doom society and Hawkgirl being the relatable cool egalitarian alien bird woman to be all “guuurrrrrlllll you need to respect men more”. It’s like. The episode i remember the most from my childhood and I hate it with the burning passion of a thousand suns.

Apparently I’m not the only one who remembers it however because that... that is the plot of this storyline. I don’t know why they couldn’t just bring back the ebola plague from Batman: Contagion which was a legitimately good storyline I like but we’re doing the... gender specific plague.

Are they going to address trans men and women? How is this disease preying specifically on men? Is it magical in origin and that why it follows no rules? Why is Lois here? Is Wonder Woman here just because of that Justice League episode?

I don’t know.

I appreciate that we didn’t waste a whole lot of time with Batwoman’s squad duking it out with Babsgirl’s squad over whether or not antiheroes who.... one of which she’s worked with before and... another of which she knows for a fact is... engaged to her cousin. But whatever. Also Steph in her post-Belfry uniform is... going along with this okay. I’m picking too much but there’s a lot of what in those four pages.

I do appreciate that the dialogue seemed to match everyone’s character very well, and Oliver and Dinah were hysterical and lovable together. .... But damn is it difficult to wrap my head around Babs’ character anymore. Like literally falling to her knees and tearing up begging Poison Ivy (who she was friends with in the previous BoP???? which is sitll canon bc they bring it up???) to help because “people she loves” are affected by the disease like. It’s the antithesis of the Babs I knew and was familiar with and admired in the day but. I guess that’s the Babs we have now. And I’m just... supposed to roll with it I guess.

Also enjoyed Helena being a teacher again, that was awesome. Even if her calling up Dick instead of Babs was... still difficult to process but whatever.

Art: It’s good! Really consistent, the lineart was sometimes a little softer than I prefer, but there were varied bodytypes and lots of good action sequences handled concisely enough that it didn’t feel like panel space was wasted. I really enjoyed it overall.

Marvel’s Captain America - Marvel Legacy Primer Page Robbie Thompson, Valerio Schiti

I have been pretty vocal in my disdain for how Marvel has handled Cap for the last two years and I join pretty much everyone in a chorus of “how can you misunderstand something so bad” but at the same time I’m... just tired. And it’s hard to even be excited at the fact that the reign of Spencer is over because it feels like the enjoyment and interest I’ve felt for Cap for all this time is simply used up. which is why a primer like this is really something that I needed. I needed to see a reminder that Cap punches Nazis and Hydra and Marvel -- or at least some people at Marvel remember that still. I don’t want that history gone, cosmic cubed or otherwise. And given Waid and Samnee’s interviews it seems they’re going to push for just that.

Here’s hoping they accomplish it because even these three pages of Cap acting like Cap again was enough to make me smile at least a little.

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy - Marvel Legacy Primer Page Robbie Thompson, Marcus To

If I was going for snark and snark alone here I would begin and end this with “why is Scott Lang here” because no really why is Scott Lang with the Guardians of the Galaxy. And it’s something I shouldn’t be asking because I really have still -- even in liking the movies as much as I do -- not found myself any more persuaded to read into the space opera stuff over at Marvel. It’s just not something I want in my life right now.

Marcus To’s art is very nice, though, and usually worth it on its own. Even if I’m beginning to notice a touch of samefaceness in the art style At least it’s a very pretty face.

Marvel’s Immortal Iron Fists (2017) #6 (of 6) Kaare Andrews, Afu Chan, Shelly Ghen

Immortal Iron Fists has come to an end and I’m both saddened and yet incredibly enthusiastic about how everything turned out!

Story: So I feel like it should not have taken the better part of 5 issues for me learn that Pei and her friends are sixteen and not... middle schoolers despite how they were drawn and how they acted as way way younger than that. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that... it’s not that they’re drawn or written younger, it’s that it’s that unusual to find an American comic that actually shows teenagers appropriately and that helped me gain a whole new respect for a series that I was already very much enjoying.

Everyone coming together and remembering Pei for the impact we have seen her make in their lives, Pei fully realizing her power as Iron Fist, and the general fun of a huge climactic battle that was a three way fight between Pei, demons, and the Mother of All Dragons is probably one of the most bombastic that can be asked for. And I love that Brenda made a comeback after her truly terrible exit from the finale of Immortal Iron Fist under Andrews, but at the same time don’t... really care for how it wasn’t set until last issue.

All the positives of this story almost make me overlook the unnecessary, though appreciably subverted, kiss of life Pei gives her guy friend and I love that Danny, man serial dater that he is, is flumexed by this turn of events.

Everything is fun and delightful and I really really appreciate how dedicated this comic was from beginning to end to be Pei’s story and not letting that focus escape it the entirety of the six issues.

Also Brenda flying off on the Mother of All Dragons at the end and being like stfu Danny you ruined a good thing was hysterical and I loved it.

Art: There was definitely more production in this finale There seemed to be a lot more variation in coloring and textures, and even the characters seemed to keep almost perfectly on model the entire time. The one distraction of note, though, was that Pei... developed more into a traditional teenager look by the end... by which I mean.... boobs are now a thing and I’m not sure if it was just that she wore thicker clothes throughout the story or if it was because much like myself, the art team realized last issue for the first time that Pei was a sixteen year old and not... twelve. Anyway. It was a little distracting, but the increase in panel variation and high number of action sequences definitely made the story far more fulfilling in my view.

DC’s New Super-Man (2016-present) Vol. 2: Coming to America Gene Luen Yang, Billy Tan, Viktor Bogdanovic

After what felt like a long wait, we join Kenan and the rest of the Justice League of China once more on a bombastic quest as written by Gene Luen Yang. And much like last time, the results are rather unexpected and honestly kind of remarkable.

Story: Going off of my experiences with Yang’s work, I really feel like his passion in storytelling lies in finding the balance between the question of identity and how identity is formed by the cultures that nurtured us and how it is formed by the influences of the cultures around us. I think that was the main focus of American Born Chinese but it really is beginning to shine through Kenan’s adventures here as the New Super-Man and how much of the titular’s character is being drawn from the two huge influences he is feeling -- the pressures and dangers of the Chinese government and culture, and the admiration and sometimes oppressive shadows of the American culture that he is both attempting to copy as Super-Man and attempting to circumvent by finding the focus of his powers in Chinese philosophies and values.

And I think that’s where his supporting cast -- Wonder-Woman and Bat-Man and now also Avery Ho’s take on the Flash -- are really coming into play. While Kenan is being torn back and forth by his responsibilities and his bombastic self-absorption both in his internal conflict and his external conflict of learning the truth of his parents, we are getting a broader exposure to what being a superhero in China means as opposed to the normalcy we’ve come to expect from Western comics.

Bat-Man is just as influenced by his family as Batman, but the pressures are more in the focus on building his exceptionalism and in differing from his sister on whether to stay within a system that robs children of their childhoods and individuals of their sense of self, or to find purpose within that system and excel based upon the traits which only he can bring.

Wonder-Woman, like Wonder Woman, is derived from myth and legend but instead of a Western legacy, it is purely Chinese and her alienation and stand offish nature initially toward the rest of her team only makes that much more sense given what has brought her to her current state. She is a myth, a legend herself, but she is nearly forgotten by the current times -- Kenan even has to be told the story of her origins by Bat-Man -- and her finding the will to fit into a China that is so influenced by external cultures and influences are a struggle we’re only now beginning to appreciate.

And finally, with Flash, a Chinese-American, we’re going to receive yet another wild perspective, and considering Kenan’s already developing friendship with Avery I imagine that this is a perspective that will only receive more focus in stories to come. And I perceive that Yang’s inclinations to reference the struggles of culture and self-identity are going to be explored further here.

All around i greatly enjoyed this volume and am looking forward to the continuation now that Kenan has finally learned the truth about his family. There are a lot of interesting new angles to explore and I hope we do just that.

Art: The art is really reminiscent of Greg Capullo’s run on Batman, but has a whole lot more color and variety breathed into it which I personally really appreciate. The colors do a good job of presenting the differences in everyone’s base personalities and also makes the action sequences easier to follow even as the action itself becomes increasingly complex. The page layouts were fairly reserved considering the DC standard lately, but I personally appreciated it because it kept the focus on the storytelling and in doing so enhanced the nuances therein.

Great work all around, and yet another enjoyable volume.

Image’s Rat Queens (2013-present) Vol. 4: High Fantasies Kurtis J. Wiebe, Owen Gieni, Ryan Ferrier

I only recently jumped on the barge for Rat Queens and I’ve been more than happy with the results of caving to the advice of many friends. Because what is better than female-full cast of hilarious and dramatic DnD like adventures with more swearing than a naval ship? I gotta say, not much!

Story: So compared to the previous volumes, I actually found High Fantasies to feel like it had a lot less at stake. Although part of that may just be that I was somewhat anticipating a Betty-centric volume finally to elevate her out of being the shroom eating comic relief and bring more of the assassination attempts and her outlaw past into the forefront. And that’s clearly a problem of my own expectations and not necessarily the story’s fault itself. That said, the focus on Vol. 4 being on a gender bent loser version of the Rat Queens was pretty funny but also not something I would have thought carried enough weight to pivot as the main plot, but that would be just me.

I do appreciate Braga being in a larger role this time around, and really I wish we could see more less human creatures on the roster in general. It was also a huge heartwarming feeling to have Hannah more comfortable around her Queens and even showing some horns now and then in public. It feels like a huge progression of her character, even as she spends a fair amount of time earning the girls’ ire and.... walking in on naked mayors. As you do.

Basically Vol. 4 isn’t as character centric as the previous volumes have been, but it is a great adventure that feels like a good ol’ fashion DnD campaign with the friends you love at the helm and for fantasy nerds like me that’s more than enough to bring me back into the story.

Art: The art is always spectacular with Rat Queens, but I did find that this volume -- mostly as a result of not going to as many unestablished and important/original locations, did have a significant lack f inventive background use. That’s not always a slam on art, really the art was very good, and I actually am just... happy to not have Upchurch as the artist, honestly. That alone is worth three and a half gold stars. Though the whole controversy there is still my largest apprehension with the series at this point.

DC’s Red Hood and the Outlaws (2016-present) Vol. 2: Who is Artemis? Scott Lobdell, Dexter Soy, Kenneth Rocafort

Okay who authorized this? Who made this comic exist and who made it be actually good?? Because I didn’t and I feel offended at the amount of emotions that were forced upon me in this single volume of a comic written by Scott friggin’ Lobdell of all people. You couldn’t have told me a month ago that I would be enjoying anything that was remotely connected to Scott Lobdell and expect me not to laugh hard enough I’d bring myself to tears.

And yet here we are.

Story: Having learned a bit from how lackluster the attempts of balancing the concentration of the narrative was for his previous incarnations of the Outlaws, Lobdell somehow learned how to, y’know, write an ensemble narrative that is still heavily Jason Todd’s perspective, but does not lose any opportunities to expand on or even concentrate on the stories and character development of Bizarro and Artemis. oth of which are shockingly well handled and shockingly controlled, well paced, and interwoven into each other’s stories.

Like legitimately, did someone nab the Lobdell who wrote decent 90s Marvel comics and put him on this project? Because that feels like the kind of bizarre logic that would seem acceptable at this point.

Now, of course, it’s not perfect. Far from it. But at the end of the day we got an intriguing ongoing story, a team building exercise, Jason’s internal struggle personified both through his inner monologue and flashbacks, but also moments like his sparing of Bizarro whic not only didn’t have overly wordy exposition bringing attention to it, but was strong enough and meaningfully enough that from it alone we could see what Jason couldn’t: he is not as lost, he is not as amoral, and he’s not as cold as he has tried desperately to prove himself to be.

I actually found the take on Artemis and the Bana Mighdall pretty interesting in this retelling, and I like that we have a rogue Amazon as a new enemy for the team.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m super excited to see what will come after this.

Art: There was a range of artists, which is fine, the industry standard of pushing out these comics with the turnaround that they do does cause some disconnect, but for the most part an artist stayed for at least the completionof their storyline and then she was. And overall the trade still fel tconsistent, with some artists just standing out more than other.

Marvel’s Runaways (2017-present) #2 Rainbow Rowell, Kris Anka, Matthew Wilson

The new run of Runaways absolutely blew me away last month by shooting any and all expectations I had right through the skylight and beyond, so a good premise with beloved characters and a set in conflict really leads to a question of how do the pieces fall in order?

Story: I absolutely adore how Gert being the heart and glue of the family is being so blatantly emphasized throughout this (and that Old Lace is back). I also love that... honestly the trauma and lingering horrors Chase and Nico have survived in particular are being treated as real and damning in the eyes of someone who knew them only two years ago already. But most of all I love the emotional balance. Gert’s anger and disappointment are justified, but her crudeness and accusatory nature are also clearly shown as being wrong and too subjective. The important thing to her, and thus to the group, is to come together again. And I love that it is her prime motivation through and through.

That all being said, after such a bombastic first issue, it was a little difficult to have the momentum come to a halt so quickly. I don’t want to be taken wrong, I love issues where comics take their time and really meditate on the characters, their reactions to evens former and to come, and really develop relationships and the such. But it does feel a little unnatural to have that only two issues in when the previous issue was SO incredibly packed.

I’m still fascinated with where we can go from here and very excited to see that Victor, Xavin, and Klara might not be destined to eternal obsecurity like I assumed when the book was first announced.

Art: Honestly I’m still amazed at just how fantastic the art really is in this comci. .It’s SO good and the designs for all the characters are simply gorgeous. Though probably the best thing about all of it is the great coloring we see done here. Top notch.

Marvel’s Spider-Man - Marvel Legacy Primer Page Robbie Thompson, Valerio Schiti

I think I know less about what Marvel plans to do with Miles these days than Marvel knows what to do with Miles, which is horrifying because I just set that bar about as low as it could possibly have gone. But we.... have Rio Morales back which is the big reason I stopped keeping up with Miles to begin with so yay? I don’t know.

I feel like this primer is actually aimed at fans like me who got off the wagon back when the Ultimate title lost most of its steam both from killing off too many of Miles’ personal supporting cast and becoming too much about tertiary cast’s origins and then Peter Parker returning to life and stuff’s weird. This feels like a big neon sign that says “Things are back! The origin’s the same! Do not look behind the curtain!” It makes me curious but also apprehensive at the same time.

also can we get robbie thompson to write miles’ book and bendis let someone else write some books already jfc this was such a relief.

IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Universe (2016-present) Vol. 2 Nick Pitarra, John Lees, Brahm Revel, Ryan Ferrier, Adam Gorham, Sophie Campbell, Bobby Curnow, Pablo Tunica

So unlike the rest of the reviews, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Universe doesn’t really fit my review format since it’s more like a collection of vignettes across the TMNT universe that feed into the main book and each story is written and drawn by a different team, so it wouldn’t have that same cohesion.

As the giant Ninja Turtle fan that I am and probably always will be, I can’t get enough of the mythos and the characters in TMNT, so having a book that has a solid, even meditative point of just exploring smaller stories and little character developments that wouldn’t fit in the very tight and controlled narrative of the main title is something of a perfect godsend to me. I love it in concept and in execution.

One thing I worry about, however, is that there definitely seems to be a lot of stories here that feel necessary to keeping up with the main series. Such as the story of how Alopex and Angel ran into the Toad Baron and escaped -- that was a pretty crucial piece of information for the Eternals storyline a few issues back in the main book. So it feels like more and more, because of how tight and concentrated the main book is, they’re using books like Universe to fill in everything else, including buildup to larger more important narratives. And while that’s fine and even something I enjoy, it’s a move that will really push people to start being more choosy with their books. It’s much like keeping up with Transformers right now, and that tends to lead to some mixed bags. But I suppose we’ll trust and see.

At the end of the day, I have to pick the comics that really stuck with me the most. And while I was a little disappointed by a few titles this week, there was a pretty intense competition between the ones that genuinely caught me and made me really feel while reading them. And I think by that measurement I have to give the Pick of the Week this time around to the conclusion of Immortal Iron Fists. I was so worried about how this story could wrap everything up and it’s with mother flipping dragons that’s how. I love it. I love Pei and I love her being officially adopted by Danny who is TOTAL ridiculous dad now. This is the kind of Immortal Iron Fist I am happy to support.

As far as trades go... wow I for some reason was not anticipating getting slammed as much as I did, but I really didn’t feel like any of the books let me down. They were all pretty amazing and I felt like I also managed to incidentally cover the entire span of comic book genres and types in a matter of two days, which let’s admit it, pretty impressive. I feel like the new releases this week are honestly a harder competition than the single issues but twist my arm, surprising no one nearly as much as I’m surprising myself here, I have to pick Red Hood and the Outlaws for managing to be a comic that... is unexpectedly good and unexpectedly sincere and unexpectedly emotionally motivating in ways that I wish... more comics... were? I just. have a real hard time complimenting Lobdell after tearing his books a new one for..... six years straight now. But... thank you? for writing well? And making me feel things? For Jason Todd, Bizarro, and Artemis? Am I doing this right?

And those are the comics for this week! Did you happen to agree with me? Disagree? Think I missed out on picking up a comic that was good? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

But before I let you go, I have to (yes have to) plug once more:

I have exactly a month to pack up everything I own and move halfway across the country again which is not helping those financial crunches I mentioned before either.

As such, I really would appreciate if you enjoy my content or are interested in helping me out, please check out either my Patreon or PayPal. Every bit helps and I couldn’t thank you enough for enjoying and supporting my content.

You could also support me by going to my main blog, @renaroo, where I’ll soon be listing prices and more for art and writing commissions.

RenaRoo Ko-Fi

RenaRoo Patreon

RenaRoo PayPal

#Rena Roundups #Wednesday Spoilers #SPOILERS #New Superman (2016 )#Red Hood and the Outlaws (2016 )#All New Guardians of the Galaxy (2017 )#Captain America (2017 )#Spiderman (2016 )#Immortal Iron Fists (2017)#Amazing Spiderman: Renew Your Vows (2016 )#All New Wolverine (2015 )#Runaways (2017 )#Batgirl and the Birds of Prey (2016 )#Rat Queens (2013 )

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geek-gem · 7 years ago

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OK KO The Power Is Your's

3:39 pm I've just watched the episode and okay gonna say this first. I missed the first part a bit and started at the part where this giant spray was being well spray a can of it.

DONE WITH THIS AT END I MENTIONED SPOILERS

Because I was watching this video talking about these leaks about possibly PlayStation All Stars Battle Royale 2 being announced this October which is this month and just those leaks from 4Chan were deleted and just like the guy said just....take it with a gain of salt but the fact that stuff was deleted makes me think. Including how just....the choosing just these four characters at first sorry whatever this is something else.

But basically I missed the first part a bit.

Honestly I did like the episode. Yet really just it's not my favorite. But yeah I missed the first part and that could of affected some of my thoughts. I'm talking about the part where the world gets sprayed.

Yet I also wanna talk about this. I'm not a fan of Captain Planet yet I'm thinking I forgot if I've ever seen the show maybe. Including I seriously question why the fuck Ian and who else decided to think of this crossover could be a good idea. Yet I'm sounding like a douche but what the episode shows and speaks I think I get what it's trying to do. Oh head no it doesn't suck.

Really let's say and I am one of the people just it's not a major game. Yet I'm not the biggest fan of Captain Planet's being included in a game called Cartoon Network Punch Time Explosion XL which I have for PS3. But also me being not the biggest fan and despite the theme of the show. I think I have seen episodes when I was very young.

But sorry let's talk about the episode. So it seems like a Captain Planet villain shows up and teams up with Lord Boxman and his robotic children, they start some pollution with a spray mainly around the plaza despite the world is shown. Including the villain makes the mention some people believe climent change however it's spelt doesn't exist.

Let me say just yes their are people who seriously think that oh head yet I believe come on it's obvious it exists.

KO is the first to notice this. Yet Rad and Enid don't give a shit despite the signs. Including with KO finding out it's Boxmore on the other end doing this. Also seeing it's kind of well yeah flooded. One of the original Planeters however it's spelt but one of the people who has one of the rings arrives and KO and him team up.

Including with Rad, Enid, and that skeleton guy and bear guy I can't believe I don't know their names yet. He gives me them rings too.

KO has heart and honestly that fits him so much.

Rad had fire.

Enid has water.

The other two skeleton and bear have wind yet they have to share.

Basically them and the other guy summon Captain Planet and try to kick the villains ass, yet because of Boxman and his robots he basically disappears not killed.

Then they try to summon him again but the others argue and the original guy mentions of why the others got jobs and KO is able to get them working together again because of his ring of heart.

I'm honestly gonna say this episode was silly. Yet it's mainly due to how I remember how weird it is. Including just I am not so used to Captain Planet yet I just....I forgot if I ever made fun of him. Yet I grew up around people who didn't like the character. It's just weird and yet this could apply to any person who's a fan of a franchise or series that has a crossover with a series they were never really a fan of.

Yet yeah it was funny at times but I feel and I was thinking about the episode of what it was trying to do.

But I wanna mention this I don't know just if this is the episode itself or my tv yet I saw some black lines going back and forth a bit like it was something old long ago. It's not too noticable yet it's something I saw. I thought it might be something they did on purpose and the episode was gonna end like all of a sudden and we go back to the real world of OK KO and the characters go like what the fuck in a way.

But no it doesn't end like that. Including I wanna say it seems Boxman develops a crush of some sorts on this Captain Planet villain yet she goes away because something you can make anywhere dirty or just the shit that happened. Including it breaks Boxman's heart despite how silly it is of how it's portrayed one of the times I found funny.

Now we get to the ending. When KO mentions stuff like everything is back to normal and some shit. Captain Planet talks about how that's not really true.

I think I had thought of this during the episode. Listen and wanted to talk about this OK KO is a light hearted show yet it's very meaningful at times.

But during the episode and I don't wanna cause drama but basically just I feel the whole episode was trying to tell us something. I know I'm sounding stupid because it was trying to teach us this.

Basically Captain Planet and the other guy sorry forgot his name and just I'm sorry out of focus not seeing the first part and I don't focus on names at times unless their said a lot despite I remember it was shown. But they talk about how even if Captain Planet can clean some stuff up. It's gonna keep happening. Including the other guy I think it was him no must be him said climent change is permanent.

Then we get to just the weirdest part of the episode. Where it seems to be the most silly.

Yet I was well kind of horrorified ha lol okay to smile yet everyone such as Captain Planet, the other guy, and the other people who originally had the rings come back, in their original art style. But to make things no not worse oh my head but crazy KO, Rad, Enid, and Mr. Gar show up and just is very weird.

Wanna be honest if I can but some what disturbing. Meh I don't wanna say I hate it. Yet I'm shocked they did that. Because it's just okay not out of nowhere but you don't expect it.

I even wanna say I was thinking when I saw that. People on Tumblr mainly OK KO fans are gonna have a lot of fun, for some stupid meme shit and people's reactions being WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK for me just seeing in a real realistic versions of characters I like drawn like that was weird.

Yet I feel people are gonna have fun with those and people are gonna be freaking out because I was bothered to by that ha okay to smile.

But I'll just skip to this and wanted to say this before I wanted to write this and okay maybe during the episode.

I think of Ian and seriously no offense if someone else helped with him this please tell me yet I keep reading this was Ian's idea. Yet I feel like what he was trying to tell us with this episode was this.

Guys this shit is happening for real. We are seriously ignoring it. Our world is in some real shit and I'm talking about climent change. Theirs actual fucking people who don't believe in that shit so to prove my point I'm gonna bring a character from my childhood and have him crossover with my own show. We did to do something, we need to help the planet, our president fucking sucks he's one of the people who doesn't believe in climent change. We need to actually fucking help or some shit.

Okay that was a bit too long. I wanted to mention the president thing just I don't like talking about politics at times and our president if I remember has said he doesn't believe in climent change. I don't wanna make that the big deal of this. Also seriously the past few weeks have sucked and I question the government at times and even said one time I'm surprised we haven't....become the Helghast and overthrown our government. That's a reference to Killzone and just some stuff has made me question of reblogging stuff about some news sorry.

Really it was a nice episode I don't mind it. But it's not my favorite and during yeah looked at my last paragraph. Ether it's just me or I'm not the biggest fan wow I am being a big hypocrite.

Yet I was gonna say I'm not the biggest fan of crossovers like this. These silly short ones. Why I mentioned I'm a big hypocrite I liked Rugrats Go Wild where the show Rugrats crossovered with The Wild Thornberrys, the Nicktoons Unite games, and that Jimmy Timmy Power Hour trilogy. Those are ones I mostly enjoyed because of them being stuff I like.

Including I wanted to mention I'm so used to awesome kick ass crossovers such as the guest characters in games like Mortal Kombat, Injustice, also yeah the comic book stuff such as DC crossovers but I'm talking about other stuff. Including PlayStation All Stars Battle Royale, and despite Marvel vs Capcom Infinite seems to be the weakest of the Vs Capcom games some of the story haven't watched all of it. It's very simple yet it's nice to see some interactions despite some choices being made. I even like Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe yet that game is weak compared to others after it.

Also Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe is the reason why I seem big into crossovers okay the Nicktoons Unite games started it or some shit. But playing MK vs DC when I was younger when it first came out inspired me to think of and draw a shit ton of Cartoon Network vs Nicktoons.

Including I'm one of the few or many people who wants a Sega vs Capcom. I even talked to myself last night I'm surprised Sega and Capcom haven't done that yet, and me discussing Sonic has been in T rated games before.

But also I wanna talk to my friend about how I would be horrible at picking characters for the Sega side because I like Sega and some of their games. Yet the first big characters list I had to make it to 48 when I put 9 Sonic characters because I felt they were important.

That got off topic yet was talking about crossovers.

Got tags done and well I put spoilers and was gonna put now but yeah I put spoilers in case despite the tag 4:29 also was gonna say again I'll see the new viewing to see the start 4:29 now turned 4:30 pm forgot to mention this.

I wasn't the biggest fan of the Steven Universe Uncle Grandpa crossover despite at first liking it and I did like Uncle Grandpa, but over time just meh I have to grow up I just don't like it much. Yet this episode was enjoyable and silly but not one of my favorites and I in the words of Lori Loud I littertly talked about crossovers 4:31 pm

#ok ko spoilers #ok ko #ok ko let's be heroes

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hazelleves · 8 years ago

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Shadowhunters Cooking Show Au

Co-created with @deliriumkitsune (peep the crossover, blink and you’ll miss it.)

Based on this video.

Valentine is the mean judge. Not even critical, just mean read: tramatizing.

Luke is the nice judge, and will try to make the contestants feel as comfortable as possible.

“This dish is absolutely fucking horrendous, which piece of shit made this hellhole?”

“Don’t listen to him, I happen to think the, er, texture is not that mushy, so 8/10 :)”

Yes he somehow conveys smilies in his speech sorry I don’t make the rules.

Jocelyn was the neutral judge but she just kinda disappeared one day and nobody knows where she went

Legend says, the person who makes the worst dish that season will face her wrath, whatever that is

However, Jocelyn who? Lydia is in town now motherfuckers

She is the most honest out of them all, and tells it how it is, however she also writes 15 page essays on why you should have used x spice instead of y spice

“You know, the texture is a bit mushy, but the flavor of the sauce is to die for. It’s so succulent and rich, I can tell it has a savory taste, did you use oyster sauce” five years later, “and thats why using basil was such a smart choice.”

The fourth panel is for guest specialty judges, Like Raphael and Meliorn.

Raphael doesn’t say anything, he just tells them his score, which is probably a .00000283748384/10

He’s fucking scary. End of story.

Meliorn on the other hand is a bit brutally honest, but not purposely mean.

“I can’t lie to you, honestly this is one of the driest steaks I’ve ever had in my life. However, these potatoes are actually good, wow, color me surprised.”

Sometimes the judges argue about who has the best dish

When that happens the show reverses, and the judges compete against each other with the contestants being their judges

Whoever wins holds the overall judgement.

Now what we have all been waiting for: THE CONTESTANTS

Clary cries

A lot.

Honestly she came on this show to have fun but keeps getting attacked by this Valentine guy?!?!

“Who is this guy and why does he hate me,” she probably says while sobbing

It’s okay though because Luke has got her back.

She is actually a decent cook, and specializes in mac and cheese, who knew?

“…the special ingredient was lobster, and you made lobster mac and cheese?”

“Yes, is that a problem?”

“No.. we were just expecting a little more pizazz.”

“You don’t know pizazz until you taste the oven baked goodness of five cheeses mixed beautifully with the smooth elbow pasta, and soft, juicy lobster.” She says with passion, fire burning in her eyes, and her fist clenched at her chest.

Clary accidentally gave Valentine food poisoning, but when they cut the camera to her in a one-on-one shot all you could see was the chair and wall, and hysterical laughter in the background, and the occasional foot coming from the bottom of the screen.

Alec rolls his eyes anytime she speaks, and this time he rolled them so hard that his eyes almost got stuck.

That’s not the only thing he rolls, surprise, it seems that Alec loves baking after all.

But he’s still not your bitch.

He makes cinnamon rolls because he says they remind him of his boyfriend.

Actually no, of you said that he’d make cutthroat kitchen a reality, but we all know it’s true.

“Why is the little girl touching my cinnamon ?”

“Alec, bro chill, the ingredients are for everyone.”

*Alec looks into the camera like the office*

Speaking of Jace, the shows eye candy

He takes any and all opportunities to flirt with the entire cast.

Even that one camera guy Raj, the fans think he’s talking to them, but no.

“Hey Raj ;)))” “Wow Clary, you’re hair looks as amazing as this carrot.” “Simon, is it hot in this kitchen or is it just you?” “Magnus, you’re like a full on meal today wow.”

Jace no, you’re embarrassing yourself. Not to mention every flirt has to be a pun.

He?? Put?? A?? Egg?? In?? The?? Microwave??

“At least I won’t be in last place.”

Yeah, no, that spot is saved for Isabelle.

S H E W R E A K S H A V O C

when she walks in the kitchen they all walk out.

“Ohh, uhh, spaghetti with vanilla pudding, lemon, and alfredo sauce. Creative.”- Luke smiles painfully, in between bites with his thumb up.

“I made it in honor of my mom, seemingly sweet, but bitter on the inside.”

She gossips about everything and knows everyone’s secrets.

The only reason she is still here is because of Luke and Lydia, who are two of the only three who will eat her food.

Speaking of the third lets meet Simon.

HE IS A GREAT COOK PASS IT ON.

Vegan everything, if you hate tofu, you’d love it after eating his food.

“I get my inspiration from nerdy nummies, she has taught me everything in life.”- You heard it yourself, everything he makes is some nerd shit.

“You recreated the Millennium Falcon out of s'mores??” A very shocked Raphael utters his first words.

“Ummm it’s not food if you can’t play with it.” He says while looking at Alec’s uniform plate.

“Alexander’s plate is just fine,”

Magnus is a food god.

It’s like he uses magic or something ;)))

He once made Valentine cry.

His dishes are top A++, he had Lydia writing up 50,000 page essays on them

He is also really nice to the other contestants, giving them advice and tips.

He especially likes helping his biscuits Clary and Simon bc he just can’t help it okay, they are his mini apprentices.

He is not allowed to go near Alec for the fear of a monopoly forming.

One day an episode got cancelled because Magnus’ cats started to burst in and eat at the dishes

The whole room was full of his 16 cats and the judges fell out of their seats and the contestants are trying to shoo them off their food BUT GET THIS they don’t touch Magnus’ food he basically called them to sabotage the contest

And get this

They constantly start food fights with each other, and flour, rice, and other crap gets ALL over the place.

Once, Izzy messed up so badly, but nobody wanted her to leave so they all jacked up their dishes and tied for last place

The show runners were forced to make the show a team v team v team and had to get more teams of people last minute.

Their captain’s name was peter, or percan, or whatever. He loved cooking fish.

Then another team lead by a woman who is strangely good at cooking and likes drawing with sauce

Well her team wins and surprise it was Madzie in a glamour all along

Glamours were banned from that point on.

But Magnus and Alec were both proud and taken by surprise that their kid beat them

Wow this was really long my sleep deprived brain went on overload, please feel free to add on to this

#shadowhunters #my headcanons #clary fray #jace lightwood #alec lightwood #magnus bane #luke garroway #isabelle lightwood #simon lewis #meliorn #raphael santiago #lydia branwell #jocelyn fray #tmi #shadowhunters headcanons

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aion-rsa · 5 years ago

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Best Marvel Comics to Binge Read on Marvel Unlimited

https://ift.tt/2UR4Tzi

With an enormous swath of the world involved in varying degrees of social distancing, many of us suddenly find ourselves with a lot of time on our hands. Never fear! There are more options for streaming comics than ever before, and that means we have access to more of comics history, more hidden gems, and more epochal runs than ever before. But the variety of options to read can be daunting. That’s why we’ve put together a recommendation list of some of our favorite comics binge reads to help you through quarantine. Marvel Unlimited has been around for more than a decade. It runs about six months behind print release of books, so it’s a good way to stay sorta-current with the stories you love. But the real draw is the back catalog: with 25,000 issues in its library, you’ve got access to some of the most important and most entertaining runs of superhero books of all time. From Lee and Kirby creating the modern superhero comic in the pages of Fantastic Four through Chris Claremont and John Byrne revolutionizing the X-Men, and through several Wars (Secret, Infinity, or Civil), everything is here.

You don’t need us to tell you to read some of these stories. You know “The Dark Phoenix Saga,” Kraven’s Last Hunt, “Demon in a Bottle,” or Jonathan Hickman’s behemoth are all important and good. And some of them, Marvel’s even giving you for free. We’re going to skip over some of the obvious ones and point you towards hidden gems, the harder to find stories that fill in the edges of the Marvel Universe and make it such a rich, lush experience. We are also looking for monster runs that will keep you occupied – you can read six issues in one sitting with no danger of nearing the end. Some of these might take you an entire round of social distancing to finish.

A quick note about the reading guides: We’ll list out the issue numbers for most of these. Many of them may have their own separate entry under Marvel Unlimited’s reading lists – those are helpful, but these are definitive. One of them, we’re going to refer you to the events – to find those, you can go to “Browse”, then scroll over to “Comic Events.” And for one of these, we’re linking to the inordinately helpful Comic Book Herald. They’re a great site for comic reading orders in general, and have helped me through several other binge reads before.

Walt Simonson’s Thor

Thor (1966) #337-360, Balder the Brave (1985) #1, Thor #361-362, Balder the Brave #2-4, Thor #363-382

This probably shouldn’t be on the list. It is in the conversation for the greatest runs on any superhero comic ever. But if you’ve never read it, you’re truly missing out.

If you watched Thor: Ragnarok and loved how it looked or any of its story, chances are you are going to adore this, the run that Ragnarok borrowed so much from. Walter Simonson took the Asgard realized by Jack Kirby, the mythological realm pumped full of color and Kirby dots, and turned everything way up to create the most iconic Thor run of all time. Simonson started the run on art before handing off to Sal Buscema, and Simonson and Buscema are two of the artists I could recognize by style the soonest. Everything is HUGE.

Movies

Thor Comics Reading Order: Ragnarok for Beginners

By Marc Buxton

Movies

Thor: Love and Thunder Release Date, Cast, and Story Details

By Mike Cecchini and 1 other

It’s paced immaculately, with whatever story is in the foreground holding your complete attention, but always with something drip drip dripping in the background that will eventually crescendo. This run made so many characters wonderful, but Loki, Volstagg, and Beta Ray Bill are highlights. And have I mentioned the art? It’s incredible, and doesn’t suffer one bit when Buscema takes over. This is my favorite run on any comic of all time. You absolutely must read it.

X-Men: the Messiah Cycle

Messiah CompleX, Messiah War, and X-Men: Second Coming

The hottest take you’re going to find on the internet today is this: the Messiah Cycle is the best era of X-Men comics. It has everything I want from the X-Men line: books have distinct voices and missions, but contribute to the overarching direction of the line. There IS an overarching direction to the line. New characters are brought to the front, and new ideas are injected into the line.

Comics

First New Marvel X-Men Crossover Revealed

By Jim Dandy

X-Men: The Animated Series – The Essential Episodes

By Michael Mammano

You get all of that from the Messiah era. Messiah CompleX picks up with Cerebro identifying the first mutant birth in years; Messiah War has the members of the Mutants with Claws and Swords era X-Force heading to the future to check up on that baby; Second Coming is when she returns to present day. Each one has a different tone; Messiah CompleX and Second Coming bring together every book in the line to tell their stories, but also let each creative team keep telling their stories and end up being the best-handled X-crossovers since Inferno. And Second Coming is the best straight action X-book I think I’ve ever read.

If you like these crossovers, you should absolutely check out other books from this era. Utopia X, a crossover between Uncanny X-Men and Dark Avengers, is amazing, as is Duane Swierczynski and Ariel Olivetti’s Cable and Zeb Wells’ New Mutants.

Mark Gruenwald’s Captain America

Captain America (1968) #307-422, 424-443

Full confession: this is my current binge read. After years of hearing about how wonderful Gruenwald’s Cap was, I finally decided to jump in and within three issues, I was texting people to scream at them for not forcing me to read it sooner. For starters, the goddamn Serpent Society turns into a union. In fact, the Serpent Society’s union meeting is the most fun I’ve had reading a comic scene in a while, and the fact that it is based on a real meeting of comic book creators from 1978 makes it both more accurate sounding and HILARIOUS (I think Constrictor is Gil Kane, when you read it).

Comics

Avengers: Endgame – The History of Captain America’s Climactic Moment

By Gavin Jasper

Movies

Captain America Comics Guide and Reading Order

By Mike Cecchini

But the real appeal is how much movie Cap is based on this era. Gruenwald’s Steve Rogers is a really nice guy. Everybody loves him, everyone respects him, and there’s not a lick of condescension or mean spiritedness about anything he does, from sparring with Black Knight to taking on a gang of criminal jugglers with Hawkeye to trying to help joke villains like Rocket Racer. He’s also extremely competent, and Gruenwald and artist Paul Neary do an incredible job of showing this, as Cap breaks into the West Coast Avengers’ headquarters while trying to figure out, through his jet lagged brain, what day it is. It only gets bigger and more traditionally superhero as it goes on, with artistic contributions from the likes of Kieron Dwyer, Ron Lim, and others.

You’ll see even more of this run’s influence in Marvel’s The Falcon and The Winter Soldier TV series on Disney+, as it introduces key characters who we’ll see on screen there, so get reading, and pay attention!

Runaways

Runaways (2017) #1-current

Rainbow Rowell’s current run as writer on Runaways captures the Marvel spirit better than just about any comic coming out right now. It’s a masterful mix of superheroics, joyful immersion in Marvel continuity, and soapy teenage drama. A lot of people are doing good work at Marvel right now, but nobody is hitting these notes as consistently well as this crew.

This book is remarkably accessible for something so steeped in its own history. If you’re new to comics, or if you’re here because of the Hulu show, you’ll find plenty to love. But if you liked the original series from Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona, you’re going to be shocked at how much this feels like if that same book had never ended. Even though the characters have grown and changed substantially, their voices are distinct and seamless. This is one of my favorite Marvel comics being published right now, and once you’re all caught up, make sure you add it to your pull list at your shop.

Darth Vader

Darth Vader (2015) #1-12, Star Wars: Vader Down #1, Darth Vader #13, Star Wars (2015) #13, Darth Vader #14, Star Wars #14, Darth Vader #14-25

Remember that moment in Rogue One where Vader just kicked the shit out of everyone without looking like he was trying? And how everyone squealed in delight at old, force of nature, badass villain Darth Vader being back? If you were reading the comics at the time, that moment had already happened for you a full 18 months before the movie came out, in Darth Vader #6.

Comics

Star Wars Canon Timeline in Chronological Order

By Megan Crouse and 1 other

Movies

Star Wars: Darth Vader’s Best Moments from the Marvel Comics

By Marc Buxton

This entire series is Vader killing everything he can. It’s like watching a space tornado. What’s especially surprising, though, is how Kieron Gillen manages to sneak some important character development into the book. While Vader slices through Sith intrigue and Rebel scum and the entire royal line of a mining planet and a bunch of others, we’re also learning about why he’s the way he is. This series takes place between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, so some of the lines that get filled in add to the rest of the OT as well. There have been several very good Star Wars comics since Marvel got the license back, but this run on Darth Vader is the best.

Ultimate Spider-Man

Ultimate Spider-Man saved Marvel Comics. Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley didn’t do it with flashy variants or crossovers. They did it by telling good, pure, core Spidey stories.

It’s hard to separate Peter’s origin from Ultimate Spider-Man from Peter’s origin in the 616. The Ultimate origin is so definitive and iconic in how it fills in the spaces between the necessary beats. Bagley’s art especially – even now, thinking about this series that I haven’t read in forever, I can still pull up Peter jumping over Norman’s car, or MJ’s face when she and Peter have “the talk.”

Movies

How Shifting MCU Release Dates Could Impact Spider-Man 3

By Don Kaye

Movies

Spider-Man 3 Story Is “Absolutely Insane” Says Tom Holland

By Kirsten Howard

For the absolute best, and purest this book can be, just read the first 38 issues, ending with the first Venom arc, but the book stays solid for its entire run. Bendis’ work with both Peter Parker and Miles Morales is my favorite work of his career, especially when Miles joins the cape world, but nothing will ever match just how fantastic these first few arcs of Ultimate Spider-Man are.

The Annihilation Era

Annihilation, Annihilation: Conquest, War of Kings, Realm of Kings, and The Thanos Imperative

You will be hard pressed to find better comic book space opera than the Abnett/Lanning era of Marvel’s cosmic characters. Marvel’s cosmic line was an afterthought when these first started coming out. By the end, it was a widely beloved corner of the Marvel Universe that was popular enough to be mostly transcribed whole by the movies.

Movies

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3: Cast, Release Date, Director, Story, and News

By Mike Cecchini and 1 other

Comics

Guardians of the Galaxy Reading Order

By Gavin Jasper

The nice thing about this era of the cosmic line is how neatly the main books move from event to event. Annihilation tells the story of a cataclysm that befalls the universe, and how the remaining heroes – Nova, Star Lord, Silver Surfer, Drax, Gamora, Ronan the Accuser, and Super-Skrull, among others – fight a war to survive. Rich Rider gets his own solo Nova comic from there, and it leads right into Annihilation: Conquest, about the catastrophe that follows in Annihilation’s wake. It also sees the formation of the Guardians of the Galaxy as we know them and launches their book, before tying both comics together in War of Kings where the Shi’ar and Kree empires collide. Realm of Kings is the aftermath of that war (and has one of my favorite Shi’ar Imperial Guard stories of all time), and that leads directly into the conflict that mostly closes out the era, The Thanos Imperative. This is a great introduction and immersion in Marvel’s cosmic universe, and will have you hooked by the halfway point of the first crossover.

Black Panther

Black Panther (1998) #1-22, Deadpool (1997) #44, Black Panther #23-62

There are certainly better parts to this run, but there is a scene where Namor, T’Challa, Doctor Doom, and Magneto stand around an apartment outside of the United Nations shouting at each other about diplomacy, and to this day I still have not found a comic book more specifically designed for my interests than this one.

Movies

Black Panther 2 Cast, Release Date, Villain, Story, and News

By Mike Cecchini

Movies

Best Black Panther Comics: An Essential Reading Guide

By Jim Dandy

Priest is one of the sharpest minds ever to write comics. He’s so good at misdirection and storytelling – he will overwhelm you with style and flash, and you won’t even notice the subtle clues he’s dropping, or the way themes and characters weave together to show key parts of the story. This run on Black Panther is probably the definitive one for the character, and contributed a ton to the movie version, but there’s so much more depth (and humor!) that Priest puts into the Marvel Universe that it’s very worth reading.

Incredible Hercules

Hulk (1999) #106-112, Incredible Hercules (2008) #113-115, Hulk Vs. Hercules: When Titans Collide, Incredible Hercules #116-137, Assault on New Olympus Prologue, Incredible Hercules #138-141, Hercules: Fall of an Avenger #1-2, Heroic Age: Prince of Power #1-4, Chaos War #1-5

Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente are two of the best people writing comics right now. Each individually writes really good comics, but the two of them working together almost always put something special out. Incredible Hercules spun out of World War Hulk and came out better than it had any business being.

Movies

Hulk Movies Marvel Should Make

By Marc Buxton

Who is She-Hulk? A Guide to Marvel’s Next TV Star

By Gavin Jasper

Hercules exists in a unique place. Pak and Van Lente used him as a gateway to the mythology of the Marvel Universe – the Greek pantheon, but also the Norse pantheon, Japanese gods, Inuit gods, even Skrull deities. And several of these aren’t exclusive to Marvel, so you get a very clear and obvious statement about some of the differences between the Big 2 universes, some clever in-jokes, and the requisite moving story about godhood. This all comes with wonderful characterization, clever plotting and a great sense of humor.

Nextwave: Agents of H.a.T.E.

Read Nextwave after you’ve read everything else, not because it’s a good capstone to your Marvel experience, but because it’s aggressively anti-continuity, and (lovingly) EXTREMELY disrespectful of the rest of the Marvel Universe. It’s also one of the funniest comics Marvel’s ever put out.

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This whole story is Warren Ellis brutalizing superheroes. Boom Boom from X-Force, Monica Rambeau (sometimes Captain Marvel, sometimes Photon), Machine Man, monster hunter Elsa Bloodstone, and Captain &#($$&*#!@ (or The Captain) are brought together by the Highest Anti-Terrorism Effort (H.A.T.E.) to fight Unusual Weapons of Mass Destruction. It’s aggressive nonsense, less anti-continuity than acontinuitous which isn’t a word but also fits the spirit of the book – characters make no sense even from issue to issue, and only serve the plot, but that nonsense later serves the plot. And it is an absolute tour de force from Stuart Immonen, who draws every type of comedy you can imagine – slapstick, absurdity, somehow sarcasm, puns – with incredible layouts and storytelling. This is not a good Marvel comic, but it is an incredible comic book that you’re going to love.

The post Best Marvel Comics to Binge Read on Marvel Unlimited appeared first on Den of Geek.

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lotrewrite · 8 years ago

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LOT Season 2 4.17.17 Recap

All right! Here is the recap of ideas from Monday’s chat sessions. It’s still fairly rough, since I’ve mostly devoted my time to incorporating all of the below into what my next post is going to be about, which is the episodes layout for the season. I’ve tried to group them by subject for convenience.

TL;DR: you should probably go look at the post with the episodes instead, it'll have the ideas that we discussed (below) incorporated into episode

----------------------------------------------------

Oculus Len: Len: well, I was thinking that Oculus!Len would actually appear gradually throughout the season Mick assumes he's a hallucination, and when Len corrects him Mick doesn't believe him? maybe Len doesn't know what he is we have them scattered to the spear pieces so maybe the spear pieces, when activated, "draw in" unusual activity so it's indirectly because of the spear that's how he finds them – therefore he can also find the Legion when they have spear pieces; Like beacons that disrupt the flow of time. they're rocks in the river of time Mick can see him because he was exposed to the Oculus energy in the chair during his time as Kronos sort of a sub-theme I want to work on with Len is that he doesn't always communicate well with people even Mick, he often relies on Mick just getting what he means and that would make it all the more frustrating that Mick goes with Legion!Len even when Oculus!Len tells him not to Episodes where Len appears Episode where this is explained (by magic user?)

Gideon episode More exploration of the ship and Gideon’s limitations now that the Vanishing Point is gone It would also explain why they need to go find "experts" to learn about the spear and other things because they can't just ask Gideon any more Gideon is grieving the AIs in the Vanishing Point and Rip, as well as her isolation/dehumanization by the team, traumatized by Rip hacking her if that’s there Gideon episode: they find a mostly destroyed ship with an AI gone crazy from grief or something and none of them realized that could happen; creepy ghost ship with insane AI Gideon steps in to save the Legends a haunted ship episode would be a great time to introduce Len-the-full-ghost instead of as a hallucination This is the first episode where Oculus!Len interacts with something and is recognized by Gideon, identifying him as a ghost instead of just a hallucination Episode at the midpoint

Kronos’ ship Possibility: solving where Eobard got his own Gideon? From Legion!Rip? from Kronos’ ship? Legion finds Mick’s old ship, gets his AI from there?

Episode 3 - 1942 Episode 3: Sara in 1942: She teamed up with them while waiting to be picked up because otherwise she'd get bored and go back to the League of Assassins and really, twice is enough bet she and rex would have some issues about leadership So the JSA was in Russia/Finland and Sara went: Heeeeeeeyyyyyyy, guys... :D Amaya had seen lightning just before finding Rex's body but didn't actively recall it until seeing Barry run during the crossover. When she mentions it to the others, they realize they're dealing with a speedster

End of Legion Team uses the spear's relative immunity to the time stream to go back in time to interfere with a prior timeline by simply stopping Eobard right after flashpoint, using the spear to rob him of his time travel powers and ditching him right after he killed Barry's mom thereby kickstarting his evolution to become Flash season 1 Wellsobard. Eobard gets exactly what he wants: to be saved from the Black Flash. By stopping Eo at that point, he doesn't ever recruit Damien or Len, so they are back in their timelines WITHOUT a memory wipe and the subtle differences between pre-Legends Eo and post-Legends Eo could also excplain some of the differences in post-Flashpoint Flash universe Possibly emotional farewell between Mick and past!Len before he fades away, then he goes back to Oculus!Len Oculus!Len decides to sacrifice himself again (end of his arc – accepting his choice to be a hero as well as a villain, accepting it’s a part of who he is) and grabs the spear to destroy it, but it actually brings him back because it is immune to time aberrations (ALT: Len regrows body from hand?)

Laurel Sending Laurel to E-2 – they know she’s not Black Siren because of watch detectors one way to give a reason for her to go is because Laurel's death is such an important moment, rescuing her as a speedster abberation - which makes her a target for the Black Flash. Meaning that Eobard saved Laurel not only to get the spear pieces from Sara, but ALSO to give the Black Flash an alternative target Does Laurel like being E-2? It’s better than being dead

Doomworld Doomworld: Wanted!AU – superheroes are miserable regular humans, lots more villains, villainous superheroes and ALL the cameos; actual dystopia going on Lisa is ice skating and queen of a country

Legion composition Some people proposed Queen B, some people proposed Zazzala merger of characters – past!Damien knows a magic user who will be helpful and calls for Queen Bee, who has obtained a mystical artefact (Emerald Eye), which gives her mind-control powers. Damien protects himself and Eobard against it by obtaining amulets against mind control? (Len later demonstrates himself to be capable of picking them off without them noticing, rendering them all vulnerable) Joke about Poison Ivy not returning their calls Queen Bee is an antagonist of Mari-Vixen, both in terms of causing the civil war that caused her to leave her home and stalking her for her token, and this incite Amaya to be curious about her future

Mick moments Finale: Mick and Oculus!Len to team up with Jax and the Legends and fight the Legion Mick moment: at some point he has a moment where he can choose between himself (the chance for the heist or burn of the century) or a teammate and realizes he values the team and wants to stay with them At some point Mick and Ray talk about suicidal ideation they have; Amaya talk to about grief Mick has worsening hallucinations – doesn’t reveal it too soon; concern about mental illness explicitly mentioned; so he's at first an echo, then a whisper, then a glimpse, then a full fledge appearance

Sara arc Sara: saves her sister, then has to step up as leader, then becomes overprotective, confrontation between her and Jax at the end; she goes to talk with Laurel and returns to take up the mantel of captain before going into final fight

Nate Nate’s lucky never-goes-dull pencil is a spear piece He is a grad student and does not question it

Jax/Stein rescue Jax/Stein – medieval constantinople or crusades – people were certain they were right and it goes horribly wrong – stein: so much scientific knowledge being destroyed! jax: also people dying?? Sets up Jax’s arc and helps him realize he knows what the morally right thing is, but he lets himself get overruled

Vikings Jax romance during the Vikings episode Pagan period, everyone addresses their grief, plot happens and at the end they’re at a funeral, a skald singing a tale to trigger the funeral/grieving part of the vikings ep, so there's a big story swap between the legends – make them get up and talk about their dead (Stein is chosen, ends up talking about Ronnie; Mick throws his bottle into the fire, gets up, talks about Len; Ray about Anna) – Sara letting go of rage and grief over Laurel – recognizing she didn’t react well Lisa had been told long before, but she’s still upset; she talks with Mick about his presence with the Legends Jax meets a shieldmaiden who gives him pointers on defending himself without Stein/remind him to be awesome on his own as well – Jax is shocked his flirting actually worked

Episode 6 – cyberpunk heist Could be in the future, cyberpunk, Lisa runs the heist Ray insists on being too clever and going off-script, the suit is damaged, but it’s only destroyed in Invasion; brief mention of Batman Beyond Stein initially protests but gets into it; Ray treats it like a heist movie instead of a real heist, thinks he’s going to save the day despite being told not to use his suit, it all goes badly instead Ray losing his suit not only to excessive heroism but to a there-was-a-better-way-if-you-thought-about-it/possibly unnecessary heroism. Lisa needs to go to back-up plan and succeeds regardless Lisa and Mick get to show off their competence and positive interactions

Invasion rewrite portions of it; everyone will be acting decently to Mick, Felicity and Kara make friends with him; not to mention a better use for time travel than "go back to the 50s to get an alien and do nothing with him"

Magic-user episode Episode 8 – they hunt up a magical expert about the spear, possibly several – So Sara asks Oliver for Constantine's info – each one directing them to another (Constantine to Zatanna to Madame Xanatu and back) Constantine flirts with everyone Zed gets an image of the Legion hunting Rip down by touching the Waverider Rest of the episode: Legends go to try to save him, but fail They return to Constantine, who is apologetic but gives them the compass which he found Rip: Eobard finds him first, initial encounter between them where Rip is happy to meet an old friend from the future (he knew Eo from before Eo became a speedster; asks about if the time sphere worked out for him) and then realizes that Thawne is a villain kidnapping This ties in with Rip’s arc about his “Time Master” knowledge not helping him

American Rev Episode 9 – keep American Rev, keep rat, keep statute; Amaya gets secondary arc: she’s so mission-focused she nearly lets innocent people die, the others stop her and rescue everyone, shows her that being 100% mission above all else is bad

Later magic-user episode Later episode: Constantine sends a message/they call Constantine to ask; telling them that the Spear was last owned by Merlin so they need to go back to Camelot to figure out how it works

Pirates Pirates – maybe not in the Caribbean Ninjas v Pirates argument between Mick and Ray Pirate democracies? Ray and Amaya – Amaya learns pirates are not so bad, law and order isn’t everything, Ray sees that adventuring isn’t all that and requires discipline to be successful

Ray B-plot for one episode to be Ray trying on new identities and they don't work we could also bring Nate back later on for another conversation

Len Len joins Legion willingly He is surprised that Mick is with them and seems okay with them; he objects to plans that involve manipulation of Mick/others based on emotions because it’s “too easy”; He starts questioning, starts hesitating; "if I trust Mick's judgment - which I do sometimes - then what am I missing here?" Sara mentions kiss to Past!Len, who flirts back but doesn’t remember it Line he doesn’t want them to cross – gratuitous torture of someone for pleasure rather than to really get anything out of the person, Len decides to kill the person (mercy kill) and they’re pissed; Len fights the Legion with the help of Oculus!Len (still invisible, but able to interact) Eo thinks it’s easy but Len’s good against speedsters and ices him; Damien pulls out rarely used magic skills and puts him down; they put him in the same chair as torture victim, zoom in on his face, end of episode Next we see of Len, he’s fine - someone jokes "i'm so happy you had a /change/ of mind" - and he says nothing at all. no reaction to the pun, nothing Post-BW manipulates Mick to come with him Oculus!Len is horrified by brainwashing and tries to communicate with Mick, who doesn’t listen He hurts/insults Mick at one point and Jax/Legends realize that’s OOC based on stories of Len Mick in Doomworld realizes he's done something wrong but doesn't know how to fix it and only after he's made the decision to leave Legion!Len does Oculus!Len show up he probably thinks he's hallucinating /again/ but then they're actually able to talk During Doomworld, when Mick realizes Len has been brainwashed, that's the final push that gets him to regather the team The Legion decides to deal with Mick and capture Mick, ordering Legion!Len to torture him Oculus!Len appears and uses that to fight Legion!Len, causing him to BSOD/become confused because the manipulation of Mick (which he was also less willing to do before the brainwashing) is one thing but torturing him is another

Gangs of New York Sadie the Goat Farrel 1869 NY Gangs, headbutts her victims and a cohort shoots them with a sling shot and steals their money, gangs of NY; her nemesis was this other lady who is equally awesome a 6 plus bouncer called Gallus Mag who bit off Sadies ear in a fight and kept it pickled in a jar - gang war between historical ladies and the Legends jump right in the middle specifically, 1860s Gangs-of-New-York NYC could feature Jonah Hex who haaaaaaaaaaates this place; If we have Hex, maybe include at least a reference to the fact that he was Confederate and uncomfortable with Yankees If we move episode 1 to being London or DC, the later episode with Jonah Hex could involved gangs of New York – he got called to solve a problem

Tudors episode Rip: Time Master’s knowledge is wrong/one-sided and colonialist overtones; could tie in with Amaya’s arc; Episode where Rip (after he comes back) tries to do things based on typical Time Master protocol (team goes one way, he goes another b/c he's sure he's right and he wants to redeem himself) except it's totally wrong, possibly just checking Gideon instead of looking himself, and it goes wrong; he is forced to realize that he’s lost everything: his family, his faith in the TMs, his captaincy, etc. -> Rip also realizes that if his Time Master info is wrong, he might have taken IMPORTANT people from the timeline, thereby robbing them of their potential (possibly they are now creating ‘new’ potential) Possibly to happen in Tudor episode - he thinks the spear has to be THIS THING but it turns out it's another thing during the Tudor episode Mick burns down the building which will then be rebuilt to be the Globe other episode ideas New Zealand episode South America episode – Chile/Argentina – could be Amaya episode for finding out about colonialization possibly an episode where they encounter some Really Bad Thing the Time Masters did (and Rip did, not realizing it was bad) Mystery Machine parked in the background

Maze episode Maze: Legion and Legends both go to future where there is a maze, it’s a TV competition (“Legends of the Hidden Temple”); there are “puzzles” you have to solve but it’s not logic, it’s references, humor, brawn, compassion, puns; O!Len cracks a joke and Mick says it out loud Some overarching minotaur threat Episode where Stein keeps trying to use logic and fails, needs to rely on others, especially Mick Eobard tries to go through walls and pays a penalty for cheating – it’s Jumanji questions is "please name the secret identity of batman" and the answer is "I don't know, nobody knows that!" possibly Lily is in danger? At least, Stein thinks she is; he needs to be scared about the fact that his intelligence isn't going to save her – this can follow up on episode where he doesn’t reveal she’s an aberration thereby getting her angry at him; she refuses to forgive him until she sees him really stressing out about her, he gets advice from emotionally mature person about how to apologize in a way she understands he means it

Filler episode filler episode/Jax's 21st birthday? that particular one doesn't have to be an aberration they go to celebrate Jax's birthday and cause chaos maybe a filler episode that has the legion fighting v the team bonding shows off the differences between the groups Legion starts sniping about brainwashing to each other

Spear Idea: but the idea is that the spear essentially immunizes the bearer from the effects of time travel this would explain why Nate noticed his thesis going wrong but to expand on the idea a /time traveler/ with the spear would be able to "fix" time aberrations into place, making them more difficult to fix by other time travelers explaining, presumably, why the death of Jesus Christ is another "fixed" moment thus the "change" in reality idea that's why they can 'change' Eobard's reality later on and also why it would bring Oculus!Len back from the dead he's 'fixing' his own aberration Len becomes Schrodinger's cat. He is both alive and dead which only works with something immune to time or the “reality change” can be Rip getting another thing wrong

#LOT rewrite #dc's legends of tomorrow #recap

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benpinsent-blog · 7 years ago

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He’s going to be the very best, that no one ever was, to catch them is my real test, to kill half the universe population is my cause

Thanos, the mad Titan, seeks to collect all six infinity stones, powerful objects that were formed with the big band, to erase half the population of the universe. He must travel the ends of the galaxy to get them but, standing in his way is a collection of heroes, from the Earth and amongst the stars.

So it’s all been leading up to this after 10 years of Marvel movies we are finally at the end game, well maybe not end game, there will probably be more after these two movies. Oh, that’s right, this is the first half of the story, so we have to wait another two years for Infinity War to conclude. Each film that has come before Infinity War has been carefully made to lead to this moment; introducing us to the infinity stones in Captain America: The First Avenger, to Thanos in Avengers: Assemble, the universe in Guardians of the Galaxy, the multiverse and magic in Doctor Strange and all the other films in between which have built a solid foundation on which Marvel Studio’s legacy will sit, either as a triumph of cinematic universe storytelling or a warning like Ikarus of a studio that flew too close to the sun. So which will it be?

Look how many characters there are in this film, and we thought the first Avengers would get confusing with Six Avengers

To be honest I was more than a little trepidatious going into Infinity War. Marvel has so many characters now, with most of them being rammed into this film, I thought that it would get confusing and bogged down in the need to show everyone off, doing more of a tour of the Marvel Cinematic Universe rather than tell a decent story. And while it can feel a little rushed and disjointed jumping about the galaxy following disparate characters, for the most part, I will say that the film does a good job making this cohesive despite the different styles of films and cinematography that these characters have existed in before.

Thanos from Avengers Assemble is suprisingly different from his Infinity War counterpart

This is helped by a tight script that has a strong focus on its central narrative. The film is fixated on the issue of the infinity stones and the collection of them. If it were to be given a singular title that reflected on the character it would be Thanos: Infinity War. Though he is the villain of the piece, he is essentially the main character as he is the through-line that connects all the other stories together, giving our heroes motivation to fight and audiences time to understand the mad Titan’s motives. While he is certainly not sympathetic, he is understandable in a slightly scary way. In the same way that the corporation from the Channel 4 show Utopia was understandable in a twisted and dark way.

The opening, while a strong one, feels like you missed a scene or another film that was not released yet

Yet, something does seem amiss with the narrative. Because there are so many characters and stories all working together to meet the same end, it can feel a little episodic with each group of characters having little effect on the other group. The film opens at the end of an episode that almost makes you think you missed the first part of a movie or another movie entirely that led to this. Then, while there are some excellent bits within the episodes, each section goes on mechanically toward a conclusion that sets up the next chapter in the Infinity War Saga.

A big sad dad, trying to do a thing he is convinced is rights, which is fascinatting

However, some truly fantastic performances all round an act as a way of distracting you from these weaknesses in plot structure, apart from one minor cameo that I won’t spoil. Special mention must be made to Josh Brolin who plays our big, purple, bad guy, who while not sympathetic, is understandable as a villain, someone with a clear motive born out of misguided morality. He is the star of the show.

Hey look its two characters that are exactly the same, we also have Doctor Iron Strange Man (off screen)

Unfortunately, though you begin to see how Marvel repeat themselves both regarding story and character archetypes as laid down by Joss Whedon. Each “main” character has a certain level of snark or cut a similar figure. I already knew that Doctor Strange and Tony Stark were cut from the same kind of clothing, the arrogant kind, but I never understood that every other character was sort of a deviation from them. Peter Parker idolises Tony so, though he is more naive and idealistic, he still cracks wise, though this is built into his character from his print origins. T’chala, Captain America and Bucky Barnes are all more serious than Tony, stoic warrior types. Then you have Star-Lord, the Guardians and Thor, goofy spacefarers. I may be boiling all these characters unnecessarily but even the film refers to how similar these characters are by little nods between them or just through their aggressive character interaction.

Captain American doesn’t do much

also he and Black Panther are very similar, is that just me?

There is also the tendency by Marvel to lessen itself, like it isn’t fully prepared to go all the way with its story and take it seriously. There is one scene when there is a real moment between two characters and that is ruined by cheap humour; it was a great moment that was well shot, well acted and then ruined by the need to diffuse it with a joke. Something similar happens in some of the tensest most emotionally fraught moments of the film; then they are undone by having a character that can literally bend time and space to his will. What makes it worse is that he does this twice.

The best way to describe this film is like an event or a crossover comic. Now for those of you who don’t read comic books, an event comic is a story that spans the entire comic universe drawing all characters into a grand narrative that often spins off into the individual books. While not exactly like that because there aren’t going to be those issues, Infinity War focuses on the singular story and is not concentrated on significant character development for individual characters. Really though your enjoyment of Infinity War boils down to how invested you are in the franchise. If you aren’t invested, then there is still tones of great spectacle to enjoy some good jokes and characters, even if when you show them close together they probably seem more alike than you hoped. But if you are invested then boy howdy this was certainly worth the wait, despite its flaws.

You can watch Avengers: Infinity War in cinemas now

Hey do you want another opinion on #InfinityWar, I have an opinion on #InfinityWar Thanos, the mad Titan, seeks to collect all six infinity stones, powerful objects that were formed with the big band, to erase half the population of the universe.

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theuniversitychallengereview · 6 years ago

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UC 48.17-20, 2R Matches 1-4

Given that this would be my largest online portfolio of writing samples, if I ever wanted to point to here as an example of my prowess for a potential employer, the past year and a bit wouldn’t exactly be a shining display of my ability to work to deadlines. However, given that there aren’t any real deadlines since I make them up myself, perhaps batching together episodes, as I am doing today, would showcase a flair for efficiency and time-saving in the long run.

Either way, a lot has happened in the time since the current period of slacking off started. Jacob-Rees Mogg and his gang of Victorian rabble-rousers attempted, and failed, to oust Theresa May, in a move that achieved nothing except to stall already stalling Brexit negotiations for a few hours. So I guess not a lot has changed there, actually.

But in more pertinent news, Tumblr has announced a crackdown on pornographic content, meaning that I will have to tone down my descriptions of any lightning-quick buzzes or preposterous recollections of scientific minutiae. I may also have to rethink a meme idea I had that was going to be a picture of a stern Paxman with the caption ‘Question me, Daddy’, because I don’t know where the line will be drawn.

Anyway, the first in this gargantuan compilation review was an Oxbridge Derby, featuring the 2010 winners.

St Peter’s Oxford vs Emmanuel, Cambridge

St Pete’s had already trounced another Cambridge College by a 175 point margin in the first round, so will have been looking forward to their second El Quizico match. Emmanuel, meanwhile, would just have been delighted to be there, having coming through the play-off round after a tight defeat in a high-quality game against Glasgow.

I described upon their first appearance how the Oxford side had the look of an archetypal Uni Challenge quartet, and they remain largely the same for this episode, right down to Cooper’s beret, although Braddock has taken off his scarf. Perhaps he realised (as I suggested in my review) that such a garment may lead to overheating beneath the heat of the studio lights. Still, if you told a sketch artist to draw a UC team (with no other information), the result would probably be quite close to these four.

Emmanuel look pretty quizzy too, but they have a female captain, which unfortunately is still unusual enough that it might cause our artist, painting blind, to slip up.

It is they who take the initial lead, MacDonald coming in fairly late for an opening starter with The Giant’s Causeway to claim the first ten points. Captain Cugini gives a whispered ‘Yes!’ when her team’s guess of Watteau is correct on a bonus. You can see how much this means to her, even at such an early stage.

St Peter’s then negged a few starters, but Emma couldn’t capitalise, and the Oxonians won the picture round to bring them up to half points. Not that it was really a proper picture round though, it was one of those ones where they have pictures of words, which sort of defeats the pictorial element. Of course, sometimes it works, like if the words are in foreign languages, but it just seems lazy when its simply another question about bloody Sonnets.

This would be the closest St Peter’s came to challenging. Emmanuel increased their lead to beyond three full question sets (at which point a comeback becomes a truly tall order) and kept slapping away any hands that were threatening to come too close.

Final Score: St Peter’s, Ox 120 - 195 Emmanuel, Cam

Hertford, Oxford vs Manchester

In days of yore (circa 2014) Manchester were a Uni Challenge monolith, seemingly the only team capable of smashing the Oxbridge duopoly. But they’ve failed to make it beyond the second round since then, and didn’t even make it onto the live shows last year. Their opportunity to break that duck would come against Hertford, Ox, who had made it through the second of the repechage rounds a few weeks earlier.

Tudor buzzed in with Bureau to give Oxford the lead, and Paxman bizarrely chose to chastise him for ‘being so dismissive’ when he hadn’t been in the slightest, even exhaling with relief when his answer was confirmed as correct. Starters were traded politely for a while, until Page gave Ford instead of Harrison (and then mumbled Harrison after realising his mistake) for the name that linked a number of people with the actor who played Deckard Shaw. At this point it seems kind of unfair to let Manchester steal the points, but they show no mercy and nudge in front for the first time.

With the scores tied at 80-80, the teams conspired to ramp up the tension, missing three starters in a row until Antao finally decided to buzz in. Ross took the next one, and Manchester now had the bit between their teeth, storming out into the distance with such ferocity as to end the match as a contest.

This week the picture rounds actually included pictures, with an excellent round on maps modified by the usage of various energy sources. By the time the second one, on self-portraits, came around, Manchester had a fifty-five point lead. Hertford would have had to take almost all of the remaining points to claim victory, but they couldn’t manage this. The Mancunians had returned to their rightful place in the quarter-finals.

Final Score: Hertford, Ox 115 - 185 Manchester

Edinburgh vs UCL

This was a rematch of a second round contest from last year, which Edinburgh won by the slimmest of margins, five points. According to my post from the time, there were eleven seconds on the clock when the Edinburgh player had switched the deficit with her starter, making it one of the slimmest ways in which you could win by the slimmest of margins. A slim-slim situation for the Scottish side, who would be hoping they wouldn’t have to cut it so close this time around.

But its the London quartet who set off the quickest as they set out to claim their revenge. They raced ahead with the first three starters, after which Fitz-James decided to blaze in early, but he could only neg, and UCL stretched away even further. Edinburgh could only get in the game when the first picture round came along, but after that normal service resumed and Johnstone eased UCL out to a ninety point cushion. This was far from a slim margin.

I said only paragraphs ago that a lead equivalent to three full question sets tends to be enough to get you over the line. This was nearly four full sets, but Edinburgh weren’t going to give up quite yet, and Malusa reduced the arrears with his first starter of the night. Fitz-James then buzzed for the music starter dangerously early, but got it right, and they stormed through the hat-trick to offer UCL some food for thought.

Perhaps they were too busy thinking about that food, because they negged the next starter, and Auld Reekie took a third in a row to come within a single set. But UCL realise that we haven’t even reached the second picture round yet so they can’t rely on the gong to save them, and Fang wakes his teammates up with the sound his buzzer. However, when it did come around it went to Edinburgh, who slam-dunked another treble on the bonuses to bring the scores within 5 points.

Walker and Malusa swapped starters, but Edinburgh continued their ridiculous streak on the bonuses (they took 19 out of 24, including an incredible 6 hat-tricks) to level the game. Fitz-James’ fifth starter of the night gave Edinburgh the lead for the first time of the evening, but this was where the streak ended, and they could only take a solitary five pointer.

UCL returned fire, but they did continue their streak of poor bonusing, and missed the opportunity to take the lead. Five points in it. One starter to go. The exact situation as almost exactly one year earlier, but in reverse. And 6 seconds into this starter came the buzz from UCL’s Walker, to mirror the result. In the upper half of the screen you can see Fitz-James hurriedly trying to sound his buzzer, as if if he presses it hard enough it will overrule hers. But it doesn’t.

It doesn’t need to.

Walker’s answer is wrong, and FJ picks it up without even waiting for the rest of the question. Before a bonus question can be read the gong sounds. In the end there are twenty points in it, but that doesn’t tell you the whole story. It may not have been the slimmest of margins, but it was the slimmest possible twenty point margin.

Edinburgh 180 - 160 UCL

Clare, Cambridge vs St Edmund’s, Oxford

We started off this bumper-review with an Oxbridge match, and we’re going to finish it with another edition of El Quizico (in case you didn’t get it when I said it earlier I’m trying out a riff on El Clasico, the name for matches between Barcelona and Real Madrid) (and if you found the explanation patronising, I’m sorry, I don’t know how big a crossover fandom I’m dealing with here).

Clare’s Elijah Granet clearly fancies himself a bit of a comedian, turning his head to the left after introducing himself (as being from sunny San Diego) despite having no one sitting there. What an absolute joker. His teammate Nixon opened up proceedings with one of UC’s classic ‘meanings of what word include...’ questions. Gurr tried to get the double on the second starter, but his buzz was wrong, and Teddy Hall captain looked to be considering having a guess before his neighbour Bresson beat him to it with the correct answer.

Granet, who had won Clare’s opening match with a gong-beating buzz on the last question, got himself off the mark on the third starter, but that would be the Cambridge side’s last involvement for some time.

Captain Leo, the standout Teddybear from their first round win, took eight (8) of the next nine starters (with the other going to endsman Pisharody) to go 155 points clear. Now I know Edinburgh did manage to come back from 90 points, which was more than my arbitrarily defined comeback-limit, but even though they managed to get back in with the second picture round, there truly was no hope for Clare.

Captain Gurr is just happy to be back in play though, and does that thing where you rise a little bit in your seat and then sit back down emphatically to display his delight. But avoiding humiliation is the best they can hope for now, and to be fair to them they do manage this, striding over a hundred points despite Gurr giving Deborah Meaden when asked for a famous caricaturist from the early 1800s.

He then says goodbye with an amorphous groaning noise, so perhaps the humiliation wasn’t totally avoided after all.

Final Score: Clare, Cam 105 - 240 St Edmund’s Hall

So we now have four quarter-finalists confirmed, two Oxbridge, and two non-Oxbridge:

Emmanuel, Cambridge

Manchester

Edinburgh

St Edmund’s Hall, Oxford

Glasgow take on Goldsmith’s tonight looking to make it two Scottish sides in the Quarter Finals for the first time since 2010.

If this wasn’t too much University Challenge Reviewing for you to stomach, then it would be remiss of me to not mention an amazing Christmas present I can offer you. If you’re bored and sitting around with family member to whom you have nothing much to say, and you can’t decide on which Netflix Original you want to watch, why not binge past seasons of UC instead, along with handy reading guides prepared by yours truly. I have compiled the past two years-worth of reviews into lovely little eBooks which can be found on Amazon at the Links below. So if you enjoy the blog, or want to get your nerdy cousin a gift for less than £3 then why not add it to your Kindle basket. And if you don’t want to get it yourself, then I’d be v grateful for a wee review, which is something proper authors say to boost it up the rankings or something like that...

The 2016-17 (Monkman and Seagull) series:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/University-Challenge-Review-2016-Monkman-ebook/dp/B077W9RRWQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1545075467&sr=8-1&keywords=university+challenge+review

The 2017-18 series:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/University-Challenge-Review-2017-18-Questions-ebook/dp/B07DYZRBPP/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1545075584&sr=1-2

Cheers, and Merry Christmas!

#university challenge #bbc2 #emmanuel #cambridge #st peters #oxford #manchester #university of #hertford #college #edinburgh #uc #st edmunds hall #clare #jeremy paxman

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