#i do recommend

[maybe-im-dark]

Weapon X by Marc Cerasini — a review

Marc Cerasini’s Weapon X novel is a bold, visceral adaptation of Wolverine’s origin story, drawn from the iconic comic by Barry Windsor-Smith. For fans of Wolverine, Cerasini’s adaptation is a powerful deep dive into the psyche of Logan as he endures one of the most horrifying transformations in comic book history. Cerasini’s attention to Logan's internal struggle and trauma elevates the novel from a straightforward adaptation to a harrowing character study, adding considerable weight and a fresh perspective.

One of the novel's strongest points is how vividly it captures Logan’s dissociative episodes during the adamantium bonding procedure. Cerasini brilliantly uses these moments to give readers Logan’s perspective, grounding the pain and terror in his memories. To cope with the trauma, Logan’s mind takes him back to his time working for the Canadian secret service in Korea, where he carried out a mission alongside his partner Neil Langram. It’s in Korea that he also meets Miko Katana, adding some layered background to his character and further illustrating his painful journey before Weapon X. This narrative choice not only gives readers a glimpse into Logan’s pre-Weapon X life but also provides insight into his survival instincts—how he copes with excruciating agony by mentally escaping to past memories.

While Cerasini captures Logan’s internal world beautifully, he also occasionally falters by diverging into backstories that don’t add much to the plot. For example, in-depth backstories for characters like the Professor and Carol Hines feel superfluous. These details don’t enhance the main story or Logan’s journey, making them feel like page fillers rather than essential elements of the narrative. The focus on these secondary characters pulls the reader out of the intense, claustrophobic atmosphere of Logan’s perspective, which is where the story’s real strength lies.

Another questionable choice is a fantastical sequence near the end, where Logan realizes he might be an immortal warrior reborn over centuries, who has fought in all major battles throughout history, “the right hand of God”— possibly a fallen angel with a divine purpose. This subplot feels forced and doesn’t align with the grounded, gritty tone of the rest of the book. It reads more like fanfiction, detracting from Logan’s characterization and Weapon X’s darker, more science-driven lore. Rather than building on Logan’s established backstory, this fantasy sequence feels out of place, stretching the novel's credibility and diminishing the raw intensity of Logan's origin story.

In summary, Weapon X by Marc Cerasini is a compelling, if occasionally flawed, adaptation of Wolverine’s origin. The novel excels in adding depth to Logan’s perspective, capturing the horror and dissociation he experiences, and grounding his trauma in moments from his past. But while these aspects shine, some elements—like unnecessary backstory expansions and an ill-fitting fantasy sequence—detract from the otherwise gritty and intense narrative. For fans of Wolverine, though, Weapon X is an insightful and engaging read, one that captures the brutality and resilience of Marvel’s most feral hero.

[twistedcell]

Alien: Romulus is actually very enjoyable, who would have thought?! My thirst for xenomorphs is pleasantly quenched.

[matchaloverlikesflannel]

Btw the surgery went well and by now I am pretty good again. Tomorrow the splint (?) gets removed and then I can hopefully breath well again.

The first days sucked tbh

[elirium]

The tumblr for you tab works surprisingly well for me. Its exclusively posts fron @little-big-batbag s blog

[slav-every-day]

[glorydioxide]

Today, not long after accidentally coming out as a gay couple to one of our drunk neighbours, we found a half-finished pack of pink mentos under our apartment door. Persy asked if that was supposed to mean something. I supposed that this is an offering. "Oh gods of gay, take this offering of pink menthos and make my life as fun and fulfilling as yours". I decided to bless them, whoever they might be.

[fandomsthroughtimeandspace]

Finshed Bodies on Netflix, highly recommend this show. Sometimes a bit hard to follow but the ending episode really ties it up well. Overall it was an excellent and enjoyable show and I do not regret staying up to half 3 in the morning to finish it.

[corecarnis]

i have like. five characters recolored at this point and now i'm impulsively switching over to a map recolor as i do so. i have the attention span of a small bug

[satans-knitwear]

Genuine question: How do you take/make such high-quality gifs? Is it Photoshop? Pls don’t say Photoshop. 😂 i can’t afford photoshop but need a good rec 🙃

I use this thing! I dont have a laptop or computer i can use with any kind of regularity so i do it all on my phone! Very useable app tbh

[scarefox]

Chains of Heart trailer

[chimerickat]

Mazaki Anzu Has Never Lost (24629 words) by borzoieyes  Series: Part 1 of Anzu Will Never Lose

Summary:

Kaiba learns Anzu has never lost a duel.

Now if only she would agree to duel him.

[ruhua-langblr]

Duolingo Sucks, Now What?: A Guide

Now that the quality of Duolingo has fallen (even more) due to AI and people are more willing to make the jump here are just some alternative apps and what languages they have:

"I just want an identical experience to DL"

Busuu (Languages: Spanish, Japanese, French, English, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Polish, Turkish, Russian, Arabic, Korean)

"I want a good audio-based app"

Language Transfer (Languages: French, Swahili, Italian, Greek, German, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, English for Spanish Speakers)

"I want a good audio-based app and money's no object"

Pimsleur (Literally so many languages)

Glossika (Also a lot of languages, but minority languages are free)

*anecdote: I borrowed my brother's Japanese Pimsleur CD as a kid and I still remember how to say the weather is nice over a decade later. You can find the CDs at libraries and "other" places I'm sure.

"I have a pretty neat library card"

Mango (Languages: So many and the endangered/Indigenous courses are free even if you don't have a library that has a partnership with Mango)

Transparent Language: (Languages: THE MOST! Also the one that has the widest variety of African languages! Perhaps the most diverse in ESL and learning a foreign language not in English)

"I want SRS flashcards and have an android"

AnkiDroid: (Theoretically all languages, pre-made decks can be found easily)

"I want SRS flashcards and I have an iphone"

AnkiApp: It's almost as good as AnkiDroid and free compared to the official Anki app for iphone

"I don't mind ads and just want to learn Korean"

lingory

"I want an app made for Mandarin that's BETTER than DL and has multiple languages to learn Mandarin in"

ChineseSkill (You can use their older version of the course for free)

"I don't like any of these apps you mentioned already, give me one more"

Bunpo: (Languages: Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Mandarin)

[twistedcell]

Highly recommend watching Unbelievable mini series on Netflix, it got me sooo hooked! Watched it for Merritt Wever because she's so naturally bad ass, but the whole cast is awesome.

Not spoiling, but kind of, I'm genuinely satisfied with that ending!

Trigger warning for sexual violence and rape though, proceed with caution.

[objectivelyimpermanent]

Batman: Year One (1988) by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli

My Batman reading order begins. Mind that this is as much a test as anything. Also, I have already read The Long Halloween as a sneak peak, but I swear that otherwise I'm a DC comics virgin. Batman: Year One by Frank Miller contains Batman (1940-2011) #404-407, which were printed first in comic serial 1996-1997, and which started out the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths continuity on the New Earth. They contain the revamped origin story for Batman. I have acquired the 1988 TPB recoloured edition by Richmond Lewis. This is the volume most often recommended for a few reasons: 1) Richmond Lewis was the colourist also for the original serial, so the collected edition was an opportunity for the original colourist to spruce up the comic with a wider variety of colour than was possible in 4-colour newsprint comics. She is also married to David Mazzucchelli, who was responsible for the linework, so the artistic vision was really kept in-house. 2) This volume is much cheaper than other options that include the recoloured pages, such as the hardcover Absolute Batman: Year One. 3) This volume is also generally fairly cheap, especially if you're not overly attached to mint or brand new copies. My extremely well-preserved 1st edition cost less than £10 on Ebay.

Frank Miller often is credited (or accused) for the grittiness and cynicism of modern Batman and Batman comics--his approximately contemporaneous 1986 Elseworlds limited miniseries The Dark Knight Returns was a major influence on Snyder's grimdark DCEU movies, and he's known generally for sucking out all the ideological sincerity, compassion, and ironic absurdity from Batman. In the 1988 introduction to Batman: Year One, Frank Miller declares, "For me, Batman was never funny." However, that's not precisely borne out in the Batman: Year One comic. In Batman: Year One, Batman might be objectively terrifying to most of his fellow Gothamites, but to his audience he's meta-narratively hilarious. For example, the comedy of errors that is Bruce Wayne's first vigilante-preparation outing. Batman (1940-2011) #404: 25-year-old Bruce Wayne ventures out into the East End of Gotham on 11 March, shortly after his return from abroad. He doesn't yet have the Bat costume, or the specific idea of Batman. Instead, he pastes on some make-up for a recon mission in preparation for his debut as an as-yet-unnamed vigilante. In the process, the following sequence of events occurs:

He vows not to use violence on this recon-only mission

He immediately picks a fight with a street pimp

He gets stabbed and then beaten up by a few sex workers

He gets attacked by a pre-Catwoman Selina Kyle

He punches Selina Kyle in the face

He gets shot by a cop

He gets arrested

He beats up the two cops who arrested him and totals the police car

He gets back into his Bruce Wayne Porsche whilst in his undercover makeup and leaking blood from several holes, a car so recognisable that Jim Gordon, a new transfer cop from Chicago, recognises it on sight

He nearly drives Jim Gordon off the road in such a way that Gordon has no choice but to conclude that he's on cocaine

He gets home and collapses on the floor and then has to call Alfred to come and stitch him up.

Of course, this is great. It's violent, but it's very funny. It's a shitshow. Batman has absolutely no fucking idea what he's doing. It's hilarious alongside its objective textual violence, this sequence alone including: implied underage sex work, a stabbing, police corruption and violence, a bullet wound, several battery assaults, and an explosive car accident. The irony of this happening on what Bruce Wayne vowed to be a non-violent recon mission is arresting, and that's besides Wayne here acting as a slapstick comic as everyone gets their licks in on the man who has sworn to clean up the streets of the whole city.

On top of this, the Batman investigation team headed by Lt. Jim Gordon and Det./Sgt. Essen has two first suspects for the Bat vigilante: Harvey Dent (on account of motive and physical profile) and Bruce Wayne (on account of extremely public motive and massive amounts of money). Bruce Wayne is really not very good at this whole vigilante thing.

Possibly the funniest thing to come out this plotline comes from the scene where Lt. Jim Gordon goes to question Harvey Dent in his office regarding his alibis for the dozens of assaults committed recently by Batman. Harvey Dent calmly refutes Gordon's accusations and sends him off. And then we get this panel:

where it is shown that Harvey Dent had been hiding Batman under his desk during the whole questioning. [Batman (1940-2011) #405 | B:YO p. 41] That isn't to say that Batman isn't scary at all. There are some generally creepy-seeming scenes, such as when he breaks in to the Commissioner's house whilst he's having a dinner party with the mob, cuts the power, and then gives an ominous speech in Batman (1940-2011) #405. And later, Batman does become more competent. To escape a SWAT killbox in Batman (1940-2011) #406, Batman uses an experimental infrasonic broadcast device to summon a horde of bats. They bite the SWAT on the arse. I'm sure it was very scary, but also it's very funny. The hilarity isn't kept entirely meta-textual. Although Batman is textually scary, he is also textually mocked. As Batman grimly does mostly-naked, one-armed push-ups on the floor of his sitting room whilst reviewing a stake-out recording and muttering about Carmine Falcone, Alfred provides commentary from an armchair whilst reading the newspaper: "Master Bruce--I've just come across a fascinating piece in the Times. Concerns the effects of lack of sleep among the marginally sane...'marked increase in paranoia'...hmm...'tendency towards aberrant, even violent behavior'...Off again, sir? Shall I fetch your tights?" [Batman (1940-2011) #407 | B:YO pp. 87-88]

There's also the hilarious implication that Lt. Jim Gordon was basically John McClane in his youth. In Batman (1940-2011) #404, Lt. James Gordon transfers in from Chicago to Gotham City, which has a Reputation for crime; during his intake interview, he feels the need to apologise to Commissioner Loeb for the "mistakes" he's made that have turned up on his record—mistakes that the corrupt Commissioner waves off and about which he seems quite pleased. Gordon also spends the entire miniseries doing things like punching a schizophrenic man who has three hostages and a gun to his head. beating up a corrupt coworker and hogtying him naked in the snow, maliciously complying with non-interference orders, ratting out corrupt cops in a district comprised only of corrupt cops, punching people, shooting people, and stealing a motorcycle to rescue his newborn son who has been kidnapped by a mobster. From this, I can only conclude that Jim Gordon was a maverick cowboy cop in Chicago that (voluntarily or not) was put out to pasture after too many marks on his record and/or his wife getting pregnant.

In conclusion, whilst I'm sure that Frank Miller likely did contribute to the edgification of Batman, his claim that "Batman was never funny" isn't an author's mandate against the humour inherent in the character and the franchise—at least as can be seen in Batman: Year One. I would suggest that Batman only started to become such a serious downer when the influence of the Elseworlds miniseries The Dark Knight Returns began to seep into the canon, but I would have to check back on that.

Additional notes:

Carmine Falcone and his nephew Johnny Vito attempt to fend off Catwoman from a break-in whilst dressed only in towels. This is quite funny. [Batman (1940-2011) #407 | B:YO p. 87]

Whilst trapped in the SWAT killbox, Batman saves a cat from the SWAT team and then beats up the SWAT officer who attempted to shoot the cat. This implies that indeed Bruce Wayne's adoption addiction is heritable; Damian Wayne has only contracted the initial stages, as depicted here. [Batman (1940-2011) #406]

It is implied that Jim Gordon may know who Batman is by the end of the comic; Bruce Wayne saves Jim Gordon's newborn son James after he is thrown from a bridge by Johnny Vito, and he does so without wearing a mask, and then he looks Jim Gordon straight in the face. At the time, Gordon says: "You know, I'm practically blind without my glasses. Sirens coming. You'd better go." It's unclear how true this is. [Batman (1940-2011) #407 | B:YO p. 95]

[slmkaider]

I literally reread this yesterday! :) Merlin and Arthur are so stupid (affectionate)

DRAWTOBER #13 - Strangled by the Red String of Fate by idlestories

“It has its roots in a legend from the east, sire. I believe it’s called the red string of fate.” “Fate?” Arthur said incredulously. “What, is he going to be the one to kill me?” “Getting more likely by the minute,” Merlin supplied. “Shut up, Merlin.” Gaius held up a weary hand. “Legend has it that the string connects people to the person with whom they are most compatible.” There was a beat of silence. “You have got to be kidding me.”

this fic? absolutely hilarious. Arthur and Merlin find themselves tied together by the red string of fate, and figure that attempting to fix it by having lots of sex probably isn’t the worst thing they can do. it’s one of the only fics I’ve read where Arthur knowing about Merlin’s magic and the drama about that actually winds up taking a back seat to the rest of the general shenanigans, and it’s really good fun to read.

[fleshadept]

looking at (vetted) gofundmes for people trying to escape palestine and i don't know how many of you actually click on the gofundme links you reblog but i would like to point out, for what it's worth, just how amazing it is that so many have raised so much money. it may overall feel like a drop in the ocean but the fact that several gofundmes have raised tens of thousands of dollars is amazing. it is so expensive to leave gaza right now, and people still need money after they escape. but regardless of what propaganda the US, UK, canada, and other western nations are trying to pump out, people across the world are doing what they can to help these people survive. many of them are still very far from their goals (like this one and this one and this one) and some of them are very close to high goals (like this one), and some of them have reached almost double their original goal.

and that's not even addressing direct aid or organizations that take continuous donations for distribution of food, menstrual products, etc. the PCRF has raised $16,000,000 of their target goal of $20,000,000 to fund current aid and long-term relief efforts in gaza. ANERA's febuary 13th update discusses the material ways they helped palestinians today:

(ANERA donate link)

my point is, it often feels like the world is turning a blind eye to palestine. but i would like to point out that there is an important difference between "the world" and "western political leaders and media narratives". a breathtaking amount of real people, the people who make up the world, are trying to help. in the face of israel attempting to commit genocide, the world is saying No. These people deserve to live. and literally sending millions of dollars internationally, through the internet connection that israel has desperately been trying to destroy.

it may not feel like it matters in the grand scheme of things. but to the people who get fresh clothes, or a hot meal, or blankets, or the kids who get new toys, or to the people who are able to bring their families to safety, it matters to them. go make someone's day better. i've linked so many options with ways to do that.