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krsonmar · 1 year ago

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Okay you know what I don't have Spotify and I haven't found a way to post fan playlists with annotations that I like yet so guess what here this is in a text post with links like how we used to roll on Ye Olde LiveJournal

This is my OFMD S1 playlist. Loosely follows the season plot. Here we go:

1.) Come Sail Away by Styx

Because duh like why have they not used this in official promos yet but also very call-to-adventure and with vibes of midlife angst

2.) Fraud by Jonathan Coulton

Every playlist needs some JoCo because there's JoCo for every occasion. Fans debate about what this song is about--I think it's very plainly about imposter syndrome as it relates to the creative process--but here I'm applying it more generally to the feeling that everyone can tell you're faking it. In other words, very early-season Stede.

3.) Royals by Lorde

INTRODUCING BLACKBEARD

(Also I did not know until looking this link up just now that Lorde is also a Kiwi! I am out of touch.) 4.) We're Going to Be Friends by The White Stripes

This song always breaks my heart (in a good way) with its sweet tale about childhood innocence and ease of making fast friends. When I was making this playlist, this track made me think of Ed and Stede's ease of "falling into friendship"...because making a new friend who gets you really can be another kind of falling, just like romantic love, can't it?

5.) My Favorite Things by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes

Pirates like nice things, and they don't ask for what they want...they TAKE IT!!! This is a cover of the Sound of Music song, but made appropriate for the anarchy of a raid by this aptly-named punk rock band.

6.) You're My Best Friend by Queen

I had to get some Queen in here, and this song has always hinted at a slightly-more-than-just-two-friends dynamic to me. The French talk about all kinds of relationships as involving some type of seduction, not just sexual or romantic ones, and for me this track evokes Ed and Stede falling deeper for each other.

7.) Heathens by Twenty-One Pilots OR the cover by Boston Manor

I realized when I was constructing this list to put on my MP3 player (yes, I still have one, can't you tell by now that I'm old-school) that I don't actually own a copy of Heathens by the original band (and yes, I still buy and…ahem…otherwise own copies of the music I like). I did have access to the metal cover off of Punk Goes Pop vol 7, and I think the rawness of that version fits Ed's moment to Stede of "You were always going to find out what I am" quite well. Whichever you, the listener, prefer, I think this is an appropriate spot in the playlist for Stede to be reminded that Ed does have a history, and they are all, after all, pirates.

8.) The Ship Song by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

I love how we all, as a fandom, seem to have discovered this song independently of each other but because of this fandom. And what a fantastic, devastating song it is! It's not just about a relationship that crashes and burns, it's about your own ideals, dearly-held illusions, and self-respect going right along with it. And how it grows to be predictable. I don't really understand the concept of "a good cry", but if I did, I think this song would do it for me.

9.) I Crush Everything by Jonathan Coulton

The second requisite JoCo song of the playlist. This one is literally about a giant squid that hates itself, but I defy you not to be smacked viciously about the head with the Kraken vibes of it.

10.) You've Got To Hide Your Love Away by The Beatles

We've all been there. The fake-it-til-you-make-it "I definitely am doing better now :'-)" phase of a heartbreak. This is Ed's floral nightgown being hidden away and replaced by black eyeliner and kohl; this is Stede's determination to grit his teeth and return to the life he hated and now no longer can even fake his way through. The Beatles always knew what they were doing. (That said, as a note, this is about to be four kinda downer songs in a row on this playlist, and the order does matter, so since the next and last heart-wringer is about to roll up, if the tear-jerkers are getting to be too much for you by this point of the playlist, I suggest omitting this one. The Fab Four will understand.)

11.) Samson by Matthew Luke Sandoval

This is a cover I found on YouTube of the Regina Spektor song, sung with such beauty, emotionality, and earnestness by a male vocalist with an angelic voice. The cover is over 10 years old at this point, and it looks like this guy suffered an apartment fire a little while after uploading this video and ended up not getting his singing career off the ground like he would have if this world knew any sense of justice. I tracked a copy of this song down to a mostly-defunct MySpace page and if my Google-fu is accurate, Mr. Sandoval still lives in NYC and is now an accountant or CPA of some type. I hope he hasn't truly given up on his singing dreams, but sometimes doing so makes life more liveable, so I get it if he has.

That said, this song about the bittersweet regret of knowing a relationship just wasn't going to work although it was magic while it lasted seemed appropriate, especially those famous, poetic lines about "the history books forgot about us". Apply that to a fictional reimagining of a man who history knows more as legend than as flesh-and-blood fact, and his protegee, a starry-eyed would-be adventurer, and how they both went down in flames along with a golden age of rebellion against a vicious status quo, and this tender dirge for a love that couldn't be, sung with a masculine vulnerability, gains a new layer.

Yes, I am very proud of this selection.

12.) Beyond The Sea by Bobby Darin

Okay, time to scrape you up off the floor and wipe your nose. Here's a blanket and a cup of something warm. This is, AFAIK, the original version in English of this song (although it was originally written in French), and it has the right musical and lyrical cautious optimism to not only ease you up out of that Pit Of Despair I just put you in, but also to suggest the wistful hopefulness of knowing you'll see your lover again soon, it's just a matter of waiting until the tides and currents and the sea winds align to bring you back to each other. I compiled this playlist earlier this year, and as of this writing we are 10 days away from season 2 premiering, so I am of course conjecturing and self-soothing somewhat here. That said, it's a romance, we know they'll get back together!!

13.) My Favorite Things by Sarah Vaughan

I call this The "Maybe The Nice Things We Wanted Were Actually Feelings and Relationships All Along" Reprise. Another gentle healing song, one that makes me think of cautious but eager reunions and teary-eyed reconciliations.

14.) Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix

This show loves to use purple imagery to show when Ed is falling more in love with Stede, and while the show creators have said they're thinking more along the lines of Prince (and I declare, right now, before all maybe four of you reading this, that I want to bet actual real-world student-loan-paying money on Blackbonnet's canon reunion scene being set to Purple Rain, you saw it here, mark my words, etc.) if the very last scene of the show doesn't have our boys sailing off into the sunset set to the most famous misheard lyric in rock history, what are we all even doing here?

*****

Would love your thoughts or reactions, I haven't shared a fan playlist before, so I'd love any and all thoughts including things like YOU HEARTLESS BITCH NOW I HAVE TO REAPPLY MY MASCARA or anything else you please! :-) ❤

#ofmd #ofmd fan playlist #fan playlist #ofmd s1 #blackbonnet #gentlebeard #playlists #ofmd playlist #ofmd season 1 #our flag means death

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dealgemeneverwarring · 7 months ago

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De Algemene Verwarring #111 - 29 April 2024

Episode one hundred and eleven of De Algemene Verwarring was broadcast on Monday, April 29, 2024, and you can listen to it by clicking on the link below that will take you directly to the Mixcloud page:

First of all, apologies for the late update of the Tumblr page again, I'm kinda slacking with it lately. Sometimes there's just not enough time to get everything done. The usual order is: Monday: making the episode, Tuesday: putting the show online and spreading the word on the social media, and Wednesday: Tumblr. But you know sometimes there's just other things to do on Wednesdays and then I tend to forget the following days. Anyway, let's get down to business. Pictured below is the Australian almost unpronounceable duo Troth. I recently picked up the CD compilation of their early work "Uncut Flowers", released last year by the fine people of Fördämning Arkiv, and I absolutely love it. It compiles early very limited cassettes and some compilation tracks and I think that at this very moment I like it more than the two albums I have from the band (one on Knekelhuis and the other on Mammas Mysteriska Jukebox), but I'll have to give those two another spin. It's a pretty unique band anyway, combining elements of the Bristol scene with dub and kraut influences. Very good release, and it's still available at Discreet Music. And it's on CD and yeah seems like the noise and experimental scene is totally into CDs again and I don't really have an excellent cd player anymore so it's always a surprise if it will play or not, but this one does so me happy.

Some other music in this episode: Primetime, Blank Statements, Lime Crush, Jeanines, Paperniks, X-Mal Deutschland, Can Kicker, Rose Mercie, Cindy, Nina Harker, and Mosquitoes. And beneath the photo you can find the playlist for the show. Enjoy!

Playlist:

The Mighty Caesars: 1977 (LP V/A “Dope, Guns & Fucking In The Streets Vol 4-7” on Amphetamine Reptile Records, 1990)

Primetime: Pervert (7” “Going Places” on La Vida Es Un Mus, 2016)

Blank Statements: The Way (LP “Signs Are Rampant” in Tough Love Records, 2019)

Jeanines: After All (7” “Latest Light/After All” on Market Square Records, 2022)

Lime Crush: Break The Spell (LP “Sub Divide” on Fettkakao, 2018)

Paperniks: Oxygen Tank Flipper (7” “Paperniks Paperniks” on Market Square Records, 2024)

Violent Change: Dreary Example (7” “S/T” on Sloth Mate Productions, 2020)

Purpur Spytt: Triangles (7” “Nitpick” on Kaka Kids, 1000 Balles, POUeT! Schallplatten, Le Syndicat Des Scorpions, 2018)

ESG: Moody (12” “ESG” on 99 Records, reissue 2017 on 99 Records, originally released in 1981)

X-Mal Deutschland: Schwarze Welt (LP “Early Singles 1981-1982” on Sacred Bones Records, 2024, originally released in 1981 on Zickzack Records)

Pawns: Monuments Of Faith 33BPM!! (7” “Monuments Of Faith” on Inflammable Material, 2019)

Can Kicker: Disassociate Now (LP “S/T” on Drunken Sailor Records, 2022)

Rose Mercie: Marie Toi de Moi (LP V/A “Spasmes Du Hasard - 20 + 1 Years Of SDZ Records” on SDZ Records, 2021)

Cindy: A Trumpet On The Hillside (LP “Why Not Now?” On Tough Love Records, 2023)

Nina Harker: Hin Und Her (LP “Nina Harker” on Aguirre Records, El Muelle, La République Des Granges, Animal Biscuit, All Night Flight, Be Coq, 2023)

Troth: Dreck (In Solemn Dub) (CD “Uncut Flowers” on Fördämning Arkiv, 2023, track originally released on cassette in 2019 on 30 copies)

Mosquitoes: Reverse Charge (12” “Reverse Drift/Reverse Charge” on Knotwilg Records, 2021)

#radioshow #de algemene verwarring #punk #post punk #noise #experimental music #new wave #indie #drones #goth

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trollpium · 10 months ago

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\\ Hello Trollsblr! // ˑ ִ ֗ ִ ۫ ˑ

(...Did I say that right?)

I'm a student cartoon nerd who loves animation and the like! I especially love Trolls!

I truly embraced the movie series this year after watching Trolls Band Together! I'm planning to rewatch everything, make analyses, and put them here ↓

》So far, I think these are the most relevant...

📖 Follow Your Art

📖 Trolls Graphic Novel Vol. 1: Hugs & Friends

— ⊹ ۪ 𖥔 ˑ ִ ֗ ִ ۫ ˑ ₊ ⊹⟡

📖 Trolls: The Junior Novelization

📖 Trolls: The Deluxe Junior Novelization

🎞️ Troll 2 Troll

🎥 Trolls (2016)

📖 Rock'n'Troll Collection aka Trolls Chapter Books

📖 Trolls Holiday: The Official Novelization

🎞️ Trolls Holiday (2017)

— ⊹ ۪ 𖥔 ˑ ִ ֗ ִ ۫ ˑ ₊ ⊹⟡

🎞️ Trolls Shorts

— ⊹ ۪ 𖥔 ˑ ִ ֗ ִ ۫ ˑ ₊ ⊹⟡

📖 Trolls Graphic Novel Vol. 2: Put Your Hair in the Air

📖 Trolls Graphic Novel Vol. 3: Party with the Bergens

📖 Trolls Graphic Novel Vol. 4: Brain Freeze

📖 Trolls Graphic Novel Vol. 5: Brain Freeze

— ⊹ ۪ 𖥔 ˑ ִ ֗ ִ ۫ ˑ ₊ ⊹⟡

📖 Trolls World Tour: The Junior Novelization

🎥 Trolls World Tour (2020)

🎞️ Trolls Holiday in Harmony (2021)

— ⊹ ۪ 𖥔 ˑ ִ ֗ ִ ۫ ˑ ₊ ⊹⟡

🎥 Trolls Band Together (2023)

📖 Trolls Band Together: The Junior Novelization

The crossed-out ones are the ones I've rewatched now. I've watched all three movies except the specials, books, and shorts.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

✦ I am a minor. I currently reside in the Philippines. The books aren't available in my area and they don't sell e-books of the books above. :( Having to buy a hard copy and have it shipped from miles away is way too expensive for me. I was wondering if anyone could help me out in scouting these books? Any locals? Perhaps people in the Philippines selling these books online for other Filipinos to read? I'd love to get ahold of the books, especially the ones I mentioned above as they're most relevant to me. Though I wouldn't mind getting the other books that aren't in the order of the series!

✦ Although I'm a minor, I am capable of paying with PayPal, Gcash, or Google Pay. I would buy the books but they're just quite expensive. I would really appreciate anyone helping me out!

✦ This account will contain analyses, headcanons, rambles, easter egg hunts,-

Navigation:

✧ Spotlight Post

✧ Best Recent

✧ Analyses and Rambles

✧ Timeline Talk

✧ Headcanons, Ideas, & Fanworks

✧ Compilations (Coming soon)

-and things I've discovered from rewatching these over and over again.

Which of course they all will contain spoilers.

✦ I don't really want to impose most of my shipping onto this account as much (I have given out some ship-related posts now though) but a fair warning that I am pro-fiction. I'm in favor of whatever is made in fiction stays in fiction. So that includes ship and let ship. Here's a silly image to help you.

Regarding the purple text from above, if not much can be done, that's alright too. I'll continue to do what I do: Watch the movies/animations/specials and make analyses on them!

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

If you have any questions please use the ask feature! :) I will update this intro progressively, and add certain details about me and all. xddd Tell me if I've missed anything on the list, thanks! That's all. Toodles!

#I'm actually so desperate for the books #Sob sob sob #I would go to the US just to buy them if I could #...or wherever the publishing house is #Trolls #Trolls Fandom #Trolls Graphic Novels #Trolls Books #Trolls 2 #Trolls 3 #Trolls World Tour #Trolls Band Together #Trolls Fan #Trolls Branch #Baby Branch

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worstjourney · 2 years ago

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Help! Where Are The Books?

It’s been a very exciting couple of weeks – we launched, we signed, we were featured in The Observer, and we sold out our first print run. Great news for publishing, rather iffy news for anyone who wants to buy a book!

It was very hard to know what kind of demand there would be for a graphic novel adaptation of a hundred-year-old travel memoir. We were fairly confident it would appeal to polar nerds, and to fans of graphic novels, but how many people is that, and how would they even find out about it? When I was originally looking for a publisher, Worst Journey‘s resistance to categorisation was a liability – how do you sell a book when you can’t narrow down even which shelf to put it on? Is it children’s or adults’? Science? History? Travel? But precisely this quality has turned out to be a strength: I have had people tell me they got one for their adventurous grandson, their nerdy niece, their comics-loving brother-in-law, and their history nut great-uncle – and all these people were confident that it was just the thing for their intended recipient. We had started with a print run of 1000, just to see, and with people buying multiple copies for a wide range of people in their lives, we’ve ended up more or less selling out, in just under two weeks! Never could have guessed.

I’ve had a number of people asking me how to get hold of copies, so if you’ve come here looking for the same thing, here are some answers which I hope will help:

Where can I get a book, like, NOW?

Currently, the gift shop at The Polar Museum in Cambridge has the most copies in stock. If you can get to Cambridge (Wed-Sat 10-4), your chances of being able to walk out with a book are pretty high. (Please also visit the museum, it’s extremely cool!) Should they run out before the next print run is delivered, you will get a voucher which you can exchange for a book when they come in. Mail order is technically possible, but they have limited staff, so be patient.

Cambridge is dead to me; can I go somewhere else?

The Children’s Bookshop in Muswell Hill and Ink@84 Books in Highbury are our partner bookshops in London. At the moment of writing, I don’t believe they have any copies in stock, but they are filling online orders as soon as a rogue copy appears. If you place an online order then you will be prioritised when the new shipment arrives, and if you’re going to be in London you can probably arrange to collect your book rather than have it shipped.

Why privilege the Southeast?

Because we’re still waiting to get processed into the catalogue of the main book wholesaler in the UK. One we’re in with them, any shop in the country can order copies, as well as places like hive.co.uk and bookshop.org where you get Amazon-like service while supporting high street booksellers. The places selling Worst Journey now are places with which either I or Indie Novella have existing relationships, and by necessity we both live in the Southeast. If you’d like your local bookshop to stock Worst Journey, why not put them in touch with Indie Novella and see if they can’t order a few copies? Not right now, because there aren’t any, but when we get some more.

So what’s this about a second print run, then?

We ordered 2000 more copies on Tuesday! They’re expected to be delivered on 20 December. I acknowledge that this is very, very close to Christmas. It’s unlikely that your order will actually reach you before Christmas Day, if you’re having it shipped, even if you’re in the UK. But it will arrive not long after. We’re really scraping in under the wire for getting it before Christmas at all, but it can only happen because the book gets printed in Norwich rather than China. You’d be waiting upwards of six weeks otherwise! Hurrah for local businesses.

Can I get a signed copy from you?

One of the reasons I partnered with a publisher, instead of self-publishing like the cool kids, is so that they could handle the commerce while I got on with making Vol.2. At the moment there are no copies to sign; when we get some more, I will be signing more for The Children’s Bookshop and will be having events at Ink@84 and Jam Bookshop (details TBD). You will be able to order signed copies from them. I have also left a number of signed copies at The Polar Museum (see above). If you’ve already ordered a copy and you want it signed, please bring it to one of the events! I am really looking forward to signing a loved copy of the book.

I’m not in the UK; do I have any hope at all?

Yes! Indie Novella, The Children’s Bookshop, and Ink@84 Books all ship overseas. It’s expensive, but it’s a flat rate, so you’re better off clubbing together with other people who want copies and splitting the cost.

If you’re in the EU, don’t mind waiting a bit, and are OK with getting the book in German, you’re in luck! A super deluxe German edition will be on sale most likely in the spring. Other languages may happen if it does well enough.

Elsewhere, our long-term plan is to partner with small presses in different countries to distribute the book locally. If your country has an independent publisher who you think would be a good match for Worst Journey, please let us know via the form on the Contact page! It always helps to have a personal recommendation.

I’m a bookseller abroad and I don’t want to wait for you to find a distributor in my country. Can I order some books directly?

Yes; get in touch with Indie Novella and they will be able to sort you out. At the moment we are limited by having no stock, and when we do get stock we will need to prioritise existing orders, but the backlog will clear eventually and we’d love to get you some books.

If you have a further question, please do not hesitate to use the Contact page to ask it!

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#IFTTT #WordPress

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lessapander · 10 months ago

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Slowly curating a collection of fashion and art books to have as references and reading materials, but trying to figure out where to put it all. Right now it's on the bookshelves in the bedroom, but I kind of want them somewhere closer to my desk where people can see and pick through them when they come over to the house.

Especially the GLB collection once I've finished getting the rest, because that's a bit of a grail right now. I've been kind of haphazardly doing this for years, but decided last year during the sewing room revamp that I want to make a concerted effort to really showcase my interests more openly.

These recent thoughts were prompted by getting more GLBs (I have 36 of the total run of 60, though pre-vol. 40 the order is messy as hell) and Lapin Labyrinthe volumes (I now have 2, 5 and 6; need to find 1 somewhere secondhand and get 3 and 4 next order), but also finding a book of fashion illustrations by @meganhess at Kmart last night for $6 randomly, and buying several more of her works online when I got home to add to said shelf.

I'm gonna ramble a bit here ...

Anyway, goals:

I want to finish my GLB collection, which is getting harder as prices are increasing and finding volumes in good shape gets harder. This will just have to be a slow-and-steady situation, I think

I want to continue my Lapin Labyrinthe collecting because they feel like a good successor to the GLB, with more focus on international community engagement. They're early in their run, so it shouldn't be too hard to keep up

I kind of want to look into the Otona Alice Walk's zines, though a few friends have warned me away due to drama with the organisers (the zines and the group look interesting, though one volume copped a lot of flack from western lolitas online for putting Misako and another model (I cannot remember who, sorry) in heart-shaped sunnies to pose with lollipops and a copy of Nabokov's Lolita)

Possibly start tracking down the back issues of Otome no Sewing. I don't use them as much as I used to, but I do still reference their techniques and patterns sometimes. My one hesitation here is that some of the earlier volumes now sell for ridiculous amounts whether they're in good shape or not

MORE ART BOOKS! I recently got a Louise Bourgeois retrospective that is chockablock of amazing photographs and information about her. I've also picked up several other smaller art books in the last year on several subjects, including ukiyo-e, the art of Catholocism and Paganism, and so on. I'd love to get some more books about the influence of religion and mysticism on art as a whole (there's a gorgeous Tarot collection at my local small bookshop that I want to pick up, for example; also a volume analysing the depictions of Hell in Japanese artwork that I kind of want)

MORE FASHION BOOKS! I have started picking up any neat and well-produced fashion-based illustration and photography collections I come across recently, but I'd like a few more scholarly ones. I need to get my hands on the Fashionpedia from Fashionary to go with my Textilepedia, for example. There's also several very cool books from a publisher I like that documented the Red Carpet for the Oscars throughout its history in a huge, scholarly text. I also need to organise my current collection of pattern drafting and technique/textbooks somehow. They used to live in the sewing room, but that isn't always helpful when I draft digitally

#lessa musings

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upstartcrow42 · 2 years ago

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I posted 469 times in 2022

8 posts created (2%)

461 posts reblogged (98%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@beansprean

@gaylittlenandor

@michshlo

@autumnwander

@lady-of-the-spirit

I tagged 32 of my posts in 2022

#wwdits - 19 posts

#wwdits spoilers - 11 posts

#guillermo de la cruz - 8 posts

#nandor the relentless - 8 posts

#wwdits season 4 - 8 posts

#nandermo - 5 posts

#nadja of antipaxos - 3 posts

#wwdits fanfic - 3 posts

#marwa wwdits - 2 posts

#fanfic - 2 posts

Longest Tag: 39 characters

#fandom exchanges are a gift to everyone

My Top Posts in 2022:

If you want to see Nandor actually treat Marwa like the queen she seems to be from what little we’ve seen of her in season 4, then check this fic out. He treats all the wives super well because he has a big Service Kink in this fic.

3 notes - Posted July 26, 2022

My gift to @friedryebread for the Nandermo gift exchange

6 notes - Posted July 25, 2022

Paws and Reflect

Check out my fic “Paws and Reflect” from the What We Create in the Shadows Vol. 2 Zine. You too can learn all of Sam’s tips for making a Bomb-Ass charcuterie spread.

Zine orders will cease on June 8th, so get your copy while you can. All proceeds will go toward Refugees International.

Fic Cover Credit: @jackiegaytona

7 notes - Posted June 1, 2022

☮ - friendship headcanon

For Colin Robinson :)

Ooh. Wasn't expecting this one straight out the gate.

Colin Robinson, despite being an energy vampire, does want the vampires to like him because those are his roomies. They are his chosen family. He has to drain to live, so he can't help but get some tasty sips from their frustration.

Prior to season three, he considered Nandor his bestie. Nandor, of course, did not feel the same way.

I feel like when the Baron told him he couldn't go on the night out, Nandor had to have a little talk with Colin to make him feel better. Or at least Nandor felt compelled to do the talking.

Colin was genuinely upset when Nandor told him to stop talking about Sandra Bullock.

Why would Colin cling to Nandor? Well, I guess Nandor is the one who is often partner-less. Sure, he has familiars, but he rarely has a partner/companion. And while Colin would love to be a third wheel, he knows Laszlo and Nadja would not tolerate that.

Of course, his new bestie in season three was Laszlo, and I feel like what may have started as Laszlo feeling bad for him, lead to a real friendship between the two. This was easy for them to do since Nadja was so busy with council stuff, and any risk of third wheeling was negated.

His dedication to Colin was shown in the Siren episode when Laszlo basically ignored Nadja's problems in favor of helping save Colin from a cruel fate.

Colin probably doesn't really care so much for Guillermo other than to just annoy the shit out of him, so I don't think they are really friends. He doesn't seem to really know him that well in season one, when he asks how long he's been working for them. I would like to see more interaction between them. I thought Guillermo going to some kind of work even with Colin would have been funny.

It will be interesting to see what they do with Colin now that he's a wee baby/toddler.

9 notes - Posted June 26, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I need to see the Guillermo/Freddie with Nandor leering in the background equivalent of this scene from The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

Original Context: Titus is just listening to Kimmy and Cindy catch-up, hoping to hear some juicy details about their time in the Bunker.

Nandor just handing back hoping to hear something salacious about Guillermo/Freddie. He could literally be stirring nothing just like Titus.

As they keep talking, he clearly sees that they are not about to get into any down and dirty details.

Why?

Well, what if Freddie is just super polite and traditional? Like, he traveled all the way to Staten Island to meet Guillermo’s family before he’d even dare go farther than a kiss?

Guillermo’s been lead along by Nandor for so long, the hope of a kiss might be enough to sate him all things considered.

10 notes - Posted March 5, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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symbiotic-slime · 1 year ago

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I just started reading the venom comics last year so I totally get the feeling! It can seem very daunting and overwhelming, but I promise it’s really not that bad once u get into it!

if you’re planning on reading physical copies, I would start with the Symbiosis epic collection. This goes over the origin story, the spiderman era, and the early days of Eddie and the Symbiote. if you’re reading it online, the comics in order are:

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #8 (1984), Amazing Spider-Man #258 (1984), Amazing Spider-Man #260 (1985), Fantastic Four #274 (1985), Amazing Spider-Man #261 (1985), Peter Parker The Spectacular Spider-Man #98-100 (1985), Web Of Spider-Man #1 (1985), Web of Spider-Man #18 (1986), Web Of Spider-Man #24 (1987), Amazing Spider-Man #298-300 (1988), Amazing Spider-Man #315-317 (1989), Avengers: Death Trap the Vault GN (1991), Quasar #6 (1990), Amazing Spider-Man #330-333 (1990), Amazing Spider-Man #344-347 (1991), Amazing Spider-Man Annual #25 (1991), Web of Spider-Man Annual #7 (1991), Darkhawk #13-14 (1992), Amazing Spider-Man Annual #26 (1992), Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #12 (1992), Web of Spider-Man Annual #8 (1992), and Amazing Spider-Man #388 (1994)

Then I would move to the Lethal Protector epic collection. This is when Venom starts getting their own comics, they’re no longer just a Spider-Man character. Again, if you’re reading online, the comics in order are:

Amazing Spider-Man #359-363 (1992), Spider-Man Special Edition - The Trial Of Venom (1992), Web of Spider-Man #94 (1992), Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance #4 (1992), Web of Spider-Man #95 (1992), Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance #5 (1992), Web of Spider-Man #96 (1993), Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance #6 (1993), Marvel Comics Presents #117-122 (1992-1993), Amazing Spider-Man #373-375 (1993), Venom: Lethal Protector #1-6 (1993)

After that, you can kind of read the 90s era comics in whatever order you like, or skip over some entirely if you want. This is just personal preference, but I would highly recommend reading:

Venom: Separation Anxiety #1-4 (1994-1995) and Planet of the Symbiotes [includes Amazing Spider-Man: Super Special #1 (1995), Spider-Man Super Special #1 (1995), Venom Super Special #1 (1995), The Spectacular Spider-Man Super Special #1 (1995), and Web of Spider-Man #1 (1995)] - Eddie and the Symbiote get forcibly separated and have a break-up so messy that it causes an alien invasion. We’ve all been there.

Venom: The Hunger #1-4 (1996) - Amazing plot and very gay if ur into that lol

Venom: Seed of Darkness (1997) - This is a one shot prequel!

I can give you more 90s series if you’d like but I don’t want to overwhelm you with choices lol

I would recommend mostly skipping past the early 2000s comics (cancer era Eddie and Symby certainly are characters who exist) and move on to the 2010s-ish time frame.

If you care about my boy Flash Thompson (or just want to read about badass adventures featuring the Symbiote), read Agent Venom! (I can reblog this again with a reading order if you want to read it!)

If you don’t want to read Agent Venom, skip to the Costa era comics. Reading order for these is:

Venom Vol. 3 #1-6 (2016), Venom #150-158, Venom Inc. [includes Amazing Spider-Man Venom Inc Alpha #1, The Amazing Spider-Man #792 (2015), Venom #159 (2016), The Amazing Spider-Man #793 (2015), Venom #160 (2016), Amazing Spider-Man Venom Inc. Omega #1 (2018)], Venom & X Men: Poison X [includes X Men: Blue Annual #1 (2018), X Men: Blue #21 (2018), Venom #162 (2018), X men: Blue #22, Venom #163 (2018)], Venom #161, #164-165

And that’s basically it! The Cates run is mid in my opinion, and I haven’t kept up with the current run. There’s a bunch of mini series I can tell you about if you want :)

i only watched the venom movie and i wanna know more about venom by reading comics and shit but i dont know where to start this entire reading comics thing is so overwhelming WHERE IS A GOOD STARTING POINT

begging shouting for help

#hope this helps #feel free to reach out to me 🫶#ik this is a lot but take it slow and read at ur own pace #venom comics #venom #eddie brock #venom symbiote

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ninja-muse · 2 years ago

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June felt like a really good reading month, though my Storygraph stats say I’m pretty much even on book count and seriously down on page count. Maybe it’s because I read some really good books and managed to finish three books over the last four days? Or because I managed to read “The Angel of Khan el-Khalili” by P. Djèlí Clark and a Seanan McGuire novella on top of everything*? Or because I’m really liking the history book I’ve just started so am ending the month on a high? I’ll go with a mix of those, I think.

*which I’m not counting here because neither was a physical book

I managed two books off my physical TBR this month—Stardust Thief, Rat Queens—and I only acquired one book, as long as you don’t count reading copies! We got remaindered copies of The Bookstore Cat this month and I couldn’t resist. He’s seriously the best cat and I love him. My ARC pile, on the other hand, is up by 5 books….

And now, my total books read in order of how glad I am to have read them:

Katzenjammer - Francesca Zappia Cat’s trapped in high school, her eyes have disappeared, her classmates are mutating and dying in the halls, and she doesn’t remember how any of this happened. - 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters - warning: body horror, gore, blood, murder, bullying

Rosebud - Paul Cornell Five AI discover a strange ship. The Company wouldn’t want them to investigate, except maybe if they go anyway, they will be Heroes. Douglas Adams, but angry. - 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters - warning: in-universe transphobia

Shadows of Berlin - David R. Gillham A woman in New York is torn between honouring her heritage and her dead, being a good 1950s housewife to escape her past, and being true to herself. - Jewish cast, mentally ill main character, Black secondary character - warning: the Holocaust, PTSD, child neglect and abuse, misogyny

Trailed - Kathryn Miles In 1995, a sapphic couple were brutally killed in a national park. Now a journalist does a deep dive into the investigation to understand where it went wrong. - 🏳️‍🌈 subjects - warning: murder, violence against women, dead queer women

Minique - Anna Maxymiw A girl in colonial Montreal witnesses the world around her and decides to pursue an independent life no matter what. - 🇨🇦 - warning: misogyny, sexual assault, rape

Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake - Alexis Hall Rosaline hopes to win on Bake Expectations and fix her life. Unfortunately, the first co-contestant she meets, she lies to about everything. But that’ll be okay, right? - 🏳️‍🌈 protagonist, South Asian secondary character, 🏳️‍🌈 author - warning: sexual assault

Elder Race - Adrian Tchaikovsky A princess seeks a wizard’s help in defeating a demon. The wizard is an isolated anthropologist who’s only meant to observe the locals—but he goes on the quest anyway.

Legends & Lattes - Travis Baldree Viv has retired from adventuring to start a coffee shop, but she can’t (and doesn’t want to) do it alone. - 🏳️‍🌈 protagonist, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary character

The Stardust Thief - Chelsea Abdullah A dealer in illegal magical artifacts is blackmailed into a search for a lamp containing a djinn king. Nobody travelling with her is quite who they seem, and neither is the mission. - Arab cast, Arab author, #ownvoices

The Monsters We Defy - Leslye Penelope A woman who can speak to ghosts gathers a crew to steal a ring. If they don’t, they’ll neither save the poorest people in 1920s DC, or themselves. - Black cast, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary character, albino secondary character, Black author, #ownvoices

The Collected Poetry of Dorothy Parker - Dorothy Parker Surprisingly relatable 100-year-old poetry. - warning: suicidal ideation

Rat Queens, Vol. 4: High Fantasies - Kurtis J. Wiebe, Owen Gieni (Illustrator) The Rat Queens are getting back into the questing biz, but now they have some serious competition. - Black main character, 🏳️‍🌈 main characters, 🇨🇦 author

Spellbound - Allie Therin Rory can read an object’s past and is trying to keep his head down. Arthur’s tracking magical artifacts and looking for someone with Rory’s talent. Neither expects sparks to fly when they meet. - 🏳️‍🌈 main characters, Black secondary character, Chinese-American secondary character

Currently reading:

Let's Do It - Bob Stanley A history of Anglo-Western pop music, from the early 1900s. - warning: racism, including slurs

Death by Bubble Tea - Jennifer J. Chow When her cousin comes to town, Yale finds herself drafted into co-running a stall at the LA Night Market. Then one of their customers turns up dead. - Chinese-American cast, Chinese-American author, #ownvoices The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle Victorian detective stories - major disabled character  

Stats 

Monthly total: 13  Yearly total: 79 + 1  Queer books: 3.5  Authors of colour: 2  Books by women: 7  Canadian authors: 2  Off the TBR shelves: 2 

January February March April May

#reading wrap-ups #read in 2022 #books #booklr #bookblr #book covers #book photography #my photos #book reviews

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cavalierious-whim · 1 year ago

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YEAH YOU HEARD THAT RIGHT! I haven't posted on Twitter yet, but I've opened up my shop for Physical Copy Pre-Orders! Pre-orders are slated to end on August 30, next month! Shop link can be found here! Book specs as follows:

If you'd rather a digital copy of the PDF ONLY, you still can snag those here on my gumroad!

Don't forget to follow me on Twitter if you haven't!

Etched in Stone, Vol 1

"A trip through the ages as Zhongli and Childe learn what it means to love each other." Zhongli/Childe, Explicit. 34 Fics. Featuring the art of: Jieverysus, Enesefwee, and Hatogaia. INCLUDES 4 BRAND-NEW FICS: 'Nibble' "After a flirting snafu, Zhongli is dying to kiss the pout off of Childe's face." 'Cringeworthy Kiss' "Childe comes home and gives Zhongli a big smooch, forgetting that he just ate seafood." 'Special: Xiangling' "Xiangling would like personal recognition for being the reason Zhongli and Childe are together (says she)." 'These Marks Spell Love' "Zhongli has very few scars, collecting and keeping the ones that have meaning-- like the scratches Childe leaves on his back from their lovemaking." A5 Paperback, Uncoated Pages, Matte Cover NSFW 300 + pages

Hook, Line, and Sinker

"Childe once saw a glimpse of his nerdy Uni roommate Zhongli, and it was over for him. Cue the pining, the moping, the fucking around to forget the sight of those rock-hard abs hidden underneath those sweater vests. Just one problem: Zhongli thinks exactly the same." Zhongli/Childe, Explicit. 7 Chapters + Epilogue, and extras. INCLUDES 3 BRAND-NEW FICS: 'Zhongli, the Bed is Just Too Fucking Big' "Childe and Zhongli are used to snuggling in cramped quarters, so their new bed is awkward at first." 'No, Childe, It's Not Appropriate to Fuck Near the Priceless Antiques' "After getting his PhD, Zhongli accepts a teaching position. Childe, having since graduated, pays visit at Zhongli's office for some fun." 'Let It Be Known: Zhongli is Childe's #1 Fan' "Childe has gone pro. Zhongli surprises him by appearing at an away game in Sumeru and they fuck like rabbits in their hotel room because he's been traveling too long." A5 Paperback, Uncoated Pages, Matte Cover NSFW 150+ pages

Signed, Sealed, and Delivered

"Childe has held a candle for the fancy CEO he's delivered to for several years. The man couldn't possibly like him back... right?" Zhongli/Childe, Explicit. 6 Chapters + Epilogue. Features Art. INCLUDES 6 NEW FICS! 'Blessed Be Our Space' "Childe moves in." 'Punchline' "Zhongli proposes eloping, which Childe thinks is a joke." 'Only You' "Zhongli and Childe do as one does on the honeymoon." '20% Tip' "It's the anniversary of Childe's first delivery to Zhongli." 'Dastardly' "Zhongli is asked to consult during a business dinner as a favor, which leaves Childe to tease him relentlessly when brought as his plus-one." 'Gilded' "Zhongli and Childe cuddle on a cold morning." A5 Paperback, Uncoated Pages, Matte Cover NSFW 150+ pages

A Yuletide Treasury

'Liyue has fallen cold with the turn of Winter, snow flurries filling the air. Join Zhongli and Childe as they celebrate the Yuletide season, their love, and everything in between. A Yuletide Treasury is a series of interconnected oneshots based on a holiday themed prompt list.' Warning: The NSFW content is SWITCH. These fics feature both T/B dynamics as Childe and Zhongli are versatile in this collection. YOUR CHOICE OF:

A5, Matte Cover, Full-Color

NSFW PDF, 150+ pages, 31 Fics, 4 NSFW Fics SFW PDF, 130+ Pages, 30 Fics

Turnaround time is estimated at 2-3 months after Pre-orders close. Subject to change depending on production.

Likes, shares, reblogs here and sharing on twitter is appreciated!

#genshin impact #genshin impact fanfiction #zhongli/childe #genshin fanfic #genshin #genshin smut #genshin fanfiction #genshin impact fanfic #zhongchi #zhongli x childe #zhongchili

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hydralisk98 · 1 year ago

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MS-DOS 5.0 & 6.22 video investigative study session

This is a demo ice-breaker article of mine on Microsoft's historical record.

Greetings fellow retro tech enthusiasts, we are currently in DOS-gustus instead of DOScember (hehehe) and I want to explore more MS-DOS among you quite soon. Hopefully you don't mind me tinkering and toying around towards FreeDOS.

(I will try hard to get things in chronological order and very accessible by the time this reaches its intended audience, but for now I will dive super technical and will explain the simpler fundamentals in later entries )

By the way, yes. I will get to the Apple II + Commodore 64 (MOS 6502 machines', especially for educational and development programmers market) & Z80 systems (including S-100 and Xenix) in due time (as well as for my very own computation architectures), but right now we can focus onto the biggest continuous legacy niche right now.

Which is the Microsoft + IBM joint efforts for Intel CPUs, widely known as the "x86" range of CPUs (mostly aiming to look from the Intel 8088 to i486 specification, with tolerance for up to the Pentium III lineup and down to the Intel 8080 CPU family) by most people. And now we can observe, study and document what MS-DOS + FreeDOS have to offer (sadly starting from MS-DOS' version 5.0 and focusing most on the further ahead 6.22 version, because the IBM PC's BASIC varieties can wait for later articles, but excluding MS-DOS 7.10 & 8.0 ) :

Don't forget to take advantage of the EDIT program & the special text-based printer command line from the "MS-DOS 6.22 for dummies" book I borrow because of course it is worth sharing and using the public library within ethical boundaries, ain't I right?!

Of course there is much more to come (and basic commands + principles to condense) but it should be a good starting point for a few DOS commands like DIR, CD, VOL, TYPE, MORE, COPY, MOVE, DEL as well as a few wildcard characters... (from the content start to very last pages of chapter 4)

I will be looking more towards the various 8088-tier software in that series, albeit on a new thread. It will be done through my virtual 86Box "Czarina" VM (from Cassette BASIC to Visual Basic [might try also the .NET rendition perhaps... ] ), as well as a handful of Windows Terminal (PowerShell & Command Prompt) & System32 legacy-ier utilities.

Going from Cassette BASIC, with Disk BASIC & BASICA for 8088 (as well as the couple other software of that ecosystem, like GWBASIC, QuickBASIC, QBASIC and even FreeBASIC + QB64 Phoenix)...

... to the contemporary day of Windows 11+ versions with One Half Light reduced Command Prompt & Powershell in Windows Terminal.

And as stated earlier on a Discord server I enjoy much, I will get to explain the computer fundamentals and concepts leading from the mainstream baseline to such a technical level in due time. But until we reach such an article thread, take care of yourselves & farewell!

Czarina-VM, study of Microsoft tech stack history. Preview 1

Write down study notes about the evolution of MS-DOS, QuickBASIC (from IBM Cassette BASIC to the last officially Microsoft QBasic or some early Visual Basic), "Batch" Command-Prompt, PowerShell, Windows editions pathing from "2.11 for 386" to Windows "ME" (upgraded from a "98 SE" build though) with Windows "3.11 for Workgroups" and the other 9X ones in-between, Xenix, Microsoft Bob with Great Greetings expansion, a personalized mockup Win8 TUI animated flex box panel board and other historical (or relatively historical, with a few ground-realism & critical takes along the way) Microsoft matters here and a couple development demos + big tech opinions about Microsoft too along that studious pathway.

( Also, don't forget to link down the interactive-use sessions with 86box, DOSbox X & VirtualBox/VMware as video when it is indeed ready )

Yay for the four large tags below, and farewell.

#YouTube #big tech #technology #learnblr #microsoft #ibm #history #retrocomputing #MS-DOS #x86

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farlynthordens · 3 years ago

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SKB Volume 3 Summary

*Note that names of new charas and places haven’t been officially translated yet, so the way I write them may not end up being canon

Vol 3 Title: “The City Lifeform, Tokyo”

Bisco, milo and tirol are at the mushroom keeper village, and milo is doing the ceremony to become a full-fledged mushroom keeper. This involves defeating a giant octopus, because they are the mortal enemy of crabs (a mushroom keeper’s companion)???

Bisco stole kurokawa’s entire anime/manga/DVD collection and gave it to the villagers. they LOVE that shit.

The village is attacked by a redhead man wearing a white lab coat, followed by a bunch of robots that look like him. He causes white cityscapes to grow out of anything, and creates little blue particles from his hands. He speaks of the world like it’s a glitched computer simulation

The trio runs into him and they realize the man looks just like bisco, except with red eyes and longer hair. His name is Apollo (written as aporo, like the Japanese candy)

Tirol is hit by Apollo’s magic. Her eyes turned red and a glowing red symbol appears on her forehead. She spouts random facts about herself to “prove” she’s still the same person, and we learn some fun things like she’s currently 21 and had her first crush when she was 11.

Tirol appears to maintain control over her body, but is notably different than before. She uses “boku” instead of “atashi”, and has knowledge of old-world technology as well as the ability to hack into things Apollo made

Pawoo hosts a conference for leaders of japan. amli and ruskenny, the CEO of matoba manufacturing, and a female mushroom keeper elder named gafune are there. it’s a hot mess, then made worse by imihama being attacked by Apollo’s minions.

Apollo appeared from within the Tokyo crater. He’s been alive-but-not-really for over 300 years, and is trying to reset japan to how it was before the rust incident. He also seems to have a connection to kelsinha, as his “city maker program” is referred to as a type of mantra. tirol’s forehead mark is noted in kelsinha’s books – it’s the mark of the highest gods

The trio visits hyogo prefecture, finding the run-down matoba factories have been transformed into a white, technological city. they find some scientists holed up in a building, thinking they needed rescuing, but the scientists just wanted help building battle robots with functioning AI. the trio lets the scientists copy data from their own personalities, and it goes... how you’d probably imagine:

tirol’s robot (Tirol 1) won’t do anything unless it receives payment

milo’s (Milo Ein) refuses to fight, but possesses immense medical skills (the scientists end up liking this one)

bisco’s (Bisco I) won’t listen to orders, and ends up running off. they let it go since it seems to not be a threat. no this never comes up again

Milo knows how to put on a bra and do hair thanks to pawoo. apparently pawoo just takes her bra off whenever and he has to make her put it back on, but he also implies knowing this from working with female patients. he learned to do hair from helping pawoo get ready for dates. is it possible that back in vol 1, milo twisted the truth to be funny/make bisco mad and actually meant “i have lots of experience with women (because I have a sister who I always had to do things for)” 🤔

Milo friendzones tirol, but she doesn’t mind. there hasn’t been anything romantic with them since vol 1.

Apollo says you need a “MyNumber card” to activate old-world tech, which is a thing that exists in real life japan - it’s basically a government ID card (but it can’t do anything cool like this)

Only 4 people can activate old-world tech or erase the effects of the city maker program - Apollo himself, 2 “avatars” (basically clones derived from his emotions) named Rage and Joy, and the one controlling tirol, “Hope”

Hope is the spirit of the founder of the izumo religion. this is probably why she’s denoted by that high god symbol.

Apollo was the creator of the tetsujin and the rust incident. he’s trying to reset japan to the year 2028, making the current year sometime around 2328.

Originally, Apollo and his machines couldn’t stand up to mushrooms. He later creates an “antivirus” that prevents most mushrooms from growing in his creations, but of course it doesn’t work against bisco’s rust eaters.

Milo and Hope come up with a plan to defeat Apollo, based on his one weakness: his inability to break certain rules/social manners. and.............. well...

The plan, part 1: trick bisco into getting married to pawoo, by disguising the wedding as an induction ceremony to become the high elder of all mushroom keepers. remember the end of volume 1 when bisco said he’d do “anything” for pawoo if they survived the kurokawa fight? this was that “anything”. pawoo tells bisco that she didn’t want to die (in the upcoming fight) without expressing how she felt, but the wedding was of course putting things over the top.... but it made her happy in the moment. they don’t kiss or anything.

The plan, part 2: the entire battle cavalry heads to tokyo after the “wedding”, with bisco/milo/tirol (on actagawa) and pawoo (on her bike) in front. milo and tirol are using their mantra powers to create a giant red carpet in front of them. Apollo’s minions see them coming, but don’t attack because manners forbid them from “blocking newlyweds from walking down the aisle”. it works for a little while, until Apollo realizes it’s utter bullshit.

Apollo talks to a large green cube, and mentions the name “domino.”

Our first ever fight scene with just jabi and actagawa! they fight Rage while the others escape to find Apollo. Rage's ability is to make and control trains?

After defeating Rage, both are gravely injured and have cityscapes growing from their wounds. in his final moments, jabi looks up at a bright red star, Antares, and thinks about how bisco coming into his life saved him from the endless cycle of war he experienced. he prays for bisco to never be lonely.

Bisco/milo/pawoo/tirol run into Joy, and pawoo fights them while the other 3 escape. Joy’s ability involves manipulating walls.

After defeating Joy, pawoo has numerous wounds and cityscapes growing in them that will slowly kill her. too tired to even speak, she thinks of how she has no regrets and died for the 2 people she loves. she wishes for her soul to become a shield to protect milo and bisco.

The trio enters Apollo’s domain, and they fall into the room where the green cube Apollo was talking to earlier is. Hope says that's the server containing backup data of Japan from April 9, 2028. this is likely the date of (or the day before) the rust incident.

Apollo shows up. the server is almost ready to run, and it will “completely erase this fake Japan, and revert to the splendor we had in 2028″. to show off his power, he turns all of tokyo back into blue particles and recreates it again, restoring the buildings that had been destroyed in the earlier battles as if nothing ever happened.

Apollo captures tirol and removes Hope’s essence from her body (in the form of a red cube). tirol is alive but unconscious. bisco and milo recover the cube just before it dissolves into nothingness, and Hope transfers the last of their power to milo.

The rust eater cells in milo activate as Hope’s powers merge with his own, making his hair once again turn green and he now has the same forehead symbol tirol had.

Hope’s powers help milo learn the language (I mean this in the sense of a programming language) needed to use city maker powers. he combines this knowledge with the mantras he already knows, and creates a manta that is able to override Apollo’s “admin privileges” and prevent him from using the city maker program.

When Hope was alive, she created the mantra system as something that was meant to be greater than Apollo’s powers. he hadn’t realized this, because she hid this knowledge inside the religion she founded. some things from vol 2 now make sense, like milo’s comment about how the manta system worked similarly to computer programming - it’s because mantras ARE functionally a programming language.

Unable to use the “mushroom antivirus” or any other powers, Apollo dies as rust eaters destroy his body.

Milo needs to hack the server before it resets time. they blast a hole in it, freeing the souls of people who were alive in 2028 (who I guess were the power source for Apollo and his city-making) and revealing a portal leading inside.

The souls start piling onto Apollo’s corpse to revive him, and cover him in blackness. bisco says he’ll stay behind to deal with Apollo.

Before milo jumps into the spooky ghost computer portal, he hesitates and looks back: “...Bisco!” Milo’s wide-open eyes trembled as he looked at his partner. Memories of their many times of overcoming death and separation suddenly gripped at his heart, making him turn back. Bisco met milo’s unusually unsteady gaze, putting back the bow he had just only drawn and hurriedly returned to his partner’s side. His fingers tangled in milo’s hair and bisco pulled him in close, hugging him tightly. “...You good now?” “4 more seconds...” ... “Okay, I’m ready!”

Bisco promptly picks him up and yeets him across the room into the portal. love wins!

In the server, milo falls endlessly through a white void. Hope appears, telling milo he needs to find a key to unlock the next area. he’s unsure where or how to get a key, until he thinks to stab himself in the heart (they’re inside a computer so he didn’t actually hurt himself)

He pulls out a platinum ring with an emerald stone on it. Hope is dumbfounded by this, then tells milo “I’m sure you will reach her,” before disappearing.

Milo dreams about a research lab. we learn Apollo’s last name is Akaboshi, and was awkward and spoke politely. in typical tired researcher fashion, he drank a lot of red bull. he worked with Nekoyanagi Domino (who had long, light blue hair), and they invented semi-sentient blue particles that could change shape based on the user’s thoughts. domino hugs apollo, saying she’ll always be on his side even when no one else is, and she’ll be with him forever.

The particles are simply dubbed “apollo particles.” apollo commanded them to “self recreate,” and from there they began to grow out of control and consume anything nearby. they turned a sickening color and became more unstable as they grew. these unstable particles were used to generate power for the “apollo engines” in the tetsujin. so what we’ve known as “rust” isn’t actually rust, just something that looks like it.

Milo continues to see memories: apollo proposing to domino, and a coup of matoba manufacturing where the military attacked the tetsujin with missiles. domino tried to stop the attacks, but no one listened.

Everyone is assaulted by powerful rust wind as a tetsujin combusts. milo can feel domino’s suffering; the suffocating air, his organs failing. people die, objects practically melt from the rust eating away at them. only apollo is spared, because his creation knew to save its creator. he cradles the gravely ill domino and kisses her one last time before she dies.

Milo is at the bottom of the void when he wakes up from the barrage of memories, and meets domino’s spirit. she doesn’t want to reset time - she’s dead and apollo can’t change that. she asks milo to stop apollo, and to tell him she loves him. domino teaches milo “lifemaker” - the counter to city maker, which can restore life to things that have been turned into cityscapes. the lifemaker ability glows in rainbow colors.

Milo pops out of the server and saves bisco by shooting him with a lifemaker arrow. this causes bisco’s hair to grow longer for some reason, and rainbow-colored mushrooms sprout from his body and eat away at the cityscapes growing on him. he calls these new mushrooms “nanairo” (rainbow)

The nanairo destroy apollo, and domino’s spirit guides him to the afterlife. the tokyo cityscape and domain they’re in begin to crumble.

The spirits inhabiting apollo’s body flee back into the server and fly into the sky to hijack a broadcasting satellite and spread the city maker program across japan that way. bisco and milo (carrying the unconscious tirol) do some weird shit and fly after it into the atmosphere. nanairo spores rain on tokyo and the surrounding desert as they shoot down the server, which heal those who were turned into cityscapes.

Milo and bisco plummet back toward earth. bisco complains about how weird his life has become and that it’s not worth dying to save the world. m: “...but thanks to this, we met all sorts of people. besides, you have a treasure no one else does.” b: “what’s that?” m: “me!” ... milo hugged bisco while still holding onto tirol, but frowned at the goggles on his partner’s forehead getting in the way. he pulled them off and tossed them aside. “hey!” bisco protested but milo didn’t listen, instead pulling him closer and pressing their foreheads together as they fell head-first toward earth. m: “....bisco.” b: “....hm?” m: “...you’re very sweaty.” Their red and blue hair appeared to tangle together as it blew around. The two laughed, foreheads still against each other. One would think they were two halves of the same life, despite being connected only by their bond. They felt each other’s warmth in the silence of the burning atmosphere. [the word i translated as “burning atmosphere” was shakunetsu, which can mean intense emotions........]

They use their remaining power to create a barrier around tirol in hopes of saving only her from dying. tirol wakes up after they black out, and calls for help. jabi and pawoo come running to catch them. pawoo grabbed bisco so roughly that he immediately woke up from surprise then blacked out again from the force of impact. she does CPR on him poorly and bisco nearly suffocates

Thanks to the nanairo mushrooms covering tokyo, the presence of the rust wind greatly diminishes and those who were still suffering from rust disease are recovering. some of the places that had been transformed into cities stay that way, and become meccas of business and tech

In the epilogue, bisco tries to get milo to pay for a new pair of goggles because his last ones burned up in the atmosphere. they get attacked by a monster while bisco is haggling with the salesman, and milo reveals that they aren’t are half-immortals anymore and their rust eater powers are gone? it’s not explained how this happened, but I assume it’s because of the effects of the nanairo

According to the author’s notes, volumes 1 thru 3 are meant to be a complete set (he calls them ”part 1″).

Other notes:

Bisco’s village is located in Ehime prefecture, Ishizuchisan

I think this was in the author’s comments in another volume, but bisco’s speech pattern is like that of a bratty young kid. We see more of his childishness in the robot scene, where he proudly presents a scientist a shoddy picture he drew of a robot that has laser beam eyes and weapons for hands, and also a scarf “for fashion, obviously.”

It’s become a running gag for milo to say “don’t worry, I went to school” in response to someone doubting how he knows or understands something

One of the high priests from izumo is tirol’s grandfather. idk if this was mentioned in vol 2

Female mushroom keepers tend to be small in stature

It seems like bisco’s been learning to read and he really enjoys reading. at the beginning during milo’s ceremony, he’s reading manga. and when the squad enters tokyo, he gets distracted by a book store

Can we PLEASE talk about how they continue to emphasize that the rust incident affected only Japan? what has the rest of the world done for 300 years????

When milo meets domino, it’s emphasized how they’re so similar in appearance and mannerisms that they’re practically identical. idk how milo is domino’s descendant (same with apollo and bisco) since there was no mention of them having children. I guess some relatives had to have survived and maintained the nekoyanagi/akaboshi bloodlines? 🤔 anyway, in the end this is basically apollo/domino -> bismilo being reincarnated lovers and that’s just the facts!

Domino is a german cookie, which is probably where her name comes from. I think milo’s robot being named “ein”, the german word for “one”, is a hint about this

A lot of bizarre city-monster-animals appear in fight scenes throughout the novel. it has everything... giant spiders with LED eyes and electric cables for webbing, bullet trains that can form into mechas.....

#sabikui bisco #sbkb summary series #akaboshi bisco #nekoyanagi milo #ochagama tirol #rust eater bisco

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chibisunnie · 3 years ago

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Sora to Hara is out in English!! :D

EEEEEEE SORA TO HARA IS OFFICIALLY OUT IN ENGLISH!!! :D :D :D The story that features my favorite Doukyusei boy Sorano is finally here, I AM SO HAPPY! :D :D :D It’s called Classmates vol 4: Sora & Hara in the English release. I’m so excited that everyone can now read about this shrewd chaotic good goofball! :D

It has the same translator, Jocelyne Allen, as the previous Doukyuusei/Classmates volumes and once again she delivered an absolutely fantastic translation! :D Sorano often uses extremely casual masculine speech and slang, way more so than the other characters when speaking in regular casual speech or even regular masculine speech. It can be hard to translate into English, so many official translations kind of ignore it and just make it sound like it had been regular casual. I think she did an excellent job conveying that difference where it occurred! I know that many people hate Hara for how horrible he was in vol 1-3. But this is the volume where thanks to Sorano pushing him, he starts to have a change of heart and a change of character.

It’s also where we get to know Koma-chan, Hibiki, and Arisaka! And Kusakabe and Sajou appear in 2 chapters, one of which is a short chapter full of cute Kusajou moments. ^_^

So please support the official English release of Doukyuusei/Classmates by buying this and all the other volumes! It’s available at all the usual places that sell manga, both physically and digitally, and so far vol 1-4 are out. O.B. (vol 5 & 6) will be in an omnibus format released in April 2022, but some stores have pre-orders up already. If you take Seven Seas’ survey in November or December you can get a 30% off coupon to Bookwalker (although it only works if you’re a new customer) and suggest they license Blanc and Futari Gurashi while you’re at it. Rightstuf has frequent sales on manga (they’ve got a Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Holiday Sale coming up so it’s possible it’ll be on sale for one of those), so that’s another way to get it at a discount. You can also ask your local library to get a copy of it and then you can read it for free!

#doukyuusei series #doukyuusei #sora to hara #sorano aoto #hara manabu #classmates #chibisunniesposts #chibisunniesthoughts

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sineala · 3 years ago

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Tony Stark and Arthuriana

Coming to you by special request, a very long post about 616 Tony's interest in Arthuriana, with a focus on all of Tony's run-ins with Morgan le Fay!

I feel like I should disclaim the extent of my knowledge here, which is that I still haven't managed to read anywhere near every issue of Iron Man -- at least, not yet, anyway -- so I'm just going by the things I know I've read, and Morgan le Fay's Marvel wiki entry is frustratingly under-cited, so it's very possible I've missed something relevant, but I'm pretty sure I've got the big stuff down. My other disclaimer here is that I'm not as big an Arthurian nerd as Tony is, which is to say that most of my familiarity comes from modern retellings -- T. H. White's The Once and Future King, Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave, Rosemary Sutcliff's Sword at Sunset -- and not so much the usual classic sources on the Matter of Britain, though I've read bits and pieces of them.

(This is because I wanted to read versions of them that were as close to the original as possible but so far have not ended up finishing any of them because, well, that's hard. So I've never read the Mabinogion because I do not know Welsh. I've got the Norton Critical Edition of Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, which is probably the best student edition if you're looking for something without modernized spellings, as I was. I've also got -- well, okay, it's my wife's but I'm borrowing it -- a relatively recent Boydell & Brewer edition (ed. Reeve, tr. Wright) of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), which is, you guessed it, in Latin with a facing English translation. I haven't gotten very far in it because, in case you didn't know this about Latin texts, the beginning is pretty much always the hardest, so I gave up and read some Plautus adaptations instead. Anyway, if for some reason you too want to read Geoffrey of Monmouth in the original Latin I'd recommend that one, but I can't recommend any particular English translations because I've never read one by itself. I bet you didn't think you'd be getting Latin prose recommendations in this post. I mean, maybe you did; it is me, after all.)

Okay. Right. King Arthur. Here we go.

We've got:

Flashbacks to Tony's childhood in late Iron Man volume 1

A brief discussion of Morgan's origin story and Avengers #187

Iron Man vol 1 #149-150: Doomquest

What If vol 1 #33: What if Iron Man was trapped in the time of King Arthur?

Iron Man vol 1 #249-250: Recurring Knightmare

Iron Man: Legacy of Doom #1-4

Avengers vol 3 #1-4: The Morgan Conquest

Civil War: The Confession

Mighty Avengers vol 1 #9-11: Time Is On No One's Side

In terms of universe-internal chronology, we know from Iron Man #287, from 1992, that Tony has been a fan of King Arthur since childhood. This is an issue of a fandom-favorite arc which features Tony having a lot of childhood flashbacks, including the famous "Stark men are made of iron" line (in #286) that for some reason MCU fandom decided it loved; I mean, seriously, I've seen that quoted in way more MCU fic than 616 fic. But slightly later, in #287, we get an entire page devoted to Tony's love of King Arthur.

The narration reads: "Over the next few years, I learned as my father intended. Discipline of body. Strength of character. But in what free time I was allowed, I worked my way through the school's library. At thirteen, I discovered Mallory [sic], who showed me a whole new world. A world of dedication to a cause greater than oneself. Of chivalry and honor. And the fantastic deeds -- of armored heroes."

The art shows Tony as a child sitting under a tree, reading a book labeled Mort D'Arthur by Mallory [sic] -- no, don't ask me why nobody at Marvel checked how to spell either the name of the book or its author -- and daydreaming of King Arthur, the Sword in the Stone, knights, et cetera. Just in case you somehow missed the extremely blatant hint that we are meant to understand that Tony's knight obsession heavily influenced him becoming Iron Man as an adult, we see one of his armors mixed in with all the drawings of knights. So, yes, canonically Tony is Iron Man at least partly because he's a giant King Arthur nerd, which I think is so very sweet. I love him. He's such a dork!

(This issue is currently in print in the Iron Man Epic Collection War Machine, should you need your own copy.)

This isn't actually the only reference to Tony as a King Arthur fanboy in this era of canon, either; a little later, in IM #298, we see that one of Tony's passwords is actually "Mallory." (Yeah, no, they still couldn't spell. But it's cute.)

But in terms of actual publication order, this is definitely not the first time we have seen in canon that Tony is into Arthuriana, as I'm sure you all know. I would assume, in fact, that giving Tony a childhood interest in Arthuriana is because Doomquest is one of the most beloved Iron Man story arcs of all time, and that all started at least a decade before IM #287 here was published.

The villain of Doomquest -- the one who isn't Doctor Doom, at least -- is Morgan le Fay. Yes, that Morgan le Fay. Yes, Arthur's evil half-sister Morgan le Fay. Yes, all of this King Arthur stuff is canonically real history on Earth-616. Morgan's first appearance in Marvel, per the wiki, was in Black Knight #1 (1955), which I have not read, and judging by the summary I feel like this is probably just supposed to be a straight-up comic retelling of Arthurian legends for kids; I don't think Marvel really had the whole Marvel Universe in mind as a concept in 1955, so I'm not sure this was meant to connect to anything else. I feel like this is another one of those instances of Marvel discovering that they can write comics about characters in the public domain for free -- like, I'm pretty sure that's how we also ended up with, like, Norse, Greek, and Roman mythology wedged into 616.

As far as I can tell from the wiki, the first time Morgan tangled with the Avengers (or indeed the larger 616 universe) in any way actually predated Doomquest -- it was in an early arc in Spider-Woman (#2-6) and then Avengers #187, which came out in 1979, actually right when Demon in a Bottle was happening over in Iron Man comics. If you read #187, Iron Man is not in it because he's off the team due to his drinking problem and also his accidentally murdering the Carnelian ambassador problem. So Wonder Man's filling in instead. This issue is part of Michelinie's rather sporadic Avengers run, which makes sense, I guess, considering where we see Morgan next.

Anyway, Avengers #187 is the classic issue where Wanda is possessed by Chthon, but what you may not remember from Chthon's backstory (I sure didn't!) is that he was summoned by Morgan le Fay because she was the first person who tried to wield the Darkhold to summon him. As you can imagine, this did not work out especially well for her and her followers and they had to seal Chthon away in Wundagore Mountain, which was where Wanda found him. (The Spider-Woman stuff is only slightly earlier and also appears to be about Morgan and the Darkhold; the Darkhold is not one of the areas of 616 canon I am especially conversant with, alas. It's on my to-read list.)

Doomquest, as you probably know, was a classic Iron Man two-parter in Layton & Michelinie's first Iron Man run that set up Tony and Doom as rivals; Doomquest itself was IM #149-150, in 1981, and then in their second IM run they came back and did a sequel in 1989, Recurring Knightmare (IM #249-250), and then the much later four-part sequel to that was the 2008 miniseries Iron Man: Legacy of Doom, which was also by Layton & Michelinie but generally does not seem to be as popular as the first two parts. They've all been reprinted, if you're looking for copies; I have a Doomquest hardcover that collects the first four issues and then a separate Legacy of Doom hardcover. Currently in the Iron Man Epic Collection line there's a volume called Doom, which confusingly only collects the 249-250 part of the storyline (as well as surrounding issues), because for some reason the first Layton & Michelinie run isn't in Epics yet but the second one is. So the beginning of Doomquest isn't currently in print, as far as I can tell. I'm sure you can find it anyway.

So what's Doomquest about? Okay, so you remember how Doctor Doom's mother's soul is stuck in hell for all eternity? Well, Doom's obviously interested in getting her back, and the strategy he has embarked on is to try to team up with other powerful magicians who can help him out, and he thinks Morgan le Fay would be a good choice, for, uh, his quest. Doom's quest. A Doomquest, if you will. (If you've ever read Doctor Strange & Doctor Doom: Triumph & Torment, you're familiar with the part where he later ends up waylaying Strange for this and they go to hell together. And if you haven't read Triumph & Torment, you really should, because it's amazing.)

So Doom is off to his time machine to go team up with Morgan le Fay and Tony thinks Doom is up to something -- Doom has been stealing components for his time machine from a lot of people, including Tony -- and he follows him and it turns out one of Doom's lackeys has a grudge and wants to trap Doom in the past forever, and Tony gets caught up in it. Now they're both in Camelot. Surprise! #149 is actually all setup; they don't get to Camelot until #150.

IM #150 begins with Doom and Tony thrown back into the past; there's a fandom-famous splash page of them locked in combat, only to realize that they have found themselves in Camelot.

They are then discovered by knights; Doom would very much like to attack them, but Tony, who naturally would be happy to LARP Camelot forever, persuades him to play nice. Also Doom thinks Iron Man is only Tony's bodyguard so he keeps referring to him as "lackey," much to Tony's annoyance. Somehow everyone thinks they're sorcerers. Can't imagine why. The knights take them to meet King Arthur himself, and Tony has clearly had his introduction all ready to go, as he introduces himself in a timeline-appropriate manner, says he's here to apprehend Doom, and demonstrates his "magic" by levitating Arthur's throne. Doom's response is essentially "I'm the king of Latveria," which is, y'know, also valid. So they're guests at Camelot for the night while Arthur figures out what to do with them.

We then have a page devoted to Tony alone in his room, musing sadly about how alien he feels, how he doesn't know if he'll ever get home, how he could never fit in here without his beloved technology. Then a Sexy Lady shows up to keep him company for the night, and he decides maybe it's not all bad. Thanks, Marvel. I guess they can't all be winners.

Doom is using his evening much more productively; he compels one of the servants to tell him where Morgan's castle is, because he's still interested in having that team-up. Then he jets off. Literally. He has a jetpack.

The next morning Arthur's like "one of you is still here and one of you has punched a hole through the castle wall and flown off to join Morgan so I guess I know which of you is more trustworthy." He then explains to Tony who Morgan is, because Tony professes ignorance, because clearly we had not yet retconned in Tony's love of Arthuriana. Tony offers to go fight Doom and Morgan with Arthur; meanwhile, Morgan and Doom have teamed up and Morgan has offered to help get Doom's mother out of hell if he commands her undead armies against Arthur because for Reasons she can't command them herself anymore. So that's a thing that happens.

So, yes, it's Tony and Arthur versus Doom and Morgan. Fight fight fight!

Tony tries Doom first but then decides to hunt Morgan down, and in the ensuing fight we get what I think is Tony's first ever "I hate magic," a complaint that we all know he still makes even to this day.

Anyway, Tony freezes a dragon with Freon (mmm, technology) and Morgan gets upset and disappears, so the battle comes to an end, and of course Doom is extremely mad at Tony because he blames Tony for Morgan not sticking around to save Doom's mom, because I guess Doom trusted her to keep her word? Weird. (Like I said, for the next chapter of Doom saving his mother, go read Triumph & Torment.)

Doom says if he and Tony work together, the components in both of their armors can send them both home. So Tony has to trust Doom. Which he does, because he really has no other choice. They build a time machine and Tony makes Doom agree to a 24-hour truce when they get back, so they can both get home. So it all works out okay, and they end up in the present, and Doom tells him, ominously, that they will meet again. Okay, then. That concludes the original Doomquest. It's fun! You can see why fandom likes it.

So that's all well and good, but you might have noticed that Tony's ability to get home hinged on Doom actually being trustworthy. And Doom was. But what if Doom hadn't been? What if he'd just stranded Tony in Camelot forever As you may have surmised from the form of that question, that is in fact a question Marvel asked themselves, because, yes, there's a What If about this! What If v1 #33 is "What if Iron Man was trapped in the time of King Arthur?"

The divergence point from canon, as you can probably guess, is the very end of Doomquest. Instead of Doom bringing Tony home, he deceives him and leaves him in Camelot. And since Tony cannibalized a lot of the tech from his armor to make the time machine, he doesn't have a way to go home.

This is not a story where Tony comes up with a way to go home after all. He really doesn't get to go home. But instead of drowning his sorrows in mead -- because, remember, Demon in a Bottle has already happened and Tony is sober now -- he decides he might as well just play the hand he's dealt. So with what's left of his armor, he defeats some enemies that Morgan rounds up to send against Camelot. And for his services, he's knighted. He is now Sir Anthony.

Tony acknowledges that he is both living the dream and would also like very, very much to go home.

He does end up having some fun in Camelot; it's not all miserable. But he obviously doesn't want to be there.

So if you're at all familiar with King Arthur, you know how this goes, right? Arthur fights Mordred and Mordred kills him. And that does happen in this version. Except Tony is right there, and with his dying words, Arthur asks Tony to rule Camelot... and Tony agrees.

So, yes, Tony Stark becomes king of the Britons after Arthur's death and he never goes home again. The end. Man, I love What Ifs.

Heading back to main 616 continuity, there is still more of this arc to go. The original Doomquest was only two issues, yes, but it was popular enough that Layton & Michelinie did a sequel a hundred issues later, in their second run of Iron Man, and that's Iron Man #249-250, Recurring Knightmare. (In the intervening issues were Denny O'Neil's IM run, specifically the second drinking arc (#160-200), and then Layton & Michelinie came back and most famously gave us Armor Wars (#225-232). I would have to say that Armor Wars is definitely the standout fandom-favorite arc of their second IM run; for their first one, I think a lot of people would have a hard time choosing between Doomquest and Demon.) But anyway, yes. Recurring Knightmare.

Recurring Knightmare is... well, the best way I can describe it is "a trip." It is definitely a sequel to Doomquest, and it is also definitely not a sequel you would ever have expected to see for Doomquest.

Much like #149, #249 is pretty much just setup. Fun setup, but the big action is in the next issue. We open with Doom in Latveria, on his throne, pondering which of his servants he should have disintegrated. Anyway, he's just hanging out there when a mysterious object appears. In California, Tony is suited up and entertaining the crowd at a mall opening when the same object also appears! He takes it to his lab. Please note that this is after the Kathy Dare incident, so Tony is still recovering and is walking with a cane. Doom sees on the news that Iron Man has found the same object, which cannot be carbon-dated, and he shows up at Tony's house. He criticizes Tony's taste in art.

Anyway, Doom basically orders Tony to work with him. Tony refuses, and then Doom sends some robots to attempt to steal Tony's version of the object because he thinks if he has them both he will be powerful. Doom manages to steal it, and when he puts the pieces together, both he and Tony disappear.

So where do they go, you might ask? Camelot?

Not exactly. The future! There is a great callback to the Doomquest splash page.

It turns out they are in London in 2093. Merlin brought them there. Tony still hates magic. And in the future, King Arthur is still there, except he is now a child, because he has been reborn. But he does remember Tony from Doomquest, at which point Tony kneels. Doom, of course, is not impressed. He asks why they have been brought to the future.

The answer is that things are going wrong in the future. If you do not personally remember United States politics in the 1980s, I need you to google the words "Strategic Defense Initiative" right now. I'll wait.

Back with me? Okay, so this is a future where Reagan's Star Wars program actually happened the way he wanted it to, and the satellites are still hanging around the Earth in the future and messing everything up, and Arthur and Merlin need Tony and Doom's help to stop them. Doom once again flies away with his jetpack, of course.

Tony is game to help, but he's not in an armor that can stay in space for long. This is when Merlin takes him and Arthur to the mall and Tony manages to get everything to upgrade his armor at Radio Shack. You see what I meant about this issue being weird.

Tony is out in space trying to disarm the SDI platform, which is where he runs into his future descendant, Andros Stark, who is in armor you will probably recognize from Iron Man 2020. He is referred to as "the resurrected spawn of Iron Man 2020" so I assume he's actually directly related to Arno rather than a direct descendant of Tony; Wiki confirms that Arno is his grandfather. This is all from way before Arno was contemporaneous with Tony in canon. Anyway, he's fighting Tony.

Oh, by the way, Future Doom exists. Future Doom would like to rule this future Earth and for some reason Andros would like to help him. Meanwhile, Present Doom finds out from Merlin that he can't leave except by magic and he can't leave without Tony, so he is reluctantly on Tony's side.

They need help from the Lady of the Lake, except the lake has been paved over and is now a parking lot. Merlin makes the lake come back and then of course they get Excalibur. Arthur is a kid, so he can't wield a longsword; Doom assumes he's going to take it because he is basically a king, and he's pretty grumpy when the sword picks Tony. Tony then uses Excalibur to destroy the space lasers, and I bet that is a sentence you never thought you would read. It's pretty cool. Tony concludes that magic has its good points. Tony stops Andros and Doom stops, uh, himself, and the world is saved and they get to go home. Also, Doom finds out Tony is Iron Man, but when Merlin sends them back he conveniently erases their memories, so neither of them remember anything about this and Tony's secret is still safe. And that's the sequel to Doomquest.

And if you think that's weird, wait until you see Legacy of Doom.

Iron Man: Legacy of Doom is a four-issue miniseries from 2008, also by Layton and Michelinie. Even though it's from 2008, it's set during a much more classic time in Iron Man, continuing on from where we left off in this Doomquest saga. We start with a framing story in 2008. Tony, who has Extremis now, is busy scrapping some of his older armors and reviewing his logs when he suddenly remembers that there was a whole thing with Doom that happened that he seems to have forgotten about until right now. So the whole thing is narrated by Tony in flashback.

Tony's in space fixing a satellite when a hologram of Doom shows up and summons him to Latveria. It's not really clear why Doom needs Tony's help in particular here, but Doom tells Tony that he's discovered that Mephisto would like to bring about the end of the world, which Doom finds, and I quote, "presumptive." So Doom has his Time Cube, and with it he takes Tony to hell.

(Yes, I promise this is relevant to Doomquest. There will be some Arthuriana shortly.)

Doom brings Tony to Mephisto, and it turns out it's a setup! Doom trades Tony for an item he wants from Mephisto, leaves, and Tony's going to be trapped in hell forever! Oh no! (I mean, he's not. But it's quite a cliffhanger.)

At the beginning of issue #2, we find out what the Arthurian connection is, which is that we learned that after the events of Doomquest, Morgan had been granted sanctuary by Mephisto in exchange for a shard of Excalibur that she had somehow stolen. Doom still wants Morgan's help with some magic -- he doesn't mention what it is here, but he says he needs someone of Pendragon blood, and that'd be her -- so he traded Tony to Mephisto in exchange for, I'm guessing, Morgan and the Excalibur shard.

I have probably mentioned this elsewhere, but Legacy of Doom #2 is one of my favorite issues of Iron Man ever, solely because of the next scene. We return to Tony in hell. Howard Stark is also in hell, and he is now a demon, and Tony has to fight him. Mephisto brings popcorn and watches. This is the one time in canon when Tony actually confronts his father, and okay, yes, it's a fistfight in hell and Howard is a demon, but that's comics for you. Howard spends several pages insulting Tony -- specifically insulting his masculinity, but that's a whole other essay -- until he finally insults Maria too, and that's when Tony fights back, because his mother taught him to be good. Honestly if you're a Tony fan I'd recommend this issue just for that scene.

Anyway, we go back to the Doom and Morgan plot, and Morgan casts the spell Doom wanted, which was fusing the Excalibur shard with Doom's armor. Then Doom sends her back to Camelot rather than hell, because he's still mad that she never helped him get his mom out of hell like she said she would.

Tony freezes Howard with Freon -- yes, the same trick he pulled on the dragon back in Doomquest -- and tells him, "You're no father of mine." It is immensely satisfying.

(I had been going to mention that I thought it was a shame that neither canon nor fandom seems to have really engaged with this confrontation, and I know canon never believes in narrative closure but fandom sure does -- and then, anyway, it occurred to me that since the framing story of Tony remembering this is set when Tony has Extremis, there's a very good chance that he no longer remembers remembering it. Goddammit, Marvel.)

(If I got to retcon one canon thing about Tony, I think "the entirety of World's Most Wanted" is up there. I mean, okay, a lot of things are up there, but WMW is definitely on the shortlist.)

Okay. Tony has now engineered his way out of hell, and he's back with Doom in Latveria. Doom has Excalibur. Doom would very much like to fight him. While wielding Excalibur. You get the sense that this is going to be bad. Another cliffhanger!

Legacy of Doom #3 opens with Tony destroying Doom's lab to buy time and running away from Doom and Excalibur. I should probably mention that Doom still doesn't know Tony is Iron Man (anymore), so he thinks he is dealing only with Iron Man, Tony Stark's lackey. Meanwhile, some scientists at SI think there's something weird going on with space. Meanwhile meanwhile, Tony is in a forest taking a breather when a mysterious old man walks up to him.

It's Merlin! Surprise! Merlin wants Tony's help to stop Doom from doing whatever he's doing with Excalibur. The sword makes you invincible and the scabbard makes you invulnerable, so Merlin sends Tony to Scotland on a fetch quest for the scabbard. Doom has now magically sent the sword in search of the scabbard, so the sword flies away to meet it and Doom follows. Turns out the thing that's wrong with space is a thing that's going to hit Earth at the exact place Tony and Doom are. What a coincidence! So Tony and Doom get trapped in a stone circle and fight some stone warriors and then Tony ends up with the scabbard. And by "ends up with," I mean it fuses to his armor. Next issue!

Legacy of Doom #4 is when things really, really get weird. A giant demon made of eyes (???) appears, and this demon is apparently what Doom had been preparing to fight (because it's mad that Doom stole one of its spellbooks), and now he can't, because the sword and the scabbard aren't together. Thanks, Shellhead.

That's when Merlin shows up and says all is not lost. They can defeat the demon... if they put the sword into the scabbard.

"But I'm the scabbard now!" Tony says, uncomprehending.

"Yes," Merlin says. "You are."

Then Tony gets it.

So, yes, Doom has to, um, penetrate Tony. With Excalibur. I love comics. I love comics so much.

So that's a thing that happens.

And then Tony flies off and, I guess, resolves to never, ever think about any of this again.

We head back to the framing story, in which Tony, now having remembered all of this, flies to Britain, buys the land the lake is on, and paves it over, presumably so it will be there for Merlin to bring back in Iron Man #250. The end.

Whew.

Okay, yeah, I know I didn't have to summarize the whole thing, but Legacy of Doom here really is one of my favorite Iron Man miniseries. And I just want to share the love. Please read it. It's great.

But the Arthuriana fun doesn't end there! In fact, now we get an Arthurian-themed arc that actually isn't in Iron Man comics. It's in Avengers! Iron Man is involved, though.

(There is also apparently a Morgan arc in Avengers #240. I actually haven't read it. It seems to be yet another Spider-Woman arc. I get the impression that this isn't really Arthuriana other than having Morgan in it fighting Jess, though, so it doesn't seem quite as relevant. Morgan also apparently has some appearances in FF, Journey into Mystery, and Marvel Team-Up, but those seem like more of just basic villainy. Also, probably not involving Tony.)

Kurt Busiek's 1998 Avengers run, volume 3, is in large part the kind of Avengers run that is a nostalgic love letter to older comics. Heroes are heroes and villains are villains and good triumphs over evil. The Avengers all live in the mansion and are BFFs. I love it. It does assume that you are already a fan of the Avengers, because it starts out by summoning pretty much everyone who has ever been an Avenger and is available to the mansion, and that is... a lot of people. Thirty-nine, by my count. Also, when the entire team is magically whisked away, we are treated to the following narration, as Steve disappears: "And Captain America's last thought, as the world goes white around him, and he with it -- is that Iron Man would hate this."

The narration doesn't tell you why Iron Man would hate this, or how Captain America would know that Iron Man hates this. This is not explained later on. But if you have read comics -- or if you have read the above summary of Doomquest -- you know that Tony is absolutely, one hundred percent, thinking, "I hate magic." And Steve knows it.

The reference is not relevant to the plot; if you don't get it, you'll be fine. But that's what I mean when I say this is a nostalgia run. There are definitely Easter eggs for people who have read a bunch of comics. Busiek does this a whole lot in his work -- there's a reason you can buy an annotated edition of Marvels -- and, yeah, it happens here too. Just know that there will be references you're not getting, if you're new to comics.

Anyway. So Busiek's run actually starts out with an Arthurian arc, #1-4, "The Morgan Conquest." The name is a dead giveaway. Yes, Morgan le Fay is back. Again. For once, Doom is not involved.

The Avengers are all back from their sojourn on Counter-Earth after fighting Onslaught -- don't worry about it -- and mysterious things are happening. There are a lot of monster attacks. So pretty much everyone who has ever been an Avenger is summoned to the mansion, at which point we learn from Thor about some mystical artifacts that are being stolen. (They are the Norn Stones and also the Twilight Sword. That sounds like something from a Zelda game, doesn't it?) The Avengers go to try to stop this, end up in Tintagel, and then they run into Mordred. He wants to capture Wanda, presumably for Magic Reasons. Morgan le Fay casts a spell on all of them, reshaping reality. Yes, all of them. Surprise!

So now all the Avengers are living in a medieval castle and/or town; Morgan is their queen, and thanks to the power of mind-control they are all basically living in Ye Olden Times. The Avengers are all some variety of knight, except for Wanda, who is chained up in the dungeon so Morgan can steal her magic and use it to fuel all this reality-warping.

Wanda calls for help, and that snaps Steve (Yeoman America!) out of the mind control (or altered reality or whatever you want to call it) pretty fast, because Steve's always been very good at resisting mind control, and then Steve promptly goes and snaps Clint out of it, because I guess Steve is also good at inspiring people to snap out of mind control. "Oh, man!" Clint says. "Not another alternate reality! Not again!" (I assume he's referring to Counter-Earth? Maybe?)

So Steve and Clint go around reassembling the Avengers and orienting them as to reality. They get Jan and Monica easily, but then Steve insists on trying to get Tony because, I guess, he likes Tony and would really like to hang around Tony, who is half-naked and asleep in his bedroom, and certainly I am reading nothing whatsoever into this. Clint tells Steve it's not going to work. Tony has historically been fairly susceptible to mind control; it was only pretty recently at this point that he'd been doing Kang's bidding in The Crossing. But the more serious impediment is that this is Tony Stark and he would obviously like to LARP being a knight forever and ever. Tony, therefore, does not believe Steve, and throws him and Clint out of his bedroom and into the barracks.

"Iron Man's a good guy, normally," Clint says. "But he's waaay too into his whole nobleman/lord of the manor trip. That spell musta hit him right where he lives!"

Clint speaks the truth, clearly.

Anyway, they go around and manage to make pretty much every Avenger in the room other than Tony snap out, and attempt to rebel against Morgan while Tony is stil fighting them because he is Still A Knight. There's a lot of punching, because some of the Avengers still aren't free; they weren't ones Steve found.

The day is saved when Wanda manages to channel Wonder Man and break free. This gives the Avengers a fighting chance against Morgan and the Avengers are all lending Wanda their power when Tony finally snaps out of it and is on the side of good.

Then they take Morgan down, go home, and attempt to figure out which of these thirty-nine people should be on the active Avengers team. Hooray.

But that's not the end of Morgan le Fay showing up to screw around with Tony's life! There's more to come! Not much, but there is one that I know of, and at least one more memorable reference.

(I haven't read all her appearances or anything, but one of them definitely involves Tony; I can't swear that he doesn't appear in any of the other books Morgan shows up in, but it'd be a cameo for him, because I only know of one more arc that she's in in a book that Tony stars in.)

In a few more years, we have now entered the part of Marvel Comics history where Brian Michael Bendis writes all the Avengers books at the same time for, like, seven years running. It was sure A Time. There were a lot of word bubbles.

And the thing about Bendis is, Bendis looooooves Doomquest. If you're familiar with the very end of his tenure at Marvel where he made Doom be Iron Man after Tony got knocked into a coma in Civil War II, you have probably figured out already that he likes Doom. But he also likes Doomquest, specifically.

I mean, if nothing else, the giant splash page in The Confession where Maleev redrew the climactic Doomquest fight while Bendis had Tony talk about how deeply meaningful to his understanding of the world this all was -- and how it allowed him to predict Civil War -- was probably a big clue, right?

As far as I am aware, Morgan le Fay makes exactly one more appearance in Tony's life. And that's in Mighty Avengers vol 1 #9-11. Only one of those issues is named, so I'm going to assume the arc is named after it: Time Is On No One's Side.

You remember Mighty Avengers, right? The deal with the Avengers books at the time was that after Bendis exploded the mansion and made the team disband in Avengers Disassembled, the main Avengers book was no longer called just Avengers. Instead, the main Avengers book was New Avengers, and that was the only Avengers book. Then Civil War happened, Steve got killed, and New Avengers became the book about what was left of the SHRA resistance (i.e., Steve's side) after the war. So about halfway through New Avengers, Mighty Avengers starts up, and Mighty Avengers is about an extremely fucked-up and grief-stricken Tony Stark trying to run the official government-sanctioned Avengers team, with Carol's help. This is the comic with the arc where Tony turned into naked girl Ultron. You remember.

So, anyway, there's this Mighty Avengers arc where Doom is Up To Something (there are symbiotes and a satellite involved) and somehow Tony and the Avengers end up in Latveria, punching Doom. Also, by the way, Doom is visiting Morgan in the past because he likes her. The Avengers attacking his castle made him have to come back to the present, so he's kind of cranky. And he fights Tony, and in the course of the fight, his time platform explodes and sends Doom and Tony and also the Sentry to... the past.

This is one of those times where you should definitely look up the comics if possible because the way the past is visually indicated here is that it's colored with halftone dots the way you would expect old comics to be colored, although they have modern shading and color palettes. It's very charmingly retro.

So the three of them are stuck in New York in the past, and naturally they would like to leave. There's one person in this time who has a time machine and it is, of course, Reed Richards. Doom and Tony have a lot of banter in this arc; I think it's entertaining.

Sentry has to be the one to break them all into the Baxter Building because of that power he has where no one will remember him. So they do that, travel forward in time, and end up in Latveria in the present again except Doom is gone and also things are currently exploding where they are.

Doom, of course, has made a side trip to visit Morgan again and he asks her to help him build an army, because I guess this is what their relationship is like. So the rest of the Avengers are captured by what look to me like Mindless Ones and are in a cave in magic bondage, because comics. Jess comments that at least they aren't naked, because she too is remembering that memorable New Avengers trip to the Savage Land. Doom threatens Carol in some creepy sexist ways and eventually it turns out that Tony and the Sentry are fine and everyone kicks Doom's ass. Business as usual.

And the last page of the arc is Morgan alone, wondering where Doom is. So technically Morgan and Tony don't come face to face here, but I think she counts as being at least partially responsible for ruining Tony's day here. And then Secret Invasion happens and Tony has a very, very bad day.

There are a few more Morgan appearances after this, but, as I said, I don't think any of them involve Tony. She shows up in Dark Avengers, apparently, which was one of the post-Civil War Avengers titles I didn't read, and I know that recently, on the X-Men side of things, she's been in Tini Howard's Excalibur one, which I have only read a little of. No Tony there. Just a lot of Morgan and Betsy Braddock and Brian Braddock and the Otherworld.

If you are interested in Morgan's other appearances, you might like this Marvel listicle that is Morgan le Fay's six most malicious acts. I pulled some of the Darkhold backstory from their discussion, but it's not really focused on Morgan and Tony.

So there you have it! That's everything I know about Tony's love for King Arthur and every run-in I know about that he's had with Morgan le Fay! One of two terrible people in Tony's life named Morgan! Actually, I don't think we've seen Morgan Stark in a while. I wonder if he's alive. There should be a Morgan & Morgan team-up. I should probably stop typing and post this.

The tl;dr point is that you should all read Doomquest and its sequels, especially Legacy of Doom. They're great!

#posts i actually wrote

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