#i've been busy making an original comic and that's taking all my free time so i don't ahave a lot of time for here

[royboyfanpage]

Hello I really like your page. It's nice to see so much great Roy content and thoughts!

I was wondering your thoughts and opinions on Roy's relationship with Mia.

!! You're too sweet, tysm!

As for the ask:

Short answer? That's his little sister.

Long answer?

I'll be honest, I haven't seen all that many interactions between them in canon. I do have my own thoughts and feelings about them but, upon looking through some comics I've read, I haven't found many where they're actually talking. I have managed to find panels which show they *have* talked and have a good relationship in canon, but I've only seen them actually interact a few times and have definitely read more content with her and Connor, so if you have any reading recs I'd appreciate that :)

Because of this, my point is gonna be a lot more based on symbols and my own interpretation than actual sources, so some of my opinions may be disputed by canon content.

To start with, Roy's fiercely protective of Mia. Even from the beginning, he expressed his dislike of the thought of Mia becoming Speedy-

-because he knows first-hand just how detrimental that role can be to a child's mental health. Speedy, to him, meant a lot of bad things. I have a whole lotta thoughts on how the original sidekicks, particularly Roy and Dick, view becoming sidekicks, but I'll try and summarise. To Roy, Speedy meant losing any chance of a normal life. Keep in mind Roy was 13 when he became Speedy- he absolutely was not old enough to decide what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, and yet once you're *in* the hero business it's extremely difficult to leave.

And when Ollie first tells Roy that he's gonna make Mia Speedy, Roy's reaction is essentially that.

He's angry at Ollie for making Mia become Speedy, not because of "It's my name", it's not, Roy hasn't been Speedy in years at this point. He's angry because that is a seventeen year old who Ollie wants to throw in there, a seventeen year old who'll be making the choice to, in his eyes, throw away the rest of her life before she can even vote. And Roy's absolutely right about the world being different- Roy's teen years were spent in the gold and silver ages which were definitely a lot less dangerous than the 00s. And I think there's definitely an element in that fear of "look what being Speedy did to me" in Roy's fears. While it's likely Roy was an adult by the time Snowbirds happened, considering the amount of drugs he had experience with and the different connections he'd built it's safe to say that Roy was already an addict by the time he was Mia's age. But what I don't think Roy understands is that Speedy isn't that for her. She's already gone through the shit Roy's scared of her going through and more, having been a child prostitute and meth user by the time she was fifteen. To Mia, Roy isn't a cautionary tale but rather an inspiration- someone who'd gone through a similar situation to her and come out the other end.

After this, their relationship definitely progressed. Roy comes to trust Mia and her identity as Speedy, as well as letting her have things (that he kinda shouldn't have had in the first place, but all vigilantes are criminals it came free with the independent delivery of justice) that could help her as Speedy-

-and trusting her with Lian who he's always been fiercly protective over

And their relationship in the few times I have seen them together is incredibly sweet, with Mia reassuring Roy that he's a good dad and that it's not his fault that life gets in the way of his time with Lian.

So yeah. I really hope that they get to interact in the ongoing series because the Speedys should absolutely talk more. I think that Roy naturally has a great instinct with younger heroes, and he's absolutely someone Mia respects and looks up to.

Anyway I think Roy should take Mia and Connor to a theme park for sibling bonding time <3

[amazing-spider-man-book-club]

Amazing Spider-Man #1 (1963)

Published: March 1963

Containing: "Spider-Man: Freak! Public Menace!", "The Chameleon!"

Introducing: J. Jonah Jameson, John Jameson, The Chameleon (unnamed)

Synopsis: following the death of his uncle, Peter now has to leverage his identity as Spider-Man to find cash quick as a means of taking care of himself and his Aunt May. Various attempts to do so are stopped by his need to maintain a secret identity, his slandering by media mogul J. Jonah Jameson, and indifference by the public at large.

Read alongside us here:

@frankendykes-monster : After the better part of a year, material originally intended for Amazing Fantasy can now be taken off the shelf and published in The Amazing Spider-Man. For as much as these are two separate stories, our first one is divided into three parts and they chain together incredibly well with the new through-line of Peter desperately needing to make money.

Peter's origins are oh so quickly recapped in less than a page and transition immediately to the new status quo he finds himself in, at least for this single issue. Lee's narration on the title page is right, there hasn't been a character like Spider-Man yet, he can't even begin to worry about altruism or emotionally come to terms with his actual ongoing motivations (which will not come to a head for quite some time, keep following this blog!) because he needs to help cover the rent first. I think a lot of subsequent Spider-Man media neglect this lowest point of Peter's life now that I think about it; I'm not sure why, it makes for great material even if it isn't a "fun" read to see Spider-Man suffer. We get to see some nice stuff like Peter making a parachute out of his webbing, which at certain points in this run might feel more like a Green Lantern ring in terms of objects that said web fluid can be molded into. Spider-sense is also used several times, which is a power I've never been hugely into if only because it's convenient for writers to forget Peter has said ability whenever he needs to be punched in the face by someone right in front of him. Said ability was created by Ditko on the spot when asked by Lee how Spider-Man could see and fight people in the dark (just draw squiggly lines above his head and call it a day.)

I actually had no recollection of why Peter can't go back to show business as Spider-Man beyond the ingenious "you can't cash a check signed to Spider-Man" bit, but it's because of the debut of one J. Jonah Jameson. I mentioned in the post for Amazing Fantasy #15 that many of the plethora of characters "introduced" there would only become retroactively important after Ditko left the title...welp...can't say that here. Jameson will become arguably the second most important and frequently appearing character after Peter and immediately hits the ground running.

I think it's a popular interpretation of the character now to say that his thoughts on the subject of Spider-Man are misguided when he, a character inside the story, does not have the benefit of knowledge the we the readers do. It's fair game to say something is off about Spider-Man, this completely anonymous individual that can climb walls and swing across buildings and has already gotten into the habit of being a vigilante. Peter's relationship with Jameson isn't at all developed here, they don't even meet, but that will change soon enough.

Spider-Man exists in the same fictional space as other characters published by Marvel, huh, that was fast. I actually had to double check and see if this was published the same month as Fantastic Four #12, which guest stars The Hulk. It was. Truly the Marvel Age of Comics is upon us (I feel like I've already said this). My general thoughts going forward are...meh? Ditko is going to introduce enough characters and concepts that The Amazing Spider-Man isn't really hurting to team up with or fight other superheroes, but if they're here to stay for the time being, one of his get rich quick schemes being that he wants to join The Fantastic Four isn't a bad one.

And our first proper supervillain of the run, The Chameleon! The Chameleon isn't one of the "heavy hitters" amongst this rogues gallery, more a perpetual b-lister, but he mostly gets by on his excellent design; a blank canvas face that he can easily slide life-like masks over. Though, this is a concept that Ditko had already visited in Out of This World #6 (1957):

That would be the end of things for this issue, a nice transitional piece in the fallout of Spider-Man's origin, but some cracks behind the scenes are already starting to show. Even though the character is officially titled Spider-Man, with the hyphen, the text within the issue can't seem to recall if it's spelled that way or not. The second story has Peter referred to as "Peter Palmer" several times, though this isn't a blunder that would be repeated across several issues (see: Bruce Banner being referred to as Bob Banner). Ditko, upon being given the plot for this issue, reportedly hated the sequence wherein Spider-Man jacks a plane to save John Jameson in a plummeting space craft, comparing it to the likes of a high school football player joining the Super Bowl.

Where the plot that Lee provided Ditko came from is unknown, people looking into the subject like Stan Taylor and Stephen Bissette have come to the conclusion that they actually were provided by Jack Kirby to Lee to pass on to whomever ended up taking over Spider-Man, but the evidence isn't conclusive so I'll not state that that was the case. Ditko wasn't the type to be into flights to space, or making Communist villains like The Chameleon's motivations here, is what I will say. Ditko is clearly already developing very clear ideas on who Spider-Man is and where to take him, and any influence Kirby had on the conception of the character will quickly be shed. This will not be the last time we here of Ditko rejecting or altering ideas presented to him by Lee however.

@duel1971 : So very excited that we can start talking about J Jonah Jameson. In this story we see only one side of the man: a loudmouthed, ungrateful bully. He’s a perfect antagonist for Peter at this point in his story. Peter and his aunt are broke and desperate. Jameson is financially secure and has a platform that allows him to totally destroy Spider-Man’s reputation practically overnight. The fact that Jonah doesn’t actually know he’s targeting a struggling high school student at the moment is his only real defense.

The parallels between the Jameson and Parker families are something I’ll be writing more about as we go. John Jameson is successful and beloved where Spider-Man is shunned and hated, and Jonah has all the power in the world while Aunt May has almost none. Their similarity is in their loyalty to each other: part of Jonah’s hatred of Spider-Man in this issue seems to be fueled by thinking Peter was out to steal John’s glory in some way or another. (I say “seems to be” because it’s hard to take anything he says at face value.)

Second story: This one is really interesting to me because of how ambiguous Peter’s character arc is in it. He continually tries to do the right thing: first trying to impress the Fantastic Four in a desperate bid for a steady paycheck, and then aiding the cops in stopping the Chameleon. Both times, he is rejected and he remains an outlaw at story’s end. The last page features the Fantastic Four reflecting that someone as powerful as Spider-Man may well be a threat someday.

Of course, we know Peter didn’t turn to evil. But things aren’t going well! In spite of being powerful enough to take on the entire Fantastic Four by himself, he’s just a kid who’s worried about his aunt and doesn’t know why everyone hates him so much. It’s all too easy to imagine the path his life might’ve taken.

[wackyworldcomics]

Henchmen for Hire Cave Finders update (sorry it's late)

So... the name "Henchmen for Hire" has already been used for multiple IP's including an already existing Web Comic series that better fits it's title. So now the series that I am making is going to be recalled "Cave Finders" (which I don't already think has been taken, but I could be wrong).

As mentioned before, the series will follow two indentured magic users- Claire B. Ellody who is an ex-magician's assistant with the power to not get hurt by attacks, and Atka Boid who appears to be some sort of ancient deity that can manipulate rock however he pleases. Both of them work for an organization (which will now be renamed) where upper-class/rich residents of their planet (known as Elites) hire people like them who had trouble finding a job to loot old caves or do random tasks in their favor (such as guard a door... or perform an ASSASSINATION OF A POLITICAL FIGURE!!!)

Claire and Atka will begrudgingly do these jobs so they can achieve their ultimate goal of living comfortably with a roof over their heads. While simultaneously being confronted by enemies of the past that wish to either use them for their nefarious schemes, or try to destroy them for standing in the way of said schemes.

The name "Cave Finders" might also not quite fit as the title of the series, but its a work in progress still. I will try to have a pilot for the series out by July or October here on Tumblr or some other platform, but likely if you are at all interested in this series, you may need to wait until October for the pilot. I am very inexperienced when it comes to publishing a series and my energy levels tend to be really low these days alongside a busy schedule. The series will still happen- it will just take a heck of a long time. It- along with perhaps the pilots to two other series I've been working on (again though- based on my energy levels and schedule might not be realistic) will have pilots advertising them. Whichever one gets the most attention will get a full, free to view series while other series after that might get a charge (I still need to look into the legal business work on that).

The other two series that I plan to advertise maybe later on and create pilots for are as follows:

Angels Heard on High- a bit of a mild NSFW series following a group of remaining super soldiers referred to as "Angels" that were originally created to destroy monsters and those infected by their power. Most of the other angels have seemingly gone missing while an evil organized monster group continues to rise, meaning that its up to the remaining Angels to protect the world from their terror. However, they will soon learn that the lines between good and evil are not as clear as they've been told.

Mike and Icky's Crazy Adventure (title subject to change)- College Frat brother Mike Riverman decided to smoke a joint near the Agriculture Department's cornfield when he spotted who he thought was another student out at the same time he was. He decided to take his new homie back to the frat house as he looked a bit beat up only to find none of his crew was in the dorm. Now he and his new friend, Icky, are on an adventure to return all the fraternity members back safe and sound. No cop, monster, or mad scientist are gonna stop these guys from- wait, what do you mean Icky's a scarecrow?

[popculturebuffet]

Sam and Max Beyond Time and Space Retrospective: Ice Station Santa (Patreon Review for WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy freelance police and welcome back! For those just tuning in for the better part of the year i've been taking a look at Sam and Max: Save the World courtsey of patron WeirdKev27, falling more in love with this franchise and these games each chapter. If you'd like to catch up, I've put links to each review into one masterpost

RIGHT HERE

So with season 2's production.. I don't have a lot. I tried but most articles I could find from the time are "Sam and Max Season 2 is happening and it's better than ever" and not much else.

It makes sense: Season 1 was Telltale Games big coming out party: while it wasn't the first game they made, that would be....

It was their big breakout success. So while season 1 was proving themselves by this point Telltale was a big name, Sam and Max were once again big names, and the episodic model had worked. So it's not a huge suprise that season 2's production was more: Let's do it all again but bigger and better!

So for season 2 the models are slightly more expressive, there's more mini games and the originals had widescreen support back when that was a feature. '

So what actually happens in this sequel? Well a lot so join me under the cut as our heroes take on a bloated hairy pagan god to save christmas, embark in a rigged trivia night, traumatize bosco for fun and profit, and run over some muppets. In other words it's another day at the office and i'm glad to be back.

We open season 2 with our heroes returning from a case, some time after season 1 which is said explictly to be last year, only to get a nasty suprise. A giant robot smashing up the place

It's not that souless abomination but the maimtron 5000. With our heroes assuming it's their goldfish plotting max's death, that old chestnut, we head outside for the first puzzle.. well okay we're SUPPOSED to head outside but I choose to instead dick around the office. The trophy closet continues to grow and i'm happy to see a jar of bliss join the stuff. It's not a big or flashy trophy granted, it's not a melted ted-e-bear heard or a whole human being. There's some nice new touches to the office too: the photos from hit the road and bad day on the moon are replaced with ones from season 1. IT's a nice little touch that helps vary up the office and allows it to feel refreshed while still recycling the set from last game.

The biggest and best addition though is some stuff swiped from Ted.E Bears charred ruins. I get the feeling they WANTED to include these last season but it simply wasn't fesable. At any rate you now have a mounted mafia anamatronic head over the desk and the wack a rat game is now free to play any time in your office. I did again, because I had fun and it's even more fun when you just touch the screen.

So we walk out onto main street.. and quickly get our first of many status quo shake ups for the season: Sybil's is thrown through the air and lands squarely between your business and boscos where the space for rent used to be. Or on top of it more likely. It's also teling just how used I got to Sam and Max's street that I know it like the back of my arm hair. Thankfully she's not inside but it was still unnerving to see such a key part of the first season tossed aside.

Thankfully the Maimtron himself... is pure comic gold. He's waxing lyrical incarnate, quoting countless pop songs. My faviorite bits from him are giving his number as "6875309" and "All the cops in the donut shops say way oh way oh". That one's more for Max's response "That's it no one quotes walk like an egyptian at me and lives!"

However bullets can't do anything against him. Thankfully he has a big wind up dealie on his back so you simply need to ask why do birds suddenly appear every time he is near. I mean the obvious answer as given by Lorne

Is just like me, they long to be, close to you, but since he's in metal box at the bottom of the sea since Max took office, it instead gives you an opening to turn the robot off. The sender turns out to be a hairy pagan god with powers untold. That right it's old saint nick and time for Christmas in late august.

One opening sequence later we're at the north pole and it's here we get some interesting structuring for this episode. For the first act of it you can't leave the north pole. Which was annoying at first as I wanted to see Season 2's settings and what's changed, but in hindsight works perfectly: it keeps you at the pole and thus keeps your options kept there. Likewise apart from a puzzle or two that requires you to go to the north pole, most of act 2 is on main street and the last one is a bit back and forth. It creates a nice gameplay loop without leaving you TOO overwhelmed.

But before we can get to the wonders of Santa's Workshop... we reunite with some old faces. Yes folks, the dreaded dark day of prophecy fortold in the scrolls has come. THE SODA POPPERS HAVE RETURNED

As you can imagine i'm not remotely happy their alive and survivied the great dakota wars with only a removal from office. Their mad about their christmas presents. Specs got.. something, Peepers got a night gown he just dosen' thave the hips for, and Whizzer got Tuberculosis. Same thing Sam got max. It's why they don't do secret santa any more. Those gags are funny, and at the very least Sam and Max are now as visably fed up with them as I am. They also aren't in this one too much and the developers make up for using them at all out of plot necsity by allowing you to throw snowballs full of bleach at them. Repeatedly.

It was one of the best days of my life. Also helping with the strain of these morons and specs returning is a little something from the past. See before I got into this chapter, Kev reminded me of what was INTENDED to be a running gag, but I simply never updated it. Persons of all ages I present the wall of misery

It was supposed to be a runnnig tally of characters I just.. flat out hated in fiction. Not just disliked, not just was mildly annoyed by in one version or another, the ones I CANNOT FUCKING STAND , the ones who truly bring out the rage in me. It ended up largely forgotten due to a combo of two things: my short term memory being shoddy.. and me simply not getting THAT angry that often when reviewing. I try to be fair to a work as much as possible, and prefer to focus on the positive. I"ll still be objective, i'll still come down on a works flaws, but at the end of the day the reason I got into this wasn't to let out my anger issues (which I do have and try hard to control), but to simply look at things I liked or things other people like as fair as possible. I WILL tear into something if it truly pisses me off, see my review of the boys comic, but I generally don't get my hackles up that high that often.

That being said.. as I looked at the wall I realized it had a place for that exact reason. If a character can not just annoy me (as a lot of this prototype do), but really make me hate them, really make it harder to watch an episode or read a scene if their around.. why SHOUDLN'T they get a badge of dishonor for it? Pissing me off is harder and harder these days, so why shouldn't someone get an award for it for somehow pulling that off? So I present to you

With thing one and thing two front and center. Thing three is absent because he's not a carnival of dicks crammed into one character model. If your curious whos who

First Row: Julie Powers (Scott Pilgrim (Comic)) Helen Lovejoy (The Simpsons) Billy Butcher (The Boys (Comic) ) Daisy Duck (Legend of the Three Cablleros Version, the rest are fine) Second Row: Mindy's Mom (Animaniacs Peepers (Guess) Whizzer (Oh come on) Roger Raincomprix (Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir) Yivo (Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs) As for what the Soda Poppers have to do puzzle wise...

Yup my anguish, my bringing back and old bit, my pelting them with bleach and possibly elf urine, it all amounted to... well okay you DO get to pelt them all with bleach and possibly blind them for life. I"ll give the developers that. This appearance gets a pass.

So we finally get inside the Workshop to find this is the night santa went crazy, as Santa is holding anyone trying to come into his office at gun point and has been having the elves making more militarilzed toys. And tourture me elmer. Naturally Max loves that last one. He even screams like a real person.

I will say Santa holding everyone at gun point.. is more than a bit unsettling and is very "product of it's time" given the.. well everything that's happened since this chapter happened. While mass shootings happened back then, they weren't nearly as common. and... I need a moment.

Okay back. I didn't even notice it while playing it oddly enough, probably down to it being a product of it's time and my brain treating it that way. Or the situation being silly enough that the horrible crushing reality simply didn't hit me and thus the chapter holds up okay.

It helps the workshop has a genuinely... creepy atmosphere> The music, a more offputting carol of the bells, the lighting it's all more ominous than previous settings. It contributes to the episodes depressing vibe as when we get to town in a bit it's also a bit off. Thankfully this is sam and max so while I was a tad unsettled.. it really didn' tstay that way for long as you can stick your guns to the north pole, talk with the elves on how things hav edeteroriated and how the elves sang a song when they left "It wasn't very happy" and make an elf cry to progress.

Elf Tears make trees grow

So we need to make one of the elves cry. And given this is sam and max it's naturally one of the most darkly hilarious things as the elf WANTS to cry.. but even threatning to rip out his eyes or kill his dog dose'nt work.. I mean the former at least makes sense. You know I forget sometimes how much horrible stuff these games make you do till I sit down and play this month's chapter.. or how much comedy gold you get out of the suffering.

Now we have a pail of elf tears.. .which I didn't even know you could pick up. I assumed growing the tree was what you did to progress. This one's on me for both not using the button to show you everything you can react to.. and on not turning the hint system up. See last game I honestly forgot half the time Max gave you hints, not helped by the fact a majority were just max being max instead of offering any advice. So for this game they instead worked out a better hint system. I mean you can still talk to max for giggles, but instead if you turn it on and the game thinks your stuck, he'll shout out what you specifically need to do. I needed to crank it up to get him to do it, and evne cranked up it's nicely just if you've been idle or wandering around long enough.

Thankfully once Kev told me I could us ether elf tears, I grabbed them and used them on a coinvent little tree outside. This gets us into Santa's Office, but dosen't really fix the problem right away as he still outguns us. And given this is sam and max we're talking about that says a LOT. Thankfully we get our lead in to act 2: an exorcism diagram. It's actually quite simple they simply need a magentic pole, which they have and the four horseman of the apocalypse action figures.

So collecting all 4 is our next goal and we're finally back home. And each area has one of the four horseman.

The first one I encountered, and ironically the last one I grabbed, was Boscos. And boy oh boy was I not prepared. So.. since the end of Save the World Bosco's somehow sunk further down the conspiracy whole. Besides dawning his most hideous disguise yet, himself, he's torn the store apart, taking all the fun and helpful condiments from season one and replacing them with a presumibly useful in the future set of photography equipment. The lights are dim, the security's somehow MORE draconian and bosco himself seems on a shorter fuse. That dosen't mean we can't light it as there's two really fun bits. The first is since bosco is hiding from a group called "T-H-E-M", who i'm not doubting exists since he was at least SOMEWHAT on the money about most of his paranoid delusions, any time someone says them he gives out a high pitched shriek. Props to Oogie Banks for making it so damn hilarious. You can just.. say it over and over ot hear it till Bosco eventually uses the security system on you. Btads is back baby!

You can also ask if he has any, which of course he dosen't this isn't a store.. but the payoff is what makes the joke:

As for bosco's horseman it's in his package

And that joke was ALMOST as subtle as the jokes the game makes. Bosco won't open it because he thinks it has a bomb inside but won't NOT open it because it might have his broom. So once again we have to ruin bosco's life. Id' feel worse but given he's taken trillions of dollars from us simply because he could, let's scar him for life again!

This requires the present machine. You can send random junk to people. We only need to send two gifts for plot progression: a ticking stopwatch to bosco for obvious reasons and a footbath to stinky's diner for reasons i'll get into in a moment.

The watch makes Bosco think the present is a bomb, and while he's disposing of it you can steal from him again. And if he has any problem with it.. them.

Onto our next one at Pimp Le Car, another very 2000's joke but one that holds up as it's just plain funny a custom car place would decide "you know what we need to not get sued by xibit? FRENCH!"

And running Pimp Le Car are The C.O.P.S.

The COPS are like the anti-soda poppers to me: their instantly likeable, made their chapter better by existing and every time they show up gets a smile out of me. And lucky for me Telltale clearly felt the same as their upgraded to Bosco's old role of shopkeep, via their custom car buisness. Their also as funny as ever.

Naturally their task is the best. To get their figure (a free hood ornament) you have to run over as many torture me elmers as possible while they spit out things likes "I have rights" and "I'm an american citzen"

That's 1/4 horseman, but before we go we can also get Stickers

For the desoto. Turns out you can get 5.. I only got one assuming it was a once a chapter thing. It's pretty neat.

Moving on, we have Stinky's Diner, our second new location and our replacement for Sybils. And I have to admit while I miss both Sybils and Bosco's as it was this shakeup was necessary: while the gameplay loop of visiting the duo worked for a game, changing up who does their roll was necessary. Telltales smartly kept both characters, they simply changed up their gimmicks: Sybil's focused on her relationship with Abe LIncoln and Bosco has gone deep down the paranoia rabbit hole.

Stinky's isn't ENTIRELY new, having shown up in Hit the Road as a quick gag and Season 1 as a background feature. Our heroes were mentioned being fond of it's salty order who hoped to cull the weak with his questionable food.

Sadly for our heroes and about a wash for the rest of civlization, Stinky is gone, apparently having passed between games with his daughter taking his place. The boys are suspcious. The fact Stinky is a habitual liar who has rigged her trivia contest so no matter what you answer you loose so she can feel superior doesn't help.

Winning at trivia is a lot of fun and a clever puzzle: the pattern is simple enough: Sybil and Abe are on a date and while their relationship is going fine, the date itself is not great as both want to murder Girl stinky but neither wants to ruin the date for the other, and my boy the Army Bug whose dealing with some ptsd and the recent loss of his father. Poor guy. I'm glad he's here but he needs some bug therapy. Maybe Buster Blaster can branch out

YOU ARE NOT YOUR FATHER

YOU ARE GREAT

YOU CAN DO THIS

GIVE ME 5.50

Since the bug and Sybil always give the same answer, a and d respectively, you simply need to tell abe whose desperate for advice to choose b or c, choose whiche ver one he didn't and you win. Stinky begrudginly gives you your prize.

As for the footbath I mentioned you mail that to Girl Stinky, and she's thankful enough to let you take her old sock.

Note this is just me personally. If your into that, good for you. It's just not for me.

Anyways the sock will be useful later, and the less I have to talk about someone else's dirty sock the better.

So that leaves us with our final horseman to grab, and that takes us back to the start.. the giant robut. Thankfully kev told me when I was stuck to go back there. So Jimmy Two-Teeth and co have turned the robot into a boxing league. Thankfully you can aquire a boxing doll from the north pole and engage in the rat equilvent of punch out.

The boxing mini game is painful. It's main problem is simple: it's a punch out homage.. that isn't designed to work like punch out. So if you say spent a LOT of time playing punchout in college and have all your reflexes for a game tied to this where you assume you can dodge either way when your instead supposed to go the same direction your opponents punching, your gonna have a bad time. Spoiler: I had a bad time. Not helping is the final fight with Jimmy gives him a super punch that can knock you out in one hit. Why they didn't tune this up for the console versions better is beyond me.. and probably time and space.

Our heroes win.. which leads to Jimmy Two Teeth, sad his wife left him, to perch on a ledge and prepare to commit suicide. Honestly i'm suprised this episode didn't have you kick a puppy or 12 at this point. We can't help him yet though, but we CAN help santa. Using a record from his office, we play the summoning chant the friendly demon song!

Jared Emerson-Johnson continues his hot streak from last season and shame on me for not looking up who was writing and singing these things. Admitely the puzzle itself is frustrating if you don't get it but the solution.. is neat. The beast possesing santa left a bunch of clues around the workshop.. and it turns out it's our old friend Shambling Corproate Presence! I'm so delighted they brought it back.. granted it's just a pink monster.. thing, but it's still neat they brought it back.

Turns out though while this does draw it out Santa actually left out the instructions as a way of fighting from the inside.. and our heroes didn't look on the back. The only way to restrain the thing is the ghosts of christmas past, present and future. And thus we've come to our final act. You have to get the help of the spirits of christmas past , present and future to help. And in a nice and, as you'd expect for this episode, fucked up twist, it's all undoing shit our heroes did. Well for the most part, one is saving them but two are christmases our heroes genuinely ruined.

So first is past, and this is where we help our old friend Jimmy Two Teeth. Kinda. We go back to season 1 and while Christmas Past dosen't care about them kidnapping Leonard for keepsies, they do care about Jimmy's son needing money for his toureets or jimmy's wife about ot leave him. The only way to fix this.. is to kindap jimmy's wife, bring her to him, and then take his boxing glove so his past self can get the tourettes surgery money, fixing the problems we caused in his life with more problems in his life.

Then we have christmas present. Earlier when we got the figure from Stinky, Max pressed it. And since that one was pestlience it summoned the bug's awful family. We throw a snowball at him, it triggers his psd, and this gets the others to leave thinking he's his own dad.

So it's on to our final one which thankfully isn't comitting any crimes. Horay! We simply have to save ourselves from hell in the future. We do so by firing up the sleigh, which has been sitting outside waiting for some coal. And we just so happen to have a terrible persons' sock. We use it to coal up, go rescue ourselves and max hits on his past self suprising no one.

So now we can release the spirits of christmas. They try appealing to the corprate presence's better nature.. and once they get that off their quota beat it. Unfortuantely it goes back into santa.

Fortunately this final boss fight.. is pretty neat. See earlier in the workshop there's a bunch of stuff to play with but none of it comes into play, a tad annoyingly at that.

And while I still contend it was a bit much.. I can't fault telltale for the payoff, as you use all the stuff in santa's workshop to knock him out. The package that brought shambling corprate presence here turned out to be for satan so we send it back.

The problem is who will save christmas? Turns out it's the soda poppers who like me Max wishes were deead but for once turn out useful. WEll okay peepers and specs are, Whizzer's only fucntion is "unrinate on stuff" but frankly it's a funny enough gag he can live till the end of the season. JUST TILL THE END OF THE SEASON. Speaking of great gags our heroes drop off. And why not.. it's only mid november.

Ice Station Santa is a mixed bag for me. There are a lot of great gags shoved in here as usual, the puzzles are mostly fun, and while the first act can be frustrating the atmosphere can't be beat. It's mostly great stuff. The more I wrote about it though the more it became clear that the tone.. is a bit of an issue. Some jokes like making the elf cry or the muppet slaughter are so dark they work, while other bits just .. don't quite land. There's enough of the old sam and max goofiness to make the chapter not get to ounsettling but there's a more mean spirited tone in this one i'm really hoping isn't a trend for this game. Sam and Max works better when it's more over the top insanity and our heroes being over the top callous instead of just depressing. Still i'ts a solid start to the season Next Month..ish: Sam and Max take a vacation! Naturally they have to save the day to actually enjoy it. Thanks for reading.

[kelpiemomma]

That's honestly just how male leads tend to go. It's a shounen(?) thing. Some good ones with male leads are Dungeon Nursery, My Daughter is thr Final Boss (less isekai, more regression), Latna Saga (up until s3 :B), and I Have to be a Great Villain (i think the official title is now 'I Want to be the Big Baddie'???)

I particularly enjoyed Latna Saga: Survival of a Sword King and I Have to be a Great Villain. Latna Saga up until s3, due to unnecessary romances, but the main character is yoinked with several thousand other characters and deposited into a 'gaming' space. He ended up with an error that didn't allow him to move behind level five and spent 20 years surviving on his own, fighting demon dogs every day, until the person who first pulled him realized he hadn't moved past the first stage. They attempted to destroy his 'box' but set him free instead. He's insanely OP, can't act for shit, and is a massive himbo but there is a severe amount of deep seated trauma in his mind. He's also afraid of ghosts. I thoroughly enjoyed it until there were sudden and unnecessary romances brought up in s3.

I Have to be a Great Villain is fun (if you look past problematic instances) bc the main character is isekai'd, but he essentially volunteered for it. He accidentally caused the death of himself & his friends on a bus ride, and in order to turn back time and prevent the accident from happening he is assigned as the villain in different stories (he's literally playing the villain role) in several different novels, and he gets points depending on how well he did. He's trying to save up enough points for time reversal. (It's also a BL)

For girl isekai, The Lady and The Beast is again less isekai and more reincarnation. It's interesting. My biggest issue with most isekai is the complete lack of regard paid to how completely unsettling it would be to wake up in a stranger's body. Kill yhe Villainess is fantastic in that after a series of mishaps, the main character actually begins to have a breakdown after she sees "herself" in the mirror and can't remember what she actually looked like.

I've also enjoyed The Perks of Being a Villainess (out MC is creating capitalism, market tactics, and tax evasion in her new world. Her love interest is incredibly handsome and she avoids him because she used to be a major pushover in her past life. He's so intrigued by her business decisions (and the fact his mountain lion pet loves her (the cougar is named Cookie)) that he tries to impress her and doesn't understand why his looks alone aren't enough to do so. His servant mocks him for it, and I just love them so much. They're all stupid in the best way.

An actual comic panel:

The Villainess Flips the Scrip is also very good! The main character tries to bring her nephew up right to make up for his terrible fate in the book she read, except her nephew is also acting mighty odd and not how he should. There's a couple points where you may need to turn your brain off, as with any isekai, but I love Judith firmly.

Becoming the Dark Hero's Daughter is good! The main character doesn't remember she's been isekai'd until the day she's supposed to die, when she manages to get herself adopted by the original novel world's main character. She intrigues him enough that he takes her in and she manages to charm him, his son, and his sister. Her entire family absolutely adores her and the fact she's not related to them by blood doesn't matter at all, she is their baby and they will protect the baby.

There's also The Villainess is a Marionette (isekai'd protag tries to fix the world but her obsessice yandere brother throws it into her face until she decides to go balls to the walls in revenge), I'll Save This Damned Family (protag is isekai'd into the daughter of a family doomed to be executed for treason in a few years time, shes determined to prevent that fate), I Raised a Black Dragon (protag is isekai'd into the body of a villainess, attempts to live a quiet life so she doesn't die, ends up with a dragon egg AND gets her original body back!), The Reason why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke's Mansion (now being sold in Barnes and Noble! A solid isekai.) and The Villainess's Maker (I really only recommend the first half- the art is better and the story is solid. After they go to the mountains, the original antagonists suddenly become simps for the protagonist and I hated the ending because it made no sense to me.)

If you wanna give virtual reality or dungeon hunting a try, I recommend the Gourmet Gamer (Rice is precious) and I Stole the Number One Ranker's Soul- just look at these panels

Isekai with male protags: "I was a loser on earth but now I'm super fucking strong and gettin mad bitches"

Isekai with female protags:

Reincarnated princess uses earth knowledge to make magitech a thing and romances sad girl

Girl romantically pursues her video game waifu

Girl is tasked to teach actual fucking gods to be more empathetic to humans

Woman reincarnated as the daughter of a magic item crafter uses earth knowledge to advance her trade

"Straight" girl is sucked into a world with zero men and lesbians everywhere and finds out she's sapphic (there's like actual plot but the gay is what matters.... to me)

A ghibli film. Need I say more

Woman reincarnated in video game as doomed villainess desperately tries to change her story

Girl reincarnated as a tiny baby spider kills monsters to level up

Like the male protag one but the lame guy's mom got isekaid with him and she's the op one.

Two normal girls fight urban legends in terrifying danger dimension

[drawnaghht]

Gonna be honest, aside from fandom events/celebrations I'm prob not gonna be very active here again, on account of busy-in-general but also, my side-accounts are still always more art-oriented.... I like to post my own arts hehe x3 so I guess I'm writing abt this as a gentle reminder to myself that it's alright to not be active & how much I really enjoy posting my own work when possible.

some more thoughts on this under cut! the blog will stay mostly usagi chronicles related with reblogs related to other usagi stuff and tmnt but I will try to keep it to my own art as I originally intended.

right now I've also been obsessing again over the Tintin fancomics and animations by @/professorcalculusstanaccount (not gonna tag them bc this is not directly related) and their work (+ just ruminating on my own old stuff) has been inspiring me enough that I'm thinking of returning to my og comics again. just in a... very subtle way. i don't like drawing attention to myself as much(as much as I should at least) and I wanna take a lot of babysteps to get back to building those up again.

for my SRTUC/TMNT2003&ROTTMNT crossover fic, I am thinking now that I want to take a similar approach in that it is mostly images, some larger text. bc I realized I do not actually enjoy writing long spans of prose. like. I enjoy making comics bc I am more used to those, but also, I am imagining things much more visually so it is hard for me to put some of these into text form at all times. I think that's why I probably haven't written this fic properly or finished any of my old fic. So a pretty normal "I explain my fic/AU idea" post, but I would like to try it in a concentrated way. I dunno how I would format this crossover on AO3 for example, but here in tumblr I could put them neatly under a cut and write away. It would be cool if I had the energy for animations/comics too bc those, while taking more time than writing, are far more enjoyable on the whole to make (but again, I am much more used to them)

I also want to explore more of a genfic (general "genre" fanfic) look at crossovers. As much as I like the Yuinardo/Leochi (Yuichi x Leo) ship, I also really enjoy exploring more unusual dynamics and situations in fanfic haha x3

my health's been slowly declining this week again and i haven't noticed next to work so I'll try to keep phone and personal internet time to a minimum now. sjdnddj i also just haven't had the energy for new art in general, so I'm basically going into spring hibernation until the next big spike in free time.

but hey! things I look forward to posting about more are some of the short comic thumbs I've been doing! I've fanart mostly for usagi chronicles right now but I'm also probably gonna post other short sketches I've done on my regular fandom art/ sketchblog, @aghhtdraws . There's a Chi/Ki (Chizu x Kitsune) doodle post I wanted to do and also a few other Usagi sketches I wanted to post.

I also like to write analysis of shows I like often enough, but writing is usually very taxing for me if it gets too long so I try to avoid it unless I have a very strong idea. Wait... have I been writing essays this entire time??? x3

I'll still tag those as #analysis bc that makes sense for me as a short tag and I don't really keep to an essay format as much, but yeah, you can block that or #aghhtposts if u don't wanna see those xP

i tag things more for my own convenience, but that is also very useful for tag blocking! (so glad xKit still works 10 years after it broke or smth)

oh! and I also wanted to post some screenshots/links from insta. both Stan and some of the crew have been posting new posts about SRTUC which have been a delight to see. ahhh im so glad the show exists and the crew seem to have a lot of good memories about it.

[kadoodles-on-ao3]

It's been a while since my last aside so I felt like sharing what I've been working on in my free time! I promise I'm not lazy, I'm just busy and also really like starting new projects halfway through working on 8 other projects for some reason haha

Speaking of starting something new when I haven't finished something I started previously, Minh and I were planning on making a collab Shulkelia one shot for Valentine's Day! Obviously that didn't pan out haha but it's still being worked on and it's extremely cute and fun :) Hopefully it will be ready to post sooner than later! And I also will hopefully be able to work on Constellations soon as well!! (Seriously I feel. SO. bad about my hiatus, especially since I know how many interesting and fun rough-draft ideas we brainstormed up for it that are just waiting to be finalized and shared with the world!!)

Another thing I wanted to do for Valentine's Day but extremely missed the boat on was mass dumping the few good NSFW Shulkelia pieces on here (with a planned warning ahead of time as well as copious tagging and hiding under readmores, of course!), including a full translation of a doujin! However, it being a nearly 20-page comic with dialogue and onomatopoeia all over the place meant I couldn't go the normal route of putting the translation below the art, it would just be way too messy and confusing. So, I decided to open up Photopea and replace the Japanese text with my translation! I felt bad about editing someone else's work (still do haha) but there was just no other way to do it, there is. SO so much onomatopoeia in there that it would be a nightmare to do it any other way. But that fact also contributed to why I still have yet to finish the translation: I got wayyy too ambitious in my typical perfectionist way, and decided to use the clone tool to edit out the hiragana and katakana handwriting for the onomatopoeia and place English text in their places, rather than just put it in small, parenthetical text next to the original writing like manga translations typically do. And oh my GOD I should never have done that there are literal HUNDREDS of characters I had to painstakingly edit out and I'm STILL not even done yet no no no... But I'm so close to finishing it!! I have only a couple pages left and then it's good to go!! Expect to see it along with the other NSFW art of them (again, with multiple warnings far ahead of time plus careful tagging to make sure you won't see it if you don't want to!!) in the near future!

Not XC related at all, but my most recent project has been making an Ao3 site skin (and, in the process, learning how CSS works) and it's been really satisfying! It's nothing super fancy, but it does create a noticeable improvement from the default (in terms of clarity/organization/readability, no offense intended at all of course!) and I'm very pleased with it so far! Once it's done I'll share it here, complete with notes on what each piece is doing to the layout and how, so anyone can use it and tweak it how they like! :)

I unfortunately haven't made any more progress on Xenoblade 3, sorry to say. And actually... it's partially because I'm worried that I'll end up liking Noah so much that I'll get even more distracted from writing Shulkelia or Xenoblade 1 in general haha... Like I'd never give up on that of course, 1 and its characters will always have a special place in my heart! But I can see myself getting swept away by The New Guy TM, much like I do with new project ideas popping into my head...

My FFXIV x Xenoblade 1 crossover has made some good progress! I've now finalized the outfits for over half of the characters I plan on making, after hours and hours of trying different chestpieces and dyes to get them as close to their canon outfits as possible! In fact, maybe I could share a little more about what exactly I'm doing, to show how I was having too much fun and made it a bigger thing than it had to be, to help explain why it's taking so long haha:

So originally the idea started out as "what FFXIV job best suits the playstyle/archetype of each of XC's playable characters?" (and I have a whole host of notes in my head about why that is from both a gameplay/kit perspective and a fandom-y General Vibes/Aesthetic perspective, which I will for sure post along with the pics). And if I could draw well, it probably would've ended there: I'd just have made some art of the cast posing with their weapons and call it done. But since 1) I can't draw the things I see in my head like I want to and 2) I like to over-complicate things for fun, I decided to pile onto this idea by not only adding more characters of (XC SPOILERS!!!) Alvis, Egil, Meyneth, and Zanza to the roster (including in terms of what jobs suit them each and why!) but also recreate everyone in-game! (I really wanted to do Dickson as well, but unfortunately there are absolutely zero mustache options that look like his :< There's only one that's even remotely similar, but the face is completely wrong for him (what facial features look like are tied to faces, for some reason; the Mustache Facial Feature creates a different type of mustache depending on which Face option you pick) so there's no way to make a character that looks sufficiently like him, at least to my standards. Maybe one day they'll add one that fits...? If they do I will for sure make Gunbreaker Dickson a reality!) This resulted in me needing to not only sit down for hours in XIV's character creator ensuring every detail was as close a match to their designs as possible, but also opening up 8000 tabs in Eorzea Collection and looking through every. single. last. glamour option. in the game for each. and. every. slot. for each. and. every. character. to find out how closely I could translate their weird (affectionate) XC clothes into weird (affectionate) FF clothes. Combine that with my stubbornness in wanting them to look as accurate as possible resulting in making two different outfits per character based on whether or not they can equip/glam the gear as the job that suits them most, (plus the fact that I'm doing [again, SPOILERS!!!] Mecha-Fiora in addition to Homs!Fiora as well as having three [three!] different job options for Shulk based on varying levels of both XC and XIV spoilers to avoid ruining twists for either game), and the fact that I went a step further and decided to also make alternate-race versions for the main party (that sounds... bad lmao. fantasy races, like elves and catboys and such) like half if-these-characters-were-instead-created-by-the-XIV-designers-in-an-alternate-timeline-what-race-would-they-probably-make-them-judged-by-me-like-their-jobs-on-both-lore-and-Vibes-TM and half if-the-XC-gang-existed-irl-and-played-XIV-what-would-they-make-their-characters-look-like, and reminder that each of these versions have two different outfit variants and each outfit needs a minimum of 4 and a maximum of 7 separate pieces each that also need to be dyed and have multiple different options to try on for every character and... it took a teeeeny bit longer than I was expecting to get through haha. But that's not at all to say it's a chore to get through; it's certainly been a process yes, but I've been having a lot of fun the whole time :) Finally getting every element just right, from all the details in character creation down to their eyebrow shape to finding the best option for every armor slot dyed just the right color, seeing it all come together and actually look quite a bit like the character is so satisfying! I can't wait to share them all, I hope someone out there enjoys the results as much as I did creating them! :) Oh, and I also will be making a glam list for each outfit as well as sharing my notes on what I picked in the character creator, so if you want to do an in-game/WoL cosplay as someone or maybe even make an alt named after one based on my recreation of them then it'll be easy for you! :)

Even though I haven't been keeping up with my fanfic writing as much lately, I do still get little ideas for things quite often and am typing them down in my doc for later! I have a gigantic backlog of things I could write: fanfics long and short, Shulkelia fics and Genfics, non-fanfic concepts both XC-related and not... rest assured, even if I'm not posting on here or Ao3 my mind is always buzzing with something and I'm always wanting to create more!

[jyushimatsurepliez]

 HI HI!!  I’m so very sorry if you don’t remember me, it’s been years since i was actually active, but i’ve gotten a bit back into oso-san again, and i decided to see if your blog was still going !  I ran the blog for Amari! It’s been so long i don’t remember very well what he looked like..  But i never forgot how wonderful it was interacting with you, even tho i was just a stupid kid doing it all for fun! You made it really enjoyable. 

[batty4spuds]

2 Weeks Back AU

I am floored by how many people liked my Gravity Falls AU idea. (The original post is right here!)

I'm so happy so many people liked the idea, It is very fun and interesting! So it got me thinking more about the AU, I don't have a lot more to add but here you go.

So I've been thinking Stanford would bring back the Alien Glue to use on the rift in the past, I mean why wouldn't he? He got it in the future and part of the reason he going back is not only to save Stanley from getting his mind wiped, save the kids from getting traumatized, but to also put a stop to Weridmageddon.

Now does the Alien Glue close the Rift permanently or not? Idk but even if it doesn't it would give him time and I'm sure his family will help in looking into other means too if not.

Though if it does close it right shut like in the comics, the Rift won't be a concern anymore, which would piss Bill off. He'll have to find some other sap to make a portal again, though that doesn't mean he won't harass and try to harm the Pines family in the meantime to get back at Ford??

I guess what happens to the rift depends on whether you want to make it a long or short story.

Anyway onto other things!

I think Stan would totally pick up on Ford's change of attitude and when Ford tries to play it off that he has just come to his senses, Stan believes it cause Ford is speaking the truth (I mean it's true, he just leaving out the part about him being from the future.) but Stan also would get a feeling there is more than his brother isn't telling him.

As for how the episodes may play out, due to Ford going back in time. I like to think he came back after "D,D,& more D" happen so that episode remains the same. He would call for a family meeting right away and make sure Stan is part of it this time, so "The Last Mabelcorn" will happen before "The Stanchurian Candidate". As mentioned in the last post, Ford gives Mabel the heads up about the Unicorns being jerks, probably playing it off that he learned more information about recently and has yet to edit the details on Journal one. Stanley maybe gets to go with Mabel and the girls, cause he will see through their whole Pure heart act.

Idk what Stanford and Dipper would do? Get the Shack ready for the unicorn hair? I can't see them bothering with the Project Mentum, but I also can't see the whole family going with Mabel cause someone gotta stay behind and maybe sure the rift remains safe, though that is if the Glue didn't work or if Ford even brought it back with him.

I am also not sure how "The Stanchurian Candidate" would play out, I mean the only reason Stan tried to run for Mayor was that he is jealous of Ford getting all the attention from the kids, as well I'm pretty sure he was also trying to run because he wanted to find something new to do since by the end of summer Ford is going to shut down his business.

But that not happening anymore in this AU, would he still try running against Bud, probably cause they hate for Gideon to be set free, but then again that would make him free to do the zodiac circle to stop Bill, but even with that it still wouldn't be a good idea cause you know Gideon would control his Dad into abusing being mayor. So yeah Stan probably still tries running against him, maybe he even takes the kid's advice this time around and they won't feel the need to resort to the control Tie. I doubt Ford would show Dipper the Tie this time around either.

Would "Roadside Attraction" still happen? Or would that be postpone until the Rift and Bill are dealt with, cause now that the whole family knows about it that probably is more important than pranking a bunch of Attractions? (Imagine if they do solve those problems and the Time Police don't try and reset the timeline, Maybe Stanford would go along on the trip to bond with the whole family. :D )

I sadly haven't thought up much for the Time Police and if they would get involved or not, as well as I haven't been able to really figure out what Bill would do. Though there is probably a lot he can do to since he will have Blendin's Time Tape to use. If the Time Police were not aware of Stanford going back in time yet, I'm sure Bill could attract some attention to him once.

Anyway, I think that is enough of my rambling for one day!

Once again I'm sorry I didn't get to add much more to it, I mostly just ramble some of my thoughts on the AU.

Aw well, I hope people still enjoy this, and if you wanna share any ideas and thoughts on this AU go for it! I'd be curious to hear what other ideas could be thrown into the pot!

[tomatograter]

i saw on twitter you reread the epilogues! would it be okay to ask how you feel about them now on a reread? have any of your opinions changed, for better or worse? i've really loved the art and analysis that's come out of your tumblr/twitter ever since they dropped, so i'm excited to know what you think. i couldn't get a great read on your feelings based on your tweets so that is why i am asking directly, hope that's okay!

Not much changed. That wasn't the first time I attempted to re-read the HS Epilogues, I've gone through bits and pieces of them a handful of times in the years since the original release and it's an effort I make to remind myself of events that happened because I tend to... forget. I don't mind reading books, I like those! In the hellscape that was 2020, according to my StoryGraph stats (great new site, by the way, stop using the Amazon-clawed Goodreads and transfer your account to a black led effort to diversify the current literary environment) I managed to read about 22 new books. Not too shabby for a total dumbass. The problem isn't that it was text-only, they just sort of mush together as a nondescript mass in my brain given enough time. 

The first time I finished the epilogues, I said they felt like a purposefully unfinished text, but one at odds with itself (though in much more undercooked words, as I had just spent the last 2 days busy reading it) and it's an impression that has deepened since.

I do not mean anything like "Meat contradicts Candy" with this, that'd be foolish; the dissonance is the fucking point. I know how dubiously canon alternate universes work and I *enjoy* them, otherwise I wouldn't have wasted years in the circus ring that is accompanying Big 2 Comics in the hopes they'd do anything genuinely cool with that concept. Instead, I find there is a general problem in terms of internal cohesion. The Epilogues want to be a lot of things at once, be it a continuation, an expulsion, a deliberate attempt at public scorn, a somewhat genuine play in heartfelt analysis, a reinvention of what came before, or a loaded gun pointed straight at one's own foot. And in the process, they end up undermining the impact of their own strongest moments. 

I don't like the Epilogues. Their lukewarm indecisiveness makes for a poor reading experience that needs far more asides, warnings and 'before you read it-'s than the book is worth. It is a text with a particularly distasteful, juvenile fixation in the show and repeated humiliation of sexual abuse victims, and manages to be more regressive about its female characters and what roles they're allowed to play than Homestuck, the 2009 Comic, ever was. And that was disappointing. It's as if the coming of adulthood must sort them into one of two categories: "wanted, desirable" woman or "unwanted, undesirable" woman. It also interacts with trans women in a really shitty way. It is a text married to traditional white-centric politics that makes an attempt to challenge them from that same perspective but falls flat on its face by pulling big moves like "making the alien-Hitler analogue character fight for a rebellion meant to represent racial liberation" and other unsavory choices. But I don't need to like the Epilogues to acknowledge them as both a text that exists and works within a shared universe. 

They're pretty fertile ground for dissection and analysis. I think it's interesting how they accentuate some of the worst facets of the HS "canon"/"lore" by being incredibly blatant about their connection to stuff like the Skaianet archives, how they play with Fanservice and Fan Expectation by dedicating so much time to solving or sinking ‘The Davekat Equation’, and how they elaborate on complex facets of old characters. It's a text that acknowledges the existence of fanfiction and popular fanworks on a direct quotable basis (like "Can't sleep without holding onto a motherfucker" of 4Chords fame) as well as Fan Movements that preceded it (the also Gamzee-based "Free the clown!" Rush from 2016) it's intrinsically interactive, and that's not something you can say about a lot of media. The olive branch beckons.

I don't recommend the Epilogues. To me, the Epilogues portray glimpses of two potential, but not absolute, futures soaked in limiting metadoomer pessimism, best appreciated as "what-if" tales taking on the questions of serialization, post-myth, the self-cannibalistic nature of franchises, the abstractness of Canon, the absurdity of fanon, and why fascists like milk. The Epilogues are also not going to magically disappear or un-exist from our collective recollection anytime soon, or… ever. These statements coexist. 

I think complex feelings towards media are best put to use in the making of your own art, which is unsurprising, given the fact I'm an artist and a fag, & I've personally enjoyed creating things that interact and rebuke aspects of that text. I've also been graced with the existence of wonderful art from others doing the same, may that be in the form of illustrations, written epics, analyses, comics, videos, songs, the collective transgendering of the series' main character, and all sorts of harder-to-categorize community creations. You can make the best of it. That's my favorite part of the whole ordeal, and one I don't regret one bit. 

I hope this is an appropriately satisfying answer on this subject, and if it isn't, well, here's the thing; you can write a better one.

[crystalprepshadowblogs]

Farewell everyone!!!

Hoo-boy.... This isn't going to be easy for me. The title said it all and I've been thinking long and hard about this for months. Life just sorta happened and things got busy for me. When I got some free time, I finally took the opportunity to really think and be honest with myself. And after trying hard to wreck my brain to come up with an update for this blog (which I failed to), I have concluded that I have lost the spark to continue on with the updates. I just can't seem to find any motivations for it anymore. I guess I just grew out of the MLP fandom and to be honest, I started to feel this way about this fandom ever since the show ended.

Again, like I said, making this decision to stop updating this blog wasn't easy for me. For as long as I can remember, this blog was like a happy place for me when I was stressed out. I really enjoy drawing the Shadowbolts and making myself and everyone else laugh by giving them colourful personalities. I really like to spread joy to those who had a rough day and for those who simply enjoyed my contents. Back then, I can upload a short comic everyday but as of now, I really can't seem to update it anymore. And I don't want to give anyone false hope by making them think that there will be an update just by disappearing like that.

Through this blog, I have made a lot of new friends and met a lot of great people who shared a common interest with me. I'm really grateful for you guys who enjoyed and understood my work. If it weren't for you people, I don't think I would have committed myself to work on this Tumblr for 5 years. You guys are awesome. I'm really sorry for suddenly dropping the bomb on you guys like this. I really am. Right now, my heart is just not in MLP anymore. You see, I've gotten myself attached to other fandoms as well as my own original contents.

Aaah...I don't want to turn this into a super long essay, so I'll just bring this post to a close. To summarize once again, I fell out of love with MLP and I will not update this blog anymore. Though, I'll still keep this page open for those who wants to look through it. The ask box will be closed and the discord server will be deleted (since I'm not active there). So if you guys want to keep in touch with me and support me for my original contents, feel free to follow me on @nyiim-nyoom and/or other social medias listed below:

Twitter ==> https://twitter.com/Nyiim_Nyoom?s=09

Instagram ==> https://www.instagram.com/ny11m_ny00m?r=nametag

Thank you all for this awesome 5 years of love and support! I'll never forget these memories that we've had together and I'll be sure to bring more new interesting contents in the future!

Take care and stay safe <3

[omigoshninjaturtles]

Why it's great in Rise for Leo to BECOME the leader instead of STARTING as one

I've been thinking about this a lot and discussing this with friends in our private TMNT chat. I just wanted to share my musings about why I think it's actually a good thing. Not is it only a nod to the original Mirage comics, I think it's important to Leo's development as a character.  

In Rise, Leo has shown different, but in some ways, the same insecurities that other incarnations of Leo have. In previous incarnations, Leo has always felt pressured and stressed about feeling incompetent and being unable to protect/guide the family. Rise Leo has that same issues, but it's enhanced by the fact that he isn't the leader.

"I'm useless." - Leo, Minotaur Maze

"I'm nothing without them [my brothers]." - Leo, Portal Jacked

Looking some Rise episodes like Minotaur Maze and Portal Jacked, Leo feels like he's the load to his brothers. He's the only one of the brothers who hasn't really mastered their weapon properly yet (Mikey and Raph have pretty good control of their new weapons while Donnie only has minor hiccups on his tech bo). He's getting better, but as Portal Jacked proves, he still feels like he's nothing without his brothers. Leo gets very eager in opportunities that allow him to step up or become 'better'. This is why he got so excited in Minotaur Maze to become a champion or why he embraced becoming a pro wrestler in Shell in a Cage. Although perhaps he knew inside that the title meant  very little, he just wants a title to prove to others and most importantly himself that he’s not nothing. Inside, Rise Leo believes that he's nothing, useless, and he's desperate to prove himself.

In previous incarnations, it sometimes felt (to me) that being a leader was a heroic burden Leos had to take, that becoming one meant taking on the responsibilities no one else wanted; basically to take one for the team. I keep thinking back to 2003 Mikey's deconstruction of Leo's character:

“I think you all should just lay off the poor guy [Leonardo]. I mean, it can't be fun always being the responsible one. And we're the ones who really benefit: Raph's free not to think cause Leo does all the thinking for him, Don's free to dream, and I'm free to take it easy all because Leo's busy being responsible enough for all of us.” - Mikey, TMNT 2003 

In Rise, instead of leadership being a burden, it's actually something that will build up Leo's character (not that the burden thing it’s bad, it’s just a different take). Not only will it give Leo purpose, but it'll also help improve the low opinion Leo has on himself that he keeps hiding by the classic Superiority Inferiority Complex / Sad Clown shtick. It will build up his confidence and it's great to see this development of a teen who suffers from feeling that he's nothing, something a lot of people face in life, to step up and realize, 'Hey, I am something'.

I also think that this development for Leo is going to be an interesting one for Raph. Rise Raph sort of designated himself as the leader because he's the oldest. He doesn't like taking orders from anyone else, and he's happy that way. I don't think Raph is a bad leader, he's honestly doing good and the best he can, which is all anyone can ask for... but admittedly, he isn't super great. He doesn't think things through and he sometimes doesn't have that intuition that comes with decision making. In fact, Leo is doing a lot of backseat leader-ing when opportunities arise, having great leadership qualities and intuition, things which Raph unfortunately lacks as a leader. Even Donnie has shown that he trusts Leo almost unconditionally when he wasn't even paying attention in the conversation at hand, automatically agreeing with Leo in a debate between Raph and Leo (in Hot Soup: The Game).

I'd like to think that Raph knows deep inside that he may not be the best choice as leader for his brothers, so he feels pressured and may be prone to lashing out when tensions get high (shown a bit in Mascot Melee).

My analysis and prediction is that Raph will have to learn the hard heartbreaking and important lesson that will test the bond between Leo and Raph: Sometimes, being a great leader isn't about making hard choices or organizing the people, it's knowing when you need to step down and let someone else takes the reigns and lead. It’s a hard lesson to learn and Raph realizing that will be one of the most emotional and mature moments in the show, I feel it.

It's always said the real adventure is the journey not the destination; and I'm hella excited and happy to see Leo's journey to becoming more confident with himself and becoming leader, as well as the subsequent character development Raph has to go through about stepping down as leader. Also I'm not ruling out the possibility that Rise Leo might face some of the same stresses that come with being a leader in addition to the journey to become one.

These are just all my thoughts anyway :P

TL;DR - It's great that we see Rise Leo become a leader instead of starting as one since we get to see his development from a guy who has poor opinion of himself that he hides under jokes and a Superiority Inferiority Complex to a confident leader. Also having Raph learn the lesson that sometimes a good leader knows when it's time to step down and let someone else lead.