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longitudinalwaveme · 1 year ago

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Best and Worst Comic Appearances of the Rogues

Note: Keep in mind that some of these choices are very subjective and based on personal taste. In particular, it's difficult for me to know if the storylines I list as the "best" for a given character are actually the best, or if they're just the ones that appeal the most to me personally. I feel like the "worst" choices are more objective (or at least more likely to be shared by a majority of the fanbase).

I'm also only judging stories that I've actually read for this list.

Captain Cold

Best Pre-Crisis Appearance: While I like his debut story from Showcase #8 a lot, I think my favorite Pre-Crisis Len story is Flash vol. 1 #150, "Captain Cold's Polar Perils". Ayesha, Len's stalkee-girlfriend du jour, is a fun character, and Len's powers are at peak Silver Age insanity, which is always fun. It's really the perfect encapsulation of what Pre-Crisis Captain Cold is like.

Best Post-Crisis Appearance: Flash vol. 2 #182. This is the famous Rogue Profile issue for Len, and it is legitimately really, really good (even if its treatment of Lisa is frustrating at times). It's a very solid examination of the character and the backstory provides a lot of depth that Len really needed. Basically, if you want to understand modern Captain Cold, this is one of the best issues you can read.

Worst Appearance: Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #10-13. Every character in F: TFMA is poorly written, and Len is no exception. From having a murder retconned into one of the periods where he was supposed to be reformed to letting a teenage speedster take over the Rogues for no good reason, this story just does not understand Cold.

I will also note here that I generally don't like Joshua Williamson's take on Len. I have trouble putting my finger on exactly why, but if I had to take a stab at explaining it, I think I would say that Williamson's Len is too ambitious and too hands-off. Having him take over first Central City's underworld, and then Central City, seems out-of-character for Len, who's usually smart enough to understand that escalating crimes to that level is a great way to attract a horde of superheroes, and having him sit back and organize crimes without going out into the field himself, which Williamson did more than once, likewise seems out-of-character for Cold. Johns' Len wasn't always the best leader in the world, but at least he was always in the field with the other Rogues. Williamson's Len seems a lot more willing to sit back and let other people do the work for him, and he comes across as a worse leader because of it. Effectively, then, I think my problem with Williamson's Len is that his Len seems younger, less experienced, less practical, and less likely to inspire loyalty than any previous version of the character (except the one that was being written around the time of F: TFMA.)

Captain Boomerang Sr.

Best Pre-Crisis Appearance: Flash vol. 1 #310-311, or Batman #322. The first story has Captain Boomerang getting double-crossed by Colonel Computron and sent back in time (on a giant time-traveling boomerang!), whereupon he has to team up with the Flash to fight pirates. It's delightful, and is made even more so by Digger's determination to save his ex-employer, W. W. Wiggins, from the vengeance of Colonel Computron. The second story features Captain Boomerang fighting---and nearly defeating!---Batman, who narrowly escapes death on Digger's "doomerang". Batman really needs to take Flash's villains more seriously....

Best Post-Crisis Appearance: Suicide Squad #44. This gives us Digger's modern backstory, establishes that he's actually W. W. Wiggins' biological son, and generally serves as an interesting character study of a generally unpleasant character. Flash vol. 3 #7 is a very similar retelling of the same basic backstory, this time by Geoff Johns, and would have been tied with Suicide Squad #44 if not for the gratuitous scene of Digger killing his assumed father (for my money, Geoff Johns is a bit too fond of gruesome deaths).

Worst Appearance: I don't read a lot of Suicide Squad, so I'm not familiar with the terrible Digger appearances that may have happened in the various Suicide Squad runs. Because of that, my nomination for the worst Digger story is Identity Crisis #2-5, the story that killed him (and poor Jack Drake and Sue Dibney) for the sake of earning grimdark edgelord points. What makes it even worse is that the story's scenes of him interacting with Owen are actually pretty good, so we got teased with a really interesting plot for him right before he was pointlessly axed.

Heat Wave

Best Pre-Crisis Story: Flash vol. 1 #266-267, or Flash vol. 1 #312. The first story gave us the first version of Heat Wave's backstory (specifically, it established his cryophobia due to having been locked in a meat freezer as a child), presented him as the main villain of a story basically for the first time (all his previous appearances had him teamed up with another villain), and was full of delightful Pre-Crisis pseudo-science, like heat-seeking fire. It also featured a panel of Mick totally freaking out at the sight of ice cubes. The second story was Mick's first reform, and it was a solid, if slightly goofy, tale of Mick proving that his parole officer was framing him for crimes. It also led to him and Barry becoming friends (and temporary roommates) a few issues later!

Best Post-Crisis Story: Flash vol. 2 #218. It's one of the few Post-Crisis issues that uses him as a lead character, and it establishes his now-iconic tragic backstory and pyromania. Even though it's a bit excessively grimdark (did he really need to burn down the circus where he worked as a fire-eater?), it's a solid story nevertheless.

Worst Story: The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #11-13, or the "Three of a Kind" crossover (Green Arrow #96, Green Lantern #130, and Flash #135). Everyone was terribly written in F: TFMA, and Mick was no exception, as he was portrayed as an idiot and then killed Bart Allen.

In the crossover, Mick teamed up with two random villains that he had no prior connection to, for some reason decided to try to revive Dr. Polaris with them via hijacking a cruise ship, and ended up killing a bunch of people. It really felt like he just got shoved into the story because they needed a Flash villain in it, and they didn't think about which one would actually make sense in the plot. It makes even less sense when you remember that Mick would go back to being reformed directly after this.

Also, the New 52 introduced us to the Hothead McAngryman version of Mick, and it unfortunately took over five years for him to finally get back to normal. Having the character with fire powers be hot-headed and aggressive is probably the most boring choice they could have made, and it hurt Mick's overall character for quite some time.

Mirror Master I (Sam Scudder)

Best Appearance: Flash vol. 1 #126, or Flash vol. 1 #146, or Flash vol. 1 #306, or Batman #388 and Detective Comics v1. #555.

The first two stories are delightful Silver Age nonsense. Flash #126 features Sam traveling to a mirror world where the inhabitants essentially make him their king, but he quickly gets fed up with the fact that he's given whatever he wants means that he has no opportunities for dramatic theft, and he summons the Flash to help him escape from his boring life as king. Flash #146 is the story where the Mirror Master switches his legs with the Flash's legs. It also features Barry and Sam attending the same self-help class without knowing it!

Flash #306 has disco-dancing Sam, and, more importantly, it's one of the very few stories to try to give Sam an interesting motivation: specifically, he's fallen in love with a woman who's trapped in a mirror and is desperately trying to free her. The ending of the story is a sad one for Sam, but it's also surprisingly touching.

Finally, the Batman two-parter features Sam at his overconfident, flashy, hilarious best as he tries to prove that he's a better criminal than Captain Boomerang (incidentally, this is also a great Captain Boomerang story). It features such highlights as Sam freaking out at the sight of Batman, Sam getting freaked out by Gotham muggers, and Sam deciding to rob a bank because it's across the street and he doesn't have any better ideas. The first part of the story also features some of the best facial expressions he's ever made.

Worst Appearance: For a single story, it's either Flash Rebirth #2 or that issue from Joshua Williamson's run where Sam wore his socks and underwear in the hot tub. Weirdly, Flash Rebirth #2 featured Sam only briefly, and in a flashback, but it retconned a murder into his early past in a way that would darken all of his fun Silver and Bronze Age adventures. It's one thing to have the Rogues become more dangerous in the present, and another to retroactively make all of their early, light-hearted stories grim like this. (Geoff Johns was responsible for this retcon, and far too many others like it. I really wish he didn't like grimdark retcons so much.)

The Williamson issue had Sam who was Evan-in-all-but-name-and-accent. At that point, he might as well have not been Sam at all! That being said, this was basically just the culmination of all the problems Sam has had since he was brought back to life in the New 52. I don't know how you make a character as fun and dynamic as Pre-Crisis Sam was boring and confusing, but somehow they managed!

Weather Wizard

Best Pre-Crisis Appearance: Either Detective Comics vol. 1 #353, or Adventure Comics #466.

Watching Mark fight---and actually briefly outsmart!---Batman in Detective Comics #353 is a lot of fun, and this story is full of delightful Silver Age zaniness, including, but not limited to, Mark saving Gotham City from a drought by filling all of its reservoirs just so that he can make a big announcement in the sky about how he did it in thanks for getting to steal three priceless valuables, and in turn use that message to determine what in town is worth stealing.

Adventure Comics #466 is an entirely different brand of delightful insanity, and features the Weather Wizard briefly turning good, stopping a horde of locusts from destroying crops, and saving Blue Valley from a flood because sun spots were messing with his wand, which he somehow managed to telepathically link to his brain. No, really. Sunspots briefly make the Weather Wizard turn good. Reading this is worth it just to see Barry's reaction to friendly happy Weather Wizard.

Best Post-Crisis Appearance: Rogues Revenge #1-3. By far the most in-depth look we've ever gotten at Mark's past, his relationship with his brother Clyde, and his boatload of issues. Despite being one of the more frequently-used Rogues in the Geoff Johns era, it was rare for Mark to get a lot of attention outside of his role as a big threat, and this miniseries was a nice change of pace for him. I just wish it hadn't ended with the pointless death of his baby son, Josh, because seeing Mark develop a relationship with Josh would have been far more interesting (and less grimdark).

Worst Appearance: The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #11-13. The story where the writers replaced the Rogues' brains with rocks, and hoped we wouldn't notice. We did.

Trickster I (James Jesse)

Best Pre-Crisis Appearance: Flash vol. 1 #142. In which the Trickster steals a little kid's toy detective set, and proceeds to screw around with the entire city, and the Flash, just because he can. It's a great display of the Trickster's inventiveness and creativity, and the story goes out of its way to state that Trickster is more interested in attention and having fun than in getting money.

Best Post-Crisis Appearance: Catwoman vol. 2 #69-71, or New Year's Evil : The Rogues.

The Catwoman story features some of the funniest James moments ever, and it's so much fun watching the two con artists try to outsmart and outplay one another. Catwoman and James have a great dynamic, and it's a shame they've never really teamed up again.

New Year's Evil: The Rogues features James at his most heroic, teaming up with the Pied Piper (and, thanks to some manipulation on his part, some of the other Rogues as well) to save his ex-girlfriend Mindy's son, Billy, from a group of mercenaries who are attempting to overthrow the government of Zhutan. The story also eventually reveals that Billy is James' son, which sadly never went anywhere since for some reason no one wanted to follow up on this awesome plot point.

Worst Appearance: Countdown! Not only does he forget all of his Post-Crisis character development, but he also acts really stupidly for no reason, is a humongous jerk to the Pied Piper (his close friend!) for no reason, and then is pointlessly killed for no reason.

It's also worth noting that his most recent big appearance, the one written by Joshua Williamson, was very frustrating to me. It's not as objectively bad as Countdown, or James' appearances in F: TFMA, but it takes James in an unpleasant, dark direction, and I didn't care for it at all.

Pied Piper

Best Pre-Crisis Appearance: Flash vol. 1 #307. This story is very important for the Pied Piper, because it not only gave him his full backstory but also gave him an actual name after over twenty years of him not having one! It's also just a fun read in general, full of delightful Pre-Crisis "science" and featuring some great character work for both Hartley and his parents, who are so desperate to preserve their family name that they have a reporter who uncovered the secret kidnapped so they can bribe her to keep quiet!

Best Post-Crisis Appearance: Flash vol. 2 #19, or Flash vol. 2 #32.

William Messner-Loebs' run on the Flash is underrated, and his work on Piper is a stand-out example of why more people should read it. Even though Hartley doesn't appear a lot in Flash #19 (his first ever Post-Crisis Flash appearance, by the way), but when he does show up, it pretty much single-handedly establishes what he's going to be like going forward; establishing him as an at least mostly reformed Rogue who cares about protecting the homeless and disadvantaged. It's just really sweet.

Flash vol. 2 #32 features Hartley teaming up with Wally to save his parents and his adorable little sister Geraldine from the henchmen of the Turtle and the Turtle Man. It's adorable seeing Hartley interact with his little sister, and it's also nice to see him finally make peace with his parents, even if they'll never be close. I really wish Geraldine had gotten to show up again, because I want to see more of Hartley's little sister. Also, this story features a line that I've always found hilarious for some inexplicable reason:

Thug (in response to Joan Garrick showing up at the Rathaways' mansion): An old woman? Seize her!

A close runner-up is Flash vol. 2 #190, which is a retelling of the origin story from Flash vol. 1 #307, but with more details and from Hartley's POV (the original tale had his parents telling the story).

Worst Appearance: F: TFMA and Countdown (since one led into the other, I kind of count them as one story). In which Hartley totally forgets that he reformed, is involved in the death of Bart Allen, loses about 100 IQ points, gets chased all around the DCU, gets insulted almost non-stop by the Trickster in spite of the fact that they're supposed to be friends, watches Trickster get shot in front of him, and almost goes crazy and dies.

The fact that he gets to blow up Apocalypse with Queen music is awesome, but not nearly enough to salvage this otherwise terrible storyline.

The Top

Best Pre-Crisis Appearance: Flash vol. 1 #297-303. Roscoe comes back from the dead, possesses Barry's father, spends what appears to be several months living with Barry and pretending to be Henry Allen (while slipping off to visit Lisa on the side), and then attempts to kill Barry Allen and steal his body for his own. It's weird and creepy and unique and perfect for Roscoe, and it features lots of top puns, as all good Roscoe stories should. Also, even though he's generally a huge jerk in this story, his relationship with Lisa is adorable, affectionate, and shockingly healthy.

The most hilarious thing about this story is the fact that at one point in it, Barry thinks to himself that his relationship with his father is the best it's ever been....in response to the interactions he's had with Roscoe posing as his dad. That's right, Barry apparently gets along better with Roscoe-pretending-to-be-his-dad than he does with his actual dad.

Best Post-Crisis Appearance: This is hard. Most of Roscoe's Post-Crisis appearances are pretty bad. The writers of Hawk and Dove didn't do an especially good job with him, Mark Waid's one story with him was a decent Pied Piper story but a terrible Roscoe story, and Geoff Johns seemed to hate the character, so that always affected his Roscoe stories. If I had to pick one, I guess I'd go with @gorogues' suggestion and pick Flash vol. 2 #215-216, since he's really intimidating and cool in those issues. Unfortunately, even those issues are not immune from the curse of bad post-crisis Roscoe stories, as they include the stupid Identity Crisis tie-in retcons that negated a whole bunch of the Rogues' character development.

I seriously don't know what the problem is with the Top's post-crisis stories. All of his Pre-Crisis stories were good, solid fun, and his best story shows that he can be really effective and creepy as a main villain. Why is it so hard for modern writers to write good Top stories? He isn't inherently any weirder or goofier than the Trickster.

Worst Story: Hawk and Dove vol. 3 annual #1, or Flash vol. 2 #120-121. The Hawk and Dove annual features some truly hideous art (I'm sure @gorogues has some scans to prove just how bad it is), and features a badly out-of-character Roscoe, who just seems out-of-place fighting Hawk and Dove.

Flash vol. 2 #120-121 takes the solid idea of Roscoe trying to become president by possessing the body of a senator, and then kind of ruins it by having 99% of the cast treat Roscoe as a total joke (the same Roscoe who once tried to blow up half the world with an atomic grenade!) and by having Roscoe act like an unparalleled jerkwad towards the Pied Piper for no real reason. Before his death, Roscoe generally got along pretty well with the other Rogues, so there was no reason for him to act so nastily here. Worse, I think this depiction went on to influence Geoff Johns' portrayal of Roscoe as the most unfriendly and cruel of the Rogues, which is kind of frustrating as he wasn't always like that.

Golden Glider

Best Pre-Crisis Appearance: Flash vol. 1 #257. Golden Glider is terrifying and awesome, and this story shows you exactly why. Within this issue alone, she discovers Barry's secret identity (making her the first Rogue to pull off this hat trick), almost kills both of Barry's parents and Iris (as revenge for Roscoe's death, which she blames on Barry), puts up a very solid fight against the Flash, doesn't even flinch when the Flash threatens to kill her as a bluff (saying that she has nothing left to live for now that Roscoe is dead), and, although Barry manages to save Iris and his parents, she escapes without being captured. Pre-Crisis Golden Glider is the best, and it's a shame she never gets written like this anymore.

Best Post-Crisis Appearance: Flash vol. 2 #19. Her interactions with Wally in this story are great fun, and I like seeing her be chummy with her older brother and her fellow Rogues at the party they're throwing. Her interactions with Connie Noleski (Wally's one-time girlfriend) are also pretty funny. This issue is also notable for being one of the last stories that doesn't portray Lisa as a total lunatic, as for some reason, her character got shifted into that direction not long after COIE.

Worst Appearance: As I thankfully haven't read Teen Titans vol. 6 #22, I'm nominating Flash vol. 2 Annual 5. It's a great story for Captain Boomerang, Weather Wizard, and Trickster, but it's a pretty bad story for Lisa, as it portrays her as being completely insane and serves as Exhibit A of how Mark Waid didn't know how to write the character. Golden Glider was scary because she was smart, calculating, and surprisingly composed (given how full of rage she was). Making her violently comic-book crazy undercuts how scary she was back in the Bronze Age.

You know, it really says something that Carey Bates, Lisa's creator, is probably still the best writer she's ever had. And he was writing in the late 70s and early 80s!

Mirror Master II (Evan McCulloch)

Best Story: Animal Man #8, 17, and 21, or Flash vol. 2 #133.

Nobody writes Evan McCulloch better than his creator, Grant Morrison, and these issues put that on full display.

The Animal Man stories introduce McCulloch, establish his weird personality, his freaky powerset, and his strict refusal to kill women or children, and are generally a delight to read. McCulloch has a very distinct voice throughout and is the funniest part of all three stories. Basically, everything you need to know about the character was established in these three issues.

Flash #133 is McCulloch's best appearance in an issue of Flash. He maintains his weirdness, his distinctive voice, and his insane powerset, and he takes the Flash and the reader on a trippy, colorful adventure around the world and through the looking glass. He maintains his generally cheerful and friendly attitude towards superheroes, and he is, once again, the funniest character in the story. Grant Morrison's Evan is a delight.

A close runner-up was Flash vol. 2 #212, the story that gave Evan his backstory (grimdark though it is, it somehow kind of works for him) and established what has become arguably his second-most famous characteristic (after his Scottish accent): his addiction to cocaine. It is a very good story, and I like that we get to learn more about Evan's history, but I will say that Geoff Johns' Evan isn't nearly as cheerful and weird as Morrison's, and I think that the story would have been even better with Morrison's cheerful nutty Evan than with Johns' creepy, sullen version.

Worst Appearance: Flash: TFMA. You know the drill by this point. Stupid Rogues. Pointless death of Bart. Bad writing all around.

Trickster II (Axel Walker)

Best Appearance: Flash vol. 2 #183. There are actually surprisingly few issues that focus on Axel as a lead character, but I've always enjoyed his introductory issue. It establishes some backstory for him and effectively tells you who he is (an annoying brat who might be in over his head) and what he can do (use a lot of crazy trick gadgets and work computers better than the older Rogues). I also like the bit towards the end of the issue where Mark is thoroughly unimpressed by Axel and asks if he's supposed to be their mascot. It always gets a giggle out of me.

I also thought the arc in Joshua Williamson's run where Axel briefly got super-strength was a pretty good story for Axel. It's one of the few times he's been played sympathetically and I thought that it worked really well.

Worst Appearance: Helmet of Fate: Detective Chimp. Okay, I haven't actually read this one, but I know enough about it to know that Axel murders 4 teenagers for no real reason, and that's enough for me to list it as his worst appearance.

Also, I can't really think of any Axel issue that I have read where Axel is portrayed really terribly. Writers usually seem to have a decent grasp on his character.

Captain Boomerang Jr.

Best Appearance: The best appearance of his that I've read is in Flash vol. 2 #220-225 (the Rogue War storyline). It's one of the few stories to feature him with the Rogues, and his grief over the death of his father and his relationship with Captain Cold are both very interesting. The story also finally tells us who his mother is (Meloni Thawne) and how she had a kid with Digger (well, sort of. We know time travel shenanigans were involved, at least). That being said, @gorogues says that his appearance in Manhunter v. 3 were really good, and I've heard that the story where he teamed up with Tim Drake was a good one as well.

Worst Appearance: Blackest Night: Flash #3. The story where he was turned into a idiotic child murderer and then was pointlessly killed off!

A close runner up was the Rebirth (I think) issue of Suicide Squad where he suddenly showed up and was inexplicably a snobby criminal mastermind who really hated Digger.

#flash rogues #flash comics #captain cold #captain boomerang jr #captain boomerang #george digger harknesss #golden glider #mirror master #sam scudder #evan mcculloch #heat wave #weather wizard #the trickster #james jesse #axel walker #the top

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whatfamidoinghere · 3 months ago

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The Umbrella Academy Season 4 Final Thoughts

I have opinions I need to share. Obviously spoilers ahead so… enter at your own risk?

Firstly, the positives

To give it some credit, this was a beautiful ending. It was technically the only way they could end it bc it was clear no matter what they did, the apocalypse would follow

I loved the reference to them saving the Eiffel Tower in an alternate timeline, like they did in the comics

…yeh, that’s it

Oh wait, I loved Klaus’ relationship with Claire. I love Klaus. I love everything about him. Thank you. End quote

Now for the negatives - this will be in no coherent order so bare with me

It’s embarrassingly clear that this needed its usual 10 episodes. I think I read somewhere that the director felt that 6 episodes were the perfect amount so maybe Netflix didn’t cut it, or perhaps he was trying to make the best of a shitty situation. But every scene felt like it was missing something.

Where was the family dance sesh???

Five and Lila. No. Just. No. They’re begrudging step-sibling and that is it. And even if they did want to go down this direction, even if I wasn’t so opposed to the ship, I just didn’t care. You can’t just time skip 7 years in 1 episode and simultaneously get me to feel invested in their relationship. They needed 2 episodes at least to make me feel the impact of those 7 years. I know for 5 that’s probably nothing compared to his time in the apocalypse, but to Lila, that would’ve driven her insane, and in her breaking point, that’s when she goes to 5, bit like how they did this. Not to mention, they come back looking the exact same. 5 is supposed to be, what, 27 at this point? I sure as hell don’t see it. I would’ve much preferred a scene where, once Lila releases they’re going back home, frantically tries to clean up and cut her hair to look exactly how she did before so that her family still recognise her. Ugh that entire point was just so shit

The baby shark gag was not funny

Why did Diego and Lila have to have twins as well. I get it, they’re tired parents who miss their glory days. But if you want us to feel really sorry for them, and later mourn them when Lila has to say goodbye, maybe let us see the family interact as… as well as family. I was so excited to see Diego in his real daddy era just for him to talk to his oldest daughter maybe once? ALSO why does Lila get that whole emotional goodbye to her children and Diego just, nothing? “Get the family out of here” umm hello, even if you didn’t like the in-laws, those are 3 of your fucking children that you’re saying goodbye to forever. I think I’m just upset that they reduced Lila to being a tired mother (to me anyway) and forget Diego was the father. I would’ve so rather seen him being the dad that he never had in his life.

Like putting the family on the Subway to nowhere. Literally. It’s not like she knew how the Subway worked so she was just sticking her family on the train and hoping for the best. They made it seem as though they had never found a world safe enough. Like truly the best place for them to stay was the fucking Greenhouse world, so how did she expect the family to survive, and with no powers mind you. And also didn’t thy know at that point that all ultimate timelines would be destroyed, except for the main timeline. Was she hoping they’d magicallly be taken to the main timeline orrr? I’m just so fucking confused man

The Subway. What a fucking missed opportunity oh my fucking god. Its only true function was to have all the Five’s meet up to tell Prime Five the super duper important convenient information that would bring upon The Finale. It was such a cool concept and we saw… none of it. Firstly, they made it wayyy to easy that Five just happened to find a journal his future self made that worked out the tunnel system. You’re telling me that in 7 years he never worked any of it out. Uhhh I just wanted to see how the Subway worked and we couldn’t even get that. AND they only showed us 1 world!!!! I think alternate timelines are such a. Fun concept because you can explore multiple worlds that are like your own but a little more freaky with little to no consequences in your own world. I LOVED seeing the Phoenix Academy so much but… that was it. Imagine a montage of Five and Lila visiting a ton of worlds like our own with messed up Academy. Can you imagine if we saw a comic accurate Umbrella Academy??? Omfg the ultimate homage. I’m tearing up just thinking about what we could’ve had.

Gene and Jean were rly fun but again, what waisted potential. I loved my quirky not-so-instance parents sm

Uncle Five? Uncle Luther? Gone. Maybe I’m misremembering but they always seemed so excited to meet Claire. Ik they’re pissed at Alison or whatever (but they’re literally not though) but you’re telling me we never see them interact, despite them being some of the only sibling to care about Claire??? Oh okay, okayyy

The powers. Does nobody care that some have multiple powers now orrr? So Lila had laser eyes but could still mimic everyone else. Also the running gag of not being able to control her eyes could’ve gone on for so much longer. And Alison. Was she just so powerful she could rumour ppl without saying anything now? And when her eyes went yellow, that was a completely new power, right? And did Viktor’s powers seem different to you guys or is it bc he absorbed Harlan’s powers last season. Me personally, I think they’re should’ve gone down the Tinkerbell: The Pirate Fairy route and swapped the sibling powers with each other or completely different ones

It would’ve been such a good plot twist if after learning that the Cleanse restored them to the one true timeline, they all think it’s their original lives as a misdirect and they the horror sets in as you realise that they’re actually part of an ultimate timeline. They just could’ve done so much more than that. I know with limited episodes they had to wrap things up quickly so after they learned they had to be erased they just kinda had to accept it but I would’ve loved an entire episode of them grappling with the fact and saying goodbye and reminiscing about their past and maybe even being in denial and self sabotaging or whatever (kind of in the style of that ep in s2 when they have an hour to meet up

Why was Jennifer in a squid??? Why? did she get all the durango? Why weren’t there 42 other kids who got ur? That could’ve been such a cool parallel like cmonnn

I always suspected Ben’s death to be connected to Reg in some way so I loved the reveal… but I hated Jennifer’s involvement. Like it just felt tooo convenient. And I understand why they did it from a writers/ directors perspective that they wanted to wrap everything up but I just felt it could’ve been done much smarter. ALSO I just realised that Klaus doesn’t know how Ben died. Diabolical. I will not stand for it

Reginald didn’t recognise his own wife??? Like when Fake Gene called him “love” and Reggie didn’t clock it???

Speaking of Reggie ARE WE EVER GOING TO DISCUSS THAT HE’S AN ALIEN ROBOT BITCH???

Soooo Luther never once asked Reggie about Sloane???

Ray. Where’s Ray? Maybe the actor was working on something else and they had to get rid of his character

WE NEVER EVEN HEAD ALISON SAY “I HEARD A RUMOUR” NOT EVEN ONCE like I get she’s powerful enough to the point she doesn’t have to say it anymore but that line eats down every. Single. TIME!

Lastly and most importantly… the soundtrack. The songs didn’t slap. Simple as.

Final Statement

I think I covered all my points. I doubt I’ll make a part 2 bc honestly, the show isn’t worth my time and energy anymore. I just needed to rant bc I don’t know any ppl who watch this who have any lick of media literacy.

The finale was painfully underwhelming. It didn’t feel like the same TUA I’ve grown to love over the past few years. I can accept the ending but the journey to how we got there was one massive slap in the face. I’m going to ignore this ending ever happened thank you <3

#the umbrella academy #tua #tua season 4 #tua spoilers #the umbrella academy finale

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crystalcanis · 11 months ago

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Teaser for 2024!! Chapter 1 might have ended but the horrors continue.

Where to read my comic! LINK (coming to tumblr sometime this year hopefully)

I'm going to put some personal thoughts regarding chapter 1 below, it's there if you want context on how I see this story, but it can be ignored if you don't want to read a wall of text! I hope the teaser looks nice and spikes interest! I think this next chapter is going to be a fun one.

Arc 1 Chapter 1 was written when I was still in highschool, I have graduated college by now :' ) So needless to say, I am very excited to be jumping into the second arc of this story and be done and over with the stuff my teenage self wrote.

I scripted Arc 2 Chapter 2 relatively recently (almost done scripting Arc 2 Chapter 3 too), so it has my current writing style and pacing! I'm really proud of it personally, I think its fun but I guess there is that underlying fear of people maybe not liking my current approach to the characters. Specially because I know this comic seems to be the favorite amongst my current two because of how long it's been around! Even if I made little edits on the way, Chapter 1 was basically the same script my teenage self wrote... I had to follow the planned pacing and events, and oh gosh there are so many scenes I would write differently (all the ones before we meet Noriel, basically.)

My biggest personal complain with chapter 1 is that I don't think I was clear enough with the theme of the story nor did I give it much justice : ( and that in part goes with my younger self just, not having enough experience writing heavier topics at the time. This story is based on my personal experiences with xenophobia, it's about xenophobia, back when I scripted chapter 1 I knew how it FELT like, but now as an adult I have been able to go deeper and analize why I feel that way, why people treat me the way they do, and much more that I plan to properly explore going forward. This doesn't mean that other people connecting with this story through other forms of bigotry like racism, transphobia, homophobia etc is wrong, though! I have seen your explanations for why and it's sooo so fair, I don't mind this story reasonating with how general bigotry feels like at all, intersectionality is a thing for a reason. But I wish to explore xenophobia as it was intended :]! It's personal to me. And the world of Ales is so HUGE! Chapter 1 did not give the worldbuilding justice either! There is so much to explore and I'm excited! I can't believe my younger self wanted to end the story here, man. Insane.

The only thing that's closest to my current writing style in chapter 1 is actually the flashback with Noriel and Kana we saw this year! That wasn't part of the original script, and I added it in preemptively, knowing I would need it for context in the new chapters but that I wouldnt have space for it later, it needed to happen Now or never. So I guess that's a good reference for what to expect! But fear not, just because chapter 2 and onward is technically an updated approach to things, that doesn't mean what happened in chapter 1 wont affect anything! Quite the contrary oh boy! What happened in chapter 1 is a big catalyst for so many things that happen in this story, and why Noriel and Kana act the way they do. I think it's going to be great and I can't wait to share it, I just hope other people like it as much as I do!

#canisart #wings ioa #kana #[spoiler character]#webcomic #oc #art #comic teaser #original character #original comic #original story #angel oc #devil oc #human oc #humanoid oc #I am soooo so excited for HER

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greetings-inferiors · 5 months ago

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It’s actually insane to me how bad security breach was (or specifically how much I didn’t like it). Like before it help wanted was my favourite game in the series. The dreadbear dlc was fantastic and made me so hyped for the future of the franchise. The way they talked about the game and what it was made me fall in love with it before it was even out. My fnaf obsession was at an all time high, I could not have been more excited for it. Then it released and me and my best friend, the two biggest fnaf fans I know, designated the entire day to play it together, just like we did with help wanted and the dlc (potential reasons as to why hw is my favourite, the in jokes we made about it live on today). And you could feel the enthusiasm drain from us in real time. As we realised how lame the roaming animatronics were. As the frustration of the game slowly scraped the rose tint off our glasses. When I realised the time advancements were scripted instead of being in real time I felt a part of me die inside. The Monty boss fight would crash after a certain amount of time so we were forced to speed run it to try and advance. We beat the game and when the comic appeared we were both like “this is it?” When we tried to look up spoiler free ending walkthroughs, the fire exit ending just wouldn’t work no matter what we tried. I remember getting to the pizzeria sim location, my favourite Scott-original game, and I could feel the pit in my stomach swell. Finding candy cadet was awesome, but once we got past the empty hallways that were supposed to have endos, and the blob (which took a lot of trial and error), the afton fight started and I immediately threw in the towel. My friend was like “no come on we can do this” but was so frustrated by the fight which clearly wasn’t play tested at all. We stuck through it, praying that Roxy just didn’t come (an instant death sentence, because they never once hint at how to get rid of her, Freddy even has a voice line implying you can hide, which no you can’t she can see you even though she’s blind.) and hoping that Freddy didn’t randomly just kill you out of nowhere. We did it eventually, even after Roxy had been chasing us, and the cutscene just kind of ended. God. I am not kidding when I say that it was my least favourite piece of fnaf media. And I had read every book. Played every single troll game. I felt my love of the franchise die in real time. Even after Ruin, a genuinely fantastic game (because it’s a different game from security breach), and Help wanted 2, the sequel to help wanted, my favourite game in the franchise, and a good game in its own right, both games me and my best friend played on the day they released that we both enjoyed, it just wasn’t the same. We didn’t even finish help wanted 2, we got to the normal ending and phoned it in. Once we collected two plushies I was done and wanted to sleep. I’ve only seen the ending from astralspiff’s full series marathon. It looks fantastic. But I just don’t feel like even watching a video of it. I haven’t watched any of the really recent fnaf theories. It’s not the new presenter he’s fantastic. I just don’t really get excited by them anymore. I haven’t read any of the recent books. The movie was great, I guess. I’ll play into the pit, but it isn’t really out of wanting to. It’s out of obligation. Like I’m a fnaf fan, I should play fnaf games, right?

It is wild how drastically security breach killed my interest in the franchise. Fnaf was one of my core interests, one of the things like undertale or kingdom hearts where at any time I could talk about it for hours. One terrible, awful game was able to make it something that I get a bit interested in whenever a new one drops.

#security breach slander #genuinely a tragedy #the only fnaf thing I would genuinely lose my mind for anymore is into madness #anything else would just be a ‘oh that’s cool’#text post #randyposting #fnaf #five nights at freddy's #security breach #fnaf sb #I can’t believe security breach had like two good moments #and they were both the scripted moments in enclosed spaces the daycare and music man segments #rant #long post

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myonmukyuu · 2 years ago

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Art Summary: 2022

It's that time of year again! This makes my 9th year of art summaries... Kind of insane to think about.

It's been a very eventful year and I have a lot to say. Extended art performance review under the cut 👌 (3k words lmao)

Previous: 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021

ABOUT THE COMIC:

So! What happened this year? Well, my book happened. I'm not sure if anything else happened ahfhasjkdkasf

See, I actually cheated this art summary a tiny bit. Usually I use the upload date of the art to place it in the summary. But if I did that for this year, there would be at least 4 blank spots. That's why February, April and May all feature different pages of the same comic (CH 9).

I really did spend the first half of the year finishing my comic. I only released 2 chapters too (the finale and the epilogue). In March I took a week and a half off to work on a short for Ayumu's birthday, but otherwise slaved all the way until June for the webcomic.

Then I spent July and August doing all of the redrawing and edits required for a physical release. Those who have a copy of my book might already know but the first two chapters have been redrawn. I also had to go through the entire comic, fixing it so that it could actually be printed (because the webcomic version definitely can't be printed as it is.) It was super time-consuming. Like, I can't even begin to describe. Moving forward I'll try to draw every comic so that it's printable from the beginning so I don't have to deal with reformatting ever again...

I'm pretty sure it was in August that I had the first copy of the book done. Then the preordering period opened in Septemeber... and now we're here! People are just now starting to receive their books. Sorry it took so long guys ;w;

I'm very happy though... Depending on who you ask, 100 sales might not be a lot, but it's a lot to me. To think that so many people would spend the money to buy this kind of product is just so surprising to me... It's expensive and all of the content is already available to read for free!!! So it's really surprising and I'm so incredibly grateful. That's why I went through the trouble of creating that golden special print for everyone! It was quite a bit of money out of my pocket, but I really wanted to show my appreciation.

As a side note, the 100 sales were really exhausting to pack. My body was sore in November because of it LMAO

So I'd say this year was great for my comic! Both its webcomic finale and its physical release. But this summary isn't meant to be about my comic, it's supposed to be about my art and me as an artist.

ABOUT MY ART:

So how did my art go this year?

Looking back I feel nothing but exhaustion. I know I'm happy to have my comic released but, my body and mind is still very very tired. I feel like I took at least 2-3 weeks off or more from work throughout the year to keep the comic on track. It's just a huge undertaking.

What I'm getting at is I feel a tired and... a little disappointed. But don't get me wrong, I don't feel regret! It's just that... well every artist draws for their own reasons. For me, I love getting my ideas and stories out there. So I guess I felt creatively-starved spending about half a year polishing and releasing an already-complete product. Also technically starved - you don't really see much improvement if all you're doing is cleaning up art. I didn't really have a lot of time to draw because of the physical release so I often felt like I wasn't doing enough.

And honestly that's my main sentiment. While I feel happy and satisfied with releasing the book, another part of me feels like she didn't do enough.

In terms of technical skill, I definitely saw improvement this year. It's like something clicked in me and I had a better understanding of atmospheric lighting. CH 9 and the epilogue are probably some of my favourite bits of colouring I've ever done. I just love how it turned out. In CH 9, the gradual setting of the sun to create this orange/pink/purple colour palette was so fun to implement. And in the Epilogue, this blue/green/yellow rainy day came out perfectly. It was a rainy day, but unlike CH 7, it wasn't a dreary downpour but something more hopeful instead. I have a love for creating atmosphere and especially through colour. And I think I did well there.

In the realm of black/white, I also feel lots of improvement! I'm becoming more confident with monochrome and am starting to push it further. I'm not satisfied with my skill level, but I think it's promising. I may be more confident with creating tone through colour, but I'm sure I can do the same without it!

This year I also did quite a bit of painting. I really love how the October and November artworks came out. Honestly it was around this point in the year, I had the most time to output works as the only comic work I had to do was purely admin (until I started packaging things in November). I could go into technical depth, but this post is long enough. Just know that I'm happy with the little leaps my colouring skills made.

GOALS FOR 2022:

For my art summaries, I've been doing a performance review styled thing where I create goals for the upcoming year. Let's take a look at what goals I wrote for 2022 and how I went with them.

“I want to finish my comic series”

Passed with flying colours! I think the comic release was a success. This goal is a little cheap of a goal though, since I don't think I'd let myself live it down if I gave up.

“I also want to continue to try things that are outside of my comfort zone. I want to see myself try things like different angles/perspectives and more complex backgrounds.”

Now this goal... I think I made progress here. I'm not sure if people noticed but I did definitely try to slip in different angles here and there. I'm particularly good at them... but I'm trying! And I think that's the least I can do. You won't get good at something if you don't try after all. That being said, I should push backgrounds more... I rarely do them 😅

"I want to do more illustrations/quick drawings on top of my comic work."

My comic work was suffocating a lot of the time. But I did try to draw on top of it. I haven't really talked about it, nor shown anyone, but I started learning copic markers this year (borrowed my friend's set!). So in the background I've been doing 30-60 minute traditional art exercises. I'm not terribly diligent, but diligent enough that I already think it's made an impact on my art. See, I'm only doing monochrome copic markers (I'm not confident enough to do colour just yet). I'm pretty sure doing monochrome markers has helped me with my manga skills 😂. I have a better understanding of tones and values because of it! Isn't that kind of amazing? Come to think of it, it's linked to the next goals.

"I want to learn to paint."

"I want to learn to draw faster."

While I still have a long way to go, somehow my marker exercises have helped me with these too. The understanding of tones/values has made an impact on coloured work and painting as well. And because I'm doing shorter pieces, my speed has increased a tiny bit. I'm sure if I keep at it, I can continue to develop better habits!

"I want to draft more quickly and be smarter about it."

Now this goal is something I have just been trying to mentally direct myself to. It's working... a little bit. I still need to try harder.

See, I think my drafting process is really slow and inefficient. This results in me spending too much time drawing a comic because I've drafted like 5 extraneous pages. If I wanna increase my output and lower my workload, I have to learn to be more clever with how I compose each page. I think I got a tiny bit better. Need to work harder on that for sure (it's quite hard to just "learn" though...)

MOVING FORWARD:

With the past year in mind, how do I want 2023 to go? To be honest, I still feel so exhausted because of 2022, I definitely need some time to recover, so let's not go too crazy next year.

But before I create my next goals, I wanted to talk about where I want to go in general - the grand scheme of things. Like I mentioned, I feel a lot of disappointment, like I wasn't doing enough. Which is contradictory because I also feel like I did too much with how exhausted I am... But the source of that disappointment is really tied in with how I feel about my art skill on a technical level.

I'm nearing a whole decade of hobby artist experience. And I don't feel like my art shows it. While there are things that I am better at, there's so much that I struggle with.

I want to become better. I want to improve.

It's hard to explain but I feel like I'm not doing the best I can for the stories I want to tell if I don't keep pushing and learning. And I love what I make, so I want to do those stories justice.

So it's really important to me that I keep trying to improve.

In the long term, I think my dream is to be like a pro-manga artist. Please don't make fun of me LMFAO. But there's more to it. See, I don't actually want to be a pro artist. I never want to compromise my creative vision for the sake of pandering to an audience. I sincerely think I wouldn't be able to succeed without doing that so I'm content with drawing as a hobby. A programmer as my day job and a manga artist by night...

I want to be as skilled as a pro some day though.

To be honest, I think the distance is so great that it's basically impossible. So my true goal is a little lower than that.

My true long-term goal is to be... a little comparable to a pro.

And I don't think I'm at that point. And I don't want to use "being a hobbyist" as an excuse to allow myself to remain like this.

I think it's terrifying actually. Where I'm at with my art.

I'm really happy people enjoy it, and don't get me wrong - I love my own work. I love drawing. But I think it's important to be critical of it - if I want to be able to reach my goals.

I think if people read this far, they might be thinking something like "but you're already so good!" or something to that effect. But I don't think it's true.

I think it's terrifying because there's so much I'm not good at. Comics are scary because they're an amalgamation of so many different skillsets. I possess some of these skills but there's just so many different ways that I feel that I'm lacking.

For instance, my art itself has such stiff lines. I'm not great at perspective. My art isn't dynamic. And this is just a few examples of stuff related to my illustration skills.

But comics are more than that.

There's the individual panel compositions that come together to create a unifying page composition. The visual flow - controlling how the reader scans the page. The storytelling skills - pacing, dialogue, story beats. The dialogue writing skills. The typesetting.

I think there's so many places I'm weak with and it's scary because it's difficult to just pick something to improve at when it feels like everything is wrong at once. It's so easy for me to pick up some manga from a shelf, flick through and think "this artist does x better than me, how can I learn from them?" but learning is hard and I'm not good at it so I'm just stuck with this awareness that I could be better.

But at the end of the day, I just have to pick a direction and go, right? I think that's all I can do and that's okay. It's just hard to shake the feeling of drowning in my own mediocrity.

Sorry I didn't mean to bring down the mood of this art summary.

I promise that at the end of the day that I love drawing. This is just my overly-critical side shining through. I don't have too much natural talent, just a very stubborn mind. I kind of need to be critical so I can push myself in the right direction. And I'm fairly happy with the way I've been pushing myself through these past years.

I'm not particularly fussed if my works receive a lot of traction or not because what's most important to me is the way I see my own work. My personal satisfaction.

And that's just tied with doing the best I can!

So with that in mind...

GOALS FOR 2023:

"Improve at atmospheric lighting"

This isn't particularly ambitious because it's something I'm already working on, but I know I can push lighting even further. So expect to see me experimenting more and more!

"Participate in a paid online course"

Now this is linked to my wall of text just now. I feel very overwhelmed so I think having an unbiased and experienced teacher's guidance could be valuable. I'm eyeing ones that include personalised feedback. The only concern is that it's hard to find the time for things like this when I work full-time.

Also it's a bit scary having a professional roast me, but I think it'd be good for me.

"Continue to practise traditionally"

This is linked to all of my technical art gripes. I think continuing to do traditional art exercises will help me with a lot of my weak points.

"Continue to be ambitious with art"

I don't mean ambition on a work-load level, but I want to continue to push out of my comfort-zone. Keep trying those weird angles and backgrounds, be more experimental!

"Start planning that next story"

I always have a billion different story ideas in my back pocket that I am itching to tell. I also don't wanna die of overwork though. So lets keep the bar low.

I have many great ideas, so I want to start outlining the next one! This is just a vague goal to remind myself to keep thinking ahead.

"Rest up."

I think this is the most important goal. Like I said I feel completely and utterly exhausted this year.

So I want Myon in 2023 to have more time for herself. Improve her health, catch up with her relationships, spend more time watching movies and playing video games.

Don't work too hard next year.

EXTRA REFLECTION:

I seriously don't know if anyone actually reads these reflections. I wonder what kind of person I come off across... (probably a try-hard 😂)

I wanted to talk about one more thing. It's not really linked to goals, just the future in general.

So I've been drawing for Nijigasaki for 2 years now. I think a lot of people are moving on from it though.

To be honest, I think that's okay. I'm kind of used to the people around me shifting into new interests. I think I'll still be with Niji for a long time to come. I just have a lot of large scale ideas and will probably stick with them unless something sweeps me off my feet.

I mean, even if my ideas take too long to actualise while I'm interested in Niji, I'm also open to converting things into original content. There are just so many stories to tell...

It makes me wonder why my readers enjoy my work and how they interact with it? Are people a fan of me? The ship/characters/fandom? Or the stories?

Probably some mix of the above. It's not terribly important why though.

I'm sorry that I'm not very good at keeping up with everyone's interests. I think the world moves too quickly and I draw too slow and I can barely keep up. But I'm a bit too stubborn with my own desires so I keep working on my own things without another thought. So maybe that apology is a bit empty eheh

But I hope people will continue to enjoy the stories that I make.

I should be less harsh on myself though. 9 years of art isn't something to just shrug off.

Anyways, before I keep rambling. Happy new year everyone. Let's keep working hard in 2023!

#ive been using the same art summary template for the last 9 years #it doesnt even have the year displayed in the image but im committing anyways LMAO #art summary #i drew setsupomu for an entire year #i talk a lot in the readmore; no pressure to read it though #it's more for me than for anyone else #also its 3k

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themosleyreview · 11 months ago

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The Mosley Review: Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom

Remember back in the mid 2000's where ever major studio film had a summer blockbuster that was filled to the brim with an insane amount of nonsensical action which was fueled by CGI and about 2 gallons of Redbull? One film in particular comes to mind that was the major culprit of having an over abundance of CGI and a very comical attempt at a story. G.I. Joe: the Rise of Cobra was that film and the studio tried their hardest to make up for with a more "grounded" sequel I guess. I hoped that no film would ever take the same route as that film. Well here we are with a another film that prioritizes demolishing your senses with an insane amount of sonic and visual noise to distract you from the abysmal storytelling. The DCEU as we know it comes to an end with this film and they do send it off with a huge amount of action, but showcased why it was failing. The lack of consistent tone and character development was appalling and boredom set in heavily halfway through the film.

Jason Mamoa returns as Arthur Curry / Aquaman and honestly, it was 90 percent Jason having fun and about 10 percent Arthur's story. Don't get me wrong, its always fun watching the man work, but I wish he matured the character into the King of Atlantis instead of the fun surfer dad. Amber Heard returns as his wife Mera and she was good for the amount of time she was on screen. She gets to play in the action, but not much else character development wise. You know those type of characters that are written in to be the moral compass and also the very cheesy comic relief that has an overused catchphrase? Well, Randall Park as Dr. Stephen Shin was exactly that character and he was great in the opening but after that, I couldn't stand him. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II returns as David Kane / Black Manta and for the most part he was good and menacing. His motivation for vengeance knows no bounds and that's really all he has to do in the film. There really wasn't anywhere for him to take the character or evolve him in anyway. He was whittled down to a cliche in so many ways and I felt sorry for him. Now the one character that actually had substance and had the best performance was Patrick Wilson as Orm Marius. He understood the film he was in and had the most character growth. I loved his chemistry with Arthur and I wish the film was about just the two of them. The path of redemption for Orm was way more interesting and sometimes hilarious as he gets a taste of surface life. There is a great emotional scene with him toward the final act that really solidifies the brotherhood between him and Arthur that was the gold standard I wish the film reached.

The soundtrack was fun and served as a driving force during the majority of the action and comedic scenes. Composer Rupert Gregson-Williams did what he could to underscore the scattered emotion in the film and his score during the massive action set pieces was good. I'm all for fun and action fueled stories, but when it is earned and the story calls for it first. This film felt like it had so many people throwing in different ideas to spice up a dish that didn't need it and now its just a soggy mess that people might say they liked, but don't love. I didn't hate this film for it is watchable, but its definitely one of the worst ways to end a cinematic universe. I truly wish the same amount of love and care went into the finale of this universe and it breaks my heart to see so much potential wasted on a cheap and rushed sequel. Even the mid credits scene was unnecessary. Let me know what you thought of the film or my review in the comments below. Thanks for reading!

#aquaman and the lost kingdom #jason mamoa #amber heard #nicole kidman #yahya abdul mateen ii #randall park #dceu

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ceramicdove · 2 years ago

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[deep inhale] So these guys huh

Avataro Sentai Donbrothers (2022, currently ongoing), written by Toshiki Inoue (the man who put a gay sex scene in Rider Time: Kamen Rider Ryuki (2019)), is about a lot of things but basically there's this higher plane of existence called Ideon the stability of which heavily relies on human thoughts and feelings (despite the Nouto, its main inhabitants, being unable to understand said human feelings). When a human's desire goes out of control they become a monster called a Hitotsuki and that's bad for Ideon so they sent three people (read: Sonoi and his high school besties. Yeah they got high school there apparently) to the human world to do something about it (spoiler: they end up falling in love with humanity in their own ways and now the Council kinda has to execute them oops). Sonoi is their leader and while he genuinely values human life a lot he's also disgusted by human greed and desire and stuff. Enter Tarou Momoi.

Tarou, the main character, is a human (not really actually but that's not relevant right now) guy who's 1) better than everyone at everything, 2) physically unable to lie (like, it straight up temporarily kills him), and 3) wants nothing more than to help people. Sonoi tells him he wishes more people were like him. Also he tells him he is hope to him. Also they talk about how beautiful the moon is. Also Tarou suggests going to eat out sometime (they do manage it but much later and everyone else is forced to watch their date). And more. You get the idea. This is all until Sonoi finds out Tarou is actually the guy he's been fighting for the last several episodes, upon which he (distraught) goes "actually nvm you are despair to me" and manages to kill him (because since Tarou can't lie he just casually asked him about his weak point earlier).

However Sonoi feels insanely bad about taking advantage of him so he helps bring Tarou back (tooootally so they can have a fair and just rematch). And then they do have a fair and just rematch and Sonoi dies but then Tarou ends up helping bring him back and because it was done using some of Tarou's power Sonoi has red eyes now and acts kinda like him. This is what he has to say on the matter: "We're alike, you and I. Like the sea and the sky! The two of them face each other, but can never commingle! But, even so… they share the same blue!" (homosexuality?) And then they rematch and he kills Tarou and then Tarou comes back and then Sonoi's back to normal and now they just kinda fight each other for fun regularly they're like if Romeo and Juliet were two gay autistic men I think. Here is their character song (it plays at the end of the ep where Sonoi dies). What did they mean by this I wonder

Absolutely horribly written ask but I am not an expert on them so sorry I probably got something wrong and/or missed something. I asked my friend who I think IS an expert on them about what I should absolutely mention were I to ever explain them to someone with zero prior Donbros knowledge and they just said this

Other fun Sonoi facts: once he decides to help Tarou with his delivery job (don't ask) and Tarou goes "don't worry about how he's dressed" to a customer and Sonoi is like "I'll have you know I'm considered a fashion leader in my world :/" and yeah it just kinda goes like that. I hope you could understand my vision because I could not put it into words

KIARA. [CRAWLS TO YOU WHILE COVERED IN BLOOD] I MADE IT. I made it. I'm here now.

Thank you so much for sending this to me. Starting off so early with the phrase "the man who put a gay sex scene in Rider Time: Kamen Rider Ryuki" is truly genius. There really is nothing else that gets you hooked quite like that.

JUST BASED ON THE BAREBONES CONCEPT, THIS ACTUALLY VAGUELY REMINDS ME OF A WEB COMIC/WEB NOVEL I CAME UP WITH AND STARTED MAPPING OUT CIRCA AGE 13-14? Similar dichotomy surrounding feelings and humanity (or lack thereof). I envy my younger self's ability to be passionate about an original project like that, because these days my ability to create & design original characters is truly, completely dead. Back to the relevant things, though. I'm truly sad I didn't find this earlier, because I feel it could have rewired my brain around that age. But I truly feel like this is a wonderful concept to explore.

THE PART ABOUT "PHYSICALLY UNABLE TO LIE (LIKE IT STRAIGHT UP TEMPORARILY KILLS HIM)" WAS SO FUNNY I'M SORRY. NO CLUE WHY OR HOW THAT HAPPENS TO HIM (feel free to explain if you want to) BUT...YEOWCH! Damn he's fucked. I am kind of already fond of him, though...you were right in your assumption, I do feel this is a set of characters I'd be likely to latch onto. Especially given the entire...Problem they have surrounding the murderfighting hope/despair thing. That is awesome and so beautiful to me.

Kiara. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the absolute gem that is the phrase "they're like if Romeo and Juliet were two gay autistic men I think". This means the world to me. I would pin this to my heart if I could. The world needs more Romeo and Juliet that are two gay autistic people. It's really necessary to the ecosystem, and also to...me!

I'm also listening to their song right now. IT'S GOOD? It's genuinely quite good. I really enjoy the jazziness and atmosphere of it all. "As paths cross/A certain sensation's felt/A connection/that can't be quantified/Whether to join hands/or clash/Only the moon knows/the outcome" Ahemmm ummmmmhmmm [BATS MY EYELASHES MEEKLY BEFORE RUNNING AWAY AND TRIPPING LIKE AN ANIME GIRL/NEWBORN BABY DEER] I wonder what that certain sensation is...! Oh my! Oh my...!

Your friend's input is also deeply valuable to me because likening two characters to elementary schoolers with crushes on each other also trying to kill each other is another good way to set a mousetrap for me. Elementary school gay autistic romeo and juliet murder is truly top 5 pairings any piece of media has ever come up with.

TAROU HAVING A DELIVERY JOB WAS A SLAP IN THE FACE. But I think I can understand your vision. I think I can. I may never know the full truth, but I can keep my heart open and absorb the psychic energies of these two little freakazoids.

Thank you so, so, so much for sharing this piece of information with me. I don't think I ever would've found out about them otherwise. Perhaps some day soon I'll be thinking back on them and I'll go on a little deep dive journey to learn more. Who knows?

And of course, thank you Toshiki Inoue for everything you contributed to our society. After Kamen Rider fucking and gay autistic Romeo & Juliet, the universe will never be the same. I hope his mind continues to produce...whatever is going on up there. God bless!

#🕊️📬#long post

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wildcatofgreen · 2 years ago

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5. Have you read/watched/played anything new thanks to the rpc this year?

12. Tag a blog whose character inspired you this year.

End of year asks: RPC Edition!

5. Have you read/watched/played anything new thanks to the rpc this year?

((iiiiiiii don't think i have, actually! ive absorbed information about a lot of things i dont know about through osmosis, really.

((i will say, RPC made me wanna play frontiers more, because i thought itd have a massive effect on my lore [and also i wanna rp with a sage {frontiers in fact, did NOT have a massive effect on my lore and i have not rp'd with a sage yet so... 0 for 2}] but like

((i'm a sonic fan. i was gonna play frontiers either way.

((though i havent watched prime yet... im trying to pester my bestie into watching it with me because i REAAAAAAAAAALLY wanna watch it--everyone i know says its good and that makes me EXCITED.

((but alas, they havent taken the bite yet. we still have to finish jojo part 6 and higurashi and one piece and spy x family and mob psycho season 3 and double zeta and witch from mercury and--

((im never gonna watch sonic prime am i))

12. Tag a blog whose character inspired you this year.

((@atangledfate @sonorous-strings @aureumdraconeus @hoverboardhoodlums @fexrtherexper

((azure with their cavalcade of characters, but most notably tangle, surge/kit and--not on their sonic multimuse but--lilac and milla. they have driven my passion for all of this SO ffucking hard.

((and ofc like, sonar. like. me and sonarmun have done so many fucking threads its insane and theyre great and THE PASSION STARTED THERE Y'KNOW. ITS SO FUCKING GOOD AND FUN AND ADNIRF4JTGBHJRNE bless them bless them so much.

((AD is sick as shit and i love their threads and like, we havent DONE MUCH, I AM AWARE, BUT IT IS SO COOL THAT YOURE EVEN HIT WITH THAT SAME PASSION BUG I CAN FEEL IT. havent interacted with much but the blaze but man it drives me. your blaze is so cool. youre so cool. i wish to do more and to continue the more i love it i love it i love it

((AND THEN EVERYBODY'S FAVORITE BIRD QUADRIO. QUARTET? WHATEVER ICHIYAMA IS COOL AS SHIT AND LIKE, I LOVE THOSE BIIIIIIRDS MAN. FROM THE FIRST INTERACTION WITH JET TO THE PRED THREADS OH BOY OH MAN ITS LIKE SO GOD DAMN COOL.

((and of course xujints with BAPHO. THE FIRST THREAD HELPED CAROL WITH A HUGE PROBLEM SHE'S HAD FOR YEARS LIKE HOW COULD I NOT. IT WAS SLOW GOING BUT IT FINISHED EVENTUALLY AND IT WAS OS COOL DOING ALL THE THINGS AND AAAAAAAAAAAAAA. I LOVE BAPHOMET SO MUCH AS A CHARACTER and like, to go back to the last question ((if i WERE to pick up a new thing, it'd probably be the comic bapho comes from. because it sounds so interesting and COOL and its already mlp related of which my dumbass is ALREADY interested in.

((these have been the REALLY BIG INSPIRATIONS and ive taken bits and pieces from these threads and these people and thrown it into my work, whether consciously or not. of course there's all sorts of inspirations i get from just looking at my dash or just thinking real hard but id have to say these are like. the main ones.

((wait that says tag a blog

((eh FUCK IT. SHARING THE LOVE BETWEEN MY FRIENDS))

#ooc posts #catmun speaks #asks #meme answers #hexes-and-headaches

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anissapierce · 1 year ago

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Spiderverse spoilers underneath heed at ur own risk

Somehow despite being spoiled for the twist at the end .... I literally didnt understand that was a different universe until gwen said. I literally read a post abt how Rio's eye color was different Yesterday and i guess it fell to the wayside i just thought tht in the last ten minutes miles was gonna travel to a whole nother universe where he was gonna meet his alt self ...

Also despite spot mentioning tht miles spider was from earth 42 ... I forgot abt it so when miguel was acting like miles was so different i didnt get it bc like ...well ben was there n im just so comic brained tht i didn't consider tht ofc miles is different

Also so trippy to have it confirmed tht all spiders have to exist in their own universes n also follow the same trajectories that peters did ? Like super trippy to me as a comic book reader n also shit i dont think other heros even get touched upon in this movie so a lot of these spiders r totally alone n also soo bizarre to imagine Anya for example following Peters schtick like making w police chief death central to the universe according to miguel n all characters having a connection to a chief? Including Hobie? Literally melting my brain tbh. Kinda funny tht gwens death isnt a canon event

Also i didnt realize all the memes abt canon events were related to this movie i just thought it was sth someone on tktk was going idk..

Ganke wasnt just nerfed bc of the mcu he was nerfed for the narrative bc its important that miles is a lone wolf w nobody to help him making him further alienated which is good narrative wiss but like i kinda dislike it mostly bc well wht i love abt marvel is how its so community focused. Like even if his parents know they cant help in a way that comic ganke or also tiana n now misty can..idk i do like that the world it presents is obviously not saying that miguels pov is the right one and jess drew becoming a turncoat at the end to Help Gwen is nice. But idk it rubs me the wrong way w little in a way i cant quite articulate.

I do love that this movie had two Anyas... Classic Anya and a remixed one. Which ugh god is why this everyone being peter mixes throws me off like Hobie as a peter remix is so .... Like in my mind there's different types of spider variants theres 1. Peter remixes 2. Remixes of characters in peters life (cooper coen, gwen in these movies) 3. Entirely different entities divorced from peter (hobie, anya).

Also im so fascinated by the way cop shit is handled in this movie its kinda insane like its Schroeder's copaganda n depending on how you view it (n wht they choose to do next movie to thread that needle 👉😉) gwens speech abt how being a spider was being a cop refers to being a part of miguels paramilitary operation which she left ....

Like her dad left the force w the implication of the system being rotten n not abt justice but like not abt justice bc in this specific instance its anti vigilante. Like it's not abt policing as an institution its abt this specific situation which like ring ding ding still copaganda bc it presents the gotham idea of 'well of the cop can b pro vigilante n help the vigilante n hes good to go. But him quiting bc thematically significant n mb the writers trying to pull shit abt the narrative being the only good cop is one who quits. Like its fascinating bc the movie is touching on abolitionist ideas 'i tried to good within the system' 'youre a good cop n trying to do the job so someone worse wont and i tried to do the same thing' but like not going all the way

Probably bc shareholders would nvr let an abolitionist movie get as much money as a studio film can go. Which is a shame

Ppl at the end were soooo annoyed tht it was a cliffhanger ngl found tht kinda funny bc thats sth i did rmbr

#smatsv talk tag

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nuctua-larc · 1 year ago

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GAHHH I LOVE ALL OF THIS THANK YOU!!!! I wasn't TOO surprised about all the davejade hate mostly because girl in the way of gay ship is a cardinal sin(apparently??) and the epilogues did NOT help matters. Plus theres all the Jade plot being shoved to the side in canon on top of fandoms general idea that bi characters can say theyre bi but if they express attraction to the opposite gender theyre no longer?? Bi?? idk about all of it but the point is I was SO glad to see a fellow davejade shipper,, our community is small but mighty.

Anyways all that to be said Im gonna try to give this the same amount of effort!(still so happy seeing this giant ass response to my ask like!!! i win. ive won) Also...This is not going to be near as comprehensible as yours is the tagents are immense, just a warning.

1. Frog breeding

Ok first off I gotta say that I love the flower breeding analogy going on here it really does help put the genesis frog mission into perspective!!

Its definitely... very odd how they didnt really elaborate on anything that happened with that mission. Honestly during my first readthrough I didnt see ANY of it. And this was mostly because I read the entire comic in one sitting and at that point was a little tired and didnt realize I was supposed to click on the pictures, plus I just didn't notice the banner(which I typically still dont, and have to go back everytime I get to it). I think a big issue the webcomic has for me is that while it is rather long it tends to put the focus on the wrong things.

We've got things explained through sprite prototyping, the sylladex, and moduses. A lot of the games mechanics are explained in an insane amount of detail, and yet, one of the most important aspects of the game(quests, genesis frog). I mean, Rose doesn't even get to look into the quest at all. Unlike most forms of media Homestuck doesn't any sort of time limit--no season deal, chapter limit, nothing tying it to being a certain length. Thats why its able to have extended wacky hijinks! And while I do appreciate the slow silly parts, or at least, I know that the parts I find boring someone appreciates, theres also a lot of unutilized space for them to actually SHOW us the important parts they left out. And yes, Im saying homestuck shouldve been longer. This is the hill I will die on.

Anyways, all that being said the whole idea of Dave constantly groundhog day-ing the game, reliving the same hour or minute over and over to make the game successful is just... SUCH an interesting concept. Not to point out the sollux parallels but pulling double-duty is something of a theme with him.

The day itself is a constant. The trolls pester them at the same times no matter what, John goes off on his own to godtier, Rose destroys her planet and goes grimdark, and Jade works to create the new universe. People die when they have to, they do what they have to, and he can't do anything more than preserve the best course of action. Even if that means Jade has to kill the first person she's seen since she was four, even if that means He can't hug her before she has to do it. Again the CONCEPT is wonderful, and we hear other characters tell us about it, with karkat mentioning her freakout and dave mentioning how he didn't want to upset her, but we're never SHOWN it.

Number one priority in a hypothetical alt comic, let these touch starved kids hug

2. Davejade vs Jack

If I'm being honest here, the dynamic with Jack Noir and these two is just...so underutilized. They had Jade fight the two superdogs in the finale. Well...fight as a loose term here, in all honesty she flew around for a bit before getting punched into the ground, but in general while all the beta kids have a connection, narratively Jade and Dave have the biggest to me. For jade theres the obvious connection with Bec, all three are tied via the first gaurdian, abilities and care for one another, and I do genuinely like the weakness they gave Jack in that he just. Cant hurt her. Dave's connection is through Jade, with their first fight in the banner and my personal favorite fight sequence with him defending her in the game over timeline.

It just...felt like these two things were introduced, the idea that every time they meet he dies, the whole self sacrificial situation he keeps putting himself in and the tragedy of hypothetical survivors guilt even if hes still alive. One of many plot points introduced with no real conclusion because they never really TALK about it. Personally I would've loved to see her genuinely fight Jack. Maybe she teams up with Peregrine against Jack or maybe she just kicks ass on her own idk. Let her get revenge!! Or maybe even...idk....show the freakout after he dies? You know? Because if something big happens that has a heavy effect on one of your main characters you should...show it?

3. Grimbark

I'm not gonna lie...grimbark makes no sense to me. Grimdark in general makes no sense to me, especially in the context of Jade versus Rose. With Rose, it was the overtaking of a great darkness, a loss in humanity and a sole focus on rage and destruction powered by grief. While she'd been destroying the game prior to this, slowly allowing herself to succumb to the horrorterrors in a misguided effort of finding information, the death of her mother causes the big switch in her completely abandoning restraint and forethought.

It manifests in her being unable to speak, at least in that of any human language. She's angry and focused on nothing else but her revenge against Jack, a decision that leads to her demise.

In contrast to hers Jade is perfectly capable of speech, her 'switch' is triggered by the Condencse without any emotional reason(which is a small gripe, I'm fine with the mind control situation. However it would've been a little nice if there had been a prior snap moment for her that allowed for the grimbark thing to happen). She too acts violently without speaking, in this case to serve the Condensce's will. However I think the issue here is that unlike Jane's robo-mind control, grimdark never really felt completely divorced from the character. Jade in her grimbark form is just...so fundamentally different from Jade that I can't even imagine a scenario in which she would be pushed to act like that.

Personally I would've enjoyed a more emotional shutdown situation. Witches and Seers are(not sure if canon or not but in general) very opposite classes. Witches are a class that takes action while Seers are the ones to plan. So for Jade instead of a one track mind of grief induced rage, maybe it's cold calculation, brought on by constant isolation. Jade's been through a lot, and even in the game over timeline where Davesprite is there and John's alive she still seems...lonely.

And during the game over plotline I kind of would've liked to see Jade successfully get revived! First off because for a proper retcon where each group has its own issues leading up to the final battle, having all three perspectives present(Terezi for the meteor, Roxy for the alphas, Jade for the ship, and then John going through with all the plans) would be helpful...I also just want some sort of reaction to his death. It's the second time it's happened and maybe then we'd have an opportunity to *see* how that had hurt her the first time. Eventually I wanna write out an alt game over situation...give this girl sme FOCUS! she deserves it!

4. Music!!

[cracks knuckles] ok. so I actually have a lot of thoughts on this. First off, that post has been living in my mind, cat rotating in microwave style for a hot minute(btw seeing you reblog my tags,,, I keep winning >:000!!!). Second off music theory and music in general is a bit of an obsession of mine so imma elaborate way more than is really necessary.

Their band name is SpaceTime Continuum. The opportunity is right there, how can you NOT. I absolutely love the idea of lead vocals\woodwinds jade and the robots being bass and guitar respectively. And I said this before but Dave is so percussion to me. That man is BUILT for the drums let him POP OFF!!

But also I love the idea that like...during the three year timeskip they both react to the boredom by learning new instruments. And then they meet up after everythings said and done and they're like wait..we both ended up learning instruments that compliment each other really well. So like, Dave picks up the drums of course, and a bunch of other percussion based instruments, but then it'd also be fun if he like...picked up the trombone or something. He seems like a brass guy to me. Also...lowkey seems like an acoustic guy to me. Like he's chords/fingerpicking on acoustic to Jade's melodies and badass solos on electric! And the further complimenting going on in that she's a bass player that matches well with percussion(linking song here as an example to the fuckery they could do here)

And then more with woodwinds and brass matching well together like they naturally gravitate towards things that compliment!! Also vocally I like the idea of duets, her taking the lead vocally while Dave does harmonies. As far as general sound SOLELY for vocals not so much for vibes the Civil Wars comes to mind(dave cannot escape the country vibes).

And the time player powers can and SHOULD be exploited for the sake of harmonies the possibilities are endless here.

When it comes to character arcs them being in a band would be good for them…they both have a love for making music, sure, but also it would give Jade the connection she’s never been able to have before. For me there’s not greater connection to someone than to jam out on some musical collaboration. My best friendships are made through people who I sing with. Then for dave, being raised for the express purpose of battle, being able to completely divorce from that and do something thats just…fun, that doesn’t serve any greater purpose. It’d be!! So good!

OK OK SO!!

First off!!! Hello fellow davejade enjoyer i see you. Second off—what sort of things do you wish you could’ve seen with these two in canon :0. Could be expansion on canon scene, arc direction, or just a new scene entirely. for me personally I would’ve loved to see some genuine fighting collaboration going on. I felt VERY teased with all the magic combo’s in collide.

Third! I know they do a lot of music collaboration in canon, and I’ve seen some things with them making a band together post canon. What sort of sound do you think they’d have/what artist do you think they’d sound like?

Thank you :))

okay god theres so much i wish was expanded on in canon with regard to dave and jade

this post is swan dive into homestuck meta and took me over a day to write. so i would appreciate feedback or discussion on this if you'd like, reblogs appreciated!

despite this question being posed as davejade related, my answers here are actually relevant for anyone interested in homestuck meta as well.

it’s just recently come to my attention that there are a a handful of people on twitter who are vocal davejade dislikers. i didnt know it was actually disliked until i looked it up on twitter, i honestly thought it was a joke blown out of proportion but no they exist! it surprised me a lot to see people think they "lack chemistry". not only because knowing what i know about them thats a ridiculous insinuation, but also i haven't seen the vitriol on tumblr. probably because we can actually poast about it on here in an unabridged manner which thus enables better, deeper critical analysis and engagement with the media. i think also people forget that dave strider is canonically bisexual and are too yaoipilled + facing the consequences of the epilogues to even give davejade a serious look/analysis. (dave dates terezi and karkat in separate timelines, thinks jane is hot, thinks roxy is a babe but shoves it down when he discovers she’s his ectomom lmfao. davesprite—an extension of dave himself—dated jade! but i'm going to cover that in more depth in this post since theres a lot of misunderstandings about the nature of that relationship in fanon.)

(as a side note according to what some people have told me in inbox and what ive seen lol i think that ive been inadvertently been getting people into davejade. it's all in my davejade tag here in chronological order if you'd like to get a Whiff. be sure to read the tags on posts in there too!)

even though theres a lot in this post as it is, it doesn't cover everything ive talked about wrt davejade, and i think it would benefit readers to have complementary posts alongside this for the full picture with stuff it doesn't cover. there's a ton about why theyre cute and why i think they work well together in that tag.

here's some highlight analysis posts, but be sure to check the tag because there's a more in there:

post a / post b / post c / post d / post e / post f (← one of my favorite ask responses ive ever gotten)

i think a huge chunk of the issue has to do with how the narrative handles dave and jade. one of the most damning things to me is how glossed over their canon interactions were in act 5 despite them collaborating on one of the most important things in the story. i haven't talked about this yet but i'm going to do so here. because they’re put on the backburner by the focus of the narrative during act 5, people who don’t read carefully will miss the implications that are there all along in canon but easily passed over.

under the cut ive separated it into multiple parts

1. Jade’s Quest: What Frog Breeding Entails

this is an analysis examining apart exactly what jade and dave did while frog breeding. i wrote it while high which was extremely enlightening and it allowed me to comprehend it and hopefully explain it in an understandable way. i also discuss how shitty the lack of on-screen communication between jade and dave was for this part and the next.

2. Jade & Dave vs. Jack Noir

ive discussed this one before on my blog so it's not as dense (see davejade tag). but i still sewed the gifs together and discuss how unfortunate this was to be be delegated to a banner at the top of mspa and the neglect of that whole arc despite the outcomes of it being reissued by characters thousands of pages later

3. Davesprite and Grimbark Jade

i get into davesprite's head here and try to make his motivations about the breakup clear to the extent that i can infer because jesus fuck i love these characters way too much ive known them for a decade i understand their core personality structures and why they think what they do and what is most likely to happen when extrapolating. not to toot my own horn btw .. but what im saying is i am confident in my interpretation based on canon. i also talk about how grimbark jade changed the way the fandom perceives their relationship, leaving davejade on a low note instead of a high note. and then hs epilogues had even worse consequences for davejade but i wont get into it because it was character assassination all around and doesnt deserve my time or yours. but if you wanna know what i think, here

4. The music question

where actually answer this ask like it's an ask and not an essay

1. Jade’s Quest: What Frog Breeding Entails

i wish we could have seen what collecting frogs entailed for the two of them. what exactly were they doing? jade’s quest is one of the most interesting.

before i start i want to take a tangent and say the frog breeding reminds me of back in 2020-2021 when i would breed hybrid flowers in animal crossing new horizons to get a very specific gene sequence for these flowers to not only use to breed for hybrids, but to get known gene sequences that i could use to “check” the genes of other flowers. the goal is to get two parent flowers whose sequences when bred would make a specific phenotype 100% of the time.

this sounds complicated but here’s what i did for the lilies:

(“rare island” refers to one of the first acnh patches that removed a nook miles island from the pool that had hybrid versions of your native flower of very specific phenotypes for each color. i wrote out the breeding chains to get parents that would always breed that exact flower found on the rare hybrid nmt island that is no longer available.)

the cleanup ALL TO GET the white 2-2-2 lily looked like this. and after i got white 2-2-2 lily it was smooth sailing

after all that i could use the orange 2-2-0 lilies and white 2-2-2 lilies made in the black lily process and get rare island orange 2-2-1 lilies 100% of the time. in mendelian genetics these numbers (2-2-1) are quite literally RR-YY-Ww.

RR-YY-ww (orange) x RR-YY-WW (white) = RR-YY-Ww (orange: heterozygous Ww gene)

and all that effort into getting white 2-2-2 lilies enables me to get it over and over again now. i don’t have to repeat that process to get rare island pink lilies. all i need to do for the pink 2-0-2 lilies is breed two default bag red lilies (2-0-1) together. 50% will be red (2-0-1) lilies, 25% will be black 2-0-0 lilies, and the last 25% will be pink (2-0-2) lilies.

anyway sorry back to the main point. FROG BREEDING. it just reminded me of it. now that i think of it the frog breeding process also reminds me a lot of artbreeder back from when AI was only a fun little toy 4-5 years ago

ok so have a look at what kanaya says about what jade must do. this is the coolest quest imo because of how it progresses and how long it actually is

here’s how it works. remember back in act 2, when the wayward vagabond needed to tie a longer cable to descend down the ship (and refused to give up the ones that made up his mayoral sash)? he used the appearifier in the ship to appearify the extra cable across the gap to his location? that’s how the appearifier normally works when when it’s locked to the present. it’s very straightforward.

when jade appearifies a frozen frog, it shows us this exact thing. she appearified the actual frog itself (the same way WV appearified the actual cable across the gap) to her exact location. it can get the frog out of the ice in the way WV could untrap serenity from the amber. if something’s destiny wouldn’t otherwise be changed, it will not be paradoxified, it will just simply itself be warped to that location, with precise carving if it is somehow trapped inside of something else.

if you could appearify it to your location right now, you wouldnt be able to take it out the appearifier’s crosshairs in person later to alter its destiny because the object won’t be there at that time. it wouldve been with you the entire time. unless you decide to take the appearified item back to that location so that you could appearify it in the past, but that’s the most pointless time loop ever and doesn’t change its destiny.

for this icicle frog jade and dave weren’t capable of changing its destiny anyway, because it was completely encased in ice, and just didn’t bother to go after it. partially because it was with jade at the appearifier the entire time anyway and she can’t exactly put it back in there in the future. the point is, besides jade appearifying it to her location, the frog had no other possible routes of destiny. in that part of lofaf where she appearified the frozen frog from, the ice is too deep to get anything out of it (other than appearifying it) and i’m not sure the forge would have melted it in time before their reckoning ended anyway.

the goal of jade and dave is to target frogs on the appearifier screen and trust that their future selves follow through in altering the frog’s destiny. if so, then the frog’s paradox slime will appear instead and its genes would be collected in addition to creating offspring between multiple paradox clone frog genes. then, dave and jade would necessarily have to go out adventuring and find the frog so that they end up following through for their past selves.

if i understand correctly, jade is creating all the frogs on her planet that grow up with manually modified genes. these frogs must be genetically altered from their parents so that the frogs she creates don’t grow up to become one of their parents (as they’d be identical). the mutant offspring frogs “generation A” she ectobiologizes will eventually mature from tadpoles to frogs, assisted by dave’s time travel. then she will eventually target “generation A” with the appearifier to get their paradox slime to fuse with some other frogs’ paradox slime and create new slightly altered frogs “generation B” (and then follow through on altering the “generation A” frogs’ destiny so their slime and genes can be paradoxified by jade and dave’s past selves). repeat until the genes are fine tuned for the genesis frog.

this is why i compared it to my breeding in animal crossing. getting the genesis frog reminds me of the blue rose paths. i worked with the garden council back in the day and i used backwardsN’s “cesspool” method, except i honestly gotta say my white 2-2-2 lily thing was much more involved and carefully maneuvered in a way that i imagine frog breeding is more like. backwardsN’s “genepool method” was basically making a red-orange-black rose primordial soup and waiting for a blue rose to emerge out of it, just increasing the chances seeing a blue rose sprout the next day after watering with each generation of offspring. you KNOW my ass was using time travel, even if i happened to get lucky and got a blue rose without even finishing the big turtle plot. without time travel, most players (95%) will get their first blue rose before these # of days. (open up advanced tag)

there must be so many daves running around to help her going back in time all within the span of a few hours while still having their own linear, older timelines that are much longer than the “time stage” they’re actually functioning in. this sounds complicated but it’s not. think of this “time stage” as analogous to the 3 days until the moon falls in majoras mask. it’s the “time window” all the time travel takes place within, but link doesn’t become a day younger when he travels to a day ago. the timeline of his “self” is older but is kept within the confines of the 3-day timeframe. similarly, in tears of the kingdom, two master swords exist simultaneously for most of history, but the one on the light dragon’s head (who was above the cloud barrier before the upheaval btw) is further ahead on its own linear timeline: it starts as the other, pre-gloomed master sword → broken by gloom → sent to the past to be repaired → renewed over time, existing at the same time on the “time stage” as its own pre-gloomed past self but ahead on its own linear timeline

now imagine this but within the “time stage” of just a few hours on 4/13/2009. kanaya says frog breeding ordinarily takes weeks. multiple daves can exist simultaneously because they’re operating in the same few-hour-timeframe but one can linearly be days ahead of another. it’s the exact same thing as breeding flowers in animal crossing for irl days but to your game it’s whatever date you have it set to. your irl progress isn’t lost if you go back a few days in settings. i’d often find a week in june to use as a “time stage” to loop through when it would rain at least one hour on each day of that week which would save me the hassle of watering my flowers every day before time traveling to the next.

it must’ve sucked for dave to hear jade say the same things over and over again. the novelty probably wore off pretty fast lol…… dave says he saw his future self fighting and dying to jack and knew that’s what he’d eventually have to do as well. every single dave at all points of his linear timeline understood that and it probably settled something horrible into his heart.

im imagining during the original run dave was thinking to himself: “im bored but cant alter anything about this without creating a doomed timeline. if i dont see my future self hugging jade then i cant hug her even though i really fuckin want to. note to future self: hug jade. aww shit look at me go guess i remembered. hell fucking yes cant wait for that to be me in a few hours” and gives a thumbs up

future dave pov, hugging jade and watching his past self give him a thumbs up from afar thinking to himself: “ahaha i remember exactly what i was thinking there” and gives a thumbs up

but anyway. goddamn. JADE AND DAVE. what did hussie do to you.

this is a goddamn atrocity.. what the hell man. i wish we could have at LEAST seen the text file jade sent to kanaya. we got to see ConversationWithAVeryStupidGirl.Txt but not daveisafunnyguy.txt?

i mean i GUESS the humor is delivered through this

and like, yeah that is pretty funny? but i feel like the single laugh this gives me is nothing compared to the joy i wouldve gotten out of seeing what dave has to say about the cloning apparatus for ants here and talking himself into circles about frog procreation enough to make not just gigglehouse jade laugh, but kanaya too

we spent so much time learning about the mechanics of the punch designix and hardly anything about creating the seed of the actual new universe. we learn about it through kanaya and karkat messaging jade, instead of dave and jade working that out through SHENANIGANS. even though this is JADE AND DAVE'S session. it’s fine that kanaya is helping them, as she should, but we’ve seen parallel pesterlog conversations before so i dont get why we didn’t get that here! jade and dave frog breeding is one of the most important events in homestuck, and yet it was terribly glossed over. everything in the story, their futures, are predicated on their success. not just in their unwinnable session, but the one they split up for 3 years and escape to.

at first i thought, maybe their lack of shown interaction has to do with hussie working out the intricacies of pesterlog/dialogue thing? as he once stated on tumblr:

shoshaumbay asked: In the intermission of act 6, it says that they get to talk. Does this mean that their guardians couldn’t talk to them before and that is why they left them notes all around their houses? The achievement badge only upgraded their ability to speak to each other as presented through the comic. I.e. it permitted them to speak to each other… WHILE WE WATCH! Do you think all the trolls were hanging out together, not talking at all? Or Dave and Jade were doing all that frog hunting without a single peep?? That’s ridiculous. On the other hand, abstraction weaves itself through the Homestuck reality, and it can be hard to pin down where abstraction is to be taken literally. The truth is, there is not much distinction between the layers of abstraction and the reality they are meant to stand for. John was both literally named on his 13th birthday, and not quite, because that’s silly. The guardians are both literally silent automatons, and not really, as there is indication through allusion they function as normal people too. And the kids went through a huge adventure, achieved immortal god status, and even then had to gain a few more levels just to gain the achievement of simple dialogue as a literal upgrade, as well as not literally, because that makes no sense. The reality is inseparable from the way the story is presented and the way the “game” is played. But those abstractions are also a facade for a more life-like reality beneath it as well.

then i realized, this is not only an arbitrary cop out that affects my enjoyment of the comic in retrospect because they wind up being able to talk later anyway and that makes me feel cheated in these moments, but also still actually awful within these parameters because hussie breaks his own rule here, proving he could have shown us dave and jade talking in person at any time regardless of needing the gift of gab achievement for us to watch them as readers. recall this is also the first time john and rose met in person (at least when rose wasn't asleep):

2. Jade & Dave vs. Jack Noir

this is where i take out my frustration over this being delegated to a banner at the top to the point where readers forgot it occurred.

youtube

i wish their time on lofaf frog breeding and fighting with jack was front and center and wasnt just in the banner at the top of the page. it makes it seem not as important when it completely was, considering that characters brought up what had happened in that scene multiple times.

it is significant because it is at that point that jack noir has killed all of the kids at least once. the only one left being jade who he refuses to kill due to bec’s loyalty

THIS IS WHAT THE REFRANCE (foreshadowing)

jack noir killed john on his quest bed which allowed him to ascend to god tier. then he killed john AGAIN but it wasn’t a heroic or just death so john was revived

jack killed grimdark rose. john smooched rose’s corpse, allowing her to take over on derse.

jack killed dave by redirecting jade’s bullets into dave’s body instead. jade smooched dave’s corpse, allowing him to take over on derse.

after jade shoots him through jack, he’s down for the count. she kisses him and he wakes up on derse; all he and rose have left of “themselves” in an existential sense are their dreamselves. they didnt know they were going to ascend to god tier delivering the tumor. they assumed they were just going to die like for real and not come back which is why dave went with rose since he didnt want her to die alone.

it was also an important point since her time spent with dave on lofaf is the first in-person contact jade has had with another living human since she was probably 4 years old with her grandpa.

for jack noir, we got [s] seer: desend and [S] ==> (3696) which were hella impactful. seeing jade and dave essentially go through the same thing but with an extended battle sequence honestly kinda warrants a flash in my mind. (the sad thing is that unite synchronization was originally written with those pages in mind (the track was originally called redshift) but of course malcolm brown couldnt have known what was going to happen unless hussie commissioned him for a specific track for a specific story beat, probably like whatever he did to coordinate cascade’s music with toby ahead of the 10/25/11 release of the flash and publication of volume 8 on bandcamp)

i think one of the worst parts is that entire conversations were referenced, but cut or never written.

this is a real forgotten homestuck fact: jade was completely freaking out after filling dave with bullets until karkat had talked her through it. very easily forgotten since even though it being referenced twice we never actually saw the conversation. (i overrode the black scratch background so it's easier to read)

wow thats so crazy i as a member of the audience dont in fact remember! would it have killed to write it my guy

and we find out thousands of pages later dave was thinking more about how it wouldve made jade feel to watch him die than knowing he was about to fucking die. if you even care btw

i wrote more about this here

3. Davesprite and Grimbark Jade

davesprite—an extension of dave himself—dates jade but breaks up because he feels inadequate at being the dave that he thinks jade deserves. NOT because they fought or anything. they were still on good terms. davesprite just felt inherently unlovable. john seemed more upset about the breakup frankly.

what davesprite did was because he thought it was in jade's best interest. there is nothing to suggest it was a fight / clash break up. they still seemed to be on good terms, davesprite asking where she went and all. jade says the breakup “is complicated” and “hes going through a lot of stuff”. given the context i think it's reasonable to assume that davesprite's thought process was: “we're coming up to the new session soon and youre going to meet up with dave again and i dont want to make shit awkward with you dating knockoff dave. you deserve to be with real dave instead so im gonna cut what we have going here in advance and distance myself from your life”

jade probably protested about saying how he's just as real as “real dave”, but davesprite made his decision already. im sure it wasnt easy for davesprite to break up either. with emotions running high (sadness, not anger) he probably just left to be alone and distance himself from jade, and seems to harbor guilt about it as we see in the log. that's probably why he wasn't at john's movie party. this is just speculation on my part but it doesnt seem in character for the breakup to be explosive because jade seemed more understanding than john. sad, but understanding.

i feel like a lot of people forget this. grimbark jade made it seem like davesprite did it to hurt her, or for this to mean that dave and jade are not actually good for each other, which is a wild mischaracterization of what happened but the one that stuck with the fandom nonetheless.

not only that, but davesprite's existence tragic and he's understandably depressed. after spending about a year in sburb (accounting for time travel) without john or jade, only to go back and give up your personhood to advance the alpha timeline and become forgotten is fucking crushing, and i think the breakup is also about davesprite coming to terms with that trauma, being okay with his existence as a sprite instead of being a bootleg stand-in for the dave that jade knew.

basically what vintagegamebro says,

it was such a tragic way for them to part for 3 years with no communication, and it was only proceeded by more tragedy because jade then had no one but davesprite to turn to, and davesprite needed anything but romance at that point

grimbark jade isn’t a good reflection of jade’s actual self. she pushed the mayor into lava for fucks sake which normal jade would never dream of doing, grimbark jade is straight up unhinged. i’m sure jade was hurt because all breakups hurt, but it was blown out of proportion (see how calm she was above a few days after the breakup?) because of Evilness. but also as @vintagegamebro mentioned it also felt somewhat … “off”? or out of left field? especially seeing what the nature of the breakup was from both sides in the above screenshots.

when dave says “theres no way i would have done that to you” i genuinely believe him. i have no reason not to believe him. look at him above asking for questions and clarification. thinking about how what davesprite did, a version of himself beyond his control and how it reflects on himself, i think it's obvious dave cares a lot about how jade feels about him

even after this confrontation in the game over timeline, dave laid down his fucking life to defend her corpse from the becs in he hope she could be revived by jane

and to think that after all this he still chose to save her, like always, probably knowing he had little to no chance, just because he cares for her, her life and who she is beyond this moment, really meant a lot for them. i really, really was mad that this would be the last time they would truly ever be together in a way that to me mattered

4. The music question

i wrote this post regarding instruments with this song in the back of my head if its anything. takes about 12 seconds to start after you press play for some reason

this too, closer to the “style”. i like imagining dave going apeshit on drums

#homestuck #davejade #reblog #maybe not the same length but i tried to put in as much thought and effort as you did #this made me SO HAPPY you have no idea #also clarifying in case the first bit ends up being seem by the wrong shipper i uh #i dont hate davekat i swear #i just really like jade

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psi-king-roadie · 3 years ago

Text

Raz is autistic.

Not just autistic-coded— although you can claim that his psychic powers could me a methaphor for autism if you want— but also just autistic. Why? Here is my essay:

He stims. The boy stims!!! A lot!!! If you stay motionless in either PS 1 or 2, the kid can’t stay still, and has idle animations of doing acrobatics and stretches in place as well as dancing, mimicking Bobby Zilch’s infamous taunting dance.

He has trouble connecting with his peers in both games, from the campers at whispering rock claiming he’s a lake monster, to the interns hazing him and using him to fulfill their tasks to get out of work. Even his own siblings like to mess with him, or are just straight up cruel to him (we’ll get back to them later).

Outside of Lili, Dogen, and maybe Sam, Raz doesn’t make friends with kids his own age easily —or at least fails to catch social cues on people thinking he is too focused on being a psychic— and often gravitates to connecting with his teachers, mentors, and painters in insane asylums (I always got the feeling he got along better with Edgar Teegle, especially considering he references the painter in Rhombus of Ruin). He even had trouble connecting with Lili at first. Side note: She’s also neurodivergent, but was less engaging at first because she was under-stimulated. Until Raz connected with her about their shared nightmare, when she revealed she read the same comics he did, she mocked him almost as cruelly as Bobby.

When he goes into Helmut’s mind, he knows what Sensory Overload and Panic Attacks is. Raz is fairly young, so it’s surprising that he knows about these terms as well as what they means in the context of the situation. Therefore, its likely that he’s experienced both of these before. Probably during a performance when he was younger, since he now seems to be very comfortable performing in front of people despite being so young. Bear in mind, I’m using his younger siblings as reference for how young the Aquatos are when they start performing. Raz most likely learned to somersault before he learned to crawl. So odds were there have been a fair share of baby Aquatos having temper tantrums on stage.

My bet is that Augustus used to use his mental link with Raz to help him calm down, through telekinesis and telepathy. This in turn helped awaken Raz’s psychic abilities, allowing him to read minds. Raz seems to be the only one who can do it in the first game, since he reads Lili’s mind multiple times. Hence, this is why Raz is hyper focused on learning to broaden his psychic horizons. It brings him comfort to learn to control them.

Furthermore, being psychic can be an extended metaphor of him being autistic because of how his family treats him. Some of his family members accept him as a psychic, like his father, and even recognize it as a part of family history —which is an important look at how mental disorders are commonly genetic but have been mistreated in earlier generations due to misunderstanding of mental conditions— allowing Augustus to embrace his own powers. Meanwhile, others think of it as “just a phase” and choose to ignore it, like his mother, or outright use him being psychic as blame for all the family’s problems, like Dion or Frazie.

Everything tying into a Family Curse is often how mental disorders like Autism, ADD, ADHD, BPD, Bipolar Disorder, etc, are all written off in many families, and as a result they’re misunderstood, which only end up hurting future generations when they’re ignored or not addressed in a healthy way.

Which is why the ending to the game very important to me OK?????

In conclusion, Raz is autistic because of this evidence I’ve presented but also because I like Raz as a character and I project onto characters I like. Hope you liked my TED Talk.

The End 🧠

#psychonauts #psychonauts 2 #rhombus of ruin #razputin aquato #psychonauts razputin #mental stretches || headcanons #vision post || text #spoilers #psychonauts spoilers #psychonauts 2 spoilers #long post

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wallylinda · 2 years ago

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may i ask what was the comic you hated? or rank the worst comics you've ever read? ffgjfjf

yes absolutely here are the top ten comics never to fucking touch if you even remotely value yourself and your mental health, in ascending order of how much I fucking hate them:

Animal Man (1988)

Okay, right off the bat, I'll have to admit: Morrison's run is decent. But everyone who claims that this comic is a "classic" or a "masterpiece of what you can accomplish in the medium" has thankfully only ever been subjected to Morrison's drug-fueled meditations on the nature of parallel universes and the importance of animal rights and not the complete and utter shitshow that was 50+ issues of: Animal Man turning into the knock-off Jersey Devil, Animal Man losing control of his powers and running around the suburbs naked and howling at the moon, Animal Man turning his daughter into the figurehead of a cult for reasons I still do not understand and do not care to comprehend.

Like I cannot even describe to you how divorced these plotlines are from any semblance of thought processes other than "how do I make this as fucked up as possible?" And I know it's a Vertigo title and I know that it's kind of par for the course in that regard but surely. Surely we can do better than this. Anyway, my favorite character was Animal Man's son, Cliff, who didn't deserve literally anything that happened to him I hope he has a good life.

2. Aquaman (1994)

I know. I know that a lot of people like this book. It is apparently a great book when you close your eyes and ignore everything that actually happens in the book. And let me tell you I tried. I read about ~60 issues of this garbage fire before giving up. It's just gritty, meaningless nonsense intermixed with feeble attempts at worldbuilding and increasingly icky romantic ventures. Like, Aquaman loses a hand to a bunch of carnivorous piranhas (haha), gets possessed by alien technology he found under Atlantis (???), and flies into frequent rages over the people around him, understandably, refusing to obey his every command (good for them). He's an asshole! And not even in a good way! No one in this comic has any semblance of an emotional connection to each other, be it good or bad, and their motivations often fall flat because of that. Not to mention that the colorist just. Pinkified the Inuit character. Great. Awesome. I hate it here.

3. Plastic Man (2004)

How. How did this book get an Eisner Award. Did we read the same fucking comic??? Was bribery involved??? I feel insane. All you need to know about this book is that its very last issue had a joke about the act of necrophilia on a minor. And for a book that was marketed based on its humor, it had one (1) funny panel, and that was it. Bad. I'm so sorry Plastic Man maybe you'll get a series I'll actually enjoy reading one day...

4. Green Lantern: New Guardians

Congratulations, you gave Kyle superpowers equal to a god! Now what interesting and impactful stories are you going to tell with this newfound power of his that doesn’t completely detract from the previous themes or further convert the franchise into blatant military propaganda? ...What do you mean you’re going to make Ganthet into Kyle’s father figure. Why did you create a romantic relationship between him and Carol. Why is every modern Green Lantern comic obsessed with the supposed benefits of a universal police presence when everything prior to the 2005 series consistently denounced it. This entire book was just a paltry imitation of the Ion arc of the 90s, and you should that instead of this, because this was just OOC nonsense.

5. Green Lantern: Rebirth

Parallax retcon written by Geoff Johns. Enough said.

6. The Flash (2011)

Once again mutilated from the corpse of actually good material, this comic is a coagulated monstrosity of editorial bullshit and increasingly desperate attempts at portraying the cops as the Good Guys. Hell, during this shitshow of a book, Barry arrests his own future nephew for spray-painting anti-Flash sentiments onto an alley, who, may I add, was introduced in this scene, and as a black character. Love that. Furthermore, Barry’s personality solely consists of being overly attached to his work and his primary motivation to being a hero is a rip-off of Batman’s origins. Iris has been dumbed down and smoothed out into unrecognizability and her romantic relationship to Barry has no basis or emotion to it. Just. Everything about this comic is OOC and completely disingenuous to previous canon and deliberately mean-spirited towards its fans. It doesn’t even feel like it wants to tell a good story. It just feels like it wants to shame the readers for liking the characters and themes that existed before the reboot.

7. Fate

The epitome of everything wrong about 90s comics. A powerful protagonist with no motivation behind any of his actions, overly complicated storylines with no plot cohesion, and a constant gritty and pessimistic atmosphere that serves no purpose other than to exemplify the main character’s unlikability. You could, in theory, say that that was the entire point of the comic, but that still doesn’t change the fact that this book is needlessly preachy and self-absorbed and just plain boring. Loved it when the main character died in JSA. Bad.

8. Secret Six (2006)

On rare occasions, I see individuals lauding Gail Simone as this beloved icon of feminism in the comic industry, and I urge those same people to read Secret Six because their opinion will change. The one WOC, Chesire, is demonized into one of the worst racist caricatures I have ever had the displeasure of reading, which of course means that she has the dubious honor of playing the part of the Dragon Lady and the Asian Baby Mama trope. Jade is a completely different character in this, and the text is all but too happy to ignore her prior history in favor of making her as immoral and sexualized as possible. Everything has to relate to sex. The dialogue is clunky and unrealistic. And like, this comic has been upheld for its queer representation before, but having queer characters doesn’t mean that it is any way good, and it certainly doesn’t mean that it should be excused for the blatant mess that it actually is. I hate it so much.

9. Heroes in Crisis

Do I even need to explain.

10. Green Arrow (2011)

THE WORST COMIC I'VE EVER FUCKING READ. MY GOD. You might be thinking to yourself right now, “oh, how bad can it really be?” and the answer to that question is BAD. Here are some plot points: Ollie fucks a group of triplets in the wilderness while being chased by bears (idk but i’m not rereading this goddamn thing to give you the exact details) while everyone around him rightfully assumes he’s died in a ditch, Ollie finds out he’s the rightful heir to a magical arrow cult and gets tortured by his father for it (???), and Shado, a woman who in previous canon was involved with Ollie, now has a daughter with his father. Like. It’s bad!!! Nothing about it is salvageable!!! Nothing about it is a Green Arrow comic!!! Don’t fucking read this!!!

in conclusion: i hate all of these please please please take my advice and never touch them. do this for yourself and not for me. also if you are a fan of any of these comics sorry that i despise your beloveds or whatever please make your hate post about me on your own blog and not on mine thx 😭🙏🙏

#only reason identity crisis isn't on this is because i haven't read it. if i ever read it i know that i'll explode and die #also praying this doesn't end up in the tags i would love to stop the streak of weird anons i've been getting for the past month 🤡🤡#asks #dc

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aboutzatanna · 3 years ago

Text

On Why I’m Still Firmly Anti-John Zee

I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I’m not a fan of the Zatanna/John Constantine pairing. It’s not due to one reason but many and a lot of it boils down to erasing Zatanna’s own history, achievements and changing her character to fit her in to the mold of Constantine’s love interest rather than continuing to develop her as a hero in her own right.

One point that I made that folks keep misinterpreting is the one about Constantine’s involvement in John Zatara’s death. This is not even the primary reason why I dislike the pairing so I want to clear up any misconceptions regarding what I said.

What I wrote was, both explicitly and implicitly that Constantine was indirectly responsible for his death. Yes, it was the Great Darkness that killed Zatara and the latter chose to sacrifice himself in Zatanna’s place but they were there because of Constantine in the first place. He put them in the line of fire which resulted in Zatara’s death.

Constantine is a conman and throughout Swamp Thing #49-50 he uses various overt and subtle tricks to get them all at the table. Look closely at his interactions with Mento in the issue for example.

By the end of this he’s driven insane and turned into a villain in subsequent appearances.

In the case of the Zatara’s, he used Zatanna’s residual feelings for him and Zatara’s protectiveness to lure them to the table. He needed bodies to throw at the Darkness but at the same time he was also counting on Swamp Thing to succeed where others have failed which begs the question of what good the seance ultimately did. Anyway, don’t take my word for it, go read it yourself.

I suppose that’s the problem with asshole protagonists, people equate protagonist with hero and subconsciously believe that the ends justify the means or the protagonists sympathetic backstory justifies their crapsack actions but once you start humanizing whom they’ve hurt or try to hold them accountable, it’s a different story all together.

Anyway, I brought this story up amongst many others and it’s not even the worst offender (that would that dreadful JLD: Apokolips movie) or even an offender in any way. On its own I don’t hate the Swamp Thing story, in fact it’s one of my favorite comics, what I dislike is the way the story has been followed up on.

The thing is even though we got several stories set sometime after Zatara’s death none of them really addressed the immediate aftermath or trauma Zatanna experienced from it. Even the 1987 Zatanna Special was more about her searching for her identity. The Spectre story in Spectre Vol 2 #7 was a bizarre body horror story and her goodbye to her dad’s ghost at the end wasn’t really emotionally satisfying and it was more about tying up loose ends from her final arc in the JLA Vol 1. It was also a Spectre story and not a Zatanna story.

So when Books of Magic #2 came out and Zatanna jumped up and hugged Constantine I found it to be quite jarring.

I’m pretty sure if I took my girlfriend and her Dad on a trip that resulted in her Dad getting killed and then I showed up at her doorstep a couple of years later asking her to babysit a kid for me I strongly suspect that her reaction wouldn’t be to give me hugs and kisses.

This is not helped by the fact that after she agreed to babysit Tim Hunter she proceeds to endanger him by taking him to a bar full off seedy magical characters and when they inevitably gang up on her, she is too scared to fight back:

All of this so John Constantine can look cool:

Her reaction doesn’t make sense when you consider that Zatanna has been with the League for several years at this point and had seen everything from alien invasions to multiversal threats and has survived situations with her powers gone or diminished. Can you imagine Superman, Batman, Aquaman or Green Lantern being written like that?

And despite claiming to be over him:

She is clearly not over him:

The writer Neil Gaiman have said that Constantine was his favorite DC character to write so I’m not surprised that he wrote John more favorably than Zee.

Books of Magic is a great book and I recommend reading it. Also, there is no harm in criticizing the things you love. Literally, the only thing I didn’t like about the book was Zatanna’s characterization in it. She had been traumatized by Constantine’s gambles in the past and I found her suddenly being over it (mostly for the sake of plot) and somehow still having feelings for the bad boy and unable to resist his pelvic sorcery to be distasteful. It didn’t feel like an earned moment.

Other than that, it’s a great read. But like beautiful snowflakes that eventually causes an avalanche, it did start a trend.

Like how in the otherwise excellent ‘Zatanna: Come Together’ mini series has Marsha claim that she chooses guys based on how different they are from John:

Like, wtf? Her ON PANEL relationships, as in relationships we saw develop on panel in her published stories were with Jeff Sloan and Barry Allen. Constantine was retconned into her past for the sake of plot expediency in ST #50.

The comic also depicts her bemoaning how she wasn't as good as Constantine in one panel:

Which again, makes no sense in the greater context of her history. Zatanna was kicking ass for 20 years before Constantine was even conceived as a character yet the literal second she is associated with the fan favorite her entire character begins to revolve around him.

Luckily, Dini's Zatanna: Everyday Magic one shot did a much better job at characterizing Zatanna. Her character, relationships and choices didn't orbit around Constantine, she is the one who saves him, she has a life of her own completely separate from him and it was believable that she held no grudge against him but wasn't pining for him either. Her kissing him on the cheek didn't feel weirdly out of place and felt earned within the context of the story.

Dini’s handling of magic isn’t perfect but his handling of Zatanna has always been on point. When John purposefully sabotages one of her relationships while she was out risking her life to help him, she gives him the response he deserves:

And kicks him out:

“Spare you more of the same” what a jerk.

Sadly, despite being an independent heroine for much of the 90's and 00's, the Nu52 rebooted the character and molded her into love interest for Constantine. The only stories that get referenced are the ones with John Constantine in it with ST #50 now serving as more of an origin story than Zatanna’s actual origin story ‘Zatanna’s Search’.

The reason why I wrote posts like In Pictures: Zatannas Arc is in response to stories like JLD V1 #0 where she is treated as little more than a romantic pawn being passed between Constantine or Nick Necro.

Or how John lies to her to get her to join the team during Lemire’s run JLD and the constant cycles of John lying and keeping secrets from her but she has to keep coming back to him because she can’t save the day without him which is just...ugh.

Or how despite defeating the Upside Down Man and declared leader of JLD, she still keeps taking a back seat to John who is written more like a leader than her whereas she is depicted as useless without her magical power and the unnecessary drama of her keeping her possession by the UDM a secret. It’s like they took her flawed characterizations in BoM and made it her default characterization.

Or how in JLD Apokolips animated movie she was fridged to progress John's character arc and her entire purpose in the movie was for him to fulfill his destiny. Yuck!

Maybe some folks enjoy this take but I don't. I would much rather she is portrayed as competent heroine in her own right with her own supporting cast, villains and lore. We’ve only gotten little glimpses of that from the works of Conway, Paul Dini and Lee Mars.

What DC is doing to Zatanna is no different compared to what they did to Black Canary. They took a cool heroine, tie them to a male hero then proceed to weed out everything not related to said male hero and define them entirely by their relation to the male hero and you rarely get to see the female hero portrayed as better than the male one. She exists to move forward the story arc of the male hero whether as antagonist, ally or reward and rarely get a story arc of her own. Even when the relationship has run its course and characters have believably separated DC still pathologically pairs them together again as if they are meant to be forever. Bleh. I say this as someone who likes Ollie and Dinah (separately but not as a couple). With possible adaptations on the way, the last thing I want to see is Zatanna being written the same way as Laurel on Arrow, Lana Lang on Smallville, Raimi’s Mary Jane in his Spider-Man trilogy or even Diana in WW84 (which is it’s own essay for it’s problematic tropes) and I’m already seeing seeds of that in how she’s been written since Nu52.

Constantine isn't any more special than any other character in DC's roster. He's another asshole protagonist propped up by writer favoritism. Zatanna is not his true love. She only appeared once in his 300 issue Hellblazer run. The closest he ever came to having a true love in his own title was Kit Ryan. Likewise, Zatanna is not Constantine’s groupie. Her purpose isn't to comfort his man pain or make him look good and writers should stop making her look small just to make Constantine look good. She has her own world, supporting cast and love interests that she should be a part of.

Anyway, this got long, but I just thought I would clear this up. I started this blog for fun and to give lime light to lesser known stories, serve as a resource and maybe to get people read more comics. The last thing I want is for this place into some hostile shipping battle ground. I’m too old for that shit.

Evah a doog yad.

#zatanna #Zatanna Zatara #John Constantine #DC comics

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