#but the comics not the show—that will be important if I actually finish Dream’s story.

[popculturebuffet]

Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck Finale: The Richest Duck in the World "And As Usual, He Was!"

Hello all you happy people and welcome to the finale of my life and times of scrooge mcduck retrospective! It's been a duck blur, from starting this years ago, to a years long hiatus to Kev paying for me to finish it, btu we're finally here. The final chapter of Don Rosa's masterpiece. Coming out the other side of this LIfe and Times is still one of my faviorite comics of all time and I'm glad to finish it. Kinda. There are a ton of bonus chapters Rosa did throughout the rest of his career, as well as an upcoming new chapter from another author entirely, all of which i'm up for covering at some point. There's a few I definitely want to get to in paticuarl: The three goldie stories (one pre life and times two with the label) that help flesh out here and Scrooge's past, the wonderful "Letter From Home" that gives ups Matilda's return and ties up that loose end, and my personal faviorite "Dream of a Lifetime", a one shot tale that goes through just about every chapter of life and times via Scrooge's dreams for one hell of an epilouge. None of these are necssary but they all feel like good companion pieces to the story and i'm glad Rosa did these interquels among others. I also have an itch to cover more duck material in general as while it has the cynical boost of having more viewers than normal for my content, it's also something I forgot HOW much I loved in the content lull after Ducktales end. And as a wise man once said.. there's always another rainbow. What it'll be i'm not sure yet, but you can expect at least one duck adventure next month.

For now though we're finishing the main story and it's while a lot of plans changed or shifted over this 12 issue saga, one thing was always in the cards: he wanted to end the story where Scrooge's story began all those years ago, with the finale taking place the day after the bulk Night on Bear Mountain. For those less familiar, and I wasn't when I started this though i've since covered the story, Night on Bear Mountain is the very FIRST Scrooge story, with Scrooge inviting his nephews for Christmas to scare them but being impressed by the end and thus inviting them for CHristmas Diner. This story shows what happens in between while also explaning the discrepency between the Scrooge we see in that story and who he'd be in the rest of his meaty cagalogue. In night on bear mountain Scrooge is diffrent, wearing a long robe, living in an isolated mansion (Keep in mind comics scrooge just lived at the bin), with him being more myth than actual person Donald just.. visits every day.

This story bridges that gap, explaning how Scrooge got his groove back, shows his first proper adventure with his nephews, and how he went from only a poor old man to the greatest adventuerer who ever lived once again. If this sounds familiar Ducktales 2017 did something similar, having Scrooge having mostly retired after loosing Della and years of searching for her, with the boys and webby reignting that spirit in much the same way, with Donald busy with a job offer that turned out to be an elaborate scheme. I still love they did that and it's a testiment ot how much impact this story had on the reboot: while a lot of Scrooge's past was changed, including his parents still being alive, the comic was, as I belivie I mentioned in the first entry, required reading for staff and stands as an important inspiration for one of the greatest cartoons ever made and quite possibly my faviorite.

So let's dive into the bin one last time as Scrooge rediscovers himself, Huey , Dewey and Louie discover a legend and Donald won't shut the fuck up.

We open with a Citizen Kane Homage as Scrooge whispers goldie while holding a snowglobe. He isn't dead, won't be till the 60's in rosa's eyes. For now though he's become a recluse as a newsreeel overs over his life and how his last public apperance was 17 years ago, when he threw out his family seemingly for good. We get some neat cameos as we see Grandma Duck again, this time in her glory days, who hasn't seen Scrooge since she sold him most of her land bar the farm.. and Gus when he corrects her that the old coot also came by to forclose on the chicken coop. Gus is Donald's cousin. He eats a lot, sleeps more and is somehow lazier than our boy. Which is possible. We also see Gladstone, the bastard and donald who shoves a hand in the camera.

At this point the Bin is just a legend, with no one really knowing if it's actually full of cash, something four familiar fowl talk about as they watch the newscast: Donald and his nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie. After 12 chapters we're to the present day of duckberg and where it all began as they prepare for that christmas dinner I mentioned. The boys wonder if it could be true while Donald dismisses it: no rich person could've EARNED IT and he assumes Scrooge inherited it.. somehow. Which baffles me a bit as while I'm sure Hortense, like 2017 Donald, tried not to bring Scrooge up, she wouldn't of.. not brought up her childhood in scotland or the rest of her family. They didn't throw her out. Granted Donald does have a talent for self delusion and we don't know how young the kids were when she died, so there's wiggle room it just annoys me a little

What Annoys mea lot is Donald who throughout this whole story constantly says everything about Scrooge is fake. That he probably bought it on crusies. It annoys be a bit less this readthrough as having become fed up with most present day billionares.. yeah most do. This just happens to be the one whose a bastard AND worked hard to earn it. But it's still a very one note gag: Donald is up his own ass and dosen't know what we know or has seen what we've seen and thinks his uncle's only a poor old man.

It's not story breaking, but it is repetitive.

Thankfully we move on to the mansion proper as Scrooge's butler Jeeves, and no that's not me goofing up Duckworth was created for the show, ushers them in.. and as Scrooge slowly stirs.. we see him, in a truly awesome panel

I love all the detail here: the bits of stubble, the tired eyes, how sunken he looks in genearl. This is a Scrooge who has given up: he's retired from work to rot in a mansion, having nothing left and is a shell of what he once was and will be again. I also give Rosa credit for using Scrooge's first apperance design still: he had the time for Scrooge to change.. but him not having done so is a symbol of just how deep in the depression hole he is: as someone whose been in them I relate to clearly not having taken care of yourself in some time, just sitting there letting time pass as you feel you have nothing left.

The boys being their usual charming hive minded selves are delighted to meet their great uncle. Though we get a really sad bit as he notes most family he has has.. disappeared. He dosen't know matilda is alive, and he certainly heard what happened to Hortense. The boys do genuinely welcome him in but he balks, figuring their all after inheretiance. Donald claps back that you spent it all on this place ya jackass.

Scrooge insscensed decides the time has come to do something he rarely does but is sacred to the rich: flashing his cash. Specicially he has his butler.. dress him. Okay Scrooge you need either boundries with your butler or a more equal relationship if you want to keep fucking him. Trust me i've hit on the help too. The help was a gorgon's head but I didn't make her dress me.. hades didn't give me that option because their sane.

He takes them to the Bin, which is decayed.. though Scrooge has been keeping the booby traps fresh and keeps the weeds simply because it's good security: if a place LOOKS abandoned and unloved, people will think that. And it mostly has been, Scrooge having retired isn't using it. Still he kept the most important part of it, the cash ocean itself, but our heroes pass the second most important part first

This little tirade, while very in character.. is also very Rosa speaking his piece, as he hated stories (even barks own) where the Dime was implied to be magic. Whlie his old man yells at cloud behavior often has me shaking my head.. I agree on this one. The dime is better as a symbol that motivated scrooge than as a plot device and it cheapens the man's skill to say the Dime is responsible. I don't mind Magica trying to use it for a power source as THAT makes sense: it has a lot of emotional energy from being around scrooge as he got his fortune, the weight of having traveled the world with him for most of his life and being what started a great man on his path. I like the idea that kind of object with that kind of emotoinal baggage has power, kinda like what adventure time did with Hambo and PB's Shirt she got from marcy. It's magical yes but it fits the world better and makes it clear the dime is impressive because of SCROOGE not the other way around. Somehow Lorcana didn't get the memo

The description and image are perfect, as is the fact it's SHOCKINGLY powerful I just don't get why Number One Dime wasn't considered.

One he unveils the bin though it DOES shock his nephew and even DONALD can't say anything for a change

I do like that explination.. it dosen't scan with every Scrooge story as there are countless that say his bin really is the McDuck version of one piece, from the aformentioned Christmas for Shacktown to the very first Scrooge lead story "Only a Poor Old Man". I'm not against this: Rosa had a tendency to pick and choose which parts of Bark's stories to make canon to his stories, wanting a more cohesive universe and while clearly respecting the man to a sometimes stifling degree, recognized not everything from stories not really built to have a continuity was going to stick together. As reverent as he is to barks, to an annoying degree at times like his feeling put out at having to include Fethry despite being an entirely valid character with loads of potetial simply because one man didn't create him (Not saying barks isn't fucking amazing, he is, but it's a petty reason not to use good characters).. I can respect Rosa for knowing what he wanted in his own canon and what to keep as well as having said multiple times his stories dont' stack up to his idols. I disagree on that statment as while Barks IS better in some ways, for all I gripe about the guy sometimes... Rosa is a truly talented writer, one of the best duck writers there ever was and while Time's made me see the cracks in the guy.. ti dosen't make him any less special or any less vital to duck canon. Ther'es a reason most writers either honor his stories or consider them canon alongside barkses. The man has a degree of talent, care and love that's hard to come by and while I may disagree with some of his choices at times... I can't help but love the guy still.

So anyway that suspcious santa might have set you off.. turns out the santas near the bin were beagle boys, scoping out a hesit and lead by Scrooge's old enemy blackheart, whose descendants indeed got to fucking as he hoped.

As is duck story standard they easily capture our heroes despite scrooge being way more badass than all of them combined... Donald too honestly... the boys also. Honestly a paper bag could probably beat the beagle boys and they somehow win when the plot says so, though this time at least theirs a valid excuse; Donald and the boys are new at adventuering, having gone on a few solo adventures pre scrooge while Scrooge has given up on the world and thus surrenders to being thrown.. though he is pissed they once again bring up the lucky dime thing. So before he can snap out of it let's talk about this dperession and self loathing: honestly while he'd never say it, even Ducktales 2017 scrooge both hides what happened with Della from the kids and refuses to apologize to Donald for a decade despite being almost entirely in the wrong, it's clear loosing his sisters did hurt him: he had his money but nothing else and with nothing to really fight for and his lifelong goal achieved he just.. gave up. It dosen't feel like scrooge ... but that's the point: just as his horrible actions in africa weren't really him, not striving, not searching not trying to build his empire simply because he's seemingly won.. isn't him. Without anyone to share it with... his bin is just a pile of coins, memetos of better days.

So the thing that busts him out of his stupor... are his nephews. The boys search furiously for some way out, unlike Donald and Scrooge not ready to give up and find his old mining gear... while Donald.. well Donald inspires him in his own way

I love this and it's something I really hadn't thought about before but think of now, especially since again Woo-Hoo! takes some steps from this, having Louie take Donald's place as the doubting asshole, and have the boys as a whole, like Donald question if Scrooge really was this big or is just some old man, leading him to ragefully prove them wrong.. granted Scrooge's attempts in Woo-Hoo are more laughable as he plans to go diving to prove children wrong, something Beakley lampshades, but he still gets the step of showing them what he cna do by dealing with everything they unleash in his garage, similar to how here the combined menaces of Donald's jerkassery and the Beagle Boys scheme finally awakens the beast. I also love the subtle note of Scrooge taking off his coat, revealing his usual coat underneath. It's something I again hadn' tnoticed before this re-read, but ti's a very ncie touch... Scrooge the doddering old man given up on everything is gone. Scrooge McDuck, Last of the Clan McDuck, Master of the Missippi, Buckaroo of the Badlands, Raider of the Copper Hill, Laird of Castle McDuck, Terror of the Transyval, Dreamtime Duck of Never Never, King of The Klondike, Billionare of Dismal Downs, Invader of Fort Duckburg, Empire Builder from Callisota... THE Richest Duck in the world is back.

And since he's back he decides to go after the beagles, having the boys haul his trunk. I also really like this joke.

Look donald is my boy, and even in a story where he's not on his a game.. he's still Donald. He's bound to have at least one good moment or two.

The two notice scrooge a coming and take off.. but they left an other Sleigh which Scrooge quickly takes, and begins using a cavlcade of his skills. We've seen his mining, now we see his ablility to tame any animal. It's not as impressive as a lion but he dosen't have time to get to the zoo so a horse'll do.

We also get ANOTHER choice gag. While not all of rosa's comedy lands for me.. the guy really nails it a lot of the time and it's a part of his writing talent that dosen't get praised enough.

Honestly this chapter is easily the funniest next to the invader of fort duckberg, likely because with the dramatic part of Scrooge's life mostly worn down, we have more room for some comedy.

Blackheart has them step on it as he realizes he's no longer dealing with a hollowed out shell of a man but the guy whose beat him twice and is ready to abide by rule of three. We get some fun callbacks as scrooge uses his gold pan as a discus to knock out the driver of the beagle boys then takes out the rest, minus blackheart who grabs the dime for leverage, with his boomerang from his time in australia. This also leads to another fucking phenominal gag

Scrooge then ties up the rest of the non blackheart beagles using his roping tricks, with the officers that poor woman called rounding the boys up. All that's left is blackheart who naturally, as our big bad for the chapter, final antagonist of the story and the foe Scrooge has fought the most on this journey, gets the best takedown of all

Such an awesome moment: The same thing that finally brought Scrooge's dream to reality... is what helps cement his return to his truest self: he may be a mean old man.. but he's tougher than the toughies, sharper than the sharpies, smarter than the smarties and he made his money square.

That said the adrenline does wear off slightly.. until...

I had to share the scene in full.. because it's so damn good. After a whole journey, after seeing Scrooge at his lowest.. we see his core. Something that speaks against ageism: your body may age, but your never too old to start over, to have a second chance.. to chase another rainbow. The quality of your lives are what you make of them also really gets me.

IT's also a nice return to form as the bin being public.. dosen't bother them. Let them come: he's fought off worse and he'll fight them again. I also love him kicking donald's butt. He's just enough of a jerk in this story to well deserve it.

So Scrooge is now fully back: he decides to reopen the office, sell the mansion and get back to work.. and take the boys with them. While he dosen't say it being the stubborn old bastard we know and love... he needs these boys. Adventure is nothing if you don't have anyone to share it with.. .and once again he has someone to share it with. Once again he has family.

So he celebrates with a swim, with the boys astounded at his ability btu Donald unable to understand his uncle: all he seems to have is cold metal... but he could be wrong...

This ending gets me... a reminder it's both never too late (Something I need at only 32, which in tumblr years is 90), and that a life well lived is one not lived alone, that the things that make us who we are good and bad.. are the greatest adventure of all.

The Richest Duck in the World is a well done capper, feeling like a lost modern scrooge adventure, that missing piece in the story that Rosa happily filled in for us. Donald again can be a bit much, even in the stories final page he still hasn't quite got the hint, it's not one of his better stories.. but it dosen't take away from this as an ending.. and a beginning. Of a man who lost everything that mattered finding it again. Of an epic story of one man's life, what made him who he was, and what he gained, lost and ultimately found again.

Life and Times.. is one of the best comics of all time,the best duck comics story ever, and only not currently the best duck story PERIOD because ducktales 2017 is so freaking good. And even then while that series beats it over all as an individual story this 12 part epic still trumps it's worthy successor. It's a labor of love that's massive in scope, character work and gorgeous art work. It's a true masterpice that needs to be read again and again and one i was very happy to cover. I found stuff I disliked sure, a chapter or two had pacing issues, some things didn't land.. but ti's hard to deny what a fucking triumph this book is. Only one other comic I can think of comes this close to distilling a characters essence down into 12 issues, and even then All Star Superman, while excellent didn't also have the task of trying to be in continuity. Life and Times is a masterpiece and it was a joy coverinmg it and the dream of a life time finishing this journey> Thank you all for reading.. and see you next rainbow.

[sixbynine-da]

Tagged by  @doonarose!

How many works do you have on ao3?

60

53 are works solely by myself.

2 are large group collabs

5 are podfics.

What’s your total ao3 word count?

364322

250802 is soley mine (6351 in group collabs)

What fandoms do you write for?

Currently Good Omens.

Previously 

Buffy, Naruto, Bleach, Sherlock, Harry Potter, LoTR, The Originals, Star Wars. A bunch of other anime series :D

Top five fics by kudos:

Of comforts and Rituals - The Originals fanfic Klaus/Elijah. Feat hair washing - the most intimate thing a couple can do!

Sweet dreams - companion fic for vavoom-sorted comic. Feat unconscious Crowley and his sub conscious insecurities.

A Tricky Situation - Human AU written for the vday exchange. Feat professor's Crowley and Fell. They don't immediately take to one another. 

Oh! My! What a situation - unrelated to above :D. Aziraphale is dropping hints Crowley is not picking up. Feat tartziraphale. My favourite *ziraphale.

It's a ~*DEMON DICK DOWN*~ - Aziraphale attends a summoning gone wrong. Does what it says on the tin. Feat large shouty Crowley.

Do you respond to comments?

Yes!

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Published…

Toss up between 

Bad habits - a Lucicrow fic. Crowley has an arrangement with Lucifer that means he doesn't have to face the fact he can't have Aziraphale.

or

Going down in flames - Crowley takes over hell. And not in a cool destroy it from within way.

Unpublished…. I currently refer to it as ‘sad fic’. Human AU. A look back over their life from Az's perspective.

Do you get hate on fics?

Nope not really. Couple odd comments about tags….

Do you write smut?

Hahahahahahahahaha.

Craziest crossover:

Never done cross overs. 

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I am aware of. 

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I'm having one translated right now :D

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I've worked on a few group projects and am currently co writing a couple things. Nothing before that though, so these will be my firsts :)

All time favorite ship?

God lord

 How tf can one chose ?

Probably Tony/Steve from MCU

I worked my way diligently through every E rated complete fic on AO3 and read virtually all of them!

What’s a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I have a couple Naruto ones I will never finish. But I don't particularly want to. So that's fine. 

Want to but doubt…? Honestly I'm a bit worried about sad fic at this point !

What are your writing strengths?

Hmmm, dialogue?

I also seem to be able to just write if I have to as well.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Honestly my attention span. I'm impatient and get bored and want things to hurry along and it shows :D

Total lack of reasearch into anything. ^^;;

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

Odd word here or there is fine, if I have to go google entire phrases or consult with footnotes to get important bits of the story....bit annoying.

First fandom you wrote in?

Buffy would be the first published by date but I THINK the first thing I actually wrote was a poem for an obscureish anime called Loveless. They are all still perfectly readable on FFNET because I'm terrible at tidying up myself when I leave :D

Favorite fic you’ve written?

uuugghhhhhh, thats like asking me who my favourite kid is! I'm going with Validation. Because it was the first thing not smut I wrote and where I tried out a different type of writing. It's entirely Crowley POV and more of a character study re his fall. I put a lot into it ^_^

tagging blah blah blah blah : @wingsofopal @theonewiththeshippinggoogles @thenerdalert @fuzzygoblin

[tiredspacedragon]

BIONICLE Retrospective

2002: The Bohrok Swarms

Part 1.2: To Trap a Tahnok :REMASTERED:

It's a shame I couldn't get this one to go up on a Tahnok Tuesday, but doing that would mean waiting almost an entire week to post this and ehhh... I don't wanna.

So, the thing about 2002 is that, more than any other year of Bionicle, it is deeply repetitive. There's a lot of material for 2002, comics, mini-comics, web animations, a posthumous book. But a lot of it tends to cover the same events again and again. So when something like To Trap a Tahnok comes along, something that has its own completely unique story to tell, it's a breath of fresh air.

This comic does a lot of things I really like. Mostly little things, to be honest, but I'll start with a bigger one because it's worth mentioning. Because it is an original story unique to this medium, To Trap a Tahnok does not suffer from the same pacing issues as The Bohrok Awake did. It's not slow by any means, but each scene transition; which this issue actually has, already giving it a leg up over the breakneck velocity of its predecessor; happens comfortably, with none of the sequences feeling too cramped or too drawn out, making this issue an engaging but not tiresome read.

What I truly enjoy about this issue though, are the snippets of character work and worldbuilding it provides. I've mentioned in an older post how much I enjoy the mention of time passing at the beginning of this comic, a week since the Bohrok's emergence, to be precise. This little nod to the passage of time is a positive addition for a number of reasons. It establishes how long the Bohrok have been active, of course, which can give readers a good impression of the state the island is likely in, given how much destruction the Bohrok have been shown to be capable of in a short span of time. It also plays into the sandbox formula used in 2001. From this point on, the story is suggested to unfold relatively quickly, but that's a whole week's worth of adventures for young fans (or less young fans, as the case may now be) to dream up and act out with their own toys, pitting the Toa against the Bohrok in their quest for the Krana.

Speaking of Krana, this issue gives us our first look at Krana'd Lewa, and while he doesn't do anything, only briefly appearing at the end, this is another reason why the established time jump is important. We don't know how long Lewa was in that Nui-Rama hive wearing an Infected Kanohi, though his brief moment of clarity and the fact that he'd already finished collecting all his Kanohi by that point would suggest that it hadn't been very long. Here though, we know for certain that Lewa has been wearing this Krana for a week. No wonder it will have a much more lasting effect on him than the Infected Kanohi ever did.

Moving away from that one time mention though, I also want to commend the continued quality of the character work here. The Tahnok themselves are a main draw here, putting their dogged determination and surprising resourcefulness on full display, as well as showing off some of their Krana powers, something that doesn't seem to happen that often, honestly. We also get what is technically the first appearance of the Bahrag, though only their thoughts. They're not much more than generic ominous villains in the shadows at this point, but even this early their speech patterns are established and we get our first mentions of the "before-time" and the "restoration" of Mata Nui, which are also our first hints towards the Bohrok's true mission and its technical nobility. I do wonder how the Bahrag are aware of the island's name being Mata Nui, though. Perhaps "Mata Nui will be as it was in the before-time" actually refers to the robot, meaning Mata Nui, or rather the GSR, will be scoured clean and returned to its original state.

The Toa do quite well for themselves here too. I only noticed when I made the original version of this review, but all of the Toa put in an appearance in this issue. Lewa, naturally, is sidelined, but the rest each have an opportunity to contribute to the plot in some way. Gali and Pohatu are the main focus, an uncommon pair it's nice to get to see working together, while Onua and Kopaka both briefly appear when Pohatu explains their contribution to his plan, showing off more of that delicious teamwork from last time. Kopaka also goes on to show up in Tahu's scene, showing some good character development for both of them. Tahu is continuing his habit of delivering rousing speeches, this time to the Ta-Matoran, and it's not a bad one. "Remember -- your bravery, your wisdom, your spirit, make you as mighty as any Toa!" Wow, sure would be a shame if one year after this comic was published it was retconned that Tahu virtually held no respect for his Matoran at all by this point. Wouldn't it be wild if that happened? *ahem* Anyway, we also get Kopaka calling Tahu "my friend," and that's just delightful.

Back when I last looked at To Trap a Tahnok, I really liked it, a lot more than I expected to. I still do quite enjoy it, though I don't think I'm quite as enthusiastic over it as last time. Which isn't to say that I think it's worse this time around, I think it's more that I went into it this time knowing I liked it, so I wasn't as surprised. Still, I'm impressed by just how much Greg managed to cram into this issue without it feeling bloated or weighed down. It's well done, and the unique story is appreciated.

And that's as far as I got into 2002, so everything from this point on will be new ground! You might think that might mean I'll be slowing down, and I might, but it'll only be to pace myself. I've actually had several more retrospective posts basically done and sitting in my drafts since...January, maybe? ><' So after some minor edits, there's plenty more on the docket for the foreseeable future.

Next up: Into the Nest

[dbphantom]

Just finished Skypiea with the bestie (not telling him G-8 is filler because I fucking love G-8) and damn I need to ramble about one piece. I'm gonna ramble about one piece. I love one piece.

Mild spoilers for most recent chapters below the cut just to address Things and Stuff

Mostly because I want the Cross Guild to reach it first so that Buggy will use it to declare himself PK. Marineford foreshadowing.

I know it is kind of being undermined rn but I still want to believe that either the OP (unlikely) or something with the OP (more likely, still unlikely) will allow whoever finds it to communicate with the entire world directly

But on a more serious note I think it would eventually be used to broadcast the true story of the Straw Hat Pirates (and probably also the Void Century, given Robin's dream + the Rio Poneglyph) to the entire world, kinda like the ending of TAZ.

I hope the reason Roger n his crew were too early wasn't solely because of a prophecy (poseidon not being born yet I can cope w/ yknow), but because they wanted to free the world from the WG and they knew if they told the truth to the entire world right then, too many people would die in the resulting uprisings and the movement would be smothered.

(I think this is also why Crocus is hanging at reverse mountain and Rayleigh is vibing on Sabaody. They are like 'check-in' points for pirates on the grand line, so they're just making sure things go smoothly. Also probably why Shanks was going after the Nika fruit bc if they are trying to weaken the WG's hold on people, having an old god of freedom and icon of hope running around would help. And why he showed up at Marineford. Also also I hope the man the burn scar is another of Roger's old crew. Scopper Gaban, I miss you every day...)

But the polical climate of the OP world is changing a lot in the current day, and I think the reason Roger chose to be executed instead of dying to the disease was to have a grand stage so he could set up the Great Pirate Era. Essentially his final words would kickstart a new world where people are more comfortable living and trading and exchanging information on the rising seas. They won't be stuck isolated on their islands and therefore easier to control by the WG.

I said in the above that recent chapters are kind of undermining this and that's bc obviously we already have the tech to broadcast to the entire world, so why tf would the OP or something as important to be included with the OP be that? But I personally think the den dens are too easily controlled/interfered with by the Marines. They were still able to cut off VP's message and (unintentionally) deflect the blame of his death onto the SHs despite his best efforts and he's probably the smartest person in the OP universe. So I think a way to 'directly' communicate (be it telepathically or via memory transfer or a comic book or whatever) so that the truth can come out would be neat. Fuck censorship. Stay silly. Uphold freedom. Or something.

Also the manga is named One Piece and I think the final broadcast reaching us through dimensions would be cool af. I'm sorry, I really just think it would be neat, that's the reason I am writing this. It'd be so cool and I love stories that get meta 🤩

Anyway yeah I just finished rewatching Skypiea and given just how many parallels are within it compared to the rest of the series I will continue to hold on to this belief that the one piece is the EOS equivalent of the golden bell. It guides lost souls home. And home is currently at the bottom the ocean so I think we are all lost souls

... That's so romantic 💙

(Also ngl the end of Skypiea is also why I believe in Space Piece so much... I want terraforming so fucking bad bro... Ship coating and knock-up streams and the space pirates and the kingdom on the moon HAVE to come back, right? Please please please please please please please please please-)

Anyway if you actually read this, thank you, here is my favorite panel of Hawkins

[kolbisneat]

MONTHLY MEDIA: September 2023

Oh yeah the air is getting crisp and the coats are getting heavier. I'm ready for fall and here's how I spent the month of September!

……….FILM……….

Hook (1991) There's so much to love about this (the sets! every single pirate! And I truly do love the story here) but taking away nostalgia, it really feels like a B movie. And I kinda forgot just how awful adult Peter is. I mean that's the point, but even the stuff with Rufio feels mean-spirited. But Pirate baseball and the croc clock more than make up for any of that.

A Night At The Roxbury (1998) Having never seen it, this was pretty fun. Maybe not as strong as some of the other SNL-inspired movies, but it ended so strong that it more than makes up for anything else.

Strays (2023) Slim movie pickings at the beginning of the month but this turned out to be way better than expected! I was worried all the decent jokes were in the trailer but it was consistent throughout. And a 1.5 hour runtime? The dream.

……….TELEVISION……….

Love is Blind (Episode 4.13 to 4.16) The beauty of missing the first 12 episodes of a season of reality tv is that they replay important clips so frequently that it's like I watched it. Still baffling that anyone signs up for these shows after seeing what happens to folks that go on. Is it hubris? Do they think they'll be different? Truly bizarre.

……….YOUTUBE……….

How Our Property Tax System Robs The Poor to Pay For The Wealthy by Strong Towns and The Suburbs Are Bleeding America Dry | Climate Town (feat. Not Just Bikes) by Climate Town Hey can you tell I'm into city planning and how to move away from crummy design? Can't stress enough that suburbs are a blight on society and it's making cities broke, contributing towards climate change, and ruining good spaces. Push your local councils to move away from minimum parking limits and towards multi-use buildings and public transit. VIDEO (Strong Towns) VIDEO (Climate Town)

when green screen actually makes the movie better by CinemaStix When folks complain about green screen (me included), I think what we're really complaining about is seeing a tool used poorly for the wrong job. Sin City (or another fave of mine, Speed Racer)wouldn't have worked if not for green screen. VIDEO

Why Policing in America has ALWAYS been Broken. by F.D Signifier A thoughtful and thorough crash course on policing in America. VIDEO

……….READING……….

Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell (Complete) The beginning is promising but the book is so casual and leans so much on the author's own experiences that I can honestly only recommend it as a loose introduction to cults. I really wanted a deep dive into language, psychology, and sociology but this isn't that. Hey if you know a good book about weaponizing language, let me know.

The Road to Oz and The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum, Eric Shanower, and Skottie Young (Complete) Finished rereading the omnibus collection of Oz comics and it really is a joy. Young's drawings and Shanower's writing does a lovely job at capturing the whimsy and warmth of Baum's books. Really really great adaptations.

……….AUDIO……….

Guts by Olivia Rodrigo (2023) Listening to this reminds me of what it was like when small problems felt like the biggest problems in the world and there's a sweet comfort in that. Realizing that those troubles passed means that maybe these current ones will too.

Punk Tactics by Joey Valence & Brae (2023) This hasn't hooked me the way that the Underground Sound ep did but I'm still going to give it a bunch more listens before I decide if the Beastie Boys schtick has worn off.

……….GAMING……….

Oz: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting (Andrews McMeel Publishing) The Mof1 Crew is dealing with the aftermath of causing some light domestic terrorism. So the usual.

Neverland: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting (Andrews McMeel Publishing) Drama with the rival elves is ramping up and who knows what will happen next! You can read about it here.

And that’s it. See you in October!

[co-mixed]

Your Favorite Characters Will Never be Perfect in Movies.

Remember how Hawkeye was nothing like in the comics? Or how Rogue never even encountered Gambit on screen? Or how the whole Titans show did its own thing? 

And are you one of those people who can’t help but mention that this-is-not-how-it-happened-in-the-comics? Yeah, I used to be one too. 

In my case, it was enough to part with my expectations for the things I’ve already seen to realize what I’m missing by dismissing (I swear I’m not freestyling here.) But there’s more to it than just working on my own hopes and dreams. There is a reason (a few in fact) why we don’t see page-to-page adaptations. 

Where do I begin?

I’m trying hard to get into DC and the aforementioned Titans only pushed me closer to it (yeah meet another show I absolutely love now). But what stops me every time is issue number 1000+. I have time and I’m a patient lady but I won’t start something I can’t hope to finish. Both Action and Detective comics are over 1k issues long. I’m not sure I have time for that. But I’d love to get to know the characters and so would many others. Lucky for us, each one of them gets an origin story and if you’re lazy, a dedicated segment in an encyclopedia of their respective universe. Movies and shows aren’t that. They always have room for improvement and a fresh look. What they don’t have to do is retell an old, sometimes outdated ~30-page arc. Been there done that. Take me someplace new. 

The Power of a Retcon

Name a character who's never gotten a retcon. I’ll wait. If the first name that pops up is someone who has 10 pages of panel time before being cast off into the roster oblivion, we’re thinking alike. Most prominent characters have had their origin replayed and rewritten. No matter what the reasons were (sometimes it’s just lazy writing), you can always count on at least 3 different ways the character discovered their powers. Now which one do we take to screen? The latest? The fan favorite? Can’t please everyone. Besides, sometimes writers gotta work with a whole different universe (Hey ya, MCU). No one illustrates this better than Wanda and Pietro. And if anything, it’s our weird attraction to canon that caused them to be disowned by Magneto (correction - he never disowned them but it was revealed that he’s not their bio parent, although he reclaimed them back as his own eventually). 

There are a few characters and types of characters for whom it’s important to keep their origin intact. In my opinion, one of them is mutants but even comics have been messing it up for a long time now (looking at you, artist formerly known as Apocalypse!)

With so many changes how do we even trace a character back to their origins? It’s really easier to capture their general sense and role.

Crisis on Every Earth

We get retcons in the main timeline but how about all the other ones? Remember how Marvel went ahead and built a whole Ultimate Universe? Gotta say I loved the experiment even with its shortcomings. And I’d love to see more of that (just give me a high-school Evolution-style AU already!) Oh and then Nick Fury and Spidey became so wildly popular- they made it to movies and 616 respectively, remember? That’s kind of the point. The versions of the characters we know and love aren’t always necessarily the best ones. But we won’t find out unless we give them a fair shot. And I’m all for that.

And if you already have a version you like then what are you actually losing by getting a new one? You’ve read them and you’ve seen them.

Too Many Cooks 

To build upon the previous paragraph, all characters have their creators and then they have dozens of other people who took their turn at writing them. Now which one did it best is quite a question (the best example will always be the X-men although let’s face it, they’re a team). The thing here is, under a new writer every character picks up new traits. There’s a huge difference between the original take, a take from the 90s, and whatever is going on now. Again, it comes down to personal preferences and the story you choose to tell. 

To change or not to change

That, and what to change exactly. Every character can essentially be boiled down to several qualities that you shouldn’t change no matter what. The rest is flexible. 

Yes, for some characters it’s their signature look that can’t be altered (but that’s far less common than most people want to admit). For most though it’s their values or a specific origin or their role in a team. Just because we don’t expect it doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. 

The question of what exactly you can and should change, now this is a fun one. 

What works on paper doesn’t always fit into a frame. Like Superman’s questionable habit of wearing underwear as a top layer of clothing. Sure it works for a campy version but the truth is, he could look however the hell he likes as long as he’s a humanoid. His origin and personal traits are what makes him Superman. But depending on the story you wanna tell, you can change whatever and it will work for me. 

Toys and Sandboxes

Every character is shaped by decades of writing (good and bad). Events get added and erased but even if you get the origin right, the character won’t go through the same things as in comics. That is, unless you’re planning on retelling every story (I’m sure you aren’t.) Every slightest change of events will make them grow apart from their og version. By the second movie, it’s already a different AU version. That’s exactly what AUs are for. Exploring options, using opportunities. 

Our vision of characters always ties to when and where we see them for the first time. With our favorites it speaks to how much they resonate with us. And truth be told, that’s not always their originally intended personality (or look). I’ll go into DC, having a few expectations of my own, same as I watched the X-men movies with a clear vision of their characters. But teenage Jean Grey will never have the memories of teenage time displaced Jean, and  og teenage Jean was absolutely replaceable by a cardboard cutout. 

So there it is, something I will be holding on to when I finally go to see MCU’s take on mutants. And something we all should consider before judging any casting. 

[captainkawaii666]

Updated list of projects

A couple weeks or so ago I posted a list of fan projects I want to post about on here, but it was incomplete, so I’m gonna finish it now in a more official-looking format. Keep in mind that I will likely never be able to make some of these, especially the ones intended to be shows, considering I have a few projects that are more important to me that I’d prefer to focus on. But anyway, continue reading for the list! I hope one or more of these spark your interest. (For the projects I’ve already started posting about I might restart posts about those from the beginning to make them more polished btw)

-Mega Man: Reprogrammed, a Mega Man AU comic/show that originated as me redesigning Robot Masters and grew into a full AU

-A Godzilla AU show featuring various kaiju and humans from across the franchise and a universe that actually makes sense

-A Spider-Man AU project of some kind, I don’t really have much in mind for it but I need to build a world for my spidersona

-A Binding of Isaac AU comic, which is basically just me being like “hey what if these guys all lived together in this complex labyrinth instead of just being figments of a dying 5-year-old’s imagination (though they still might be that too)

-Nuclear Throne: Wasteland Wars, a Nuclear Throne AU comic with a concrete story and lots of goofy character interactions (and Tall Bandit…)

-Meta Knight and Dedede: Star Warriors, a Kirby prequel (haven’t decided between game, comic, and show) about Meta Knight and King Dedede’s adventures before Kirby showed up in Dream Land

-A Mario prequel (once again, haven’t decided what to make it) about the battles between Princess Peach’s father King Toadstool and Bowser’s father Morton Koopa (as well as other events in the Mushroom Kingdom’s past)

-A FNaF AU show that aims to, unlike the original games, tell a comprehensible and well-thought-out story (no offense to the original story but it is anything but those two things)

I hope people are interested in these ideas, and if I ever get good enough at art to draw for them or get a job so I can commission artists, I may even be able to provide art to accompany them! I might also do some asks for the characters once it’s been long enough that people care about them.

[facethemoment]

I felt the need to talk about this before I officially started the series. The real announcement is at the very bottom for those who don't really care.

I want to make this clear what I'm about to say I'm attending to just be forgotten and then in the future when more of this series comes out I can hopefully reblog it talking about how everything got better and now things are looking bright for the future of comic creators...but that's what I'm hoping for, I don't see that actually happening in reality.

For the people who know me personally they are well aware of my dreams of one day working with DC comics. I would rant and complain about how badly I wanted it to happen often and most of the time it led to me going "maybe some day" after I tried myself out going over every single thing I would do if I ever managed to get hired by DC.

And I imagine the reasonable response to my complaints would be

"Well that's a very cute dream but clearly you're an amateur comic book creator who doesn't have much experience."

And that is true, my skills at drawing are no where near what I hope to accomplish for my own comic on my own. I've always been more of a writer than an artist.

I wouldn't know how I could even manage my stress to keep up with DC or Marvel with a strict schedule I would have to follow.

But the key word is "on my own" and that's where things begin to slowly unravel for the horrible situations most independent comic creators who are starting out have to face.

Because even though it's true that on my own it will be a struggle the people who work at DC and marvel have help and years of experience and guidance to know what they're doing.

While it's hard to even know the right place to get their attention. To know how and where to apply to get a job like that.

So far the only "good" place to post a comic to boost your career that is a place MADE for independent comic creators is webtoons.

Now I could go on and on about how absolutely awful webtoons is as a company who don't care about their creators and never does anything good in our favor but it's all people really have.

Now you could show me many different other websites to post your webcomics that our webcomic only focused but nothing is as well known as webtoons is right now.

Why is that? Why does this website that doesn't care about the users/creators of all these well made comics be so popular?

And yes Tumblr is wonderful to allow the ability for me to constantly post and create even on my phone so I don't have to sit through the pain of drawing on ibis and then switching to my laptop to import all my art and let the quality get ruined instead of sending it directly to the site with no issues. But Tumblr isn't a webcomic only site, I don't expect big companies like DC or Marvel to ever browse the site to look for the next big things and there WERE rare moments of that happening for Disney but it doesn't feel right.

I'm very well aware that I'm probably not going to be able to make a career out of this comic.

That is fine

I'm very aware that I'm going to have to be working on this comic by myself as an independent creator.

That is also fine

And I'm very aware I'm probably not going to find a supportive website that is comic book based and treats its creators fairly.

And I'm not really okay with that. Tumblr is lovely but I don't feel like this is where I should stay to finish this webcomic.

Start it? yes. But not finish it.

Now I have been working on this comic since I was 6 years old, I plan for this comic to have 4 parts and it will probably take me years to complete it all.

And I really hope that once I get there I can reblog this and say how everything is better now.

Independent artists can make a career out of their work.

Independent comic book artists have a much better website to post their works onto and have a better possibility of being hired by a company.

Independent comic book artists can now tell their story and know that someone is going to see it without the website promoting paid favoritism.

That is all

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

The first pages of "we're pig farmers" are going to be redrawn to make it look less rushed for better viewing enjoyment. I will also be implementing a different art style as it was something that was planned from the beginning.

Thank you to all my friends, patient viewers and my mentor who might be reading this! I don't think I would have felt so passionate about starting this project if you guys didn't immediately support me like you did.

And I hope everyone enjoys this story I've been working on.

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

[look-at-the-soul]

Hi! It's gossip girl❤️❤️ I missed our little messages too! Luckily school isn't too bad right now so I hoping to be able to keep up on here a bit better now! I hope you're doing well!! I got to read so of the stories you've done recently and they've all been brilliant! I especially liked the one you posted yesterday! Make your home in my heart! ❤️ it was so cute! I love how soft Tommy was with her and how he took time to care for her! ❤️❤️ and I also liked the Runway! I haven't seen Anna but I heard it's good! And I loved how you made the story begin!

I've been doing alright! My break was nice and exams went pretty well! My classes this semester are a bit harder though so that's a bit of a challenge though 😂🥲😂

And I think my anxiety is doing a bit better now! I think I may actually try to post something within. Like two weeks maybe! 

I know I mentioned I had writers block but you know what😂 I got to go home for this weekend and had to fly. So I was like determined to try and finish at least one of my stories. And not only did I finish both but I've got 20k+ words broken up over about 6 different stories done now😂 One I still need to finish though! I kinda surprised myself too because I was typing stuff on the plane and usually I'm nervous annoy people seeing that stuff. But I lucked out both times and no one was in the seat next to me, which I think helped! 😂And I actually have more ideas I wanna get done by next week too😂 It was actually your little idea about Drabble that helped me get out of it too! So thank you for that! ❤️ Once I remembered that I didn't have to write a super long story it was a bit easier for me to cut down in what wasn't important! I have some bullet point ideas or mini Drabble that I've also almost got done too! There is one idea that I may send an other ask about though! It's something I be been wanting to write because I think I have a really good idea for a line prompt. But there's I'm a little stuck because of some of the TW's that would be included in the story and I'm not sure how'd people react? Idk if that makes sense but I can explain more in the other ask if that's ok! 

And yes! Alfie is absolutely a rich character! He's one of my favorites😂 I'm so glad he made it though the series😂 

Morpheus is pretty good! It's based of a comic by Neil Gaiman about the the Lord of Dreams (Morpheus)! And it starts off after he's been imprisoned for like 100 years and finally gets free and has to build up his kingdom again! I know it's not the busy summary but it's definitely worth the watch! And the actor who plays Morpheus (Tom Sturrige? I think it's spelled) is also very nice to look at so😂😂 but it's a pretty good show!

And I've heard of Both those movies with Cillian but haven't seen them. I've especially heard people like Breakfast on Pluto! I haven't heard of Virgin River though! What's it about? 

And I will say that we have interacted before but again I've kinda been hiding around for the last little bit 😂 And I honestly started the same way as you to, only on anon then I decided to share on thing and people seems to like it so I tried sharing more😂 Then I went into hiding again but you know, I think I might come out of my cave soon😅 And thank you for all your encouragement too! You really have helped me be less nervous about it all!❤️ 

And I haven't actually seen Sex and the City, but I've heard of that one too! But I get what you mean by being apprehensive to second parts! Sometimes the producers should have just stuck to one😂 but I do know that gossip girl is on HBO if you couldn't find it! 

Ohhh and local cafe's are fun! I wish there were some more near me I could go to😂 My college is great but it's not really in a big city where there's lots of cafes😂 We do have a few boba shops that could probably work pretty well though! Does coffee flavored boba count? 😂 And ohh I did see that you were writing for them! I still haven't seen a Quiet Place two yet, but I've seen part of Anna (didn't get to finish it) and I do really enjoy the Nolan Batman's (Cillian is very good at playing the characters who are a little psycho😂) But I can't think of anything specific to see with this right now! If I think of something I'll definitely let you know though!! ❤️

Aside from all the fics I've been trying to catch up on, I have a few mystery novels I want to finish! Most of what I've read though this year had been my textbooks though 😂

And I hope your days have been going alright and will only get better from her on!🥰🥰You're amazing!! Thank you for all your advice! And I'll be sure to send that ask about you opinion on an idea I had after this! ❤️❤️❤️ 

XoXo Gossip Girl!

Hello gossip girl!!!

How have you been?

I’m glad to hear school is doing alright:) thank you so much! I’ve been writing more and faster (I think hehe) aww thank you! It makes me so happy to know you liked that story! I’m a firmly believer that Tommy would be a sweet man, he just couldn’t leave her there in the pouring rain at night… and she managed to win his heart too. (I might have a second part planned for later) but first I need to finish the ancient request I got a while ago, I think there are 2 more stories in my drafts (gotta hurry up). I’m writing the second part to The Runway!!! And I’m so excited about it 🥰 looove Lenny!

Congratulations on the good grades! Keep the hard work going ☺️ oh but I’m sure you will do it just fine! Trust yourself (best of luck with your classes!)

Remember to take deep breaths, try to think of the things that gives you peace usually (and of course post the stories you’ve been working!), it will be just fine 😉

Oh I think airports are a great source of inspiration, wow! That’s an impressive work, you have been writing a lot! It makes me so happy to hear that! Yeah I don’t like neighbors looking at what you’re doing haha I get so nervous, but you were neighbor’s free so it must’ve helped a lot. Did you keep writing? *eyes*… oh that post helped me too! Like a lot! Sometimes I pressure myself to write something long, over X words but when I read that I was like… wait a minute, some stories can work great as short, a Drabble… 🥰💕 aww you’re welcome! It makes my entire world to know you’ve found some inspiration in my silly posts… my job is done here. We don’t even realize the pressure we put on ourselves sometimes right? Some stories are mean to be short, a mini series, a long series or a one shot, and it’s perfectly fine, what really matters is that we write what we want and enjoy it.

In your other post you mention SA, but I don’t know what it means? And also TW’s? 🙈 also do you want me to post the other message with the ideas for your story? Let me know!… okay the general idea sounds great to me! I just have a few questions to fully understand the plot, which I will share on your next message if you tell me you are okay with me posting it. But to answer your dilemma, I’d say go for it because internally you’ve been thinking about it since the beginning! Don’t doubt yourself on it, whatever path you choose is going to be the right one because it’s part of your original idea 😉😊

Alfie was a great addition to the show! He is so interesting and unique, he has a lot of things to bring to the table…

Oh wow Morpheus sounds interesting 🤔 I will try to see if it’s around the platform I have subscription from, or at least a small video to get an idea of the show, although to tell you the truth? I find it hard to get hooked with another series than peaky, what have they done to me? I want/need 10 more series ahaha (said the frustrated one) 😂 but it would be good to have something else to look at.

Breakfast on Pluto was amazing, I loved his character there (I think they did it way too early tho, he could’ve won an Oscar for it years later, but we know he’s not after that… Virgin River is a small (and perfect) little town full of mountains and rivers and nice people, so Mel is a practitioner nurse,widow and she arrives to start her job at the small clinic, she meets Jack a former soldier and they fall in love, but things aren’t easy so there are a million ups and downs, a pregnant ex, the noisy neighbors, flashbacks from the war… it’s so good!

Wow don’t hide! I love interacting with you on anon messages so I guess it’s the same with your own blog 😉 but whatever makes you feel comfortable! I hope you decide to share more and more,the first one is the hardest, so… we’ll be waiting with open arms when you decide to leave the cave 💖 ah anytime sweetheart! Happy to help :)

Yeah I didn’t watch it either but a friend told me what happened and I was like O.o nope I’m not watching that hehe I mean, they left Samantha out *horror face* they had the audacity *gasp* hahah yeahI think whatever you fancy to drink works ;) what does flavored boba tastes? Ahh you *need* to watch AQP2, I was reluctant at first, but Emmett won my heart over… Anna meh, the general idea was amazing, but I think the movie had something missing? Is it just me? I mean why would they make Anna have a girlfriend and be with Lenny and the other agent…? What’s the point? Yeah living la vida loca, I get it, but (?) did he took her to Hawaii? Did the gf found out Anna cheated? I have a lot of questions haha that’s why I write for him lol and I love the psycho characters too! *high five* Jonathan Crane was great, but one of the best roles for me will always be Anthropoid and the edge of love, (love the war theme).

Oh please share the reading list! I love finding new pieces to read, I have a John Banville novel I bought back in November and I haven’t read it yet… I am too behind some stories (I need to catch up on reading asap..), but it will be around so I try to not pressure myself a lot, sometimes it’s just hard to keep up with everything. Ahah I bet you have! Luckily you will find some time to read novels and fiction during your free time ☺️

Days have been alright thanks, I’m doing my nails old way (Idont want to do gel anymore there are loads of videos saying how much damage it can make on the skin and although I really didn’t use the UV lamp like once a week, I want to protect my skin as much as I can…I’ve been writing a lot, more than usual so I’m trying to maximize the inspiration spree, days have been warmer and I want to see if I can find a friend to go to a concert in June, so wish me luck!

Thank you for your beautiful words 🥺 I am here to chat whenever you need, and to me you’re amazing as well! So brave and I wish you nothing but the best in every aspect of your life, see you around xx

[benbamboozled]

Had an idea a while back for a series of one-shot fics of Jason Todd meeting members of the Endless throughout his life.

Death is the only one currently done, and I feel like posting it so here it is!

Death

(And a boy named Jason Todd)

“Jason.”

A gentle hand on his shoulder.

A soft voice in his ear.

“It’s over.”

Jason Todd opens his eyes.

He’s on his knees in the ruins of the explosion. His body’s lying in a heap in front of him, which explains why he’s not hurting anymore.

His body.

His very clearly dead body.

The woman who spoke is standing next to him.

Goth Classic, but she kills it—pun intended. Black hair, black shirt and jeans.

Eye makeup that probably would have been a bitch and a half to draw, but he’s pretty sure she doesn’t have to worry about that.

She’s pale. Too pale.

He’d ask her what she’s doing there, but. Well. It doesn’t exactly take the World’s Greatest Detective to figure out who she is. And who she’s there for.

Anyway.

She seems nice. Kind.

Jason stands up, brushes nonexistent dirt off of his suddenly pristine suit.

He has a lot of questions.

What about Sheila?

What about Bruce?

What about-what about-what about—

What about him? Jason Todd, he’s Jason Todd, and he’s Robin, and…

What about him?

The questions dry up in his mouth as he looks again at his body.

His body.

Probably stupid questions anyway.

He tries to think of something to say about the whole situation, because it seems like the sort of situation where he should say something.

“At least I left a pretty good looking corpse.”

She nods after appraising it, like she has to give it to him.

“True. One of the best I’ve seen, considering.”

She doesn’t seem to be in a hurry, which he appreciates.

“Lotta work to kill some kid, right? I’m just saying, beaten and blown up? Kinda seems excessive.”

She crosses her arms, raises her eyebrows, like someone has to call him on his bullshit, but she’s still smiling.

“We both know you aren’t just some kid.”

He doesn’t want to argue, not with her, so he settles on, “I guess.”

He always kinda thought, when it happened, he’d be relieved. His life hadn’t exactly been sunshine and rainbows—he’d spent most of it lonely, scared, angry, or new and exciting combinations of the three. Sometimes he only got through because he knew, one day, he’d get to rest.

But.

“I don’t want it to be over.”

“I know.”

“Do you…”

He thinks about holding back, but, hell, why not? Might as well take the leap.

“Do you think he’ll miss me?”

“I do,” she says, and he knows in whatever is left of his being that she really means it.

“I think they all will, very much. You’re a good kid.”

Jason studies the body on the floor. Another death he couldn’t stop. Another person he couldn’t save.

Another failure.

“Was it even worth anything?”

He’s asking about Robin.

Trying.

So hard.

To do good.

To be good.

Then he realizes, no, he doesn’t just mean that.

She answers the question that he’s really asking, because of course she does.

“Everyone’s worth something, Jason.”

It sounds so much like something he would say, it makes Jason want to cry. But he can’t, not anymore.

Crying is for the living.

He’s past that.

“Okay,” he says instead. He almost means it.

“Okay. I’m ready.”

She smiles. It’s the kind of smile that makes him feel a little braver. A little stronger.

He takes her hand.

Hears…

Wings. The rush of air, beating back the world.

He smiles.

For a second, for a lifetime, he’s flying.

Like a—

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

I read Clementine Book One 9 times so that you don’t have to read it at all

Spoiler-free review: It’s not great. 1.5/5 stars. 

"Clementine is back on the road, looking to put her traumatic past behind her and forge new path all her own. But when she comes across an Amish teenager named Amos with his head in the clouds, the unlikely pair journeys North to an abandoned ski resort in Vermont, where they meet up with a small group of teenagers attempting to build a new, walker-free settlement. As friendship, rivalry, and romance begin to blossom amongst the group, the harsh winter soon reveals that the biggest threat to their survival...might be each other. “

The best way I can describe Clementine in this is if TFS never happened and this is an older, slightly less angsty ANF Clementine who also lost a leg.  She’s not great.

Amos is the best character. He has a goal, a drive to reach that goal, and an actual personality that shines through in every page he’s in. He’s also the only character Clementine has any real chemistry with, which isn’t good news for her new love interest. 

Speaking of which, Ricca didn’t reach the potential I felt she should’ve. She has a fine backstory, but the way it was delivered was info-dumpy and not built up well. Her “romantic chemistry” with Clementine is practically non-existent, rushed, and a little awkward. 

The twins, Olivia and Georgia, were bland and annoying.

The baddie of the story is weak as hell. They do something terrible for a reason so overdone that it actually makes my brain mad.

The story is okay for the first half, but takes a steep nose dive in the second half that ruins what little good will it got outta me. Everything mentioned that was from the games felt shoehorned in for fanservice points and not because it contributed to the story. The pacing is all over the place, and the ending is just... annoying. The artwork isn’t Tillie Walden’s best, I know she can do so much better when she’s allowed to play with color and give her work a more dream-like quality, which the story doesn’t.

I originally rated it a 1/5 stars, but after reading it 9 goddamn times, I bumped it up to a 1.5/5 stars mostly for Amos, the few chuckles it got out of me, and one part that I genuinely liked. 

My full detailed review is below. It’s long, gives a recap of the 12-page Clementine Lives comic from Skybound X, addresses the harassment Tillie Walden has gotten over this, and spoils everything within book one. 

so how the hell did we even get here?

On August 14, 2018, the first episode of Telltale’s The Walking Dead: The Final Season was released, a game developed by a team that showed great care and passion for the story they wanted to tell and was meant to give Clementine’s story a satisfying ending. It’s not a game without flaws, both in its storytelling and mechanics. If you’ve followed me for any amount of time, you know I have my complaints about each of the games but at the end of the day, I love them, flaws and all. 

On September 21, 2018, we got the news that Telltale Games would be closing its doors. About 90% of their employees were let go with only about 25 remaining to fulfill the important obligations they couldn’t wiggle out of... y’know, like finishing a version of Minecraft Story Mode made for Netflix.... which if you know me, you know how I feel about MCSM and I’m sure you can guess the speed at which my eyes rolled upon reading that. 

With the closure of Telltale Games came hundreds of people suddenly out of a job, the cancellation of several games, and the realization that we wouldn’t get the rest of TFS. Sad times all around, statements were being made by Telltale [ex] employees, not fun in the slightest, you would go to youtube to watch playthroughs of episode 2 when it dropped and every creator was original enough to title their videos “GOODBYE TELLTALE” or “THE END OF CLEMENTINE.” 

But then Robert Kirkman told everyone to chill the hell out, Skybound Entertainment worked out a deal with Telltale, they’re going to finish off TFS through their Skybound Games division, all with the original development team who were working on it. 

The fans rejoiced, the Telltale team got to complete their game the way they wanted, and Skybound were heroes being praised by the fans. TFS was great, my personal favorite of the four main games. 10/10, would play it 100 more times. Clementine finally got the happy ending she deserved.

....But then we got Clementine Lives as a part of the Skybound X collection...and Clementine Book One was announced for summer 2022. 

A lot less happy after that. 

“blah blah die a hero or live long enough to be the baddie or something.” -Scarecrow, probably

 In hindsight, we should’ve seen this coming. What, Skybound gets all the rights to Clementine and we expected them to respectfully leave the conclusion of her story alone? That’s not how the money is made, babe! 

Clementine is a cow who just wants to be free and eat dewy grass all day in the warm sunlight but that isn’t about to stop Skybound from locking her up in a barn stall before getting on their hands and knees to pull and twist and squeeze every single last drop they can get outta her. Even if she runs outta milk, they can just shoot her and turn her meat into steaks and ribs and tenderloins and anything else you can get out of a cow down to the bones. When they’re desperate enough, they can make some bone broth.... I don’t really know where I’m going with this, we can just pretend I meant this as a metaphor for how they butchered her or something. 

Anyway, anything to continue making money on a franchise that is still fairly popular... I think? Aside from Telltale’s The Walking Dead, I’m not a big fan of the TWD franchise in general, any other content I tried intaking was meh at best. I lost interest in the show after S1. The books about the Governor weren’t all that interesting. I browsed the comics and they couldn’t hold my attention.  

I even played and finished the awful Daryl Dixon prequel game that no one else played. The most interesting thing in that game is if you run for more than 3.5 seconds, sweat blurs and drips down the screen as Daryl shits himself... riveting.

Now we have a Clementine trilogy to throw in there. 

Skybound decided they wanted to branch out into the young adult and middle grade world. Makes sense. Reach out to new fans, get some young blood to flow into crevices left by old fans who are no longer interested, expand your reach as far as possible... all they have to do is tell a compelling story in their well-established world with fleshed out characters while also checking all the boxes to ensure success. Sounds easy, right?  

Enter Skybound X and within it Clementine Lives, a 12-page comic tying together TFS and Clementine Book One.

I have a full in depth look at that comic here, but for a refresher: 

After the events of TFS, Clementine sneaks out of Ericson one morning without telling anyone and we find out that she’s planned her departure for a while. She has maps and supplies hidden away, as well a car stashed somewhere. Before she can get away, though, an older AJ appears wearing Clementine’s hat... Ugh.

He’s rightfully pissed that she would ditch out on everything like this, insists that he’s coming along, and Clementine tells him no. Her explanation for all of this, the reason she’s abandoning AJ and everyone at Ericson, is that she’s not happy... which spoiler alert, is kinda contradicted in chapter 8 of book one??? but we will get into that later. AJ lets Clementine leave and she sets off on her new journey that brings us to the events of book one. 

To say Clementine Lives was poorly received would be a vast understatement. Fans ripped it to shreds, they hated the damn thing, and they were vocal about it. There’s no way in hell Skybound didn’t know how much fans despised Clementine Lives. I mean, people were making long-winded posts/videos about how it was an insult to Clementine’s character and asking everyone to not support the Clementine trilogy, to let Skybound know that this isn’t what they wanted.

Fans hated the portrayal of Clementine and AJ. They felt it had more in common with a fanfic written by someone who didn’t play the games themselves but instead watched a youtube playthrough one [1] time, thought Clementine was cool but didn’t like anyone else and said, “Hey what if Clem ditched everyone and hung out with my OC’s instead??” than it did with the canon of the games.

I mean, who wrote this, right? Did they even play the games? Well...

Tillie Walden and the Curious Case of Clementine’s Character [and other short stories involving obnoxious twdg fans who have nothing better to do with their lives than stalk her instagram account]

I hadn’t heard of Tillie Walden prior to the announcement that she would be the one writing this Clementine book trilogy.

I’ll admit, I hated the 12-page comic, too. In my review I said, “...Skybound and Tillie made this comic, they put it out there and asked for money for it, therefore I’m allowed to explain why it’s garbage as well as ponder over the questionable intent and whether or not Tillie actually has played these games.”

“This comic is awful. It misses the point of everything TFS, and the rest of the series, stood for. There is no heart here. I feel no happiness in reading it, and I don’t detect any passion behind it. It’s a lifeless comic that retcons everything in order to throw AJ away and start fresh with a new adventure for Clementine that makes no sense because the cow isn’t profitable unless it’s milked.”

That was then and this is now, though. While I still don’t like the comic and feel it’s not in line with Clementine as a character or a good direction for the comic, I do believe Tillie has played the games... the problem is she admitted during the Skybound Games XPO stream that she hadn’t played the games prior to getting the job. Skybound reached out to her and THEN she played through them, and she played through them fast...and I doubt she played them more than once. That’s an issue. 

I’ve read some of her other works- On a Sunbeam, Spinning, A City Inside- and I think they’re good, I think she’s a talented artist. Some of the writing choices/themes are a bit iffy but most times I can overlook that because I genuinely love the art. It’s colorful, surreal, dreamy, creative, the kind of art you look at and feel something, y’know? Oh, and she likes to point out, “very gay.” Even if you hate the Clementine books she’s writing, I still encourage you to give her other works a chance. There’s a lot more life and creativity there. I can see why she was considered, despite Tillie saying herself that she didn’t think she was the “obvious choice” for this project..... which yeah, even she knows.

This one pesky little problem has more to do with Skybound than it does Tillie: creating a continuation of Clementine’s story after TFS is a dumb move... especially when the artist you hired didn’t work on the original games, doesn’t typically write stories in a zombie apocalyptic setting so their art style doesn’t let itself well to this particular project, doesn’t have a good grasp on the main character’s previous establishment, hasn’t played the games more than once or twice, probably has to follow a strict set of rules put in place by Skybound because they’re just like that, is under an extreme time constraint of having to finish a trilogy only three years mostly by herself, and is forced to make shit up about the previous games in order to make this comic’s plot exist.

In my honest opinion, Tillie wasn’t a good match for a Clementine story, and if she was allowed to write something completely original within the TWD universe, then this would’ve been a more compelling story to follow. 

Let me say this about Clementine Book One: If anyone else was the protagonist of this story, it would’ve been better. I would’ve given it a 3.5/5 stars if Clementine was replaced with an original character. 

That’s the problem. 

I know a lot of people put the full blame on Tillie for how bad this whole thing is. She wrote it right? She “ruined” Clementine, it’s all her fault that this beloved character and reputation is “tarnished” and she should just cancel the rest of the series, blah blah blahhh. 

I don’t entirely blame Tillie for this. She was hired to write this story because Skybound knew people would buy anything with Clementine’s name on it, good or bad. They knew Tillie had a fanbase who would buy anything she wrote. They knew that no matter how much fans bitched and moaned about it, Clementine Book One would sell. I believe she should’ve familiarized herself with the source material better, but she’s a professional artist. I believe she tried her best to create a good story for this trilogy but it’s weighed down by the fact that the main character had to be Clementine. 

Which leads me to this bullshit that pisses me off. 

There are plenty of assholes out there who stalk her instagram so they can harass every post she makes [even ones that have nothing to do with Clementine] with “#notmyclementine” and “dis comic make no sense clam wuld never lev aj u sux” as if that’s going to do anything. Not to mention the comments wishing for her to be fired, hoping she loses her entire career over this, calling her a fucking groomer, and other disgusting things that you don’t have to scroll far to find in her instagram comments. 

This is the part where I tell everyone to sit the fuck down and stop. There is no reason to harass Tillie for doing the work she was hired to do. Telling her [and Skybound] that she should be fired, making homophobic remarks, insulting her appearance, wishing harm on her, telling her how much you hate her, calling her a groomer, and harassing fans of hers who want to support her is fucking disgusting. 

Clementine is not real. She is a fictional character in a video game. This comic doesn’t hurt her feelings because she doesn’t exist. Clementine, the video game character, is not a real life person. I don’t give a single shit how important Clementine is to you. You are not defending anyone’s honor or protecting them from harm when you post shit like that. You’re causing the harm over a fictional character. Tillie Walden is a real person.  You can dislike the work while still showing human decency to the creator. You can criticize the work while remaining respectful to the creator. It’s not hard. 

Now that you’ve scolded us for the shitty people on instagram, are you gonna actually review the book or are you gonna keep procrastinating...?

Hey, don’t call me out on something I’m totally doing.

And yes, we can review the actual book now that I’ve gone over how we got here and hit you over the head with the “don’t harass Tillie over the comic, shithead” bat. 

Yeesh, so impatient. 

The Plot: it’s thickening... like curdled cheese

First thing’s first, let’s go over the story, the plot, of this thing. Then I’ll go in depth for each of the characters, talk about the “romance,” finish up with my final thoughts, and then talk about Clementine Book Two coming out June October 2023. Cool? Cool. 

Clementine has left Ericson behind and is traveling alone with nothing but a pair of crutches to keep her warm at night. She's discovered by a group of Amish teens after being startled by her own period. Gotta say, I love the attempt to include Clementine having her period tastefully by having one of the other girls be like, “Oh, I just started mine, too,” only for another to be like “Don’t tell her that, ewwwwww!” 

Remember how well ANF handled that? No? Just me? Whatever. 

Anyway, they notice Clementine has a prosthetic leg and offer to take her back to their town to meet Rabby, a dentist who creates prosthetics. This town they take her to is actually neat. They have high walls, guards who have a system of keeping track of everyone who comes and goes, they’re not rude to her during the entrance procedure, there are several buildings with a lot of people walking the streets, they have horses..... oh and Meredith, one of the girls who found Clementine, calls the walkers “devils,” which is fun. 

Clementine gets her new leg before ditching them to go back on the road where she meets Amos, an Amish teen who is out on his Rumspringa [a period when some Amish youth experience greater freedom. The idea is that teens will come back after tasting the modern world] with his horse, Helen, his carriage, and his 16 shirts.

Amos is heading to a mountain base up north in Vermont to help a group build a “strong homestead” throughout the winter, then when the snow melts, he’ll be rewarded with a plane ride. Clementine thinks that’s bullshit, planes don’t fly around anymore, but Amos insists that he saw the plane in the sky. 

Y’see, a man showed up looking for recruits to help build these houses and then flew his plane over as proof that this was real. Amos really wants to ride in a plane, something he’s not supposed to do, hence why he’s going on this adventure for his Rumspringa. 

Clementine gets a ride from him where they save a group of people who were under attack by walkers. However, one of the guys they saved gropes Clementine and she attacks him. 

It’s difficult to tell that’s what happened due to the sloppy art, though. Initially I interpreted it as Clementine thinking he turned into a walker and attacked, but uh no, he groped her. She stomps on his hand after he challenges her with a, “do it,” and then as she’s hurrying to get away, someone else from inside the carriage says, “What did you do to that girl?!”

I would say I’m surprised but given some of the other stuff in Tillie’s works, I’m not. 

Anyway, Amos leaves the carriage with those people, takes Helen and catches up with Clementine. He wants to travel with her, she calls him ridiculous and “I’m not interested in being a bodyguard anymore.”

It doesn’t take much to convince to her, though- Amos promises to leave Helen with her once he gets there since he knows she’d take care of her. 

And I’m strangely reminded of Clementine’s trauma regarding horses from TFS where dead horses appear in her nightmare due to the one she was riding getting shot at the ranch... no mention of that anywhere, but are we surprised? 

They spend a week traveling together. We get a montage of them that I actually like, and adds to my point that Amos has the most chemistry with Clementine in this book. 

They make it to the mountain base where a pair of twins are waiting, and they’re suspicious as hell. 

Red flag #1: No names. They refuse to give their names. 

Red flag #2: One twin shoots Helen without even talking to Clementine or Amos, they just assumed they brought the horse for them to eat when nooo, Amos wanted to leave Helen with Clementine when they parted ways.

Red flag #3: They immediately view Clementine as a liability for her leg and tell her they’re not feeding anyone who can’t pull their weight... two people who refuse to give their names are in charge of your food and shelter, huh?

Red flag #4: Clementine says they’re dangerous and refuses to leave Amos alone with them. 

Red flag #5: the mountain they’re on is literally called Killington. My eyes, look at them roll, there they go across the floor...

Hey, do you think these twins might be bad news? Because I dooooo~

But there’s a really sweet hug between Amos and Clementine after she insists she stays with him. You really feel that he’s scared and hurting after Helen’s death and he’s relieved to have her. 

Up the mountain, we’re introduced to Ricca and.... y’know, not even Louis and Violet eye-balled Clementine this fast. I’ll save it for the romance section but uh... yeah. Ricca’s interest is apparent pretty quick... like right after their first conversation and then it goes no where.

So the twins explain that they need wood for building and the stove, snow melts down for water. Stick to the paths when out because the twins won’t come looking for them [red flag #6], they work from sunrise to sunset but the days are short up in the mountains so they need to move fast. They lose a lot of days to storms, they need to keep track of all their tools and bring them in during those storms or else they’ll never be seen again. Walkers don’t come up here because it’s too cold. 

The twins refuse to answer more questions, and Ricca says she’s been calling the one with the ponytail “Right” and the one with her hair down “Left.” 

Side note: I had a helluva time trying to keep these damn twins straight, you cannot tell them apart for shit especially since they change their goddamn hair styles and have the same goddamn face!

Oh but put a pin in the fact that Amos can tell them apart because “Left has much brighter eyes.”

So they all get to work. Clementine, Amos, and Ricca get pretty close. They go on joyrides with the snowmobile, they spend their nights reading novels together, getting into snowball fights that Clem takes too seriously, hunting, and talking about how sus the twins are. These sections are good, I like them. Especially when they’re reading together- Amos and Clementine read out loud, and when they don’t know a word, Ricca looks it up for them in the dictionary. The three of them are curled up in their sleeping bags, reading by candle light, it’s very sweet. It’s too bad there isn’t more of that in here. 

While out chopping wood one day, Clementine hears a noise that is supposed to foreshadow walkers being underground, and we find out Ricca is a smoker. 

Oh, and Amos gets sick with a fever. Not fun. 

Now let’s talk about the generator because this is funny. Not good funny, though, so don’t get too excited. 

So they have this portable generator, right? It’s for the other lift that they just fixed, so Clementine and Ricca have to drag it about three miles away from the main base, but can take a shorter way over a bridge the twins built. They take a map, put it on the snowmobile, and Ricca let’s Clementine drive. Smart. 

But uh oh, the bridge is broken! Guess they gotta turn around and go the other- just kidding, they’re gonna tie a rope around the generator and swing it to the other side. I wish I was joking but I’m not, aren’t you laughing???

Ricca fucking falls down with the generator and Clementine jumps down after her. 

While down in the pit, they’re attacked by walkers. Turns out the twins weren’t entirely truthful about there being no walkers up here. Ricca breaks her glasses, Clem breaks her prosthetic [which we learn she named Kenny UGH] and Ricca dumps her backstory which I’ll get into during her section.

Ricca then climbs back up and promises to come back, we get a flashback of AJ about to cut Clementine’s leg off? for some reason? and then she starts exploring the cave for a way out... only to be overwhelmed by walkers and then saved by this random dude named Tim who comes out of nowhere.

Tim gets bit, or scratched...? I don’t know, you can’t tell what the fuck is going on during the part. He says it’s just a scratch on the cheek but I thought you only turned if you were bit? Or is it a bite and Tim’s trying to downplay it? I don’t fucking know. 

Clementine feels super bad that he’s gonna die because of her. They have a heart to heart, and it’s one of the better parts of this book. Tim talks about how he lost his husband at the start of all this, how he actually used to look after the twins [whose names are revealed to be Olivia and Georgie- correction, her name is GeorgIA, not GeorgIE, but characters just call her one or the other and it gets confusing] and how this whole building houses thing is for their sick mother. Clementine opens up about how she can still feel ghost pains in her leg and how she ended up alone- every group was the same, they fell apart, so she wanted to come up north to live alone. 

“I can’t... I can’t do this. I can’t keep watching people die. That’s why I wanted to be alone.”

Tim gives her some encouragement about building a better world and lets her to go, she does, and then she reunites with Ricca. Yay. 

Back at the base, Clementine tells the twins what happened and they’re freaked out because Tim’s alive. They interrogate her about him, and Right runs outta there to go find him... Left tries to stop her, and it turns to violence.

With Right gone, Left is super sad, and Ricca is super sad that Clementine didn’t tell her about Tim after they were reunited and then outta nowhere just, “I don’t need a girlfriend or to know all your secrets, just... God, I sound stupid. Just... next time you meet a stranger in a cave, a heads up might be nice.”

Feel that romantic tension? 

Speaking of romantic tension, Left asks Amos to come behind the curtain to her area, and Amos is like “Can I get you something?”..... and then Clementine’s hears a gasp from behind the curtain and Ricca is like “let them have their fun.”

So apparently Amos and Left were fooling around... remember when Amos said Left had brighter eyes? I guess that was foreshadowing all the smoochin’ they were gonna do in the background? I dunno. I’m surprised Amos would be chill with foolin’ around, and Left just got into a fight with her sister which I don’t imagine is a mood setter. 

Right comes back in the middle of the night covered in blood. I believe we’re assuming she found and killed Tim, who was a walker... maybe? She later mentions that Tim told her something sooo did she kill him when he was still alive? Maybe. Who knows? We never find out for sure.

Oh, and Amos was sleeping behind the curtain with Left.... Keep that in mind. 

The next morning Amos fixes up Clementine’s leg, and Clementine asks for the whole story behind him and Left, who he calls Olivia... meaning she told him her real name. But Clementine asks him if he wants to take a walk when night falls because they haven’t gotten to spend much time together, to which Amos tells her, “That would be delightful, Clementine.” 

Can I just- Clementine, why don’t you ever ask to spend alone time with Ricca? That’s a serious question, why? I’m seriously truly to feel something with Clementine and Ricca but all I can say is she has better chemistry with Amos.... Tillie, I don’t understand, you write wlw and you’ve done it well before, why is this so... full of nothing? 

Anyway, Right is being pissy, and Left tells Clementine that she’s going to leave with Amos once they’re all done here. She wants to go back to his town, but her sister can’t know...... because of course not. I’m sure nothing bad will happen because of this. 

Right comes in even more pissed off because Amos is gone and so is the snowmobile. Turns out he took the generator [which Left fixed after it was broken in the fall] to save this “screwed up camp,” as Clementine puts it. 

And Right goes, “there’s a storm coming in, he’ll never make it... but at least it’ll be one less mouth to feed.”

RED FLAG #8 HELLO??

The storm hits, and Right just stands outside like a brooding, suspicious asshole who refuses to come in. Left then explains that they’re here building houses because of her mother. Her mother grew up in the area and thought this would be the perfect spot to rebuild when the world went to shit. She kept them alive, so the twins feel like they owe her, especially since she’s sick. 

Which.... okay? But also what? Like alright, jumping ahead a bit, we do get to see the mother and the place they’re staying in and it’s huge, AND there are people.... why is it just the twins doing this shit? Tim fucking dipped out last winter so why are the twins here? Do they think building houses will make their sick mother magically better? Spoiler alert, it will not! 

This whole part doesn’t make sense. 

But then RICCA decides to go out looking for Amos, and tells Clementine to stay behind because she doesn’t want to leave Left alone with Right.... 

But then fucking CLEMENTINE goes out by herself to look for both of them, all while thinking about Ricca and Amos and the nights they spent reading together.  

But guess what? You’ll never guess- Amos and Ricca are alive and he did it, Amos got the lift to work! He crashed the snowmobile, but that’s okay! The other lift works now! They rush to bring the twins the good news, everything is happy!

And then Right pushes Amos off a cliff. 

...............................Yep.

This is where the story takes a nose dive into shit- Amos is killed because Right found out about Left’s plan to leave with him... apparently?? Left is sobbing on the ground, Right fucking stomps on her back and tells her to shut up, and then pulls out her gun on Clementine and Ricca, who run away. 

Are you laughing? because I’m not. 

What was the fucking plan, you moron??? “Oh step one, push Amos to his death in front of everyone. Step two, break my sister’s back. Step three, fucking shoot Clem and Ricca. Step four, ??????” It doesn’t make sense.

Up until this point, I was fine. It wasn’t great by any means, the plot is kinda dumb with them building houses in extreme weather, everything with the generator was dumb..... Right’s always been an asshole, but now she’s decided to be evil. 

The story just killed off its best character out of nowhere. It feels very “we have to kill someone off, and Tim wasn’t enough, we have to kill off a likable character so that the reader is sad.” 

And like... I can’t even say it wasn’t foreshadowed? because right from the start, you know Right is a bitch. You know she’s an asshole, much more so than Left. Then Left starts smooching Amos and asks Clementine not to tell Right? C’mon... even though we get no indication that she knows about Left’s plan to leave with him. Maybe she saw him peeking from behind the curtain where she knows her sister sleeps and figured out they were smoochin’? I don’t know, I really wish things were actually clear in this damn thing. 

So yeah, Right decides murder is a good idea because she won’t let anyone take her sister away... I feel like I’ve seen something similar to this before. 

We get another Lee flashback, and now Ricca and Clementine are crying. Ricca wants to go looking for him, but Clementine tells her there’s no way Amos survived that fall.... even though he probably could have, we never see his body so I dunno if this is Tillie leaving things open for him to come back or if she didn’t want to show his body to all the middle graders reading this but this is TWD... no body? they can always come back. 

Clementine and Ricca decide they can’t just ditch the mountain yet, they have to save Left from Right- oh excuse me, Olivia... they have to save Olivia from Georgia. 

So they sit outside of camp and wait for sundown... but here is where I get even more pissed than I was before: Clementine explains why she left Ericson. 

“I spent so many years trying to find somewhere safe. And I did. This old school. There were good people there. People I loved. But after I lost my leg, everything felt different. No one said it, but I could feel it- they thought I was a liability. But I think the real issue... was that I couldn’t talk to any of them about it. They were all around my age, and I... I just wanted to talk to Lee about it. Someone older, and... I don’t know...”

“Lee?”

“He, um, was with me in the beginning. Took care of me, as long as he could. After leaving the school, I was alone, like I was when he first found me. And I realized... I was waiting for him. For Lee to come find me. And I was so pissed at him for not trying harder, which doesn’t make any sense, he’s dead... When I was on my own, it was nice for a while. I was so focused, my mind got quiet... I got so sad I would just cry for days, and then I’d get scared... about what my future would be like. That maybe this sadness would never go away.”

“Has it?”

“Honestly? No... not really.”

................I just-

I thought Clementine left because she wasn’t happy? That’s what she told AJ in Clementine Lives, so what? “Well actually, I really left because everyone at Ericson thought I was a liability and I just wanted to talk to Lee again but he’s dead and I’m pissed at him for being dead and not trying hard enough to save me again.” 

This “reveal” is so... bad. It’s bad, I don’t like it one bit because I actually played TFS... more than once. I’ve played it several times, I’ve streamed it about what? Four or five times? Shit, maybe more? I know the story, I know the characters, I know Clementine.

You’re gonna look me in my big dumb face and try to convince me that Louis and Violet looked at Clementine like she was a liability? After everything she did for them? After all they went through? Clementine didn’t feel like she could talk to them about how she was feeling? That they didn’t care enough to reach out to her?

I don’t believe you. 

I think you’re full of shit. 

I’ll rant about this more in Clementine’s section. We gotta move on because believe it or not, we have even more bullshit to cover. 

ANYWAY.... Georgia has Olivia gagged and tied up so she can’t escape.... I just, what is the plan?? What does she expect to happen??

 Clementine and Ricca trick her into coming outside and-

Clementine gets her with the hatchet, but Georgia has a gun up her sleeve and shoots Ricca. The gunshots cause an avalanche. The place is covered in snow, Ricca and Olivia are *not* okay, and Georgie is just spouting cheesy villain lines about leaving Clementine’s body on the mountain. 

Oh, and she starts trying to guilt Olivia with the whole “Everything I did was for you! I’ve always protected you! He was going to take you away from me! Tim told me not to let you go!”

...Again, I feel like this is very familiar.... hmmmmm....

“You’ve never loved anyone, Clementine, I can see it. You have no idea... how far I’ll go... what I’ll do...”

No seriously, why do I feel like there was another, much better written twin character behaving like this.....? hmmmmmm....

Anyway, Georgia gets bit by a walker while trapped in the snow, and Clementine FINALLY says something I agree with:

“Out of everyone in this world that your sister could’ve picked... you were so lucky it was Amos.”

Georgia and Olivia say their goodbyes, Ricca calls Clementine “baby,” and they drag her outta there. 

Now it’s just Clementine, Ricca, and Olivia left. The three of them travel to the lift and get off this damn mountain. They get the bullet outta Ricca when Clementine hears a noise outside. She follows it and finds a one-eyed kitten alone under some junk... because sure. They name the kitten Dr. Barnwell. 

I can’t wait for that kitten to be tragically killed off for dramatic effect later in the series. To be fair to Tillie, she couldn’t possibly write an beloved pet death as bad as Rueben’s in MCSM.

Now the plan is to get back to Olivia’s place, sneak past her mother, and steal the plane. Reasonable, yes? Planes are easy to steal, and easy to fly, too!

Ricca also mentions that Clementine talks in her sleep, but won’t tell her what she says until they’re in the sky. 

They finally make it there, sneak in, Olivia tells her mother she’s sorry before slipping a note under the door, they run around and knock some guards out, and it’s revealed that Olivia’s mother is a walker. 

I think.

The art is too sloppy to fully tell but I think that’s the big reveal. 

So... did they know that the whole time? This is what they meant when they said she’s sick? or was she sick before and then died during this time so they have no idea? Ugghhh I don’t know.

They find the plane that Olivia just happens to know how to fly thanks to her uncle teaching her, they take off into the sky, and they plan to go back to Vermont so they can fly over and “let’s show Amos the plane one more time.”

Oh, and that note Olivia left? 

The FUCKING END. 

That’s it, that’s everything that happened in Clementine Book One. I can’t believe I’ve read this time nine times, holy shit-

The Art Style: I have no idea what’s happening

I struggled with this art style. 

Remember how I said Tillie’s a talented artist? She is, she truly is... when it’s her original works and she’s allowed to play with color and doesn’t haven’t to be gritty to fit the TWD aesthetic. Her original stuff is so clean and you can actually see what’s happening. 

Some examples:

and I get it, her style won’t be for everyone, and that’s fine. I happen to really like it.... but not when it feels like she’s trying to implement elements of TWD grit while also working in greyscale.  

Tillie’s style doesn’t lend itself well to this story. Maybe it would if there weren’t such restrictions put on her by Skybound because I’m sure they gave her a bunch.... but this ain’t it, chief.

As I talked about before, trying to tell the twins apart in this was a nightmare. Olivia has a ponytail, Georgia doesn’t.... but when this is so messy and at times sloppy I can’t tell shit about the hair. 

There’s also the fact that if you removed Ricca’s glasses, she would look exactly like the twins. Clementine and Amos are the only two of the five who you can always recognize. 

Rabby has a good design, and so does Tim... but they aren’t around enough. The walkers- oh god, the walkers- look like blobs most of the time. 

And don’t even get my started on Clementine’s face. 

I can’t with Clementine’s face. 

Clementine: there’s a reason fans are calling her “Tangerine”

This section of the review is the most overwhelming for me because where do I even begin? 

There is never a point in this book where I feel like this is the Clementine I remember from the games. And y’know, I always like to remind everyone who plays the games that no Clementine is the same. We all play the games our way, she shape our Clementine through the choices we make, we have different interpretations of her personality, relationships, how she rationalizes her decisions. My Clementine is different than yours, that’s the fun of these games. 

When you take a character who has thousands of different interpretations, who can follow several different paths, and try to make her into a condensed version for a graphic novel while also trying to stay true to her character and not invalidate any choices.... it’s not going to work. It’s just not. 

So how does Tillie Walden interpret Clementine for this first installment? Who is Clementine here?

She’s dull. Awkward. Angsty. Feels more in line with ANF Clementine than TFS Clementine but toned down. She has a few moments where she teases Amos and Ricca and that’s cute, that’s some personality I want to see... but then she starts on about how talking is hard or makes a rude comment so... that’s cool. 

She feels dumbed down when it comes to first aid solely because the book needs a way to inform the reader of proper amputation care... even though we never see Clementine washing her leg after that.

She’s pessimistic, grumpy, and again, only really shows a soft spot for Amos... which is not good news for Ricca, her actual love interest. Even when she opens up to Ricca after Amos’ death, it doesn’t feel... earned? warm? It doesn’t feel tender, or comforting.... ugh, I’ll talk more in the romance portion.

Clementine does get emotional after Amos’ death, she cries and explains why she left Ericson and I’m still shaking my head at the fact that this book is trying to sell this to me. 

This would be an emotional moment if it were coming from anyone BUT CLEMENTINE.... I played TFS and this doesn’t add up. 

Clementine wasn’t happy at the end of TFS, everyone around her looked at her like she was a liability, so she left. She left AJ. 

Except no? What are you talking about? 

Oh, and by the way? She never mentions AJ to anyone. Not by name, not in passing, nothing. AJ get a single panel flashing back to when he cut her leg off. That’s it. 

Also look at the way he’s drawn. Someone who never played the games would probably think AJ was a baddie who cut off her leg but you and I both know how fucking raw and painful it was for AJ to beg her to get up and come with him. That one lousy image holds nothing from the original.

AJ might as well not exist. If you took that panel out, nothing would change. Honestly? I almost get a bit of bitterness from it. She goes on and on about how she realized she was going to live while everyone around her kept dying, she would spend some days just crying and crying.... it’s not great. 

Clementine feels... immature? And yeah, she’s seventeen in this and seventeen-year-olds aren’t the pinnacle of maturity. I feel like Tillie was trying to present her as mature for her age given her life experience in the apocalypse, but it comes off as emo teenager who thinks they’re mature because they write faux deep poetry on tumblr and wear combat boots. 

This isn’t like Clementine in TFS where you do feel she’s mature. She has to be, she has a child she’s raising and protecting. She has to be strong and smart for him. She has to be the adult in their relationship... but she has those moments of vulnerability to remind you that she’s not an adult, she’s a teenager who was forced to grow up too fast and it hurts. 

In ep4 of TFS, when they’re in the caves after getting separated from the group, she and AJ get into an argument. She tells him that he’s just a child, and he throws it right back at her- “So are you.” and you can see it on her face... y’know? 

You want her to be happy, you want to give back the childhood that was taken from her at the start of the apocalypse, you want her to overcome every obstacle thrown her way.  You understand her feelings about Lee, why he meant so much to her and why she struggled to let him go even after accepting that he was dead. 

You remember that she is a teenager who makes mistakes, she doesn’t know everything, she fucks up. She’s doing everything she can to protect those she loves. You feel that she wouldn’t hesitate to give her life for the little boy she raised. She still has a lot of growing to do but you don’t doubt that she’s gonna do it. 

This Clementine? She has none of that. This Clementine doesn’t feel like the kind of person who could raise and protect a child, who would give her life to ensure that child was safe. You don’t get the vibe of a teen who had to grow up too fast in order to survive, someone who is clever in their survival tactics. This Clementine doesn’t know basic first aid. She was mad that Lee didn’t save her despite being dead. This is a Clementine that I can’t imagine breaking onto a boat full of kidnappers to get her friends back... and it’s not the amputation. 

TFS Clementine, amputation or not, she would’ve charged that damn boat herself if it meant saving those she loved. Comic Clementine couldn’t even be bothered to check and make sure Amos really was dead, it’s just easier to assume there was no way he survived... but then she turns around and insists they go back for Olivia, a character she has no real connection with. It doesn’t make sense. 

It’s just.... not her. I’m sorry, Tillie, but this characterization is okay at best, insulting at worst. 

Amos: I’m signing the adoption papers as we speak, he’s my son now

Amos is the best character in this book, and I’ve yet to find anyone who would disagree with that. Every review I’ve read/watched boils down to “this comic was bad but I liked Amos.”

Let’s be real- he was only made so likable so that we’d all be forced to feel something when he died. 

Before I get more into his character, I wanna nip something in the butt that I keep seeing even after this book’s release- Amos isn’t just white Louis. Amos isn’t a “hey can I copy your homework” of Louis’ character. The most they have in common is freckles and being the friendliest person in the group. 

A key difference being Louis uses cheerfulness as a shield to keep people at a safe distance from him where Amos is just genuinely cheerful in a very naïve and selfless way. 

Or uhh, @pi-creates​ put it much better when we were talking about it-

So no, Amos isn’t just a rehash of Louis, you can stop calling him the white Louis of the comic now, you’re only making it clear that you know nothing about Louis as a character when you do that. As much as I like Amos, he isn’t anywhere near as nuanced and layered as Louis is soooo stop. 

 Anyway, Amos! My dude! The only character I liked! The only character with an interesting personality, motivation, and a set goal he worked his ass off for.... only to fucking die.

Of all the characters to die in this damn thing, it would be Amos, wouldn’t it? Ugh. 

Amos grew up in an Amish community his entire life. When a man, presumably Tim, showed up to recruit workers to help build houses, Amos got to see the promised plane fly over his head and he describes it as the best day of his life. 

So, he worked to convince the council to allow him to go on his Rumspringa, they agreed, and here he is on the road. He fights with an axe, he owns 16 shirts, love his horse, and wears a fun hat. Overall positive, glass half full kinda guy. 

He wants to help people. It’s mentioned by the townspeople that he brings survivors there often, he saves that group of people while he and Clementine are on the road and even goes as far as to leave his carriage with them to go after Clementine and stay with her. 

 Amos trusts Clementine enough to leave Helen with her even though they’ve only known each other for only a week, but through the “montage” page you really get a vibe for how well they work together. I wish it wasn’t just a spread of moments but instead gave actual depth to their journey through dialogue, y’know? 

He finds Clementine funny [good for him, I wish I did, as well] and likes being around her. Also they share some looks that I feel should’ve been reserved for the love interest.... sooooo what the hell. 

When they meet the twins, Amos is quick to be like, “well actually no-” when they start talking about her being a liability for having only one leg, which was sweet. 

I felt so bad for him when Olivia just fucking shot his horse, too... he’s so upset and Clementine’s trying to calm him down, really sucks. 

Oh speaking of Olivia.... their “romance” makes no sense? There wasn’t any build up to it, the only hint we got that he maybe liked her was the comment about her having brighter eyes than Georgia, and her sticking with him when he was sick... but then she asks him to come behind the curtain with her, there’s a gasp, and I assume they were doin’ kissing stuff. Like... why? Why even bother? Unless you needed an excuse for Georgia to murder him? You couldn’t think of a better way to kill him off? So dumb.

He’s not all that complex or anything, just an all around good dude. His biggest flaws are his naivety and being too trusting of the wrong people [Georgia]. I mean.... he just wanted to fly in a plane. He wanted to help people, work hard, and fly in a plane. It’s hard to dislike him for that. 

When Amos died, it was the first time while reading this that I felt something other than “eh this is fine.” I’m still annoyed, pissed even. His death ruined a lot. It marked the start of a steep decline toward the ending. So much bullshit, and for what, y’know? 

In conclusion- Amos makes up an entire star of my rating, the only one worth reading this book for, and he’s supposedly dead now so that doesn’t bode well for Book Two. The only way I’ll forgive Tillie is if Amos comes back as a twist villain, angry that they didn’t even try to go after him. 

Ricca: wearing glasses doesn’t qualify as an entire personality, baby

Oh good, I get to talk about Glasses now.... 

Ricca is... fine. She’s not terrible, but not great. I feel like she had the foundation to be a cool character, but a lot about her falls flat. Her best moments are when she’s with both Clementine and Amos, but things become a little more awkward when it’s just her and Clementine.

She’s a smoker, she’s Jewish, she owns 36 pairs of glasses, has a drier sense of humor that works well with Amos, those two have a couple cute moments in this... uhhh let’s see, she threw a snowball at Clementine once, who overreacted and attacked her which prompted Amos to get between them and Ricca was like “whaaa don’t stop, I was just having fun,” so y’know.... flirting, I guess. 

She does come off as a bit whiney sometimes, which gets grating... especially when she gets butthurt at Clementine for stuff and then tries to act like “but whatever” about it. 

The reason she’s here is to learn how to build houses. That’s why she agreed to work out there, she wants to have the skills to start over, to rebuild what has decayed. 

But her big backstory reveal has to do with why she owns 36 pairs of glasses-

At the start of the outbreak, Ricca was with her brother. He looked out for her at first, but as time went on, he started using her as a “canary in a coal mine.” Basically whenever there was any potential danger ahead of them or if he got bored, he’d push her in to things like camps, caves, herds. She was just a little kid, and there was no where else for her to go... but then she got older, and when he sensed that she was going to leave him, he broke her glasses. 

Ricca had no way of surviving without him after that. She had no choice but to fight mostly blind and deal with her brother. It got to the point where she started wishing for death.... until she was out looking for food one day in a dark building and felt an entire wall of glasses-

-but I’m gonna ignore that for right now. She tried on every single pair, found one that worked, and then ditched him. She has no idea if he’s still alive or not. Wonder if he’ll come back as a surprise villain, who knows. 

Sooo... glasses are a big part of her character, which is fine. I like seeing characters with glasses, personally. There’s also an uncomfortable feeling seeing her talk about her brother and describing how she felt when she got to see clearly again only for the world to be so disgusting that she was sick for weeks. 

Unfortunately that’s about as deep as her character goes and I wanted more. 

She does want to go after Amos after he dies, which I appreciate, but Clementine tells her no. She gets shot, so that sucks for her. 

For being Clementine’s new love interest, and the fact that this is Tillie Walden’s work we’re reading, I expected her to be waaaaay more compelling but she didn’t hit to mark.

But to be fair, she’s going to be in Book Two so I’m assuming that with Amos dead until he comes back as a twist villain we’ll get to focus on her some more and her personality will shine a bit. 

Olivia: the left twin

Olivia is bland. 

A block of raw tofu has more meat than Olivia does. 

I have read this fucking book NINE times now, and the only thing I can tell you about Olivia is that she’s the “nice” twin, she did some smoochin’ with Amos in the background, and she’s super sad that her sister’s an asshole. 

Oh and she shot Helen without asking if they brought the horse for food or not, and then is like “oop sorry, I didn’t know, but it’s cool, I get it, my sister ate our hamster when this started.” 

If I was Amos, I’d tell her to the hell away from me, you shot my beloved pet! and I certainly wouldn’t let her be smoochin’ on me!

Anyway, she knows how to fly a plane, which upon looking back through the book, it turns out it was her uncle that taught her... so that’s cool. She’s the one who named the kitten, she... gets sad a lot? 

I’m sorry, but Olivia is so forgettable and it sucks. I want to be invested in these twins because they clearly have a troubled relationship, and Georgia steps all over her [sometimes physically] and it could’ve been interesting to see her deal with the conflict of staying vs leaving her sister..... kinda like the dilemma Ricca had with her brother..... were those supposed to be connected somehow....? parallels...? hhhnnnnngggggggg thinking too much into it-

ANYWAY... I honestly don’t have much to say about her. Maybe Book two will give her more characterization, but at this point the pothole in my driveway has more depth than she does so... lame.

Georgia: the right “evil” twin

Ugh.

Alright, no more beating around the bush, Georgia is a watered down version of Minerva... but where Minerva is a great, tragic character with good writing... Georgia sucks.

AND she killed off the best character in the book so she sucks extra hard!  Oh my god, she fucking sucks.

Like okay, the twins are here to build a community for their sick mother because the mom thinks this would be the perfect spot so they’re gonna build some goddamn houses in the middle of winter for her with the help of strangers... if that sounds like a dumb reason to you, then you’re right, it IS dumb but here we are. I don’t know what Georgia’s deal is, but she’s an asshole. That’s her entire character: ASSHOLE.

Right off the bat from meeting her and Olivia, you can tell she’s the baddie. You can tell where this is going, she’s going to be the one who turns on the group, maybe she’ll convince Olivia to her side and then she’s gonna try to murder everyone on this mountain called Killington.

She’s the one who tells Clementine that she won’t feed anyone who can’t pull their weight, immediately assuming Clementine can’t do shit because of her leg. She never smiles, never cracks a joke, is never kind to anyone, and apparently she’s super possessive and controlling of her sister. 

Also, she’s a goddamn moron because what did she think would happen when she killed Amos?? that Olivia would just be like “oh okay sorry” after you murdered her boyfriend and then gagged and tied her up while waiting for Clementine and Ricca to come for her so that you could also shoot them??

Y’know, when Minerva confronted the group on the bridge in order to kill Tenn, it made sense- she was bitten, dying, and had pretty much lost her goddamn mind after a year of trauma and brainwashing, being forced to kill her sister, and then losing her new “family” after Clementine blew up the boat. She was furious, out of control, bitten, covered in guts and completely out of her goddamn mind. There was no saving her from the start, and she had nothing left to lose.

Georgia’s just an asshole who doesn’t give us any real indication that she’s dangerous. She’s all talk and glares... then she comes back covered in blood after finding Tim soooo are we to assume that’s when she lost it? When she was like “I think killing Amos will make everything better,” or was it a sporadic, in the moment decision? 

In fact, why wasn’t she the one to shoot Helen then?? Why did you have Olivia, who is supposed to be a thing with Amos later, when you could’ve really established Georgia as the real threat when she shoots the horse and is like, “too bad, so sad” and then have Olivia come in and calm the situation? 

Establish that she’s possessive of Olivia early on, not when she’s two seconds from death and spouting, “He was gonna take you away from me! I had to kill him! I did it all for you!” nonsense...

There’s just so many little things that could’ve been tweaked or added to make her a better antagonist, but no, we’re left with nothing with irritation. 

God, Joan from ANF was a more layered villain than this and she was boring as hell.... ugh. 

Tim: where did he come from?? where did he go?? where did he come from, Cotton-Eye Joe???

Tim’s pretty chill, but a waste of a character. 

He comes outta nowhere to save Clementine and gets bit in the process, but he’s fine with it because it was bound to happen sooner or later, and at least he saved Clementine.

There isn’t too much to say about Tim that I haven’t already said. The scene with him was pretty good, but he’s not around enough to feel like an actual character. He’s just here to make sure Clementine feels bad that she got yet another person bit and to give some info on the twins. 

But he’s dead now so... cool. 

The “Romance”: if you squint hard enough, you might see it? 

I don’t understand why the marketing around this book put such an emphasis on the romance aspect. Remember when the trailer dropped and we got a look at Ricca and it was like “ooohhh new love~”

What love? There is no love, there’s no chemistry, there’s no soft sad uwu wlw love story here! What the hell?? Just gonna lie to me like that, huh?? 

Okay look... I went into this with an open mind about Ricca. Truly, I did. You know me, you know I’m a never gonna change my mind that clouis is the best, but I took both clouis and violentine and set them aside. I put them out of mind and let myself go into this wanting to ship Clementine and Ricca. I was ready for the sad girlfriends trying to survive this bullshit together with their token straight buddy. 

And then I came outta this wondering why Amos wasn’t the love interest? I mean, I know the answer to that so a better question: Tillie, why not just make Amos a girl and have Clementine fall for her instead? The foundation was set, there’s a lot of interesting things you could’ve done with that given Amos being Amish and all. They had a solid thing going on and the only reason I knew they weren’t going to end up together was because it was written by Tillie Walden, a queer woman who writes wlw. 

So I’m baffled at everything lacking between Clementine and Ricca! I mean, Tillie could be saving the meat of the romance for the next installments which fine, if that’s the case then I will happily keep an open mind and see if this relationship improves since right now? This ain’t it, chief. 

Lemme give you an example of something that could’ve been sweet, m’kay? After they have the generator fixed, Clementine asks Ricca why she always leans in so close to her. 

Ricca begins to explain that everything has started getting blurry... meaning her eyesight is getting worse and all these glasses she owns may not work for long. A scary thought, especially when you factor in her backstory with her brother. 

This feels like a set up for soft moment, something I wanted to see more of... only for it to be rudely interrupted by Amos being murdered. 

Like.... C’moooooon maaaaan...

UGH

There’s no warm fuzzy feelings here, and the only time I went, “they could be cute if it could get me invested” was the ending where Ricca is clinging to Clementine as Olivia boots up the plane and starts flying.... but even then, that moment is cut short because Clementine has to be all, “let’s show Amos the plane one more time.” 

They don’t kiss here, either. There isn’t a first kiss moment, there isn’t a confession scene, there isn’t even an admission of feelings on either side. Ricca calls her “baby” and now I guess they’re something? 

“Clementine, baby, don’t let me die here~”

Ugh. Do you know what I think of when I hear the words “Clementine” and “baby” in the same sentence? I think of the voicemail Clementine’s mother left in ep1 of S1: “Clementine, baby, if you can hear this, call the police... it’s 9-1-1... and we love you... we love you...” 

So excuse me if I don’t have a great response to that. 

Anyway, maybe it’ll improve with the next book which shouldn’t be too hard given all the nothing this book gave. 

The Lee Flashbacks/Nightmares: hey, remember season one? remember Lee? remember when Lee died and Clem was sad? do you remember??

Uuuuggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh.......

To their credit, these flashbacks are pretty loyal to the games as far as dialogue and setting, but the main point of them is for fans of the games to read this and be like “ohhh I remember Lee, he sparks joy!” and for new readers to have a face to a name when Clementine talks about him to Ricca. 

But they don’t do much to improve the story. The only time I appreciated how one tied into the story was when Clementine watched Amos fall. We see her and Lee on the train, and we get this dialogue:

“Ask me anything, Clementine.”

“Will the pain ever stop?”

because yeah... watching Amos die was pretty damn painful, ties in well. 

But other than that? Meh... which is crazy to say about LEE but that’s the comic for ya. 

Final Thoughts: I can’t believe I read this 9 times

What’s that thing called when you keep repeating a thing hoping it’ll be different but never is? Madness? Is that what I’m feeling right now? 

9 times, good god....

It wasn’t worth reading that many times and yet, here I am, a mad lass dissecting a comic I don’t like that remains unfaithful to a character I love. I watched and read so many interviews with Tillie, I kept tabs on reddit threads about this book, I pestered my discord buddies about it... can’t wait to do this two more times... 

In the end, this book isn’t good. I like a couple things, but the good doesn’t outweigh the bad. It’s definitely not canon with the games, no matter how hard Skybound whines that it is. 

I can’t recommend it to any of you. If you’re gonna read it, you can find the whole thing for free on youtube. If you wanna support Tillie Walden without supporting this series, check out her other works. I’d recommend On a Sunbeam or Spinning. 

btw did y’all hear they released the description of Book Two?

“Clementine and her new friends are rescued by an island community led by an enigmatic doctor called Miss Morro, but just as Clementine's scars are finally beginning to heal, she discovers dark secrets that threaten to tear her new life apart. Can Miss Morro be trusted? What about the rest of the islanders? And just how far will Clementine go to protect the ones she loves? Tilllie Walden's acclaimed trilogy continues! ”

I dunno how I’m gonna survive Book Two if I don’t even have Amos to look forward to..... guess Tillie’s just gonna have to make me like Ricca, huh? 

I also need to keep in mind that this IS a trilogy, so questions I have now and am annoyed about may get answered in the next book, Olivia might go from being stale white bread to a wonderful slick of cinnamon and raisin bread, and the romance may start existing... won’t know until June. 

No wait, excuse me, October... they’ve already pushed the release date later for the next one soooo that’s interesting. 

This is the part where I ask what you thought. What are your thoughts on Clementine Book One? I’m curious to know. Send an ask or leave a comment on this review. I know this was long but hey, thanks for sticking around to the end, it’s appreciated. 

Thanks for reading!  💚

[flying-elliska]

So I finished watching The Sandman yesterday and damn ! What an experience ! (This is getting long I have a lot to say.)

It felt like nothing else I've seen and watched in a long time. Never read the comics but I've always loved a lot of Neil Gaiman's stuff, the cool fantasy mixed with gritty dark modern/historical reality mixed in with deep philosophical exploration is just next level, and here it just feels so trippy and engaging. I love fantasy but these days the stuff we get often feels like it's afraid to push its audience intellectually.

Usually I am not a big fan of stories where the main characters are gods or other overpowered/immortal beings because it often makes the stakes seem meaningless, either so low or ridiculously high and detached from reality - but it's sidestepped here by a) focusing on Dream at a time of uncommon vulnerability b) giving him enough flaws so that he's often his own worst enemy c) giving some thought to the awful loneliness such beings must experience and d) most of all introduce a lot of very compelling human characters (and make them go through a lot of danger). I think this is what Doctor Who did at its best too, not focusing on how badass and incredible and mysterious and badass and at the center of everything the Doctor is, but focusing more on the companions and their very human problems, the timelessness of the titular character serving to put them into dizzying perspective. They do that here too a bit, seeing human lives through the perspective of Dream and Death and their siblings - so small and frail and miserable in so many ways and yet so important and trying so hard - makes you feel everything so keenly. I spent most of ep 6 crying like a little baby, which is what I love about great stories.

The actors are incredible and so well chosen and it has so many iconic scenes. I had so many moments where I wanted to pause and go !!!!!ACTING!!!!WRITING!!!!! BOOM!!!! HOLY SHIT!!!!! It's also full of hot people having sexual tension with each other. Dream is great, like yes he's a pasty brooding guy that looks like he walked out of 2012 tumblr's horny collective unconscious but he absolutely sells the whole eternal anthropomorphized embodiment of dreams thing, he's got the mystique, the super expressive eyes and the long coat, he's what Edward Cullen wishes he was. He's got the range - terrifying, proud, emotionally constipated, lost, compassionate, badass, cold bastard, bedraggled hissing wet cat, confused, alien, heartbreakingly vulnerable. Incomprehensible scary beautiful eldritch creature that still cares about humanity somehow and also guy with head so far up his own ass you want to slap him a little bit (respectfully). With a Batman voice that actually works. It's great.

Then you have Johanna Constantine - instantly fell in love. I know she's a composite of characters but she's got the backstory etc and like John Constantine is a character I love but he's also exactly the archetype I wish we had more as female characters (wlw especially) - messy, morally ambiguous, rough and tumble, charming rogue who's also kind of a bastard but also deeply caring on some level, with a haunted past, an anti-authoritarian attitude, and also obvs bisexual - so I wasn't aware she was in this and like. My God. Amazing. I wish she was in it more and I hope she gets her own show that would be <3 <3 <3

And Gwendolyne Christie as Lucifer - at first I was like huh she's very soft spoken it's a bit strange but then you get to see the simmering menace and power behind it and it's like, holy shit !!!! of course a being so powerful wouldn't need to yell and posture. And the contrast between her blue eyes and angelic blonde curls and the fact that she is so statuesque and tall works so well too like. Incredible. Her contest of wills with Dream is one of my favorite moments of the show, it gave me chills. If she becomes a main antagonist at some point that's gonna be so cool. Then you have Death, who has paradoxically such a lovely presence, she lit up every scene she was in, her interactions with Dream were so touching - episode 6 as a whole is so special, so gentle after the horrors of ep 5, even though it touches on very dark and heavy subjects. And Hob! Who wants to keep on living and figures out Dream just wants a friend !!Matthew the crow! Rose!!! I could keep going because there are a lot more fascinating wonderful characters, there's so many of them that just !!!!!! The antagonists are great, too.

It's also very casually queer. Counted 13 queer characters that have lines and personality and somewhat of an impact on the plot that has nothing to do with their queerness, which is awesome. Now, people's mileage may vary on this, because a lot of these characters are either terrible people and/or have terrible things happen to them, but that's also what happens to the straight characters, so. You have some that venture into harmful cliché territory - the gay serial killer who kills the men he hooks up with, the untrustworthy non human nonbinary character antagonist, the lesbian who commits suicide - but I think the way it's done kind of sidesteps that. The Corinthian is kind of a fascinating example because like, yes he's horrible but the reason he kills has nothing to do with any gay self loathing, he's an eldritch abomination with teeth for eyes that eats people's eyes because it's the only way he gets to feel human which is both horrifying and weirdly poignant, his wanting freedom from his creator is an understandable motive, and he's framed as stylish and kind of cool and the serial killer top dog, which is not usually the sort of framing you get in homophobic movies lmfao. I think gay people should get to be evil in stories, as long as it has nothing to do with their queerness. Still. It's kind of a lot. It has some positive queer characters - Johanna is an anti-hero but still one of the good guys and she gets to kiss a woman on screen - but, hm, it could stand to have more. Feels kind of a bit 90s in there still. I think Dream and Hob should kiss next time and also can we please have a cool lady I can ship with Johanna that doesn't immediately die in a horrible way that would be nice <3

It's not a perfect show - the structure of the season feels very episodic and dislocated - does make sense considering the source material - every episode seems to go in a different direction, ep 2 in particular kind of dragged and I found the three last episodes worked a little less well, like the dream vortex as a threat was a little out of nowhere. But this is also what makes the show interesting, in a way - it has a lot of melancholic, philosophical scenes that are not there to necessarily advance the plot (the character development of the MC maybe) and that felt like they were there just to be there, and there was something so pleasant about that, like not everything needs to be building tension and crazy cliffhangers and obsession with plot. Sometimes you are just there to enjoy and reflect. It's refreshing. I love how so many of the episodes are insane in a completely different sort of way. Ep 5 is straight up horror bottle episode that makes you think about the nature of truth and lies and dreams and cynicism, ep 6 is a poetic, melancholy fable about death and time and the meaning of life and what it's like to be immortal, ep 3 has Johanna (<3), ep 4 has that insane confrontation with Lucifer, the last eps with the cereal convention go into weird absurdist noir territory plus touching story about family, like !!! there is just SO MUCH it's a treasure trove

There is a lot of tonal whiplash though, going from the serial killer convention to the stuff with Abel and Cain that honestly felt kinda naff, to the funny BnB with the drag queen host and Barbie and Ken and - that stuff is difficult to make it work, and the vibe is important, and honestly I don't think the vibe was 100% there, which brings me to my main criticism :

WHY!!!!! do all Netflix shows look so grey and flat and kind of desaturated ! what is going on !!!! I already had this issue with Shadow and Bone, which I overall loved, and others like First Kill - it's so frustrating because you have a show like this with incredible writing and acting and what could be a truly next level atmosphere but then the aesthetics are just kind of. decent. serviceable. sometimes cool, but too often boring. it's nowhere near as psychedelic and wild and imaginative as it should be. there are some very cool sets and shots, indeed, but like. Like!!!!! It honestly took me some time to warm up to the show because the intro scene takes you to the land of Dreams and it looks like a Walmart Disney castle plonked in the middle of random hills, like hello ? My dreams don't look that bland so this took me way out of it. Where is the drama ! The rolling fog ! The wonder and beauty !! It's too clean ! Too airbrushed ! (Kind of wish it was set in the 90s honestly). Dream's palace hall looks like a discount Hogwarts with the color palette of a dentist's office. They could have done so much more with the hotel at the cereal convention. The directing also felt kind of meh, tbh. But I suspect that's less the fault of any people working on this and more about general conditions at Netflix and like I said before : grrrrrrrrrrr. I mean it's a lot less bad than Amazon's Party City version of Tolkien but still.

I had to have something to bitch about lmao but overall, amazing show, so worth the watch, glad to see it's doing well because honestly it HAS to be renewed, it's just too iconic not too. hope they go harder on the vibe next time. gonna go read the comics in the meantime <3

[mixingpumpkins]

Have you read the sandman comics? I haven’t read them (graphic novels are not my favorite genre) or watched the show but have been considering doing both, and was wondering if you would recommend reading the books first? I’m the past, if I’ve read the book before the movie, I tend to be a bit more critical of it (don’t get me started on the Ella Enchanted movie) than if I watch the movie first, but by doing it that way I sometimes miss some nuance/importance/Easter eggs. What do you recommend?

Oh god, the Ella Enchanted movie. 🙃

I have read the comics! I just finished rereading them before watching the series, which was why I didn't binge it immediately on release day. That said:

Watch the series. (Run, don't walk. Seriously.)

Like, I'd encourage you to read the Sandman comics as well, but don't wait to do that to watch the series, especially if you don't really like graphic novels. Tbh, I wish I hadn't bothered finishing my reread before watching - because it was that good - and it's probably one of the only adaptations I've seen where I wouldn't be explaining nuances if I were watching it with someone who didn't know anything about the source material.

You won't miss anything, except maybe the occasional "oh hey, that shot is the same as the comic panel" or the more frequent "oh hey, that line is a direct quote from the comics." And those are just as easily enjoyed as "oh hey, those panels look almost the same as that scene," imo.

Maybe controversial opinion, but I enjoyed the show even more than the comics, and it's been one of my fave graphic novels for decades now. The series fleshes out things I wish had been explored a little more in the comics, and cuts the things (like some other DC character cameos) that I didn't particularly enjoy when I read them.

Every single "major" change so far, like John Constantine -> Johanna Constantine or Lucien -> Lucienne, or Dream's eyes looking human rather than solid black with stars, is an upgrade that works so well. The things in the comics that felt a bit "ick" to me in terms of story, subject matter handling, tone, being dated, etc. have been upgraded too.

I honestly can't remember seeing another adaptation where I didn't want to nitpick against the source material and I actually feel like every single change works better than it was originally written. And you certainly don't need to be familiar with the original version to appreciate how good these elements are.

The other thing I'll say is ... mind the warnings. It can get really dark, and going into it thinking it's another fun series like Good Omens just because it's by Neil Gaiman is a shortcut to a rude awakening. I cried. A lot.

And don't let the gory horror show that is Episode 5 turn you off the rest of it, especially since Episode 6 is up there for one of the most beautifully done episodes of TV I've ever seen.

Enjoy! God, I'm so jealous, I wish I could see it for the first time again.

[thenightling]

The Dreaming: Waking Hours Issue 12

Okay, let’s dive into this.  Today I just finished reading the final issue of The Dreaming: Waking Hours.  I’m still not particularly happy with how the comic handled “true names.”  I feel it would have been more respectful and empowering toward trans people to have Heather BE her true name instead of having her stop the Unseelie from saying her dead name (implying it would still count as a true name).  I know she said there’s no such thing as a true name but I think for a lot of people (trans, or just those that never liked their birth names and picked a different one later in life) it would be better to know that the name you most heavily associate with yourself IS your true name.

Batman Beyond actually handled this a little better in having Bruce Wayne reveal that Bruce is NOT the name he calls himself in his own mind, making it clear that for him, Batman IS is true name, even after he retired and passed the mantle to Terry.

The 1985 Fright Night also handled this with the has-been horror actor Peter Vincent.  He went from saying “That isn’t even my real name.”  To “I AM Peter Vincent, the great vampire killer!”  We never learn what his supposed “real name” (Read: Birth name) was because it doesn’t matter.  He became the character- the hero he had always pretended (and wanted) to be.  Peter Vincent became his true name.  

But anyway, that was all in issue 11.  The True name part could have been handled a lot better and that was my biggest disappointment for this comic.

Ultimately the story had a happy ending for Ruin and Heather realized that Faerie probably wouldn’t embrace democracy (Thank God!).  Though the anti-monarchy rantings were a bit annoying.  Who were they toward?   What reader of The Dreaming is going “Hmm.  You know, America could really use an absolute monarchy right now.”?

Nevertheless Heather remains my favorite trans character... No, correct that.  She remains my favorite original character in ANY Sandman spin-off, period. She’s well-developed, flawed, yet likable. And she’s not a flat, or boring, self-insert.  She’s actually a good character.      

I wasn’t too surprised that Daniel was portrayed as a bit of an ass here but I was still disappointed.  It seems the only writer who doesn’t make Daniel a complete ass is Neil Gaiman, himself.   I said it before and I’ll say it again . I think some authors must resent him because they’d rather be writing Morpheus but they don’t dare ask if they can out-right bring him back in the contemporary setting. 

Also Daniel’s reasoning doesn’t make sense.  Faerie and the Heavenly hosts weren’t angry because Ruin wanted to be with the man he loved. That was happenstantial.  And Heather told him that Jophiel helping Ruin find his love is what enabled him to ascend back to Heaven.  Jophiel had ot understand and learn the importance of love. That was good.  That was sweet.   

The only explanation I can give for Daniel’s behavior here is jealousy.  Daniel came off as jealous and resentful that his own romance in Simon Spurrier’s (Hiss) version of The Dreaming (which is sadly still canon...) didn’t work out.  And he did not expect Ruin to succeed so when he did find his true love Daniel got jealous and spiteful.  That might not be what G. Willow Wilson intended but that’s how it came off.  “If I can’t have love with a mortal, no one can!”   

(Aw, look!  Daniel’s first “You dare!”)

I do kind of like Heather threatening Daniel with the spell that was used to summon and trap Morpheus though.   There is the flaw that Neil Gaiman did repeatedly say that the spell would not if Morpheus had been at full strength.  First, the spell was never really intended for him (or Unseelie for that matter but she used it on the Unseelie too).  Second, it only worked on Morpheus the first time because he was so weakened after the events of The Sandman: Overture. 

For the sake of Daniel’s decently I’ll pretend he faked fear of the spell because he WANTED to be stopped.  He knew he was wrong to try to separate Ruin and his love but he felt obligated to try.  That sits better for me than Daniel legitimately just being an asshole and promising his family would go to war against Heather’s... again.   Umm... Daniel, your family never went to war with the Burgess family.  Morpheus cursed Alexander and you forgave him and that was that.  What war?!   

Ah, well.  At least Ruin got his happy ending.  But I don’t quite get why he needs to be mortal to have that ending.  That feels unnecessary to me.

Nevertheless, it was still a satisfying ending.  I just wish Daniel hadn’t been made a last minute antagonist just so if Heather turns up again later Dream can’t be an ally...  And I sense that was the intention.  I like Heather but this part feels contrived. 

In general it was a satisfying ending though and there were parts I loved.  I love Heather. I liked the use of the spell even if it shouldn’t really work on Daniel.  I was happy Ruin got the one he loved.  I was very satisfied and happy with how Jophiel’s story ending, that he needed to learn the importance and value of love.  

I’m glad it wasn’t cynical bitterness there but actually a show of Heaven’s sense of value on love. I was a little worried this was yet-another story where Heaven and its Angels were ultimately going to be treated as heartless jerks and I was getting quite tired of that in adult comics.   This was a nice change.   I liked it more than I didn’t.  

And this is still the best version of The Dreaming to date.  It could have stood fine on its own without Simon Spurrier’s The Dreaming.  I would have probably liked it better if it wasn’t attached to that.   But I am still happy with the outcome.  Still the best Sandman spin-off to date.  And with the most likable protagonist (Heather) and Casper the Friendly Nightmare (Ruin).   

[darlingpetao3]

House of W (Multiple!Wells x Reader, Chapter 2)

Rating: T

Summary: After having to deal with the deaths of an infinite number of Harrison Wells in the Multiverse, you, a magic-wielding meta, have a breakdown and unwittingly create a happy, fictitious sitcom life with some of your favourite men. In a world of comedy and cameos, can Team Flash and an out-of-town magician break through your powers to save you? And what if you don’t want to be saved...?

Tag List: @fandomdancer @bluesclues-1234 @pinkdiamond1016 @crissymadlock @ensign-tilly @disneyoncerlover815 @marvel-lady10 @thecaptainsgingersnap @noctvrnalmoth @alexxlynn @dontbedumb3 @heyl0lwhatsup @ryou-cosmos​

PROLOGUE | CHAPTER 1

Birds tweeting, sun shining…

Big strong arms around you.

“Well, well, Wells,” you say with a scratchy morning voice and twist your body around in bed to see who’s got you in his grasp. Ah. “Good morning, Harry.”

“Good morning, (Y/L/N),” the scientist replies. You just love how strands of his hair stick up in place. Harry arguably has the best bedhead.

“You know dear, since we are married after all, don’t you think it would be more acceptable to call me by my first name?”

Harry chuckles and pulls you closer against him.

“You do raise a fair point. (Y/N).”

“That’s more like it.”

He kisses your nose. Shortly after he does, it starts to feel itchy. You feel like you’re about to sneeze. It wiggles and wiggles until—

“Achoo!”

Suddenly, Harry, who had been clad in his silky pyjamas is now- oh my.

“(Y/N), did you just sneeze my clothes away?”

You can hardly answer the Wells in your bed because you’re so enthralled by his lack of clothing under the sheets.

“Happy accident?” you offer innocently. Harry shakes his head and smiles as if to signify that you’re up to your old antics again.

“Come here, you,” he says and pulls the covers over you both.

* * * *

The scene is really quite comical.

Harry walks briskly with his long legs into work at S.T.A.R. Toys Manufacturing Inc. as you try to keep up with quick little steps and a clipboard… while H.R. trails behind you like a maniac with a tray of coffee.

“(Y/N), I believe you have some explaining to do,” Harry speaks to you over his shoulder. “Can you remind me why you’re at work with me? And why the numbskull, too?”

“Handsome numbskull!” H.R. jokingly clarifies. Harry rolls his eyes.

“I told you, honey,” you begin, “I decided it would be best for me to get a job instead of sitting around the house. Plus, an assistant here was the only position available. I thought that was terribly convenient. We can spend more time together now, isn’t that wonderful? As for H.R., I hired him as my assistant!”

“My assistant has an assistant?”

“Don’t question it, honey,” you tell him and pat him on the cheek. Just then, two young employees walk up to you. They look rather familiar, but you can’t place why at the moment.

“Good morning, Mr. Wells,” the pair greet Harry. “And Mrs. Wells. ...And Mr. Wells.”

“Ah, good morning Garcia. Runk,” Harry answers. “I trust your projects are coming along?”

“That they are, Sir,” the young man called Runk replies.

“We should have them finished and ready by end of day,” Garcia, the young woman, adds.

“I’m glad to hear it-”

“-Well done, chaps!” H.R. interrupts. “You’re all doing such magnificent work. All for the children.”

“All for the children,” Garcia and Runk agree.

Harry clears his throat and whispers to you, “I think assistants to the assistants should be seen and not heard.”

“I’ll have a little chat with him,” you tell your handsome boss husband. “Now, let’s build some toys!”

* * * *

After a long day at the factory, you, Harry, and H.R. all return home. The delicious scent of dinner greets you as you walk in the door.

“Mmm, I wonder what Sherloque and Nash are cooking up!” you think out loud.

“I hope it’s nothing French,” Harry says semi-bitterly.

“H.R., can you go see what they’re up to in there, sweetie?”

“I most certainly can, dearest!” he responds then disappears into the kitchen. You are sure to take this opportunity to have some more one-on-one time with Harry on the couch. As you sit, he sets his briefcase down on the coffee table and removes from it a small rocket ship. After turning it around in his hands, Harry hands it to you.

“I’d been working on this today,” he says.

“Oh Harry, it is so groovy. You do such fine work.”

“The idea came to me in a dream.”

“You make dreams come true for children every day.”

Harry turns to you. ��I think I’ve always wanted kids. But I guess it’s never happened for me.” He looks into your eyes. “I think I’d like to have one with you someday, (Y/N). How do you feel about that?”

“I feel… I feel…” Your nose starts to wiggle again. “Achoo!”

“(Y/N), are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

“Oh, yes, I’m completely and totally, whoaaaa!” You stand up to get a better look at yourself, finding that your tummy has a noticeable roundness to it.

“Are you…?” Harry asks. The rest of the Wells men come rushing into the living room.

“Qu’est-ce qui se passe?”

“I heard another sneeze!”

“Jumping juniper, (Y/N)’s pregnant!”

They all group around you in a half-circle to admire your belly and to declare their delight at the very abrupt surprise.

“Is this really happening?” you ask all of them, falling deeper and deeper into your happiness.

“I couldn’t imagine a better life with you,” Harry says and punctuates his final word with a kiss. Everything about this moment just seems… so much more colourful and vibrant.

And perfect.

~ ~ ~ ~

Barry had urgently messaged Cisco and Caitlin to meet him back at the Grand Central City Auditorium, where they had just seen Zatanna’s magic act. The plan—what very little of a plan he had—was to race to find Zatanna, the Mistress of Magic, and ask for her help.

Word on the street was that Miss Zatara’s act wasn’t mere illusions. People have said that she really does possess a special magical power. And if this was the case, she was their only hope to retrieve you from whatever world you’ve gotten yourself into.

They say sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.

Well, now Team Flash is going to fight magic with magic.

It took a bit of making a scene inside the venue with the security guards for Zatanna to finally come out of her dressing room to see who was causing the commotion.

“Hi, excuse me, what’s going on here?”

“Zatanna? My name is Barry Allen,” your brother introduces himself. “I was at your show tonight.”

“Flawless,” Cisco can’t help but add.

“Sure,” she says, probably very much wanting him to get to the point. “How can I help you, Barry Allen?”

“We have a bit of a magical issue. My sister has gotten herself into a situation. We need your help.”

Zatanna’s big round eyes squint slightly, but whatever she sees in these three strangers surely isn’t threatening.

“Your sister, you say?” The Mistress of Magic always did have a soft spot for family. “Where is she?”

“You better come with us and see for yourself.”

~ ~ ~ ~

“Wow, this is quite the setup,” Zatanna says, taking in the Cortex upon her arrival. “Now, you said that your sister is broadcasting her own sitcom?”

“That’s right,” Barry confirms. “I switched on the TV earlier, and there she was in black and white. But the weird thing is that her set looked almost identical to her home, except not because her real home exploded-”

“Yeah, that’s the weird bit,” Cisco pipes up sarcastically. “Definitely not that she’s married to four different versions of the same man.”

“What?” Zatanna looks entirely confused. “Okay, you guys are going to have to catch me up.”

“No problem. The episode is streaming online. On repeat.”

“Cisco, pull up the show on the monitors,” Barry orders. The engineer does so, and the crew proceeds to analyze the sitcom episode.

“This man... or these men, rather—you said they died?” Zatanna asks the room. The rundown the gang gave her on the way to S.T.A.R Labs was quite rushed, so naturally it would only generate more questions.

“That’s right. I saw them disappear before my eyes,” Barry confirms. “They sacrificed themselves for us.”

Zatanna hums in thought. “Whether they’re truly dead or not, she must be using an incredible amount of magic to create this world and broadcast this across the airwaves.”

“Guys!” Caitlin raises her voice. “We have an incoming broadcast!”

The monitors change after a bit of static. Now, instead of the episode Team Flash was watching, a brand new jingle comes through the speakers.

“Is this…?” Barry starts.

“She released Episode Two!” Cisco cheers. Everyone in the room shoots him a look. “What? I’m invested.” As they watch the new episode, they take frantic notes, searching for any kind of clues.

“Look!” Barry points at the screen to the familiar faces.

“How did Allegra and Chester get in there?” Caitlin wonders.

“They have a guest-starring role…” Cisco notes, possibly with a hint of jealousy.

“And who are they?” Zatanna inquires.

“They’re our friends,” Barry clarifies. “At least, I think they are. They can't be illusions, can they? Created by (Y/N)?”

“I’ll call them and see if we can hear their phones ringing in the show,” Caitlin suggests. As she attempts the call, the rest of the team stands and stares at the screens hoping for some form of ringing sound. This episode seemed to be styled more in the Sixties, so it was unlikely that they’d actually see Chester and Allegra pull out a cell phone.

Nothing. No sound.

They must not have their phones on them…

A little while longer passes, with even more analyses by Team Flash and Zatanna studying your power on screen. Once in a while, she’ll ask Barry for background information about you. Which brings her to ask the all important question:

“How did (Y/N) get her powers?”

Barry goes on to explain your origin story, which coincides with his own. It was that one fateful night where Barry was in his CSI lab at CCPD, and so were you. You had stopped by to see how he was doing after the whole debacle of Iris getting her laptop stolen and Eddie saving the day instead. (To Barry’s credit, he tried really hard to catch the criminal, he just wasn’t fast enough). But you were checking up on him when the Particle Accelerator exploded and sent a wave of extraordinary, uncontained power across the city. You saw the lightning in the sky and tried to get Barry away from holding that metal chain, but in doing so, you also got caught in the crosshairs of the accident. Your brother fell into the shelf of chemicals as the lightning struck at the same time you knocked over a box of evidence—stolen ancient crystals from the Central City Museum.

Zatanna takes in the story silently, nodding in the right places. She’s deep in thought when a voice comes from the entrance to the Cortex: “Hey guys, what’s going on in here?”

Barry rushes to the two younger members of Team Flash, Allegra and Chester. “How did you two get in there? How did you get out?”

“Get in where?” Allegra wonders.

“Come on! In (Y/N)’s sitcom,” Cisco says. “Did she send out a casting call or did she just tell you that you got the parts?”

Chester and Allegra glance at each other with identical furrowed brows.

“You really don’t know what happened, do you?” Caitlin asks them.

“What happened?” they reply in unison.

Cisco stands up immediately. “I’ll get the popcorn.”

As he replays the footage, both of the ‘guest stars’ shake their heads in disbelief.

“Wow, nope, don’t remember any of that,” Chester says.

“No,” Allegra agrees. “One minute I’ve got my feet up in the Lounge, and the next I’m here walking into the Cortex.”

“Interesting,” Caitlin muses. “Interesting, but beyond strange. It’s like they’ve been mind wiped of the experience. We need more answers.” The rest of the episode plays out to reveal the big cliffhanger at the end.

“(Y/N)’s going to have a baby?!” Cisco shouts. “Oh man, things just got real. I wonder who’s the father... You don’t think (Y/N) would turn her show into a Maury episode, do you?”

“Zatanna, is there anything you can do?” Barry asks desperately. “This is getting out of hand.”

“I can cast a locating spell. All I have to do is say the words of what I wish backward for it to take hold.” Zatanna readies herself. “(N/Y) etacol,” the magician utters with her eyes closed. Everyone in the room stands silent in case making any kind of noise would ruin whatever spell she has cast.

They hold their breaths.

“I’m getting something…” Zatanna says eventually. “It’s like a signal of sorts. I can see it in my mind. And it’s coming from… here.”

“What do you mean, ‘here’?” Barry presses.

“Here. As in S.T.A.R. Labs.”

[mask131]

Sandman bonus notes: Interviews (1)

In “Sandman Companion”, Neil Gaiman gave a series of interviews about each of the volumes of the Sandman. In it he reveals all sorts of fun facts, trivia and important points. This is a compilation of some of the best ones.

Since Preludes and Nocturnes, as well as The Doll’s House, will form the first season of the upcoming Sandman series, I will put HEAVY SPOILERS HERE.

PRELUDES AND NOCTURNES

# The rythm of the incantion used by Roderick Burgess was taken from “The Magic Wood” by Henry Treece. 

# Burgess is not really based on Alesteir Crowley as everyone believes. Originally Neil Gaiman wanted to use Crowley as a source of inspiraton, but found his books and his prose very unappealing. He rather got the feelings and moods surrounding Burgess from Dennis Wheatley’s “The Devil Rides Out” - though since Wheatley based his evil warlock on Crowley, technically Burgess still was indirectly inspired by him. 

# Neil Gaiman was asked about how, since Burgess died at one point Death probably met him and learned that Dream was imprisoned - then why didn’t she help him? Neil Gaiman answers to this that Death actually knew about Dream’s imprisonment as soon as he was trapped - in fact all of his siblings knew of it instantly. They simply did not rescue him because they are not a super-hero team, because saving people is not their reason for existing - they just act in their domains. As personifications, they are not causal beings - they are barely reactive beings. And even if the Endless has saved Dream, he would probably have been furious that they did so and not felt any gratitude. Why? Because he would have deemed his escape his own responsability - at the time Dream was a very rigid being. 

# Neil Gaiman explains that each issue of Preludes and Nocturnes was inspired by a different comic book genre - and that it was also an attempt at finding a balance between the horror and the super-hero comic book. In fact, he deems these first issues to be exercises more than anything, attempts at finding the true path and tone of “The Sandman”, hence why he called it “Preludes and Nocturnes” because they are preludes to the story proper. He deems that he properly found the Sandman tone starting with issue number 6. 

# In fact, issue number 6 already contains the most prevalent themes throughout the rest of the Sandman comic book - notably because it speaks of narration above all. Neil Gaiman especially highlights what is said about the waitress: she writes happy ending stories because she knows where to stop ; because she understood that when a story goes on for too long, it always ends up in death. While it seemed he had planned everything, Neil Gaiman hadn’t yet - he was waiting for the issue 8, because at the time it was usually at the eighth issue (one full year of publication) that you knew if the comic was discontinued or not. Neil Gaiman only had a full plan for The Sandman and a finished ending by issue 10. But again, he hadn’t planned everything - at the time he wanted The Sandman to only be forty issues, and it ended up being 75 issues (76 if you include Sandman Special). 

# In issue 7 there was a mistake in the printing: the flashback where Dream was seen creating the Ruby was supposed to show him entirely white, without any trace of black. White hair, white skin, white clothes: it was to show the cyclic nature of Dream, and to reveal that all new incarnations of Dream began with this white appearance. However Dream got printed in his usual black and white colors, so this bit of information was lost. 

THE DOLL’S HOUSE

# The most popular issue of Preludes and Nocturnes was issue 4, where Dream went to Hell, and so Neil Gaiman thought of giving the audience what they asked by going with “Season of Mists” right afterward - however he realized that doing so would turn Sandman into the next X-Men, and he rather wanted to do “good literature” and to give to his audience the habit of a large choice of subjects, tones and genres - thus the creation of The Doll’s House which does not focus on Dream but on Rose Walker. 

# Neil Gaiman included in the recap of the previous events (the recap of Preludes and Nocturnes) informations about things and events that did not actually appear in Preludes and Nocturnes - indeed, he thought that if someone was making the effort to read the recap, they needed to have a form of reward with this bonus information. 

# For “Tales in the Sand”, none of the stories mentionned are real - it is all a pastiche, an imitation of the African myths and folkloric tales - most notably the legends of Anansi. As for Nada’s story, Neil Gaiman wanted the reader to feel that it was a degraded story, not the absolute truth but a tale that got changed and twisted through times and retellings, until it becomes an approximation of the truth - hence why sudden fables explaining why the weaver bird is brown. 

# When Desire had sex with Unity, it did not broke the rule preventing relationships between humans and Endless. As Neil Gaiman explains, the rule is “It is forbidden to a mortal being to be in love with one of the Endless”. Here, an Endless raped in her sleep a mortal being, so this has no impact or tie to the rule. As for why the rule was invented - Neil Gaiman explains that it was mostly to create a conflict between Dream and Desire, while also to highlight the theme of this issue of “tales of men” VS “tales of women”. 

# The name of Desire’s domain, “The Threshold” comes from a story Clive Barker never wrote. This story was about the “Threshold”, a realm of pain - it was of course a joke about “thresh” and “hold”. As for the aspect of the Threshold, Gaiman decided that Desire would live in its own body because “desire lives under the skin”. 

# Dream does not need all the beings inhabiting the Dreaming to keep the dimension well and in order, in fact he could rule the place all by himself and with no one else. He only creates those Dream beings mostly because he loves company. Neil Gaiman always considered in his head that, for millenia, Dream lived utterly alone in the Dreaming, and decided he rather preferred to have other beings around him (though he would never admit it). When asked about if Dream ever tried to create himself the perfect partner, Neil Gaiman answers that he probably tried at one point - but either he got bored of her, or she ended up leaving him. But it is still entirely possible to have a relationship with a dream creation of his: the rule only forbids mortals from loving the Endless. 

# Neil Gaiman also mentions that Dream did not create all of the inhabitants of the Dreaming. Some actually fled other places or worlds and ended up here, while others entering the Dreaming by accident and stayed there. And, given the nature of the place, some inhabitants probably spontaneously appeared without Dream’s involvment. 

# The Fiddler’s Green took the appearance of G. K. Chesterton as a human, because Neil Gaiman liked the idea of a fleeing dream taking the appearance of someone it likes, rather than created a fully original appearance. 

# The language spoken in the Dreaming is the one everyone speaks in their head. 

# According to Neil Gaiman, the only time Dream is heard laughing throughout the series is when he confronts Hector Hall. Neil Gaiman also got complaints about him “killing” Hector Hall - though the character actually died much earlier, in an issue of “Infinity, Inc.”. Neil Gaiman just put his ghost to rest. 

# When creating the Corinthian, Neil Gaiman wanted someone embodying the romanticism of serial killers. Until now, serial killing hadn’t yet been presented as something cool or hip, but he knew it was about to come - for example he had noticed fanzines about serial killers, even including interviews in prison. Neil Gaiman thought that this was not hip, and it was not cool, and so he got the idea of the Corinthian’s first appearance. The Corinthian’s name comes from a 17th century slang for an immoral profligate, the kind to frequent whorehouses. Even though the Corinthian of the Sandman has no sexual activity - he rather eats eyeballs. And he is only homosexual in the sense that he prefers the eyes of boys. But to explain his name one can also come back to the original town of Corinth, of the columns, ot the advertisement to sell cars (Corinthian leather) - all of this makes the Corinthian cool and charismatic, all that Dream is not. And, as Neil Gaiman notes, Dream ends up destroying the Corinthian because he is mediocre, he is not as big, bad and evil as he should have been - he completely misunderstood why he was created. 

# The convention of serial killers is an idea that came to Neil Gaiman during the Fantasy World Convention of London, October 1988, upon realizing that a convention was mostly a reunion of very different people gathering together for a week-end to feel special, a group of persons who only have in common one same interest and obsession - be it Barbie dolls or comic books. And so he thought “Why shouldn’t serial killers have their own convention?”. 

# “Funland” was originally going to be called “Disneyland”, but it was decided to change it right before printing - and thus the mouse ears were turned into wolf ears. 

# To prepare this issue, Neil Gaiman documented himself on serial killers throughout 1988 and 1989 (which, he notes, was much less information than what people have nowadays) and he came to understand the pulsions, fantasies and justifications of the killers. In fact, this is how he noted that most serial killers have very rich and complex fantasies, and that it was how Dream could punish them : by removing their illusions, so that they could see themselves as nothing more than people killing their own kind. 

# The dream of Hal about Judy Garland searching for her face was inspired by an interview Neil Gaiman had with a profesional drag queen in London: the drag queen kept dreaming that their friends faces were being sliced up or fell into pieces. As for Zelda and Chantal, their characters were inspired by a couple of “spider women” Gaiman met one day - he couldn’t tell if they were sisters, lovers, or mother and daughter. He also took inspiration from a lesbian couple he knew, where one used the other like a ventriloquist dummy, whispering to her ear so that she would speak for her. 

# Heart is a recuring motif for “The Doll’s House”, from Rose giving her heart to Unity, to the heart of Desire - in fact in each issue, each story, you can find either a picture or the mention of a heart.