#i think this is the last intellectuals comic I've got in me

[biteghost]

[FGO] Wouldn't it be hard to play tag with that big cloak and hood on? Take them off for that reason and no other reason at all.

backlashcomic.com | Patreon | Bsky

[sonicjustbecause]

The Sonic 3 Trailer lacks of both spoiler and context, and that is about how a trailer should be. We already know what it is about. We only needed to see few scenes to make sure it might look good (or bad, it depends on what we except).

Now, I've seen a couple of crazy theories I've read and I believe both of them won't happen. I'll explain

Tom getting killed

Won't happens anything different to Tom that didn't happen before. he will be at worst knock out/neutralized and go off screen. Like in Sonic 1 (punched by Eggman) and Sonic 2 (encircled by flames)

Such happening would be the complete Shadow's assasination as character. We as fan won't forgive him and also this would push Shadow in the villains realm.

The past characterization.

Original Shadow (Adventure/Heroes/06) was very tame. There is a video on YT that analyze how Shadow behaves toward the world and underline the lack of destruction and violence in SA2, as opposite as we see in Sonic X and ShtH05.

in Sonic-X they changed slightly Shadow's personality, removing his intellectual and contemplative nature and replacing it with a more brash and violent personality. But even there, they prevented Shadow from killing Cosmo, making him acting like a cat who plays with his prey instead of being efficient (slow pace, talking, missing aim despite the short distance and when the thing failed just giving up on that). Shadow could have act smartly simply killing Cosmo in her sleep. As I say, I think they wanted to save his reputation.

In Sonic Force he indeed killed Infinite's squad. His first kill, most likely. Small fries, while leaving the boss alive, evil and stupid considering the aftermath. They saved Shadow's reputation by making Infinite lame and obnoxious and by not showing his gang at all (so we don't get attachted and we still cheer for Shadow). Sort of telling without actually showing anything.

Similar cases and why those characters have been tamed out.

Lupin III had a super rough star. His author got inspired by underground Western comics of the '60s and the original Lupin III was not a thief and a cheerful anti-hero. Lupin was originally a real godfather, a mafia boss, and despite he was mostly accompanied by Jigen and Goemon (who weren't really characterized back then) he had all underdogs, picciottos and so on under his rule. He did steal, but also he killed innocents, he raped women (includin Fujiko) and did several other hideous things.

Evil protagonists don't last long. They either get overhauled or they die like Light Yagami.

For this Lupin had to be tamed. Lupin killed less and less and more and more only with a reason and was more and more gentle with the innocents, including his main foe. And lastly he just virtually stopped to kill.

He's not the only one, many protagonists were born as unremedable villain and then they have been turned into antiheroes... or even heroes. Villanous protagonists never last long.

Shadow is beloved mostly because of his original personality. I noticed in most fan work, he is characterized the way he was in Sonic Adventure 2/Heroes/06 or Prime. Sometimes like in Sonic X and Shadow 05. Rarely like modern Shadow.

Back to Shadow

"What did you do?"

"What I had to!"

Those lines may be related to anything and everything. They might be related to Shadow's attempt to destroy the world like in SA2.

"I had to keep my promise!"

"What I had to do" suggest me something Shadow did not because he wanted to but for an external obiective. It might be world safety, keeping a promise, preventing the Sun going red giant, anything. Maybe even destroying Metal Sonic (if he appears like some rumor suggest) after Sonic convinced him to join the good side. Shadow has a long story dealing with living weapons.

Shadow stealing Stone's bike

Simply impossible. I already said Shadow's size is comparable to the size of a five years old child, about 1m tall. Stone is a 1,78m tall adult.

How Shadow would look on Stone's bike. It would be good material for the memes. And even if he would be able to ride an adult designed bike, he would be unable to do the Akira thing.

[alicepao13]

Hudson and Rex S03E04 - Under Pressure

And that is literally.

Charlie: *"casually" drops that he's a dive master because he thinks this will make him look cool* Sarah: *treats this information as teasing material* "So, are we talking higher or lower than a Jedi?"

He caught Covid, didn't he? Unless some writer got inspired by zoom meetings.

"Why don't you do that with groceries?" Oh, so it's not enough that he solves every case for you?

One more explosion.

Charlie having some trouble with the board. Rex is missing Jesse.

"Jesse I am not." "No, you are not." And then they flirt shamelessly.

Joe: "They were responsible for the bombing last year of the Canada Pipeline which successfully resulted in a 12-month delay of the project". Sarah: "Thank god". Joe: *exasperated look* Sarah: "That we're finally going after these hoodlums".

This scene is so funny because Joe is like, do I have an ecoterrorist supporter on my hands, while Charlie is just amused and somewhat proud.

Millennial shade. Tread lightly, Joe.

Rex just recognized someone's personal handwriting from the way they were dotting the "i"s. Everyone is fired. Rex takes over everyone's jobs.

Sarah: "You're getting pretty good at that". Charlie: "Yeah. Who needs Jesse?" More flirting.

Sarah: "And you can see how it's by a thermocline". Charlie: "Oh, am I expected to know what that means?" Even more flirting!

"Who needs a warrant when you have a Rex?" No, Charlie. We're trying to change our ways, Charlie.

You can call her a geek all you like but we know you're into that. Charlie is getting turned on by Sarah explaining scientific phenomena because that's less weird than him saying that Sarah is sexy when she's trying to intellectualize an irrational fear (S5).

So, this is about gun smuggling now?

"Please, kind sir, will you tell us what you know?" When everything fails, send in Rex with the puppy look.

"If I ever go full eco-terrorist, I am so working for Barry". Okay but you're currently at a precinct working for the police. Also, Charlie's open fish mouth reaction is hilarious.

The guns are coming from the US. That I can believe.

Time to dive!

"I'll be back". Famous last words.

Rex doesn't like this at all.

"Charlie's a dive master, I'm pretty sure he'll be perfectly fine". Unless another master is trying to murder him underwater.

I really thought he'd stabbed him the first time I watched. Sadly, no.

"Like hell I'm gonna sit there and listen to you about where Charlie should and shouldn't have been while my buddy is in trouble. Adios!"

No offense to Joe, but I'd have wanted Sarah on that. For maximum angst.

"I think you owe someone a trip to the butcher shop, get him a t-bone". He owes Rex a million t-bones at this point.

I've read a fanfiction in which Charlie gets the bends from surfacing too quickly, which is probably more realistic than what happens here. Fun whump stuff.

"You know when you left me to die down there, it was indescribable fear. Worst way to die. Only thing worse would be knowing I was going to be behind bars for the rest of my life because my plans were ruined by a dog."

We're getting deep into what I call Charlie-trauma episodes, by the way.

"I'm glad to see you alive". Instead of in the morgue, you mean. Why didn't she hug him? This episode is a failure. (Just kidding.)

I've watched the episode like fifty times and it's the first time I'm noticing Jesse's costume has a J? And of course Jesse would want to go to Comic Con. Let the nerd live.

Fun experiment: Show these screenshots without providing context to people and ask them what's happening in this scene. I'm sure the answers won't even come close to "she's trying to convince him to help clean up the ocean and he wants to hear her call him 'dive master'".

That was a lot of flirting. And some whump. Favorite ingredients for an episode. Featuring a very different Rex save.

[thoughtfulfangirling]

Okay! For anyone who found it interesting that I've wheedled a friend into watching some Gargoyles with no foreknowledge of the show, she has made a Tumblr! I'm not 100% sure how she wants to use it yet, but she's already now showed the episodes we watched to her partner and has some posts on her blog documenting that journey. You can find her at @brittazoid (Next Generation pun =P) She's who I was referring to as Bee and will continue to use the tag "Bee watches Gargoyles" as I pick her first-time-Gargoyles-experience brain!

IF YOU FOLLOW HER, please do not ask her any leading questions or give her any spoilers or answer any questions about the show. She has me for any of that, and I have already told her that if she really wants/needs a spoiler, I will give it to her, but I don't think she wants them. If you have a question you want to ask but aren't sure if it's spoilery, I'm happy to check it over first.

Below is a little summary of her experience of the first two episodes. We had a limited time after we watched the first two episodes, so I only got to pick a handful of questions, but I found them and her answers very fun and interesting! Bold section is me, response is my attempt to transcribe her responses as she spoke. They are not 100% verbatim! But they are quite close.

What are your initial thoughts?

I really like taking the idea of gargoyles and their protection of the castle, how they made it physical. I really enjoy the way that they're playing with the loyalty as well to their castle and how closely that holds to their identity regardless of who is in the castle given how far back they went in history. Castles changed hands kind of often, so what did that mean for gargoyles?

I really want to get to know Goliath more. I really like the way he reacts to people reacting to him and am excited to see them play with that more, especially given this last scene in ep 2 where he says to Xanatos that 'this castle is my home, this is my people's home, but i do not trust you.' The idea of implicit loyalty mixed with the lack of trust in humans is going to cause some interesting conflict. It will be an interesting conflict to see flushed out.

I really enjoy the way that they're presenting discrimination to children and representing the response to it. It's interesting when people take the idea of racism and then take a bestial character to represent a minority. It's really interesting the way it allows people to digest the materiel. Going off of that, do you have any negative feelings about them using that? Trepidation not negativity. I think they're doing a very good job of it, especially in the conflict that he has with his Queen of the Night, and their interaction felt really authentic to the way people respond to racism, so I feel like they're going to do a good job with it. I'm always cautious with a new piece of media that has that conversation, because a lot of the times the answer is assimilation, and I'm against that idea, but I'm curious to see how they'll do it. I think we got some people who worked on this who seem to understand how people interact and how that conflict works out. I go back to that interaction of when Goliath locked up the other gargoyles for their reaction to the humans, and I think their conversation shows that I think I'm going to be okay with it and do well with it.

Any stand out thoughts about the younger gargoyles?

They just feel like fluff characters and comic relief. There was a lot of time spent building Goliath's character and betting a better understanding of his motivations, but we don't have a whole lot on the others. The dog type character comic seems to be comic relief — They seem to be doing the small one who is physically weak but intellectually strong being trope (had to physically be saved) is fun. I liked how he noticed the helicopter as a machine and not dragon. He's trying to understand the world around him without using his old world to define it while the others are more stuck (He seems her fav of B characters) — The fat joke character seems to be another comic relief character, and I am never a fan of the dopey buffoon trope character that doesn't add doesn't add much... perhaps juxtaposition. I hope that its more personality they'll get to rather than just 'haha fat people either.' I'd like it to be part of a developed character trait; otherwise, they will leave it at surface level — The old man feel like they're going to have him as a bouncing off character for Goliath as probably a little more stubborn and resistant to change. I also get a vibe from him of naivete.

What did you think of the betrayal arc?

I really enjoyed that. I do wish we could have spent more time understanding the character who betrayed them, becasue I didn't really gather his reason for betraying the castle. That part I felt was not properly flushed out. They could have at least spent the full two first episodes to it to add some depth. Then too we could especially have more details about Goliath's seeking/desire for revenge.

Especially as the betrayer did this because of human politics which strangely leaves the gargoyles in the situation as superfluous. I did appreciate though that he did try to convince the gargoyles to leave the night before his betrayal.

It's interesting to me that you're talking about the betrayal as all human politics. I'm pretty sure the intention by the show runners is that Robert believes he does it for the benefit of the gargoyles. Even I don't think that's actually why he does it, but for kids watching the show, they're set up to look at it from that POV.

I don't see it as him having done it for the gargoyles at all. If that was his goal, he would have done more to protect them. He just didn't push hard enough for Goliath and the others to leave castle. He never had follow through. Sure he says no to Hakon (when he went to smash the gargoyles), but he's not emphatic enough and not willing to put himself in dangers' way even though we know he would be capable. We just saw him in a battle earlier! The two times he needed to stand up (telling Goliath to take his clan elsewhere for the day and Hakon smashing the gargoyles) he speaks up only once and then lets it go. I can absolutely agree that he believes he's doing it for the gargoyles, but after the interaction I saw between him and the princess and then his lack of follow-through, it really actually was not.

What do you think of Xanatos

Oh he's sketch! That's my first instinct. Why why why do you want this castle? You went thru all the trouble of uprooting a castle, somehow putting in on a skyscraper, and I understand money is not an issue, but to initiate and feel the need to do this? What are you hiding that you want this mythical force protecting it? It's very obvious that when he said 'this is your home and this is my headquarters' that whatever is in his castle needs protection. I don't trust him.

Last thoughts?

I think Xanatos is wolf in sheep's clothing, and my prediction is that he is going to try to schmooz the gargoyles in whatever way he can to keep them from finding his true intentions. He's going to be very shady about his intentions!

[billygoat26]

I've been seeing a lot about KOSA on here

Don't get me wrong, I don't support it.

So I'll just say this; if any of you have read Fahrenheit 451 then you know what I'm gonna be talking about. (Censorship. It's- it's censorship.)

Basically, if you haven't read it, the book is about a time somewhere in the future where all books get burned, the only "stories" are little comics but it's just images... no words at all, and television has become the new "family." If you get caught with books, your house gets burnt down, the books burned as well.

BUT. Instead of trying to summarize the entire story, let me just show you parts of Beatty's speech.

"The fact is we didn't get along well until photography came into its own. Then--motion pictures in the early twentieth century. Radio. Television. Things began to have mass."

"And because they had mass, they became simpler," said Beatty. "Once, books appealed to a few people, here, there, everywhere. They could afford to be different. The world was roomy. But then the world got full of eyes and elbows and mouths. Double, triple, quadruple population. Films and radios, magazines, books levelled down to a sort of paste pudding norm, do you follow me?"

"Picture it. Nineteenth-century man with his horses, dogs, carts, slow motion. Then, in the twentieth century, speed up your camera. Books cut shorter. Condensations, Digests. Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending."

"Classics cut to fit fifteen-minute radio shows, then cut again to fill a two-minute book column, winding up at last as a ten- or twelve-line dictionary resume. I exaggerate, of course. The dictionaries were for reference."

"Out of the nursery into the college and back to the nursery; there's your intellectual pattern for the past five centuries or more."

"Politics? One column, two sentences, a headline! Then, in mid-air, all vanishes! Whirl man's mind around about so fast under the pumping hands of publishers, exploiters, broadcasters, that the centrifuge flings off all unnecessary, time-wasting thought!"

"School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored. Life is immediate, the job counts, pleasure lies all about after work. Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling switches, fitting nuts and bolts?"

"The zipper displaces the button and a man lacks just that much time to think while dressing at dawn, a philosophical hour, and thus a melancholy hour."

"More sports for everyone, group spirit, fun, and you don't have to think, eh? Organize and organize and super organize super-super sports. More cartoons in books. More pictures. The mind drinks less and less."

"Now let's take up the minorities in our civilization, shall we? Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don't step on the toes of the dog-lovers, the cat-lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico."

"Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did. Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca. Books, so the damned snobbish critics said, were dishwater."

"We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against."

"A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it."

"...there was no longer need of firemen for the old purposes. They were given the new job, as custodians of our peace of mind, the focus of our understandable and rightful dread of being inferior; official censors, judges, and executors."

"Colored people don't like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don't feel good about Uncle Tom's Cabin. Burn it. Someone's written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book."

"You can't build a house without nails and wood. If you don't want a house built, hide the nails and wood. If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war."

(Source of the quotes: beatty-speech-to-montag-excerpt.pdf (wordpress.com))

(Page numbers for physical copy: 51 - 60)

I hope you get the point- we're heading down a daaaangerous path and chances are, this is- or at least is very damn close to- our future. If you want to have a good education (or your kids to have a good education), then take into consideration the things you either vote for or support, etc.

[captain-alex-grayson]

My y2k emo dreams when I was little was to have a room like those teen girls with all the posters and stuff papering their walls.

I think I'm finally achieving that in my room at 25 years old.

The Mulan poster is from my dad's best friend, my late uncle beaky. He gave it to me in a black frame that I promptly beat the shit out of. I replaced it just Tuesday and it makes the wall brighter and allows me to add more gold frames. My maternal Uncle (my favorite and only bio uncle) passed in April. He had this low quality Edvard Munch print in a frame, it's a canvas like paper modpodged onto particle board. I wanted a frame but it's 11 1/2 by 13 1/2 which is custom and I'm poor so I used sticky velcro on the wall. Looks good right there.

In my closet I actually removed what was stored up there because it was from when I was like 5 so I vacuum sealed the stuff and stashed them away to utilize the shelf for figures. We have a type writer that doesn't function and is so unkempt that it's not worth fixing so I'm tossing it soon. In front of it is the sour apple intellectual property waterparks vinyl I got with that AP bundle. Holding it up is a die-cast model car that I put together myself like 19 years ago. I've got a wonder woman 5 by 7 from denver fan expo a few years ago (kaela kroft art if yall like star wars that's what she's known for). Hidden behind the bunny is my coffin terrarium with owliver on top. Got a tiny lego cyberman in the closet too bc it doesn't bring joy. There are 3 rows of funkos on the bottom layer, the second almost goes 3 back across and the top only goes two deep. They are organized bottom left to bottom right: Rivers Cuomo (music) Party Poison Gerard Way (music) Sox (film) The Hex Girls (nostalgia). Middle left to middle right: Patrick Stump (music) Pete Wentz (music) Number Five (comics) Laid Back Inosuke (anime/manga). The top right to left: Viktor Krum (Film) Buckbeak (film) Severus Snape (memoriam). In front are flowers I have dried. I really like vintage ceramic decor and target has been feeding me so we got that cheeky lil guy. The box has some of Pinky's fur to keep him with me since he passed in January and the photo behind the box is of Pinky. Then there's my mad hatter hat being protected by the shittiest 2012 fashion choice a burgundy fedora bc Taylor Swift did it and so can I. I looked fucking dumb it is not wearable and I'm tossing it soon. I'll someday have details on my bookshelf but for now just know that I had a loft bed until 2016 2017 ish. So my dresser was under the bed and I had space for my desk bookshelf and storage chest. I didn't want to take my frames under my sconce down so the bookshelf went in the closet.

I started adding sentimental things to my wall above my desk when I was 15. It was small but as I went on vacations and to concerts with friends I started a collage wall. My mom made the puzzle and it's glow in the dark and also not glued together lmao. My white board has a reminder to wear black and an awsten knight sticker being held up by magnets. I actually used to have a full sized Sirius Black wanted poster and that magnet replaces it. There's a picture of me and my sibling Binket from my late uncle's house and a turtle magnet my mom got me. That picture of pinky is roughly near the spot he was on my loft bed when I took that picture. I like the art in red vines boxes so I kept that. The envelope was from my grams during lunar new year. The white envelope has some papers I made in high school that just live there now. That feesh! is a post card from Saga Japan and was given to me by a guest from Saga when I was in 6th grade. I've gotta replace that marvel poster with the updated one or I just have to take it down because it's not a full reflection of my comic interests any more. Underneath that I have texts from last night Borderlands edition, a Captain America vintage promo poster on printer paper with a pewdiepie duck stuck to it. There's a funny insta story from awsten knight to the left of Borderlands and Pinky in a halloween costume under that. We have a little Vaughn that is looking toward a Rhys. Rhys is to the right of the cap poster. Then there's a row of bands I need to see live. I have Da Vinci's Demons texts from last night from my high school locker with blink 182 and fob mixed in. Got a micro burrito and micro totoro with 3 concert tickets. And I'll stop there bc I'll post close ups later.

I custom framed my signed parx poster and Geoff's signature goes off the page so I'm gonna fight him. Next to it is Rawrly and Pohly's Silly Lillies Monet remix. Under is a picture of me and my mom and me and Bink then we have me and my dad. I also never took down my 2016 2017 Newt Scamander cosplay reference photos and a soda exploded and they just live there now.

My beloved posters. The Gotham one is new, batman is my favorite vigilante. The AC Unity trailers reminded me of Backstreet's Back (Alright) so I got the poster and that's the only AC poster they had bc it just came out. The Last of Us is from my first con. Back when Denver Fan Expo was called Denver Comic Con. I love this poster and it has never laid flat for me so I might be forced to frame it soon. Heath Ledger was my favorite Joker and the best fake Knight I had ever seen and this poster was an immediate snag. I got wall clings from when I worked at Hot Topic and Isabelle is my comfort character, I didn't realize how much I found peace when playing New Leaf until the Isabelle obsession started. Below all that and back at the beginning we have an old Lost Boys poster from when the film was released. It was my mom's. Next is the Duran Duran poster, also my mom's. The crusty DC poster needs either an update or a replacement I'm not sure yet.

Yes I have a tv tray in my room. Yes I have plans to fix that. No I haven't found a way to fix it my ps5 cord is too short. Also those crayons are from like 2001.

[barabansetbabets]

23 book I want to read in 2023

I've seen a few people do these lists, so here's mine

La Reine Margot – Alexandre Dumas

This one is a little cheating, since it’s on my TBR, but it’s not really a classic that really attracts me, especially with my last experience with a Dumas. (Sorry, when I was 12 I found D’Artagnan so dumb I couldn’t even finish the book, which just didn’t happen at that age)

The Queen’s Thief – Megan Whalen Turner

I heard so much about this serie from Booklr and it’s on Arhive.org, so I’m really excited for this one !

How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House – Cherie Jones

Trying to read books from all over the world, and this title make it very intriguing. Though the summary leads me to think it will be a very though read.

Handicap à vendre – Thibault Petit

A book about disabled’s rights in french worplaces (and the utter shit it is), mostly about Intellectual Disabled I think.

Aya de Yopougon - Marguerite Aboue & Clément Oubrerie

This is a mildly famous Comic Serie in France, and I’ve never read it so I want to finally bridge that gap.

Middlegame - Seanan McGuire

Once again a pretty popular book on booklr, and as I liked Every heart a Doorway I’m very excited for this one !

The Bomb – Alcante, Bollée & Denis Rodier

French Comic about the making of the Atomic Bomb. One again a though read, but it got praised a lot in France.

Les Indes Fourbes - Alain Ayroles & Juanjo Guarnido

Another french comic that got praised a lot. Seems interesting, but since it’s a comedy about the American Conquest, i’m a little wary about representation…. Guess I’ll read and see.

The witcher, Season of Storm – Andrzej Sapkowski

My Witcher period is a little behind me, but it’s the only book i have left to read so it’s worth the shot.

If on a winter’s night a traveler – Italo Calvino

This one get praised a lot for its narration and writing. I wiish I could read it in italian, but french will hae to do.

Quest for Fire - J.H. Rosny Aîné

Fantasy in prehistoric times ? Sign me up. (It’s very old so there’s little chance I will love it, but eh. Sometimes an okay read is all you can ask for.)

Texaco – Patrick Chamoiseau

I liked another novel by the same author, and this one won a big french award back in 1994.

Tè Mawon – Michael Roch

I’ve been meaning to read a Michael Roch’s books for years – and I SWEAR that this year is THE year I finally do ! (Once I get a job)

Iron Widow - Xiran Jay Zhao

This has been recced by everyone and their sisters (my sister at least) so I’ll try to finally read it!

Assassin’s apprentice - Robin Hobb

Never read anything by Robin Hobb. I’m a fake fantasy fan.

The City we became - N.K. Jemisin

Another book loved by a lot of people. I absolutely loved How Long 'til Black Future Month so this is a book i’m sure to love.

In mother’s land - Élisabeth Vonarburg

Once again it’s a book I’ve been meaning to read for years. It’s a SF book, where mens are scarce. and basically describing the new society. Exactly my genre of book!

Postcolonial Love Poem – Natalie Diaz

I want to try to read poetry, and this one seems good.

A doll’s house – Henrik Ibsen

It’s a norwegian play from the 19th century. It was apparently very feminist for its time, so much that it stirred a controversy way beyond the world of theatre so I’m curious to read it.

Therese and Isabelle – Violette Leduc

A lesbian autofiction. Need I say more.

Harrow the Ninth – Tamsyn Muir

I don’t care about my wallet state. I WANT to read this book and the next so much

La Horde du Contrevent – Alain Damasio

A french SF classic. I borrowed this book from my sister about two years ago, so it’s time I read it. Fun fact, this book pages are numbered down instead of up, which probably the most french thing I’ve ever seen. so edgy.

Toward the Terra - Keiko Takemiya

A SF manga drawn by a shojo artist. Looks beautiful and I hope it will be interesting to read!

Here's to hoping I will not be stuck in a reading slump for six months like last year

[forevercloudnine]

what if the riddler was a female character? do you think fem riddler would be interesting?

This is EXACTLY the kind of question that Batman: The Drowned should have answered for me, but unfortunately fem!Bruce was too busy stabbing fem!Aquaman to death with her own trident and getting Gotham wiped off the face of the planet in reprisal. Like yes, #girlpower, but I would have really just preferred several group shot panels of Batman's entire genderbent rogues gallery.

But assuming this ask is more inquiring as to what would have happened if Riddler was created as a female character... interesting question!

Riddler only had three appearances before being adapted and arguably codified as an "A-list" villain in the 1966 television series, Detective Comics #140, #142, and Batman #171 (the last of which came out in 1965, and served as the basis for the show's pilot). I think it's likely that a female Riddler would still have been picked up for the show, since Catwoman had only had four appearances in the 1950's and still managed! Given how many female villains the show invented for itself (not to mention its compulsion to have a prominent woman hostage or henchgirl or both in every single episode), I think it was pretty desperate to get some attractive actresses on screen for the audience to look at.

Personally I think Riddler being a woman would at the very least have improved the movie (which is the only Batman '66 media I've seen all of), since it would have split the United Underworld 50/50 down the gender line. I'm guessing a female Riddler would have crushed on Batman as much as every other woman who existed in his presence on this show, though possibly on the grounds of seeing him as her intellectual equal? I feel like she still would have been stuck in the pre-00's Poison Ivy territory of obsessive unrequited attraction.

She definitely would have been a part of the Gotham City Sirens... like, actually a part of the GCS, not just a side character there to get put thrown around for the laughs because of Paul Dini enjoys writing Riddler and got removed from Detective Comics.

And I hate to say it, but unfortunately she probably would have permanently reformed after Dini's run (assuming he still would have made her a private detective). Ivy's gotten a handful of good villainy moments since the New 52 reboot, but at this point she's really only an anti-villain at best. Also unfortunate, but I don't think a female Riddler would have ever gotten to wear a suit, and also in the 90's she would have 100% been put in a question mark boob window version of Sue Storm's 90's costume:

[onetruesporkbot]

Apparently, to some would-be gatekeeper, snarky criticism of bad writing, and snarky memes emphasizing those criticisms, are equal to death threats against creators.

I got notified by email that I was mentioned by someone I don't know, in this really long post about Tumblr users attacking creators, one of whom, allegedly, made threats against the lives. The post included some my past posts, some written, some photoshopped pictures I made, voicing my displeasure about James Tynion IV and his writing (specifically, how bad it is). The post was...not well structured (which may in part be because of Tumblr's format), and was not easy to read...or skim, for that matter. I don't think it's right to threaten a creator's life, so on that much we agree, but calling me out felt more like...

I don't advocate threatening writers or artists, no matter how much I dislike their work. If I find a severe lack of redeeming qualities about said work, I will point it out. If someone wants to disagree with me, that's fine. But to equate "here's why this comic/writer/retcon/story is total crap" with "GRRRR, ME WISH DEATH ON WRITER ME NO LIKE"...is intellectually dishonest on its face.

The post included "orders" for people to "leave the fandom" and "stop buying comics". Funny, since DC's been certainly inviting me to do so with so many terrible decisions for the past decade. Setting aside the erroneous attempt to command a complete stranger you took no time to genuinely engage with (regardless of what excuses were made), I have every right to share a viewpoint you don't have (or like), even if it's about a creator you enjoy. Plenty of people dislike things I like, I just don't make a crusade about it.

Don't lecture me about "thinking the characters were real" (but sure, if they were real, they'd TOTALLY think the way YOU think they would, and that's not a hypocritical fallacy at all). Someone did a bad job; his work made a poor-but-lasting impact on characters he never seemed to "get" as well as he claimed he did. He had absolutely nothing new to say or do with these characters, and warped them into something barely recognizable. They would be done more justice by abandoning the restrictions of pointless, reductive changes and hollow narrative ploys. One of my favorite characters was done horribly, and kept to a horrible standard, for inexplicable reasons. I've been told "everything's fine, they fixed things," only to find...that's not quite the case. I'm apparently supposed to be wildly impressed by minimal efforts in course correction, and just like something because it alleges to have a character I like, and if I don't like it, don't say anything. But I guess I'm crazy and evil for having a personal investment in a character and CARING ABOUT COHERENCY AND COHESIVENESS IN STORYTELLING AND CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.

If that's not important to you, random blogger-person, then I can't control that. No more than I can control how you seemed to ignore OTHER posts I made, where I was much more diplomatic. But if you're not going to actually attempt to form a remotely cogent argument, and instead make some "rallying cry" to "kick people out" and lump drastically different approaches together...because you think you make the rules?...then you've already lost whatever argument you started.

I will continue criticizing as much as I please, if the mood strikes me. I will not make or endorse death threats, because I don't approve of such actions. However, if my words get a little...harsh...coarse...vulgar, if you will...that is due to factors that are, frankly, none of your business. You come off as one who, like many I've encountered before, choose not to see beyond their own opinions, and instead pretend to understand the opposing side when they clearly don't. Maybe you wrote this in a particular frenzy of emotion and got carried away (it's happened to me, too). But to suggest some Simpsons images and rehashed memes are the same thing as threatening someone's life? That's when you've need to take a few steps back and reassess.

I don't like the crappy, crappy, terribly awful and crappy reinvention for Cassie Cain. I feel she could be written better without that crappy, crappy, terribly awful and crappy reinvention.

Boo.

Freaking.

Hoo.

James Tynion IV may be a super guy at parties, I don't know. But I find him a barely serviceable writer, most of the time, and pretty bad the rest of the time. That is not me wishing or threatening death on him, or anyone. If you like him, go ahead and like him. Me criticizing HIM is not me criticizing YOU. Anyone criticizing anything you like, is NOT an attack on you.

I challenge you to meditate on that fact.

P.S. I actually haven't used Tumblr much for over a year...haven't much felt like it...but someone went and gave me a reason.

[areturntowriting]

I'm back...not like anyone's following me to care

To be fair, I kinda just left this blog on the backburner. Started this up around when I was trying to get back in the swing of writing. An last year got crazy and ended on a really bad note.

But

This year I'm bringing the focus back to writing. I've decided to treat art as a hobby this year. I'm working on a comic series. I'm thinking of selling some short stories and maybe making a short story compilation book.

Also, something I definitely want to work on with my writing is not being as flowery with my writing. I feel like whenever anyone gets into writing, you see it a lot on here and I'm definitely guilty of doing this, we try to sound like writers. It's a lot of unnecessary descriptions and making things sound pretentious. Gonna try not to do that too much. It really does sound like we're trying too hard instead of really figuring out what works for us.

So I'm back.

Again, not that anyone cares. I'm not a big writer. I'm on Wattpad, although some of the stories may be leaving that because I want to work on them more and publish them. I know I don't do fan fiction and the only fan fic I've ever written went nowhere, and I'm trying to completely rework it into an original story and remove actual intellectual properties. Not to mention, it wasn't what most people think when they think fan fiction. It was supposed to be like a "what if" scenario during a season of "Supernatural" where they ended up in Bioshock and it was supposed to be like "what if the main character got KO'd at the start of the game and someone else had to take their place in the story". It wasn't a hot steamy romance story. I honestly hate writing those. I get uncomfortable writing those. It also just always feels out of character and forced to me.

So I have stuff, it's just never really what people want to read. I know everyone has their niche. Mine is horror thrillers. But unfortunately it's not always what people look for on sites like Wattpad. Luckily, though, there is a market for it outside of the online sphere. So I'm trying my luck.

If you want to follow along, go for it. I'm just giving an old passion of mine a proper shot for once.