#ik this isn’t exclusive to PR

[roymustbang]

non-puerto rican latines try not to make fun of our accent for two seconds challenge: impossible difficulty

[harehuntress]

intro post i guess..

my name is gasp, i use it/its. both mun and muse are 18+ and i’d prefer it if only 18+ peeps interact due to potential mature themes. general tw for gore and nsfw content

i’m not new to rp, but i’m v new to tumblr rp and fandom rp in general - i may still be missing some contexts and whatnot so i apologize in advance! i’m not super selective (as long as you’re a dbd blog you’re game) so feel free to drop starters in my inbox. i always try to respond with art so if i take a while to get to your ask it’s because i’m trying to make something for it lol

99.9% of the art i use will be my own, but if it’s not i will credit when necessary

please don’t ask me to erp. i don’t know if that’ll be an issue but please just don’t try it (i’m alright with nsfwish asks and nsfw in general but i don’t erp and it will make me uncomfortable if initiated)

i am sensitive to surprise gore/violence in rp so please talk to me b4 trying to spring it on me.. i know thats a bit silly considering my interests but i just like to have a sense of control over what happens to me/my muse. ocs and crossovers are fine with me! i’m not much of a shipper and don’t plan to initiate ships but i do enjoy them a lot, you can absolutely give it a shot if you want

exclus/discourse, k*nk, pr*ship blogs please do not interact. ik problematic content is probably a given considering the themes of dbd in general but i cannot handle it for personal reasons, it will 100% trigger me so all i ask is that you tag/warn your content and blog accordingly

TAGS:

#plain faced lagomorph - mod posts, ooc posts

#bunny’s reflection - ic posts, art, stuff related to my muse

#a dreary hunt - non-rp/aesthetic reblogs

#cottontail lullaby - asks, submissions, anna talking in general

#cuniculus - rp reblogs

#mine - a general tag that lets you know the content within the post is my own

basic muse bio/headcanons below the cut

ANNA.

- goes almost exclusively by “the huntress”, being referred to as “anna” confuses her a bit as she isn’t use to it — though she does respond to it. nicknames like “annie” or “ann” are outright ignored by her if it’s coming from people she doesn’t know/isn’t all that fond of.

- physically around late 20s to early 30s. she doesn’t have a birthday as she doesn’t know what day she was born (and if she did she wouldn’t care anyway), so she doesn’t have an exact age. she is over 7′5 or so with a muscular build.

- sapphic-coded, she displays a heavy positive bias towards women and fem aligned people in general. there are exceptions, but very few of them

- she can understand english but she does not speak it. translations will always be provided when necessary (i am not russian, i will do my best to make translations accurate but mistakes are inevitable with me)

- she behaves motherly - or at least, she attempts to. she cooks, offers trinkets and lullabies to whoever she grows fond of, no matter if they reciprocate or not

- her general lack of social skills makes her.. not the best conversationalist, so she may have odd mannerisms, reactions and speaking patterns when being spoken to. she is used to being alone.

[jayleeg]

What's going on with Marvels comics this time?

Okay, so this guy who called himself “The Whisperer” who claims to be a Marvel Comics employee dumped a crap load of company dirt onto reddit. Once those rumors surfaced Bleeding Cool ran an article about how it was all crap. And then the rumor leak guy fired back that Rich, the administrator of Bleeding Cool, got paid by Marvel to write the article debunking his rumors. Honestly the entire thing is like a soap opera.

I mean I shouldn’t find this stuff interesting, normally I don’t, I stay away from gossip sites for a reason (and that reason is most of it’s torrid and exaggerated) but as someone who’s worked in the market of business data and trends for twenty years I *have* been wondering why Disney hasn’t intervened with the comics division of Marvel when a) it’s going under, sales are way down and b) they’re ruining their brand with crap storytelling. So out of all of these ‘rumors’ the one I can actually believe is that Disney is staging an intervention and also toying with the possibility of moving Marvel Comics to Burbank, California in order to keep a closer eye on them all.

Anyway, the rumors that started the drama are copied and pasted under cut (and by pasting them here I am no way claiming or endorsing that they are in any way valid, they very well could be a bunch of crap) and I linked the Bleeding Cool article debunking some and taking credit for others above…

Editorial is miserable. Understaffed, under experienced and overworked. The direction at the top corporate level is a mess of politics and in-fighting. They all look the fool to Disney because of Feige’s split and the bad PR & constant gaming of their declining sales is wearing on them. Top brass want to make a hard left back to what worked with Steve, Thor, Tony, Banner and other recognizable faces. Editorial knows how bad it’s going to look to push all their diversity celebrations to the side. Reality is those books didn’t sell. A lot of it had to do with Marvel’s chincy practices finally reaching a breaking point with fans but the internal editorial spin is that comic shop fans aren’t ready to embrace change.

>The terrible reaction to Hydra Cap/Secret Empire forced a change in plans. Originally it was going to end with a quasi-Dark Reign scenario where Hydra is vanquished thanks to Kubik shenanigans and the World Security Council from the movies steps in to assume power over super heroes and everything has Civil War-era overtones with registrations, boot camps, the idea of an Inhuman ban. The Vanishing Point would be a way to bring back Steve, Tony, Thor, Banner; sort of like Hickman’s “Time Runs Out” jump-skip but in reverse, it would rewind the characters to before the Hydra subversion stars. The classic heroes realize that they have lost touch with the people and need to learn how to fight for them again. In the meantime, the new generation of Miles, Kamala, Riri and other Champions would form “the resistance” against the WSC state. (“Generation” was also planned to be the transition from the classic guys taking a step back and letting the new generation lead the charge).>>>Legacy is a rush-job. They can’t afford to take the classic characters off the table like that for so long but they also don’t want to piss off the new diverse audience they’ve been trying to court. They’re trying to have their cake and eat it too, and please all masters. It’s a scattershot way to buy time while they right the course on several books. It’s not going to be about “new number 1s” but milestone 500, 600, 800 issues. A lot of these big volume numbers are really stretching the definition but the constant relaunches have started to seriously damage the trade department’s ability to plan out long-term marketing.

>They’re bringing back the Ultimate line for the teen heroes. Miles will become Ultimate Spider-Man again. Siri becomes Ultimate Iron Man. X-Men Blue becomes Ultimate X-Men. Champions becomes the Ultimates. The only “adult” character that will be a regular presence is Captain Marvel because they want her to be seen a prominent character to the overarching power structure of the WSC/SHIELD and other elements that will factor into her movie heavily. They’ll still make guest appearances in the “main” books but don’t expect them to anchor anymore franchises. Bendis staying on Miles and Riri. Hopeless is still on Ult X. New Ultimates writer is Amy Reeder

>Waid is a stop-gap on Cap to bridge the Legacy launch, then takes over Iron Man with 600 (Doom will be the main villain). Coates is taking over Cap with 700. They want him on the book to endorse the image rehabilitation. There’s a lot of face-palming internally about the “cap is a nazi” talk. He’s on both that and Black Panther as long as his schedule allows.

>They got lucky with Greg Pak and Hulk. It leads into a Planet Hulk revival pretty seamlessly.

>Jane Foster dying was always the end-game with the storyline, but the positive response with female fans means they’re trying to find a way to make her stick around. Tentatively planning to make her the new Valkyrie as the movie version is a blank slate and no one cares about the 70s Defenders character.>Classic Thor will be space-bound for awhile. Definitely through “Ragnarok.”>>

>Slott is off Amazing Spider-Man. They’re going to move him over to Friendly Neighborhood; the fear is he would sign exclusive with DC if they took it away from him completely. Plus he struggles with deadlines and there’s less risk with him off to the side. They can’t ignore declining sales anymore and it’s time for a refresh.>Spencer was earmarked for ‘Amazing Spider-Man” for awhile but he’s “earned it” after taking the heat for Secret Empire. Plus there are fans of his “Superior Foes” book in editorial and the plan is to emphasize tech-based criminals, go smaller scale, focus on NYC. Yes, like the movie. No, they’re not going to de-age him to a teenager. (Although it is a corporate synergy idea that has been floated; editorial has been able to argue that there’s no great way to do it … yet. They’re hoping Tom Holland ages up and they give up on that idea. The time-displaced X-Men are an albatross brought on by First Class synergy).>No major plans for MJ beyond guest spots here and there. The marriage isn’t coming back ever. Renew Your Vows will stick around until its a money-loss. It’s just a spin-off that had some legs, like Spider-Gwen. Silver Sable/Black Cat plans are being developed. Big plans for the Venom series to have a central role in Marvel events.>>>The X-Men are still in a tight spot. ResurrXion was itself a rush job after the Inhumans movie push was officially kaput and there was no future for family of books. Because of the Fox issue, they still can’t create new ideas that could go toward the movies so its literally just nostalgia retreads. Uncanny will be back next year with Xavier. Old Man Logan is sticking around for the foreseeable future with X-23 becoming his sidekick, the book will be called “Wolverine.” They burned out Deadpool fans with the price gouging, so no plans for spin-off series, but there will always be mini-series on the side to line out trades.

>Seriously, don’t expect the classic Fantastic Four anytime soon. Ike has seemingly dug his heels in; even though Fox will probably never figure out what to do with them, he’s spiting the brand because of how bad the negotiations went. Sue & Reed and the kids are seen as “boring” enough to sacrifice. Two-In-One is basically a containment book for people to get their F4 fix. It’s an inventory book, no set writer, it’s like “Avenging Spider-Man” or “A+X.” Different writers will get to use different pet characters.

>Ms. Marvel is in a funky spot because most at Marvel are aware that something organically special happened with her book. She’s basically the new “Runaways,” a special project with a special writer’s connection. It will last as long as Wilson wants to writer her, with a focus on the bookstore market while she pops in and out of other books when relevant. They want the audience to have enough familiarity with her because it’s inevitable she’ll be adapted sooner than later; it’s way too soon for her to be introduced into any Carol Danvers sequels so the TV division might snag her for their Hulu/Freeform teen show pitches. (Moon Girl is saved by her trade sales but the threshold is much lower for if sales drop any lower.)

>Wilson is also taking over Captain Marvel. They need to make it work and she’ll do the best job tying the legacy together. Kamala, Monica Rambeau, SWORD — its all part of it.

>Runaways is just a mini-series. They just want the trade out in time for the Hulu show. They can’t seem to get readers to care if it’s not BKV but they know people still love the franchise.>Cloak & Dagger and New Warriors series are coming. Squirrel Girl is wrapping up and North is moving her storylines over to NW where she’ll be the main character.

>Elektra, Bullseye, Kingpin tanking so hard shook them. They need the “Marvel Knights Netflix” corner to be sustainable, so they’re relying on Bendis on Defenders & Jessica Jones for awhile. Say what you want about his other stuff, everyone here thinks its still his sweet spot.>Brian Buccellato is on Daredevil with issue 600.>Justin Jordan is on Moon Knight; big hope that he can give Marvel their “mature” critically acclaimed book that juices up that corner of Marvel.

>Secret Warriors and Royals are already wrapping up. Rosenberg is moving over to one main Inhumans book. Quake/SHIELD will be background characters until “Agents” wraps up (everyone knows this is the last season).>They’re going to give Ahmed a shot with Black Bolt until sales drop.

>No plans to take Duggan off Guardians. Gunn is moving full steam ahead with Adam Warlock weirdness and they want to make sure those characters/ideas are “accessible” but still fun.

>Punisher War Machine is just one storyline involving Stark tech. They want to pull the character back from some of the real-life darkness and imagery; Nate Edmondson’s rep + Secret Empire has made him “ugly” (plus no one cares about Cloonan’s run). They want to scale him back to the Spider-Man/Defenders side of street-level, with less focus on real guns and more emphasis on comic book-y tech.

>Al Ewing is on Spirits of Vengeance. Editorial likes him, but he can’t sell a book to save his life. They just want someone with a love of Marvel lore to write the magic/horror characters to have them prepped for future Movie Phase exploration with a Blade reboot. They know that corner of Marvel horror needs its own “Annihilation.”

>It’s just like … a Spencer plot device. It could have been WeirdWorld (oh boy that was a failed plan). It’s just Spencer’s take on a “place out of time” a la Morrison.

>There are no plans for a Spidey reboot like that. They can’t get readers to pick up a teen Peter Parker since Bendis killed off Ultimate.

They wrote themselves into a corner because no one cares about kids books like Marvel Adventures or that “Spidey” book from last year.

There has been some discussion about an “Untold Tales of Spider-Man” relaunch with teen Peter and the high school cast but they don’t want Busiek and there’s no market for “prequel” books.

There’s a thought (and I agree) that once the animated Miles movie comes out, they’ll have their “Spider-Man for kids” so we want to keep him strong in the comics and cartoon merch. The Sony deal is kind of closed off but in terms of brand direction, we’re all about synergy. The Gwen revival talk is dead now that the Emma Stone movies are done.

We’re just kind of waiting to see Sony’s next steps but there’s kind of like a prep for nostalgia for the Raimi trajection in terms of MJ & college.

We’re in the dark about a lot of the post Infinity War plans now but the overarching brand direction we were looking at was scaling it to revolve around Spider-Man even though Marvel can’t make a solo Spidey film.

I think Tom Holland is going to be the new lynchpin for the MCU. They’re not going to have a new “Iron Man” franchise but they’ve got Holland locked into a deal where he’ll teaming up with characters in their own stuff.

The original plan was to mirror the Civil War to Secret Invasion to Dark Reign arc.

There’s a reason this is called Secret Empire. The next step was “Nomad”‘ing the entire Marvel line-up. There was a lot of editorial excitement about saying something about Trump’s win and the baby boomer backlash.

No one was expecting the backlash to cap hydra and they probably could have kept the original plans intact but I think it was the sales/marketing push that buried it.

Not everyone is an idiot here; we are aware of how we price gouge comic shops. I think that was more the issue and once all the online fan political arguing started happening around the book, retailers just finally threw their hands cause it wasn’t worth the outrage.

Jason Aaron is off doing his own thing. His Avengers BC thing is just a Morrison mini series idea he has.

Spencer “made his statement” now that Captain Sam won’t be the status quo (that was the original plan while Steve goes back to the maskless “Super Soldier” identity).

I think everyone agrees it’s time to take teens away from Waid.

But the senior editors had big plans for that push and now there’s nowhere else to put it. But we can’t just get rid of it forever.

There was no plan to replace all the “white men” its just how the pieces fell into the place. Honestly, the Riri thing was the tipping point. It was Bendis’ idea, no one in editorial had a big plan for it and it hurt the big post-Secret Wars push to make Tony Stark the franchise of the MU.

Since it’s basically a book for his daughter, we’re kind of stuck keeping her in print.

Edit wants to have a fresh voice on a Miles book in time for the Sony cartoon. David Walker apparently had a pitch that got people excited.

But there’s just no way to take Miles AND Riri away from Bendis without burning a bridge with him forever.

I’m not kidding: the Slott FNSM run is going to marketed like Joss Whedon on Astonishing. It’s its “own thing” “unrestricted by the monthly continuity but still taking place in the MU” which is code for “if its late, its late.”

It’s going to be sold as “separate but equal” to Amazing. I have no idea how long it will last, but it’s to assuage his ego apparently as he was not interested in other books.

I don’t think anybody wants anyone else to jump to DC. The real fear is Disney seeing that Warner had success moving the comics office to Burbank and lining everything up under one roof.

Moving Marvel Comics out of NYC and onto the Disney lots is a real possibility. A lot of us will get downsized or just not relocate if that happens.

not surprised. just our typical variant trick that’s been meant with diminishing returns while contracts get lined up for new last-minute books to replace post SE plans.

shitty day for me because i had to handle a lot of the online damage control until like 8:30

This is how Marvel corporate works under Ike: we don’t give the fox and sony movies anything but we will milk the cash in on comics.

After X3, the plan was to do a teen focused reboot, so we were going to cash in on that. Not literally the movie cast, but remove the baggage and make them streamlined and accessible to younger demos.

Claremont is like the “Spider Man wedding” of X Men. Its this unwieldy thing that none of the senior editors like that they want to rewind but because of the movie deal we can’t make new IP.

X-Men has been a micromanaged mess since I started here. AVX was a sales team gimmick to replicate Civil War, which messed up Schism. Remender’s plans got hijacked by the time displaced O5 which was a pretty shameless Bendis pitch to corporate. There’s no central architect guiding the franchise, just big plans that get derailed by the next sales gimmick.

Then the fox talks started going really south and it wasn’t just “don’t give them new ideas” but actively scale it back.

Yes Ike and corporate really thought they could replace X Men with Inhumans. They don’t actually care what it is, just as long as they own it.

The 05 was seen as a way to scale it back and might as well “House of M” the last vestige of Grant Morrison’s run and just make Scott & Emma straight up super villains. But its been a mess cause no two writers are working together on the bigger picture and Gillen and Aaron and Remender all had different plans.

IVX was a mercy killing to a character that had been written into a corner

Carnage: big villain for the Venom plansPower Pack: early early development for a freeform show, comic would follow obviously

i’m writing this on my personal laptop out of the office. no one at marvel checks this place. and if they did, they just see 4chan as a bunch of trump trolls.

[lastsonlost]

It’s time for that rumor mill to start spinning and it might be a big one. 

Word around the comic book campfire is that Marvel’s lines of comic books are a disaster behind the scenes and big changes are coming our way. You’re going to have to take this with a huge grain of salt but the news is showing up on message boards across 4chan on their diverse replacement characters – i.e.

 Amadeus Cho’s Hulk, Waid Wilson’s Captain America, and Jane Foster’s Thor etc. To add more to the salt, Marvel but be looking to bring back the originals to the Inhumans and X-Men in hopes to boost sales.

What’s adding more to the idea that this might all be smoke and no fire; the people at Bleeding Cool are stating that these rumors are just that…rumors.

Here’s the info that’s been popping up:

Editorial is miserable. Understaffed, under experienced and overworked. The direction at the top corporate level is a mess of politics and in-fighting. They all look the fool to Disney because of Feige’s split and the bad PR & constant gaming of their declining sales is wearing on them. 

Top brass want to make a hard left back to what worked with Steve, Thor, Tony, Banner and other recognizable faces. Editorial knows how bad it’s going to look to push all their diversity celebrations to the side.

Reality is those books didn’t sell. A lot of it had to do with Marvel’s chincy practices finally reaching a breaking point with fans but the internal editorial spin is that comic shop fans aren’t ready to embrace change.

The terrible reaction to Hydra Cap/Secret Empire forced a change in plans. Originally it was going to end with a quasi-Dark Reign scenario where Hydra is vanquished thanks to Kubik shenanigans and the World Security Council from the movies steps in to assume power over super heroes and everything has Civil War-era overtones with registrations, boot camps, the idea of an Inhuman ban. The Vanishing Point would be a way to bring back Steve, Tony, Thor, Banner; sort of like Hickman’s “Time Runs Out” jump-skip but in reverse, it would rewind the characters to before the Hydra subversion stars. The classic heroes realize that they have lost touch with the people and need to learn how to fight for them again. In the meantime, the new generation of Miles, Kamala, Riri and other Champions would form “the resistance” against the WSC state. (“Generation” was also planned to be the transition from the classic guys taking a step back and letting the new generation lead the charge).

Legacy is a rush-job. They can’t afford to take the classic characters off the table like that for so long but they also don’t want to piss off the new diverse audience they’ve been trying to court. 

They’re trying to have their cake and eat it too, and please all masters. It’s a scattershot way to buy time while they right the course on several books. It’s not going to be about “new number 1s” but milestone 500, 600, 800 issues. A lot of these big volume numbers are really stretching the definition but the constant relaunches have started to seriously damage the trade department’s ability to plan out long-term marketing.

They’re bringing back the Ultimate line for the teen heroes. Miles will become Ultimate Spider-Man again. Siri becomes Ultimate Iron Man. X-Men Blue becomes Ultimate X-Men. Champions becomes the Ultimates. The only “adult” character that will be a regular presence is Captain Marvel because they want her to be seen a prominent character to the overarching power structure of the WSC/SHIELD and other elements that will factor into her movie heavily. They’ll still make guest appearances in the “main” books but don’t expect them to anchor anymore franchises. Bendis staying on Miles and Riri. Hopeless is still on Ult X. New Ultimates writer is Amy Reeder

Waid is a stop-gap on Cap to bridge the Legacy launch, then takes over Iron Man with 600 (Doom will be the main villain).

Coates is taking over Cap with 700. They want him on the book to endorse the image rehabilitation. There’s a lot of face-palming internally about the “cap is a nazi” talk. He’s on both that and Black Panther as long as his schedule allows.

They got lucky with Greg Pak and Hulk. It leads into a Planet Hulk revival pretty seamlessly.

Jane Foster dying was always the end-game with the storyline, but the positive response with female fans means they’re trying to find a way to make her stick around. Tentatively planning to make her the new Valkyrie as the movie version is a blank slate and no one cares about the 70s Defenders character.

Classic Thor will be space-bound for awhile. Definitely through “Ragnarok.”

Slott is off Amazing Spider-Man. 

They’re going to move him over to Friendly Neighborhood; the fear is he would sign exclusive with DC if they took it away from him completely. Plus he struggles with deadlines and there’s less risk with him off to the side. They can’t ignore declining sales anymore and it’s time for a refresh.

Spencer was earmarked for ‘Amazing Spider-Man” for awhile but he’s “earned it” after taking the heat for Secret Empire. Plus there are fans of his “Superior Foes” book in editorial and the plan is to emphasize tech-based criminals, go smaller scale, focus on NYC. Yes, like the movie. No, they’re not going to de-age him to a teenager. (Although it is a corporate synergy idea that has been floated; editorial has been able to argue that there’s no great way to do it … yet. They’re hoping Tom Holland ages up and they give up on that idea. The time-displaced X-Men are an albatross brought on by First Class synergy).

No major plans for MJ beyond guest spots here and there. The marriage isn’t coming back ever. Renew Your Vows will stick around until its a money-loss. It’s just a spin-off that had some legs, like Spider-Gwen. Silver Sable/Black Cat plans are being developed. Big plans for the Venom series to have a central role in Marvel events.

The X-Men are still in a tight spot. ResurrXion was itself a rush job after the Inhumans movie push was officially kaput and there was no future for family of books. Because of the Fox issue, they still can’t create new ideas that could go toward the movies so its literally just nostalgia retreads. Uncanny will be back next year with Xavier. Old Man Logan is sticking around for the foreseeable future with X-23 becoming his sidekick, the book will be called “Wolverine.” They burned out Deadpool fans with the price gouging, so no plans for spin-off series, but there will always be mini-series on the side to line out trades.

Seriously, don’t expect the classic Fantastic Four anytime soon. Ike has seemingly dug his heels in; even though Fox will probably never figure out what to do with them, he’s spiting the brand because of how bad the negotiations went. Sue & Reed and the kids are seen as “boring” enough to sacrifice. Two-In-One is basically a containment book for people to get their F4 fix. It’s an inventory book, no set writer, it’s like “Avenging Spider-Man” or “A+X.” Different writers will get to use different pet characters.

Ms. Marvel is in a funky spot because most at Marvel are aware that something organically special happened with her book. She’s basically the new “Runaways,” a special project with a special writer’s connection. It will last as long as Wilson wants to writer her, with a focus on the bookstore market while she pops in and out of other books when relevant. They want the audience to have enough familiarity with her because it’s inevitable she’ll be adapted sooner than later; it’s way too soon for her to be introduced into any Carol Danvers sequels so the TV division might snag her for their Hulu/Freeform teen show pitches. (Moon Girl is saved by her trade sales but the threshold is much lower for if sales drop any lower.)

Wilson is also taking over Captain Marvel. They need to make it work and she’ll do the best job tying the legacy together. Kamala, Monica Rambeau, SWORD — its all part of it.

Runaways is just a mini-series. They just want the trade out in time for the Hulu show. They can’t seem to get readers to care if it’s not BKV but they know people still love the franchise. >Cloak & Dagger and New Warriors series are coming. Squirrel Girl is wrapping up and North is moving her storylines over to NW where she’ll be the main character.

Elektra, Bullseye, Kingpin tanking so hard shook them. They need the “Marvel Knights Netflix” corner to be sustainable, so they’re relying on Bendis on Defenders & Jessica Jones for awhile. Say what you want about his other stuff, everyone here thinks its still his sweet spot.

Brian Buccellato is on Daredevil with issue 600.

Justin Jordan is on Moon Knight; big hope that he can give Marvel their “mature” critically acclaimed book that juices up that corner of Marvel.

Secret Warriors and Royals are already wrapping up. Rosenberg is moving over to one main Inhumans book. Quake/SHIELD will be background characters until “Agents” wraps up (everyone knows this is the last season).

They’re going to give Ahmed a shot with Black Bolt until sales drop.

No plans to take Duggan off Guardians. Gunn is moving full steam ahead with Adam Warlock weirdness and they want to make sure those characters/ideas are “accessible” but still fun.

Punisher War Machine is just one storyline involving Stark tech. They want to pull the character back from some of the real-life darkness and imagery; Nate Edmondson’s rep + Secret Empire has made him “ugly” (plus no one cares about Cloonan’s run). They want to scale him back to the Spider-Man/Defenders side of street-level, with less focus on real guns and more emphasis on comic book-y tech.

Al Ewing is on Spirits of Vengeance. Editorial likes him, but he can’t sell a book to save his life. They just want someone with a love of Marvel lore to write the magic/horror characters to have them prepped for future Movie Phase exploration with a Blade reboot. They know that corner of Marvel horror needs its own “Annihilation.”

Replying to whether Marvel will have a black Mary Jane or what Vanishing Point was.

It’s just like … a Spencer plot device. It could have been WeirdWorld (oh boy that was a failed plan). It’s just Spencer’s take on a “place out of time” a la Morrison.

There are no plans for a Spidey reboot like that. They can’t get readers to pick up a teen Peter Parker since Bendis killed off Ultimate.

They wrote themselves into a corner because no one cares about kids books like Marvel Adventures or that “Spidey” book from last year.

There has been some discussion about an “Untold Tales of Spider-Man” relaunch with teen Peter and the high school cast but they don’t want Busiek and there’s no market for “prequel” books.

There’s a thought (and I agree) that once the animated Miles movie comes out, they’ll have their “Spider-Man for kids” so we want to keep him strong in the comics and cartoon merch. The Sony deal is kind of closed off but in terms of brand direction, we’re all about synergy. The Gwen revival talk is dead now that the Emma Stone movies are done.

We’re just kind of waiting to see Sony’s next steps but there’s kind of like a prep for nostalgia for the Raimi trajection in terms of MJ & college.

We’re in the dark about a lot of the post Infinity War plans now but the overarching brand direction we were looking at was scaling it to revolve around Spider-Man even though Marvel can’t make a solo Spidey film.

I think Tom Holland is going to be the new lynchpin for the MCU. They’re not going to have a new “Iron Man” franchise but they’ve got Holland locked into a deal where he’ll teaming up with characters in their own stuff.

The original plan was to mirror the Civil War to Secret Invasion to Dark Reign arc.

There’s a reason this is called Secret Empire. The next step was “Nomad”‘ing the entire Marvel line-up. There was a lot of editorial excitement about saying something about Trump’s win and the baby boomer backlash.

No one was expecting the backlash to cap hydra and they probably could have kept the original plans intact but I think it was the sales/marketing push that buried it.

Not everyone is an idiot here; we are aware of how we price gouge comic shops. I think that was more the issue and once all the online fan political arguing started happening around the book, retailers just finally threw their hands cause it wasn’t worth the outrage.

On what Ultimate comics are

just an imprint line. not a separate universe.

Jason Aaron is off doing his own thing. His Avengers BC thing is just a Morrison mini series idea he has. Spencer “made his statement” now that Captain Sam won’t be the status quo (that was the original plan while Steve goes back to the maskless “Super Soldier” identity).

I think everyone agrees it’s time to take teens away from Waid.

But the senior editors had big plans for that push and now there’s nowhere else to put it. But we can’t just get rid of it forever.

There was no plan to replace all the “white men” its just how the pieces fell into the place. Honestly, the Riri thing was the tipping point. It was Bendis’ idea, no one in editorial had a big plan for it and it hurt the big post-Secret Wars push to make Tony Stark the franchise of the MU.

Since it’s basically a book for his daughter, we’re kind of stuck keeping her in print.

Edit wants to have a fresh voice on a Miles book in time for the Sony cartoon. David Walker apparently had a pitch that got people excited.

But there’s just no way to take Miles AND Riri away from Bendis without burning a bridge with him forever.

On Spider-Man,

I’m not kidding: the Slott FNSM run is going to marketed like Joss Whedon on Astonishing. It’s its “own thing” “unrestricted by the monthly continuity but still taking place in the MU” which is code for “if its late, its late.”

It’s going to be sold as “separate but equal” to Amazing. I have no idea how long it will last, but it’s to assuage his ego apparently as he was not interested in other books.

I don’t think anybody wants anyone else to jump to DC. 

The real fear is Disney seeing that Warner had success moving the comics office to Burbank and lining everything up under one roof.

Moving Marvel Comics out of NYC and onto the Disney lots is a real possibility. A lot of us will get downsized or just not relocate if that happens.

On what it was like when the Legacy variant covers were announced

not surprised. just our typical variant trick that’s been meant with diminishing returns while contracts get lined up for new last-minute books to replace post SE plans. shitty day for me because i had to handle a lot of the online damage control until like 8:30

This is how Marvel corporate works under Ike: we don’t give the fox and sony movies anything but we will milk the cash in on comics.

After X3, the plan was to do a teen focused reboot, so we were going to cash in on that. Not literally the movie cast, but remove the baggage and make them streamlined and accessible to younger demos.

Claremont is like the “Spider Man wedding” of X Men. Its this unwieldy thing that none of the senior editors like that they want to rewind but because of the movie deal we can’t make new IP.

X-Men has been a micromanaged mess since I started here. AVX was a sales team gimmick to replicate Civil War, which messed up Schism. Remender’s plans got hijacked by the time displaced O5 which was a pretty shameless Bendis pitch to corporate. There’s no central architect guiding the franchise, just big plans that get derailed by the next sales gimmick.

Then the fox talks started going really south and it wasn’t just “don’t give them new ideas” but actively scale it back.

Yes Ike and corporate really thought they could replace X Men with Inhumans. They don’t actually care what it is, just as long as they own it.

The 05 was seen as a way to scale it back and might as well “House of M” the last vestige of Grant Morrison’s run and just make Scott & Emma straight up super villains. But its been a mess cause no two writers are working together on the bigger picture and Gillen and Aaron and Remender all had different plans.

IVX was a mercy killing to a character that had been written into a corner

Carnage: big villain for the Venom plans Power Pack: early early development for a freeform show, comic would follow obviously

And where all this was coming from.

i’m writing this on my personal laptop out of the office. no one at marvel checks this place. and if they did, they just see 4chan as a bunch of trump trolls

The thing that bothers me the most about the article is the ending where “leaker” mentions how easy it is to get the information out there for us to see. Marvel as been known to keep a tight lid on their material so all this info that has been dropped on us is suspicious at best.

What do you guys think? Do you think Marvel might be in a panic over their comic book division? 

[salarta]

You know why I hound @marvelentertainment and take them to task so often about how awful their executives and upper level editorial tend to be? This is fucking why.

There’s a lot of history behind how awful Marvel can be that offsets the moments of genuine good it sometimes offers. My personal interest in Polaris and how Marvel has screwed her over for decades, and especially undermined her for the past decade, gave me a lot of insight into how Marvel really functions beyond its PR machinations.

And I want to stress as I continue: this is not applicable to people like G. Willow Wilson, Cullen Bunn, Mark Paniccia, etc. They’re great as far as I’ve seen, but they have much less authority compared to the people I’m complaining about here.

Axel Alonso and Nick Spencer are here, trying to pretend that what they’re doing has nothing to do with politics. It’s bullshit. We know it’s bullshit because Marvel’s entire schtick for a while now has been about superheroes in a politicized atmosphere.

Fucking Civil War was about politics. Superheroes needing to register, rebellion against registration, Captain America opposing the policies of the U.S. government to resist forced registration as a matter of protecting the values and freedoms of the U.S., that was all political.

Marvel’s entire history is about politics. Captain America was created to push back against the evils of Hitler, the Nazis and fascism, and encourage the U.S. to be part of the World War II war effort. The X-Men were created as an allegory to the civil rights movement. This is Marvel’s roots. To suddenly say this shitty event that’s clearly political somehow isn’t political is a betrayal of those roots.

Let me put it this way: either Marvel is lying when they say this isn’t political, or their decision to continue the event with all its political trappings even if unintended makes them grossly ignorant both of the socio-political landscape and Marvel’s history. There is literally no scenario where continuing Secret Empire as presently established and put forth by Marvel can make Marvel look good.

The refusal of Marvel to listen to feedback and change things if not cancel the event entirely is also incredibly damning. In the past, Marvel was perfectly willing to retroactively explain away things that pissed their readers off and abandon plans they had in mind. In one such case, in the 90s, Susan Storm-Richards started wearing a skimpy outfit with a number 4 boob window after she’d given birth to one of her children. In response to backlash from readers, Marvel explained it away as Malice possessing her.

Marvel’s hands aren’t tied by “the big machine” of publishing either. Yes, they do plan years in advance, but it’s not like that means they have every issue written and printed in warehouses for the next two years just waiting to be released. 

But, all of this is assuming Marvel doesn’t know what it’s doing. I think they do.

If you don’t pay a lot of attention to shit Marvel execs and upper level editors say and do, here’s an incredibly common philosophy they repeat everywhere: “outrage is good for sales.” They take the attitude that any time they piss readers off, that actually helps them make more money, because it spreads word of mouth and makes SOME readers buy the issues just so they can see how bad it is and complain about specific problems.

Which is also an ignorant as hell philosophy. It’s short-sighted and narrow-minded. It ignores POTENTIAL audiences and how such actions can dissuade people that aren’t reading Marvel comics from ever wanting to read them in the future. If this philosophy had its way throughout the entire company, Kamala Khan as Ms. Marvel wouldn’t exist.

Secret Empire is just the natural end point of this horribly misinformed train of thought. “Hey, let’s do a comic book event that’ll REALLY piss people off! Make Captain America a Nazi! Make it so that he was ALWAYS a Nazi! No, why stop there, let’s do Magneto - a Jewish man, survivor of the Holocaust who lost his family in the genocide - too! People will line up around the block to read how we fucked it all up just so they can yell at us on the internet!”

For fuck sakes, Marvel.

Ultimately, if the backlash gets REALLY bad, they start making half-assed excuses - like they did here. “It’s not political,” Axel Alonso and Nick Spencer say, as the comic advocates for fascism and turns long-time anti-fascist heroes into the very thing they were created to oppose. “Trust us and wait until you see what we have in store for Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver before you complain, it’ll all pay off,” Tom Brevoort says after that forced retcon in Axis that made the Maximoff twins suddenly not Magneto’s kids anymore. Followed by years plodding useless bullshit that hasn’t once provided any kind of pay-off for fans of those characters.

Marvel’s chronic problem is this: they do shitty things for shitty reasons, and when they’re called on it, they provide shitty excuses that literally anyone can see through if they take five seconds to think about it. Marvel doesn’t know how to own its mistakes anymore. Marvel doesn’t know how to make amends for its mistakes. Marvel only knows how to lie and bullshit its way along during controversies, following their egos to the bitter end.

I learned this years ago as I saw Polaris excluded from events she should’ve been a part of, or how her first book as a full-fledged leader in her own right got canceled for “lack of sales” when it received zero support from Marvel (while other books selling much worse got to last longer), and so much else. In every case, Marvel had a poor excuse.

“Polaris can’t be in Avengers vs X-Men because events are only for A-listers and B-listers, and she’s not one of them!”

“Polaris can’t be Magneto’s daughter because of genetics breeding true, but Siryn can be Banshee’s daughter because reasons!”

At Marvel, for the people at the top, it’s never about putting their best foot forward and listening to their readers. It’s always, always about doing whatever the fuck they want and then making up excuses for why that should be the case. They don’t work for the fictional universe they’re supposed to curate, and they don’t work for their readers either. They work exclusively for themselves.

Before I end this rant, I want to remind anyone reading this of one very important point: Ike Perlmutter is the current CEO at Marvel, with control over the comic books. He was kicked out of involvement in the Marvel films because of how he meddles with things. It’s an open secret that he’s responsible for the past decade of Marvel doing things to undermine the Fantastic Four and X-men entirely because Fox owns the film rights to those franchises.

Why does this matter in this specific instance? Because Ike Perlmutter supported Donald Trump’s campaign last year, and works with Trump on veterans affairs. Trump even explicitly cited Perlmutter as THE name he talks with on the subject, in a brief interview last month where he said he was going to have a meeting about it at Mar-a-Lago (which got canceled).

That’s who’s running Marvel. Given everything else I just said, what are the chances Perlmutter isn’t partly responsible either directly or by reputation for Marvel suddenly putting out this “non-political” event that turns heroes into Nazis and claims they were Nazis all along?

[studentchow]

Brewdog is the Justin Bieber of the Brewery World.

To understand Brewdog is to have a base understanding of the nature of the Craft Ale and Microbrewery scene and the modern history of brewing the UK as a whole. The advancement of tech and how beer is sold in pubs can be described thusly:

Here’s a drinking game to play- Drink everytime you read “Brewer(y/ies)”. I certainly did when I wrote each one, and it made writing this so much easier and tougher at the same time:

Originally Pubs, Taverns and Inns sold Ale, brewed inhouse. These “Brewpubs” are the basis for modern Taphouses and unfortunately there are only a handful nationwide today. These died out as more commerical and larger breweries were built. These Pubs would normally be tied to one Brewery still but that would be done offsite. Some of the Breweries and Brands would then be bought up, or integrated as a larger mass for modern consumption. It’s why Martson’s, Wychwood and Ringwood all come under the same company.

Fast forward to the 1970s and 80s. Homebrewing had been licensed since 1963 and was a popular pasttime. Chain Pubs like Wetherspoons were introduced that had no tied loyalties to any anyone and could stock whatever they wanted (despite nowadays being merged into their own groups which now do their own discount deals with Breweries), imported beers were more popular as Michael Jackson’s (not the singer) “World Guide to Beer” became a best seller. The main dominating forces in the market were reffered to as “The Big Six” (not to be confused with the Big Hero 6 or the Sinister Six).

Hehe. Classic.

These Six were Scottish and Newcastle, Courage Imperial (which have merged now to become Scottish Courage), Whitbread, Bass Charrington (both having been bought and shared between IntBev and Coors), Watney’s and Allied Breweries (now part of the Carlsberg Group- the wheel spins on it would seem). Their domination of the market and need to mass churn out Beers lead to the rise of more carbonated barrels which in turn resulted in the Consumer Advocacy Group known as the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) with the intent to distinguish between “Real” Cask Ale, and Ale kept by the Big Six in the now mainstream carbonated, filtered, and pasteurised barrels/ Largers. The downside however to this and the founding of CAMRA came the image that brewing was an dated profession; akin to other manufacturing professions held by the working class in a world rapidly moving towards a service sector based economy. Ales and CAMRA being the equivalent to the Socks and Sandals. There’s no denial that UK Real Ale had an image problem. Nowhere near as bad as “Lager Louts” but the scene needed a Rennaisance.

Enter the US and it’s innovations to image and marketing. Which brings us to the import of the late 90s all the way through to the 2010s. Suddenly; it was cool to market these underdog breweries, producing quality drink products the brewers cared about just as much as the old timers but with hip, new labels and imagery. In short; Craft and Real Ales were modernised. Some would say Gentrified. Even Microbreweries could produce relatively large quantities enough to begin to sell to a larger audience. Breweries like Brooklyn, Thornbridge, and Brewdog emerged, with the latter being founded in 2007 in Scotland by Martin Dickie and James Watt (phew, we’ve caught up now).

Brewdog sailed in on a wave of Counter-Culture, portraying themselves as the Underdog Heroes of Craft, here to stop all those Lager touting Big Six style wannabes; a company that gave a shit about what it made. It’s not a new tactic, Musicians had been running that show for decades hence why Brewdog’s first proper product is called Punk IPA- a rebellion of taste sensation, a youthful attempt at an IPA (a product that, if I’m being fair, I enjoy; even though it’s basically the same as Jaipur- right down to the fact that Martin Dickie was the one that developed Jaipur at Thronbridge before moving on to set up Brewdog). Brewdog have also made a fair few good marketing decisions. They’ve released recipe books on their beer so it’s now classed as open source, they employ over 800 passionate people across their production plants their own globe wide bars, and which has resulted in the company being one of the fastest growing in the food and drink industry. They also opened up a Crowdfunding/Shareholders initiative to increase consumption in exchage for investment based rewards.

Brewdog’s image has slipped however over ther past few months and a history of shady behaviour surrounding legal battles, and Equity for Punks, make the point that wherever a business trades on Counter Culture, so to, will there be businesses willing to double dip the sincerity it garners to get away with some unreasonably shady behaviour.

So recently Brewdog has come under fire for two lawsuits aimed at Bars/ Pubs that use vaguely similar names. “Draft Punk” (if Dickie and Wyatt thought they were the targets because of an [at best] tennous link between an establishment that sells beer, AND a brand of beer, they seriously need to get Spotify Accounts).

Pictured: Not Martin Dickie or James Wyatt.

The other was “Lone Wolf” (which Brewdog claimed infringed on their trademark for their Vodka before backing down).

The obvious critique of these moves is that coming from a company that trades on the anti-establishment vibes picked up by it’s consumers, this comes off as duplicitious and hypocritical, but if you go further back, into the history of the company, these decisions crop up all too often.

Equity for Punks, The Company’s Crowdfunding scheme has plenty of criticism. Originally; when I first started writing this article the idea was to write a highly detailed account of each time Equity for Punks messed up, but as I dug deeper and peeled back more layers, the scheme and business practices unveiled  a laundry list of poor decisions. These include:

Reinvestment of profits rther than paying dividends to its investors (who have an annual ability to sell their shares, but as Brewdog haven’t floated on the Stock Market yet there have been more than enough peices written by media outlets and blogs considering whether investors will make their money back).

Producing an exclusive Tesco Finest Double IPA while looking to crowd funding (a move I like to call the Corporate/ Crowdfund Doubledown- which can be found on Page 4 of the Brewer’s Karma Sutra).

Diluting Shares that have an input/ are worth value by sharing them at such tiny percentages, their value drops massively.

Starting a CrowdCube fundraiser for 4 Year Short Term Bonds when they realised that Equity for Punks 2015 wouldn’t meet it’s ��25 million goal.

James’ response to this article in which he calls critics “haters” (if at any point as a businessman you have to stop and ask “Am I sounding like Donald Trump Tweet”- you know you’ve gone too far), which; while not bad for consumers- does illustrate a point I’ll be making later.

Crowdfunded on Indiegogo for a $250 a night hotel (because: Punk Rock).

And finally (for now): Wyatt and Dickie’s inconsistent over inflation of the company’s value. In 2015, judging on who you ask, the owner’s valued the business between £283 million and £306 million (extending all the way to a £1 biillion flotation by 2020). This was however overturned when the Company sold 22% to Private Equity House “TSG Consumer Partners” which also owns Pabst, which valued the company at £1 billion. While this does overturn previous actions and give investors some value back to their shares by inflating their worth to match the value of the company, there still isn’t an opportunity for those investors to sell, and given the company’s roots this move once again flies in the face of the company’s image as an anti-establishment. Wyatt and Dickie claim the company was started to share a love of great beer with everyone, but failures as an indie and now this shift has exposed the company for the cynical cash grab it is.

The original title for this article was “Brewdog is the Sex Pistols of the Brewery World” because that evoked similar ideas: Manufactured Anti-Establishment except their origins are reversed. The Sex Pistols started manufactured but have some good tracks and they’re still largely looked at positively several decades down the line; where as Brewdog started in a garage and haven’t been round long enough to tell yet. Then it was Tim Westwood for the same reason except Westwood’s image is way more self deprecating, and how Brewdog get away with screwing it’s fans over is not funny. In the slightest. Soooo, I can only believe the Company’s closest modern analogy is Justin Bieber because they share all the same symptoms: Manufactured Counter Culture, Overzealous and exploitable fans, Cynical Cash Grabbing by owners so grossly thin skinned when it comes to criticism with overly inflated opinions of their products; pulling edgy PR stunts/ nightmares in a desperate scramble for relevance that is so ultimately overdone that it’s boring (no really). I enjoyed Brewdog’s products but now the image has turned me off, and as some one trying to build a brand on Crowdfunding, the more this attitude is allowed to prevail, the more it’ll poison the well for the rest of us. And the worst part is that Brewdog isn’t the first company to want their industry’s share of the Big Six’s Revenue whilst cashing in its fans loyalty and goodwill. Chances are it won’t be the last either so as consumers we need to be better at telling Businessman ike Wyatt and Dickie no when they try to pull it, whether thats by writing about it once they start to take a bit of criticism, or going out and refusing to buy when the time comes to it. In short:

You can support the maker of this pin by buying it on Etsy. You can also support the person who came up with the line on Paypal.

[survivor-all-stars-blog]

EP 9: “I'll Be a Fucking Pawn For Y'all If It Saves My Ass" - Carson

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK WHEN WILL THINGS ACTUALLY GO MY WAY?  NEVER. :/  

This sucks so much, y'all are awesome for getting Kait to her SECOND win.

That could've been cleaner. Yikes.

This vote obviously put me in something of a weird position. I was never going to vote Kait because of our alliance. And yes, I firmly believe she'd side with me over the alleged Malay-cult. She and I have been closer than a lot of allies I've had in these games so far. We're in lockstep, we're keeping each other sane, and we're not even talking exclusively strategy. The best alliances are formed by people who like each other's outlooks and attitudes, right? That's me and Kait right now.

I was also never going to vote Jack or Lydia because of our awesome Thotse quad with Wes. And I was not likely to vote Steffen unless there was a critical mass going his way. That left us with Ruthie (immune,) Carson and Jakey (on Kabru with me.) So, shit.

Anyway, I told MJ I might try to protect Jake if I could because they both want to work together. But the momentum started swinging his way, and it became even more locked in when he started targeting Kait. His best play would've been to target Steffen or Carson, and even then I'm not sure he could've rallied the votes. 

Not wanting to be totally screwed on Kabru after a blindside, I didn't really engage with Jake too much. He came to me asking me to vote with him, almost as a last resort I feel? We hadn't talked since the swap, and he only came to me at 6:30, even though I know for a fact he was talking with others throughout the day. He told me he had Ruthie, Jack and Steffen locked in. I knew the latter two just weren't true. So rather than give him false hope, I checked with the latter two that their votes hadn't changed, then told Jake the votes weren't as locked in as he thought. 

And he, somewhat predictably, lost his shit. He didn't want to accept that, telling me that if I voted for him, he'd stay... that my vote was the difference maker... that I was too far up Kait's ass to see it... that I needed to grow a fucking backbone... that I'm pathetic.... that I'm terrible at the game...

Yeah, I've played enough games by now to know nothing good comes from engaging in someone who's resorting to personal shots. So I disengaged. And I think Jake may have forgotten there's a second game going on, in his blind rage? As a multiple-time pre-juror, I know for a fact that it's so not worth getting upset over. Shit happens, the game doesn't break your way. But attacking people over it accomplishes exactly nothing. From what I hear, it sounds like I got off easy too. Apparently he ripped hard into Carson, Kait, Lydia and Jack too.

I don't like when people are sore losers. I don't like when people go for personal shots in a game that's meant to be fun. But I especially don't like when people do both of the above to my friends. Fuck that noise. Any chance of me wanting to work with Jake on Kabru went out the window with that, and I'm sure he feels likewise based on that vote. If it makes sense, I might vote with him as a matter of necessity, but he's not long for this game if I have my say. Bye Felicia.

Normally I would've been more upset about the vote being delayed a few hours, but between the extenuating circumstances out of the hosts' control and the fact that Jake still would've been in the One World chat anyway, nothing noticeably changed. So, fuck it, what's two hours of waiting?

Anyway I like slither.io. It's not my best game, but I enjoy it. Can't wait to put up a high score and show Jake that he's not God's gift to competitions. "Oh mind you I’m the best competitor on this tribe. Not tooting my own horn, just looking back at past performances."??? Like, fuck you? One unnecessarily long endurance run in an early comp doesn't mean we should all just bow down to your *~clear challenge superiority~*. Different people are skilled at different things. 

I'm so glad nobody responded to his diatribe in the OW chat. The last thing he needed was to be enabled. His perspective is just that – HIS perspective. It's clear he doesn't really have a grasp of how this game is playing out, or else he might not have been the one to go last night.

Gage is super duper cute! But he never responds to my messages, so I am super duper not happy about that! Like, Gage, please. C'mon, Gage. Get it together. C'mon. I sent him what I did in the adventure, and you know the response I got? It was a riveting, rambling silence. Like...? What!? Didn't Gage WIN once or something?? How did he manage that??? Did he sleepwalk there, or were the other people in the final tribal council just that bad? I am completely befuddled.

Oh MJ really just threw me under the bus eh? I can't believe I got the full Olympics experience in one night. Choke.

Oh not me getting one of the highest scores on both my tribes for a flash game!? What a foreign concept. 

safe in both games, so i have time to work on RELATIONSHIPS and read my book on how to win survivor so i can win this!!!!

please help

mj and pat treating me like pawns for the adventure! love it.

ill be a fucking pawn for yall if it saves my ass but an idol or something WOULD be nice.

In other news, Jimmy is the bee's knees. Yes, he is! He is so very cool! Yes, he's hip!

me and kait on call

i think theres an imbalance of trust between mj and i.

i trust him wholeheartedly as hes my only close ally, but he sees me as expendable from what i get from our conversations. he barely responds and i obviously seem to be of lesser priority? but idk maybe im just paranoid, but im holding on for dear life

me pressuring mj into sending his screenshots of his latest chats and seeing almost all of them are about the game! how iconic.

LISTEN I REALLY WANNA KILL THE OA TONIGHT. LIKE I WANT OWEN TO LEAVE. i'm just in this STUPID FUCKENING SPOT in the middle of jenn and jimmy and LOGI-WAN????????? IS LEAKING SHIT TO JENN THAT I WANT JENN OUT ??? OR SOME SHIT LIKE WHAT ARE YOU PLAYING AT SDGJSDKLSD;  GOD. 

i have more to say but i will wait for after class but i'm still like i legit don't know what i wanna do

i'm gonna need a pair of cargo shorts for all the people logi-wan thinks i have in my pockets!!!

Sorry that I've been kinda AWOL but it's because I've been feeling pretty shitty about my position in the game as a whole. I'm very lucky to have Matt in the game who is always willing to have strategic conversations that I know will provide me with a secure outlet that's not going to make my position even worse. I told him I planned on making a fake idol but idk if I'll go ahead with exposing that I have an "idol" to my tribe due to current changes in circumstances that I'll talk about later. Jakey's exposing of the tight Malaysian core alliance has made them change their tune which I'm really happy about because I'm sure I'm the target tonight (thanks Owen, you suck), but thankfully Jimmy exists and wants to work with me to pull off some move because the Malaysian's are going whack and he is thankful I saved him all that time ago back in Easter Island? I- I didn't do that much except kill my own game but thank you for willing to switch shit up! 

It looks like their might be a chance I will stay tonight, however there are several different stories being played out on this tribe. Logan told me flat out it's me. However Jimmy told me Logan approached him and Jenn to vote out Gage? I don't get why when clearly Gage showed him loyalty? I'm not complaining cuz it means the vote would not be on me. But I think it's gonna be on me since Jenn reassured that it probably was. So it would come down to MJ voting with Jenn/Jimmy over Owen/Logan. Alternatively I could be a total bitch and expose a plan if I'm totally unsure what to do, or 10 minutes before tribal I could post my fake messages and idol that I found to hopefully send them into a panic and switch their votes off me and onto someone not me. It's a tough position to be in cuz I don't want to reveal I've an idol and for it to backfire somehow, but also how it may look untrustworthy to my alliance if I "had" an idol and didnt "play" it. So hmm. I'm concerned because Gage seems to be going after Logan now but is trying to get Owen? I fear this is where it could blow up. 4 of these people are going to both tribals so it's a very tricky situation. If the plan falls apart, the votes might just all fall back onto me because I'm the "easy vote". I have to see what happens and make a calculated decision before tribal that will work in my favour.  

It could be game over, or game on. 

So like, I want Gage to go home. He is going to both tribals like Jenn, Jimmy, and Owen. Lydia and Owen are in the minority in Game B, so I'm thinking they're going to be easy boots because Gage is close to Kait. Well, I don't want that to happen, obviously. They're both my allies. But I'm also on good terms with Jenn and Jimmy, so I don't want them to go. Kait isn't an option because Kait isn't going to both tribals, and no one wants an angry, scorned Kait in the game. That's like leaving a provoked bear in the game. No thanks! Plus I'm good with her, too. That leaves Gage, and he made it super easy for me to want him gone by not speaking to me at all, lol. I sent you the receipts of my adventure, the least you can do is respond! Rude!!! Anyways, yeah, Gage should go. Also, he is trying to target me, I guess? Which is also not cool. Good Guy Gage is going down.

please god

WHOA I WON THAT IMMUNITY HUH!!!!!! im honestly not that worried if we lose just bc ik i have mj ruthie and matt on my side no matter what and that would at least tie it. but basically i tried to go on call with owen and kait to smooth over some relationships... i rly intended to work with owen if he would let me but he went and told kait the one piece of information i told him which was that i heard that lydia and kait made a deal to stay.. owen u rly know how to piss me OFF huh

i had a pretty good call with kait and i hope it was enough that if mj did keep me if we lose on tribe b, she wouldn't flip her shit and come after mj. mj is literally the saving grace of my game and ill do anything for him in this game. if that means i gotta be fake with kait and pretend like i wanna smooth things over and work together then ill do that. anyway ruthie is a legend and will win this season bookmark THAT

I've been laying SUPER low.  Like, I apologized to Kait and told her I was close to voting her out because she scares me as a player or whatever, but that I really wanted to work with her because we didn't get a chance to work together in Trashy, and then I also threw in how my good friend Ashley Sarah liked playing with her so much when Kait was catfishing in Canaries and hopefully we bonded a bit.  SHE FREAKING TERRIFIES ME but if working with her keeps me around longer, I'm all for it.  I'm not going to try to make anymore big moves for awhile because as much as I want to, I don't want to piss off the rest of the people in the tribes.  

My goal now is to stay close with Steffen, Steve and keep talking to Pat because he's just so nice.  He's genuinely the nicest person playing in my opinion.  I'm also going to stay close to Jakey, he's my number one, and I'm going to stay close to Carson as well, and just try to stay on his good side and stuff.  I don't want to take Carson to the end, there is no way.  As much as I love Steffen I'd rather not take him to the end either.  Jakey I could see, going all the way with but we both have to stay in order for anything like that to actually happen.  

I don't know if I made the right choice in putting my foot down about voting Jimmy over Gage. Every option seems bad in my opinion, but I think I've made it pretty clear I want Gage around, just to turn my back and vote him next time... I don't know. This will probably bite me in the ass somehow, like maybe Gage is lying to me and Lydia will end up going, or idk god knows what will happen....

Nobody has really talked to me since I went to dinner at 6:30... So part of me just feels like I'm getting clocked on both tribes. Either way, I guess I'll see what happens. 

I don't want this to be the end, really, and I don't know if it's smart to try and take control in a game where everything spreads like fire and is painfully obvious. I just gotta keep crossing my fingers, huH!

Time off???? from this game????? A concept! I don't know what to do with my hands.

gage is leaving????? maybe.... even tho i'd prefer owen leaving but... everything is so risky and shaky at this point im so KJDFHJKDHS NNNNNNNNNNNNNNN 

This may be my last confessional! I decided against playing the fake idol card because I didn't want it to blow up the plan currently in place. If it goes how I hope I should survive but I've still got low expectations. Secondly, I'm a bad explainer of things and I didn't want to get caught out and laughed at because I made a silly idol. It's a card I'll keep in my pocket if I survive. If not, I'll be thankful to those who tried to keep me in the game and I'll wish my allies luck in surviving. But fingers crossed and all the other stereotypical survival things to say. Lets goooooooo

I guess Gage is coming for me, so I had to switch my vote against him. If he knew how much I'd been doing to protect his ass, maybe he'd think differently.

It's a shame when people's stupid decisions prevent others from doing the right thing. Oh well! STUPID.

I had three calls the hour before tribal with Jenn, Lydia, and Owen and they were all concerned with getting Gage out, and then he gets voted out unanimously in both games. I'm glad all that time I spent trying to get him out wasn't wasted. Bye-bye, Gage! Don't target me next time, okay?

Whew I am so happy I survived but extremely sad that it came at Gage's expense. I really would've loved to work with him because he's honest, caring, charming etc. He's just a all round good guy and buddy. I'm also interested that suddenly I'm making a whole pack of new friends? Kait (although drunk) is talking to me for the first time since day 1 and secondly Owen has found his voice to chat to me! So I'm very interested to see what position this could put me in. I'm also shook that Matt thought my idol was real? I told him it was fake before I made it gdfihgkol. Maybe I should pull it out if it's convincing enough! Also I'm surprised Lydia came to me and goes "you're welcome". Um. I'm not sure you swung the vote on my tribe to Gage considering there was talk of it being him at lunchtime today? Like. I'm crediting Jenn and Jimmy for that one so sorry this isn't Port Royal and I'm a different player. Just cuz I'm in a shitty position doesn't mean I'm not beginning around for whatever scraps I can find. I HOPE this tribal is  turning point for me, but you hosts are sending us all to tribal again so I'll probably get taken out as the easy vote, but I trust Jenn/Jimmy to at least tie it for us.

[wbwest]

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West Week Ever: Pop Culture In Review - 2/17/17

On the movie front I finally got around to watching Central Intelligence. I’ve been wanting to see it since it was in theaters, as I love Kevin Hart movies, but I didn’t get to see it until it hit HBO. And I’m glad I waited. In the film, Hart plays a middle-aged accountant whose best days were in high school, when he was the most popular kid in school. Meanwhile, The Rock was the fat kid that all the other kids made fun of. Hart’s life is thrown into high gear when The Rock comes back into his life and turns out to work for the CIA. Hart gets wrapped up in murder, intrigue, and secret files. Yeah…On paper, this probably sounded like a great idea. The trailers looked hilarious. Surprisingly co-written by actor Ike Barinholtz (MadTV, The Mindy Project), it’s got a great cast, but they’re not necessarily bringing their A game. It was kinda weird to see Hart essentially playing the straight man, while The Rock had this weird goofiness to him. I know he’s trying to make the audience wonder if he can be trusted or not, but I don’t feel he sells it well. I almost bought this on Black Friday, and I’m glad I put it back on the shelf, as I don’t need to see it again.

In movie news, it’s rumored that Mel Gibson is being courted to direct Suicide Squad 2. Now, this is pretty interesting. I mean, who better to direct a movie about deranged criminals than a deranged actor/director? Seriously, that dude couldn’t be poked with an 8 foot pole a year ago, but since Hacksaw Ridge, it’s like all has been forgiven. I mean, he told his girlfriend he hoped she was “raped by a pack of niggers”! And let’s not forget all the antisemitic stuff. Anyway, I guess everyone deserves a second chance or whatever, but I don’t even see why he’d take the job. Even with all the controversy, a comic book film seems…beneath him, even if it would be great PR to restore his image in the public eye.

In other controversial movie news, A Cure For Wellness took a page out of the “fake news” playbook for its marketing campaign. 20th Century Fox partnered with fake news sites to run false stories alongside ads for the movie. Considering how the concept of fake news is upsetting a lot of people on both sides of the political aisle lately, this was considered to be in poor taste. A Fox spokesperson tried to explain that the film is about a fake cure that actually makes people sicker, so they thought the campaign was fitting. Fox has since apologized for the move, but I’ll bet it’s not the last time someone does this.

In TV news, ABC announced that the next season of The Bachelorette would star Rachel Lindsay as the first Black Bachelorette. This is important for a few reasons. First off, ABC is essentially torpedoing the notion that the current season of The Bachelor even matters anymore. After all, Lindsay is still in the running as one of the remaining finalists of the current cycle of the show. By doing this, ABC is spoiling the fact that she doesn’t win, before the finale has even aired. I’ve never watched the show prior to this season (What? It’s on at the gym!), but I’ve read that this is a particularly disappointing season. The current Bachelor, Nick Viall, is pretty boring, and is also on his fourth go-round with the franchise, having previously been a contestant on seasons 10 and 11 of The Bachelorette, as well as season 3 of Bachelor In Paradise. I mean, if he hasn’t found love by now, then he’d might as well just pack it in! The odd part to me, though, is the choice of Lindsay. I mean, I’ve been watching TV for a LONG time, and it used to be that the most outlandish cast member is the one who gets the spin-off. This season, that honor goes to Corinne, a 24 year old businesswoman who has a nanny for HERSELF, and has repeatedly tried to fuck Nick into choosing her, only to be rebuffed every time. She’s always shocked that someone could reject someone as hot as she is, but that shock never stops her from trying again. If you want good television, you make Corinne the next Bachelorette. Plus, Lindsay isn’t even that interesting. In all the episodes I’ve seen, I can’t really understand why she’s still around unless the plan was always for her to be the next Bachelorette. I mean, after 33 cycles of all three shows combined, it’s time for some diversity, and it’ll definitely make things interesting – ESPECIALLY when they do the home visits. But right now, I’m just not seeing any reason for the choice of Lindsay other than the fact that she’s Black. And she’s not even the best Black chick they had this season. Nah, they sent those chicks home already.

There was an interesting interview over on TV Line with Arrow‘s co-showrunner Marc Guggenheim, where he basically revealed that those previously-announced DCTV contracts don’t really mean that much. If you remember, over the summer it was announced that Wentworth Miller, John Barrowman, and Katie Cassidy had signed DCTV exclusive deals, which would allow them to pop up in any of the Berlantiverse shows. While the details of the deal were unknown, it certainly seemed like they’d be doing more with them than they are. Sure, Miller has popped up as a hallucination on Legends, and Barrowman’s also on Legends, but Cassidy hasn’t really been used outside of Arrow this season (that I know of. I’m still behind on The Flash). When asked if Cassidy would be popping up before Arrow‘s season is over, Guggenheim replied:

“We have an idea for how to see [Katie] again, but we haven’t made a deal with her,” Guggenheim shared. “She’s not a series regular anymore, so we have to make a contract with her, and she’s got to be available. We haven’t had those conversations. But… we know exactly what we do want to do.

They have to make a contract with her? Then what was the point of last summer’s announcement? I realize it’s pilot season, so she’s got to look out for herself since she’s no longer a series regular, but the contract seemed to ensure she’d have work, and be available for it should it arise. It’s starting to be clear that these “exclusive” contracts are just as useless as comic exclusive contracts, which basically just mean you can’t work for Marvel if you’re working for DC and vice versa. You can still work for Image and nobody bats an eye.

In a surprising announcement, we’re getting a Love Actually sequel, but it’s not what you think it is. See, in the UK, they have this charity event called Red Nose Day, where they air a TV special to raise money for Comic Relief, which helps people in need in Africa and The UK. In its 30 year history, the event has raise over £1 billion. In the UK, Red Nose Day culminates in a telethon where all sorts of specials and reunions occur. The idea was brought to the US back in 2015, with Walgreens selling the red noses for charity. Well, this year, a bunch of members of the original cast of the film are getting back together for a 10-minute special that will show us where they all are today. Right now, the special is expected to include Hugh Grant, Keira Knightley, Colin Firth, Martine McCutcheon (YAY!), Liam Neeson, Bill Nighy, Rowan Atkinson (really? He wasn’t even that important), Andrew Lincoln, Lucia Moniz, Thomas Brodie-Sangster and Olivia Olson. It’ll be really interesting to see where these characters are, 14 years later. It’s a shame we’re only getting ten minutes, but I’ll take what I can get. The special will air March 24th in the UK and May 25th in America. Yup, two months later. So, look for it on YouTube March 25th.

Rejoice, fellow titty enthusiasts! After a year of trying to “go legit”, Playboy has announced that nudity is returning to its pages as of its next issue. The decision to remove nudity didn’t really help sales much, which was somewhat surprising to me. See, I figured the lack of nudity would mean you’d see it in grocery stores and pharmacies, right next to Maxim and GQ. But that never happened. I guess it’s because the Playboy brand is known for nudity, even when the magazine itself decides to eschew it. But you bushwackers are gonna be disappointed, as the returning nudity will only feature breasts and butts for the time being.

This week, I had the pleasure of joining my pal, Classick, on the newest episode of Classick Team-Up. We discussed 24 Legacy, Turkish Airlines, and Trump’s America. Trust me, it all makes sense. Anyway, if you’re looking for some podcastin’ fo’ yo’ ears, check check check it out!

Things You Might Have Missed This Week

Adele “robbed” Beyoncé of the Album of the Year Grammy at this year’s awards ceremony. Whatever…

Country newcomer Maren Morris pulled off a major upset by winning Best Country Solo Performance Grammy over established award darlings Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, and Miranda Lambert

With recent successful revivals of old shows, Fox is finally keen to revive sci fi cult fave Firefly – the only catch is that show creator Joss Whedon has to come back, and they figure he’s too busy right now. I hope he doesn’t call their bluff. That show bored the shit out of me.

Speaking of Fox, they blew my mind by renewing Lucifer this week for a 3rd season. I didn’t think it would make it through season 1!

ABC renewed their TGIT lineup comprised of Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How To Get Away With Murder for next season.

NBC renewed the wonderful Superstore for a 3rd season.

Cloverfield director Matt Reeves is in talks to replace Ben Affleck as director of The Batman. Meanwhile, the rumor is that Affleck is trying to walk away from the film completely.

Poor Alanis Morissette! I recently wrote about how her former manager stole around $5 million from her, and this week over $2 million in jewelry was stolen from her home.

In the Remakes Nobody Wanted department, Frank Grillo will star in an American version of modern-day action classic The Raid

In what I’ve heard was a dreadfully unfunny stand up special, Nick Cannon said that NBC was keeping him from being himself as host of America’s Got Talent. As a result, he’s said he’s leaving the show.

Man, before Sunday night we had no idea who or what “Gnarley Davidson” was. Now, I can’t understand how we ever lived without him. At the Grammys, Cee Lo Green debuted his new solid gold persona, bewildering millions. And the meme machine got crankin’. He was photoshopped into pictures of Donald Trump’s house.

He was photoshopped into pictures of the Power Rangers.

The best part, however, wasn’t even a meme, but actual video of his departure from the awards. After all, he didn’t win anything, so why stick around?

That, folks, is how a true West Week Ever recipient leaves an awards ceremony. So, it should go without saying at this point, but Cee Lo Green/Gnarly Davidson had the West Week Ever.