#but when i saw the page and the panel talking about how the event would talk about how to get into the game industry

[ame-to-ame]

life is fine you just learn to not send the things you would've sent before in a heartbeat

[the-tech-turn]

UNFINISHED

Summary: Crosshair finds Tech's old journal and reads through it.

Word Count: 1,136

Warnings: Angst, mentions of death, s2 spoiler

A/N: This takes place right after the ending of episode 4 s3. I AM SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG FOR ME TO FINISH I PROCRASTINATED TO HARD! This was supposed to be my 50 follower celebration but now it's the 151 followers celebration! Now everyone say thank you to my bestie for peer pressuring me into finishing this and proof-reading this.

The moment Crosshair walked onto the ship after reuniting with his brothers he felt like something was off. He knew Tech was no longer with them but as he looked toward Hunter in the pilot's seat he knew it was wrong. That was Tech’s seat. Tech was supposed to fly. Tech was supposed to be there. Tech was supposed to be here. Yes, Crosshair may have reunited with his family but not all of them. Not his genius brother who would never stop talking. Oh, what he would give to hear his voice geek about different kinds of insects or Wookie culture. Crosshair gets up from his seat and walks into the barracks. He walked up to Tech’s bunk staring at all the projects that would never be finished. Gently, he moved the projects enough to sit but still kept them in relatively the same spot. He didn’t want to disturb Tech’s things. ‘He never let us near them anyways,’ he remembered. He threw his head back, a mere attempt at holding back his tears. He missed his brother. Then a thought came into his mind. A long time ago Crosshair had given him a notebook. A real paper notebook. Tech hasn't used it much since “ It is a precious gift that I do not intend to misuse.” He wondered if he ever had used it. He looks around his bunk seeing nothing. He looks under the bunk and in every place that he can think of to find the book. But he couldn’t. ‘Maybe he lost it or threw it away. Wow, Tech, really showing its “value”, he pauses. ‘ Or maybe…it was on Kamino.’ He didn’t like thinking about it much, but the day the city he was raised in drowned was the day he lost all of his memories as a cadet. He recalled the time he first gave Wrecker Lula. Or the time Hunter had come up with the name the “ The Bad Batch”. Or when he found Tech’s hiding place for his datapad. The memory reminded Crosshair of the hiding spot he and Tech used on the ship. Crosshair used it to store his toothpicks, but Tech used it to hide what he deemed valuable.

‘Maybe, just maybe, it was in there.’ Crosshair crawls across the bed stopping when he gets to the edge of the bed. He reaches over to the side of his bed and carefully pries open a panel. With his hand, he searches for the notebook in the dark box until he locates the small red booklet. He grabs the book and flips through it. ‘Yep, he definitely wrote in it,’ but as Crosshair continued to flip through pages he realized just how many pages were blank. Never to be written in. Never to be drawn on. He got up and sat on Tech’s bunk once more. He opened the book, analyzing the handwriting. He saw how the handwriting improved with every entry. While skimming the book one word caught his attention. “Race”. Omega has told him about the time they were bodyguards for someone named Cid and Tech was forced to race to keep everyone safe. “ What’s so important about a mission on some sketchy planet?” Crosshair wonders. There was only one way to find out so he started reading.

I had won the race (obviously) but to my surprise, the crowd cheered which is not uncommon at such events. I've heard their screams since I arrived. I also had full confidence in my ability, but hearing them chant my name with so much excitement, along with the praise from my siblings, I felt an overwhelming joy. All my life I had been made fun of, due to my enhancement. Mainly by regs, I have also endured endless teasing from my brother's thanks to my constant "rambling". It no longer bothered me much but it took a lot of self-reassurance to get to such a point. Little praise was given to me, the only source of which came from my brothers. No one else had a reason to provide that to me for it was my purpose. But now there are hundreds if not thousands of people admiring my skill. It felt nice, to say the least. 

Crosshair gave a soulful smile. ‘ He had been mocked all his life, and I participated in it,’ he admitted sorrowfully, ‘At least, he didn’t hold it against me.’ Crosshair lets out a sigh and flips to another page. Crosshair pauses, his name on the page. Hesitantly he begins reading, afraid of Tech’s true feelings towards him after everything. He could only hope his brother didn’t think poorly of him.

Omega asked me why I didn't care about Echo leaving us and while I think I responded appropriately the interaction got me thinking about Crosshair again. I’ve tried to forget, but that plan was flawed. How was I supposed to ignore him if I didn’t want to? I eventually came to accept his decision but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. In all honesty, I miss the times when we’d cause trouble in the mess hall. I miss when we’d compete in who shot more droids. I miss the moments when I work on a project and he’d sit next to me and clean his rifle. I miss when we would be up at the latest hours when I would ramble about anything and everything while he’d try his best to stay awake. He enjoyed sleeping a lot so it was difficult for him, but I appreciate what he did. I miss when things were simpler- no that is incorrect. I do not miss fighting for the republic. Back then we had to risk our lives, we were mistreated, we didn’t have Omega and we couldn’t choose for ourselves. I miss Crosshair. But I don’t think I’ll see him again. But, if there's one thing certain about Crosshair is his loyalty. That was evident when he stayed with the Empire. It never falters but it can shift when the loyalty isn’t mutual. I believe that is why he left us. When we denied the Empire he felt that we denied him. I do not regret leaving the Empire but I do regret not taking Crosshair with us. I find myself replaying recordings of him when I am in need comfort. It’s the closest thing that I have to him with me.

Tears threatened to fall from his eyes. He should’ve come back sooner. If he had his brother would still be here. Crosshair looked around the room and studied it. He sees Tech’s projects, equations, and blueprints. All are things that Tech never got to finish. Looking down towards the journal, Crosshair decided to complete writing on the book. So it didn’t have to remain unfinished. 

EXTRA: Here's some old art I made when first promoting this fic.

[abstractfrog]

HI I JUST SAW YOUR INCREDIBLE SHERLOCK AND CO COMIC YOU MADE AND I WOULD LOVE FOR YOU TO TALK ABOUT THE PROCESS AND THE SYMBOLISM AND INTRICACIES AND EVERYTHING PLEASE ‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

GOD THANK U ok if i actually talked about EVERYTHING i would be here forever and ever, there were things about the process where it kept surprising me and i kept adding stuff.

I talk about my general comic process here , it started out mostly the same for this one. Analysis of the script, sketches, panel and colour blocking

The scene from Mr Sherlock Holmes presented me with a unique challenge (for me) because...usually I pick scenes from the podcast that are instantly visually stimulating. This scene is NOT that. It's sort of unclear and confusing and even the emotive narrative is sort of hard to pick out. Those things I had to sort of decide for myself. It's hard to draw a whole scene like this without first deciding what the scene is about, what its purpose is. If you go back and listen to the episode along with the comic you'll notice all sorts of changes and tonal shifts - that's because of me and my decision making.

I decided that the direction I wanted to go in was to show John having his realization about himself, his podcast, and Sherlock, showing him getting pulled into, yes, Sherlock's world, but also the world of the podcast as an adaptation. I knew i could do this just with colour, but if you've seen my other comics, you know i almost always use colour to show shifts. I guess I had some insecurity about doing the same thing over and over again so I pushed myself to think of other ways I could accomplish it visual. Enter: rendering technique

I will say I didn't expect this effect to make John seem so SAD and MISERABLE, i only wanted to show him getting pulled in, but its effective for his emotions in this scene as well. Scanning drawings into the computer sort of flattens the paper texture, so I started adding photos of the pages of A Study in Scarlet to make him feel more paper-y. And then, of course, realised i could use that to further elaborate on John's inner thoughts, backgrounds, and motivations. People are welcome to interpreted that how they like and i've seen a number of variations, but to me it operates on sort of a meta level, showing the inevitability of what John is going through. He's a Watson, he's always going to follow Holmes, he's going to try and figure him out, and that's why you sort of see a back and forth between acd and pod Watson, highlighting the ways in which they are similar, and then, John breaks off and becomes his own character, still with those foundations but also entirely different.

there's one piece of text that i haven't seen anyone pick up on or mention and I'm starting to think it's gone unnoticed because it's in an unexpected spot. I won't mention what or where because it is, for now, a very indulgent little secret.

I notice a lot of people are getting a kick out of Sherlock playing with the speech bubbles, which I am so pleased by because I almost didn't do it! I thought i was maybe breaking something in the comic but it was so fun that i didn't care and I'm so glad it came across well. It operates on a lot of levels, it shows his thought process, it plays into that fourth-wall medium play i've got going on, and it feeds into the web metaphor as well as visually showing him roping John in.

on the topic of Sherlock, I feel a lot of people are rather focused on John, which is understandable (he's the main event) but Sherlock has a lot of details I love too.

For instance, him pushing his hair back and putting on a coat when the officer arrives, almost like he's shifted modes, and then his hair falling back down when he gets excited and John starts to understand.

I really love this moment of Sherlock seeing John's potential for interest in mysteries when he's trying to solve the matter of what Sherlock Does, and being surprised and flattered for a moment (until John messes it up again)

John copying Sherlock's pose <3

There's deliberate things in the character design as well, things like the fact that once John comes into colour, it reveals that he's actually wearing more colour than anyone else in the scene, and the fact that the grey in John's hair only appears post-greyscale. Things you are welcome to read into. And there are, of course, the socks, which I've seen people pick up on.

Those are the main things for now so i might leave it there, but thank you so much for your ask and i'd be pleased to elaborate further on absolutely anything!

[bibibbon]

MHA chapter 424 (rant)

This chapter was horrible. Look, if hori thought that this chapter could provide the fans with some relief he was wrong.

This is supposed to be the epilogue or the beginning of it and half of it is just useless BKDK. Honestly this was so stupid I feel like this chapter which was labeled the epilogue could of been used to wrap up a lot of character arcs and update us on events instead of us getting some little bkdk crying ending. In all honesty I still hate bakugo and think that their arc is Hella underdeveloped considering that Izuku never gets any intropsection going on and bks development is heavily flawed.

Still hate what the series did with Izuku. Izuku as a main character and a character in general is heavily underdeveloped so I understand why he is getting the hate that he is getting. However, izuku was also a victim in this and didn't get proper development at all, like him and shigs whole storyline was sidelined and they barely formed a relationship before or even during that fight at all. Izukus lack of intropsection is also one of the reasons why he is getting hate like it's low-key hori's fault for not giving us any development when it was right there. I also think I need to remind some people that izuku is only 16 and had all of this on top of his shoulders but I see the point that shig a victim should of been saved. However, it's not like izuku didn't try his best, like he tired all he could it's at the end of the day shig that didn't accept it until it was too late. Also, can we talk about how horrible hori did izukus design dam I miss his fluffy hair at the same time I get it. Also I hate that he still has some OFA embers and all like it makes no sense I thought they were gone with that one punch that was apparently so strong it CHANGED THE WEATHER?!?! Honestly, I hate that inko is nowhere in sight and that she allowed him to go back to ua like?!?!?!?

Shigaraki deserves better. Oh dam I just wish that someone would adopt shig and izu and give them a better ending cos this isn't it. Shigarakis storyline ending sucked in all honesty especially that retcon that stated that shig apparently knew that AFO was manipulating him?!?!?! Also am I the only one whose confused as to why shigs last words were directed towards spinner. As angry as Iam I was also expecting some horrible stuff like this to pop up considering that hori has consistently been trying to separate Tenko and shigaraki so this is what we get but just even worse.

So nothing on toga and ochako? No offense but I hated that this chapter was just centered around BKDK like where was toga? Or ochako? Why is it that we only get one small panel of ochako looking pensive and sad when last time we saw her she was on the verge of death and in CRITICAL condition. Also what about toga? Like we haven't seen her in a long time. Is she alive? Is she dead? In all honesty if she is alive and gets no concequences then I would call that bad writing.

What about the todoroki family ? Poor Todoroki last time we saw him his family fully surrounded touya forgetting about him. In all honesty he deserves so much more and my arguement stands. We should of gotten an update about the todoroki family as well. Iam not a fan of enji neither am I huge fan of the direction touya/Dabis character has taken but I would of enjoyed an update.

What about the others? Kurogiri, spinner and the rest!??!!?!?! Iam bais but dam it seems like this chapter has forgotten all about the other characters it put in critical or difficult situations and just chose to focus on some stuff that's so irrelevant. Like the small panels should of been reserved for spinner and kurogiri on characters that we should of seen updates on. While we should of gotten full pages on todoroki and ochako

Also it seems like the pacing is quite fast, too fast really. How is it that they're just going back to school like I thought people resided in UA and that some of it was heavily damaged during the war? What about the chaos and destruction that's all over Japan has that been rebuilt? Also how did parents allow their kids to go back to a school that made them glorified child soldiers?

It's a shame we don't get any focus on izuku nor do we see his mother's reaction. I mean we see and get more focus on bakugo than we do when it comes to izuku and it sucks horribly.

In conclusion, I heavily disliked this chapter and giving it the title of epilogue is horrible. I bet that this is like one of the last chapters we are getting.

[renard-dartigue]

Kaiju no 8 ch.117 Review

Bruh I'm so shook right now! Some of my previous predictions turned out to be true. But I never would have guessed in what way!

Spoilers Ahead:

(And possible deranged rambling)

So it appears that the phantom samurai isn't an entity that has once had the kaiju shifting ability, the samurai IS the kaiju itself. Which is, holy shit!

It takes Kafka back in time to witness how it was created. I wonder if what's happening is similar to Assassin's Creed where using your genetic code, you can experience events that happened to your ancestors.

This would provide an explanation as to how the kaiju found Kafka. It identified Kafka through his bloodline.

Also, the way I shouted "My boiiiii!" when I saw Hoshina's ancestor lmao. Those cyndaphil looking eyes will forever stay with the Hoshina bloodline.

And I don't know if it has been mentioned before, but it never occurred to me that they were using kaiju weaponry back then. I just assumed that was a more resent development. That's really cool.

But, as Kafka states, its difficult to draw out power from them and they take a huge toll on the body compared to modern weapons.

It's also pretty funny how we got a hoshikaf moment in a flash back. I'd like to think that if Kafka really is in the place of his ancestor, he and Hoshina's ancestor had the same dynamic they have in modern day to some degree.

I'd gush about it more but I have to set that aside for now because this chapter takes a turn for the gruesome.

The warriors are able to take down the kaiju and I'm just as shocked as Kafka. Because I remember when Hoshina was talking about the warriors of the past and how their weaponry was more suited for smaller kaiju. But these clearly aren't KDF squads. It's untold thousands of warriors with spears, swords, archery, and cannons. What they lack in strength, they make up in numbers. And it works at first.

But the phantom samurai states that something happened that wasn't in the norm. If I remember correctly, they are called "after beasts".

So call me crazy but isn't that the same creature that they are currently fighting in modern day? I don't mean 9. The creature that is within 9. I don't think it was given a name yet so for convenience, I'm going to call it no.0 for now.

Kafka either recognizes this being as no.0 or has a gut feeling that the warriors are in danger. Regardless, Kafka is fully immersed in the flash back, thinking he can change events. That or these are the words of his ancestor and Kafka is just a spectator.

And can I just say that this is the most amount of gore we've seen from this manga. It isn't as visceral as say Chainsaw Man or other seinens. But this is a first for this particular manga. It makes the events much more brutal.

Man, this moment of Kafka seeing Hoshina's ancestor die and get eaten seriously hurts my soul. He may not have been the man Kafka knows but the fact they look so much alike is probably traumatic for him.

Kafka is forced to watch and experience the pain and loss of the warriors, even getting cut up himself. Given Kafka's personality, it must be agonizing for him to see people die and not be able to help this time.

And apparently this is a sentiment that the warriors share. As the phantom explains how helpless they all felt, the words "Damn it" flood the page, the same thought as Kafka.

We get interesting, or macabre, panels of the warrior souls converging together into one.

Forming into the creature responsible for kaiju no.8 existence.

So the phantom samurai is saying that all the souls of the dead warriors merged with their kaiju based armor, their collective consciousness united in one goal. Killing kaiju.

That is FUCKING AWESOME!

God damn it I wish chapters were longer I can't take the suspense anymore! We get something new every chapter but it never feels like enough aaaaagh! Please Naoya Sensei, I can't stand it! Its killing me fdfhdzcgd!

Anyways, time for predictions.

Even though I implied at the beginning that there where no kaiju shifters before Kafka, that might not be true. We still don't know what no.8 was doing before finding Kafka. It could have latched itself to another descendant of the warriors before Kafka but it was at a time with poor documentation and secrecy was necessary for their survival. The next chapter might go into that.

I no longer believe the phantom samurai to be a previous kaiju shifter. He looks to be an amalgam of the collective minds of the deceased warriors will.

I wonder why it took until now for the phantom to appear to Kafka. In his previous near death experiences, Kafka only saw the tiny kaiju repeating "kill" over and over.

Could it be that Kafka's training with Narumi, willingly giving himself up to kaiju no.8's full power, drew him closer to the warriors will?

OR, did the resurgence of no.0 trigger the phantom to appear due to it being the reason they all perished.

God, so many more questions. And I know they will likely be answered in the next few chapter but the wait is agony, blarg!

If you came this far, thanks for reading. Hope I don't come off as too deranged lol. It's just so exciting finally getting answers to questions I've had for so long heh.

[soviet-supersoldier]

Character Examination: Omega Red

Part 4: X-men (1991) #6

This comic is near and dear to my heart. It served as my first introduction to Omega Red as a character, being one of the first comic books that I ever read. I remember getting this comic with a Marvel Legends Sabretooth figure my dad bought in the early 2000s and every time I see this cover, I'm hit with a real sense of nostalgia:

Being the only part of this story arc I was able to read as a kid, Omega Red was really an enigma, a character that I really didn't grow to appreciate and discover his full story for until much later in life. When I first read this, I read it for Wolverine. And also Sabretooth. But they're not the ones I'm examining this story for now. How times change.

So, right out of the gate in this one, the X-men start on a rescue mission to try to get Wolverine back after managing to track down the location of the Hand's base in Berlin. This is where I saw Omega Red for the first time, popping out of nowhere to smack Beast in the face:

The way the characters are laid out on the panel here makes it rather difficult to figure out just where Arkady came from. The ceiling? The wall? Another hallway? It's a bit of a confusing perspective. Regardless, Arkady sounds like he had been lying in wait for them for a least a little while, listening to their conversation until he decided to step in and say, "Hello."

This also marks the only time Omega Red and Beast really interacted until Krakoa's X-Force. Given how Beast treats Arkady in X-Force, killing him or targeting him over the course of the series, one could argue that this moment right here is where Beast formed his grudge. That must have been one hell of a punch. And left-handed, too. Arkady has a good left hook. He throws a few of them over the course of his appearances, and as a lefty, it always makes me smile when I see it.

Before I move on from this page, there are two things I want to note. The first is with Arkady’s dialogue. As the standard of the time, villains in comics did a lot of monologuing as a way to tell the audience about themselves and their abilities. Their dialogue is used to advance the story and fill the heroes in about their opponent. Omega Red’s is no different, and it will really become apparent on the next page. That being said, Omega Red does end up developing the character trait of being a bit chatty while he fights, so it's not too out of character for him to talk, even about himself and his abilities. It's really the only time he ever gets the chance, seeing as how he only ever really showed up for fights for so many of his appearances. If he wasn't a talker, we'd never really know anything about him from his perspective at all.

The other thing of note is in the narration boxes: "Several decades ago, he was to be the world's first supersoldier -- in service to Mother Russia! Instead, he spent the last 30 years in a tomb."

After this story arc, comics that later come out about Arkady’s past really start to muddy up this established timeline. When this story came out, the narration would have suggested that the events Logan keeps having flashbacks to occurs in the 1960s. But then, Banshee is tied to his backstory (because reasons) and he said the events he took part in happened 20 years beforehand. Not only that, but Arkady was recently shown to have been a child in the 1960s. So something got messed up along the way in Omega Red’s personal timeline that still hasn't been properly addressed. Perhaps a future origin story will fix it, but for now, I suppose a solution of some sort is to say that Logan's memory sucks and that these events didn't happen 30 years ago like he thought, but rather, closer to 20 like Banshee had said and that the overall Marvel timeline is just scooted up from this occuring in the 1960s to now occuring sometime in the 1970s or 1980s.

Onto the next page:

So here Arkady talks about himself. His dialogue serving to introduce us, the audience, to what it is that he can do. He talks about his Carbonadium tentacles and their similarities to adamantium, how it is more maleable and not quite as indestructible as adamantium. However, they are still, for all intents and purposes, indestructible. That's why it really bothers me whenever I see someone cut his coils. They're still made of an indestructible material. It should be as impossible of a situation to occur as someone slicing Wolverine's adamantium claws in half. Now, ripping them out? I could see that happen. They are implants after all.

After talking about his coils, Omega Red then talks about his mutant powers, with Jubilee making a fart joke with regards to his abilities as he turns his powers on her. Brave of her to make such a joke, but then, I doubt Arkady truly understood what it was she was talking about. His dialogue suggests he's not quite listening to what she's saying. He knocks her out with a physical backhand and a sort of compliment/thank you for being an (unwilling) donor towards keeping himself alive.

This is made apparent later, but for as many times as Arkady claims his abilities are lethal, we never see him kill anyone here. He always just knocks them out, even though he continually says he needs their life energy to keep himself alive. Why does he do that when he has such an obvious need? Well, the real reason is that Marvel can't let all their heroes just die, but that leaves a weird plot hole within the story itself. Why doesn't Arkady kill these people? He has no connection to him, they're invaders into the facility he's at, and he needs life energy to live. A good guess might be that Matsu'o gave him orders not to kill, as capturing the X-men rather than killing them might draw Wolverine back in. And he is their real target. That, and Matsu'o seems to have some plans for Psylocke at least, so it would be in his best interests to make sure Omega Red doesn't end up killing her. Of course, he could have given the order to kill all intruders except the one who looks like a sexy ninja babe, but maybe he thought that would be too complicated. Regardless, Arkady, despite having death powers and a need for life energy to keep himself alive, kills absolutely no one.

As all this is happening, Logan is elsewhere with Maverick trying to fight for his life. These past hours have been incredibly taxing for him, and he's experiencing a ton of flashbacks to the time when he encountered Omega Red as a member of Team X:

So, Omega Red doesn't really appear on this page of the flashback outside of his coils shooting up through the floor here, but I want to make a few notes. The first is that Janice says, "The supersoldier has been activated." In the next issue, we find out that Team X starts their raid while Arkady is having his procedures done. He's naked in a tank being operated on when Team X shows up. And then they steal the C-Synthesizer (and later additions to this event add Sabretooth making a sales pitch to Arkady to join them and John Wraith making an appearance -- a lot ends up getting crammed into this). So, after Team X busts in and grabs Janice, Arkady has to get out of the tank, listen to Creed's pitch, kick him out, get dressed and have all the implants and things properly hooked up in order to go after them. All this right after Arkady went through (likely) the most painful process of his life. He's a real trooper for that, and you really have to applaud his speed, but man, he must have been really hurting.

The second note I want to make is with regards to how Janice dies here. Why is it important? Well, because of this lovely panel that occurs in X-men (1991) #18:

Hmm. Something doesn't add up here. Why is Logan blaming Arkady for what happened to Janice? As his own flashback reveals:

Omega Red wasn't even on the same floor as them when Janice was killed. Logan clearly saw Sabretooth murder her. So why is he blaming Arkady for it several issues later? Crappy memory? Hard to say, but after that, Janice Hollenbeck is never mentioned again and Logan never brings this up in any of his fights with Sabretooth. Just the one he had with Omega Red. To this day, it baffles me that Arkady is the one he truly blames for her death since he wasn't the one who actually killed her.

So, the next page of the flashback shows us Arkady at long last:

So, Sabretooth ends up saving everyone's skin here (at least everyone not named Omega Red) and they all escape with the C-Synthesizer. With regards to Arkady on this page here, I want to talk about a few things. The first is his dialogue. His speech bubble is very unique, along with the lettering. The styling does seem to imply that Arkady’s words are supposed to come off as menacing and sounding rather off-putting, and it probably does, but I think that it's really due to two main reasons. The first is due to the pain he's probably in right now. Remember, he just had a major operation and was told to get up and go without any sort of recovery time whatsoever. It probably really hurts to talk. Or breathe. Or move. And yet he has to do so. Arkady knows the importance of what was stolen. He has to get it back or his life is going to really, really suck. The second reason is due to him speaking English. At this time, I doubt he was a very good English speaker. There are times where he seems to struggle with it even now. He was probably still learning and unfamiliar with the language. Despite the pain he was in, he was supposed to try to communicate clearly in a second language. I say he did a good job.

The next thing I want to talk about is his appearance here:

Look at all those mechanical parts strapped to his head. We see this design for him in one other flashback in the pages of Cable, and the design in and of itself tells a rather sad and painful story. Unlike Logan, who naturally has his claws, Arkady’s coils are 100% implants. Rather complicated ones too. How do they work? How do they move? As the headgear implies, it's by a computer/brain interface. Procedures had to be done to connect the coils to his brain to allow him to mentally control and move them. And given the technology level from back in the day, it was going to end up being something that's big, clunky, hot, and heavy. He had to carry that thing around on his head in order for the implants to work. His hair had to be shaved off. It was probably a very miserable piece of equipment to be forced to carry.

As time went on, this headgear disappeared, getting smaller and smaller until now the only real implants we see left on his head are the ones that remain on his cheeks. Why there? No clue. Guess the artists just think it looks really cool and decided that they wanted to keep it. However, seeing these first iterations of his design tells us that as the technology improved, Arkady had to go through procedures over and over again to update it. To have all the old equipment removed and then replaced with new implants had to have been horrible. Major procedures without any form of anesthesia at all. It had to have been agony. He would have been treated like a machine, having parts exchanged to make him more efficient. It would be the kind of thing that would really destroy any human image Arkady would have of himself, and you really end up seeing that view Arkady ends up having of himself in some of Omega Red’s upcoming appearances.

The final thing I have to say about this flashback before continuing on is how we have never seen what happened to Arkady after this. What he had to face when he went back to his superiors and had to tell them that Team X got away. That had to have been incredibly defeating. His very first assignment as a finished (somewhat) supersoldier: a failure. I doubt that his superiors were happy with him. And after this, he had to somehow find a way to carry on and do the jobs he was ordered to do despite the pain that he now had to live with. His life must have been absolutely horrid after this and only served to build up resentment and hatred towards all the members of Team X. They ruined his life.

So Arkady appears on this page with Sabretooth and the others, but says absolutely nothing. He's likely thinking about Sabretooth though, but given what Sabretooth says, that he doesn't remember Omega Red, he probably figures it's best to just keep his mouth shut. If Creed remembers what he did to Arkady and why, he likely would not do the job -- or at least that is likely the thought. The doctor and Matsu'o also avoid saying Omega Red’s name at all either, which implies they are probably thinking the same thing. That it's best to keep Sabretooth ignorant of their past history and keep him focused on Wolverine.

So Sabretooth goes off hunting and finds Wolverine and Maverick. Here, we are led to believe that Sabretooth was the victorious one and that he and Psylocke captured them. But, as is made clear next issue, it's a ruse:

So, focusing on the dialogue exchanged between the doctor and Arkady, we get a bit of insight as to what Omega Red thinks of Creed and the situation he finds himself in. The doctor notes the irony of the situation, that Sabretooth is unknowingly fixing a problem he helped cause 30(ish) years ago. Omega Red replies with, "There is much I owe Sabretooth. And I have every intention of paying back my debts in the order of which they occured."

What does Arkady mean by that? That he's going to end up waltzing to Victor's door one day and say, "Comrade Creed, now that I've finished paying off my debts to Matsu'o, I work for you now. I have to pay off that debt I owe you."? I don't think so. I doubt that he'd ever want to make life-long slavery his life goal. I think his intentions are far darker. This ends up really getting confirmed next issue, but it is implied here that Arkady’s view of paying back his "debts" is to kill the people responsible for there being a debt in the first place. Sabretooth is on his hit list. It doesn't matter if he's "helping" here. Creed screwed him over and made his life a living hell for 30(ish) years. He's had decades to build up resentment. He wants to dish out some real payback. Just like he wants to do to Logan.

The final thing of note that happens in this issue is the cliffhanger. It was one that really stuck in my mind as a kid because I never got to see how it ended. It took years for me to find out what happened next. So I thought about this a lot. Who would Omega Red kill to keep himself alive? Which X-men character was on the chopping block? How would the team react? Turns out, I didn't have to worry at all, as Omega Red -- despite being given an open invitation to kill as many X-men as he wanted -- kills exactly zero X-men.

Why? Matsu'o even says that Omega Red needs life energy. How and why did no X-men die? Did Arkady just tell Matsu'o, "No thanks, I'm not really hungry right now. Maybe later."? Next issue, it is implied Arkady was "using" (or at least was tricked into thinking he was using), Psylocke's life energy to sustain his own (which is something I will talk about in the examination of next issue), but she's not here right now. She's in the sewers with Creed. Absolutely nothing was preventing Arkady from killing the X-men. And yet he didn't. Once again, Marvel can't bring itself to have any heroes die, but as a consequence, leaves an interesting plot hole that can only really be filled with a variation of Arkady simply choosing not to kill. It's the start of a rather peculiar "no killing" pattern Arkady ends up developing despite the condition he's stuck living with, one that becomes more obvious the more appearances of his you read.

Well, this ended up being a very long review of this issue. The next one might end up being just as long. We will have to see as this first story arc featuring Omega Red begins to draw to a close.

[racinginchid3nt]

I’d Probably Still Adore You | Eight

Y/N x Lance Stroll, Y/N x Lando Norris, Y/N Best Friend x Pierre

Gasly

In which a night at the club and a game of never have I ever turns into something new

Inspired by 505 - Arctic Monkeys

Warnings: some smut, mostly in discussion/description. 18+

Previous | Next

————————————————————————

You spent the rest of Wednesday night relaxing in your hotel room. Starting to unpack and hanging your dress up for the event, your phone chimed.

When you checked it, it was Lando, replying to the text he had sent himself.

Smiling to yourself, you weren’t sure how you ended up with a date to tomorrow nights event but you figured if it had to be anyone at least he wasn’t a stranger. Besides Y/N Best Friend would be with Pierre, so you would have someone to talk to besides her.

————————————————————————

Thursday

Thursday morning went by quickly. You had opted to not attend media day. Pierre wasn’t on a panel and instead had individual interviews and team video shoots so there was no need to watch them.

You also took a few work calls, responding to some emails that came in throughout the day. While you had taken the day off, your boss only agreed if you were willing to participate in the two morning meetings. By midday, you were finally free to relax.

Stepping out of you room, you pushed the down button for the elevator. You’d skipped breakfast due to the time change but we’re starving and needed to pick up lunch.

As the doors opened, you saw a familiar face in the elevator.

“Hola Y/N. No sabiá que estabas aquí.” (I didn’t know you were here)

“Hola Carlos. It was kind of a last minute thing.”

“We’ll it’s great to see you. Are you going to the sponsor event tonight?”

“I am. Lando’s picking me up at 7:30.”

“Oh. That makes sense.” He laughingly replied.

Unsure of what he meant, you gave him a confused look.

“Lando told Oscar and I that he had a date last night. We wondered what poor soul he convinced and why he was so happy, but it makes sense that it would be you.”

“Oh uh yeah. We ran into each other last night and he asked.”

“Well I’ll see you tonight.” He replied, before stepping out of the elevator.

He made his way to the front desk, while you continued to the front doors. As you stepped outside you were greeted by a large crowd behind a barrier. Someone must have leaked the drivers hotel. As you pushed through the crowd to try and get to the small bistro you had seen on the way in last night, you were surprised to hear someone scream your name.

“Y/N! Can I get a picture?”

Unsure of what to do or why someone would want a picture with you, you turned and saw a fan in a Ferrari shirt waving at you. Confused you walked up and took a quick selfie. Was this because of that wag post a few weeks ago? You noticed a few other people taking photos of you as you chatted with the girl about the race weekend, before wrapping up and continuing on.

You placed your order to go from the bistro, heading back to the hotel to eat in your room and relax before you needed to get ready. As you sat down to eat and scroll through your phone, you got an Instagram notification that you were tagged in a photo.

Opening the app you saw that you had once again made the wag Instagram. It wasn’t your best picture, makeup free and hair undone, but you hadn’t expected anyone to care about you.

Is this what it’s always like for Y/N Best Friend you thought? You couldn’t escape the stupid wag pages and you weren’t even seeing anyone.

————

Lance sat in the car on the way back to the hotel from media day. The break had been nice, but he was ready to be back behind the wheel. Zandvort wasn’t his favorite track, but it certainly wasn’t his least favorite either.

As he sat in backseat of the car, driving the 30km or so back to the hotel, he thought back to the night before. When he arrived at the hotel from the airport, he had seen Y/N. After their hookup before the break, he had expected that to be the end of their interactions. He’d never seen her at a race before that week, so he figured he wouldn’t any time soon.

But to see her getting out of the car with Norris was a shock. While he hadn’t reached out to her after the hookup, she also hadn’t reached out to him. The last thing he expected though was for her to be dating someone already. It had to be serious if they had arrived together, but with less than a month for the break, he questioned how quickly that happened.

He had spent the next week replaying the night over in his mind. And every time a girl flirted with him on break, he couldn’t help but compare her to Y/N. Had she really thought so little of the night that she could move on immediately? During their game at the after party she had said she’d never slept with a driver. Sure Norris has mean’t the question about Pierre when he asked it, but that also mean’t she hadn’t slept with Lando either.

He knew first hand that there was a lot more to hookups besides sex. Just because she hadn’t fucked him didn’t mean she couldn’t have kissed him. Or sucked his dick. And as the thought of her getting on her knees for Norris crossed his mind, the tiniest hint of jealousy bleed through. He had missed out of the chance of that. Missed out on watching those big brown eyes look up at him while he fucked into her mouth. Missed out on watching her swallow down his cum.

He didn’t know much about Norris, but he seemed to have some charm. Lance had seen him leave the club with his fair share of women. What if he had the chance to eat her out? That thought sat even worse. He didn’t like the idea of someone else, much less another driver getting to see her like that. Recalling the look of her glazed over eyes when he tucked her in on the couch, he didn’t like the idea that he wasn’t the only one who had seen her like that.

He wasn’t typically a possessive man, but he also didn’t typically interact much with his occasional flings after the fact. He’d been single for awhile, hooking up here or there as he felt like it, girls aware of the situation, that it would be a one time thing. But for someone else to have made a move on what he viewed to have been his first didn’t sit right with him at all. He knew better then to confront either of them, he had no rights. But why was he upset about that?

Opening up Instagram for the first time in a week, he navigated to her profile. She had posted twice during the break, one a casual photo of her and some friends at dinner, the other a photo of her laying out at the beach. He tried to think back to where Norris had said he was spending the break. He said he was going somewhere warm, and he vaguely recalled an Instagram story of him on a jet ski. Had she gone with him?

Flipping through her story she had only two posts up. One of a photo outside the plane window, showing the dark runway at the Amsterdam airport, and one of what he presumed was her lunch from earlier. Neither of those were helpful in the slightest. He’d already started to edge towards creeper territory, so he might as well take it further.

Navigating to her tagged photos, he saw a new one from earlier that day. It showed a zoomed in photo of her on her phone, hair up in one of those messy clips and in a casual outfit, she seemed to be walking down the street. Reading the caption, it confirmed what he already knew. She was staying at the same hotel as all of the drivers.

Esteban had complained earlier to him that his room was next to Pierre and his girlfriend. Apparently the two had been going at it 24/7 for the past few days. Which meant that she hadn’t flown in with them and wasn’t staying with them. So who was she staying with? He didn’t know what she did for work but highly doubted she had forked over the money for overpriced luxury hotel.

Pulling up to the hotel, he exited the car. Tucking his phone back into his pocket, he thought about the upcoming sponsor event. He’d have to stop by for at least a few hours to socialize. It wasn’t really Fernando’s thing and someone had to represent the team well. At least they would serve dinner he thought to himself, the food was normally good at these things. As he headed up to his room, he ran through the rest of his weekend, analyzing what his engineer had told him earlier, all thoughts of Y/N leaving his head.

————————————————————————

A/N:

I really appreciate the support I’ve gotten on this story so far. If you guys could continue to like, comment, and reblog I would really appreciate it!

[mirkwoodmunson]

can i request something inspired by where’s my love - syml? maybe bubbly reader developed something traumatic after the s4 events and just blocked everyone in her life and eddie’s worry sick that they might never be themselves again and starts helping them and all that hurt/comfort cutie patootie. luv your work!! 😭💛

oughoughhh i love this idea, thank you for the ask and kind words!!

(i’m so sorry it’s been well over a month anon thank you for being patient with me 🥲🫶🫶)

this one jumps around a bit but hopefully it’s concise 🥲

contains: cursing, use of she/her pronouns

page divider from @animatedglittergraphics-n-more

“Can’t you just… fuck, I don’t know… can’t you talk to her, Wheeler? I just…” Eddie takes a deep breath and breathes it out slow away from the receiver, closing his eyes and massaging the bridge of his nose with his free hand, tucking himself into the paneled wall of Wayne’s trailer. “I feel like — like she’s not here, even when she’s right next to me… like she’s a ghost.”

There’s a pause on the other end as Nancy listens, choosing her words carefully.

“Eddie… if you can’t get through to her, I don’t know that I would do any better. I’m sorry, but, you just — you have to give her time. We all just need, time. Think about what she saw in there. All of us nearly died. But… she saw you— ... I know you don’t remember it all, but she does.”

Eddie pinches his nose harder and grimaces, shaking his head a little. “…fuck…”

Nancy sighs softly, “yeah…”

The first time Eddie becomes aware of your existence, he hears you before he sees you. From behind him, parked atop the picnic table hidden in the woods — his secret spot — he hears a delicate chime of bells; a soft giggle hidden behind shy hands. He turns quickly to spot the intruder, and when he sees you, he finds himself softening when he didn’t even realize how tense he was.

“I-I’m so sorry!” you call to him, lowering your hand to bask him in the shine of your smile, twiddling your fingers nervously together in front of your chest. “I didn’t know anyone would be here, I—“

“No no,” Eddie finds himself saying, turning more to you and raising a placating hand, waving away your apologies. “No ‘sorries,’ it’s all good. I’m just, uhh…”

“Hiding?” You finish for him with another gentle shimmer of a giggle. “Me, too.”

“Now who would you be hiding from?” There’s a lilt of playful tease in his voice. He himself was waiting for the parking lot to clear out after school, avoiding Jason and his goons and the general chaos of people wanting to book it home.

You roll eyes in exasperation, heaving your shoulders, “ugh, just… everyone. First day’s always the worst.”

“Everyone, excluding the freak?” Again there’s the gentle teasing, he says it softly like he’s worried you’ll suddenly realize who you’re talking to. Instead you raise a brow and peer around.

“ ‘The freak’?”

He smiles crookedly and opens his arms as if to say ‘you’re lookin’ at him.’

You smile softly and giggle again, disbelieving as you shake your head, moving in closer, “you don’t seem like a freak to me.”

You’d taken to spending the majority of your time at the Munson’s; it was hard to be in your own home where no one understood. No one knew why you hardly spoke anymore, why you would start to cry unprovoked, why all you wanted to do was lie curled up in bed and yet refuse to let yourself fall asleep — headphones resting tight over your ears as your music played much too loud.

You felt guilty having Eddie care for you, but aside from your family not understanding, he did. He understood, and insisted upon having you stay with him and Wayne. It made him anxious to be away from you, worrying about your state of mind and the coping habits you’d developed that weren’t all that healthy. He worried intensely about that darkness that had taken over you.

While he recovered in the hospital, you were there every single day, and when he finished his healing at home you were there, too. Once he was better enough to move around, he was determined to pay back the attention you had devoted to him. He wanted to be there while you cried, while you were quiet, let you cling to him as you shivered. He figured eventually it would pass, as it had for him — soon you’d be better and you’d laugh together again. But the darkness proved heavy and insistent. Just as you clung to him, the darkness clung to you.

Today was rainy and gloomy; days like today only intensified your struggle, and you sought shelter in Eddie’s embrace. Even in his arms, though, even with his face tucked into your cheek and his gentle voice cooing to you that it was okay — the gloom within you was so bleak, you cried so hard into his shoulder you nearly screamed, your mind plagued with images you wish you could burn away with the hottest fire. Even while he held you you feared that looking up it would be another trick of the mind, another dream where his mouth oozed blood and his eyes were devoid of his spark. And so you just hid into him and cried, shuddering and hiccuping with every short, shallow breath.

“It’s okay… hey it’s okay… just breathe, sweetheart, breathe with me… I’ve got you… you’re okay… you gotta breathe, baby… I got you… you’re okay…”

“PLEASE JUST BREATHE! Breathe, Eds, god-DAMMIT! PLEASE PLEASE — you’re okay you’re okay you’re okay — EDDIE PLEASE!!”

You can’t see past the tears, past the flashes of red, but you’re hitting him, hitting his chest, urging the air into him as you wail and then break to shake him hard, screaming into his face.

And then he gasps…

Sometimes your silence scares him more than the tears. Sometimes one minute you’ll be inconsolable, and the next it’s like something in you has switched off, you’re awake but — you’re gone. Retreated to somewhere deep inside.

Your face is damp but slack, eyes open but not perceiving, not fixed, lids heavy; you’re looking past everything into a blackness no one else can see. Your tense muscles suddenly going lax and limp to the point you’re just slouched into Eddie, so motionless you could be comatose. When this first happened he panicked, but now he just sighs softly and tips your head back to check you over, gently patting your face dry and brushing hair away from your face, pressing light and concerned kisses to your forehead and cheeks and murmuring to you, hoping you still hear him. Carefully he helps you to your feet, holds you against him as he guides you to his room; you can move but your feet are almost too heavy, dragging against the floor.

Once in the cozy confines of his room, Eddie gently and very carefully helps you to lie down on his bed, placing a pillow under your head and between your knees, another against your chest before he maneuvers your arms to wrap around it. Your fingers flex gently, eyes still unfixed but you squeeze the material and pull it further against you.

All he can do for a few minutes is just sit at the edge of the bed and rest his face in his hands, keeping his breath even and calm — the sound of your cries still rings in his ears and just the thought of it makes him want to cry, too. But he also wants to stay strong for you; needs to stay strong for you. However long it took, Eddie wanted to see you through this storm. As dark as it got, Eddie knew he would see you come home to him again.

Looking to the corner of the room, he lays eyes on his acoustic guitar, proud in its stand.

This machine slays dragons.

He stands and moves to it, brings it with him as he sits on the floor leaning back against the bed. He hears you breathe softly behind him and closes his eyes, plucking with bare fingers and a tight throat that allows no more than a hummed melody; anything more and he’d break. He needed to be strong for you. He needed to see you come home.

The picnic table had become a hideout for you just as had been for Eddie, a space you’d come to share with the boy (much to his happiness) when the days proved overwhelming — and most of them were. But you also looked forward to see him waiting there for you. As soon as you spotted each other you’d both grin and blush, hiding the unspoken feeling you unknowingly shared for each other; a deeply-rooted affection that only grew stronger with each meeting.

You’d split lunches from home, Eddie would rattle on about the D&D campaigns he was working on while you smiled wide and listened intently. Some days were worse than others, for either of you, however. Sometimes you’d find Eddie slouched into himself and tired, and you’d let him vent about Jason or teachers or whatever was bothering him. But as long as he could see you smile, he knew things would be alright. If you could smile for him, it meant the sun was right beside him.

Sometimes you’d find there Eddie with a guitar propped in his lap, after he’d been missing from school all day. Not up to being around them, but dying to be around you no matter how heavy the fog in his mind was.

The first time you’d found him with his guitar he didn’t speak at all as you approached, just smiled half-heartedly and patted the spot next to him for you to join. Together you’d sat in quiet for a while, as he absently plucked at strings, not wanting to speak but just needing some kind of gentle noise.

After a time, you asked him, “do you take requests?”

And Eddie smiled and looked at you past his hanging, curly hair, “whatever you wanna hear, sweetheart. Anything for you.”

As he strums lightly now, sat on the floor, he feels gentle fingers comb into his hair from behind him, softly caressing his scalp. Eddie smiles wide and continues to play.

“…are you really here..?” Your voice is so quiet it’s just barely audible.

Eddie sets the guitar down, resting it against his nightstand, and turns, reaching up to take your hand, finding your other as well. He squeezes them gently and presses his lips to them, puffing soft breath against them and then kissing them sweetly, nuzzling into your knuckles as he nods.

“I’m here. I’m really here. Promise.”

He looks up to find your eyes, shimmering with tears over the edge of the pillow still tucked against your chest. You’re there, all there, present and seeing him.

“It’s gonna be okay. You’re gonna be okay.”

You close your eyes, pushing out heavy droplets.

It’s quiet for a while as Eddie just continues to hold your hands, watching you carefully. Eventually you nudge your chin up and tuck it over the pillow, and Eddie’s smile is brilliant in the presence of your own — small but it’s there.

“…do you take requests..?”

Eddie chuckles and sits up further on his knees, leaning in to kiss you, lingering against your lips and aligning his nose with yours, nudging into you with deep affection.

“Whatever you wanna hear, sweetheart. Anything for you.”

[suckishima]

man i love this sequence so much—and tbh their dynamic in general which i feel like we don't talk about enough

on paper they seem like such opposites—and they kind of are—with tanaka being a mood maker and morale stabilizer for the team, he's loud and boisterous and never holds back what he's feeling ("dial down my feelings?? what does that even mean??"), while tsukki barely speaks on the court, openly admits to disliking loud and excitable people, and seems to calculatedly hide his emotions away. you would think they wouldn't like each other and wouldn't work well together, but i think every interaction we see between them is a positive one

we see them kinda partner up to roast other teams or their own teammates, but also tanaka is one of the few senpai that tsukki seems comfortable openly making fun of directly. but then tanaka doesn't even ever seem mad by tsukki's taunts—occasionally he'll even pass judgement on how successful tsukki was with his comebacks. and tanaka will just throw a jab back easily, which tsukki doesn't really seem bothered by either—tanaka never gets under tsukki's skin the way kageyama does, for example

and then we get a great little sequence like this one that's deliberately pointing out their differences and then using them to emphasize something more, and it's just so effective??

what tanaka goes through in the first set of the inarizaki match of feeling like he's not doing enough and having it shoved in his face that he'll never be the best, is like a speedrun version of what tsukki has been going through since he was in middle school when he found out his brother was lying about being the ace. there are these little subtle callbacks too—with the dichotomy of being lame vs cool (yamaguchi calling tsukki lame for not trying and tsukki thinking yamaguchi is cool for saying so), and furudate even uses the same visual metaphor of a never-ending staircase

it took tsukki years to realize he might be looking at things in a destructive way, and then months more after that until he actually saw the merit of trying—and then even here we can see that he doesn't find any of this easy. and tanaka basically does all of that in thirty minutes or so.

and while tsukki seems perturbed by this, he isn't mad at all. you can feel the respect tsukki is veiling behind his words in the first panel of the page when he calls him "ridiculously mentally tough." it's "frightening" to him because it's something that doesn't come naturally to him personally, when it obviously does for tanaka

of course it's important to note that the situations are completely different in terms of the catalyst for those feelings, tanaka didn't have some world-shattering event he's been struggling with since he was a pre-teen (that we know of). he just had an off day. but what i like is that the emphasis here isn't really about the circumstances, it's about their attitudes, how they each react to feeling down about themselves

and i just love the way furudate put this page in here. we just had this awesome sequence of tanaka scoring a well earned set point by doing a move he's been practicing for months after he spent all match feeling inadequate—sounds a lot like tsukishima winning set 2 vs shiratorizawa with a stuff block that was preceded by months of extra practices from him, but the reader (rightfully) isn't thinking about tsukki at all. until furudate gives us this conversation and we're reminded (not specifically or directly of tsukki's moment but) that this feeling is something other players, other people go through too. like, furudate didn't have to put this page in here, the chapter and tanaka's moment would have been just as epic without it, but i feel like it just adds this extra little emotional grounding to it

it just, it feels so human. getting down, being hard on yourself, feeling or even knowing you'll never be the best, everyone can relate—it's a storyline we've seen in haikyuu before but furudate always manages to make it feel not only fresh but satisfying because of how they present it to us with a new lens every time. tanaka and tsukki are so opposing in their character and actions that it makes their moments feel different and new, so it's just as cathartic for the reader every time, even though the underlying message is the same

whether it's hard or not, it's always cooler to try

[showtoonzfan]

You see, they’re both perfect for eachother, because they both suck at communication skills! 🥰 (spoilers for the new TGS page!)

In all seriousness, I had to talk about the new TGS page, because I love it. It’s here that we learn that Jekyll is an unreliable narrator, which is something we all could have picked up awhile back. Jekyll sucks at communication, he hides himself and his deepest fears, but sometimes we see certain scenarios that broke us a little differently than how someone ELSE might have saw it. Awhile back, during Chapter 11, Jekyll opened up to another character (Jasper) about what went down between him and Lanyon in college. We learned that while he was fully aware Lanyon wasn’t interested in an actual relationship and was legit a whore who jumped from one man to the next, he was still torn up once they broke the sexual affair, since Lanyon had to get married. From that chapter, the flashback showcases how Jekyll saw the event:

What I like about this is that Lanyon is clearly uneasy in one panel, but once he turns around, he’s smiling, and we now know why. He’s smiling because Jekyll assumed that by how Lanyon has acted towards this quarrel, he just simply didn’t care, and it makes sense, since Lanyon’s whole character is that he keeps this sassy, uncaring attitude towards most people, and it doesn’t help that Lanyon moments ago this page shot back at Jekyll when he asked him why he’s so afraid of his father. Obliviously this page is paralleling the new page at the top, because we’re FINALLY getting Lanyon’s perspective a little.

And now that we’re on this new page, we see how once again….Jekyll is a poor idiot. He automatically assumes that Lanyon knew EXACTLY how he felt, despite never showing it, or giving the other ANY indication that he was upset. Another thing we see in Chapter 11 is that after they broke the affair, Jekyll kept his smile on, but became miserable internally. He remained friends with Laynon of course, but through all of this we just further see how flawed Jekyll is because of what he went through. Personally from everything we’ve seen, I definitely think Jekyll sees Laynon as cruel and dense, and don’t get me wrong, Lanyon isn’t 100% in the right either, they’re both messed up because they both lack communication and showing the other their deepest sides, but like I said, I love how you can clearly tell that despite how much Jekyll CARES about Lanyon, he still holds resentment towards the other man, and I’m honestly waiting for him to just snap in green eyed Jekyll form.

In other news, I just love how realistic their bickering sounds in the newest page. The way they’re arguing over how the situation went down, how the other felt because they can’t communicate or grapple their own personal trauma’s worth shit. I’m also glad to see how Lanyon felt about this situation. We sort of spent a really long time assuming he didn’t care at all because of his commitment issues, but we finally see that he was just as distraught as Jekyll was, and honestly? That also makes sense to me. This would be a different story if Lanyon just screwed Jekyll and left him in the dust, but he didn’t. Jekyll and Lanyon weren’t just fuck buddies, they were close friends, and Lanyon CONTINUED to stick with the other as they opened the society for Arcane Science, even though Lanyon had no passion with science in the first place. We all know Lanyon cares about Jekyll, and Jekyll’s KNOWS that, he’s just so grappled in all the pain he went through during that time that he can’t put himself in Lanyon’s shoes, or even fully confess his love for him, and it’s such a sad thing to watch because I love Jekyll and root for him at the same time. We have yet to see the rest of Lanyon’s perspective, but for now these two are so caught up in their messy gay quarrel that this might end in disaster, especially since Hyde as of now is still inside Jekyll and trying to find a way to get out. I just love this relationship so much however, I think it’s the perfect example of a messy gay relationship and what can happen when you don’t show yourself, your true self. The two care about each other but can’t communicate, they have so many issues that need to be worked out especially with how in denial they are, and the time period plays a huge part in that. They need to be able to feel comfortable with their own feelings and in their own shoes, but I’m waiting for them to finally reconcile since it’s been 84 years. I just can’t wait to see what happens next!

[blackstarchanx3new]

FSR rambles PT 4

Over explaining the decisions in my own comic once again. UwU

Smth fun about these pages is ZELDA. My lady.

Something I'm not sure was how well this portrayed that this was shortly after they put the sword back (like maybe a year at most?)

I kind of like to think for FSR at least, they were all around 13-15 during the events of the manga (This isn't my opinion tbh, though in the bonus pages they buy child tickets for the theme park so they aren't canonically adults.)

Link's old enough to drink in FSR so he's at least 21.

(I've never really liked the idea they're YOUNG kids during FS it just lends itself better to FSR specifically. I really write them however old I want for whatever scenario I'm writing because Link's as fluid as a Vocaloid when it comes to making fan works and cannon is my bitch. Writing them as adults during the events of the manga usually lends itself to MORE writing opportunities but not for FSR. I don't really give a shit what other people decide to do when making fan works either.)

You'd also notice the 7 years it takes FS Link to pull the sword is a reference to the seven years Link misses during OOT.

Anyways onto the page itself: Zelda's a sweet girl who cares deeply about her childhood friend. Link means a lot to her and she makes time for him. He waits for her too. Zelink shippers I got you lol.

Something I always found WEIRD was how Link doesn't talk in the pages after he reformed. That's so odd to me. The fan "theory" It's basically cannon in BOTW/TOTK at least Link's selectively mute. That Link's mute is also something I took inspiration for FSR Link.

So Link doesn't respond to Zelda verbally but she still makes the effort to talk to him.

Shadow Link is very disapointed he can't get hugged by the princess. Because as he stated earlier in the comic he loves her. Zelda addressed him too so she tries to include him.

This page shows off just how gradual the curse was: So funny enough at the START of the comic it was actually going to be explained how Link utterly deteriorated but I decided to add that later. (Wanted to get to funny shenanigans with the boys so I put it off)

It started with him just hearing whispers, then full voices then the what I call "Headspace" fully appeared.

Blue mentions liking Zelda's hugs Haha "Where's my hug???"

Vio just says Zelda's name, Vio's relationship with Zelda is something I'd love to expand upon later down the line.

Green's more focused on food oof.

Red's just happy to see Zelda.

Green was right about being hungry, so Zelda invites him over for DINNER-

Shadow Link's still just vibing.

Zelda lifting Link up in this panel just shows she's there for him.

Link is just dealing with the fact he can hear them by himself. Also dad is still alive.

Lol he's actually making his dad proud which was something he didn't do often before the OG book.

Zelda hanging out with Link and his father kind of shows them as a family.

Shadow Laughing in the bg but he's away from the rest.

So the captain died in a fight, and Link blames himself for it because he can't think straight when there's 4 people constantly talking.

Daddy's demise was really the start of the snowballing downhill for him.

Lol. So Vio's daddy issues are apparent for the SECOND time in the comic. He was uncomfortable even bringing up Link's dad before and this is partially the reason why:

Vio's the only one not crying or overtly emotional about their dad dying.

But something to consider is if he's truly talking to Link or himself in that panel. Because the man is still SHOOK. We have the liberty of SEEING Vio here, but Link doesn't.

So he takes this statement very poorly because:

Well, Vio's seeming "no shits given" attitude is unsettling enough coming from an outside source but that IS apart of Link.

A part of him, seemingly doesn't care his own father kicked the bucket and that's scary to him.

I think anybody would have lost it at this point.

Too bad Zelda saw Link screaming his lungs out at his father's grave lmao. Poor man.

Bro can't do anything but plead for Zelda to help him at this point. She's really the only person he feels he can turn too anyway.

Our girl comes in clutch with them hugs.

This was the conformation Link was actually not speaking in the comic Felt like I had to outright state it cause I wasn't sure if people would notice it otherwise.

Something I REALLY wish was a thing in Zelda manga:

Zelda and Link BOTH lose their parents. Usually their mothers.

And we never get any sort of bonding over that. And I find that a complete waste of potential.

I'd like to dive further into that with FSR or some other Zelda work I do because: HOLY SHIT THEY COULD BOND OVER THEIR LOST PARENTS????

Also Zelda's unfortunate phrasing here with "You can talk to me" she means just, that he can confide in her in general lol.

He's still struggling to actually speak. Poor guy.

While keeping him from doing knight duties kept him PHYSICALLY safe it was just another thing he lost to the curse Vaati laid on him.

So the obvious: Zelda had to watch the person she cares about most completely fall apart before her eyes and she couldn't do shit.

They weren't even aware this WAS A CURSE from Vaati mind you. They were completely in the dark trying to solve this.

Something horrific about this situation you might have also considered:

Not only did Zelda have to watch Link deteriorate but so did Shadow Link.

Shadow Link couldn't even offer much comfort. Zelda could offer physical comfort and attempt emotional comfort but Shadow was completely fucked.

And with the new context of "Link was mostly mute" the fact he wasn't actively TALKING to Shadow Link makes a lot more sense.

Still didn't make that fact any less painful in the moment.

Shadow literally could not participate, was isolated and lonely and had to watch someone else slowly get isolated and lonely and couldn't even help.

Link and Shadow Link literally felt the same way and could not help each other even though they were right next to each other all that time.

Also with the new context of what Link was going through, Shadow's persistence to be there for Vio starts to make a whole lot more sense: He can actually DO something now.

Vio's just stating the obvious at this point and his broken record nature really pissed Link off.

I'm sure you noticed what he wore color wise matched his emotions lol.

Vio technically is 100% right: They think Gannon is in the sword. It would literally be INSANE to pull it knowing that.

But Link's kinda at the point of not giving a shit.

Zelda would get hurt no matter what his "solution" to the problem ended up being.

Shadow Link trying to cheer Link up by reminding him he's there is so sad. Mghhhh

And for the first time in the flashback we actually have Link fully acknowledge Shadow Link's presence.

Vio was outright in denial the man was still alive and didn't want to acknowledge his existence so Link fully embracing Shadow Link here was a big moment between the two of them.

Shadow Link started to figure out what the man was planning but couldn't do squat about it. (He also couldn't communicate with the 4 or HEAR THEM.)

Link shows up in the head space! :D

His words imply he wasn't SURE he could properly communicate with Green like this alone...Which is no surprise considering Vio thinks how odd it is they were able to do that in the first place.

I kinda scrambled to think of what to have him look like hah. Ended up with him wearing white. Since white is the lack of color, white reflects all wavelengths of light so it literally kinda REJECTS color. (Apposed to Black which absorbs light, which funny enough his pants are black...)

And it symbolizes rebirth, peace stuff like that.

It can also symbolize death but we're ignoring that one lmao.

His nails are all the colors + Shadow Link too.

Lmfao when you gaslight yourself.

Okay in all seriousness the Link lays down just how DIRE the situation is since the other 3 don't seem to be quite aware.

And the "Promise" Green made to Link is what had Green so shook at the start of the comic for.

And the weight of the line "Can I trust you?" really sinks in as we'll see.

Link's kinda spooky haha. You can tell he wasn't sure Green was going to help him but that's quickly overtaken by how overjoyed he is Green is for sure on board.

One of my favorite panels from this batch is how happy he is. He's so relived he can finally just rest.

Green can't though. The crushing weight of keeping everything "Okay" is a heavy burden to bare and Dark Link spits those words right back into Green's face, and just holds him.

Green doesn't seem to hate the hug as much as Vio did hah.

Green doesn't even seem to acknowledge his presence while Vio not only NOTICED but was actively terrified of him to the point of trying to grab his sword.

He also mocked Vio more throwing Vio's own words back in his face, but just repeats what Link said to Green.

How. Odd.

And that's all for this batch. Hope ya come back to read my rumbly thoughts about my own comic.

[scruffyplayssonic]

Are the ArchieSonic comics actually an 80's/90's syndicated cartoon? Episode 40: The one episode that's unique to the show's premise and characters (part 4: Spark of Life)

Welcome back to my look at the ArchieSonic comic series, and how it shared a lot of the same story tropes as a typical ‘80s or ‘90s syndicated cartoon. Today I have one last story arc I want to look at for the “episode that’s unique to the show’s premise or characters,” category. It’s the fan-favourite story arc Spark of Life, published in Sonic Universe #71 - 74!

Taking place during the Shattered World crisis adapting Sonic Unleashed post-reboot, Spark of Life saw Sally, Nicole, Tails and Big travel to Isolated Island (from Knuckles’ Chaotix) to answer a digital distress call from Nicole’s creator, Dr Ellidy. Venturing into the digital world, Nicole discovered Dr. Ellidy was being threatened by a rogue A.I. that was interfering with the reprogrammed badniks Ellidy had turned into his housekeepers, and which also tried to get its hands on Ellidy himself when he digitised himself to investigate the problem in Cyberspace. Combined with the continuing threat of the Dark Gaia monsters appearing at night and a shocking revelation about Nicole’s origins, the Freedom Fighters had a lot on their plates for this story.

Spark of Life is one of only a handful of stories written by Aleah Baker (with Aleah writing the script based on her husband Ian Flynn’s plot). Aleah regularly contributed to ArchieSonic for years by doing character designs, colouring, and working on the letter pages’ gag strip, Off Panel, as well as writing a number of stories for the post-reboot era. As well as Spark of Life, this includes the stories Light in the Dark in Sonic #260 - 262, Consequences in Sonic #263, Hidden Costs in Sonic #277 - 279, The Case of the Pirate Princess in Sonic Universe #91 - 94, and Knuckles vs. Break Man in Sonic: Worlds Unite Battles #1. Aleah has unfortunately not been able to write for IDW Sonic yet due to poor health, although last year she did colour an absolutely gorgeous cover for issue #50. I’m sure that I speak for all of us when I wish her all the best and hope that she gets better..

So what makes Spark of Life so special? Well a lot of it has to do with Nicole, and the relationships she has in this arc. By the time of this story Nicole had come a long way from the talking handheld computer she was first introduced as, developing into a real person with feelings, hopes, and dreams. Nicole and her development as a character was a large part of the Iron Dominion arc and its aftermath, but that was partially lost after the comic was rebooted and the Freedom Fighters’ backstories were all rewritten to be similar to the old canon but different enough to be distinguishable. Nicole’s awakening as a sentient being is shown as a flashback in this story, and it’s very similar to how it was pre-reboot, with Nicole creating a hard-light holographic avatar for herself and stargazing with Sally.

But how she got to that point was the big difference, as this time she didn’t have wacky body-swap shenanigans with Sally. She also wasn’t sent back in time to be Sally’s friend by a future Rotor - instead she was given to a young Sally as a present by Dr Ellidy. But it’s only during the events of this story that we find out why Dr Ellidy created Nicole in the first place.

Nicole was actually a failed attempt at creating a digital existence for his daughter Nikki, who was dying of a chronic disease. The idea was that he would be able to preserve Nikki’s mind in the digital world, but all he was able to create before Nikki passed was an A.I. that seemed emotionless and did not have any sense of identity or personality. Heartbroken, Dr. Ellidy decided to leave Mobotropolis and retire to Isolated Island, leaving the AI (now named Nicole by King Nigel) with Sally as a gift. However Dr. Ellidy was apparently more successful than he realised, as over time Nicole developed into an actual person - going from JARVIS to Vision, if you like. Dr. Ellidy lived up to the name of his new home and stayed isolated from the rest of the world for the most part, although he would occasionally make contact with the Kingdom such as when he sent Sally the ring blades that had become a part of her new design post-reboot. But Dr Ellidy wasn’t aware of how much Nicole had grown over the years and so he was naturally shocked when she came to his rescue in the digital world, and harboured some resentment towards her because she reminded him of Nikki.

The other main relationship that was focused on in this story was that of Nicole and Sally, as this issue was the first step on the road for the two of them becoming a couple. More like Spark of Romance, amirite?

…

…anyway! It was subtle and sadly not able to be followed up on before the series was cancelled, but the seeds of the romance that was supposed to come were there. With Sally, we got to see that she cared about Nicole very deeply and was very upset by how Dr Ellidy was treating her as if she were not a real person.

And for Nicole we got to see some character growth for her, as she started out chastising Sally for putting herself at risk at the beginning of the story but later realised she would do the exact same thing for her.

Nicole totally had an, “Oh… she just like me. She just like me FR!” moment there!

Aside from Nicole and how the other characters relate to her, there’s a lot of other great stuff in this story. Another one of my favourite moments from all of ArchieSonic is this incredibly wholesome talk that Sally and Big had.

In this house we stan Big the Cat. I'd go to him if I needed someone to talk about girls with too!

We also were introduced to Phage, the afore-mentioned malicious AI making everyone’s lives difficult.

Phage was a very curious AI who was fascinated by what she did not understand, and had an interesting speech pattern which indicates she may have assimilated a thesaurus at some point. We didn’t find out her whole story at this time, but we did discover that she was created by Eggman and seemed to be looking for a way to get back in his good graces. After Nicole foiled her first attempt on Dr Ellidy, Phage took Nicole hostage instead and demanded that the Freedom Fighters bring her the red star ring and the chaos emerald hidden on the island. 

Speaking of, red star rings now became a thing!

While they had technically been introduced the previous year in the Sonic Super Special Magazine, that was only in a five page story of dubious canonicity adapting the mobile game Sonic Dash, and the red star rings hadn’t been seen again since. This story served as their proper introduction, with Dr Ellidy explaining that the island’s Lake of Rings had one day created this instead of the usual standard rings and that he had been researching the increased power it generated compared to them. It was later revealed that the reason the Lake of Rings had started producing red star rings was because a chaos emerald had landed in it.

The best (and most unexpected) thing about the red star rings though is that they granted Nicole a super form!

But if SEGA asks, it’s not a super form, okay? It’s an overclocked form. Totally different. ;)

Dr Ellidy later gave both of the red star rings he’d obtained to Nicole as an olive branch, showing that he did actually want to have an ongoing friendship with her despite how the painful way she reminded him of his lost daughter. It was a nice gesture.

And the last thing I’d like to talk about in Spark of Life is the location. It was really neat to see the Knuckles’ Chaotix game get a shoutout in this way. It’s one of the classic games that is often overlooked (it doesn’t help that unlike most of the classic era games it has never been ported to modern consoles), and considering how different the modern Chaotix are to their classic counterparts, it’s hard to say whether it’s even canon any more. So for a long-time Sonic nerd like myself, it was nice to see it get this kind of representation. We get to see some of the badniks from the game and also the sling-rings, which actually make sense to be in this story.

This is in contrast to the pre-reboot adaptation of Knuckles’ Chaotix where they just came out of nowhere. Dr Ellidy was explained to be a scientist who was researching ring technology and had actually created them (presumably Knuckles and the Chaotix came across them during the events of that game and used them to get around the island). Considering the sling-rings were Chekov’s gun-ed early in the story, it felt a lot more natural for Sally and Nicole to use them against Phage than the way the Chaotix adaptation just jammed them into the story without any setup. 

So those are my four choices for most unique story arcs of ArchieSonic: Mike Gallagher’s Mecha Madness, Karl Bollers’ Return to Angel Island, Ian Flynn’s Iron Dominion, and Aleah Baker’s Spark of Life. I’d also like to shout out a couple of other Ian Flynn stories I considered for this category, but that didn’t quite make the cut:

#1: Enerjak Reborn. Ian gets his hands on Ken Penders’ echidna mythos, and like Karl Bollers before him, puts his own spin on it. Also like Karl Bollers before him, he really pisses Ken Penders off in doing so. xD

#2: The Tails Adventure. A very unexpected adaptation of the Game Gear game of the same name, introducing the Battlebird Armada! Tails takes Antoine and Bunnie to Cocoa Island for their long overdue honeymoon and hijinks ensue.

#3: Scrambled. It’s the big showdown between Snively and Eggman! With interesting cameos from the Egg Bosses and Omega, the introduction of Orbot and Cubot, and the long awaited return of the Iron Queen!

#4: Champions. A Sonic the Fighters adaptation in the middle of a Sonic Unleashed adaptation! Reintroducing a bunch of characters from the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon! Only Ian Flynn would be so bold!

Well as much fun as it’s been writing for this topic, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved to be moving on to some shorter topics now. Hopefully this’ll mean there’s a shorter wait for you between posts too (but I am rather preoccupied trying to find a new home, so no promises).

Next time I’ll be looking at episode 41 of our theoretical 65 episode syndicated cartoon: “Recap the origin story in yet another clip show.” See you next time!

[introspectivememories]

For your mess is mine who are the people Bernard is close with? Is it people who were in the cult and are now out? Is it the groups of guys we saw in one panel? And what do they know more about than Tim?

okay first of all, thank you so much for the ask!!! i'm always sooo fucking excited to talk about these fics even if haven't written a sentence in like a month.

who are the people Bernard is close with? Is it people who were in the cult and are now out? Is it the groups of guys we saw in one panel?

in mess is mine, i just made up new friends for bear. we never really see him hang out with anybody and he is soooo isolated compared to tim. i didn't really like those 3 guys we saw in urban legends so i just... made up new ones! and bear deserves to have people who love him and take care of him.

so if you've been on my page for long enough, you know i have like a reoccurring oc?, i guess you could call it, called mori. he's in like everything i write, when i want someone connected to bear. alongside mori, there's khadija, chinna, and jam. but i'm still developing those characters.

after writing data analyst!bernard, i've been playing with the idea of putting jimmy and tyrone in there too. but i know my own strengths and putting that many characters means a lot of them are gonna get sidelined. (maybe i can put them in as a throwaway line? much to think about.)

i know that him being isolated is probably what made him so susceptible to the cult in the first place, but isn't there something so real about watching your friend slowly destroy themselves? isn't there something so tragic about being able to do nothing but pick up the pieces after each event? of wanting him to stop hurting himself but it seems like he doesn't know how to live unless he's hurting? mori, chinna, 'dija, and jam love bear, but it's not enough.

And what do they know more about than Tim?

everything. in urban legends, they've just started reconnecting. and i've taken that to mean that there was no contact after the shooting. so if we do the math, let's say they were both 16/17 during war games and i've always hc both of them as being around 21 when they meet up again, that's about 4-5 years that tim has missed. people change a lot in just 1 year! to miss around 5??? yeah tim barely knows this man anymore.

and yeah, bear still smiles the same and he still makes outlandish conspiracy theories but bear is so unfamiliar to tim these days. he might as well be a different person. and i think for tim, who is having all these new feelings at seeing bear again, would feel uncomfortable. where is his bear who laughed with his mouth open? where is his bear who didn't have scars on his arms and back? where is his bear who took up the whole room with his personality? tim doesn't know.

the story takes place in the hospital after the attempted sacrifice as tim deals with bear's friends, who are complete strangers to him, just knowing exactly what to do while he fumbles around. one of the scenes that i first wrote was tim sitting in the waiting area struggling to fill out the paperwork. and then bear's friends come in and do it effortlessly.

i hope this answers your questions!! i feel like i got so excited talking about this, it came out a little incoherent lol.

[measuringbliss]

Spider-Man Read-Through 022: The Master Plan of the Molten Man... and Dracula is also there (ASM 132-133, GSSM 1)

MASTERPOST

In this duo, we see an old friend... or two. And then, we meet a vampire. OoOoOh~!

I really enjoy the Molten Man's new design! Gorgeous cover.

It may be January in the Marvel-verse, but we're in May 74, publication-wise!

Liz is back! Hasn't been seen since issue 30, which explains why I keep mistaking Betty and her.

I don't know why, but I remembered this specific (and very ugly) maid. Poor lady.

Anyway, Raxton is hot, there I said it, we can get on.

When I first saw those panels, I thought it was exactly like how Romita would draw Liz... then I checked the credits again... and it's him! His soapy style is gorgeous as ever. Peter says she never got on with MJ, but given that MJ appeared for the first real time in #42... I don't know what he's on. The art of the retcon!

Ned, who's investigating the maid's intel on Raxton, almost dies as Raxton (actually the Molten Man) makes his room explode. I like that Ned (and the rest of the cast) are more involved! I miss them.

The Molten Man has apparently not been seen since #35, which checks out. It's the occasion for the artists to put gold, which is a shade we don't see so much.

Look, is this a safe space? Can I say what's on my mind?

The feet are really nice. I'm not particularly into feet (I know, TMI) but I'm really impressed by how it looks good. And the rest of Raxton's body is obviously quite well-done too. I'm not saying that Spider-Man comics made me gay, but they sure aren't beating the allegations.

Ned is very badly aged, but I like the damsel in distress look.

Raxton's radiation has a bad influence on Peter's metabolism, and he might very well die by the next issue...

Oh, who are we kidding?

In the readers' letters, it seems like Gwen's death has now mostly been forgiven, and someone is praising MJ--and she deserves it!

Even men want to see more of Peter! I'm afraid the situation isn't exactly adapted, however.

As a matter of fact, Spidey has already planned to party in a sauna with another man. Better luck next time!

(I love those smoke effects.)

Liz reveals that Raxton is her brother, which I completely forgot about.

We rarely see that kind of comedy, hahaha.

So. Um. It's a classic story of Spidey kind of being a jerk. Um. So Liz's brother is dead. For now. Maybe. Oof.

In the comments, there's also people talking about Russia's attack on Ukraine. Gerry Conway's run is really provocative, huh! I'm kind of loving it. His shaking of the status quo, not the attack.

I wonder if we'll get to see Liz's reaction :(

I'll do Giant-Size 1 later, it's currently more than 3 am. Hey, do you know what we'll get next time? A big batch... and Harry's big moment as, you know, the, the...!

Oh, you'll just have to wait!

______________________________________________________________

And here's the late addendum of Giant-Size Spider-Man #1!

I'm into that, actually!

So May's dying again (isn't she always?) and Peter needs to get her a vaccine. Ross Andru thus entertains us with a brilliant perspective shot.

Their homoeroticism never fails. Reading the summary of Marvel Team-Up 23 actually was a treat, because I finally got the answer to a years-old question of mine: did Iceman really rob a bank in the first few pages of this issue?

No, he didn't, folks!

Yes, you're getting a ton of screenshots for this part, since I know there's no more issue in this batch after this one.

Anyway, Dracula... Could you please breed me?

To me, Peter and Dracula crossing paths was like, an interplanetary event. It gave me chills. In fact, it still does and I think I should write Peter/Dracula smut now so thank you to the whole team, you've made a mess out of my brain, ARE YOU HAPPY?!? (It is 3 am.)

At least three factions are out there to find Maxfield, either to kill him (Dracula), use him for bartering (the Whisperer and Simian), and naturally Peter just wants to heal his aunt.

I remember that exact cosplay!!!! Funny what the brain remembers and doesn't. Sir, if you thirst so much, maybe I could come to your aide. You just need to ask. Okay, that's actually optional.

The Whisperer's men have a run in with Dracula and think he's Maxfield, which totally offends Dracula. As revenge, he decides to homosexualize his assailants.

Muahahaha.

The writing team then attempts to gaslight me into thinking Dracula isn't hot as fuck.

They're not doing a good job, I can tell you.

A woman is attacked by Dracula, Peter hears her, alerts the captain, who makes Dr. Maxfield come... and Simian follows them.

The fake Hawkgirl attacks one of them and is knocked unconscious. They escape with the man, Peter escapes too...

I'm all giddy!!!!!! Don't know why, but I love that "oh it's not the end yet... or rather, at all! I'm loving this romp. It's a complete joy.

In a great feat of misdirection, Simian and his men find Spider-Man... but actually, he's just a rando in a costume! That's funny and foreshadowed (given that everyone's in a costume anyway). And if I remember, this isn't the only misdirection...

The guy on the right is a fun one.

Meanwhile, Dracula is just as uncomfortable watching Babylon's first 10 minutes as I was. (It's a great movie, go watch it.)

Great mise-en-scène! The Whisperer has trapped the guy, but a bat follows... and hits Simian with its gay ray. Hurray!

Gosh, Dracula is such a girlboss. "I have been harassed--attacked--INSULTED..." Iconic.

Dracula eventually escapes, convinced that he just threw Maxfield overboard... but Spidey caught fake Robin Hood!

And thus, the biggest twist arises!

What a girlboss too.

And that's how it ends. A stellar issue! Loved it.

[theic-manic]

(Helpol blog @divine-thievery)

Helluu!! Your consent post replying to that user talking about Lord Apollo was so eye-opening for me. I named myself a devotee to Lord Hermes because I felt it was the right thing to do.

I became a Hellenic Polytheist in april 2024 and he had actually been on my mind since 2020 (possibly earlier, im bad with dates and remembering) when I first saw him in lore Olympus, to my assumption it was on purpose that i took a liking to him straight away, when I asked if it were true he pleaded the fifth 😂, anyways, so that's why i named myself a devotee, so i will be apologising to Lord Hermes after sending this ask Because as you stated in the post I hadn't asked for consent.

And I would like to thank you for making that post it's really helped me. 🧡 also, I'm Australian, too 😂

Hey mate!

All good and I am glad you appreciate it, it only took me a few hours and asking both Apollo and Hermes nicely to assist.

From my observation, Hermes is certainly a great choice for beginners as he's quote friendly and doesn't quite have Apollo's BPD-coded RSD however Hermes isn't to be taken lightly either.

One notable example

He's a trickster deity and rather amoral at that because his roles simply can't be held back by traditional morals.

I'll note here that our modern morals also don't entirely align with the societal standards of the past, which is why extra care is needed with establishing boundaries and also judging their actions through a modern lense.

This is touched upon in a decent post about rape in Greek mythology

I will also add that Apollo and Hermes just ignored the concept of consent to create this Olympus-level Maury Povich paternity test eposode event of conceiving twins together to the same woman...

Personally, Hermes became my patron deity after appearing to me as other deities... since he does participate in so many domains it's real easy for him to perform jobs for other gods.

However I had, for about a year, lightly worshipped him and included him in my daily prayers so after a while he revealed to me that it had been him all along and not Hekate and Hades those times I thought they were working with me.

While I am glad that you enjoy his portrayal in Lore Olympus (though he especially likes his visual appearances in the Hades games) the webcomic doesn't totally align with mythology...

Admittedly, I've not read much of the comic yet since I am trying to focus on more traditional portrayals of my deities for now (Blood of Zeus is somewhat decent) I did find it very nice that both the author of LO and myself interpreted Melinoe to be deaf/non-verbal (based on some comic panels I came across on tumblr featuring her anyway).

That said, Melinoe was thought to be conceived by Zeus disguised as Hades, something I assume isn't covered in the comic(?)

I'm particularly mindful to consume minimal to no fictional content about deities when I first become acquainted with their energies as I don't want my interpretation of their character to taint how I perceive them.

Even then I only consume such media as devotional acts to deities I already have a firm relationship with, but I do see modern adaptations as a way to gauge whether I'm interested in researching the original lore in-depth.

Should you decide to become a devotee of Hermes then please remember to establish firm boundaries and I hope that you represent Hermes well as one of his many "smol ambassadors" (his term).

Thanks for the ask!

I wish you luck on your spiritual journey and may Hermes guide you to the right path.

[roseverdict]

ooPS I ACCIDENTALLY TOOK THAT ONE CRACK AU IDEA WHERE KAI IS EVERY INHUMAN THING THE OTHER NINJA WIND UP AS AT ONCE AND I MADE IT ANGST

join me and cry. also no beta i just cranked this nightmare sequence out over the course of the day lol

unrelated but i write in a notes app that doesn't allow bolding or italicing so i just do markup so i know what to do later and copypasting right into tumblr automatically formatted it??? fuckin wild man

~

"We just have to give him time. I dunno how I would feel if I was told I was a robot." "You mean a nindroid." "…yeah, whatever."

Kai and Jay, S1E7, Tick Tock

After the day he'd had, Kai was ready for a nice, restful night of sleep to take him the moment his head hit the pillow.

So, of course, the moment he collapsed into bed is the moment alarms go off, making him lurch forward and nearly fall off the bed.

Kai stumbles to his feet and flails blindly ahead of himself, managing to catch his balance by leaning on Zane.

Zane chuckles and lets him stay there a moment to regain his bearings. "This never gets any easier, does it?"

Kai blinks blearily at him "Whuh?"

"I said, 'Still feeling the taste of video game defeat?'" Zane calls over the blaring of the alarms.

"Maybe a little," Kai huffs good-naturedly. "Come on, let's go catch up to the others."

Zane nods, and the two of them rush out of the bunkroom to do exactly that.

Almost before Kai knows it, the monastery gives way to a snowy forest. He's lost track of the others, but he follows tracks left in the snow for what feels like forever-!

He's inside a tree.

It doesn't look like the inside of a tree. He doesn't know if he even saw the outside before entering, but in some part of his mind, he knows that this tiny little lab-shed is in a tree.

The eerie familiarity of the place gives him the creeps.

Kai wants to turn around and leave, maybe he can wait for the others to get here before investigating-

His hands move without his consent, one uncovering a blue sheet of paper with silvery designs on it, the other leaning heavily on a scepter of some kind.

His own face stares blankly up at him from the page.

As if in a trance, something in Kai's chest opens and there are switches and wires and golden snow that grows faster than he can leap back in shock and his insides feel like they're full to bursting with dark ice and he's about to EXPLODE-

Kai reels back in surprise from-

-the Fangpyre skeleton laid out in the bridge of the Bounty.

This is a completely natural order of events, save for the fact that his finger feels somewhat sore.

Kai shrugs and heads out. There's been Serpentine activity spotted at Megamonster Amusement Park lately, after all, and if that's not something for the Ninja, then he doesn't know what is.

He runs across Jay on his way out and snorts. "Who are you looking to impress, buddy? The snakes?"

"The Sea," says Jay.

Kai cleans out his ear. "What was that?"

"Hey, let a guy finish!" Jay snaps lightheartedly. "It's Nya, if you must know."

Kai knows he can trust Jay with his sister, no matter what happens, on some implicit level he can barely understand. Instead of saying this outright, however, he just smiles. "Break a leg, buddy."

Jay nods and scurries off, and Kai turns to follow when he notices a sickly-green tinge to his skin.

"What?"

He hurries to a mirror to find scales growing in over his skin, and even jutting out oddly from the panels in his chest and arm.

Even as he watches, however, the scales ripple and spread outward, soon turning as blue as the sky. His hair bleaches white, and as he grabs his toothbrush to pull back his lips- are those fangs?!- his reflection scowls at him.

"Hey, dummy!"

Kai yelps as his own words (when, when did he say this?!) are turned back onto him with more venom than he'd thought he was capable of.

"Yeah, I'm talking to you," snarls his reflection. "Would you get your head on straight and start doing your job?"

"My…my job?" breathes Kai.

(wrong wrong wrong something is very wrong)

"You know, protecting your family?" his double drawls. "That thing you claim is the reason you became a ninja in the first place? The fate of the world kinda rests on it!"

Kai shakes his head- he doesn't know what is going on here but he doesn't like it- and bolts outside, ignoring his double's enraged protests.

(Something tells him that if he stayed behind, he'd just get a fist to the face for his trouble.)

He's at the amusement park in a flash, a stupid little electric-blue tail poking out under his gi no matter how much he adjusts it. Eventually he gives up and glances around the deserted park for any sign of movement.

"Hey, Kai! Over here!" Cole calls, waving him over to the haunted house attraction.

Kai is quick to run over. "You find anything?"

"I think so. I saw something purple run in here," Cole explains. "I'd bet you money that it's Pythor looking for that scroll Master Wu told us about."

Kai nods. "You call the others. I'm getting a head start."

Neither of them state the obvious fact that he can't still be inside at sunup, or else.

"Got it," says Cole.

As Kai rushes inside, he swears he can hear Cole say something like, "It's so easy to be forgotten."

However, he's already inside, and the doors slam shut behind him before he can ask.

Nervously, he sneaks through the endless sprawling halls in search of the snake he's chasing. The entire place is dead as the grave, and it's just as quiet.

Then Kai finds the room.

There is no Pythor here, nor is there any scroll, but the moment he steps inside, it is as though the world around him solidifies.

Ironically enough, it feels as though the old man's ghost in the middle of the room is the source of the solidity.

"How did you get here, child?" asks the ghost shortly.

"The front door," answers Kai. He frowns. "You're not Pythor."

The old man lifts an eyebrow, stroking his pitch-dark beard. "Oh? I highly doubt thoughts of Pythor, of all people, would lead your consciousness to my little corner of reality. Not since you ninja fixed up this place and returned it to its status as a tourist attraction for me, anyway."

None of the old man's words make any sense.

"Ah, I see the illusion still has you," the old man says, as if he's piecing something together. "I suppose I will leave you to it, then. However, if anything follows you to the waking world, let it be this: A sword sharpened too often soon wears away into nothing. Just as a blade requires cleaning to retain its shine, so, too, does a warrior require time to reflect."

"What's that even supposed to mean?" demands Kai.

"If you remember after this, you will know," instructs the old man. "Now leave me. Your illusion has not yet run its course, and you are running low on time."

"You keep saying illusion-?" Kai tries.

"It's not really an illusion, but to say its name would mean cutting it off abruptly, and your mind is not yet finished," the man huffs impatiently. "Now leave me!"

There's a power in the words that had been missing the first time, and Kai is flung from the oddly-solid room and into nothingness.

The amusement park is completely gone at this point, leaving only a swirling mass of undead greens that rise up and blow past Kai without slowing his fall.

He crash-lands face-first on some kind of wood paneling, and he peels himself up and off it just in time to leap away from a spray of water.

Kai can't afford to be touched by water anymore.

There's a creaking sound as the ramshackle village around him is warped and twisted, and Kai barely has the presence of mind to leap to a miraculously-untouched portion of wooden deck.

Before him stands the Preeminent.

Behind the Preeminent stands a titan made of stone.

Off to the side, a sea serpent he knows implicitly to be Wojira races closer.

Lloyd and Nya are hidden away in one of the untouched alcoves nearby, and they frantically gesture him closer.

"You'll never be enough!" says Lloyd worriedly.

"How much more can you endure?!" adds Nya, reaching out her hand as if begging him to take it.

Kai tries to run to them, only for a rock crackling with purple energy to come crashing down, sending all three of them plummeting into the sea.

Kai feels like he should have poofed out of being the moment the water touched him, but instead, he finds himself adrift in the endless sea.

Emperor Garmadon's voice slithers into his ears as if the man is right behind him. "You're no ninja. You're barely even a half-rate elemental. How you could have ever thought you could be fit for the title of the Green Ninja is beyond me. Look at yourself. Can you even recognize your own face?"

Kai shakes his head furiously. So what if he has-

-mechanical wiring that's being shorted out from this much time underwater?

-cold blood that's only getting colder, a mind that's only getting drowsier, the longer he stays down here?

-a ghost's inability to touch water, all the while being surrounded by it?

-the weight of a prophecy dragging him down beneath the waves, lower and lower and lower-?

Wait.

Some part of Kai's mind sluggishly rebels, screaming at the top of its tiny lungs that nothing about this situation is real.

When Kai opens his mouth to shoot back a snarky comment at Emperor Garmadon, however, the sea just rushes inside of him, overtaking his every cell, his every breath-

The endless sea shoots into him-

-and rejects him.

Smoke bubbles out from the panels in his body, the scales sprouted along his arms are flung away with his fake skin as the water tears him to shreds from the inside out, agonizingly, viciously, the green light of the Preeminent grows and grows above the surface until it's all he can see-!

Kai opens his mouth and SCREAMS-!

-and then his alarm went off, and the nightmare was pushed back with each round of beeps.

Kai snapped awake, his skin clammy, his breathing loud, and his heart threatening to beat right out of his chest.

It took him a second, but he eventually sighed and slouched forward, burying his head in his hands.

It was coming up on the one-year anniversary of Kalmaar's attack on Ninjago City and Nya's subsequent sacrifice.

"It should have been me," said Kai brokenly, thinking about everything his siblings had given up and none of it at once.

Were he at the monastery, someone would be there for him to talk to.

But he wasn't. He wasn't at the monastery, and he hadn't been for months. He was in his room at his little dojo.

"It should have been me," Kai moaned, pulling his knees up and digging them into his suspiciously-wet eyes.

Were he at the monastery, he'd worry that someone could see him break down.

But he wasn't.

He wasn't, because Nya never could be again, and he felt a lot like the protagonist in that one dystopia series Nya had gotten into back when they both lived at the smithy. After everything the main character had gone through, her sister, the whole reason she'd done any of it, was just gone.

Nya was gone.

After all of them spent years flirting with death, the only friend he'd known since childhood was gone.

His voice was thick, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Not anymore.

"Why couldn't it have been me?"