#her being happy that at least some version of sausage could find peace and that hermes is a sign of that

[alaritheaurora]

MMMM We'll Be Fine from Epic The Musical but it's Goddess Pearl telling Hermes about Sausage from Empires s1

[weareallstardustfallen]

empires recap - week of sept 25

the videos released from saturday, september 25 to friday, october 1 were:

-lizzie’s episode 16: she works on her tunnel, and trades with pixl

-fwhip’s episode 23: he finishes the interior of the forge, agrees to attend pearl and sausage’s arena, and takes gem’s sword to upgrade

-scott’s episode 20: he burns the arena invite and takes jimmy on a date to solidify an alliance and thank him for rescuing him

-pixl’s episode 24: he starts work on a turtle sanctuary, is blown up by sausage’s prank, and works on recovering his items

-katherine’s episode 21: she builds a babytown, shows scott and gem around, and decorates her section of lizzie’s tunnel

-sausage’s episode 33: he succumbs fully to the corruption during the arena fight, fights and loses against gem, and travels through the spirit realm to return to mythland uncorrupted

-gem’s episode 14: she attends the arena fights, fights and kills sausage, and meets with him after his return

-jimmy’s episode 16: he discusses his prograss and plans for the wall, meets with scott, and goes with joel to help perform his disstrack

-scott’s episode 21: he builds a more permanent place for his stag, successfully uncorrupts the crystals, and visits katherine’s babytown

-katherine’s episode 22: she attends the arena fights and starts work on a megabase

-joel’s episode 22: he attends the arena fights and builds a super-smelter

detailed recaps under the cut!

lizzie 16:

-lizzie continues construction on the tunnel, starting with a dungeon-themed section and trading with pixlriffs so that she can get pointed dripstone for a dripstone-themed section, which she also tries and fails to catch a bat for -after the dripstone section, she makes a deepslate-themed section, an end-themed section, an end city-themed section, a crimson nether-themed section, a warped nether-themed section, a snow section, and leaves the last section for katherine to decorate -she runs into katherine, and discovers that the tunnel doesn’t work two ways -she sets up an alert system, composed of a constantly-ringing bell near the entrance to the tunnel, on both sides -she notes that the eye of xornoth has disappeared

fwhip 23:

-fwhip discusses his new computer, and mentions that while he hasn’t been able to record as he’s been setting up the new pc he was gathering resources -he goes to collect ice in order to make a basalt generator, also powered by xornoth crystal lava -he goes to expand the sugar cane paddy, and starts a road from the grimlands to shubble’s empire in hopes of setting up an alliance between them -he goes to visit her, and they commiserate about their shared distaste for joey while he leads her to the road; she agrees to finish the road to her empire -he completes the interior of the forge and goes ancient debris mining to get a block of netherite -pearl and sausage arrive to invite him to their newly-built arena; he and sausage shoot each other several times, but he agrees -he uses the completed forge to create a new powerful bow, and heads over to convince gem to let him upgrade her sword -while he’s there, he places deepslate redstone ore around the dragon egg in order to keep it warm, despite her objections -fwhip: “insert happy egg noises here” -he brings her to the forge and shows her around; she notes that he’s gotten weirder -though not without protest, she allows him to take her sword and one of her crystals to upgrade it -he works on his librarian villagers and replenishes his rocket supplies; afterwards, joel and jimmy arrive to perform a diss track -he takes down all of the xornoth crystals and stores the lava; afterwards, he works on plotting the next section of the megabase

scott 20:

-scott plans to pay jimmy back for saving him from sausage and joey’s kidnapping, and decides the best way to do so is take him on a date, which he plans to make a “love cave ride thing” for, and solidify an alliance with him -he sees the arena invite from pearl and sausage, and burns it -with it thus taken care of, he returns to his planning for his and jimmy’s date, and starts excavating a cave -he terraforms and decorates the cave, with foliage, a blanket in their colors, their banners, cod named things that are significant to him and jimmy, the pufferish of peace, and then builds the actual rail -he builds a heart-shaped tunnel which he hides in case the first portion doesn’t go well, and a balcony -he puts on a flower crown and goes to find jimmy to ask if he wants to go on the date; jimmy says yes, and he gives jimmy a poppy upon arriving in rivendell -he shows jimmy the cave, including the cake, which prompts jimmy to run around to lose hunger; when he asks scott to do the same he briefly drowns to lose hunger -“i’m drowning for you!” -jimmy asks him to keep it secret, to which scott agrees; jimmy asks if they’re becoming allies, and scott says if he wants to -he shows jimmy the heart-shaped tunnel and the balcony; scott says he built it just for jimmy, and jimmy again asks him to keep it between them -jimmy asks to take the poppies, and destroys the flowerpots not realizing he can right click to get them -jimmy leaves, and scott says it went well

pixl 24:

-pixl shows that the tentacles have recovered and multiplied, and hypothesizes that he’ll have to join forces with the other empires to actually defeat them -he reads the letter from joel, and agrees to give him what copper he has -he meets with lizzie, and trades her some pointed dripstone for two turtle eggs so he can populate the river with them; she suggests bringing axolotls to take care of the salmon in the river -he starts work on a turtle sanctuary, with a small cave so the eggs can hatch without being harmed, and decorates the area around it -he describes his plans for a residential area inside something akin to an anthill to the north, and shows a block palette for it -he sees the arena invite from sausage and pearl, and plans on attending -he shows the newly-hatched turtle, and helps it grow up with seagrass -he meets with joel to give him copper, and doesn’t currently have as much as he needs; he provides him all of the copper in his ender chest and aging farm -joel mentions the mythland embassy, which pixl was unaware of; after they finish collecting the copper they go to see it, and find out it has a perpetual bell-ringing device. pixl says it’s probably a trap, but enters anyway; when he opens the door, several tnt minecarts fall from the door, which he hits with his sword, detonating them and blowing up almost all of his items -pixl says it was a prank he can respect, but says he’s still going to ruin sausage’s life for it -he adds candles to the vigil for himself and katherine, whose death showed up in chat, and notes that he has no idea if the count is still accurate -afterwards, he works on getting his items back, and goes to fwhip for help in getting his armor and sword recovered before the arena fight, hoping to use his forge, and pays him in calcite for the netherite

katherine 21:

-katherine shows the eyeball, corruption, and crystals, saying that her land is overrun, though she finds the crystals pretty; she gets rid of the corrupted trees -katherine plans to create a baby town for people to stay in if they need; she steals some of the other empires’ blocks in order to build them -she starts with a tower of her own kingdom, and builds miniature versions of all of the empires before she works on paths, terraforming, and general detailing -she leaves something specific to each empire in the corresponding building along with a chest and bed, including corruption in joey’s -she puts her list of official allies in her own tower, which includes all but three people -she builds a baby town sign and shows off all of the building -scott and gem visit, and she shows them around; they comment on how many allies she has, and point out that she’s allies with the people who kidnapped them; they remove sausage’s sign -they are unenthusiastic about joey and sausage’s mini builds -scott mentions he un-corrupted the gems, and points out that they’re above key locations in everyone’s empires, which katherine had not noticed -she shows off lizzie’s secret tunnel, and builds a section of the tunnel themed after lizzie’s empire; she sends a bunch of purpur to test it -she notes that the eye is gone

sausage 33:

-sausage begins by reading his will, explaining that he’s sorry he wasn’t strong enough to resist the corruption and dictating how his belongings should be split up -it transitions into possessed sausage, who is deriding the sappiness -sausage says that it all ends tonight, and everyone will be coming to the arena; he’ll go full corrupted and sacrifice every other emperor -he explains that everything is in order and things will be fine without him, regardless of whether or not he comes back; he says that at least a zombie villager still has hope of being cured, but he doesn’t, as only a more powerful being could even stop him and there’s none other than xornoth -he mentions the mythland embassy in pixandria, and talks about pixandrian spies who tried to warn pixl, but it was too late; he cuts back to when he was building it and the trap he laid, and footage of pixl’s death via his ravens -he says that after the arena fights, “you’ll never see your king again” -they welcome the others to the arena, and accost fwhip for trying to sell things on their land without a permit -they proceed into the arena fights, beginning with joel and pearl vs fwhip and pixl; the gunpowder boys win via fwhip burning to death a few seconds after joel -pearl and pixl fight with just axes and shields; pearl wins -joel and pearl fight with axes and shields; it ends in a double kill -they introduce xornoth, and pearl immediately challenges him as the others start to panic; it spawns pillagers, ravagers, zoglins, and vexes, among other mobs, which the emperors defeat; he introduces his champion, who turns out to be sausage, and he starts hunting down the others, able to kill them in one or a few hits -xornoth directs him to kill them all, and he does so -afterwards, sausage notes that gem got away, and goes to the crystal cliffs to find gem and potentially pick up the dragon egg -he comments on the artifact in his inventory, not recognizing it -gem comes to confront him, and tells him to stay away from the egg; when he threatens to take it and burn it, she says she will protect it with her life, and they start to fight -they engage in a chase and fight both through the air and on the ground, traveling between gem’s towers; she retains the upper hand for most of the time -they end up in her largest tower, which is the place she’s most powerful; suddenly, he switches to his possessed voice, and says he’s sorry. he gives her the staff and begs her to kill him, which she does -he wakes up unpossessed in the spirit realm, which is a room with a table and several gateways with void behind them, one of which is a lit nether portal -there are five unlit portals on the sides, one lit one, and a central unlit portal; there’s also several broken portals -he finds a book on the table, which details that he must travel back to past lives in alternate realities via the portal, and bring back what he loves most to activate the central portal and either be returned to life if the gods deem him worthy or sent to the next plane of existence if they don’t -he goes through the portals, and ends up in his hardcore world, where he correctly guesses that the thing he cares about most is bubbles, since sir carlos said she would guide him back; he retrieves that world’s bubbles, and notes that she’s not the same bubbles as he summoned to empires -he returns to the spirit realm through a portal decorated with cyan candles and warped nether blocks; he repeats the process with his oneblock skyblock world, sourceblock smp, his hardcore season 1 world, legacy smp season 1, and his singleplayer world in the season 3 area -the final world is in mythland colors, and provides him armor and elytra when the other ones did not; he comments on it, but since the final portal is open he ignores that and the broken portals and says goodbye to the council of bubbles before he goes through -he ends up on the bridge in mythland, where gem finds him; she says that she’s missed him, and he says that he’s missing memories; when she shows him the staff she took from him, he says he wants nothing to do with magic, and drinks the potion she gives him -he asks if they can be in an alliance again, and she says they’ll have to talk to fwhip; they agree he should go sleep for now, and she tells him not to use the leftover sleeping potions. on his way to bed he asks her to deal with the demon cats and says he might be xornoth’s target now, and that he’ll say how to defeat xornoth when he wakes up

gem 14:

-gem tries to think of what she can do to make the egg hatch, but is interrupted by fwhip putting deepslate redstone around the edge; he says it’s to keep it warm -he shows her the grimlands forge and asks to upgrade her sword; reluctantly, she agrees, and provides a crystal to use for it -she finds a build request from jimmy to build custom swamp trees, and says it’d be fun; however, she’s interrupted by seeing some pillagers, who she puts in boats and names loon, viktor, and aries, making them her first citizens -she goes to the codlands and builds four custom trees -she works on pacifying the pillagers, and successfully has each one break their crossbow; she says she’ll make buildings for them soon -she finds the arena invite, and says she’ll go to make sure everyone stays safe, since she warned pearl about sausage -she spectates the arena fights, and shoots katherine after joel dares her to; when xornoth arrives, she helps fight the mobs, but drinks an invisibility potion and flees when sausage begins hunting the other emperors -she ends up back in her tower, and sees sausage approaching the dragon egg; she confronts him, and tells him to leave the egg alone -they start to fight, and she chases him, declaring that he’s in her mountains, and they fight in her towers, ending in the largest of them; she tells him that she’s most powerful there, and he gives her his staff and begs her (in his normal voice) to kill him, which she does, getting the “serious dedication” achievement from his scythe -she goes to mythland to look for him, and finds him on the bridge, unpossessed; she tells him she’s missed him, and he asks if he killed people at the arena, since he doesn’t remember -he reacts violently to the sight of his staff, and returns her crystals, saying he doesn’t want anything to do with magic; she agrees, and gives him a potion to drink -she encourages him to go to bed, and he does -she returns to the crystal cliffs, and checks on the hat, which says that she can take it now; she does, and works on fortifying the crystal cliffs by taking down the original gatehouse and replacing it with a larger redesign, and puts her grumpy panda in the gatehouse in a boat -she catches some more pillagers, and adds one to the tower of the gatehouse -she says she’ll study ways to stop xornoth, and ends the video with some behind-the-scenes and bloopers clips

jimmy 16:

-jimmy shows the two new pieces for the fanart shack and his cat, norman -he shows off the custom trees which gem built, and the back wall of his megabase which he built -he shows the area where the next wall will be, and explains that he had to remove a mountain which was in his way, so fwhip helped blow it up in return for an iou, which fwhip used to make him carry a salmon; jimmy hid it under one of the tentacles, refusing to carry it around, although he can’t destroy it -he says that he’s going to put the wall in and fwhip will terraform the crater by next episode -he says that he accidentally deleted his footage from his and scott’s meeting, but scott sent his footage, which he’s using -scott leads him into a cave decorated with foliage and various significant things to the both of them, including a cake; jimmy runs around to try and lose hunger so he can eat it; scott drowns to do the same -jimmy asks if they’re becoming allies; scott says if he wants, to which jimmy agrees -scott leads him down the “tunnel of love equivalent” and to the balcony; jimmy attempts to take the poppies but doesn’t realize he can take them without breaking the flowerpots -he says he has something from katherine that he needs to see, but before that joel arrives to deliver his diss track to fwhip; it actually ends on a compliment -joel and fwhip decide to fight scott together, and jimmy says he can’t because he and scott solidified an alliance -jimmy specifies that he didn’t know they were going to go after scott, and finds katherine’s message, so he goes to go see the baby town she’s built; he finds it overwhelmingly cute, and wonders why xornoth doesn’t have a build

scott 21:

-scott plans to make a space for jimmy to build an embassy, relocate his stag, and research the crystals, since they’re copied off of the one in his enchanting tower and there might be a way to reverse their corruption -he starts with the stag, and decides to build him a cave, but before he can he notices the eye of xornoth in the background; he tells it to go away, and decides to keep his voice down when he talks about defeating the corruption -he goes back to dig out the cave, and decorates it with plant life and gold to mimic the cave he was found in and protect him, and moves the stag in -he goes to study the crystals in the library, hoping to find some way to fix them; he discovers that he could be able to turn them back using something to channel his magic and things from the other empires, so he collects things from each of the embassies, some gold, and alinar’s antlers to channel with -he says he hopes he was some kind of witch in a past life, and combines the items in a cauldron; they turn into a set of splash potions which he uses on the crystals. there’s no immediate change but when he goes to sleep and wakes up they’ve changed to cyan, yellow, and white, with gold inside, and the eye is gone -he puts away the antlers and says that his citizens will be glad he’s finally doing something -afterwards, he and gem go to katherine’s baby town, where she shows them around, including her list of allies; he points out that it’s most of the server, and gem accuses her of having no loyalty -katherine says she likes xornoth’s crystals, and he explains what he did to them, and points out that they’re above key locations; katherine hadn’t noticed

katherine 22:

-katherine says she’s really never done a megabase, so she wants to do one; she doesn’t have much space in the flower fields, so it’s going to be in the air -she finds the arena invite and says she’s interested, so she plans to spectate -since she has some new heads, she drops off the duplicates and adds a new floor to her head collection -she attends the arena fight to spectate; gem shoots her on a dare from joel -xornoth arrives, and she asks to receive any heads people get from the mobs it spawns; when xornoth directs sausage to kill them all, she tries to run, and is killed multiple times; however, she manages to obtain more mob heads -she decides that the crystals are pretty but it seems like a good idea to remove the lava, and does so; afterwards, she works on planning for her megabase, and collects wool from her sheep and from scott before she builds a large grass platform and the wool framework for the building

joel 22:

-he plans on working on both the interior and the outside of the megabase; for the interior, he intends to light it up and also work on building a super-smelter -he notices a weird shadow, which is probably a texture glitch -he works on lighting up the palace, though he has some problems with creepers exploding and damaging the palace; he leaves the holes for the meantime though he says he will leave it -the palace isn’t entirely spawnproofed, but he decides to move on anyway -he finds the arena invite, and decides to go -“you know me, i love hurting people” -he removes xornoth’s banner, saying he doesn’t know what it is, and puts it in a corner; he also teams up with pearl to fight fwhip and pixl, and loses by burning to death a few seconds before fwhip does -he dares gem to shoot katherine, which she does, killing her -he fights pearl using an axe and shield, ending in a double kill -xornoth arrives, but joel actually can’t hear him, and asks gem and fwhip why pearl is talking to herself; when sausage starts attacking people, he drinks an invisibility potion he was given by fwhip and leaves -he goes back to working on the interior, and gets to work on the super-smelter; he pauses to kill some horses to fill up his horse head room, and gathers some wood for chests before he works on the super-smelter, which takes multiple tries as he continually notices pieces of redstone that he’s missing. however, he eventually manages to get it working -he builds a room around the super-smelter and works on filling in the missing copper, then builds the two missing walls and places some of the moss in the center

[shadowphoenixrider]

I’ve had this Katla/Kabu fic idea playing out in my head all day today, and because I can’t be arsed to write it properly, here’s the cliff-notes version:

- Katla + all gym leaders + Leon + Hop are having a party because of Reasons (post-’yay we didn’t die’ day? post-championship match? god knows). 

- Kabu doesn’t want to be here, but it’s The Law so he is. But the company’s not bad (Hint Hint)

- Everyone’s getting buzzed on the alcohol. Kabu is watching himself and is relatively sober. Katla doesn’t usually drink, but Leon splashed out for some red wine and she likes that, so she drinks.

- She tries to pace herself, but since she doesn’t drink often, it goes awry. She gets very excitable and chatty, which everyone finds amusing, including Kabu, but he keeps a wary eye on her.

- Good thing too, as after a while she goes to him and mumbles that she’s overdone it and doesn’t feel safe to get back to her hotel room on her own. Could he walk her there?

- It takes about a nanosecond for him to say yes.

- The rest of the gang is too far into their booze to take any notice, but Kabu finds a sober-ish Nessa and lets her know he’s taking Katla home - she takes one look at Kat and agrees that he’s got the right idea.

- Katla can barely walk straight because of her dizziness, so she holds tight to Kabu’s arm as he leads her to the taxi rank. She keeps bumping into him and saying sorry, but he’s too deep in thought to care.

- For reasons he doesn’t quite understand (*coughhe’sgotfeelingsforhercough*), Kabu frets that if he leaves her alone in her hotel room she’s going to fall and crack her head open in the bathroom or choke on her vomit and die.

- Decides to take her to his place because he has a spare room and then at least he knows she’s in a safe place and someone can at least keep an eye on her.

- He tells her this. Katla vehemently denies she’s going to puke and he doesn’t have to do this, she’ll be fine. Kabu pulls the ‘please help settle an old man’s mind’ card, and she relents.

- Taxi dude makes noises about Katla puking in the taxi, much to Katla’s chagrin. Kabu tells him he’ll pick up the cleaning tab and taxi dude realizes who he’s talking to and gets a lot more polite.

- Plot twist: Katla doesn’t puke in the taxi. She gets very tried and almost falls asleep against Kabu. It makes him feel things, and he feels a bit guilty trying to keep her awake.

- Her legs give out in the lift to his flat, and she apologies profusely for being a burden. Kabu assures her she is very much not, and carries her to his apartment. She almost falls asleep again, and he keeps her awake by asking about her hotel room (room no., where’s her access card, etc.).

- Kabu puts her in the spare room, and manages to get her out of her shoes and coat before she is out like a light. He puts her to bed as is, and gets ready for bed himself.

- His rest is fitful, as he keeps waking up to check on her. She’s fine Kabu GO TO BED

- Despite this, he gets up at his usual time for his morning run. He checks on Katla again, leaving her a note explaining everything, a glass of water and a tab of painkillers.

- He takes a detour to the hotel to pick up a change of clothes for her. He feels incredibly awkward about it, but does it anyway.

- Katla wakes up during this time, and she’s got a hecking hangover when she does. She’s grateful for the water and painkillers, though she just wants to sleep and ignore life at the moment. (She also feels a bit guilty about staying ‘round Kabu’s).

- Kabu comes back with clothes and notices Katla’s risen from the dead. They have a brief talk; he’s thankful she’s ok, she’s grateful that he looked after her, though she feels bad for being such a disruption. He assures her it’s perfectly fine, he’d do it for anyone of his friends (liar).

- He leaves her to rest, trying to ignore that weird ass feeling that she’s staying in his apartment and he likes it and actually if she wanted to stay longer, well that’d be perfectly fine, really.

- But he’s a little worried he’s over-stepped his boundaries a little, what with the taking her home and the...touching her clothes. You know maybe he shouldn’t read into this and make it any worse than it already is.

- Katla sleeps until her head pounds a little less when she lifts it up, then she goes and has a shower and puts on the new clothes. Immediately feels better.

- Tidies up the room before she leaves, and finds Kabu’s kindly kept the blinds low so she can roam around without the morning sun blinding her.

- Finds him downstairs in the kitchen, cooking up breakfast with his Centiskorch skittering around. Centiskorch sees her first and lets its trainer know she’s there, then goes and get pets from her.

- Kabu is happy to see her up, even if she looks as shattered as he is. He’s even happier to see Centiskorch likes her and vice versa.

- “Mmm, sorry I kept you up, Kabu.”

- “You have nothing to apologise for.”

- Katla asks how long she can stay; she doesn’t want to impose, and the others will be waking up soon. Kabu points out that they were really going for it last night (he swore he saw a jagerbomb coming out when they left) and they probably won’t wake up until the middle of the day.

- “Oh, that makes sense.” *peers at the oven* “What’re you cooking?”

- Kabu sweats nervously. “Oh, the other day a little Rookidee might have told me you like a sausage sandwich, so I thought perhaps, if you’re feeling up to it...”

- Katla, internally: Marry me you handsome bastard

- Katla, externally: Damn, Hop never lets me have any secrets. Yeah, they’re my favourite. I’ll just have a small one, if that’s ok?

- Soft gentle fluff ensues as they chat together on the sofa, enjoying the peaceful morning together. Katla lets some of her not-giant Pokemon roam around with Kabu’s.

- “How is your Sizzlipede doing now?”

- “Oh, she’s doing fine.” *lets her out of her pokeball to reveal she’s evolved into a Centiskorch*

- Kabu, internally: Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck

- Kabu, externally: Ah! She’s evolved into a fine Pokemon!

- Katla: Oh yes! She’s become my main fire and bug type Pokemon. *pets her* She’s so beautiful and gorgeous and tough as nails...

- Kabu’s kinda listening, but 90% of him is just gawking at the scene and pointedly ignoring the fact he’s slowly rolling head over heels in love.

- The two Centiskorch hit it off, much to their trainers’ delight.

- Katla/Kabu just spend the morning talking with each other and slowly inching closer to one another on the couch.

- Kabu finally admits (!!!) that he cares a lot for Katla and he hopes he hadn’t overstepped his boundaries. Katla says it’s fine, she trusts him and she actually cares a lot for him too.

- Long pause as they debate what to do next. Katla shifts a little closer. “You’re warm...”

- Kabu chuckles. “That might be the reason they call me the ‘ever-burning man of fire’.”

- Their knees are touching

- Oh my god they’re leaning into one another

- Katla’s Rotom phone beeps and startles them apart; Hop’s awake and wondering where she is because shouldn’t she be at breakfast at this time?

- Katla: Oh sorry, I drank a bit too much last night and Kabu let me stay over his place. I’ll be over in a little while.

- Hop: ...You’re at Kabu’s?! Shit sorry I didn’t realize didn’t mean to disturb you lol

- Katla: OMG HOP WE DIDN’T DO ANYTHING! HE’S A GENTLEMAN HE PUT ME IN A SEPARATE BED

- Too late Hop’s already texted Leon and the private League gossip groupchat is fucking erupting with variations of ‘did they do the do!?!?!?’ and ‘holy shit finally’.

- Katla decides to leave at this point. Both of them are disappointed she has to go, but she does, yet not before exchanging numbers.

- As she goes, Kabu can’t help but feel like a part of him has gone missing. However, because he’s a Complete Fucking Idiot, he doesn’t think it’s anything to do with Katla.

- Nessa contacts Kabu about Katla later. He tells her Katla’s ok, and that she said she cares about him.

- Nessa: Really? *in the groupchat: hold up guys I think I got something*

- Kabu: Yes. I’m very flattered to be one of things she cares about.

- Nessa in the groupchat: OH MY FUCKING ARCEUS KABU HAS TO BE DOING THIS ON PURPOSE NO ONE IS THIS THICK

- Raihan: w8 what happened whatd he do

- Nessa: Kat told him that she really cared for him and he was like ‘oh it’s nice to be one of the thing she cares about’

- Leon: YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING

- Nessa: *posts screenshot of the texts in groupchat* Nope

- groupchat explodes in frustration

[gokinjeespot]

off the rack #1265

Monday, June 10, 2019

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 War of the Realms: Journey Into Mystery #4 - The McElroys (writers) Andre Lima Araujo (art) Chris O'Halloran (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). I don't know The McElroys from Adam but I sure do like the way they write. Ares catches up with the team and their mission goes FUBAR. Now they have to rescue the demon baby. The conclusion next issue should be epic.

 The Incredible Hulk: Last Call #1 - Peter David (writer) Dale Keown (pencils) Mark Farmer, Marc Deering, Walden Wong & Scott Hanna (inks) Peter Steigerwald with John Starr (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). If you've been reading the Immortal Hulk you know that Betty Ross plays a major role in the recent story. This $4.99 US one-shot gives you some history and it's brought to you by the creative team that made reading Hulk comics so much fun in the nineties. The super villain was a complete surprise but made a lot of sense.

 Batman #72 - Tom King (writer) Mikel Janin & Jorge Fornes (art) Jordie Bellaire (colours) Clayton Cowles (letters). I'm not quite sure but this story looks like a team up of Bane and Thomas Wayne to kill Bruce/Batman. This whole issue is narrated by Thomas with not a peep of dialogue and references events leading up to the beating Batman gets from Bane this time. At least I think it's Bane. Jorge Fornes's protagonists aren't as bulky as some artists draw them.

 Black Cat #1 -  Jed MacKay (writer) Travel Foreman (art) Brian Reber (colours) Ferran Delgado (letters). Marvel's version of Catwoman first appeared in 1979 and I've liked her ever since. I think the last page of this debut pays tribute to DC's feline femme fatale with the bats escorting the getaway car. There are two short back-up stories so you get good value for $4.99 US. This first heist isn't too elaborate but it does serve to introduce Selina and her crew. This was good enough that I will read the next issue.

 DCeased #2 - Tom Taylor (writer) Trevor Hairsine (pencils) Stefano Gaudiano (inks) Rain Beredo (colours) Saida Temofonte (letters). This zombie virus infesting the DCU story isn't kidding around. Two major characters bite the bullet this issue. The only reason I would keep reading the rest of this 6-issue mini is to see how the good guys beat the walking dead and who else might possibly die before they do.

 Guardians of the Galaxy Annual #1 - Four stories featuring a bunch of team members and a mysterious bad guy.

 "Faith" by Donny Cates (writer) John McCrea (art) Mike Spicer (colours) & VC's Cory Petit (letters) has Cosmo the talking Russian dog cosmonaut and the aforementioned villain foreshadowing some nasty doings for our heroes.

 "A Long Time In Politics" by Al Ewing (writer) Yildiray Cinar (art) Rain Beredo (colours) & VC's Cory Petit (letters) starts with two guys walking into a bar who wind up talking about intergalactic politics. The two guys are Nova and Quasar. This is not a joke.

 "Advent Horizon" by Tini Howard (writer) Ibrahim Moustafa (art) Jay David Ramos (colours) & VC's Cory Petit (letters) has Adam Warlock dealing with a planet of peaceful aliens being controlled by a malevolent god. Gee, I haven't seen Warlock in a while so I'm not familiar with his current status but this Warlock could have been a brand new character to me. He didn't spark any joy.

 "You're Only Young Twice" by Zac Thompson & Lonnie Nadler (writers) Filipe Andrade (art) Mike Spicer (colours) & VC's Cory Petit (letters) features Darkhawk in a freaky Friday situation. I forgot that Darkhawk was a merger of two things like DC's Firestorm.

 I was not impressed with this sausage fest. No female characters at all and no one that I really cared about. I don't think you would be missing anything crucial if you're a fan of the regular book if you decide to skip this.

 Shazam #6 - Geoff Johns (writer) Marco Santucci, Marco Santucci, Dale Eaglesham & Scott Kolins (art) Mike Atiyeh (colours) Rob Leigh (letters). I was thinking of benching this book as I read the first few pages but then things take a turn with Billy's dad showing up and now I want to keep reading. The last page sealed the deal.

 War of the Realms #5 - Jason Aaron (writer) Russell Dauterman (art) Matthew Wilson (colours) VC's Joe Sabino (letters). Showing the war on Midgard on all its fronts would be a daunting task for any creative team but this one does it beautifully. I hope they do an oversize full colour hard cover reprint of this main story. I would not hesitate to add that to my meagre collection. I've complained about excessive super-sized super hero versus super villains fights before but this one has just the right amount of action and suspense for me. I have enjoyed the evolution of Jane Foster that Jason Aaron has plotted and now she's in for another surprise metamorphosis.

 Marvel Team-Up #3 - Eve L. Ewing (writer) Joey Vazquez with Moy R. (art) Felipe Sobreiro (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). The conclusion of the Spider-Man and Ms. Marvel body switcheroo story made me smile. I love a happy ending.

 Young Justice #6 - Brian Michael Bendis (writer) John Timms (art) Gabe Eltaeb (colours) Wes Abbott (letters). This is a good jumping on issue even though it's the conclusion of the first story arc. It gives you tidbits of information on almost everybody on the team and why they're on Gemworld fighting the evil Lord Opal. When you get to the last page there's the patented Bendis ending that makes you want to read the next issue as soon as it hits the racks. I was particularly impressed with Gabe's colours this issue.

 Savage Avengers #2 - Gerry Duggan (writer) Mike Deodato Jr. (art) Frank Martin (colours) VC's Travis Lanham (letters). The cover may show Wolverine attacking Conan but nothing like that happens inside. This is one of those comic books that I was able to finish reading in about 5 minutes. That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it, I actually got a chuckle out of it. The big bad Is revealed to be the wizard Kulan Gath who is also time displaced like Conan. I was thinking that Conan would only be able to survive in the modern world if he learned how to shoot a gun. Who better to show him the ropes than the trigger happy Punisher? Guess which Savage Avenger makes his first appearance in this issue? They've shown the cover to Savage Avengers #4 and the two macho men are featured, one with a sword and the other firing a gun. Ninjas of the Hand pop in with Frank so I hope that means that Elektra isn't too far behind.

 War of the Realms: New Agents of Atlas #3 - Greg Pak (writer) Gang Hyuk Lim (art) Federico Blee; Andres Mossa; Erick Arciniega (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). Here's another fake cover. It makes it look like the good guys lose the battle but the battle has just begun in this issue. Who picks these? I'm not a fan of the little ID captions naming everybody cluttering up each panel. I know there are a lot of characters in this book and some fans may need help identifying everybody. They should do what the main War of the Realms book does and have a full page showing who all the players are. Chances are really good that the heroes will find a way to stop Sindr from winning.

 Batman Last Knight On Earth #1 - Scott Snyder (writer) Greg Capullo (pencils) Jonathan Glapion (inks) FCO Plascencia (colours) Tom Napolitano (letters). Welcome to the future where the super heroes have lost the never ending battle with evil. This is a terrific first issue that sets up the story with everything making sense and there are no "what the heck is going on here?" moments. This 3-issue deluxe $5.99 US mini is going on my "must read" list. Thanks to Doug for lending me his copy to read.