#i get why some people are turned off by the overarching plot this time around and I relate to some of it

[maliro-t]

This is something I wrote a long time ago now, but I saw a post the other day that reminded me of it, so I wanted to add a couple of things with the context of c3.

A lot of people are frustrated with the divinity debate central to c3, myself included, but, while I'm going to be slightly punchy at the start here I promise this isn't just a long rant or critique; I'm genuinely interested in a lot of things going on narratively, and this is my attempt to reconcile those with a reoccurring central question that I find kind of lackluster.

So, Bell's Hells keep going round and round about whether the gods' existence inherently infringes upon the free will of the people, right? Which Ludinus would of course argue that it does. But like, given the way the world textually works, is this worth arguing about? This ongoing conflict is about whether the hierarchy created by the discrepancy of power between mortals and gods is an imposed and oppressive social class difference or a harmless (if occasionally dangerous) ecological one.

And frankly, I agree that it's basically just ecological. The first part of this post is proof enough of my position, and its one I took long before we got this deep into c3. But really, the fact that we've spent so much time trying to take the other side seriously, especially given their conduct, has been a bit tiring! I totally get the frustration lol, I got sick of the argument a year ago, largely because the characters never really seem to change their positions, and they never agree so it keeps coming back up as if this, their 20th time discussing it, will be the time they resolve it even though they're obviously all gonna try to stop Ludinus regardless.

Especially after Downfall, I really have been kind of rolling my eyes that our cast of main characters don't seem to be meaningfully impacted by that story very much, in terms of actually changing their perspectives. I think in the harshest terms it feels like they're kind of being flanderized, because this debate has been going on so long everyone kind of is going, 'Well, this is what this character believes. Time to perform it!' This was worse for me with some characters than others, and idk I don't actually want to spend that much time knocking RP decisions, but generally yeah, I was frustrated! Especially because Downfall was just really goddamn moving for me! And it's not even real history for me so why the heck was I changed more by it than people who exist in world?! Idk man!

But I don't think this campaign is doing nothing interesting with divinity, and I don't think the text is really contradicting past entries by being more skeptical of the gods either. I think Downfall really put some general concerns about that at ease for me because of what a clear and nuanced and empathetic examination of divinity it was- one that felt both consistent with past lore and really revelatory. So yeah, like the central question that the players are hung up on is one that I don't really care for that much, and it will resolve how it resolves, but I'm still along for the ride.

To look again at Vax & RQ's relationship, I think it's clear how strongly I feel the text illustrates a symbiotic relationship between them, not a controlling one- and specifically one that relies on the explicit free will of the mortal. But what is SUPER interesting to me is how people actually view that relationship in world, especially in the end. I've talked about this before because it's one of my favorite things in the whole three campaign saga, but the greatest tragedy of Vax's fate to me is that Vox Machina unequivocally blames the Raven Queen for it.

It's Vax very tentatively saying, without details, that he's back because the Raven Queen allowed him to be and Vex smiling relieved, saying "She's my new favorite."

It's Vax, without giving details, implying that he'll die when the task is complete, and Vex saying "She's not my favorite anymore."

It's "it's not fair," and "I do not accept this," and "I feel like she's taking part of me away," and "Fuck that raven bitch!" and "I feel like we should destroy [her temple]," and "I wanted to hurt her for hurting me."

It's Vax never quite saying out loud that he wanted this. That it was a gift she gave him in his desperation, and one he gave back to her in her loneliness. It doesn't matter to all of them that Vax died days before she came for him in the end, that he was disintegrated by the very evil they all dedicated themselves to overthrowing, that he was only there at all by her grace, that the circumstances of that are something he chose. It only matters that she was in front of them to be blamed for the unfairness of the world. And the Raven Queen takes their hatred without protest- she doesn't even really try to justify herself, because whether or not they understand or approve or forgive doesn't matter to her. "This is not for you," she says. She has always been feared without the attempt to understand. She has always been blamed in anger by people who will never know her, because no one could ever know her, and the people who did once forgot her name and then died excruciating deaths in a war over a mantle she inherited.

It's her priestesses in c3 saying "We are in mourning," and Keyleth, scenes later, saying "I have been angry for 30 years."

I bring all of this up because I see so much of Ludinus' argument as kind of this same question of "fairness" that Vox Machina broaches, with the difference being that they are not obsessed enough with that anger-or power hungry enough-to decide that the whole system should be destroyed. And because they also rely upon several gods whom they have not forsaken like they did RQ- whose role at least Keyleth has in time come to understand (without divesting herself of her anger, of course).

But it is the nature of these vast, unknowable creatures to be cursed and scorned and forsaken and blamed, especially unfairly.

This is why Dorian brought such a refreshing point of view to the circular Bell's Hells argument to me, even if I don't actually think he's overall right. What's different about Dorian is he's actually bringing personal experience of a really interesting kind to the table! He is someone who, unlike even the victims of the faithful in Issylra, has had several personal experiences with a very particular Divinity which have left him absolutely worse off, even going all the way back to the original EXU (which I'm sure he now looks at knowing Lolth was trying to manipulate him: he says to Orym in Zadash, "[If I'd put that crown on my head], I wouldn't be here right now," even if his instinct is still to make risky deals with divinity he distrusts to protect his people, but that's a whole different post). Dorian watched someone he loves do things she absolutely did not want to do under the sway of a goddess who decided she needed her as her own- that killing the people who might get in the way of her divine influence was the only way to protect herself in a war that the people she was killing-including Dorian- didn't even really know about at that point.

So, it's totally understandable for him to come into this going, 'That was wrong. I was wronged. I want someone to pay for what was taken from me. I don't think anyone should have the power to do that.' What complicates it, however (and I of course won't go so far as to say that I agree with her methods lol), is that the only reason that happened at all is because Lolth was under threat by people trying to exterminate her and her people. But of everyone in the group, Dorian's perspective is closest to that of actual Aeorians, whose bitterness sprung from a world destroyed by a war between beings that seemed to think that 'the entire world' was an acceptable amount of collateral damage.

So, there's this ongoing disconnect between gods who won't explain themselves to mortals who need someone to blame that I find really, really interesting- far more interesting than the question of if gods have too much power, or if the divine gate is really enough to protect mortals from vampiric gods that are leeching off a world that isn't their own in the first place. It's a communication issue, at its core.

I'm not sure if it's something the characters will ever look hard enough at to make it a more obvious central talking point, but textually that's actually what feels like is going on and that's fascinating to me!

Corellon, in episode 107, in the midst of that undeniably beautiful, poignant hour says, "You see, something that I've realized, something that I keep seeing is (laughs) our children continue to rebel, all the time. Hundreds, thousands, many, many years continuous. We are in this perpetual cycle, (laughs) and it seems that our presence, be it either here, behind a big door, isn't doing anything. There is something innate. You want us out. "

And the thing is- he is absolutely right. He doesn't even bring up whether the gods are in the wrong or if they have too much power or if they're using it wrong- it's just completely not about that. What he observes and feels trapped by is that the system as it is set up now- that heirarchy, that power difference, that distance- it causes mortals and gods alike to play a role that they ultimately cannot content themselves with, whether it's unjust or not. The addition of the divine gate, which was intended to protect Exandria, makes things worse! It makes that distance greater! It makes physical (or perhaps metaphysical lol, idk how magic works) that inability to understand the divine. It makes them appear to be hiding, which some of them certainly are- just look at Ioun, for one!

Does that mean that the gods fleeing Exandria would actually be to everyone's (or anyone's) benefit? TBD! But given threads running all the way back to campaign one I certainly understand his instinct to make a change.

To quote Cassida in Downfall:

"Before, in that chamber, I was told there are things I could never understand. I am going to do as you have asked. But I will ask a favor in return. Make up your mind if I am given to understand this world or not."

They cannot understand us. They must understand us to be satisfied with how things are. Both are true. Nothing is solved. It's an impossible gap to close.

And I can't wait to hear what the Raven Queen has to say about it. :)

Because I’ve had all day Raven Queen brain:

Another thing that is really interesting to me is Vax’s relationship to fate, which gets interpreted in a few different ways even in game, and I think it’s pretty complex. I’m thinking about it here slightly…cosmologically, I guess, in terms of how “fate-touched” works in the big picture, although all of that is kind of necessarily in relation to the way it exists for Vax (et al.) personally.

On a meta level, Vox Machina’s story is a literal game of chance, so everything might feel like it’s led up to a particular outcome, but ultimately that’s dependent on the way we make sense of the story once we can see all its parts. 

And I think that’s kind of what Vax is doing himself! In Duskmeadow, after he communes with The Raven Queen, Vax expresses to Keyleth and Pike his newfound faith in his role as champion, something he sees as meant to be (transcript under the cut). He brings up the broom theft and the Umbrasyl battle as things that happened to Vox Machina that don’t make sense, but which are fundamental to their journey, saying “What else is it?” Why else are we still alive? It has to have been for something. It’s a way he can justify his situation to himself, to put aside the fear and trepidation that has been eating him alive for weeks. He believes it’s fate, but in part because he needs to.

And that’s obvious in the way he disbelievingly and emphatically says to Keyleth that this is not a path that he wanted when she implies otherwise. He initiated the deal, but he doesn’t completely understand it, and he didn’t really know how to handle what it meant for a long time–it derailed pretty much all of his plans! But at the same time, he says, “Everything has led to it,” because he needs to believe in that for it to make sense to him.

But that doesn’t really…make it true though, right? It’s no less profound to him for that, but it isn’t the only explanation. The way The Raven Queen defines a “fate-touched” is as someone who bends fate, not just someone who is fated, not just someone who has a destiny. In The Endless Atheneum, she says, “You, Fate-Touched, you are the embodiment of this truth. All mortal life has potential with or without the gods. We offer some paths, but it’s up to you to decide if they are the right ones for you”. Again, a pretty important part of Vax’s relationship with The Raven Queen is that both of the deals that he makes with her involve him as a willing participant, not a pawn. Most significantly, with the first one he makes the offer. He doesn’t know what he’s offering, sure, but he’s the one who reached out. So, it was his choice–his own exertion of agency–that set him on this path. His own bending of fate. And it changed everything!

To return to Duskmeadow, the way Keyleth responds to his pretty definitive declaration faith is fascinating!! She spends a while (before this even) trying to convince him to kind of…mentally separate himself from the reverence that goes with faith and divine inspiration. And I think a lot of that is rooted in her own insecurities around fate and destiny and gods and the universe, so some of what she says feels like a kneejerk reaction to her own fear, but she also is kind of right! I think Keyleth is certainly wrong that Vax wanted this path, whether consciously or unconsciously, but she’s right to point out that he had control. I love that she calls The Raven Queen an opportunist–Matt basically explains as much in the campaign wrap-up when they talk about the deal in the tomb. The Raven Queen absolutely took advantage of Vax’s offer, turning it into something completely other than what he expected, largely for her own benefit. But he still had to be the one to open the door for her to do that. By her definition, “fate-touched” function as a kind of intermediary between the gods and your average mortal, picking which path to follow where individuals on either side of that line can’t fully, which includes her. Another example of this I love is the uncertainty she expresses about his path right after he gets disintegrated. She really doesn’t know what’s going to happen to him, or the rest of Vox Machina! Instead, she can only offer another deal, to give him the tools to navigate the storm. He has to be the one to choose to use them.

(And that’s a side effect of the way the game works of course: the DM offers paths for the story to follow, but the players are the ones to pick where to go)

So, the way The Raven Queen stood to benefit from taking him on as a champion was that she got to be in the room. It gave her a modicum of influence over which path got picked, even if she wasn’t the one personally steering. In that way at least, their relationship really is a “fine partnership”, a framing that Keyleth encourages before the Umbrasyl fight.

The worship angle and the partnership take aren’t mutually exclusive here, and imo kind of help each other along. There is a great deal of faith and reverence between them, which grew beautifully past that initial fear, and I don’t think they would have been much use to each other if Vax hadn’t so fully believed in her. But it wasn’t quite The Raven Queen dictating his fate, or anyone else’s. That much was ultimately up to him.

Keep reading

[carionto]

Pressure and Release

Human: *hmm-ing at a set of dials and gauges*

Alien: What seems to be *translation unit catches up with the information they're displaying* OH MY GOD IT'S GOING TO EXPLODE!!! GET TO THE ESCAPE PODS NOW!!!!

H: Shh, it's fine, I'm just experimenting.

A: OH MY GOD WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE HORRIBLY!

H: Hey! Rude. *turns a dial causing a loud hissing noise* It's just air compressors and hydraulics.

A: *due to not dying, is beginning to relax* Why do you need up to 200 atmospheres running through these systems. We have invented alloy-specific magnetization mechanisms. Please, why do you keep insisting on these volatile and explosive means?

H: *turns the dial up* Because... *releases the pressure again, loud sudden hissing sound again* That's a cool sound.

A: Just because you think something is 'cool' doesn't make it-

H: *interrupts with another air build up and release sound without breaking eye contact*

A: *leaves*

H: *continues to play around*

_________________________________________

Okay, so I wanna get this off my chest. I find myself now for the fourth time starting a fun little activity, doing it for months on end, having a blast, and then almost suddenly dropping it entirely. First time I wrote some short stories or something every day for about six months and put it on deviantart. Then some longer form stuff started cropping in, sort of continuous narratives or whatever, and I stopped. Second was running a open D&D campaign with a persistent world but ever changing party, each session a sort of one-shot with a decision that would impact the whole world and what future sessions would exist. Not even 10 sessions in I felt under pressure to continue and build upon what I had already and just couldn't and stopped. Third was another kind of TTRPG, this time running my own server for Lancer. Again, open one shots, but less connected and I would hopefully get some of the players to want to run their own games within this freeform framework that I directly lifted from a D&D server I was in, even had some of the same people join as players. Few months later, I felt this massive pressure from myself to run games and come up with new scenarios that I just froze up. I cancelled game after game and just eventually abandoned the server and the resources I had made. Fourth time was here on tumblr itself. Back to writing some short form stuff on a fairly regular basis, almost daily for some time even. Had a blast, and then longer form content started creeping in. I thought I wanted to write some stories with an overarching plot and recurring characters and connected storylines, build up and pay off, that sort of thing. Again, I created this massive pressure by myself for myself of myself to do something I apparently can't. I created this sense of expectation of myself "Well, I started this, I should finish it, but where do I go, what do I do, how can I connect this?" And then this self-inflicted pressure got to me, again. And I stopped.

What I have known for a while, but couldn't put into words is that I don't want to tell a big long epic story or anything like that. I don't have one of those in me and forcing something like that only makes me shrivel up and run away. I have a world, several in fact, in my mind. Entire continents of a low fantasy character driven political intrigue and drama based world with tons of rules and restrictions, thousands of years of history, strong personalities for the main actors and so many individual scenes with them and the supporting cast, and a timeframe for when the overarching story happens and how it ends. But no story itself. Just scenes. I have a high fiction sci-fi world, again, with very distinct factions and races, most of the details I have written out back when I was a teen in a physical notebook with pen and pencil. Lots of historical points and events, how the races work, their domains if you will, near magical powers I try to explain with plausible science. Tons of specific details. Even drew each of their common symbols, how one of the languages is structured, schematics of how their cities are planned, and details on other planets in the system and how those might be important later. But, not a single individual character or story. Just dry facts. And then we have the loose sci-fi world I've created here. Bunch of different angles and perspectives, some comedic, some more serious, even put Cthulu in there. Many short and mostly self-contained stories and episodes of various humans doing things an exaggerated version of humanity would do. There is potential for a number of expanded and longer form stories here, some I attempted, and as mentioned, what ultimately made me stop. I don't have a book in me, and I don't want to write one. I just like to write little snippets and I want to get myself to accept this idea that, no, it does not need to become more than that. Because every time I start going down a path where it feels like it should be more than a one page thing, I seize up, start thinking that I need to do this, panic when I can't come up with anything, go silent, and give up. It just does not work for my brain. And that's fine.

[folklauerate]

I’ll say something else while I’m here-one of my biggest issues with Bridgerton s2 was the lack of cohesiveness. Jesus Christ no one is upset with characters making unlikable decisions and if you want a wedding for the sake of drama, Shondaland, have a fucking wedding, but make it earned! And on top of that, the wedding episode had the fucking audacity to be boring as shit! Just all trodding on and operating off of the assumption the viewer would be aghast and would sit through nearly an hour of boring yawn snooze because there were “stakes” and it seemed like the main pair might not get together. Like for fuck’s sake have as much drama as you like but at least make it well written! Instead the wedding episode is a dirge and not because it’s a reflection of some character’s mental state or any seemingly deep reason, no; it’s like they decided there would be a wedding and shrugged when it came to getting the character’s there. It doesn’t count as good writing if you’ve spent the past months/years trying to wrap your head around or write fic around the reasons why x decision by y characters make sense to fill in gaps that shouldn’t be there in the first place and that’s all this fandom has done.

People’s issue with side plots taking up too much time isn’t really that they take up too much time-it’s that none of them follow a set of overarching themes of the season and feed into them or a main storyline in a significant way, giving the illusion to the viewer that they’re completely separate from the romance at the core and therefore taking away from it, as opposed to everything being harmonious.

On top of that, the characterizations are so fucking varied and there’s a large tonal shift between s1 and s2 in terms of the way the Bridgersibs interact with one another. Siblings can fight and be rude and whatever to one another but for them to turn into completely different people out of nowhere is so ??

And on the topic of characterizations-WHERE WAS KATE’S??? Anthony gets 28363938 motivations for why he is the way he is and then is honestly left floundering with all of them, until you’re honestly a bit ?? as to why he can’t marry for love, and then you get Kate who is just… There. Why can’t she marry for love? Why is she hellbent against marrying? Why is she prioritizing her family’s finances and Mary/Edwina above herself? What conversations did she have with her father before he died to make her this way or was she always like this? What were their lives like in India? I could keep going! At least in the book you get some half hearted “I’m too ugly and old to get a match” reason but in the show no one is going to fucking believe Simone Ashley is too ugly or old to get whatever lord she wants 😭✋ and THEN???? To top it all off-Kate and Anthony don’t have a single meaningful discussion around an entire eight episodes!!!!! Not one!!!!!!!!! What fucking growth happens between them fucking and the coma and then their fucking dance to have them propose? If the actors themselves had to invent all these so called secret conversations their characters had in between everything to make things make sense, I really don’t think that’s a hallmark of good writing. They rush that happy ending in there at the end and it feels like they forgot they had to end the fucking show with these two characters together and they just said “fuck it let them kiss” and that’s what we got. WHAT CONVERSATION OF SUBSTANCE DID THEY HAVE. And what fucking argument can you make that it’s okay that it didn’t happen on screen??) NONE!!! It’s TV! It’s a VISUAL FORMAT??? Oh my god.

I told myself I wouldn’t rant about this, just redirect people to walle’s thoughts on this, which is (in her own words) how she sat shiva for the fucking wreck of what Bridgerton s2 is. Walle if you don’t know wrote a thousand cuts and s2 was the nail in the coffin for her. It was so so so bad. It went against such basic principles of storytelling. The writing was so abhorrent. It was insane. And to defend it feels more insane it feels like you’ve been taken hostage by this damn show and you’re writing thinkpieces on tumblr and twitter to make it make sense!

What grates me is that it really could’ve been good. The juice was there. The actors are amazing. The production team is clearly so so dedicated and hard working. IT WAS ALL THERE. Honestly the way the show was marketed in the trailer feels completely different from how it came out and I have to think there was some fuckshit going on behind the scenes given the large tonal shift during/after ep 4 and CVD’s hasty and odd departure.

[hatingfromacrackedscreen]

I love episode 191 of Sailor Moon, and feel like it doesn’t get enough credit. It’s pretty unique for a Sailor Moon monster of the day ep given it was only 9 episodes out from the series finale. And the episode decentralizes Sailor Moon herself, which in turns lets it truly analyze her role this season, along with adding complexity to the seasons overarching theme of what it means to be a Senshi.

First off, I love the setup, with the inners minus Usagi all participating in a video game tournament. The most unique thing about this is that this is the only time in the ENTIRE 200 episode/3 movie series that we focus on just the inners doing something without Usagi. It makes sense that we almost always see them with her, as they’re all besties, but also showing them hanging without her gives their lives more interiority and shows their bond too. And it gives us some really great and fun moments, with the ridiculousness of Mako/Mina/Rei vs Ami at the tournament.

The next part of Sailor Moon’s structure that the episode plays with is the monster battle. In this season all monsters are phages and were previously people, and Sailor Moon is the only person who can heal them back. This episode is the only one this season that looks at that as the strategic disadvantage it is. A phage shows up at the event (of course), and without Usagi there the inners just pretty much get their asses handed to them rather than hurt and potentially kill an innocent person. The Starlights themselves even comment on this, and I love this because it drives home a point that we take for granted but has been there since episode 1. These girls truly are heroes, and regularly put their lives on the line not necessarily to defeat the enemy, but to protect people, and this episode really highlights that difference.

This heroism then inspires the Starlights, in one of my favorite “Solar System Senshi”/“Sailor Starlights” interactions. Seiya sees the inners fighting a dead end fight without Sailor Moon, risking death because they want to protect the life of one single person. This leads them to question why they ever left their home planet, fleeing but also ensuring it’s destruction by Galaxia. This echoes one of the major thematic threads of the season, which is what makes a Sailor Senshi. The inners are sailors & have powers, but that doesn’t automatically make them heroes, it’s an active decision to protect that they follow through on that does. The season contrasts this most obviously with Sailor Galaxia, who uses her sailor powers for destruction & domination, but also in more subtle shades with the Starlights here. Seiya realizes if the inners can’t write off a single person, they could never write off their planet. And that maybe the Starlights’ willingness to write off people for the greater good, and flee potential further harm, was the first step to their planets destruction. I love that here the Starlights realize again that maybe there’s another way to fight a war, and that it’s something the inners do so instinctively that they don’t even think about it.

And lastly, I love how Sailor Moon fits in all of this. By not having her here, we really get to look at what her role is this season, and what she means to her team. None of the girls want to kill a phage and thus a person, which is something that Sailor Moon can solve. In effect, the plot cannot be solved without her here. This works in the literal sense, but also in a meta sense as well. Usagi has been the biggest proponent of harm reduction, and serving to protect, the entire time. In episode 1 it’s not a monster out there that gets Usagi up and fighting, it’s that her best friend Naru needs help and only she can save her. It’s this wish to protect the people around them, that has been driving the inners the entire time. It’s what drives the biggest stake between them and the outers in S, when they refuse to sacrifice anyone for the sake of the world, it’s fundamental to their ethos. And that’s why Sailor Moon’s eventual appearance is one of my favorite Usagi hero moments & entrances, because it works on two levels. Sailor Moon, the hero of the show, has arrived to take out the bad guy. But also to the inners Usagi is their hero because she’s protecting them from having to kill an innocent person. Thus Sailor Moon is protecting everyone, the phage and the inners. That’s why I love the way the episode plays with the idea/role of Sailor Moon as a whole: she doesn’t have the monster-healing power because she’s the hero of the story, but rather she’s the hero of this story bc she’s the one with the healing power, and out of the plethora of destructive powers the Senshi of earth possess, that healing power is the one they most value. That’s why the look of relief and love that the inners express when Sailor Moon shows up always melts my heart, and really shows how much she means to them here.

The episode isn’t perfect, but it’s fun and experiments with new ideas in a lot of really subtle ways, and is a much-needed late addition to the Sailor Moon canon.

[fast-moon]

Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Thoughts

Pretty much the entire reason I started watching Picard in the first place was because I'd heard: 1) Season 3 was actually really good, 2) Season 3 followed up on the end of DS9, 3) Season 3 got Kevin Feige interested in tapping Terry Matalas to head the Vision Quest D+ series. So, did it deliver on those expectations?

Compared to the first two seasons, hell yes.

So, first and foremost coming straight out the gate, the intro has been simplified, returned to more classic Trek stylization, and most importantly, back to playing the original Trek theme.

It's not like there was anything particularly bad about the music in seasons 1 and 2. But for something to feel like Star Trek, it needs more than a couple people in rubber foreheads spouting some technobabble keywords. There's a specific visual and audio style that people associate with it, too.

And friggin' hot damn, season 3 knew what that musical style was. Including call-backs to things like the Klingon theme from the TOS movies, the Voyager theme when Voyager or its crew were referenced, and the liberal usage of TNG's original theme. I am an absolute nerd for leitmotif and the association between a character or event and a particular piece of music, and I give mad props to writing staff who understand how to use that effectively.

Although, it almost feels like they went, "You know what, scrap seasons 1 and 2, we're starting over." Pretty much all of the new characters from the first two seasons are gone. Rios's absence can be explained by him staying back in 2024 to help fight against the upcoming ethnic cleansing of Latinos. Jurati went all Borg and then went to sit in front of the Anomaly of Great Future Plot Importance (No Really Trust Us). But Soji and Elnor just kind of disappeared off the face of the universe with no explanation. And pretty much the entire point of Season 2 was to let Picard come to terms with his feelings and open up to Laris. But in this season it's like, "lol, bye, going back with my baby momma." Raffi is the only new character still around.

Also, how did she get the La Sirena back (also, is "the" La Sirena redundant)? Last we saw at the end of Season 2, it was commandeered by the Borg queen in 2024 and then flown off never to be seen again. Or are we assuming that was the Mirror Universe version of the ship and the Prime Universe version was still floating around somewhere?

But they're facing a new threat this time around and it's... the Changelings! Yeah, turns out when Odo returned to the Great Link to deliver the cure to the Section 31 virus and teach them to play nice with solids, a portion of them were like "Hell no" and broke away to keep on Guerilla Dominion Warring.

I get why Odo wasn't a guest appearance in the series proper due to Rene Auberjonois passing away before the series was even produced, but it's weird that they didn't even mention him by name the several times he and his actions were directly referenced. Doubly weird that there were no DS9 cameos at all despite this season being about the DS9 overarching villains (I don't count Worf since he's not a character who was first introduced in DS9). No calls to Bashir in reference to Changeling physiology or his work on the cure for the Section 31 virus? No reaching out to non-Starfleet like Kira or Garak while they were on the run and hiding in the Chin'toka system? Or use the opportunity to canonically confirm that Sisko came back? At least Worf receiving intel from Odo confirms that Odo at some point re-established contact with the Alpha Quadrant.

Though, I was a bit disappointed that the Changelings were mostly a red herring and by the end it was just "but wait, more Borg". Although, the revelation that the Borg had been performing stealth assimilation via patching in rogue genetic code through the transporters was pretty clever. And in true TNG fashion, the ending is "the transporters can fix all that ails you".

But not content with the mere cameos in the previous seasons, this time we're bringing the entire original TNG crew back together for one last hurrah. Including like the eleventeenth incarnation of Data, because there's always a spare Data lying around when you're missing one.

And not only the entire original crew, but the original Enterprise-D, too, including a rebuild of the original TV bridge set. And the main thing that struck me about that is how bright it was. I seriously don't understand the modern production habit of having very dimly-lit sets where everything in it is some shade of grey, and all the characters are wearing black. But the Enterprise-D set is like... colors! And wood! And light! Like Picard said, "I missed the carpet".

Yeah, maybe my approval of this season is being clouded by the rampant nostalgia bait, but I also feel it was more tightly-written than the previous seasons. It still suffered from quite a bit of "this conflict is only happening because people refuse to talk to each other" and "I made a terrible decision because aaaaaangst", but it didn't feel quite as overbearing as the other two seasons. That and it completely re-used the "character hallucinates about a colored door that teases you for 90% of the season" from season 2.

So it certainly ended on a high note with a heartwarming send-off to the original crew (who thankfully don't get stupidly killed off for drama). It did make its attempts at light-hearted banter once the whole crew was back together for the final two episodes, but I still felt like the series as a whole still had a pall of cynicism hanging over it, where I preferred Trek when it was more bright and campy. DS9 showed that you can still tackle tough topics without sacrificing the energy that makes you care about the people whom those topics are happening to in the first place. And I do wish more modern productions that are stuck in their "edgelord" phase could learn from that.

[soulerflaire]

Wanted to update some reviews I gave of a couple animes, and add a few more reviews of ones I've watched in the past few months. This is gonna be really, really long.

The Apothecary Diaries

First off, I want to apologize because I still don't really care about anyone except Maomao so I don't remember most people's names. I had originally given this one an 8/10 because Maomao was such an excellent character, but I didn't like anyone else. Now that the first season is over, I'm gonna have to downgrade to 7/10. Maomao is still great, but the show had a turning point midway through, and stopped being a "mystery of the week" show that spotlighted Maomao's wit. It began to focus more and more on Maomao and Jinshi's relationship, and I can no longer pretend they aren't going to inevitably end up together. On the upside, Jinshi slowly becomes less of a creep.

The part that I really have thoughts on, though, is Maomao's biological father. It's made pretty clear around the same time as that turning point that the mysterious brilliant military strategist is her biological father, from whom she is intentionally estranged (unwillingly on his part, though). The show makes a big deal of him being a complete asshole and that Maomao hates him, and it becomes the overarching plot that he is trying to force Jinshi to set up a meeting between him and Maomao. There's one particular scene that sticks out, where Jinshi mentions the strategist wanting to meet with her, and we get a brief flash of pure hatred on Maomao's face, before Jinshi quietly apologizes and says he'll make an excuse for her. This is the only time we've ever seen Maomao that angry, and the show makes it very clear how unsettled Jinshi was at seeing that from her.

Except, we eventually find out that the strategist, while admittedly an arrogant asshole, isn't evil or all that terrible, and actually genuinely loves Maomao's mother. He did not intend to get her pregnant, he wasn't trying to reduce her value as a courtesan so he could afford her; he was actually trying to save up the money to buy her out so they could get married. He only found out about Maomao after she was born, and by then the brothel wouldn't let him back in to see her. And we find out that Maomao knew this all along, and actually blamed her mother for it all, believing she intentionally got pregnant so as to reduce her value enough for her biological father to buy her out, and bad luck forced him to stay away too long. Maomao didn't hate her biological father, she just didn't consider him her actual father and didn't want him inserting himself into her life.

And...I don't like that. For one, I enjoyed having this antagonist for Maomao to battle with, trying to foil his plans to force her into his custody, and I liked being able to hate him. And for another, finding out she didn't hate him at all completely undercuts that scene where she gets so angry. When Jinshi questions her about the look, she brushes him off and it's never mentioned again. It was a fake out, and I hate fake outs.

Also, while the scene where he goes to the brothel to buy out a courtesan after losing his bet against Maomao is very touching, I was very confused as to why he didn't know Maomao's mother was still alive. Why did the brothel not demand he buy her out way back when? Why did they let him think she was dead instead of trying to make him take responsibility for what happened? I get being furious with him, but the flashback where he gets thrown out makes it pretty damn clear he was devastated and wanted to make amends. And the fact that the very instant he realizes Maomao's mother is still alive he loses all composure and rushes to her, and weeps for joy at seeing her despite her condition, means he would happily have bought her out back then too.

The whole thing felt like the show was trying to trick us. And that's fine when done well, misdirection can be a lot of fun in a show! But I felt lied to. Maomao's anger scene, and the strategist telling Jinshi to ask about lowering the value of a courtesan, they don't make sense now that we know the truth. They were just lies that get brushed aside after the reveal.

Maomao's still enough to carry the show and I will look out for season 2, but I am not as hyped for this one as i was before. Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

This is another one that didn't go quite as well as I'd hoped. It's down to 8/10 for me. The mage's exam section really stalled out the show; it felt like the whole purpose of that arc, which lasted longer than any other arc this season by far, was to focus on Fern's growth as a mage. And to me, the show is starting to lose its focus. We started out with Frieren's personal growth and how she was changed by her journey with Himmel, but now, it feels more like an origin story for Fern the Legendary Mage. I don't hate Fern, but I just don't find her as compelling a character right now. I wish we'd at least wait until Frieren completes her journey before focusing so much on Fern.

As an aside, I find it hilarious and sad how hard Stark got sidelined in the second half of season 1. Dude has nothing to do at this point and is just kind of There.

Shangri-La Frontier

On the other side of things, Shangri-La Frontier continues to impress. The show just kept putting out excellent episode after excellent episode, and now I can't wait for season 2. I honestly don't have anything new to say about it, just that it's definitely become one of my top animes that I've ever watched, and I hope season 2 doesn't drop the ball.

Now for new (to me) shows:

Solo Leveling

Synopsis: Portals have started appearing all over the world, and if left alone, begin spitting out hordes of fantasy monsters that are immune to conventional weaponry. But random people have been blessed with fantasy powers and can fight the monsters; they become hunters that take out the monsters, enter the portals, and shut them down. Sung Jinwoo was the weakest of all hunters until a near death experience triggers an awakening, where suddenly he gets a video game-like interface that gives him quests and objectives which level him up, boosting his power beyond what normal hunters are capable of.

First off, this show is very graphic and bloody. It also has zero qualms about killing people. But that doesn't mean it takes the deaths lightly. Jinwoo's adventuring party is nearly wiped out in the first two episodes, a few people only making it out because Jinwoo stayed behind, and the show does not just gloss over this. One of the survivors is so traumatized she's close to giving up being a hunter altogether, and several people urge Jinwoo to quit after his unexplained survival, saying he's not gonna be that lucky again. The show addresses dark topics and themes, but does so with the gravity they deserve. It's not bloody for the sake of being bloody, it's bloody to emphasize how dangerous, dirty, and traumatizing being a hunter would be.

But aside from the good writing, I am also fascinated by the game interface concept. He is, as far as we know, in the real world, but the interface refers to him as "the player" and his powers are decidedly video gamey. He gets stat points for completing daily quests, he gets experience points for killing things and levels up, he even has a video game-style inventory where he can summon or dismiss items at will. And yet there are times where it's made clear that this interface is not just a mindless computer. At one point, where several other hunters are planning to kill Jinwoo, an "emergency quest" pops up, saying that "5 people intend to kill the player. Kill people 0/5". When Jinwoo doesn't immediately accept, it updates with "Failure to complete this quest will result in a penalty." Jinwoo still doesn't immediately accept it, and it updates a third time: "Failure to complete this quest will result in the player's heart stopping." Whoever or whatever the interface is, it very much wants Jinwoo to become stronger and is willing to threaten him to do it. It turns out killing other hunters gives a large amount of xp.

And later on, when Jinwoo is trapped in the throne room after completing his job quest, he hallucinates a version of himself before his awakening; this other him taunts him and says he's weak, that he's useless and should just die, which of course makes him angry and gives him the motivation to keep going just out of spite. I'm pretty sure that other him was the interface speaking to him directly, ensuring he doesn't give up and die.

My own pet theory for the show is that we're watching the birth of the eventual villain of the story. Jinwoo has commented multiple times how power reduces empathy, and the he himself has found his emotions being dulled as he levels up. Couple that with him unlocking and picking the Necromancer job, I think if something doesn't come along to snap him out of it, there's a good chance by the end of the show we're going to see him versus all the other major hunters we've been seeing side stories of, possibly with their own awakenings and resulting improved powers. 8/10.

Villainess Level 99: I May Be the Hidden Boss but I'm Not the Demon Lord

Summary: College girl dies in our world and is reborn as Yumiella Dolkness, the hidden boss of a fantasy dating sim that was her favorite game in her previous life. Not wanting to fall prey to the death the plot intends for her, she begins power leveling herself to try and make sure she's strong enough to survive any attack, while also vowing to interact with the plot characters as little as possible to avoid triggering any flags. Unfortunately, once she enters the school where the game takes place, she finds out (as does everyone else) that her power leveling resulted in her reaching level 99. For comparison, the strongest knight in the kingdom is only level 60.

When I first started watching this show, I gave it 9/10. The humor, Yumiella's deadpan delivery of every line, the way other characters reacted to her absurd strength, it was all just so good. I also enjoyed poor Patrick trying so hard to flirt with her and it all going straight over her head. I loved this show right up until episode 11. The last two episodes of season 1 were rushed so much that I feel like they started out the show expecting to have a 25-episode season, and then found out they were only going to have 12 episodes and crammed half the season in to those last two. In a single 23-minute (including opening and closing credits) episode, we get told people are trying to assassinate Yumiella, then it's revealed the assassins were hired by her parents, then she goes and confronts her parents (and rescues her maid's sister), forces her parents to cede their title over to her, offers to adopt Patrick as her heir (much to his chagrin), goes to a party, then has a cute romantic scene with Patrick where he confesses his feelings and they get together. That was one episode. Then the next episode time-skips to the end of the school year when the demon lord has awakened, and has the entire battle against the demon lord, along with a struggle against the plot trying to force Alicia to kill Yumiella, then the denouement, again all in one episode.

It was so rushed, and nothing got the attention it needed. A wholly unsatisfying ending to what was otherwise a fantastic show. And the writing within individual scenes was still good. I loved Patrick confessing his feelings, and Yumiella pretending to lose a game of rock-paper-scissors with him in order to prove that he's "stronger" than she is and thus she likes him, since her go-to excuse to rebuff marriage offers was to claim she only liked guys stronger than her. That was such a good, well-written scene. But it didn't have the build up it needed, and jumping right into "we're off to fight the demon king's army" in the next episode meant we didn't get any time to enjoy them being together, either. I don't know if the manga does this too, or if it was a problem with the show, or what. But it brings my rating down to a 6/10. That might seem harsh, but I don't think I could enjoy a rewatch of it. The show felt like it was really going somewhere the whole time, only to abandon a bunch of plot threads and rush a quick final encounter at the very end. Knowing it's not going somewhere takes a lot of the fun out of the show for me.

Life with an Ordinary Guy Who Reincarnated into a Total Fantasy Knockout

Summary: Childhood friends Tachibana Hinata and Jinguji Tsukasa were living the everyday life of office workers. Then, on the way home from a mixer, they were sent flying into another world by a mysterious being. Once there, Jinguji sees his best friend has been turned into a beautiful blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl. The adorableness of Tachibana’s female form completely flummoxes them both. But these two are each others’ best friends. To keep their relationship from being destroyed, they must defeat the Demon Lord as quickly as possible and return to their original forms.

From the title and the premise, this sounds like a pretty trashy anime to be honest. I found myself hesitant to watch it, ready to drop it in a heartbeat if it started going south. But it turns out to be a very silly show that also very much questions sexuality and gender. Also in the first 10 minutes it's pretty clear that the two guys were in love with each other prior to the transformation. We get internal thoughts from Tachibana that he basically idolizes Jinguji, while Jinguji's internal thoughts state that Tachibana's presence is like a safe space for him, where he can feel completely comfortable and at ease.

Shortly after arriving in the other world, the two meet the goddess of love, who is responsible for their teleportation and Tachibana's gender swap, and they get mad at her for basically kidnapping them. She huffs and says she'll curse them with something (she won't say what) and if they want the curse removed, they need to defeat the demon king. As the two of them start to sense attraction to each other, they assume the curse was for them to be forced to fall in love with each other. But I suspect the curse is gonna turn out to be completely unrelated, and the two of them are gonna end up realizing they were always in love.

And surprisingly, the show does not devolve into a bunch of sexist tropes revolving around Tachibana. There is a female elf they encounter who does embody a lot of sexist tropes, but she's pretty clearly a parody character and is frequently the butt of the joke in the scenes she's in.

One of my favorite things about it, though, is them figuring out why Jinguji is there. Apparently, goddesses summoning heroes from other worlds is not uncommon, but normally they only summon a single hero, bestow upon them a blessing of some sort, and then give them a weapon of their choice. Tachibana is the hero the goddess of love summoned, and the blessing he received was his female form and magical beauty that causes him to literally charm anyone (male or female) who gets a good look at him. But he has no weapon. Instead, Junguji is there, and he for some reason has superhuman strength, speed, and durability; he's basically superman....as long as he's near Tachibana. Because, as Tachibana realizes later, he sees Jinguji as his protector, and feels safest with him around, and so he unconsciously chose Jinguji as his weapon (literally unconsciously, he was blackout drunk when the goddess teleported them to the new world).

It's a very funny show that parodies a lot of isekai tropes, but it also focuses primarily on the relationship between the two main characters. The last couple episodes have a giant magic robot attacking the castle, but that's mostly background noise for Tachibana and Jinguji to air out some of their feelings about each other, and address some of the turbulence in their friendship. I like that what is the main plot for all the other characters just takes a back seat to our main duo having a real heart to heart. Good show, 8/10, looking forward to more.

[keydekyie]

Any advice you might have for others who wanna publish but can’t seem to get their plots in order?

This turned into a lot o.o; sorry!

lol I'm not maybe the best to ask since it did take me more than 6 years to write a sequel to book I, but my advice would be to talk it through to someone else. Like verbally. Or maybe even to yourself! Explaining the plot (or something else important to the overarching story, like themes, motifs, or character arcs) can help me recognize things to work on. I talk to my partner a LOT!

Maybe the most important thing is to get things out of your head and onto paper (or a computer screen, as the case may be) so that you aren't trying to hold a lot of stuff in your brain that you don't need to be holding. Leaves room for the ideas and better organization. I'll expound on how I do that below.

I also like to zoom in and out of the story to help me keep perspective. When I feel like I need a closer emotional connection to it, I get real granular and write some dialogue, a dramatic scene or internal thoughts, or a description of some visceral physical thing, or maybe sketch some expressions or scene ideas. Might use it, might not. If I like something a lot, it may help me to know I need to move the story in that direction. When I feel too bogged down by stuff or directionless, I zoom waaaay out and write plot outlines or emotional arcs.

There are a few anchoring pieces that I build the story around. I take care not to forget them.

And of course I keep an outline of the story going, but I think it's important to keep things flexible. Why get hung up on putting things in a certain order or doing it a certain way when maybe it's better a completely different way? I've moved huge chunks of story all over the place. If it makes the story flow better or gives a scene a better emotional impact, then I do that! No rules, babey!

I think the thing that's hardest for me with this way of writing is not being able to share things as I write them, since I don't commit to anything. It makes it hard to stay motivated, because I'm not getting constant feedback and encouragement from people, but it makes the story easier to mold and form because I don't have to fit things to whatever I've already shared. If I write a big long chapter and two months later I want to completely scrap it in favor of something else, it's fine. There's no restrictions.

Oh btw my outlines are pretty loose and silly. I have a lot of stuff like this in them:

I also like to write out the various ideas I have to resolve conflicts so I can play around with them. I don't like to choose the easiest, cleanest options, I like to pick the options that balance sense with potential drama.

Example for the fight at the Motylek altar in book II chapter 9:

[MAJOR spoilers for book II below]

One other thing I found helps a lot is to have an exhaustive list of characters with their physical descriptions, ages, jobs, families, locations, basic personalities, and relevant beliefs in an easy to read format. I don't use all the characters I come up with, but it gives me things to springboard off of and helps me stay consistent. I made up and grouped dozens of Motylek villagers that I didn't end up using, but I had them ready just in case.

I've also found that drawing out the story in various visual forms helps me. For book II I drew all over a map where the characters were physically going and when.

[MAJOR spoilers for book II below]

I also like making visual aids for other aspects of the story. Below is a chart I made to figure out Ruyak and Kaelin's growing relationship in book II with its ups and downs. It roughly graphs Kaelin's confidence in Ruyak over time (it's not to scale, it's just based on significant factoring plot points)

This is just half the graph since the other half is book III stuff. You can see there are two horizontal lines I use for reference, the lower one is where Kaelin starts at the beginning of book II, the higher one is uh... something significant that happens later lol. You can see Kaelin's confidence actually started out higher before the start of book II and went down until Loske. This chart helps me keep track of where she's at while I'm writing so I can keep her behavior consistent even though I jump around a lot while I'm writing.

A thing of note: none of this stuff is set in stone when I make it! I changed things many times as I wrote, and added and removed things willy nilly.

I don't know if any of this is helpful or not! But it's what helps me, so... y'know.

[talesfromtheleaf]

Introduction Post - This Project

Hello and welcome to Tales from the Leaf, a tumblr blog dedicated to my Naruto rewrite project.

While I do eventually want to explain why I'm compiling this project, for now I want to outline what this project is, and what I'm setting out to achieve.

The Project

Simply put, the aim of this project is to map out a retelling of the Naruto story. My aim is to "iron out" a lot of the issues that I have with the overarching narrative. Naruto has an amazing cast of characters, and wonderful emotional scenes. However at times, the story gets lost. Certain characters (particularly from a certain clan) are pushed to the front of the narrative, and the narrative can be bent around power-ups or unnecessary plot twists. To me, Naruto doesn't have to be an intricate story to be told well. I think it could benefit from being stripped back a fair amount. At the same time, some of the ridiculous magic is what makes the story as beloved as it is. I think there can be a happy medium and I'm aiming to find it.

Over the last seven years I have been making notes on what I'd like to see change in Naruto. Those notes have turned into paragraphs, into files and organised notebooks. I have made notes on everything. Everything. I have an entire timeline of the ninja world mapped out. This has turned into a complete behemoth, all with the aim of telling the story of Naruto that I want to tell. And that in my imagination, is real. Because ultimately, stories are what you make of them, and if you want to make them different, you can do that. So I have!

I understand that for some people, this is the same as fanfiction. They'd be right, it pretty much is. I've also heard the term "fix-it fic". That's OK, that might be what this is. I know that this sort of thing can be decisive. If this sort of thing isn't your jam, maybe move on. I'm going to be changing lore and backstory to fit the story I want to tell with Naruto. I'm not pretending that this is going to be better than what we got, it's just an exercise for me that I would like to share with anyone who loves Naruto and has an open mind.

With that out of the way, here is a list of key points I really want to address with this rewrite, so that I can set expectations for what this rewrite project is about.

The Goals

1 - Undo the Uchiha Knot

The Uchiha Knot is the name that I am using for the Uchiha Clan and their involvement in just about every aspect of Naruto. I believe that the Sharingan is overpowered and primarily exists to get the plot from A to B, and a lot of the later powers feel especially contrived and guilty of doing this. I'll be addressing the Uchiha Knot in a lot of the rewrite posts, so look out for this one. Oh it's everywhere. I will be keeping some of the more mystical sides of the Uchiha Clan and the Sharingan, and hopefully improving on them! I don't want the power system to feel too rigid.

2 - Say Yes to Soft Magic

I briefly touched on this in the goal above, but I'm going to be embracing a "soft magic" system - or somewhere in between. I want there to be general rules to everyday jutsu, but some things can be shrouded in mystery - and may actually be more effective that way. Not everything in a story has to have a technical meaning or form a perfect circle. A prime example of this for me is the Rinnegan, but that is a way off yet.

3 - Follow The Rules

This feels counterproductive to Goal 2, but generally, if a story has hard rules in places, I think they should be stuck to. In the context of Naruto, this has to apply to the Jinchuriki. I really didn't like how, by the end of the series, we had dead dads running around with half of a tailed beast, ninja surviving tailed beast extraction, or slithers of chakra being enough to resurrect the ten-tails. All of these examples stretched the plot thin - and they contradicted the established rules. I'm not sorry to say that a lot of these instances will be cut. I want actions to have consequences, otherwise what is the point of a narrative at all?

4 - Share The Love

The side characters in Naruto are some of my favourites. They don't get enough love. Especially in Shippuden, most of the supporting characters are kicked to the curb. I know people say that they had their development in Part 1, and that's fine, I agree (for the most part). But from day 1, Naruto has had the Konoha 12 front and center in video games, merchandising, anime openings and filler. I want that development to mean something and go somewhere in Shippuden. I don't want to say any more than that for now, as the celebration of the Konoha 12 was my initial seedling for this entire project, and I can't wait to see it through to fruition.

5 - Redeeming Hiruzen's Konoha

Konoha is an inconsistent mess, and one of the things I really struggle to understand in this series. Konoha is meant to be our home base for the series, somewhere warm and safe. You're meant to feel something when Pain blows Konoha up. Hiruzen's sacrifice to stop Orochimaru was meant to be tragic. So much of what is presented to us just clashes horribly with Naruto's backstory. There is a disconnect there and it can't be ignored.

Naruto's childhood is key to his character, so I don't want to change it too much. But I feel there is a way to somewhat redeem Hiruzen, or at least reconnect the past of Konoha with the present. After all, these characters are meant to be our protagonists. I feel that some of my changes here may be controversial, but we'll take it step by step.

Conclusion

So that's it for now! Not much to go off other than a taste of what is to come. Posts will be as and when I get round to them.

[smokeybrandreviews]

Going Solo

I am trying my goddamndest to care about Solo Leveling but it has become a straight up ordeal. I do not understand the hype at all. Admittedly, I am prone to automatically dislike the most popular and mainstream of sh*t on principal. I tent to find the fans of those types of thing to be objectively insufferable and it turns me off to whatever the sh*t is. I cannot tell you how many Narutards and WoW trolls have attacked me in my life because I don’t prostrate myself at the feet of their chosen media. Like, Naruto is okay. It’s the second best of the Big Three but I’m a BLEACH guy and World of Warcraft is whatever. I don’t give a sh*t about MMORPGs in general. Interestingly enough, I am about that solo life in my RPGs. I am a man of story. I love well developed characters and a properly fleshed out world. These are all things I was led to believe Solo Leveling archives. I’m seven episodes in, and haven’t seen any of it. The wild thing is, everyone who swears by this show is telling me that it’s not supposed to, that the narrative doesn’t pick up until f*cking chapter one hundred. Bro, what?

Solo Leveling has garnered much of its praise from the excellent web comic of the same name. As I understand it, the rich world building and colorized art, is what has people completely enamored with the series. I made an attempt, long ago, to get into this thing right before it got hot-hot and couldn’t stand it. The art is bad, very amateurish in my opinion. The coloring was very basic, too. I could tell that this was a series made by A guy in his bedroom, basically. That’s fine. I’m all about that. Get your exposure. I’m a huge fan of ONE. His Web comic version of One-Punch Man is the worst in terms of art, but the world building was there almost immediately. There was enough in those first few hideous chapters, to keep me coming back. Eventually, Murata got a hold of the narrative and blessed us with his art. All of a sudden, OPM is brilliant on all fronts and I can dig it. Solo Leveling has not been blessed in this way. An entire series and a spin-off later, this sh*t is still ugly as f*ck to look at. It’s so ugly, the immaculate world building can’t even really save it for me and that’s a whole different issue, in of itself!

Bro, the overarching story is kind of whack. I’ve watched a ton of plot synopsis and “what you need to know” about Solo Leveling, and i am thoroughly unimpressed. I’ve come across these OP protag stories before, it’s basically a trope now, so the devil is in the details. From what I can tell, the details in Solo are not all that interesting. Like, I’ve seen this plot before. I’ve read this story multiple times. It’s Reincarnated as a Slime/Sword. It’s Kenichi, Black Clover, and Tokyo Ghoul. It’s Parasyte, Deadman Wonderland (which is excellent, one of my favorites, and a high recommend), Attack on Titan, and f*cking Arifureta. All of these narratives follow the same beats, hit the same notes, and deliver the same kind of overall plot. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, Slime, Wonderland, and Sword are some of my favorite anime, all-time, I’m just saying Solo has a lot of work to do in order to impress and it’s falling really short. I can’t wait over a hundred chapters worth of content for this sh*t to finally catch up to what Slime did in ten. That’s bogus as f*ck.

I am flailing over here, man. I want to like this sh*t, I really do. Conceptually, Solo is right up my alley, but this goddamn execution is killing me. It took five whole ass episodes for ANYTHING to happen. Even then, the animation was pathetic. Even during the short bursts of very obvious budget expenditure, sh*t was still barely dope. I’m watching this and just keep thinking One-Punch Man is basically the blue print for this stuff and it’s exceptional. The other one, Tower of God, is f*cking brilliant all around. Why is Solo Leveling so goddamn pedestrian? Not even the gore is enough to distract me from the utter disappointment and I don’t even actually care about this show like that. It is a frustration because I can see this thing being great if another animation studio actually put in the effort to animate this sh*t. If it had a distinct vision for its art style or some sort of specific look it could call its own. Instead, it’s the most generic sh*t I’ve seen in anime in some time and I just don’t care about it.

[smokeybrand]

Going Solo

I am trying my goddamndest to care about Solo Leveling but it has become a straight up ordeal. I do not understand the hype at all. Admittedly, I am prone to automatically dislike the most popular and mainstream of sh*t on principal. I tent to find the fans of those types of thing to be objectively insufferable and it turns me off to whatever the sh*t is. I cannot tell you how many Narutards and WoW trolls have attacked me in my life because I don’t prostrate myself at the feet of their chosen media. Like, Naruto is okay. It’s the second best of the Big Three but I’m a BLEACH guy and World of Warcraft is whatever. I don’t give a sh*t about MMORPGs in general. Interestingly enough, I am about that solo life in my RPGs. I am a man of story. I love well developed characters and a properly fleshed out world. These are all things I was led to believe Solo Leveling archives. I’m seven episodes in, and haven’t seen any of it. The wild thing is, everyone who swears by this show is telling me that it’s not supposed to, that the narrative doesn’t pick up until f*cking chapter one hundred. Bro, what?

Solo Leveling has garnered much of its praise from the excellent web comic of the same name. As I understand it, the rich world building and colorized art, is what has people completely enamored with the series. I made an attempt, long ago, to get into this thing right before it got hot-hot and couldn’t stand it. The art is bad, very amateurish in my opinion. The coloring was very basic, too. I could tell that this was a series made by A guy in his bedroom, basically. That’s fine. I’m all about that. Get your exposure. I’m a huge fan of ONE. His Web comic version of One-Punch Man is the worst in terms of art, but the world building was there almost immediately. There was enough in those first few hideous chapters, to keep me coming back. Eventually, Murata got a hold of the narrative and blessed us with his art. All of a sudden, OPM is brilliant on all fronts and I can dig it. Solo Leveling has not been blessed in this way. An entire series and a spin-off later, this sh*t is still ugly as f*ck to look at. It’s so ugly, the immaculate world building can’t even really save it for me and that’s a whole different issue, in of itself!

Bro, the overarching story is kind of whack. I’ve watched a ton of plot synopsis and “what you need to know” about Solo Leveling, and i am thoroughly unimpressed. I’ve come across these OP protag stories before, it’s basically a trope now, so the devil is in the details. From what I can tell, the details in Solo are not all that interesting. Like, I’ve seen this plot before. I’ve read this story multiple times. It’s Reincarnated as a Slime/Sword. It’s Kenichi, Black Clover, and Tokyo Ghoul. It’s Parasyte, Deadman Wonderland (which is excellent, one of my favorites, and a high recommend), Attack on Titan, and f*cking Arifureta. All of these narratives follow the same beats, hit the same notes, and deliver the same kind of overall plot. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, Slime, Wonderland, and Sword are some of my favorite anime, all-time, I’m just saying Solo has a lot of work to do in order to impress and it’s falling really short. I can’t wait over a hundred chapters worth of content for this sh*t to finally catch up to what Slime did in ten. That’s bogus as f*ck.

I am flailing over here, man. I want to like this sh*t, I really do. Conceptually, Solo is right up my alley, but this goddamn execution is killing me. It took five whole ass episodes for ANYTHING to happen. Even then, the animation was pathetic. Even during the short bursts of very obvious budget expenditure, sh*t was still barely dope. I’m watching this and just keep thinking One-Punch Man is basically the blue print for this stuff and it’s exceptional. The other one, Tower of God, is f*cking brilliant all around. Why is Solo Leveling so goddamn pedestrian? Not even the gore is enough to distract me from the utter disappointment and I don’t even actually care about this show like that. It is a frustration because I can see this thing being great if another animation studio actually put in the effort to animate this sh*t. If it had a distinct vision for its art style or some sort of specific look it could call its own. Instead, it’s the most generic sh*t I’ve seen in anime in some time and I just don’t care about it.

[nazmazh]

Okay, so, was watching a friend play through Tekken 8's story mode for the last little while.

And, like...

I was vaguely aware that Tekken as a series wasn't like a very "rooted in realism" sort of game/story by any stretch.

But, like - What the actual fuck is happening in Tekken 8's storyline?

There is so much going on.

Like, okay sure - Demons. That I knew about.

But apparently, the main big bad one looks like Anubis, sort of? Okay, sure.

But none of the people that possess the DEVIL GENE seem to look like that - The ones that go full-superpowered-evil-side look mostly like traditional western demons/devils, with maybe a bit of Japanese flavouring thrown in here or there. Or "Angel with Black Wings to show he's not a pure goody-two-shoes".

There's battle robots and evil corporations.

There's multiple bears that participate in the fighting.

As my friend put it, "It seems that in this universe, the Tower of Babel never fell" because everyone's always speaking their native language, yet fully understands everyone else at all times.

This includes the bears.

In the in-story tournament (and I really actually like how they handle this) - You pick who to play as in the battles not involving the main character - Meaning you get to fight those matches instead of just skipping straight to the plot-relevant fight, and you get a chance to play as or against everyone in that chunk of the roster (I think there's eventually an opportunity to play as most, if not all members of the roster through the story).

One of the matches is a Saudi Arabian man with I think, expressly sand-based elemental powers, vs. a Russian man with ice-based elemental powers - He is apparently 26 years old, but legitimately looks like Tommy Wiseau could play him in a movie version.

The fangirl who gushes about the main character is secretly a badass and immediately joins the international coalition of protagonists. It turns out that she seems to be possessed with/by? the soul of the main characters evil grandfather (Who was traditionally the series overarching villain, but apparently Killed Off For Real We-Totally-Promise-Pinky-Swear last game.) [Having read the spoilers on what her whole deal is - There's even more layers to the silliness].

There's a Russian robot girl that speaks Japanese, dresses like some sort of stewardess and has rocket-arms.

The main character's Osakan hick cousin is just sort of along for the ride. She hangs out with the manic pixie dream girl who has a crush on the main character, and whose biggest ambition is apparently to build an amusement park, but she impressed the main villain (again, evil grandpa) by knocking out a bunch of his guards when she came to ask him for the money to do so. Like, he was legit impressed enough to invite her to the special academy he ran, which is where she met the main character.

Circling back to that tournament - It appears to take place in the Roman Colosseum. Which, I guess, sure. If the Tower of Babel never fell, why wouldn't the Colosseum also still be standing.

You can play as the Bear in that round. Apparently his fight against the other guy (Who still has very stupid hair, but disappointingly, much less uniquely stupid hair) has a whole backstory to it and actually is something of a grudge match.

Anyway, after the tournament matches get interrupted by this game's main bad guy (the main character's father), he kills the Egyptian lady who was keeping the main demon's soul trapped in her arm and a purple smoke fills the arena and seemingly kills all the spectators for the world tournament of fighters he organized to make nations jockey for positioning in his new world order (I'm not really sure who the Bear was fighting on behalf of).

He then challenges the demon directly, fights, and wins, and then spins him around by his tail and flings him into the sky, in a way that looks almost identical to how Mario throws Bowser in Mario 64, before absorbing the demon's soul into his own?

At one point, this fighting game switches to a Dynasty Warriors-style beat-'em-up game.

At this point, you have a match as the non-binary German fighter against the Peruvian MMA star who literally will not let the end of the world get in the way of shilling her family's coffee. This is the entire reason she joined up with the bad guys.

The bear jumps in the path of a rocket to do the whole "Get down, Mr. President"-bit for his rival, stupid-hair-guy.

It was at this point that we had to call it for the night.

Anyway - Tekken 8 is deeply bizarre and deeply fascinating. All fighting games should have lore this out there.

And I already adored Street Fighter 6's approach of "What if we treated Fighting in this world in the same manner that the Pokemon world treats Pokemon?"

[druidx]

Doing a little rubber-ducking on WTF is going on in the Cryptid Series universe at the time of the new Untitled Changeling novel. This got long so I'll pop the more rambling bit under a cut.

The Skinwalker starts out with Kathy as the victim - she's being stalked by the titular creature, the cops are next to useless. Then she has her run-in with the Hunters, Alex and Luke, who ultimately save her life.

Skip forward 6 (or so) months. During, Igazinyoka, Kathy's been moved to a quieter position because she's started getting 'visual migraines' around too many people. She meets a woman who tells her she's developing magic¹. Luke calls and asks for Kathy's help in locating Alex.

The ending of Igazinyoka causes Kathy to quit her position in Hampshire Constabulary. The epilog has her jobless and dossing in someone's spare room when she gets a summons on behalf of the Danish Crown. There she meets Agent Skou and is reunited with Alex and Luke.

In The Blue Lamb, it's implied² that Kathy, Alex and Luke have some kind of little cryptid-finding business going on which she's taking a holiday from. Also Kathy and Agent Skou are now an item? - at least for duration of that novel. The titular lamb turns out to be a cursed Princess of the Icelandic Little Folk, who is being hunted by the one who cursed her and has chosen Kathy to be her Knight.

--

Since The Blue Lamb never got a proper ending I'm not sure where things stand by the time of Untitled Changeling.

Is Agent Skou still around? It would make for a convenient reason for them to be at Loch Ness. But at the same time, having your lover killed a few months ago by some Fair Folk would also give an interesting subplot... (I'm quite partial to killing the Agent off for the Angst. But he also is a good Handler. So I am torn.)

I am quite attached to the idea that Kathly, Luke and Alex form a weird little unacknowledged/ coerced-by-circumstance branch of the Danish (or other?) government. Like the X-Files meets MIB but less willing. Giving them a Man In The Chair would also be a reason to have them show up in Fort Augustus - they've been ordered there.

Maybe I should give them some co-workers? I can either resurrect Holly and 'Zeke from The Skinwalker, or give them some new ones. As of Igazinyoka, 'Zeke had a good job in Emeryville doing something computer related; and Holly had gone to University. I might bring back Holly. She and Kathy never really got on, but the nepotism of it amuses me. Someone bright and sunshiny should be the 5th team-member. (to aggressively counter the seriousness of the other four)

What's going on in Alex's & Luke's lives? Maybe one of them's got a partner. Alex, probably. He's the more charismatic of the two, after all. The partner isn't 100% sure what Alex does. Alex studied for a degree in accountancy (I think) but never became w/e the USA equivalent of Chartered is. Actually I don't think he ever finished. Maybe he has his partner convinced that's what he's running around the world doing. Did we ever see if they have parents/ siblings/ other family? I know FA about either of these two, tbh...

As for why they're there - orders notwithstanding - I thought I might bright back another old character. In Igazinyoka Kathy and Luke call up a Profesor from the Uni of Nairobi, called Kgosi Babatunde, for help on what the Igazinyoka might be. Since he specialises in water cryptids, it might be fun to also have him show up and recognise Kathy. Did he ask for them, or is he pleasantly surprised...?

None of this helps me with an overarching plot, but it has helped brainstorm the current state of affairs in their lives.

--

¹ This universe is using very low magic stakes; no wild mage battles here.

² I never got further than the first act of The Blue Lamb, so a lot of what happens in-'verse during that is ~vibes~

[channeleven]

LTA: Saturday's Off, How Bad Is It?

You know those YouTubers you discover from ongoing drama, that you subscribe to for more of the same only to discover they don't make content you're particularly into? That was my relationship with a lot of YouTubers, DaftPina included.

DaftPina, he gave off an aura that I didn't particularly like, and it wasn't until years later that I discover he's not a particularly good person, to put it nicely, and this goes beyond his little fits with storytime animators. I don't know how he could possibly redeem himself, let alone how people can continue to associate with him when he would go as far as indirectly encouraging Just Stop to make an ass of himself by communicating with LSMark in confidence... in public. Well it must've been Daft's idea, I doubt Just Stop would through his face into an open flame like that.

It turns out two years ago, Daft worked on an animated pilot, so why talk about it now? Well I'd say it was a year or so after it came out that his reputation began to crumble, so anything of his is fair game. He made a video discussing Enter's failed Growing Around project, and it seems like it's petty to bring up, but let's put it like this:

"If I make a video poking fun at someone's failed attempt at launching an animated series, perhaps this can elevate my own."

It's a coincidence, sure, but interesting to think about. That aside, the big thing behind the pilot is that it demonstrates Daft's drawing skills. I reiterate, Daft, an art critic who demonstrated to have rigorous standards, is given an opportunity to work on an animated pilot, designing the characters, and we can see how he applies his own standards.

Short answer, people began to seriously wonder, but we'll get to that at a better time. The pilot has a higher like ratio, but the dislikes are slowly catching up. But, art aside, maybe the pilot is good enough for me to overlook high standards gone wrong? Also this counts as me giving LS Mark another chance because he is in with heavy prominence.

The Pilot Itself

Follow along right above.

The pilot, at least from what I'm getting now, is going for a slow feel. An immediate comparison I could make is to it and something like Dr. Katz or Home Movies, shows that made use of limited animation and relied on improvised dialog.

If that seems like a stretch, it feels like... green dude and purple dude? Are having an improvised conversation, about current events, I mean I guess, and the animation is somehow worse. Let me reiterate, animators with the most basic experience could replicate most of what Dr. Katz and Home Movies did, those made use of limited animation, and this is more of the same. As far as improvised dialog goes, those shows either act as some variation of a stand up routine like in Dr. Katz, or just serve as following a rough outline that is used to drive a conversation, perhaps at times going for edgy subject matter to get people's attention.

They kinda try to do that by discussing the news, but it feels forced, either that or the delivery's so flat I can't even be bothered to get into what they're saying. If there isn't an overarching plot then that would be fine, though not necessarily good in the long-run. Think 12 Oz. Mouse without the surrealistic wit.

The schtick behind this pilot is that it is divided into seven segments based on each day, a collection of non-sequiturs, but let's see if an overarching theme is present, or if anything interesting can come forth. We get an indirect reference to Bob's Burgers, why else would we be in the office and a co-worker asks the main character if they signed Jason's birthday card?

Also the green guy is named Mikey, now I know. If Mark is playing the Mikey as well as the blue guy, I'll admit, he has range, and I guess Daft wanted him to capture the life in his videos.

Monday night, I feel Daft missed a good opportunity in relation to discussing eyelids, purple beanie guy is uncomfortable with the discussion of seeing eyelids when you shut your eyes, I feel there was an opportunity for a joke of any kind, but they don't and turn it into something philosophical, hold any irony or humor. Maybe Mikey could intentionally annoy purple guy by comparing shut eyes to a blanket over a bird cage, purple guy pulls the beanie over his eyes and Mikey makes an analogy relating to it, perhaps the drive thru guy could get in on this, I dunno.

The payoff to this is getting the drive thru guy to freak out, I can't even respect it as a joke, and for perspective, right now I've had two beers and the buzz isn't making things better.

Okay, I have the feeling people focus more on the animation and art direction because the dialog gives me absolutely nothing. If you want to portray real life with improvised dialog, fine, but you can't just stick with that alone. The only time this would work is if, I dunno, someone recorded IRL interactions and decided to animate them. This begs to be based on the real world, and Daft just uses an artificial layer.

I don't care about anyone or anything in this pilot, okay that's a stretch, I guess the boss lady, co-worker is kinda interesting, whoever played her has what it takes to be an actor, she suits the supporting character role well, that's about the nicest thing I could say. Something tells me this is made for the sake of establishing characters and dynamics for a full series, at least that's what it feels like, because even less is happening here than in any show that has a very loose plot keeping it going.

So the pay-off, I guess, is that Jason died in a freak accident and that such a thing was alluded to in the start. The problem is that the dialog is carried out so dry and slow that you can't pick up on it. I'm more interested trying to figure out what species of animals they're supposed to be, I guess it's koalas.

Animation

So, the backgrounds look to be very well drawn. But, you wanna know what else had well drawn backgrounds? Allen Gregory. Cosmetics while helping to make something look good is like covering a dog turd with bleach, the smell is gone but you still see the turd. You can be a talented background designer but be lacking everywhere else, The Christmas Tree, being a perennial cautionary tale.

It's impossible to discuss DaftPina without art being a part of the conversation, and that's where most of the outrage lies. The character designs, while not totally awful, fall well below standards Daft had established. They look like they were made for the sake of being prime for marketing, get your co-worker girl plush over on RedBubble starting at $10.99. The tell is how each character looks more or less the same, attempting to be as familiar as humanly possible, but what do I know?

Then there's the animation, even by YouTuber standards, it's not very good. It feels like purple guy and Mikey are pasted onto the backgrounds and given the same looping animations, things look stiff and repeated, if this were anyone else this would be fine, but again, this is Daft "You should give up on ever drawing again because you suck" Pina, surely he could take blunt criticism like he dishes out.

For perspective, let's bring up one of his old targets, JaidenAnimations. Is her animation better than Daft's? Well, that's up to you. A collection of animated stories against what is intended to be a series has a loose connection to one other, but for someone who has to keep up with deadlines while taking shortcuts to ensure she could keep up a good schedule, and seeing what commission work can do, there is more life to her animation than what Daft could do. I'd be saying that no matter my allegiance.

I'm not saying he's trying to act like he's better, I'm just pointing out the irony in those he criticized managing to outperform him however little.

Final Thoughts

The worst thing about this series is how boring it is. Noting peaked my interest and I am uninterested in seeing where the characters will go from here. About the only nice things I could say about this is that I underestimated LSMark's range and that co-worker gave me confidence she could be an interesting character.

The best way I could sum up the art and animation is that I'd like to see someone overlay audio from Daft's reviews of other artists. If you want a good slow series, I'll kill two birds with one stone and throw in an example and a recommendation.

Out There is a series that has a similar theme of bleakness and dry dialog, but a lot more happens, also furry animals. It's up on Hulu and it's up to you to determine if I'm making sense.

But one last thing, whether or not Daft can ever do better if he decides to revisit this, I think it's too little too late, not because the pilot is so uninteresting, but because more and more people are catching on to what kind of person he really is.

[earthstellar]

Thank you for your input!

I'll be getting the Transformers #1 because I like having first issues if I can get them, but I'll wait and see how things play out beyond that, and I won't be buying any GI Joe tie-ins myself. Or any GI Joe anything, really.

I'm glad it's not just me who's opposed to the GI Joe thing in general; Seems like a lot of people are in the same boat.

I also hesitate when it comes to crossovers because of the whole financial aspect as well. I very much remember the impossible mess that was the original Marvel Civil War crossover clusterfuck; I didn't even attempt to follow that whole thing, and I think that it's honestly one of the "major crossover events" in comics that ended up putting a lot of people off of crossovers in general. Who can afford to keep up with that, let alone figure out the flowchart of whatever the hell is going on?

The theory that Hasbro might be trying to revamp GI Joe into a SHIELD type deal would make a lot of sense; That does indeed fit in with the ROTB stuff, and might be part of the direction they'd like to take these comics in. Personally I'm not really a SHIELD fan either, but we'll see how they play it as the comics gradually get released. I wouldn't be surprised if they end up going the SHIELD style route, though.

The rehashing of G1 also seems to be a common cause for pause or outright turn-off for a lot of people-- It's interesting to hear that most people seem to have the same or very similar concerns about it as a basis for a new run.

About the inclusion of human characters, I get why a lot of people don't like it in general.

I think that part of the reason why humans in IDW worked so well is that they were new human characters and had enough time to get in a lot of good interaction with the bots while also not overstaying their welcome in the plot and overarching story.

The focus in IDW never fully shifted to the humans unless it was well set up and integrated with what the bots were doing, which maintained interest. Verity was great. Hunter was fun. They were used sparingly and effectively, when they stuck around it was for good reason, and then they were rotated out as needed to progress things.

In IDW, overall time on Earth was limited, stuff that needed to be done was done, and then it was right back to post-war Cybertron and onward into space with the Lost Light. Instantly new and interesting settings!

Bringing back Spike has a lot of people rolling their eyes, I think mostly because if they're going Full G1 then he'll be around for a good while, and we've already seen so much done with this character. It's nostalgia for a few people, but fatigue for many others. We'll have to wait and see how they utilise the human characters for the Energon Universe, but I'm a little worried that with the GI Joe stuff, there's going to be a much larger human ensemble cast, potentially. And Transformers fans are, in general, here for the bots.

And even though I'm generally OK with some degree of Earth based shenanigans, I do hope they go beyond Earth; It may be some time in this crossover arc before that happens, since they seem to want to set up a lot from the get-go. It's called the Energon Universe, after all!

Image Comics has dropped their solicits for December 2023, and it looks like Duke #1 is where the Transformers/GI Joe crossover is gonna start really kicking off for the Energon Universe.

I know the general reception to the crossover at the end of ROTB was pretty rough, so it's interesting that they're getting the ball rolling in a GI Joe mini-series.

Personally, my dad was drafted into two wars against his will and suffered greatly for it, so I never had any interest in GI Joe because my dad vehemently hated that shit, as he felt it glorified war to children and that this is morally unacceptable. (He preferred the depiction of Army life of that era in MASH, which he said was at least more honest and aimed at adults.)

I also had classmates who ended up joining the military who had been big fans of GI Joe, two of whom were killed in Afghanistan. I know GI Joe wasn't the only factor involved in their decisions, but it certainly does not make me inclined to like the franchise.

My mother lost her first husband in Vietnam. He had also been drafted against his will. (I strongly dislike the GI Joe Vietnam era material in particular, for perhaps obvious reasons.)

So, I admit my general dislike of the concept of GI Joe as a franchise is at least partly based in my own trauma (and that of my family) relating to the US Army.

I've never been a GI Joe person and never will be (on moral and trauma based grounds), so I fully admit I am not well versed on the lore of that universe, and as such, it's hard for me to make any guesses at what Duke #1 might bring.

But what interests me is that on certain forums and other social media, I've seen very limited audience hype about this crossover in general, especially from the Transformers crowd.

After the extremely progressive writing and fresh visual style and designs of the IDW Transformers storylines which appealed to a lot of people across several age ranges and generations of fans, it feels weird (to me at least) to suddenly have a more old school style crossover with what is essentially a US military propaganda franchise-- At a time when the sociopolitical zeitgeist is that "going traditional" is often associated with "going backwards".

All art is political, and so on.

But I do wonder if what seems to be a lack of audience hype is partially due to the fact that not a lot of Transformers fans (at least, not many under the age of 40 based on what I'm seeing around the internet at the moment) seem to be all that into GI Joe.

A lot of young people are not exactly in love with US military fantasies, and the last Transformers comic series with IDW was a big hit with younger/teen readers-- A lot of that audience might be lost, here.

(And vice-versa from what I can tell, although I'm not in any GI Joe fan spaces so I'm not sure what the mood might be in that community in regards to the Transformers element of this crossover.)

All that having been said, the Energon Universe is only just getting started, and who knows what the comics will actually contain!

I do like G1, so I like the designs for the Transformers as drawn in this run this far.

And who knows, maybe they'll do something new with GI Joe for this. I'm aware that in at least one of the cartoons, they were essentially on the run from the military instead of working for it, which is an interesting twist. Perhaps something similar might happen here, with some Joes siding with the Autobots instead?

It's not fair to judge before a comic is even released, so I'm just thinking out loud here in regards to the crossover concept in general.

I'd be interested to hear what anyone else thinks:

Will you be checking out Duke #1 as a Transformers fan interested in the crossover?

Have any of you been interested in GI Joe previously?

If you're an IDW Transformers fan, are you interested in the Energon Universe?

Any other thoughts on the crossover, any conjecture or hopes for the direction of this run?

I want to give the Energon Universe a chance, but as I mentioned, I do have some difficulty attempting to get into GI Joe in general.

That having been said, I guess we'll have to wait and see what they do with this crossover.

[brawltogethernow]

@mirrorfalls​ submitted: Came across this while searching for James Bond’s scrambled-eggs recipe (long story). Your thoughts?

~~

But did you find James Bond’s scrambled eggs recipe?

In this article, Scocca laments his inability to find accessible, lighthearted superhero comics suitable to read with his young son, while also demonstrating a mysterious aversion to looking at DC and Marvel’s lines of comics for children, which is where the accessible, lighthearted superhero comics suitable for reading with young children are. He wants his elementary schooler to be able to safely have the run of all superhero media so he doesn’t have to touch the yucky baby books.

This is not an industry-wide crisis. This is just one dude who got paid to write an article where he accidentally exposed one of his personal hangups.

The child headed toward the trade paperbacks of Marvel and D.C. superhero titles on the side wall […] a few steps in front of me. […] Is he with you? a clerk asked me. I said he was. You know, the clerk said, we have a kids’ section. The clerk gestured backward, at a few shelves near the entrance. I said, Thanks, we know and tried throwing in a little shrug, as the kid kept going.

You can’t just turn a seven-year-old child loose in a comic-book store to look at the superhero comic books. […] My seven-year-old really wanted to see that last Avengers movie […] that is, he wished it were a movie he could see, but he understood that it was, instead, a movie designed to scare and sadden him—a movie actively hostile to people like him.

They have a children’s section. Because comics are a medium suitable for stories for everybody, and they are sold in comic book shops, which have sections, like bookstores. You can use this organization to find books that you know in advance are suitable for children. What goes in that category is determined by industry professionals. This area will be bigger the bigger the shop is. These comics are not lower quality that titles from the main lines. They are actually slightly better-written on average.

Your local comic book shop has considerately wrapped Empowered in a plastic bag, so your child will not be drawn in by a colorful superhero and accidentally read a graphic scene. If you think your kid might find a memoir about internment camps upsetting, it is your job to notice them picking up They Called Us Enemy and read the blurb on the back before you let them have it. This comic adults are meant to read is in a comic book shop because that is where comics are sold. Not every public place is supposed to be Disneyland.

Movies have ratings systems. If you do not want your child to watch a PG-13 movie, you will find that most superhero cartoons are for children. They are about the same characters. Some are quite good! I really enjoyed Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Your child may like Avengers Assemble. At least I think that’s right. I’m always mixing those titles around.

This is a deeply weird bias for Scocca to casually demonstrate, because he identifies in the article that real childishness is striving for empty maturity.

He compares an old comic,

[…]a 1966 Spider-Man comic in which Spider-Man meets, fights, and defeats the Rhino; participates in a running argument between John Jameson and J. Jonah Jameson about his heroism; buys a motorcycle; breaks up with his first girlfriend, Betty Brant; flirts with Gwen Stacy; and reluctantly agrees to let Aunt May take him to meet her friend Mrs. Watson’s niece, Mary Jane.

and a new comic,

[…]a 21st century comic book in which Thor, brooding in a Katrina-destroyed New Orleans, beats up Iron Man. He also yells at Iron Man a lot about some incomprehensibly convoluted set of grievances, including involuntary cloning, that he believes Iron Man perpetrated against him while he was dead(?), and then summons some other Norse god from the beyond somehow for reasons having something to do with real estate. I think. Where the 1966 comic is zippy and fun and complete, the whole contemporary one is muddled and lugubrious and seems to constitute a tiny piece of a seemingly endless plot arc—simultaneously apocalyptic and inert.

and concludes that the edgier comic is actually less mature. This is true. (This is not news about mediocre comics.)

It also has nothing to do with either comic being child-friendly, the article’s nominal thesis, except in the sense that ASM #41 (yes, I eyeballed that from that summary, yes I am just showing off now) is better written, making it more everyone-friendly. It also has practically more space dedicated to word balloons than art and is about a college student juggling girl problems and a part-time job with a tyrannical boss. But the immature one, as Scocca points out, is dour.

These are both teenagery issues, separated only by quality. It’s true that lots of new comics published by the big 2 are bad in the specific way Scocca describes here, taking themselves too seriously and hauled down by associated stories instead of buoyed by them. Some are not! Some titles from these companies’ main continuities are zippy, contained, and child friendly. Give your child The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl! Or if you like vintage comics so much better, why don’t you…buy some?

The books on the kid’s rack are good and fun and totally suitable for parents to read with their children without wanting to scoop their eyeballs out. Scocca cites the Batman ‘66 comics as the brightly colored, tightly written all ages solution to his problem about sharing superhero stories with his son. My local comic shop stores this title in the kid’s section. I am glad that Scocca’s does not, as he seems to have a peculiar aversion to looking for comics to read with his son there.

Scocca cites Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse as a superhero movie he could watch with his kids. (I was surprised when this line made it sound like he has several. I don’t want to assume the other one isn’t in this article because they’re a girl, but I very much am assuming that.) Great! Go to the kid’s section and look for Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man. It’s a fun, zippy title directly inspired by ITSV where Miles, Gwen, and Peter superhero together. It’s much more tightly written than most of the various Spider-Verse comics, which are ambitiously messy ubercrossovers. You may not want to give those to children because they include murder and so on, but also you just have the choice between the two as an adult reader deciding how much continuity you want to deal with. Adventures is one of the only titles I would buy on sight before corona. The kid comic rack is a reliable place to take a break from How Comics Get Sometimes regardless of how old you are.

This article makes me feel quarrelsome. Maybe it’s that it doesn’t seem like exploration of a single idea so much as a loosely grouped bundle of things to kvetch about. Maybe it’s that the experience of getting into superheroes that Scocca describes experiencing, projects his seven-year-old son will experience, and from which he extrapolates a metaphorical microcosm of the history of the genre is completely alien to me.

Comic books [and] comic-book movies—are […] trapped in their imagined audience’s own awful passage from childhood to adolescence. A seven-year-old has a clean […] appreciation of superheroes. They like hero comics because the comics have heroes: bold, strong, vividly colored good guys to fight off the bad guys and make the world safe.

But seven-year-olds stop being seven. […] They become 13-year-olds, defensively trying to learn how to develop tastes about tastes.

The 13-year-old wants many things from comics, but the overarching one is that they want to prove that they’re not some seven-year-old baby anymore. They want gloomy heroes, miserable heroes, heroes who would make a seven-year-old feel bad. (Also boobs. They want boobs.)

Not because of the boobs line, although that does illicit an eyeroll that this gloomy thinkpiece is fretting over preserving the superhero experience of little boys who resemble the little boy the writer was while casually dismissing everyone else. I was one of those unlikable little seven-year-olds with a college reading level and the impression that maintaining it was the crux of my worth. I only read Books - distinguished media you could club someone with. I have a formative memory of pausing, enraptured, in front of a poster for Spider-Man 3, preparing to say that it looked pretty cool, and being beaten to the punch by my mother making a disparaging comment about how the movie was trash. It wasn’t out yet, but it was a superhero movie. That meant it was for loud, brainless children.

That was the total of my childhood experience with superheroes, excluding being the unwilling audience to incessant renditions of “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells” that left me wondering why in god’s name Batman’s sidekick was named Robin. I certainly never visited a comic book shop. I got into TvTropes, which got me into webcomics, which got me following David Willis, who got me into Ask Chris at ComicsAlliance, which led to me rewarding myself for studying like a demon for the AP tests with three volumes of Waid’s Daredevil, pitched as a return to the character being colorful and swashbuckling. I was seven…teen.

This is of the same thread as Scocca’s point that immaturity is running from childish things. It leaves me baffled that he doesn’t follow that maturity is embracing them.

I will disclose here that while I think it was dumb I had to overcome my upbringing’s deeply embedded shame associated with enjoying arbitrarily defined lowbrow media and children being childish, I think it’s fine that I was allowed largely unchecked access to technically age-inappropriate content. In my limited experience, content small children are too young for is also content they’re too young to understand, so it kind of just bounces off of them, and what actually ends up terrorizing them is unpredictable collages of impressions that strike out at them from content deemed perfectly child-friendly. I would not forbid a seven-year-old I was in charge of from seeing an MCU movie unless I had a reason to believe that specific child would not take it well. These are emotionally low-stakes bubblegum films. It will probably be easier to socialize with other kids if they have seen them.

But then, when I picture being in charge of a hypothetical child, I usually imagine this being the case because they are related to me, and the pupal stage in my family strongly resembles Wednesday Addams. ALL children love death and violence, though, right?? This isn’t a joke point. I know it looks like a joke point.

The MCU thing seems especially weird in light of the article’s particular focus on Spider-Man, which is the kiddie line of the MCU, even if they refused to waver from their usual formula enough to get a lower rating. Though I am more inclined to describe it as “preying on the young” than “child-friendly”.

(MCU movies are increasingly dubious propaganda, but I would not judge them in front of a child who wanted to watch them for that reason, just in case this led to them partaking of them without me the second they were old enough to and then they grew up to run a blog about them while our relationship suffered because they didn’t feel like it was safe to talk to me about their interests…Mom.)

I tried to overcome the philosophy of letting anyone read anything while compiling this handful of mostly-newish superhero recs for the road that anyone can read. (Handily, I have been in spitting distance of being hired as a comic shop clerk enough to have thought about it before):

For actual children:

Marvel Adventures Spider-Man (the new one is reminiscent of ITSV, the old one is more like 616) any DC/Archie crossover, Archie’s Superteens The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (for bookish children who think they’re too good for comics and adults afraid of the kid’s section) Teen Titans Go (even if you hate the show) Superman Smashes the Klan

For teens:

Ms. Marvel Young Avengers (volume 2) Unbelievable Gwenpool Batman: Gotham Adventures Teen Titans Go (the tie-in comic based off the old show was also called this)

Here are a bunch of relevant C. S. Lewis quotes.

[house-of-no-regrets]

No Regrets [in the wee hours]

Took a bit longer than expected, but I’ve finished the next little story! Hopefully I’ll be able to keep a decent pace on these. No overarching plot, just little stories in the same universe with the same characters. Warning for ~*murder*~ in this one!

-------------

I've been all-too-easy to wake up since I was a child; I'd often needed to go from dead asleep to functional, if groggy, as soon as I heard my father demanding action or attention. While I no longer need that reaction time, the old man long since locked up to rot, my brain is set in its ways and very convinced that I need to be able to bolt out of bed and fight God if a dust bunny moves too quickly in my vicinity.

Which is how I found myself waking up in the middle of the night, the sudden shift in the atmosphere bringing on consciousness with all the subtlety of a foghorn.

My room was silent, still, but I knew without opening my eyes that there was a spirit somewhere, and I didn't even give them a chance to speak before I pointed at the sign posted on my wall, barely shifting from my comfortable snuggle in my blanket and not even opening my eyes. Yes, this happens more often than I care to admit. No, I do not enjoy it. At all.

"Resurrection hours are noon to eight. I'm still alive and still need sleep to function."

There was silence, but the presence didn't leave, so I groaned and raised my head, finally opening my eyes to see the translucent, vaguely glowing, and unfortunately blurry spirit at the foot of my bed.

It did finally speak in a bewildered voice.

"Um, I'm being murdered."

Ah, fuck.

I grabbed my glasses from the bedside table and put them on. The spirit at the foot of my bed was tallish -- I've always been bad at estimating height, maybe half a foot shorter than Yvette? Five-nine... ish? -- and seemed to be in his twenties. There was a considerable dark stain on his chest and belly; likely blood, and the cause of his death. The newly-dead tend to show things like that, as they haven't had the time to get used to modifying their form.

I really hate it when brand new ones find me. I'm not sure how it started, but it seems like more and more often, now, the dead are drawn to No Regrets before they even realize they're dead, at least if they're the type to need my help. Wish I wasn't the one who had to break it to him. I'm not great with people.

"Sorry, bro, but I'm afraid they succeeded. Where was it? I'll get the police over there."

"Uhh... my house. I think. It's a little..."

I sighed. Right.

"You're probably a little out of it still... fresh dead usually are. C'mon, I'll take you around until things look familiar."

Climbing out of bed, I headed over to grab my hoodie from the back of the chair. I learned the hard way that sleeping is not a tits out sort of occasion when you're liable to get the dead dropping in at all hours of the night, so I sleep in pajama pants and a tank top. Little too chilly for tank tops outside, though. I shoved my phone in my hoodie and my feet into loafers, then started heading out of my room and down the hall.

"You remember your name?" I asked, trying to make conversation and learn what I could.

"Uh, Davis. Craig? Craig Davis."

"Well, Craig Davis, I'm sorry to hear about your passing. You're gonna need to possess me for this little adventure, by the way, but I'll walk you through it once we're outside."

"I- what?"

Considering how often I find myself lost in normal conversations, dealing with confused new spirits is especially difficult. Still shaking off my body's angry demands for More Sleep was not helping matters in the slightest, either.

"Possession. I'll explain it in just a minute." I rubbed an eye and yawned as I stopped in the foyer to pull a set of keys off one of the hooks on the wall.

Usually, I've got a driver. Not for vanity reasons, but after three or four near-misses caused by Sudden Spirits appearing in the car with me, I elected to hire someone to drive me into and around town as needed. But it was Fuck-This-Shit O'Clock in the morning, and Graves deserved their rest. The dead don't need to sleep, but they can if they so choose -- and it does, after all, conserve energy. The same goes for Yvette and Ashby; it was too early in the morning for most people to be out and searching for a necromancer to kill, so I wasn't gonna disturb them. I could handle a simple spirit chauffeur and 911 call on my own.

The keys were to the motor scooter; it was the better choice in this situation, allowing for more mobility and no passenger seat for any extra ghosts to drop into. That did, though, mean that Craig would need to ride shotgun in my body.

When I got out to the green scooter in the driveway, I paused and looked over at Craig.

"Hey, I know you're probably still a little out of it, so Possession 101." Script time. At least having this stuff memorized made it easier to do while dozy. "Our bodies need to take up the same space, so c'mere." I beckoned Craig over.

"So like… step into you?" He asked. Good, seemed like his head was clearing up some.

"Yeah, that's part 1."

He nodded and complied, crossing the space between us and settling in the same location, the two of us clipped into each other like bugged NPCs. It always felt so weird, those moments before a spirit actually possesses you. A sort of wobbly, in-and-out feeling like physics is trying to crush you and the spirit together, or, failing that, just kick your ass to the ground so you're not both in the same place at the same time.

"A'ight, now turn around and face the direction I’m facing, and overlay your hands onto mine as best you can." It was just a moment for him to obey, and I continued. "I'm not resisting, so you're gonna start feeling like you're being pulled in and pushed out at the same time. Space is trying to equalize. Let yourself be pulled in. It's gonna feel a bit like-"

The whirlpool effect kicked in before I could finish, the sudden snap and release of tension as Craig's spirit sank into my body. I wobbled a bit and grabbed the handlebar in front of me, then shivered at the sudden chill and dizziness. I'm pretty good at taking on passengers like this, but that didn't make it any more pleasant.

"You in there, buddy?" I asked out loud. Especially with new spirits, trying to think at each other was more trouble than it was worth. My lips moved to answer, though it wasn't my voice coming out.

"Uh- yeah. Yeah I'm here."

I grabbed the helmet hanging on the other handlebar and snapped it on, kicking the stand up and plopping heavily onto the seat.

"Great. Let's go."

"Wait, why am I not in control?" came Craig's confused voice. He felt almost frustrated, an undercurrent of emotion that wasn't mine despite being in my mind and body.

"Because this is my body, and I let you in willingly. Easier to keep control when you're letting someone in. Plus," I gave a little snort. "You just died, dude. I've been letting spirits possess me since middle school."

I felt his frustration turn to grumpiness, and then the pressure in my head, like a storm rolling in, that I knew from experience was him trying to take control. I froze and let out an irritated huff.

"You stop that. I'm not dealing with you doing some dumb shit with my body. Either chill out or get out."

"Oh- uh. Just wanted to see if I could…"

"Uh-huh. Anyhow, now that you're together enough to try joyriding, do you remember much about where you were before you were killed?"

I started up the scooter as emotions rolled through my mind, detached and distant, almost like the muffled dissociation I was used to mid-shutdown. Possessing spirits' emotions always felt weird like that, both mine and not mine, held at arm's length. Craig's was especially turbulent for a new death, but given that he had been murdered… I didn't fault him for being a little confused and angry. Even if it did put me a little on edge. 

"Uh- South Pine Street, Dogwood Acres housing development."

"Baller. That's not far from here. Once we get close to your body, you should be able to feel where it is, so I'll have a house number for the police. Don't want to have them scream in all blue lights and loud sirens and have your killer go to ground before they know which house, y'know?"

The muffled flare of anger that I felt was definitely not my own. I took a deep breath, hoped that the killer had panicked and tried to clean up instead of get rid of the body first, and puttered off towards Dogwood.

The housing development was quiet, lines upon lines of identical suburban boxes lit by flickering street lights that cast the sidewalks and yards in harsh white light. The occasional house had the glow of yellow within, but most of them were dormant. Weaving my way through the maze of streets, each one absolutely indistinguishable from the one before and the one to come, I felt terribly exposed -- and alone despite the spirit currently hitching along in my body.

I turned onto South Pine and brought my scooter to a puttering stop, stabilizing it with both feet on the ground. I couldn't help but bounce my legs to replace the vibration of driving; the sudden lack of sensation would ratchet my anxiety up even if I wasn't currently letting a frustrated dead man hang out in my head to catch his murderer.

...I should be more than a little anxious, really, but half-asleep Tabby once again wrote a check that more-awake Tabby is having to cash, and more-awake Tabby is very used to having to deal with the consequences of her idiot decisions. It occurred to me that normal peoples' consequences didn't usually involve murder, but when you live with the dead, you're bound to meet a few killers.

Two houses down, I could feel- not a tug so much as a presence, an echo of Craig's spirit reacting to his body. It was the only one on the street with its lights on and its garage, while not lit, was open. There was a car in the garage, another in the driveway, and a pickup at the curb in front.

"258?" I asked Craig, though I knew the answer already. His anger flared and I felt the oncoming storm again. I snapped at him. "That's two strikes, Craig. I'm sorry for your death, but if you end up driving my body into a crime scene or, god forbid, getting me killed next, I will kick your ass to whatever afterlife you're headed for and stay there to keep kicking it for eternity."

Big words for a short fat lady, but this is, in fact, my body on the line right now. I probably wouldn't be able to follow through on any ass-kicking, but dammit, I would try.

Craig was silent, and I could feel him steaming, petulant like a child denied a toy but with the power of a grown man behind it. With my stomach tying itself in knots and my hands starting to tremble, I dialed 911, hoping it would help quell the rising panic.

"258 South Pine Street. I think there's been a murder. I don't know the state of the crime scene or if the perp is still there, but you might be able to catch them if you hurry. The victim is Craig Davis, white adult male, either shot or stabbed in the chest, likely multiple times-"

"Wait, is this Tabby? The necro girl?"

Oh god I hope that isn't what the operators call me regularly-- I know I'm a bit of a 911 cryptid, since the usual intruder calls are to the non-emergency line, but if I get known as the necro girl I might have to move to a different state.

"Yeah, uh, necromancer, yeah-" I couldn't help but stumble over my words, now, with my train of thought derailed by the interruption. "-uh, murder?"

"Right! I'll send someone."

I murmured a thanks and hung up before she could ask me to stay on the line. I already had to stay around for the cops so Craig could give a statement, and making small talk with the 911 operator was not in the spoons tonight.

I don't like cops much, but in my line of work, they're kind of a necessity. I need to stay on the police force's good side because I need them to remove attempted murderers from my property on the regular. ...and also because graverobbing is still technically illegal, even if I do have the body owner's permission to dig them up.

At least most of the locals who know of me and my employees are chill about it. It took a bit of effort to get to that point, but now at least people don't run screaming from the less-presentable of my employees…

The blue lights of the police showed up fairly quickly, followed almost immediately by the red flashing of EMS. I puttered up slowly and parked my scooter just out of range as the officers set to work surrounding the house, then hung my helmet on a handlebar and walked up the rest of the way to watch the impending train wreck. I could feel Craig's anger boiling higher and tried my best to ignore it; Craig himself seemed to have fallen silent and sullen after I called him out.

"Tabby!"

I was standing just off to the side of the ambulance when someone stepped up behind me and called my name, making me jump and cringe.

"Oh- oh dear, I'm sorry, Tabs. I thought I heard you were the one who called this in!"

I straightened up immediately, face burning. I recognized that voice, bright and smooth and kind and--

"J-Jenna!" My voice was barely a squeak as I turned to face her, looking up at the round, dark face of one of the EMTs. She was a good six feet tall, maybe more, towering above me even in her uniform flats, with a brilliant smile and full lips and gorgeous natural hair pulled through the back of her uniform cap, the streetlight illuminating her from behind like a halogen angel.

Jenna had shown up to one of my early calls for assistance at No Regrets, and then she kept turning up, not every time I was in a situation where I'd be around EMTs, but often.

Concern showed on her face as she leaned to look me over.

"Are you okay? Did you see it happen, or-"

I shook my head, buying time to sort out words by tapping my temple with a finger.

"N-no, I uh- the victim woke me up, he's in here, uh, in case the cops need somethin' from him."

"Oh… are you getting enough sleep, dear? You sound exhausted. Do you want to sit in the back of the truck?"

It took me a second or two to recover from the way she called me dear, my face burning bright red. I couldn't make eye contact even for the second or two I can usually manage so that people don't immediately think I'm being dishonest.

"I- uh- um- w-well, it's, uh, it is like 4am--" I stammered, trying desperately to find words. "I-I guess 'm sleepin' okay, uh, how're… you doing??"

I have never been a great orator and the list of why that is gets a bit longer with every um and stutter.

Jenna's face bloomed into a gorgeous, open grin.

"I'm on 12-hour overnights right now, so I'm basically at least 60 percent Red Bull at any given time. Everyone okay up there at the House? Last I heard y'all were digging up half the lawn.”

I nodded, unable to keep from grinning. At least this was a subject I could talk to her about without making an absolute ass of myself--

"Yeah! The new girl, Chris, she's gotten Daryl and Roy to help her get the vegetable garden going! It's plenty big enough to take care of all of us, and I worked out a deal with the soup kitchen so that they get any of our excess, once things are running smoothly, and I can use their account to buy from that bulk food program that's usually only open to chari- oop-!" I bit my tongue and cringed. Right. I'm pretty sure that's technically fraud and I just admitted to it in front of-

There was a commotion from the house that snapped me back to attention, and the cops were leading a man out in handcuffs. He looked pale and shaken, spattered in blood, and not quite… present, like he had just checked out of reality for his own good. That… was a familiar look. I furrowed my brow. He certainly didn't look like a maniacal killer-

"He caught me with his wife," I said. Well. Craig said. I jumped. Jenna jumped. I flushed and covered my mouth reflexively.

"N-no that was him! The victim!" I squeaked. Jenna laughed, a hearty belly laugh, and covered her own mouth, though she was doing a terrible job of hiding her grin.

"I figured! If he caught you with his wife, it would be an upgrade!"

At this point, you could probably fry an egg on my face. Hell, my glasses were starting to fog up-- I stammered for a few moments, trying desperately to find something to say, and it was Craig who saved me, if you could call it that. I was too caught up in my embarrassment and awkwardness to realize how much anger and frustration he was radiating.

"Motherfucker told me he'd have my job! Son of a bitch thinks he can get away with doing this to me, he's gonna fucking pay--"

The oncoming storm crashed over me before I could get a grip on it, and all of a sudden I was lumbering forward, snarling words that weren't my own, and dragging a gardening pickaxe out of my truck -- Craig's truck -- on my way to the man and the cops--

I let out a shriek, in my own voice, feeling the sound cutting my throat raw. I wrested control of my body back with a lurch, falling on my ass in the yard with the force of it while the silvery-blue form of Craig was ejected from my body, screaming obscenities.

I threw my hand forward, fighting for whatever thoughts and words I could find to fix this. I saw Craig right himself and move back towards me, and the first incantation -- if you could call it that -- that my brain grasped left my lips in a single desperate breath, with a dizzying rush of power--

"INTHENAMEOFTHEMOONIBANISHYOU--!!"

The force of the hurried exorcism rushed outward like a sonic boom, strong enough for even the mundanes around me to feel, and Craig's spirit let out a yowl of rage for a brief second before twisting around itself and collapsing in with a sickening crunch, crushing smaller and smaller until it was gone.

I winced -- not my best exorcism. At all.

As the flare of adrenaline dropped almost immediately and I came back to myself properly, I realized -- blurrily, as my glasses had gotten thrown off somewhere -- at least two officers had their weapons half-drawn at me, though they were looking over at where Craig's spirit had disappeared.

I collapsed the rest of the way onto the grass, shaking, and covered my face with my hands, trying with everything within me not to start crying. I should have realized he'd try something like that, why hadn't I been paying attention- I could have been attacked, I could have been arrested, I could have had to watch myself beat a man to death and I- fuck--

The sob that came out was squeaky and pained, and I pressed my hands harder against my face, like that would stop anything else from going wrong. I should have brought someone-- I shouldn't have let him possess me-- I should have been paying more attention--

Warm tears ran from the corners of my eyes, down my cheeks, to pool in my ears, making my already-trembling body shiver harder with the unpleasant sensation. I'd let myself get complacent, hadn't lost control of a possession like that in years, and- I'd almost- fuck--

"Honey, honey, sit up for me. Tabby? C'mon, let's get you up--"

Numbly, I let Jenna help me into a sitting position, where she wrapped a blanket around me and pressed an open bottle of water into my hands.

"Take slow sips. Are you okay? Just shaken?"

I nodded, some part of me grateful that I couldn't quite see her face properly without my glasses, because I didn't want to see what she thought about me after that. She sighed, though, and sounded relieved when she murmured "Good."

My whole body felt like jelly, trembling so hard I could feel the water in the bottle sloshing around, and I kept flashing from too hot to too cold to too hot again, and I couldn't even sort out my thoughts--

Jenna sat down beside me and rubbed my back. If I wasn't having a complete breakdown, I might have enjoyed it.

I don't know how long it took for me to calm down and clear my head, but the car with the other man had left, and the other EMTs had loaded Craig's body into the ambulance while Jenna sat next to me and made sure I was doing okay.

After a while, though, I blinked and shifted my torso, then opened the blanket more and cursed at the bloom of red on my hoodie.

I heard Jenna curse as well as she stood up, but I grabbed her pants leg.

"N-no, 'm okay," I mumbled, and instead of trying to speak more, I reached to pull my hoodie and tank up my stomach to show bruised, but completely unbroken skin, covered in blood, rivulets following my stretch marks and making it look even worse despite my being otherwise completely uninjured. "See, 'm okay." This was not the first time I've had a possession lead to the dead's cause of death showing on my own body. It wasn't even the bloodiest.

Jenna sat back down, and I could see her leaning in a bit.

"Well damn. Magic ghost stuff, huh?"

I nodded.

"Magic ghost stuff."

I could see the flash of white against dark skin as she grinned.

"So that exorcism… Artemis or Usagi?"

It took me a moment to parse her.question, but all of a sudden I was completely back to myself, just in time to absolutely die of embarrassment.

"L-listen, I- y-you can exorcise i-in anyone's name, i-it's the power and conviction that counts--!!"

"Usagi, then." I could hear the laughter in her voice, laughter that bubbled out moments later. I wanted to crawl in a hole in embarrassment, but- it didn't feel like condescending laughter. I knew what that felt like. She seemed just genuinely amused. "I grew up with Sailor Moon, too."

I couldn't stop the squeak that eaked out, and I covered my face again.

"G-god I hope word about this doesn't get out, people already think I-I'm weird enough, and to- to fall back on anime for magic i-in a pinch is just--"

"Cute," Jenna finished.

I squeaked.

Jenna moved away for a moment, and then she settled my glasses on my nose. I couldn't make eye contact, but I did glance over at her and sheepishly murmur my thanks.

"The officers still want a statement from you, since you made the call and tried to go after the perp, but I don't think they're looking at any charges, given…" Jenna trailed off and looked over at where Craig had disappeared. "...yeah."

I nodded, slowly, and then found myself yawning, the adrenaline drop setting in especially hard.

"...d'you think it can wait 'til tomorrow… 've kinda had a rough night."

"I think they'll be okay with that."