#at the end of the day it’s a comic being adapted into a tv show

[credit-song]

When Anissa showed up

[gb-patch]

Sorry to send another ask amongst the sea I'm sure you're receiving, but I find myself more concerned about Rose being a sensitivity reader as I find more information. One of Rose's friends continues to insist that the conversation about Tamarack and male MCs was part of a larger discussion about biphobia in the fandom. However, they claim that Rose's position is "people erase Tam's bi/pansexuality by refusing to portray [her] as being attracted to anything other than men." This explanation of Rose's belief is, in-and-of-itself, biphobic. It claims that portraying Tamarack as attracted to men erases her queerness. This is textbook biphobia and bi-erasure that I as a bisexual encounter every day. It is NOT a good-faith defense of a queer character. It reduces us down to our partners and makes the claim that if we end up in a relationship that's "straight-passing," we're erasing our queerness. Especially as a bi sapphic myself, it reduces my identity strictly to the perceived-man I'm dating, and not my inner or previous experiences, or those of my partner. It's very uncomfortable that Rose, a non-bisexual, was discussing this like they're defending Tamarack's queerness when they're doing the opposite.

This is a doubly strange position when Our Life is a game about the acceptance of love in all its forms. The conversation could be different, MAYBE, if Our Life was a TV show or a book or a comic. But this is a game where people are meant to play as characters of their own design. I do not feel confident about Rose being a sensitivity reader for a game with bi/pansexual love interests if these are their beliefs about bi/pansexuality, particularly if they're unable to adapt their opinions to be relevant to different formats of media; this shows they're lacking in skill in the areas of media literacy and critical thinking.

I’ve been trying to make a post that presents the concerns people have about this, but your ask touches on the points I was going to, and I’d say it’s better to have it said by a player than me deciding what people are thinking. So, this is something that I want to make clear- that I see this and other asks/comments about it. What you’ve said is something a lot of people are unsure and upset about. I am sorry that you feel so out of place in this community now. And I am also sorry to players of any sexuality who use a male MC. That comment dismissed players and Tamarack’s identity.

It did come from a longer discussion about bi-phobia issues. The overall feelings were “if people did only want Tamarack to be interested in men, I really wouldn’t like that and wouldn’t it be a funny concept if Tamarack then left them for a woman?”. The comment itself didn’t encompass that idea at all. It does not give a good impression about where they’re coming from. It was unkind.

The viewpoint Rose is trying to have isn’t that “Tamarack can never express an interest in men” which would be wrong, it’s “I stand by the fact that Tamarack is someone who wouldn’t only be interested in men and no one else”. If it’s true that Rose likes Tamarack being interested in all genders and doesn’t want her bi-ness to be forgotten, I’d say that’s an acceptable view. If the point actually is that Tamarack should only be with women and if she’s not than Tamarack is no longer bi or she’s a bad character, then you're right- that isn't acceptable and that is going to get someone removed from the project. I do believe Rose agrees with what you’re saying and means it when they say they want to stop bi-erasure, not participate in it for real. But they had a very harsh way of talking about it.

I understand that people don’t know Rose and this situation has made them believe they do seriously hold that first view. But from working with them, there’s never been any feedback that shows an opinion of the sort.

Right now, I think that comment was being edgy and making a quick, very poorly-worded quip to people they’d been chatting with about that topic already. Rose has left the GB Patch discord servers, they used to be a mod, and may or may not ever be back in there. Rose won’t make blog posts responding to players going forward. They’re going to take a break from this and then try to give helpful feedback. We’re going to see if things can be okay from here.

And with this coming up, we’re all really aware that it’s something to consider about the game. I’m going to be as conscious as I can for any advice that seems to go against the character’s identities and I’m going to question my own knee-jerk choices for how I handle things. Other sensitivity readers will be able to give their viewpoints as well, so will the players. If the game’s content isn’t welcoming or is biased people will notice, and I’ll be here to accept what I’ve done. I don’t want that to be the result of this, of course. I hope the game will be thoughtful and considerate, but I can’t fire Rose at this point to try doing that.

No one has to keep following the game, though. I’m sympathetic to anyone who is too uncomfortable with all this to stay around.

[darkcrownninja]

MOS Pa Kent and MAWS Pa Kent

I find the polar opposite depictions of Jonathan in these stories incredibly fascinating.

MOS Jonathan shields and separates Clark from anything related his heritage, including things like his ship and powers. Encouraging suppresion and caution in Clark.

Actively telling Clark to hide his powers and never use them, scolding him whenever he used them. He is a man terrified of the world taking his son away from him, specially knowing he has no real way of protecting Clark from anything that may seek to harm him. So he encourages him to hide himself and avoid drawing any attention.

He is a more jaded and cynical man, immediately assuming the world would attack and try to kill his son (he ended up being right, which is its own can of worms), would try to rip his miracle child, his star baby away from him.

He only sees a world that would harm the child he so desperately seeks to protect, that child he loves more than anything.

MAWS Jonathan is the complete opposite of his MOS counterpart. He is the one that encouraged Clark to discover himself, to make contact with the ship, to practice his use and control of his powers, even turning that into a game a young Clark could enjoy.

He is aware of the shock Clark´s existence will create but in the end he has faith in humanity seeing Clark for what he truly is, someone who just wants to help others.

He is more optimistic and cheerful, thinking of the best and encouraging other people to do so too.

In MAWS, Martha is the one who is the one who wants to keep Clark away from anything alien, the one that clings to him and wants to keep him hidden.

While Jonathan is cheerful over Clark deciding to go public and help people, Martha is the one that is slightly reluctant (though not to MOS Jonathan´s level, like letting yourself get killed by a tornado because you don´t want your son to expose himself is extreme though somewhat understandable) to let him go, though she eventually gets on board and creates his trunks.

This dicotomy is reflected on Clark´s abilities.

Flight is one of his most characteristic abilities and it often serves as a metaphor for Clark feeling free and accepted, it comes in moments where Clark learns to love and accept himself.

So it is interesting to see how in MAWS it is one of the first he obtains while in MOS it is one of the last ones. Showing the difference in how their settings and enviroments reacted to them.

MAWS is honestly amazing and I am incredibly glad we got this adaptation of the Superman mythos. It is so unique and refreshing. I can´t wait for season 3.

Regardless of its flaws I genuinely love MOS and its depiction of the Kent family. Its different from what we are used to in comics and tv shows, but it offers a unique take on the Kents dealing with Clark´s powers. At the end the day Jonathan is just a father terrified someone will hurt his child and he won´t be able to protect him.

Anyways this ramble has lasted enough, love both pieces of media to bits.

[wanderingmind867]

My ideas for a season six of Batman 1966. You can tell this is probably where i'm gonna end all of this, because I was getting so tired that I started just poaching ideas from old 40s and 50s comics. Turns out thinking of Three or Four seasons worth of stuff (all 60-70 episodes long) is incredibly exhausting. So here. I hope it's okay. I'm not rewriting this one again. I'm so exhausted, I'm gonna go take a break to use my switch:

Season 6: Season Six is almost all about Batman on his own. Robin and Batgirl make appearances as supporting leads every couple episodes, but Batman is now the leading star. I'd have Aunt Harriet be made more of a minor character too, and I'd replace her with Leslie Thompkins. We'd still see Aunt Harriet, obviously! She's too good to abandon fully! It's just… we'll see her less, since Dick is at College (thus eliminating the need for her to live at Wayne Manor).

Episodes 1 and 2: An adaptation of a story from Batman #32, except this episode features The Riddler in the place of The Joker. Either way, I'm getting really tired of writing all this stuff constantly. So here's a copy and pasted paragraph about the story (with joker's name merely replaced with riddler's):

The Riddler captures Batman with help from his henchmen and they take the vigilante to their secret hideout. The Riddler's latest inspiration has come from watching college students forced to endure humiliating initiation stunts. Riddler then contacts Robin and forces him to perform embarrassing but apparently harmless feats in order to keep Batman alive. However, Riddler is using Robin for his criminal activities and when the Boy Wonder realizes the truth, he prepares a trap for the Riddler.

Episodes 3 and 4: Batman deals with The Archer, an old villian who tried to act like a modern day Robin Hood. Now he's gotten even more blatant with his thefts, and he tries to rob Wayne Manor of all it's valuables (since he learned the Manor had less occupants since Dick Grayson and his Aunt left). Batman still manages to stop him, but The Archer really puts up a strong challenge.

Also, the Archer had to find new sidekicks. So meet Scarlet, Doncaster and Lady Clorinda. Those are all real names of characters from the Robin Hood stories. I just looked it up. But after this story, we probably won't see the archer for a while. I don't know how many more times I can work with his Robin Hood motif, so we'll probably reserve him for appearances in team-ups with other villians.

Episode 5: Shortly after dealing with The Riddler and The Archer, Batman ends up running into Man Bat for the very first time. It's very much a one for one retelling of Man Bat's first comic story, including the fact that Man Bat escapes Batman's clutches at the very last moment.

Episode 6: Harley Quinn is tired of being a mere sidekick, so she strikes out on her own! This episode was probably more fitting to air back during season five, but I never found a good place for it. But this is as good a place as any. And now that Harley Quinn is beginning to distance her crime career from that of The Joker, it means I now get two clownish adversaries to mess around with! If we're getting tired of the constant Cesar Romero appearances, a Harley Quinn modelled after Goldie Hawn now has all our needs covered.

Episodes 7 and 8: The first apperance of The Penguin this season; we get a plot based around an issue of the comics this time. Specifically, based off of Batman #190. The Penguin begins commiting crimes using the methods of the future, since he wishes to be ahead of the trend and above the curve. Since i'm honestly beginning to run out of ideas for these seasons, I think i may just start adapting some comic storylines whenever i feel no inspiration. The TV show did this too, so I see no reason why I can't do it.

Episodes 9 and 10: Two-Face breaks out of jail, and begins defacing public monuments to make them reflect the jekyll and hyde nature of his soul. With his new scheme, he successfully manages to ruin the reputations of many good men and women in gotham. He defaces statues, people, everything he can get his hands on. And although this is a bit of a change from his usual M.O., Batman still inevitably manages to solve the case and get Two-Face back behind bars.

Episode 11: Batman encounters Man Bat again, and this time finally managed to subdue him. But is this really the end of the Man Bat story? Not quite, as there's one more part. But we won't get to see that part until after one more story, sad to say.

Episodes 12 and 13: The Joker breaks out of prison to perplex Batman with crimes based around sound effects and cinema. The Joker manages to convince a film crew to help him film a new comedy, all about his attempts to triumph over Batman. But nobody expects that his "film" is actually all but a ruse; a simple snare to lead Batman right into the palms of his hands.

Episodes 14 and 15: Professor William McElroy has been released from jail on good behaviour charges. He comes to Hudson University to lead a lecture on mythology, but he accidentally falls off the stage and reverts back to his King Tut persona again. And as King Tut, he finally manages to achieve his greatest desire: he steals an experimental mind control beam from the schools science labs, and he manages to convince everyone on campus that they're all in the time of Ancient Egypt.

News of the strange case reaches Gotham after a few days, and Bruce quickly realises that Dick must've been hypnotized by that beam too. So now Batman has to head to Hudson University, to dethrone King Tut and his egyptian empire before he has a chance to spread it's influence across the globe.

Episode 16: The conclusion to the long Man Bat saga, wherein Batman has to cure both Kirk Langstrom and his wife Francine of their Bat transformations and mental afflictions. By crashing their wedding, Batman successfully manages to get to them in time to save them from themselves.

Episodes 17 and 18: Catwoman pines for fame and attention, so she begins framing Batman for crimes. While Batman becomes a wanted crook, she becomes a lavish celebrity amongst the lights of gotham high society. Inevitably, though, Catwoman ends up giving herself away. Namely, she can't help but enjoy the thrill of theft. So when she sees a rare cat stature owned by one of her high society acquaintances, she snaps and steals it.

But Batman had planted a tracker on that statue, so it was all a big ambush! Him and Catwoman get into a fight, and Batman successfully manages to clear his reputation (while Catwoman gets sent back to the penitentiary). What I would do in this episode, though: Catwoman (as played by Julie Newmar) ends up flirting with Bruce Wayne while she's a high profile celebrity. The two of them have some sort of romance going (the same way Catwoman and Batman did in the movie), but Catwoman still ruins her chances by trying to frame and kill Batman. If these two are ever going to work together, it's not going to be anytime soon.

Episodes 19, 20 and 21: The three Mister Freezes got into a heated dispute when we last saw them, so they now have all been forced into using different names. Mister Freeze is George Sanders, Mister Zero is Otto Preminger and Mister Chill is Eli Wallach. But they all still want to keep the name of Mister Freeze.

They're now competing to see which one of them can truly dominate Gotham, to prove that there can only be one master of ice in this town! Batman ends up having to foil three seperate schemes from there seperate Mister Freezes, all because these criminals are being petty and trying to one up each other.

Episodes 22 and 23: Egghead is back to menace Batman! He's annoyed and deeply upset that the League of Assasins snubbed him for membership, so he's decided to finally dig his way into the Batcave, to prove his intellectual superiority over all the other supercrooks. He does actually manage to break into the Batcave, and he turns all of Batman's gadgets against him.

Batman manages to stop him before he can do too much damage, but he still ruins the set-up Batman had going. Which means that Batman needs to temporarily move all his stuff to a secondary location while the old one gets rebuilt.

Episodes 24 and 25: Batman goes to Hudson University to check on Robin while the Batcave is being fixed up, only to then discover a startling new crime taking place right under dick's nose. The new English teacher at Hudson University is really The Bookworm in disguise, hiding out at Hudson University to try and raid their prestigious libraries of all their beautiful books. He's gotten away with his ruse remarkably well, probably because he's earned a reputation as a good teacher.

But despite any good the man may have done as a teacher, Batman and Robin still need to stop his crime before he successfully carries it out! And before anyone asks about Bookworm's henchmen: they've all been masquerading as his teaching aides or as janitors or librarians or something.

Episodes 26 and 27: Batgirl comes to Hudson University as a Congresswoman to give a speech, and she winds up helping Batman and Robin deal with a new crime spree by Harley Quinn. She's set up a roller disco close to the university campus, and she's robbing the college kids of all they're worth. This episode set would wind up very much a tribute to the 70s era disco movement, as Harley Quinn and her mad discotheque have to get taken down by our terrific trio, who've been reunited once more!

Episodes 28 and 29: Batman, Robin and Batgirl are still at Hudson University, but Batgirl is admitting that she needs to get back to DC soon. And speaking of, Batman's heard tell that the Batcave is nearly all done with the remodel. But before the three of them can part ways once more, a new scheme begins to hatch in the university town. A rare north american bird statue has been robbed from right under our heroes feet, and we learn that it was The Penguin who stole it!

But it isn't just The Penguin who's involved in this mess. Oh, no. Catwoman (Eartha Kitt) is also involved. She apparently stole the statue first, but Penguin double crossed her. So now she's stalking him through the city, which means Batman, Robin and Batgirl have a real crime conundrum on their hands. Can they stop The Penguin and Catwoman in time? Or will their in-fighting tear the town apart?

Episodes 30 and 31: Batman and Robin end up stumbling upon a plot by Cluemaster to hijack the airwaves in Gotham and restart his old game show. Batman and Robin have to stop him, because he's going mad with a desire for attention and adulation.

Batman and Robin successfully manage to crash Cluemaster's show, and they send him back to jail. But in a joking scene at the finale of the episode, we see that the news is reporting on Cluemaster's crime by saying he ripped off a scheme of the Riddler's, some years prior. And that just inflames the tension between these two rogues once again.

Episodes 32 and 33: Joker and Riddler team up to issue a series of jokes and riddles to the people of Gotham City. You see, these two have realized that they're quite similar in their themes. So by pooling their knowledge, they hope to finally defeat Batman once and for all! Do their plans actually come to fruition? Definitely not, but I'm willing to bet that they come really close to victory.

Episode 34: Batman and Man-Bat end up teaming up to defeat the Getaway Genius (played by Bernie Kopell) and The Penguin (who've teamed up since last we saw them). Only through their combined skills do Batman and Man-Bat manage to bring this pair of crooks to justice.

Episodes 35 and 36: Batman gets into a really dramatic adventure this time around, as he has to help save Leslie Thompkins, a doctor he knew as a kid (operating out of Crime Alley). Turns out that a mobster named Lew Moxon is trying to kill her, to silence her the way he silenced Thomas Wayne years ago. Turns out that Joe Chill was a mere puppet of Lew Moxon, and Moxon had him killed in jail to silence him.

But Leslie Thompkins has poked her nose where it doesn't belong, and now her head is on the chopping block. So Batman has to save her, and finally confront the bitter shadows of his past. Finally, he has a chance to get revenge for his parents murder. But will he take it? Also involved with this story: Batman learns that Mr. Freeze III (Eli Wallach) was the father of Joe Chill, the petty thug who killed his parents. Mister Freeze abandoned his family when his wife was pregnant, but his name is Elias Chilton.

Episode 37: Sort of loosely tied to the previous episode (but still it's own independent thing), Batman has to try and get answers out of Mr. Freeze III (Eli Wallach) regarding his ties to the deaths of the Waynes. But Elias Chilton isn't talking. And the more Batman tries to press him for answers, the more we begin to sense a strange underbelly to Gotham Society. Lew Moxon was tied up in some kind of "Court", and Joe Chill was one of his "pawns". Elias Chilton may have been a negligent father, but he knows something's odd here. So him and batman come to an unlikely truce; both agreeing to investigate this issue on their own ends.

Episodes 38 and 39: On Christmas Eve, Gotham is menaced by yet another old menace from the past: The Calendar Man! Nobody has seen hide nor hair of him for years (mostly because he went straight years ago), but apparently being all alone and homeless on christmas made him snap and decide to commit a mad christmas and new year's themed crime wave. So Batman and Robin have to stop him, and convince him that people do care for him, and he doesn't have to go back to crime again.

Episodes 40 and 41: Christmas may be over, but apparently The Riddler didn't get the memo. He's leading a crime spree yet again, and this time it's all tied in to the themes of Christmas and New Year's. We learn that Bookworm, Riddler and Scarecrow are apparently coordinating all their plans, because Bookworm and Scarecrow are busy messing with Batgirl and Jason Bard somewhere else in town (Batgirl and Jason Bard got a Christmas break, so they came down from DC to visit Batman and Robin). That story won't be told until the next two parter, though. For now, it's all about Batman and Robin trying to beat The Riddler.

Episodes 42 and 43: Batgirl and Jason Bard have to stop Bookworm and Scarecrow from ruining New Year's Eve for everyone in Gotham. Batman and Robin have to deal with The Riddler's mad diabolical schemes; but Batgirl and Jason have to deal with Bookworm and Scarecrow. Both groups definitely have their work cut out for them.

Episodes 44 and 45: With Christmas over, Robin has recovered and left to go back to university. Now that Batman is all alone, he has to face a threat that's endemic of the new decade to come: the Black Spider. Eric Needham is a violent vigilante torturing drug dealers for what they've done to the slums and ghettos of gotham. He says Batman inspired him to go after criminals, but Batman is disgusted by the actions of this mad vigilante. So he tracks him down, and stops him before he can take the step from brutalization into murder.

It takes Batman a while to defeat the Black Spider, but when Batman does…he can't bring himself to hate the kid. He just wanted to bring better conditions to the slums of gotham, although his methods were excessive and cruel. Still, the wayne foundation pays to help eric needham get the mental help he desperately needs. Because batman isn't cruel enough to leave this kid all alone in the cold.

Episodes 46 and 47: Batman has to deal with The Joker, who's returned to bedevil Batman once more. This time, his scheme involves commiting a series of upside down crimes. This is an adaptation of a story from Batman #23, and it involves a batplane sequence (which would definitely be fun to see on screen).

Episodes 48 and 49: Now that Batman's finished dealing with Black Spider, he learns that the Black Spider was actually the pawn in another criminal's foul scheme: the Black Widow, to be more precise. Either still modelled/played by Tallulah Bankhead, or modelled after/played by Eleanor Audley (replacing a dead Tallulah Bankhead), I'm not quite sure. But I am sure that the Black Widow is back in Gotham, and this time her scheme has become even more intense than before.

She's got an army of giant mechanical spiders, and she's using them to rob gotham, hold places for ransom via web, and otherwise generally make a menace of herself. For a criminal mind this cunning, batman's skills are required. But who knows if even the caped crusader can defeat a foe as cruel and calculating as this one?

Episodes 50 and 51: Batman has to investigate a series of arsons in Gotham. Along the way, he keeps running into a strange new crook known as Firefly, a master of heat and flame. Batman isn't sure just what connection Firefly has to all these arson attacks on Gotham, but he knows there's some connection. So in this somewhat more dramatic tale of industrial espionage, we get to see Batman deal with a arsonist for hire.

But I would also keep some of the silver age firefly stuff, and i'd have his flames have different effects based on their colours. I want a colour themed villian, and i'm going to make firefly that colour themed villian, whether it's accurate or not. So yeah, we're using arson and themed rainbow effects for this story.

Episodes 52 and 53: Batman meets the Ragdoll (as played by Ray Bolger). I don't think a live action story with ragdoll could get into all the contortionism stuff, but I think it's still worth having him here. He very much feels like a character who works in a Batman '66 setting.

Episodes 54 and 55: Mister Freeze returns to Gotham and Batman has to stop him. Along the way, he meets a lady named Venus (played by Eva Gabor), who Mister Freeze has kidnapped, claiming she bears a startling resemblance to an ex-wife of his (an in-joke about George Sanders and Zsa Zsa Gabor once being married). But Venus and Batman end up teaming up, and their combined wits lead them to escape from the deadly traps of Mister Freeze's lair.

Episodes 56 and 57: Batman encounters Minerva, the criminal who ran a hypnosis based mineral spa, has been released from jail on good behaviour. But her plans for Gotham are anything but good. In jail, she used her spa to learn the secrets of all of gotham's major weaknesses. She now knows all the ways batman has defeated the different criminals in gotham, and she plans to use that knowledge to her advantage and finally have her revenge on Batman…

But thankfully, her plans all backfire. Mostly because of Venus, from the previous set of episodes. Minerva and Venus are actually sisters, and Venus vows to stop her sister at all costs. When Minerva captures Batman at the end of part one, Venus summons Robin and Batgirl to save the day!

Episodes 58 and 59: A new villian arrives in Gotham, going by the name of The Spook (which I still think sounds like some sort of ethnic slur, but which was actually a real 70s Batman villian). Claiming to be the ghost of dead prisoner Val Kaliban, the spook's powers of disappearence stump even Batman. But with the aid of The Scarecrow (possibly the only other person who could successfully combat this motif of fear), Batman successfully manages to capture and unmask Kaliban. Turns out he was never a real ghost; he was just a master escape artist who faked his own death.

Episodes 60 and 61: The beginning of the show's adaptation of Steve Englehart's comics storyline. Doctor Phosphorous and Silver St. Cloud both debut in this episode set. Although Doctor Phosphorus isn't seen again after this set of episodes, Silver St. Cloud remains relevant to the remaining few episodes in the season…

Episodes 62 and 63: An adaptation of the next part of Steve Englehart's Batman saga, starring Hugo Strange. I can't actually recap all of this saga, but we're covering the events detailed in Detective Comics #471-472, and that's about it.

Episodes 64 and 65: An adaptation of the story in Detective Comics #473 now, which allows us to see Batman and Robin working together to stop The Penguin, who's prepared yet another mad caper. And with Rupert Thorne using his influence to undermine Commissioner Gordon and Batman's affairs in Gotham, it's now unclear just what Batman and Robin can do to protect the city.

Episodes 66 and 67: For the next several episodes, there'll be a break from Steve Englehart's saga, because I plan to end the season by focusing on that. In any case, this two parter involves King Tut trying to summon an ancient mummy back from the dead, using ancient egyptian rights and rituals. His plans actually seem to work, but we learn that another criminal group is playing him for a dummy. They were using an automaton of a mummy, and they fooled him into thinking it was real.

If you're wondering about which criminal group, I can't really say. I haven't decided yet myself, so that's going to be left unclear. But it's probably either the League of Assasins or the Court of Owls. One of those groups makes the most sense to me.

Episodes 68 and 69: The Riddler starts a new crime wave, once again with the aid of The Bookworm. These two are now delivering riddles in all sorts of ways, from poems to different book titles to even having their henchmen mime out crimes without actually commiting them. Batman and Robin are left deep in the lurch by these two, and a real game of wits begins once more.

Episodes 70 and 71: An adaptation of a story in Batman #45. Again, I am beginning to really tire of writing these notes. So here's a copy and pasted description of the story from off of the DC wiki:

A famous author has recently published a book about the most evil women in history and a Hollywood studio has bought the rights to make a movie based on the book. At the same time, Catwoman escapes from prison. And when she learns that she wasn't included in the book, she decides to sabotage the film and steal from the crew and the studio. Catwoman's criminal spree is successful until she is captured and arrested by Batman and Robin.

Episodes 72 and 73: Batgirl and Jason Bard get involved in this one, as Shame and Calamity Jan crash Washington, DC. They're getting married again, and they've chosen to capture the US capital, so they can use it as their shotgun wedding Chapel. This news shakes the US to it's very core, so Batman, Robin, Batgirl and Jason Bard end up having to play the role of wedding crashers, stopping this outlaw posse from damaging the fair people of washington with their gunfights and rodeo matches.

Episodes 74 and 75: An adaptation of Detective Comics #474. It's Batman '66's introduction to Deadshot, who's still played pretty seriously (albeit not too, too violently). A skilled crook and sharpshooter, deadshot's broken out of jail to get revenge on Batman for their past encounter many years prior.

The death trap at the halfway mark for this episode might actually include a literal firing squad, since deadshot's whole motif is guns and bullets and things like that. So you know…it might end up being one of the show's more dramatic episodes.

Episodes 76 and 77: An adaptation of The Joker storyline from Detective Comics #475-476. This would be the season finale, and it would help to both resolve all the storylines of the past few issues; and yet also to set up the movie that's being built up to lead into Season Seven and help introduce Jason Todd. So a lot of important stuff happens in this episode set.

[wander-wren]

sometimes i wonder about what fandom is going to look like in 5 or 10 years. i think we might have already started to see a shift.

because, look, most of the oldest, biggest fandoms are from tv shows and movies, in particular ones that go on for years and scores of episodes. star trek, star wars, stargate (is everything star?), doctor who, supernatural…even sherlock really got its biggest popularity boosts in the modern day from tv adaptations. marvel and dc were comics first, too, but movies made them more accessible; their “cinematic universe” tags are the biggest on ao3 by far.

but what tv shows are we getting now? short, 8-episode things that get canceled two or three seasons in, that are usually less-than-faithful adaptations of other media anyway.

what movies are we getting? well, marvel turns more to slop every day, and everything else is remakes and sequels no one asked for. the general populace will still go see them and find some good movies that they like, but there’s not much really for fandom to grasp onto.

the best shows for fandom that we’ve had recently, that i can think of, are stranger things, game of thrones, and maybe our flag means death. stranger things is dying off, especially since they’re looking at a 3-4 YEAR gap between s4 and s5. game of thrones’s popularity plummeted after its final season, we all know that. our flag means death is still chugging fairly okay, but after that second season a lot of the fandom dropped it, and with it now being cancelled, i don’t see it sticking around.

yes, we can chalk part of this up to a new generation to of fans having this growing idea that fandom is super temporary, to be abandoned as soon as its not on trend. but media used to be on trend for a whole lot longer than it is now. seasons were longer, we had filler episodes, things were lower quality sometimes but at least they came out on a consistent schedule. i don’t mind if supernatural isn’t an artistic masterpiece, but if i was a stranger things fan waiting until 2026 for the final season, i would be annoyed if it wasn’t damn near perfect. that’s assuming i watched it at all—we’re all so used to not getting endings and moving on, so why would i bother?

i think there are two types of shows doing sort of okay about this. one is procedurals—9-1-1 is a popular one i’ve run into, and it started in 2018, around the beginning of the decline, but it’s managed 7 seasons in those six years, most of them with 18 episodes. the other is, honestly, anime—though we can and SHOULD talk about the terrible working conditions that make the fast turnarounds there possible. look at how big some anime fandoms are.

judging by the relative fandom popularity of other procedural dramas (grey’s anatomy, law & order, criminal minds), i think that’s going to remain sort of niche. fandom likes fantasy and scifi best, and they just don’t tend to have as strong of an overarching arc to dig into. at least, that’s why i wouldn’t watch them. i think there’s also a good chance these will start to die out in the coming years as well.

anime could also die out a little bit. better working conditions would necessitate less/slower content, and it’s true that most of the popular anime fandoms have been around for years, even decades.

so, what, no new, lasting tv show or movie fandoms anymore?

what will the biggest fandoms be in 5-10 years?

podcast fandoms have a shot. the magnus archives is still going strong, and i’ve been seeing a lot about dungeons and daddies. i think we’re kind of almost past the golden age for podcasts, but i am an outsider, so maybe that will change.

book fandoms seem like a kind of obvious choice, but they just don’t get as big without, you guessed it, a movie or show adaptation. and the downsizing has hit them, too—can you think of anything from the last 5 or 10 years that rivals harry potter, percy jackson, warriors, lord of the rings, hunger games, acotar…even game of thrones (asoiaf) again? i can’t. the collapse of the publishing industry is another post entirely.

2020 is really what cemented these changes, though they were starting in the late 2010s, at least. with actual industries shutting down, there was room for indie creators making things alone in their houses to pop up, and people had more time on their hands to try new things out and get into them.

the two things that have really been on the rise since 2020 is rpf and video game fic—often both combined. we’ve got genshin impact, call of duty, minecraft of course being huge, rpf of various youtubers, and k-pop rpf. now, i think rpf is contentious enough that it won’t really become the main fandom, but video game fic…might be it.

even video blogging rpf can often be a blurred enough line that people are more comfortable with it. and the thing is…youtube creators are actually more reliable than mainstream television these days. they need to be, to maintain their platforms. they need to not cancel series and to live up to their own hype as best they can and to not abandon the channel for 3 or 4 years at a time. and again, you can talk about burnout and unrealistic expectations and all of those things, but it’s still true.

maybe i’m completely wrong. maybe in 10 years the film and publishing industries will all sort themselves out and we’ll go back to the status quo. but i think this position fandom is finding itself in is interesting, and i wouldn’t necessarily be surprised if what’s most popular (both in the specific source material sense and the medium/genre sense) is different some time down the road.

[daughterofheartshaven]

This is a rant about the 2023 Doctor Who specials. I was typing up another post about why I do like a bunch of other Who stories then got distracted so decided to make this.

I normally really try to be positive about Doctor Who. Everyone's tastes are valid, and if you like the 2023 specials I am genuinely glad that you do! I don't think these specials are objectively bad or the Death of The Show or anything like that, I just personally Do Not Like Them and have decided I want to rant about why. If you want some insight into how I think about these stories (or also don't like them and want to see someone else talk about why they didn't work for her) I hope you enjoy! But if you don't wanna read something like that, skip this and I promise I'll be nicer next post.

So I should probably start by saying that I am a Known Thirteen Defender and consider The Power of the Doctor to be my favorite episode the show has done, so it's fair to say that these three specials were probably never gonna be my favorites following that.

I also wasn't a huge fan of the Tenth Doctor on tv. He's been redeemed in my eyes by Big Finish and Titan Comics, but his tv run didn't do it for me. This means, much as I think David Tennant is a cool person (from what I know about him anyway), his return wasn't something I was exited about. I was exited to see Ncuti Gatwa as the new Doctor, so my reaction to the reveal that nope! David Tennant again! was basically anger that Gatwa was getting benched (and, yes, I know that the whole reason they did this was that Gatwa was busy and couldn't have done these specials. Still doesn't change my emotional reaction to that twist).

And finally, I cannot express in words how much I was not interested in Donna Noble returning. Don't get me wrong, I think Donna is a fantastically written character. But the reason she is so fascinating is because she is deeply relatable. She is a character who the audience is expertly designed to relate to and someone they would like. Meanwhile I, and I cannot stress this enough, am nothing like Donna Noble. I think I would like the character a lot more if I felt like she contrasted with the other Tenth Doctor companions, but she's the third modern-day earth human in a row, and I'm not interested in that archetype. So the result is I just kind of think of Donna as "that time they did Tegan again" and that's that.

All of this is to say that I doubt I would have totally loved the specials even if they'd been great. I wasn't interested in the core concepts. But even beyond that, they dropped the ball in my eyes.

So, the Star Beast.

I actually really like this episode for most of its runtime. Its an adaptation of a comic story from the 70s, and it does a great job balancing being faithful to its source material and actually being a good 2020s tv episode. I'm maybe not the hugest fan of the trial scene - the comic has a much more action-oriented way it handles the reveal - but overall, I really think this episode does a good job. I also love Shirley, and she was basically replacing Osgood. I love Osgood. Selling me on a character who was Osgood's replacement was gonna be hard, and they actually did it. Shirley is great. Rose is also great, too - like, she's not that deep or interesting, but like. I cannot emphasize enough how seeing a trans woman of color matters. And she's written well enough for the most part.

Of course then it falls apart at the end. The Doctor has to return Donna's memories and then it turns out she isn't going to die after all! Because she gave some of this energy to her daughter! And she can just give up the rest!

Okay, I am against any sort of "Donna's memories return" plotline, because Donna losing her memories is the emotional core that underruns all of her time with the Tenth Doctor and his time after her. Like, in my opinion, that one fact - that Donna loses everything she grew into while traveling with the Doctor - is the emotional underpinning of the back half of the Tenth Doctor era, so removing that makes that whole arc seem a lot cheaper and shallower in retrospect. I was expecting the midwipe thing to be undone, but I was expecting it to be an arc over all three episodes.

And all of that would apply if they had pulled this off well, but as you can probably tell, I do not think they did that. The "Rose got some of the Metacrisis" twist is decently pulled off, but the "we can let the regeneration energy go" thing... after how much grief the Tenth Doctor went through over this stuff, the concept that this would just not occur to him because he was a man (??) makes no sense to me. If there was a viable solution, he would have found it. And saying that women just intuitively get this better is super confusing and off-putting. And, for the record, I am in fact a woman.

I don't really have much to say about Wild Blue Yonder. It's basically a great example of a Meh episode for me. I don't care for it, but that's mostly because a lot of it feels like "the Doctor and Donna, back as normal for a new adventure!" and like I said above this isn't gonna be all that interesting if I don't like Donna. The actual barebones plot - the episode's structures and twists - is pretty good, but I haven't gotten a chance to like the new Doctor yet and I'm not into the companion.

And then the Giggle comes around and it has the Doctor commit mitosis out of nowhere and robs Ncuti Gatwa of having a proper post-regeneration story and doesn't even utilize the guest characters and makes Donna and Mel seem Special To The Doctor instead of the companions who I actually like who were just on the show and like I'm sorry but why did we have to leave Yaz and Ace and Tegan in the dust like that and (takes a deep breath).

Okay, let's go through all of that, but more slowly.

Much like The Star Beast, my problems with The Giggle are mostly about how it finishes. I have less good things to say about the build-up, but there's nothing all that bad. My only gripe is that for having Kate and Shirley and Mel, none of those characters feel like they had to be there - none of them do much except explain the plot to the Doctor. They don't really help resolve it. Compare The Power of the Doctor, which utilized all of its guest stars incredibly well - each of them was crucial to the narrative and the story as presented would not work without any of those characters doing the things they had done. (I guess you could argue Graham as an exception, but I feel like his setting up of the support group at the very end was more than enough to justify his presence in the narrative). This leaves Kate, Shirley, and Mel feeling underused.

And then we get to the bigeneration scene. Okay, first of all, the concept came out of nowhere. I've seen people defend it by pointing out all of the other things in the show that came out of nowhere, but, like. They had the basic lore of how regeneration worked locked down back in the 70s. Messing with that now doesn't feel like adding something new to the mythos, it feels like messing with a preexisting thing for... reasons?

And like that's the thing about the bigeneration. I just don't understand why, narratively, this makes a better story. Like I don't like the Timeless Child stuff either, but I can see how Chris Chibnall was going for new narrative opportunities. I don't see how we can return to Fourteen after this story and make an interesting narrative out of it without trampling on the point this story is trying to make: that the Doctor deserves to retire for a bit.

(Which is deeply funny if you stop to remember the amount of times the Doctor has been stuck in one time and place for some reason, but I don't need to get into that one).

I'm bothered by bigeneration mostly because of the fact that they robbed Ncuti Gatwa of a post-regeneration story. Having the Doctor recover from a regeneration and work out who they are is something I really really value and skipping over that with Gatwa is a disservice to him and his Doctor, in my mind.

The catch game also feels weird because Doctor Who is all about winning by being smart and brave and kind. Being good at catch isn't really smart or good or kind, so it being the solution feels like a cop out.

And finally, the show having the Doctor go and live with Donna stung for me, because, how many times can I say it, I don't care about Donna. However, we just left Yaz (my favorite NuWho companion), Ace (my one of my favorite classic series companions), and Tegan (who I don't love quite as much as Ace but also love very much), so the show going out of the way to claim the Doctor changed his face because he needed to find Donna to "come home" specifically feels like a slap in the face for all three of them.

I think that last bit is the reason I stay salty about the Giggle even over a year later. I acknowledge that Donna is a great companion, and I don't think I have to like her for her to be great. But to put her above three of my favorite companions like that stings.

And what really kills it for me is that I can see such a great story in this trillogy.

Like, imagine the Star Beast going as seen, except Donna actually dies when we expect her to. She saved London. She saved her daughter. But she died to do it. The Doctor, dealing badly with his grief, tries to flee in his Tardis, but Rose manages to follow him on board, demanding answers as to why her mom is now dead.

This leads straight into Wild Blue Yonder. The Doctor wants to get Rose home but they're both grieving Donna and she doesn't trust him one jot and blames him for her mother's death. The Not-Things try to play into this - driving a wedge between Rose and the Doctor, but the two manage to work together to work out what's going on and escape with their lives. In the process, they both heal a little. The Doctor accepts that Donna made her choice, and Rose accepts that the Doctor didn't kill her mother.

And then when they return to Earth in the Giggle, they are able to work together to stop the Toymaker. At the end, the Doctor is shot and actually regenerates as normal, but he's able to use his regeneration as a distraction, giving Rose the room to defeat the Toymaker. She is then able to help him get through his post-regenerative process and they leave on good terms. Rose is still grieving her mother, but she can understand why Donna chose to travel with the Doctor and she makes sure he knows he is still welcome in their house.

Like, come on. It's the same plots, basically, but it actually has an emotional arc that lasts longer than one episode, is in line with prior emotional arcs, and uses the heavily advertised trans woman of color that we all got exited for instead of benching her after the first story and gives her a good deal of depth.

(Yes I know if RTD had killed Donna off and replaced her with a trans woman of color there would have been so much bigoted backlash but I still think it would have been a better story).

Okay, I'm done now. If you have any counterarguments to this or want to add on to any of this, I do want to hear it! One thing I love about Doctor Who is that different people love it for different reasons and love different things. If you're a fan of The Giggle and read this anyway, then massive respect for making your way through all of this and I'd love to see you talk about why you loved it so much!

[goldninja91]

Sonic Movie Franchise: 2nd Trilogy Predictions

Obviously, spoilers for Sonic 3 inbound. Read at your own risk XD

All righty, everyone out? Good. Now, let's talk predictions! I'm assuming that everyone here has seen the credits scenes of Sonic 3, and I've been cooking up some ideas as to where the plotlines of future movies could go, even without Eggman as the main villain. We can't hold Jim Carrey hostage forever, after all XD

So obviously we're going to get both Amy and Metal Sonic for Sonic 4. The question is, what game plotline will they be adapting, if any at all? Well, here's my theory/pitch for what Sonic 4 could be.

Metal and Amy both debuted in Sonic CD, a game that heavily used time travel in its plot. Given the fact that Metal found Sonic in what seems to be mere days after the Eclipse Cannon crisis, it almost seems to be too fast for him to have just sprung up on his own. We know that Eggman himself was mostly just wallowing in his defeat at the hands of Super Sonic, so why would he have built a mechanical Sonic and not use him at all in 3's events? Furthermore, where did the 'lesser' Metal Sonic drones come from, and how was it that Amy found Sonic mere moments after Metal did?

My theory is that this Metal Sonic was created by some future version of Eggman, potentially from an alternate timeline, and was sent back in time to just after the events of the Eclipse Cannon. And given how experienced Amy seems to be at handling the Metal Horde, it's possible that she hails from this future as well. I mean, I know she's a massive Sonic fangirl, but it's significantly less probable for her to find him in this universe as opposed to someone like Tails.

As for Metal's role in Sonic 4... I personally hope that he ends up being the main villain. He has so much potential to be more than just Eggman's lackey, especially with his story in Sonic Heroes. I theorize that Sonic 4's story could end up being some kind of combination of both CD and Heroes, with Metal aiming to take over Eggman's position of power and copy everyone's abilities, becoming the true ultimate life form. It also seems like they could be taking inspiration from the Metallix from the Fleetway comics, which would also be incredibly cool.

This could also be a 2nd chance to use the missed opportunity that was Neo Metal Sonic, having that be the final form for Metal instead of the Metal Overlord. Although if they wanted to include it, the Metal Overlord/Metallic Madness could be some kind of metallic kaiju that Metal builds himself to fight the heroes while he stays in his Neo form.

And with that out of the way, I hope you're prepared for even wilder speculation regarding the next two movies! XD There was a vague hint about Shadow's origin in Sonic 3 when they mentioned he fell to Earth in a meteor, which looked suspiciously like a miniature Black Comet. I believe that they could be setting up some kind of Black Arms invasion for a more Shadow-centric Sonic 5. The reason I'm pushing this back to a 5th movie is because it would be incredibly difficult to mash both Metal Sonic and the Black Arms into a single Sonic 4. This is also a chance to integrate Rouge and Omega into the story as Shadow's own team, separate from Sonic's.

(Though now that I think about it, if Paramount does opt for a Shadow/Knuckles tv show, that could take its time to focus on a Black Arms storyline instead. However, this is currently in wild unbased speculation territory.)

As for the final movie in the trilogy... I'm honestly not sure. I have two vague ideas as to what the villain could be, as without Eggman as a factor (even with the possibility of an evil future version of him, somewhat similar to Eggman Nega) the options are somewhat limited. My top two picks are either Dark Gaia or Chaos as the final villain, though considering how the movies scale things I think that Chaos could be more likely, as I don't think they'd be quite bold enough to shatter Earth into 7 pieces just like that.

But both of them offer opportunities to explore more alien lore and more things revolving around the Chaos/Master Emerald as well. Another reason I say Chaos is more likely is because while Unleashed has a great story, it's mainly focused on Sonic and Chip as opposed to the more team/family-centric themes that the movies like to focus on. In that vein of thought, the defeat of Chaos with the positive energies of the Emeralds feels more in line with that family dynamic the movies tend to lean towards.

Buuuut those are just my thoughts. What do y'all think?

[fae-morrigan]

sorry, i don't know who else to rant about this to and i love the posts you make on jayjon. i recently got into the ship and am annoyed by how much of a lack of fan content there is for them especially in comparison to timber. ex) there's so much more fics for them than there is for jayjon on ao3 even though the relationships started around the same time. i haven't read much timber in the comics but are they really that much better written than jayjon? is that why? as a poc i hate to think that racism is the biggest factor on why, but i could also see it playing a big part...

Youuuuu accidentally hit on something that Jayjonners have been talking about amongst ourselves for ages.

No, they are NOT better written. I say this as someone who does enjoy timbern from time to time, timbern is actually written notably worse. Megfitz, who is their primary writer, is... well, she's not great at her job, and she often falls into certain trappings that I find.... mm. I don't want to dunk too much on her & her writing here but I Have Complaints.

The reason they're so popular compared to Jayjon is twofold:

Yeah, its 100% the racism thing. Like, white favoritism in DC fandom is already bad, its especially bad with our canon gay pairings. Jayjon get very little, Jackson/Ha'wea gets NOTHING, despite both of these ships showing up more frequently or more recently than Timbern. But also, I will say, and some People Forget but I did not: A lot of Timbern fans were more than happy to engage in fandom racism towards Jay & his fans if it made them look better. Back in the day there was a lot of "lol we're soooo much better than jayjon guys dont worry" which in retrospect is FUCKING HILARIOUS but in the moment was very frustrating. White characters who are significantly less developed than their non-white counterparts will inherently be assumed to be secretly interesting, while characters of color who genuinely are a full breakfast will have their every little thing nitpicked and be labelled as 'boring' by default. This is doubly true for a character like Jay, who's race is extremely central to who he is and how his story is read.

Its also because sadly, Bats are just more popular than GOD. Any ship that has a bat in it will inevitably do better than its non-bat counterpart, because DC and DC fandom push the batfam sooooooooo fucking hard. This is an unfortunate fact of life in the DC fandom, if youre like me and you dont care so much for bats or any of the popular batships, you are in for a terrible time and I am sorry. Hilariously, DC itself also was REALLY pushing Timbern at the time. Despite TDR not selling very well, Bernard had an adaptation in Titans, while Jay has not yet ever been adapted into a movie or TV adaptation. YET. Truly it is a matter of time, so they better not fuck it up or i'll appear in their house

But the thing is, fanon popularity does not translate into the metric DC actually cares about: Sales. TD:R did extremely poorly and was cancelled after ten issues, while pretty much every teen Jon comic has reliably stayed within the top 100. Despite being a tie-in comic utilizing several c-listers, basically a recipe for guaranteed shitty placement, Absolute Power: Super Son hit around 86 on the list, which was better than any of us expected it to do. So even if fanon content might take awhile to catch up, at the end of the day, slow and steady wins the race. Pre-order Secret Six, amen.

I will also say jayjonners tend to keep to ourselves. People are mean! Like, really mean. A lot of our fan-content tends to be hidden away in private group chats and accounts, just because we get people mocking us for.... breathing. Once you start Posting about jayjon though, one of us will usually take notice and adopt you into our little circle.

[euniexenoblade]

Mordred do you have any anime or manga recommendations you havent talked about recently?

I feel like there's a lot of anime I never talk about for one reason or another, like RN I'm writing up a whole thing about maidime (maid anime) for my anime blog and if I ever get it done then yay but it's dragging lmao

But yeah, I really liked the adaptation of Children of the Whales, the world building is insane and the animation was so spectacular for a TV anime. Really stands apart from most shows.

I really like the show Erased. Time travel and time loops aren't that uncommon but still I felt that Erased found a really neat way to tackle the topic of it. It's a real fucked up story so trigger warnings for child murder and serial killer shit, but for real spectacular show. Basically there's a serial killer and dude goes back in time to be his kid self and uses his adult knowledge to try and stop the killer.

I mention this show plenty I think but I always need to sing it's praises, Humanity Has Declined is probably in my top 15 TV shows. It's such a fun, bright take on a post apocalypse and it's so funny. If you take anything away from this post, watch this show. Whenever I try to compare it to anything, the only thing I can think of is Adventure Time, it's a bright whimsical comical telling of happenings after an apocalypse. Though plot wise it's nothing like AT so, maybe the comparison isn't the best. But essentially the protagonist is a UN representative to go between the remaining humans and the newly evolved fairies. The arcs are in reverse chronological order and its lovely tbh lol.

Time of Eve is one of the first shows I really hooked into. It got rereleased as a movie, so whatever version you find is right. But it's about a world where there's robot house keepers and shit and one day the protag follows his robot to a coffee shop where robots meet and have the ability to be free. It's very nice and I should rewatch it I haven't seen it in a long ass time.

To get that yuri rep in there, if you've never watched Maria-sama ga Miteru (Maria Watches Over Us) you gotta drop your toes in. It's four seasons but you'll know if it's for you or not right away. A girl attends an all girls Catholic school and gets caught up in the student council and the personalities in it. Imo this is the premier Class S yuri and I love this series so much.

I could go on and on honestly.

As for manga, I'd say my manga opinions are very known cuz I post all sorts of screencaps and shit as I read, but considering most of that was on my old blog.

Read Liberta. Just do it. Vampire lesbian escapism fantasy. It's awesome.

The Summer Hikaru Died is a gay horror. Basically a dude's best friend goes missing and then suddenly turns back up months later. But the dude knows it's not his friend because he saw his friend's dead body in the forest. That's not a spoiler, that's like 4 pages in. It's phenomenal.

I think I see people try to disparage it these days, but Future Diary was a really good read. Dude ends up in a weird game where his cell phone tells the future and he has to kill other people who have prophetic phones (and vice versa) so they may become a new god. But on top of this one of the players is a yandere girl obsessed with being with him. The anime adaptation is good too just be ready for them to show. Too much. Watch the TV show version and not the Blu-rays, they uncensored stuff in the Blu-ray and it's such a weird decision when you see it.

Goodbye Eri and Look Back are both one shots by the Chainsaw Man author. Both deal with losing someone dear to you at a young age and both handle it in completely different ways. Both are fantastic though.

I could go on and on and on

[mamuzzy]

I only wanted to answer in reblog but it got so long i decided to make a separate post. But it had me thinking about media consumerism and how it could affect the open-mindedness for different shows soooo...

Here is a guide to...

HOW TO GET SOMEONE TRAPPED IN THE CLONE HELL

... not entirely a guide but more like an observation.

If we want to look at the problem with the fast-paced media consumer viewpoint, I think starting with the Bad Batch it's actually not a bad idea for someone who never watched Star Wars animated media before. It's sad but cartoons, animations can repulse people to watch things because they link them to child stories, something only a child would watch, also most of the people prefer live action instead of animated stuff. Especially if the said movie/series is quite old. cont. under the cut...

There could be a reason why people are not interested in clones

If a friend, family member, boyfriend/girlfriend/whatever only saw the movies and were not interested in TCW before, had not seen it as a child on TV, they will probably have prejudice against the clones. - They weren't the main characters in the movies therefor we have not seen them interacting that much with the main cast. - But even if you don't know star wars, you will probably know the clones for Order 66, white armored assholes who murdered the jedi aka good guys. And when the movies came out, inhibitor chips weren't in the picture. ---> this observations came while watching TCW with my dad who didn't like the clones because for this exact same reason: the clones basicly serve antagonist without question in a world where rules were set: jedi are good, sith are evil. -> I don't care that it is more complex that. It is what was shown. While he enjoyed the clone-centric episodes, he still stood at his point. They killed the jedi. End of story. - People have different interests :'(((((((

THE CLONE WARS 2003

Why do I recommend this first.

You can always say it's made by the same guy who made Samurai Jack. Strategically speaking Clone Wars 2003 would be a good starting point despite not being canon anymore because TCW is adapting some of the stories shown here. It recaps well what happened between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. Also this is the first media where Asajj Ventress and Grievous were introduced, and where you can actually see Grievous in his prime, an absolutely terrifying foe who actually can mop the floor with the jedi. Lots of jedi were introduced here which later also appeared in TCW. Why is this important: Having familiarity with the characters shown in memorable scenes helps that you will recognise them later in other media. Like... Hey it's the jedi dude who stripped in the middle of a fight! Hey, aren't these the same guys who mutated an entire village out of fun who kidnapped Echo??? And so on. TIME: 25 x 5 minutes episodes full of action so it keeps up the interest, and... FORDO. 5 minutes of full clone badassery. While TCW emphasises on the theme that the clones are living, feeling human beings who can die exactly like a human, in CW2003 they are shown like really the badass super soldiers (especially the ARC Troopers) who were bred for war. How much time it takes an episode to watch is an important factor. Because someone who binge watches 10 x 1 hour long netflix series under one day without sleep, drink, eat is not a guarantee that they will be able to sit through 133 x 22 minutes episodes. The sheer numbers will scare them away, nobody has a time watch 133 episodes when you can watch like... 5 different series instead! STORY TELLING COMPARED TO TCW: CW2003 goes for mostly visual story telling instead of talking. It's suspenseful, it's scenic, it's extreme, sometimes silly (rocket-launcher clone in the elevator with zero fuck given is still my favorite) but it's guarantee that you will remember. TCW episodes are varying from episodic to two-to-four episode arcs, it has silly comic relief episodes, it has serious dark episodes, obligatory beach episode, obligatory valentine day episode, obligatory school festival episodes obligatory-just kidding lol , so the lenght of one story can be varying, so is the quality of them. So unless you have a hyperfixation, or are a completionist, or interested enough, the episodes - in psychologycal term -, won't urge you the continue. Because in one 22 minutes episode you got a complete story without cliffhanger it won't make you think, because all the questions asked in the beginning of the episode was answered at the end. It won't rush you to continue, because you know that probably the next episode will be about an entire different conflict. You can stop anytime without the feeling of "just one more episode, just one more episode". Also, it doesn't help that you know how the story will end if you saw Revenge of the Sith. The forementioned uglyness... It took me years to finish TCW. I hated when it came out back in 2009 despite loving Star Wars and CW2003 and only after a decade picked up my interest again, it still took me years to finish it anyway. Back then, I really hated how everything got quickly 3D in neglection of 2D. But can't say it's ugly because it's old, it was ugly when it came out! You really have to force yourself to accept how it looks until you are fine with it, because your eyes got used to it. Also some episodes were boring, not entertaining, I just lost interest and only came back later to continue and I even forgot what happened before. I can't remember most of the arc expect those I was interested in to rewatch it again in the last years. Yes, the quality will improve. Season 7 is beautiful. The visuals of Bad Batch is also beautiful. But between season 6 and season 7, years passed.

THE BAD BATCH

Why do I recommend TBB for someone who ain't got time for shit™:

- TBB season are 16 episodes long. It's friendlier than 133 number wise. - There are only a few main characters to follow. It's important because when there are a large cast of characters, it's easy to get confused who is who and with literal CLONES as main characters, it's hard to distinguish them from each other. I know I can distinguished them, because I'm so fixated on them that every single verbal and non-verbal gesture they make will shoot me into outer space. - The Batch uses popular character tropes, different looks, different voices and tones, so they are recognisable, therefore, you will remember them for the rest of the show. So it will be a chance that you will fall for at least one member of the batch. And then you'll be thirsting mess over one character and eventually you'll be staning all of them, and eventually you will seek out more contents,fanfics, fanarts, headcanons with them that will attract TCW characters or events as well that will lead further deep down into the clone-hell. --> You can start showing the Bad Batch arc TCW where Jesse, Kix, Rex, Cody is also present, so there are plenty of topic and characters to talk about later. Also... Who is this Echo guy, how did he end up here? You can show the Domino Squad episodes, Kamino arc, citadel arc... - This could be a double-edge sword, but TBB are shown resemblance to Delta Squad, Omega Squad and Null ARC troopers. You know Delta Squad from the Video Game, Republic Commando, while the Omegas and Nulls are the main characters of the book series with the same name by Karen Traviss. I say it's double edged, because without these fantastic characters we wouldn't have The Bad Batch, but also I can understand the fans who wanted the Deltas adapted properly instead. - In season 1, the "fillers" add to the story and the characters as well and they won't get episodic-amnesia. (they may have TCW amnesia though... yes, I look at you Echo.) - In Season 1, there is a clear conflict which shadow always lingers even if the plot of the episode does not directly touches it. - Returning characters from TCW like Rex and Gregor could make the consumer ask the questions: who are these guys and why are they important? Rex is cute, is there more episodes with him? Oh yes, my dear prey friend, there is a whole series about him. - I only say season 1 because I'm not entirely satisfied how season 2 were handled while I enjoyed the first one. My hyperfixation for TCW last year literally started with Bad Batch. The trailer was so misleadingly awesome I wanted to watch it before season 2 would come out, but I wanted to finish TCW first (finally!). Season 6 and Season 7 were basicly binge watch and it got me interested again in the previous seasons too.

STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS 2008 (movie)

Why do I recommend this before TCW - It has Fox - Because sitting through a one-night movie is still easier than watching 133 episodes while maintaining the same quality of the show. - It has Fox - It shows the story how Ahsoka is introduced as Anakin's padawan the first time and we get a glimpse of their initial relationship and dynamic. - It has Fox - Basicly two arc in one movie but the introduced characters stay the same the entire time so you have time to get to know them, recognise them, and later you can remember them. - It has Fox - It has Fox.

TALES OF THE JEDI

It has that one episodes with the clones where they train Ahsoka. Possible questions could be asked: wtf happens at the END? Where is the rest of it? You can instantly show the last arc of season 7. Which would lead to another questions: wtf are the mandalorians, why Maul is here, wtf happening with Rex during O66, why is he hesitating to shoot Ahsoka? Now you can show the Chip conspiracy ARC with Fives! This Fives is a nice guy, is there more episodes of him? Oh boy~

And if they are interested in watching TCW with you..

- Watching together as spending time together usually helps. I think discord also has a function where you can stream movies to others. - You don't have to watch it in the exact order the episodes came out - Show arcs. There are lot of clone centric arcs. I literally collected all the episodes where Echo and Fives are present. --> Dad remembered Echo the whole time and he felt sorry for him. I showed the episodes in such order that his story could be followed easely. ------------- I know. I get it. Every episode is awesome. Every character is awesome. They are. They are all blorbos. They are our blorbos.

[miirshroom]

Examining Elden Ring Voice Actors Attempt #1 (a.k.a. getting distracted by Comic, Film & TV history)

I've heard for a while that FromSoft will occasionally use the same voice actors across multiple games. And considering that this is the low-hanging fruit of making multiverse connections across games, I have put off looking into this until now. But actually what first caught my attention when browsing through the voice actor names was that Pip Torrens is credited as both White Mask Varré and Radahn. That's an interesting combo.

Also learned that Malenia's voice actor is Pippa Bennett Warner, making their battle a contest of Pip vs. Pippa on the meta level - which is very silly.

The next sections will have significant spoilers for the end of the comic/TV show Preacher.

So then I was thinking, well what does Pip Torrens sound like when he's playing a character without the slightly creaky affect given to Varré? This is the first clip that I popped on - his introduction as Herr Klaus Helmet Starr in Preacher (2017-2019) where within a span of 3 minutes his character demonstrates that he has a snark and a kind of bored confidence, and then in a test exercise almost effortlessly brutalizes a much more muscled man. By using about 3 dirty tricks to get him crawling on the ground, and then calmly and wordlessly fetching a golf club to hit the man's skull until he stops moving.

I read the Preacher comic (1995-2000), at least 15 years ago and most of what I recall is that it was. Not a pleasant time. For any of the characters. Also there was an Irish Vampire. So that all sounds par for the course for the series, and was part of the reason why my thought was "They're adapting THAT? I don't think that I need to experience that story again..." when it was announced several years ago. But what really stunned me was when 1 minute into the clip the testing montage started up to the background music of Blood on the Risers. A song that I specifically called out and connected to Varré in a previous post. So I decided to dig deeper.

The second thing that stood out to me was that the Dungeater face data shows him as having a scar and blind eye on his left side eye which is very similar to "Herr Starr" in the way that he is styled for the TV show and comic source material. Usually this would not be seen by the player - although he is a rare case where you can see inside his helmet if getting close enough.

As a side note for the actual voice actor for the Dungeater - Jim Johnson - his acting resume is fairly sparse in comparison with Pip Torrens. One of his very few named character roles is from 2020 where he played a gold counterfeiter in an Assassins Creed: Gold audiodrama.

But then I read the full biography for Herr Starr in the comic and refreshed my memory on several other details:

"Herr Starr was a soldier of the Wehrmacht [the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945], a man totally devoted to law, order, and duty. This drew the attention of secret organization The Grail, and Starr was brought in after being convinced that The Grail was the best way to fight the evils of the world. Starr quickly rose to power and became the Sacred Executioner, but Starr had plans to become even more powerful at The Grail's highest position, Allfather." - DC Fandom

His main contribution to the plot is as a villain and leader of this Grail organization built around protecting the divine lineage of Jesus Christ, of which the modern day representative has severe cognitive problems because of all the centuries of inbreeding. So Starr tries (and fails) to get the main character Jesse to swap in and masquerade as the true descendant of Christ in their apocalypse cult because Jesse's whole deal is that he is possessed by Genesis, an offspring of an angel and devil who is more powerful than God Almighty (Preacher is generally a story with the plot of find God who had abandoned His Creation. Spoilers: God dies at the end). Being possessed by Genesis gives Jesse the power to command anyone to do anything - as long as they also speak English - though he really doesn't abuse it as much as one might think (in the comic anyways, idk what they did in the show). Mostly he wants to figure out how to free Genesis. Herr Star changes tune real quick from the esoteric goals of the Grail organization to burning all of its resources on a pithy personal vendetta against Jesse.

And the comic sure went with the approach that it's fair game to physically and psychologically torture ex-Nazis! This man is bald because his hair fell out a long time ago from stress (the eye injury was actually from a traumatizing childhood incident), and then through the course of the comic his head has a scar carved down in from front to back that makes it look like a dick (thus why he was trying on wigs in the above screenshot), and he has an ear ripped off, and a lower leg eaten by cannibals, and much much worse. And while the TV show was not aiming to be a perfectly accurate adaptation from what I've seen discussion about they did show the much much worse.

One last note about Preacher is that I appreciate these panels of the Saint of Killers shooting God Almighty in the face and then taking a nap in the big chair.

Anyways, the career of Pip Torrens ranges from 1984 to the present and is quite varied with many roles of short duration. Several selections below, which is almost entirely an excuse to make a list of the British crime procedurals and historical dramas that I think look interesting:

1992/1995 he played archeologist Howard Carter in "The Young Indiana Jones Adventures"

1993 in "The Remains of the Day" as a doctor who has a brief interaction with Anthony Hopkins' character at a gas pump. This is a movie I learned about on a podcast in which Anthony Hopkins's character reminisces about his days as butler to a (fictional) Lord Darlington whose reputation was in ruin post-WWII due to having Nazi sympathies before the war.

1997 he had a role also coincidentally named "Carter" in an episode of the delightfully named "Crime Traveller" (solving crimes by travelling back in time!) on an episode called "A Death in the Family", as role as a Major Lawrence Brownham in a show called "Soldier Soldier" about the daily lives of soldiers on peacekeeping missions, and as a character named Robert Ferguson on a short-lived show called "Bodyguards" about a protection unit for the British Government.

2002 he played Charles Darwin in a TV film named "Darwin's Daughter" and also surgeon James McIIroy in the TV film "Shackleton" about the 1914-1916 Trans Antarctic Expedition

2003 as a cardiologist in a film called "Where the Heart is" and had a role in episode "The Sewer King" from show "Seven Wonders of the Industrial World"

2004 (and 2008) he played single episode characters in British crime drama "Wire in the Blood" which is about a clinical psychologist who gets inside the heads of serial killers to track them down before they strike again.

2005 as Lucius Tillius Cimber (one of the assassins of Julius Caesar) in "Rome", and in the same year as former chief of MI6 John Scarlett in a TV film called "The Government Inspector". And also playwright Noël Coward in a TV drama called "Ian Flemming: Bondmaker"

2006 as Olympius, minister of the Western Roman Empire in "The Fall of Rome" episode of "Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire", and as Judge Mervyn Griffith-Jones in "The Chatterley Affair" a fictionalized version of the obscenity trial of D.H. Lawrence over a book called "Lady Chatterley's Lover".

2007 he played a character in two episodes of British police procedural cold-case unit show "Waking the Dead" in a 2-part episode in which a Nazi dagger found in a wall is traced to the murder of a young girl in 1945 which "reveals some of the horrors of WWII and the Nazi medical experiments"

2009 he had a role in "St Trinian's 2: the Legend of Fritton's Gold" (a British serial comedy that I once saw somebody speculate about regarding Millicent), and played as valet to Dorian Gray in the 2009 film "Dorian Gray" based on the Oscar Wilde story.

2010 and 2016 he had a role in British crime drama "Midsomer Murders" (although a lot of Elden Ring VA's have been on that one, and he was also in a couple of Dr. Who episodes but probably so have a lot of British actors)

2011 a role as an army Major in "War Horse" and a role as an army Major in a TV serial called "The Promise" directed by Peter Kosminsky (also directed "The Government Inspector") which is a period drama depicting the experience of the British soldiers who served in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 1948. Also in 2011 as British art historian, museum director and broadcaster Sir Kenneth Clark in a movie called "My Week with Marilyn" (biographical drama about Marilyn Monroe)

2012 as Thomas de Mowbray (son of Thomas de Mowbray) who raised a rebellion and subsequently was beheaded for his actions in Shakespeare's Henry IV Part 2 which was adapted in "The Hollow Crown". The wrong Thomas de Mowbray was linked on Wikipedia (the elder, who dueled Henry Bolingbroke and was exiled to Venice and died there in events covered in Richard II) but I fixed it because this is one of the few shows on here that I have seen before.

Also in 2012 as the chauffer in a film called "The Scapegoat" which has a pretty fantastic premise (a twist on a classic novel of the same name from 1957). A failed businessman meets his doppelgänger who is a recently-fired teacher, and essentially tricks the teacher into swapping identities. Turns out the doppelgänger actually does a pretty good job of turning around the fortunes of the glass factory, and getting along well with the businessman's estranged wife and daughter and other family members. When things start looking up the original tries to murder the teacher who he had tricked into swapping places but in the ensuing struggle he is killed instead. And then then the doppelgänger is convinced to stay by the caretaker of the original businessman's mother who had figured out he was a different person, so he's just like "I guess this is my life now!" and stays with this new family.

2013 as Reverend Kenneth Barnes in a TV mystery thriller called "The Lady Vanishes"

2015 in "The Heavy Water War" as Colonel John Skinner Wilson, who trained ten operatives to parachute into Norway, evade capture, scale an ice-bound cliff, and sabotage an apparatus in the Norsk Hydro plant that was producing heavy water (deuterium oxide) used in Nazi nuclear research

Also in 2015 in the role of a character named Lawrence in three episodes of "Up the Women" which was a sitcom about the Women's suffrage movement in 1910.

And in 2015 in the role of a Dr Hexler in "The Danish Girl", which was a movie that starred Eddie Redmayne in the role of transgender woman Lili Elbe. 2015 again for the role of a Colonel Kaplan, member of the First Order military in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens".

In 2015-2017 as main cast member The Duke of Cassel in "Versailles", a historical drama set during the construction of Versailles during the reign of King Louis the XIV

In 2015-2019 in "Poldark" as Cary Warleggan - a banker and uncle to one of the focus characters in an adaptation of a historical drama novel series set in post-American Revolutionary War Britain

2016 as characters in adaptations of "War & Peace" and "Hetty Feather"

2016-2019 in "The Crown" as Sir Alan "Tommy" Lascelles who was Private Secretary to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II and Keeper of the Royal Archives from 1943 to 1953.

Characters in a thriller called "Deep State" in 2018-2019 and another thriller called "Roadkill" in 2020. Actually in a rare crossover of careers Pippa Bennett Warner also stars in "Roadkill".

And the last one that I want to note chronologically is "Des" in 2020 starring David Tennant as serial killer Dennis Nilsen, where Pip Torrens plays trial defence counsel Ivan Lawrence in one episode.

[batsyheere]

Hello..If you don't mind me asking, can I ask, what are your top 7 (or top 10) favorite media (can be books/ manga/ anime/movies/tv series/etc) and your top 10 favorite (fictional) characters from any media? Why do you love them all? Sorry if you've answered this questions before......

Oh, that's a fun question because it's constantly in flux. I get a hyperfixation binge and usually bounce around whatever I like because otherwise I get bored. But there are quite a few I go back to, and I always have a favorite character whether I like the media or not. So.

Top ten media? This is definitely not in order and I might ramble-

Danny Phantom

I come back to this one a little too often because of how the fandom has managed to make it so much more than the show- I love lore and worldbuilding and the way people have built off this show is fascinating to observe.

The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation // The Untamed

This is another I return to a lot. It's a story of how everything goes wrong, and while there is a villain at the end, ultimately the blame is on the collective characters. It's also neat to see so many adaptations of the original material. I also like to remember that I had no idea this was a novel about guys pining after each other because I was just looking for something interesting to read and it got recommended by a friend. Who said nothing. And then mentioned I was equally as dense as some characters.

Homestuck

This one will always have a place in my heart for being incredibly weird and weirdly influential. Despite the fact I haven't read it again in years, I recall so much about it and enjoy engaging with my fellows- I volunteered at a con once and saw the most gorgeous Karkat cosplayer, we had a nice conversation while I tried to get the system to read their ticket. The community of this fandom is a nice thing, especially since at least once or twice a year we can see who is still in the world.

Percy Jackson

Where most people get into mythology thanks to Rick Riordan, Greek mythology got me into Percy Jackson. Modern day interpretations of myths are so intriguing, even if some interpretations could be argued with. It's also funny that I got my first Percy Jackson book at a summer camp. (It is not a surprise that I now have an EPIC the Musical fixation.)

Lord of the Rings // The Hobbit

I'm a huge classic fantasy nerd and this was a way I bonded with my grandfather over the years before he passed. It's influenced a lot of how I interpret other takes on fantasy and sets such a high bar. I also like that it's an encouragement of hope and faith in the little things of life that make it worth the fight. I wrote a lot of high-school papers on Tolkien.

Batman / DC Comics

While I do love comics, I do have a returning fancy in the Gotham Knights and their allies. Especially since in a world filled with corruption, an unjust system and too many broken pasts, it shows a person can make something of themselves to help others rather than just hurt. And that it is never too late to turn onto a better path. Also, just like LOTR, I wrote a couple of papers on Batman in college.

Star Wars

I grew up on Star Wars. Even with this weird output to the franchise Disney is trying to put out, I feel there are parts of it that are great to come back to. If I had to pick specifics I would mention the Mandalorian, but I favor the era around the prequel trilogy- both before and after.

Critical Role / Dimension 20 / TAZ

If I could just say DND I would but I had to list the top three for me. As I mentioned before I'm a hug fan of worldbuilding and lore. I also really like complex characters who are neither good nor evil, just trying to go about their lives. Found family is also one of my favorite tropes, and these three pull that off effortlessly.

Howl's Moving Castle

Both the book and movie are fantastic, I enjoyed both forms of this story in a way that I only ever enjoyed the vast differences between the How To Train Your Dragon movies and books. I like how it's a good example of adapting a book without being entirely off-putting.

Arcane

Just barely making this list because the second season just came out. But honestly? Arcane is so good. It takes such an artistic approach to its animation and gives vibrancy to its characters you don't typically see outside video games or movies. The story writing and dialogue are excellent- I could rant all day about it.

And now, Top Ten Characters from media...

Shang Qinghua from SVSSS

So many reasons. Top three? Such an unreliable narrator, understandably a sell out and holds a better romance than the technically main character of the novel.

Obi-Wan Kenobi from Star Wars

He's on the sidelines of a lot of the main story as a mentor, brother, friend- despite being one of the most tragic characters in the entire timeline.

Stiles Stilinski from Teen Wolf

My friend dragged me into watching the show because she didn't want to watch alone and he was the most redeeming quality of it. The sarcasm, the wit, the untapped potential.

Dick Grayson // Nightwing from DC Comics

A complex character with an even more complex series of issues in his life that never let him have a moment to breath half the time. He has so much repressed rage it's funny he's considered the happy one.

Kim Dokja from Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint

This one is basically me being way to empathetic with a character and another reason for therapy. He needs a hug.

Aizawa Shouta from My Hero Academia

As weird and "way too much" the fandom can be, Aizawa is worth it. Crazy and a mentor figure.

Taako from The Adventure Zone

Again, love complex characters. I also like convoluted pasts and people with intimacy issues who are also huge flirts.

Fai Fluorite from Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles

This poor guy was my first "wow what a character" for way too many reasons to list. Probably the crippled sense of self worth.

Ruby Rose from RWBY

She has such a good character set up and had such a strong sense of self. That plot did NOT help, but she's coming out stronger for it.

Yor Forger from Spy X Family

This one is purely because I love pure of heart dumbasses with too much badass and not enough sense.

As much as I like certain pieces of media a lot it's not a guarantee that I like the characters, and vice versa. Anyway, thanks for letting me ramble! This is what is currently on my mind when it comes to immediate favorites, though I definitely love far too many pieces of media- a lot of anime, and a lot of fantasy.

[avidbeader]

Okay, I am two episodes into "Dead Boy Detectives" and I am loving it. It's blending its own mythos into the Sandman-verse nicely. it's got lovely banter and conversation that doesn't tip over into I'm-Joss-Whedon-and-I'm-so-clever territory. Everyone in the main cast is brilliant in their role.

Some potentially spoilerish thoughts below for both the "Sandman" comics and "Dead Boy Detectives", along with a dash of salt.

I think I'll finish watching the season first, but I am definitely curious about reading the original comics and seeing whether the developing slow-burn between Edwin and Charles was ever a thing when the characters died at 12 years old vs. 18. There's one scene in the comics that shows that boarding-school students were screwing each other frequently, so canon-in-comics Edwin was obviously aware that queerness is a thing. And I'm guessing TV Edwin probably knows the theory as well, but never considered it for himself, with being stuck in hell for so long and then focusing on avoiding Death and finding purpose with the agency. But as we've seen with "Sandman" and "Good Omens", Gaiman and the people he chooses to work with him are very deft in adapting the comics to television, hanging onto the core elements without clinging to them. At first I was rolling my eyes a bit at the massive popularity of shipping Dream with Hob Gadling on the strength of one episode, knowing that Gadling-in-comics is only shown in romantic relationships with women. But after seeing the directions they've gone in with "Dead Boy Detectives", maybe they will do something with that...even though it will still end with Dream dying. And a bit of salt that occurred to me: I have no idea if the antis have discovered DBD yet and await their mental gymnastics over their pet fake grievance of ages - do they count as two 18-year-olds because of when they died? Or is Edwin perceived as decades older than Charles because he's existed longer in death? Is that the makings of a dreaded power imbalance? And do they even take into account that the original comics characters died at 12? Will they consider Edwin a pedophile in the case of Esther's crow, given he is only days old as a human? And the answer is no, of course they won't, because they always try to pick what they think will be canon and slander all other options with lies and deliberate misreadings like the hypocrites they are. Anyway, salt over and I'll watch more tomorrow.

[tyrantisterror]

If you were ever given the keys to directing or writing a Spider-Man story (or write a Spider-Man fanfic), how would you handle each of Spider-Man’s villains? I’d love to see a more heroic take on The Lizard!

I'm afraid I don't really have a clever take for Spider-Man - I'd probably end up just doing a fairly predictable rehash of the 60's comics, with a dash of some of the newer characters thrown in, like a less good version of Spectacular Spiderman (the cartoon, not the various comic runs of the same name).

Like, I wouldn't change anything about Green Goblin, he's perfect as is. I wouldn't change Sandman or Electro or Rhino from their OG 616 takes, I like them as goons with varying degrees of humanity between them. I'd probably have the most fun with Mysterio by way of doing a lot of Occult and B-Movie homages for Spider-Man to scooby doo his way through. Dr. Octopus would take a lot from Alfred Molina's portrayal because it's my favorite of all of them.

It'd be very unpopular, but I would not portray Kraven as an "honorably hunter," but a vainglorious braggart in the vein of those survivalist reality TV show stars that were so popular a decade ago - with the dated-ness of that being part of his motivation to do something bold to get back into the spotlight.

Lizard would just be a bestial animal in lizard mode rather than an Inherently Evil Reptile Man, and not even a particularly aggressive or vicious animal at that - more a hazard because he's large and scared than predatory.

I would buck the current tradition and portray the symbiote as not necessarily evil/corruptive, with its breakup with Peter being a result of poor communication and Peter being freaked out at how closely he's bonding with an alien parasite than a result of the symbiote turning him malicious. That's how it was originally portrayed, and I like the idea that the symbiote is (initially) a neutral figure and only becomes a threat because of a bad breakup, with Eddie, its second host, being the one who brings genuine hostility into it.

I would make Carnage very silly and hammy while still being destructive - like Johnny the Homicidal Maniac but with goo monster powers.

Kingpin and the Enforcers can continue to be elaborately themed Mafia supervillains, there's nothing that needs to change there.

I wouldn't do Black Cat because she's literally just a Catwoman ripoff and I'd rather focus on rehabilitating Mary Jane when it comes to Peter's love interests.

Spot would be done ala the Spider-Verse films because it's a great take on him and let's be honest, no one's going to un-see that version of him when he's brought up.

MCU Vulture being a scavenger of superhero tech was a cool take that gives his names more meaning than "is a bald guy with robot wings," so I'd go ahead an adapt that too.

And there's dozens more but I think at this point you've got the jist, none of it's very interesting. I'm not exactly a fanfic writer, most of my creativity is funneled to my own stories these days, and has been for a while now.

[wanderingmind867]

These are some of my ideas for a possible season five of the Batman (1966) tv series. I already shared my post with ideas for season four of the tv show. So now i felt it's only fair to try and share all the stuff i had written down here. I think I really took inspiration from some post online where I read about how the League of Assassins was nearly in the Batman '66 comic book. And so that led to me taking Batman in the direction of some sort of spy adventure series for a while. I did manage to work in Man Bat though, so that's a positive for me.

Season 5: Season Five is almost all about Batman on his own. Robin and Batgirl make cameos occasionally, but Batman is now the leading star. Since Madge Blake would definitely be dead by Season 5, I'd have Aunt Harriet be written out too, and I'd replace her with Leslie Thompkins. I know this would all be a comic or animated show if adapted now, but I still want to have some small amount of realism.

This season would be split into two halves, just like the last season. Part One involves the first 30-40 episodes, and it focuses on the League of Assassins. It takes Batman all across the globe, playing the role of international man of mystery. And Part Two (which involves the last 30 or so episodes) focuses more on Batman back in Gotham. The show would get a bit more back to its lighthearted roots, but there'd still be elements of deep drama to the storytelling.

Episodes 1 and 2: Batman (now dealing with the loss of Robin, who left for University) ends up having to face off against The Riddler all alone. In a parallel to how season one of show opened with a dramatic episode involving The Riddler, this episode would reuse that theming to try and show the new direction the show would be taking.

Episodes 3 and 4: Batman deals with The Archer, an old villian who tried to act like a modern day Robin Hood. Now he's gotten even more blatant with his thefts, and he tries to rob Wayne Manor of all it's valuables (since he learned the Manor had less occupants since Dick Grayson and his Aunt left). Batman still manages to stop him, but The Archer really puts up a strong challenge.

Episode 5: Shortly after dealing with The Riddler and The Archer, Batman ends up running into Man Bat for the very first time. It's very much a one for one retelling of Man Bat's first comic story, including the fact that Man Bat escapes Batman's clutches at the very last moment.

Episodes 6 and 7: Batman runs into The Penguin and Egghead, both of whom are competing to steal different rare bird and/or egg themed objects. Batman goes out on the hunt for both of them, and he does eventually manage to capture them. But batman never even realized that these villians had more to their rivalry than just wanting the same objects. No, they were competing for the rights to join the League of Assassins, a prestigious criminal guild looking to expand it's tendrils into Gotham. Lola Lasagne was the one who came to them with the proposal, and she was using them as pawns in the league's schemes. Since she escaped punishment here, she'll be back to menace Batman some other time.

Episode 8: Batman encounters Man Bat again, and this time finally managed to subdue him. But is this really the end of the Man Bat story? Not quite, as there's one more part. But we won't get to see that part until after one more story, sad to say.

Episodes 9, 10 and 11: Batman runs into The Scarecrow, who's looking to break into a science lab to expand the power range of his fear toxin. Batman is too late to stop him, as The Scarecrow successfully tests the fear toxin on him. That's why this is a three parter, by the way. It's because part two is just one long flashback, finally introducing us to all the core events in Bruce Wayne's past. Losing his parents, being raised by his Uncle Phillip, deciding to become batman, etc. But in the end, Batman still manages to defeat Scarecrow.

Episode 12: The conclusion to the long Man Bat saga, wherein Batman has to cure both Kirk Langstrom and his wife Francine of their Bat transformations and mental afflictions. By crashing their wedding, Batman successfully manages to get to them in time to save them from themselves.

Episodes 13 and 14: The Cluemaster and Marsha, Queen of Diamonds team up to commit a series of deadly crimes involving magic and puzzling clues. Batman is almost defeated and killed by this mad team, but he eventually manages to capture them. And once he has them in custody, he learns that they were brought together by the League of Assassins, who had many agents and allies in the Gotham area. Marsha and Cluemaster refuse to rat on their allies, besides giving Batman a clue to investigate in London.

Episode 15: Batman takes off on an cruise to London, little dreaming that Catwoman (Julie Newmar) is also on the boat, planning to hold it for ransom. Her and Batman end up getting in a scuffle over it, but by the time their fight is over, the boat has been utterly ruined. So Batman sends her to jail, and then prepares to take a flight to London instead of a cruise.

Episode 16: With Batman leaving for London, someone has to guard Gotham. So Robin and Batgirl return to Gotham to guard it while Batman is away. While in Gotham, they end up having to deal with both The Joker and The Bookworm, who are competing to steal a rare copy of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, which has recently been acquired by a famous antiquarian living in Gotham.

Episodes 17 and 18: Arriving in London, Batman ends up fighting off against some old enemies of his: Lord Marmaduke Ffogg and Lady Penelope Peasoup. It turns out that they're the ones responsible for testing Cluemaster and Marsha to see if they were worthy to join the League. But before Batman can get to them, they distract him by sending The Puzzler (yet another of the league's operatives) to bait him into a trap.

The Puzzler leads Batman to a castle near Loch Ness, where him and another of the league's operatives, the young socialite known as Lady Ophelia Keswick bait Batman into a trap involving illusions and drugged food. Batman manages to escape from their trap in the castle dungeons, but he's too late to capture Lord Ffogg and Lady Peasoup. They escaped. But at least Batman can take The Puzzler and Lady Keswick to Scotland Yard. Then it's back to the United States, where Batman has to await news of the League's activities.

Episodes 19 and 20: Batman returns to Gotham City, only to find it's now been taken over by the combined forces of Nora Clavicle, Poison Ivy and The Siren. Turns out Nora Clavicle was an agent of the League too, and now she's planning an extra special trap for Batman and his allies. Locking him in jail and manipulating most of the city's women, it ends up falling on Batgirl and Batwoman's soldiers to save the day and rescue Gotham from the evils of these three villainesses.

Episodes 21 and 22: Robin comes to visit Batman (since he's gotten a two week break from university), and he shows up just in time to help Batman defeat Two Face and his newest scheme to cleave gotham in two (so everything is going to be deformed, like him).

Episode 23 and 24: Lola Lasagne is back, and this time she's gotten Catman to do her will. She's persuaded him that killing Batman would be the perfect way for him to get into the League of Assassins, and the League would be glad to let him continue his illicit big game hunting. So Catman gets involved, and ends up going after Batman, Robin and Catwoman. This is when Batman finally tells Robin about The League of Assassins. After this adventure, Robin goes back to University, leaving Batman alone once again in Gotham.

Episode 25: Batman and Man-Bat end up teaming up to defeat the Getaway Genius (who's broken off from Killer Moth since we last saw him). Only through their combined skills do Batman and Man-Bat manage to bring this crook to justice.

Episodes 26 and 27: Batman has finally found an informant willing to reveal the whereabouts of Lord Marmaduke Ffogg and Lady Penelope Peasoup to him, but just as he gets the info his informant is killed. Now Batman has to stop the last, seemingly desperate scheme of the League of Assassins: Sending Deadshot (one of the world's best hired assassins) out to challenge him. But Batman still defeats him, and then he heads off for Europe to find Lord Ffogg.

Episodes 28, 29 and 30: Batman heads to a small country nestled in the Balkans, where he finally manages to confront Lord Ffogg and Lady Peasoup. But before he can defeat them, they reveal their new ally in the form of Doctor Cassandra Spellcraft and her husband, Cabala. Yes, these two old foes of Batman were also members of the League of Assassins, and Batman has walked right into their trap!

Now trapped in a dungeon, unmasked and at the league's mercy, Batman ends up meeting Talia al Ghul (played by Sophia Loren), daughter of Ra's al Ghul, the head of The League. Teaming up with her, the two of them successfully manage to escape from the dungeon and confront our four antagonists. But in the middle of the scuffle, Lord Ffogg attacks Talia with a blade. And in retaliation, Talia shoots Lord Ffogg in cold blood.

After Batman comforts her for a little while, Talia leaves without a word. She leaves Batman to report Lord Ffogg's death, and to get the other three criminals to jail safely. But now that Batman has made himself known to the highest echelons of this secret society, it's only a matter of time before their leader comes looking for him…

[etaleah]

My Sonic Predictions and Hopes for 2024

Admittedly some of these are things I want to see happen rather than things that are likely to happen, but what the heck, I’ll list ‘em out and see if any of them end up coming true. 🤷🏻‍♀️

A one-shot for the comics involving either springtime or Valentine’s Day. I think spring is more likely since (1) they’re avoiding romance and Valentine’s Day is a romantic holiday, and (2) having a springtime one-shot nicely follows the trend of having Endless Summer and Winter Special one-shots.

I’m pretty pessimistic about the third movie still happening in 2024 given how stubborn the studios are being about the strikes, so I’m guessing the release date will be pushed back to 2025. However, I do think 2024 will bring us a trailer/teaser with some news about casting and whether any new characters besides Shadow will feature.

Part 3 of Sonic Prime, which will likely involve something bad happening to Shadow for reasons explained here. PLEASE LET THIS ONE BE TRUE I NEED PART 3 NOW

A DLC, update, or some kind of “Plus” pack for Sonic Superstars since that seems to be the trend now.

I doubt we’ll see much more for Frontiers since it won’t really be a new game anymore and will have already had a big update. Maybe a few minor tweaks like a new outfit or pair of shoes.

A new Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games title since 2024 will have the Paris Olympics.

More Sonic Symphony tour dates, one of them probably being New York since that’s a really big city for them to leave out.

More merchandise, possibly featuring Shadow to tie in with the third movie.

The Knuckles TV show released on DVD (hopefully).

The comics will take a darker turn again. They seem to alternate between dark, serious arcs and fun, light-hearted arcs. Right now, they’re on Misadventures, which is fun and light-hearted, so I suspect that at some point in 2024, things will turn serious again.

I also suspect that Starline might be revealed to have survived after all, but that could just be wishful thinking on my part since I like his character and was sad to see such a cool villain go so quickly.

Another visual novel or some kind of storybook thing that builds on the success of Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog. No way is something that successful gonna be a one-time deal.

A remaster or re-release/port of an older game. The titles I think are most likely are Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Heroes, and Sonic and the Black Knight. Adventure 2 would tie nicely into the release of the third movie (especially if they’re adapting its storyline) and they clearly know how popular it is since they released a new figure for it and put City Escape in one of their other games. Heroes is possible since it’s 20+ years old, had some songs included in Frontiers, and the franchise as a whole seems to be leaning toward having more playable characters and team/partner-based play. Murder and Superstars lean into this hard, Origins added Amy, and Frontiers will soon have other playable characters too, so I think they’re testing the waters for a game with an ensemble cast. The launch of the Fast Friends comic series on their socials also shows a lean in this direction. Black Knight is possible since 2024 would be the game’s 15th anniversary, the storybook setup was well received in Murder, and they seem to be calling attention to it by putting its characters in their mobile games.

Again, these are just guesses and I could be wrong about all of them. We shall see… 👀