#my comics reading has been VERY sporadic over the years

[lastoneout]

Okay, honest question, who is Yotsuba?

OH HO HO ANON I AM ALL TOO HAPPY TO EXPLAIN :3

Yotsuba is a character from the greatest manga ever made, Yotsuba&!(or Yotsuba to! it translates weird, most fans just call it Yotsuba) which is a comedy slice-of-life manga about Yotsuba Koiwai, a five year old girl, and her very strange yet wholesome family and friends!

It's from the same mangaka who gave us Azumanga Daioh, though while that manga is told in a four-panel comic style and doesn't really have much of an overarching plot, Youtsuba is done in a traditional manga style and despite also being very episodic there is a bit of a throughline surrounding Youtsuba getting settled into the neighborhood she just moved to, growing up, and eventually, in the later chapters, getting ready to go to school for the first time. Also, there are storylines that take place over multiple chapters as well! Despite the fact that the manga has been releasing since 2003, the chapters are pretty sporadic and the comic has only really covered about one year of the character's lives, but it never really feels slow or aimless. It feels almost...timeless? I guess. It's really nice.

Anyway, the manga is legit one of the most wholesome, funny, heartwarming things I have ever read. Kiyohiko Azuma is a fucking MASTER of comedy(you may have seen screencaps from a Sailor Moon fan comic he made going around on tumblr in which Jupiter accidentally sends Venus shooting across a pool that made me laugh so hard I cried) and he balances it well with lots of slow moments with GORGEOUS artwork where you can really take in the scenery and all of it is seeped in a wonderful nostalgia for childhood that legit makes me super emotional.

I don't think the manga has ever really taken off in terms of popularity, at least not to the degree that it deserves imo, which is likely in part due to the creator being firm about it never getting an anime adaptation and the sporadic release schedule, but it's far from unknown. There's been an official(I think??) score released and plenty of figurines and merch. It's also birthed a lot of memes, and it def has the same issue as One Piece where if you read it and love it you will turn into a walking billboard and try to drag your friends and family in with you. It's just THAT good!

You may have seen art of or people cosplaying Danbo, a "robot" made of old cardboard boxes that Yotsuba adores (Totally a real robot btw, def doesn't have a middle schooler shoved inside there, that would be silly wdym /s)

And this pose from the back of one of the manga volumes featuring Yotsuba, her father, and their extremely tall friend Jumbo has been redrawn with other characters like 500000 billion times

And you've also probably seen this going around tumblr before (that's Fūka she's my favorite cringe fail daughter I would literally die for her).

Also, I would be doing a disservice if I didn't mention Yanda, who is a friend of Yotsuba's dad and also Yotsuba's nemesis. He's a loser who constantly gets dunked on by a toddler it's fucking hilarious.

But yeah it really is just like, a manga that feels like a hug, or a warm blanket or something, it's so comforting and funny and fantastic, I find myself re-reading it any time life gets to be too hard just bcs it's that good at distracting me and reminding me that live is worth living.

And also given that it's literally my favorite manga, I saved up a bunch of screencaps to use as reaction images after a read one time, and thus now it's my own little joke that if you send me anon hate I'm just gonna send you back a picture of this cutie

Bcs come on how can you be angry when you're looking at this???

Anyway here's some screencaps of the main supporting cast bcs I love all of them so much <3

YOU WILL READ YOTSUBA I AM NO LONGER ASKING

[homestuckreplay]

Webcomics at Day 100 #4: explodingdog

Pages read: 2000-01-10 - 2000-09-17 (100 update days, but over 500 pages) & 2009-04-13 - 2009-05-26 (a further 13 days/42 pages)

Reason for selection: explodingdog may have been the first popular webcomic to work from reader submissions, and its drawings look like they were made in MS Paint, both key features of early Homestuck. explodingdog also broke containment, with many of its drawings spread elsewhere without attribution, such as being turned into LiveJournal icons or even painted on a building in Seattle.

Original run: 2000-2015, with lots of pages but an intermittent update schedule. Ongoing while Homestuck is getting started.

Content warnings: Extreme (but very abstract/cartoon) violence, gross-out humor involving bodily fluids

Overall thoughts:

I love the idea for this comic. Readers send in a short phrase via email, which can be absolutely anything, and artist Sam Brown chooses the ones that inspire him and draws a picture based on that phrase. However, reading the comic as an archive in the future, I don’t love the execution. Quite a few of the drawings made me openly groan, roll my eyes, or shake my head. There were definitely a few that got genuine laughs out of me, but they were a small percentage.

None of this is intended as shade to the artist – Brown seems like a decent guy based on the interviews I’ve read, and I hope he had fun making this. Running a webcomic for fifteen years is an impressive feat in itself, but this one just isn’t for me, at this point, in its current form.

Brown has stated that he has ‘never really seen explodingdog as a comic’ and calls his work a ‘collaborative art project’ although his reasoning hinges on the idea that comics have to be funny, and that humor isn’t the goal of his work. I personally think that comics are a medium that can work in any genre, not just comedy, and so webcomic is appropriate. In an essay, Kyle Conway argues that explodingdog is an absurdist theater performance, employing improvisation and experienced as live by its audience. Conway also highlights the design of the website, where instead of placing the most recent installment on the homepage as most webcomics do, individual titles have to be clicked on to see the accompanying artwork. In Brown’s words, ‘the story happens in your head’ between the title and image.

Conway’s arguments make sense from his position as a real-time reader. A huge draw of explodingdog is the knowledge that the captions came from ordinary folk on the internet, and that you, the reader, could submit a caption, and a cooler guy on the internet would think it was interesting or poignant or funny enough to make a drawing out of. The moment between clicking on the page’s title and seeing its corresponding image, where the reader comes up with their own interpretation of the title, is meaningful when the drawings are given out a handful at a time on sporadic days.

But these things don’t work the same in an archive. There’s a much greater distance between the reader and the creator, with no chance of personally becoming part of the work. And having to click every individual page from the menu isn’t a smooth reading experience for over 500 pages at once – there’s no ‘next’ button, although weirdly the entire image on each page functions as a ‘previous’ button, which makes an accidental click really frustrating. Brown knew from the start that creating art on the internet made it more temporary than physical art, as websites changed form over time – in a 2006 interview, he said ‘i think it is very possible that either because of government regulation or changes in technology or greedy corporations or a combination of all three, the internet as we expect it to be in 2006 won’t exist in ten years.’

The response to explodingdog during its release seems extremely positive, with lots of people praising how it twists the meaning of prompts and comes up with unexpected interpretations. I personally found that it got very repetitive, very fast. The same twists would happen in a lot of drawings, and would usually involve 2000s-era internet humor such as robots, aliens, stick figures bleeding due to missing their head or limbs, green monsters that are referred to as ‘monkeys,’ and riffs on the idea that ‘other people are stupid.’ There are recurring characters, including the Red Robot – famous enough to be featured in quite a few other webcomics – a second robot that grows roses in its stomach, a guy watching TV in a space wasteland, Phil, and more.

In some cases, an entire picture is reused. ‘better than being lost in the city’ (6/29/2000) and ‘In the morning things will be better’ (7/13/2000) feature the exact same piece of art, the later one slightly zoomed in. ‘toast from a toaster’ (1/11/2000), ‘Toast goes in the toaster’ (6/19/2000) and ‘Toast’ (7/17/2000) all three contain the same image. The gimmick, as discussed often by Brown, is that the images are inspired by the captions – not that the images already existed and happened to fit something that was submitted. I really hope this disappears in later years.

Like other comics I’ve read, I did notice a lot of improvement in the art between 2000 and 2009 in terms of complexity and ease of understanding. In both cases the art is mostly irregular, childlike stick figures and blobs, with no intent for the art to be technically good. In 2000, there’s a lot of muted colors including browns, grays, khakis and oranges. The color palette often isn’t nice to look at (in my opinion) and as the images often depict unpleasant things such as vomit and lobotomies, they sometimes feel like shock value art. In 2009, the colors have brightened and become more varied, and there’s more use of backgrounds even when the image doesn’t require it. The stick figures are more polished with smoother lines. I was surprised to learn that Brown was already a fine art graduate in 2000; in the nicest possible way, he does such a good job of hiding any actual skill.e

I think that even in the modern day there is great potential for certain explodingdog comics to be used as reaction images or ‘tag your oc’ style memes. However, due to the nature of the project, I think this comic would be better enjoyed as a greatest hits collection than as a full archive.

Relevance to Homestuck: explodingdog is one of the webcomics linked from MSPA under the heading ‘No Shortage of Good Websites,’ and due to its prominence in the 2000s, may have been a direct influence on Hussie choosing to work from reader commands. They’re both comics that collaborate with their audience and invite readers who want to share in the work’s creation.

In explodingdog, the images vary on how they relate to the captions – some draw the phrase straight up, some are a ‘yes and,’ some are a direct response (if the caption is a question) and some feel unrelated, but feature a stick figure who could possibly be saying that caption. The ‘yes and,’ where Brown uses the phrase and adds a second, followup phrase that changes the context, were the most effective ones for me. This might be because they felt the most Homestuck – Hussie does the same move where they take a reader command and add something else so that the command is followed, but is different to intended. A recent example is p.597, where the command is ‘Use ice maker, it’s still hot around here.’ and the response is ‘yes, Dave uses the ice maker, and it’s full of cherry bombs, not ice.’

Finally, both comics put out a large number of pages per day, unlike the majority of comics which stick to a single page per day. Both explodingdog and Homestuck published 4-6 pages on most update days in their first years, and both occasionally broke into double digits. Clearly some aspect of their creation is designed to make a lot of content, as fast as possible, to the point that some readers might consider them quantity over quality.

Continue reading? In a 2004 interview Brown said ‘my website is available to anyone on the Internet for free, but millions of people would rather see porn or sports scores.’ I’m not huge on either porn or sports scores but I still think I am one of those people.

[onesecretperson]

10 bloggers you'd like to know better challenge/prompt. tagged by @redpenship

last song: Return to Krocodile Isle, again, because I've been on and off listening to it after work since I first watched that animated music video. Just good kind of musical stuff.

favorite color: I have a very difficult time with Favorites in general, but I'll say a Dark Shade Of Purple right now, like one that'd be good for colour palettes in nighttime scenes.

last book: A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear, a nonfiction book that I'm only just finishing because of how sporadically I actually take time to read books. It's very amusing though, written like a long TV Documentary, though I imagine I'd find a lot of a nonfiction is written like that If I'll actually find more to read.

last movie: Adams Family Values, watched on a Discord Watch party, which is where I see most movies now a days. It was a fun movie, and surprisingly good.

last tv show: Mission Hill, also watched on a Discord Watch Party. First time I saw it & I was so surprised by how impressive the character animation is. It's also so well written for it's humour.

sweet/savory/spicy: Savoury. I can't handle a lot of forms of sweet anymore, like I can feel it actively damage me. Still eatch lots of sugary things but at a limited scope. Spicy is pretty good too but I don't like capsaicin much. Honestly though, whatever the flavor genre that brand cereal, oats, etc are in is the most common thing I eat.

relationship status: Single. Actually just started being interested in the idea of a romantic relationship this year. But... I only want to interact with people over shared interests. Putting energy into dating for the sake of dating is hard to justify.

last thing I searched: Aw heck, capsaicin, because I wanted to double check the spelling and if I was thinking of the right thing. I usually keep a thesaurus open due to my random dips in how confident I am in my understanding of basic words, so I don't have to use the search engine for it. Before that though was "Pathfinder Troop."

current obsession: I don't have a specific obsession above the rest right now, my brain is hopping between topics constantly. I AM however just falling off of a Disco Elysium obsession. Actually more like I'm actively forcing my thought patterns to change to stop thinking about it because I played the story twice now and I really don't want to start making fanfiction pitches and outlines for it. I also don't want to get stuck trying to perfect a run in it like I did when playing Suzerain for a month straight.

looking forward to: Trying out some sort of anxiety treatment, because I was never worried about how much I worried until I just recently started to consider that maybe my Psychiatrist is right about OCD to a limited extent. I also that a lot of my frusterating behaviors seems anxiety driven, and having more control over what I am able to do would be so nice.

BONUS TOPICS

favorite drink: Water. So much Water.

song playing on a loop in your head: Ms Langtree's Lament song from Over the Garden Wall. Mostly because I always forget certain lyrics and replaying the song to figure out what the lyric is.

current favorite character: Kim Kitsuragi. The hype about this man online was correct, he is such a perfect supporting character for a video game. Like he is so patient, but he also constantly has tells that reveal his interests and real opinions. He's so interesting.

fun activity you would like to get into: Making very simple video Games. Maybe even with other people.

last video game: Game Dev Tycoon, because I was weak last night and let myself slip into one of my annoying looping thought patterns around that game's gameplay. Luckily I actually didn't have as rough of a time getting stuck into it like I tend to.

last comic/graphic novel: I think the latest was the update of Jareddilon's Wayward Comic. But yeah I'm still trying to learn the skill of reading graphic novels. I have a lot of IDW physical prints but never read them veyr far yet despite enjoying what I did read. I was always so frustrated as a kid that I couldn't read comic either whenever I tried.

Tagging -I've just tagged people I've interacted with through Tumblr at least once before. Don't think any of these people have many interests in common: @noeggets, @bethdehart, @antirepurp, @slunberparty, @buginacup, @lonicera-edulis, @fridka, @snewdraws, @friendlyfangs, @skelleste

[everythingismadeofchaos]

Hey so I have to ask this question. I am an old, and I've been trying anime sporadically for literal decades (since I saw Twilight of the Cockroaches in the theater), but I couldn't find much I liked and didn't really start getting into it until I saw One Punch Man season 1 after it first came out and before season 2 and it made me laugh and just have a wonderful time. At that point I realized there probably was a lot of anime that was worth my time, and I started looking for it, and what I discovered was that anime is actually like most things: most of it is crap and has no interest for me, but some of it is really good and some of it is fantastic. So just recently I found Dungeon Meshi.

I love Dungeon Meshi. It's inspired me to actually try reading manga, which I've never been able to enjoy before. I sporadically tried comics over the years, but it still hasn't stuck even when it's material that I'm really interested in; I don't know why but it just doesn't work for me. Manga never has either, although I haven't really tried it much. But now I've tried reading Dungeon Meshi and I'm having kind of mixed results but I'm happy I'm trying it even though it's kind of diluted by the fact that I've already seen this story in the anime. I'm really looking forward to another manga by the same author that I ordered the other day at the suggestion of somebody on Tumblr, when I previously asked for advice. I have high hopes that I will enjoy that more than I enjoy the DM manga simply because I've never seen the stories before. Apparently there are seven short stories; that should be fun.

But my question is this. Is the inherent creepiness of anime what's really holding it back in the west? All of the sexualization of young girls, and even leaving aside young girls there's this phenomenon I'm going to call "the chainmail bikini effect" because it kind of parallels a phenomenon in Western fantasy, that all really screws up my enjoyment of the story. I can't bloody stand harem anime. I find it so, so aggravating. And the thing is, I'm really curious about this other genre with all these other ideas and settings and conventions and I really like all of that stuff. It's just the creepy pseudo-pedophilia and hypersexualization. I feel like most anime wants me to be a pedophile and that's creepy as fuck.

So how much other anime is there that isn't like this? One Punch Man really wasn't, although there were one or two characters I guess who were kind of parodies of the genre, which makes sense since the whole thing was a parody, but there's got to be more. I mean I loved Ascendance Of A Bookworm, because even though that was a young girl there was absolutely nothing sexualized about it. I loved the Saga of Tanya the Evil. It really stands out and is completely different from anything else that I'd ever seen in that genre, although it does remind me a lot of a book I read a couple of decades ago called The Blue Max, which they completely ruined in a movie starring George Peppard; the book is about this character sort of fighting against his own personal demons and losing, but the movie character is just a positive decent neato white hat hero guy and it ruins the whole concept. Tanya is like that book (not the movie obviously).

What else is out there in this department? What am I going to enjoy like Delicious in Dungeon because it doesn't carry these creepy garbage ideas? Suggestions actively solicited. And thank you very much in advance for reading this wall of text.

[retellingthehobbit]

I went to read your comic on Ao3 and I noticed you'd started back in 2020. Aside from your clear and beautiful art progression, what can you tell me about the timeline of your comic?

Thank you! And yes, started this webcomic in January of 2020. “I sure hope nothing bad happens in 2020 that will hamper my ability to focus on a large personal project!” — me in January 2020 with all the naivety of youth. Top ten images taken minutes before disaster. This comic is like a deeply personal diary of my mental state, complete with the long empty hiatuses that are sort of like that part of Twilight where months of depression are represented by blank pages.

One of my favorite things about webcomics is how you can often see an artist’s style grow organically over time. I think it’s something that’s getting lost in the age of “Webtoon Originals,” where people are starting to expect webcomics to be produced by an actual production studio with a team of artists behind them and to maintain a consistent highly curated art style throughout. These professionally funded comics are fun, but they do lose the messy personal organic growth that used to separate webcomics from traditional print comics? But i could go on a whole tirade about webtoon haha 😂 !

The Hobbit is partially a story about someone learning how to express themselves. Bilbo starts the story as this stuffy little guy who is repressing a lot his own personality; he ends the story as a skilled artist writing elaborate prosy poetry about his adventures. I deliberately chose to start drawing the comic before I went to college, knowing my art style would change a lot of over that period!

Anyway here's the timeline as I remember it: Pre-development: I was working on sketches of the comic itself as early as 2016. Chapter 1 (A Bedtime Story/Tooks and Bagginses): (Posted on Tumblr in January 2020, on Ao3 later): Published shortly before I went to college. I was drawing in Paint Tool Sai, and hand-writing all the words instead of using a font. I set out to adapt at least the Unexpected Party chapter, but thought I'd probably adapt the entire novel within a year or two. ("It's a webcomic Michael. How long could it take? twelve months?") Chapter 2: (A Very Respectable Hobbit): Posted like a week after Chapter 1. This was when I still thought I could post a ten page chapter every week, haahahahahahahahahaha Fs in the chat.

HIATUS #1: DANCE BREAK: TIME FOR A GLOBAL PANDEMIC. The exact timeline of 2020 is a blur for obvious reasons, but I do remember the updates became very sporadic over this period. Chapter 3-5 (Very Old Friends and An Unexpected Party chapters): there’s a global pandemic. During Spring Break my college abruptly kicks us all off campus and sends us home. I keep looking at the “post dates” on these chapters like what??? Really? I posted that at thAt time? But there was a global pandemic happening and I was so busy and overwhelmed with college???? When did I have the time? I have no memory of drawing these. My memories of all 2020 are so blurry. I think these chapters just manifested spontaneously.

The weekly/biweekly update schedule has been tossed to the wind, never to return. Alas. Chapter 6 (An Enormously Important Dwarf, aka Thorin’s intro): I was back “at college” during our “hybrid” year, so in practice I was extremely isolated. this was posted during a year after the first chapter, in 2021. I would never have found the motivation to continue if I wasn't so excited to draw Thorin! I also joined a "comic club" at my college which was comprised mainly of awkward video calls with like three people. On a weirder note, this chapter was posted a few weeks after the January 6th attempted coup. I was drawing in a a weird headspace.

DANCE BREAK #2: IT’S TIME FOR A YEAR LONG HIATUS:

I've started to often dislike the word “burnout” when it’s applied to art. It implies that the problem is that you were drawing too much or that you can’t find inspiration, when often the problem is much bigger than your art-- it's wider economic anxieties and social circumstances outside your control. It is very hard to think clearly and create things when you are worried about your future, about work, about housing, about a global pandemic, about constant demands on your time, and about being extremely isolated. In hindsight, I wasn’t “burned out”— I was in a situation where I could not think clearly or produce anything. Chapter 7 (The Lonely Mountain): posted a full year after chapter 6. For a while I considered having this be the “last chapter” of the comic!

Changing art styles was a thing I was really motivated to do, and was my last “bucket list” item for the comic.

HIATUS #3: I get really busy with junior year of college! I grow more and more disillusioned with Tolkien as I learn more about The Hobbit Law crushing labor unions and worker's rights in New Zealand, and how Amazon takes advantage of that. The Tolkien Estate also releases a statement saying they disapprove of any unauthorized use of Tolkien's works for profit or not, which isn't really legally enforceable but is also just an act of pure contempt XD. Chapter 8 (A Tangled Web): I get sent to the emergency room in an ambulance for Reasons and begin drawing this in the weeks after, as I realize I don't care about the Tolkien Estate or Amazon or Warner Brothers or whatever hollow marketable products they produce under the tolkien brand. I think this is the weakest chapter of the comic, both in writing and art, and in hindisght think the comic works better without it pacing-wise. However!!!! I was drawing it in a weird mental state, so. XD

Also, at this point I am drawing entirely in Photoshop. Chapter 9 (Ash and Smoke): Back at college for senior year— time for dragon! The comic starts updating with something that resembles a "regular schedule!" this year had more and more people on campus in person, and I started to slowly make college friends :). Also, at this point I am the President of the comic club, and we are now meeting in person and rebuilding our comic empire. Chapter 10 (The Heart of the Mountain): Some funky bits of writing I'd like to revise at some point, but I enjoy the art in this chapter. Chapter 11 (Polite Nothings): If I were to do this all again I'd shorten this chapter and combine it with chapter 12. One important note is that originally, I tried to keep all chapters under ten pages. This made it easier to post them to Instagram and Tumblr, because tumblr still had a “ten image limit” at the time. However at some point I realized that was more trouble than it was worth, and really made the pacing difficult/slow as I struggled to split the story into ten page chunks.

A lot of webcomics often fall into what I call a “wheel-spinning” phase, where the author is so focused on finishing smaller updates that they lose the pacing of the larger narrative—- and so the story stalls out. I feel like I dealt with a lot of “wheel-spinning” while I was at college, both in my life and in my comic XD. Chapter 12 (The Quest): My internship company gives me an offer to work full-time, which I accept. in the last semester of my last year of college, I take the most helpful elective class I have ever taken: a class on using 3D models in blender to aid with blocking out illustrations. This is the first chapter where you see one of those backgrounds! From this point on my background art will improve dramatically. I also have lots of internet friends and college friends!

As I grow more confident in my art I also make the decision to change the character designs, something I’d wanted to do for a while. Chapter 13 (The Necromancer): I graduate college! It's time for some Lotte Reiniger art. I stay in my student housing until my lease ends. The art starts to grow more elaborate as I have more time to spend on it. Chapter 14 (Terms and Conditions): my summer is free, so I spend it drawing gay little hobbits. I move up North to live with my grandmother until my work start date. This is the very last “normal-sized” chapter of the comic, where I hold myself to keeping it under 10 pages. I also think this is where my new more elaborate character designs actually start to look a lot better XD.

I was finishing up apartment-hunting at this time, so both Bilbo and I were goin over contract terms. Chapter 15 (Unattached): summer free time!! More gay little hobbits. I move into my New apartment and sleep on an air mattress for a while. I have a lot of time to draw and the art gets far more complex; this chapter was also twice as long as my usual chapters. I am still proud of this chapter, honestly, even though it's gotten less attention than Chapter 16/17-- it's one I'd been excited to draw for a while. A lot of this chapter was drawn on my beautiful powerful beloved air mattress. Air mattress, my beloved. Chapter 16 (the Song of the Lonely Mountain): I start my new job! I get a BED. Lots of exciting things are happening. I was really excited to draw and post this chapter, because it’s one id been dreaming about drawing from the beginning-- it was surreal to see it "posted" because part of me never thought I'd get this far. I even started a tiktok and posted the chapter there, certain that people would enjoy it. However, tiktok basically ignored it, alas! This is why tumblr is the only social media site. Chapter 17: I continue my new job. My roommate surprises me with the news that they will move out at the end of our lease, making me realize that months have somehow passed. I make a post asking for anyone looking for roommates in Milwaukee to contact me via dms (that offer is still open, if you’re looking to move here in early June.) I privately am very confused about why anyone would ever want to leave a comfortable settled home to go off on an adventure and then realize that I am behaving exactly like pre-quest Bilbo Baggins.

Chapter 18: the chapter I am working on now!!! Another chapter I have been excited to draw forever!! It’ll feature studio-Ghibli-inspired backgrounds, exciting landscape art, and so much fun! I’ve also started a Patreon where, if you want to see “one page a week” instead of “twenty pages every Mystery number of Months” you can subscribe there. (The first page of Chapter 18 has already been posted!)

But yeah! The TL:DR:

I think the moral of all this (to me) is that it’s hard to make art if you’re just not in a position to do it, and you have to allow yourself time to grow and change as a person XD. Sometimes you need to spend a few years thinking and getting better before you're ready to go on an Adventure. I started this comic when I was very Young and Naive to the Ways of the World. The quality (and dips in quality) reflect my wildly fluctuating mental/emotional states while trying to draw each chapter in the midst of a global pandemic. My art has improved a lot lately, and I think a large part of it is really just being in a situation where I *can* improve— having a decent job, not being in the middle of a global pandemic with no vaccine in sight, not needing to live in constant fever-pitch anxiety, having friends, etc etc. I am completely different person now than I was while drawing chapter 1.

Not to be dramatic, but I think you can see there’s a lot more joy in the recent chapters than there is in some of the older ones. It's weird to look at your art and realize you've gotten happier. XD

[oraclebabsday]

um hello!! im very new to comics, but of the characters I’ve seen so far, I really like Barbara and I was just wondering if you had any comic recommendations on where to start..? its very confusing trying to get into it all, but I’d like to be able to hold a conversation about someone I find interesting with my boyfriend so I can hear him info dump on me more cus he’s deep into dc so :)

Hi!!! That is so sweet omg 😭 Welcome to the weird wonderful world of comics!!! and also i’m so sorry for what I’m abt to throw at you lmao

Since you’ve sent this ask into an Oracle-centric blog, I’m gonna keep this rec list Oracle!Babs-centric (& also encourage my fellow mods to add on if they also have some recs!) I actually don’t have a whole lot of recs for Batgirl!Babs anyways, but I’ll be tagging my gen dc blog at the end in case you’d like to talk abt those or any other characters!

Also before I get Into the recs, I wanna give you some words of encouragement: there’s no right or wrong way to read! You’re also likely gonna have some well a lot of confusion at the beginning, esp bc there will be Events™️ that have ramifications™️ and you’re not always given full context of what’s come before or what’s happening concurrently with what you’re reading. I’ve been doing this for awhile and if I’ve learned anything, it’s that the more that you read & explore, the more fun you’ll have & the more things will usually start to make sense! But it’s all gotta start somewhere first! :D and you’ve def chosen a great character to be your launching point!

Im gonna be hopping around a bit in my recs here but I’ll try to keep it mostly in chronological order. That said, first up:

Suicide Squad (1987) - she appeared semi-regularly starting in #23! This was also her debut as Oracle! I really enjoyed the overall run & would normally highly recommend it, but also want to warn that it’s a pretty heavy read in terms of content itself (canon-typical violence ofc esp for a SuiSq comic, discussions of suicide ideation, period typical stereotyping/‘subversion’ of said stereotypes, but that’s a deeper discussion for a different blog) For that reason, I don’t necessarily recommend it for a first-time reader, esp if you’re wanting to solely focus on Babs. Team books usually aren’t super great when you’re reading for an individual character, in my experience, esp in a case like this where the character isn’t always necessarily part of the team or appears sporadically enough to disrupt the flow of following a storyline.

Birds of Prey (1999) - This team book breaks that prev rule tho, bc Babs is the leader & is in Damn near every issue of this run 😂 There’s several smaller team-ups before the main ‘99 run (BoP:Manhunt, BoP:Wolves, etc), which are also good as a prelude before the main run itself. This will be the longest thing that will give you a LOT to parse through & ymmv with a lot of it. (Dixon & Simone are the most prominent writers for it & without getting Into It they each have their Issues™️ & Crimes™️) It also crosses over with a few events/references others. Imo it’s a good window into what comics are like overall, esp when you get into a longer run with multiple writers at the helm. But it has an added bonus of keeping a pretty small cast at its forefront (for about half the run, it’s solely Babs n Dinah!) It also has a follow-up run in 2010 which is broken up by-

Oracle: The Cure - (technically a 3-issue mini-series but!!!) this one’s a culmination of Oracle & Calculator’s (it’s not rivalry? That can’t be the right word… Uhhh, nemesis-sitch?) from BoP & leads right into bringing Babs back to Gotham in Steph’s Batgirl run as well as the next BoP run I mentioned just a sec ago. It’s what I like to call connective (t)issues lol. Ymmv I think depending on if you’ve read BoP ‘99/TT ‘03 beforehand, but I hadn’t read a lot of TT before reading it at the time, and I enjoyed it a lot!

A couple individual issues I wanna suggest:

Batman Chronicles #5 - Oracle: Year One!!!!! Cannot rec this one enough!!! In lieu of reading Killing Joke (which really only serves Bruce, Joker, Jim Gordon’s characters) read this!!! LICHERALLY her origin in coming into her own as Oracle!!! This one is THE place to start, actually, before you read anything start here 😂

Batman: Gotham Knights #6 - okay, this one is admittedly a self-indulgent rec. Without spoiling the plot, it’s CLASSIC soap-opera level shit. The TENSION at play & the layers of Bruce & Babs dynamic, the messiness of the batfam!!! 👌 *chefs kiss* GK as a run in general too was a LOT of fun for me & Babs is a pretty prominent player in much of it, but this issue rlly takes the cake for me ngl

And to tie it all together for an extra couple of Important Event recs that you’ll run into esp if you pick up BoP first:

Batman: No Man’s Land - okay, this event was a Behemoth. It’s a LOT to read, but it is REALLY good imo as a launching point for where Bat-comics were at the start of the millennium. Babs takes the narrative role SO many times throughout & she rlly comes into her own by becoming a linchpin for the info system she builds for the batfam. Again, I don’t wanna discourage you when I say it’s a Long read, bc it’s well worth it imo, but also 100% okay to skip when you’re just starting out! It’s a big time sink!

Batman: Officer Down - okay put away the meme forJUST A SEC, our old friend Jim Gordon’s been shot & it’s up to Batma- oh wait bruce sulks by Jim’s bedside while Babs rallies the troops and GETS SHIT DONE to find who shot her dad? INTERESTING 🧐 In all seriousness tho, & compared to NML, this is a much easier bite-sized event that can give you a taste of what Event/crossoverComics™️ are generally like 👍

Bruce Wayne: Murderer?/Fugitive - okay so, take that same energy of the batfam having to Put In The Work to help Bruce out & flip it around bc now Bruce is the Main Suspect. The drama, the Intrigue™️. Pretty much everyone in the fam gets a moment to shine & this is def peak of how Babs fits into the fam during this era. This one runs a bit on the longer side & babs is again, more of a support role here, but god damn I loved it a lot!

I feel like I’m obligated to at least Mention Batman: War Games, mostly to note that it finally shakes the foundation of Oracle being the batfam’s main support (her CLOCKTOWER gets nerfed in this event 😭) If you read all of BoP and skip over this event & then are confused abt why Babs is suddenly being ejected from Gotham, just remember that her clocktower gets blown up, Steph dies, Bruce n Babs have a falling out & that’s basically why Babs starts flying around the country & settles in Metropolis for a bit instead of going back to Gotham. I reread this event at least once a year bc it gave me brainworms, I can not in good conscience recommend it to anyone bc no one understands her (War Games) like i do 💕 Godspeed if you decide to read it o7

Other recs/mentions:

Batgirl (2000) - okay if you end up reading NML, you’ll be introduced to Cass in it, & this run picks up with her. Babs is in it a LOT at the beginning as supporting cast to Cass (up to War Games ofc, but I won’t say much more abt that lol) I’m ngl, when I was trying to get more into comics, this run was what HOOKED me

Batgirl (2009) - so in a similar vein, Babs also features as a support for Steph too in her batgirl run. It’s… different from Cass’ run, but I also rlly love this one too. And also am forever bitter that the Batgirls run didn’t realize their potential BUT WE’RE NOT GETTING INTO THAT HERE.

Gonna mention Batman: Gotham Knights one more time bc again, while Babs isn’t a main focus, I think it’s rlly good at tying the batfam together during that era & giving a reader glimpses into other characters/dynamics. I think I got more out of it after I had read a few other runs from this time period (namely Robin, Azrael & some prominent stuff with Huntress), but can also see it as a potential launching point for new readers too 👍 if you wanna get more into the batfam/Batman but are intimidated by the Big Runs, this can potentially be a good bridge!

Gonna rapid fire mention that Babs as Oracle has a lot of appearances in Robin (93), Nightwing (96), JLA (96), Azrael (95) and obvsly Batman/Detective Comics from the 90s into 00s. I’ve read a few of these runs, and ymmv depending on how attached you may get to certain characters. But that’s what comics is all about! Getting attached and exploring other characters n teams n stuff!

A Gen note that I wanna end on: I wasn’t exaggerating when I said earlier abt how the more you read the more you’ll have fun. I can’t even begin to count the number of times that I’ve read something from a 90s/00s comic & was essentially jumpscared by a sudden Oracle cameo that I wasn’t expecting! She pops up in so many things throughout the universe at the time!!! She was THE info broker for all the supers!!! It makes me so insane that DC threw that all away to magi-cure her and demote her back to batgirl when she had grown so much 😭

anyways I hope you have fun!!! And again if you’re ever looking for other recs my more Gen dc blog is @dyketectivecomics! If my fellow mods or anyone else have some recs to add or to dispute haha, I’ll be tagging this so others can see/rb/reply to add their recs too 👍

Okay! \o/ that’s all I got for now! Happy reading anon!!!!

[theaceoftales]

Ace of the Week #3: Jughead Jones

Jughead Jones, from the Archie Comics universe, was confirmed to be canonically asexual in Jughead #4 by Chip Zdarsky and Erica Henderson.

However, this interpretation of the character had been discussed even prior to that fateful issue:

"My view of Jughead is, over the 75 years [of his existence] there have been sporadic moments where he has dabbled in the ladies, but historically he has been portrayed as asexual. They just didn't have a label for it, so they just called him a woman-hater. But he's not a misogynist -- he just watches his cohorts lose their minds with hormones. People have asked me if there is going to be a romance if I'm writing Jughead, because I'm very romantic, and the answer is no, because there is enough of that in Archie. I think something like asexuality is underrepresented, and since we have a character who was asexual before people had the word for it, I'm continuing to write him that way." - Chip Zdarsky, New York Comic Con 2015

In the vein of true transparency, I have not read these comics. I haven't got the faintest idea of where to start, and the internet is giving me so so much contradicting information on this front. Please do reply or reblog with the most Jughead-optimized reading guide. (I legit beg). 🙏

All credit for my information and screenshots goes to @hotdogwithagun, this tumblr post by @oneshortdamnfuse, this Comics Alliance article, and a few things I've picked up via osmosis prior to the Riverdale show airing that I wish I still had the links to.

[lowkeyorloki]

Does this mean we won't get any more asis content (like oneshots and After August etc...).

I too am mostly over my Loki stage, but I see asis as something completely separate. Really, the only connection to marvel (for me) were the names and a few references (like Principal Thanos).

I really like your writing style. There is such an undercurrent of emotion that made the whole thing come to life for me. It's very special.

I would, therefore, love to be able to read more asis content in whatever form it comes in (be it unfinished oneshots, notes or anything else).

i’m honestly not sure. after august will stay up for now, and i do have oneshot ideas, but i don’t want to promise anything. i do fully understand what you mean when you say that you see asis as something fully separate - because i do too. asis is very very important to me, and i do hope that is clear. as much as i might be ‘over’ loki, asis is always going to be part of me (if not emotionally, always practically. it’s easily the reason my writing skills have stayed sharp).

my guess is that after august will be updated once or twice a year. general loki one shots may come anytime i decide to rewatch his movies. it’s weird. the loki show really killed a lot of my affection for the character. it was hard to see my sexuality portrayed so poorly and see my favorite character’s solo show devolve into this combination of white girlboss feminism and then also just serve as setup for the rest of the mcu. it doesn’t help that i have always hated the multiverse plot, even in the comics. all of these factors add up and really set some mental barriers between loki and the passion i once had for him. i think getting older is part of it too. i started this blog when i was 17, and asis when i was 19. i’m 22 now. i’m graduating college with two degrees this year. i’m just not the same person. the reason asis withstood my lingering/waning feelings for loki is because 1) it is an AU, so it’s inherently separate and 2) i love it so much. i made an entire plot. it helps that the loki/sweetheart relationship isn’t the only thing in the fic: there’s sweetheart’s friendships with nat and wanda, loki’s relationships with jane and thor, and of course, the narvi of it all. i love those aspects of the fic a lot. i think asis made it because it’s not just a loki story.

this is all to say, there are so many factors at play with my continued interaction with loki as a character in my writing. because asis was such a large part of my life, and because i truly not only love, but feel thankful for it, i think after august is going to be sporadically updated. it will be every so often i find that spark again for loki. that affection comes a lot easier for asis loki, because it is different. but the show really did damage my relationship and perception of the character. and it feels stupid to say that, and it also feels silly because i do not go around in my normal life thinking about loki or the show or any of that. it’s just that when i think of loki - when i see someone wearing merch, when i get a comment on one of my works for him on ao3, when i log onto this blog - it just feels off. it has since the first season of loki premiered. i just powered through it because asis needed to be finished.

but now it is finished, and has been for almost a year. there isn’t much to keep me loving loki as much as i used to. the fandom is also pretty intense. people said some rough things about my fics on tiktok and i’ve gotten some weird comments on asis that have absolutely left me feeling bitter. i choose to share my work with y’all, and i don’t need, deserve, or am entitled to praise for that. but negative feedback for works i continued throughout a major pandemic? that left a bitter feeling, and i’m not going to lie about it. there’s absolutely some indignation on my part, a lack of desire to provide content for a group that has been (in my opinion) unnecessarily critical and borderline entitled at some points. that is part of the mental block as well. it’s not fair to punish all of the asis or ao3 readers for the actions of a few people, but… man. i don’t exactly want to do this fandom anymore favors (especially now that i’m dealing with people plagiarizing my work?? that’s a new one). sadly, when i think of the asis experience, it is not all positive.

this is all to say: keep an eye on after august. updates will come, it’s just that nobody - especially not me - will know when. i am also still writing, always will be. right now you can visit me over on @viridescent-din and take a look at my joel one shots. at the moment, they’re all pretty loaded and heavy. if you’re an arcane fan, i have a caitvi fic that might be my most emotional oneshot i’ve written. you can find it on ao3 under the handle arcait.

and if all else fails, send me a DM. i’d be happy to share some of my personal non character related pieces with you. i have short stories, songs, chapters of my novel that will probably never get published, essays i’ve submitted (some that have even won contests at my colleges). if it’s my writing you want, all you have to do is ask.

thank you for this message. i found it very heartfelt, so i really wanted to give you a good response. i hope you’re doing well, wherever you are.

[tymime]

Lola Bunny in the comic books

I’ve discussed at length my views and opinions about Lola Bunny before (https://tymime.tumblr.com/post/174484746321/lola-bunny-is-one-of-animations-more), but something I’ve been wanting to really dive into was her sporadic appearances in DC’s Looney Tunes comic book series in the late ‘90s and early 2000s.

I think these are the most overlooked and underrated depictions of Lola ever, and actually very much key to understanding her personality, history, and potential. The trouble is, I’ve been waiting many years for someone to scan all the issues with her in it. But back in the day, I had issue #92, and when I read the Lola story within, I didn’t even blink. The basic premise of most of her stories is a weird one, but it somehow works. Her job is to deliver pizza. But she delivers pizza to gods, monsters, and other supernatural beings, traversing dangerous landscapes, fighting off viscious wild animals, and generally taking care of business. So like, when I was 13, it didn’t even occur to me that this was at all unusual. Of course she’s a kick-butt action girl. Why wouldn’t she be? What else would she be? I had seen Xena. I watched cartoons with strong female leads. I didn’t even have to think about it. There wasn’t any doubt in my mind that Lola could be more than a sports-obsessed, one-dimensional teen fantasy. It actually baffles me when I see anyone suggest otherwise, like the director for Space Jam: A New Legacy did. As if she wasn’t always the tough, proactive, heroic type. Of course Lola is an Amazonian warrior.

But let’s actually look at her first appearance in the comics, after the Space Jam graphic novel, in issue #60, 1999 (why it took three years for this to happen I can’t guess).

Right off the bat, we see Lola fighting off a jaguar with a machete and a board with a nail in it. The narration implies that a woman would do a better job at exploring and surviving the South American rainforest than a man could. I’m all here for it. It’s also an obvious parody of Tomb Raider and Lara Croft- probably because of the similarity between their figures, which for some reason people wouldn’t stop talking about for about two decades. While I haven’t played those games myself, I’m sure there’s much more to it than that, and it’s kind of a relief that we’re finally over it.

Something that these comics do well is give Lola additional quirks and traits. This first story does it straight away:

Apparently Lola has no sympathy for panhandlers. I’m not sure how I feel about that, since that sort of attitude often extends into dismissing homeless people who can’t get jobs for one reason or another, but hopefully Lola isn’t as black-and-white about the issue as she seems here.

At first it seems like a straightforward parody of temple-raiding adventures, à la Indiana Jones and even Ray Harryhausen movies, but then comes the twist:

Nearly all these stories follow a similar format- Lola has to deal with nasty aggressive demons and beasts to deliver a pizza from Machu Pizza (get it?), and she doesn’t break a sweat. I’m not sure how the writers (kudos to Sean Carolan and Jennifer Moore) came up with the idea, but it’s incredibly original and inspired and I’m glad they ran away with it.

Her next appearance in issue #71 is unfortunately a bit of a step backward, seen here portraying a parody of Daphne from Scooby-Doo, but I suppose there wasn’t anybody else available.

Luckily she goes right back to pizza delivery soon afterward in issue #76 (albeit nearly two years after the first time).

Apparently Lola’s mother was a fan of a ‘70s soul/disco singer named Vicki Sue Robinson. It’s weird randomness like this that makes these comics special, I think.

Another aspect about this depiction of Lola is that she shows just as much sharp wit, quick thinking, and cleverness that any good trickster should have- just like Bugs. And yet, she’s not just a carbon copy of Bugs, as it should be.

We also get a glimpse of Lola’s past in issue #80:

Apparently she’s a Beatles fan, which is always cool.

As I said, I had issue #92, completely out of context, but I caught on to the premise immediately nonetheless.

Here we learn that Lola is actually part of some legendary lineage, which prevents the gods from starting a war with each other. Sounds like a pretty big deal. Lola is fed up with all this nonsense, so she quits her job and starts working at a clothing store. I think this exchange speaks for itself:

Eventually, however, she gets bored of nothing happening, and nobody else can deal with the mythical creatures like she can, so she returns to Machu Pizza with newfound confidence.

I think this is great stuff. She doesn’t put up with any guff.

Unfortunately, that’s the last of the pizza delivery stories, and it’s a shame there are so few of them, because it’s quite possibly the best material Lola ever had. I think more than anything it represents Lola at her fullest, and shows how much potential she has to be a regular character, instead of someone who just shows up every now and then, only to be reinterpreted once again.

Lola also wouldn’t make another proper appearance until 2011 in issue #203, only making background cameos in the meantime. This story- which is all about roller derby- is a bit underwhelming in comparison to her older comics. Sure, her sportiness comes into play for the first time since Space Jam (weirdly enough, considering that’s what she’s best known for), but she doesn’t get to do very much. There are good moments, though:

I’m into it. (The first panel implies Bugs and Lola knew each other in junior high/middle school, which is an interesting tidbit. It contradicts how they’ve never seen each other before in Space Jam, but Looney Tunes has never been much for continuity anyway.)

And that’s it for stories focused on Lola. From then on, her appearances are brief and insubstantial. In issue #220, she’s only in a few panels as an angry police chief.

In 2017, she appears in a Star Trek parody in issue #239, playing the Lt. Uhura part, and is essentially just as limited.

In 2019, she returns as a basketball player, and still doesn’t do much. They’re obviously trying to make her look more like she does in Space Jam, but no attempt is made to make her a main character.

Her most recent cameo is in 2023’s issue #269, which suggests that she won an award for journalism of all things.

(EDIT: This might be a reference to her cameo in Tweety’s High-Flying Adventure, where she appears as a news anchor? That’s a pretty deep cut, if that’s the case.)

And that’s it. Outside of Space Jam: A New Legacy and its graphic novel adaptation, there really hasn’t been very much OG Lola Bunny media at all. (Slight update: Lola appears in issue #281, using her New Legacy model. She appears on the cover, and plays volleyball for a few panels, along with several other lesser-known female characters, but that’s all.)

In fact, the largest amount of screentime Lola ever gets is in Baby Looney Tunes of all things. That’ll be another blog for another time, when I finally finish watching that series, and it probably won’t be very long.

Other than that, Lola appears in three video games: Bugs Bunny & Lola Bunny: Operation Carrot Patch (the only time her name was in the title), Looney Tunes Racing (where they actually ramp up the whole “girl power” thing to Nth degree), and Looney Tunes: Space Race. She has minor roles in the webtoon Dating Do’s and Don’ts, and in Tweety's High-Flying Adventure. She has one cameo, and two featured episodes in New Looney Tunes- and only one of ‘em portrays her as smart trickster. She’s a main character in Bugs Bunny Builders, but her personality’s been reduced to a generic perky girl, although they at least refrain from making her stupid again. I actually like this show, though.

So why is this? Why do people struggle with writing for Lola anyway? It doesn’t seem so hard. The whole trouble is almost everybody seems to have a different perspective of the character, and I can’t figure out why. It seems pretty straightforward to me- she’s good at sports, she’s smart, she’s strong-willed, and doesn’t like being pushed around or not taken seriously. This is a personality type that’s been done before, in every genre. So what’s the deal with Lola? Why do people think she’s terrible or needs “fixing”? It doesn’t help that most of these comics are long out of print, hard to collect, and they’re not given much attention in the first place. They seem to be best known for starting Dave Alvarez’s career in Looney Tunes projects.

I suspect there’s not only a big wad of sexism involved, but also a general resentment towards Space Jam in general. The whole “how do you do fellow kids” aspect of that movie has dated it, I’ll admit, and I never took the whole hip-hop Looney Tunes thing that was going in the late ‘90s very seriously, even when I was a kid.

But that shouldn’t mean Lola should be dragged into it. Sure, the way they handle the character isn’t flawless- she literally comes out of nowhere, with hardly any proper introduction at all. We have no idea who she is or where she came from in the movie, and we probably never will. Her independent, self-reliant traits are a bit undermined when Bugs has to come to her rescue, briefly turning her into a damsel-in-distress. It’s not perfect, but then again, I’m not sure how else Bugs was going to become her boyfriend in the screen time available.

Why this makes people hate her or even see her as sexist, I can’t imagine.

She’s also one of the newest Looney Tunes characters. There hadn’t been a new character groomed for stardom since Cool Cat and his ilk, in the late ‘60s. I’m sure to some people she seemed like an intrusive wannabe. Why she gets picked on instead of even newer characters like Claudette Dupri from New Looney Tunes, or even the Nerdlucks from the same movie (who are even more underused), I can’t guess. So maybe it’s just sexism after all.

Opinions about Lola vary wildly. So what’s the deal? Well, let’s examine the most negative views of her: Is she a oversexualized pin-up? While there’s obviously some degree of sexualization in the way the artists designed her curvy, semi-hourglass figure, this is just falling into the “fictional women aren’t allowed to be sexy” trap that men who pretend to be feminists often do. On the other hand, it’s understandable that you wouldn’t want to make ALL female cartoon characters bombshells and eye candy. But hey, why not use Petunia Pig, Granny, Miss Prissy, or even the She-Devil to balance things out? Why not come up with solutions instead of complaining about it?

Is she a stereotypical “girl power” sporty type? Is this even a thing? Why would anyone want to undermine positive female role models? There’s a disturbing trend recently of people wanting to criticize the whole “action princess” thing, and I can’t understand why. Seems dangerous to me. Sounds like more fake feminism if you ask me. (I’m a guy though, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.)

Is the ditzy, dumb blonde version an improvement? Why is this even a question?? I don’t know how making her a complete airhead is supposed to be “less sexist”. It’s like opposite-day logic. And no, we shouldn’t mix in the “wackiness” of the LTS version with her original version. She doesn’t need it. God no.

So there you have it. If it were up to me, I’d be making cartoons starring Lola with this exact same premise. Hopefully this blog will spread some awareness of Lola’s best work. If you wanna track down these comics, here’s a list of all the best ones: #60, #76, #80, #84, #88, #92, #117, and #203.

[oneirocartographer]

saw a lot of people doing this oc questionnare for @sonic-oc-showdown so! filling it in for skye!

Name: Skye the Otter Species: Sea otter Type: Speed Alignment: Good Home: Southern Archipelago (Sol Zone)

✨ How did you come up with the OC's name? It's been ages, I don't actually remember, but presumably following the pattern of Blaze and Marine's names.

🌼 How old are they? (Or approximate age range) 15!

🌺 Do they have any love interest(s)? In lesbians with Blaze, though it's not really dating so much as "acknowledged mutual crush".

🍕 What is their favorite food? Pretty much anything lemon-flavored, particularly shaved ice/snowcone-type stuff.

💼 What do they do for a living? Freelance cartographer and occasional salvage diver.

🎹 Do they have any hobbies? Does "exploring" count as a hobby if that's the main thing she does with her life? Besides that, though: loves comics, and has sporadic periods of playing the flute.

🎯 What do they do best? Skye has an uncannily good sense of direction, even out at sea with no landmarks in sight – part of it is that her powers let her read the winds easily, but she's also just mundanely skilled at navigation.

🥊 What do they love to do? What do they hate to do? Loves: exploring, finding out new things. Hates: staying still. (can you tell they're a counterpart to sonic lmao)

❤️ What is one of your OC's best memories? Not sure! I haven't come up with a lot of continuity for them, it's basically just "was involved in the events of Sonic Rush Adventure". That said, probably finding some really cool place while exploring.

✂️ What is one of your OC's worst memories? Being stuck out at sea during a really nasty storm – their wind powers weren't strong enough to mitigate it, and it was a pretty terrifying experience. [this answer made up on the spot]

🧊 Is their current design the first one? Her design's pretty vague, because I've never actually drawn her, but the image of her in my head has stayed pretty consistent over the years, yeah!

🍀 What originally inspired the OC? I wanted to round out Blaze and Marine to a counterpart trio to Team Sonic, and it made sense to continue the elemental theme.

🌂 What genre do they belong in? Action-adventure, probably! They'd be a great Legend of Zelda NPC. (especially if you put them in wind waker / phantom hourglass)

💚 What is your OC's gender identity and sexuality? In the general ballpark of "trans girl" (she's content not trying to narrow it down more than that), and a lesbian.

🙌 How many siblings does your OC have? I hadn't thought about it until Right Now, but I think she's got two or three younger siblings.

🍎 What is the OC's relationship w/ their parents like? Hadn't thought about this before either, but it's pretty good, I think. She doesn't see them a lot, what with the traveling, but she does her best to visit now and then.

🧠 What do you like most about the OC? funky lesbian go on adventure

✏️ How often do you draw/write about the OC? I... never have, actually. I just imagine comics with them and go :) about it. Someday I should actually try and draw her.

💎 Do you ever see yourself killing off the OC?

(^ not meant negatively, to be clear, it's just not something it's ever occurred to me to do)

💀 Does your OC have any phobias? Nah. The closest they've got is that outer space conceptually scares them a little to think about (it's VERY BIG and there's NO AIR).

🍩 Who is your OC's arch-nemesis/rival? Jules the Dolphin, another of my OCs (crewmember of the Sol Zone's archvillain, the cyborg pirate-queen Captain Octavia).

🎓 How long have you had the OC? A long time – they were one of my first OCs, back when I was... 12/13-ish, I think? So nearly a decade, wow.

[bedlamsbard]

I’m not much of a comics person, but I am just old enough to remember when “no one stays dead in comics but Bucky Barnes, Jason Todd, and Uncle Ben” was still a true statement.  Sometimes I remember that the Winter Soldier is only from 2005 (I remember how controversial it was back then! that side of the internet was in flames!) and it blows my mind a little because it seems like such a Cold War conceit that if you didn’t know better you’d think it was from the ‘70s or ‘80s, or even the ‘90s. But no. 2005.

[turtle-steverogers]

i was thinking but do you know the unsent project? it is this website where you can write a message to your first love that you never sent to them. now imagine steve writing one (or multiple) to bucky after he came out of the ice after nat told him about it... yeah

hello hi anon this broke me and it was too perfect not to turn into a ficlet klafjldskjfalskf thank you

-

Unsent Letters

To:

Steve’s fingers freeze over the keyboard, the cursor blinking at him. It feels like it’s taunting him-- teasing him with the burden of choking out a name. What should he even say? The sender is anonymous, but how many people are named Bucky out there? Would anyone even care?

To: Bu

Steve huffs and backspaces, his hands trembling as he curls them into fists. He isn’t sure what provoked Natasha to tell him about this website. It’s a cruel tease to everything he wishes he could say-- wished he could say before Bucky slipped through his fingers. And now his only option is yelling into an abyss. The text box is black and daunting. He turns it yellow. No, too happy. Green. Yes, that’s fine. Bucky’s favorite color was always green.

His gaze wanders away from the screen of his hefty Dell laptop and out the window of his apartment. DC’s low rising buildings span out in front of him. His gut aches; he misses New York already. But he knows being there would only mangle his soul further, seeing his already alien home torn to shreds by literal space whales. He huffs, thinking of Bucky’s comics. His stories came to life after all. Bucky would have probably vibrated out of his skin if he knew there was other life out there.

To: My astronaut

How’s space treating you? It’s treating me pretty badly, if I’m being honest. If only you could see what it’s done to Brooklyn. I think you’d be pretty mad at it if you knew…

Steve hesitates, reading back over what he’s typed. It’s stupid as hell, and he cringes, but he doesn’t backspace. His fingers find the keys again.

I miss you something awful. I don’t think that even encompasses how much I’m hurting without you. I feel so lost right now-- space is much bigger and scarier than you’d think. I know you’d love it. I wish you could see bits of it, but god, I just want to go home. I want you to come home.

Steve freezes again and finds the screen blurry where tears have welled in his eyes. His jaw clenches as he pictures the way Bucky would laugh at him-- teasing him for his dramatics and ruffling his hair. He wishes he could be there now, rolling his eyes and nudging Steve’s shoulder.

“What’re you upsetting yourself for?” He’d say, gently closing the laptop and coaxing Steve into his arms. “I’m right here, pal.”

And if Steve closes his eyes, he can almost feel Bucky’s warmth enveloping him. But he’s not there. He’s dead, and Steve’s a goddamn ghost, drifting through a future that doesn’t know him.

He opens his eyes and stares at the text box, then clicks submit.

The screen loads, and his message is gone, his pain forever documented in the abyss.

-

For someone who fought aliens two weeks after waking up from his impromptu seventy year sleep, Steve’s life is pretty monotonous. He contemplates this unfortunate fact as he stands in front of his toaster, hair sticking up on the back of his head as he nurses a mug of coffee and waits for his toast to pop.

It’s 5:45 in the morning and he tries to remember a time when he didn’t rise this early. Before the war, perhaps. Though, he’s always been a bit of an early bird. His home life was sporadic to put it lightly and he’d learned from an early age that the sooner he was awake, the better it was for everyone. Vigilance is not a new concept for Steve.

He hasn’t always stayed up late, though. That’s certainly new, and he feels this fact viscerally as he catches sight of his reflection in the microwave. There are bags under his eyes that will be gone by mid-morning thanks to the serum. Dermatologists hate him, Natasha says. Steve thinks he’s pretty lucky that the serum more or less equipped him with a built-in anti-aging agent. His father had started balding by thirty.

His toast pops and he starts a little, blinking blearily at the slightly burnt bread as he pulls it out of the toaster with his thumb and forefinger. He spreads on the same raspberry jam and butter that he uses every morning and tries not to think of how bland it tastes in his mouth as he eats it standing at the counter. Another routine.

He tries not to look at last night’s dishes in the sink as he stacks his plate and silverware on top and doesn’t bother sorting out his hair before pulling on his sneakers and slipping out of his apartment. The sun hasn’t quite risen yet, only the beginning tendrils of light sneaking over the low tops of the DC buildings, and Steve vaguely regrets not grabbing a sweatshirt before he left. It’s not quite Summer yet and the mornings could still get pretty cool.

He’s about to take off down the street when he freezes. Natasha is sitting on the steps of his complex, wearing a pair of pink tinted sunglasses and tossing up and down the keys to her car. Steve blinks, rubs his eyes, then blinks again. Nope. She’s still there.

“Nat?”

Natasha looks up at him and smiles. “Hello.”

Steve shifts, uncomfortable. “Hi. You need something? Is there a mission?”

“No,” Natasha says lightly, standing. “You’re not running this morning, though. Come on, I’m taking you to Starbucks.”

“What?”

“Starbucks. You’re going to try it.”

“I don’t want--”

“Steve, you do the same thing every day. Step out of your comfort zone a little.”

Steve frowns, but Natasha’s right-- he really doesn’t ever stray from his routine.

“Fine,” he says, and twenty minutes later, they’re strolling into the nearest Starbucks.

He’s only been in one before, and that was to use the restroom while on a run. He’d bought a water bottle in an attempt to not be rude and use their facilities without giving them any business, but he hadn’t even considered the expansive menu. All the fancy names were too daunting.

They’re just as daunting now as he stares up at the board, heart hammering out of his chest as he’s faced with indecision. Natasha takes one look at his face, and reaches out to squeeze his arm.

“I’ll order something for you,” she says. “What kind of coffee do you like?”

Steve gives her a pained look. “Um… just coffee?”

Natasha quirks a smile and orders him something called a caramel macchiato. He’ll take it, he guesses.

The drink is too damn sweet and sugary and he almost gags. Still, he was always told to finish what he was given, so he drinks the whole thing.

-

To: Mr. Sweet Tooth

You’d fucking love it here. Everything is packed with sugar and sweetness-- enough to make even my teeth rot. I had something called a caramel macchiato today and it tasted like someone took your ma’s caramels and condensed them into a cup. I couldn’t stand it, but I know if you were here, you’d want at least twelve. I hope you’re enjoying all the sweets you can up in space.

Love, Mr. Boring

-

Steve’s fingers are stiff and frozen as he works at the straps of his stealth suit. The tangy taste of saltwater still sits heavy on his tongue, and he clenches his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering too harshly as he finally peels off his suit. It’s not much better, being naked, but at least the wet fabric isn’t clinging to him anymore.

The mission had been pretty straightforward until some alien tech managed to blast the quinjet to kingdom come, and they all free-fell straight into the freezing Atlantic.

Steve had managed to keep it together as they took down the goddamn mad scientist that fucked them over, but now that he’s home and alone, he can feel the adrenaline crashing.

He’s shaking from more than just the cold as he draws himself a warm bath, and he pulls his knees up to his chest, trying to breathe through the panic that wants to engulf his entire being.

He loses time for a bit, and comes back to himself lying in his bed, burrowed under several thick layers. He feels so cold, down to his very soul-- a chill that he can never seem to truly shake, even when he’s warm.

Not for the first time, he wishes Bucky were there to hold him. He slips off to sleep thinking old, comforting thoughts of Bucky rubbing his hands between his own, coaxing his head under his chin to engulf him in that natural warmth of his. He always was a fucking furnace.

But when Steve wakes an hour later, shaking hard enough to move the bed with the force of the nightmare he’d dropped into, Bucky is not there to soothe away the ice.

-

To: JB

im so cold and i cant breathe ever and nothing feels right. I dont know what to do, u were always the problem solver between us and i cant think straight right now and i just want you here please. I cant do this anymore, im so tired please come back. I need you please

-

The Winter Soldier file sits in front of Steve-- a horrifying nightmare wrapped up in a neat brown folder. Residual nausea swirls around in his gut as he comes down from the horrible high of reading through the contents. His hands shake where they grasp the thick paper. His heart clenches hard in his chest.

Bucky is alive. Bucky is alive, and he’s been unmade.

Steve doesn’t know where he is-- if he’s escaped, or if Hydra found him again. It’s been three weeks now since the helicarriers, and he’s only just gotten the courage to sit down and wade through the shit that is Bucky’s reality.

He just hopes he’s safe. God, he hopes.

Sam says he’ll help him look, and Steve needs to know he’s at least out of danger, but he barely knows where to start.

And he’s sorry. He’s so fucking sorry.

Blinking out of his reverie, Steve looks at his laptop. He feels strange and detached as he reaches for it and logs in.

To: Bucky

And yes, that feels right. He should use his name, since he suspects no one has for a long, long time.

I’m so sorry for what happened to you. I’m sorry that you’ve been hurting so quietly for so long. I understand if you’re not ready to come home-- I understand if you never are. I just hope that you know that there will always be a place with me that is safe. I love you so much and I’m here, forever and always.

Love, Steve.

He’s not naive. He knows it would be dangerous to submit that particular message, so he doesn’t. But that’s okay. That one’s just for him-- for them.

-

“Steve? What is the… Unsent Project?”

Steve frowns and pokes his head out of the kitchen. Bucky is sitting on the couch in the living room, using his laptop, because his own is having storage issues.

Bucky looks at him. “It’s one of your saved tabs. What is it?”

And oh, fuck. Steve had forgotten to remove that from his homepage-- it really wasn’t needed anymore. He blushes all the way to his ears.

“Oh, it’s-- nothing. Not anything important--”

But Bucky has already clicked on the tab.

“The Unsent Project,” he reads aloud. “A collection of unsent text messages to… first… loves…”

He trails off as he processes what he’s looking at, and Steve can’t quite read his expression when he looks at him again. His eyebrows are furrowed, and he’s looking at Steve like he’s some sort of kicked puppy. Steve shifts, uncomfortable.

“Were you sending me… messages? While I was dead?”

Steve swallows. “Um…” and now that Bucky says it out loud, it really does sound quite sad. He shrugs. “It’s Natasha’s fault?”

Bucky shakes his head, clicking on the search bar. He starts to type his name, but Steve shakes his head.

“I didn’t use your name.”

“Oh,” Bucky says, then frowns at him again. “What did you use?”

Steve blushes harder, sitting next to Bucky and taking the laptop from him.

“Um…” he hesitates, then types what he was sure he used as his first alias.

My astronaut

The screen buffers and loads, then fifty or so messages pop up. Steve scrolls down-- it doesn’t take long to find his.

They’re both quiet as they read, and Steve cringes. Jeez, he really had been pretty dramatic. Next to him, Bucky makes a hurt noise.

“Oh, honey,” he murmurs, taking the laptop back from Steve. He reads the message again, then once more, and reaches out for Steve. “Aw, I’m here now.”

Steve huffs, embarrassed. “I know,” he says. “That was way back, like, three weeks after I woke up.”

Bucky stills. “You fought aliens three weeks after you woke up?”

“... More like two.”

Bucky hums. “Are there others?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, reaching out to type on Bucky’s lap, because Bucky is holding him now and he’s quite reluctant to move. He thinks for a moment, then types in the next one he remembers.

Mr. Sweet Tooth

Bucky laughs, and Steve finds himself smiling.

“I find this funny,” Bucky says. “Because caramel macchiatos are definitely one of my favorites now.”

Steve laughs, too, and butts his head against Bucky’s shoulder.

“If only I could tell that to myself back then-- he’d be thrilled.”

“I’m sure,” Bucky says. “Any more?”

Steve hesitates, thinking of the one he’d sent after that nightmare-- when he was low and hurting. Incoherent. He isn’t sure he wants Bucky to see that particular side of his soul, but Bucky has been more than generous in letting him in on his pains nowaday, and it’s not like Bucky hasn’t witnessed Steve’s own current nightmares.

He bites his lip and types in JB. That seems to yield a lot more results, and it takes a while for Steve to find the message.

He hides his face in Bucky’s neck as he reads. Bucky’s arms gradually tighten around him, and a moment later, he feels him kiss the top of his head.

“Honey, I hate that you were hurting so bad,” Bucky mutters against his hair.

Steve shrugs. “We both were,” he says, and it’s true. There’s something to be said about the guilt they both feel for not being able to save the other person at their lowest, but life hasn’t been kind to them. The vitriol, Steve thinks, should be directed at the goddamn universe for keeping them apart, not themselves for fucking dying. They’re working on it.

Bucky’s quiet for a long time. “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he says. “Is that it?”

Steve shakes his head. “But I never sent the last one.”

“Why not?”

“I wrote it after DC.”

He feels Bucky squeeze him again, and he squeezes back.

“Oh.”

“I just-- I wanted you to know that you didn’t have to come home. That I just wanted you to be safe; needed to know you were safe, but it was up to you. I just needed you to know I was here, if you needed me.”

Bucky pulls back then and cups his face, kissing him soundly. Steve’s surprised for only a moment before he’s kissing back.

“I did know that,” Bucky says against his lips. “I needed time-- I was lost-- but the first thing I knew when I remembered who you were was that you were a safe person, because you’d never force me anywhere.”

Steve kisses him again, then pulls him into a hug. “I’m glad you knew that.” It’s warm, where their chests meet, and Bucky is solid beneath him. Real. He isn’t speaking into an abyss anymore.

-

There’s a sticky note on Bucky’s pillow next to his head when he wakes up the next morning. Steve’s side of the bed is already vacant, and he can’t hear him downstairs. He must have already left for a run.

Propping himself on an elbow, Bucky plucks up the sticky note.

To: My Bucky

Thank you for choosing me to be your home, and thank you forever, for being mine.

I love you with everything I have.

Love, your Steve

Bucky smiles, heart light as he folds the notes. He’ll keep that one with him, he thinks. A little bit of home to bring wherever he goes.

-

anyway yeah fslkjflaskjfls i-- ouch. anything to do with letters w these two hurts me immensely

[sineala]

Tony Stark and Arthuriana

Coming to you by special request, a very long post about 616 Tony's interest in Arthuriana, with a focus on all of Tony's run-ins with Morgan le Fay!

I feel like I should disclaim the extent of my knowledge here, which is that I still haven't managed to read anywhere near every issue of Iron Man -- at least, not yet, anyway -- so I'm just going by the things I know I've read, and Morgan le Fay's Marvel wiki entry is frustratingly under-cited, so it's very possible I've missed something relevant, but I'm pretty sure I've got the big stuff down. My other disclaimer here is that I'm not as big an Arthurian nerd as Tony is, which is to say that most of my familiarity comes from modern retellings -- T. H. White's The Once and Future King, Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave, Rosemary Sutcliff's Sword at Sunset -- and not so much the usual classic sources on the Matter of Britain, though I've read bits and pieces of them.

(This is because I wanted to read versions of them that were as close to the original as possible but so far have not ended up finishing any of them because, well, that's hard. So I've never read the Mabinogion because I do not know Welsh. I've got the Norton Critical Edition of Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, which is probably the best student edition if you're looking for something without modernized spellings, as I was. I've also got -- well, okay, it's my wife's but I'm borrowing it -- a relatively recent Boydell & Brewer edition (ed. Reeve, tr. Wright) of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), which is, you guessed it, in Latin with a facing English translation. I haven't gotten very far in it because, in case you didn't know this about Latin texts, the beginning is pretty much always the hardest, so I gave up and read some Plautus adaptations instead. Anyway, if for some reason you too want to read Geoffrey of Monmouth in the original Latin I'd recommend that one, but I can't recommend any particular English translations because I've never read one by itself. I bet you didn't think you'd be getting Latin prose recommendations in this post. I mean, maybe you did; it is me, after all.)

Okay. Right. King Arthur. Here we go.

We've got:

Flashbacks to Tony's childhood in late Iron Man volume 1

A brief discussion of Morgan's origin story and Avengers #187

Iron Man vol 1 #149-150: Doomquest

What If vol 1 #33: What if Iron Man was trapped in the time of King Arthur?

Iron Man vol 1 #249-250: Recurring Knightmare

Iron Man: Legacy of Doom #1-4

Avengers vol 3 #1-4: The Morgan Conquest

Civil War: The Confession

Mighty Avengers vol 1 #9-11: Time Is On No One's Side

In terms of universe-internal chronology, we know from Iron Man #287, from 1992, that Tony has been a fan of King Arthur since childhood. This is an issue of a fandom-favorite arc which features Tony having a lot of childhood flashbacks, including the famous "Stark men are made of iron" line (in #286) that for some reason MCU fandom decided it loved; I mean, seriously, I've seen that quoted in way more MCU fic than 616 fic. But slightly later, in #287, we get an entire page devoted to Tony's love of King Arthur.

The narration reads: "Over the next few years, I learned as my father intended. Discipline of body. Strength of character. But in what free time I was allowed, I worked my way through the school's library. At thirteen, I discovered Mallory [sic], who showed me a whole new world. A world of dedication to a cause greater than oneself. Of chivalry and honor. And the fantastic deeds -- of armored heroes."

The art shows Tony as a child sitting under a tree, reading a book labeled Mort D'Arthur by Mallory [sic] -- no, don't ask me why nobody at Marvel checked how to spell either the name of the book or its author -- and daydreaming of King Arthur, the Sword in the Stone, knights, et cetera. Just in case you somehow missed the extremely blatant hint that we are meant to understand that Tony's knight obsession heavily influenced him becoming Iron Man as an adult, we see one of his armors mixed in with all the drawings of knights. So, yes, canonically Tony is Iron Man at least partly because he's a giant King Arthur nerd, which I think is so very sweet. I love him. He's such a dork!

(This issue is currently in print in the Iron Man Epic Collection War Machine, should you need your own copy.)

This isn't actually the only reference to Tony as a King Arthur fanboy in this era of canon, either; a little later, in IM #298, we see that one of Tony's passwords is actually "Mallory." (Yeah, no, they still couldn't spell. But it's cute.)

But in terms of actual publication order, this is definitely not the first time we have seen in canon that Tony is into Arthuriana, as I'm sure you all know. I would assume, in fact, that giving Tony a childhood interest in Arthuriana is because Doomquest is one of the most beloved Iron Man story arcs of all time, and that all started at least a decade before IM #287 here was published.

The villain of Doomquest -- the one who isn't Doctor Doom, at least -- is Morgan le Fay. Yes, that Morgan le Fay. Yes, Arthur's evil half-sister Morgan le Fay. Yes, all of this King Arthur stuff is canonically real history on Earth-616. Morgan's first appearance in Marvel, per the wiki, was in Black Knight #1 (1955), which I have not read, and judging by the summary I feel like this is probably just supposed to be a straight-up comic retelling of Arthurian legends for kids; I don't think Marvel really had the whole Marvel Universe in mind as a concept in 1955, so I'm not sure this was meant to connect to anything else. I feel like this is another one of those instances of Marvel discovering that they can write comics about characters in the public domain for free -- like, I'm pretty sure that's how we also ended up with, like, Norse, Greek, and Roman mythology wedged into 616.

As far as I can tell from the wiki, the first time Morgan tangled with the Avengers (or indeed the larger 616 universe) in any way actually predated Doomquest -- it was in an early arc in Spider-Woman (#2-6) and then Avengers #187, which came out in 1979, actually right when Demon in a Bottle was happening over in Iron Man comics. If you read #187, Iron Man is not in it because he's off the team due to his drinking problem and also his accidentally murdering the Carnelian ambassador problem. So Wonder Man's filling in instead. This issue is part of Michelinie's rather sporadic Avengers run, which makes sense, I guess, considering where we see Morgan next.

Anyway, Avengers #187 is the classic issue where Wanda is possessed by Chthon, but what you may not remember from Chthon's backstory (I sure didn't!) is that he was summoned by Morgan le Fay because she was the first person who tried to wield the Darkhold to summon him. As you can imagine, this did not work out especially well for her and her followers and they had to seal Chthon away in Wundagore Mountain, which was where Wanda found him. (The Spider-Woman stuff is only slightly earlier and also appears to be about Morgan and the Darkhold; the Darkhold is not one of the areas of 616 canon I am especially conversant with, alas. It's on my to-read list.)

Doomquest, as you probably know, was a classic Iron Man two-parter in Layton & Michelinie's first Iron Man run that set up Tony and Doom as rivals; Doomquest itself was IM #149-150, in 1981, and then in their second IM run they came back and did a sequel in 1989, Recurring Knightmare (IM #249-250), and then the much later four-part sequel to that was the 2008 miniseries Iron Man: Legacy of Doom, which was also by Layton & Michelinie but generally does not seem to be as popular as the first two parts. They've all been reprinted, if you're looking for copies; I have a Doomquest hardcover that collects the first four issues and then a separate Legacy of Doom hardcover. Currently in the Iron Man Epic Collection line there's a volume called Doom, which confusingly only collects the 249-250 part of the storyline (as well as surrounding issues), because for some reason the first Layton & Michelinie run isn't in Epics yet but the second one is. So the beginning of Doomquest isn't currently in print, as far as I can tell. I'm sure you can find it anyway.

So what's Doomquest about? Okay, so you remember how Doctor Doom's mother's soul is stuck in hell for all eternity? Well, Doom's obviously interested in getting her back, and the strategy he has embarked on is to try to team up with other powerful magicians who can help him out, and he thinks Morgan le Fay would be a good choice, for, uh, his quest. Doom's quest. A Doomquest, if you will. (If you've ever read Doctor Strange & Doctor Doom: Triumph & Torment, you're familiar with the part where he later ends up waylaying Strange for this and they go to hell together. And if you haven't read Triumph & Torment, you really should, because it's amazing.)

So Doom is off to his time machine to go team up with Morgan le Fay and Tony thinks Doom is up to something -- Doom has been stealing components for his time machine from a lot of people, including Tony -- and he follows him and it turns out one of Doom's lackeys has a grudge and wants to trap Doom in the past forever, and Tony gets caught up in it. Now they're both in Camelot. Surprise! #149 is actually all setup; they don't get to Camelot until #150.

IM #150 begins with Doom and Tony thrown back into the past; there's a fandom-famous splash page of them locked in combat, only to realize that they have found themselves in Camelot.

They are then discovered by knights; Doom would very much like to attack them, but Tony, who naturally would be happy to LARP Camelot forever, persuades him to play nice. Also Doom thinks Iron Man is only Tony's bodyguard so he keeps referring to him as "lackey," much to Tony's annoyance. Somehow everyone thinks they're sorcerers. Can't imagine why. The knights take them to meet King Arthur himself, and Tony has clearly had his introduction all ready to go, as he introduces himself in a timeline-appropriate manner, says he's here to apprehend Doom, and demonstrates his "magic" by levitating Arthur's throne. Doom's response is essentially "I'm the king of Latveria," which is, y'know, also valid. So they're guests at Camelot for the night while Arthur figures out what to do with them.

We then have a page devoted to Tony alone in his room, musing sadly about how alien he feels, how he doesn't know if he'll ever get home, how he could never fit in here without his beloved technology. Then a Sexy Lady shows up to keep him company for the night, and he decides maybe it's not all bad. Thanks, Marvel. I guess they can't all be winners.

Doom is using his evening much more productively; he compels one of the servants to tell him where Morgan's castle is, because he's still interested in having that team-up. Then he jets off. Literally. He has a jetpack.

The next morning Arthur's like "one of you is still here and one of you has punched a hole through the castle wall and flown off to join Morgan so I guess I know which of you is more trustworthy." He then explains to Tony who Morgan is, because Tony professes ignorance, because clearly we had not yet retconned in Tony's love of Arthuriana. Tony offers to go fight Doom and Morgan with Arthur; meanwhile, Morgan and Doom have teamed up and Morgan has offered to help get Doom's mother out of hell if he commands her undead armies against Arthur because for Reasons she can't command them herself anymore. So that's a thing that happens.

So, yes, it's Tony and Arthur versus Doom and Morgan. Fight fight fight!

Tony tries Doom first but then decides to hunt Morgan down, and in the ensuing fight we get what I think is Tony's first ever "I hate magic," a complaint that we all know he still makes even to this day.

Anyway, Tony freezes a dragon with Freon (mmm, technology) and Morgan gets upset and disappears, so the battle comes to an end, and of course Doom is extremely mad at Tony because he blames Tony for Morgan not sticking around to save Doom's mom, because I guess Doom trusted her to keep her word? Weird. (Like I said, for the next chapter of Doom saving his mother, go read Triumph & Torment.)

Doom says if he and Tony work together, the components in both of their armors can send them both home. So Tony has to trust Doom. Which he does, because he really has no other choice. They build a time machine and Tony makes Doom agree to a 24-hour truce when they get back, so they can both get home. So it all works out okay, and they end up in the present, and Doom tells him, ominously, that they will meet again. Okay, then. That concludes the original Doomquest. It's fun! You can see why fandom likes it.

So that's all well and good, but you might have noticed that Tony's ability to get home hinged on Doom actually being trustworthy. And Doom was. But what if Doom hadn't been? What if he'd just stranded Tony in Camelot forever As you may have surmised from the form of that question, that is in fact a question Marvel asked themselves, because, yes, there's a What If about this! What If v1 #33 is "What if Iron Man was trapped in the time of King Arthur?"

The divergence point from canon, as you can probably guess, is the very end of Doomquest. Instead of Doom bringing Tony home, he deceives him and leaves him in Camelot. And since Tony cannibalized a lot of the tech from his armor to make the time machine, he doesn't have a way to go home.

This is not a story where Tony comes up with a way to go home after all. He really doesn't get to go home. But instead of drowning his sorrows in mead -- because, remember, Demon in a Bottle has already happened and Tony is sober now -- he decides he might as well just play the hand he's dealt. So with what's left of his armor, he defeats some enemies that Morgan rounds up to send against Camelot. And for his services, he's knighted. He is now Sir Anthony.

Tony acknowledges that he is both living the dream and would also like very, very much to go home.

He does end up having some fun in Camelot; it's not all miserable. But he obviously doesn't want to be there.

So if you're at all familiar with King Arthur, you know how this goes, right? Arthur fights Mordred and Mordred kills him. And that does happen in this version. Except Tony is right there, and with his dying words, Arthur asks Tony to rule Camelot... and Tony agrees.

So, yes, Tony Stark becomes king of the Britons after Arthur's death and he never goes home again. The end. Man, I love What Ifs.

Heading back to main 616 continuity, there is still more of this arc to go. The original Doomquest was only two issues, yes, but it was popular enough that Layton & Michelinie did a sequel a hundred issues later, in their second run of Iron Man, and that's Iron Man #249-250, Recurring Knightmare. (In the intervening issues were Denny O'Neil's IM run, specifically the second drinking arc (#160-200), and then Layton & Michelinie came back and most famously gave us Armor Wars (#225-232). I would have to say that Armor Wars is definitely the standout fandom-favorite arc of their second IM run; for their first one, I think a lot of people would have a hard time choosing between Doomquest and Demon.) But anyway, yes. Recurring Knightmare.

Recurring Knightmare is... well, the best way I can describe it is "a trip." It is definitely a sequel to Doomquest, and it is also definitely not a sequel you  would ever have expected to see for Doomquest.

Much like #149, #249 is pretty much just setup. Fun setup, but the big action is in the next issue. We open with Doom in Latveria, on his throne, pondering which of his servants he should have disintegrated. Anyway, he's just hanging out there when a mysterious object appears. In California, Tony is suited up and entertaining the crowd at a mall opening when the same object also appears! He takes it to his lab. Please note that this is after the Kathy Dare incident, so Tony is still recovering and is walking with a cane. Doom sees on the news that Iron Man has found the same object, which cannot be carbon-dated, and he shows up at Tony's house. He criticizes Tony's taste in art.

Anyway, Doom basically orders Tony to work with him. Tony refuses, and then Doom sends some robots to attempt to steal Tony's version of the object because he thinks if he has them both he will be powerful. Doom manages to steal it, and when he puts the pieces together, both he and Tony disappear.

So where do they go, you might ask? Camelot?

Not exactly. The future! There is a great callback to the Doomquest splash page.

It turns out they are in London in 2093. Merlin brought them there. Tony still hates magic. And in the future, King Arthur is still there, except he is now a child, because he has been reborn. But he does remember Tony from Doomquest, at which point Tony kneels. Doom, of course, is not impressed. He asks why they have been brought to the future.

The answer is that things are going wrong in the future. If you do not personally remember United States politics in the 1980s, I need you to google the words "Strategic Defense Initiative" right now. I'll wait.

Back with me? Okay, so this is a future where Reagan's Star Wars program actually happened the way he wanted it to, and the satellites are still hanging around the Earth in the future and messing everything up, and Arthur and Merlin need Tony and Doom's help to stop them. Doom once again flies away with his jetpack, of course.

Tony is game to help, but he's not in an armor that can stay in space for long. This is when Merlin takes him and Arthur to the mall and Tony manages to get everything to upgrade his armor at Radio Shack. You see what I meant about this issue being weird.

Tony is out in space trying to disarm the SDI platform, which is where he runs into his future descendant, Andros Stark, who is in armor you will probably recognize from Iron Man 2020. He is referred to as "the resurrected spawn of Iron Man 2020" so I assume he's actually directly related to Arno rather than a direct descendant of Tony; Wiki confirms that Arno is his grandfather. This is all from way before Arno was contemporaneous with Tony in canon. Anyway, he's fighting Tony.

Oh, by the way, Future Doom exists. Future Doom would like to rule this future Earth and for some reason Andros would like to help him. Meanwhile, Present Doom finds out from Merlin that he can't leave except by magic and he can't leave without Tony, so he is reluctantly on Tony's side.

They need help from the Lady of the Lake, except the lake has been paved over and is now a parking lot. Merlin makes the lake come back and then of course they get Excalibur. Arthur is a kid, so he can't wield a longsword; Doom assumes he's going to take it because he is basically a king, and he's pretty grumpy when the sword picks Tony. Tony then uses Excalibur to destroy the space lasers, and I bet that is a sentence you never thought you would read. It's pretty cool. Tony concludes that magic has its good points. Tony stops Andros and Doom stops, uh, himself, and the world is saved and they get to go home. Also, Doom finds out Tony is Iron Man, but when Merlin sends them back he conveniently erases their memories, so neither of them remember anything about this and Tony's secret is still safe. And that's the sequel to Doomquest.

And if you think that's weird, wait until you see Legacy of Doom.

Iron Man: Legacy of Doom is a four-issue miniseries from 2008, also by Layton and Michelinie. Even though it's from 2008, it's set during a much more classic time in Iron Man, continuing on from where we left off in this Doomquest saga. We start with a framing story in 2008. Tony, who has Extremis now, is busy scrapping some of his older armors and reviewing his logs when he suddenly remembers that there was a whole thing with Doom that happened that he seems to have forgotten about until right now. So the whole thing is narrated by Tony in flashback.

Tony's in space fixing a satellite when a hologram of Doom shows up and summons him to Latveria. It's not really clear why Doom needs Tony's help in particular here, but Doom tells Tony that he's discovered that Mephisto would like to bring about the end of the world, which Doom finds, and I quote, "presumptive." So Doom has his Time Cube, and with it he takes Tony to hell.

(Yes, I promise this is relevant to Doomquest. There will be some Arthuriana shortly.)

Doom brings Tony to Mephisto, and it turns out it's a setup! Doom trades Tony for an item he wants from Mephisto, leaves, and Tony's going to be trapped in hell forever! Oh no! (I mean, he's not. But it's quite a cliffhanger.)

At the beginning of issue #2, we find out what the Arthurian connection is, which is that we learned that after the events of Doomquest, Morgan had been granted sanctuary by Mephisto in exchange for a shard of Excalibur that she had somehow stolen. Doom still wants Morgan's help with some magic -- he doesn't mention what it is here, but he says he needs someone of Pendragon blood, and that'd be her -- so he traded Tony to Mephisto in exchange for, I'm guessing, Morgan and the Excalibur shard.

I have probably mentioned this elsewhere, but Legacy of Doom #2 is one of my favorite issues of Iron Man ever, solely because of the next scene. We return to Tony in hell. Howard Stark is also in hell, and he is now a demon, and Tony has to fight him. Mephisto brings popcorn and watches. This is the one time in canon when Tony actually confronts his father, and okay, yes, it's a fistfight in hell and Howard is a demon, but that's comics for you. Howard spends several pages insulting Tony -- specifically insulting his masculinity, but that's a whole other essay -- until he finally insults Maria too, and that's when Tony fights back, because his mother taught him to be good. Honestly if you're a Tony fan I'd recommend this issue just for that scene.

Anyway, we go back to the Doom and Morgan plot, and Morgan casts the spell Doom wanted, which was fusing the Excalibur shard with Doom's armor. Then Doom sends her back to Camelot rather than hell, because he's still mad that she never helped him get his mom out of hell like she said she would.

Tony freezes Howard with Freon -- yes, the same trick he pulled on the dragon back in Doomquest -- and tells him, "You're no father of mine." It is immensely satisfying.

(I had been going to mention that I thought it was a shame that neither canon nor fandom seems to have really engaged with this confrontation, and I know canon never believes in narrative closure but fandom sure does -- and then, anyway, it occurred to me that since the framing story of Tony remembering this is set when Tony has Extremis, there's a very good chance that he no longer remembers remembering it. Goddammit, Marvel.)

(If I got to retcon one canon thing about Tony, I think "the entirety of World's Most Wanted" is up there. I mean, okay, a lot of things are up there, but WMW is definitely on the shortlist.)

Okay. Tony has now engineered his way out of hell, and he's back with Doom in Latveria. Doom has Excalibur. Doom would very much like to fight him. While wielding Excalibur. You get the sense that this is going to be bad. Another cliffhanger!

Legacy of Doom #3 opens with Tony destroying Doom's lab to buy time and running away from Doom and Excalibur. I should probably mention that Doom still doesn't know Tony is Iron Man (anymore), so he thinks he is dealing only with Iron Man, Tony Stark's lackey. Meanwhile, some scientists at SI think there's something weird going on with space. Meanwhile meanwhile, Tony is in a forest taking a breather when a mysterious old man walks up to him.

It's Merlin! Surprise! Merlin wants Tony's help to stop Doom from doing whatever he's doing with Excalibur. The sword makes you invincible and the scabbard makes you invulnerable, so Merlin sends Tony to Scotland on a fetch quest for the scabbard. Doom has now magically sent the sword in search of the scabbard, so the sword flies away to meet it and Doom follows. Turns out the thing that's wrong with space is a thing that's going to hit Earth at the exact place Tony and Doom are. What a coincidence! So Tony and Doom get trapped in a stone circle and fight some stone warriors and then Tony ends up with the scabbard. And by "ends up with," I mean it fuses to his armor. Next issue!

Legacy of Doom #4 is when things really, really get weird. A giant demon made of eyes (???) appears, and this demon is apparently what Doom had been preparing to fight (because it's mad that Doom stole one of its spellbooks), and now he can't, because the sword and the scabbard aren't together. Thanks, Shellhead.

That's when Merlin shows up and says all is not lost. They can defeat the demon... if they put the sword into the scabbard.

"But I'm the scabbard now!" Tony says, uncomprehending.

"Yes," Merlin says. "You are."

Then Tony gets it.

So, yes, Doom has to, um, penetrate Tony. With Excalibur. I love comics. I love comics so much.

So that's a thing that happens.

And then Tony flies off and, I guess, resolves to never, ever think about any of this again.

We head back to the framing story, in which Tony, now having remembered all of this, flies to Britain, buys the land the lake is on, and paves it over, presumably so it will be there for Merlin to bring back in Iron Man #250. The end.

Whew.

Okay, yeah, I know I didn't have to summarize the whole thing, but Legacy of Doom here really is one of my favorite Iron Man miniseries. And I just want to share the love. Please read it. It's great.

But the Arthuriana fun doesn't end there! In fact, now we get an Arthurian-themed arc that actually isn't in Iron Man comics. It's in Avengers! Iron Man is involved, though.

(There is also apparently a Morgan arc in Avengers #240. I actually haven't read it. It seems to be yet another Spider-Woman arc. I get the impression that this isn't really Arthuriana other than having Morgan in it fighting Jess, though, so it doesn't seem quite as relevant. Morgan also apparently has some appearances in FF, Journey into Mystery, and Marvel Team-Up, but those seem like more of just basic villainy. Also, probably not involving Tony.)

Kurt Busiek's 1998 Avengers run, volume 3, is in large part the kind of Avengers run that is a nostalgic love letter to older comics. Heroes are heroes and villains are villains and good triumphs over evil. The Avengers all live in the mansion and are BFFs. I love it. It does assume that you are already a fan of the Avengers, because it starts out by summoning pretty much everyone who has ever been an Avenger and is available to the mansion, and that is... a lot of people. Thirty-nine, by my count. Also, when the entire team is magically whisked away, we are treated to the following narration, as Steve disappears: "And Captain America's last thought, as the world goes white around him, and he with it -- is that Iron Man would hate this."

The narration doesn't tell you why Iron Man would hate this, or how Captain America would know that Iron Man hates this. This is not explained later on. But if you have read comics -- or if you have read the above summary of Doomquest -- you know that Tony is absolutely, one hundred percent, thinking, "I hate magic." And Steve knows it.

The reference is not relevant to the plot; if you don't get it, you'll be fine. But that's what I mean when I say this is a nostalgia run. There are definitely Easter eggs for people who have read a bunch of comics. Busiek does this a whole lot in his work -- there's a reason you can buy an annotated edition of Marvels -- and, yeah, it happens here too. Just know that there will be references you're not getting, if you're new to comics.

Anyway. So Busiek's run actually starts out with an Arthurian arc, #1-4, "The Morgan Conquest." The name is a dead giveaway. Yes, Morgan le Fay is back. Again. For once, Doom is not involved.

The Avengers are all back from their sojourn on Counter-Earth after fighting Onslaught -- don't worry about it -- and mysterious things are happening. There are a lot of monster attacks. So pretty much everyone who has ever been an Avenger is summoned to the mansion, at which point we learn from Thor about some mystical artifacts that are being stolen. (They are the Norn Stones and also the Twilight Sword. That sounds like something from a Zelda game, doesn't it?) The Avengers go to try to stop this, end up in Tintagel, and then they run into Mordred. He wants to capture Wanda, presumably for Magic Reasons. Morgan le Fay casts a spell on all of them, reshaping reality. Yes, all of them. Surprise!

So now all the Avengers are living in a medieval castle and/or town; Morgan is their queen, and thanks to the power of mind-control they are all basically living in Ye Olden Times. The Avengers are all some variety of knight, except for Wanda, who is chained up in the dungeon so Morgan can steal her magic and use it to fuel all this reality-warping.

Wanda calls for help, and that snaps Steve (Yeoman America!) out of the mind control (or altered reality or whatever you want to call it) pretty fast, because Steve's always been very good at resisting mind control, and then Steve promptly goes and snaps Clint out of it, because I guess Steve is also good at inspiring people to snap out of mind control. "Oh, man!" Clint says. "Not another alternate reality! Not again!" (I assume he's referring to Counter-Earth? Maybe?)

So Steve and Clint go around reassembling the Avengers and orienting them as to reality. They get Jan and Monica easily, but then Steve insists on trying to get Tony because, I guess, he likes Tony and would really like to hang around Tony, who is half-naked and asleep in his bedroom, and certainly I am reading nothing whatsoever into this. Clint tells Steve it's not going to work. Tony has historically been fairly susceptible to mind control; it was only pretty recently at this point that he'd been doing Kang's bidding in The Crossing. But the more serious impediment is that this is Tony Stark and he would obviously like to LARP being a knight forever and ever. Tony, therefore, does not believe Steve, and throws him and Clint out of his bedroom and into the barracks.

"Iron Man's a good guy, normally," Clint says. "But he's waaay too into his whole nobleman/lord of the manor trip. That spell musta hit him right where he lives!"

Clint speaks the truth, clearly.

Anyway, they go around and manage to make pretty much every Avenger in the room other than Tony snap out, and attempt to rebel against Morgan while Tony is stil fighting them because he is Still A Knight. There's a lot of punching, because some of the Avengers still aren't free; they weren't ones Steve found.

The day is saved when Wanda manages to channel Wonder Man and break free. This gives the Avengers a fighting chance against Morgan and the Avengers are all lending Wanda their power when Tony finally snaps out of it and is on the side of good. 

Then they take Morgan down, go home, and attempt to figure out which of these thirty-nine people should be on the active Avengers team. Hooray.

But that's not the end of Morgan le Fay showing up to screw around with Tony's life! There's more to come! Not much, but there is one that I know of, and at least one more memorable reference. 

(I haven't read all her appearances or anything, but one of them definitely involves Tony; I can't swear that he doesn't appear in any of the other books Morgan shows up in, but it'd be a cameo for him, because I only know of one more arc that she's in in a book that Tony stars in.)

In a few more years, we have now entered the part of Marvel Comics history where Brian Michael Bendis writes all the Avengers books at the same time for, like, seven years running. It was sure A Time. There were a lot of word bubbles.

And the thing about Bendis is, Bendis looooooves Doomquest. If you're familiar with the very end of his tenure at Marvel where he made Doom be Iron Man after Tony got knocked into a coma in Civil War II, you have probably figured out already that he likes Doom. But he also likes Doomquest, specifically.

I mean, if nothing else, the giant splash page in The Confession where Maleev redrew the climactic Doomquest fight while Bendis had Tony talk about how deeply meaningful to his understanding of the world this all was -- and how it allowed him to predict Civil War -- was probably a big clue, right?

As far as I am aware, Morgan le Fay makes exactly one more appearance in Tony's life. And that's in Mighty Avengers vol 1 #9-11. Only one of those issues is named, so I'm going to assume the arc is named after it: Time Is On No One's Side.

You remember Mighty Avengers, right? The deal with the Avengers books at the time was that after Bendis exploded the mansion and made the team disband in Avengers Disassembled, the main Avengers book was no longer called just Avengers. Instead, the main Avengers book was New Avengers, and that was the only Avengers book. Then Civil War happened, Steve got killed, and New Avengers became the book about what was left of the SHRA resistance (i.e., Steve's side) after the war. So about halfway through New Avengers, Mighty Avengers starts up, and Mighty Avengers is about an extremely fucked-up and grief-stricken Tony Stark trying to run the official government-sanctioned Avengers team, with Carol's help. This is the comic with the arc where Tony turned into naked girl Ultron. You remember.

So, anyway, there's this Mighty Avengers arc where Doom is Up To Something (there are symbiotes and a satellite involved) and somehow Tony and the Avengers end up in Latveria, punching Doom. Also, by the way, Doom is visiting Morgan in the past because he likes her. The Avengers attacking his castle made him have to come back to the present, so he's kind of cranky. And he fights Tony, and in the course of the fight, his time platform explodes and sends Doom and Tony and also the Sentry to... the past.

This is one of those times where you should definitely look up the comics if possible because the way the past is visually indicated here is that it's colored with halftone dots the way you would expect old comics to be colored, although they have modern shading and color palettes. It's very charmingly retro.

So the three of them are stuck in New York in the past, and naturally they would like to leave. There's one person in this time who has a time machine and it is, of course, Reed Richards. Doom and Tony have a lot of banter in this arc; I think it's entertaining.

Sentry has to be the one to break them all into the Baxter Building because of that power he has where no one will remember him. So they do that, travel forward in time, and end up in Latveria in the present again except Doom is gone and also things are currently exploding where they are.

Doom, of course, has made a side trip to visit Morgan again and he asks her to help him build an army, because I guess this is what their relationship is like. So the rest of the Avengers are captured by what look to me like Mindless Ones and are in a cave in magic bondage, because comics. Jess comments that at least they aren't naked, because she too is remembering that memorable New Avengers trip to the Savage Land. Doom threatens Carol in some creepy sexist ways and eventually it turns out that Tony and the Sentry are fine and everyone kicks Doom's ass. Business as usual.

And the last page of the arc is Morgan alone, wondering where Doom is. So technically Morgan and Tony don't come face to face here, but I think she counts as being at least partially responsible for ruining Tony's day here. And then Secret Invasion happens and Tony has a very, very bad day.

There are a few more Morgan appearances after this, but, as I said, I don't think any of them involve Tony. She shows up in Dark Avengers, apparently, which was one of the post-Civil War Avengers titles I didn't read, and I know that recently, on the X-Men side of things, she's been in Tini Howard's Excalibur one, which I have only read a little of. No Tony there. Just a lot of Morgan and Betsy Braddock and Brian Braddock and the Otherworld.

If you are interested in Morgan's other appearances, you might like this Marvel listicle that is Morgan le Fay's six most malicious acts. I pulled some of the Darkhold backstory from their discussion, but it's not really focused on Morgan and Tony.

So there you have it! That's everything I know about Tony's love for King Arthur and every run-in I know about that he's had with Morgan le Fay! One of two terrible people in Tony's life named Morgan! Actually, I don't think we've seen Morgan Stark in a while. I wonder if he's alive. There should be a Morgan & Morgan team-up. I should probably stop typing and post this.

The tl;dr point is that you should all read Doomquest and its sequels, especially Legacy of Doom. They're great!

[randomsnakesimp]

Okay. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna take the leap and say: Phobos is the victim (sorta).

Quick disclaimer: I am going to abuse plot holes and cartoon logic for my cause in a very nitpicky way. If you dislike that, I can completely understand, and I hope this warning will save you a lot of reading.

Also, this won't go into just headcanon territory, I'll put those in a separate post. Everything here I'll try to keep based on actual information from the comics and what I made of them.

That said...

Let's take a look at this scene:

(for a quick translation of the important part, the mother says: "No, Phobos, Meridian is meant for your sister. That's the law. The crown is hers.)

What we can see here are a few very important things:

1. Phobos is at most 5 years older than Elyon.

2. The name "Phobos" is not an edgy nickname he gave himself. Five-year-olds don't go around calling themselves Phobos. So his parents, for some reason, gave him that name.

3. His mother is very adamant about him not even touching the crown and reminding him of his sisters' birthright.

So, after establishing what I would call more or less facts, what else can, relatively savely, be deduced here?

- Since Elyon never noticed anything weird about herself, she can't have aged slower than earth children. So neither can Phobos. This would mean that, as she was kidnapped after her mothers death as a baby, he would have been five. So, he either tried his best to rule at age five, or the council we see as Elyon rules stepped in for him for a while

- this would then mean two things: we need an explanation as to why Miriadel, Alborn and Galgheita fled explicitly from Phobos (I'll give my explanation a bit further down) and second, Phobos' reign of terror wasn't even thirteen years, and a lot of that time he was a child/teen and could not even have been mature enough to rule.

- This also means that Kandrakar pulled up the veil when Phobos was at most five, likely younger, and that the so called "Seal of Phobos" also existed at that time, as both the veil and the seal are seen in the flashback depicting Elyons abduction. For Kandrakar, this, too, I will try to explain soon, but as for the seal, I find it most plausible that the theory @ror-witch used in their fanfiction, of the seal being a royal heirloom and named after each ruler, is true.

- His and his mother's relationship was neither as bad as some assumptions go, but neither was it that good, probably, or at least it wasn't in his perception. See how his memory is of her cradling the baby the entire time and talking more about his sisters birthright than about what he has/can do? Yes, it's only a short memory, but I think it's clear that it's a summary of what he remembers of his mother.

- Phobos desire to rule Meridian does not stem from something deeply sinister, but rather from a childish spite. Five year old Phobos probably just wanted the crown cause it looked nice and shiny, and he was fabulous even back then, but after his mothers words, he sulked and decided to show her. That's his motivation.

So, now let's go a bit further and look at some other things we can deduce from the rest of the comics:

- Phobos has a huge dungeon, a wall of roses that turn people into more roses if they touch it and his plan for the annihilation of Meridian is "Well, Cedric and I hide in the castle and...we'll see". He hates the people of Meridian, but he doesn't seem to have it in him to directly attack anyone until Elyon is there and even here, when he has her knocked out in their duel or locked up as Endarno, he isn't unnecessarily cruel. He's not evil in nature, he's more of a very dangerous child throwing tantrums. ( Cedric is kinda similar, and they both start losing it toward the coronation, but I sincerely believe that before that, there would have been a chance for them to come around )

- The only person he ever tortures or even hurts directly is Cedric. Because one, he likes Cedric and so gets more extreme emotions around him, and two, Cedric never says anything, and just plays it of afterwards, so I don't know if he even fully realizes what he's doing, like a child hitting someone. If Cedric ever just said "Stop it, you're hurting me", Phobos would probably need an entire week to process that input.

- Phobos is VERY reclusive, and he doesn't want anyone to have even pictures of him, and while that could be a God complex, I get some highly insecure vibes out of it, in a vulnerable narcissist kinda way, in that he is massively overcompensating. I gotta admit, though, that I cannot put my finger on why, so maybe take this with a grain of salt and decide for yourself if you agree.

- Kandrakar never orders the guardians to help Meridian in any way, just to make sure nothing oozes out. They likely pulled up the veil for their own protection, so Phobos wouldn't be able to spread far enough to become a real danger, rather than to protect innocent people, as clearly the Meridian people mean shit to them

- while the guards are widely feared in Meridian, Cedric seems to be viewed as... not very frightening or important, as some random merchant feels comfortable clinging to his cape (and rightfully so, apparently, as Cedric just tells him to piss off and doesn't care any further). This further leads me to believe that Cedric is rather unhealthy devoted to Phobos and his tantrums while their shitty ass reign leaves a lot of free space for unsuited people to become guards and tyranize the people.

- the King and Queen seem to have died in rapid succession, and shortly after the scene shown above, yet she looks perfectly healthy in that scene.

Now, what do I make of all this?

I believe the line of events to be as follows:

I don't think Phobos traveling back in time is a viable theory for mainly two reasons: I think his mother would be less chill around him if she saw/heard about his reign herself, and I believe that it would have been mentioned somewhere along the way if that were the case. Instead, what I believe happened is that the oracle had a vague vision of Phobos nearly taking over Kandrakar. Deciding in their random mood swings that today was a day of action, they had the people of Meridian informed that the next male born to a queen would become a dangerous tyrant, pulled up a veil and set their guardians to make sure nothing oozed out.

The veil, of course, made the people of Meridian feel trapped and a horror of the unborn prince who would ruin their lives spread.

So, when Weira gave birth to that prince, a full blown panic spread, so much so that she, in a fit of hysterical emotion, named him after that boust of panic. Of course, people tried to kill the prince basically from the moment he was born, and he was met with barely concealed resentment.

Soon after, Weira and her husband died - whether they were killed, or fell ill, or died in an accident, I have no idea, but I wouldn't completely rule out an assassination either aimed at Phobos and accidentally hitting them or the strain making at least one of them fall terminally ill.

Either the people rioted and Phobos' magic panic reaction or the leftover loyal guard was enough to fight them back, or the people succumbed to their fate at this point, slumping into the state of despair seen throughout the comics. But in the end, five year old Phobos had to be handed the throne. I assume the council still had some say at this point, but he did manage to get all pictures of him destroyed - this order was likely due to the fact that they were mostly caricatures.

So he grew up with the very volatile combination of a shitton of power and no one able to tell him if he was being stupid on one hand, and feeling unloved and unwanted on the other. He withdrew, likely also due to countless assassination attempts or things he perceived as such, and went into a negative feedback loop of being unable to mature and take responsibility, therefore being a shit ruler, therefore being hated, therefore having no one to help him, therefore being unable to face and grow from his mistakes, rinse and repeat.

So, Meridian was plunged into chaos, yet he seemed fine more or less just sitting in the new playroom he made for himself in the gardens, sporadically giving out an order or two and having generally no idea about anything that didn't directly concern him.

Enter Elyon. Now, she send him of the rails, as she was a danger to his lifestyle AND a reminder of all the sentiments he'd be drowning in alcohol if he wasn't too much of a recluse and education denier to know of that option. He doesn't even try. He just lets Cedric, the one person he trusts, handle her, like everything else, and somewhat plays along sometimes, when he feels like it. This is where he passes the point of no return and starts actually trying to kill people, culminating in him creating an army to wipe out Meridian. I still believe that even at this point, in his head, what he's doing is just throwing a nice toy out the window just so his sister won't have it.

[yumeka36]

Analysis on the absence of Elsa and the Northuldra in post-Frozen 2 stories

If you've been following post-Frozen 2 storybooks and comics as closely as I have over the past year and a half, you've probably noticed that the majority of stories take place in Arendelle and focus on Anna partaking in adventures with Kristoff, Olaf, and Sven. While Elsa has appeared alongside them in a few stories, as well as a couple of her own stories taking place in the forest with Olaf and Bruni, the ratio of "Anna stories" vs "Elsa stories" is pretty one-sided. And, while new characters introduced in Frozen 2 like Mattias, Halima, Bruni, and Nokk, have had some appearances in post-F2 stories, the Northuldra have had zero…not even mentions or cameos. I’ve been pondering on this topic quite a bit and finally got around to writing all my thoughts. This is a long and thorough analysis so sit back, enjoy, and put your thinking cap on...

The lack of Elsa in post-F2 stories is puzzling since both Anna and Elsa are fairly even when it comes to post-F2 content in general; all the post-F2 merch I've seen has both of them in equal amounts, and pictures of Elsa are always all over the magazine covers and paper craft pages that the comics come from. So it's not like she's being excluded from post-F2 merch overall, she's just noticeably absent from most of the comics and storybooks. Again, this is puzzling because post-F2 marketing gives the impression of "Anna's doing her thing in Arendelle" and "Elsa's doing her thing in the forest," so an equal number of stories for each sister, as well as a few where they do things together, seems like the most logical way to go. Yet the ratio of post-F2 stories currently looks something like this:

Stories featuring Anna in Arendelle with other characters (no Elsa) - 56%

Book & Comic: Anna getting a gift for the queen of Chatho

Book & Comic: Anna getting an official portrait as queen

Book: Mattias getting accustomed to Arendelle again

Comic: Anna and Mattias visit Halima

Comic: Anna and Kristoff make a bicycle for Olaf

Comic: The gang helps Olaf find a new nose

Comic: The gang celebrates the spring festival

Comic: Olaf minds the kingdom when Anna is sick

Book: The origin of Olaf, Kristoff, and Sven's epilogue outfits (this one is technically not post-F2, but I'm counting it since it's so close to the end of the movie. Also it’s an upcoming book, so no link yet)

Book: Arendelle celebrates the cloudberry festival

(out of these, Mattias has featured in about 17%)

Stories featuring Elsa with Anna and the rest of Frohana - 27%

Book: Anna awaits Elsa's visit after their initial parting

Book: Explore the North (this isn't a storybook but a collection of isolated scenes during and after F2; since some scenes are post-F2, I'm counting it)

Comic: Elsa visits Arendelle for charades

Comic: Anna and co. visit Elsa in the forest to help Bruni

Comic: Elsa visits Arendelle for the snowman competition

Stories featuring Elsa in the forest with the spirits (and Olaf, no Anna) - 17%

Book: Bruni's Big Adventure

Book: Elsa, Sven, and the spirits help Olaf find a unicorn

Book: Elsa helps restore balance in the forest that resulted from the misguided actions of some travelers

(out of these, Yelena, Honeymaren, Ryder, and/or other Northuldra have featured in 0%)

*Major shoutout to @chileanon​​ and @bigfrozenfan​​ for translating many of these stories that aren’t available in English*

(my percentages are based on the number of post-F2 stories released thus far, to my knowledge, in the form of comics or books. Some stories have both a comic and book version, as well as two different book iterations with only slight differences. In these cases, I'm counting them as one. Since comics are released sporadically and only in a few European countries, my number may be slightly off if there were any not brought to my attention on social media. I'm very active with finding information about post-F2 content, so I feel my numbers are fairly accurate. And again, I'm only counting stories that take place post-F2, or at least within the timeframe of the epilogue, not stories that take place during or before)

(I'd also like to point out that Olaf is the only character who has appeared in every single post-F2 story so far. It makes sense since he's a very marketable character for the kids and simple to write for. Though this probably wasn't the intention, I'm seeing him as a connection symbol between Anna and Elsa as they go about their new roles).

So what is the deal with these ratios? As I said, both Anna and Elsa have been evenly highlighted throughout all of Frozen 2's marketing, and continue to be to this day (and Elsa is arguably the more financially successful of the two and Disney knows it), so why is Anna so much more prevalent when it comes to post-F2 stories? And why are the Northuldra so left out? Obviously they wouldn't feature in a lot of stories since they're not main (and marketable) characters, but if Mattias can appear in a story or two, why can't the Northuldra at least get a mention? If someone hadn't seen Frozen 2 and read these post-movie stories, they would think the only residents of the forest are Elsa, the spirits, and some animals. Is there a reason for this? These are the kinds of questions I will examine and attempt to answer in this post.

But before I get to the meat of this analysis, please take note of the following disclaimers (I apologize for the length of the disclaimers, but they're important things to keep in mind):

-------

Disclaimers

- All of this is my own speculation based on the facts made public; namely, the content of the post-movie stories themselves. Since I have no insight into the coordination, publishing process, or other planning/logistics behind the creation of these stories, theorizing is all I can do. I don't know to what extent executives at Disney dictate what authors can and can't write in these stories, whether the authors actually have a lot of creative freedom yet choose to write the stories this way, or whether these outcomes vary depending on factors like country and story format. So I'm purely going off the limited knowledge I have and what I feel is most logical.

- Continuing from my previous point, unless you have some insider knowledge about the inner workings of Disney Publishing Worldwide, Disney Press, or whatever branch of Disney creates these post-movie stories, exactly who is responsible for the way they are is unknown. I could be wrong of course, but I doubt that Head of WDAS Jen Lee has the need to personally green light 6-12 page comic stories that get printed in a foreign language magazine read by, like, 1% of Frozen's worldwide audience. Even though Jen Lee and Chris Buck created the story and characters of Frozen, the franchise is owned by Disney firstly, and it's very likely other people at Disney provide approval for things like this in lieu of the filmmakers. It’s doubtful that the Frozen 2 filmmakers had any input into the creation of these post-movie stories, or even know that they exist. While the Frozen 2 filmmaking team is responsible for how Frozen 2 ended, they ended it in a way for post-stories to easily expand on the Frozen-verse like how I previously described; some stories featuring Anna as queen and interacting with the people of Arendelle, some stories featuring Elsa in the forest interacting with the spirits and the Northuldra, and some stories with them doing things together. And technically this is exactly what post-F2 stories have been doing–we have stories featuring Anna as queen, stories with Elsa in the forest, and stories of them doing things together…it's just that the proportion of "Anna stories" vs "Elsa stories" is surprisingly off, plus the complete absence of the Northuldra. And again, whether it was someone's decision that the stories should be this way, or whether it's just a weird coincidence, is unclear. Is there a particular person or persons from Disney's publishing branches pushing for the stories to be the way they are? Or is it the individual authors' decision? Or some combination of both…or some other factor entirely? Yes, higher ups at Disney have to provide approval for every official piece of media that gets released for their IPs, but who is "Disney" in this case? A manager/supervisor at Disney Press? Is it the same person who approves every new story or just some? Is it just one person who approves or is there some long chain of approval? And if so, how far up does it go...all the way up to someone who actually worked on Frozen 2, or does it stop before then? Does it vary by country? Does it vary whether the story is in comic or book format? There are a lot of unknowns in terms of how these stories come about, so please be mindful of that fact before assigning blame to any one person or group of people.

- And lastly, again, I'm only focusing on post-F2 stories–stories that take place after the events of Frozen 2. I know that comics and books have come out after Frozen 2's release that take place during or before the events of the movie, such as a comic about Ryder helping Kristoff with the proposal and a book showing Frohana having a family game night prior to the movie. For this analysis, I'm only focusing on how the characters and franchise are presented post-movie, in brand new ways not yet explored in the actual canon of the movie. I'm more interested in seeing how these stories are shaping the franchise going forward in anticipation of new official canon content whenever it comes.

-------

So with all this in mind, let's keep analyzing…

Lack of Elsa

First I'm going to examine the main reasons I have for why we don't see Elsa as often in post-F2 stories:

Arendelle stories are easy and familiar: Personally, I think this is the most likely reason, especially for the comics. The comics are made as part of magazines released in a few European countries. They're simply extra selling points for the magazines, which contain other items that appeal to kids, like arts & crafts activities, and Elsa is always all over those even if she's not part of the comic. I would also venture to guess that the authors and artists who create the comics don't have a ton of time, or incentive, to weave together interesting stories. After years of releasing Frozen 1-based comics that almost always involve adventures in Arendelle, I'd imagine it's very easy for current Frozen comic writers to simply follow that formula, since it worked in the past and is easy and familiar. Sure, they could include Elsa in more of those stories, but if you look at it from the perspective of a comic writer with deadlines, if I could get away with writing an acceptable story without including an extra character to draw/write for, I would do that as much as I could. If Elsa is still in, like, 80% of the magazine, I think little kids would still be enticed to buy them even if she's absent from the comic stories. Obviously with Frozen 1, all the characters lived in Arendelle, so it wouldn't make sense to have a lot of stories without Elsa (though there were some). But now that Elsa is living elsewhere, her absence in these stories isn't as questionable, especially when she's still part of the magazine in general. While this logic applies more to the magazine comics than storybooks, I would still argue that the storybooks are also niche and are simply made to bring in a little extra revenue to small markets rather than a serious attempt to expand the canon.

So then the question becomes, why not show more stories of Elsa in the forest with the spirits and/or Northuldra? Those stories could be simple too, like a story about Elsa and the spirits helping Honeymaren find a lost baby reindeer or something like that. The reason for this could again boil down to Arendelle simply being an easier and more familiar setting to work with. If excluding Elsa from the comics has no affect on magazine sales, since she's already present in the rest of the magazine, why not just stick with a formula that works and takes less effort to write? Even if coming up with simple stories for Elsa in the forest isn't too difficult, Arendelle is a more recognizable and "glamorous" setting, especially for the magazine's target audience of little girls. Another key point is that Elsa's exact role in the forest was left much more open to interpretation at the end of the movie than Anna's role as queen. Being the queen of a kingdom is something easily identifiable, and again, easier to write for. Why risk depicting Elsa's activities in the forest in a way that could conflict with Disney's expectations (assuming someone with clout at Disney green lights these stories) when you can just stick with safe adventures in Arendelle?

Disconnect between stories and canon: This is more of a general statement about fandom interpretation of the comics and storybooks as serious depictions of post-movie canon: it's best to keep in mind that these stories are, again, simply made to bring in a little extra revenue for the franchise, as most of Frozen's earning are either from box office sales or toys/dolls and other merch. Most of the books and comics aren't made with a large, worldwide market in mind, so I'd hesitate to think that a lot of effort is put into creating stories that are true depictions of post-canon content that would perfectly align with a potential Frozen 3 or other future official releases. Many of the post-Frozen 1 stories released in books and comics contradict each other in minor ways, as well as the actual canon movies and shorts as well. This is unfortunately what happens when you have a franchise like Frozen that's owed by a company (Disney) and not an individual director, author, etc. Unlike, say, Harry Potter or Naruto, where the work is owned firstly by the original author who has say into practically every new media piece that's created for their franchise, lots of different people at Disney contribute to various pieces of Frozen media and bring their own interpretations into it…interpretations that could end up not aligning with each other or future canon content from the filmmakers. A few different authors write the post-F2 storybooks, and still different authors write the comics, and I doubt they collaborate to make sure everything in their respective mediums match up exactly, nor do they check in with the Frozen 2 filmmakers to make sure every story released is a clear representation of whatever vision the filmmakers have for not-yet-conceived post-F2 content. This might not be the case for a bigger production, like the Frozen novels such as Dangerous Secrets, and shorts like Olaf's Frozen Adventure, but it is for these little kiddy books and comics that a very small portion of the market even knows about. Even if someone at Disney has to approve them, as I mentioned in the disclaimer, we have no idea if it's the same person always approving, different people depending on country/format, or if there's some chain of people who provide approval. This spreading out of the Frozen-verse across different media formats and Disney branches unfortunately spells frustration for fans who are constantly trying to build one, coherent view of the franchise's world through the alignment of the comics, books, shorts, and movies. This is unavoidably the nature of the kind of franchise Frozen is–something that's owned by a multi-faceted behemoth like Disney rather than a single author, so there's going to be a disconnect between its media formats that are conceived by a variety of different minds at the company. In the end, everyone is free to decide what they do and don't consider canon, but don't be surprised when the image the storybook writing team has for Frozen ends up being different than what the filmmakers create years later.

The pandemic: While I don’t think the covid pandemic is the sole reason here, it could be a possible contributor. Manufacturing was compromised across various industries in 2020, and magazine/book publishing could have been one of them. Maybe Disney did have plans to create more post-F2 books in early 2020, but had to change those plans (among many other things) when the pandemic hit. Some possible evidence for this is that, for some of the storybooks at least, the European translations are based on the English versions, which means the English versions came first, and yet the English versions weren’t released until several months later, most not even in hardcover form. This could indicate a slowdown in this branch at Disney in the US, or at least a portion of it. The US did get some hardcover Frozen 2 books in 2020, like Explore the North, Bruni’s Big Adventure, and the Frozen 2 manga, but not as many as Europe, which is strange if these books started off in English first. Again, without any insight into the industry, I can only theorize, but I do believe the pandemic should at least be considered.

Disney restrictions for future canon: This is an optimistic reason, but one that I think is important to mention. A possible reason that Elsa is noticeably absent from post-F2 stories, but not F2 marketing in general, could be because Disney has future plans for exactly what her role as the fifth spirit is and they don't want to risk anything that portrays that role in a contradictory way. They might not know exactly what that role is yet, but they'd rather not risk retconning anything that's shown in official content, like the comics and storybooks. Since Elsa's role was left open to interpretation at the end of the movie, focusing too much on what she's doing everyday could inadvertently reveal things about her role that could be portrayed as expanding the canon, something that these stories aren't allowed to do. So perhaps the authors are told to downplay Elsa's activities in the forest as much as possible, so often they'd rather just exclude her altogether to make things easier. Of course, this is complete speculation, but I'd like to hope it's true if it means Disney has future plans for Frozen!

On that note, the only story released thus far that has a direct depiction of what Elsa does in the forest is Tales of Courage & Kindness, a digital book that was recently released as part of Disney's Ultimate Princess Celebration campaign. I feel like this book is slightly closer to canon than the other books and comics because it was promoted on various official Disney social media outlets (and was released in English, while many of the books and comics aren't). It depicts Elsa's role (one role she has at least) of helping the spirits protect the forest from outside influences that could throw off its balance. Again, this book is still pretty niche and we don't know if there was any collaboration between the filmmakers and the author of this story, so this depiction of Elsa's role could be downplayed in favor of something else in future canon content. But what I found most puzzling about it is that this book, which seemed to be written for slightly older children than most of the post-F2 storybooks, had a perfect opportunity to feature the Northuldra, since it takes place exclusively in the forest. And yet, there wasn't even a mention of them at all. Which leads to the next portion of this analysis…

Lack of Northuldra

Even though Elsa doesn't appear in as many post-movie storybooks and comics as Anna (for possible reasons I just discussed), she still features in some of them. The Northuldra, however, have not appeared in any post-F2 stories, even the few that take place in the forest. This is strange since the epilogue of Frozen 2 very clearly shows Elsa with the Northuldra at their camp, as well as with the spirits. But as far as post-movie stories, the most we've gotten is one line from Elsa in one of the comics (English version from the official UK magazine):

(thanks to Snow on Discord for sharing this with me)

We can assume the "anyone" she's referring to are the Northuldra who live in the forest (unless she's referring to the animals of the forest, lol. Also, why the heck are they calling Bruni an "it"? This is a prime example of what I mentioned before about the disconnect between the various branches at Disney. In the Bruni's Big Adventure book and other official content, Bruni is referred to as "he/him")

As a matter of fact, Olaf, who lives with Anna and the others in Arendelle, is more prevalent in the forest stories than the Northuldra! I feel like he's been added to these stories to give Elsa someone to talk to, since Bruni and the other spirits don't talk. But why not have her talk to Honeymaren, Ryder, or Yelena? I know all the kids love Olaf, but you'd think they could get away with having one story where Elsa interacts with the Northuldra, just like Anna has a couple of stories where most of her interactions were with Mattias. And like Elsa, the Northuldra aren't excluded from post-F2 overall as they're still seen occasionally in other merch. They're just not in any stories that are set post-F2. This exclusion of the Northuldra is very bizarre, so let's see what we can analyze for why it's like this…

The Northuldra aren't marketable characters: This would be a likely reason if it weren't for the fact that Mattias, who is also arguably not a marketable character, has appeared in a few post-F2 stories. In fact, many minor Arendellian characters often appear in the comics and storybooks…Halima has gotten more attention in these stories than the actual movie! So I think it's more than that, which leads to my next point…

The spirits are more marketable: This is probably why stories that feature Elsa in the forest aren't focused on the Northuldra. Again, assuming the stories in the books and comics are created just to bring in a little extra money and not as serious depictions of canon content in collaboration with the filmmakers, it makes a lot of sense to keep the focus on what sells the best. We know that (in terms of merch at least) Bruni and Nokk were the most popular new characters from Frozen 2, so why not have stories with Elsa in the forest focused on them? This doesn't contradict the ending of Frozen 2 after all. However, this doesn't explain why there's literally no mention of the Northuldra. Even if the stories focus on the spirits, they can at least show the Northuldra in the background or mention them here and there. Which then leads to my next point…

Few stories in the forest, so few chances: In conjunction with my previous two points, I think this is the main reason for the lack of Northuldra in post-F2 stories…there just hasn't been enough opportunities. First off, most post-F2 stories take place in Arendelle, so no reason for the Northuldra to be seen there (unless they wanted to depict Arendelle and Northuldra mingling with each other, but that concept is probably beyond the scope of the kiddy books and comics!) And as of now, there have only been four post-F2 stories that take place in the forest…

-Bruni's Big Adventure: this one gets a free pass because it's aimed at very little kids and literally just shows Bruni and Olaf goofing off, with Elsa making brief appearances at the beginning and end. The more descriptive European version does mention about Elsa living in the forest with the spirits and no mention of the Northuldra. But again, this book seems aimed at an even younger audience than the others, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the author needed to keep things very simple and only mention what’s important for the story at hand.

-A Day With Bruni comic: this one could have definitely shown some Northuldra in the background, or even mentioned them in Elsa's dialogue. I guess the idea was for the group to meet Elsa in a secluded area, since the story was about helping Bruni get his fire going again, which could be dangerous at a camp site. I still don't know why they weren't at least acknowledged in Elsa's dialogue, but that could have just been a conservative choice by the comic writer.

-A Unicorn for Olaf: while this book could have shown the Northuldra, since it features Elsa, Olaf, Sven, and the spirits travelling all around the forest, I kind of see why they didn't; the theme was that each spirit Olaf encountered helped him get closer to finding the unicorn–it's a simple and easy narrative for a little kid to follow, no need to complicate it by including extra characters (I know it's hard sometimes, but we have to keep the target audience for these stories in mind...it’s much more narrow than the movies!)

-Elsa's story in Tales of Courage & Kindness: out of all these stories, this was definitely the one where the Northuldra should have at least been acknowledged. The story features the forest getting disturbed/thrown off balance, so you would think Elsa would mention the Northuldra, the people living there, perhaps to ask if they know what's happening or if anything was wrong. Really strange that this wasn't the case…only reason I could think of is, again, insistence on simplifying Elsa's role in the forest as much as possible, which includes downplaying anything going on in the forest besides just her and the spirits. Maybe the book author wanted to include mention of the Northuldra, but then was told to edit that part out for simplicity's sake. In Anna's equivalent story in this book, Mattias is absent, which I found strange too. Maybe the author was instructed to keep things simple and not include extra characters if it's not necessary for the story (again, the target audience for this story is the general audience of little kids, not hardcore adult Frozen fanatics). But still more possible reasons for the Northuldra's exclusion from this story, and perhaps the others, could be as follows…

Disney restrictions on depictions of indigenous people: I'm not sure how valid this reason is, but we do know that the filmmaking team consulted with the Sami people about how the Northuldra were depicted in Frozen 2. So when it comes to depicting them in anything post-F2, perhaps Disney's being super sensitive. Maybe the image they want to avoid is "we got your approval to depict the Northuldra in Frozen 2, but as far as anything after that, we can do whatever we want." It wouldn't pay to consult with the Sami on all these little niche storybooks and comics, so why go through that hassle when it's very easy to just exclude the Northuldra from them? There are some flaws with this idea though, like where does Dangerous Secrets fit into this (it's not post-F2, but it's still content featuring the Northuldra in ways not shown in the movie). Then there's the fact that Disney doesn't have this restriction with their other movies that feature indigenous cultures, like Moana for example. But the argument there could be that Moana is a main character, so they literally couldn't have any post-movie stories if they had this restriction, so maybe different coordinating/negotiations took place in that case compared to Frozen 2.

The Northuldra are nomadic: This is a reasonable argument for why Elsa seems to often be alone with the spirits in the forest. But I feel like the movie tried to convey that the Northuldra live in the forest. They might travel around the forest to forage for food and set up camp at different locations, but they don't stray too far. In the movie's prologue, Agnarr does say that the forest was "home" to the Northuldra, and I don’t recall Dangerous Secrets giving any indication that they leave the forest for extended periods of time. But this is something that could definitely be addressed in future canon, I just don’t think there's enough evidence for it as of now.

Coincidence/author's choice: This applies not just to the absence of the Northuldra, but lack of Elsa in the post-movie stories as well…it could all just be a coincidence. Maybe the authors of these stories have freedom in terms of how they portray Elsa and whether or not they include the Northuldra, yet they simply are choosing not to. Their reasons for doing so could be what I've already discussed–stories in Arendelle are easier and more familiar, so why not stick with that when there's no consequences for it? And likewise, why continually include Elsa, an extra character to draw and write dialogue for, in the Arendelle stories when there's no need to anymore? Maybe tomorrow a new story will be announced that features Elsa in the forest interacting with the Northuldra and what I've said here becomes way less relevant? But I feel like it's not a total coincidence…like, maybe some countries are more restrictive than others, or some Disney branches are more restrictive, like the comics vs the storybooks. It's hard to say, but some of this could be coincidence for sure.

Conclusion

To summarize, there could be several reasons for why Elsa and the Northuldra aren't as prevalent in post-F2 stories, or it could just be a weird coincidence. I'm of the opinion that the authors of these stories keep the focus on adventures in Arendelle out of convenience and familiarity, since the books and comics are made just to bring in a little extra revenue from small markets. Elsa is still all over other Frozen 2 merch like dolls and toys, and that's where the bulk of the franchise's sales come from. The authors could be restricted by Disney in some way with how they depict Elsa's role in the forest, or whether or not they can include the Northuldra, so they often opt to just not have them in the stories, or just stick to the more marketable characters like Olaf and Bruni. Without any inside information about how Disney's publishing branch makes these stories, we can only speculate. But what I do know is that viewing these stories as an accurate image of what all future content for the franchise will be like is very premature. It's only been a year and a half since Frozen 2 (and only seven months since new animated content with Once Upon a Snowman). Even though that seems like a long time for fans, it's an extremely short time in terms of how long Disney takes to create new content for their animated films. Just look at how many years it took to announce new series’ for Princess and the Frog, Zootopia, and Moana? Monsters Inc. just got a new series ten years after its last movie, and Lion King, one of Disney's biggest hits, didn't get a series (The Lion Guard) until nearly twenty years after its sequel movie. Even if Disney seemingly abandons a franchise, they often come back to it in time, especially one as popular as Frozen. Unlike a franchise such as Star Wars that has a whole studio just for it, Frozen has to share resources with other Disney movies, which is why new content for their animated movies is spread out across so many years. And if we do get a Frozen 3 or a series on Disney+ however many years from now, there's a good chance it could portray the current status quo differently from these storybooks and comics, just like how the post-F1 stories feature a different status quo than now. Whether another change like this is good or bad has yet to be decided, but until it happens, I'd like to imagine it's something like this page from the Explore the North book (one of my favorite post-F2 images)

We see Anna and Elsa having fun together while Arendellains, Northuldra, and the spirits are learning to get along again...and honestly, nothing in these post-F2 stories I’ve discussed contradicts this scenario. Even if we don’t see the Northuldra in the stories that take place in the forest, that doesn’t mean they’re not there. Even if there’s fewer stories featuring Anna and Elsa together, that’s no indication of how often they get together in canon. As I discussed, there could be a number of reasons for why the post-F2 stories are as simplified and one-sided as they are...they’re only meant to extend the ending of the movie in minor ways, so that if Frozen 3 or other official canon content is released down the line, nothing will have to be seriously retconned. As I mentioned, a lot of hands at Disney touch these stories without paying mind to the fact that the filmmakers could conceive something different in the future, which is why I don’t take the post-F2 books and comics too seriously. I simply enjoy them for what they do offer and don’t get hung up about what they don’t offer.

[layniapetrovnaaa]

“No boys”

 Request: @soytrash

Hey beautiful 🤍 how about a cute little moment between reader and Logan with Laura regarding a crush 🥺And Logan is just overprotective, but prior to Laura coming home from school and talking about a crush, Logan is trying to get some from reader 🥵 please and thank you hun let me know if that’s okay or not 🥰 (maybe with the baby from your family series too) sorry if it’s too much I love your writing 🥺🤍 

Warnings: Smut, swearing (if you squint).

A/n: Do you guys picture yourself when reading fanfiction? Cause I do and don’t haha. Typically when I read/write for Logan I picture myself as Scarlett Johansson in Match Point and The Island lol. I’d love to hear about you guys, so just let me know!

Reader is written as under 30 y/o, if you are older, just change the number :)

I hope this is good enough (I’m not really that confident in this one). Let me know if you have any constructive criticism. 

[The Howlett Family series] 

It was a particularly warm day in the Canadian Rockies, warm enough to open a few windows and have the cozy log house smelling of the fresh outdoor air. the window above the sink that you were currently standing at let a breeze into the house that tickled you just enough to have your body bear a small chill. 

As you rinsed one of the bowls you had used this morning to prepare breakfast, your hips swayed side to side in a fluid manor that matched the rhythm of the song that lightly boomed out of the speaker which sat by the fruit bowl on the counter. The reason behind the low volume was that Logan was currently trying to put your youngest daughter down for her daily afternoon nap. If the wails and grumbling coming from the baby monitor was any indication, it wasn't going very well.

You dried off your hands and picked up the monitor, holding down on the button that allowed your voice to come through on the other end.

“You need some help?”

“We’re fine. I just cant find her goddamn pacifier.”

“Did you check on the shelf by her changing table?” you spoke again.

Suddenly the crying stops and you smile knowing he found it.

He lets out a quiet “Thanks.”

You set the monitor back down and go back the the half a dozen dishes left in the sink.

“Kid’s quite the screamer hm?” you announce as Logan walks out from the hallway a few minutes later.

“Yeah she is, I think she got it from her mother.” he jokes walking around the island to be closer to you.

You let out a breathy gasp like-laugh.

“Oh really?” you say in an exaggerated tone, humor still consuming it.

“Mhm, and speaking  of screaming...” he places his hands on your waist and squeezes a bit.

“We can’t baby, Laura's gunna be home in like ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes is enough time. I can’t help it, you just look so sexy--”

Before he can finish you interrupt.

“Logan, you know damn well ten minutes isn't enough time.”

“I just need something [Y/N].” he says as his hands find your breasts and you let out a small moan, abandoning the dish towel and griping the counter.

He kisses your neck, sucking and nipping at the soft flesh, which brings forth light breathy moans from your mouth.

You turn your head to kiss him and you can feel yourself throb a bit when your lips meet. his hands dip into your top and pull your breast out of their confines, teasing your nipples with his fingers.

He continues to grope and kiss you as his dominant hand makes its way into your pants.

You moan loudly into his mouth as the pad of his middle finger circles your clit a few times.

His lips separate from yours so he can speak.

“Hmm, You like that?” he says in his breathy and gruff voice.

You can’t seem to make out any words, so instead you offer an almost whiny sounding “Mhm.” as his fingers inch lower.

You gasp, throwing your head back onto his shoulder, your right hand coming up to hold the back of his neck, as his middle and ring fingers enter your tight lubricated hole.His fingers curling in the classic “come hither” position, making you squeeze around his digits.

Even after all of the time you had spent with Logan, your body still didn't know how to handle the pleasure, that being evident in the way that your back arched and you sporadically bucked your hips back into his crotch with every jolt of pleasure that you felt.

Your moans were absolutely erotic as he seemed to push further into you, finding that spot that did in fact make you scream.

And the explicit squelching noises were making you even more desperate as he fucks you with his fingers.

As you let out another slew of loud moans, you feel his hand come up to cover your mouth.

“As much as I love hearing those pretty noises you make, baby, you gotta be quiet.”

Your eyes rolled back and fluttered shut at his his words and the vibrations from your moans bouncing against his cupped hand.

His thumb starts to circle your clit in the same rhythm that his fingers were moving in.

God, you were so done for.

He releases his hand from over your mouth before he asks:

“You gunna cum?”

“Mhmm” you let out in high pitched whine.

“Ouh! Don’t stop.” you pleaded as that marvelous feeling started to take over.

“That’s right baby, jus like that.” he speaks, egging you on until your mouth falls open and your eyes squeeze shut, your orgasmic euphoria taking over.

Eventually your body comes back down to earth.

“Look at that, you got three minutes to spare.” he coos in a triumphant tone.

Your breath is heavy and you whimper slightly when he pulls his fingers out of you.

You glance over to the built in clock in the stove before readjusting yourself and catching your breath.

Turning around, you plant your hands on the space where his shoulders and neck connect, and kiss him. Your tongues danced together sensually until you pulled away.

“I wish I could return the favor...” you hum and he kisses you again.

“You will later.” he says as the screeching of the school bus tires alerts you of Laura’s homecoming.

You look up at him and bite your lip, giving him a sensual smile as you nod.

You separate from him as you hear the front door open, going over to greet Laura.

“Hey honey, how was school?”

You could hear Logan in the kitchen, chuckling at your total change in demeanor. 

You turn slightly to roll your eyes at him, but the small amused smirk on your face gives you away.

You turn back to your daughter as she answers you while getting her homework and lunchbox out of her backpack.

“It was alright. We got to watch a movie in my english class, so that was  nice.”

You follow her to the kitchen where she sits at one of the bar stools at the dark wood island, slapping her purple folder and pencil onto the table.

You noticed something off with the young mutant, like she wasn’t telling you something.

When she looked up to see you and Logan analyzing her, she knew she would have to put on a better performance if she wanted to keep her secret. Fortunately for you, she wasn’t feeling up for a challenge today. And it’s not that she wanted to hide what her friends had told her was called a “crush”, but she knew how her parents would probably react.

“Laura, is there something you need to tell us?” Logan spoke.

“Sweetheart, you know you can tell us anything, right?” you squeeze her shoulder in a loving manor.  

She nods, taking in a breath before turning to you and muttering: No puedes decírselo a papá... (You can’t tell daddy...)

Hearing this concerned you. Laura and Logan had a pretty open relationship, despite their constant bickering.

Your eyes quickly flick over to Logan, who was watching you and Laura, his arms crossed while he leans against the kitchen counter.

“Que es Laura?”

Logan was accustom to yours and Laura’s more private conversations you had in spanish. He wasn't really a fan, only because when they would occur, he felt left out. But, he figured this must be important and waited patiently before asking you what she had just said about him.

“Hay un chico en mi clase que está enamorado de mí.” (There is this boy in my class who is in love with me). Her voice is quiet, but her tone sounds exasperated.

Logan's brows furrowed when he heard “un chico”. He didn't know much spanish, but he did know that un chico meant a boy, and he did not like the sound of that.

You snort, your hand quickly flying up to cover your mouth before you speak.

“Aww Laura!”

A shy grin spreads across her face.

“What did she say?” Logan speaks up

You bite your lip, trying to hold in your small bit of laughter. You look over at Laura and can tell that, although she is nervous for what her fathers reaction may be, it would be best to tell him about her dilemma.

“Laura has a not so secret admirer.”

“He wrote me a note.” she says, grabbing a crinkled white paper from her pocket.

You could tell by her humorous tone that she found the situation comical, and didn't seem to reciprocate the feelings.

Logan on the other hand had immediately gone into full protective father mode, snatching the note from her hand, and reading over it to make sure nothing obscene had been written/drawn on it.

After he is finished looking at it he crumples it up and puts it in the garbage.

“No boys until you are 30.”

“Logan don’t be ridiculous.” you say, walking over to fish the note out of the can.

“I am not being ridiculous.” he scoffs, incredulously.

“In fact, I think I’m being a bit lenient. 30 years old is a perfectly reasonable age to start being romantic with someone.” he says, and now it was your turn to scoff as you hand the paper to Laura.

She makes a disgusted face and holds the very corner with her pointer finger and thumb. You couldn't tell if it was because it had been in the trash, or because of it’s contents.

You turn back to face Logan and cross your arms.

“You do realize that we’ve had a baby together and I’m not yet 30, right?”

He retracts slightly, and grumbles:

“That’s different.”

“Uh-huh” you reply sarcastically.

“The feelings are not mutual by the way.” Laura finally speaks up. Deciding to clear the air before an argument started brewing.

“I don’t have a crush on him.”

“That’s my girl.” Logan says, and you chuckle.

“That conversation is not finished by the way.” you say while you walk over to the pantry to get Laura a snack, Logan grimaces, thinking of the conversation that would come later.

“Daddy?”

“Hmm?”

“How did you and Mama end up together?”

“Uhh, well...” he starts, glancing up at you, not sure if it was the right time to share.

Yours and Logan’s story was a bit controversial. The reason being that you were only 19 when you first “got together”, and Logan was your ex-teacher. And it wasn't exactly the most orthodox either. Instead of the typical flowers and a dinner date, it was more like neither of you could sleep one night, and one thing led to another, which led to you waking up in his arms in the morning. You had always had romantic feelings towards The Wolverine. Though they were never truly discussed, you both knew they were there, and you knew they were unbreakable. So, after that night, you two became exclusive.

“We met at Charles’ school, you know that.” you speak, setting the packet of crackers in front of the pre-teen, and walking over to grab an apple to cut up for her.

Laura sighs, knowing that she probably wouldn't get the answer she was looking for if you weren't willing to share it.

She rips open the wrapper, glaring at Logan when he steals a cracker from her.

“Well, how did you know you had a crush on each other?”

You chuckle lightly as the knife cuts into the ripe and scarlet colored fruit.

“We didn’t exactly have a crush on each other, Laura.” Logan starts, but a dry cough finishes the sentence.

You look up at him, asking if he was alright with your eyes.

He gives you a blunt nod as he lets out a deep breath.

You notice your daughters furrowed brow as she munches on the biscuit, and elaborate on Logan’s previous statement.

“Your father and I’s relationship is a bit complicated and unconventional, Laura. What he was saying was that we have and had a connection on a level so much more than a crush.”

She nods and pops another cracker in her mouth.

“But,” the crisp sound of the apple interrupts you slightly.

“usually when you have a crush on someone, you get the feelings of butterflies in your stomach whenever you see or think about that person. You smile when they smile, and laugh when they laugh. You want to be around them all the time, and you try to get their attention. You sometimes get nervous, and jealous of others that are close to them.”

You place the apple slices on a plate and slide it over to her, cleaning up the slight mess you had made and you glance over at her.

Laura sat starring at the plate as she thought of all of her symptoms you had just listed.

“Why were you asking?” Logan asks, his voice stern and suspicious.

She looks up, once again nervous.

You smile, getting an inkling as to where this is going.

“Well, there’s this-”

“No Laura. No boys, remember?” Logan interrupts, his custodial protectiveness resurfacing.

“It’s not a boy.” she mutters.

Logan blinks a few times, looking over to your grinning face.

“It’s a girl?” he asks, making sure that he wasn’t getting mixed up at all.

Laura looks up from the oxidizing apples a second time and nods.

“Well,” he leans back in his seat, breathing out.

“Tell me ‘bout her.”

She grins and you smile back, lovingly.

And then she doesn’t stop talking about the girl with the dark umber skin and curly caramel highlights until you have to remind her to eat her apple slices.