#but that's more of a general interest in ALL of pox's backstory and not a specific weird section in her life like the esports/plane crash

[themynock]

on the subject of characters' pasts though, I am always thinking about dak's little hatchet-by-gary-paulsen adventure before he found the sasquatches

[clonerightsenthusiast]

26

Okay I actually am going to ramble about “26″ now because I reached Rear View again and I’ve been thinking about it for. a while. It’s just so interesting to me on multiple levels.

So, on the surface, entirely-within-the-story level, it carries certain implications. Yes, it took me a week to make the connection between “Z” and the number 26. In my defense, Blackout came out during that week and I was preoccupied being worried about Pox. But in retrospect it seems... too obvious to be coincidental. Especially when you factor in that Z gets his name from the scar over his drone. Now a scar being z-shaped isn’t exactly outside the realm of reasonable scars to just like, acquire. Especially with allowances made for the rule of cool and whatnot, it’s an easy thing to just accept. But Zenith having both the association with the Z symbol and the number 26 throws things in a new light. Now it feels like part of a sequence. Which means there are other parts of that sequence. Other parts that I want to learn more about.

But the whole thing is also really interesting to me on a meta-level, because of how we got this information. The system at the Sons of Adam didn’t tell Zenith his order number; he said the first number that came to his head. Which meant Blair came up with it. Which raises a lot more interesting questions that relate to collaborative improvised storytelling! For example, how much does Blair know about Zenith’s backstory? Is this something that he and Gannon worked out together? If you work off the assumption that it isn’t, and he’s learning alongside Z (or at least learning details, I’d be more willing to believe he was in on the sort of general outline of like, the supersoldier thing) -- which I think is a fair assumption, it makes this, and anything that comes out of it, a really interesting question of like... intent. By picking the number 26, was Blair purposely making the connection between the scar and the number? Let’s assume that it turns out Zenith IS part of some sort of particular sequence of super-soldiers designated by the alphabet. If Blair had picked some other random number, would it still have happened that way? Would Gannon adjust whatever story he had in mind for Z because of a detail like this?

I cannot stress how incredibly hypothetical this all is, because obviously we still know pretty much nothing about Legacy of Adam and whatever project Z was part of. It could very well turn out that Zenith being number 26 is entirely coincidental, or just, like, a joke that I am taking way too seriously. I am not at all discounting that possibility. It’s probably the reality, even. I just think it’s really fun to consider a potential future where we meet some bitch with a K on their face that makes Zenith dissociate for like ten minutes. And also to extrapolate the meta-process behind that hypothetical future.

[fallen-gabrielle]

I spent my whole afternoon, evening and a part of my night to make this comic. I was thinking about my headcanon on how Nigel and Abby met, and next thing I knew I was on my tablet drawing this thing ^.

I don’t like drawing : hands, glasses, perspectives, backgrounds and furniture. And I am way to lazy to lineart this thing, so HERE HAVE SOME GLORIOUS UGLY SKETCHES !

First things first : I am pretty much neutral about Numbuh 100, it’s not really a character I’m used to think about. I still wanted him to be some kind of big brother to Numbuh 5 in this moment. Sorry if I didn’t portray him in a good way.

Some expositions : Abby joined the KND to be with her sister, because she looked so cool. Even if Abby swore to protect all kids no matter what, it was merely just a generic thing to say when she graduated [from her point of view]. She took it lightly. After Numbuh 9 left Sector V to search the source of the chicken pox, Numbuh 11 was “promoted” to the ultra secret spy branch of the KND and gave Numbuh 5 the job of sector leader. She was really proud to be the successor of her sister.

But as we all know, somehow, somewhat, the Delightful Children kidnapped Nigel for some reasons and Numbuh 5 didn’t help him for some reasons too. She didn’t really care about it until the mansion started to show weird electricity from the inside. With Numbuh 8a and 8b, Numbuh 5 decides to investigate and discover the kid from earlier attached to [whatever i was thinking, it’s late, my brain can’t think straight]. She delivers him and takes him to the KND Hospital on the Moonbase.

Whatever they did [because I don’t really know what to think about it], it has a side effect causing Nigel’s baldness. It has a huge impact on his psyche and when Numbuh 5 realised how hurt he was, she understood the true meaning of being a Kids Next Door operative. But it came with a price....

She wants to apologise, but doesn’t know how to handle it. That’s when Numbuh 100 tries to help Numbuh 5. And then, well, the comic is up there.

After that, Abby tries to comfort Nigel with stories of the Kids Next Door, and he got so interested she help him entering the KND. There is more I want to tell, but it will be a follow up to another story and right now I think this is enough.

Have some angst, guilt, and hearthwarming moments between Nigel and Abby.

It’s not perfect, but I am glad of the result. Maybe I’ll finish this one day. One day.

I was listening to my most depressing/sad songs I have on my computer to stay in the mood to draw.

So this is my headcanon on how Nigel meets Abby. This is the backstory I use in my fanfictions [when i’ll write them, one day].

Bonus :

[frasier-crane-style]

Tomb Raider (2018)

Spoilers.

This is probably the weirdest adaptation I’ve ever watched. It’s not that I’m overly fond of the 2013 game, which struck me as wrong-headed and cack-handed, a bunch of generic “grim and gritty” clichés paired with “origin story” tropes, but there was at least a baseline competence. TR18 adapts maybe fifty percent of that plot—albeit in a much less economical, yet also less complicated way that still manages to offer less spectacle—and then…

Well, that would be telling.

Okay, so we start off with what feels like a ton of backstory. The video game started with everyone already on the Endurance, the player was quickly brought up to speed on what they were doing, and then the shipwreck happened and we’re off to the races.

The movie spends thirty minutes or so on Lara being a hip young millennial with attractive multiethnic friends (hi Dutch from Killjoys!) who never show up again. They’ve apparently decided that Lara being a millionaire heiress is unrelatable, so now she’s a penniless delivery girl, all because she refuses to sign a document stating that her father was dead.

I had no idea that declaring someone dead was entirely up to a relative of theirs. Wouldn’t, I don’t know, the cops or some other authority do that?

You’re really telling me the financial situation is set up so Lara doesn’t get one red cent unless her dad’s declared dead? And it’s not a case of her being frozen out, since she was raised by apparently a high-ranking executive in the company. You’d think there would be a huge trust fund, or that she’d have stock in the company, or even that she’d get some do-nothing position there, since it really seems like bad publicity for the person your company is named after to be basically living on the streets.

Isn’t she still just a slumming rich girl? It’s been seven years. She could be responsibly using all that money to run charities and such, or at least spring for her friends’ groceries, but instead she pleads poverty to actual poor people, when she isn’t cheating them at bets (yeah, I consider her concealing her paint trail in the biking game to be against the spirit of the competition, and thus cheating. Also, why is there a bike race in a Tomb Raider movie?)

But still, so far so good. It’s providing backstory to the basic plot of the TR13 story, it’s taking elements that Rise of the Tomb Raider retconned in and inserting them here from the very beginning—although oddly they take Anna, who in the game was basically a surrogate mother to her, and here make her this bitch Lara seems to outright resent, which makes her betrayal… pointless?

Oh, and for some reason (padding), we’ll effectively get shown the same scene twice. Like, at the very beginning of the movie, we hear about this legend that the plot will revolve around. Makes sense, right? Then, not fifteen minutes later, Lara hears the exact same narration with a few added details. Why? Did they think we forgot?

We also get the standard scene where Lara is sitting on a rooftop, thinking of the last time she saw her dear departed father as a child, him saying he has to go, but he’ll come back, giving her a token to remember him by. Standard stuff, right? Only later, we get pretty much the exact same scene with Lara as a teenager saying goodbye to her dad again. So I guess he came back the first time and then left again and that’s the last time she ever saw him. Okay, why did you need to show us the first scene? Why not combine them into one scene? Did we need the second go-around to establish that she’s a great archer?

(Also, I find the whole “she’s not a superhero! She’s just an average woman!” thing hella amusing when they also establish that, oh, right, she also happens to have found time to exercise herself into an eight-pack, train in kickboxing, and learn to be a champion markswoman. It’s like, I don’t know, a version of Die Hard where Jet Li gets invited to Nakatomi Plaza. Sure, he’s never beaten up a dozen terrorists before, but it’s not like he doesn’t know how. Why not just have her be an outright badass from the get-go and tell the damn story?)

But okay, she finds a clue to her missing father’s whereabouts and goes to Hong Kong, where we meet her supporting cast: Lu Wen. Just… Lu Wen.

This character is like a Lovecraftian pox on my mind, because I cannot understand anything about him. Sure, we can assume the studio wants China Bucks, but surely, that can’t be the only reason he’s there… right?

See, because we get an elaborate introduction to Lu Wen, he and Lara have several lengthy dialogues, so you assume that this character is important, that he’s going to be a big deal. Maybe him and Lara will fall in love, maybe he’ll betray her and turn out to be the bad guy, Who knows? But they set up this character so thoroughly and then he basically disappears from the movie and gets replaced as male lead by Lara’s daddy, who isn’t dead. Until he does die, but this time he gets a big death scene where he tells Lara he’s proud of her, so he’s really dead.

Lu Wen could’ve been killed in the shipwreck, or Lara could’ve sailed to the island herself, and it wouldn’t have changed the movie’s plot one iota. So why is he there? Is it just because they want the movie to have a male lead? Well, they have Daddy Croft, so why do they need him? Are they trying to be socially conscious and have an Asian romantic lead? But he isn’t really in the movie much and he and Lara really don’t fall for each other, since in the part of the movie where they’d usually be developing feelings for each other, she’s with her dad and he’s probably in another studio. So is he just there to show that there isn’t a love story and Lara doesn’t need a man? Like, ‘hey, a man, look how much Lara doesn’t need him and isn’t in love with him!’ That seems pretty thankless.

Plus, for an action movie, they hired Daniel Wu and then never had him bust out the kung-fu. I mean, c’mon. It’s a fucking video game movie. Are they really trying to be high-minded with this “not all Asians know martial arts!” stuff when they hired a guy who does know martial arts and could easily perform an impressive fight scene? It’s like casting Taye Diggs in a musical and then not having him sing.

Also, I thought it was weird that they introduce Lu as this falling-down drunk guy, and then that never comes up again. I guess he’s addicted to alcohol but then he just… stopped? Or maybe it was supposed to set him up as some experienced, world-weary adventurer who would contrast with Lara’s naïve ingénue and he’d be gruff and roguish, she’d be a little prim and serious, they’d have a Han/Leia sort of dynamic… only not really, he’s just kind of a guy for the rest of the movie.

I guess they thought “we need a scene where the heroine meets a boat captain and hires him to take her where she needs to go” and decided to script that scene to be as clichéd as humanly possible for no reason. Seriously, they could’ve introduced this character making wind chimes, it at least would’ve given him a little personality. What does Lara having to sober him up by throwing him into the shower tell us about this character that isn’t immediately contradicted by how he acts from thereon out?

But never mind all that, they finally reach the island, Lara meets the evil Vogel, who works for Trinity, the vaguely defined villainous organization that will provide generic conflict for the next umpteen movies—seriously, say what you will about Quantum of Solace, but at least there was a bit more to QUANTUM than just Judi Dench saying “there’s an organization out to take over the world! Stop them!”

Lara manages to escape and makes her first kill with one of Vogel’s henchman, who is not rapey because art shouldn’t be challenging or provoke negative emotional responses, and then she finds her father, who, as I said, pretty much takes over as male lead with the movie halfway over.

This is also where the adaptation gets bizarre to me, because sometimes it’s almost a shot-for-shot remake of sequences from the game, then it has huge deviations from that plot involving the nature of the villain, the threat, Lara, Lara’s allies—pretty much everything. And then it’ll go and make a big deal of Lara using a climbing pick as a melee weapon.

I’m used to adaptations taking ‘moments’ from the source material and recreating them in original stories, or doing broad strokes adaptations of existing storylines, but this is such an odd Frankensteining of plots, like they squished several stories together to make one refurbished plot. It’s really distracting to me, and it seems like they should’ve just made a wholly original plot instead of bolting a bunch of new stuff onto the TR13 storyline.

This is also where I’m sympathetic to people complaining that they gave a gender-swap to Sam Nishimura, who in the game was an Asian woman of critical importance to the Himiko plotline whose friendship with Lara was widely interpreted as having lesbian subtext. So it looks like they freaked out about having any gay stuff in their shiny new franchise and made it as straight as possible.

Like, there’s no reason this boat captain character couldn’t be Sam. It’s not like Lara and Lu Wen have any real romance except for him kinda sorta making a pass at her and her kinda sorta rejecting him. And if they wanted to avoid the uneasy comparison of even a potential love interest having to be straight, it seems like it would be easy enough to make movie!Himiko into a completely different creature, since all you really need is an exotic and inaccessible location for Lord Croft to go missing in, with an ancient civilization advanced enough to semi-plausibly build a big trappy tomb. So why it has to be Japan and Himiko doesn’t make any sense to me, besides unthinking laziness.

The fact that Sam was so important to the villain’s endgame and, in the game, Lara’s father was long dead of suicide at this point makes a marked difference from the movie, where Lara’s quest to find her dad takes center stage and her ability to enter the tomb makes her pretty much the Chosen One. Again, more generic, more clichéd.

Oh, but they do kinda go back to being a super-faithful adaptation with Lara making extensive use of a bow and arrow instead of picking up one of the numerous guns her enemies drop. Which is weird, since it’s not like Lara is Hawkeye. In the game, she picks up more advanced weapons as she gets them. It’s like they keep that fanservice, but then they don’t really preserve anything else about the source material.

Anyway, Lara and company—pointedly not including Lu Wen, who is pretty much absent from the third act of this big Asian romantic lead movie—enter the tomb. To its credit, the movie now has more tomb raiding than the game ever did (like I said, I was lukewarm on it; give me Angelina Jolie in shorts any day). And we find another story has been smushed into this one, because now there’s a faith versus science plotline where Lara doesn’t believe Himiko is real, and Vogel doesn’t believe she’s real, but Daddy Croft is all about that. Really, this is a theme that’s only coming up now? The movie’s almost over!

Well, this movie’s Himiko turns out to be mundane, but such an exotic variety of mundanity as to pretty much be as implausible as anything supernatural. And, again, more clichéd, as the McGuffin turns out to be a creation kit for rage zombies. I didn’t like when Rise of the Tomb Raider ripped off the Uncharted games that way, and it’s even more embarrassing when the last two Uncharted games have shied away from that trope. Yet the big damn movie can’t think of anything better to do, and gives us one measly rage zombie that’s easily dispatched? Not a horde of eternally undead Nipponese for our heroine to battle through? Not a Japanese Jason Voorhees she has to take out? Just a monster of the week from Supernatural, and not even a good episode at that?

How disappointing. The game had a better final boss. It really speaks to the movie having a low budget, especially when heroes and villains start having gunfights on a dinky set, with their cover seemingly inches away from each other because the place was built so small.

I continue to report on this only because I made a note to myself to mention this stupidity. Lara is tasked with stopping Vogel from getting away with a sample of this zombie apocalypse. She gets into a fistfight with the injured, limping Vogel and seems to be doing well for herself, but midway through she decides to cut the bridge that would’ve allowed either her or him to get out. This despite knowing that Vogel has called for a helicopter to pick him up and that if he kills her, Vogel can just wait for those guys to find him, rig up a way for him to get out, and blah blah rule the world.

So Lara destroying the bridge accomplishes nothing but guaranteeing her demise if she does happen to win.

But, she’s the hero, so she gets a mulligan on that and escapes to reunite with Lu Wen, who then disappears from the movie for the last time. Seriously, they don’t say goodbye, they don’t have a big kiss, he doesn’t show up in the epilogue. What happens to this character? What’s his arc been? Who knows! He was in the movie and now he’s not.

Lara goes back home, declares her father dead, takes over the company and hands it over to Anna, who she has just started to like, but then immediately realizes is evil, so I guess there was no point to that. Stay tuned for when we do Rise of the Tomb Raider and it turns out that the Deathless Ones are all Ewoks, I guess.

[oosteven-universe]

Two Moons #2

Two Moons #2 Image Comics 2021 Written by John Arcudi Illustrated by Valerio Giangiordano Coloured by Bill Crabtree Lettered by Michael Heisler "THE IRON NOOSE," Part Two      Facing a court-martial and execution at the hands of the Union Army, Virgil must depend on the enemy to save his life. John isn’t wasting any time getting into the heart of the story here as he is placing Virgil firmly on the path to opening up his mind to what his people have believed for generations.  I like it too because after his parents died of small pox he was raised by the white man.  This of course caused him to lose the ways of his people so he is getting a crash course and boy is it crashing him hard.  Okay so here I am talking like this and its only the second issue but I am so completely and thoroughly engaged in the book and Virgil’s story that I am trying to flesh out the backstory for myself so that what I am seeing here makes more sense.  John has gone above and beyond what I would have expected and his talent and skill that is on display here is astronomical. I am a huge fan of the way that this is being told.  The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented beautifully.  I don’t know what John’s background is but the research we see here is phenomenal.  The character development that we see through all the traditional methods and infused with some unexpected ones really make us feel for the characters.  How we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter really says a lot about who they are.  The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing all the twists & turns along the way and introducing us to new characters we are able to really get swept up in what we are seeing. I really like the way that this is being structured and how the layers within the story continue to emerge and others grow and evolve.  How we see Virgil meet and make a new friend raises a whole new slew of questions but I welcome those as it also finds its way into engaging the mind.  How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow is fantastic. The interiors here are mind numbingly brilliant.  The linework is exquisite and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create this kind of detail work is beyond gorgeous.  The emotions, feelings and such that w get from the faces, facial expressions and body language really do wonders in fleshing out their personalities even more.  That we see backgrounds the way that we do and how they work within the composition within the panels not only enhance the moments but also provide us with depth perception, a sense of scale and that overall sense of size and scope to the story.  The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a masterful eye for storytelling.   The colour work is divine.  How we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading highlights and shadow work is exceptional.  The Trickster is a stand out moment and it shows an eye for colour and how to utilise it so effectively to bring fear and grace, horror and beauty all at the same time. ​ So many new angles are introduced in this issue and some feel more important than others which of course raises my own interest and intrigue factors.  I wanna know if what I think is correct or not and regardless I want to see it play out before my eyes.  This is the downside of a monthly book, I have to wait a month before the next issue comes out and I wanna read it now because this is just that damn good.

[argumate]

Wonder Woman

This movie was great fun! It hit all the right notes for a superhero movie, and although it was not particularly original it was very well executed and I liked it.

 - The movie is bookended with references to Bruce Wayne, who thankfully doesn’t show up in person, so let’s just ignore those scenes. Actually I’d like to see her meet Steve Rogers, but I guess that would require corporate merger shenanigans at the highest level.

 - (Actually the movie does share plenty of tropes with Captain America: a hero taken out of time, a band of brothers in the war, a villain with apocalyptic plans, a love that is not to be, an aeroplane, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves).

 - Hot diggity, Amazon island! (I keep wanting to say they’re from the Amazon, but that isn’t right at all). It’s got unrealistic waterfalls and everything, that’s how you know it’s blessed by the gods. Oh and a forcefield bubble to keep out the rest of the world, that’s cool too.

 - This has to be the most satisfying representation of the female warrior race ever devised in the past three thousand years, and the movie could have just been two hours of Robin Wright kicking Gal Gadot’s ass while Connie Nielsen smoulders in the background and the audience would have been well satisfied.

 - No Futurama jokes were made in this review. Not even petite ones.

 - Princess Diana (wut? I only just noticed the main character is Princess Di, although in fairness they always refer to her the other way around) I mean Diana, Princess of the Amazons, has the standard chosen-by-destiny origin story and a mother who can’t bear to lose her to fate, and gives her heavily redacted stories of the past. (She boned Zeus! That’s nothing to be ashamed of, everyone has boned Zeus).

 - What could possibly trouble this peaceful island of crazy warrior ladies besides the arrival of... a man. In the form of Chris Pine, whom I must admit I was a little wary of since I haven’t seen him in any movies before so to me he’s a bit of an unknown quantity. But he’s great! In this film at least. Funny guy, charismatic, good love interest, solid support without overshadowing, I think his character works really well.

 - All that dick innuendo while he’s in the bath tho.

 - The man brings news of the Great War, and the Amazons’ sacred duty is to restore the peace... kinda. It’s a bit vague actually; the artfully rendered backstory montage of god fights certainly suggested that, but then what have they been doing for millennia on their island while wars rage across the world outside? Anyway, the bubble has been broken, a bunch of Germans got what was coming to them, Robin Wright took a bullet for Diana and will grimace no more, and Diana is just itching to go kill a god.

 - I mean seriously she is thirsty for god slaughter; when she was six years old her mother showed her the magical god-slaying sword and she literally drooled at it, this woman doesn’t even need a reason she’ll slaughter a god just for sport.

 - Sorrowful partings as Diana sails away from the only world she’s ever known, and spy boy tries to mack on her when they’re barely out of sight of shore. Lucky for him that magical force bubble shields his amorous intentions from her mother, who can and will throw a spear that far if she has to.

 - Wonder Woman, of course, is demisexual.

 - The London scenes where they try on outfits and fight spies in alleys and rustle up a posse of misfits are a lot of fun indeed, then things turn serious as they approach the Western Front. Sometimes the Great War really does feel like the abstract concept of war reified and instantiated in the world, soldiers and generals and politicians alike helplessly forced to dance to its tune without any way to stop, the logic of game theory gone mad. It’s certainly tempting to imagine that there must be an off switch somewhere, and if you could just stab the right guy everything would grind to a halt. Of course, you could say it was shooting the right guy that kicked things off in the first place.

 - Diana charges into no-mans land without even tossing her hair back first and saying “but I am no man”, but you know we were all thinking it.

 - Quick shout out to the cinema audience who laughed and gasped and cried at all the right moments, although I thought I could hear someone behind me repeating the lines slightly before they happened, perhaps closed captions? Either way it was a nice atmosphere, top stuff.

 - That charge scene though, it was something. I’ve heard it described as every woman’s experience facing a machine gun hail of microaggressions, and frankly the less said about that the better. But you can’t help thinking about the men and boys who trudged through that mud without magical shields or bracelets or plot invulnerability to bullets and were cut down in their thousands and left to rot where they fell. It was notable that when she finally reached the German trench she smashed not the soldiers, but the machine gun.

 - I think the movie handled Diana’s gradual power boost very well. She starts off capable of defeating people in hand to hand combat, and slowly levels up to the point where she is casually smashing through walls and swinging tanks through the air with one hand. Amusingly she’s so focused on her quest that she doesn’t think through the implications of her having god-like powers, and everyone around her just accepts it because honestly what else can you do? “Excuse me miss, I can’t help noticing that you just smashed face first through a brick wall and yet your lipstick is still impeccable-”

 - Perhaps her powers scale up based on having Something to Protect, and a lot of tension comes from her realising that she can’t be everywhere and can’t save everyone.

 - Wonder Woman gets busy with Chris Pine; I hope she’s gentle with her new-found strength. (She didn’t try the beer though, which bugs me a little; in fact we never see any of the Amazons eat, I think. Do they grow food on their island? I assume the climate and soil is magically good, so farming should be easy work, and they can spend the time between harvests punching each other).

 - He sketches out a future of life together and work and kids and growing old together (he don’t know she’s immortal, which saves some awkwardness). Sure would be a shame if he selflessly sacrificed himself for a noble cause, especially after he’s already signed a contract to feature in multiple movies.

 - Oh yeah, there is a ludicrously villainous German general (an actual asshole from the Real World, and future Nazi!) and a tortured femme Phantom of the Opera who delights in poison gas who sort of has a thing for him. I reckon a good relationship is one that makes both participants healthier, and what they have going on is the exact opposite of that. I don’t think they quite get enough attention, but since War is the real adversary perhaps that’s intentional.

 - There is obvious awkwardness with making the Germans the main bad guys in this story while the British push for peace, even though the film does make some token efforts at calling for a pox on both their houses. Along with Ludendorff, the real villain could be... Winston Churchill, who as Minister for Munitions at this time was in fact stockpiling a vast armoury of gas and bombs and tanks to be deployed in the offensive he was planning in 1919 that would destroy the German army and win a decisive victory for Britain. Churchill was despondent when they signed the Armistice instead and crushed his dreams of annihilation; he didn’t get his victory until 27 years later, when he finally pissed in the Rhine.

 - I’m grateful that the misfit sidekicks didn’t heroically sacrifice themselves in this movie, they needed to catch a break.

 - Ludendorff might bitch about the Dolchstoßlegende but he didn’t seem to enjoy being stabbed in the front, what a hypocrite.

 - The final showdown arrives in a blaze of rage and glory... and Remus Lupin is the god of war! Now that’s a nice twist, I appreciate a softly spoken man in a bowler hat who wishes to end the pestilence that is humanity. Turns out his powers are not what they once were (although he seems tough enough!) so he has just been chilling on Earth whispering rude thoughts in people’s ears and waiting for Diana to show up so he can make her a Darth Vaderesque offer.

 - You could say that he’s been waiting for Gadot.

 - And it’s over, god is dead and a new day dawns. The soldiers taking off their gas masks is a nice touch; it’s a shame they didn’t get to show something like the 1914 christmas football match. Ultimately the ending echoed Age of Ultron: a being of ultimate power and contempt for humanity is zapped by another being of ultimate power who believes in the redemptive power of love. So it goes.

- Terry Pratchett would say that killing the god doesn’t stop the war, but stopping the war would kill the god, divinity flowing from belief and not the other way around. If no human believed in war, what would Ares even do? Fighting for peace is always a tricky concept, but the structure of a superhero movie based on god-like physical abilities inherently demands it. This one did its best to thread that needle and didn’t mess it up too badly.

 - It’s a shame we didn’t get a reunion scene back home on the island, given that she not only achieved the destiny of her people but survived the attempt. Maybe she can’t find her way back and she’s stuck living with the humans now. The shot of her with a laptop at the end raises the disturbing scenario of Amazons tearing up social media all day instead of throwing down.

 - It’s not clear how Wonder Woman occupied her time during the Second World War and all the other craziness that filled up the 20th century, but no doubt we’ll find out. 

[thetreacheroustraitors]

REALLY  LONG CHARACTER SURVEY. RULES. repost, don’t reblog ! tag 10 ! good  luck ! TAGGED. @skeletonwithabowtie TAGGING.  Whoever sees this and wants to do it, too!

BASICS. FULL  NAME : Robert Sean O’Connor NICKNAME : Paddy, Robbie, Rob, O’Connor AGE :  33 BIRTHDAY : 21st September 1899 ETHNIC  GROUP : White, Irish NATIONALITY :  Irish LANGUAGE / S : English & Irish  SEXUAL  ORIENTATION : Heterosexual ROMANTIC  ORIENTATION : Heteromantic  RELATIONSHIP  STATUS : In a relationship CLASS : Working Class HOME  TOWN / AREA : Dublin / Halloween Town CURRENT  HOME : The Cottage, The Glade, The Hinterlands PROFESSION : Retired Boxer

PHYSICAL. HAIR : Dark brown, almost black EYES : Blueish green, deep set. NOSE : Broken in several places from past fights, long and sloping. FACE : High cheekbones, thick eyebrows, small amounts of stubble/beard. LIPS : Thin with creases around them from where he’s smiled a lot in the past, slightly pink. COMPLEXION : Pale, white. BLEMISHES : None in particular SCARS : Small scars across his cheeks from old fights, one scar on his cheek from chicken pox sustained as a small child. TATTOOS : None HEIGHT : 5′9″ WEIGHT : 168lbs BUILD : Muscular FEATURES : Walks with a slight lean to his right after suffering a fractured rib when hit by a bullet. ALLERGIES : Hayfever USUAL  HAIR  STYLE : Parted to the right and combed back to the left with gel. USUAL  FACE  LOOK : His brows tend to be furrowed, giving him a ‘hard man’ look, but he just has what one might call a ‘resting bitch face’. USUAL  CLOTHING : Crisp white shirt with top button undone and with brown braces and trousers to match. Brown suit jacket. Flatcap. He seldom ever wears a tie.

PSYCHOLOGY. FEAR / S : Ending up alone and forgotten, losing his memory, insects (such as spiders). ASPIRATION / S : To protect the Bolton family and their future generations to come from the threat of Scruff and other enemies, to find out what happened to his family after his death in 1933. POSITIVE  TRAITS : Brave, Loyal, Good sense of humour, Charming, Caring, Open-minded.  NEGATIVE  TRAITS : Irrational, Hotheaded, Over Sensitive, Tough-Love, Cold. MBTI : ENTERTAINER (ESFP-T) ZODIAC : Virgo TEMPERAMENT : Jolly SOUL  TYPE / S :  Caregiver ANIMALS : Eagle! (Lmao, the irony.) VICE  HABIT / S : Gestures a lot with his hands, runs his hands over his face when angered, sometimes bites his nails or picks at them when he can’t keep them occupied. FAITH : He was brought up in a Catholic household and attended Church every Sunday, but when he moved away from Ireland his faith dwindled until he’s not so sure what he believes in anymore. After all, he is undead. GHOSTS ? : ...He is a ghost, technically. AFTERLIFE ? : ...He’s undead. REINCARNATION ? : He likes to think it exists and is never adverse to the concept given his own situation. ALIENS ? : YEP. He’s the kind of “it’s a conspiracy” kinda Alien believer. POLITICAL  ALIGNMENT : He doesn’t get involved, although if he sees something being done he doesn’t like by those in power, he will make his point vividly clear. ECONOMIC  PREFERENCE : Rich or poor, he doesn’t care! He grew up in an otherwise quite poor family of eight, but he’s also tasted the life of the wealthy and neither really entices him massively. So long as he has enough to get by, that’s good enough for him. SOCIOPOLITICAL  POSITION : He tends to be a follower more than a leader, but has the potential to be quite a strong leader if given the chance. As it stands, his opinions and advice are held in good regard. EDUCATION  LEVEL : He was a bit of a trouble maker at school but has quite a high level of intelligence. However, he’s modest about it and can sometimes come across as ignorant as a consequence. He attended school until the age of 17 when he went into boxing and helping his father on their home farm.

FAMILY. FATHER : Daniel O’Connor MOTHER : Ciara O’Connor SIBLINGS : Gretel & Niamh (older sisters), Dylan, Liam and Lucy (younger siblings). EXTENDED  FAMILY : Various Aunts, Uncles and Cousins and Grandparents on both sides. NAME  MEANING / S : Robert means ‘famed, bright & shining’, Sean is an Irish variant of John. HISTORICAL  CONNECTION ? :  Robert was the name of his great, great grandfather, Sean was after his father’s twin brother (John) who died at a young age.

FAVOURITES. BOOK : He seldom reads books, but he’s partial to the few novels Adhra recommends him and books on King Arthur/Fairy Tales (they were Lucy’s favourites). MOVIE : He enjoyed the black and white movies as they became more popular. 5  SONGS : He’s very picky with music, but enjoys Celtic music (which reminds him of home) and various ‘new sounds’. DEITY : He doesn’t really have one. God probably by proxy. HOLIDAY : St Patrick’s Day (lol) MONTH : September SEASON : Autumn PLACE : Ireland (big shock) WEATHER : Rainy mornings SOUND : Fire crackling, light mumble of chatter, knitting needles clicking, wind through the leaves, flipping of book pages. SCENT / S : Wood fires, brewing alcohol, dust after rain TASTE / S : Whiskey (that sort of Earthy, warm taste), Chocolate, Salty foods. FEEL / S : Warm hair through his fingers (he used to gently brush his little sisters hair to help her sleep), woolen mittens, soft skin. ANIMAL / S : Dogs NUMBER : Twenty COLOUR : Dark Green

EXTRA. TALENTS : Hand-to-hand combat abilities, charismatic charm/wit, able to play the guitar amateurishly (he wants to get back into this), can sing fairly decently and perform old songs. BAD  AT : Remembering things in short term (such as codes, names, numbers etc), self-restraint, spacial awareness. TURN  ONS : Tight fitting clothes, brown hair,  TURN  OFFS : Vulgar language, BD.S.M.  HOBBIES : Boxing, Exercising, Walks, Playing Guitar. TROPES : ...I should look these up. AESTHETIC  TAGS : I should have one lmao GPOY  QUOTES : See here

FC INFO. MAIN  FC / S : Co/li.n O’/Do.no.ghu.e ALT  FC / S : None OLDER  FC / S : None YOUNGER  FC / S : None VOICE  CLAIM / S : His own voice GENDERBENT  FC / S : I can’t remember if he had one, but I don’t think he does xD

MUN QUESTIONS. Q1 : if  you  could  write  your  character  your  way  in  their  own  movie ,   what  would  it  be  called ,  what  style  would  it  be  filmed  in ,  and  what  would  it  be  about ?           A1 : He’d probably be in a chronicle type movie set in the same time frame as the previous movies, depicting some of the key points in the Snake Eyes Gangs life. It would probably be called “The Snake Eyes Gang: Robert O’Connor” and detail his life before and after the fall of Snake Eyes Casino. Q2 : what  would  their  soundtrack / score  sound  like ?           A2 : Probably a lot of violin scores Q3 : why  did  you  start  writing  this  character ?           A3 : I wanted to come up with some gang members to go with Oliver and I created Robert as sort of a side character - he was more of a plot device than a person. But, after some magic anons and various other prompts, I decided to make his own blog and he ended up being more than a one dimensional lackey helping Scruff kill Oliver and actually developed into a human being with motives and regrets :3

Q4 : what  first  attracted  you  to  this  character ?           A4 : Well, I mean...I came up with him xD But I was attracted to play him because I wanted to develop Oliver’s personal backstory and, in order to do that, you need to know the people closest to him. Robert just became himself, I had nothing to do with it.

Q5 : describe  the  biggest  thing  you  dislike  about  your  muse.           A5 : His decision to help Scruff kill Oliver. Although he was deceived into thinking it would be nothing more than an exchange of power (like a mutiny), Robert still stuck with Scruff until the bitter end although he knew it was wrong and he knew what they were doing. 

Q6 : what  do  you  have  in  common  with  your  muse ?           A6 : We’re both quite sensitive and have strong connections to our family and those we care about, and we both take forever to go to bed and sleep in until late!! Q7 : how  does  your  muse  feel  about  you ?           A7 : He’s giving me a thumbs up as I write this, so I think he thinks I’m alright!!

Q8 : what  characters  does  your  muse  have  interesting  interactions  with ?         A8 : I absolutely adore the interactions he has with @outlandishboogiegirl. His relationship with Adhra is so adorable and I always need more of it in my life <3

Q9 : what  gives  you  inspiration  to  write  your  muse ?         A9 : For Rob, it doesn’t take much to inspire me. Much like my other muses, he just hangs about and hops on something when he feels like it’d be fun. Q10 : how  long  did  this  take  you  to  complete ?         A10 : I honestly don’t even want to know xD