#he’s in his american idiot era

[san-sebastienne]

God, my stupid little wet rat man. He looks like his mom is about to drive him to a Green Day concert.

[fritzes]

frances, ben, and tommy: *ranked consecutively, each one desperately trying to get ahead of the other two, actually playing tennis*

taylor: *golfing in the rain*

[thankskenpenders]

The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings review

The day has finally come. Many, understandably, thought we'd never get here. Maybe we shouldn't have gotten here. We've been through so much. Lawsuits, reboots, redesigns, unreleased NFTs, empty legal threats over the fact that movie Knuckles has a dad, an attempt to license out Scourge the Hedgehog to fans that immediately got canceled (in both meanings of the term), and many, MANY idiotic Twitter controversies. But now, here we are.

Thirteen years after first announcing it in the middle of his legal battles with Archie and Sega that changed the American Sonic comics forever, former writer Ken Penders has released the first part of his new series: The Lara-Su Chronicles.

Yes. I had to buy the book. I had to take one for the team. Look at the fucking URL of this blog, a blog I've been using to talk about the American Sonic comics for nearly a decade while the specter of this book loomed in the distance. The one time I've actually been paid to write an article about anything in any professional capacity, it was an article about the Penders lawsuits. I'm cited on his Wikipedia page. There was no way I was going to skip reviewing this, and there was no guarantee that scans would ever turn up online given the incredibly small audience for this trash. (Only 166 people preordered this, and even that number feels way higher than it should be.) No, I had to preorder it to ensure I could get a copy and cover it for the blog... even if that meant my name would be forever immortalized in the list of "supporters" in the back of the book. These are the sacrifices I must make as a woman who stumbled ass backwards into being an amateur Archie Sonic historian.

So, what exactly is in this book? How much of it is new? How bad is it? How did we even get here in the first place? How can this exist without Sega pursuing legal action? What happens next? And, most importantly... why are there multiple depictions of an Archie Sonic character breastfeeding in this book?

I'm here to answer those questions as best I can, and in agonizing detail.

First, for those just tuning in to this decades-long saga or those who maybe don't know the full story, here's a refresher on the background info.

"What the hell is this?"

The Lara-Su Chronicles is Ken Penders' long-dreaded long-awaited continuation of his 1994-2006 run on Archie Sonic, ignoring everything written after he left by other writers like Ian Flynn. In particular, it picks up from the cliffhanger ending of the 2003-2004 arc "Mobius: 25 Years Later," which was set in what Ken considers the definitive canonical future of the series. It stars Knuckles' daughter from that future era, Lara-Su, among other new and returning characters. The project was first announced near the start of Ken's legal battle with Archie in 2011, and he's been posting WIP previews online for about a decade. Now, after all this time, a Lara-Su Chronicles book finally exists.

We'll get to the actual contents of that book in a bit.

"He can do that without getting in trouble with Sega?"

Believe it or not, yes, he can.

Thanks to the outcome of Archie Comics' woefully mismanaged lawsuits against Ken (yes, they sued him after he started filing for copyrights, not the other way around), he now has full legal ownership of every story he wrote for Archie Sonic and every character he created for the series. This was explicitly granted to him in the terms of the settlement between him and Archie (acting on behalf of Sega). He can even reprint his old Sonic material as-is to his heart's content. The main catch is just that he can't write new stories featuring Sega characters or trademarks, and his new stories also have to be distinct from Sonic at a glance to avoid confusing readers. As such, reprints can't use Sonic iconography on the cover, a few Sega characters (mainly Knuckles) have been renamed and slightly redesigned in the new stories, and the art style has been changed to less closely resemble Sonic. But otherwise, he can do whatever he wants with his own characters.

All of this is because Archie lost the original copy of Ken's work-for-hire contract that signed over the rights to his work. Without that (or any alternative that was considered permissible in court), his comics and characters are the property of their creator by default. Yes, those old comics are full of Sega stuff, but Sega doesn't automatically own the copyright for every drawing of Sonic in existence. And Sega put their stamp of approval all over those comics and let them get sold at retail for decades, even though (in the eyes of the court) there was no legal paperwork granting them ownership of any of it. It's almost like they were unwittingly distributing a fan comic for years and declaring it a fair use of their property, and now there's no takesies backsies. It's a strange and unique copyright situation. Again, they worked all this out in the settlement. And, yes, fans have long speculated that Ken stole and destroyed his own contract to regain the rights to his work, but frankly Archie was so incompetent throughout the lawsuit (it went so bad that they had to fire and replace their lawyers midway through) that I completely buy the idea of them just losing important legal documents.

Also, in case it needs to be spelled out: while Ken's a weirdo, it's ultimately a good thing for creatives everywhere that Archie lost their lawsuit against Ken. We do not want to live in a world where corporations can claim ownership of peoples' work without the contracts to back it up. That would be an incredibly dangerous legal precedent to set. And more comic creators, and artists in general, should own their own work! Corporations are not your friend! They'll delete your work for a tax write-off in a heartbeat! It's just bewildering that this guy, of all people, was the creator who ended up successfully getting his shit back, and that this is what he's doing with it.

"What about his old collaborators? Are they involved? Is he paying them?"

Ken is mostly doing The Lara-Su Chronicles solo, though he has, in fact, talked about compensating the artists involved in any material he's reprinting. The ones who give enough of a shit to get paid for a small scale reprint of something they did 20 years ago, anyway.

On the subject of his collaborators, it's also worth pointing out that Ken's wasn't the only contract that was lost. Most of the early Archie Sonic writers from before Ian Flynn's time seem to be in the same boat as Ken, with the ownership of their stories and characters defaulting back to them. Again, Archie fucked up big time. But like I said, most of them don't really seem to give a shit. For most of them, Sonic was just a random temporary gig they took to pay the bills while Marvel was busy going bankrupt in the '90s, not the thing that defined their entire careers.

The only other Archie Sonic contributor who's tried to do anything on the level of what Ken is doing was writer and editor Scott Fulop. In 2016 he attempted to sue Archie for the unauthorized use of what are now retroactively considered his copyrighted characters and stories, and he even announced a standalone comic about his most famous Sonic character, the recurring villain Mammoth Mogul (sort of a pastiche of DC's Vandal Savage and Marvel's Kingpin, with wizard powers added for spice). However, Fulop lost his lawsuit because he didn't put together a particularly compelling case. Since then he seems to have wiped all traces of his ill-advised Mammoth Mogul comic and his company, Narrative Ark Entertainment, from the internet. For now, this leaves The Lara-Su Chronicles the only project of its kind.

"What about those other Archie Sonic reprints he just announced?"

At the time of writing, Ken is once again claiming that he's trying to get the band back together to reprint all of Archie Sonic, now under the bad new banner "Floating Island Productions: MOBIAN LINE" that I can't imagine he consulted literally anyone else on.

So, like, look. As we've established, Ken can reprint his own stories. And if he can work something out with the other contributors whose contracts were lost, he can print their work, too. But there is no fucking way he's getting his hands on Ian Flynn's run, which Sega undoubtedly holds the copyright for. Even if they don't, Ian needs to maintain a good working relationship with both Sega and IDW if he's to keep his job, so he'd never go for this. Not to mention that Ian and Ken just... don't get along! Ken's whole plan here seems to be predicated on IDW going out of business (a thing he REALLY wants to happen) and freeing up the Sonic comic license, after which he knocks on Sega's door and goes "hey I've still got dirt on you guys," blackmailing them into giving him the Sonic license back so that he can reprint the later comics. Every step of this plan is ludicrous. It's never gonna happen.

He's been saying he wants to reprint the whole series for a few years now, though. This isn't really anything new. And despite his lofty plans that set Sonic Twitter ablaze, he quickly backpedaled. The only specific things in the works right now are a "two-volume omnibus" of all of his Knuckles stories and a collection of artist Scott Shaw's work on the very early Archie Sonic issues, since they're on good terms with each other. I have no idea how Ken plans on packaging these when he can't put any Sega characters or the Freedom Fighters on the covers, but these projects are small enough in scale that there's a decent chance they'll see the light of day. Scott Shaw only did like five issues. But anything beyond that? I'll believe it when I see it.

Or, y'know, this could've all just been a publicity stunt for his new book. I wouldn't put it past him. Let's just focus on the book that actually exists.

"So he finally did it? He made a whole Lara-Su book? It's out? He finished it??"

Yes and no.

The book that's out now is The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings, a prologue for the series of seven graphic novels Ken somehow plans on making, even though it's taken him 13 years to put out literally anything new. I don't know whether or not this counts as book one of seven, because it only features 30 pages of new comics. 30.5 if I'm being generous.

Most of the book is actually just a reprint of his infamous Archie Sonic storyline "Mobius: 25 Years Later", which ran from issue #131 to #144 in 2003-2004. (Again, yes, he can reprint this, he just can't put Sonic on the cover.) Why's it infamous? Well, Ken had been building anticipation for this future era of the series for basically his entire run. We kept seeing King Sonic and Queen Sally from the future. Knuckles' entire backstory hinges on his dad having a vision of this future. Several years before Silver the Hedgehog was created, it was Lara-Su who was Sonic's equivalent to Future Trunks, the cool-looking child of one of the main characters who traveled back in time to try and prevent a dark future. Believe it or not, yes, there was hype for Lara-Su. And then we finally got M25YL, and none of that cool stuff happened. Instead it really ended up being about how unbearably boring the middle aged Sonic, Knuckles, Sally, and co. are in this peaceful future where Robotnik is dead and they're all married with kids, forced into traditional nuclear family gender roles. Lara-Su is present, but she mostly just does generic teen girl stuff and complains about how Knuckles won't let her do anything even though she REALLY wants to be the new Guardian of Angel Island, like, super bad! Come on, dad!!!

In its original printing, this meandering arc ended on an abrupt time travel cliffhanger that Ken was never able to follow up on before he left Archie in 2006. This new printing slightly changes that ending, using the unresolved timey-wimey shenanigans as a convenient excuse to alter the entire timeline. This creates the slightly different world of The Lara-Su Chronicles, where the few relevant Sega-owned characters have been replaced and everyone is ten times uglier.

After this, we finally get two short new stories picking up where M25YL left off: "The Storm," starring Acorn Kingdom super-spy and known creep Geoffrey St. John, and an early release of the first chapter of The Lara-Su Chronicles: Shattered Tomorrows, the first full TLSC graphic novel.

And now that we're all on the same page about what we're looking at, let's actually talk about the book!

The cover

Let's start by beating a dead horse. The cover art: it's still bad! But why is it bad?

The cover is, of course, based on Patrick Spaziante's cover from Archie Sonic #131, the start of the "Mobius: 25 Years Later" arc. (Ken did the layout for that cover, though, so in the eyes of the law he's the original creator who owns that cover.) That cover was, itself, a tribute to the iconic cover of Giant-Size X-Men #1 by Gil Kane and Dave Cockrum, the issue that introduced the version of the team with Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, etc.

Ken seems to have forgotten that the point of both these covers was to hype up the arrival of a new cast of characters. The new guys are supposed to make a dramatic entrance front and center. That's the focal point. Meanwhile, the cover for Beginnings has the old timeline versions of the cast from Archie Sonic dramatically bursting out of a shattered crystal ball, while their new counterparts look on in mild bemusement - if they're even bothering to look at all, since most of the characters here are just copied and pasted from their profile pages. That's just not how you do this particular homage! The point is supposed to be "out with the old, in with the new." And why are they using a crystal ball to view the past? Hell, why are they even using a crystal ball at all? The original arc was presented as a magical vision of the future courtesy of Tails' uncle Merlin (don't ask), but the new story leans all the way into being futuristic sci-fi.

Of course, there is no real artistic intent at play here. The old versions of the characters are placed front and center in the crystal ball simply because Ken traced over Spaziante's original art of Lara-Su and Julie-Su (the only two characters on the Sonic cover he owns) and threw out the rest, ruining the composition in the process. Look at the awkward empty space where Sonic, Sally, and Rotor once were, and the new drawing of The Character Formerly Known As Knuckles who's no longer properly centered between his wife and daughter. Even if Ken can claim ownership of the cover because he did the original layout, this all just feels scummy and lame.

And, yeah, if it needs to be said, the new characters and Ken's new rendering style look like absolute fucking dogshit. Putting new Lara-Su directly next to old Lara-Su does her no favors. The shattered glass effect looks absolutely atrocious. I could go on, but we'll have plenty of time to talk about the art style when we see how bad the stories inside look.

Changes to "Mobius: 25 Years Later"

Overall, 99% of M25YL is presented identically to its original printing. Sonic, Sally, Knuckles, et al. are still present with no changes to their names and no tweaks to the art. Even the original cover for issue #131 is included only a few pages into this book with its Archie, Sonic, and Sega logos still intact and everything. Again, because of the weird copyright situation described above, these preexisting comics can be released without any changes.

There is exactly one bizarre change to the art, though, where a hand drawn shot of Angel Island is replaced with an unfitting photo background and the ugly Floating Island photobash that Ken has been using as his personal logo for decades. I think he only did this as part of a test for his motion comic app that nobody asked for. I don't know why this had to make it into the print version. It's like the book is firing a warning shot for what's to come if you keep reading.

The new content begins on the final page of M25YL. In the original wet fart of a cliffhanger ending, Sonic and co. accidentally alter the timeline with an old time machine of Robotnik's and Lara-Su begins to fade away. Then, after everything goes white, we just cut to the present day heroes going "gee, you ever think about the future?" In this new printing, that last bit has been cut, and the rest of the page has been awkwardly shrunk down so that Ken can fit in a new panel. We now see the hands of an off-screen villain, seemingly named "Override," proclaiming that "the Praetorian" (Knuckles) has messed up the timeline again and that they'll finally get their revenge.

Who is this Override? I have no fucking clue. The new stories in this book make no mention of them. You have to buy the next book to find out.

My confusion over the identity of this villain overlaps with another big problem: name changes. So many names and nouns have been arbitrarily changed in The Lara-Su Chronicles, even ones Ken didn't have to change for copyright reasons, and I only know what half of them are replacing because Ken's been tweeting about this shit for years.

The echidnas are now a totally original alien race called "the Echyd'nya." Even in flashbacks to events from M25YL attempting to mimic the old art style, if it's on a new comic page, they're gonna call themselves "Echyd'nya." Evil echidna faction the Dark Legion is now the "Cyberdark Dominion," hailing from the "Cyberdark Colony." The Brotherhood of Guardians is still the Brotherhood of Guardians, but now the main guardian is called "The Praetorian." Angel Island is still called "The Floating Island," like it was in the older Archie comics, but it's ALSO sometimes called "Avion"? When I read this I wasn't sure if he had randomly renamed Albion, the other echidna city from the Archie comics. But no. Now we have an Albion AND an Avion. Sally is mentioned simply as "Princess Acorn," while Sonic is referenced once as an unnamed "blue-spined Erinaceinae," using the scientific name for hedgehog to make it sound more sci-fi. In an incredibly ballsy move, Ken even mentions Robotnik as "the Insurrectionist Kintobor," retaining his original surname from the Archie comics that's just "Robotnik" backwards. Guess Sega never trademarked that one.

Aside from every name change being a downgrade, this leads to confusion when you're not sure if something is supposed to be new, or if it's just an Archie thing you're supposed to recognize despite having a new name and design. Is "Override" someone I'm supposed to know already? Am I just supposed to have read a fucking tweet from Ken where he said he changed the name of some existing villain to "Override"? The answer is no, but I had to term search his Twitter just to verify this.

Moving on!

New story #1: "The Storm"

If you've been following the WIPs, this is that story about Geoffrey St. John that Ken's been posting previews of for almost a decade. The title page copyright dates it to 2015, and that absurdly long gestation is probably why the art is so inconsistent here. Even the style of speech bubbles and the font change between pages two and three.

This is a problem when there's supposed to be a deliberate and noticeable change in art style here signaling the moment where the time travel stuff alters the timeline, replacing the Archie Sonic world with the Lara-Su Chronicles world. If you don't already know that's what's going on, the idea isn't conveyed clearly at all. It just goes from one hideous art style to a slightly different one with no explanation.

The main problem here is that Ken has hitched his wagon to a franchise about anthropomorphic animals when he can't draw furries to save his life. (Though a bit later in the book we'll also begin to wonder if he can even still draw humans.) He's shifted away from the cartooniness of the original designs and given them more human proportions and facial features, but this just ends up making them look incredibly uncanny and lumpy and gross. With some designs he's trying to lean into more of a Star Trek alien vibe, but then he still insists upon retaining the giant Sonic eyes on most characters even though he has no idea how to make them emote.

The rendering of these godawful designs doesn't do them any favors, either. Ken's going for more of a painterly look now, but it almost seems as though he's shading everything with Photoshop's burn and dodge tools that are designed to darken and lighten select areas of a photo. The result is a muddy, smudgy look that makes it feel like the color layer has been smeared in vaseline. And it only looks worse after coming off of 14 chapters of M25YL that have way more palatable art.

The backgrounds, too, are a complete mess, a jumble of low res jpeg photo elements (sometimes with extremely noticeable pixelation), stock textures, and smooth digital gradients. There's no real sense of place here, and it gives everything a surreal, dreamlike quality when you can't really tell where anything is supposed to take place. This first story is seemingly set in a high-tech stronghold below Castle Acorn called "the Bunker," but it could just as easily be confused for the bridge of a spaceship. This whole story features characters speaking to each other over floating video displays and hologram projectors from three different locations, but without a hologram effect and without a clear sense of where the characters are it often feels like they're just in the same room as each other. Characters will be in one location on one photo background, and then the camera angle changes and they're in a completely different place, because Ken just uses mismatched photos off of the internet. It's been like 25 years since he first tried using photo backgrounds in the Archie comics and he hasn't gotten any better at it.

When I had my boyfriend read the book to see if it made literally any sense to him (it didn't), Anthony said this: "This is the kind of shit I'd see linked on a Second Life world that hasn't been touched since 2004." I think he really hit the nail on the head. Now, there's actually a contrarian part of me that thinks that might theoretically almost be kind of cool, in sort of a messy counterculture way. I love weird indie shit. I was a Homestuck reader! But this isn't a scrappy mixed media zine, or experimental outsider art from someone just messing around with Photoshop, or a loving throwback to weird old internet art, or even something intentionally bizarre and offputting like Xavier: Renegade Angel or a PilotRedSun video or whatever where the fact that it's weird and ugly is part of the humor. This is supposed to be a sincere sci-fi epic drawing on Star Trek and Jack Kirby comics, made by a guy who's been drawing comics professionally since the '80s. This is supposed to look good. This is supposed to compete with mainstream comics that are on sale right now. He thinks any day now IDW's gonna go out of business and Sega will come crawling back to him so that he can stamp the Sonic logo on shit like this. It just doesn't work.

But, okay. It's ugly. We knew it would be ugly. But that ugliness would be much easier to accept if it was in service of an otherwise genuinely good story. So what about the writing? After all this time, how does Ken choose to kick off this new saga? Well, credit where credit's due. "The Storm" feels like a proper continuation of Ken's writing style from M25YL.

Because it's eleven pages of characters standing around and talking while nothing fucking happens.

Here's the synopsis: A dog woman named Brownie, an ensign in the Royal Secret Service fresh out of training and the only character who's almost cute, walks up to Geoffrey to deliver a report. He's immediately suspicious of her, asking who let her in and if she's a spy for Elias (Sally's brother, if you're new here) or Alicia (Sally's mom). The art style suddenly shifts when the timeline is altered, but the scene continues uninterrupted. Geoffrey points a gun at Brownie when she won't say whose spy she is. Geoffrey is distracted by a call and proceeds to have a conversation via a mix of holograms and video screens with Remington (head of Echidnaopolis security), Spectre (Knuckles' great great great great great grandpa, the one with the helmet who always looks evil), and a new scientist character named Dr. Zephyr/Zephur. (The spelling of this character's name changes multiple times throughout the 11-page story, because I guess nine years wasn't enough time to spellcheck this shit.) They say a bunch of made up technobabble nonsense about how it looks like the timeline was just altered and Knuckles and co. seem to be involved. It's complete drivel that I'm not even going to try to make sense of. Everyone decides to investigate further, and the conversation ends. Brownie tells Geoffrey she's his spy, then walks out and implies she's actually Alicia's spy in her inner monologue.

To be continued!!!

Yes, that's it. It's really just a bunch of technobabble where some characters talk about how it seems like the timeline has been fucked with. That's it. The whole time Geoffrey doesn't even get up out of his damn chair, which he's of course sitting in backwards to show how cool he is. It's just 11 pages of Geoffrey sitting in a chair and talking to people and looking uglier than he's ever looked. Nothing happens. Nine years for this.

I'm also struck by how meaningless all of this is to anyone who hasn't read Archie Sonic. The added context from M25YL may help a little, but "The Storm" focuses on characters who weren't in that arc, and the story does very little to introduce who any of them are. Brownie could've been super useful as an inexperienced point of view character who's only meeting the others for the first time here, but instead she's really just a passive observer who's here as part of some kind of 4D chess game between Geoffrey and Alicia, an off-screen character whose motivations in this era of the story are completely unknown to even returning readers. Who are the good guys and bad guys here? What are the conflicts and the stakes of the story moving forward? What do these characters want? Basic questions like this aren't really answered. I can't imagine a new reader being able to make heads or tails of this. Hell, I can't really imagine a returning reader who hasn't been following the last decade's worth of Ken's tweets about this story making heads or tails of it, either.

...Maybe more will happen in the next story?

New story #2: Shattered Tomorrows preview chapter

After another message from Ken, the story of The Lara-Su Chronicles proper begins with the redesigned Lara-Su walking along a jpeg photograph beach at sunset and crying while thinking about how Knuckles - sorry, his name is K'Nox now - is dead.

Yep! Straight into the dad stuff!

Look, I'm the last person to complain about writers getting super personal and drawing from their own baggage in their writing, but Ken's just no fucking good at it. There's no nuance, nothing interesting to say. He just keeps writing mediocre-to-horrible dads whose misdeeds are always justified by their "good intentions," and then sometimes they die and their kids are like "we may have fought but actually you were the bestest dad ever and I'll miss you forever, I'll never be able to fill your shoes!"

This is the only part of the new material here that feels like it has any heart behind it, because I know how much his complex relationship with his late deadbeat father means to Ken (there's an author's note in this outright saying as much). But the guy died 42 years ago, and it doesn't feel like Ken has had any new thoughts about this part of his life in those four decades. He's just not an introspective or self-aware enough artist to actually mine his personal baggage for anything beyond "father knows best."

Anyway, so then it jumps forward in time(?) and now we're following this human guy who looks like this.

Previously, Ken got a lot of shit for literally just using the likeness of Anthony Mackie for this guy, based on his IMDB profile photo. Ken has thus redesigned the character... and by that I mean I think he looks more like Ernie Hudson now? Ken's clearly just working off of photo references (if not straight up tracing), given his face is the most detailed and realistic-looking thing on any page where he's present.

But you may be wondering: who is this, and why is he here? Well, for one, he's here to run around in front of some low res space photos while making trite references to things like Planet of the Apes and Star Trek. Haha, he makes a joke about red shirts! Original!! But beyond that, Commander Mykhal Taelor (yes, that's really how he chose to spell it) is a human... from Earth! Archie Sonic readers are probably confused, because in those comics Mobius is Earth in the distant post-apocalyptic future. Well, despite being a Planet of the Apes fan, Ken always hated that particular worldbuilding decision from Karl Bollers, always preferring to think of Mobius as a separate alien planet. And now he gets to make that canon in his own stories and throw out Karl's ideas. So Mobius is basically just, like, a Star Trek planet now, with its own alien creatures that sometimes just so happen to look like anthropomorphic Earth animals.

Also, at one point Taelor wonders if the inhabitants of the dead Mobius might have been human, and the alien ally he's talking to over the radio says it's unlikely. "I don't understand why your kind has a problem understanding you're a minority within a minority." Perhaps poor wording for a line said to the only Black character in the story.

Anyway, Commander Taelor here seems to have discovered the uninhabited husk of Mobius after the vague time-space cataclysm everyone was worried about in M25YL has come to pass, and he finds an audio log from Lara-Su that I presume will explain what happened. I guess those are the titular Lara-Su Chronicles. In theory this flash forward establishes some sense of pressing danger, but when the threat to the planet is so unclear and technobabble-y it just kind of lands with a thud.

It doesn't take long before we get back to Lara-Su being sad about her dad. A good little chunk of the chapter is spent with this new timeline's Lara-Su recalling moments in her life, including echoes of the original Lara-Su's memories from M25YL, which feels redundant coming hot off the heels of a straight reprint of that entire arc. And boy, for anyone who read the later Archie Sonic comics, the protagonist having vague memories of the old version of the series from before a lawsuit-related timeline reboot sure does sound familiar, huh?

The art inconsistency somehow becomes even worse in this story, with Ken flip-flopping on whether or not he wants to use outlines, with the no-outline art managing to look even worse by relying entirely on Ken's awful rendering. By this point in the book, readers are also likely to start noticing how often Ken reuses art from previous panels. This is a shortcut that tons of comic artists use, of course. Invincible famously did a joke about this. It's often understandable. But, again... it sure does stand out in a book that took 13 years to make with only 30 pages of new art. Amusingly, Ken even manages to combine his inconsistency and recycling problems by reusing the same art with and without outlines. And, of course, any time Ken tries to draw the Archie era designs it's just... the worst.

And, yes, it's in this dreamlike montage sequence of Lara-Su's life that we get...

The uncomfortable family nudity scene, followed by the dual timeline Julie-Su breastfeeding scene.

Yeah, you might have heard about this one already. If this incredibly eerie presentation of Lara-Su's hazy memories of the two different timelines make it hard to tell what's going on, don't worry. There's another, clearer version later in the book as part of Julie-Su's character profile, because I guess Ken was just so proud of it.

(I censored these myself because I'm not playing Russian roulette with Tumblr's inconsistent nudity rules and risking getting banned lmao)

Like, okay. Is a mother breastfeeding her child really that shocking of a thing to see in a story? No, not at all. But, like... when it's two characters who you previously created for an officially licensed Sonic the Hedgehog comic for 7-year-olds... and some of those officially licensed Sonic the Hedgehog comics for 7-year-olds are reprinted in the same book... and when it's drawn like this... yeah, it's kind of a shocker.

It just looks so unnatural. Julie-Su is posed very deliberately so that you'll see both of her breasts, and in the new timeline version she's barely even holding Lara-Su so you can really get a good look at her supermodel body, showing zero physical signs that she just gave birth. Most people will immediately jump to this being Ken putting his fetishes in his work (a type of criticism that I'm incredibly tired of - it's 2024, all the cool artists are blatantly putting their fetishes in their work now). And my immediate response is that, no, this is probably just Ken trying to come off as really mature on a surface level, a thing he's been obsessed with since the Archie days. Free from the shackles of writing a licensed children's comic, of course he's going to jump immediately into depicting some nonsexual, artistic nudity to try and prove he's A Real Mature Artist For Grown-Ups who just thinks the human body is beautiful and breastfeeding shouldn't be a taboo etc. etc.

But then, like. You look at some of the other character designs. Like Espio's daughter Salma, who's now this horrifying alien lizard person who's always nude, and her scale pattern puts scales exactly where her nipples should be. Or you look at his comments about the Echyd'nya age of consent. Or you look at how he keeps drawing Lara-Su in this. Like, does the shuttle really need this, like... reverse chaise lounge thing in the cockpit? So that we can keep getting these shots of the 16-year-old Lara-Su lying on her stomach and posing with one of her legs kicked up, her naked ass in plain view?

The vibe isn't great, is what I'm saying!

I'm not going to try to ascribe authorial intent here. I don't know. I'm not a psychic. Given his very blatant reliance on photo references elsewhere in the book, it's entirely possible he just referenced some figure drawing photos that were maybe just a little too sexy. And also, he's an American comic book artist, and a boomer one at that. Those guys tend to draw women a certain way, even when it's not supposed to be sexual. I don't fucking know. It just sucks. I'm not gonna make some hyperbolic statement about how this makes him a literal pedophile who should be in jail, but it is deeply offputting and objectifying.

But if you already knew about the nursing scenes and were hoping there was some other really shocking stuff in there for me to talk about in this review, sorry to disappoint, but nope. That's the only shockingly weird new thing in here. Once again, not a lot happens in this story, and what does happen is pretty boring.

Once we get past the recap stuff and the human guy, the plot developments boil down to this: The timeline was altered at the end of M25YL... but not as much as you might think. In the new timeline, Knuckles ("K'Nox"), Cobar (now looking significantly younger), and Rotor (now a rhino just called "The Emissary") still traveled via shuttle to go find a time machine in the Badlands and fix the time-space continuum, like in the climax of the original arc. This time, though, Sonic wasn't there, and Lara-Su came along without having to stow away. Lara-Su watches the ship while the grown ups go deal with the time machine, and then after a couple panels Not Rotor comes back with Cobar and is like "Hey, Cobar got hurt, we gotta leave. Dunno what happened to your dad." And then they just, like. Presume that Knuckles must have died. Even though we have no idea what happened to him. And then they just fly away. And then Lara-Su is sad that her dad died.

And that's pretty much it!

This is supposed to be a really emotional sequence - it's literally the scene where Lara-Su learns that Knuckles is dead - but instead it comes off as unintentionally funny because of how poorly it's portrayed. Not showing Knuckles' actual disappearance is a huge misstep, for one, making his uncertain fate more confusing and anticlimactic than dramatic. But also, Ken keeps just using the same two drawings of Rotor for two pages, so he doesn't really seem to be emoting at all, and he's in this spacey hazmat suit that honestly just makes him look like fucking Moltar from Space Ghost. So the whole time I'm just reading his dialogue in Moltar's deadpan voice as he's like "I dunno. We did what we could. Anyway, let's leave."

After this, we get a two-page spread previewing the rest of the story from Shattered Tomorrows. It's basically like a trailer in comic form. It has one of the most mystifying layouts I've ever seen in a comic book. I have no idea what order I'm supposed to read this in.

Yeah, I kinda have a feeling this is the full extent of what Ken has drawn for the rest of that book. I'd love to be wrong, but I fear that I'm right.

Bonus material: Data files

These are mostly very dull, recapping a lot of events shared between Ken's Archie run and the new Lara-Su Chronicles timeline. It seems like almost his entire run is still considered canon to the backstory of the new timeline, just with some names changed, and things only really diverge at the climax of M25YL. But I'll share the interesting stuff here.

Lara-Su

The main thing you'll notice in Lara-Su's profile is the massive, unreadable wall of text where Ken felt the need to list the entire Knuckles family tree, split across both pages.

This is literally so long that Lara-Su's personal history has to awkwardly cut off mid-sentence and be continued on the final page of the book, after the rest of the data files.

Also, please note that this list gives Julie-Su's mom's full name as Mari-Su of the House of Atrades. Incredible on all levels.

There's also a reference to the dark timeline Lara-Su was originally supposed to come from. You know, the one where Julie-Su is the leader of a rebel movement fighting against a Knuckles who had gone mad with power? The timeline that would have been way more interesting than the one in M25YL? Here it seems to have been written off as the result of another "timeline disruption." Lara-Su allegedly has vague memories of this timeline, in the same way that she has vague memories of the M25YL timeline.

Geoffrey

Geoffrey's bio mostly recaps events from the Archie comics, which means the Sonic/Sally/Geoffrey love triangle has to be alluded to. His rivalry with Sonic is described like this:

"He would later resurface when Kintobor was transporting his latest hi-tech weapon, the Dynamac-3000. It was during that mission he discovered a rival for the Princess' affections. Whereas the Princess would be one of a line of conquests where St. John was concerned, the blue-spined Erinaceinae who protested doth a bit too much regarding his affections for the Princess for St. John's taste would prove to be a source of great sport and amusement."

Yes. It's gross. Saying that Geoffrey saw Sally as "one of a line of conquests" is gross. Ken writing this and then still treating Geoffrey as the coolest badass ever is gross. The "Princess Acorn" is also first on the list of Geoffrey's "female relationships" elsewhere in his bio, though I suppose how much of a "relationship" they had is left vague. Honestly, at this point the fact that Ken didn't explicitly confirm that Geoffrey took the underage Sally's virginity in the book comes off as a display of restraint. The bar couldn't be any lower, I know.

Remington

His bio is, frankly, shockingly long for such a minor character, though I guess he does get a large portion of the word salad dialogue in "The Storm." There's a lot of stuff here about how the identities of his biological parents are shrouded in mystery, a plot point that fans have long speculated Ken just straight up forgot about in his time at Archie. (Ian confirmed that Kragok from the Dark Legion was Remington's dad, though, so this isn't really much of a mystery.)

Lien-Da

She gets a bio even though she's not present in the two new stories, just so we get to look at her awful new design and compare it to how Steven Butler drew her earlier in the book:

Commander Taelor

We get to see two drawings of him with the same exact Ernie Hudson face side by side! That's fun.

Julie-Su

She gets a list of "known friends," but the only character listed is Knuckles' mom. Poor Julie-Su.

Also, Ken feels the need to reiterate that Knuckles and Julie-Su are still distant cousins. He made a whole new timeline where he can change whatever details he wants, but THAT had to remain canon. Thanks, Ken.

And then after the data files we get the special thanks page, listing everyone who preordered the book and/or bought TLSC merch from Ken.

With my name on the list. Because I had to buy a copy to cover it for the blog.

My name is on the very next page right after the breastfeeding panel in Julie-Su's data file.

Yep. He got me.

Is it at least a well put together book? Like, in terms of manufacturing quality?

Its physical quality is... fine. It's a nice, sturdy hardcover. The print quality seems fine, though mine does have a bit of smudging from some sort of printing error on one page. The pages don't seem like they'll fall out on me. The image quality is crisp. The colors are vibrant. This is a low bar, but this is one of the few places where I'm able to give this book anything resembling praise.

The formatting and graphic design work, on the other hand...

(I didn't crumple those page corners, it came like that.)

For one, the placement and sizes of the M25YL pages is inconsistent, largely due to the fact that the book doesn't actually match the proportions of a comic. A lot of pages aren't properly centered vertically. Some pages go all the way up to the top edge of the paper, while others leave a visible gap of about half a centimeter. Every page has a 1cm gap to its left and right, which is sometimes filled in with a solid color or gradient that doesn't quite match the page it's surrounding. I have to assume Ken didn't have any sort of source files or original artwork to work off of, as those ideally would've had more generous bleed to account for slight shifts in printing. It kind of seems like he just got the highest resolution versions he could find of the digital releases online and printed those. The colors are a dead ringer for the digital versions, which have always looked slightly more saturated and pastel than they did in print.

I can't say this bodes well for his further plans for Archie Sonic reprints - sorry, Mobian Line reprints. If they ever come out, please, for the love of god, do not buy those. I don't care how much you love Archie Sonic, they aren't going to be good reprints. For comparison, IDW's similarly priced hardcover Sonic collections have none of these formatting problems, because they're made by people who know what they're doing with access to the actual source files.

The book also has its fair share of text-focused pages, split between the data files and messages directly from Ken about the history of his career and this project, and these are formatted in the most amateurish way possible. Just massive walls of Arial text over either plain white backgrounds, simple gradients, or faded photos. I've seen school yearbooks with better graphic design. Even ignoring my subjective feelings about the art and stories within, this book does not feel like it's worth $36 USD.

It's frankly shocking how shabby he let this thing look considering it's supposed to be his baby. And doesn't that really sum it all up?

Closing thoughts

Obviously, I did not expect this to be any good. But I'm still left kind of dumbfounded by it.

I think what really strikes me about it is that Ken had a blank check to do whatever he wanted here. He got an opportunity many writers would kill for when he gained complete ownership of his most famous work. He's free from the limitations of a monthly licensed comic book for children, free to make whatever creative decisions he wants without editors or other writers or Sega to worry about, free to completely reinvent the series to his heart's content and finally tell the story of his dreams. And with that opportunity and 13 years of his time, he made... this. A direct continuation of "Mobius: 25 Years Later" that barely changes anything about the characters or world beyond their awful new designs, even though much of the word count is spent rambling about how the timeline has changed. A story that makes zero concessions for new readers, or even returning readers who don't already have the last decade's worth of Ken's tweets explaining his creative decisions burned into their memory. 30 pages where nothing really happens and the story barely moves forward an inch despite the decades-long wait - but maybe something will happen if you buy the next book!

Who is this for? Maybe this really is a project for no one but Ken. Maybe he just really, really wants to finish the story he started, a story that's personal to him due to the family history it evokes, and the number of people who enjoy it or buy it beyond that is irrelevant. I think that many of the best artists are incredibly self-indulgent ones working with that exact mindset, artists whose enthusiasm for their own work jumps off the page or screen. So, if that's the case, then why the fuck isn't he telling the damn story? What's stopping him? Why is he still spinning his wheels? Where is that passion for his own work? Because it sure as hell isn't there on the page. There's a huge part of me that really wishes I could say "Man, what a weirdo, but you do you, Ken. You tell your weird little story." But there's barely any story here. It's like he loves styling himself as a storyteller, but he's terrified of finally having to actually tell a story after all this time. He's still stuck in the exact same mode of writing he was in almost 30 years ago when he was doing 6-page backup stories about Knuckles, just killing time and stringing readers along until he's eventually able to truly realize his vision. If not now, then when, Ken?

Even the back cover blurb is mostly just a dry recap of the history of this thing. It was a Sonic comic, the original arc was published in these issues, it went unfinished, Ken left Archie, the lawsuits happened, now he's continuing the story. There's nothing about why anyone should give a shit about this as its own story, even though Ken has spent years trying in vain to convince people TLSC is its own beast that shouldn't be judged as a Sonic story. I think deep down he knows that there's no pitch for this beyond the novelty of it originating from Sonic. And that's why, despite declaring that he'd leave the site, he's still on Twitter riling up Sonic fans. It's the only attention he gets at this point.

Maybe this is too harsh when those 30 pages of new comics are just intended as a preview for the "real" book. But the elephant in the room is that we have no idea if that "real" book will ever actually come out, let alone the entire series of seven graphic novels that will supposedly complete this saga.

Ken is undeniably a complete jackass and all around unpleasant, vindictive person who's rightly become an industry pariah. He's a self-proclaimed paragon of progressive values who'll send Comicsgaters after his successors for the crime of not worshiping the ground he walks on, and then turn around and announce he's going to reprint their work without even consulting them. He's a sore winner who already won his copyright battle on a level most comic writers would never dare to dream of, and yet still won't truly be satisfied until he sees an entire major comic publisher go out of business, putting god knows how many people out of work, because he thinks this would get him back the license to a video game franchise he doesn't even like.

But I still have to pity him.

As an artist, the trajectory of his life is my nightmare. I think all of us fear dying before we can tell all the stories we want to tell. There's simply never enough time to do everything. And here's Ken in his 60s, talking about how he's still planning on making his magnum opus all by himself out of stubbornness and pride, despite demonstrably proving he can't handle the workload, and also talking about how if he dies before the project can be finished he'll have to pass the torch on to his kids and get them to finish it for him. It's so grim. Even just typing that sends a shiver down my spine. It took nine years of his limited time on Earth to finish and release an 11-page comic about Geoffrey St. John sitting backwards in a chair.

This is a purgatory of his own creation. And yet... I'm not sure he's ever been prouder. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

I guess if I want people to take anything away from this review, it's this:

Lesson one: If you're an artist or writer of some kind, or an aspiring creator, don't wait around. No one else is going to tell your story for you. Start writing that novel. Start drawing that webcomic. Start making that game. If Penders can put out this damn book that no one asked for after 13 years of work, then proudly proclaim that he's still going to make six or seven more books and also reprint hundreds of comics he doesn't have all of the rights to, then show up to cons with that foul Lara-Su Chronicles: Shattered Tomorrows banner and sit in front of it beaming with pride, fully aware of his critics but saying "fuck 'em, I know I'm hot shit," then you can do fucking anything. Tell the weird, sincere, cringe story of your dreams. If Ken Penders doesn't have imposter syndrome, then nobody should.

And lesson two: Don't buy Ken's books.

[requiemforthepoets]

LANDO NORRIS 𖦹 LN4

main masterlist

all i did was bleed as i try to be the greatest soldier

you were there through the highs and the lows, but the moment he chose her over you, you knew that you were fighting a losing battle.

they never took me quite where you do

all your life, you’ve been used to peace and quiet, not until you had to substitute for your father and brother in a business meeting and throwing you in the most busiest and crowded event.

you are the best thing that’s ever been mine

it’s officially the summer break, so the first thing that you both did is to attend the eras tour that has been your shared calendar for the summer.

cause somewhere in the crowd there’s you

you are back again to defend your gold title, and as always, lando’s there to support.

i promise i’m home soon, to give my love to you

with your job being a pilot, it’s hard to attend lando’s races due to your busy schedule, and with this, both of your schedules never really aligned. but this time, you’re set on attending his race at zandvoort no matter what.

overcooked

play overcooked they said, it’ll be fun they said.

just give me one more chance to make it right

winning a race should never feel this empty, but for lando it is. he had pushed you away—the only person that he had ever loved. but now that it’s clear as a daylight, he wants you back more than ever.

he drives me crazy, it’s so beyond me

you’ve been hating on lando for a very long time now, since you were kids to be exact. only to realize that those hatred is only a mask for what you truly feel for him.

babysitting duties

who knew that babysitting your four-year-old niece would make you feel things and imagine a life with lando, with a kid and family of your own. who knew that babysitting your four-year-old niece would make you feel things and imagine a life with lando, with a kid and family of your own.

you could be the one that i love, i could be the one that you dream of

you were fine in supporting your older brother, carlos, from afar. but when he insisted (practically begged) you to come, you can’t help but cave in. you were fine in supporting your older brother, carlos, from afar. but when he insisted (practically begged) you to come, you can’t help but cave in.

now that i’ve found you, i can’t let you go

you never imagined that a silly crush from 2018 would turn into something years after or you and lando are just idiots in love, and letting the nerves gets the better of you every time.

you’re such a rollercoaster, some killer queen you are

it was a random encounter at a club in miami during lando’s first win and all he has to remind him of you was a polaroid.

i’m in love with how this feels

who knew that a simple tiktok trend would leave lando flustered and blushing.

you just pulled a verstappen!

you played a sim racing before, but not really on an actual sim racing setup like lando’s. so when you had the chance, you decided to try it out.

the norris family

a compilation of you and lando’s life of being married.

dog dad lando

just life with lando and your american eskimo named thor.

[dev-solovey]

Reading up on the history of American Idiot (album) and realizing exactly how revolutionary it was and I just have to yell about it for a hot second

So, before they started working on American Idiot, the band was having problems and they were thinking they were going to break up. But for a couple of reasons, they switched directions, most notably because they all felt strongly about the Iraq War and how it was manufactured by greed and warmongering from the Bush administration, which was amplified by the news media. I read a quote from Billie Joe Armstrong where he talked about how the news media was becoming "more of a reality show" than it was news, and he couldn't have been more right. In fact, that problem got worse, and now we're living in an era of rampant misinformation where everything is politicized to a point where just supporting human rights for marginalized people is considered controversial. The song American Idiot came out in 2004, and when Donald Trump first visited the UK at the beginning of his presidency, it was the top played song on every UK radio station, 12 years after it was released. Most things would be culturally irrelevant at that point.

When creating the album American Idiot, a lot of thought went into it - they had a very specific message in mind, and their goal was to send that message to youth. This is because they realized at some point that their fanbase was a bunch of teenagers, and even though they hadn't necessarily intended it that way, they suddenly had a platform with the youth of America and they decided they ought to do something good with it. The drummer, Tré Cool, said something along the lines of "I've never really liked the idea of preaching to kids, but I realized we don't really have a choice at this point." And I love that so much because like, so many people who get rich and famous just become completely out of touch, and when they get a platform, it's very easy to exploit that platform, influence them with terrible ideas, or encourage them to act in terrible ways for self-serving reasons (ex: JK Rowling, Andrew Tate, Dream, Logan Paul, Onision, etc etc). Green Day refused to allow themselves to get to that point. They know the platform they had gave them power and they made an active choice early on to be responsible with it. And a lot of that moral code comes from the fact that they came up in the DIY punk scene in Oakland, which held its members to a very high standard of ethics, a code that they still follow even after they were disowned by that scene when they signed on with a major record label in 1994.

The song American Idiot has a message of "this mass media hysteria is manufactured bullshit, don't fall for it," and it is not subtle about that message. It punches you right in the face. I remember being 12 years old and listening to it and thinking, "yeah, I don't want to be an American idiot." And now, at the age of 28, I am a staunch leftist who is firmly against the atrocities the US government commits, and I feel strongly about stopping misinformation. So I can say with absolute certainty that they succeeded.

I also get like, really upset when people say that American Idiot is the album where they sold out, because that's objectively not true, both for the reasons I've provided above, and also because of the song Wake Me Up When September Ends. Not a lot of people know the story behind this song, but it's actually a song that Billie Joe wrote about the experience of his dad dying of cancer when he was 10 years old. The story, as he tells it, is that when he came home from school, his mom gave him the news, and being (understandably!) upset, started crying, ran to his room and slammed the door. When she knocked on the door to try and talk to him, he shouted "wake me up when September ends!!" in response. It took him decades to be able to write this song, and it shows because it's the perfect grief song, having been played at benefits for 9/11, hurricane Katrina, and so on. The first time I heard that song it reduced me to tears, because you can hear the intense sadness in it. A "sellout" would never write a song like that!! (Side note: maybe stop tweeting at Green Day to wake up every October 1st, it's super tone deaf given the subject matter,,,)

Anyway, I think I'm done being autistic about Green Day (that's a lie, they'll forever be my special interest), so TL;DR:

Thank you, Green Day, for creating a generation of leftists who aren't about the bullshit

[pookie-mulder]

August 2024 fic roundup

This was truly the month of the longfic. And to think I only read short fics until @skelavender showed me the error of my ways!

📰🖋️ Paracelsus by prufrockslove

One of the biggest txf fics ever, and I absolutely devoured it. I loved reading it right after Hiraeth and seeing all the little nods to their past lives. This author knows how to spin a yarn, guys. My one complaint is the never-ending miscommunications towards the end, which is never my favorite source of drama/conflict. Just talk to each other, you idiots! (Although they have those moments in canon, as well, I suppose.)

⚾️🏟️ A Moment in the Sun by prufrockslove

I will remember this fic for the rest of my life. It’s the type of fanfic you want to write fanfic about. It makes me wish I knew now to print and bind my own books. The universe is so rich and developed. Definitely in my top 5 of all time!

Here’s a list of things I love about it:

William. My precious, bratty British boy.

The way the plot includes elements of the mytharc but put together in a different way so you don’t know exactly how it’s all gonna come together

Emily!! You know I love a good Emily AU, and this fic certainly counts. I’m a sucker for a found family, and this fic delivers.

Josh Exley my beloved (and Arthur Dales, but the other one)

Dad!Mulder. The man is an absolute DILF. He tries so hard to overcome his shortcomings and be the father his kids need.

Frohike. His job as an eccentric baseball manager suits him surprisingly well, and his characterization is on point.

The little nods to canon, including episode titles and locations.

The insinuation that all of PFL’s AUs take place in the same universe (as Mulder said, “It has to take more than one lifetime to learn to love someone this much.”)

The only thing I’m not zazzed about is the ending. It kind of just…ends? I would’ve loved an epilogue or even a sequel (or a 12-book series).

🏫📸 Dr. Scully’s School for Exceptional Boys by prufrockslove

Oh boy. This fic is a tangled mess of emotions and betrayal and shame and guilt and love and promises and sacrifices and, most of all:

Definitely recommend.

👒👩‍🔬 The Regency Files by @slippinmickeys

I needed something that needed less mental energy after 4 massive PFL fics in a row, and this one delivered! It’s sweet, romantic, elegant, and has just enough of a plot to keep you interested. If you’re a fan of historical AUs (as I am now, I guess), this one’s a must-read!

🛌🍷 The Reunion by @muldersfingers

Absolute trope-y goodness without feeling too cheesy or predictable. My favorite part is how much they laugh and tease each other when they finally make use of that one bed ;)

🐶🥇 underdog takes the title by @wtfmulder

MSR’s first time is sweet, silly, and giggly. Mulder is absolutely pathetic and pitiable, which Scully finds hot (same, girl). It absolutely melted my heart!

👶👨‍🍼 the bitter and the sweet by @xf-cases-solved

What if baby William was a girl? What if they named her after Samantha?

Absolute perfection. This is how season 8 should have ended!

🏔️🌲 The Mountain Man and A Deadly Hunger by aka_Jake

This historical AU takes place in the same time period as Paracelsus, but it’s so vastly different in its setting that it’s unfair to compare them. In this one, Mulder is a Montana mountain man who smuggles arms to the Native Americans, and Scully hopes to become an army doctor in a nearby frontier town. It’s a classic Wild West romance with plenty of drama and conflict. I love how each of the characters feel like themselves, especially Scully, who retains her headstrong independence despite social norms.

🔙🥩 The Mastodon Diaries by aka_Jake

Mulder and Scully travel back in time to the Pleistocene era and must rely on their wits and each other to survive.

This is one of those fics that changes you as a person. I will be thinking about it for a long, long time. It broke my heart a thousand times and then lovingly stitched it back together. There were so many moments that took my breath away.

The portrayal of prehistoric humans is especially incredible — they’re so well-thought out, and their culture is so rich and developed. Even though 12,000 years separates us, we’re not so different from each other in the end. I absolutely fell in love with the native OCs, which is a compliment of the highest order. I already miss them!

Anyway, it’s like this fic was created in a lab specifically for me. It has all my favorite tropes and story elements: wilderness survival, historical AU(ish), soooo much whump and caretaking and hurt/comfort, found families, Dad!Mulder, and a surprising amount of romance. If you haven’t read this one yet, I’m begging you to give it a try!

🇦🇶❄️ On the Verge by aka_Jake

This fic fits into one of my favorite canon holes: How did Mulder and Scully get back from Antarctica? I love reading everyone’s different takes on this missing scene/plotline, and this one is no exception!

[ddarker-dreams]

Lock, what DO you love and like so much about Dostoevsky's work? I don't think you've ever talked about that. Please, I want to know !!!

^o^

(christianity mention jump scare below proceed with caution)

i thought this would be an easy to answer but figuring out how to put my feelings into words proved difficult .

the beginning is always a good place to start, so let's go with that. by chance, i happened upon this video on youtube and gave it a watch. about halfway in i decided i had to read notes from underground for myself. i struggled to understand what the narrator was trying to get across. the unique writing style, where the reader is addressed directly, as if in challenge, helped me preserve.

i think part of what makes his work special to me is his depiction of people. and they really do feel like people more than characters, even if some of their characteristics are unique to the era dostoevsky wrote in. everything else about them transcends time. i can see myself in some of them. whether it be the titular idiot, prince myshkin in his naivety; alyosha, who goes from devout to doubting; and ivan, whose bitterness toward religion masks his disappointment at the state of the world. 

that's why the brothers karamazov touched me in particular. for some context, i grew up in a christian household and was heavily involved in the church (american northeast white baptist strand of church). around when i was 11 or so, the introduction of left-wing politics through social media had me undergo a looooong identity crisis. these new ideas felt at odds with what i'd spent my entire life believing. what i grappled with the most relates to ivan's anecdote, the grand inquisitor, where the goodness of god is called into question. the bitterness, the disappointment from crushed expectations, all those sensations resonated strongly with me. reading it as an adult who (supposedly) 'healed' from that time period in my life was like opening pandora's box. i'd never seen my thoughts and struggles so accurately described, or treated with more than a 'his ways are higher than our ways' type platitude. i stuffed these concerns of mine away because they only ever served to make me feel worse.

i won't delve deep into the Depressing Lore. the only reason i mention it is to stress how profound an impact the work had on me. throughout the remainder of TBK (and in most of dostoevsky's discography), the best and worst of humanity is shown. our hypocritical nature, capacity for evil; nothing is shied away from or made more palatable. and yet, throughout it all, our potential for good is shown too. whether it be in the little acts or monumental self-sacrifice. sometimes those acts are honored, or ‘worth it,’ sometimes they aren’t. it’s cheesy but whatever i’ll say it — choosing to love and serve others is my greatest joy. i don’t really need a definitive answer to those problems i struggled with. that’s the takeaway i’ve had from his work. it might not seem like a big deal, but not feeling guilty for having certain doubts or anxious over those doubts never fully being resolved was. very significant for me. and healing (for real this time). 

so that’s the sentimental perspective GJSDLKFJS from my writer’s perspective, i can only describe him as brilliant. his grasp on the human psyche is incredible. he can accurately describe so many emotions, worldviews, and give the context necessary for each one to feel organic and real. it’s vivid, too, in a way i can’t properly get across. everyone’s unfiltered and messy. characters contradict themselves in the same sentence. they’ll murmur, go off on tangents, tell stories, misquote the bible (or many other significant works), and just be overall disasters. aka how people actually are. 

the man’s also funny as hell. the protagonist from crime and punishment has a mental breakdown spanning multiple pages over a sock. yes, there’s context, but that’s still the gist of things. then there’s the issue of the hedgehog in the idiot. hedgehog drama. 

ultimately, his work is so very human. there’s commentary on issues that are prevalent to this day, multiple centuries later. the topics he touches on tend to align with what i care about most. whether i agree or disagree with what i’m reading, there’s always something i glean from it. something meaningful that sits with me long after i close the book. i’ll mull over it and bother people in my vicinity until they mull over it too. no one is safe. whether it be a co-worker or my dad who drives noticeably faster to reach our destination and be free of my many questions.

i could keep going but this ended up being long enough GJSKDF i hope at least something here makes sense?>?? i apologize for the incoherent ramblings. it's what the dude does to me.

[mids-stupid-shit]

This was mostly made for @rabid-raccoontail but whoever wants to get into Mortal Kombat, this is your lucky day. So welcome everyone to the

Idiots guide to Mortal Kombat

Also this is going to be my biggest post yet so if you like to read this is the place for you. If you can't picture the characters I name, look them up on google.

Also this contains heavy spoilers for the ENTIRE series.

So sorry for the wait, I hope you enjoy this

What is a Mortal Kombat?

To get a basic understanding of the series you got 3 canons to work with. You have the Midway games (Original Dev team), you have The NRS reboot (the canon most people are known with) and you got the The New Era ( the one that changed it all).

Classic games

The first game takes place on an Island owned by Shang Tsung, the final boss. The whole premise of why everyone is fighting on an island is because of the Mortal Kombat tournament, which happens every generation, and is a tournament mostly against Earthrealm and Outworld. Basically how it works, is if your realm wins 10 tournaments in a row, your realm gets fused with the winners (but also you can choose not to do that because fuck it). Outworld won 9 tournaments and with this one, one of the biggest villains of the franchise, Shao Kahn, fuses Earthrealm with Outworld and fucks up the entire human race. Our champions, Liu Kang a Shaolin monk, Johnny Cage the actor and Sonya Blade a Special Forces Commander, led by the thunder God Raiden won't let that shit slide. Oh also Kano is here and he's a proper Aussie, ye m8? Anyways, Liu Kang sweeps the floor with everyone, including a four armed hurdling mass of muscle named Goro, kicks Shang Tsungs ass and practically saves the Earth. Bonus fun fact, Scorpion kills Sub Zero because he thought he killed his family and clan and as revenge, he spit roasts him.

MK2 takes place some time after that with Shang looking a little sexier and asking the Earthrealmers to join a second MK tournament. If they don't oblige, they're gonna invade Earth (save that for a little later). Also Sub Zero is back, except not really the one who got killed by Scorpion was Bi-Han, and this is his younger brother, Kuai Liang. Getting back on topic we got some new characters like Jax, Sonya's partner from the Special Forces, Kuai Liang Sub Zero, Kung Lao who's the cooler Shaolin monk and also has a hat that's also a throwing weapon, Kitana, who is the main villains step daughter (sorta), Mileena, who's a test tube baby made by Shang Tsung for Shao Kahn, Reptile, who as you could guess is a lizard, and Barraka, who has Nosferatu's face (but also like, his species is tied to Mileena's creation because she's half Tarkatan. Anyways, some shit happens and Liu Kang beats the fuck out of Shao Kahn.

MK3, instead of being yet another tournament, Shao Kahn says FUCK IT and invades earth with the Outworld armies. Not only that, but the Lin Kuei (Sub Zero's clan) are being turned into cyborgs. All but one of them escaped, that one being Sub Zero. One cop survives New York, Johnny Cage gets killed by a centaur, there's a speedster with swords and fireballs coming out of his face, and boom, bang BING, we got some new characters. There's Stryker the Cop I talked about a few seconds ago, Kabal the speedster because the co-creator really wanted to make a psycho killer flash, Cyrax Sektor and Smoke who are the cyber Lin Kuei, Rain, who appears in like 5 games but only does something in 3 and isn't playable in one of the games he's in, Night Wolf who's a native American, Ermac who uses they/them and Sindel, the biggest bitch in the fucking seven seas. Oh also Bi-Han is back and he's edgy. He now goes by Noob Saibot, which if you read backwards is Tobias and Boon, the creators of Mortal Kombat. No time for that though because somehow Shao Kahn returned after being fisted, Johnny Cage gets brought back to life and Liu Kang kills Shao Kahn once more again, the end.

If that's not confusing enough, we aren't done yet because now we got

3D games

I'm not doing Mortal Kombat 4

Deadly Alliance starts with Shang Tsung and his boyfriend Quan Chi snapping Liu Kang's neck so he can't interrupt them in reawakening Onaga, the king of all scalies and one of the most powerful forces in the realms. And now Liu Kang is a zombie, Raiden kicks Shang and Quan's asses or at least tries. Also we're introduced to Kenshi Takahashi the blind swordsman with a magic sword, and sexy vampire pirate lady, Nitara, more on her later.

Deception takes place right after that, where Raiden is trying to fight the Deadly Alliance (who are literally just Shang and Quan), failing. Raiden dies, Quan Chi kills Shang Tsung which somehow awakens Onaga. Quan can't do piss and trying to fight him, somehow brings both Raiden and Shang Tsung back to life... Okay?? And then Raiden nukes himself and Onaga walks it off. Deceptions protagonist is a little shit called Shujinko, a student of Bo Rai Cho, the same man who trained Kung Lao and Liu Kang. He then gets encountered by Damashi, a glowy ball that tells him he has to help the Elder Gods by retrieving the Kamidogu (which are basically Jewelry that hold the fabric of the universe). And Shujinko, being the gullible idiot he is accepts. And from this point on, the game turns into you fixing everyone else's problems like finding Bo Rai Cho's sodding watch, getting water back from another realm, and beating the shit out of Wesley Snipes. Speaking of Blade we got other sick characters like Kira and Kobra, Black Dragon members and one of them is named after a martial art/movie, Havik who is a klerk of chaos, Hotaru the Policemun, Dairou who's an outlaw loose and runnin', and Li Mei, voiced by Kelly Hu in the latest game. After all that, you find all the Kamidogu, you defeat everyone + Scorpion is the final boss (don't ask me, I don't fuggin know why) and what's your reward? Realizing you've been deceived the whole game and not seeing a final battle between Onaga and Shujinko (even though Shujinko can definitely beat Onaga but fuck it).

Armageddon begins with this schmuck named Argus, an Edenian God who did it with a mortal woman Delia and they had two boys who had to be put in stalagmites because Argus knows the apocalypse is on its way. Thousands of years later, Daegon and Taven, the two brothers wake up. Daegon basically made the Red Dragon clan, named after Caro who's basically Taven's spirit animal and he helps bring about the apocalypse. Taven's character can be summed up to "Who are you? Who's that? Uuuuh..." But that's what I love about him. Anyways, Taven looks for his asshole brother, de-frosts a bad bitch and kicks everyone's ass. Which translates to what Armageddon really is. All the characters choose sides. We get one of the coolest fmv sequences in PS2 history and everyone dies trying to take Blaze's power. Blaze is a demigod-esque creation made by Argus to warn Taven and Daegon about the apocalypse, but also whoever kills him, gains his power and basically becomes the developer of the game. But because Taven is the main character, he has to kill everyone he encounters, a few of those people being one's he was proud to call friends. He climbs to the top, kills Daegon, destroys Blaze and saves the universe, the end.

Yeah I lied lol

Netherrealm Era

After Armageddon, Midway shut down, Warner Brothers bought Mortal Kombat and Netherrealm studios took over the franchise and this is where it all went downhill.

Mortal Kombat 9 starts with the end of the previous game. Except it doesn't, because Taven is somehow not here and Shao Kahn walked all the way back to kill him after being carried away by Onaga. Before Shao Kahn crushed him, Raiden sends a message to his past self saying only three things. "He Must Win.". We are now in the first Mortal Kombat except it's HD and Johnny is down bad for Sonya. Sonya is here just so she can find Jax who's lost on the island somewhere, Bi-Han is a bit of a prick and Shang Tsung is the only character in the game who has common sense. Liu Kang beats Shang Tsung, Jax gets his arms ripped off by Ermac, Johnny only gets to win if he has a suit and Mileena gets the most revieling outfit in fighting game history. Kitana and Liu Kang have an on and off thing, Reptile gets bullied (poor thang) and before Kuai Liang can kill Scorpion for killing his brother, he's taken away by the cyber Lin Kuei because Raiden saved Smoke from being cyberized and he says there's nothing he can do (that's bullshit but okay). Anyways, Kung Lao is doing pretty good in the tournament and then Shao Kahn snaps his neck. Feeling horrible by the death of his Shaolin brother, Liu Kang jumps in the arena and fists Shao Kahn. Sometime later, we learned that Shao Kahn survived because they put him in the Soul Chamber, a place in the Outworld arena that heals any and all wounds. He then gets the idea by Quan Chi to invade Earthrealm which completely goes against the laws of Mortal Kombat. And Shang Tsung knows and wants to stop them, but Shao Kahn doesn't fucking care and erased him from existance. they get guns from Kano, and they start blasting. Army can't do shit and somehow, a single cop (Stryker) is able to fight off A lizard man, a fire breathing cat and the only thing in Outworld that knows what pronouns are. Kabal was here too, but only for the first two fights. But he doesn't get his super speed here because he's just an average dude and maybe dating Stryker? I don't know. Anyways Kabal gets roasted by a big buff cat, taken to the Black Dragon and given a respiratory device by Kano that helps him breathe. He's basically Deadpool - the guns + super speed because the magic atmosphere of Outworld gave him that. Don't ask how anyone else got that after going to Outworld, idk🤷‍♀️. Anyways Quan Chi and Bitch-han bring back Sindel and mind control her to do their biding. Meanwhile, our heroes that consist of Johnny Cage, Sonya Blade, Jax Briggs, Night Wolf, Cyber Sub Zero, Smoke, Kitana, Stryker, Kabal, Kitana and Liu Kang sit and do nothing. The Bastard Sektor walks in and with his Cyber Lin Kuei to tire out the heroes until Sindel arrives, the worst scene in MK history plays because the purple bitch kills damn near everyone and kicks Smoke in the nads, and then Night Wolf, the most forgettable Mortal Kombat character kills Sindel by Hail Mary. Raiden looks for help of Quan Dale Dingle, but he instead of helping, brings everyone who died back as revenants, which are basically zombies but with memories of the ones who died and they are pretty strong. Raiden fights three at once, Kills Liu Kang because he fears Shao Kahn is going to kill him and with the power of the Elder Gods, Raiden goes super Saiyan and does a Kamehameha, killing Shao Kahn. Yeah all of that was one game.

Mortal Kombat X (or as dip shits would call it mk 10) starts with Johnny, Sonya and Kenshi fighting revenant Sub Zero (who's a human revenant because of MKX prequel comic nonsense don't worry about it), Smoke who isn't even playable, Sindel who's a bitch through and through and Jax, who in a minute turns back into a human because of unexplained reasons, but I guess by killing his revenant, Liu, Kitana and Lao who are some. it turns out they were going to the Jin Sei chamber (earthrealm's life force that is pure light) where Quan Chi and his boss, Shinnok exact their plan of taking over Earthrealm by putting Shinnok into the Jin Sei, corrupting it and turning him into a super Saiyan but he looks like a devil, so kind of like a ssj4 thing? Doesn't matter because Johnny learns he has God killing powers and uses them to punch Shinnok in the nuts. Raiden seals him and the rest of the game is now a 20 years time skip. And now we have the next gen of kombatants, called the Kombat Kids by the fans. You got Cassie Cage the mc, Jaqui Briggs, who's basically Jax 2.0, Kung Jin, Lao's cousing who fights with a bow and Takeda, who has whips, bombs and a fuckin lightsaber. Anyways other new characters you have are Kotal Kahn who took over the throne, Erron Black who is the Cowboy and D'vorah, a character that absolutely everyone hates because she kills Mileena, who had a civil war with Kotal for the throne. Also Scorpion, now Hanzo Hasashi kills Quan Chi after learning it was him who disguised himself as Bi-Han to kill the Shirai Ryu out of spite I guess? D'vorah betrays Kotal, Almost kills Johnny but does get wrecked by Cassie who does also have the same God killing powers as Johnny, and he uses them to punch Shinnok in the nuts. Raiden puts himself in the Jin Sei Chamber because Shinnok corrupted it. Raiden purifies the Jin Sei and everyone gets a happy ending. Except Shinnok, who gets decapitated by dark Raiden.

Mortal Kombat 11 is a flawed masterpiece, and that flaw is the multiverse bullshit. So basically, Shinnok's mom Kronika who's like the keeper of time, wants to kill the entire universe because it's not balanced (shut the fuck up, ya bitch). Anyways, we got Geras, who can never die because he's a fixed point in time but is mostly known for pounding ass in the next game, Kollector who is the IRS and I hate him, and Centrion who is Shinnok's sister. There's also he Frozen bad bitch from earlier and her name is Frost, who is like Sub Zero minus but she's cyberized like Sektor and Cyrax who are in this game but unplayable (WHY NETHERREALM!). Anyways while remaking the timeline, Kronika accidentally summoned past versions of Liu Kang, Kitana, Kung Lao, Jade (who was dead but I didn't give a shit to introduce her at the start) and also she has maybe done it with Kotal (LITTERALY oc x canon shit) ((Also Jade doesn't kill D'vorah when given the chance, the stupid bitch)), Jax and a past version of Erron Black, even though he's still alive??, and also Shao Kahn with the coolest design of all time. Also Barraka is back, because I forgot to mention the bug bitch killed him too. Anyways, now we're spending the game beating up but rarely killing beloved characters. The cyber Lin Kuei and Frost and old Jax invade their ship that they use to get to Kronika's keep. Young Liu Kang dies, but Raiden fuses with revenant Liu Kang and that turns Liu Kang into a fake Gogeta, aka Fire God Liu Kang (any of this starting to sound like fanfiction?). Anyways they make it to the island where Kronika's keep is and then, everyone but Liu Kang gets Thanos snapped. Liu kills all the leveled up revenants, Glasses Kronika and brings back Raiden to help him rewrite history.

JUST KIDDING RETCONNED FUCK YOOPUUUUU HAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAHAJ FUNNEE

uuuuuuugh alright I got two more story modes to do, holy fuck it's okay I can do this shit

The MK11 expansion, Aftermath, brings back Sheeva, who is now queen of the Shokan, the same species as Goro and Kintaro (the fire breathing cat from MK9), Night Wolf, Fujin the wind God and brother of Raiden, and Shanga langa ding dong. Fujin, Night Wolf and Shang were all locked away in a place beyond time until just now somehow (just roll with it okay? Okay). The plot of this story expansion is basically, Liu Kang wants to reset the universe, but he can't because he doesn't have Kronika's crown, which is needed to do the universe reset. So our boy Liu takes the two idiots and Shang into the past. I just now realized, Raiden is the only smart person in this game, because he knows Shang Tsung is planning something devious. Liu maybe knows but plays it off. They go back to previous points in the game to get the crown, revive Sindel who says she was mind controlled but later she says she's evil from the start (holy fuck I want to kill her and then myself). They get a boatsman, Kahron, to take them to the keep. In the process, D'vorah kills the poster boy of the franchise (Dominic I will fucking end your bloodline). Sindel gets Shao Kahn, heals his eyes that were sliced out by Kitana, they kill Liu and Lao, Shang reveals that he wants to reset the timeline (Fujin you stupid) , he Soul sucks Sindel and Shao Kahn, kills Kronika, but before he can do anything with Kronika's Hourglass, Liu Kang breaks in, kicks Shang Tsungs ass and reboots the series one more fucking time, which brings us to...

MORTAL 1 KOMBAT (or Mortal Kombat 1

This game starts with Shang Tsung being a failing snake oil salesman because he can barely survive. Then someone who looks like Kronika comes in and he makes this face

Best game of all time.

Anyway, we're introduced to Kung Lao and baby boy Raiden, who are farmers but also train Martial arts under the belt of Madame Bo, this universes version of Bo Rai Cho and she runs a kitchen, what more could you want with a grandma. Later, the Lin Kuei invade and we get the return of my boy Smoke who now has a Karambit and is voiced by Spiderman. He's Joined by Kuai Liang who is now Scorpion, and Bi-Han Sub Zero, the worst he's ever been i hate him. It's like they took his personality from Mortal Kombat 11 and slapped it over a poor man's imitation. Kung Lao kicks all three of their asses but only because they were pulling their punches. They join Liu who is basically Raiden now, and look for Johnny Cage, who's having a one-sided argument with his wife, and then she leaves and doesn't come back. Then, Kenshi breaks in, wanting Sento, the sword of his family which now lays on displayed on Johnny's wall. They fight, and Johnny beats him effortlessly. Johnny ties him to a chair and interrogates him until Liu Kang, along with Scorpion and Sub Zero walk in, which leads to one of the most iconic moments in the franchise

They want to untie Kenshi, but Johnny doesn't want that and thinks this is a prank, so he tries to play along but ends up being tossed into a million dollar statue, which triggers him and Johnny starts beating the shit out of Bitch-Han. Liu intervenes before Johnny can do his second fatality on him.they all go to the Wu Shi monk academy, where they train for the Great Tournament between Earthrealm and the realm of Outworld (that's LITTERALY what they call it, I'm not joking). Raiden beats them all using the one move he has, advance Cartwheel kick. Winning, Raiden is chosen to represent Earthrealm. And for winning, Liu Kang gives him a lightning amulet, which gives him lightning powers so he can fairly combat the Outworld fighters. Entering Outworld through a portal created by Liu, they are introduced by Kitana, Mileena and the palace guard, so-called the Umgadi, featuring two returning characters, one of which does nothing and the other was just a barrier. The one's i speak of are Khameleon and Tanya, the first canon lesbian in Mortal Kombat who has a thing going on with Mileena. Li Mei is back and... She's voiced by Kelly Hu. No wonder I forget she's in this game all the time. but along Li Mei, we have Shao Kahn, who is now degraded to General Shao, and his second in command, Reiko. I forgot to mention that Sindel is in this game and for the first time in the series, I don't mind her. She's a sweet, caring mother who is actually a mother to both Kitana and Mileena. Shao is now jobbing more than ever, from losing to a farmer, to being wrecked by queen. After winning the tournament, Liu Kang sends Kung Lao, Johnny and Kenshi to look for Shang Tsung, as it's word that he's somewhere in Outworld. The tremendous trio find a colony of Tarkatans, Outworlders infected by a disease called Tarkat, which deforms and debilitates. Shang Tsung is there and plans to harvest their marrow for a cure for Mileena, who as we find out, she has Tarkat. After a few fights, Kenshi pushes Johnny out of the way, as Mileena has gone feral, took some sais of the table, and stabs Kenshi's eyes out. As this happens Shao and tiny ass Goro walk in and take them to Shang Tsung's true lab, the Flesh Pits where Reptile works for him because Shang says he has his family captive. But as it's revealed, this isn't the case, as Shang already killed them many moons ago. This makes Reptile (aka Syzoth) have anger. They toxic gas the place and we get a Test Your Might to survive. They escape, but as they walk through the Living Forrest, they encounter Ashrah, a demon from the Netherrealm killing demons and almost killing our heroes. Also she says Demons funny. Like... DEE-MUNZ!

Anyways, she joins the party and they search for Quan Chi, who used to be dead, but is now an escaped cole miner and also black. The way Ashrah knows where Quan Chi is because she has a magic sword called the Kriss, and she uses it to purge evil from her soul, by killing other demons. We then find Quan Chi and his jobber squad consisting of Havik who is horribly lame in comparison to his older version and design from Deception, Sareena, Ashrah's so-so sister, Darius, aka Wesley Snipes' Blade with a dash of A-Train from the boys on the side, and the absolute dog shit tier downgrade of all time, Nitara is back, and nothing that made her cool is here. She isn't cool, her design is mid at best, her head looks like an onion, and the one thing that everyone hates about Nitara in this game, is that she's voiced by Megan Fox. Megan, Goddamn, Fox. Her performance is so goddamn awful that people actually prefer Rhonda Rousey's Sonya Blade from MK11. Anyways enough bitching, because Ashrah, with the help of a Reptile kameo beats the jobber squad, but just too late to stop Quan Chi from making a tornado of souls, which he uses to create Ermac, and then does this "who's mans is this" lookin' pose as he says kill them.

In between this and Ashrah vs Quan Chi and Ermac, Johnny thanks Kenshi for saving his life, and gives him Sento, which he uses to assist Ashrah in the clobbering of Quan Chi. Now they return to the streets of Outworld's capital, Sun Do to look for a way back home. They disguise themselves, run into the Umgadi, get away and now it's Li Mei's turn to shine.

I forgot everything that happens in her chapter.

The Lin Kuei infiltrate a palace where Shang Tsung is, but while they are terrible at being stealthy, they aren't in beating Shang and Quan. But In the process, Bi-Han admits he let his and Kuai's father die, just so he can be the Lin Kuei's grandmaster. Smoke waits outside and does nothing till Kuai Liang escapes. And when Bi-Han comes out and leaves a scar on Kuai's face, even then, Smoke does literally nothing. All the characters who had their own parts in the storyline + Mileena (as it's her time to shine). They head to the Fortress where Ermac almost rips off Bi-Han's arms, fight Ermac, but it turns out the soul of Mileena and Kitana's father, Jerrod is inside Ermac...

That came out wrong... Or did it?

Anyways, they break in, Kitana almost fools General Shao and Shang Tsung right before Shang Bang puts on a crown, that awakens the Dragon Kings army and a a fake Sindel kills the queen, but Jerrod, who is still in control of Ermac, takes her soul before it leaves her body, storing Sindel as a part of Mac n' cheese. They head all come to discover that it wasn't Kronika at the intro, but instead was Shang Tsung from another timeline where he won in MK11,

HOW

DO

YOU

DO

FELLOW

KIDS???!!!

Anyways, 11 Shang, who we will now call Titan Shang, has a plan to rewrite Liu Kang's timeline (the one everything else I just talked about in this entry takes place) and bring absolute fucking chaos with his team of evil time lords. Liu Kang, being the reasonable person he is, summons an army of good time lords and they all fight on the same pyramid that Armageddon's ending took place. For the first time in the entire series, you get to pick your own character for the finale. And based on the character you pick, you get a different variants of characters, most commonly fusions of already existing characters. Finally, you beat Shang and Quan, you get a thanks from Liu, and sent to Madame Bo's, where the Earthrealm heroes enjoy food and tea.

*HEAVY BREATHS*

So, that's the entirety of Mortal Kombat. Any questions?

[ryanjudgesthings]

Nothing like getting into Elementary after being a BBC Sherlock fan for so long. Sherlock was overhyped to the point where I was barely aware of Elementary's existence. Now having finished the first season of Elementary, I find it to be infinitely superior. (The same way I find the Davies era of Doctor Who infinitely superior to Moffat's, but that's a rant for another time.) It's incredible how a show can have roughly the same premise and elements and yet one can be so vastly superior.

Miller's Sherlock Holmes has many of the same flaws as Cumberbatch's. Miller's Sherlock can be abrasive and insensitive and even demanding at times, and yet he's far more likeable than Cumberbatch's. Elementary Sherlock Holmes endeavors to acknowledge his failings and apologize, he endeavors to do better. Where BBC Sherlock Holmes loves to humiliate people to prove his cleverness, Elementary Sherlock tries (with mixed results) not to cross lines that are too personal. Elementary Sherlock Holmes doesn't view everyone around him as a complete and utter imbecile; he respects those who put him in his place when he's being an ass. Elementary Sherlock cares about the well-being of others and at times barely manages to keep his anger under wraps when he deals with the evil of the world.

(Of course, it's okay to write a character with flaws, but when you romanticize those flaws it is quickly exhausting to watch.)

I'm usually a little hard on American adaptations despite being an American myself, but CBS Elementary respects its viewers whereas BBC Sherlock insists on treating you like a complete and utter imbecile for having the gall to ask about the giant plot holes littered throughout the show.

CBS Elementary tells a compelling story about Sherlock's struggle with mental health and addiction that humanizes the character. Sherlock has an interesting and compelling dynamic with his family where he feels neglected by his father, correctly predicting yet another failure to follow through at dinner. BBC Sherlock gives us a background for the main character that makes no sense after the writer said it would be a mistake to go there.

BBC Sherlock takes one of the most iconic female antagonists of all time and just... ruins the whole story with her. Elementary respects its female characters, isn't an all-white cast, and responds to the possibility of people being LGBT with a mere shrug, as if it's nothing out of the ordinary. (In stark contrast to BBC Sherlock that reminds you every five minutes its main characters aren't gay and then decided that they'd make their main villain scary by having him act gay to the point where it's noted by characters on screen, including said villain himself. Also his main motivation is he's obsessed with the main character I guess??)

It's... wild to think that all this time I could have been enjoying a show that didn't make me feel like an idiot for liking it. Oh well, I get to enjoy it now.

[lovinbarzal]

DRIVERS LICENSE | trevor zegras

trevor zegras x fem! cooke! reader

a/n this is set in NTDP era and the reader is the daughter of Olivia Cooke who is an exchange student for the following school year and is staying with the Hughes family as her host family <3 and part will be posted sometime this week hopefully!

warnings: strong language and cheating

I got my driver's license last week

Just like we always talked about

"Trevor, shut up!" Y/n yelled as Trevor roared in laughter. He was attempting to teach her to drive.

"I'm sorry but I can't take you seriously with your accent." He smiled as she rolled her eyes at him.

"I do not have an accent." She said fixing her posture as looking forward.

"Yes, you do." Trevor leaned back in his seat with a smile still set on his face.

She rolled her eyes before continuing to drive forward and trying to park. Once she finished the two got out to examine her parking abilities.

"Oh my god. You cannot park to save your life." He giggled seeing the girl's horrifying parking job. He was crouched in front of the wheels.

"Shut up. I only know how to drive on the other side. Why doesn't America do that?" She said crossing her arms.

"Because Americans are idiots." He said looking up at her.

"But don't worry, you'll learn and then you can come visit me anytime." He said standing up and wrapping his arms around her.

'Cause you were so excited for me

To finally drive up to your house

She excitedly drove up to the Hughes lake house and honked her horn causing everyone to run out as Jim got out of the driver seat. Y/n got out of the passenger seat with a frown.

"I tried. I really did and I..." She paused, "Passed!"

Trevor was the first to tackle her in a hug and congratulate her. The Hughes brothers following before Ellen.

"Told you." Trevor whispered to her as they all went back to the house.

But today I drove through the suburbs

Cryin' 'cause you weren't around

"Y/n/n, please come out. It's time for dinner." Jack said leaning against the locked door.

Trevor and Y/n broke up. Why? No one knew and neither of them would say anything.

The Summer was over, it was now late Winter, and Jack was supposed to leave back to USA training. She knew she had to come out.

"Hey." He said as she opended the door. He sent her that Golden Hughes smile. She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed him tightly.

"Come on, Mom made your favorite." The went down the stairs.

She felt better after dinner. None of the Hughes brought up the breakup or asked her what happened. It was normal. Well, as normal as it gets for a Hughs family dinner. Luke and Jack kept launching pieces of their food at each other before Luke accidentally hit Y/n which led to them all launching pieces of their chicken at each other. Jim and Ellen would've stopped them but seeing the smile that had filled Y/n's face stopped them.

And you're probably with that blonde girl

Who always made me doubt

She's so much older than me

She's everything I'm insecure about

"Was I not enough?" Y/n aksed Luke over facetime. She had gone back home since her year was over. It was summer again.

"Don't say that." He said rolling over on his bed.

"But look at his instagram. He already has a new girl." She said with tears threatening to escape her eyes.

"And? You are perfect. If he doesn't see that his loss. Plus she's a bitch." He said as she furrowed her brows.

"How do you know?" She said sitting up from her bed. His eyes widened. He was not supposed to mention anything about knowing her.

"She just looks like it." He shrugged off.

Yeah, today I drove through the suburbs

'Cause how could I ever love someone else?

"He brought her to the lake house, didn't he?" She said tucking hair behind her ear.

"Yeah." He said looking down.

"It's fine." She mumbled.

"You can still come down here, you know." Luke said.

"It's only June. You can stay for the rest of the summer. Mom missed you, we all do." Luke was telling the truth. They all missed you.

"I miss Mama Hughes and all of you but I don't know. What if it's awkward?" She layed back on her bed.

"Then we can avoid them. Plus she barely leaves the guest room." Y/n's brows furrowed.

"She doesn't sleep with Trevor in his room?" She questioned. After Trevor asked her out, they always slept in his room together.

"Nope. She tried to go into your room but Trevor stopped her." He said as Y/n softly smiled.

"You guys didn't turn my room into another guest room?" She questioned.

"Of course not. We wanted to make it a game room but Mom wouldn't let us." He joked.

And all my friends are tired

Of hearing how much I miss you, but

I kinda feel sorry for them

'Cause they'll never know you the way that I do

"Please just think about coming for me. I miss my partner in crime." He said.

"I'll think about it." She said as her front door opened signaling that her mom was home.

"My Mum is home. I'll text you." She said before hanging up.

Maybe she should go back.

[little-wicked10]

My Sultan (Nandor the Relentless x ofc🥵)

While the boys are away, Nadja and Nandor’s human lover have a girls night in of swapping juicy secrets. Nadja reveals to her mortal friend that Nandor gets a hard on when being called “sultan”, the ultimate position of power and dominance for a once great and aspiring Ottoman general. Nadja, and the whole house, will soon realize what Nandor is capable of.

Warnings: SMUT 18+ (EXPLICIT!!! Seriously) and cursing

( // means it cuts to, from, or between interviews, documentary/not documentary footage, and perspective)

——

It was odd that Nadja had not joined the boys on a hunt. She loved the thrill of a good feeding followed by feral lovemaking with her husband. Regardless of the reason behind her staying put, I was happy to have my friend in the house to keep me company. “Come, little one, let us indulge in a, as you humans say, girls night,” she smiled giddily as she led me to the fancy room. It was strange to hear her say it, but I was all for her enthusiasm.

//

“Nandor and I met when he approached me on the street claiming I was some Greek princess or goddess,” I said crossing my legs as I sat across from the camera crew.

“Did you find that strange?” a crewman asks.

I laughed, “Of course I did. I thought he was one of those weird LARPing guys or an Emo kid that never grew out of that phase. His approach was definitely random and odd.”

//

“The night I met my mortal lover, Laszlo had pointed her out as a potential meal. An easy on-the-go snack,” Nandor admitted while seated in an ornate chair in the library, “I approached her to hypnotize her, but instead she bewitched me with her feminine wiles….not my proudest moment as a warrior.”

//

“I thought him mad when my great warrior friend nearly fell to his knees for some woman. A mortal one at that. Then I found it quite funny,” Laszlo complained.

“I myself was not surprised,” Nadja added, “I’ve had a great many mortal lovers in my time. And to be frank, Nandor does not have a good reputation among lady vampires.”

Both husband and wife laugh, clearly remembering the blunders of Nandor’s string of failed attempts at finding a partner.

“Though mortal, I do admire the young lady,” Laszlo adds once through laughing, “She’s got moxie, as the Americans say. And she makes sure the bloody oaf blows out the candles so he won’t burn the fucking house down.”

“Yes, that is a plus,” Nadja chimes in, “Also, I don’t have many ‘girl’ friends. It’s exciting to have another woman to talk to. At least one who understand trying to be in a relationship with an idiot vampire.”

//

Nadja and I had decided to drink. She opted for her stash of wino’s blood while I took advantage of my own bottle of red wine. After each drinking two glasses and feeling a wonderful buzz, we decided to rummage through the boys’ clothes. Laszlo was forever stuck in the Victorian era. “Oh try this one on!” Nadja threw a puffy pirate shirt at me and a scarf with some garish and dark pattern. I giggled and threw the shirt over my clothes before Nadja came to my aid to tie the scarf around my neck.

“Did he steal all this from a homosexual pirate?”

Nadja, with blood alcohol on her breath, laughed as she finished the knot, “A…a homosexual pirate!”

Her laughter made me laugh even more as I gave my best pirate Laszlo impression, “Argh! I’m Laszlo Cravensworth! I’ve come for yer booty!”

Nadja stumbled a bit as she laughed and returned to the closet door way, sipping on her third glass of blood to find her something to scrutinize. She put on ANOTHER of his pirate shirts and a waist coat before we both began acting like pirate Laszlo.

“We should see what Nandor has!” I said as the idea popped into my buzzed brain.

“You are so brilliant, little mortal!” Nadja said as she lightly smacked her head wishing she had thought of it.

We both scurried out to the bedroom of my boyfriend. After another glass for each of us and throwing on Nandor’s strange Persian hats and his fur-lined cloaks, we sat in the fancy room talking about the men whose entire wardrobe we ransacked.

“Ok, ok. What does Laszlo like to be called in bed…or coffin I guess,” I asked very bubbly.

“His highness,” Nadja replied with a regal tone in her voice.

“You’re kidding? His highness?” I giggled as I leaned back against the couch.

“The second I call him that,” she snaps her fingers, “straight at attention.”

We both knew the camera crew was having a hay day with us spilling dirty secrets about our love and sex lives in front of them. I doubt it wasn’t anything the vampires haven’t overshared already. “What about donkey dick, hm?” Nadja asked.

“Besides that he has one?” I smirked and held my hands up to show, exaggeratedly, the size of my man’s dick.

Nadja made a face of disgust before repeating her question, “No, no. Ew. What does Nandor like to be called when making love?”

“I don’t call him anything. Just his name,” I answered truthfully.

Nadja’s face suddenly became very mischievous. Her red lips turned up into a playful smirk making the tips of her fangs appear, “Oh, he hasn’t told you yet?”

I looked at her curiously. She studied my face before gasping and rushing to my side and sitting beside me on the couch. “You must know what I’m about to tell you!” She exclaimed grabbing my shoulders.

I glanced at the camera before looking back to her, “Should I be scared?”

She smirked, “No, but I believe you will thank me once you realize the power this secret has.”

Now I’m interested.

//

The men returned from their hunt expecting to hear their women chatting away or waiting for them naked and willing (at least that’s what they kept hoping for). “I say a good hunt, old sport. You’ve not lost your ways of the warrior,” Laszlo complimented as he took off his hat to give to Guillermo.

“Thank you, Laszlo. You did very well in selecting our prey,” Nandor complimented in return.

After removing his coat and patting the pockets of his waist coat, Laszlo looked around, “Now where is my darling succubus of a wife? That feeding has me in the mood to storm the castle, if you catch my drift, Nandy.”

“I too wish to engage in the sexy times with my love,” Nandor admits.

Both men call out to their women with no answer. They both sniff the air and begin to follow the smell of wine and blood. Their noses lead them to the Fancy Room and Laszlo pulls back the curtain to reveal a funny sight. Both women are dressed in a strange assortment of each of their clothings and spooning, Nadja obviously being the big spoon, on the couch using one of Nandor’s cloaks as a blanket.

“I say, old chap, I have no fucking clue what happened here, but I’m slightly aroused by it,” Laszlo admits.

“Why are they wearing our clothes?” Nandor asks.

//

“What’s sex like with Nandor?” a producer asks.

I sigh and think a moment, “Sex with Nandor is wonderful. A lot better than with a human man. We’ve yet to have rough sex just, as he and everyone in this house says, make love. But that might change after what Nadja told me last night.”

//

“My darling human loves our lovemaking. I’ve yet to not satisfy her,” Nandor brags, “And I am very satisfied with her as well.”

“She said that you’ve not had rough sex yet. Why’s that?” producer asks.

“I don’t think my little human is interested in such things. Plus my vampire strength could kill her if I am not careful,” Nandor admits, “so there is that.”

//

I had it planned perfectly. Nadja and I had talked about it at length until we passed out.

I sat in the library with Laszlo and Nadja. Nandor and Guillermo were about to return from going to the store, and I could feel the butterflies in my stomach. I’m not ashamed of my sex life with Nandor. In this house, it wasn’t hard to get familiar with the vampires and their sexual proclivities. Nadja and Laszlo certainly weren’t quiet about any of it.

The front door opened then closed, and I could hear Nandor and Guillermo talking. I glanced over at Nadja who gave me a knowing look and I adjusted the black silk robe I wore. Not uncommon for me to wear around the house since Nandor could be insatiable at times. If I’m being honest, Nadja looked just as excited as I felt. “Good evening, everyone. My darling,” Nandor greeted leaning down and kissing my head.

“Laszlo, I picked up new ascot for you since I accidentally used your other one as a napkin,” Nandor apologized handing Laszlo a little black box.

“I’m going to my crypt to watch Guillermo reorganize my closet,” Nandor gave Nadja a sideways glance before turning to retreat down the hall.

I jumped up to sit on my knees and lean against the back of the couch before calling to him, “Should I join you, my sultan?”

Nandor froze in his tracks. Laszlo choked on his pipe. I smirked playfully at Nandor’s back, “Or will you not be need my services tonight?”

I heard Nadja giggle with delight as Laszlo continued to choke, “S-Sultan?” Nandor slowly turned around and the look on his face was strange, intense. He suddenly rushed toward me, his boots echoing on the wood floor. When he stood before me, he made me look up at him with a finger under my chin, “What did you say?”

“Oh shit,” Laszlo said before Nadja shushed him. I could feel both of them staring at us intensely.

“Will you not be needing my services tonight, my sultan?” I batted my eyelashes innocently with a smirk still on my lips.

Laszlo whispered, “Why the fuck does she keep calling him that?”

Nandor barred his fangs a bit, “Crypt. Now.”

I guess he decided I wasn’t going to be fast enough because he had me thrown over his shoulder. I shrieked and laughed as my warrior carried me off. “Do not disturb us for we will be engaging in sexy times,” Nandor shouted. He slammed the door of his crypt shut and locked it before tossing me on his couch layered with furs. I watched as he threw off his over coat. His red and gold tunic just made him look all the more powerful for some reason.

“Where did you learn to call me that?” he asks stepping towards me.

“A woman has her ways,” I began untying the belt of my robe, “Does it not please you, my sultan?”

Nandor growled and rolled his neck at the name, “You have no idea how much it does.”

I opened my robe to reveal my naked body to him, rubbing my thighs together, “Show me. Take what you want then, great warrior.”

Nandor pounced on me like a beast. He held my neck firmly in one hand and claimed my lips in a bruising kiss, pinning me beneath him. His hips shoved against mine making me gasp and roll mine for friction. He bit my bottom lip and I felt his fang puncture it and cause the taste of blood to fill both our mouths. Nandor groaned and he pulled away, sitting up enough to rip my robe to shreds as he licked my blood from his lips, “Your Sultan wants to taste more than blood tonight, my desert flower.” He leant down and trailed his lips along my jaw, down my neck, towards my chest, letting his fangs graze the swell of my breasts and making me shiver. The heat was rising and twisting in my body from watching him change so quickly and give into something more dominant. It felt like I was going to explode with anticipation.

I grasped the arm of the couch above my head with both hands and prepared as he reached the apex of my thighs, spreading my legs roughly and digging his strong fingers into my thighs. “I will have my fill of you, and you will not push me away,” he ordered.

“Yes, my sultan,” the smirk forming on my lips changed into an ‘o’ as he devoured my cunt. I felt his tongue enter me and his nose press into my swollen clit. “Na-Nandor!” I cried which spurred him to fuck me with his mouth even more. I rolled my hips into his mouth and held the arm of the couch with one hand while the other tangled into his hair. Nandor moved his mouth to suck on my clit and shoved two thick fingers inside me and curled them. I keened and arched my back off the couch, grasping his head with both hands.

“Oh fuck! Oh fuck! Nandor!” These words were like a song and the only ones my mind could form.

I was sped towards the edge so quickly that I crashed over the edge before I knew it, my whole body shaking. Nandor didn’t stop as he replaced his fingers with his tongue and threw my legs over his shoulders. My obscene cries and moans increased as I pushed on his shoulders to slow down but that only resulted in him taking my hands and pinning them to my sides. Tears pricked my eyes as I was at the mercy of his overstimulating, delicious torture. I held on to his hands for dear life as the feeling of his tongue fucking me and his fangs slightly grazing against me became too much, “T-too m-much! Nandor!”

His only response was to growl and reach up and pinch my clit between his fingers. Something snapped inside me and my vision went black around the edges.

//

There was suddenly a loud scream full of ecstasy echoing from Nandor’s room. Laszlo didn’t even look up from his book, “Well done, old chap.”

//

It felt like the aftershocks of having electricity running through my body. I trembled with a wonderful euphoric feeling as Nandor released me to collapse back onto the couch so he could crawl up my body. When I opened my eyes, I saw Nandor’s handsome face completely soaked. “We are not finished yet, my mortal concubine,” he smirks, lust having blown his pupils.

“Yes,” I gasped, “Yes, sultan.”

“Let your sultan conquer every part of you,” he growled, and before I knew it, he was completely undressed, cold body against mine.

He threw my legs around his waist and pinned my hands to the couch arm before spearing me with his cock. I cried and moaned as he stretched me. Nandor fucked me at a brutal pace that had my eyes rolling to the back of my head and my toes curling.

//

Laszlo and Nadja were both huddled by Nandor’s door. After that last orgasm, neither could resist trying to see what was going on. Nadja had her ear pressed to the door while Laszlo was kneeled down trying to look through the peephole. “I’m so proud of our little human. Very much being the seductress I knew she was,” Nadja smiled.

“I’ll be honest, I never thought Nandor could fuck like that,” Laszlo admitted, “Why hasn’t he fucked us like that in our orgies?”

“My darling, there’s ‘orgy’ sex and then there’s ‘making love to your love’ sex,” Nadja explained.

Both husband and wife were jolted away from the door when two bodies slammed against the other side of it.

//

Nandor had thrown my legs over his shoulders and was fucking me into the door. His mouth was only an inch from mine, breathing each others air while ravishing one another like we will die tomorrow. The door creaked every time he thrust into me and all I could do was hold on to his neck as he took what he wanted. “The whole house will know who rules over this body,” Nandor grunted, “Tell me who does.”

“Y-you do! Y-ou! Fuck you feel so good in-inside me!” I panted like a bitch in heat.

“Your sweet cunt keeps pulling me back in,” Nandor growled before he moved my legs to wrap around his waist and sunk his fangs into my neck.

I moaned and gripped his black hair tightly as an overwhelming feeling of euphoria spread throughout my body. This was the first time he had ever fed on me while fucking, and I now know why Nadja went on and on about it last night. It felt like the pleasure was in my veins and effecting every single sense. It felt so intimate and raw. I couldn’t describe it with the right words if I wanted to.

Before I could blink, we had moved off the door and back on the couch. I was bent over the arm with Nandor’s chest pressed to my back and his hips thrusting deep and hard as he licked away the blood around the puncture wounds. He jerked my head back by my hair so his mouth was near to my ear, “You’re blood drives me mad, my dearest. Just as my cock does you.” His other hand snaked around to grip tightly on one of my breasts, tweaking my nipple and slapping the sensitive flesh. I could only moan as my answer. It truly felt like I was being conquered by a warrior, and I loved being at his mercy.

Every time I tried to speak, it came out as gibberish mixed with moans and whines. My mind was fuzzy and only focused on the feeling of his cock pushing me closer and closer to another orgasm. Nandor pushed my shoulders down to the couch with the hand in my hair allowing him to thrust directly into my g-spot. My eyes rolled to the back of my head, and I screamed his praises as I felt a gushing explosion around his cock. He shoved himself as deep as he could inside me and released his seed with a mighty roar as my vision blacked out.

Nandor fell on top of me, his forehead resting against my temple. All was silent except for his feral panting and my quiet whimpers. I felt his fingers untangle from my hair and his hands wonder along my convulsing body in an attempt to bring me back to reality. “Sssh, my darling,” he whispered in my ear as he left gentle kisses along my face and neck. I suddenly felt the weight of his body begin to leave mine and his cock being removed from inside me. I whined desperately and grabbed his neck to keep him from disappearing. I could still feel him throbbing inside me and my body wasn’t ready to feel empty just yet. “Did I hurt you?” he asked, worry laced in his words. I shook my head.

“I’m sorry, my love. I was too rough with you. And I did not ask permissions to feed on you,” he chided himself. My man had returned from being a conquering sultan.

“N-no. No, Nandor. J-just need a m-moment. P-please d-don’t leave,” I managed to stutter.

Nandor seemed to understand, and he began to delicately change our position. I felt him move us to be laying on our sides with my back to his chest, never once disconnecting us. He wrapped his arms around me and comforted me until my body stopped shaking. “I must leave your insides before you arouse me for another round of sexy times,” he whispered. I nodded my head, whimpering as I felt him gently slip out of me and a rush of our releases spilled out with an obscene sound.

“Was it as satisfactory for you as it was me?” he asked.

“More than satisfactory, my love,” I smiled as I took his hand to kiss the back of it.

“Mm good because I will be ready to go again in a few minutes,” he admitted.

“Really?” I asked shocked, “Nandor, I need to recoup for a minute.”

Suddenly, I felt him harden against my back as he gripped me tighter, “I still have more conquering to do.”

[sergeifyodorov]

plz share the willy xenophobia discussion at your leisure i would love to read about it

Right. So.

Willy was drafted in 2014, a top-ten pick with legacy pedigree, and unlike the other two in Toronto's Big Three, took a little longer to develop -- Marner spent his D+1 in the OHL before coming up, Matthews made the team right away, but Willy spent time in the SHL and about a year and a half in the Marlies before joining at the end of the 15-16 season, after Marner was drafted but before Matthews was. Needless to say, expectations of him weren't quite as high, but he was firmly expected to be part of the Big Rebuild, too.

He's also Swedish. The first Europeans in the NHL were Swedish, and to this day the highest proportion of non-North Americans is Swedish. However, in order to understand the Swedes, we have to talk about the Russians.

The 1972 Summit Series is probably the most important single event in the history of hockey -- eight games, the first true best-on-best in the world, since the NHL and the Olympics have always had a fraught relationship and they weren't allowed to attend. If we really wanted to talk about the Summit Series, we could be here for years, but, the point: on this particular world stage, it was finally understood that Europeans -- Russians, but everyone else, too -- played a different style of hockey, one that emphasized a side-to-side possession-based game instead of the Canadian dump-and-chase style. The Euro style involves far less checking. And less fighting.

North American (largely Canadian, but nonetheless) hockey has always had a culture of hypermasculinity around it, and this relative lack of violence, as well as pre-existing stereotypes of the time, gave the impression that Europeans were "soft."

Back to Willy. Go back to look at draft-era Willy, before he learns how to grow facial hair -- not Mitch's baby face, but not Auston's full-grown jawline. A layer of puppy fat that disguises all but the most defined of his muscles. Silky blond hair and a dopey smile. He dresses expensively, breaks into fits of giggles in interviews, doesn't seem to take anything as seriously as he should. Because this is Toronto, and we feel as if we are about to enter a new golden age, we expect the most out of our prospects -- solemnity, hard work, not a flaxen-haired nepotist idiot. Especially not a soft flaxen-haired nepotist idiot.

Willy Nylander, raised and trained on a different continent, doesn't hit much, preferring to carry his puck in than dump it. He's speedy, patient with a shot, would rather make a dangerous chance than one through three lanes of traffic. He doesn't fight, doesn't get mad, scores less when the team's really going, and he held out to the last possible moment in his RFA negotiations. Every single one of these drives people mad -- people here trailing all after Don Cherry.

If you're not familiar with Don Cherry, imagine the worst Leafs uncle you could possibly realize, give him opinions of similar attitude on the rest of the NHL, and then understand that he had a national platform for decades. Cherry, fervent nationalist that he is, touted the "tough" Canadian forechecking style, adored players who would walk off injuries -- never mind their lives afterwards -- and once expressed his disdain for visors (you know, the thing that... protects your eyes... and a lot of your face...) by saying that only the Europeans and Francophones liked them. (He also got kicked off of Hockey Night in Canada for anti-immigrant statements. Yee haw.)

Cherry hated Nylander the entire time, explicitly citing his Swedishness (and implying a lack of toughness, or winning quality, which he equated) as a reason that the Leafs would never win with him. Here's an article from right around draft day with Cherry's opinion -- he says the Leafs, should they choose to contend, should forgo Europeans and instead take Canadians. He also cites Ritchie's high penalty-minute count as a valuable item. (I don't know about you, but generally I think regularly putting your team on the penalty kill is a detriment, not a strength).

Furthermore, there's a poll at the end of this article asking the reader if they think Cherry was right. Most people think he was. He was hugely popular not only because he was a charismatic figure (I keep talking about him as if he's dead; he's not, just no longer working) but because his ideas were popular. People believed, and still very much do, that Swedishness is softness and that softness is bad. And as -- as a Leaf -- arguably one of the most visible Swedes in the NHL, one of those tasked with shouldering the weight of the most known franchise, Willy bore a lot of it.

I think part of the reason I didn't mention it in the original post was because unlike Mitch, Willy doesn't seem to let it get to him a lot -- he's a blissfully oblivious Barbie-doll idiot -- and, again, because expectations on him weren't quite as high. That being said, it's still important to discuss imho !

[terrence-silver]

would Terry like to cuddle? and how would he like to cuddle? i presume he doesnt watch tv but would he cuddle and watch a movie with beloved?

---

Of course he watches TV!

How else is he going to know the pulse of everything going on around him?

The pulse of the era?

The people!?

After all, there's something deeply alluring and amusing turning on a channel and seeing yourself on there, be it on a commercial for Cobra Kai dojos now opening all over The Valley, so come join today, or thirty years in the past, the latest and most exclusive news on a courthouse hearing after being indicted for the millionth time so he can giggle and snicker how he's gotten away with it all over again, or entirely sadistically speaking, watching and witnessing some natural catastrophe Dynatox caused somewhere in the world that'll line his pocket just fine. Why, the outcry almost makes him hard. The narcissist in him entirely craving even more; attention in any shape, way or form; good or bad. Watching the TV is as an American of a pastime as America gets and Terry Silver prides himself on that and all things Capitalist. Why, anything close to the opposite is almost, dare I say, unpatriotic?

I actually see John Kreese as the type not to watch TV far more than Terry, being a loner who possibly doesn't have the type of technology in his surroundings no matter the era and usually by choice, seeing as how he more or less lives where he trains and teaches (that, or being in a homeless shelter in his later years) and preferring the company of his own thoughts and own damn self instead of an idiot box and Terry being the one taking heated offense to it because 'Johnny!? What do you mean you don't have a TV!? C'mon, my man, quit bullshitting me with this hermit crap! I'll have one sent over right away!'

In fact, Terry, he'd watch the TV naked, out of his jacuzzi, having ordered Milos and his staff to position the screen right in front of him, he'll do it out of bed, smoking a cigar, sipping on champagne, tea, while conducting business with Margaret or otherwise, multitasking while being on an international call or present day, he'll do it on some mega flat screen of colossal size so he can witness every high quality pixel of admiration people have for him now that he's spoken up for Teens Against Violence as an organization with everyone's out here reporting on it with all the praise and adulation imaginable. And of course --- he'd do it cuddled up with beloved. He loves TV because it gives him insight into things --- all things --- both intelligent, ridiculous, true and entirely false and he loves giving physical touch whenever and however, so there you have it; all things considered, it's two of his preferences meeting.

[aysathenotsogreat]

obviously, the doctor knows they're queer. 14 is surprised he's actually saying it out loud IMO. he was surprised at how he talked about his FEELINGS towards Donna while talking to Shirley. he's been written by RTD and the man is in so much control of the show, he can finally have the doctor be queer as loud as possible. 9 flirted with Jack seriously throughout series 1 and it's very easy to code him as someone who lived through the AIDs crisis. they fucking kissed in the finale bros.

I said it in a earlier post and I'll keep saying it, RTD is going to make this era queer as fuck and will piss off the media doing it. idiots in denial thought doctor who would become less political. "Aliens in London" is episode 4 is a 9/11 episode with *opinions* on Tony Blaire. this upcoming era hired people with physical disabilities for recurring roles and a drag race winner and an american broadway star for guest roles. die mad

[moltengoldveins]

molten i have minimal marvel knowledge (only watched like 10 of the movies) but if you have the patience to explain how you think techno and steve roger's friendship would develop/work, i would LOVE to hear about it

( i would ask more about the DC side but unfortunately i know a grand total of Nothing about dc )

OK SO (sorry I took so long to respond I was moving) LET ME TELL YOU THIS HOT NONSENSE. (Fair warning, this is a VERY long post)

SO. First off, I’m gonna quickly establish the Techno im working with since I think you already know who that is (/lh 😉) and then I’ll Explain Steven Grant Rogers.

So, the Techno im working with is fundamentally a lawful neutral character. He believes in freedom, in the moral obligation of someone who is capable of preventing evil to work to the fullest extent possible to prevent said evil. He believes that tyranny dictatorship is wrong and that there should be as little government as possible, and said government should be as democratic and free as possible. He jokes about anarchy, but his actions don’t quite line up with direct anarchy so I’m pretty sure it’s mostly for the bit, but he’s very anti-establishment. Techno is not, however, necessarily concerned with what is Good, so much as what is True. Violence does not necessarily equal evil, and he doesn’t seem to have much of a category for civilians when it comes to controlling the damage war causes, though he does quite firmly distinguish between “people who are my enemies” and “people who aren’t involved.” He is motivated by Justice, not mercy. This doesn’t mean he isn’t merciful: it means he doesn’t believe that he is obligated to be merciful. It means that any act of his mercy is, according to him, an exception to the rule, a kindness the people around him don’t deserve and should not take advantage of. He is unflinchingly loyal and viciously protective, as well as shockingly paranoid and proactive in preparing for any eventuality. He’s also a traumatized veteran and a victim of long-term institutionalized racism and speciesism on account of the Piglin thing, a fact that actually ISNT a headcanon! That’s not even made up! He CANONICALLY was concerned that people treated him like an animal and a weapon as opposed to a person and reacted to conflict and confrontation with the assumption that human characters were more likely to treat him poorly than nonhuman ones, like Ranboo or Philza. (I’ve got a whole other essay in there I won’t get into) ANYWAY

If that’s Techno, Steve Rogers is what you do if you take the same solid gold core and raise him poor and catholic in New York in the 1930s. Steve is religious, but it’s unclear if he’s practicing. His faith is an important core to his worldview and the choices he makes, but he’s not preachy. He’s lawful good at first, but I think his character pretty quickly looses that fundamental foundation of “I am righteous, because I know what is right, and I am doing it.” after he loses Bucky, his kinda maybe love interestchildhood friend and gets yeeted popcicle-style into the modern day. He’s loyal as a dog, stubborn to a fault, and, like Techno, completely and utterly incapable of allowing injustice or ‘wrongness’ to exist in the same space as himself. Before the serum he threw himself into fights with enough regularity that Bucky apparently would just… walk around Brooklyn in the vague area he knew Rogers should be and check alleyways for either a brawl or an unconscious Steve. He also believes in freedom, and in the moral obligation of someone who is capable of preventing evil to work to the fullest extent possible to prevent said evil. However, Steve is Captain America. He’s not an idiot: he’s portrayed as incredibly progressive for every era he’s in, but he fundamentally believes that the US is a good system, or at least the best system possible. He believes in the ideal of the American dream and said dream’s ability to inspire people to do good, even if he doesn’t believe in the reality of that dream. He’s also blatantly unwilling to take orders and follow commands unless he knows the reasoning behind the decisions and has been fully convinced that his actions won’t be furthering evil without his knowledge, and considering his history with Nazis and with SHEILD (the government agency that founded the avengers) being a front for the same Nazi organization that got him and Bucky killed originally? It’s totally understandable for him to be VERY wary of his superiors. He’s a good leader, but he’s quick to make moral judgements of other people’s characters and will stick to them until he’s been beaten over the head with how wrong he is, which is really just a subset of his “you find what is True and Right and then you stick to it to the end and you Make the rest of the world move instead of you” mentality, which is a very helpful mentality for a paragon hero! …. Until they don’t have all the information, or that stubbornness is used against them, or they meet someone who has a quality they think is repulsive or immortal. 

So all this being said…. Holy crap I wanna put these two in a box and shake them around like a stim toy. 

They’re both paragons, by the firm definition of the word, but in completely different ways. They’re both loyal, vicious, guard-dog coded characters, but Techno chewed through his leash and chose his own path (Philza) centuries ago, while Steve was just beaten and dumped in the river by masters he thought were kind, and is now snapping at any human who resembles them. Steve still wants structure above and around him, he still wants to work For a government, as long as it’s a trustworthy one. He’s just not sure how or where to find one, or if he’ll ever be able to trust one again. Techno is absolutely uninterested in that. They’re feral in different ways, and they’ve got very similar opinions about government except for Steve’s uncertainty as to how far exactly he thinks he should go and when, and Techno’s blatant non-regard for things like collateral damage.

They’re both the strongest non-augmented melee fighters of their respective worlds and they’ve both got a signature weapon that, despite actively being a Weapon, is meant to symbolically represent peace and protection. They both have rebirth imagery and close semi-platonic relationships with right-hand-men who are snipers/long distance fighters. They’ve both got a history with being made to perform, Steve with his propaganda and Techno with either his Chat or, in some headcanons, his time as an Emperor or a gladiator. 

They’ve both got (I’m taking some liberties with like, crossover X-men comics and Steve’s hatred of Nazis here) problems with people treating other people as non-human, but Techno is living it, while Steve is working from a place of privilege.

Techno, on the other hand, would not necessarily have the same experience as Steve when it comes to his early life: Steve is still, fundamentally, a small, disabled, asthmatic kid from Brooklyn, and the disconnect between Him and The Body is at absolute best a struggle he works his way through after the first few Avengers films and at worst something that haunts him for the rest of his life. 

Steve might feel his body is not his own but he has no experience with his MIND not being his own. He’s frighteningly intelligent. Techno is smart, but the Voices are another huge difference between them I think I’d find fascinating to explore. 

Steve is not the brains of the Avengers, but he is the mind. He is their compass, their engine, the one making judgements on and off field for the team, but he’s not alone: in good avengers media (Avengers Assemble) he’s working alongside Tony, and he has the whole team at his back. Techno and Phil are alone. They are entirely self-reliant and have been for aeons. There is absolutely no reason for them to understand or comprehend how the Avengers work as a team without some significant work to bridge that gap. Philza is a whole other can of worms: the hardcore worlds might be a form of long-term enforced or self-isolation, the hardcore life system might be shared by both Phil and Techno or be just Phil, they might assume the team can die more than once and be shocked to learn everyone on earth has only one life, they’re so old they carry scars from things they can’t remember anymore and traumas the Avengers are not equipped to handle. 

Literally everything about this dynamic is fascinating to me. How would Steve and Techno fight together? What parts of their political ideals would clash and why? Would they help own another grow or make one another worse? Are we getting post-Bucky-returns Steve, where the Avengers is splintered and Steve is truly disillusioned? Or will Emduo be present for the events of Winter Solider? If they are, how would they influence those events? Techno would take one look at Steve’s reaction to Hydra and know Exactly how much they needed to be wiped from the face of the planet, but how would that go? Would he bring Steve with him? Would he clean house without Steve even realizing and come back like “.ey yo I polished ur government for u. Hope you like it, it’s freshly de-Hydrad. Also half ur entire chain of command is dead they were evil my bad.” Would Philza have enough influence and wisdom to pull Tony away from the idea of Ultron? How would either of these characters interact with Peter Parker (Tommy but… a spider?) or Nightcrawler (That is an Enderman Hybrid. Why is there a normal enderman hybrid in this universe?) or Venom (ah, you fool. I’ve already got someone living in my brain rent-free, bold of you to assume you will survive this mistake). Literally everything about this is amazing and there are ONLY TWO FICS ON AO3. Infuriating. Literally the worst. 

[nerdgirlriot]

back in the early days of my anime weebdom i, of course, spent a lot of that time obsessed with Fullmetal Alchemist. I stumbled upon an Edward cosplayer, but the person was wearing a facemask that covered their entire head, like mascots or Disney meet n' greet characters. And they looked so convincing, as if Edward Elric was inhabiting a 3D space for the first time. I was kind of enamored with how this was done. I did research on what sort of cosplay this was, how the masks were made, etc.

I will ramble a lot here, and also include a lot of pics of my own kigurumi cosplay. Because enamored.

Note: This got REALLY long, really quickly. Sorry! Be warned!

I found out that this was called kigurumi, and the style of costuming was actually pretty common in Japan, where anime meet n' greet characters often had this style of mask.

And yes, I figured out that it was a kink pretty quick.

I'm gonna ignore that for the most part but I'm certain that 99% of all kigurumi cosplayers are male enthusiasts as female characters. I even think that most female kigurumi cosplayers have female characters. Because female characters are ADORABLE and I agree! I would love to do a female kig cosplay eventually.

But first, a part of my weeb brain was transfixed by that Edward kig cosplay.

My research back then led me to believe that a kigurumi mask would be too cost-prohibitive. All masks had to be custom-made from resin and hand-painted. The work would probably cost close to $1000 and I gave up on my dream cosplay quest pretty fast.

Fast forward to this year, and during the time I was looking at Etsy for my Spider-Gwen cosplay, I got recommended a store that had kigurumi masks. In the ensuing years since my initial research, kigurumi masks have gotten less cost prohibitive. 3D printing means that the masks don't have to be hand-made. There are even small companies which mass-produce base masks ready to be customized, and this is what the Etsy seller uses to make their masks.

I was still enamored, and eventually, thanks to a sale (and thanks to also THE NEWS HAPPENING EVERYWHERE) I decided to just take the plunge and purchase a mask. I wish to be happy in the face of possible apocalypse. Instead of going for a custom for my first mask, i got one of the seller's pre-made, more generic designs. But after wearing this first mask, I might be hooked.

It might be a problem.

Initially I based my kig's look on Billie Joe Armstrong during Green Day’s American Idiot era. Short sleeve black shirt, red necktie, wristbands. The mask had black hair and red/pinkish eyes which I thought would go well with the clothes.

More research. I got a bodysuit because with short-sleeves, my skin would be exposed, and the illusion would be ruined. The suit is just a top. Head and arms are completely covered. I got a men's shirt which fits my smaller frame. A short necktie.

Oh yeah, and then there's the boobs.

But I've always been small in the chest, so a sports bra was enough. I've heard that many female cosplayers use chest binders when they crossplay but I guess I should be happy for my less than ample bosom, at least in terms of crossplaying.

What would be difficult for me is hiding my hips. I have very curvy hips and I know if I ever decide to take this guy out in public i will have to conceal them somehow. Probably padding around the stomach to de-emphasize them but that's not a now issue.

The mask itself actually has decent visibility, which I was surprised with. You look through the character's eyes. They're basically sunglass lenses with the pupils printed on them, so no one can see in but you can see out. No peripheral vision to speak of, but that's true of all full face masks.

And here's the initial cosplay test, sans the wristbands because i was so excited to do this I forgot to wear them. He needs a name, though. I'm leaning towards Billie-kun to name him after one of his main inspirations.

It's thrilling to wear a cosplay that you've taken time to put together. I've done multiple femme!Doctors, but this is the first time I've really crossplayed and it feels FUN in ways that the other cosplays didn't. Truly hiding one's identity behind a mask, truly embodying this character.

Edward Elric in 3D vibes. I found it again. 15+ years after my initial encounter with kigurumi.

EDIT: OMG I FOUND THE EDWARD ELRIC KIG COSPLAY PAGE

Gonna indulge in some more photos.

This was the first photo taken. You can't tell how much I was vibrating with excitement:

I have precious few things of clothing that would be appropriate for a male character, but this coat seemed fine:

Me realizing that I could see out of the character's eyes for real:

Pondering whether I should just be a bishie forever to mentally prepare myself for the horrors:

With the wristbands finally. I like how much more the red pops against the black:

No tie because SOMEONE had to go and break the adjustable bit in their excitement to put things on:

Found a hoodie that matched well:

With t-shirt of our lord and savior Hitori Gotoh from Bocchi the Rock:

If you've read through this entire damn thing, thank you very much for sharing my journey into kigurumi cosplay. I still would like to someday do that Edward cosplay but there's so many other possibilities, male and female, that I'd love to try.

Orrrrr Billie-kun could just be a one-off, unicorn of a bishie who is too perfect and can never be duplicated or replaced

GIFs because reasons