#it’s not a super high stakes story so I’m worried about the TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTY THOUSAND WORDS TO GO

[transannabeth]

realizing i’m 160k words into a fic and have over 250k words left and i have no clue where the plot is going to go

[lizzy-frizzle]

I’m going to start this by saying, I have bias. Everyone does. I do not intend for this to come off as “the thing you like is bad”, but moreso “the corporation that controls the thing you like is manipulative”.

My background; I am a 26 year old trans mom, I have a history with addiction, particularly gambling, and spend most of my time playing video games. I have gone to college for about 3 years for my psychology degree, and while I do not have my degree, I have been studying psychology for roughly 12 years. This is to say, my views will reflect this background. Just because I present this information like I do, does not inherently mean I’m right, though it also doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Try to view things with a critical mind, and know that most topics have nuance.

Ok, so lootboxes, booster packs, gacha games, all of these are gambling. This is not really an argument. You are putting money into a service of sorts, and receiving a randomized result. Be that a fancy new gun, that same boring legendary you have 5 of, or that final hero you’ve been trying to collect. You don’t know the outcome before you give your money. As defined by the merriam-webster dictionary: “Gambling; the practice of risking money or other stakes in a game or bet”

You are risking your money in not getting an item you want. There are ways this is handled acceptably, and ways this is handled poorly. Gambling is also illegal to people under 21 in a lot of places, but places online aren’t quick to tell you why. I don’t have any sources because every source requires a paywall to get any information, but pulling from my own personal experience and what I learned in college, it’s because children are very impressionable. I say “I like pokemon” and suddenly my 2-year old can’t go anywhere without her pikachu. I remember distinctly playing poker with my mom and her friends when I was 12. When you normalize gambling, what it does is lower the risk aversion of gambling. You are less likely to see a threat in playing that card game, because when you are that young you have no concept of money. You don’t know what a dollar is, so why not throw it away so you can have fun. This is...I hesitate to call it fine, but it’s mostly harmless. The issue is with children and their lack of knowledge of money. When I grew up and got a job, it’s a lot harder to tell my brain, “hey, don’t spend that money, you won’t get it back and you won’t get what you want.” Because my brain just acknowledges the potential for what I want. I want to buy the booster pack so I can have the potential to get that masterpiece misty rainforest. I want to buy that diamond pack so I have the chance to get the cute hero. I want to buy that lootbox so I can get the battle rifle that does a cool effect. These are harmless concepts, but very dangerous.

Make no mistake, companies know how psychology works, and will use it to their advantage. MatPat from game theory states that companies have even go so far as to have systems in place that change the odds as you’re losing, and monitor your skill level to put you up against harder opponents, to see the better weapons and go, “Oh I want that!” and entice you to buy more lootboxes. As it turns out I found an article covering what he was talking about, Activision had actually acquired a patent to arrange matchmaking to do just that [x], and the article says it’s not in place, but my trust in companies is not high enough to actually believe them.(honestly, matpat made a 2-part video series about lootboxes, and I’d recommend watching them)

So, companies are trying to manipulate you to buy more gambling products. There’s proof of it. It’s also more blatantly obvious in games like Magic the Gathering, where they release fancier versions of cards at rarer probabilities. To better explain it, from a collector’s standpoint, you want the fancy card cause it has value, it has value because it’s rare, rarer than the other versions, so if you’re on the lower end of the income ladder you buy a pack, or two. After all, you could get lucky and get it. On the higher end of the income ladder, you buy the card outright and hoard it. Maybe sell it off later if you notice the price goes down. From a player perspective, you see a card is being used by tournament players, you want to win more games, so you want those cards, which encourages you to buy products and try to get those cards. That’s predatory behavior. It’s predatory from the company’s perspective because that poor person might not be able to afford the card outright, but $5-$10 isn’t much, plus they always entice you with that Chance. They also further this desire for the cards by making it limited runs, such as the secret lair packs, if there’s a low amount purchased and it’s made to order, or worse, if they limit the order capabilities themselves, that drives up the value, and provides further incentive to buy the cards and packs. This not only creates an impossible barrier between the poor and the rich, but also heavily encourages people buy their gambling pack than people would have in other conditions.

For the record, I love magic the gathering, I’m not saying the game itself is bad, this is just a VERY predatory marketing tactic.

Let’s switch gears. Gacha games. I play AFKArena, because like I said, I have a gambling addiction and cannot stop myself. In AFKArena, you collect heroes, and battle with them in various ways. If you collect more of similar heroes you can rank them up. If I’m to believe what I’ve heard, it sounds like this is pretty common for gacha games. So what makes it bad. In AFKArena you use diamonds to summon heroes, now, you can acquire diamonds by beating specific story chapters, logging in every day, random limited time events, or paying for them with real money. AFKArena hero drops don’t seem that bad compared to the free diamond amount they dish out, which has resulted in me not spending all that much money on it, all things considered ($20 over 2 years). I believe that for a mobile game like this, that’s fair. I get way more enjoyment out of the game than I do most $60 games, so it balances out. However, this isn’t the case for every gacha game, and my trust in companies, as previously stated, is very low. The issue lies in them making the rates for good heroes so low that you HAVE to spend money on the game to really get over a roadblock of sorts. I do think that there is this issue in my game and I just didn’t notice it, someone with a lower tolerance or patience might absolutely have the incentive to drop hundreds of dollars on the game over a month. There are people of all different flavours, and it’s important to keep that in mind when discussing these topics, just because a marketing technique doesn’t work on you, does not mean it doesn’t work on anyone. After all, they have those $100 packs for a reason, you might not be that reason but someone is. That’s predatory.

I feel like I’ve gotten off track, let’s get back on the rails. Where was...gambling...predatory…ah, kids. So my biggest issue, is that Magic the Gathering is marketed towards 13 year olds. Not directly, but the packs say 13+. AFKArena and any mobile game for that matter, can be downloaded by anyone with a phone for free, with minimal mention that there’s microtransactions. AAA title games like Destiny 2, Overwatch, Fortnite, etc. are probably the worst offenders. A kid spent $16,000 of his parents money on fortnite in-game purchases, and that’s not the only time this has happened [x] [x] . More often than not, what happens is, the kid wants to play a video game, like halo on xbox, or destiny, or something, they ask their mom for their credit card, and the system saves it. I mentioned before that kids do not have a concept of money or its value, so giving kids unlimited access to the credit card is going to result in this kind of thing happening. I’m not blaming the parents for not being hypervigilant, sometimes you are really busy, or disabled, or whatever the reason, and you don’t notice the system just saved your card. I’m not blaming the kids cause their brains are literally underdeveloped. I blame the corporations, because they make the process as easy as possible to prey on kids and people with gambling addictions. (as a personal anecdote, I found that if I want a magic card in MtG:O, I’m way less likely to try and buy it if I have to get up and get my card, I’d recommend not saving your card if you suffer from gambling/addiction problems)

So after all of this evidence, how can anyone still view these things as anything but predatory? The answer is simple. You’re told they aren’t. Businesses spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on really good marketing, and public relations. I tried to google why gambling is illegal for people under 21, and got nothing, I got a couple forums asking the question, and a couple religious sites saying it’ll make them degenerates. I try looking up sources to prove the psychology behind these concepts, but they are locked behind paywall after paywall after paywall. Businesses and capitalism has made it so incredibly hard to discover the truth and get information you need, and it’s on purpose. They want you to trust that that booster pack is a good idea. They want you to spend money on lootboxes (look at all the youtubers that shill out for raid shadow legends, or other gambling games to their super young fanbase [x]). They want you to lower your guard and go, “well, it’s a video game, how can it be predatory?” “it’s a card game with cute creatures on it, surely it’s not that bad”

But it is. So why did I make this post? I dunno, my brain really latched onto the topic, I see so many people enjoying gacha games, but I’m worried that it’s going to ruin lives...I just want everyone to be informed and critical of what is going on.

[thetypedwriter]

Lore Book Review

Lore Book Review by Alexandra Bracken 

Lore by Alexandra Bracken was one of 2021’s most anticipated YA novels and it's easy to see why. The plot summary itself is enough to pull you in with the intriguing concoction of calling it the combination of The Hunger Games and the Percy Jackson series. 

What’s not to love when you fuse the illicit danger of Katniss Everdeen with the mythological enchantment of Rick Riordan’s masterpiece?

Turns out, quite a lot unfortunately. 

Before I get into why this book didn’t live up to the insurmountable hype it built up, I’ll attempt to give a basic summary. The key word being attempt as a good portion of this novel’s plot was a mind boggling and convoluted mess. 

The book takes place in modern day New York which Bracken likes to remind you every other paragraph with small snippets about how the city that never sleeps smells like sewage and is yet still the best place on earth apparently. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love New York as much as the next person, but the pandering to the Big Apple got annoying after awhile. 

Within the cantankerous city lives a girl named Lore which we are introduced to by means of her kicking ass in an underground Chinese restaurant’s fighting ring. 

Pretty strong start. 

Lore’s world (and the reader’s frankly) is tipped upside down when Lore’s long lost childhood friend, Castor, reappears to warn her that he is looking for her. Terrified, Lore is then at first unwillingly thrust back into the world in which she was born-a world dominated by violence, bloodlines, and the Greek gods who are very much alive and out for vengeful retribution. 

In a very exposition-dump heavy conversation, we learn that Lore is the last of Perseous’ line with the rest of her family having been horrifically murdered, that a week long event called the Agon occurs every seven years in which the original nine Greek gods or their reincarnated selves become mortal for seven days, and that a series of killing often happen because if you kill a Greek god you then become that Greek god as well as inhabit their powers, abilities, and immortality. 

Well, until the next Agon that is. 

The currently reincarnated God by the name of Wrath is attempting to end the Agon by killing all the other Gods, but in order to do it he needs to wield a special weapon called the Aegis. 

Unfortunately, only the Perseides can wield this shield (for some reason) and thus, Wrath is out to get his hold on Lore as the last of her line so that he can bring this eons old competition to an end with himself as the sole victor and only remaining God. 

Confused?

I’d be surprised if you weren’t. 

Now, I love Greek mythology. I’ve read the classics and would say I’m fairly up to date on the stories, the legends, the gods, and the stories they represent. I’m not an expert, but I would say I’m  knowledgeable on who the major figures are and what they stood for. 

I genuinely think this book would have been miserable for anyone that didn’t know anything about Greek mythology.

 Bracken does a terrible job of explaining what the hell is happening at any given point, and she often throws out allusions and references to Greek mythology without bothering to explain a single shred of information about it. 

In addition, after this laughably and poorly explained world and plot at the beginning, it is almost never explained again. It’s brought up, as are names and titles and weapons and relationships, but it’s never explained in a way that’s feasibly understandable. 

At the beginning of the novel Bracken lists who all the important characters are, their bloodlines, and their titles.

 I soon figured out why, as every other sentence a name like Wrath or Reveler or Tidebringer or whoever was brought up, and it was impossible to keep track of so I didn’t even bother. 

Even Lore brings up that the names are ridiculous, which I appreciate, but the meta moment of clarity doesn't make it any better. 

Also, what Lore and her friends get up to over 90% of the novel is a muddled mass of bewilderment. 

Why do Lore and Castor and the others need to find Artemis? I don’t know, but sure, whatever, sounds good. Why was Lore the last of her line again? Oh yeah, right, okay, I guess. Wait, Castor died? Oh, he didn’t? Why not? Oh, we’re not going to explain it. Sure, sure. 

Throughout this entire novel, what the characters are doing and what is happening is almost impossible to follow with the way it's presented and the way Bracken developed her world. I think this was a really cool idea that had very poor execution. 

Points for the originality and the inclusion of Greek mythology, but all of the positives were taken away when that originality was flushed down the drain with a lack of explanation and logic. 

Lore very much reminded me of a shoot-em up, bang-em up action movie. Almost every other chapter was some sort of super intense, super climactic fight scene, chase, theft, break-in, etc. 

Now. I do think action scenes are hard to write and I think Bracken actually did an incredible job of writing action in a way that was entertaining and thrilling. 

However, when the action takes place every ten pages it gets really old, really quick. Towards the end, I downright started skimming the fight scenes, because they lacked so little depth and stakes and we had read so much action at the end point that it had lost all vigor and vitality. 

Continuing with the action movie metaphor, most action movies focus solely on the bright explosions and the crazy fight scenes as their selling point of the whole movie, often to the detriment of the characters, plot, and development. 

Now, some people like this. I am not these people. 

I find action movies boring as most of my enjoyment from consuming media comes from the characters and the developments they undergo. 

My biggest criticism with Lore, other than the astonishing storytelling, is by far the characters. I just...didn’t care. About any of them. 

Bracken tried to make Lore come across as a strong, opinionated, fierce, angry female character and while sometimes she succeeded, more often than not I found Lore temperamental, aggravating, impulsive, selfish, and shallow. 

Bracken very much invoked the tell-not-show strategy that makes any book hard to get through. While there were some decent moments of showing instead of just stating, more often than not, Bracken would tell us that Lore was strong by having other people say it or others calling her weak. 

I appreciated Bracken’s feminist agenda and how strongly Lore felt about gender inequality, even if it was a bit heavy-handed at times. Still, I did appreciate this inclusion of civil rights on this front, even if some of the circumstances to incite it were ridiculous or over the top. 

In addition, I hated that there was all this backstory that we were just told but not shown. Like in my last review of Wilder Girls, Lore suffers from an intrinsic failure of getting me onboard with these characters and their relationships by telling me how I should feel about them instead of exposing them through action. 

I was told:

Lore and Castor haven't seen each other for seven years, but my gosh, Castor is just the best and is so beautiful. Ensue obligatory YA romance. 

Lore has a best friend! Yeah. Her name is Iro. Here she is! Um. Okay. Why was this necessary?

Miles is just the coolest best friend ever. Like, look how cool and chill he is. How funny is it that he has no idea what’s happening? Really not funny at all. He was a useless character used to build empty stakes. 

  The list goes on and on, but Bracken will throw out some sort of fact or relationship and just expect the reader to go “Okay!” Which. I didn’t. On any of those occurrences. 

Often Bracken would do this in the use of flashbacks at the most inopportune times (during a fight scene, after someone was injured, right before a huge revelation, etc). These flashbacks were the worst. I do not care for adolescent Lore and child Lore was somehow even worse. 

The romance in this book, much like an action movie, is off to the side and really only there to fulfill the trope of having a romance. 

Lore and Castor are boring. I don’t know what else to say. Castor is too perfect to be likable and Lore is the opposite. Nothing about their romance was unique or well-crafted. 

The kiss between Van and Miles I also saw coming a hundred miles away. I also thought it was pointless as Van and Miles had known each for six days and had had maybe two conversations. So. No. I didn’t care at all about the romances. 

It actually made me laugh and scoff simultaneously at the end when Lore is looking at Van, Castor, Iro and Miles and smiles because she realizes that these people are her family. 

Ummm. Sorry?

Castor disappeared for seven years and you’ve been reunited for seven days. You’ve hated Van your whole life until this week. You also haven’t seen Iro in seven years and she tried to kill you at least twice in this book. Miles is...fine, but again useless. I don’t even know why Bracken included him except to make Lore worry about him which she only did about half of the time. 

Phew. 

I know this review has come across largely negative, so this might be surprising, but I didn’t hate it. It lacks substance and depth, but it was entertaining. 

Just like an action movie.

 If you want some hyped fights and a plot that really doesn't matter and characters that won’t stick with you, but a fast-paced narrative that keeps you on your toes nonetheless, then you would probably enjoy this. 

It’s like the equivalent of watching a James Bond movie or one of the millions of the Fast and Furious. Bracken tries to develop the characters, but at the end of the day, most of the story is made up of cool fights, magic, and weapons. If that’s your speed then you would probably really love Lore. 

Recommendation: Action, action, action. If you want some high intensity, get-your-blood-pumping enterprise then this is your novel. The writing is fluid, the adrenaline-inducing scenes are non-stop, and everything else falls to the backdrop of external fights and villainous monologues. If action is not your preferred genre, then your best left to get your Greek mythology needs from Percy Jackson or the Song of Achilles instead.  

Score: 6/10

[nikibogwater]

A Shot in the Dark: Chapter One (Author’s Commentary)

(read the fic here)

General Notes:

(So I kind of stole this idea from my friend @unexpected-possibilities after she made an author’s commentary post on one of her fics, and I was like “Oh. Wait, I actually find this kind of stuff SUPER interesting to read." So...yeah, here’s mine for anybody who feels similarly lol)

I have been dying to write this kind of story pretty much since the completion of my second Wizards/ToA fic back in August, but it took me a while to suss out the plot. I generally try to keep my fics as canon-friendly as possible (not that I have anything against AUs, that’s just not a direction that I usually go in) so it was tricky to create a high-stakes adventure story that didn’t mess with canon too much. 

That being said, Chapter 1 is pretty chill, apart from the scene at the end. But it is incredibly important to the plot, because it sets up elements that will be very relevant later in the story. It also serves to re-establish the three-way relationship between Douxie, Archie, and Nari, which will give their interactions in the future chapters more weight. 

One last general note before we get to the passage-specific stuff: The song “Protector” by City Wolf has always been my go-to theme for the Douxie-Archie-Nari relationship, but I think it really captures the feel of this story in particular (or at least, it will once the whole thing is posted lol). I’ve never associated a particular song with any of my other fics before, but this one really was a huge part of what inspired this story, so I highly recommend that you give it a listen, if you are so inclined.

Passage-Specific Notes:

Two pairs of luminous golden eyes were hovering uncomfortably close to his head and staring at him fixedly. Douxie yelped and threw off his covers, scrambling upright and fumbling for his magic vambrace nearby. A small green hand held it out to him politely, and after a bit of confused blinking, Douxie finally registered the faces of his companions. Nari and Archie were sitting on the floor next to his mattress, looking at him eagerly. 

Two short things: One: I had no idea how I was going to start this scene, and then I remembered that one Calvin and Hobbes strip where Calvin wakes up to find Hobbes hovering over him menacingly, and I was like “Yes, that will do nicely.” Two: I still have no idea what Douxie’s magic bracelet-thingy should technically be called, so I settled on vambrace. I know Merlin refers to it as a bracelet in the show, but Merl, I’m sorry, but you clearly know nothing about jewelry. That thing is NOT a simple bracelet. (Also I had to research the difference between bracers and vambraces in order to determine which word to use. Bracers are apparently protective gear that is exclusive to archery, while vambrace is a more general word for any kind of armor worn on the forearm).

“It’s also the day you promised to bring Nari to Central Park,” Archie informed him.

This is a callback to a previous entry in the series, Home Away From Home. Although each entry in the Immortal Bonds series is written in such a way that it can be enjoyed as a standalone, I do weave tiny threads of continuity throughout all of them.

Mornings for Nari looked very different than they used to, she realized as she set the kettle on the stove, stepping back so Archie could light it (due to her somewhat complicated relationship with Bellroc, she was still wary about anything that involved fire). As a demigoddess who had existed for hundreds of millenia, she had never had much experience with something as human as family domesticity.

The scene where Nari and Archie make Douxie’s tea was originally going to be much longer and feature a lot more introspection on Nari’s part (I even researched the British tea-making process for it, since I’m fairly certain Douxie is the one who taught her how to make tea). I was going to start exploring the idea that Nari is still insecure about her place in this little found family, but I realized after about three paragraphs that there’s no way Nari doesn’t know how much Douxie genuinely loves her--she is already proficient in reading his emotions at this point. So that’s an internal conflict for another day.

“Keep very still for me, Nari.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, his aura flowing out and wrapping around her like a warm, familiar cloak. “Celare,” he murmured, and Nari felt a sharp tug on her spirit as the spell washed over it, cool and comforting like the shade of an old tree.

If you’ve read previous entries in this series, you know that I can wax poetic about the physical sensations of magic for DAYS. It is one of my favorite aspects of writing Tales of Arcadia fanfiction. Also Celare (kel-ahr-ay) is Latin for “Hide” or “Conceal.” I had to get outside help for this because I don’t speak Latin, and Google Translate is (as I found out) completely unreliable for even the simplest, single-word translations (it gave me the word for “clothe” when I used it 😑)

The first time she had walked the streets of New York City, Nari had been on the verge of tears. There were so many sensations assaulting her mind at once, the feeling of countless souls buzzing around, a crowd of spirits so thick that sometimes it felt like a wall. Even without tapping into her roots, she was drowning in a sea of tangling energies, as hundreds, even thousands of voices echoed in her soul all at once.

Oooooops, is that a parallel for Sensory Processing Disorder? Well, how did that get in there??? *shoves my own mental health issues under a rug with my foot* I have no clue.

This is probably as good a time as any to discuss auras vs. life energy. Basically, aura is the energy radiated by the presence of magic. Magical creatures who share close bonds can become very sensitive to one another’s aura, and because magic is so inextricably linked to emotion, Nari is able to read Douxie’s aura to pick up on whatever he’s feeling (though this is because she is extra sensitive to magical presence--Douxie is attuned to her aura, but he can’t read hers the way she can his). Life energy, meanwhile, is the energy given off by every living soul, magic or otherwise, and that’s what Nari is able to sense via her powers as a demigoddess. I sometimes interchange the word aura with spirit or soul or something similar, but if Douxie or Nari are sensing one another in any capacity apart from their actual physical senses, it’s their auras. Archie also has an aura, but it’s not as intense as that of a true magic-wielder.  

He was fashionably dressed, (“business casual,” the humans called it), with an elegant black trench coat hanging nonchalantly off of his arm. He had dark brown hair, handsomely trimmed and styled, just a bit shorter than Douxie’s, and was wearing a large pair of expensive-looking sunglasses. He looked thoroughly uninterested in the world around him, and had the appearance of someone who was waiting to meet up with a particularly tardy acquaintance. But Nari couldn’t sense that he was waiting. She couldn’t sense anything from this man. He emitted no life force, no aura or energy of any kind. He was like a standing, breathing corpse.

I have had this character floating around in the back of my mind since August, and I was just waiting for the opportunity to use him. Also fun fact, he was originally conceived as a sort of prototype for who I thought Mordred Le Fey would be in the ToA universe. But since canon is technically still ongoing and the ToA writers could still bring Mordred into the picture, I decided to adapt him into the original character Rivan (whose name will be properly revealed in the next chapter).

Beside her, Douxie’s aura was rippling with unease. But a moment later, his spirit stilled, and he put an arm around her to turn her away from the alley...

...A minute later, the crosswalk signal changed once more, and they continued on their way. Though Douxie’s spirit was radiating a placid energy, Nari couldn’t help noticing that he kept his arm around her for the rest of the journey.

It was important to me that Douxie not look like a complete idiot in this scene, which was a little difficult since this part isn’t told from his perspective. Homeboy absolutely knows better than to ignore something suspicious like this. But he is also acting as Nari’s brother/guardian in this scene, so he tries to play it off to keep her from worrying too much. He promised her a fun day in Central Park, and he’s not willing to bail on that just yet. But I’m hoping that the fact that he has to force his aura into a state of calm and physically holds Nari close to him as they walk are good indicators that he has gone on high alert.

And that’s a wrap for this week! Next Friday, all hell is gonna break loose, so definitely come back for that. If you have any questions/comments, definitely hit me up either in my Ask Box or over on Ao3. As always, thanks for reading! ✨💕

[duhragonball]

Frieza for the character ask, please. I want to know if there's something you like!

Give me a character and I will answer:

Why I like them: I tend to divide all of Dragon Ball canon into two sections: the part that’s about Dragon Balls, and the part that’s about Super Saiyans, with DBZ Episode 66 as the dividing line.   And Frieza’s original run as the main villain (Episodes 44-120) straddles that line.  

He’s basically a bridge between those two themes.    He starts off as a villain gathering the Dragon Balls to extend his rule, much like Emperor Pilaf or Commander Red, but he’s so insanely powerful that it almost doesn’t matter if he makes his wish or not.    The only thing that gives him pause is the possibility of a Saiyan uprising, except there’s only a handful of them left in the universe, which means the only way they could threaten him would be if one of them suddenly became the strongest Saiyan in a millennium.

My favorite aspect of Dragon Ball is that it keeps raising the stakes.   Vegeta was presented as the ultimate threat, and then it turned out that his boss is the strongest guy in the universe.   And he’s treated accordingly.    It takes forever to defeat him, mostly because it’s a lot safer to sneak around and avoid the guy, and when a final confrontation happens, no one has the necessary power to finish him off.  

Somewhat understandably, a lot of fans think of him as the Final Boss of the Dragon Ball mythos.  Goku becomes a legendary warrior to defeat the strongest guy in the universe.   How do you top that?    A lot of fans think that it was a mistake to try, and I’m pretty sure that’s where a lot of this “Toiryama wanted to quit after the Frieza Saga” mythology came from.  What they’re really saying is: “I think Toriyama should have quit after the Frieza Saga, and I assume he agrees with me, because I respect him so much, which must mean someone forced him to continue.”

But I think that’s bunk, because Toriyama’s best work was built on Frieza’s vaporized corpse.    How can you keep a martial arts epic going when the hero is stronger than the strongest person in the universe?   Toriyama took that as a challenge.    The androids could be stronger than Frieza because they hadn’t been built yet when Frieza was riding high.   Cell and Trunks could be stronger than Frieza because they’re from the future.  The Supreme Kai and Dabura were stronger than Frieza, but they don’t count because they’re from other realms beyond the “normal” universe.   Majin Buu could be stronger than Frieza because he’s from the distant past.   He’s been hidden away in storage for so long that no one remembers him.    Same deal with Beerus literally sleeping through all of Dragon Ball and DBZ.    And guys like Jiren and Hit are from whole separate universes.   All Toriyama had to do was avoid introducing some ultra-powerful character who had been active during Frieza’s lifetime.     The only one that springs to mind if Cooler, although he admits in Movie 5 that Frieza had an edge over him throughout their rivalry.   

So I like Frieza for being that big milestone character.   Guys like Cell and Majin Buu wouldn’t work as well without a Frieza to set them up as extraordinary challengers.  

Why I don’t: The problem with Frieza is that his importance to the franchise has led to him becoming overrated.  He’s got this 70-episode run as the main villain, but he spends most of it sitting in that goofy chair and literally refusing to do anything, even while his soldiers keep messing up.   When he finally does take matters into his own hands, he holds back, apparently because he wants to torture his opponents as much as possible before finishing them.  

People give Goku a lot of shit for showing mercy to his enemies, but no one ever seems to notice how Frieza could have wiped out Goku a hundred times over and just... didn’t.    At least when Goku does it, you can say it’s because he’s too nice, but what’s Frieza’s excuse?  There’s a lot of big long chunks of the Frieza Saga where literally nothing happens because the good guys are too weak and Frieza’s in no particular hurry to end it.  

By contrast, you have villains like Buu, who really don’t waste time like that.    He started killing people and while he wasn’t in any particular hurry, he didn’t drag it out either.   In less than 48 hours, he destroyed the whole planet.   That’s service.   

I cannot stress enough how Cell is the superior villain compared to Frieza.  The only lull in his run was when he declared a truce to allow his enemies to prepare for the Cell Games, and they were free to attack him during that time if they wanted.    And there was a point to that.   Cell had no particular agenda, so he decided to arrange a rematch with the Earth’s fighters.  

But when Frieza wastes time, it’s for plot reasons.   He’s just really lazy and unmotivated, or maybe he’s just incompetent.    But the wider fandom sees this jackass and goes “RARRR BEST VILLIN 5EVAR!”  Nah, he sucks. 

Favorite episode (scene if movie):   For my money, the coolest thing Frieza did was when he came back as a cyborg.    He kept trying to declare victory in his fight with Goku on Namek, even after cutting himself in half, and then Namek explodes on him and he still won’t let it go.   His dad finds him and after a long convalescence he decides to go to Earth and fight Goku all over again.   

What makes it so awesome is that the cyborg parts are a silent testament to how monumentally stupid that idea is.   All this guy had going for him was his top spot on all the power level charts, and now he’s lost that and he has no idea how to get along without it.  

And this is why I hate the idea of bringing him back from the dead, because there’s nowhere left to take this character.    He lost on Namek, and Episode 119-120 was just his last-ditch effort to defy reality.    He doesn’t know how to survive in a world where he’s not the top dog, and he doesn’t survive, that’s the end of that story.    Bringing him back just repeats the lesson, only without the cool cyborg parts to remind us that this never works.

Favorite season/movie: I guess Frieza Saga by default.  It’s got some great moments in it, but it gets really thin in places. 

Favorite line: “Peace?  I... will... never... know peaaaace!”  Or words to that effect.   Whatever bluster he shouted at Goku when he tried to take that last shot at him before Namek exploded.

Favorite outfit: The cyborg look.

OTP: I guess he has the hots for Yamcha, so let’s go with that.

Brotp: Yeah, right.

Head Canon: Between the lore in the Bardock TV special and “Dragon Ball Minus”, I get the impression that Frieza is concerned with legends in general, not just the one about the Super Saiyan.    I say this because in “Father of Goku”, he sent Bardock’s crew to conquer Kanassa, and the only apparent reason for this was because of the rumors of their psychic abilities.   Frieza was likewise intrigued by the Namekian regeneration ability.    I think in at least one translation he expresses some envy of Nail’s power, implying that he would want to find some way to acquire it for himself. 

What I’m getting at is that Frieza’s so powerful that the only things he has to worry about are things that may not even exist.    The Kanassans were probably no threat to him, but he may have considered that they could be, so he wiped them out before it could come to that.   Or maybe his staff discovered a tale of the Kanassan planet being the source of their powers, so he decided he needed to control that planet before his enemies could use it against him.   

Same deal with the Saiyans.   in DB Minus, I got the impression that he’s got a whole team of researchers who check up on local folklore.   Maybe they do this everywhere he goes, and he uses this intel to decide which planets live or die.  

Unpopular opinion: Frieza’s main contribution to the Dragon Ball franchise was to provide useful genetic material for the creation of Cell, the true best villain.  

A wish:  Hit and Majin Buu kill his ass and Grand Zeno, Great Priest, and Shaggy Blanco all hold a press conference announcing that he’s dead forever and can never come back, no matter what.    He gets sent to the same turbo super hell they have in Supernatural.   

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen:  Please don’t do any team ups with old villains and have Cell take orders from Frieza.   That sucks and it shouldn’t happen.  

5 words to best describe them: Final form is a corpse.

My nickname for them: LOWARD FUREEZA.

[theseerasures]

Conspicuous Media Consumption, 2020

it’s that time of year again! *saddest toot from the party horn*

for those of you just joining us: it’s a “consume a different content every week for 48 weeks of the year” challenge. for a longer explanation, check out last year’s write-up here, and as always, feel free to pop in and ask questions about any and all of this content.

(same disclaimer as last year too: content for this project ONLY here, and not certain...*looks at my billion Sad Cop Lady posts*...hyperfixations.)

(man remember when i was big into X-Men comics earlier this year? better times than these, if only because no one's discoursing about Emma Frost’s woobie/war criminal ratio anymore--her w/w, if you will)

(...i swear at one point i didn’t exclusively like platinum blondes but alas)

Bitter Root (comic, 1 issue finished 1/1/2020): still very cool on a basic concept level, but runs into the Image Comics problem of just not having enough content to keep my interest beyond that. part of that is on me, for picking it up again BEFORE the second arc rolled out, but the first five issues didn’t really follow (or resolve) any cohesive story either, so...meh.

Immortal Hulk (comic, 3 trades finished 1/17/2020): still not gonna be something i care deeply about (maybe one of Bruce’s Hulksonas dyed his hair???), but i do want to give kudos to Al Ewing for sheer consistency in terms of sustaining this level of quality storytelling month by month for more than two years now. working with the dense archive of the Hulk mythos and managing to make it interesting and thoughtful is impressive even if i personally would not expend the same effort.

Disco Elysium (game, finished 1/18/2020): honestly i should have twigged onto what this year was gonna be like when the third thing i drew from the barrel was pure uncut Eastern European flavored depression. i faintly recall people ragging on it for being pretentiously cynical, but i actually thought its core slid more towards idealism than people give it credit for. also gratified that i haven’t heard anything about Robert Kurvitz using slave labor to finish it, which is a thing we have to say about our video games now!!! fun.

Watchmen (TV, 7 episodes finished 1/27/2020): i am a fool who wants to believe in Damon Lindelof and I WAS RIGHT!!! honestly still cannot believe that he pulled off this highwire act with such deft aplomb. might be my favorite TV this year, which is a pretty high bar given how much TV i ended up watching.

On a Sunbeam (comic, finished 2/1/2020): Tillie Walden rightly deserves all the praise for inventive queer storytelling, but i will say that on reread--since i first read this as a webcomic--there ARE some issues with pacing here that clearly come from the foibles of its original intended medium. still just excellent, even if after some plot significant haircuts i was having trouble telling a few folks apart.

Lazarus (comic, 1 trade finished 2/8/2020): it’s so good and i want moooooorrrreee--though obviously Rucka and Lark have the right to take all the time they need. the newer longer issues work really well with the epic prestige drama vibes of the story! i’m into it.

The Good Place (TV, 4 seasons finished 2/18/2020): i’m gonna be super honest: i actually wasn’t a big fan of the finale, nor the last season as a whole. it felt like all of Eleanor’s flaws vanished for a majority of the season, and the Chidi-centric episode where they tried to give a legible justification for why he’s Like This was...i didn’t care for it. still, it’s so good and unique on the WHOLE that we’ll literally never get anything like this ever again, and that counts for a lot.

The Old Republic (game, finished 2/21/2020): it’s an MMO so it will never actually Be Finished so long as the servers aren’t shut down, but i caught up on the content i’d missed in the intervening months. Onslaught thus far has mostly been...kinda bland tbh; going back to Imps vs. Rebs after all the shakeups in the previous expansions feels like a waste.

High Road (album, finished 2/22/2020): someone should tell Kesha not to say that word!! otherwise i was very happy with this album, and happy FOR her even though we don’t know each other. being able to find joy again in the same genre of music you made while you were being horrifically exploited is very cool.

Young Justice (TV, 13 episodes finished 2/28/2020): given how much the middle stuff dragged--STOP KILLING YOUR HIJABI CHARACTER IN HORRIFIC WAYS--i was...actually kinda mad by how the end managed to stick the landing anyway. the day being saved by Vic’s self-acceptance and Violet’s sublime compassion was A+, and even the Brion/Tara switchup was a pleasant surprise, though it relied on me caring about Brion MUCH MORE than i actually did.

Manic (album, finished 2/29/2020): do people still care for/about Halsey? i feel like even That One Song that was on every tumblr gifset ever has kinda faded into obscurity at this point. this album was...okay. i feel like people give Halsey a pass for extremely obvious lyrical turns that they wouldn’t for other folks because of her subject material--which is fine. not really my cup of tea, but i also listened to lots of Relient K this year, so that’s probably a good thing.

Jade Empire (game, 3/10/2020): the only 3D-era Bioware game that didn’t franchise out, and for good fucking reason!!! the Orientalism and appropriation really haven’t aged well, and even beyond that the story was...standard Bioware faire. even my usual “my wife’s a bitch i love her” Bioware type didn’t do it for me, and i just ended up romancing no one. it did make me think a lot about what level of cultural borrowing is accepted nowadays, and why: people still look fondly at Avatar and talk about how ~accurate and respectful it was, for example, despite it being staffed almost entirely by white folks, and the Orientalism ALL OVER the monk class in DND is still fine for some reason.

Alif the Unseen (book, finished 3/31/2020): interesting to have read this AFTER reading The Bird King last year, because it highlights how the intervening years have shifted G. Willow Wilson’s thematic interest and improved her craft. i’m actually quite fond of how her characterization work is rougher here--Alif is extremely flawed to the point of being insufferable, but it makes his development by the end more satisfying. Dina is also just good and i love her

Baldur’s Gate (2 games, finished 5/31/2020): well, having finally finished the series i’m happy to say that it...still doesn’t really do it for me, sorry. any awesome story moments were overshadowed by the EXCRUCIATING inventory management system and the combat (i still don’t know what a THAC0 is and at this point i’m afraid to find out). these games crucially lack the Home Base that later Bioware games were so good about, and that (coupled with the huge cast of characters you can drop off and never see again) really hurts the intimacy for me. by the time we finally did get one it was the Hell Dimension in Throne of Bhaal, and i was just...trying to get through it. (yes, i did just say that about one of the most beloved expansions ever to one of the most beloved games ever.) THIS particular iteration of “my wife’s a bitch i love her” was very good, but the game wouldn’t let me romance her :(

The Underground Railroad (book, finished 6/19/2020): honestly what is there even left to say at this point! it was exactly as good as every critic on the planet said it was, even with my usual aversion to hype. draining and horrifying in turns but still insistent upon a future for Black folks.

Steven Universe (6 seasons and a mooooooviiieeee, finished 7/11/2020): yes, i DID finish the show and almost immediately begin a rewatch. this series is now one of my top five most formative things, and the amount of love and respect i have for it is incalculable. that said: i once again did not love how the central conflict of Future was resolved (just the resolution--i loved the finale just fine). for all of Steven’s breakdown was built up, resolving it with “EVERYONE HUG HIM UNTIL HE CRIES” felt...cheap, especially since up until this point the show had been so good about treating trauma and mental illness with the respect and nuance it deserves. it made me wish some of the earlier, less substantial episodes had been cut so we could spend more time at the end.

What It Is (comic, finished 8/19/2020): y’all i love Lynda Barry SO MUCH. for the longest time i was worried that One Hundred Demons was more a lightning in a bottle situation but every book of hers i pick up makes me feel obscure emotions i didn’t even realize existed. the compassionate way she’s able to describe her child self and how weird and fucked up she was (and still is) is honestly aspirational.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (TV, 5 seasons finished 9/26/2020): so here’s a reversal of what i’ve been complaining about with other shows: i was mostly lukewarm-to-warm about She-Ra, but the later seasons and the finale made me much more into it as a whole. more shows should improve in stakes and overall quality as they age tbh!! i still don’t actively love Catradora (my sole quibble with season 5 actually has to do with the way Adora kept backsliding as a character to make certain Plot/Relationship things happen), but i’m very happy for them nonetheless. i can certainly appreciate a show that will go for High Feeling over tight plot. dark horse standout moments: trees growing everywhere proving that Perfuma Was Right, and Hordak and Adora seeing each other--that weirdly intimate moment of recognition.

Fetch the Bolt Cutters (album, finished 10/7/2020): again i find myself not having much to say that no one else has said. it’s good! once again love it when an artist reclaims something they’d attached with negative affect (anxiety, depression, disordered eating) for better and brighter things.

Solutions and Other Problems (comic, finished 10/25/2020): i was very into Allie Brosh’s ambition with this book, which feels weird to say but i stand by it. it’s cool to see an artist try to make a new medium work for them instead of just sticking to what already works. not all the experimentation was 100% effective, but it was still delightful and occasionally devastating to read, so.

Legend of Zelda (3 games: Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Link Between Worlds, finished 11/1/2020): this was the third time i’d played Ocarina of Time, which made it the nice, comforting groove i settled into before Majora’s Mask blatted me in the face. i’m not usually a completionist Zelda person because...the gameplay in Zelda is bad, do not at me it just is, but i really felt like i HAD to be one for Majora’s Mask since the whole point is to get attached to the banalities of the town. i’m sure nobody’s surprised that i loved it, even if it gave me an existential crisis about how life goes on in the game for NPCs when you’re not there to save them from it, and there’s not enough time to save them all all the time (also not a surprise to anyone: Romani and Cremia gave Personal Feelings). Link Between Worlds...bad. not like in a “this is a bad story by every measurable gauge” way, but i was already struggling with the 2D playstyle shift enough that for the whole story to end with some “yes it’s v sad that Lorule is Like This but trying to steal Hyrule’s privilege is Even Worse Actually” noblesse oblige bullshit left a VERY poor taste in my mouth, this year of all years. i did audibly gasp when Ravio took off his mask, though. i’m currently playing Breath of the Wild in cautious increments; it’s the first time i’ve enjoyed early Zelda gameplay, but if they wanted fully voiced cutscenes i wish they got voice actors who...knew what words sound like.

folklore (album, finished 11/6/2020): my belief that Taylor Swift is Just Fine continues, i’m afraid. i LIKED this album, don’t get me wrong, and respect her constant drive to innovate, but i didn’t love it substantially more or less than any other Taylor Swift album. mostly i’m just tickled by how she thinks leaning into the indie aesthetic means borrowing Vita Sackville-West’s entire wardrobe, though i will admit to feeling Something when she swore in a song. i think it was like. savage vindication?? you go ahead and swear, Taylor Swift. you deserve it.

Shore (album, finished 11/19/2020): do people still care about the Fleet Foxes? i think there was some Drama with Josh Tillman a while back but i don’t remember where the discourse landed with who was being more problematic. it was nostalgic for me to listen to their new album--made me remember being an undergrad who exclusively listened to men who mumbled and played acoustic guitar all over again.

Star Wars (3 movies: original trilogy, finished 11/27/2020): there is So Much bad Star Wars these days that every time i rewatch the original trilogy i’m afraid that they will suddenly be bad, but guess what! they’re not. i love these children and their hot mess stories, i love that Lando doesn’t know how to say his best friend’s name. what stood out to me this time was the way Obi-Wan described the Force in A New Hope, which strongly implied that ANYONE can be Force Sensitive; that obviously faded with each subsequent movie, but part of me does wish they’d kept it.

X of Swords (comics, 22 issues finished 12/5/2020): i am enjoying Hickman’s X-lines!!! not so much here for the Grand Conspiracy or whatever, but the character work and highkey weirdness is fabulous--they FEEL like X-Men, despite all the shakeups in-universe. this crossover is a nice microcosm of all that: grandiloquently all over the place, but still full of cool standout moments and genuine hilarity. ILLYANA DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO SPELL MAGIC.

Fire Emblem (4 games: Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, Awakening, finished 12/14/2020): this was the thing that i was closest to giving up early on, but i ended up hyperfixating on it instead. that’s a credit to what the gameplay does to my lizard brain more than anything else, because the story and character writing is...insipid. it was very bizarre to witness this franchise blunder around with its animal-people racism allegory around the same time i was getting back into RWBY, and ITS animal-people racism allegory blunders. Awakening was the first time i felt anything for the franchise beyond “teehee red units disappear make exp bar go up and brain go ding,” so i’m excited for more mature storytelling in subsequent games (they MUST get better. they MUST). the child husbandry thing is...very bad tho, and Apotheosis being “challenging” entirely through the game changing all the rules is also bad.

once again no vidya games that came out this year--i’ll probably pick up Spiritfarer or Hades after the New Year, though (or maybe TLOU II! but probably not. sry Laura and Ashley). more TV and franchises this year, which made me feel In Touch with the Children but was also kinda exhausting. nothing was so egregiously terrible i dropped it without finishing! in a year like this that feels almost like an accomplishment

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #211: ... By Force of MIND!

September, 1981

THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH!

Oh hey, Dazzler, Hercules, Black Widow, Moon Knight, Angel from X-Men, Yellowjacket, Black Panther, Tigra, and Hawkeye?

Are you joining Captain America, Wasp, Beast, Thor, and Iron Man as the new Avengers?

Is this going to be the next biggest roster since the Korvac Saga?

Possibly! Jim Shooter is back and he was the guy behind that story.

Jim Shooter is very back, something the creative credits make sure you don’t miss.

“Joyfully welcome back long-time star Avengers scribe, me, Jim Shooter -- ‘cause I’m writing these credits, and, also I’m the boss!”

Charming. Non-facetiously.

It has similar energy to the ol’ Stan Lee introductions. And is probably just as much a pretense. Eh.

So the story “... By Force of MIND!” starts in the Avengers conference room.

And penciler Gene Colan sure has interesting ideas what that should look like.

We’ve seen the Avengers’ conference room a couple times in various books. They tend to have a grand conference table with assigned chairs?

Look at this one from Avengers Annual #10.

Or the one just as recently as last issue #210.

Pretty big overall. Suitably grand.

But the conference room has apparently been redecorated because it looks different. The personalized chairs are still there.

But the table is puny. It looks like the Young Avengers table at Thanksgiving. Set up off to the side for all the kids. Its dinky. It doesn’t look like all the Avengers can fit around it.

Which possibly supports Captain America’s point when he decides that the Avengers roster needs to be trimmed down to only six.

All those people on the cover are going to be really disappointed to hear this.

Captain America: “The Avengers have a habit of playing for high stakes! I believe that a lean, close-knit group is better... stronger!”

Beast goofs that they’ll need explosives to dislodge him from the team.

Also, there’s a trapeze on the roof of the conference room. Why. I mean, I know why. Your acrobatic characters need to be casually acrobatic at random times or they’ll be bummed out. But also why.

Wonder Man isn’t as bothered. Even after all this time on the team, he doesn’t feel like he’s ever really belonged here doing this hero stuff.

Vision and Scarlet Witch are selling themselves as a package deal. You get both or you get neither.

Captain America gives the Avengers some time to rest and think but they’ll reconvene at 1600 for the new roster announcement.

So there’s 9 people in or adjacent to the Avengers. Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, Beast, Jocasta, Scarlet Witch, Vision, Wonder Man, and Wasp. Three are gonna have to go.

All of this possibly getting fired, gives a pretty dour attitude (except for Wasp who doesn’t seem very concerned and probably doesn’t have a reason to be. Would you want to tell Wasp that she’s fired? I wouldn’t). Beast decides to lighten things up.

By causing problems on purpose.

So Beast bounces through the crowd of Avengers, jostling them all, and stealing Wonder Man’s glasses. Who hates having his glowing eyes show.

Scarlet Witch: “What on-- !? Beast! You crazy -- !”

Beast: “Moi? Crazee? Begging your pardon, mademoiselle witch. I am merely, how you say... playful! So, like gimme some space to be a jerk in, you know? Okay?”

At least he knows he’s being a jerk??

And then he runs off with Wonder Man’s glasses, goofing all the way.

Wonder Man: “Come on, you lame-brained blue-furred buffoon!”

Beast: “Hmmf! I’ll have you know, sir, that I am a highly intelligent blue-furred buffoon. I hole a dozen PhDs! I speak fifty-three languages... but I tell you, I don’t get no respect! Wanna hear me say ‘eat my dust, jocko,’ in Latverian?”

In the face of all this buffoonery, Wasp still doesn’t really care.

She decides the done thing is to go get her hair done for the big meeting. And sure this is short notice but she’s Janet Van Dyne. She’s going to have a movie starlet’s appointment bumped for her.

Scarlet Witch reflects that maybe the reason Jan isn’t worried about the possibility of being cut is that the Avengers aren’t her whole life. She has other stuff going on. A husband. A fashion line. The fabulous existence of being Janet Van Dyne.

Jocasta comes and tries to ask Vision for advice. Even after her big focus story, she still feels like an outsider. And she doesn’t have a life outside the Avengers. So unlike her brain donor Wasp, she is very worried about getting kicked out.

Jocasta: “You’ve learned to fit in, even though you’re a robot, as I am. Please... help me to...”

Vision: “I beg your pardon, Jocasta. I am a synthezoid, not a robot! As such, I am a perfect meld of computer microcircuitry and living, synthetic flesh! In all ways I am a fully functional man! I have a wife -- who needs me now! I cannot help you with your dilemma.”

And then Vision peaces out of this conversation by flying through the ceiling. Even though he’s going to join Wanda who is in an adjacent room. Ya weird, Vision.

You’re also massively unhelpful whenever anyone asks you for advice.

This is fully the second time Jocasta has asked him for advice. At least he didn’t trash the room in an angst ‘I DON’T HAVE FEELINGS AHHHH I MISS WANDA’ tantrum this time.

Jocasta is left alone. Which basically sums up her time in this book. Poor, poor robot. She’s so lonely she goes off on an existential soliloquy right outside Vision and Wanda’s room. Which is a bit passive aggressive. But hey. Superheroes.

Jocasta: “Are you truly so much different, Vision? So much better than I? I know that my voice rings metallic... but yours is cold hollow and emotionless!”

“I have built-in sensors! I can see! I can hear! I can feel! I function well enough? Don’t I? Don’t I? What does it take to be alive?”

“Does it take warm flesh? Am I merely animated because I am made of metal? I did not choose to be what I am!”

“I am what Ultron made me! Ultron -- the evil robot nemesis of the Avengers! He made you too, Vision -- reconstructed you from a long-dead android body! Both of us rebelled against his evil! Both of us sided with the Avengers!”

“Why, then, am I less than you? Is it because you are loved... and I am alone? Ultron... loved me...”

;__;

Poor robot lady.

I do wonder why the Avengers have been so indifferent to her presence. She did come to them during a chaotic moment in the team history. Vision was based on Wonder Man who wasn’t on the team while Jocasta had to coexist with Wasp from day 1.

There’s also that while both she and Vision are angsty robots that turned against Ultron, Vision (despite his famous “even an android can cry” moment) tends to be more performative with his angsts. He sulks. He broods. He smashes furniture.

Jocasta sits quietly and sadly in the background. Makes tentative stabs at companionship but backs off without ever causing a fuss. Different socialization rules for the robot genders possibly?

The good news is that modern Jocasta has learned to assert herself a lot more. She’s been a delight in the Dan Slott Iron Man book.

Anyway. Hopefully that line about Ultron doesn’t foreshadow anything. Its going to be really dumb if Jocasta brings back Ultron because the Avengers treat her with all the attentiveness of the fridge (although she may still legally qualify as one depending on how much of the Henry Peter Gyrich’s nonsense has stuck around).

Time for a sudden, drastic tone shift!

Beast exits stage Avengers Mansion, pursued by Wonder Man.

He hides up a tree like a rocket belt isn’t something Simon has or the ability to jump hella high.

But Wonder Man takes neither of those options. Instead he karate chops the tree down in one stroke. Which is impressive but I imagine Tony Stark is going to be annoyed. That tree was part of the landscaping!

Not expecting this, Beast falls out of the tree complaining that cutting down trees is illegal in New York. Wonder Man catches him and takes his sunglasses back.

Beast: “You grabbed me! But nobody’s fast enough to do that!”

Wonder Man: “People think I’m just strong! Everybody forgets that I have instantaneous reflexes and blinding speed! To me, the world looks like its moving in slow motion!”

I feel like if Wonder Man was Actually Fast all along, he’s not been getting much use out of it, considering how often he takes dumb hits in fights.

And then Wonder Man hurls Beast into the sky.

Like. Really high into the sky.

Beast: “omigosh! omigosh! omigosh! He’s nuts! He’s crazy! He’s -- who cares about him?! I’m dead! He killed me over a crummy prank! For stealing his glasses I get to end up as a blue blotch on the street. My girlfriends won’t recognize me! I can’t look! Wait a minute! This is serious! This is for real! I’m falling at hundreds of miles per hour! Nothing can save me! I’m really going to die! Like this?! I’m going to die like this?! NO!”

Wonder Man: “Relax, Beast. You’re in good hands with Wonder Man!”

Beast: *Whuff*! You -- you caught me! But that’s like catching a bullet.”

Wonder Man: “Told you I moved quick!”

Beast: “thanks. You’re a decent guy for a common ruffian, Wondy!”

I mean, he also threw you straight up, Beast. Is it so impressive that he caught you?

But with the disproportionate response to a prank by making Beast think he’s going to horribly die, Wonder Man sort of apologizes and says he’s going to miss hanging out with Beast.

See, Wonder Man isn’t going to hang around hoping he gets to stay on the team. He’s actually decided to quit. As has been Wonder Man’s thing for a while, he just doesn’t enjoy the superhero life.

He’s always struggling with insecurity and dislike of throwing himself into deadly danger a dozen times a week.

In fact, he wasn’t too broken up when Henry Peter Gyrich kicked him off the team. Back when he got super into the idea of becoming an actor. He even said at time “If I can get used to playing roles on a stage - maybe I’ll feel more comfortable in my role as superhero!”

Except, as we saw in the Shadow Lord/Berserker two-parter, Wonder Man hasn’t gotten used to playing roles on a stage.

And we’ve seen that his Avengers responsibilities are getting in the way of his acting opportunities. So. Not a surprise he’s going to leave the team as long as the roster is being rearranged anyway.

Wonder Man asks if Beast likes that superhero life of facing death all the time.

Beast: “Frankly, I never really actually considered the possibility of dying... until a minute ago. But think of the fun, glamour and girls, Simon! This is the life!”

Wonder Man: “Is that stuff really enough for a guy as smart as you, Hank? The way I see it being a hero doesn’t make you a person any more than having power makes you a hero.”

Beast: “Yeah. But pigs make good pork chops so I’m staying!”

I’m not really sure what Simon is getting at here. I think its something about finding yourself?

As the time for the meeting draws minutes away, Completely Normal Doctor Donald Blake arrives at the mansion by cab. The cabdriver wondering what a guy like Blake is doing at Avengers Mansion. This Completely Normal Cab Driver is tempted to snoop but goes naw!

If he had snooped, he may have seen Completely Normal Doctor Donald Blake turn into the Mighty Thor and head into the mansion.

Here’s a funny thing, Thor claims that the reason why he talks to himself so much is out of protest that there’s just not enough heralds in Midgard to tell people how cool he is.

Thor: “Thus, the mortal facade is stripped away -- and thus, once again Thor treads the Earth! Thor, god of Thunder, Prince of Asgard! Thor, son of Odin! Bah! That the son of Odin must so proclaim himself -- ! Are there no heralds about? Nay... never when thou needest one! Unannounced, I enter this Earthly ‘mansion,’ poorer than the least dwelling in Asgard!”

Thor also wonders to himself that if he is chosen to take part in the new Avengers roster, will he choose to remain with them? One presumes he has a lot of Thor business going on. That’s why he left the team back when Moondragon was temping with them. She convinced him he was slumming by hanging with the Avengers.

OH. MEANWHILE. That Completely Normal Cab Driver?

He is seized by a strange compulsion. He parks his cab in an alley, takes off his clothes and -- MOON KNIGHT?

Inside, the Avengers are assembling for their meeting to find who is fired or not. Except they’ve decided to give the rinky conference room table a pass and are instead sitting around in a room with even fewer chairs and a table less conducive to holding a meeting.

Lateral move.

I’m wondering whether there was some miscommunication between writer and artist or what.

Cap tells the Avengers to find a place to sit (when there is only one visible chair) when Jarvis interrupts.

Moon Knight has shown up and demands to see the Avengers. And the automatic defenses that should have stopped him seem to have been switched off.

Moon Knight insists that the Avengers summoned him. That he was forced to come to the mansion. Which comes as news to the Avengers.

And then a whole bunch of other superheroes show up claiming that they were also forced to come here.

Hi Hercules, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Angel, Yellowjacket, Dazzler, Tigra, Black Panther, and Iceman!

So that explains the cover.

Wow, a cover that didn’t even lie!

There’s a hustle and bustle of the various superheroes complaining about being here because they had better things to be doing. Black Panther is late for a meeting to speak with the UN Security Council!

And Dazzler complains because its too cold to sit next to Iceman. And Iceman is just like ‘it be like that.’

Oh and Tigra seems to decide to get in some impromptu yoga. Don’t know what the deal with that is. But cats be like that sometimes.

Moon Knight sees all these heroes here and comes to the conclusion that this is some weird Avengers membership drive. But he is very not interested in this!

Yeah, I don’t know that a mysterious vigilante who mostly operates in the shadows would be a good match for a public superhero team.

Cough.

Iceman too is like sorry but I’m not into the hero stuff. I was on the Champions. I did my time!

So he and Moon Knight turn to leave. Iceman saying he’s going to need to find a cab and Moon Knight clearing knowing that he’s going to be picking up that fare.

But when they get near the door, the two freeze.

I realize that Iceman is involved so I mean that they suddenly stopped moving.

And they get super belligerent at each other and start fighting. With Iceman expositing about his skills. Which is normal for a comic. But seems a bit weird in the context of whats going on.

Iceman: “I feel compelled to explain how my X-Men training helped me to get the most out of my mutant ability to freeze the moisture in the air!”

And he freezes the ground under Moon Knight’s feet so he slips like a doofus.

But when he goes to finish the fight, Iceman’s head suddenly starts to hurt. Which he says is like someone else is in his head with him. He can’t think clearly enough.

While Iceman is distracted, Moon Knight throws some of his moonerangs at Iceman who blocks them. But neither can continue as the pain in their heads incapacitates them both.

Yellowjacket: “Wait a minute! I know who must be behind this! That arrogant self-styled g-- *uhh*”

And Yellowjacket freezes in place, as if in a trance.

The Avengers are concerned but Angel suddenly starts flying around the room, saying he can’t resist, he just has to flyyyyyy

Which apparently offends Tigra for some reason. Some mysterious reason. How mysterious.

Angel: “The Angel’s in the air! Watch me do my stuff!”

Tigra: “So, you think you’re pretty special, huh, Wings? Well, you’re just another bird to Tigra, the She-Cat -- and cats eat birds!”

Angel: “Sounds wild -- ! But you’ve got to catch me first!”

Tigra: “I will Bird-Man! I will -- with my nice, sharp claws! And, once I do, I’m plenty strong enough -- to tear your precious little wings right off!”

Eeeeeeeeesh. Well that’s retroactively a sore subject. Angel has his wings badly injured during the Mutant Massacre storyline and they end up amputated, sending him into a depression. And then stuff happens stuff happens, its his college roommate Cameron Hodges’ fault, Apocalypse gives Angel metal murder wings.

But in the here and now before that series of events, we must assume something similar to the sudden antagonism between Moon Knight and Iceman.

Something weird is going on and stating out loud that you’ve figured out what just gets you put in a trance.

Of course, I know what’s going on because I peeked ahead so I’ll just go ahead and tell you its M- *uhh*

Hahah, just kidding! Can you imagine, though? Anyway, its Moondragon.

She’s lurking behind the Avengers watching them watch this nonsense. They don’t notice her because she’s decided she doesn’t want them to. Until she does.

But before that, hey, time to call out Beast.

Beast: “Hey-- ! That’s not a costume! Tigra’s for real! She’s like a cat ... covered with fur -- like me! I should be thrilled, I guess... But instead, I find it vaguely unsettling!” 

Look, furries can’t judge furries for being furry. Its the law.

Anyway, Moondragon lets the Avengers notice her and they turn around and go ‘oh ffs its Moondragon’ more or less.

Moondragon: “I sensed your need for order... for organization! So I returned!”

Iron Man: “What?! What right do you have to interfere?”

Moondragon: “Why, divine right, naturally!”

You may not like her but you have to admire her confidence.

She recaps her backstory a bit, including her belief that she’s Actually A Goddess of Mind. Because she was raised by the demigods of Titan and she’s super psychic.

I’m not sure how super psychic. I don’t think she and Jean Grey, for example, have ever locked horns. And Jean Grey is kind of the byword for super psychic.

She’s at least psychic enough that she gave Daredevil his vision back. I think that’s psychic?

I do wonder how Moondragon stacks up on the Grey scale. But not enough that I want that kind of dick waving contest between the Avengers and X-Men. There’s enough of that already.

So after explaining how great she is the Avengers basically react with ‘oh ffs, we did not miss this’ and ask what this has to do with this circus.

Moondragon: “Come now, Iron Man! Who better than I to bring order to the tangled affairs of this company? When last I left this august assemblage, my status was still Avenger-on-call -- meaning that I would aid you in times of dire need! I am needed now! -- And so I am here!”

Iron Man: “Swell.”

I think I’ve actually missed her advanced state of arrogance. Or maybe I’m just charitably inclined to her because she and Phyla-Vell got back together and alive in the current Guardians of the Galaxy run.

Anyway, Hawkeye has not missed her advanced state of arrogance and decides to peace out. He’s got an actual paying job to do and he’s late for work because Moondragon dragged him out here.

Moondragon tells him he can go. FOR HIS FATE LEADS HIM AWAY FROM THE AVENGERS FOR NOW!

Hawkeye: “Baldy, if you’re so hot why couldn’t you figure that out without dragging me across town?”

Good point, Hawkeye.

Honestly? I think she did it to troll you.

Black Widow and Black Panther also take off. Black Panther to his UN thing and Black Widow back to her job with SHIELD.

Moondragon doesn’t stop them. So I’m guessing their fates also lead them away from the Avengers for now. But. Why bring them? They didn’t do anything?

Moondragon, were you just padding out the numbers for a more exciting cover? Dammit, Moondragon!

Hawkeye is Hawkeye and thus extra extra so he shoots a suction cup arrow at a helicopter to hitch a ride instead of taking a taxi. And as he dangles from it, he muses melancholic about what Black Widow and he once had. And ironically, Black Widow is also thinking about him and sure that he doesn’t care for her anymore.

Womp womp.

Inside the mansion, Moondragon decides to continue, to the protests of Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America.

So she yells SILENCE! and paralyzes them, just like with Yellowjacket.

The assorted crowd of everyoen else fusses and wonders what to do but Moondragon takes charge and demands that Dazzler show her stuff.

Or rather:

Moondragon: “You use your gift frivolously... as part of a musical act! Please demonstrate!”

That’s... a way to request that, yes.

Dazzler doesn’t like her tone but decides to demonstrate anyway. Cranking her pocket radio and converting the sound waves into a dazzling light show.

Dazzler: “I.... uh. Also skate! Not much of a power, huh?”

Moondragon: “Hmm! Greater than you suspect... but i sense that your desire to be a minstrel is deep and sincere!”

Minstrel? Really? Psychics have no excuse for not knowing the right word.

I’m getting a real mixed vibe from Moondragon talking to Dazzler. Its like she’s being condescending and complimentary at the same time.

But since she senses that Dazzler just wants to do disco stuff, she tells her that she can go.

Dazzler isn’t sure whether to leave the Avengers to deal with this or as she thinks “Baldy’s rap sounds real cool but this scene is definitely tense!” but Scarlet Witch tells her it will be alright.

So Dazzler goes. “When the Scarlet Witch says go -- I go!”

Dazzler knows the score.

With Dazzler gone, Moondragon is like ‘welp lets get back on with it’ but Scarlet Witch has had it.

Scarlet Witch: “Enough! We demand that you cease this outrage! We can make our own decisions.”

Moondragon: “Can you? Some of you would choose to stay out of force of habit... or loneliness... or fear of failure in the world beyond these walls! You are children! It is far better that I choose!”

And now Iron Man has had enough. And has also had an idea.

While his body may have been paralyzed by Moondragon, a lot of his armor functions are thought activated because, hey, I don’t see a lot of buttons on him, do you?

So all he has to do is think WHOOOSHy thoughts and WHOOOSH he goes, flying through the ceiling of Avengers Mansion. For once, it is Tony Stark who destroys Tony Stark’s home.

And once he’s outside Avengers Mansion, he is apparently far enough outside her range that he can now move. And since “brainwaves are electromagnetic in nature” he turns on his built-in transceiver to emit a microwave psionic jamming signal.

Which is something that he just can do!

The effect of which is that it’ll make Moondragon “feel like she’s got static on every channel!”

Sure!

Kind of reminds me of the First Foundation’s anti-psychic defenses they made against the Second Foundation. Ah, classic sci-fi. Sometimes it teaches us things like how to fight specifically Moondragon.

Moondragon is sure that she can overcome the jamming if she can just regain her concentration but...

With psychic frequencies jammed, the paralyzed Avengers start to spring into action.

So she just puts up a force field. Projected from her spaceship in Earth orbit and activated with a remote control in her glove.

Aside from the other things I’ve given Moondragon, I’ll also give her this: she came prepared.

Moondragon: “Why must you resist me so? Why can you not simply acknowledge that you need my godly guidance? We are wasting valuable time! I have yet another group of candidates to summon... but I cannot dally here much longer!”

I really want to know who her B Squad would have been.

But with the Avengers trying to break down her force field and Iron Man swooping back in to help, Moondragon decides ‘hey fuck this actually’ and teleports away.

Moondragon: “By the braided ring! How naive... how foolish you are! Perhaps I am wasting my time on your petty affairs! All right then -- enough! Have it your way! I am needed elsewhere in the galaxy! Farewell!”

And she doesn’t die on the way back to her home planet.

I do like that she recontextualizes the scenario as being actually this is a waste of her time and she’s just throwing pearls before swine. She’s going to go somewhere that appreciates the work she’s doing out of the goodness of her heart.

She is horrible. And like with Emma Frost, I just kinda appreciate that in a character.

With Moondragon not here to force people to stay, Thor tells all the non-Avengers to fuck off. Not very gracious, Thor. They were forced to come.

Iceman leaves and reminds everyone and me that his life goal is actually to be an accountant. Something I’m surprised by every time I hear it.

He even offers to help the Avengers with their budgets or tax forms. Heck of a guy.

Angel also leaves but muses that he kind of hates to.

Angel: “I... sort of hate to leave! I haven’t really done much with my life since the Champions broke up! -- Besides hang around with the X-Men a little! I never thought about becoming an Avenger --! Maybe I ought to!”

This is the thought process that will probably lead him to form X-Factor and that road leads to Cameron Hodge and Angel becoming Archangel. Dammit, Moondragon!

Although, the X-Man I really want on an Avengers team is Cyclops. He’s so defined by being an X-Man and by being a leader of X-Men, I want to see what he does on a team that already has plenty of leaders. I want to see if he goes through a weird character transformation like Beast and becomes relentlessly chill.

Alas.

Anyway, Tigra speaks up and says “I gather that you guys weren’t really looking for new members, but now that I’m here... uh, any chance?”

Cap is dubious because he doesn’t know a thing about Tigra (except that he gave her clothes to Patsy Walker) but Hercules is like hey we all saw how she tried to beat up Moondragon, that shows she has mettle.

Plus, there are Avengers that Hercules knows nothing about, which is totally the same thing.

Hercules: “You, for instance! You are called Wonder Man, though in sooth, I know not why!”

Wonder Man: “Really? Well, I... I’m as strong as Thor... almost...”

Hercules: “Eh? What?! HAVE AT THEE, THEN!”

And then he punches Wonder Man through a wall.

God, I love Hercules.

And then he tries to wrassle him, just pleased as all get out that Wonder Man is still conscious after Hercules gave him a big punch. “What fun!”

Wonder Man is less pleased.

Wonder Man: “Why are you doing this? Why are you attacking me for no reason?”

Hercules: “Men must brawl to know one another! How better to learn the measure of a man -- ? And what greater gift can a man give another than the thrill, the glory, the joy of battle? I am a friendly fellow who would often give this gift -- but, alas, most mortals are too frail to receive it. You are not, though! You and I may batter freely!”

Hercules just wants to punch people to be friendly but poor guy is just too swole for most men. He needs a real sturdy friend to beat the shit out of.

Wonder Man squirms out of the wrassle and clocks Hercules through a different wall. As the Avengers just watch like ‘yup this is the kind of day this has been.’

Hercules is in good spirit about being clocked through a wall and decides that now he and Wonder Man are friends and that Wonder Man is truly worthy to be an Avenger.

Wonder Man sheepishly mentions that actually he was quitting to pursue a career in acting and WHY HERCULES LIKES THAT JUST AS WELL!

Hercules: “Acting? Why of late, Hercules has kept company with those mortals known as the ‘jet set.’ I know many producers and directors! Come, I’ll introduce you to them! And the women, friend Wonder Man!”

Captain America, bemused: “you meet some strange folks in this business.”

There’s an non-existent Wonder Man and Hercules Take Hollywood Buddy Comedy Book and its a crime that its non-existent.

Geez, Marvel. GEEZ.

Anyway, that’s Wonder Man gone. Out of one buddy comedy into another.

Tigra reminds the Avengers that she’s still here and still wants to be in the Avengers.

Tigra: “Yeah... uh, back to my little problem... I’ve been at loose ends for a while... and I really want to belong somewhere! I know I could cut it as an Avenger! Please?”

This time, the objection is that the Avengers just don’t have room for a new person. They were trying to pare back! Not recruit!

But Beast interjects and reveals he is also leaving.

Beast: “Wondy and I had a talk this morning that started me thinking -- and I hate to admit it, but a couple of things Moondragon said hit home! You know, I used to be a scientist! I used to have a future besides my next gag and tomorrow night’s date! I want to see if there’s anything left of Hank McCoy besides a ‘blue-furred buffoon!’“

Hank’s early character beats on the Avengers were him struggling to find what his place on the team would be. He couldn’t be the strongest with Iron Man or Thor on the team. He couldn’t be the smartest with Iron Man again, Black Panther, or Yellowjacket. Wonder Man joining the team. Wonder Man joining the team gave Beast someone to be there for and with. But mostly Beast’s tenure has been kind of... party time for him. He’s been the fun member of the team. Going out to parties and juggling multiple dates and telling jokes.

Its been a fun time for Beast but he’s not really been living up to his potential And there were times he could have become the scientist on the team again. Or helped as one. Yellowjacket hasn’t been on the team as a core member for a bit. But he stuck in his role as the team clown.

Like with Thor, Moondragon has convinced Beast that he’s been sort of slumming it with the Avengers and now he’s gotta go rethink his character.

Where does this lead him? Why, he’s going to join the Defenders! And going to try to get that non-team team more organized like a team team. Is this a good thing? I don’t know, I haven’t read a lot of Defenders! Hopefully the Defenders podcast I listen to gets to that point soon!

But Beast isn’t the only one Moondragon has swayed.

Vision and Scarlet Witch likewise announce that they’re quitting the Avengers.

Vision: “Perhaps we will not succeed in finding a place among ordinary people -- but we must try!”

So perhaps influenced as well by the conversation Wanda had with Jan where Wasp wasn’t worried about losing her spot on the team. Which Wanda attributed to Jan having a life outside the Avengers. And apparently Wanda and Vision have been afraid to try for that. Until Moondragon dunked on her for it.

Geez. If there’s anything Moondragon is good at, its getting Avengers to quit the team. She got Thor and Hellcat last time. This time she got Beast, Vision, and Scarlet Witch.

So there’s room for Tigra now but also too much room. They were aiming for six and even with Tigra, they’d only have FIVE THERES ONLY FIVE CLEARLY.

Jocasta, in the background: -saddest robot in the world-

Yellowjacket shrugs and decides to rejoin as a full-time member to get the number up to six. His research hasn’t been going great lately anyway so he has time in his schedule.

Feeling overlooked, just like last issue, which was a filler which was supposed to address the Avengers overlooking her, Jocasta decides to slink away. Just leaps out the window and runs away from home.

Jocasta: “They didn’t even notice me... didn’t count me! Was it an oversight? Or had everyone already made up their minds that I would be one of those eliminated? What difference does it make? I am nothing to them! They do not want me here! Maybe I’ll find someplace where I am wanted! Maybe I’ll find someone... who loves me!”

=(

And where does Jocasta go from here?

She wanders the country looking for love, presumably in all the wrong places, and is seized by a per-programmed compulsion to rebuild Ultron. This leads to a big team up between the Thing, Machine Man, and her and Jocasta sacrifices herself to help stop Ultron. The Avengers hold a memorial and Machine Man attends, realizing that he had loved Jocasta.

So plus side: she does find someone to love her. Minus side: she dies and also its Machine Man.

Double plus side: she’s eventually rebuilt. Dies a couple more times. But she’s currently alive.

It’s going to turn out that this was a failure of communication.

(On the team less than a day after basically begging to join and she’s already made herself at home and is hogging the entire couch. How very cat of you, Tigra.)

Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor had decided privately to ask her to stay on as a Special Substitute Avenger, keep living in the mansion, and help out when its needed.

In the hubbub of Moondragon’s recruitment drive I guess they forgot to bring it up. I feel like its something you should have approached her with before the meeting, just to make sure she was okay with it.

Hindsight and all.

The snubbing from Vision definitely didn’t help.

Iron Man: “I hope she comes back! -- And I sure hope Moondragon doesn’t!”

Hah.

I do wonder what the initial plan going into the meeting would have been, before Moondragon took it over. What roster had Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America decided on before Moondragon talked three Avengers into quitting and introduced Tigra to the team?

I guess we’ll never knoooow.

Captain America muses that although it seems like they drove Moondragon away, she may have gotten what she actually wanted. “What if she used her mental powers subtly to influence the decisions that were made?”

And its possible because of how her speech influenced the three people who quit.

The thought just about makes Iron Man furious.

He doesn’t have time to dwell on it because the news shows up to get coverage of the last panel new roster AVENGERS ASSEMBLE! moment.

I do love a good last panel new roster Avengers Assemble moment.

And that was Jim Shooter’s first issue back. And a pretty great first issue too.

Not that the previous issues have been bad necessarily but he definitely brought a sense of fun to this issue. Even though there’s some forced fighting for those ACTION SCENES most of it is just character interactions. Even some of the pointless fights.

And like writers like to do when they take over a book, Jim Shooter draws a line in the history with a shake-up to the team roster. Reintroduces Moondragon into the book because he has unfinished business with her.

I’ve actually been reading the original Star Brand book by Shooter and the writing is night and day. Its all text text text words words words but its much punchier here. Though there are some strange spelling and punctuation choices.

Still, I’m excited to have a consistent writer back on and I’m even excited about it being Jim Shooter. I hated his first run on the book on first read and then appreciated it more the second time through. And I’ve heard interesting stuff about this upcoming run.

Psst, follow @essential-avengers​. You are being mentally influenced by Moondragon to do so. Wait, this is a counterproductive self-promote. Er, like and reblog because you choose to?

[realfxntasy]

The decline of Game of thrones SPOILERS INNIT

So the show has finally came to an end, it took the world by storm with its twists and turns, the violence, intrigue, characters, worlds and winning the award of most genitalia shown on a TV screen. But the last season was unfortunately blasted with lots of heat, negative opinions rained fire on the show’s creators just as Dany did to all those innocent Kings Landings citizens. So where did the beginning of the end start for game of thrones? Let us take a look at thrones in its entirety and talk about what happened to the show we all once loved.

I absolutely loved the first six seasons, they were incredible, season one introduced us to a world of deep political intrigue, not your usual fantasy, this one was incredibly dark and realistic, realistic even when it had zombies and dragons, like a world that really could exist, because the show managed to capture so elegantly the motives of each character and why they acted as they did. Seasons two, three and four brought the same brilliant realism, intrigue and storytelling but upped the ante with some incredible spectacle, I remember watching the battle of kings landing for the first time, seeing the shot of wildfire explode and thinking this show was just something else, season three brought serious shock in terms of the red wedding and season four showed off the shows continuous ability for intense battle sequences mixed with great character development during the battle for the wall. The first four seasons for me are basically near perfect, I’m sure there are flaws here and there but none I can remember too well, they facilitate game of thrones as one of the greatest shows on television.

Season five is where things began to change a little for me, not greatly though, season five was still fantastic, the plot with the sons of harpy, the tensions on the wall, in Mereen and so forth but I felt the pacing did struggle at some points especially in Mereen and Kings Landing, luckily by the end of the season I felt things really begin to kick off as Dany had to fall to the whims of the slavers and re open the fighting pits, Cersei got in hot bother with the sons of the harpy and was arrested for her sins and who could forget Hardhome, it was amazing. However even though season five was still a high quality part of the thrones story it does to some degree begin to mark the beginning of the end as this was when things really began to deviate from the books, I hadn’t read the books the first time I saw season five so I wasn’t sure what I was missing out on, but my god, I’m up to date on the Song of Ice and Fire novels now and there is some difference, mainly where a certain place named Dorne is concerned, this is where most people’s complains about season five stem from, the whole Dorne arc seemed to be a little rushed and quite flimsy at points, but this was game of thrones, it had delivered so much, so why would we have been worried? Well I certainly wasn’t but looking back now this was where you can really put the show creators into question, they properly deviated from the books this time and it was up to them and their own creativity and it was the first time the show seemed to fall short a little, not that I hated the Dorne arc or anything but at the same time the frustration people feel comes from how good it was in the books I believe.

Season six, I really enjoyed season six, it was the point where the show seemed to really be moving on to its grand conclusion, Bran was having visions about Ned Stark and Lyanna and if you had seen any internet theory video on the fabled R + L = J then you knew what was coming, the hype was real, Jamie was facing off the Blackfish in a part now taken from the books, rather than his Dorne arc which the show writers created the season before and the change in quality here with a sequence from the book was more evident, the battle of the bastards gave us one of the most gut wrenching and intense battles not just on TV but really in any medium, straight out of a movie really, who could also forget Cersei’s glorious revenge against everyone who ever screwed her over when she blew up the Sept of Baelor and finally the season ended with Dany making her way to the seven kingdoms, season six for me was absolute quality and I think we were all pretty hyped for what was to come in season seven.

But then, all of a sudden, something was different. Season seven was when things began to truly go downhill; the show had veered off from the books fully now and it was up to the show’s creators to keep the quality up, season seven for me was poor for a number of reasons, the biggest flaw for me was how they had completely thrown away game of thrones’ realism, not in terms of fantasy, the white walkers and dragons are fine, but how it became a show where things happened for plot convenience and really badly at that, people were using teleportation all over the map by this point like the show was an MMO or something, beyond the wall was the perfect example of this, we see Jon, Tormund, the hound and the rest of the gang travelling north to capture a Wight, its cool to finally see so many beloved characters in one place but at the same time the whole thing feels messy, it looks like a hard and long trek and they send Gendry back to the wall when they’re in trouble because he’s ‘the fastest’, Gendry makes it back to the wall in record time and sends a raven off to Dany, the raven reaches her and she’s off to the north to fight the white walkers, meanwhile Jon and the gang are surrounded by hundreds of the dead, things felt so sped up by this point, there was no pacing, everything was going on at once. Another issue with season seven was to do with the death of intrigue and compelling writing, Kings Landing, where pretty much every scene from the show was riddled with genius dialogue and political stakes was now completely forgettable, not once in season seven or eight did you actually see a crowd of nobles watching the queen decide the fate of the realm, it was simply Cersei and her closest allies treating with Euron and not much else, I was really disappointed with how little interest seemed to be going on in Kings Landing, as for Winterfell, my god, I was furious with the treatment of one certain character, Arya, she was easily one of my favourite characters in the show until this point. The entire debacle for me was over how her relationship was handled with Sansa, they seemed to force some kind of split between the sisters for the sake of it and it just felt completely uncalled for, I get that sisters are like to argue but Arya was pointing out such strange things about Sansa, she was genuinely trying to do what was best for the people of Winterfell but Arya began accusing her of all sorts, of being power hungry, narcissistic and self-serving, I really just didn’t buy it, if they gave it more time and some more development of such an idea like Sansa really trying to uproot what Jon was doing as King in the north then I would have understood, but it really just seemed like the show creators were forcing a divide between the sisters so they could have an excuse to build tension, then have them reunite to kill Littlefinger, which to me was also a bit of disappointment, I think a lot of us didn’t expect Littlefinger to go out so easily, he seemed like he could have a plan for almost anything, if it did come to the point where he was put on trial for being more or less a giant snake wouldn’t he have something up his sleeve? like how maybe the Lords of the vale are under his rule, bound by law to serve their lord, when Robb Stark executed Lord Karstark the north lost all Karstark men, when Sansa executes Littlefinger the Vale just shrugs it off, meh, is basically their reaction, this is the vale which loyally served a lunatic of a women, everyone could see how much Lysa Arryn had lost her mind, but the laws are laws, people must follow their Lords and ladies, such is the nature of Westeros and its culture, or so we’d think, the men of the Vale allow their Lord Littlefinger to perish, Littlefinger being a supposed genius, wouldn’t he think something like, I don’t know, ‘I should probably make sure all the vale is loyal to me so they love me and protect me’ the man is always tactical and conniving, finally he is the Lord of an entire people and he doesn’t really use this to his advantage at all. The dynamic between Dany and Jon Snow was fairly interesting; Jon refuses to have the North bend the knee to the iron throne once more regardless of who is sitting on it, but he also needs Dany for the obsidian down in the Dragonstone mines, it’s a pretty interesting plot, yet still I found the dialogue wasn’t as conveying as the previous seasons where the words which came out of characters mouths were like music to my ears. It was in season seven I began to worry that the lack of episode count in the season really pushed the writers to hurry up and get this thing moving, therefore sacrificing a lot of the shows quality.

Let’s move on to the final season, game of thrones had a much needed years break it seemed to me, I was glad about this, I mean look how long it’s taking Georgie to write the next book Winds of Winter so by all means go ahead HBO and give the show some time to work on what it needs to, so the first episode aired and well, I was excited you know, they had a year off so things seemed to look up, but erm, well I wasn’t exactly super impressed by the opening scenes, one in particular, we’ve got Tyrion and Varys in a carriage, famed for their trading of incredible wit and knowledge, clearly the years have not been kind to Tyrion as all he can muster up in this scene is, “I have balls and you don’t” I know it’s not much but for me it really just set the tone of how dialogue would be handled this season. The next episode picked things up a little for me, there was more character development, Samwell is traumatized by the news of his father and tells Jon of his true heritage and Sansa is also none too happy about Dany and the power she now has over the North, it seemed like things were moving in the direction of some in-fighting, Sansa would maybe raise the north up against Dany, Jon would be highly conflicted on the matter and friends would have to turn on friends, classic game of thrones, I was thinking maybe they would end up destroying each other, and as the white walkers come they are decimated, too busy fighting politics the white walkers end up causing serious damage the living, thus the lesson is humanity could not hope to survive divided. Anyhow the white walkers invade in episode three, now this episode for the most part I found really enjoyable, the action was crazy, it was intense and the visuals were something else, scenes like the Dothraki swords being lit on fire got me all chuffed about how far the show had come and Arya being trapped in the library with a bunch of Wights was gut wrenching, however then comes the end of the episode, in a twist pretty much nobody was expecting, Arya kills the Night King, well damn, there it was, the apocalypse was over, it was very strange to say the least, no one expected it to happen, I was one of the people who was a little optimistic about the season still, I got it, so the Night King is beat and the final battle is for the iron throne, ok I guess it is all about the Iron throne at heart but still it did leave a strange taste in my mouth as the shows greatest enemy was defeated before the final episodes, it felt like whatever could happen now was just a little underwhelming compared to the fight against the dead, all this we heard about no wars mattering but the great war as Jon would say, but now it was over. In the next episode Dany declares optimistically that ‘the we have won the great war, now we will win the last war’ ok cool I get it, I’m thinking let’s see what the show has to offer from here, the party scene shows that everyone loves Jon Snow and that Dany is becoming very insecure about her ability to rule as everyone loves Jon and that he is also the rightful heir to the throne, this all seemed well and good to me, things were getting interesting, sure the dialogue still was off par compared to earlier seasons but I was still behind the program here, despite my fears, by this point a lot of people seemed to have lost faith in game of thrones, I understand this, the decline here was evident but I was kind of hopeful that despite the bad writing and entire rushed feel of the final season the ending would be satisfactory, therefore not taking away from the shows overall glory. As episode four continued some more questionable things began to happen, Rhaegon is straight up shot out of the sky with four straight bolts placed perfectly, it all happened in an instant, so fast I couldn’t really process it, Dany then goes into a rage and heads straight to Euron’s ships to toast them all, as at least a dozen more bolts are shot this time and Drogon is arguably in better range they all seem to miss? The plot armor is pretty strong here, never the less Dany retreats and Euron’s fleet destroys Dany’s. Oh and I almost forgot to mention, let’s take a pause from the episode and have a look at one certain character, Euron Greyjoy, if you haven’t read the books then I’ll explain things for you, Euron from the books is a straight up psychopath, his presence is felt in every page he’s in, the way he is portrayed in the books is brilliant, he’s extremely selfish, power hungry, savage yet also comes across intelligent in a horrifically manipulative way, he’s also very mysterious, the man came back from travelling all over the world, he’s seen things no one else in Westeros has but in the show, he’s pretty dull to be honest, he’s mad but in just a silly lunatic fashion more than anything else, I just don’t think anyone is that bothered about Euron in the show, he’s not a great character, I’m ok with things being different from the books, its fine, but Euron isn’t different to the book in an interesting way, he’s just a really bad version of the real Euron, this is illustrating my point further that the writers don’t seem to be handling things well if it’s not taken from the book, which is sad because in earlier seasons there’s scenes that aren’t in the books that are exclusively part of the show that are brilliant pieces of dialogue, every exchange between Littlefinger and Varys in the show is purely the show writers creation, ‘the chaos is a ladder’ scene isn’t in the books, and it is one of the shows definite high lights. Back to the main story, Dany makes it to Kings Landing and Cersei declares she will not be making peace any time soon, thus beheading a captured Missandei, ok so we all know what is coming, one final battle for Kings Landing. Episode five, some scenes in this episode are actually great, Tyrion setting Jaimie free and them having a brotherly bond hit me hard, visually everything was excellent and you truly felt right in the middle of the onslaught. Drogon absolutely rips through Euron’s fleet like butter, which was weird to me because the season set up how dangerous the scorpions (the giant dragon killing crossbow machines) were to dragons but apparently not, there’s plenty on the city walls and on Euron’s ships but Drogon evades all and destroys every one of them, finally he flies back to the front of the city and destroys the golden company who are meant to be pretty formidable but they completely disappoint, they just act as more cannon fodder really, also I was well salty that no elephants appeared, why even set that up just to tear down our expectations? Then the moment that shocked us all, the men of Kings Landing surrender despite Cersei’s commands, yet Dany decidedly burns the whole city anyway and murders plenty of innocents as part of her rage. So this is where pretty much 90% of the shows audience turns on the show, that’s not an exact statistic but it seems like a whole lot of people got furious here, I want to go in deep on Dany’s turn to full madness, some of it can be explained, she was insecure that the thing she has worked for so hard is now out of reach because she is not in fact the true heir despite believing that for most of her life, she’s lost two of her dragons and one of her closest advisers betrayed her via her lover revealing he is in fact the true heir, it’s tough we can definitely say that, but does it merit what the creators did with Dany, overall no I don’t think so, certain signs were indeed there, she nailed nobles of Mereen to crosses independent of their part in the slave trade and burned one of them to root out the sons of the harpies, from her slow decline you could see how Dany becomes less of savior to more of a lawful bad in serve of the greater good, she wants the best but she’ll be absolute in judgement to achieve it, however the slaughter we see in Kings Landing is chaotic evil, not lawful, it’s just utter madness, killing soldiers in an army is lawful and cannot be avoided, their all farmers and villagers when you think about it, enlisted into the ranks but in war killing them is virtually unavoidable, however I don’t think Dany could see murdering innocent children as unavoidable, the greater good always seemed in her best interest, serving the oppressed in society, here she murders everyone she claimed to once motivate her, her turn to madness is just, well, mad. Her character is completely butchered and not just her, Cersei’s ending I found to be pretty underwhelming, I felt the shows undoubtedly greatest villain should have gone out in a blaze of glory and madness, Cersei was truly mad, yet she gives up completely while Dany takes the spotlight of lunatic, it just doesn’t seem right, it feels completely rushed. Moving onto the final episode, I was hoping despite all that had happened this episode could make the ending still satisfying to a degree, everyone would have to fight Dany and restore order to the kingdom, again the visuals are stunning, the scene where Drogons wings fly over Dany and it looks like she’s half human half dragon was crazy good, I also loved how the throne room looked exactly the same as it did in season two when she had her vision of the red keep, but the action is over before it starts, with Jon killing Dany while she kisses him, it was certainly an anti-climax, what happens from here is by far the worst.

This is where I just wanted the show to end already, there are so many strange things going on in the finale, Grey worm decides to not kill Jon Snow despite already being shown as blood crazed and exclusively loyal to Dany, Grey worm has been in Westeros for maybe a year or less I’m not sure and at no point does he show any care for the other lords of the kingdom, only his queens law, as you’d expect, he’s from the other side of the world and it was Dany who saved him from slavery, he only came to Westeros to serve Dany, but for some reason he keeps both Tyrion and Jon alive and awaits the judgement of some nobles he barely knows or cares about, and what great judgement they all have. This was the biggest crime of all for me, Tyrion spouts some absolute garbage about stories uniting people, to one point I get it, everyone loves a good story about their ruler but really it just wasn’t a very convincing reason overall for me, and to choose Bran as the King of Westeros, what… the … f### ok so the reasoning for Bran to be king is that he, well, knows everything, but this isn’t even a good reason, a king must have heart, he must sympathise with his people and make a choice for the realm he believes is right, having an overpowered omniscient wizard as king is a terrible choice, Bran is so un-relatable, he can’t even connect to his siblings, telling Sansa how she looked beautiful during one of the most traumatising moments of her life and completely freaking her out for example in season seven, Bran also has zero experience ruling anything, he is literally the least suitable choice for king out of everyone sat there, just elect the Dornish geezer because he has a cool beard, that makes for a good story, Brans sister who has survived the Lannisters, Littlefinger and Ramsey Bolton and has also got experience ruling the north is just passed up for the magical tree wizard, I was happy Sansa ended up ruling the north but really did Tyrion not consider her for the throne? She even shows her commanding presence when she completely shuts down her uncle who tries to state why he should be king. Now what about the other characters, Jon gets sent back to the wall, what an unsatisfying character arc for the man rising above his constant mistreatment through childhood as the bastard, as the soldier on the wall, to lord commander, to king in the north, the ultimate underdog, oh then back to the wall, it’s just ridiculous and he doesn’t even seem bothered, neither do his siblings, then he goes off with the wildlings to I assume become king of the free folk which isn’t really explained but we just take it as it is, poor effort I think. The complete decline of smart decisions is shown off with the new small council, why is Bronn on the small council! This is completely baffling, I liked Bronn’s whole point of all Lords and houses beginning out as cut throats, Littlefinger started out from nothing but he’s a devious genius who worked his way up to the small council, Bronn is just there, chilling as the new master of coin literally nothing but a bloodthirsty mercenary, I mean who needs someone with actual knowledge of Westeros’ economy anyway? It was simply so we could see a familiar character we once liked be there for maybe an attempt of fan service or something, it’s strange the final season on one hand feels like a bad attempt of fan service but then also a bad attempt of completely subverting fan expectations.  

So, game of thrones, this is how I feel overall, it was my favourite tv show hands down, it was genius, the first four seasons are near perfect to me, I’d say the decline of this show is down to two main things, the deviation from the books, unfortunately the writers of the show don’t live up to George R.R Martins masterful way with words, the rushed nature, they only had two seasons to finish everything up, with less episodes too, we cannot fully blame the writers, I think in earlier seasons they demonstrated an ability to make great original content for the show, but with the added pressure of finishing the show in just two seasons and thirteen episodes this just put things in disarray, the mistreating of characters, bad dialogue, flimsy plot choices  and an unsatisfactory ending. However despite this I’d say we can still enjoy the good parts of this show, like any form of art, its subject to interpretation, nothing can be perfect and this is ok, I hope the writers of game of thrones take all criticism constructively and don’t get disheartened by the some of the monumental hate they’re getting, this is how art improves, through feedback, I don’t think game of thrones should be rewritten or anything like some are proposing, take it for what it is and enjoy the show for what it once was, a masterpiece and it’s not like there were not some enjoyable parts in the last season, the battle for Winterfell in episode three of season eight was genuinely incredible to me, and who’s to say if you loved the last two seasons you’re wrong, this is simply my opinion so by all means if you loved game of thrones all the way through, more power to you, don’t let others ruin your opinion, I think it’s important for us all to have our own opinion on shows and other forms of entertainment, this is mine, let me know yours! Thanks for reading, peace dudes : )

[lordshaxxion]

Who is Lord Othion? Boy let me tell you a (long) story.

This fancy little bastard is my first Destiny character I made and thoroughly fleshed out. I might write his story out fully, but right now this is just a basic run-down of his arc because I wanted to give him his spotlight, bless his cotton socks. It’ll go under a cut because this will get long and I love my boy :’)

Far before the Dark Below arc and the real meat of the Destiny universe, Othion was resurrected in a small, burnt-out and long-abandoned settlement (picture the one from Zavala’s cinematic where they’re fighting Fallen, this will be relevant later) by his Ghost, Comet. Sass and snark aside, they bonded quickly and the closest place to them, as Comet says to Othion, is the Iron Temple (just go with it, I don’t know where anything is relative to the other in Destiny >:U ) and that they should travel there for Othion to learn to be a Guardian, and that one of the best teachers resides there that will help him. 

After a long travel, they make it to the Iron Temple with Othion nearly freezing to death on Saladin’s doorstep and passing out, only to wake in a lovely warm bed in a lovely warm room with a lot of lovely warm furs around him. Comet is whizzing around in relief and Saladin brings him some better clothes than the rags he’d been wearing prior. From that moment on, Othion begins his training with another Guardian, a Hunter called Cidrex with bright green hair and a sassy Ghost called Socks. The two of them are trained hard and in the end it’s worth it, the both of them seeing and treating the other as brothers and, after Lord Saladin feels their training has been completed, Iron Lords respectively. Lord Cidrex is a Nightstalker and an Arcstrider, Lord Othion is a Stormcaller and a Voidwalker. After receiving this status and spending much time with Lord Saladin, they both feel they have earned their right to leave and explore as they see fit and Saladin doesn’t stop them. Lord Cidrex heads to the Last City, becoming Iron Lord representative full-time there and strengthening bonds between the remote Temple and the Tower. Lord Othion, on the other hand, heads to the stars to explore, soon in Asher Mir’s company as his assistant and helping him to research the Vex through ‘research and destroy’.

After nearly a decade, Othion returns to Earth and joins his brother at the Tower to help the Vanguard with all he’s learned from studying the Vex Collective so extensively. When he’s being taken to meet the Vanguard, he keeps his helmet (adorned with an antler, see the doodle page, bottom corner) on to make a good first impression with important people he’s never met. On the way past the Crucible area, he sees Lord Shaxx for the first time and he’s blown away almost by just how huge this Titan is, how he shouts praise and boasts his Crucible to passing Guardians. Cidrex pulls his brother along and the meeting with the Vanguard goes smoothly, Othion removing his helmet with his back to the hallway behind them and giving his research to Ikora respectively.

Meeting done, Cidrex takes Othion (helmet back on in somewhat shyness, somewhat discomfort) for a tour around the Tower and shows him around. As they get to the end of their tour, stopping near Eris’ creepy corner, Cidrex is about to say they should go and get dinner in this neat little place he knows when they hear Shaxx laugh at a small gaggle of Guardians and say “You want the Crucible? I am the Crucible.” Othion is enraptured by this, unable to take his eyes off him for a moment.

“I’m going to punch the Crucible.” “Othion, no-” “Othion, yes.”

And with that, he marches over to Shaxx and demands a match off him. Fists and class abilities only, no weapons, no supers, no nothing. Shaxx laughs, finding a Warlock of all Guardians demanding such a thing off him. He finds it cute, endearing almost, and something familiar about the way this stranger holds himself. He agrees, because it will at least serve as a reminder as to why he is unbeaten in his own Crucible. An hour later, and the match begins in what I like to think of as an arena, like a Colosseum arena with crowds filling it.

The fight is swift and fast-paced, Othion blinking circles around Shaxx and using his agility to his advantage, striking Shaxx a couple times and receiving a punch to the shoulder that sends him off-balance and blinking back a couple paces to recover. Shaxx laughs and asks if he’s had enough.

“Enough games.”

Othion launches himself at Shaxx, running full-pelt towards the Titan and Shaxx readies himself to attack when suddenly Othion jumps and blinks towards him, suddenly appearing in his close-quarters and punching him in the face. Full Warlock melee force behind it, square in the helmeted jaw, fist full of Void, and it’s powerful enough to send Shaxx flying backwards across the arena, skidding to a halt flat on his backside. The crowd goes silent, everyone watching the broadcast goes silent. They can’t believe it. Lord Shaxx? Defeated? In his own Crucible? Lord Othion moves over and helps the Titan up, and the arena bursts into a tumultuous roar, a cacophany of cheers because someone has beaten Shaxx in living memory. Then, as Shaxx is standing and blinking the dazed sensation from his head, he drops to one knee and holds Othion’s hand. The arena falls silent again, murmurs spreading throughout the crowd as Shaxx says just one thing.

“Marry me.” And Othion leans in close.

“I will say yes, but only if you can defeat me in another match. It will be set on your terms and when you are ready. But if you cannot defeat me, then my answer will be no and it will always be no. You have one shot.”

The stakes are high, but Shaxx accepts. And then he begins to train. He trains and trains and trains and between then and the ‘proposal battle’, he is determined to get to know Othion. He takes him out on sparrow rides, for dates, for long walks around the City to see the sights and Othion helps run Crucible matches (Shaxx learns he gets just as into the matches, shouting and getting carried away as he does. He loves this man.) before they go out on one last date right before Shaxx demands the battle. They have agreed the whole time to never see the other’s face, and agreed that they remove their helmets the night before the match, whenever that is to be set. The night before the match is set, Shaxx takes Othion out somewhere to see fireflies, the only spot he knows of where it is undisturbed and silent and just perfect.

As they walk through an abandoned settlement after spending the whole day getting there, the sun casts a golden glow on everything as it sets and it takes Othion a moment of brief conversing with Comet through their bond to understand where they are. He jogs ahead to what used to be a street, dilapidated buildings crumbling either side of him, and stops suddenly, humming. Shaxx asks what’s wrong and Othion just laughs softly, shaking his head.

“This is where Comet found me. This is where I was resurrected.” He says, looking at Shaxx. Shaxx can’t believe him, he knows this area, he knows the horrors, the tragedies that happened here. Othion insists it’s the right place and Shaxx demands he removes his helmet while they still have daylight. Removing his first, Shaxx stares Othion down. Dark, star-studded cheeks and burning red eyes stare at Othion, the other realising that Shaxx is Deepborn before complying and removing his. The second Shaxx sees his face, he recognises him and it brings nothing but a mess of joy and distress as he falls to his knees, crying. Othion panics, going to him and waiting for Shaxx to explain as he comforts him.

Hundreds of years ago, when they moved from settlement to settlement, before the City was even conceived, Shaxx fell in love with a mortal man. A civilian, named Orion. He was kind, always worrying about Shaxx even though the Titan always insisted he needn’t. Orion loved Shaxx too, but neither of them gathered the courage to tell the other until it was far too late. The Fallen attacked the settlement, burning buildings and ravaging the people there and the few Risen, as they were called, struggled to beat them back. Even with Zavala’s might, Shaxx’s brute strength and Saladin’s determination, they weren’t enough and they lost many to the Fallen. Amidst the fight, Shaxx ran off to try and find Othion, having lost sight of him when several Vandals cornered him. He shouted his name and finally saw him in one of the streets, frantically trying to reload his weapon. Seeing Shaxx, he shouted to him. Schlick. A Fallen arc spear sliced through his chest, Orion coughing blood in shock and staring wide-eyed at Shaxx. It took the Titan seconds to crush the Captain that had done it, kicking its carcass away and cradling his lover. The blood was sticking to his armour, but he didn’t care. Orion was dying and he hadn’t been there to protect him. Shaxx couldn’t help himself, he confessed his feelings and Orion just laughed softly, cupping his helmet. Asking him to promise that he wouldn’t just give up, that he would protect the people, that he would keep going, Orion died in Shaxx’s arms and the rage that overcame the Titan was powerful enough to manifest in Solar dripping from his fists. Laying his fallen lover down, he stood and laid waste to the rest of the Fallen and it wasn’t until every last one had been eliminated did he finally calm, sinking to his knees in grief and sobbing. Since that day, he never looked at another the same way, he couldn’t bring himself to. Orion still held a place in Shaxx’s heart.

And here he was, staring at the face of his long-lost lover, albeit a different species now, but regardless. Orion had returned to him, with no recollection of his past life and a strength Shaxx could only wish he’d had all those years ago. With Othion crying quietly, holding Shaxx gently, the Titan resolved that he would win the fight tomorrow, or he’d die trying. Othion said he wouldn’t just gift it to him, and Shaxx wouldn’t expect him to. They watch the fireflies together, Shaxx admitting to Othion that it was Orion who showed this place to him lifetimes ago and that it was somewhat cathartic with this revelation of who Othion was.

The fight came and went, Shaxx beating Othion into the ground successfully and after a long and drawn-out fight of two seemingly-matched powers. They were wed, the Speaker giving them both his and the Traveler’s blessings and the exchange of matching Bond and Mark signifying their Lights were now as one, half the congregation crying, the Vanguard included. From then on, Lord Othion assists Lord Shaxx with the running of the Crucible, many Guardians coining the nickname ‘Crucible Husbands’ for them both with the iron fist and ferocity they both command the Crucible with. Othion assists Shaxx with outfitting Guardians for the Crucible, handling their rewards and seeing to the arenas being made ready for matches.

Basically they love each other very much and would do anything for the other, their relationship is well-founded and not solely based on the fact that Othion was Shaxx’s lover from another life; they talked about that issue and Shaxx affirmed that he was intent on marrying Othion for his skill and the personality he was presented with in the fight and the lead-up to the reveal of who he was, not for his face and the remnant of a life long gone. Their honeymoon was them making the best love, and bonding their Lights together, in Shaxx’s little apartment on a bed decorated with furs in candlelight, with a lot of laughter and silly leadup and perfect aftercare. Because they love each other. Very. Much.

[scientifically-strange]

Poltergeist

High key though this has been in my inbox for weeks now

Submitted by: Guest on fanfiction.net

Okay idea the avenger hear about Danny but due to the episode with the ghost zone portals taking him to different time periods the avenger think he is thousands of years old and appears when bad stuff happens you know like the fire in Rome and the destruction of a temple in ancient Asia that plus the time Walker and Freakshow framed him the now think he is some kind of old evil spirit

——-

The Avengers had grown up learning about Phantom just like every other child of the earth. He was known for the destruction of some temples in Asia, the big fire in Rome, and it had been hinted that he was one of the main causes of the destruction of the Library of Alexandra. He was hundreds of years old, but nobody could ever tell what he looked like because his face was hidden by a black cloak, but it was little nown fact that he had hair whiter than snow, and toxic green eyes that could freeze you in your spot with just a glance. Like Medusa, but with ice.

He was the kind of story you’d tell your friends around a camp fire or at a slumber part. Bruce’s parents in particular told him that Phantom took little boys who refused to eat their vegetables. But eventually, he became less real. The more this band of friends grew up, the more of a myth Phantom had become, until they were just a small, insignificant memory in the back of their minds that was only used for reminiscing. After all, he was just a ghost story.

Or at least, he was supposed to be.

The thing they were starring at could have only been Phantom, except he wasn’t scary at all. Not by any standards. Even Bruce, who had a small fear of Phantom, didn’t seem intimidated. Because jowhere in any of the stlries did anybody ever saw Phantom was a kid.

He was a scrawny thing with white hair and green eyes, bit nothijg about hik seemed even remotely evil. In fact, he gavenoff the vibe ofna good guy.

“What are you?” Clint asked, raising his bow and arrow at the floating being. He held up his hands in defense, looking very worried for his afterlife.

“Um…” he replied, still starring at all of them like they had grown two heads.

“Well, come kn, spit it out,” Iron Man said.

“Sorry, it’s just-when I imagined meeting you guys it was never like this. Um. Okay, right, my name is Phantom. Hi, how are you?”

So it was him. But how? He was just a scarred kid-ghost thing that could take over the world, and here he was, practically trembling at Hawkeye. It was strange.

“Looks like we better talk first, shoot later,” Captain America said, stepping forward. He placed a hand on Hawkeye’s shoulder, and Phantom seriously couldn’t believe it. The Captain America was sitting right in front of him. It was amazing, to say the least.

“I don’t understand,” Bruce said, pushing up his glasses. “Where’s the cloak? The fangs? The evil demeanor, and being able to freeze enemies where they stood? You don’t seem like a big time legend, really.”

“Uh,” Phantom said, looking highly confused. “I’m sorry, I think? Gotta be honest, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Cap turned to Natasha, who shrugged, silently telling him she wasn’t detecting any lies. Maybe there’s some other evil ghosts that destroyed entire civilizations, but Cap doubted it.

“We’re talking about the fire of Rome, the temples in Asia collapsing, the Library of Alexandra being burnt to the ground, to name a few,” Iron Man said. Phantom just stared at him, confused for a moment longer.

“Um, I didn’t do any of that. Who told you I did that?” The boy seemed intrigued as he took a more comfortable spot in the air. His arms were behind his head as he floated on his back. He let his head hang so he saw everybody upside down. Just by watching that it made Cap wonder how this kid could have done all of those things. And then he briefly reminded himself that this was a ghost. They didn’t have to look old and powerful to be old and powerful. But even then he sensed no malicious intent with this guy.

“There are several counts throughout history describing a white haired green eyed ghost destroying everything,” Hawkeye said simply, his fingers itching to shoot something. Phantom’s head tilted to the side as he thought for a moment.

“Oh!I know what you’re talking about! That must have been when Vlad stole the Infi-Map!”

“When who stole the what?” Bruce asked, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Phantom groaned and flipped over to his stomach.

“Okay, so Vlad is this evil ghost-my arch nemesis. And the Infi-map is this super powerful ghostly artifact that can take you anywhere you want at any when you want. Vlad stole it from my pal, Frostbite, and me and my friends had to stop him, but there were some complications along the way. Like the colusseum thing and when we ended up in Salem and my girlfriend almost got burned at the stake. But we beat him, so I guess that’s cool…” Phantom trailed, rubbing the back if his neck nervously as he made eye contact with each Avenger. He seemed more guarded now that the Avengers had almost hurt him. Steve almost felt bad.

“How long ago did this happen?” Natasha asked, placing a well manicured hand on her hip. Her eyebrow was raised, but other than that she showed no emotion, and part of him couldn’t help but be intimidated. The other part of him was reminded of Sam. Danny rubbed his chin in thought. It had happened around the time he got his powers, so maybe a year ago? Time has become a sort of blur since he had become a ghost.

“Uh…I’m not sure, really,” Danny answered honestly. “I don’t keep track of time very well. But it was recently, like, within the past year. Why?”

The past year? They had been expecting an answer like one thousand years, not just one. That meant that their childhoods had been haunted by this ghost because of something that happened a year ago? Because he decided to play cat-mouse with a guy named Vlad? He couldn’t be serious…Could he?

This kid who didn’t know any better had completely changed history, and they couldn’t help hut wonder if all of that stuff would still be around if he hadn’t been there.

“Who is this Vlad guy?” Hawkeye piped up. Right, Phantom had been chasing him. So really it was him to blame.

“He goes by Plasmius but his name is Vlad Masters,” Phantom replied, not bothering to hide the venom in his voice.

“The billionaire?” Iron Man asked. Phantom nodded and huffed angrily.

“Yeah, he’s a halfa too. Gets on my goddamned nerves, always planning something.”

“Halfa?” Natasha questioned.

“Half ghost, half human,” Phantom offered.

“Why do you hate this guy so much? Other than the fact that he’s obviously evil,” Bruce asked. Anybody who would destroy that much knowledge was a villain in his book.

“He has this thing for my mom and wants me to be his apprentice or whatever,” Phantom waved off. “It’s been going on for years now, but he’s always hated dad for marrying mom. Thinks I should be his. If you ask me I think he should just get another lonely guy cat.”

Mom? Dad? This ghost had parents? Wait, he said he was a halfa. That means he’s also human. Do his parents know? And how does one become a halfa? More importantly how does he know Vlad has a cat? Every time any of the Avengers tried analyzing anything Phantom said they always ended up with more questions, and it was really starting to get annoying.

“Parents?” Iron Man asked, confused. “How can you have parents if you’re dead? Theoretically speaking of course.” Apparently Stark hadn’t listened to the ghost’s word choice like Natasha and Bruce had.

“Uh, dude I didn’t become a ghost like a year and a half ago. My folks are still alive. Geez, you’re as dark as my girlfriend.”

There was a ping from Phantom’s pocket, and he grimaced as he looked at his phone.

“Damn it…” he muttered.

“What’s wrong?” Iron Man asked.

“Well, speaking of girlfriends, I’m gonna be late for my date because of you guys, that’s what. Listen, we can pick this up some other time, but right now I gotta go. See you around!”

With that he disappeared-literally, leaving the Avengers in a state of shock.

“Uh,” Hawkeye drawled, “What just happened?” Iron Man shrugged.

“I have no freaking clue, Legolas. Not a single one.”

[sarcasticace]

ChoicesHero, an informal review

So, let’s talk about Hero. In my last post I hadn’t finished the chapter cause I had gotten bored, but I will be writing this review as I play and finish it so you’ll get my thoughts right as I have them.

Let’s begin. Warning, long post is long.

The beginning, the part I have the most problems with. For all stories, no even the first chapter, but the very first couple of scenes are supposed to hook you into the story. Hero does not accomplish this. After making our characters, players are thrown into the future. Cool, but... not really. Or at least, it could’ve been, but wasn’t. We are placed in this destroyed fictional city. I get that making up your own city gives you creative freedom, that’s fine and I encourage it, but in this case, the beginning fails to make me care. If that had used a real city, in this case, I would have had real world relevance and a connection. Is it the Gotham to my Batman? Did the major call me up on my little red phone and I flew a couple hundred miles to save the city? Who knows, the story doesn’t tell you. Then you meet the villain of the series... I think. The villain is never actually shown, you see and you don’t know exactly what he... she... it has done. I mean... they know you... somehow, but you don’t know whether they destroyed the city themselves to try and find you or if they’re an alien who crashed landed or was a regular human who exploded when they got superpowers. You are lead to assume the first, but again... nothing is clear. 

There is a really generic ‘stop right there villain’ or something along those lines, but... again... the villain's face is never shown. I guess that was done intentionally to keep the big bad a secret to make his reveal shocking, but considering you don’t know who they are or what they’ve done or even how relevant they are to you it backfires. Then they deliver the most cliche line ever and I...like... just fuck off. “You don’t understand who you are. You keep running from yourself. You haven’t even begun to comprehend the power within you.” Then just like that, the beginning of Hero ends. You have no idea what the stakes are, what evil is waiting for you, or are convinced to make a connection. It only raised more questions, but not in the way where I want them answered like a good suspenseful story should (*cough* ES *cough*)… it is more like leaving exam questions blank or answering a question like “What is your birthday?” with “I have a birthday.”

Anyways, after that we flashback to the present… because that’s original… surprise (not really) you’re an ordinary human with no super powers. Really cliche, but I don’t hold that against them. It’s not a bad cliche, per say, like the constant female romantic rivals in RoE+TFM. I just... assumed Hero would’ve been about our MC already being a superhero who recruits other heroes to beat the big bad, but that’s not a negative against Hero or PB just a thought. Let’s get back on topic. Our MC is late to work! They have an ordinary job with an ordinary (low?) pay. Basically, this is a ‘regular guy/girl becomes special’ type of story cause... not like there aren’t hundreds of stories like that in the world. But, again, cliches aren’t bad, per say, if you write them right. So we get dressed for work and, honestly, I like the simple blue outfit, guys. Why are you dragging it? So we go off to work and are late getting on the train. Oh, so this is that type of story. You’ll see what I mean in a moment. We meet Poppy and she’s cute, but she reminds me a lot of Payton from HSS. They talk for a short time about how the big company MC works for is going to introduce their big new invention and it is so obvious that this is what’s going to give superpowers. Then, instead of introducing Poppy some more to allow players to actually become attached to her, they introduce Greyson Prescott... and he’s the Chris/Mark of the series. The main white LI of the series, the one you're supposed to fall in love with despite there being other (*cough* better *cough*) options. Now, they introduce Greyson, except he's not even introduced, he’s just talked about by Poppy who’s trying to set us up with him... despite him being our boss. That’s gross PB, stop shipping us with our boss/professor. This isn’t even good writing. You don’t just... stick readers right in the middle of character’s lives and have them play catch up. You need to show why these people are interested in one another or why they’re best friends, not just tell you by reminding players of history that they don’t know about. After we’re done talking with Poppy, we actually get introduced to Grayson and he’s... nice. That’s it. Our first impression of the guy that’s forced on us is that... he’s nice. That’s boring, PB. Nice is not a personality trait. He’s also really plain looking. Default white guy model #23. Also, we have high school history so our MC already knows him well, but we the players don’t because… sure, the first chapter of a new book series why bother introduce a character and form a relationship when you can lay down some pre-established history players have to piece together and just accept that the two are really good friends. Not like you haven’t done that before…. oh wait, yes you did. Mark Collins. This is the problem I had with Mark. Just... an entire life’s worth of history we're just supposed to accept and only really told through premium choices. That’s lazy. I mean, it is okay to intro some characters your MC already knows, but stories are character driven. If you take out introducing characters and the point of getting to know them you remove half the interest of even becoming attached to the main cast.

So, Grayson’s intro is cut short when Marasshole comes in to give us shit. It is so obvious she’s the designated rude character that gives the MC a hard time. Like... even more than that invention is going to give us superpowers. And when I say she’s rude, I mean she’s really rude. Borderline “Why haven’t I reported you, you shouldn’t be talking to employees that way” rude. And she’s rude because... she’s old? She hates millennials for some reason cause... she’s old. Throughout our interactions with her, she keeps painting the picture that our MC is a terrible employee/have no future/incompetent. Not only is this a weak way to get players to care about the main character, it also plays into what I was talking about before with Greyson. What type of history does our MC have with Marasshole? Why is she talking to us like this? No idea, he reasoning is RoE!Mallory levels of confusing. So, yeah, instead of getting on with introducing the main cast or the plot or getting superpowers we spend an admittingly short yet boring scene helping Marasshole replace a shellfish catering dish cause... one of the guests is allergic to seafood. I don’t understand why we’re doing this. I thought we were Greyson’s assistant, not even just that, but I’m the executive assistant. Doesn’t that mean I’m at the tippity top of assistants? Shouldn’t Marasshole be taking orders from me? I having trouble processing this scene because this lady just comes in giving us a hard time, but the story never establishes who she is or establish her rank in comparison to me before playing out this dumb scene.

So, finally, that scene ends and go off to the lab to meet Dax. He’s not there, but the invention is hidden under a tarp. We get the option to peek or wait for Dax and fuck yeah I’m going to peek, this book has been boring so far and I’m ready for superpowers. There’s shaking when you near it, but before you can see what the thing is, Dax appears and stops you because... of course, he did. They could’ve pulled a Spiderman origin and had us get zapped where we slowly become a superhero, but no. Dax... is cool, but he reminds me of Nishan from HSS and Whitlock. Mostly Nishan. Dax notes that the shaking is abnormal but as we walk away the shaking goes away, but instead of checking it out Dax says it is ready for the presentation. He even said all systems go like... fuck man, no need to run tests. Not like this thing could explode or anything. Random ass occurrence, no need to worry. Then... randomly, MC mentions Poppy is going to the gala and Dax gets all flustered because PoppyxDax is the secondary couple and they have a preestablished relationship. Like a ‘will they, won’t they’ type of thing. More history us the players have to catch up on cool. Next, we meet Santiago Lupo, chief of security, who… tells us about a string of robberies. Probably going to be our first big gig as a hero. Can’t wait to actually do something. Santiago seems cool tho, I like him. Okay, NOW we get to meet and formally be introduced to Grayson as a character. Better late than never, but...he’s a generic nice guy. Very reasonable, very approachable, very boring. 

Now we’re preparing for the Gala and Poppy just said swankiest… strike one. She pushes me to wear something nice so I don’t have to be single. Strike two. Oh boy, yeah, yeah  Grayson is defiantly the front runner LI. Is he the only LI choice? If yes, that’s boring. If not, if this is going to be a #LH thing, you really shouldn’t have opened with Greyson. Poppy mentions all the hard times in college they shared because... why intro characters and let us get attached when you can establish history the player just have to accept. So, now we decide what to wear at the event. Either an appropriate dress to the fancy gala or wear the work clothes you wore earlier today despite the fact that everyone will be dressing up. Really, PB? You couldn’t have just designed a basic dress? Am I going to get shade for.... oh, yup, yeah. The answer is yes. 

We make it to the gala. “What is this, gang up on MC day?” Apparently. Poppy and Dax have a preestablished relationship that will probably cost diamonds to actually ship them together, but like AbbiexTyler will probably end up together by book 2 and I have no control over it so like Tyler and Abbie I don’t care. So then we meet Meiko Katsaros. Her name is green so I guess she’s important, but after a little scene in which she’s mad with her son, Kenji, she goes away... without us even talking to her. Was that suppose to be significant? Jump to meeting Silas Prescott, Greyson’s daddy, and he’s… not white? Or at least really tan. There is a significant difference in skin tone between daddy and his baby boy. Is Greyson suppose to be mixed or adopted? Also... Silas has great hair and such a better name. Honestly, they should’ve just swapped features. Give Greyson the name Silas, darker skin tone, and the hair. Anyways, Silas gives his son “the look” and yeah he’s definitely evil or shady. He calls his son a loser and Greyson walks off, clearly upset. See... this would’ve bee a good chance to get to know Greyson. But no. This is a premium option. Instead of exploring the character so we give a damn, you make it premium. Sorry, I’m not paying for cut content. What is this? #LH?

Okay, big announcement time. We finally get to see what this damn invention is that will apparently change the world. Finally going to get superpowers in some freak accident. Maybe Silas will get some two and it’ll be some sort of reverse mirror thing. Why you, not me. I get the good superpowers while Silas is deformed. For some reason the word ‘watch’ is green. What... did PB know I was going to get bored and was reminding me to pay attention? The invention is some sort of clean energy generator using some exotic mystery crystal, oh so this is a magical destiny sort of thing. Before he can demonstrate it some military-esque mercenary guys dressed in black break through the ceiling and FINALLY something exciting happens, BUT THEN THE CHAPTER ENDS!!! Things actually get exciting, but PB’s like ‘nah, this is where we’ll end the first chapter”. We don’t even get superpowers.

[theglintoftherail]

Review: The 1972 Annual World's Best SF

For years and years, I’ve been collecting editions of the Annual World’s Best SF anthology series edited by Donald A. Wollheim, which ran from 1972 to 1990. A couple of years ago I decided to commit to reading or rereading every single one of them - and to reviewing every single story in each of them on Goodreads. As of now, I’ve gotten through 10 of them and reviewed a total of 107 stories, which can all be found here!

I’m doing this partly to expose myself to a wide range of SF in order to grow as an SF author, and partly  because there are so many great SF authors whose work didn’t just stick around in public consciousness for one reason or another. I’ve found so many authors that I absolutely love and had never heard of before. (And because those authors are not widely read, it makes me feel like a total SF hipster, which is perversely enjoyable.)

Here are the reviews of the stories from the 1972 edition:

The Fourth Profession, Larry Niven

Well what do you know. I’ve read a few things by Larry Niven and straight-up disliked most of them, but this one was very fun. A few mysterious aliens have landed on Earth, and a bartender happens to get one of them way too drunk and is given pills that essentially give him superpowers. It’s well-paced and funny, with likeable characters and surprisingly high stakes. The ending didn’t quite live up to the rest of the story, but I still liked this a lot.

Gleepsite, Joanna Russ

The editor’s intro to this one recommended reading it twice or even three times, and I’m glad it did, because it’s pretty much impenetrable on the first read – but once I figured out what was going on, it was really cool and fairly chilling. It packs a huge amount of worldbuilding and characterization into about five pages. I’d hate to spoil it so I’ll just say, it opens on a woman with bat wings pedaling dream machines in a polluted dystopian wasteland where most of the men on Earth have died, and goes all sorts of even weirder places from there.

The Bear with the Knot on His Tail, Stephen Tall

Eh. Maybe it’s just that this story is closing in on 50 years old, but it was really just a bog-standard ‘humans discover the first alien life and oh no they’re in trouble’ story. I really thought there was going to be an interesting twist at the end – I even thought I could see how they were setting it up – but nope.

The Sharks of Pentreath, Michael G. Coney

In the near-ish future, overpopulation has resulted in a system where at any given time, two-thirds of the population is kept in Matrix-style tanks and can interact with the outside world via tiny robots, and people swap out on regular schedules. The story’s about an innkeeper at a popular tourist destination who is currently in non-Matrix-mode and who is kind of a dick. I always like SF where the speculative part is just a backdrop to a character-based story, but there was something about the whole concept that just didn’t feel quite right to me - and honestly, the main character was just too much of an asshole for his ‘I learned a lesson’ moment to ring true for me.

A Little Knowledge, Poul Anderson

Three human criminals stranded on a planet of extremely pacifistic aliens kidnap an alien space pilot so that they can sell forbidden technology to a warrior race. I loved everything about the premise, the characters, the worldbuilding, the plot resolution, etc – but the pacing was bizarrely bad, particularly when compared to how strong everything else was. Huge exposition dumps, lengthy scenes that were interesting but have little plot importance followed by rushing through much more significant events, more exposition, etc. Still worth reading, but man, somebody should have taken a scalpel to this thing.

Real-Time World, Christopher Priest

A group of research scientists in an enclosed space station are secretly being manipulated by the people who sent them there, via carefully controlled feeds of news and information personalized for each of them. I loved this at the beginning, but then a bunch of additional SF concepts and twisty plot elements were added in, and then more, and then more. Which could have been cool, but in practice it just wound up making kind of an incoherent hash of what could have been two or even three good stories.

All Pieces of a River Shore, R. A. Lafferty

Perfect from start to finish… almost entirely. An eccentric Native American collector of Old West and Native American artifacts has run across a few impossibly detailed, several-foot-long paintings of the banks of the Mississippi River. He has a theory that there are even more of them out there, and that they might actually depict the entire span of the river when put together. I loved everything about this – but the final cymbal-crash line that explains the mystery pretty much requires you to have had personal experience with 1970s information storage technology. I had to google the story to figure out what the hell was going on, and once I did, it was like “Oh! I see, awesome!��

With Friends Like These . . . , Alan Dean Foster

Hundreds of thousands of years ago, there was a galactic war in which the humans, fighting on the side of the good guys, destroyed the enemy so thoroughly and terrifyingly that the rest of the galaxy forced them all back to Earth and barricaded them in there. But now the bad guys are back, so the other good guys plan to free these mythical monstrous warriors. I wasn’t mad at this, but I personally dislike the trope of ‘humans are the most exceptional race in the galaxy.’ (Also, in general I feel like 70s SF throws a lot of psychic abilities shit around when there’s no real need or justification for it, so that aspect was also annoying.)

Aunt Jennie's Tonic, Leonard Tushnet

A research chemist interviews his old-country hedge-witch-style aunt in order to discover the secrets of her medicines. There was a lot I liked about this, but the main character was just too much of an idiot for me to be fully immersed in it. “I’m purposefully not even writing down the parts of these processes that I think are bullshit, even though there’s no real reason not to” plus “I didn’t make any backup copies of my notes on this incredibly valuable medicine recipe” equals how the hell did you ever manage to become a research chemist in the first place.

Timestorm, Eddy C. Bertin

Did you know that changing the past in a way that you’d think would be beneficial might actually cause something terrible to happen? A guy gets transported to a future place where aliens are doing things to Earth’s past that seem bad, he stops them, oh no they were actually helping. Like the third story, this was either unoriginal at the time or feels unoriginal now that we’ve seen it a million times. And the collection of things that the aliens were manipulating was weirdly arbitrary – stopping the birth of Hitler and the birth of… the Marquis de Sade? Really? And of course, since this was written in 1971, it opens on the assassination of JFK.

Transit of Earth, Arthur C. Clarke

Ok, well this almost made me cry. A Mars exploration mission is doomed and they’re going to run out of food/oxygen, so everyone but one man takes suicide pills early in order to give the man enough time to record a rare astrological phenomenon before he dies. The story is written as a combination of his notes of the transit of Earth plus his personal reflections on life and death. It’s really great. (There is also an almost completely throw-away suggestion that maybe just maybe there are also aliens on Mars, which added absolutely nothing to the plot and probably should have been edited out.)

Gehenna, K. M. O'Donnell (aka Barry N. Malzberg)

This was gorgeous. It’s three vignettes about characters with intersecting lives – all of them go to the same party, and their meeting there changes their lives in various ways, but each story also takes place in a just slightly different world. It uses parallel universes as a metaphor for how everyone’s experience of the world and their conception of themselves is totally different from what other people see. The fact that the stories are taking place in parallel universes is established at the beginning of each vignette by a device that I thought was really cool – each character takes the subway down from Times Square to get to the party, and the stations they pass are all numbered differently. (I looked up another review of this and the reviewer described it as ‘funny’ and ‘an amusing puzzle,’ which is hilarious to me – I thought “how could we have read it so differently” and then realized that that’s exactly what the story is about…)

One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty, Harlan Ellison

Earlier in this project I read Jeffty is Five, also by Harlan Ellison, and this is so similar that I would have known immediately that it was the same author even if I wasn’t already aware. You can never go back to your lovingly-described childhood which specifically involves a lot of comic books and radio dramas and delicious no-longer-produced candy, but you desperately want to because your adult life is boring, but if you try to, it will have terrible consequences, because childhood is delicate and precious. This story is good on a technical level but that theme just doesn’t do anything for me at all, so I didn’t love it.

Occam's Scalpel, Theodore Sturgeon

The mysterious head of a shadowy criminal organization is about to die, and his personal doctor is worried about the right-hand man who is primed to replace him, so he goes to his brother for help… but what kind of help? There are a couple things in this story that are awfully convenient, and it does rely on a super-genius being tricked in a way that an actual super-genius would almost certainly see right through, but I liked the concept enough to overlook those things.

Favorites: Gleepsite, All Pieces of a River Shore, Transit of Earth, Gehenna

[jedifighterpilot2727]

Prompt: Imagine Lena knowing that Kara is Supergirl but not really saying anything about it. Instead she just talks to Kara and Supergirl as the same person (i.e. mentioning things to Kara that she’s talked to Supergirl about) and Kara’s too distracted by her huge crush on Lena to notice. Then one day Kara suddenly realises that Lena has known the whole time and she’s basically confirmed it accidentally and she sort of panics a little. Lena calms her down and assures her that it’s ok.

My Baby’s Got a Secret

Lena Luthor was no idiot.

She had graduated Summa Cum Laude from Harvard with a double major in business and computer engineering.

She was the CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation before the age of 35.

She had literally hundreds of patents filed under name.

She had read a ridiculous amount of books, fiction and non-fiction, hell, she had even read the dictionary once.

It was not hard to figure out that Kara Danvers was Supergirl.

Glasses and a ponytail did not a good disguise make. Especially when you were trying to hide from the girl who had actually designed facial recognition software.

She didn’t say anything though.

It was cute, watching Kara try and cover her tracks, try and pretend to be two different people. The excuses she came up with when cutting out of dates early, or leaving Lena’s bed in the middle of the night were overused at best and completely unbelievable at worst.

Really, how many times could her sister get locked out of her apartment? Lena had spent enough time around Alex Danvers to know that she was of above average intelligence, and definitely not the type to lose her keys three times in one week. Besides, she highly suspected that Alex would take it as a challenge to break into her own apartment rather than call her sister for help.

But Lena never complained, never said a word.

When Kara would leave in a rush with a mumble excuse, she would simply turn on the news and bite her lip with worry as she watched Supergirl fly into a burning building or stop a robbery, or worse - fight some alien threat high above National City.

She wondered how long they would be able to keep it up.

Who would slip first.

If she would go to undress Kara and find the Super suit underneath.

Or if Supergirl would accidentally kiss her before flying off her balcony.

It was like a low stakes game of poker face that kept her heart racing every time they parted ways. Whenever the inevitable happened, she thought perhaps they would laugh about it, Kara’s eyes scrunching up at the corners as she giggled about failing at keeping her secret identity a secret.

Nevertheless, she always thought it would be a breathless moment of revelation and confession.

Never in a million years did she think it would happen like this.

She was sitting at her desk when Supergirl touched down on her balcony, cape billowing behind her in the night air.

“Supergirl, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Just thought I’d check in on you, see if you were feeling any better.“

Lena froze on her way to the bar.

She had sniffled twice this morning over breakfast and Kara had freaked out, mumbling about colds and how the human race was so fragile. She half expected her day to be filled with texts and calls from her overprotective girlfriend, but alas, a rogue alien had attacked the city and instead her day was filled with watching news reports of Supergirl.

She could play this one of two ways - confront Kara about the slip, or let it slide to see how it played out.

“Much better, I told you it was just allergies.”

“Well Ms. Luthor, one can never be too sure.”

She bit back a laugh at the ‘Ms. Luthor’ the idea of any formality between them - particularly after where Kara’s mouth had been last night.

“I appreciate your concern. Especially after how busy you’ve been today.“

She reached for her favorite bottle of vodka, only to find it was empty.

“I’d offer you a drink, but it seems I’m all out.”

“It’s fine, probably best that I don’t drink and fly anyway.” Kara smirked, and Lena was two seconds away from leaning forward and brushing the stray curl out the hero’s eyes when the sound of a siren filtered through the open balcony door.

“I suppose you’re needed.“

“A hero’s work is never done.” Kara said ruefully. “Have a good night Ms. Luthor.”

And then she was gone, a blue and red streak across the sky as Lena sat back at her desk to consider this new development.

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

There was a bottle of her favorite vodka sitting on the kitchen counter when she went to fix breakfast the next morning.

“What’s this?“

“Oh, it’s for your office, I picked it up on my way home last night.” Kara rounded the corner, glasses fogged as she towel dried her hair. “Just a heads up, I’m pretty sure Snapper wants me to get the story on L-Corp’s newest stock offering today. You want me to bring food by your office for lunch or do you wanna eat out?”

Lena’s eyes traced down Kara’s still naked form.

“Uhhh, out. I’ll make reservations at that fancy burger place you like.“

“Sounds great!”

“You know, I could always go in a little late today … “ She stepped forward to trail a lazy hand up Kara’s abs and her girlfriend smiled devilishly.

“I could always tell Snapper I got caught chasing down a story …“

Just as their lips were about to meet, the tv squawked from the living room.

“This just in, the foundry plant on the westside of the industrial district has went up in flames this morning, reports suggest -”

Kara’s face fell.

“On second thought, he might not like it if I’m late again; I better go.“

“Up, up, and away?”

“Yep, I mean my office is on the top floor!” Her nose scrunched in that adorable way that Lena loved and then she was gone, returning in entirely too short a time to have completely dressed, done her hair AND put on makeup.

“I’ll see you for lunch!” Kara promised and with a quick peck on the lips she was out the door.

Lena didn’t even have to turn around to know that Supergirl was speeding past her window.

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

When Kara showed up for the interview at the restaurant, she still smelled slightly like smoke.

“Hey, thanks for ordering for me!” she said grinning as she saw the two gigantic burgers and the plate full of fries Lena had ordered for her.

“I figured all the fire fighting might whet your appetite.” Lena said carefully, taking a long draw from her glass of merlot.

Kara nodded furiously, stuffing french fries in her face at a rate that would be unbecoming for anyone else.

“And Snapper was a total … jerk face. I can’t wait until Ms Grant comes back and puts him in his place.“

“I could always call and take him down a few notches if you like.”

Kara smiles at her, and she thinks this might be the closest anyone’s ever gotten to the sun without being incinerated.

“I can handle him, maybe this article will get him off my back.“

“Well I will gladly answer all the questions you throw at me. I can even arrange a private tour if that helps.”

“A private tour of what?”

“My bedroom."She says simply, and winks in a way that makes Kara drop her burger back to her plate, coughing.

“I’ll have to take you up on that. Off the record, of course.”

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

They continue in much the same way for the next few weeks, Kara and Supergirl blending together until she almost forgets she’s not supposed to know they’re the same person.

It all comes to a head at game night, Lena’s feet in Kara’s lap - nimble fingers working their magic and massaging away the tightness left from hours spent in high heels.

“There you go, 450 measly bucks for landing on your stupid Baltic Avenue hotel.” Winn passed a few bills to Kara from his ever growing stack.

“I’m telling you,” Kara grinned gleefully; “This is how the game is won, small victories. Eventually I will crush you like I crushed that missile that was headed for city hall this morning!”

The room stopped.

Everyone turned to Kara who was holding out the dice for Lena to blow on like their playing craps in Vegas and not just Monopoly in Kara’s living room.

“Ahem.” Alex cleared her throat, looking pointedly at Kara.

“What? I totally crushed it. Literally.“

“Kara.” Alex looked at Lena now. “She means she totally crushed the story Snapper sent her to write about SUPERGIRL taking care of the missile.”

It’s then Kara froze, eyes wide with fear and unease.

“I yes, I - that’s - Snapper and the story-“

“Kara.” Lena interrupts softly, sitting up and resting a hand on her girlfriend’s shoulder. “This morning you told me you were going to take a flight around the neighborhood to check for trouble. And last night Supergirl showed up on my balcony bitching about how Snapper Carr is ‘a rude little man’.”

“She did? I - well-“

“Kara.” she repeats again. “It’s okay.”

Kara’s shoulders sag in what she hopes is relief.

“You’re not mad?“

“I’ve known you were Supergirl from the very beginning. I just wanted to be comfortable enough to tell me yourself. And then you started letting things slip - Supergirl knew things only you should have known, you suddenly had a penchant for saving the world. I just assumed your subconscious was okay with me knowing and you just hadn’t quite figured it out yet.

“Oh.”

Kara’s eyes locked on hers and the rest of the room melted away.

“I should have said something after you slipped the first time but I didn’t really know what to say.”

“I should have told you I was Supergirl from the very beginning.“

She leaned forward, adjusting Kara’s crooked glasses.

“You had your reasons, there are a lot of people at risk if the wrong people find out your identity.”

“Yeah, but you’re one of those people at risk now, you should have known what you were getting into.“

“My girlfriend is pretty awesome, I’m sure she could protect me.”

A blushing Kara giggled and Lena continued.

“Not that I’m a distressing damsel or anything.”

“No, no definitely not.” Kara’s bright blue eyes were inches away now. “You can certainly take care of yourself.“

“Guys.” Alex’s voice was deadpan but it still startled them apart. “We’re all still here. So before this gets too-“ She waved a hand, “mushy; I just want to stop you.”

“Yeah can we get back to the part where I’m kicking everybody’s ass at Monopoly?” Winn whined.

And just like that, her world settles back to normal.

A Luthor and a Super.

Who would have thought.

Let me know what you think!

[automaticthree-sixty]

The Movie

There’s been a lot of hate for the Maximum Ride movie lately, but as a lifelong fan, I realized I should watch it anyways and give my own two cents. Here’s the thing: it was flawed, but for different reasons than I see people mentioning. Buckle up, it’s long, unedited, and highly opinionated.

We’ll start with the casting of the movie. “Max isn’t supposed to be blonde! Ella is too old! Fang is supposed to be mysterious!” Welp, I agree to an extent, but I remember specifically looking up these things when I was a young fanfic author trying to figure out this stuff. Max’s hair color changes depending on what book you’re reading; to an extent you can’t fault them for letting Allie Marie Evans keep her hair as it is. If you’re upset because having blonde hair means that Max can’t be a strong female lead, as blonde hair automatically makes her a stupid girly-girl, then you’ve got to reexamine your ideals. Ella’s age was never mentioned in the books. I think it was implied that Ella was younger than Max, but Max is mature for her age, so it skews the scale a little.

As for the ages of the actors and actresses in the movie, it was decided early in the process they all would be aged up. For one, Max says that all of them can pass as a few years older than they actually are in the books. Second, do you really want a five-year-old playing Angel? Really? Third, there are, like, child labor laws they had to work with. Aging up the characters gave them some more freedom (unless you wanted to wait another two years for the film).

I can agree that there wasn’t a lot of romantic chemistry between the Max and Fang characters (and that maybe the script didn’t call for it in the first movie? There didn’t seem to be much dialogue pushing the relationship, which was true to the book!), but I will argue that everybody seemed to work together as a Flock pretty well. Apparently the cast still hangs out sometimes. Check out their instagrams. It’s super cute.

As for costuming, ugh. I can see what they were going for, giving them sleeveless shirts for wing mobility and each of them sort of have their own style, but giving them all designer-ripped-jeans and that cool “hipster-punk” look is, um, off. To be fair, the first books were written in the 2000s, so maybe the new design was supposed to appeal to today’s perceived audience. I don’t know. And I supposed if the new wing anatomy lets them completely disappear (which I’m going to respect because it would be so hard to give them wings 24/7 on their money and time budget (and also those wings were kinda ugly and I didn’t want to see them more than I had to)) they wouldn’t need bulky clothes to hide them. And they were relatively safe in ‘The Nest’ (which I think is a cool name and I wish I could use it because ‘E-shaped House’ is a mouthful) so they wouldn’t need to worry as much about protecting their vital organs or anything, at least.

AND NOW FOR THE PLOT.

Let’s be honest, the first book had a tendency to drag things out, getting distracted with side plots that didn’t lead anywhere and adding fight scenes for the heck of it. And we love those adrenaline-rush-inducing bits, but it wouldn’t be realistic to try to fit all of that into an hour-and-a-half movie on a low budget. It would seem rushed and disjointed. So, they cut corners with the plot to make it follow-able for people coming to it without having previously read the books.

I wish they had done more with what action/fighting scenes they had. Maybe choreographed more or actually taught the actors and actresses basic martial arts. The ability to survive and fight is a huge part of the winged-bird-kids’ personalities and backstory, and if they had done more showing where they fought together as a team it would really help fill the relationship gaps they left when they cut other parts of the story.

I think the decision to have just Max and Fang leave together was because they didn’t want to have to create six pairs of wings. To be fair, that would probably be a mess. (And maybe they should have left out a lot more of the awkward CGI flying in favor of actual plot). But to make the crucial plot detail change work (convince the fans it was good) they needed to develop the idea more. The argument should have been more difficult, first of all. You just showed me that Nudge was trying to escape and Iggy was in charge of keeping the pantry stocked as a vital part of the Flock’s survival; Max needs a better excuse to leave them behind, and they should have fought harder. (I understand avoiding the “Yes, Iggy, it’s because you’re blind,” part of that argument to avoid offending any viewers, but without it the argument falls flat).

So the Flock separates. They show Iggy, Gazzy, and Nudge interacting in ‘The Nest,’ proving to me they are siblings who have lived in this house for years, right? Nah, they skip straight to Ari stalking them and beating them up. The writers sort of tried some dialogue between Max and Fang, but their book interactions don’t translate well to screen (they speak with their eyes and through actions. Fang’s a man of few words, especially in the beginning).

The flashbacks. Apparently some people hate them? I actually smiled with that first scene. Don’t tell me, reading the books for the first time (and before discovering fanfiction), that you didn’t beg some invisible JP deity for some scenes of the Flock in the School pre-escape. And especially for the commonly-alluded-to-but-oddly-elusive escape.

And I may have gasped when little Ari ran out the doors after Jeb.

I think they did a pretty decent job of the Ella/Dr. Martinez story. In my opinion they nailed Dr. M.

The way the Erasers finally caught the rest of the Flock was kind of lame. It’s supposed to the one of the high points of the story. I’m supposed to be sitting on the edge of my seat, biting my nails. And we get two minutes of writhing on the ground in pain. (The idea of a “bird-whistle” is actually cool, but I wish it wasn’t relied on so heavily). This just goes back to getting somebody to choreograph some fighting. It would have been awesome.

To be honest, from there on I didn’t pay as much attention. I got bored. I can say the Big Escape was almost anti-climatic. Sure, I didn’t think they were actually going to CGI a hundred birds to dive-bomb dozens of Erasers and whitecoats, but I was hoping they would cook up something more clever than Generic Escape #402. There was not sense of danger. There weren’t any stakes. Because the Flocks’ lives weren’t threatened, and there didn’t seem to be that many people chasing them, the action fell flat and felt superfluous. (AND THERE SHOULD BE WARNINGS FOR ANYBODY WITH EPILEPSY).

EVERYTHING ELSE

Okay, I’ll start out with saying I am, in no ways, a film expert. I can’t tell you whether the directing was good or bad, whether the lighting was optimal, or whether the cameras used were a good choice (is that a thing people criticize?).

I can tell you the editing was, at times, poor. Things that kill momentum: awkward black screens. Drawn-out scenes of Fang and Max flying over wilderness. Long POV shots of whitecoats peering at their patient. And, despite effort, Max running down that plastic-sheet-lined hallway while lights flash and the music incessantly plods on for four years.

The music didn’t help the story, either. I’m a bit of a nerd, so I listen for the soundtrack while a movie is playing. The music sets the mood. And the music was disappointing. There was nothing wrong with the tune necessarily, but it sounded canned. Like somebody used the ‘violin’ feature on an electric keyboard to make it. And it was used in places that would have benefitted from quiet (like when Max woke up in Ella’s room) and didn’t play (that I can remember) under long dialogue scenes that could have used a little emotional stimulation. And at times it seemed the wrong track was used. Why did they decide to make Jeb and Max’s conversation as emotionally intense as the escape?

And the script. Ah, the script. The thing that drives the characters, sets the tone, tells the story. It wasn’t all bad, but there was so much unnecessary exposition. Halfway through the movie, Fang reminds Max that they were raised with wings and had to fight to survive. Duh. Rule of thumb: if the dialogue has exposition, you don’t need narration. This movie gave us both.

And the characterization, to every fan’s chagrin, was wrong. While I appreciate that almost every character got to speak, (not Angel though?), what they said did not align with their canon character. Sure, Max is an overly-protective mother, but she wouldn’t seriously threaten anybody in her family. A sarcastic ‘turn your tail feathers ‘round or I’ll kick you into next week,’ but not ‘try to leave again and I’ll break every bone in your body.’ They never balanced out the kick-butt side of her with the loving side of her. All around, she was too serious.

Fang talked too much. It’s interesting they decided to explore the “Max and Fang have differing ideals” route before establishing “they are bffs.”

I like that they showed Iggy as an integral part of the Flock’s functioning (being in charge of the food), but his personality disappeared. And his interactions with Gazzy were sadly minimal.

Maybe because they aged up Nudge they tried to make her seem more like a stereotypical teenager? Something was lost in translation. Yes, Nudge is stubborn and most likely of the Flock to try to lead a ‘normal’ life, but she also has a personality. She didn’t talk enough. Quick fix: take Fang’s lines, give ‘em to Nudge. Her character could get away with too much exposition before a story. She has such an attitude in the movie, but the huffy teen kind instead of the fun sassy kind. Nudge is supposed to look up to Max, not despise her.

Gazzy was pretty cool. He made bombs, at least. Unfortunately, his character was never really developed much past that in the books so it’s at least an accurate portrayal.

Angel jumped the gun. She’s not supposed to be creepy and mysterious until a few more books have passed.

Tl;dr: The movie based on the somewhat-vague but well-loved books took itself too seriously, focusing on action scenes it couldn’t live up to.

[thisdaynews]

The spectacular collapse of Kamala Harris

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/the-spectacular-collapse-of-kamala-harris/

The spectacular collapse of Kamala Harris

Even when the hype around Harris was at its apex, her advisers and confidants wondered if the freshman senator was ready for a presidential run. In each of her past campaigns — first for district attorney of San Francisco, then California attorney general and the Senate in 2016 — Harris improved immensely, rising to the moment and giving her best performances when her back was against the wall.

This time, the moment — and the stage — proved too large. Kamala the campaigner couldn’t live up to Kamala the idea. And her campaign let her down.

Running for president is hard stuff, even for someone with formidable political skills like Harris. Ascending to the top of the field typically takes a galvanizing theme, which she didn’t have. Harris early on didn’t know where she wanted to go. She played from a thin leaflet of material that she ground to dust by year’s end. When she improvised, she tripped, most glaringly over single-payer healthcare.

Eventually, her most memorable moment — her exchange with Biden in the June debate over busing for school desegregation — turned into a mess when Harris flubbed the follow-through. She offered a muddled, shifting answer that allowed Biden’s campaign to paint her as opportunistic and a hypocrite.

Her polling sugar high subsided. She slid to the level of Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard and never recovered.

Aides groused about how Harris never built a base. College-educated white liberals — a group that strongly backed her in past campaigns — split between Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg. Biden, meantime, retained the loyal backing of African American voters, a development that may emerge as the most important story of the Democratic primary.

What’s impossible to assess is how Harris would have fared with a functional team around her. She built a precarious structure of advisers at the top — a kind of team of rivals whose quiet snarks about each other grew louder in recent months — and she allowed senior aides to throw out ideas without designating them a defined area of responsibility.

Harris’ advisers Ace Smith and Sean Clegg launched her with a focus on the back half of the primary calendar — namely South Carolina and California — then pivoted hard back to Iowa only when it was too late.

By the summer, Harris’ team, which by then included Jim Margolis, prodded her toward unity-focused themes that centered on kitchen table economic issues. She never really bought in. And that came through as she resisted really selling it.

On one side was Harris’ sister, campaign chair Maya Harris, who recommended many hires and fed Kamala’s insecurities about the liability of being a prosecutor in today’s Democratic Party —and given her own mixed record. On the other was campaign manager Juan Rodriguez and his partners at the San Francisco-based political firm SCRB, including Smith and Clegg.

Even mundane tasks like agreeing on the candidate’s schedule proved maddening for aides at her Baltimore headquarters. Rodriguez and others failed to anticipate the dramatic drop-off in fundraising, bringing on new staff just a few weeks before laying off dozens in early states and headquarters. Staffers said they had been warning for months of the dire financial situation and worried that Harris herself was unaware.

After the layoffs, many of the aides at the middle to lower levels of the campaign said they weren’t so much siding with one camp or the other as they were throwing up their hands in exasperation at everyone. They weren’t being communicated a plan. They didn’t know if one existed.

It got worse when they realized nothing was going to improve.

Harris huddled with family over Thanksgiving in Iowa and pored over her campaign’s meager and diminishing finances.

In her Tuesday note to supporters, she wrote about the increasing difficulty of raising money in recent months, contending that she couldn’t in good faith tell her supporters and volunteers that she had a path forward if she herself didn’t believe it.

“Kamala has never been in this race just to be a candidate or to be introduced as one,” said a senior Harris aide. “She was here to win. And she’s also said from the start: ‘I’m not going to bullshit people.’ That’s true to form and it’s what people love about her.”

Still, the caution and fence-straddling that Harris displayed earlier in her career, as the lead local and then state prosecutor, perhaps provided clues to her problems as a presidential candidate. In California, Harris stayed out of several fights over criminal justice issues. She avoided taking positions she feared would upset law enforcement or make her look soft on crime — but which have become standard for Democrats in the current environment.

There was cruelty in the timing of Harris’ departure from the race.

She hadn’t been on the air in Iowa since September. She had taken to pleading with supporters for money to put her viral online ad on air.

But on Monday, Harris outside allies Brian Brokaw, a campaign manager from previous runs, and Dan Newman, anold partner of Smith and Clegg, purchased hundreds of thousands of dollars in airtime in Iowa backed by a pro-Harris super PAC. They’d done polling and spent the Thanksgiving holiday cutting the ad. They canceled the buy on Tuesday.

Also, in recent weeks, even as the staff morass consumed her campaign, Harris’ aides and early-state surrogates were talking a lot about how she’d corrected for the tics that ailed her. She gave a dazzling speech at the big Democratic dinner in Iowa that reminded some of her promise.

Harris reclaimed ownership over her career working as a prosecutor, punching at opponents for questioning her motives, asking what some of them have ever done for criminal justice reform and noting that some backed the 1994 crime bill.

She found solid footing on health care, while poking holes in Biden and Buttigieg’s plans.

But behind the scenes, advisers were talking about ways to protect her long-term reputation and extricating her from the mess. Harris is 55 years old. She’s up for reelection in two years in California, and the most important thing her campaign team did in 2016 was clear the field of any serious competition.

“They didn’t want to push her into debt,” said a longtime former aide, pausing. “But then, she might have just had no fight left.”

Now, Harris has become among the most coveted endorsements in the race.

Sen. Doug Jones of Alabama, a Biden supporter, said he wasn’t surprised by Harris’ decision to pull the plug. “I think she’s got an incredible future, but this was just not going to be the year and I think doing something now rather than continuing was smart,” Jones said.

Perhaps more importantly, Harris is still very much in the veep stakes, Jones said. (Biden was asked about this Tuesday, but declined to answer.)

“I don’t think there’s any question about that,” Jones added. “In fact, it probably preserved that more than continuing to plow forward under the circumstances.”

Burgess Everett contributed to this report.

Read More

[anonymuseing]

Post-Secondary, the new Santa!

"This generation is weak! Mental health? Suicide attempts? Bah! You're all just a bunch of coddled weaklings that whine and try to die 'cuz life got a little hard! If I slit my wrists every time I had to worry about money you wouldn't have been born!"

Back in your day the government paid you to go to post-secondary. That $1000 you got paid for your tuition, textbooks, and you had a couple-hundred left over for rent. Your paycheck at McD's was one digit instead of two like ours...but that paycheck paid the rest of your rent and you had "spending money" left over. As long as you didn't pick up some addictive vice or get super expensive and elaborate with your outings or trying to find a potential mate you were set for life. You didn't have to worry about not being able to pay for necessities. Not to mention the fact that you got hired at McD's and later a company related to your degree simply by walking in the door, asking to speak to the manager, and telling them "hire me" (or so you tell me).

Your idea of worrying about money was measured in tens of dollars. Our debts and money worries are measured in tens of thousands of dollars. Your idea of worrying about money was being short $30 on rent or needing four figures to afford a car. A four figure car is a myth nowadays. A quick odd-job and a willing friend could solve your money trouble in about 2 minutes.  

Our generation was constantly told that academia was the gold-standard. We were told, by you and your generation, that a post-secondary degree in academics rather than a trade would guarantee us a 9-5 office job. That story changed in the middle of our degree. It's like the tooth-fairy or Santa Clause--you guys made something up, told us until we believed it...and then when we got "old enough" you revealed it was all a lie. Our entire lives have been based on lies.

You got mad at me for wanting to do something other than post-secondary as a child. You forced me to submit applications, claiming it was for my good. When I told you I wanted to take at least a year after high school to gain work experience and figure out what I wanted to do with my life you mocked me. You were ashamed to tell other parents that your kid wasn't pursuing further education. When I was super stressed about 3rd year you changed your tune, started to blame me for "choosing" 4+ years of spending money rather than making it. You started harping on how my degree was useless and not marketable. Why did your generation make it a degree if it was useless? Why didn't you stop me from pursuing this degree from the beginning if you felt this way? You had no problem stopping me from working at McD's after high school. You don't get to sneer and tell me that if I had gone to work at McD's 3 years ago I'd have money in my bank account AND I'd probably be in a senior position at McD's. I know. I wish I had endured your sneering 3 years ago and chosen to work McD's. If I had done that 3 years ago maybe I'd have enough money by now to move out and get away from the toxic sneering and nit-picking you do about my life every night.

If "coddled" means I believed in lies and a fairy-tale reality then yes, I was coddled--by you. You're the one that tried to get me to believe in Santa and the tooth-fairy. You're the one that constantly harped on me about the necessity of education.

You don't get to tell me that I'm "wasting" my vote and money on mental health supports and initiatives. Maybe if you hadn't lied to me about life I wouldn't need a couple of trained professionals to tell me what is a good investment, what I should be doing with my day, and how to ignore your criticism just enough so that I'm not being rude and so that I don't lash out at you for your 2-faced criticism. Maybe if you hadn't lied to me I'd have some form of wealth and thus a stake in the political party you want me to vote for. You're voting for a party that's campaigning platform is all about protecting your house, your car, your wallet--your assets. I don't have any of these assets! I pawned my empty wallet last month to afford the gas money I needed to go to school/work.

You're not getting grandchildren from me. Want to know why? I can barely afford to feed myself. I don't give a damn if spoiling a grandchild is on your bucket-list--you're not the one paying for that grandchild. On the off-chance I have a child, I'm not going to let you lie to them like you did to me. I'm going to teach my kid to thank the people that chose to use their hard-earned money and time to get them a gift--to hell with Santa. I'm going to teach my kids that the tooth-fairy isn't real and they don't get money for losing a tooth. I'm going to march my kid up to some minimum-wage place when they're 16 (or whatever the legal working age is) and I'm going to help them write a resume, meet the managers, etc. I'm going to allow them to keep their own bank account with their wages and I'm going to caution them about saving their money. That money is for them to pay for their own cell phone. That money is for them to pay for their own driver's test. Yes, Education is important but I'm not going to force my kid to believe education is the only way to a better job. Work experience is valuable across the board--a post-secondary degree is not.

At the very least working retail will teach my kid to respect retail workers and be kind to them. The guy flipping our burgers doesn't control time so I'm going to teach my kid to smile and be patient rather than heckle the guy. The lady ringing us up doesn't have the authority to hand out discounts and she certainly doesn't set the prices so I'm going to teach my kid to smile and make polite conversation with the lady and watch the screen to see if the prices have been mislabeled and gauge whether or not we can afford to spend that much. I'm going to teach my kid that the person checking bags at the door is not some meanie that thinks we're all shoplifters; I'm going to teach my kid to follow the rules and not make a fuss. It's not her job to untangle a tumble-weed of tried-on clothing--her job is to count the items and make sure that everything that went in comes out. She's not allowed to leave her post at the front of the fitting rooms; but she's punished if the manager goes in there and finds our items left in the rooms. She's punished if I allow my kid to bring a non-clothing item into the fitting room so I'm going to teach my kid to be nice and not throw a tantrum.