#and they kind of did ridiculous things to Thor's character lol

[not-poignant]

hear me out 👀 loki x mobius

idk, i’ve been rereading the guardians and other fae tales work… on top of the new season of loki-! they just seem like a dynamic you’d thrive with

Hi anon!

So, Loki x Mobius has been around since the show started sdlfkjsa and you might not know this, but I've actually been a hardcore Thorki shipper for over 10 years. Definitely since the first Thor movie came out. *checks how long ago that was and cries a little* Okay, twelve years. In my 1000+ AO3 bookmarks, the Loki/Thor pairing makes up the majority pairing with over 200+ bookmarks.

Anyway, Lokius has been shipped since the Loki show came out, but after like 12 years of being a Thorki shipper (with brief dalliances into some Steve/Loki and Tony/Loki) I mostly just enjoy Loki being friends with Mobius. Like I see the merits of the ship for sure, and am very glad people are enjoying it, but I just...personally prefer Thorki as my ship. I even put up some of a Thorki fanfic of my own and it's the only fic I've removed from thespectaclesofthor (because I knew I wouldn't finish it).

I have been idly thinking of looking at fanfiction offerings for Lokius again but I didn't like a single fic I looked at in season 1 which made me think I was either pretty cool on the pairing overall, or that what was being written just wasn't for me. But I also just...don't ship them. I can't imagine wanting to write a fic for them where I'd ship them. They're not a dynamic I thrive with.

I remember when people thought Steve/Bucky would be a dynamic I thrive with and I actually...don't ship them, and don't even like the ship at all.

With Lokius, it's not that I don't like the ship, I just don't care that much about it. I'm enjoying the show, I love the characters, I'm really glad Loki's experiencing some genuine found family vibes in the canon, and I feel nothing about wanting to make his experiences in that sexual at all. If I ever wrote Loki + Mobius it really would just be a friendfic.

Something might change on that front, for sure, but it's been a few years now and I still just mostly go back to Thorki fics when I want to read Loki stuff again.

I'm sorry anon, people trying to predict the ships I'll go for never goes that well (Mobius is not at all the kind of character I normally want to write in general), but I am very happy for the folks who are enjoying the ship and getting bits and pieces of gif/fic/fanart material from the show. :) And I'm glad we all get to enjoy their acting and the show together overall.

[bigskydreaming]

I’m rewatching X-Men (2000) for the first time in a long time and besides finding it exquisitely nostalgic, I keep finding myself thinking, “Damn, [character] is kind of OP” with literally every. Single. Character. And it’s funny now to think of how crazy powerful all the X-Men are compared to say, the Avengers, where I feel like the only god-tier power the MCU ever delivered was Captain Marvel and maybe Thor in Ragnarok. I guess the first X-Men kind of downplays Jean Gray’s powers, and there are cool take-downs like Magneto’s iconic “That remarkable metal doesn’t run through your entire body, does it?” line and Toad getting fried by Storm, but I feel like it’s so fun that most of the time literally every character is OP. Anyway, I wanted to ask you as an X-Men expert, have they always been so cool and powerful, or do the comics toggle back-and-forth with how powerful they are like the later X-Men movies did? And did comics Avengers and Fantastic Four ever think they had a chance vs. the X-Men?

LOL its ironic, I kinda consider them to be massively UNDERPOWERED in the X-Men films, but also I hate everything about them because Singer, so who's unbiased, not THIS guy!

For the most part it depends on the character. Like, you know Bobby's my Blorbo above all Blorbos there, so the X-films in particular did a shitty job of depicting his actual power levels, but in their 'defense' I guess, so does every other adaptation. Nowhere but the comics has been consistent about him being portrayed as ridiculously OP as he is, which is kinda funny because for all that Iceman doesn't SEEM like he'd be a top tier power level kinda character, he's consistently been that way since the early 90s. Hell, for that matter, he and Jean were the original omega level mutants used to debut the term in its modern interpretation.

(A lot of people point out that omega was first used to describe Rachel Summers, who isn't considered an official omega level mutant these days, but that was by Sentinels describing her as an omega level THREAT, so I don't consider that the same thing as the OL classification mutants use among themselves, but just throwing that out there).

In the comics, there are different classifications, kinda, that mutants use to describe different power levels. Most mutants are gamma or beta mutants. Most combatant mutants like major X-Men and foes, such as Cyclops, Bishop, Psylocke, Emma Frost, etc, are alpha level mutants.

Omega mutants are the rarest of the rare, and are, simply put....god-tier mutants. Their literal definition is mutants whose upper levels of power are beyond any ability to measurably quantify. A lot of people default to calling them infinitely powerful, which isn't quite INaccurate, but also isn't quite accurate....its more like....they're mutants who will never stop finding new ways to grow and advance their abilities, who have no upper ceiling to their powers...though all of them reach different tiers of ACTUALLY utilized power at different times/lengths of time.

A ton of people HATE the omega concept because frankly, it DOES make those with that designation overpowered as fuck but I like to point to DC and the Justice League which has always been full of god-tier characters who are nevertheless possible to write for and give relatable issues and equivalent foes. Personally though, I've always loved it for the narrative possibilities rather than the power levels per se. I like it because omegas are like, ultimate examples of evolution (Marvel style, lol, as in the kind they always have go hand in hand with mutants but uh, isn't always scientifically on point haha). But I mean, they're individual mutants who embody the concept of constant, unending evolution. The view of omega mutants as just the most powerful misses the point, IMO...part of why I hate Bobby's constant cycle of 'untapped potential' storylines (his most often recurring narrative) is because it fails to acknowledge that omegas like him CAN'T ever fully realize their potential, just MORE of it, because like evolution, there is no actual intended ENDPOINT for his or any other omega's powers. There will always be more. Further they can go.

Anyway....I know X-Men '97 emphasized Jean, Storm and Magneto as omegas, but even it didn't actually convey the level their powers are at in the comics, other than Magneto doing the global EMP thing. Omegas can pretty much all affect things on a global scale. A group of twelve of them in the comics recently terraformed Mars, in order to relocate a bunch of mutants called the Arakkii there after they returned from their 4,000 year long war in a demon dimension, protecting Earth from being invaded by it. (Long story).

But yeah, so omegas are a thing in the comics, and no adaptation has quite yet even scratched the surface of what they can do in the comics. There's only 12 acknowledged omegas out of all the Earthborn mutants (though Hickman's list is shit IMO and its ridiculous that there's only one person of color on it, Storm, and there's several other mutants of color I'd happily add to it if given the chance to balance things out), but the Arakkii (who are all black-coded if not actually black, because of where and when Arakko/Okkara originally existed on Earth before Amenth invaded 4K years ago), have a similar number of omegas of their own. But again, we're talking around 12 mutants EACH, among their total respective populations of about a million mutants each.

Anyway, the big four of the omegas, the major names among the X-Men, are Jean, Storm, Bobby and Magneto, with the other Earth omegas being Exodus, Elixir, Hope Summers, Absolon Mercator, Jamie Braddock, Proteus, Gabriel Summers/Vulcan and Quentin Quire (sigh). And then on the Arakkii side there was Isca the Unbeaten and her sister Genesis, Apocalypse's wife, Lactuca, Sobunar, Xilo, Ora Serrata, Lycaon, Tarn, Lodus Logos, Idyll, Kobak Never-Held, and Apocalypse and Genesis' kids, the original four Horsemen. Plus they keep going back and forth on whether or not White Sword is an omega or just a really powerful External, but whatever, I digress. Anyway, that list isn't accurate anymore because as of Genesis War, a few of them are dead, just like on the Earth list Hope is....transcended I guess you could say, lol, and Elixir and Proteus are back in the White Hot Room with her and who knows where the fuck Mercator is these days, but like.

Point is, the omegas are cosmic level. Jean's current solo literally has her being called a cosmic entity, because yeah, she's one with the Phoenix again but since the Phoenix has long been described as a future point of her own evolution and was recently solidified as like, a mass gestalt of mutant life force and psyche that was collected within her and her power like a nexus point, its kinda one and the same. Storm's solo is said to have plans to have her interact with the Abstracts of the Universe (the like, ultimate top-tier beings in it), Eternity and Oblivion.

Bobby's been quite literally unkillable since the early 2000s at least, as in he's been hit with a nuke and atomized, been blown up MULTIPLE times, and he just makes himself new bodies out of the next nearest moisture. He once started a new Ice Age, can create armies of semi-autonomous ice giants, teleport anywhere there's water, etc. Oh yeah, and since he's the walking embodiment of the future heat-death of the universe, he's also frozen reality on a quantum level to quarantine a cosmic tier threat. Oh AND frozen Hell. Jean reignited a sun recently. Storm took out an alien mercenary army in seconds by just hitting them with Jupiter-level atmospheric pressure with a snap of her fingers, and the only thing about that which actually required she exert herself came from holding BACK enough that her allies standing mere feet away weren't affected the same as her targeted enemies. Vulcan talked about obliterating Mars when he got cranky, and everyone took that very seriously because he can absolutely fucking do it. Any of them can.

There's a reason X-fans are sore about how editorially scripted AvX went, and not just because the X-Men were known to be a lesser priority at that time due to the film rights, so they were never going to get to be the 'winners' of that, ideologically, even though the optics for how that fight started were not actually as great for the Avengers as Marvel seems to think they were. But it also has a lot to do with the fact with all credit to the Avengers heavy-hitters, which there are quite a few of, they tend to get their powers/origins from cosmic storylines far away from Earth, hail from other dimensions like Asgard, etc, whereas mutants have been home-growing cosmic tier fighters on Earth for decades now, and that was pretty much treated like a non-factor.

None of the omegas (and Magneto and Storm may not have OFFICIALLY been listed as such yet, but Bobby was, and its not like they actually got any power UPGRADES when they were finally canonized as omegas, it just was a label change acknowledging the power they've always been depicted as having) actually played definitive roles in that, and again, when you've got global threats in one side's ranks that you refuse to acknowledge as such in order to make sense of pitting them against opponents they should be able to handle with a finger snap, it does tend to make stans cranky. Its like yeah, they gave me a panel of Bobby fighting Red Hulk in the background, but that was the extent of his impact on AvX as a whole, even though he'd quite literally taken Thor on, solo, mere months before during the Dark Iceman arc.

But yeah, you say AvX around X-fans, we will hiss at the memory like a snake. Was not fun for us. And again, this isn't to disparage the cosmic tier characters the Avengers have, and of the Fantastic Four, Sue and Johnny are right up there at the top of any power ranking system one might care to devise. But...like....mutants tend to deal with their threats internally in the Marvel universe, so every mutant alive has known for decades that Magneto, Storm, Iceman and Jean should not be locked in a room together and told to fight because without nonomegas who can't actually survive the stuff they can around them to remind them to keep their power levels DOWN, those four could very easily blow up the Earth before they even realize what happened since omegas vs omegas equals unlimited escalation.

Meanwhile, it was literally only during the Krakoan era that anyone OUTSIDE of mutants sat up and took note of the omega classification (which has existed for decades) even being a THING, let alone mutants casually being like 'oh yeah, we have like, twelve of those guys.'

LOL, so anyway. Yeah, it is kinda funny to hear the X-Men in existing adaptations described as OP, because none of them even come close to scratching the surface of how many of the X-Men are portrayed in the comics. I have very little interest in the MCU as a whole, and am not expecting to be a fan of their take on the X-Men but I am very curious to see which X-Men they emphasize as the heavy-hitters and what level of power they depict them as being at. For better or worse, whether fans like it or hate it, there's a good dozen of them who can go toe to toe with literal gods without breaking a sweat.

(Like, literally literally, not how Kalen usually uses literally literally. Bobby single-handedly thwarted a Loki 'take over Asgard' scheme in the EIGHTIES, at a time when only Thor himself was going one on one with his brother and if he wasn't around, Loki was considered a 'bring your whole team' kind of threat. And this was a full decade before the omega term was even a thing. Thor's canonically been wary of Bobby since the latter was SIXTEEN because he considers him to be a baby Ymir, the father of all frost giants. He was literally playing poker with other Avengers when he sensed Bobby go Dark Side during the Dark Iceman arc and his face went 'oh fuck.' You know how powerful you have to be to make Thor's face go 'oh fuck'?)

(Fimbulvetr is the Asgardian term for the Everwinter, the start of Ragnarok. Its a Ymir thing. Incidentally, after AvX when the X-Men and Avengers were making a point to cooperate, Thor and Bobby teamed up against Ymir himself, and THEN Marvel was perfectly happy to allow Bobby to kick his ass solo and be like 'what, was that supposed to be hard' to an incredulous Thor, BUT I DIGRESS).

But anyway, the official omega list is very recent, but everyone on it like Storm, Jean, Bobby and Magneto have all been consistently powerful as fuck since the 80s, MINIMUM. Bobby's 80s solo was used to debut Oblivion, an Abstract of the Universe, Storm was channeling the energy of multiple stars when fighting the Brood in space, and that was all decades ago. They've all had occasions of being nerfed since then, but for the past decade or so, the Big Four have had relatively few occasions of that compared to any point before, and Marvel's been more pointed about keeping their upper ranges of power more normalized for them.

[the-firebird69]

They haven't seen there yelling at them so they reinforcing themselves to go to the laundry mat now get down there and it's some sort of game and he starts tearing them a new one we don't want him to be stressed that much it's not necessary it got us a long way but we have to be kind and he's saying he wants to beat the **** out of them and they're going to present the opportunity if it's laundry gets dirty they'll try and put him in the hospital and try and put him on the slide and is close to it so we have to tell people this is what they're doing but we also have to stop these guys they're ridiculous they're asking for an old ton of stuff nothing ever happens they end up fighting each other to the death they don't seem to ever recognize it they don't seem to care at all either and we have to take care of this problem. right now

right now

Thor Freya

you idiots dont get squt doing it and we shall take the lions share today and yeh due to the laundry mat issue and if you show or not we take deep cuts into you...and by force and yoru bliind so lol hahaha

Zues

and we hit you dave your dumb lol makes fun of your assinine character w bad bones. we hit you faggot. and yeh we take it all for this and your stuff here bg and crissy jason trump etc tons of it. go hungry ok we need you out your fn dumb and lazy

Hera

we hear it an it is real we see it too tyou morons dissapear we hit you too and move fast have to as some groups are big and wisk a pile of you losers away

mac daddy

heard it all am and we go there to do that due to it die from it ok and it makes it worse and they do it due to the announcment we were going there. oh. we see it no but shall look

bg

we hate it they never get us a thing due to it and we are tied up hard. i have avoided it no. tu several times ok did not show. and better the prior twoweeks and i do see it. need out of it and it does work

trump

the last time was hell i see it but ok. we are weak and will fall

this is right but ok they work. nd we are animals

bg

Olympus

[knickynoo]

Do you have any thoughts on Marty and his self esteem issues? In most of the trilogy, I feel like Marty ranges from experience a lot of insecurity at best, to like a considerable amount of self loathing at worst, (like pls Marty, Doc getting struck by lighting was not your fault? You’re not Thor?) . And there’s the whole chicken thing, so I was curious if you had any thoughts on where it stems from, how it’s affected him etc etc? Okay lmao that’s it, have a great day !!

Hello! Do I have thoughts?? Yes. I do.

So, one of the things I like so much about Marty as a character is that...he's kind of an enigma of sorts? Like. Here's this kid who skateboards, rocks that denim jacket and the cool sunglasses, plays guitar, has a pretty girlfriend, etc. You take all of that, and it should reflect a really confident, popular person. I mean, with all the stereotypical "cool guy" attributes considered, Marty should have Ferris Bueller-level confidence and charm. He should be strutting around, smooth-talking everyone, laughing in the face of danger, and possessing unshakeable self-esteem. But he does/has none of those things because, as we all know, Marty is A Mess (affectionate). And yeah, a lot of it seems to stem from self-esteem issues, which we do see sprinkled throughout the trilogy. Where's it all coming from? Well, a lot of places, most likely...

• FAMILY: Probably the biggest factor. Though I'm sure George and Lorraine were sincerely in love for a while at the beginning of their relationship/marriage, I think it's fair to assume that any real spark between them had pretty much fizzled out by the time Marty came along or when he was a young kid. Take a loveless relationship between a meek, subservient man and a woman who drinks away her feelings, factor in a 17-year-old boy who's probably never had any real semblance of parental stability in his house, and it's highly likely that kid is going to have some issues. It's really difficult to believe in yourself & feel secure when the norm is having parents who are wrapped up in their own worlds/rarely interact with each other, seeing your father get emotionally (& physically!) pushed around by his supervisor, and watching your mom cling to alcohol and sink into depression.

• Plus, there are the separate relationships George and Lorraine have with Marty. Granted, we don't see much of it, but what we see at dinner is probably a good example of a typical interaction. George is quick to steer Marty away from any situation where he may face rejection or hardship. And yeah, he may think he's protecting his son, but this strategy is actually pretty harmful. I can imagine that any time Marty is feeling nervous or let down, and goes to his father seeking encouragement, he's only left with the impression that it's better not to take any risks at all because he might fail anyway. Instead of being built up, any potential self-worth is being chipped away at by George.

And as far as Lorraine is concerned, I get the impression that she's (more often than not) critical and judgemental of Marty. She's not shy about airing her strong dislike for Jennifer, during which Marty stays completely silent and unresponsive. Perhaps Marty's general default around his mom is silence, due to him having learned a long while back that he's better off keeping his mouth shut. I can see Lorraine lecturing Marty often, picking apart every little flaw she may see in him (friends, grades, attitude, etc.), especially when she's had too many drinks and especially when you consider that Marty is probably her most "difficult" child. Sad as it may sound, I can't picture Marty walking away from very many interactions with his mother feeling good about himself.

• GENERAL ANXIETY/NEURODIVERGENCY: Marty is an easily flustered, anxious guy. And whether that stems from his home environment or genetics (I mean, look at George), I don't know. But he definitely seems to be a sort of nervous, hesitant kid, particularly in the first movie. I also, like most of the fandom, headcanon Marty as having ADHD. And like...if that's the case for him, it certainly isn't helping at all with the self-esteem stuff. He's written off as a slacker at school, told he'll never amount to anything, and probably struggles a lot to keep up in his classes and survive in an environment that almost definitely doesn't offer any form of support or accommodations. That would be a big blow to his self-worth as well.

People with ADHD also tend to be very critical of themselves, worry about what others think of them, and have a hard time with rejection. Hence, the one rejection at the audition followed by, I'm just a big, stupid failure and I'll never ever be good enough. My world is crumbling, I should just give up everything forever =(((

(What do you mean those weren't his exact words??)

• BONUS: Marty might also face a decent amount of social isolation/teasing due to his friendship with Doc, which would take a toll on confidence too. Also, I just...don't think that Marty has many friends??

When you take all the above factors, Marty's self-esteem issues make a lot of sense and, if not for Doc, would probably run a lot deeper than what we see in the trilogy. ALSO!

• Marty blaming himself for Doc getting hit by lightning in the DeLorean: I've seen a few people comment on this and how they think it's ridiculous that Marty felt guilty but...it's always made a lot of sense to me, actually. No, Marty didn't cause the lightning, but he did set off the chain of events that led to Doc being there at that moment. If he'd had the inner strength/self-control to walk away from Biff outside of the dance, he could have just joined Doc on the roof with the almanac and they'd have been on their merry way. And even if Biff had continued to challenge him, or even followed him, Marty likely could have created a diversion or gotten an adult at the dance to help and still made it up to the roof before the worst of the storm hit. But because he couldn't stand being called a chicken, he ended up taking a door to the face, had the book stolen back, and had to go on that little side adventure to retrieve it, which led to Doc needing to save him. So yeah, I'm actually team Marty on this one. His choice did lead to Doc being catapulted into the Old West, lol. I'd have been consumed with guilt too.

• The Chicken Thing: I'm not going to go into too much detail (HA!) because this is already ridiculously long, but I will say that I don't go by the more popular headcanon that says Marty's sudden inability to handle being challenged is due to the updated timeline taking effect and "altering" him. Essentially, that Marty growing up with a confident, successful father made him have higher expectations put on him, and so he was always striving to prove he could live up to them.

I actually don't think any ripples from the new timeline catch up to Marty yet during the course of the trilogy. (I tend to headcanon that as happening gradually in the coming weeks and months after he gets home). Instead, I think that Marty's inclination towards becoming feral at the words "chicken", "yellow", etc. is because of his life in his original timeline. Growing up with a jellyfish for a father, it makes sense that Marty would want to distance himself as much as possible from being associated with weakness. He'd want to prove himself that much more because everyone around him would probably think he's just like his cowardly old man.

And though I know it's not really possible (because they weren't planning on a 2nd or 3rd movie), I think a case can be made that there's a glimpse of the "chicken thing" in the first movie, in the scene of Marty and Lorraine in the car at the dance. I mean, he gets all upset and tells her not to drink, but then she calls him a square, uses the classic peer-pressure tactic of, everyone's doing it, and he caves instantly and takes a swig. Could be because he doesn't want to be thought of as a square, or could be because he's desperate to calm his nerves a bit. Either way, Marty doesn't seem to fare too well when challenged or put under pressure, so I lump this scene in as a "chicken" moment.

I...need to stop. I set out to write a quick response to this. Like, a paragraph or two. But this question activated Hyperfocus Mode, and I blinked and now it's 2 hours after I started and I have AN ESSAY.

Thanks for the ask! *goes to lie down*

[vikingqueer]

music recommendations because i have some thoughts™

i don't wanna be that person who's like "my music taste is so weird lol" but i find that very often most of my friends don't really care for the music i like so i thought i'd just make a long ass post about it on tumblr instead. Fair warning, I'm very passionate about MIKA and The Mechanisms and so this very quickly got VERY long because it is part of my ongoing campaign to convince people to listen to mika and the mechs.

1) MIKA in general, but especially My Name Is Michael Holbrook (2019) and No Place In Heaven (2015) (especially the Deluxe version!!)

MIKA is a kind of British singer (half Lebanese, grew up in France blabla), and you probably know him for Grace Kelly and Relax, Take It Easy from his first album Life In Cartoon Motion from 2007. He writes a lot of FUN music, interspersed with the occasional slightly sadder song, especially when looking at an album like No Place In Heaven, which contains a lot of songs with gay themes, resulting in some songs that are just a little bit ouch. He's originally classically trained and has a frankly RIDICULOUS range and idk he just writes very good pop music. Also I have so much respect for that time he talked about how a lot of pop is very fake, with like expensive cars and stilettos and mini skirts in the snow and said "Because I walk down the street, and I don't see any of that. I see fat women and gay men. I don't know... That's real". He's written 5 albums; My Name Is Michael Holbrook (2019), No Place In Heaven (2015), The Origin Of Love (2012), The Boy Who Knew Too Much (2009), and Life In Cartoon Motion (2007).

For starters, I recommend listening to Last Party, Origin Of Love, Grace Kelly, Blame It On The Girls, Blue, Happy Ending, Pick Up Off The Floor, Last Party, Underwater, Tomorrow and Tiny Love (yes this is a long list but i REALLY love MIKA). If you want a slightly broader palette that's not just my favourites, I recommend the Mika starter pack on spotify.

2) The Mechanisms. I warn you. I am making this a thing. I have been obsessed with the mechs since last march.

Boy, where to start? The Mechanisms were a British 9 member space pirate story-telling cabaret that "died" in January 2020. They rewrite songs to fit retellings of various stories. I don't even know what genre I'd describe them as, but probably folk but steam-punk?? Their 4 "main" albums are concept albums, and I honestly just recommend listening to the from beginning to end in chronological order. A good way to get into the mechs is also to listen to UDAD and then watching the live show on youtube or alternately try giving Death To The Mechanisms a listen, to get good quality live show audio of TBI and various other stuff. Also, it was streamed on YouTube and someone combined the footage with the album audio and it rocks. Really, I think the mechs' best selling points are honestly just their concept albums:

Once Upon a Time (In Space) Their first album from 2012. I'd say this is the most "easily digestible" for the general public, since it's a retelling of various fairytales. So, what if Old King Cole was in fact not merry, but rather a cold-blooded dictator, intent on colonising as much of the galaxy as possible. What if Snow White was a general, looking to avenge what King Cole did to her sister, Rose. What if Cinderella was to be wedded to Rose the day that King Cole attacked in order to kidnap Rose? But y'know, In Space and also like every other mechs album it's a beautiful tragedy. Fave songs are Old King Cole, Pump Shanty, and No Happy Ending.

Ulysses Dies at Dawn You guessed it, it's a story about Odysseus, or Ulysses because I guess Ulysses is easier to rhyme or fit in the meter or something, idk. Ulysses is a war hero of unknown gender who is said to keep something that could take down the corrupt Olympians, meanest families in the City, in a vault to which only they know the passcode. Oedipus, Heracles, Orpheus, and Ariadne have been hired by Hades, who happens to be The Mechs' quartermaster Ashes O'Reilly, to get into Ulysses' vault. I didn't care much for udad at first, but honestly it's got some real bangers and the story is really good. UDAD weirdly stands out as the only of the concept albums to not feature any gay relationships, per se. Fave songs are Riddle of the Sphinx, Favoured Son, and Underworld Blues.

High Noon over Camelot This is my favourite mehcs album. So basically, this is Arthurian legend, but it's a space western and Jonny D'Ville does a bad southern accent. This is the story of the cowboy lovers Arther, Lancelot, and Guinevere searching for the Galfridian Restricted Acces Interface Login, or GRAIL, in order to stop their world from falling into the sun. Meanwhile, Mordred and Gawaine are ruling Camelot, and Mordred has convinced Gawaine to try to establish peace with the Saxons by whom Mordred was raised, but Gawaine hates viciously. If you love getting your heart broken and songs by a fucking off the rails batshit preacher I HIGHLY recommend hnoc. Fave songs are Gunfight at the Dolorous Guard, Blood and Whiskey, and Once and Future King. Honorary mention for Hellfire because it awakens something animalistic in me.

The Bifrost Incident TBI is the frankly only good adaptation of norse mythology I've ever known of, and I say that as Dane who was literally forced to learn things about norse mythology in school because it's my heritage or whatever. I've been listening to TBI a lot lately because it's VERY good. It's definitely the most refined of the mechs' albums (because it's the newest) but also I just love a little bit of cosmic horror. 80 years ago, Odin, the All-Mother, ruler of Asgaard, launched a train through the wormhole Bifrost that would reduce the travel between Asgaard and Midgaard from 3 months to 3 days, but things didn't go quite as planned. Lyfrassir Edda of the New Midgaard Transport Police is trying to solve the case of why suddenly the train has arrived 80 years late; to figure out whether it was accident or maybe it was sabotaged by Loki, who was allegedly sentence to death her murder of Baldur, by the Midgaardian resistance led by Loki's wife Sigyn, or maybe by Thor, who was to take over after Odin, and who holds quite the grudge because he used to be a friend of Loki's. You might've heard the song Thor from this album, it's apparently quite popular. Fave songs are Loki, Ragnarok III: Strange Meeting, and Ragnarok V: End of The Line. Yet again an honorary mention: Red Signal because while Lovecraft was a bitch, his invocations are fucking RAW.

Basically, the Mechanisms do all of their performances in character as captain first mate Jonny D'Ville, quartermaster Ashes O'Reilly, pilot DrumBot Brian, master-at-arms Gunpowder Tim, science officer Raphaella la Cognizi, doctor Baron Marius Von Raum (neither a baron, nor a doctor), archivist Ivy Alexandria, engineer Nastya Rasputina, and The Toy Soldier, who is, as usual, present. You can find very obscure lore about the crew of the Aurora here, tidbits on Tales To Be Told and TTBT Vol. 2, such as One Eyed Jacks, The Ignominious Demise of Dr. Pilchard, Gunpowder Tim vs. The Moon Kaiser, Lucky Sevens, and Lost in the Cosmos.

If you feel like listening to a full 40-50 minute album to find out if you like a band is a bit much, I recommend listening to one of the mini stories Alice, Swan Song, or Frankenstein, which are about 12, 5 and 9:30 minutes respectively.

3) The Amazing Devil You know that guy who played Jaskier in the Witcher? I got into The Amazing Devil from spotify recommending them because I listened to the mechs, and apparently Joey Batey from The Amazing Devil is the same Joey Batey who was in the Witcher. Both him and Madeleine Hyland are VERY talented singers and songwriters and their second album The Horror and the Wild makes me go out into the forest and SCREAM. I listened to it on repeat for like a month straight. I guess they'd also be considered folk, but like. New Folk. Also yes, this is another British artist, I don't know why I'm like this. I've never really gotten that into their first album, Love Run, but King slaps. As I understand there's this whole lore about the Blue Furious Boy and Scarlet Scarlet, Joey and Madeleine respectively, but unlike the Mechanisms it's actually possible to find out things about the actual real people and harder to find the obscure lore? I'm open for people to please help me. Fave songs are The Horror and the Wild, Farewell Wanderlust, and That Unwanted Animal, which is literally a third of their second album, but again. I haven't really listened to Love Run that much, and I just LOVE the harmonies on THATW. (also im gay and dramatic leave me alone)

4) dodie I have so much love for this woman. Like many others, I first knew dodie as doddleoddle on youtube. I think I first stumbled across her in probably 2015, because I distinctly already knew her before she released her first EP Sick of Losing Soulmates in 2016. I think I watched probably every video she's ever made in the span of a few weeks. I just loved her quiet sound and was absolutely HOOKED. Also she's actually the reason I got into MIKA originally, so thanks for that. Dodie just realeased her first album Build A Problem (in addition to her three EP's; the one mentioned above, You, and Human) and it slaps. Yes dodie is also British Fave songs are probably Monster, Rainbow, and In The Middle.

5) Cladia Boleyn Unfortunately, Claudia Boleyn only has three singles and that's it. She's been making content on youtube for quite a while, and that's how I first discovered her. I don't know what genre her music is, but I like it. The songs are Celesta, George, and Mother Maiden Crone, of which the latter is my favourite. I'm not saying Claudia Boleyn invented women in 2017 when she released Mother Maiden Crone, but she did. Also you guessed it, Claudia Boleyn is British.

6) Hozier I'm not about to tell you about Hozier. You know who he is. Listen to Nina Cried Power, Angel Of Small Death & The Codeine Scene, and Shrike. Also Hozier isn't stricly British in that he is definitely from A British Isle, but Ireland is not part of the UK. Give me a break.

7) Oh Land Oh Land IS DANISH. I like her early music best, because I'm not that into the electronic sound. I guess Oh Land is just you regular old pop, but with the occasional weird vibe? Oddly enough, I like her first album Fauna best. Unfortunately I haven't really listened to her newest album Family Tree much, but it seems good? Fave songs are Frostbite, Love You Better and Family Tree. I cried on the bus, first time I listened to the Danish version of Love You Better, Elsker Dig Mer because my mother tongue always just hits harder. Also Frostbite is Oh Land doing a duet with herself which is pretty cool.

8) Oysterband This is a live recommendation. I mean they're a decent folk band and all, but they're a fucking experience live. If you like folk and you ever get the opportunity to see Oysterband live, do it. Unfortunately, yes. They are British. Either way, they are incredible on a scene and I think they deserve a mention for that.

9) Ben Platt Honestly don't know much about this guy, but he's not British and he was in Dear Evan Hansen. He released an album in 2019, Sing To Me Instead, and I just think it's a good album, there isn't really not much more to it. Fave songs are Grow As We Go, Bad Habit, and In Case You Don't Live Forever.

and thats all for now. this has been a ramble. shout out to you if you actually read all of this, especially the mechs part.

[trillgutterbug]

Fic Writer Questions!

tagged by @palamedessextus 😊 thanks friend!

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

64! only five more to the magic number ayyyyy and then i’m legally obligated to never post another one.

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

289,575 apparently??? which seems way way way higher than i ever would have guessed, wow. who knew!

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

31 on ao3, although that’s lumping, eg, all marvel subfandoms together. but i have a ridiculous amount of wips in all kinds of other fandoms that i haven’t/won’t post, soooo.... more than that! and i don’t want to list them all bc that’d be a long boring read!

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

it serenely disdains to destroy us, a magnus archives fic that, i somewhat vainly note, has been orbiting in the top few top kudosed fics in the tag since i posted it womp womp.

concerning flight, because we all thirsty for thor/loki+gender and i for one support us.

untitled porny snippet (yes that’s actually what it’s called), because same as above. (i see u, kudos-to-comment ratio and i aint mad but.... i see u. all you dirty birds out there shamefully yet silently jerking it. kudos to YOU.)

an experiment in posthumous subsistence, a batman/joker zombie au i wrote fucking TEN YEARS AGO ALMOST. why???? why is this fic so popular?? i’m barely a good writer now and i sure as shit wasn’t one a decade ago! the terrible title alone should disqualify it from being read, but i guess the people want what they want. and what they want is batman and joker handcuffed together, trying to escape the zombie apocalypse  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

all good things, some stucky hydra trash party-adjacent smut regarding piercings. i stand by this one 100%, it deserves every kudo(s?) tbh.

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

i do, depending on the comment! i don’t think comments like “loved this!” / “thanks for writing!” are written with the intent to receive a response (or at least, when i write them on other people’s fics, i certainly don’t expect one). they’re like an extra kudo(s?), and i appreciate them a lot, but they’re not really an invitation to Discuss. whereas if someone clearly has put a lot of thought into a comment, or asked a question, or made some observations that i jive with, or just seems like they want to engage, then hell yeah i jump in there. love that shit. 

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

i guess arguably thine own self, which is some hydra husbands abo. laugh all you want, it’s one of my fave of all my fics lmao. probably specifically bc of the unpleasant/open ending.

7) What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

probably moderation is a memory! since it, unlike 99% of all my other stuff, isn’t just total smut, and the whole point of writing it was to wallow as deep as possible in the sauce of giddy teenage infatuation, it got the opportunity to have an actual emotional arc (more or less). furthermore i could not possibly bring myself to break johnny lawrence’s tender little heart ever, that would hurt me far more than it would hurt him.

8) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

i only realised while answering this question that apparently.... no i don’t write crossovers! which is not at all a deliberate choice, i guess a compelling enough one just hasn’t occurred to me yet! 

9) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

shockingly no! by some accidental miracle i’ve managed to fly under the radar so far, despite some of the really buckwild stuff i’ve posted. however, considering some of the stuff i’m probably ABOUT to post.... that clean track record might soon come to an end lmao.

10) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

lmao. uhhhh. almost exclusively, and i guess??? all kinds? this is clearly a question composed by someone who does not write smut.

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i know of, and i wouldn’t really care if i did. 

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

yeah i think a few....? a number of people have asked anyway and i always say yes, so probably there’s at least one floating around out there somewhere.

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

i have! just once, and we really made it count. it’s called a reptile dysfunction, which should tell you all you need to know. 

14) What’s your all time favorite ship?

thorki, probably. i always have and always will come back to it, no matter what. it’s got such a ferociously timeless staying power and so much potential variation, i don’t think i could ever get bored of it, regardless of what level of marvel-exhaustion i might feel at a given time, or what tropes, kinks, or stage of literary pretension i’m at. truly the oh tee pee. 

15) What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

ohhhhh all 836575927 of them, but. there’s this one thorki fic i started almost ten years ago as an experiment with a new-to-me style, which turned out over the intervening years to become my main style, and looking back on that fic, which for many years was a touchstone of writing-to-aspire to for me, it’s actually Not Very Good lol. but i still love the core concept, which is a canon divergence berserker thor au, but not only is it a somewhat inaccessible (admittedly less so since the deadpool movies came out, which was a hilarious pipe dream back when i started writing it) x-force comics crossover, but i wrote myself into a bunch of corners and have yet to dig up the energy to write myself back out of them! i go and reread it every year or so and think “hmm... maybe now...” but tbh it’s just not really good enough to bother! perhaps someday i’ll repurpose the best elements of it into something new.

16) What are your writing strengths?

man, it’s so hard to say. in much the same way that you can spend hours every day staring at yourself in a mirror, yet be utterly incapable of picking yourself out of a lineup, i spend a lot of time eyeballing my writing, but stepping back it seems like a chaotic mass of nonsense with few cohesive throughlines. i’m good at writing smut, i know that much! and in that vein, i think i am good at smut bc i am very good at committing to the bit, as it were. getting into the nitty gritty of experience and sensation (physical or emotional) and rendering largely abstract internal concepts in fairly comprehensible ways. i think my prose is quite decent on a sentence level too.

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

utterly incapable of finishing anything! or plotting anything! can’t mange a cohesive emotional arc! write myself into overly structured corners or out onto a vast plain with no structure in sight! all the macro elements of storytelling totally elude me, which is very frustrating when i have all this tasty fleshed out micro-level character stuff, but no narrative skeleton upon which to drape it.

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?   don’t! unless you are very sure you know what you’re doing, and the other language bits are a) very few, b) easily contextually understood, and c) actually adding something other than a weird flex that you know google translate exists.

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

11yo me wrote spock/kirk/janice rand and thought she invented the concept of a threesome. brand been stronk since day one 🤘. (the vulcan salute is right next to the devil horns in my emoji list, so....)

20) What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

i love the (ongoing) better with you series very much, not least because i’m still absolutely flabbergasted that i wrote something that long. i think it’s actually pretty good all things considered and it’s very dear to me on many many levels. but the fic that i just viscerally adore, that i love the style of, and that i had such a transcendent, invigorating, organic Experience writing, is temper its strength, adding honey until quite cold, which is a terror fic with the inexplicable pairing of edward little/hartnell, featuring crossdressing and gender stuff. it just burst out of me fully formed one day and i don’t think i’ve managed to top it yet! 

lowkey tagging @lingua-mortua @pitcherplant @kaasknot @froggy-babyy @deputychairman @nomercyonlytears @clockheartedcrocodile

[maevelin]

I know you didn't enjoy Nesta's book that much. What were the parts you didn't like and were there things you did enjoy?

I found the plot very basic and simplistic. The author has the tendency to overhype certain things and then drop the hints and the foreshadowing or write something totally anticlimactic about it.

An example for the anticlimactic part is how the former books had presented the Blood Rite as such a horrific event. One that in order to survive it Illyrians trained their whole life and then you take a few completely untrained individuals, train them basically for a few months a few hours in the mornings (I mean it is as if they went to the gym) and then they are ready to own the whole thing. It was ridiculous.

You introduce the concept of Valkyries and instead of writing an actual story about it you give a child’s play with some girls basically saying...hey they sound cool, we have no idea past the surface what and who they were or if we are basically appropriating their culture but let’s make a new club about it. I mean...why not just introduce Valkyries in a more grounded way, even the rebirth of their nation and lore, in a more realistic way? Instead you get a lost female tradition and you have males teaching girls about it. Take Thor Ragnarok for example (one movie that has not won me over as much as others). So why not introduce a new character that is a Valkyrie, even the last of her kind, a jaded character that has quit life just as Nesta and then create a story to reignite the myth of the Valkyries into something new that Nesta would accept and embrace.

Although for the life of me I don’t understand why PTSD and healing has to be connected with that sort of training in the first place. Why get a character like Nesta and  turn her into a Xena type of character all of the sudden...because that’s the only way to show inner strength or any kind of strength? I just don’t get it. 

However I did appreciate Nesta’s journey at certain parts although some felt forced in order to accept the Inner Circle bullshit and when people had predicted that in the end Nesta would how to bow and kneel to the ‘awesomeness’ of the Inner Circle so to be welcomed into the Night Court and be redeemed I am pretty sure no one expected this to literally happen. It gave me such a visceral reaction.

I couldn’t have disliked the IC more in this book even if I tried (and boy there were dubious, problematic and outright offensive and abusive things in their behavior) but what I didn’t like was that Nesta didn’t have an interesting story plot wise. Her journey of healing was okay and it has some interesting and beautiful moments but the story surrounding it was sloppy.

I hated the concept/threat of throwing Nesta in the Court of Nightmares but just from a creative perspective it would have made the book a thousand times more interesting. The dynamic felt off in general and in the end it felt as if the main concept was not resolved but the realization came that there was no main concept. 

Say what you will for the first three ACOTAR books but they had a goal, a purpose, a target. Feysand and Feyre’s personal journey were the focus but the their books served far more than that thus making those parts work in a solid (at least as far as these books are concerned) structure. Here we got some treasure hunt but everything was left open ended and it was not even focused entirely on Nesta and Cassian. I felt robbed somehow especially given the dynamic Nesta’s powers had and based on that alone a personal story could have been built upon that potential that got wasted for the most part. We could have gotten an epic storyline and we...did not.

AND YOU KNOW WHAT? Nesta DESERVED  a GREAT VILLAIN/ANTAGONIST for her own story and she did not get that (come on Briallyn was such weak sauce and unremarkable)  and I am offended on Nesta’s behalf to be honest LOL

Nesta’s voice and the way she was written was reminiscent of Feyre’s at parts but I assume this is because of the writing style of the author but it still felt jarring if not OOC at parts.

And I felt that some behaviors we had seen in previous books (how Cassian avoided her in Acowar and so on) were overlooked and the good things Nesta did along with the bad (how she went after Feyre after Tamlin took her and how she was ready to sacrifice herself to give Feyre a chance and how she was so focused on saving children and so on) were completely ignored all so to ‘excuse’ how she was treated and how she deserved to be treated that way by all others and how she had to redeem herself. And yeah she had to face her wrongdoings because she had been abusive too but I felt there were double standards concerning her which I did not appreciate in the way the book was written.

In the end I found the sacrifice of her powers a beautiful thing for her personal growth but at the same time I also got the intention behind the writing that has nothing to do with Nesta’s journey and that is disappointing.

There was also the usual writing style/editing that has its issues and I got really tired with the phrase “like calls to like”. Like...okay we got it the first hundred times enough already.

All that been said there were things I enjoyed in the book too.

1. The House... which let’s face it it’s Tardis to Nesta’s Doctor.

2. Nesta’s connection with music and dancing was beautiful.

3. Her love of books? Brilliant.

4. The scene with the Kelpie? QUALITY STUFF! 

5. As was the description of Nesta entering the Cauldron.

6. The scene with her nightmare engulfed in silver flames was amazing too.

7. Hello Nes and Lady Death!

8. Cassian’s protectiveness over Nesta was also nice especially when he was able to man up (no I won’t go for male up LOL) and stand up against certain bullshit behavior targeted at Nesta.

9. Emerie and Gwyn were cute and their relationship with Nesta beautiful although it did also feel rushed at parts. I would have much preferred that build up to have happened with her sisters but given the fuckery of the IC in general I will take this and savor it!

10. Azriel was a relief and I would have liked more interaction between him and Nesta. Brilliant indeed.

11. I HATED Amren but I loved the parallel of what she had once told Nesta:  “When you erupt, girl, make sure it is felt across worlds” and we got this scene when Nesta. (P.s You unmade her...She had it coming LMAO)

12. The cookie offer in the end made me laugh.

13. Overall Nessian was cute and thankfully Cassian wasn’t the same creep he was in Acofas. Although his low esteem and blind servitude left much to be desired at times.

14. The smut at times was making me cringe but the sexual drive and dynamic of the characters felt appropriate given their personalities.

15. I also liked Feyre’s inner thoughts when Eris asked Nesta’s hand in marriage and the way she was protective of Nesta and wanted to end him LOL.

16. Speaking of which...everyone wanting Nesta as their bride was very funny and after a while it kept happening and I couldn’t stop laughing.

17. Nesta’s first “I love you” was given to Feyre and thank you!

I think that’s about it.

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Spider-Man 2099 v4 #1 and 2099 Omega Thoughts

This is literally the third time I’ve purchased a comic book called Spider-Man 2099 #1 in 5 years. Technically more if we include reprints. Isn’t that kind of ridiculous?

Fun fact, I wasn’t buying any comics (sans some pre-OMD Spidey and Deadpool Classic trades) between 2009 and 2014. It was the 2014 Spidey 2099 run that got me back into the game, for good or ill.

This issue wasn’t nearly as good at series. And Omega was…lol…it was so bad and essentially an extension of Spidey 2099 I’m covering them together.

I remember fondly my hype when I saw Miguel in ASM v5 #25 and my hype for this one shot, back when I didn’t realize it was just part of a larger event.

Oh boy did this let me down.

Let me start with some superficial praise.

The art for Spidey 2099 and Sandoval on Omega were decent. And there was some interesting ideas pertaining to the world of the future, such as the removal of money and instead having everyone’s value depend upon what they can contribute. A society built upon meritocrisy, albeit with harsh reprisals if you can contribute little. Also the idea of corporations fixing things so only insiders can gain employment speaks to the corporatocracy  of the 2099 universe (one severely undermined when we consider Doom is ultimately in charge anyway…). People intentionally using drugs to keep up their work productivity is another great idea, and a genuinely interesting twist upon the original depiction of the rapture drug from Spidey 2099 v1 #1.  Finally people essentially enabling identity theft in exchange for drugs was an interesting sci-fi concept.

But beyond that…this was bad.

When I began covering this event proper with 2099 Alpha my dominant critique was ‘who is this for’.

A reboot of the 2099 line over 20 years since the original line ended and less than 3 years since the revival of it ended? A reboot intended to modernize the 1990s’ take on the future, a take that frankly proved 99% accurate anyway. And finally a reboot that alternated between doing spotty world building, killing off new characters, tie-ins to modern canon events and most of the time communicated its ideas in confusing and baffling ways.

I put forward that it was doomed to displease the old 2099 fans like me because it was erasing what we knew and loved. But it was also so poorly communicating its rebooted vision that new people were going to be alienated.

I’m only slightly going to backtrack on what I said. Because the Punisher 2099 issue was if you like the greatest argument in favour of the reboot. It wasn’t just the best issue in this mess, it was a bona fide awesome story just in general. It actually dived into an aspect of futuristic sci-fi that the 1990s 2099 series (to my knowledge) would’ve struggled to cover as it pertained so much to 2010s life and technology.

More poignantly though, the problem with this event is that there was no over arching vision between the titles. Not every one shot had the same problems but they all in different ways displayed problems that smacked into the very premise of this event.

F4 2099 was literally pointless as it spent a whole issue introducing a new F4 then killed them.

Conan 2099 could’ve been virtually the same if Conan was like 20 years in the future not this new future we rebooted.

Arguably Punisher 2099 relied upon familiarity with the Jake Galloway Punisher 2099 before it subverted your expectations.

Ghost Rider 2099 was fun but the writer clearly LIKED the original take on the character to the point where he essentially minimized changes to the rebooted version making the act of rebooting the character pointless in the first place and failing the mission statement of the event.

Venom 2099 was a weird tie-in for Cates current Venom mega arc involving Knull that was nonsensical as it proposes that Knull is still en route to Earth and thus in theory there is no tension in Cates’ run. Moreover it wasn’t much of a futuristic take on Venom himself and fundamentally hurt as there was no Spider-Man for Venom to act as a dark reflection of.

Doom 2099 in fairness had a cool twist, but a cool twist that didn’t make sense in and of itself and was also reliant upon familiarity with the original 1990s character.

And then we come to these issues.

These issues I’m sad to say just absolutely fundamentally fail conceptually.

He’s incredibly passive and very bland as a character so newer fans coming in with no knowledge or attachment to the Miguel O’Hara of old are unlikely to warm to him. His defining trait is being someone who cares enough about the suffering of others that he will not actively take part in it, but will also not actively do anything to help like his brother Gabe. This is then set up for his brother to die, cue a less good retread of Peter Parker’s origin story but minus much action of Miggy in costume. On paper the idea of a guy experiencing Peter’s ultimate failure and from this being motivated to OBTAIN super powers is interesting but it’s just not examined all that much in the story. What I’m saying is at a time when there is a sea of Spider-Heroes to read about on the stands this version of Miguel O’Hara is lame, derivative and the execution of his character half-hearted.

Then on the other hand you have the older fans’ perspectives. Obviously old Spidey 2099 fans are unlikely to take to this new version just on principle. But when you realize you lost the old character for THIS guy…oh boy does that sting.

Original recipe Miguel O’Hara was cool because he zigged where Peter zagged. He was kind of an asshole, but one with limits on how little he cared. And he became more heroic over time, but never the same type of hero as Peter. And above all he was a sarcastic, sardonic, cynic who you could tell was thinking ‘I can’t even with this Spider-Shit right now’. Case in point, he was okay with straight up killing opponents. He was more unique and much more compelling than this version, as were his cast. Lyla is basically the Aunt May of this story and not the source of humour that she was even in the first 3 issues of the 1990s run. She also lacks her iconic Monroe look, and isn’t even consistent with how she looked in ASM v5 #35.

Losing a cool character for a lame one would be bad enough but then the story straight up invalidates both itself and the entire goddam event.

It does this by having the rebooted Miggy start to see visions of the pre-rebooted (prebooted?) 2099 timeline, meet an aged version of his prebooted self and then have even more flashes of the prebooted timeline. *

Wow…Just….Wow…

Let’s pretend that the vision of 2099 in this event was a temporary thing, an Age of Apocalypse or a House of M just for 2099 and the plan was always to go back to how it was before when the story wrapped up.

That makes this entire event pointless. See the reason AoA worked (and HoM in theory could have worked) is because it was a temporary change of pace.

That doesn’t apply to the 2099 line, a nostalgic, discontinued line of comics and characters that are unlikely to get a full on revival and who’s last attempt at a revival wrapped up over 2 years ago.

THIS event should’ve been a nostalgia trip for the old fans and a chance to introduce that line to a new generation. Instead it discarded the old in favour of something new which was seemingly intended to go nowhere.

Good job Marvel, any new fans you MIGHT have gotten hooked just got fucked over and people like me who pre-ordered this event thinking we were going to get the characters we knew and loved also got fucked over.

And in fact the entire exercise was an example of intentional redundancy.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Oh and it doesn’t make a lick of sense.

So Miguel was thrown back in time when his timeline was starting to be erased and replaced with the rebooted timeline, then he was erased in ASM v5 #34, which began this new rebooted timeline…but he is alive in it, remembers it, can give his past self visions from the old timeline...

…I’m a Doctor Who fan and that’s not any kind of wibbly wobbley timey whimey nonsense. It’s just regular ass nonsense, just like the Man-Spider monster Miguel encounters who repeats ouroboros to him, the same word ReedDoom said in the Doom 2099 issue. How and why would the Man-Spider creature say that to Miguel. How would prebooted Miguel know it said that? How and why would rebooted Miguel see Spidey 2099 in costume spray painting that?

Shit what the fuck does ouroboros even mean?????????

*one google search later*

A snake eating its tail as a symbol of endless infinity…what the fuck does that mean?

That Miguel makes himself Spider-Man 2099 always?

There was a cool idea in the Omega issue wherein we learn Doom essentially erased everyone’s memories with magic so they’d forget the Age of Heroes altogether, but the rise of the characters in the one shots represented that spell breaking down. Too bad it doesn’t add up given how Venom was always going to exist and existed SINCE the Age of Heroes and people obviously remember Thor as there is an entire tribe dedicated to him!**

However the Omega issue’s biggest sin is showing us how truly pointless most of the issues of this event were. Honest to God you only need to read Doom scenes from Alpha and then Spidey 2099 and Omega. Those are the only plot relevant issues out of this whole event.

Over all, these issues and this event have been a humungous, insulting disappointment. Check out some of the art but literally nothing else sans the Punisher.

*I mean if you want to get technical the 2099 universe has technically been rebooted multiple times. The version of it presented from 2013-2017 actually differed from the original 1990s version in various ways, e.g. Miguel’s love life panned out very differently. When I refer to the pre-rebooted/prebooted timeline I’m referring to the version from 2013-2017, just to be clear.

**There are other contradictions in these 2 issues as well, like how poverty and bad health have been erased but…we see they haven’t as there are multiple examples of both in the one shots.

[incomprehensiblelentils]

I did not get around to this yesterday but, a short selection of fictional things that meant a lot to me over the last decade! ...it is going under a cut bc it is Too Long sorry lmao.

Books

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng: this book came out in September 2017 and I have read it four times already. It’s the kind of book I want to write but I’m not sure I’m clever enough to: every event and every character is so purposeful and you won’t catch everything the first time through. Every time I reread it I find something new to marvel at. I hope the Hulu series is half as good

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng: this was the first piece of fiction I ever found with a family with a Chinese father and a white mother. This family is a lot less functional than my family, but I've read this three times because that means the world to me. 

Ash by Malinda Lo: I discovered this in 2011 and it was the first f/f novel I ever read, and as I would later learn, one of a handful with a happy ending at the time, particularly in YA fiction. For a long time, I reread it every time I felt hopeless. I just reread it again last month and it is still as beautiful and meaningful to me as in 2011.

Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan: This is an Asian-inspired fantasy (becoming more common now, but still irritatingly rare) written by a queer Asian woman, with f/f. I think it is only the second one of these, after Ash? It is frustratingly rare, anyway. The worldbuilding is incredible also.

The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan: We are getting more stories about biracial Asians, but they are still pretty rare and I treasure every one. This one felt so real to me.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth: The first half of this book captures so beautifully what it’s like growing up queer in a religious environment when you don’t even have the words or self-awareness to know what you’re feeling. This was another one I read over and over again when I was feeling low.

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater: this is just a book for horse girls. I don’t know how else to describe this lol. I also feel like the romance is super downplayed until the very end, and honestly barely feels like a romance to me, so that’s refreshing!

Movies:

Pacific Rim (2013): I remember having this weird feeling when asked to give my top 3 movies once in high school, like maybe my favorite movie hadn’t come out yet so I couldn’t answer properly. I was right; this is the movie I was waiting for. This is my favorite movie. The feelings this movie gives me is the standard I hold all movies to.

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019): but Megan, didn’t this just come out? Yes, and it’s my other favorite movie now. I love (almost) every second of this movie. This movie made me feel a way that I thought maybe I might never feel again, after a certain other franchise movie this year took a dump on my heart. I don’t care that we’re never getting a sequel, we got this and that’s enough for me.

Thor (2011): Those of you who have been around awhile know that I really love this movie. I loved it before we all jumped on the Thor train after Ragnarok and I will continue to love it probably my whole life. It just makes me happy.

Aquaman (2018): This is Thor but underwater and with a biracial hero. It made me cry in the theater and I do not want to hear any negative opinions about it, I find them personally wounding.

Belle (2013): The fact that Gugu Mbatha-Raw isn’t a superstar is tragic, and this movie is gorgeous and lovely and made me feel a lot of things as a biracial person.

Mad Max Fury Road (2015): I remember seeing the trailer for this in the theater and going “yikes that looks like a thing I would never watch.” Joke’s on you, past me!!!! I find this a deeply stressful but glorious film that I can only watch like, once or twice a year.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010): I do not need or want to hear about how this movie is Problematic, I know all of its issues, and yet. It brings me joy and it was one of the first movies I saw when I was just starting to break out of my religious upbringing and I laugh until I cry every time I watch it.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015): I am starting to realize that I am not and never really was a Star Wars Fan, which is to say that like...I love this movie specifically, I love the characters, I love the interactions, I love the stuff that happens. I do not so much love Star Wars as a whole? I like it fine! But this movie is the only part of the franchise to really make me go “oh, I get it.”

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017): This was a weird little movie that nobody saw and nobody talked about, but I adore it because it’s so gentle and romantic. I don’t know how accurate it is to history and frankly I do not really care.

Big Hero 6 (2014): are you tired of me mentioning I’m biracial yet? This movie has biracial protagonists and a cute squishy robot and no romance and superhero stuff and I love it so much.

F8: The Fate of the Furious (2017): I went to go see this on a whim with my wife and it was one of the most joyous theater experiences of my life. I don’t know, I just love everything about it.

TV shows:

Community: This only kind of counts because it started in 2009 but I started it mid-s2 so eh. Seasons 1-3 of this show are written on my heart, I can quote a ridiculous amount of dialogue from them and these characters will stay with me forever. Warts and all, this is my show.

Dollhouse: Another technicality but like, I met my wife because we both loved Bennett Halverson so I gotta put this on here. It’s pretty significantly affected my life! Also I find that it holds up fairly well, if you’re down for the admittedly iffy premise and an ending that’s a bit of a mess narratively due to sudden cancellation.

Agents of SHIELD: I would never claim that this show is “good” but I do think that it has mostly figured out what the hell it’s doing. And it has been a pretty significant part of my fandom life for the last 6 years, so to leave it off this list would feel wrong. It gave me Daisy Johnson, first canon biracial superhero as played by a biracial actor, and for that i will always be grateful.

Warehouse 13: I could not tell you why I fell so deeply in love with this dumb, badly written show that shit the bed in the final episode more spectacularly than I could have imagined, and yet I did! I think probably it is because I love found family so much, and also I find goofy camp charming more often than not. And of course, there is Bering and Wells, the femslash ship that fandom forgot. I will never be over how no one knows what we have suffered!!!!!

Runaways: wow was this a surprise! The Runaways comic is my favorite comic besides Marjorie Liu’s X-23 run, and this show has basically nothing to do with it, and normally that would piss me off but they got my kids’ personalities down so well and all of the actors are so perfect that I really can’t complain. And also, this show has canon f/f and neither of them die at the end! Which is...better than some other shows I could mention!

Doctor Who series 1 and 5: I had a very intense Doctor Who phase in college, and after all was said and done and I quit the show for a time, I realized that although I love a lot of the characters, and Thirteen’s run is pretty good so far, what I really loved was Nine’s run and Eleven’s first season. That is the show at its best to me. Eccleston is my Doctor and Amy is my favorite companion.

Legends of Tomorrow: Look, I am as shocked as anyone that this, the scrappy underdog of the DCTV lineup, is the one that’s most emotionally competent and has the best character arcs! But here we are. Season 4 was some of my favorite TV I’ve seen, uh, ever.

Albums

Dirty Computer by Janelle Monae: I listened to this for basically a year straight after it came out. It’s just ridiculously good.

Something Fierce by Marian Call: This was my on-repeat album in college. i drew a lot of strength from it, and I think that it’s still the best album to recommend to people who ask me about her.

Standing Stones by Marian Call: I heard most of these songs live at concerts before they were quite done yet, so it was really special to get to hear them all collected together like this. I’m going to get a tattoo with a lyric from one of these songs because no one’s quite been able to put my basic philosophy into words quite like Marian.

Heartthrob by Tegan and Sara: Hot Take, I know, because a lot of people hate this album, but it was so affirming to go out and buy A Lesbian Album from A Lesbian Band in 2013.

The Rent movie soundtrack: I know, I KNOW, but in my defense, my parents got me this for my birthday my first year of college and I needed it so desperately. I can definitely still do “La Vie Boheme” from the beginning and probably most of the other songs too.

In the Heights OBCR: I can only listen to this when I want to cry, but it’s my favorite musical. I got to see the show in 2018 and it was incredible. I think it’s better than Hamilton and I can’t wait for the movie to come out.

Trouble by Natalia Kills: this album is really great and also it says fuck a lot, which I used to be very nervous about hearing or saying, and this helped immensely!

[skyangel22]

So I saw Endgame on Wednesday and I couldn’t write anything before bc I was too angry about it. It had good moments but mostly it was such a mess.

Time travel: I feel like they used this bc they had written themselves into a corner with IW and didn’t know how else to get out of it. Time travel isn’t my favorite storyline bc most of the time writers mess it up and it has too many holes in it. I thought maybe Marvel would do better but no it was messy.

They said you can’t change your past you create an alternative past but at the same time they say you shouldn’t change things. But they did it the entire time and when Steve went back in time they fucked it up entirely bc if you take their rules you create a different timeline but how is old Steve then back in the normal one? It’s bullshit that’s what it is.

I don’t want to hear any whining about people not understanding it bc that is the problem here. When people are so confused about it and don’t understand it at all then you didn’t write it good. When most of the audience has all kinds of different understanding or lack of it then you didn’t write it well enough.

Thanos: I thought he was better in IW. IDK what to think of him in Endgame tbh. I didn’t understand how he was so strong without the stones when Steve, Tony and Thor were fighting him.

Asgardians: Where did all of them come from? I thought most of them had died in IW? Also where the fuck did Valkyrie and Korg came from? Shouldn’t they have been dead when they had been on the ship at the of of Thor 3? IW started right after that.

Tony: The only thing I thought that was weird with him was that he didn’t want to be part of their plan from the beginning. I know he has a family now but he is still Tony and he doesn’t stay down on the floor when he is down and does nothing. But at least the didn’t keep that nonsense going on for long.

I’m not his biggest fan but I found his ending sad but well done. If he had to go like that at least he went with a heroes death where he saved everyone.

Clint: I don’t know about the Ronin storyline so I don’t know if they did it well enough. But for MCU Clint I found it ooc. From what we’ve seen of him I can’t see him go on a killing spree.

Bruce: WTF they’ve turned him into a joke. I don’t mind a joke here and there but this was too much they made him stupid with this shit.

Thor: Oh god don’t get me started on him. I thought that he was already too silly in Ragnarok but at least he had normal moments there. In Endgame he was ridiculous. They turned him into a total joke it was so bad.

Why didn’t they show that he was depressed/grieving/feeling guilty...something deeper than just having him make joke and have the others make mean jokes about him?

Then comes also the end where he doesn’t want to be king anymore? I know that as a prince he had to take the role but the Thor movies were there to show that he is worthy of the hammer and that he could be a good king and now they went with lol nope I don’t want it anymore.

Natasha: I’m not even a big Black Widow fan but I thought they did her really really dirty. They killed her the same way like they did with Gamora even after people saying it was such a shitty thing to do.

Then she only got that shitty little scene were they boys  barely showed any emotion. Why didn’t she get a proper funeral too esp. after the others were back? Show the boys now could actually grief and the ones who cames back could too. It was the least she had deserved.

I was really surprised about that in a bad was bc what’s the point of a Black Widow movie now? Everything will play in the past and she’ll only get one movie instead to wait and see how well it does and give her a trilogy.

Steve: OH MY GOD!!!!! I FUCKING HATE STEVE’S ENDING!! They did him dirty too. They really dry fucked him in the ass. What was the point of all the movies he was in when they do this to him in the end? How is it a proper end for a character like him? He was so ooc and it made zero sense.

They acted like he didn’t fit into this world like he was still the man out of time when he wasn’t. We saw him struggle in the beginning but then adjust to the future. We saw him move on and saw him have a life here. He had friends who were also his family and they threw that all way bc apparently only romantic love matters and in this case this ‘‘love’‘ didn’t make sense.

How the fuck am I supposed to believe she is the love of his life when he had never called her that before? Sure there were feelings but it didn’t go anywhere. He never had a relationship with her he just shared one kiss with her before he ended up in the ice. He knew her for like what? 1-2 years? And the they didn’t spend that much time with each other either. They had breaks where they didn’t see each other so they didn’t even know each other for very long but I’m supposed to believe that she is more important than the relationships he had in the future over the past 12-13 years? Yeah sure. Did they forget what they did in CW? Right after she had died they had him make out with another woman. With her own fucking niece which makes this even more fucked up. So he kissed his niece? WTF?!! Also do they not see how unhealthy this is? How they turned him into this creppy obsessive dude who didn’t get over a girl he never was with? I repeat WTF?!

Steve was never a selfish prick like that. He wouldn’t do this shit just bc of the chance of messing the timelines up let alone leave everyone who is important to him behind esp. after what just had happend. He also wouldn’t do that to Peggy bc he knew she had a good life and a family. Man don’t get me started on her. They fucked her over with this too. I wanted to watch her show soon but now I don’t see the point of it when they said fuck everything that happend in the movies and in her show. They reduced her to just a love interest and that is just shitty. No ship is worth to happen if it means you fuck over the characters in the process. If you kill all their growth and make them act ooc.

So in short: I’m gonna be forever slaty over this shitty ending. Both Steve and Peggy deserved better. I also think it’s a shitty thing to do to Chris who played Steve for almost a decade. He deserved a better ending. It’s also awful to do this to Hayley and her show.

[the-firebird69]

This is long Cross studios in the United Kingdom it's 25 miles from the center of London to the West. It's not very big but it's good size is a 200 acre lot that's very big on it or some odd items and he's going to show you one. And that's where they store them until they go to a museum as far as you know they're still there the filming was wrapped up in 2021 no it was 2022 but late and we don't think they moved anything out yet and the key would probably still be there and it's authentic and you said it was he can feel it in the movie they had the real thing and there's a lot of scenes with it and there had to be scenes that were filmed there when was the airport and I'm telling you what Ethan hawke is not stupid he tried to see if he could tell if it was fake or not and her son was saying I don't think it's fake I really don't they said she's got it so you ran back after I'll tell you what he's pretty quick over the hands when she saw it and went after him and fighting over it and it does start a big fight between them and in Britain and what's coming up next that's a massive fight between a lot of people especially him he is absolutely narrowed with it and it's out of control and it's the empire

Thor Freya

Oh God no this is hell I'm going to now get addicted watch out stand here I come

Tom cruise

101 more you stupid prick I don't have anything easy to run it over me what are you going to use this troops as troops

Stan

I have troops maybe not enough but heck I have to try and I saw it and this is ridiculous

Ethan hawk

Just remember my name again but I do see why it happens here and his grandpa chimed in he said it was real helpful you figure out all sorts of stuff what he's doing wrong some things are off a little I got to tell you he's got a sense of humor we're going to go in and do this movie again the first place and we know it did and we're going after the damn key cuz I went back to the studio and so stupid I feel stupid why is this key made out of gold it seems like it might have been gold it's kind of heavy that's an indicator

Black guy

I'm in the movie but I'm a different character yes Justice grudge match with him I need the powerful sorts of stuff not just to screw you over

Emily blunt

Wow

Zues

Ok ok dummy lol she's really quite a looker no

Hera

Shut up so you're beautiful I have qualities I'm going to be a killer I'm going to calm down I'm going for the key the city it follows me and then following him what a slob supposed to be a secret agent

Emily blunt

That's kind of sloppy but they're following you anyways and he knows it too and your nuts they're talking about now

Tom cruise

I don't think I want to sleep with you Tom Cruise you know you might be a giant well that's stupid and it looks like I don't do anything right oh well

Emily blunt

[apriki]

SAW INFINITY WAR and as you must know, there is much to be said... under the cut!

I WAS MORE UPSET ABOUT HEIMDALL THAN LOKI TBH

and with the time stone in play I take nothing as solid until part 2 is over. Though I hope they stick to their guns and actually have the deaths in acts 1 and 2 be permanent

pray to God valkyrie survived she didn't even get a look in 

I love how they didn't make any of thanos' other children's character designs memorable in the slightest. I've already forgotten them. why were they all that strange blue-grey colour? mediocrity is greige 

I also love that at the end of the first avengers or whenever thanos was like 'fine... I'll do it myself' and he... DID NOT DO THAT and sent his kids instead lmfaaooooo

I am like.... The furthest thing from a tony stark stan and I don't like him most of the time (and he was really trying it in this movie!!! his relationship with Spiderman always misses the mark with me and I hate that the films obviously love it) but Thanos being the terrifying PTSD Goliath of his nightmares is a Good storyline 

I've said before that nebula and Gamora should have been the emotional heart of this movie and they weren't because thanos was with a side of Tony and it's like..... I guess.......

how much better would this whole thing be if thanos was a woman? That's a thought that just occured to me and now it's going to haunt me 

i would very much like to run away to scotland with Paul Bettany and have him kiss my hand and tell me to read his mind 

cap usually does nothing for me at all but seeing him with that Fugitive Beard.... for the first time, I felt things. Things were felt he should always have facial hair

THEY LITERALLY DIDNT EVEN SHOW ANTMAN ABD HAWKEYE BECAUSE NO ONE CARES DJDJJDKSKSK

though a shrink machine... would have been helpful? 

i was about an hour into this film and still not connecting with thanos until, like a eureka, it hit me that HE IS AGAMEMNON 

THANOS IS AGAMEMNON

THE SOUL STONE SCENE WAS IPHIGENIA AT AULIS AND NOW, UNFORTUNATELY, I MUST CARE

i literally was sitting there in my seat BELLIGERENTLY DELIGHTED it's a goddamn GREEK TRAGEDY 

THE HOUSE OF ATREUS IN SPACE

SPACE ATREUS

GAMORA WAS TOO GOOD FOR THE GUARDIANS we deserved a solo movie with her and nebula

who is now the CLYTEMNESTRA I CANNOT BELLLLIIEEEVEEE

Thanos as an environmentalist is... so funny the EPA as a villain? okay trump administration

was that the bad guy from Captain America the first avenger? Like.... The Nazi????? Why on earth did they bring him back lmao 

SHURI IS THE SMARTEST PERSON ON EARTH, WE KNEW THIS 

it is so fucking funny that marvel realised, belatedly, that they have more than one female hero now and so gave them a fight scene together

19 films in. 10 years later 

okay look i know that giving up the time stone is The One Timeline that ends in them beating thanos and that it had to be done but like

I AM SO FUCKING PISSED THAT HALF THE /////UNIVERSE///// DIED... TO SAVE TONY STARK LMFAO

LIKE I KNOW THATS NOT THE REASON BUT NARRATIVELY IT WAS THE REASON and it's.... some bullshit 

case in point: MISS WANDA WHO DID WHAT FUCKING NEEDED TO BE DONE 

they really made her kill her boyfriend... her gentle boyfriend who is Paul Bettany.... theyre really trying to make me care about Wanda and vision

why did the wakanda battle feel like that fight between the gungans and the droids in phantom menace?????? Jajsjdhhdhdjjdjfj

having people fight hand to hand on the ground against a massive alien army invasion was ridiculous 

wakanda forever though M'BAKU IS TOO BEAUTIFUL

HE CALLED TCHALLA HIS BROTHER!

OKOYES SIDE EYE AT BUCKY DJDJDJDJDJEJ  

the guardians humor felt mad out of place this whole movie lmao

is it wrong I didn't care if Drax was dead dead when thanos turned him into rubber or whatever? 

I'm cool with thanos' culling if it kills off all the annoying dudes. Marvel is too full of them  

if thanos is agamemnon - and he is - that makes Steve hector and again, I for the first time in my whole life, Felt Things for him in that last scene. you really did it Kevin Feige

AND THANOS SMILED, FOR THERE WERE NO MORE WORLDS TO CONQUER 

AND I LOOKED DOWN UPON MY NEW DOMINION AS MASTER OF ALL; AND I THOUGHT IT GOOD.

okay my brother is of a different opinion on this but:

THAT ENDING WAS CHEAP AND STUPID AND I LOATHED IT

you kill off half the characters including ones with films we already know are yet to come out so we KNOW their deaths will never stick

it was cheap ploy and bad storytelling

You know that bit in breaking dawn 2 where they kill everyone in a huge fight but it turns out it's just a premonition Alice shows aro? THAT IS THE END OF INFINITY WAR

it would've made much more sense to kill of the original avengers imo - that way there was at least a chance their deaths would stick

but my brother thinks they've done this specifically so the og avengers will turn around and sacrifice themselves instead in part 2

which... I guess....

so my criticisms on that are partially on hold but I dont Like It

can't wait to see ten thousand metas about Steve watching Bucky disintegrate and then brushing his hand through the ashes 

thor's new Phallic Imagery hammer is ridiculous and his whole side mission felt wasteful

there were so many logical fallacies in this movie I know I know, it's a superhero movie! Suspend disbelief! but you're telling me Thanos has the power to disintegrate a moon and he wouldn't just aim.the gauntlet at tony or the guardians and disintegrate THEM? and how can Wanda's power which is only a small offshoot of a stone destroy another stone? MAKES NO SENSE FAM

what is the soul stone's power even

the thanos fight scenes all had that brutal winter soldier intensity but the wakanda battle was wayyyyy too bloated

the captain marvel post credits scene was dumbbb lol 

I kind of wanted it to be just Hawkeye and antman eating their breakfast

and then they turn to ash 

I'm like 90% sure you wouldn't understand this film if you haven't seen like at least 10 other marvel ones before it lmao

[lokilickedme]

Hello My Lady! Just because you asked, here are my faves of yours: #1 King (no surprise here), #2 Jack (too crazy not to love, and the stream crossing of pretty much all your stories is genius) #3 Chem/BD/TTW/TKH/TWK/can't remember them all. They're all special in their own way! Can't believe it'll be 3yrs soon since I started squatting your page!!! God time goes by fast! I'd like to add a special mention for the Muse Meetings, sooo funny, and a Golden Snowflake to Aleks. Cute little bumkin.

Thank you @fudgemuffinanon!  Dear god, has it been that long?  Seems like I joined up last year…*sits here blinking at my posts from 2015, wondering how that happened*

**LONG TEXT POST COMING UP**

You drew the lucky straw today my darling, I’m feeling wordy and in the mood to share.  A lot of people have asked me over the last couple of years how some of my stuff came about, and you mentioned one that gets a lot of asks.

Lemme tell you something about the Muse Meetings.  Way back in 1998 when I got my first computer, one of the very first things I ran across by way of internet fanfiction was a little something called The Very Secret Diaries penned by a writer named Cassandra Claire (who is now professionally published under the name Cassandra Clare).  The Very Secret Diaries (which are hilarious, btw) woke something up in me - mainly because, as a lifelong writer who had never allowed anyone to read 95% of my work, I finally realized that yeah, there were other people out there whose brains deviated from the standard in the same way mine did.  Her writing style back then (in the Diaries specifically, I’ve never actually read anything else she’s written) was very similar to the way I wrote, and those Diaries were exactly the sort of silly, ridiculous, irreverent thing I’d scribbled in my notebooks for most of my life.  And people liked it, she had a huge following based on just those out-of-context glimpses of her characters’ personal thoughts.  She was writing behind the scenes thoughts of characters, things that would never make it into books, and it was brilliant.  That was the kind of stuff I loved to write but had never given myself permission to show anyone.  She was showing hers to people, and they were loving it.

Which gave me the inspiration to not only put my work out there in the public eye for the first time ever, but to stick with my personal writing style (which I’d always assumed wasn’t what other people wanted to read, based on the books I’d been exposed to most of my life).  Not change anything.  Just do me.  And doing me meant writing silly nonsense if I wanted to.

So - The Very Secret Diaries are more or less the inspiration for the Muse Meetings, or at least the official written version of them.  I’d always imagined dialogues with my characters outside the confines of whatever story I was working on, but never thought anyone else would be interested in seeing me write it out.

The Diaries made me realize different.  Not only were her characters yammering and complaining and snarking at each other (both out of character and in), they were doing it in exactly the way I’d imagined my own characters interacting in the real world.  I loved it.  Seeing someone else do what I’d always done in my head - and do it in an official, out-there-in-the-public-eye capacity, was a revelation.  Finally I was able to give myself permission to write the way I wanted to, without restricting myself to the styles and methods in the books in the family library.  It had always been in my head, but now it didn’t have to stay there.  I could write proper stories, but I could also write what was going on in the other room, where the reader seldom gets to peek.  And other people besides myself might like it because hey, there’s precedent.

That was freeing, and I am grateful to Ms Claire for that.

So, a little history that leads up to how and why I finally started writing out the Muse Meetings:

My first fandoms that I wrote for online were Harry Potter and Star Wars (Kenobi specifically).  And yes, way back then (late 90′s - early 2000′s) there were already muse meetings among my characters.  I’ve been doing these for a long time, and I wish the out-of-character stuff I’d written back then still existed (my HP stuff bit the dust when The Restricted Section shut down, and my SW stuff was on FF.net for a little while but honestly I don’t remember my user ID there or the titles of the fics, though I have searched…so they’re most likely lost as well).  It’s sort of a shame because there were some old Anakin/Obi-Wan muse meetings that you guys would have loved…and the stuff between Remus and Sirius while we were hashing out what was going to be in their next chapter?  It still pains me that it’s all lost, but maybe it’s for the best.  That was nearly two decades ago, we move on to bigger and (hopefully) better things.

After my urge to write HP fic fizzled out I stopped writing for a while, but there were always muse meetings going on in my head for stories I scribbled mentally.  To me they’ve always been more fun than the actual stories, which explains my love for gag reels and behind-the-scenes featurettes for movies (I watch those first, always).

And then I found AO3 - funnily enough, I discovered it while searching the internet for one of my lost HP fics - and I decided to start writing in earnest again.  With all those thousands and thousands of fics and endless fandoms, it seemed like the perfect place to indulge my need to share what went on in my head.  And as I settled into the MCU and my stories started to grow to include multitudes of characters, those impromptu staff meetings with my muses kept being called to order.  Stuff that my characters would never say in the context of their stories got said.  Scenarios that were too ridiculous to waste time writing were played out.  Arguments and fights and bantering between characters who, in the restrictive confines of their own tales, would never in a million years interact…now they were throwing poptarts at each other (and occasionally knives) while the side characters wandered out of the room to watch TV or raid the fridge or sat in horror as someone’s until-now unassuming wife brandished a melon baller as a weapon.

It was messy and fun and was by far my favorite part of the writing process.

That’s what eventually became the Muse Meetings.  You want to know how they escaped my head and became an official thing?

Well I’m gonna tell ya lol

One of my very first friends in here, the fantastic @elvenfair1, was one of my first readers at AO3 and she told me I should post links to my fics at this site called tumblr to bring in a bigger audience.  So I opened an account here, followed her, posted some links as suggested, and she and I began messaging back and forth pretty much every night as we wrote our respective fics, bouncing ideas off each other and discussing plot points and brainstorming for character names.  And as my characters sassed me and refused to cooperate with what I wanted them to do, I would tell elvenfair what was going on in my head with my dumbass OCs and OFCs and we’d laugh and gripe about trying unsuccessfully to reel in our unruly muses.

And then one night back in 2015 she said “You should post this muse stuff, it’s hilarious.”

You know what the first thing I thought was?  Cassandra Claire did it 14 years ago and people loved it.  So yeah, I can sure as hell do it if I want.  If nobody is interested in it, at least it’ll amuse me and elvenfair and that’s cool enough.

And so I did.  I started posting them in here first, then as people started requesting them more I eventually moved them to AO3 in a more structured format.  And now you guys have multiple Lokis hurling curses at a bartender and viciously baiting a hapless movie star while teenage versions of two other attendees flirt with unsuspecting OFCs, with an occasional appearance by Thor dropping hints about future chapters and looking for fruit roll-ups.  It’s messy, but it’s fun and I’ve always enjoyed writing it as a way to let my brain decompress, especially when one of my “real” stories has hit a roadbump.

Since then I’ve seen countless other professional writers doing the exact same thing - J.R. Ward even posts her own version of muse meetings on her official website AND has a published book (her Insiders Guide) that is almost entirely nothing BUT muse meetings.   It’s surprising how many writers actually do this and I sometimes wonder if authors like Poe, Steinbeck, Vonnegut, Tolkien, Gaiman, McMurtry didn’t do it themselves (I’d bet money on McMurtry).  Just goes to show there’s not an original idea anywhere in the universe…no matter how much you might believe you came up with it first, someone out there has been doing it for a long damn time before you - and a million more will do it after you :)

Anyway, I haven’t written any muse meetings in a while but they still go on constantly in my head.  I get asked about once a week to go back to doing them, and one day I will, when I have time for it.  My actual fics are struggling for writing time as it is and I made a conscious decision to weed out the unnecessary stuff in favor of “real work” (yeah right lol)…but yeah, the Meetings are still one of my favorite things and I won’t stop doing them permanently - they’ll be back.

So thank you Cassandra Claire for inspiring me to let them fly…if it weren’t for those whacked-out Diaries, the Muse Meetings would all still be in my head with only one person (me) laughing at them.

[sophygurl]

Wiscon 42 panel Lighter Side of the MCU

Okay, the rest of my panel write-ups are not going to be quite so dramatic as the Killable Bodies one thank goodness. And I’ll be typing the rest up in chronological order - excepting the ones I was on since I don’t take heavy notes for those, so will add a bit about them at the end. 

The first panel I went to was Lighter Side of the MCU

Reminder that these panel notes are only my own recollections and the things I managed to write down - my notes are incomplete and likely faulty in places. Corrections and additions are always welcome. Especially please do correct me if I get names or pronouns wrong! 

Also I name panelists as that’s publicly available information but not audience members unless requested by that person to have their named added. 

Panel description:

In 2017, the Marvel Cinematic Universe gave us 3 movies that were lighter, funnier, and a bit different from their normal fare: Guardian of the Galaxy Vol 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Thor: Ragnarok. All three of these movies felt like a year-long palate cleanser after the darker path the MCU has been on. However, with movies like Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War coming next, are we back to serious business, or is there still room to play? 

Moderator was Christopher Davis. Panelists were Jess Adamas, V. Greyson, and Carrie Pruett. 

Chris talked about Thor: Ragnarok as having a shift from the other Thor movies, not just due to Taika Watiti’s influence but the writing and acting as well. 

Jess said people figured out that Hemsworth can do comedy and is not just ridiculously good looking, but also willing to make an ass of himself.

Jess and V. agreed that they almost can’t even remember Thor 2. Thor should be funny and silly - the comics are. There are still real feelings and relationships in there, but every scene looked like it should have been painted on the side of a van. 

Carrie said the movie found the right tone for including the Led Zeppelin song. The use of Bruce/Hulk in the movie also used more comedy than earnestness. She compared it to Deadpool as far as pointing out the ridiculous parts. 

She also talked about her desire for Darcy to interact with more MCU characters. 

V. talked about Kenneth Branagh’s Thor 1 and that she liked how serious it was. But she enjoyed the comedy of Ragnarok even more as a contrast. She brought up an article that talked about the Maori flavor of the comedy in the movie, the deprecating aspect and poking fun at the earlier movies (example: “the sun is going down”). 

Carrie liked the calling out of Loki as Odin as a reminder of how Thor 2 ended, but doing it in such a funny way.

Jess talked about Korg and the hilarity of how his revolution failed because he didn’t print enough pamphlets. She brought up the Grandmaster - Carrie asked who? - Jeff Goldblum - oh yea! (lol)

Chris discussed the heavy 80′s nostalgia and Jack Kirby aesthetic in the visuals and musical choices. For example, the Pure Imagination song while going through the tunnel.

Jess and V. joked about their husbands not getting why certain things were funny (IIRC this was because they weren’t as familiar with some of the references to earlier Marvel movies?).

Chris said that Goldblum was the perfect choice for that role. He asked the panelists what their favorite bit of his was.

V. said the meltstick part. Carrie added - accidental killing is hilarious. Jess brought up the part about Bruce looking for a button on the ship for a weapon and getting the song and lights - the discovery that it’s an orgy ship. Carrie added that Bruce’s whole life is a series of wondering how he got here. 

V. talked about the deleted scene of the Grandmaster engaging in tentacle porn. Chris said in Watiti’s director’s cut, he filks the Marvel logo at the start and it just goes from there.

Chris moved on to the Guardians movies - a part of Marvel that’s not well known outside of the deep fandom. This gave them more freedom in their choices. They mostly take place outside of the MCU world, but still did well.

Carrie compared Guardians to Deadpool 2 saying that there is such a thing as too many ironic music cues and Guardians had just enough while D2 went too far. 

Carrie also added that the Guardians/Thor part of Infinity War was the best part. The bit where Thor keeps calling Rocket a rabbit (I added from the audience that this somehow didn’t make Rocket mad) and Carrie agreed saying he really responded to Thor as an authority figure in ways that he usually doesn’t do with anyone.

Jess said that she has James Gunn issues and especially didn’t think Guardians 1 was that well written, but that G2 did a good job of balancing the serious with the funny. She was really resentful about crying at the end. She really bought the Peter/Yondu relationship. Jess tears up talking about the scene with Rocket at the funeral and how he noted that Yondu yelled a lot and was mean but that people still stuck with him. [I teared up a lil too, that part hit me hard]

Jess also added that the rainbow glitter aesthetic of the Guardians movies seems to be responding to the darker superhero greyscale we usually get.

Carrie said that they did good with the Ego stuff, as well. She knew that a twist was coming, but not what the twist was going to be. It called out toxic masculinity in a unique way. Kurt Russell was used well in the role. Peter has his own sexist issues, especially in G1 - which is not interrogated - but in G2 he’s clearly trying to be better than his dad. 

Jess said Russell was great in the role because the audience sees him as his oeuvre.

V. didn’t like G2 as much as G1. G1 had a lot of lampshading of Peter calling himself Starlord and the group the Guardians of the Galaxy. Also - so many Groot-based tears. She didn’t like the start of G2 with the team all fighting and being mean to one another. But G2 and Thor:R both used that rainbow glitter aesthetic well and showed that you can have serious issues going on even if it’s sparkly - things don’t have to be all grey with just some blue.

Chris brought up that lighter movies can still have some very serious issues and still be funny. The characters and relationships can grow and change, for example Thor finally acknowledging that Loki is going to keep tricking him. 

V. talked about how Spiderman: Homecoming’s humor is more of the #relatable type. Peter is “just like us” and we identify with him. 

Carrie said she has a complicated relationship with Spiderman. She saw the Toby Maguire movies before she got into comics and didn’t realize that Spiderman was supposed to be funny. Andrew Garfield did okay but still didn’t really feel like Peter. Tom Holland does Spiderman/Peter better. But the movie changed around some of the characters from the comics. Also - why is it appropriate for Tony to have this relationship with a high school student? On the other hand, Tony’s use as a side character is funny and done well.

Jess added that Tony makes terrible decisions but doesn’t realize it until someone else points it out to him - like, maybe don’t take a minor out of the country for combat-related reasons?

Jess went on to say that all Marvel movies have some humor, and it often is that relatable kind, but it also comes from the fondness for the characters and their relationships to one another. It’s not just references (V. - like The Big Bang Theory).

Jess talked about how Thor:R addresses colonialism and anti-colonialism while being funny. Spiderman:Homecoming culminates in a homecoming dance. Jess always wanted a Marvel high school movie. Also Michael Keaton did well in the role for similar reasons as Russell in G2. Both actors bring their career history with them into the role. 

V. talked about the humor of Spiderman in the pratfalls. Heroes already have such exaggerated physical movements, so this leads well to physical humor. Holland is a good physical actor in both senses.

Carrie lamented the lack of funny women in the MCU. (I spoke from the audience again pointing out MJ) 

Jess said that Gamora did not get a lot of comedy - a lot of her character is wrapped up in drama with Nebula. Mantis is a character we laugh at and she is not comfortable with that. Valkyrie gets to be funny. Cate Blanchett as Hela was very campy but in a straight-faced way. She does tell jokes, but they’re terrifying.

Carrie discussed the issues with Mantis a bit more. The jokes were mostly about her fitting the submissive Asian trope. Black Panther has women who got to actively do stuff and be funny! There should be more little sisters in superhero movies. Lupita  Nyong’o was used better as a funny character in BP than she was in more serious roles. Jess added that Okoyo was used in humorous ways too.

Carrie said BP was not just about found family, as many of these movies are, but is actually a family movie. 

Chris said that Hela got some of the best lines in Thor. Examples: “Whoever I am?” and the bit about the executioner to execute plans ... but also people. 

He added that BP did have a lot of humor. It also had a similar plot as Thor, but with a very different tone and narrative. 

Carrie said BP makes you care about Wakanda. Asgard feels more distant. While watching Infinity War, her concern was for Wakanda - why are they bringing the fight there?!

Thor:R builds on the other movies for it’s worldbuilding, whereas BP is introducing us to this world for essentially the first time. There is a sense of wrestling with what is the right thing to do. An audience member added - it’s a less mythical world. 

Jess talked about BP having lots of joy - you get the sense that the cast and crew just loved being there and making it what it was.

V. talked about Thor 1 having more of a fish out of water type humor. The humor in BP comes from investment in the character relationships.

An audience member brought up the M’Baku vegetarian joke. Someone (another audience member maybe?) brought up how the Grandmaster was queer-coded and a villain and funny but it was not offensive. 

Jess said that was just Goldblum being Goldblum. It also works because Watiti is queer, so he’s aware of the tropes and it’s not a mean-spirited laughing - we’re not laughing at the queer-codedness of the character. Contrast this to Mantis, where we are supposed to be laughing at the racial and sexist stereotypes.

Chris brought up that Mantis literally personifies emotional labor. 

An audience member said that the Grandmaster reminded them of Tim Curry’s characters - he’s using himself in the role, so we’re not laughing at someone’s depictions of an other.

V. said in Thor:R the gags are at everyone’s expense - it’s equal opportunity joking. We’re not just laughing at say, the one campy character in the entire movie. 

Carrie talked about not liking Drax as much in G2 because he was so mean to Mantis - we were expected to laugh at this one character. 

An audience member talked about Drax’s actor being hilarious. The MCU and DC are mostly white and male, so they appreciate when this is not the case. The Drax/Mantis issue would have been better if they’d addressed his crush on her. It felt like a third of movie was cut out because they skip right over his meanness to acceptance. Mantis is the first Asian character in the MCU.

Carrie said there is a representation problem. A friend of hers who is Asian said her kid told her she looks like Mantis, and she wasn’t sure how to deal with that. There were no other characters for the child to compare her to.

Jess said this was especially bad because outside of the Mantis thing, Drax is the best of them as far as emotional expression. 

Chris said - as a white dude named Chris, I’m getting lots of representation and I’m getting tired of it. (lol)

Valkyrie came up and someone said their headcanon was that she lived and took the half of the Asgardians who live off to safety. I shouted out from the audience that this was confirmed as canon. V. said her theory is that she took the sex space ship!

An audience member brought up how some people found Asgard as a flying disc in space as being more relatable than a non-colonized African country. This is partially because you have to set up the seriousness first and then introduce humor. Thor could be funnier right away because it was the third movie. 

V. said that both Thor and BP had interesting things to say about colonization and Chris laid it out as: Killmonger wants to start conquering and Hela wants to go back to doing it.

V. talked about BP as having to engage white Marvel fans, black audiences who aren’t as familiar with the comics, and of course the Venn Diagram of black fans of the MCU. Discussed the use of both Wakanda and Oakland scenes to accomplish this.

An audience member asked about the evolution of Hulk as a comedic character.

Chris said Ruffalo was able to pull off the humor well on Thor. The physical comedy of when he tried to pull the Hulk out and then splat! The movie used both Bruce and the Hulk for comedic effect. 

Carrie related back to the comment about starting off with the serious backstory and then adding in the humor - Bruce himself has learned to take himself less seriously over time.

Jess said that he does get to be funny here and there in the other movies, but it’s more of humor as coping mechanism. In Thor:R he gets to do more slapstick stuff. 

And that’s all I got! Overall this was a fun, funny panel which also hit on some serious themes in these lighter movies. 

[beyondthedreamline]

what she says: I'm fine

what she means: So it’s interesting how the fact Loki probably had to have sex with Jeff Goldblum to keep himself alive and safe was both never made textual AND used as the butt of a joke (lol pun intended), because it doesn’t matter if Loki was sort of willing and it doesn’t matter if he’s sort of evil either - how can you give consent when you fall headfirst on a planet dominated by a psychotic pervert and why is sexual violence such a fun thing when it’s about men and this is James Bond all over again and how they inserted that ‘Maybe I got fucked before, you don’t know’ line during a high tension moment leading up to torture and possibly rape because that’s what’s fashionable now, gay subtext, amirite, which I’ve got nothing against but funnily enough it never seems to lead anywhere and hey, coming back to 'Thor: Ragnarok', isn’t it neat how the sexually ambiguous, feminine-coded brother ended up as a courtesan-slash-sex slave and the painfully straight übermensch brother got sent to the arena to fight and die and yay for novel and groundbreaking storytelling, right, because this is new, how women are sold into sex and/or need to pretend to be willing sexual partners to madmen so they have a shot at escaping violence and death while men are made to fight and somehow their kind of enslavement is recognized as terrible and tragic and something they're no part of, but women, eh, who can be sure about them, and my God, Loki couldn’t have been more stereotypically gay if they’d tried, I mean, Fashion-Conscious Drama Queen Initiates A Reign of Self-Obsessed Musical Theatre and how is that okay on top of Valkyrie, a canon bisexual woman, being coded as Thor’s love interest and also - #thor ragnarok #marvel #loki laufeyson #abuse for ts #rape for ts #negativity #imo this is the other problem with representation #we get one non white director #and we want to like him #we want to think he can do no wrong #but this movie #my god #it read like fanfiction #and not in a good way #also it was probably #the most misogynistic thor movie to date #just compare it with the first thor #where women were allowed to be women #also themselves #bc one thing i don't need #is women to get drunk and belch on screen #i mean sure #sometimes women do that #but this sudden idea #that feminist movies #need to have women act like (fictional) men do #well i hate it #sorry for ranting #but i do #i'd take a thousand jane forsters @awed-frog Okay, I reblogged the original post by @awed-frog but the text came out so strangely that it’s irritating the hell out of me, so I’m making a new post in the hope Tumblr doesn’t glitch it up too. This perspective on ‘Ragnarok’ is so interesting I have to respond to it, because I had completely the opposite reaction to everything! I loved the structure and pacing and the endless supply of in-jokes (the Douglas Adams reference most of all). This is a story with distinctly Antipodean humour, which you may or may not get – I sometimes struggle with the American humour in Marvel movies, different cultures tell their jokes different ways. The emotional beats were quiet and strong, trusting in the audience to understand their significance without overstatement: Thor going through funeral rites as best he can while imprisoned, Loki’s visible distress at the idea of Thor leaving him behind. There was also finally some solid textual support for Loki being more than a villain – which, given all the things he’s done to Earth, Asgard and Thor specifically, is no mean feat. I mean, at the point when you have a character who has faked his own death TWICE while trying to commit genocide BOTH TIMES, you have to lean hard into the inherent morbid comedy of the thing to keep it all from spiralling into cartoonish ridiculousness. I like Loki, largely because Tom Hiddleston has great facial expressions that can sell inconsistent characterisation, but seriously, it takes the actual apocalypse for him to step up and be useful. ‘Ragnarok’ reminds us that while Loki loves to play the victim and the martyr, he rarely is one. Usually, he’s the opposite. Trickery and charm are his great skills and as Thor pointed out, Sakaar was the perfect environment for him to thrive. We see him chat up girls, watch fights with the Grandmaster and act as a kind of pet bounty hunter, all of which he would hardly need much coercion to do. You can definitely read sexual subtext into their interactions, but I saw no implication of Loki being any more sexually threatened by the Grandmaster than Valkyrie was – that is to say, not at all. This is the guy who was willing to shove his brother straight back into the arena if it meant getting a step up in his new life, why would he feel uncomfortable sleeping his way to the top? I love the detail of him turning his 'death' into a play because he's literally the actor, the liar, the manipulator of events. In the end, Loki is a conman, and a very talented one. I’m sad that Jane won’t be returning to the Thor franchise, because I loved her character from the start and I truly enjoyed her dynamic with Thor. Also, DARCY. I will sorely miss Darcy Lewis. The truth is, I can’t think of a really satisfactory way for their departures to be handled on-screen, because I did not want them to depart at all. I feel like it should be pointed out, though, that ‘Thor: the Dark World’ was essentially Jane and Thor’s second date, and Jane was already running low on patience with his trans-Bifrost lifestyle. He’s kind and adorable and undeniably high-maintenance. If Jane had to have an exit, I’d prefer it like this, a low-key and everyday break-up rather than some big melodramatic event for Thor to brood over and Jane to be eventually talked out of. Also, just because I love Jane doesn’t mean I can’t love Valkyrie, and vice versa. It’s not a competition, however much Marvel tried to make it one. I’m a bit uncomfortable with your tag comment about the first Thor movie, describing it as the one ‘where women were allowed to be women’, because women are all kinds of things. I think I understand what you mean, there is rather an excess of traditionally masculine misbehaviour in mainstream media, but sometimes women are angry and disillusioned and drink way too much in order to cope, and that’s a story worth telling too. Honestly, I was on board with Valkyrie’s character from the minute she fell off her spaceship. She’s not a ‘better than the boys’ stereotype, she’s an embittered alcoholic warrior who gets dragged into friendship with Thor against her better judgement, and while that friendship might eventually shift into something romantic, it wasn’t shoehorned into her arc, for which I am intensely grateful. Ragnarok is, in so many ways, a movie with its foundations in the anger of the dispossessed. There are plenty of articles written on the subject by people better qualified than me. All I can say is that, as an Australian, I live in the messy aftermath of colonialism, with the awareness that my nation as I know it was founded on a violent invasion and that its impact is still being felt today. The line ‘where do you think all of this gold came from?’ was so flawless it kind of knocked my breath away. Hela tore apart Odin’s legacy and the narrative backed her right to do so the whole time. The only way to defeat her was to acknowledge that her claim was rightful and her story was true. That’s unbelievably powerful. Emotional resonance is a weird thing. So much of what we love in a story is entirely in the eye of the beholder, and perhaps it also depends on what other narratives are around us at the time – I, for instance, am personally tired of grimdark superheroism that’s all about how we can’t trust each other. What I need right now is Thor’s relentless optimism in the face of disaster, the man who makes friends wherever he goes, the god-prince who loses everything but rescues what really matters out of the ashes. Ragnarok isn’t a perfect movie, but it’s the best I’ve seen in a very long time and talking about it has made me want to watch it all over again.

[dreaminglesbian]

So this is the end of the year meme I’ve been doing since ‘10! I’ve been doing it on LJ tho, but since I never go on there anymore I have been bringing it to tumblr!

I am tagging all my followers and friends to do this! Cause I always have a lot of fun doing this! 

END OF THE YEAR FANDOM MEME 2017!

Your main fandom of the year?

Definitely Shadowhunters! I was watching other shows and movies (obviously) but I wouldn’t say I was really part of other fandoms. I was super into fashion models and style this year but I wouldn’t say I was apart of any fandom.

Your favourite film watched this year?

I enjoyed a lot of Marvel movies this year. I always love, love, love Thor so I was happy to see Thor: Ragnarok! I also loved Spider-Man: Homecoming, it was so cute! I also loved The Lego Batman Movie, Coco and Beauty and the Beast. I would say I really, really love all these movies. 

I also watched a lot of indie gay films this year and I really enjoyed a lot of them. I don’t think any of them were the highlights of 2017 for me though.

Your favourite book read this year?

(I actually read more than usual this year, yay!)

I loved Boy Erased: A Memoir! It was very intense but it really sticks with you. I really learned a lot and I would love to read more by this author. I also loved Call me by Your Name! It was so beautifully written and I recommend reading it in the summer time. I loved Crazy Rich Asians, I think it deserves to be mentioned as one of the standout novels in the romantic fiction genre (along with Bridget Jones and Shopaholic, that’s high praise from me lol!). Also super loved The Miseducation of Cameron Post and I also loved volume one of the Captive Prince. I’m so happy I read so many books I enjoyed this year, I read more I could mention but these were the highlights for me.

Your favourite album or song to listen to this year?

Oh man, it feels like a lot of music came out this year, especially as a One Direction fan. Obviously honorable mentions that all five guys of 1D had music out this year so that’s exciting. I wouldn’t really say any of their music was my FAVE this year but I enjoyed all of it.

Favourite album is probably Taylor Swift’s Reputation album, that’s an obvious answer from me lol.  

I really liked all the slow jams Ed Sheeran did, I liked all the songs Selena Gomez put out. I really like the song ‘I Like me Better’ by Lauv! I liked the Coco soundtrack and the songs from Lego Batman lol. I realized I enjoy a lot of songs by Charlie Puth. I really liked listening to ‘Say You Love Me’ by Jessie Ware and ‘Saturn’ by Sleeping at Last. I also listened to the Book of Mormon soundtrack a lot this year. I also loved ‘Whistle’ by Black Pink! I also loved the songs Fifth Harmony put out this year (I will say I am disappointed in a lot of their live performances lately though)

Also shout out to Thief by Ansel Elgort for just existing lol.

Your favourite TV shows of the year?

Shadowhunters, lol! I just can’t get enough of that show! I enjoy Shadowhunters as a cheesy fantasy teen show but this year it was actually genuinely good. What a strange thing for a big fan to say lol.

Obviously as a Trek fan, Star Trek Discovery as well! That’s really exciting for a new Trek fan like me who never got to watch a weekly Star Trek show as it aired. It feels like a big blessing to have new Trek every week. 

I loved the Bold Type, ughhhh super super love that one. I also zoomed through The L Word this year. It’s not perfect (at all) but having six seasons of lesbian content is very nice. Also loved Wynonna Earp, as a Canadian lesbian sci-fi fan one couldn’t ask for a more fitting show lol!

I also really love watching Difficult People, SKAM (!!! I super loved SKAM !!!), RuPaul’s Drag Race and The Shannara Chronicles! I also am really enjoying Runaways and The Good Place. 

Your best new TV discovery of the year?

Definitely Star Trek Discovery. Also pretty much all the shows I just mentioned, a lot of them were new (to me at least) this year. 

Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?

I actually was like genuinely disappointed by the people of fandom this year sometimes more than the shows. Lemme start off, it is really nice not being in a fandom dedicated to real people (One Direction), even though I miss One Direction EVERYDAY. It’s nice to be upset with fictional characters lol.

First off obviously Dominic Sherwood using the F slur on the Matt Daddario official Shadowhunters livestream. My mind honestly goes back and fourth from being furious about how the show handled it, how Matt reacted and that it happened. Another part of me thinks maybe the show handled it okay and Matt’s reaction was fine. I’m honestly not sure but I really hate that it happened. I’m not super in the Shadowhunters fandom but I dabble in it sometimes and I really enjoy how undramatic this show is for me. Apart of me is like ‘Karma’s got it’s kiss for me’ and ‘we live, baby’ @ Dominic Sherwood LOL! Another part of me is like if I had never heard him say that everything would be peaceful.

The people in Shadowhunters fandom were in a big divide over this. Some were furious like I was and wanted this show that is so much for the LGBT community to show some action. While other fans who weren’t mad thought the fans who were angry were being babies. I think to see a show that is so much for gay fans to also have so many fans who are okay with this behaviour is a huge disappointment. Also how some fans of Magnus/Alec were completely fine with the word.

I noticed in a few fandoms how much straight fans think they are battling their straight ships against the gay ships. Like “ugh we watched all the scenes of the gay ship together, let us have some air time!” which is probably the most baffling thing I’ve heard. 

RIVERDALE. I loved Riverdale season one, LOVED IT. For the second season the HETEROSEXUALITY was in full force. (do you like how I’m mad about the hets when I just complained about it not being a competition? lol) That show is NEXT LEVEL heterosexuality lol. I’m totally okay with Betty/Veronica never being canon and I just ship them as femslash. It’s not very fun though that every time they are together they are talking about their boyfriends. The straight couples on this show are A LOT, like every show has straight characters but this show really rubs me the wrong way. Also the way they handled Kevin and Toni and yet the show thinks they are doing a dandy job with all this “diversity”. ANYWAYS.

I was disappointed in the people in fandom this year for a few reasons. Young fandom (seems to be young people in fandom at least) have different thoughts than I do I guess. They are very quick to claim (this is gonna get WILD fast) pedophilia. Which if we all claim that really quickly it loses the severity of those claims. Young fandom in cartoon fandoms like Yuri!!! On Ice or Voltron do this a lot. Also they are going by American standards of eighteen years old being the age of consent. It’s a messy situation.

Also how quick fandom (usually young fans again) are to claim incest. If two characters are adopted they treat it like incest even though they aren’t blood related. It’s messyyyyyy.

Also how young people in fandom super want characters to commit and get married??? This happens a lot with Magnus/Alec in Shadowhunters. Alec is literally in his first relationship and everyone is like MARRIAGE NOW, which boggles my mind. Honestly I love Magnus and Alec with my ENTIRE LIFE FORCE lol but it would make sense if they broke up for a bit and Alec dated someone else. Cause he’s YOUNG and never been with anyone else! It’s like Tidus in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt when he explains how gay virgins cling and commit fast lol. This is the same with Alex/Maggie from Supergirl which brings me to my next point lol!

Alex and Maggie started off SO good! The show was kind of... confusing with how they handled their relationship I guess. Maggie lied about cheating on her ex girlfriend and also lied about how coming out to her parents went. I love Maggie, I SUPER love Maggie but this stuff is really big to lie about. Alex was very mature and forgave her and then they got ENGAGED? Like Alex literally figured out her sexuality like SEVEN weeks ago and now she is proposing to Maggie? Even after Maggie just lied about things? All the fans were very happy which made me feel like a sour person that I wasn’t happy. 

I was also disappointed in Supergirl for how much of this latest season has been Kara being sad over Mon-el. Like Supergirl is one of the few female lead super hero shows that I don’t want to abandon it but it’s really getting RIDICULOUS with all the relationship talk on that show! I’m really mad at Kara’s character for how she is handling Mon-el. Honestly though ALL the female characters on that show are nonstop failing the Bechdel test and I may have to give it up. 

Also Teen Wolf ending with a whimper, not a bang. Empire having continuity errors and handling sensitive situations poorly. Sense8 being cancelled, Quentin Tarantino apparently directing a Star Trek movie?? Also sometimes I think Harry Shum Jr. and Matt Daddario really need to GO FOR IT when they have romantic scenes together.

OH MAN APPARENTLY A LOT OF DISAPPOINTMENT THIS YEAR LOL

Your TV boyfriend of the year?

(I always count this as fave males of the year lol) Robin from Lego Batman lol! Also Alec, Magnus and Simon from Shadowhunters. Peter Parker from Spiderman: Homecoming, super cute! Thor and Loki from Thor as well.

Your TV girlfriend of the year?

I super loved Maia Roberts/the actress, Alisha Wainwright from this year. Alisha, you can slide into my DMs, I’m ready lol. Also Clary and Izzy along with the actress who play them from Shadowhunters. I also super loved Sofia Boutella this year along with Alicia Vikander. I liked the celebrities Dove Cameron, Sofia Carson, Dua Lipa, Taylor Hill, Vanessa Morgan,  Ivana Baquero,  Natalie Alyn Lind, Kylie Jenner, Camila Mendes, Poppy Drayton, Lili Reinhart, Madelaine Petsch, and Selena Gomez. Also loved Mantis from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Valkyrie from Thor: Ragnarok and Michael from Star Trek: Discovery ! (as well as a lot of others tbh)  

Your biggest squee moment of the year?

TOM HOLLAND ON LIP SYNC BATTLE!!

Moonlight rightfully winning the Academy Award and not LaLa Land! (”As you can see I’m driving through the city having a fucking BLAST, baby!” - Snoop Dogg gif)

Also that I met three people who have worked or know people on Shadowhunters! The perks of being a fan of a show that films in the city you live in! lol

Oh man, probably the flashback episode of Shadowhunters that showcased all the Magnus/Alec scenes! Oh man, I wanted to fall to the FLOOR, I was JAZZED! #Blessed

Also Clary/Izzy had a LOT of good scenes in this season of Shadowhunters so that was awesome! 

Disney’s Descendants 2 really WENT THERE with the femslash for Evie/Mal! That was awesome! Seeing young fans try to say “noooo they are just friends” in the youtube comments on the song ‘Space Between’ was a real fun time lol! Yeah I was super pleased with that.

I went to Fan Expo, as usual, but this year the Star Trek: discovery cast was there as well as a panel on the production of the show. That was really special, especially that I got to go with my Trek friends.

Seeing Thor: Ragnarok and the THOR/LOKI, I was watching their scenes with my hands on my heart lol! 

Stamets and Culber being cuties on Star Trek: Discovery! Also shout out to the Wonder Woman movie. Also how alive Korean Star Trek fandom is lol. I also REALLY enjoyed a lot of fan made content this year like fan videos and fan art!

The most missed of your old fandoms?

One Direction and 2009 Star Trek fandom as usual. It’s crazy looking back on these memes and seeing One Direction joining this section of the questions. I don’t miss aspects of One Direction fandom but I do miss the band (ot5).

The TV you haven’t tried yet, but want to?

I’m excited for Grown-ish!

Your biggest fan anticipations for the New Year?

I’M HEADED TO SAN DIEGO COMIC CON THIS YEAR!!!

More Star Trek: Discovery and Shadowhunters episodes! Seeing the lesbian plot develop on Runaways. 

I’m excited for Avengers: Infinity War, Black Panther, Ocean’s 8, Pacific Rim Uprising, Maze Runner: The Death Cure, and the next Fantastic Beasts (especially if Ezra Miller’s character lives). My wife, Alicia Vikander in Tomb Raider!!

Also a lot of gay films like Love, Simon and The Miseducation of Cameron Post! I think there will be a lot more to look forward to as the year goes on.

Fave ships of 2017?

Alec/Magnus (Shadowhunters)

Clary/Izzy (Shadowhunters)

Betty/Veronica (Riverdale)

Stamets/Culber (Star Trek: Discovery)

Thor/Loki (Marvel)

(Peter Parker/Any male from The Avengers TBH.......)

There are a few others I shipped this year but I would say these are the highlights. 

Most listened to songs of the year

(This is from my itunes)

1. I Like Me Better - Lauv 

2. Don’t Blame Me - Taylor Swift

3. End Game - Taylor Swift

4. I Did Something Bad - Taylor Swift

5. Still Falling for You - Ellie Goulding

6. ...Ready For It? - Taylor Swift

7. Delicate -  Taylor Swift

8. Dress - Taylor Swift

9. Space Between - Disney Descendants 2

10. Slumber Party - Britney Spears ft. Tinashe

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

If you read all this you are a saint, bored or a super close friend lol! Thank you, thank you for reading!