#i did see some neat spiders‚ tho

[squid--inc]

......

[alaskan-wallflower]

Im a littel late!!

Boys will be boys hcs with the gang

Pony definitely went through a phase where he made his voice impossibly low to try to get girls or something, haunts darry to this day.

The Curtis bros had absolutely no clue you were supposed to wash your bedsheets. I can picture darry having a girl over and shes like "these are kinda dirty" and his ass goes "I already washed them this year"

soda runs around everywhere with the dogs out. BROS FEET ARE NEVER CONTAINED 🙏🙏

modern day two-bit is constantly screaming "English or Spanish!" To the gang. They all stay planted where they are for HOURS.

This ones not so much 'boys will be boys' but super senior dallas and two-bit. Dally will get rejected and thats just the funniest thing on earth to two-bit.

Pony gets so hangry he will literally rip anyone in the area to shreds, do NOT fw hungry pony😞

Johnny like never washes his clothes. Part of it is from the poverty, but darry will ask if he wants his stuff washed and hes just like "its okay they smell fine :3" (they smell like absolute shit)

Steve will wrestle anything with legs that questions him to the ground. If yk him, your not safe, mans is gonna run up behind and BOOM your down

hangry ponyboy mentioned 🗣️🗣️ (seriously tho i know bro just blows up at darry and darry just holds him by the collar while he yells and tries to swing on him like an angry cat 💀 darry’s just like ‘what’s your problem’ til he hears his stomach growl and he’s like ‘oh 😒’) johnny gets hangry too but more sassy so he’ll quip at pony and pony snaps back and they start fighting in the middle of the street 😭

but YES-i agree with all of these-in the movie steve literally had to remind soda to put his shoes on, bro hates socks (and clipping his nails, pony literally wakes up with blood dripping down his legs and he’s like ‘soda 😡😡’

johnny also just doesn’t wanna be a burden-he gets used to the smell at some point but darry will literally make him strip down and wear pony’s clothes and whenever his clothes are actually washed he’s just sitting there with his eyes wide like he’s experiencing the most amazing thing ever and it’s just because his jean jacket is warm and smells like flowers as apposed to blood and sweat 😭

steve would literally just see a spider and be like ‘oh yeah? you givin’ me that look?” and stomps on it because he’s a bitch-pony has a mean side eye and it’s gotten him a number of tackles to the ground and pony’s screaming ‘what did i do’ while steve puts him in a chokehold 😭

‘i already washed them this year’ BRO 😭😭 it’s the same thing with table cloths like there’s a bunch of stains on it and they’re just like ‘this is fine’-i feel like they know some things because their mom was kind of a neat freak but other than that it was four boys in the house-

also nooooo not english or spanish-two bit would love the brainrot era….

also it’s never too late for bits will be boys headcanons. keep em coming fellas

[echoing-locations]

Ok so more of prince Ambrosius au cuz I think it’s neat

(Also thank you to @goldenheart-supremacy for all your amazing ideas ❤️❤️🥰)

Now I’m this au I’m thinking that Ambrosius is the type of prince who was constantly sneaking away from his guards and he became so good at it that only one was able to keep tabs on him at all times (that being Ballister)

I would say Ambrosius and his parents have a good relationship, they’re just busy cuz their basically running a country

Ambrosius is a master at manipulating the media, he’s been doing practically since he was born, he nows how to be seen by the media only when he wants to be seen

That didn’t stop the media tho, they were convinced the prince was a open book, Ambrosius’s favourite headline being ‘is the prince secretly married!? His guards tell the story!’

Ambrosius and Ballister laughed their asses off at this considering it took place when they were both 16 and Ballister being Ambrosius’s only guard at the time

Ok now back to some main plot things!! Nimona still finds ballister in the tower and still forcefully becomes his sidekick

Although this time Ballister didn’t have any leads on who messed with his armour, so it took him longer to come out of hiding, but it did give him and Nimona time to get to know each other and build that trust

He would probably be on the run and in hiding for like 2 months at least,

Meanwhile the Director woke up at least a day after she was shot, the queen come to visit her and she goes and a rant about “oh how grateful I am that it was me to get hurt and not you or the prince!”

Another meanwhile, Ambrosius begged his father to let him be involved in the search for Ballister. He told his father “this gives me a chance to show my leadership abilities!” The head knight was then told to report to Ambrosius with anything having to do with the search

What Ambrosius really wanted to say to his father is “look I love this man and I would rather not see him with a sword in his chest or a arrow between his eyes, so please let me be in charge!!”

After a bit ballister decided to sneak into the institute to check the security cameras of the armoury and of course Nimona tagged along

They then find the video of the director taking Ballister’s forearm piece and replacing it with the weapon one, they download it to post later

They don’t leave the institute right away because ballister wants to find his armour pice just to be sure, so they sneak into the director’s office and Bal does find the pice

Then the director walks in, Nimona shifts into Todd (cuz yes) and Ballister ducks under her desk

“Sureblade what are you doing here?” “Well..uuhh— I thought heard some one in here and wanted to uhh um- punch them..?” *continuous looks to ballister👀* “Surebalde what are you looking at?”

After the final look to Ballister is made the real Todd walks in to say he lost the prince again and for a second it’s the Spider-Man pointing meme until Ballister jumps over the desk grabbing Nimona and booking it out the door

After running from the kinghts they both hop the wall to the Institute, thinking it’s the one facing the city, when in reality they just hopped the wall to the castle

(I like to think the castle and institute are right beside each other)

“Oh fuck” “wrong wall 😐”

Ballister knows where they are and knows a way out (Ambrosius wasn’t the only one who knew how to sneak away)

On the way out they run into the Prince in one of the more private gardens in the palace.

Ambrosius stands there in shock for a minute, “Ambrosius I uh- please-” “UHHH BOSS I DON’T THINK WE HAVE TIME FOR CHIT CHAT!!!”

And they don’t palace security is approaching fast.

Ballister runs to Ambrosius to give him a ‘hug’ when in reality it’s to give him the armour piece “please believe me, I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I didn’t mea-” “OK BOSS TIME ITS TO SKEDADDLE!! LOVELY MEETING YOU!!!”

And Nimona grabs Ballister and runs

Ok that’s what i got for now, again feel free to add your own little additions and such I’d be happy to read them!!

[firekitten830]

Some thoughts about Miguel, the comics, and what it could mean for Beyond the Spiderverse

This post has spoilers in it! It also contains mentions of suicide. And it's also VERY long. Consider yourself warned.

Comic vs Movie Comparison

Going to be starting this off with comparing movie Miguel and comic Miguel. And to clarify before we get into it, I don’t think deviation from the comics is a bad thing, and I love both versions. Also worth mentioning that at the time of writing this I've only read the original series from 1992, Dark Genesis, and a couple of the temporal crossover stories (which I'm considering non-canon for the sake of this discussion). I might make another post like this once I've finished all of them.

Starting off with story deviation there's... not a lot for me to really say here, since we don’t know much about movie Miguel’s backstory aside from the part where he accidentally caused a universe to collapse, so there’s not a lot to point out in terms of story deviation yet. However his personality and behavior is a little bit different. He’s more serious in the movie. Now Miguel has always been more serious than most other versions of Spiderman, but in the comics he’s still humorous. His humor just tends to be more sarcastic and cynical (think a bit like Deadpool) rather than the quips and wisecracks you usually get with Spiderman. He’s pessimistic and actually pretty mean, especially when not in his Spiderman alter ego. I'll admit I do miss his sarcasm in retrospect, but at the same time it wouldn't really suit the role the movie has set him up to play. Plus his characterization in the movie is still super good, and I like it a lot.

Miguel in the comics does tend to be a lot less bouncy and acrobatic than most other spidermen, and that definitely shows in the movie too. But the movie did something I personally love, and pushed that aspect further, and made him almost animalistic rather than just a Spiderman that fights a bit more close quarters. He’s intimidating, he’s brutal, every move has weight and power that you can feel through the animation. They kept the inertia of his movements in mind, something they do for all of the characters but is especially noticeable and fun with characters like Miguel who have a lot of force behind their movements (This is also why I love how The Prowler is animated so much). One of my highest praises for these movies is that every character has their own unique style, and Miguel’s fits him very well and stays true to the comics.

And the last point I'm going to talk about before jumping in to speculation is the powers. There's not a lot for me to say here either in regards to comparison, since we've not really gotten a chance to see how movie Miguel's powers work, but I still do want to address it because if it's the same as in the comics, then he's actually pretty unique! Makes sense, considering he didn't get them from the standard radioactive spider-bite (more on that later). I am sorry to say but he is (probably) not a vampire (I say probably because it's entirely possible he is in the movie. But assuming it's the same as the comics, he isn't actually a vampire, just looks like one, since judging by the fact that Blade is... around... vampires are real in his world). Do keep drawing him as a vampire tho its hot.

Anyway. He does have those fangs in the comics! He also has venom! As in the paralytic toxin spiders use to catch prey, not the character. Another thing that sets him apart is that he... doesn't seem to have a spider-sense? At all? He has super enhanced normal senses, but not that sort of extra sense that pretty much every other spiderman seems to have. I don't know if this is true in the movie but it would be sort of neat. He also isn't sticky! Instead he has those talons to hook onto surfaces, those are a part of him, not the suit. Unless they changed it in the movie which is the one and only change i think would be super lame. But since they gave him the fangs I doubt it. There is one noteworthy difference between his powers in the comic and the movie, and it's that in the movie his webs seem to be technology based, maybe some form of energy or hard light technology, while in the comics he has spinnerets in his arms. It could also be a mix of both, or that could just be how his natural webs look. Either way I'm curious why that change was made, even if it was as simple as just to fit the futuristic aesthetic.

Miguel's Backstory

Onto the next section! I'm going to do my best to give a brief recap of Miguel's backstory, for anyone who doesn't know it. For the sake of simplicity I'm going to assume that his backstory in the movie is more or less the same as in the original comics, up to the part where he goes to another universe.

In the year 2099, most major cities are controlled by the interests of oppressive mega-corporations. Nueva York, controlled by Alchemax and their corporate police, is literally divided between the Uptown and the Downtown, the uptown being the shining, sparkling futuristic city where all of the rich and important people live, while the downtown is the crumbling remains of New York that have been built over, where all of those deemed worthless by Alchemax are confined to.

Miguel O'Hara is the head of the genetics project in Alchemax's R&D branch, leading their efforts regarding gene splicing and genetic manipulation. Miguel is a snarky, standoffish man, who’s just generally a jerk to pretty much everyone. He has a soft spot for Dana, his fiance, Lyla, his apartment's AI companion, and Gabriel, his younger brother, and... that's about it. Despite his rather high position in the company, Miguel has a strong distaste for Alchemax and its unethical scientific practices, and is determined to delay human genetics testing until he's sure it's 100% safe. After his reservations are ignored by the higher ups, and hasty human testing leads to the death of a man under Miguel's unwilling hand, he decides to quit working for the company. However, he's a valuable asset. Tyler Stone, the head of Alchemax, laces a drink for Miguel with Rapture, a hallucinogenic drug that alters genetic structure to cause almost guaranteed addiction and withdrawal so severe it can be deadly. Coincidentally, Rapture is only legally produced and distributed by Alchemax.

Rather than let himself be manipulated, Miguel decided to use his own genetic modification equipment to attempt to reverse the alterations made by Rapture. During the procedure, Miguel's supervisor, resentful of Miguel's fast rise through the ranks and his constant disrespect for his superiors, sabotaged the process in an attempt to kill him. Instead he ended up activating the gene splicing program, and spliced Miguel and a spider together. Why was a spider present at all, you may ask? The final result of this genetic manipulation project was super-soldiers, and Miguel had decided to take inspiration from a certain hero back in the Heroic Age. Spider based enhancements seemed to work pretty well back then, why not give it another go?

After emerging from the process very much not dead, but no longer human, Miguel has to navigate new powers, and the new dangers that come with the mantle he's accidentally taken. It's around this point when Miguel starts to have thoughts of taking his own life, and pretty consistently continues to throughout the story.

I'm not giving a full recap, this story is already long and I don't remember specifics for most things. Miguel faces a myriad of villains, future versions of classic spiderman villains and new foes as well. He also takes over Alchemax after usurping Tyler Stone, which I'll touch on again later. But throughout all of it a consistent theme for him is loss. Over the course of the original comics, he loses almost everyone he has any kind of connection with, in one way or another.

He has a falling out with his fiance, Dana, and before he can try to reconnect, she gets caught in the crossfire during a fight with Venom and dies in his arms. He finally starts to repair his broken relationship with his mother, only for her to be shot during a raid on Alchemax after she started working as a secretary. Gabriel eventually becomes so overcome with resentment for Miguel that he takes up the mantle of Green Goblin, and attempts to ruin his life and also kill him. Xina, an old flame he was rekindling his relationship with, left him again without so much as a goodbye. The only one he has left to turn to for any sort of familiarity or comfort is Lyla, and even she tried to kill him once. He cuts himself off from everyone who tries to make a connection with him again, because he's convinced that being close to him leads to people hating him, dying, or both. Assuming Miguel's backstory is the same up to this point, he's already at the lowest he's ever been. And probably stays there until he and Lyla develop the technology to travel between universes. Here's where the speculation kicks in.

Miguel finds another universe like his own. Another universe with another Miguel O'hara, except this one never became Spider-man. And this one never lost all of the same people that the other did. He and Dana got married, they have a daughter. They're happy. Not only does he have proof that it isn't just being close to him that gets people hurt, he has an opportunity. Because this other Miguel is dead, and this other Miguel isn't Spider-man. He could take his place and be free of his own unhappiness, his own burdens, and save the inhabitants of this parallel world the pain of losing him. And for a brief time he's happy, he doesn't have to be Spider-man, he has a family and a life that isn't full of danger and loss. And then he loses it all again, and is left once again with nothing but the feeling that it is his fault.

Further speculation, I think that's probably why he's so caught up with "canon"; it means that the losses he faced were inevitable. It makes him feel just a little bit better, a little less guilty. Yes, he's trying to protect other universes from possibly meeting the same fate as the one he caused to collapse, but he's also trying to make himself feel better in the process, even if he doesn't realize it.

Theories

This bit is going to be mostly unstructured, since I don't have any huge theories, just certain smaller points or plot elements I think are going to happen.

Miguel’s ties to Alchemax are going to come up, and they’re going to be important.

Alchemax is a company that originated in the 2099 comics. There has to be a reason they chose it for the company in Into the Spiderverse, because there’s dozens of other evil companies they could’ve chosen. But they chose Alchemax, the company Miguel has ties to, and then they set him up as an antagonist. It's going to be brought up, and it's going to be important.

Miguel and Miles will relate to each other

I say this because they're both very much outliers. They aren't their world's original Spider-man, they both have different powers and backstories than the other Spider-men. I feel like this is going to be called out, both as a way to call out Miguel's hypocrisy, and as a way for Miles to relate to him and find common ground.

Miguel was injecting himself with a gene stabilizer, or with something Rapture related

I know I'm not the first person to suggest the first part of this point. It makes sense--we know that the mutations from the spider DNA didn't all happen immediately. I also can't imagine that having your genome that dramatically altered is very good for you. I haven't seen anyone suggest the second part, but I think that's probably because it's not seeming very likely at this point. I don't want to rule out the possibility, though.

Peter B is going to be important to resolving the storyline with Miguel/Have a heart to heart with him

During the movie I got the sense that Peter B is trying to befriend Miguel, or at least to get him to open up a bit more. I think this is because he sees himself in Miguel. Yes, they're very different, but they're similar in ways that matter. Peter B looks at Miguel and he sees someone who's given up; on his principles, on his role, on his own life. Peter B has never been openly suicidal like Miguel, but before he met Miles he was still very much in the same spot. He had still given up on his ideals, on being Spider-man, and he made the choice to stay and destroy the collider not for a noble reason, but because he didn't care if he died. I think that Peter has recognized that same mentality in Miguel, and is trying to reach out to pull him back from that edge, like Miles did for him. I think the two of them have a lot of potential for some heartfelt interaction, and I hope I'm picking up on something that's actually there and intentional.

So that's pretty much it! This post is a lot more ramble-y and unstructured than I wanted it to be, but it was really just a way for me to get my thoughts out.

[istherewifiinhell]

okay just gonna link a bunch of the es story boards videos (i started this with the mind of curation but ended up in a place of COLLECTION. whoops)

and ONE FUN BONUS at the end which u could just skip to the bottom for if (website popup voice) YOU DONT LIKE COOL ANIMATION. (joking lmao. this is for me interact however u like). The bonus is BOTH a fun fact and a fun vid.

i could not be any more clear at ALL TIMES. that i want ppl to watch es but lol either way. <3 story boards. (note also the rise turtles like swag (crossover staff) and see why i say this show looks so good cause u can tell their doing the 3d like its 2d)

notes: scratch track (the non VA audio in theses) so charming. yay u get to see them actually use purple rain. u can really clock mandroid flubbed a punch cause he DIDNT want to punch alex (inch resting) LOOK how extra expressive twitches alt mode is in 2d tho RIP. (crys about the little bird moment for the five hundredth time). Hashtag <3 fucking lmao.

this scene is one of those first DAMN thats crazy in the show i feel like and oh lol. would u look at that. DAMN THATS CRAZY.

AND THEN. this is the part with the meg move i love so much and the meg.op battle couple AND THE AND THE. (passes out) its sooooo cool.

notes: deleted scene, explains WHY shock wave got out during the megs field trip ep. gayass. CUTE KITTY. #3 son mug. this shits literally just so funny. she/her rav pronoun drop fjgbdfjg.

notes: altered version from the final ep they moved night shade around. they all have their final mode colours in the boards aw lol. ALSO. little like. adopted kids moment that i doooo get why they cut but u ALSO GET how it would emotional payoff in the ep with NS protecting their parents Oughhh (rolls on the ground)

notes: JUST A LITTLE MORE emotional oumph to the megs flash back but not that different. hes handsome tho i like to see him. like the scratch tracks impression of shock wave its cute. i can hear the vocal quality their going for.

oh hey also GAY CARS. i just found these/am seeing them first time today

Neat!

NOT THE SAD SHIP VIDEO VIBES.... OH GOD OH GOD... NOT THE SAD ASS PIANO MUSIC..... WHAT THE HELL. THIS IS DEVASTATING. watching bd tanking those shots for bee and crumbling APART. awesome. what the fuck. HELLO.

finale stuff

kids fighting oppie at the train yard. just COOL

fight on the bridge. ALSO COOL.

BIG finale scene stuff in 3 diff parts

scary shit and visuals that FUCK

THE MEGS ANGST. im KILLS ME that it didnt get a way in there. tho would have killed me to see also. no really tho this shit is so visually insane god damn. seeing this DID also help me understand how the screamer save happened better. EVIL SPIDER MAN. also in the group that comes saves em. was not in the final ep but we must pray hes still safe maybe just doing smth else.... (hes with swin and his bro busting in. the brother is the car. lol). twitch doing megs move!!! (propelling herself with her canon). mandroid going full fucking beast mode.... etc.

urghh u can really vibe out how bad those injuries are. and emotionally. bwah.. and. THIS SHOW. god. okay.

okay this one isnt the bonus but ill give it anyway

song from the tf the movie and also my alarm for several months (yes it HAS stopped working thanks for asking) BWAH. my loves. (weeping gently)

OKAY HERE IS THE FUN BONUS VIDEO

REALLY funny really goofy really fucking delightful. the mean girl trio seekers energy is supreme. god i love gay ppl. anyway. hey. doesnt that screamer look.... familiar...... WHY YES. YOU MAY NOTE THE YOUTUBE CHANNEL... SAME PERSON. THEY GOT A FUCKING JOB. ON THE SHOW. (unsure if its causally related) THATS SO FUCKING CRAZY the world is wonderful. es seeker trio THE mean girls seeker trio of all time. even if their barely in it. cause like. wow. (gets stuck in my loop of watching this forever and ever again) BWAH

[simplych4i]

Spiderposting and you guys have to suffer with me

This is C-Lo and he is my favorite son. I have others but I can admit he is my favorite. If you want story, it's under the cut!

So first off his name is pronounced See-Low. The pronunciation has no meaning I just like to point it out. The name will become apparent why later ^^

For context before I begin, I was mainly raised on marvel spiderman movies so I'm more familiar with Oscorp being the weird science facility so I may say that occasionally. But I will try and say Alchemax!

SO ALL THAT ASIDE LETS GO

So. Just like how Kingpin from 1610 discovered other universes in the first film, his Alchemax did as well. Not to probe, but more so just research. They found that each earth needs a Spiderman, and they didn't have one. So, they would make one. They set up an advertisement that was mostly taken as a joke to become a superhero, but eventually someone signed up. This was C-Lo, and he signed a contract without reading the fine print, when he really should've. He signed over his autonomy, and they made him a spider. Not the exact process as- but similar to -Spiderman 2099 | Miguel O'Hara's mutation. Where he wasn't bitten, he was purposely mutated and therefore gained extra abilities. The clawses and teefs are the most major ones.

Well then they go, he's just a kid though. He has no skill, and even with training he could die. What do we do if he dies, make another spider? And then someone else is like no but yes but no. We clone him and connect the memories so we don't have to retrain him. And it's like wow you're a genius so they do that. They prepare cloning vats and connect the memories and train him, and just as predicted he doesn't last very long. But of course, his clone wakes up, and he's alive again. Cool! Not really of course it fucking sucks. But that turns out to be the way that his life works, now.

The boy gets mulched, remade, and sent right back out into the fray. He has a secure containment room in the facility that he's locked in nightly (unless villain shenanigans occur. But spiderman villains seem to love the day for some reason) He's not even allowed to make his own haircut or tattoo decisions and he's lost the want to, because it'll disappear when he dies anyways.

And yet despite all of it, he tries to stay so positive. He has interests and hobbies. He loves music he can scream to and puppets to play with and doing ballet- he wants to do ballet! In his fights you'll be watching and then suddenly be like 'did the spider just fucking relevé after landing' and you'll be right. He's terrified of being seen tho

There have been times though where he's tried to end it- trying to make the facility a slaughterhouse of his rage. Security ain't having that though, so he wakes up from it in a new body, of course. He has a high pain tolerance at least, from all of this.

Oh and finally, what does C-Lo mean?

It's a neat shortening of 'Clone' because after so long if living a certain life, people do tend to define themselves by it.

[frightknight]

hm i have some thoughts about spider-verse

so theres this one singular line that was said thats stuck with me and i hope its foreshadowing i really do

so miguel told miles that hes an anomaly, that he shouldnt have been able to be spider-man in his universe, essentially saying that miles broke canon by being bit by that spider

two things tho: first off, if that was the case then why hasnt miles' or spider-man 42s dimention gotten any holes yet why are they still fine (as far as we know now)

secondly, if miles isnt supposed to be spider-man, then does it really matter if he saves his dad

thats whats really getting to me, i wonder if thats where theyre going with this because that would be neat, that all the other spiderpeeps didnt think that miles saving his dad wouldnt break all the canons because miles has a different canon than the rest so it fits in anyways, or that miles wouldnt break his canon more because its already malleable its already been sequence broken or whatever

also seeing miles at the end was cool did not expect that one

[nyxqueenofshadows]

finished rgg gaiden so play diary time! took me 44 hours and i didn't even nearly do everything.

overall, hm, mixed feelings? i had a lot of fun with the new fighting style, and the plot's good, but there's pacing issues and some of the side content is grindy in a not fun kind of way.

anyway, notes below the cut. 5k words of 'em. yup. i've started dating them now so it should be easier to follow (for me, if no one else)

04/12/24

(chapter one)

I’ve missed kiryu more than I thought, the first time he opened his mouth I had a full body reaction, what the fuck have these games done to me asdfghjkl

ogikubo as in the guy from 7? that guy? huh.

the agent style is really fun ngl, the combos are slick and webshotting people is so satisfying

the lead into and out of the title sequence/op song was so smooth!! more of this please!!

there’s…no chat log. I’m only now realising just how much I relied on that while playing LJ, I think I might have to rewatch some cutscene or read plot summaries to make sure i’m getting everything I need here. hanawa especially, he’s like kuwana from LJ, for some reason his language choices are giving me some trouble. plus lots of Kansai-ben! normally I’m pretty good (lots of practice) but I wonder if it’ll cause any problems here

hanawa: don’t let anyone know your true identity. everyone within a hundred mile radius: knows kiryu’s true identity (edit: I love how this only gets more true as the game goes on asdfghjkl)

wait where did shishido go in that cutscene, did he get in a van and I missed it? oops

I can grab missing objects with the spider web that’s so funny asdfghjkl mister, how’d you get my ball down from that tree? *taps nose* it’s a secret

kiryu bro that’s a lot more than two guys 結構オーライの問題じゃねえよ

oh the ultimate attacks (motor reversal?) are in this game too! neat, I liked them in LJ and it’s nice to see more of them. fun to pull off too, tho they seem a bit less forgiving in this one? maybe it’s a timing thing (edit: yeah, it’s a lock-on thing. actually very forgiving, especially when you unlock the second part of them)

it’s so weird having an actual menu again and not just like, a phone. even the settings menus and shit are all laid out differently. (edit: did they do this to account for how you’re not supposed to have your phone in the castle? even tho you can take photos there *on your phone*??)

shishido is cool, I like this man already. his outfit fucks, and he’s got good energy in scenes. same with tsuruno actually but in different directions. they’re the two that have their own thing together, uh, 日本統一? or smth? so that might be why

they’re watase-gumi???? huh. OH WAIT YEAH watase wants kiryu’s help with all the shit going on behind the scenes in the 7 plot, got it, got it. …it’s not even been that long since I played 7, like 4 months at most? help.

-

05/12/24

it made me walk four blocks to not buy a cigarette? thanks guys

Yoshimura I Do Not like you. actually daidouji in general, I know they’re supposed to be like this and it makes them convincing antagonists but man. no wonder kiryu’s fucking miserable (aside from, y’know, every other reason).

is old ‘totally not a monk’ man gonna be the mvp of this game

the long battle through daidouji hq was really fun! good excuse to play around with the two styles (dragon seems to be better for bosses cos you can power through their guard) and the area itself is lovely

ofc we go to survive and Kashiwagi isn’t there!!! I know this is a thing for IW but come on!!! good scene tho, I’m liking tsuruno a lot

(chapter two)

the sotenbori intro was nice, it looks really good in the new lighting. plus the red eyes thing, a bit on the nose but neat little transition

akame!!! oh I like this woman already. she’s got great energy.

kiryu Does Not want to be here dealing with anyone’s bullshit and it’s very funny to me asdfghjkl tho he’s not changed, has he. like when helping the homeless guy out from the omi guys who were harassing him, he didn’t need to tell him about akame, but he did. very kiryu of him.

let it be known that as soon as I had free rein I immediately went to do all the karaoke songs. zero regrets. the fact that tonight has (upscaled?) moving footage from the game rather than still images now makes it even more emotional (to me anyway, a chronic nishiki simp)

ALSO the park is back???? the missing park that was in the pre-dragon age games???? what sorcery is this (…is it cos they needed somewhere to put the homeless people….)

the akame network has SOOO many things on the map at once, it’s kind of overwhelming. oh and speaking of the map why have they changed the colour of the icons AGAIN?? I swear they’re doing it every game now and it’s driving me nuts

wait, where did my bump into things noises go. you know, where you walk into a wall and kiryu’s like otto, or whatever. you give him dialogue for picking up and using keys but he’s silent when you run him full pelt into a glass door??? tho having said that yagami was the same, wasn’t he, and ichiban didn’t have any(?) even if the companions did in all three of those games…. but they’ve reused other audio, and they have audio for those moments, so just put them in rgg :sob: :sob: (am I the only person who cares about this, probably)

-

09/12/24

sotenbori is tiny but it still took me ages to get from one side of the map to the other, partly cos of being distracted by akame network stuff (why does everyone want lunch. nothing else, just lunch) but also cos of the encounters! the grace period is brutal, especially if you want to go past one of the spawn points

arms dealer guy is fun, looking forward to seeing more of him and his gadgets! him and the cigarette shop lady (I cackled when she tossed the firefly at the guy), I love when rgg takes otherwise normal people and gives them underworld connections

to the castle!!!!! all this going back and forth, kiryu’s never gonna hit net zero on his carbon emissions

it looks so good in there tho. the water looks a liiiittle bit jank, but all the lights and scrolling text on the walls, the people scattered around, the castle and arena looming in the distance, it all reeks of excess and I love it

ngl I totally forgot shishidou hadn’t had a title card yet asdfghjkl my bad. he got back at us for the mask (is the pink one always the first one, and then you can pick a cooler one if you ask the concierge? if so that’s very funny)

oh so that’s what the arena’s like. they’re reenacting battles from yakuza history and having people take roles depending on whether they win or lose. huh. they’re clearly having fun with it, why not. (first nishiki mention by name since at least kiwami 2, this was Not where I expected it to be)

is…is fake kiryu using a modified version of hajime’s gun moveset ASDFGHJKL I do like that they had fake kiryu say the line (死にてえやつらetc.) and whoever they got did a genuinely solid attempt at an impression!

the famed ryuji impersonator!!!! he doesn’t have a facial scar, but they really went and gave him the tattoo and everything. his moveset isn’t quite the same as ryuji’s either, it’s simpler, isn’t it. neat! (if they weren’t cowards they would’ve given us REAL ryuji but whatever. I’m not bitter, who’s bitter?)

nishitani III is gonna be a real piece of shit, isn’t he. oh boy. I liked the bit of shishidou’s backstory we got, even if it did feel like it needed to go here cos they had nowhere else to put it. it feels like a lot to say to someone you don’t know very well, even if you’re trying to make a point

why is there a locker key on the helipad asdfghjkl

-

10/12/24

(honestly I’m very sleep deprived and it’s fucking with my memory but I’m trying my best)

was gonna immediately go and do the tsuruno boss fight but then ETSUKOOOOOOO looking as sprightly as ever. bless her. haven’t finished her little plotline thing (I got distracted) but she’s always fun

I’ve seen people mention that gaiden feels more difficult than other yakuza games and I’m kind of inclined to agree, that boss rush/long battle was kind of hard! obviously it’s early days so there’s a learning curve to do alongside the difficulty one, but yeah, those guys hit hard! at least kiryu gets up a lot faster than yagami did

the little motion kiryu does to pick up a weapon now, kicking it up into his hand, that’s cool, big fan

tsuruno fight very fun! loved the intro and uh mid-fight cutscene? I was gonna say QTE but there wasn’t one

shishidou isn’t gonna be pleased with this outcome, is he

i…don’t think I understood all of the convo after the tsuruno fight. i got most of it, I think, especially the second half, but not having a chat log (and also aforementioned sleep deprivation) is not doing me any favours here. that said, good! same for the one afterwards with (surprisingly but not unreasonably bloodthirsty) hanawa, where kiryu gives his motivation.

I was wondering why the akame network was missing from the map and then I saw pocket circuit(!!!!) and realised. nice approach! including the side content with the main, and this one felt less contrived than the cabaret club one. (I did a cup, because ofc I did)

finished my first akame network substory, the one with the streamer and the ghost. it got a little tedious but I liked how it ended

time to go to the arena again? cool, but first to get shoeeeeees

-

11/12/24

shoes acquired (after doing a couple of akame network things on the way there and back, including finishing all-seeing etsuko’s substory) so it’s back to the castle! cos akame wants money money money (good for her tbh, she’s seen her opportunity and she’s not letting go)

(why can you gift her cigarettes???)

oh I’ve unlocked dress up, it’s so joever BUT WAIT I spent all my money on combat upgrades for kiryu nooooooo just you wait painted nails, I’ll be back for you

hammerhead was surprisingly easy, but having an open space like that was very useful for testing out the boots. flying up to an enemy to do a heavy attack is good fun ngl. I assume I’ve unlocked all the gadgets now? I have no more buttons to long press, soooo

the lounge is so pleasant to walk around, the coloured lighting is gorgeous and the pool! can’t wait to fill this place with allies. tho if everyone has friend bars to level up…..

��ラリーマン太郎 is good tho, made me laugh

I usually complain about there being too many help menus in rgg games (looking at you LJ) but honestly I would’ve preferred one for zigoku rumble? just cos there’s the ‘order’ mechanic that it doesn’t explain at all. and this was a while ago but same for the cabaret club, it’s fairly intuitive but some sort of ‘hey do this to do this’ wouldn’t have gone amiss imo

did I spend all my arena earnings on more outfits for kiryu? you bet I fucking did. man’s gotta serve cunt in these cutscenes

I am actually looking forward to doing all the arena stuff, it looks fun, but! lots of akame network things to do, so I’ll poke away at those on my way to the next plot thing.

sunflower???? and he knows Kazama???? intriguing. akame says this guy isn’t being completely honest, but I can tell kiryu doesn’t want to believe that (he looked up to Kazama, he says, and if true that he’s a swindler then that’s different to kiryu’s version of what 憧れ looks like). hm.

CHOT DDT FUCK this substory has me hollering ngl. I literally did a spit take when the name first came up. I sometimes forget this game came out when it did and then they put in stuff like this and I get smacked with the reminder that I’m not playing a game from 2015 anymore (I think this is probably the game I’ve played closest to its release date ever tbh so that might have smth to do with it)

I got very distracted, I’m still in chapter two asdfghjkl

-

12/12/24

finished the chat gpt substory and yeah, saw that coming, that the prospective girlfriend was using it too. remarkably positive outcome, considering how things are looking now, almost a year after release…. (funny tho, good substory)

finally went back to the main plot and fuck dude…. even tho you know that kiryu’s gonna be fine (we’re not even up to date on the 7 timeline yet) they do really great job of building tension in those scenes up to when tsuruno comes in to save the day with a fuck load of money. kiryu’s value has exponentially grown since 1989 (or, well, maybe not. inflation, y’know). hanawa…. he’s really growing on me. (saved by kiryu twice? hm.)

also really well shot and animated, especially the bits just before hanawa refuses to shoot kiryu. his hands shaking, the way his face screws up, kiryu’s everything he has going on, all excellent.

MONK MAN coming through once again.

I also find it immensely funny that the game master system is in the daidouji hideout. like, the idea of kiryu going back there – where he was nearly forced to shoot tsuruno, and he and hanawa nearly killed each other – just to play like, sonic fighters is such an rgg thing to do I can’t even hate it

oh akame. I can’t tell if she’s genuinely that unaware or she’s just lightening the mood.

plot mandated arena? sweet, back to the castle to get more clothes babeyyyyyy

actually first I finished off that Kazama/sunflower substory and woof, I think I need to sit and ruminate on that for a while. really interesting take.

-

16/12/24

mostly more akame network stuff today, where am I gonna find a kappa in sotenbori??? (edit: WAIT I NEVER COMMENTED ON THIS AGAIN I was fuming, it’s directly across the river from the guy who asks. he’s LOOKING AT IT. grrrr)

the ryuji plotline thingy was okay? it felt kind of lacking in a way I’m struggling to articulate, tho kiryu being proactive to clear ryuji’s name from petty shit he believes ryuji wouldn’t do is neat. I also appreciate how fake ryuji 1 was in rggo ryuji’s 1999 outfit. nice little easter egg

also did some pocket circuit and yeah, it’s still really satisfying when you get a good build and lap your opponents. dangerous minigame, that

the arena is fun, but definitely doesn’t suit itself to being done all in one go (or at least not if you don’t mix up the kinds of fights you’re doing.) hangman continues to be difficult but fun to fight (he can just lift kiryu off his feet…) but I’ve not seen anyone else very memorable yet. also unclear to me if the pay to recruit mechanic works like the cabaret club and majima’s construction did in k2, where that’s the only way you can get those characters. ah well, future me problem

I love that the item available from the men in speedos on the pleasure boats that go across the sotenbori occasionally is 金玉 (balls) asdfghjkl perfect

oh there’s bond talks with akame!!! these are good, enjoy these a lot.

-

17/12/24

so I was originally gonna do a bunch of akame stuff before going to the castle and meeting tsuruno, but ended up not doing that and didn’t realise I was going into a fight with nishitani III so uhhhhhh yeah. lucky I ate smth at the fighter’s lounge first asdfghjkl

I was wondering how nishitani 3 fit in, and that makes sense. he *would* be a pretty big obstacle in shutting down the omi (and by extension the tojo). but it seems awful bold to have a conversation about what is essentially a coup d’état RIGHT IN FRONT OF NISHITANI 3 like of COURSE he wants in on what the castle newbie (who he knows shishidou knows) and the captain are up to. tsuruno, buddy, what was the plan here

fight through the castle is good fun, going into the belly and back out again. I like the little details of staff clearly on break (mainly hostesses but other evidence too, of people having to live and work there). the masks some of the guys wear are really weird tho, are they a reference to smth? probs not (edit: turns out the castle has a mascot. would love to know the in-game explanation for that one)

nishitani 3 continuing the nishitani tradition of being horny as fuck to fight (tho I would say it felt shoehorned in? but he sells it so it’s fine). my question is when kiryu is like 今やるのは喧嘩だろうな or whatever it was he said, what the fuck would he have done if nishitani 3 was like nah, I’m here to fuck asdfghjkl

fun fight! nice QTE! yeah!!!

Idk if it was intended that way, but when tsuruno keeps kiryu from beating up nishitani 3 more and also stops nishitani 3’s guys from attacking kiryu, it makes me get why he’s captain. he makes it look so easy and gets everything under control pretty quickly

akame takes all of this so calmly for someone who is essentially a civilian asdfghjkl

the little arms dealer rescue diversion thing directly after you get back from the castle was okay? I assume the bad guy there (I can’t read his name I’m so sorry) will come up again later. at least his drones are easy enough to block

poked around some other akame network stuff and KAITO I FOUND HIM AHHHHHH I wasn’t expecting this substory to be as involved as it is, I’m having a great time. the two have a really good back and forth and wait why is higashi damsel in distress again, rgg why do you keep doing this to him

-

19/12/24

finished the kaito substory! good fun overall, they mesh well. tho I maintain that higashi wouldn’t have been taken down by chinpira that easily! at least I unlocked them for the arena (isn’t sugiura there too? where’d he go)

I basically did mostly plot today, but ‘plot’, so running around with shishidou and tsuruno and painting the town red asdfghjkl tsuruno’s initial reaction is so funny, but he really commits to the bit after that. good on him.

it’s such an enjoyable sequence, silly and simple as it is, because the characters are clearly letting loose and there’s a lot of playful dialogue. there were multiple points I laughed, I kept stopping to get photos with the gang (shishidou’s subordinates are the real mvp of this bit, fight me) and it’s the kind of silly fun I love rgg for. they tease a karaoke night out with watase, I know this is never gonna happen but I NEED that so badly omg (edit: interesting to think about shishidou and this in retrospect)

I also like that you can do an approximation of some of the minigames with the watase gang, i.e. golf, karaoke, and billiards. and there’s new 合いの手for the karaoke purely for this one bit! delightful! HOWEVER the billiards game with tsuruno was an absolute shitshow. I’m not especially good at it to begin with, yet somehow tsuruno is worse??? there was a point where we were trying to pot the three (early days, I know) and I think we went at least four goes each without potting it At All. the only reason we got anywhere is cos I fouled and tsuruno literally put the ball in the perfect position. there was a point later on where he was gonna pot the 7? I think and he was RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE POCKET and yet still missed. I was embarrassed on their behalf. abysmal playing from all involved. I despair. AND I ended up potting most of the balls AND YET tsuruno comes in and pots the 9 in his first attempt. if I was a rage quitter that would’ve been my moment

oh also the fact that he’s labelled kiryu kazuma in the billiards minigame menu itself is very funny to me, it’s not like that anywhere else, only billiards. billiards, the all-seeing eye

i…should go and do some akame network stuff but I wanna reunlock the castle again so I can split my time more evenly? so time to finish chapter 4 ig (aren’t there only five chapters…..)

tsuruno’s はい？ when kiryu says they’re gonna recapture the castle while the nishitani 3 the king is away was excellent asdfghjkl between this and the going out on the town the previous night he’s probably wondering what the fuck he got himself into. or what oyaji got him into, to be more precise

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20/12/24

I thought this the other day when they went out on the town, but if the plan is to make it that the kijin and the watase aren’t having a big public fight, then surely tsuruno and shishidou turning up to help out (the latter in a known shishidou outfit) messes with this whole plan??? nishitani 3 knows anyway, we find that out in the phone call later, so what’s it for? to keep the rank and file guys from fighting?

kiryu looks real good in that chair at the top of the castle. js.

so we own a boat now. neat! I’m sure this will have no consequences at all- oh great, killer clown came to say hello. figures the four kings are all クセが強い kinds of guys, we have killer clown, robot man, gunslinger, and a big BIG dude. with a dyed undercut (lots of half dyed hair in this game). gotta do the rest of the arena first tho, I’ve mostly got the team rumble stuff left now)

(I kind of suspected tom was going to be one of the four kings? but ig not. would’ve been one hell of a twist tho)

so there’s the sponsorship matches, right? where you talk to the ceos (or, well, 社長) and they say fight with my weapon! and so you do. first guy, relatively normal. pretty sure one of the hospital security guards had smth similar way back in judgment. second lady, HAS A WAVY LIGHTSABRE. what the fuck kind of progression is this asdfghjkl

quest for golden balls is at 5/7, I’m assuming at least one of those in the gambling halls somewhere, idk where the last one is. please don’t be mahjong.

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25/12/24

this was like 30% finishing some akame quests I’d started and then 70% pocket circuit. those point restrictions are *brutal*. I could just look up this on a guide (and probably will at some point) but I wanna see how far I can get on skill and trial and error alone. it’s not like the matches cost anything, so :shrug:

there is no way this bar would stay open tho, not with their only(?) source of income being food and drink. that would not cover all the costs here, not even close. pocket circuit fighter could barely keep his place open and he was charging for both parts AND matches. tho ig the economy is doing better(?) now than it was.

(If you ever want to know what my brain is like all the time, ^^^ that’s it.)

-

02/01/25

god what the fuck was I doing. taking a week off has completely broken my stride asdfghjkl

alright let’s go do some plot, off to (not) kill nishitani 3.

shishidou my man!!! there’s no way he won’t be found out in his very distinctive get-up but whatever, I think everyone knows that going in, so. he’s also really helpful in fights but, wait, is friendly fire on? *fights some more* yeah, kinda! so we can’t do damage to each other, but AOE attacks that send you flying *do* work on each other, and if you strike at shishidou (and others, I assume) he’ll block you. huh.

(related but after the plot stuff I went back to the castle to do some zigoku stuff and kamiyama has amon’s cannon from 0 and my god does that ruin any attempts to get close to an enemy he’s fighting asdfghjkl spent half that match on my arse)

weird spot to bring up nishitani 3’s past but ig there was nowhere else to put it? also them using カミングアウトto describe nishitani’s reveal of his jingweonha heritage to the omi took me right out, I have no idea whether that’s a legit usage for it and I’ve just never seen it in a non-queer context but oh my god. need to check some jp streamers for that one I think

the interior of this hideout looks an awful lot like where the end of LJ happened. I know it’s not and it’s just reused assets or whatever but it’s kind of jarring

I kind of like how nishitani 3 still doesn’t have all the pieces put together. it’s nice to be on the side of knowledge for once, normally it’s kiryu (and ichiban) who have no idea what’s happening and are being given the run around by the bad guys. it’s still kind of that but we’re not the least informed in the room for once

also told you that shishidou would be revealed immediately. バレた～

good fight, good fun. his theme is great and tho I’m struggling with his attacks the way I kind of did with soma in LJ (that flashbang attack is brutal if it hits) it’s a nice challenge. first thing I did in this fight was pick up one of the gold women statues and was treated to kiryu beating nishitani 3 up with a full view of fake cunt, figures that’d be smth nishitani would be into.

shishidou just stabbed him???? a lot??? holy shit??? kiryu’s pissed, and fair enough. tsuruno and co are kind of treating him the same way that the daidouji (and everyone else?) do, as a weapon to be pointed at their problems and not his own individual person. (edit: wait, if none of shishidou’s stabbing was real, why does nishitani 3 have an eyepatch? he was taken out of the fire pretty quickly and kiryu didn’t do it. huh.)

he looks tired. well, no rest for the weary, there’s side content to do! *immediately goes and gets 100 on hands and then perfect on the golf bingo on my first try* hey maybe kiryu should be tired more often asdfghjkl

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03/01/25

did the last of the plot before the finale (you know, the really long finale) and poked around some akame network stuff and that’s about it!

the like, powerpoint presentation of y7 plot points was a little eh but I get it, they have to speed run that or we’ll be here forever and it’s not that kind of game. so the time skip for kiryu comes just before uh *checks wiki* chapter 9 in y7, and it speeds up through to when ichi arrives in sotenbori which is chapter 12. the meeting between kiryu and ichi is after that, so are we gonna play that? the one where ichi gets all upset and beats the thug up. might be out of the scope of the game. either way that’s in y7 chap 14, quite a bit later.

really liked the convo on the engawa with hanawa, about what kiryu wants/doesn’t want. Hawaii gets a mention too! good scene all round. I kinda wish there was more of the two of them interacting like this. then again I did take a week break, my view might be a bit skewed.

had some time to kill after that so I finished a good chunk of the akame network stuff that’s not the arena. I’ve got like ten(?) missions left on the map, and that’s it? going pretty well. I’ve barely touched pocket circuit tho, I really need to get on that asdfghjkl

oh and I finished one of the cabaret girls. awkward. it’s similar to the photography minigame from k2 but with no mechanics to distract from all the y’know, fan service of it all. I just stared at my keyboard and waited for it to be over asdfghjkl

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04/01/25

…why did I think the finale was four hours long??? it was less than two! ah well

it was good!!! the fights were all so good!! the bit in the courtyard where kiryu kicks majima’s blade into his hand and he stabs the guy with it MWAH incredible. was bouncing in my chair. more of that please rgg!!!!! (not kazumaji, necessarily, but combo moves). actually that whole fight. everyone strips (except watase) and it’s stupid and cool and god I love these games

especially liked the final one against shishidou (shades of the Aizawa fight in 5? ish?)! what happens to him after that is super fucked up though, I was kind of expecting it to come up again somewhere in the aftermath but no???? like I thought nishitani 3 would come back a third time (leaving akame alone with him is a WILD choice even if he has just been hit by a car) but ig not? him and nishitani 3 are just like that now, leashed to the daidouji, and kiryu is okay with it?? does he even know???

the last bit tho where kiryu sees the video of the kids :sob: for honesty’s sake I didn’t actually cry, but I was nearly there. the bit where kiryu’s showing haruto’s drawing to hanawa (who’s already seen it) like ‘look! look how good my grandchild is at drawing already! is he old enough to be writing yet?’ cos he’s proud but doesn’t know and GAHHHHH thinking about it makes me want to cry again. (also he can write, it says おじちゃん on the drawing which is another gut punch)

oh and kiryu continuing to stick to his ‘I don’t know you people’ line is both funny and also kind of sad. one, he believes that people believed he was dead (even tho categorically no one else has that we’ve seen) and two, if he explicitly says that he’s kiryu kazuma he breaks his deal with the daidouji and his kids are in trouble again. when he says saejima and majima(-no-nii-san)’s names, he sounds like he’s genuinely missed them too (as he should). 

I know this is just me being super cynical, but the daidouji kind of feels like an excuse/leaving room for them to bring back supposedly dead characters in the future? not that they need that excuse (they all open bars, clearly) but it’s there now for all those characters who didn’t die or go to prison on screen. maybe this’ll come up in infinite wealth, idk.

alright! well, that done, time to finish all the side content!

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07/01/25

making an executive decision to not do the rest of the hostesses cos they’re not fun and I don’t get anything out of it

pocket circuit is okay? ig? there’s just kind of a lot and my brain doesn’t like a lot. the arena stuff is much easier for me to do so I’m kind of latching on to that. both kind of involve grinding tho, and the unfun kind of grinding.

went round and did all the locker keys (those contact lenses are a godsend) and it actually wouldn’t let me open one cos I had a full inventory of the item, which was interesting.

also think I unlocked all of the fighters in the arena? and figures it’s sugiura I unlock last asdfghjkl at least I have him now!

-

08/01/25

why is everything so grindyyyyy

literally that’s it, that’s all my notes for today.

-

09/01/25

yeah I’m giving up on pocket circuit, the builds online don’t work and I can’t figure out one that does and I’m not having fun. I’m gonna finish the arena shit (maybe tomorrow, who knows) and then call it there for the game I think. there’s more I could do, but that feels like trying to artificially inflate my game time and I’d rather not, not when it’s not fun.

-

11/01/25

done! honestly laughable how much easier ukagami(?) is than mr robot man, tho ig with a well-levelled team robot man wasn’t so bad. was it worth getting there? eh.

[squiddieblogs]

Rambly post abot the pjo show.

I read the books after episode 3 to see what I liked about them PFF

maybe a 3/10 from me. I think I’m the wrong audience, but I’m not sure if kids would be the right audience either.

What I liked.. it wasn’t a lot.

- Blue food mention !! I am so easily swayed.

*tho they feel like they crammed in a bunch of character stuff in the last episode. Peter Johnson, Annabeth’s fear of spiders and Blue Pancakes..

- as a cringe non American it was fun to have visuals for all this stuff. Like in my head everything was so different lol. Olympus was also very pretty. I’d always imagined it to be made of minecraft quartz.

- Ares was fun, and I liked most of the actors. Tho of course I can nitpick pff (ie. I didn’t expect Zeus to be bald PFF sorry o7)

- I really loved the end credits lol, I watched most of them. It really loved that the gods shown all pretty much showed up in the series, except maybe Athena? Who didn’t show up physically as far as I’m aware.

- the amount of god appearances is kinda interesting. I am curious how it will be if they do later books, since there were random in world big 12 god appearances for every book (Ares in 1, Hermes in 2, Apollo, Aphrodite and Athena in 3, Hephaestus and Hera in 4. Hestia kinda in 5? I guess. Plus Dionysus being a mundane figure in camp halfblood). So I do kinda like they’re scattered around, and it makes sense to me. Tho of course there’s more of them the more crazy things get.

Observations (mostly what I didn’t like)

- the sheer mount of talking scenes. Additionally everyone is SO quiet in this show, and it’s hard to focus on what they’re saying cuz I’m partially deaf. I found the Hermes in the lotus casino kinda hard to follow and I need to rewatch it because I have no idea what they said in that scene lol.

- I didn’t really like the tunnel of love replacement because it was much more boring.

- so much happens in this show that falls flat, especially things they added. At least I didn’t feel much

Eg. The golden chair is like. Percy sacrifices himself > Hephaestus shows up and says some stuff (I need to rewatch because it was quiet and really dark again) > Percy is ungilded > they never speak of this again.

Eg. They miss the deadline. Oh no. Gives back the bolt and Poseidon surrenders so no more war. What was the point of there being a war? Like they mentioned that planes weren’t operating cuz of it and there wasn’t even an “oh shit how are we gonna get the state building before war gets super real”. The stakes that should come from an impending war just aren’t there. I don’t think it should it have been a thing at all (and it wasn’t in the book)

Eg. They go to the Arch for protection (not because of annabeth nerd reasons btw. I hate that they didn’t include that) and because Athena was offended by Medusa , Echidna is able to follow them in > annabeth is like, why would my mom do that? > Her faith is never brought up again.

I think a positive example of points not falling flat is the Medusa scene. Medusa kinda explicitly lays out a theme, then she is killed and as reaction Percy sends her head to Olympus. It’s also kinda neat cuz the head is brought back to deal with gabe at the end (even if he didn’t really deserve it from what we saw of the show) The main thing with Medusa tho is that the scene gets wrapped up with Percy deciding to do something with it and the others are like, why that’s a terrible idea. They actually react to what they just did and with an action.

- related, but the show is a kinda mix of episodic and narrative I feel? The last points are an example of stakes being kinda self contained. As well, they set up things as an episode happens it seems - ie. Flashbacks of Luke doing sword fighting with Percy in the last episode instead of in the first few episodes. Tho I can’t think of any more examples of that kind of set up atm, I just thought it was interesting.

However they did add some info about Luke from further on in the series, so idk.

- it’s brought up a tone but the fact they know everything removes so much tension and whimsy. It removes a lot of character and childishness to their actions as well. As well, it means they knowingly walked into traps 2-3 times. Also in the Lotus they kinda. Walked into a trap and then sent Grover away like? what are you doing !

It also removes some of the smartness of the characters like. They manage to get away from Medusa even after being lured in, Percy figures out that the Lotus Casino is a trap and he manages to trick waterbed guy in order to defeat him.

Despite disliking the scene I did like that they tied waterbed guy into finding the underworld. I don’t think he would’ve been in the series otherwise.

- the character relationships are really dumbed down. There is some hints that Luke cares for annabeth but not really any hints that it’s a mutual bond. The school scenes are altered in a way that Grover and Percy never really feel like best friends, and Grover ends up kinda a third wheel. Percy and Annabeth don’t hang out at camp before the quest like the book, and their nicknames aren’t used until like half way to the end of the series.

- THE PACING IS AWFUL!! In episode 1-2 and the finale there isn’t a lot of time to breathe. There’s no time to reflect on many scenes that happen in the book throughout tbh. And many of the talking scenes and flashbacks are long and quiet. If I had to guess, I feel like they adapted the book scenes to be appropriate length for the show but didn’t really with new scenes.

- lastly I hate the tone. It’s so serious and if I see “dramatic music” in the subtitles again im mclosing it. There is really a lack of fun in this show. The light hearted nature of the first book at least is lost. Even if the book is shown in Percy’s pov I think they could have retained the mood and tone but they really didn’t. The movie (agony) I think does a great job of having the fun of the book even if the finale gives me whiplash everytime (Movie Luke is iconic tbh who is this dude? Look?)

Maybe I am a Movie apologist smh. I really don’t mind if they make changes to the story. At least unlike the movies, I do see the show as being Percy Jackson - tho really watered down and boring adaptation of a book that I still really enjoyed reading it as a cringe ass adult.

I don’t think the changes break the story but I think they were done poorly. I think it would have been more interesting if they didn’t know about every threat and they kept elements of the book that conveyed the personality of the chars other than Percy.

Maybe I will like it more on a rewatch. But I think that’ll be a while lol. Of course I’d love to hear opinions on how others feel. This is a ramble off the top of my head so not really that serious

[tahnisreu]

4, 22, 32, 38

4. What is their relationship with their parents? What’s a good and bad memory with them? Did they know both parents?

ㅤㅤㅤGood on both sides! They're about as normal a family as one can get in an RDA outpost on a hostile moon with limited supplies and all that but they make it work! There was a toyed with idea of Addi not being entirely close to her mom ( almost to the point the mom was out of the picture, like she left. wasn't killed wasn't anything she just couldn't handle being a mom and removed herself from that picture - leaving Addi with even more baggage like she's a moody teen enough tbh. ) because she was a little more rational and very hesitant at the idea of raising a kid on Pandora. Like imagine being a first time mom.. in those conditions. ( how am i supposed to live laugh love in these conditions ). But as far as current standings go, very good. If there were bad memories, it would be basic Teen/Parent arguments that would sometimes break out but were resolved eventually.

22. What are their favourite insults to use? What do they insult people for? Or do they prefer to bitch behind someone’s back?

ㅤㅤㅤAnything whiplash leading like 'buddy,' 'pal', 'friend,' but (derogatory) but she'll call something an 'idiot' (affectionate). She's on par with phrases like 'wouldn't you like to know, weatherboy.' 'You inept walnut.' 'Calling you an idiot would be an insult to stupid people.' Let it be known these are all directed at Spider. And no she WILL say these things to their face like she has 0 filter sometimes.

32. What do they dress like? What sorta shops do they buy clothes from? Do they wear the fashion that they like? What do they wear to sleep? Do they wear makeup? What’s their hair like?

ㅤㅤㅤAh yes, she goes to Ye Olde Kohls and Sephora on Pandora. So this one's kinda funny cause everything she wore as a kid had to be fashioned and adjusted from adult clothes. Standard RDA garments are very... uniform? Khaki, beige, red, white, black. Put some creativity on it and it works out. When the majority of people left, they did leave behind some clothes that got repurposed, but if she were say, a character in cartoon where they wear the same thing every it'd be something like...

Jackets

Tanks

Shorts

Pants

ㅤㅤㅤKinda like what Grace's avatar wears. Since her arms and legs are exposed though she actually incorporated a very durable sort of elbow and knee sleeve guard as well as fingerless gloves so when she inevitably falls, less injuries! She definitely wants to wear other things like what she sees girls her age wearing in movies but it's not like she can go to Claire's.

ㅤㅤㅤThis girl is technically bare-faced. No make up on Pandora unless someone left it behind and she knicked it from their room. But it's not like she knows how to apply it, it'd look like clown make up.

ㅤㅤㅤAnd she has about mid-arm length brunette hair that has a slight texture to it, like if it was short it'd be lose curls but since it's long its just wavy. She has 3 hairstyles, loose, lose-braid, and ponytail. Nothing fancy. One thing I considered was her having a section of hair that's underneath and longer than the rest that's braided to resemble a queue (Cause Spider is going for dreads), cause someone said she should do it and she was just 'okie dokie.' and just never cut that section of hair ( I voted Tuk).

38. What do they admire in others? What talents do they wish they had?

ㅤㅤㅤWHERE DO I START. All of it. Everything. She admires strengths like kindness and bravery, Grace's no-nonsense attitude, how smart her parents are, so many things. As far as talent goes, she's never felt like she lacks anything, she just decided things like'well i'm shit at painting so i guess i'm just not gonna do that. neat tho.' If she can do it, she does, if she can't, why get mad about it. Okay maybe she wished she was a little more agile but that's about it.

[mekatrio]

ok i will update this as time passes but anyways this is MYYYY list of miles morales issues that i actually like <3 will list them in (kinda) chronological order rn but as i add on issues that i read later i.. will not do that. ❤️ also im not listing down issues exclusively from his runs, im listing down any comic shit with miles in them that i like. yay! (but theyre all miles morales focused)

- Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man (2011) #5 this is the last issue of miles' origins arc! while i enjoy his spider-verse origins more, im actually OK with his original origins. tho i am not a fan of SHIELD butting in like, at all….. like straight up telling him that his uncle is the prowler? giving him his iconic SUIT? lame as hell.. but whatever! anyways i picked this issue from this arc specifically bc i think miles holding nick fury's hand is the cutest thing ever

- Spider-Men I (2012) this entire arc is great and imo the best miles storyline that bendis ever wrote for him. i dunno why its so good when it has the same amount of pages as every standard comic (17-19 pages). like not just the story and dialogue is good, but this is the best sequencing work ive seen from pichelli (the artist). this is kinda mean but nothing that bendis and pichelli put out for miles after this arc is as good as this LOL, like look how well these pages flow!

also it was peter's and miles' meeting in this arc that inspired the chaotic meeting between peter b and miles in ITSV 😊

- Spider-Man (2016) #10 its so sad that the only run thats titled 'Spider-Man' for miles morales, and not 'Miles Morales: Spider-Man' or 'Ultimate Spider-Man' or Whatever is written by bendis.. and is like. probably his worst run of miles yet but WHATEVER!! but yeah i havent properly sat down and read this run (as opposed to skimming it which is what i did) bc its just like. lame storyline after lame storyline... but this is the one good issue to come out of it. and out of Civil War II, which is the event this issue is having a crossover with.

quick summary of civil war ii: theres some dude who can allegedly see the future and is predicting that the superheroes will betray each other, and now the superheroes are split up against whether to believe these predictions and lock themselves up before these predictions come to fruition, or whether they should just chill tf out and ignore this guy. yeah. its... whatever. miles doesnt do much so i Dont Really Care. he does get a focus tho when the future-seeing-dude foresees that he will kill captain america! awesome!!!

not awesome for miles tho bc bendis-written miles is kinda lame but whatever. but anyways this issue deals with the aftermath of miles being accused of being a killer in his future, and how it deeply affected him, considering his family's criminal history. he has a supportive group of friends too that are there to comfort him so yeah! this is a really neat, touching, and heart-wretching issue.

- Spider-Man (2016) Annual #1 ok i said i hate miles' 2016 run but i actually really like the annual issue for it! its not written by bendis so maybe thats why lol. also ill be commenting on the first story of the annual not the second one. like i like the second one too but thats just ganke and miles fucking around in driving school.

so anyways this issue is kindaaa retconned.. like it was kinda? supposed to be miles' new origin for his immigration to 616 except.... no writer ever used this issue again, ever, so like.. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ the storyline is OK but what i really like abt this issue is two things:

1.) i really like that miles and uncle aaron's relationship is explored further here. like ill always love the exploration between these two bc i have prowler brain disease like you know this i know this im deep in the prowlerverse. whatever. but yeah i just really love the nuance in their relationship, i love that aaron is a product of his environment and is just looking out for miles the best he can. im not gonna analyze him too crazily rn so ill just let these panels speak for themselves:

and 2.) i really love that miles holds his ground and defends his existence in the last few speech bubbles. especially important in the context that this is his first run in 616, so he really has to affirm that he's earned his place alongside the already existing spider-man. miles is spider-man too and hes here to stay you son of a bitch!

(also its funny that he says he isnt an avenger when he becomes an avenger like a year or 2 later. lmfao. he also gets a What If? issue where he becomes captain bitchmerica and thor so... LOL?)

- Generations: Miles Morales Spider-Man & Peter Parker Spider-Man (2017) get a load of that fucking title. anyways this is an anthology, meaning it fits fucking nowhere in continuity and is just here for you to get your kicks in, hell yeah. its some fanfic-esque plot where miles morales gets transported to the past where peter parker is only on his like, 2nd or 3rd year of being spider-man. how does miles get back to the present? who fucking knows! dont worry about it.

whats striking about this comic is that miles isnt meeting some more modern adaptation of peter parker, hes very much meeting the peter parker that was published in the comics from the 60s. the same moody, grouchy, beaten-up-by-life peter parker from the 60s that revolutionized comics. even the art style of this comic reflects this.

its a very introspective and intimate comic. no big fights. just miles morales meeting the actual first spider-man. despite the ending rubbing me the wrong way at first, i eventually warmed up to it. at first i had thought it was saying something like "only peter parker is the true spider-man", but as i thought about it some more, i realized what it was saying was this: spider-man will always distinctly belong to peter parker, and to the writers and artists who established his early and iconic premise and storyline. this does not mean that spider-man does not belong to miles morales, but it means there is always a threshold for miles to reach for, and that isnt necessarily a bad thing. it is a legacy being shared with miles, and it is an amazing one.

(and its one that hes steadily living up to, in his own way ❤️)

- Marvel 1001 (2019) this is literally a one page special in a book of one page specials so ill just post the whole thing here! its just kamala and miles being cute and pranking each other 😊 and its by the artist of the champions, whom art style i love!

- Champions (2016) #25, #26, #27

shadow spider suit is here..... what else is there to say!

- Ironheart (2019) #6 kinda a continuation of the champions weirdworld arc that i just listed, bc it focuses on miles and riri who were paired together in that arc. i think the character dynamics between them are great, theyre both pretty introverted heroes but riri is more confrontational while miles is more withdrawn. it makes for a very interesting duo, and i wish they were paired up more often </3

cute little issue where these two are cute together, and also some pretty ominous commentary on the whole 'miles is not originally from this dimension' thing. like it gets handwaved away but miles was literally kept in captivity for like, 2 months without even being aware of it, and the reason for his captivity is bc he's from another universe that he doesnt even always remember. some dark shit honestly.. i love it!

- Miles Morales: Spider-Man (2019) #4 such a silly slice of life issue. miles and his friends skip school and its so cute and silly and its so!! fun!! its got an A plot where miles is skipping school with his friend while still running into spider-man troubles, and its got a B plot, where jonah j jameson has reincarnated into a spongebob-looking vice principal and is trying to catch miles and gang skipping school. this dual page spread is possibly my favorite from ahmeds entire run:

it reminds me of the tt2003 comics where they had a bunch of chibis on the margins, i love it so much!

- Free Comic Book Day 2019 Spider-Man just a oneshot for free comic book day, so its not tied to any on-going arcs whatsoever which is great! set in 616 so u got both peter and miles just chilling.

despite this hysterical first page that i love so so much, its a very chill and introspective issue, that reflects on nostalgia. its a sweet and solid issue!

- Miles Morales: Spider-Man (2019) #12 & #13 BILLIE IS BORN!!!! CONGRATULATIONS AND APPLAUSE!!!!

but besides the blessed introduction of the beloved billie, i really love the interactions between miles and aaron in these two issues. aaron reluctantly re-enters a life of crime to pay off a debt he acquired after saving miles, and miles reluctantly has to stop him from committing said crime. neither of them want to fight each other, ESPECIALLY since rio is about to give birth, but they both have to do what they have to do.

(i wanted to post a pics of their dilemma at first but this makes me laugh too much so im putting this here instead)

its a very great two issues, that explores miles' complex family situation really well and with a lot of nuance. and now that ive read bendis' original prowler run, i can see how this mini-arc has several callbacks to that. where bendis' prowler run ended with death (uncle aaron's), this arc concludes with new life (billie's). which i think is beautiful :') i prefer ahmed's take on uncle aaron a lot more than bendis', bc miles having a living and supportive family has always been the strongest aspect of his character imo.

- Miles Morales: Spider-Man (2019) #15 the leadup to this, issue #14, is not that bad either honestly! but the only parts i really like from it are the fact that it leads up to this issue #15, and that theres some dialogue from miles where he kinda recalls bits of earth-1610. so anyways regarding this issue.... i really like how honorable the spongebob vice principal is. he endangers himself to defends his students, and those students includes spider-man!! (he learns of miles' secret identity in this issue)

hes just a really cool character. my only complaint is that i wished ahmed dragged this on a bit longer, with more instances of spongebob vice principal trying to catch miles skipping class, so that when he does eventually protect miles and his identity, it wouldve felt much more impactful. but this is just a little nitpick, and i still love this issue ^_^ its DAMN good!

- Miles Morales: Spider-Man (2019) #24 this issue is the calm before the storm (clone saga).. but who gaf about that! this issue is just miles and kamala doing fuck all, and its just really sweet and cute.

a very well-needed breather of an issue, except for the part where miles gets to express his RAGE!!!!! also i love this artist's work sm (carmen carnero). their work is my favorite artstyle for this run!

- Marvel's Voice: Comunidades (2021) probably my most favorite miles story ever ❤️ talking about the last issue of this volume, not the one in the middle.

anyways, i love everything about this story. i love how proud miles is of his culture. i love this beautiful artstyle with strong dynamic lines and warm tones for the colors. and the commentary about diaspora from black panther is so touching. i love that he tells miles that no matter the distance, you will always be the same people your ancestors were. nothing can take that away from you, and we will always be family in that regard.

and i love how much he loves billie, and how he loves that they will come from the same worlds. these panels might be my favorite miles morales panels ever.. this issue warms my heart and makes it aches in the best possible way ❤️❤️

- Miles Morales: Spider-Man (2019) #42 saladin ahmed's farewell to miles morales and honestly what a way to go out! wow!! despite not being the biggest fan of his run, i really love this issue!! :D

it neatly wraps up the various elements that he bought to miles morales' mythos for the past 3 years, and in such a creative way. i adoreeee the tarot idea in this issue. and i LOVE that (i think) all the previous artists who worked on this run came back to illustrate different sections of this issue, with different artists illustrating a different tarot card.

sean the bully is here. spongebob vice principal is here. shift the clone is here. kenneth the non-binary fashion designer kid actually designs something that slays for once!

tiana is here! billie is here! hell even the rhino is here again, and the irrelevant villain from the first arc! miles with a living and supportive uncle, proud parents, and a loving friend group are here! i may not agree with all of ahmed's writing choices, but he did not slack when it came to expanding miles' cast <3 its a beautiful and perfect way for ahmed to sign off from a series :D

oh!! and one of my biggest complaints with ahmed's run is how he kept piling trauma after trauma onto miles, but never really gave him time to sit down and cathartically process or acknowledge them (unless it was done in the insane evil clone of miles turns into a dictator in an alternate future arc which i still havent read). but he finally does in this final issue, where it makes him strong enough to beat the villain from this series first arc, but this time without the help of captain bitchmerica!

not the most ideal acknowledgement of his trauma by my standards, but honestly thats ok. bc miles' next writer, cody ziglar, picks up the torch and makes sure miles is Breaking The Fuck Down and acknowledges all this trauma, baby!

- Miles Morales: Spider-Man (2022) #1, #2, #3, #4, & #5 basically the entire Trial By Spider arc. i love this arc. i love this new villain, raneem rasheed, and i love how shes actually related to miles' lottery backstory! cannot believe it took 10+ years for that aspect of his character to be explored, but better late than never ig. the artwork for this is also phenomenal, tho theres some sequencing aspects that are a bit hard to make out, but its very minor. i love the coloring very much.

i already posted quite a bit about raneem, but i really love her character. i love her ruthlessness, rage, and grief. and i cant wait to see her again 💜

- Marvel's Voices: Spider-Verse (2023) both miles stories in this book are pretty good, but im gonna talk abt my favorite of the two, which is 'Training Day' by cody ziglar, which has this world famous panel here:

(i love how miles is the exact opposite of his movie counterpart LOL)

its basically miles' story from comunidades.... 2! what more can i say. i love babies and i love (GOOD) social commentary!!

^im too tired to ramble (again) about how much i love this dialogue. like look at that.... self-awareness in a superhero comic <3

- Miles Morales & Moon Girl (2022)

such a cute comic! moon girl is such a cute and precocious character... really not much to say here LOL its short, snappy, and sweet!

[ccfan1999]

Seems more like vague intuition from what ive seen.  And as much as I wish that applied…I don’t think it has for a while now. The “original sin” from the original usm was to bring terrible decompression to the genre and it has stuck in nearly every book not done by someone from before the 2000s.

I mean, given the sheer level of interest in this (the only comic currently in the stands to actually sell out physically across stores leading to them forcing a one comic per person policy)…it seems like its an effective setup to contrast with out of  all the different ways that spidey’s been played with. Well honestly the changes all play into the generally known stuff about spider-man so idk. I mean it’s a pure AU, that’s what those are lol. And idk, I respect you immesnly but it does seem like changing the goalpost. Marvel was pretty open about it being a radically different take, people latched on to the family thing but even in the covers they don’t get that much play, being in 8 out of 18.

Ehh, I mean the ultimate universe as a whole was, hence x-men matching more with the movie astethically (and being changed from its original pitch to make it match further like mystique not being an x-man or wolverine not being an antagonist). Ultimate was thought of as a line first. It did absolutely play into the growing “spider-man is about youth” movement and all. Tho giving bendis some credit, it was during the period where spider-man was a widower in one of the most malgined asm status quos (history does rhyme, doesn’t it), so that perspective isn’t totally wrong, and for its worth he did defend the marriage and spider-man actually getting to age, maybe why he never got to write ASM if I had to take a guess.

I did say from the ground up, as in reinvention. We can debate its merits, and I do agree with nearly all your crticisims mind you, but it was always sold as a radical new take, to the point that seeing how the characters would be different in the ultimate universe was a consistent selling tactic used by it. Tho id say…I don’t think Hulk-Goblin is the worst..i get making him mutated rather than wearing a mask and playing to a David vs goliath imagery with spidey and him, tho I do wonder why the hell they dropped the cape he had in his first two apprences for just purple pants. I guess they had to compensate for ult hulk being grey?

I do think spectacular is better (I mean spectacular is superb overall), but spectacular was also fundamentally an adaptation, ultimate wasn’t as a setting.

The foruth arc was the legacy GG arc, I thought it was the peak of bendis writing norman Osborn overall, as its all downhill from there in either setting. The idea of norman’s sense of ownership over spidey given the changed origin is also a neat play on the responsibility stuff. Kingpin id say was the highlight of the run, both itself and the really good mj id issue. Ock’s arc was the weakest of the initial roster, but its very much above everything that comes afterwards. The angle for kraven is terrible. But the peter/mj and may stuff was pretty good. I guess the next arc over could also count, but that one rushes trough captain stacy’s death way to fast, and then you get to venom which is where usm goes off the rails with only  a few good points afterwards.

And since bendis there’s been 4 well known movie series as well as a super prominent video game series and a bunch of other adaptations. A greater level of base familiarty is kind of expected. If anything this plays a lot with elements that people would be familiar with those, I mean goblin is literally raimi goblin with purple and a different mask.

I dunno I think the sense of life on autopilot and then getting validated that you could do more makes enough sense. And being fair, if peter’s a journalist or photographer he’s already risking his life presumably so its not that big a leap, that and its not like supervillains are presented as an enduring element of this world, neither as superheroes (there’s like, one pre-existing one?) so there’s a lot less frame of reference to make that choice.

It is presented as MJ being in the known, as the next issue previews kinda suggest.

I mean cute is physical attraction.  Soft but still. On the personality side, we see that peter is portrayed as being “responsabile” off how he’s described as a father. Also remember he’s some kind of jourlnaist so there’s still an “exciting” part to draw her in (see how she was presented originally pre-id retcon in the Romita run as finding peter’s photographer job as fun). He also has his sense of humor definitely as shown a few times.

I dunno if id disagree, but my argument is more so that its not that big a leap that it could have happened. Like an easy way is that without spider-man peter would be a bit more perceptive about people rather than having the tendency to hyperfixate on just himself, maybe noticing mj’s façade as that sooner. Or because she’s the first girl that would have hsown interest in him the two hit it off more sooner and then deal with that later.  And being fair, we don’t even know if peter went to ESU since neither he or mj know harry as its directly stated, and if he went gwen was specifically attracted to him initially because he didn’t jump on responding back to her advances. So realistically peter would never have been with her.

And I mean this book is intended to be read with some base pop culture familiarity of it, and given that spider-man is the most popular superhero..it doesn’t seem all that far fetched.

I mean they’re still examples of settings that don’t diverge from a specific point, and they have changes that aren’t exactly logic driven about it.

Earth One was built around being dc’s answer to ultimate, so a pure au reimagining of stuff but “modern”

I said the new 52’s earth two, not the main earth from the new 52 lol. That one was a pure au on the original earth two.

I mean the point seems to be to use it as a drastically different setting from 616 to explore superheroes just starting out as a phenomenon in the 2020s without long established sueperheros. Like Wakanda on the backfoot or the x-men as outcast students without a school to rely on.

By reversal I mean the setting overall being a mirror reversal to the original ultimate. Which is what hickman said was the intent too so like it’s the driving idea behind it.

-the original ultimate tony was a man who wanted to do good with the little time he had left due to having a tumor, the new ultimate tony is a teenager who has all the time in the world left to the point that he’s implied to become kang eventually (also I guess that’s a play on the original ultimate kang being a future sue)

-The original ultimate hulk was a monster ruled entirely by its ID and often used as a pawn in the schemes of people like fury, the new ultimate hulk is a monk who is in specific control of his ID while being the unnoficial second leader of the cabal, both however are some of the most antagonistic ptorayals of hulk  being totally fine with killing and  gray rather than green.

-The original ultimate thor was a hippy where him being a god was put under doubt, the new thor is much more aggressive and he’s introduced specifically as a god, both however cant return to asgard at the point of start of the story.

-The original ultimate reed became a doom like figure ruling over his own “nation” with a feeling of betrayal to the cloest person he had to a friend , facial scarring and being the greater scope villain of ultimate by its conclusion, while the new one is literally using the doom name but is heroic despite never having gained his powers but having a more doom-like personality with colder less warm interactions.

-The original ultimate peter got his powers as 15 and then stayed that way for the whole narrative it being hyperfocused on his role as a young her, with aunt may being especially relevant in his story in a way she wasn’t in 616. Here peter is bitten exactly 20 years later putting emphasis on this greater age (down to the first page being ‘peter parker you aren’t getting any younger’), with aunt may being dead before the story starts and instead uncle ben being a more active participant in the narrative than in 616. Both dela with villains in a similar order so far.

-Ultimate cap is the most jiongistic cap’s ever been as well as being a decidedly less “innocent” cap than his mainstream counterpart while being the core of the setting as everything else happens due to trying to createmore supersoliders. Nu-Ultimate cap exists in a world where the USA doesn’t exist and is presented as a remnant of a more innocent/pure age before the changes to it and being erased from records by the maker apparently.

I mean this IS just a first issue, in a modern genre ruled by decompression.

Because the context the speech is a call to action speech, but of a different sort. Its about inaction , its not using the R word, but rather about not letting it just pass him by. It is a fundamentally different message for a fundamentally different story.

Also the lack of villains kind of plays to it, peter isn’t doing this with that genre/context savvy we have. And being fair he also makes it clear mj/his family is his first priority and that he wont let this get in the way of it, which is an interesting flip on the usual which I am somewhat curious how it’d play long term. His job is also now run by kingpin, so its not like he can do that much there either

I read Ultimate Spider-Man #1 by Hickman

So I checked this out in isolation of the whole event or events leading up to it.

I'm trying to decide if this is a case of false advertising or if it is actually as disappointing as it seemed.

This series was marketed on the grounds of 'come check out a married Spider-Man with kids'. But that was by no means the focus of the story. The focus was upon a) Uncle Ben's grieving Aunt May and b) peter's choice about whether to be Spider-Man or not.

Let me steelman and say, hey, the marketing was exploitative but that isn’t Hickman’s fault.

Honestly, this premise is still rather broken.

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, this universe is identical to 616 except the Maker has strategically meddled with it to avert the existence of superheroes.

Okay…so he made sure Peter’s parents died when he was 15 instead of like a toddler. And also that he wasn’t bitten by the spider. And also that there was no burglar. Couldn’t he have just gotten rid of the spider? Why all the extra stuff? And if he didn’t do anything other than get rid of the spider…why are all those other things different?

Speaking of which how/when/why does Jameson know the Parker family at all? Uncle Ben was a factory worker, he had NOTHING to do with the newspaper business and why would a working class guy like him know a millionaire/billionaire like Jameson? Why would he ever go into that business? Why would the Maker change that at all? If he didn’t change that how could ANY of the changed he made in the timeline ever have resulted in that?

Similarly, why is PETER working for the Bugle? Peter’s interest in photography was specifically in relation to his career as Spider-Man. Yes, he developed something of an interest in it later in life in his 20s, but that was a fleeting thing after he left college. It was never really his long term career goal. Sure, you could say he is working on the science section of the Bugle. But…why? Why wouldn’t he just, you know….go into a scientific field in general? What does the Maker gain from changing that if he was responsible for changing that at all?*

And this, in fact, is a microcosm of how the premise of this story is borked. In a world where Peter Parker

Is an adult

Was not really raised by Uncle Ben and Aunt May because his parents died when he was 15

Never experienced the death of Uncle Ben or Aunt May in his teens

Was never a superhero

HOW exactly is he the character we know and love? The fun of a What If or AU is contrasting the new version to the character we are familiar with. But by rights he should be MASSIVELY different as a person. He wasn’t raised by people who were almost a generation older than his parents. He didn’t have to bear the burden of being a provider or caregiver for his household as a teenager. He never had to cope with the guilt of Uncle Ben’s death. And would he even know the Great Power/Great Responsibility thing considering it was a combination of being RAISED by his aunt and uncle along with Ben’s death that drilled that into him? In this universe neither of those things are factors so if he DOES live by that life lesson how and why would he?

As an extension of that, how and why did he wind up with Mary Jane considering his upbringing combined with his life as Spider-Man were important factors in them falling in love. Mary Jane was attracted to his sense of responsibility, but that sense of responsibility came about due to his upbringing and that upbringing has changed. Not to mention, given her abusive father, knowing Peter was a man who had incredible power (like her father had over her) but used it responsibility was a HUGE aspect of her attraction to him, plus she got turned on by the danger to some extent.

So…how did they hook up? Unless the Maker for some fucking reason decided to make sure MJ’s Dad was a successful author and never touched the booze. But WHY would he do that????????????

And then you have the big one which is…Peter can magically sense he is in fact supposed to be Spider-Man….um…Okay, so, yes, Peter does have a certain belief in destiny because he talked about it maybe being his destiny to be Spider-Man when he was a teenager and even older. But…that was a belief. He questioned it. He never SENSED that about himself. You could argue being Spider-Man is from his POV something he doesn’t have a choice about, but that’s like saying a parent doesn’t have a choice to look after their kids. They do. It’ just that you do not have a choice about it if you feel compelled to be a good person. It was never a magical bullshit thing.

Hickman in this regard and in his general portrayal of Peter is almost making this weird ass nature over nurture argument. That Peter wouldn’t been broadly the same kind of guy we always knew him to be albeit he could commit to a 9/5, a family and be less tightly strung because he doesn’t have the stress of heroism or guilt shit. And I guess he has less of a sense of humour? (Although so does Uncle ben, though he is grieving…although Jonah is a lot more touchey feeley than he should be as well sooooooo….)

But that’s just…lame.

It’s making a mockery of Peter Parker’s struggles in the 616 and most traditional portrayals. His experiences are integral in forming him into who he is as a person. Hickman is arguing that Richard and Mary’s DNA was actually the most important thing in shaping his personality. Unless are we really saying Richard and Mary would’ve been broadly the same kind of parents May and Ben were? They were goddam CIA agents!?

And on top of that…the story is making this BROKEN argument for Peter being a superhero. He feels like he is drifting through life. He feels unfulfilled. Like something is missing. Uh huh…um…what about your kids bro?

If you become a superhero aren’t you going to be potentially exposing your family to danger? Don’t you risk your kids growing up without a father because you get killed, crippled or are generally occupied a lot by being a hero.

Now, to be clear, that situation is A LOT different to 616 Peter who already had great power before meeting MJ. He also started his career at age 15 vs this Peter who’s literally going to learn how to web-swing and fight at age 35! Shit, most people whobecome soldiers, fire fighters or police officers don’t START their careers (with 0 training btw) at age 35! And there is a massive support network for those roles too.

I’m not saying Peter can’t be a superhero and a family man, but I am saying it is morally wrong for him to CHOOSE to turn himself into a superhero when he already is a family man. This is like saying it is okay for a man in his midlife crisis to blow a chunk of the family savings on a sports car or get himself a 20 year old mistress because it will make him a more engaged husband and father.

Basically, this first issue represents a lose-lose scenario from where I am standing. We don’t know much about how this Peter is different. The ways in which he is don’t make sense. The ways in which he is similar don’t make sense. These questions need to be answered BEFORE we get to the premise of the story (Peter choosing to be Spider-Man at age 35 when he is a family man). And the premise itself is unbelievable unless we want to buy into Peter being a selfish asshole, which therefore makes him unlikable in general and very much NOT like the Spidey we know and love.

Basically, this series might as well NOT be about Peter Parker in the first place, but some other guy living through a mid-life crisis by becoming a superhero.

*Are you noticing how I kee coming back to the Maker as a explanation for these changes? I don’t even know if the stuff leading into this spelt out what he was and wasn’t involved with, but that is a big question that should be addressed. Unfortunately it is the ONLY way to explain these changes beyond ‘its just different because it is’. And either way it is lazy and lame as shit.

[moogey-likes-things]

What about the animatronics reacting to their s/o saying "this came off" and is their prosthetic and they just reattach it like nothing

AHFNRGKJB! My First ask!, TYTYTY! Well, as the main four rock stars would be more socialized and likely to have seen people with prosthetics, their reactions would probably be the more tame/calm.

(HC 7)

Freddy - “Oh! Please, do be careful, Superstar! That is not something you would want to lose in the Pizzaplex!” He would be mildly concerned, mostly because he knows kids have sticky fingers and he doesn't want you to be inconvenienced in any way. Natural or not, he stills loves each and every part of you!

Roxy - “Don't do that in front of me...” She's a little bugged out by this. People aren't supposed to come apart. She gets it, really, but she prefers you in one piece. You could totally cause her to cringe if you held the prosthetic out to her, just like scaring someone with a fake spider! (pls don't be mean tho)

Chica – “I-Is that secure? Do you need first aid? Or Parts and services?” Chica is mostly concerned as to whether you require a repair of some sort, though she might not be sure exactly where to seek out help for you. She will be curious, wanting to know if it causes you discomfort, and happy when you reattach that part of yourself. After all, all of you is the best!

Monty – “Uh... P-Put that back...” Seeing it up close will short circuit him momentarily. It's not bad, he just wasn't ready for you to literally come apart in front of him. As soon as he's over the initial surprise of it, you'd better be ready for cheese ball jokes. Also, don't let him get the idea to use it as a golf club...

Bonnie - “Neat!” Bonnie doesn't freak out, or worry too much over you. Not unless you make it seem like a big or painful ordeal. He'll want to have a look, to get to know your and whatever uniqueness you have about you. He'll laugh and compare your parts, maybe offering a little care advice, or asking for some himself.

Now, the others in the place might have seen something at some point, but seeing it up close and having YOU be the one reattaching parts willy-nilly? LOL

Sun - “EEK! Don't disassemble yourself! Glitter glue isn't strong enough to hold you together!”

His initial move is to panic. Little ones don't usually have artificial limbs, and they certainly don't come apart in the daycare! When he finally gets that you're alright he'll ask you a thousand times to make sure, and beg for a warning before you go taking your limbs off again. Also, he may want to put stickers on you.

Moon - “Interesting...” His approach is calm, though inside he'll be analyzing, scanning, and researching. He'll want to know all about this part of you. How did it happen? Does it hurt? What can you feel? What if you lose it? Have you ever misplaced it? When you've answered all his questions and he is certain you are not in pain of any kind, he'll gladly hold you close. You might catch him touching the prosthetic absentmindedly.

[ajdrawshq]

ok im tired as hell and its too gotdamn warm for me to actually sleep so im gonna list off some of my omori thoughts til i pass out

i got the good ending bc i was following a guide bc i Cannot stand full screan surprises n the guide was good but the one (1) thing it doesnt remind u to do daily is water Basils plants. so. im doing all of that again now

i love the fucking characters in the game theyre all so neat n alive. i keep wanting to say im attached to someone specific but im having a hard time picking favorites theyre all so Good

theres a lot like a Lot of instances where Kel is hinted at being the lesser sibling and just the least important out of his friend group and its only really stated in an obvious kinda way once n like. he seems totally fine most of the time and he doesnt seem down often or for long at all in unrelated moments but for these he doesnt seem to even acknowledge it. and of course the others dont seem to think of him as less important which is Good but does he like. have a problem with this. i wanna say hes hiding it but i dont Know bc hes fucking good at it. i might make a whole post on this later actually

seeing Hero cry hurt more than i thought it would and seeing him jump right back to smiling seconds later every time made it Worse. its the older sibling thing

one detail i really like is that while some of the scenes are meant to be funny to the audience, Hero's fear of spiders isnt usually made fun of (the only time i can remember is when Mari apparently snuck bugs into his desk to see his reaction lmao). otherwise hes taken seriously and the others try to push him to overcome it someday, not Now but its something he should work on himself. and the bit w Kel removing a spider from their room, all while saying what hes doing exactly and reassuring Hero that the spider was gone, was a sweet thing to see compared to all the other media where siblings would throw it at the other or something yknow its just nice

Aubrey Good. thats the post

Basil

i dont even know where to fuckin begin with Basil (affectionate) this kid has Problems

seriously theres so much shit going on w these kids thats left unsaid but is worked into the environments or even just what they Dont say its genuinely incredible. beautiful characterization and worldbuilding

the real world sections of omori feel less like im playing as Sunny and more like im guiding this child in a gentle but assertive manner to Do Shit. like ok kiddo brush ur teeth and then we're gonna go outside today. yes its good for u trust me ive been there anyway ur buddy is at the door, go have fun!! oh btw i found some parents who will literally pay u to help their kids with homework. yes ur doing that. its free money dude cmon

cant believe omori lets me live my true dream job (organizing things in short bursts for money)

on that note the music that plays for the tool organizing and the flyswatting jobs might be my favorite track in the game and i have no idea why. its like the audio equivalent of the word blorbo

i wish there was a fucking therapist in this town bc god knows id drag em all there

my brother came in during one of the endgame parts n thought Sunny was a girl when Basil was teasing him abt his crush on Aubrey n went "aw yeah you cant escape the gay even here" (not in a derogatory way) n it took me so off guard i forgot to correct him. hes right tho actually

"when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie thats omori" is the funniest joke that couldve ever come out of this game i want to personally thank whoever did that

showing all the different ways the kids reacted to grief and trauma and acknowledging that some were more harmful to themself or others and thats just how people work sometimes n they all make amends n agree to support each other in the end and begin to heal despite it all. h

also the moment that i realized the dream world was in fact a dream world made by Sunny and. everything it represents. his desires. his fears. dude

[delimeful]

Hey Lime! I love the new AU where Virgil is the alien this time, who knew deathworlder cats could be so cute! ;)

I did have a clarification question though, about Virgil’s species. I assume he’s reptilian based on his description but how big is he in comparison to average human height? Is he on the larger end or smaller end of alien scale? (Hehe scale lol, cuz lizard) and also, you mentioned some aux limbs? Does Virgil have 4 limbs like WIBAR Logan? Or are the other 2 arms mechanical, or part of his suit? Because aux sounds like auxiliary like a reserve or additional set of arms. Either option would be neat! I’m super excited for when some “scary deathworlders” find our intrepid alien tho, hehe ;)

Fantastic writing btw! Super cool ❤️

Anonymous said: So what does Virgil look like in the new au? Like in general?

we’ll get some more description in the next chapter, but here: 

virgil is a tall humanoid with spindly clawed limbs and four extra spider-like limbs on his back. covered in purple-grey chitin plates that go black when hes afraid as a threat display. has two sets of teeth, one set is retractable & also venomous. extra smaller sensor eyes around his primary ones & motion/heat sensory organs on the back of his neck/shoulders. sensitive to vibrations, can ‘see’ heat traces with sensor eyes. soft deep purple fuzzy skin wherever the chitin isnt covering.

[larrivex]

Homie u KNO I gotta ask u for the larrivex for those hcs

where they first met and how

i have no reasoning for this but i feel ghastly (with help from hopeless) first recruited larrikin who was STARSTRUCK but very good at hiding it. probably just in some random tent in the middle of ireland a few weeks after ravel was captured

how long their ‘flirting’ phase was before feelings got involved

OH MY GOD SOOOO LONG....... ok they met in 1850 they got together 40 YEARS LATER THEYRE IDIOTS. they both caught feelins pretty quick but larrikin dismissed his (he gets fleeting crushes often) and dexter did a terrible job of hiding his

who fell for who first ( if applicable )

hm.... i mean lbr larrikin saw him shirtless the first time and that cemented it in his mind they had to at least sleep together. then they had their longass song and dance through the centuries. i think larrikin fell for dex furst but def denied it for longer

where their first date was and what it was like

uh canon they. well they were a bit busy i dont think theyd have one? though tanith and saracen seem to count "lying amongst the carnage of battle" a date so i guess they did that a lot. larrikin lives au though it was probably some small beach along the countryside. they had a fun mountainclimb too! :D

who asks who out and how ( with a sign? spelled out on a cake? just a simple ‘will you go out with me’? )

I HAVE A FIC FOR THIS. NO SPOILERS (ok small spoiler: 1890s ball)

who proposes first

they dont, really? they dont need it. i like the idea of them having matching tattoos tho (not just bc i want dex to have tattoo. ok mostly bc of that)

if they keep / kept their relationship secret or let everyone know right away

they TRIED. but theyre too fucking giddy and more than a bit handsy and literally everyone knew as soon as they got back

if they adopt any pets together

i think if they ever settled down (unlikely, neither are homebirds) they may get a cat. or multiple cats. and some dogs. they both like animals :D

who’s more dominant

they switch :)

where their first kiss was and what it was like

THIS ONE IS IN THE FIC NO SPOILERS (BALLROOM DANCING)

if they have any matching couples stuff ( mugs? sweaters? pillowcases? )

OH MY GOD DO THEY...... they have sooooo fucking many. gag gifts from the dead men,actual sentimental things, little trinkets from souvenir shops

how into pda they are

oooh, depends. theyre not the handholdy sort but theyll sit closer together when theyre in a group, dance every opportunity, and random kisses when they feel safe

who holds the umbrella when it rains

thats assuming they even own an umbrella?? poor adepts are too used to having elemental friends

where their usual ‘date spot’ is ( if applicable )

anywhere and everywhere outside. beaches, mountains, forests... long walks in the middle of nowhere without stressing over being attacked at any moment are their favourite

who’s more protective

dexter. he watched larrikin almost die once, and its NOT happening again

how long it is before they sleep together ( can be as in ‘had sex’ or as in ‘shared a bed’ )

sharing a bed? pretty soon after they met (it gets cold in ireland at night!!! it was DEFINITELY just for warmth). tbh itd be pretty bad form to fuck when ur friends are light sleepers in the tent next to you idk maybe they got creative

if they argue about anything

after a few centuries you get most of the real arguments out of the way,but they probably have random spats about trivial shit randomly

who leaves more marks ( lipstick, hickeys, scratchmarks etc. )

anywhere people wouldnt normally see is free game. dex is probably more into it though

who steals whose clothes and how often

dexter would rip larrikins clothes idc how built lar is dexter is 6'2 and larrikin is 5'9 MAX. larrikin will appropriate dexters old tshirts into sleepwear most of the time

how they cuddle ( spooning? facing each other? )

both of them in the weirdest position possible and taking up the most space, yet somehow still holding on go each other :3

what their favourite nonsexual activity is

physical? just lying in bed together. just in general? again, adventuring or going on some hike, or just hanging out with friends

how long they stay mad at each other

the longest was almost a decade (they can both be stubborn) but usually no longer than a week

what their usual coffee / tea orders are

black, but they both like to add sugar. theyre just used to going without

if they ever have any children together

definitely not

if they have any special pet names for each other

their favourite game is coming up with the dumbest terms of endearment. i think they would be overjoyed at "my beloved" becoming a popular phrase

if they ever split up and / or get back together

never officially, but theyve definitely had time apart

what their shared living space is like ( messy? clean? what kind of decor? )

somehow a mix of military neatness and frat house

what their first christmas / hanukkah / etc as a couple was like

considering it was the middle of a war, just chilling around a campfire with the rest of the dead men. they took care to place their tent much further away than usual ;)

what their names are in each other’s phones

in line with their petname game, they change pretty often. sonetimes the others will steal their phones to make them normal, after some badguy or another saw dexter hang up a call from "beloved wife" (changed by saracen actually, from something a LOT dirtier) and suddenly rumours were spreading of dexter vex having a secret mortal wife

if they have any ‘couple traditions’ ( buying a new mug for their collection every year? baking every friday evening? )

adventuring!! all the time. but they have special places to go on their "birthdays"

who falls asleep first and who wakes up first

larrikin for both. hes a light sleeper but god can he just drop on the spot

who’s the big spoon / little spoon

they swap!!!!

who hogs the bathroom

...am i allowed to say they uh. both do ;)

who kills the spiders / takes them outside

either. but dexter prefers to put them outside and larrikibs is taking after him