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ronnytherandom · 4 years ago

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Media n Stuff

2/1/2021: American Psycho

Excellent, truly. Has a lot to say about those on the top of our social hierarchy, the wealthy and influential and how our modern system facilitates them at the expense of everyone else. A very stylish film, well edited and directed. Rests upon a truly magnificent performance in the case of Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman, who does a fantastic job of playing something pretending to be human. Soundtrack is a bop.

3/1/2021: Se7en

All right, not my kind of thing ultimately. There are some thoughts about legacy and what doing good means here but I feel its slightly obscure and could be more clearly stated; perhaps I wasn’t paying close enough attention. Directing is top notch. The acting also is good but nothing truly incredible. The suspense is very effective but on occasion can be defeated by pacing, excess time creating boredom. Further it was partially predictable, which harmed the effectiveness of the piece. Though the point of the state of the victims is to inspire disgust this especially did not fit the remit of entertainment for me.

4/1/2021: The Martian

Highly Enjoyable. As usual, weaker than the novel but not to a Golden Compass level. Any work that bends heaven and earth to save a single life is good in my books. Retains the wit and the scientific backbone to good effect to offset the bleakness. Likewise, the back-and-forth structure between Mars and other locations helps to make the survival scenario less overbearing. Star-studded cast, and I think rightfully so here as the performances are generally very good. Matt Damon as Mark Watney has many moments of excellence. Mars is beautiful and I’m glad Ridley Scott captured that well, on top of doing a job that lives up to his reputation.

5/1/2021: Dredd

Good. Though I worry about the implications of a “Not All Cops Bad” message, it could be interpreted elsewise and is decidedly sympathetic to civilians which works in its favour. There is the aspect of portraying Police and Criminals as two sides of the same coin, with Dredd and Anderson existing outside of said dichotomy to some degree, but ultimately implying that the existing system just needs the right people in it without severe reform, though again that’s up for debate. Otherwise, good spectacle and very nice presentation; the film can be beautiful at times and when it isn’t it has excellent action. Something I appreciate is a clear view of the action, rather than the choppy action of modern superhero films, and an unflinching approach to the depiction of gore even if I was flinching at times. Though I’m unfamiliar with the original work I find this an interesting dystopia, even if Dredd himself can be a little cliché. Performances haven’t left much of an impression though.

6/1/2021: The Wolf of Wall Street

Meh? It’s well made don’t get me wrong, everything looks and feels high quality. Of course, Scorsese is a good director. Of course, DiCaprio’s acting is fantastic, as is the rest of the acting to be frank, but it just doesn’t come together for me. I don’t feel like there was a compelling reason to sit through that for three whole hours. I can see meaning in the depiction of excess; of Belfort’s alienation, losing everything that should be dear to him; of the animal nature of people who just want to make money. I can appreciate the powerful performances and the craftwork on display. I just didn’t enjoy it.

7/1/2021: Enola Holmes

Enjoyable. Has a more juvenile tone than I like, that’s to be expected from a coming-of-age story, but it certainly does a far better job with the gifted sister idea than the BBC Sherlock series did. At times this film was truly joyous and inspiring and I would attribute that to a cast of endearing characters and a strong thematic core which is carried throughout the story. However, from a more radical perspective I cannot endorse a seeming admonishment of direct action, as much as I appreciate the idea that getting new blood in politics is a progressive step forward. Performances are good, Millie Bobby Brown does well in the lead, though I am not so keen on her 4th wall asides, and I always appreciate the sight of Henry Cavill. Also, proud to see Burn Gorman portray the most accurate Normal Englishman I’ve ever seen. I also wanted to make note of what id consider good editing, felt very snappy and effective.

8/1/2021: Shaun of the Dead

Very good, but maybe doesn’t quite live up to its reputation. Very put off by the use of F and N slurs even if the prior is in context with English slang at the time. Id say this is the lesser of the Cornetto trilogy films but with such competition it’d be hard to come out on top. Quite dry humour, I don’t think all the jokes land, but there are a few true laugh out loud moments. Similarly, it works emotionally only some of the time but at moments, especially in Philips last words, there’s some genuine power. I do feel like the pace lulls slightly too much at moments but is generally very good and saves itself for a fun final sprint. The Zombies themselves are true to Romero’s style of zombie and though the satire is light in comparison to character-zombie parallels it is still effective. Performances are good, and serve well in demonstrating the range of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in comparison with the later Cornetto films and Bill Nighy is always a treat. I only ever have praise for Edgar Wright as a fan of all his later works, so I’m glad to see even his first feature demonstrates his ability well, stylish young man is our Edgar.

8/1/2021: Avatar: Legend of Korra: Series 1

Not by any stretch a worthy successor but good by its own merit. Has powerful emotional moments and excellent action, I cannot get enough of any kind of bending in this universe. Some characters are likeable; Korra is a good lead, Tenzin is my personal favourite and I want to hug Naga. Bolin, however, can get shafted. his particular brand of comic relief inspires in me an absolute hatred I cannot fully fathom. I have many little gripes though. I find the love “square” (?) plot annoying and do not understand what purpose it serves. Just be honest with each other goddamn! In universe I wonder at the limits of metal bending, but the police are content simply to launch cables with it. Why are the Chi Fighters such an obstacle in the first half and yet become cannon fodder by the end? I also feel like a lot of the “powerful moments” I feel are dependent on nostalgia for The Last Airbender, such as any moment where the original theme is played, or when General Iroh appears etc. This is particularly egregious with the feature of cabbage corp. Really? It is frustrating to me that Korra spends the entire series past the second episode tell-not-showing us she can’t airbend before having it essentially gifted to her, similarly with the avatar state. As much as she does endure hardship, I feel like the series would be improved even slightly if Korra’s bending is taken away completely and she uses the avatar state to rescue Mako from Amon, when she is actually at her definitive low point. I find with most episodes there are moments which I’m absolutely invested in and really enjoying but then a gripe or two will pop up and marginally ruin the experience for me. But again, these are minor and as much as I fuss over these details the ultimate product is enjoyable and watchable. The setting is certainly interesting but (probably by design) New Republic City clashes too harshly with the magic system, and I think it harms the series. The animators and artists however should be lauded, as the spectacle here is magnificent.

9/1/2021: Ex Machina

Magnificent piece of work. This is what I imagine is actual good cinematography, rather than the usual “pretty stills equals good cinematography” take. Every frame a painting indeed, aided in that way by fantastically beautiful set work. Each actor deserves applause but I feel especially Alicia Vikander. As Ava she does brilliant work and at times uses an alien affectation which is an impressive highlight of attention to detail here. The director knows exactly what they’re doing, the whole thing has a kind of spotless professionalism. Special Effects are minimalist but used so very well, especially the work of making Ava and the other AI look so real. I love that this is a film which doesn’t stoop to explaining every little thing and treats the audience as an equal, and how the tension is reflected in all aspects of the piece and builds to such a mighty crescendo, though I was quite put off by the self-harm scene and would rather that were not a thing. Not only all of that but its deeply meaningful with a lot to say about our own minds (I don’t think Nathan passes Turing test) with a decidedly feminist angle too. It really is a treat.

10/1/2021: Sourcery (unfinished)

Even as a fan of early Pratchett, this ain’t it chief. I don’t like it. The jokes don’t land, the only character I like is The Librarian and the whole thing just kind of bores me, so I’ve stopped somewhere just past halfway as I can’t be fussed for the rest. I don’t care about Coin, or the wizards, or Rincewind, even the Luggage has lost that pariah charisma it usually has. Conina feels weird? I feel like there this constant unnecessary sexualisation of her and Rincewind’s affections seem more than mildly inappropriate. I’ve been reading it a week and I’ve barely been able to drag myself to it these past couple of days so I feel its time for something a little fresher.

10/1/2021: The Two Popes

Very good. There is excellence in all aspects of this films craft. Johnathan Pryce gives an endearing performance; Anthony Hopkins is likewise very good as you’d expect. I think this is a film to listen to through a good sound system, the sound work struck me as exceptional in its attention to detail while the soundtrack is good fun. Direction is dynamic and effective most evidently in the camera work which tends to feel Just Right. Dialogue is very well written and feels very organic. I enjoy the themes of change and reconciliation and feel contrasting the character of the two popes expresses this very effectively, however I would much rather see evidence of genuine change that surely must’ve occurred rather than a simple implication of change as we see. There is the argument to be made that fully reconciling the old and the new without altering material reality, beyond giving speeches encouraging others to do so, represents the will to change being co-opted and perverted by the conservative establishment. But its still a nice sentiment and a well made film regardless.

#film #books #series #opinion #american psycho #se7en #the martian #dredd #the wolf of wall street #enola holmes #shaun of the dead #avatar the legend of korra #ex machina #sourcery #the two popes

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beesatthedisco · 5 years ago

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How does this even work...

Okay, so I’ve been on tumblr since before the first time they very slightly changed the shade of blue and I hope that in and of itself is enough to help y’all know... I’m ancient. (I’m 27, and will only rp with ppl 18+, sorry friendos)

Somehow, despite being on tumblr and despite having made about a million accounts for various things in my day, I’ve not made an RP account, and don’t really know how to get started. I guess I’m just gonna put down what I know about myself and what I’m looking for here and hope for the best, but I’d be open to any kind of protips from those of you who have been using tumblr to find rp for much longer.

RIP to your eyes ahead of time, this is a long post. If you want to skip to the part where I share my Original plots, pairings, and fandom cravings, please just scroll to the end and accept my humble apologies. (Highkey I copied this out of my google doc, don’t shoot me.)

I enjoy writing both original plots and fandom stuff. When RPing within a fandom setting, I'm open to playing as canons, as ocs, or any combination of both. I'm open to co-creating settings inspired but not based in fandoms, and open to playing AU or canon settings as well. When originals are involved, I prefer co-creating our worlds together, so we're both invested in the landscape that our characters inhabit. Speaking of characters- I'll play as any gender and in any pairing type- I hope that this is the same for you. I love writing a broad spectrum of characters to keep things interesting for myself and to practice viewing the world through different perspectives. I feel it's difficult to do this when being forced or pigeonholed into writing as a gender you DEMAND of me. However... I can be flexible, and if your ideas are interesting enough, I may just give you what you ask for anyways, haha. I'm perfectly open to playing multiple characters, whether it's a broad interactive cast of mains and background characters, a system of noninteracting or separate sets of doubles, triples, you name it, or whatever other configuration of multiple-character-playing you prefer.

I'm not too terribly concerned about post lengths and am open to writing with people who might be new to the RP scene. I'm pretty flexible about how much I'll write. A good rule of thumb for myself is that I tend to respond with more when I have more to work with. That doesn't always mean that there are more words on your post for me to respond to; instead, I mean that if your post has enough ideas, inspiration, and momentum, I can go buckwild with my posts. My comfort zone seems to be around 4-6 paragraphs per post, but I've been known to write either a lot more in particularly thrilling rps. If I'm writing a huge post- don't feel daunted or expected to match length. I love all sized posts!!! I'm just overly enthusiastic and get carried away sometimes. (This means you can also at any time tell me to chill out on how much I'm writing. ) When it comes to writing style, I only have a few hard expectations of you- I do not engage in roleplay featuring the 'would' style of writing. (For example: "She would pick up the rock and inspect it closely.") I don't exactly know why I dislike this tense so much, but it pulls me right out of the immersion of writing/reading and tends to entirely destroy my interest in the story. I'm sorry. Next, I care at least a little about punctuation and spellchecking. If you're roleplaying online, you have access to ways to make sure that you're not just submitting gibberish. If you need help finding those resources... feel free to ask!

I'm open to the idea of making profiles for our characters, but I'm okay without making them too. I'm also vaguely ambivalent to 'beautifying' our posts, should we do them somewhere that allows that sort of thing. I'm fine with any style of reference images, or with not using them at all. I can't promise I won't send you songs and images and memes that remind me of our story, though! Also- I'm super down for dice systems if we decide to go that route (and prefer dice systems if we include combat of any variety in our story.) I love romance, but it doesn't necessarily have to be the drive of our plot if that's not your style. My favorite genres to write in are science fiction, any variety of fantasy, horror, drama, historical settings, wild western settings, and mysteries.

Last but not least, I tend to like making friends with my writing partners. I prefer writing with people I actually get along with, so for me, the plotting phase is the most important. It helps me get to know your personality a bit more, and you mine, so we both know whether or not it's a good match to write long term! I'll write on most platforms, so let's discuss what makes the most sense for us. Finally, I generally only write with folks 18+, for the safety of everyone involved. Thanks for understanding.

Well, as I said, I've got a big ol list of ideas, if any of this strikes you as 'good writing friend' material, so send me a DM and I'll get back to you asap! Feel free to share your ideas too!!!

Original Ideas

- There's something dire down in the mines to the east of this old Western town. Folks keep goin' in to investigate, disappearin' for days at a time, then comin' back all different-like with the lights gone from their eyes. What could be happenin' out there, sheriff? (horror/western)

- A high-fantasy world's balance is shattered when the source of magic is destroyed. How will the people of this mystical land navigate a now mundane life, and how can they survive when so many magical devices go defunct and awry?

- A no-magic world is suddenly spun into chaos: an apocalyptic event leads to the sudden introduction of magic into a world that had previously never known it. In the post-apocalyptic (and mystically-charged) ashes of a world that once was, how do the survivors compete for resources and control?

- A star falls from the sky! They're rare, and it's dangerous to be one. Are you the star, hunted and lost? Or are you someone who finds a star?

- A lich (my character) is rumored to live in the castle at the foot of the mountains, only a mile or so from your town. It's said they're a true villain, the worst of the worst... but what is the truth?

-Arranged Marriages between physical embodiments of the seasons or planets

-A sailor, pirate, or other seafarer keeps noticing the same shape in the waters near their ship. After a terrible storm, the ship wrecks… now, one’s a mermaid, one’s a sailor, and they’re both idiots trying to find their way back home.

-Disaster has struck! A grisly assassination attempt leads a bodyguard to quickly usher their liege to safety. Drama ensues!

-Stowaways, and the people who catch 'em!

- Androids and more androids! Or... androids and non-androids!

-In a dwindling-magic world, those who cling to the olde magicks and the old way of living struggle against the new capitalist society and its nonmagic technology. In one still-magickal neighborhood where our story takes place, shopkeepers fight against nonmagickal gentrification in an effort to keep their businesses, communities, and traditions alive.

- A wandering traveler gets caught in a storm and chances upon an abandoned home, castle, or manor.... oh no!

- A train hopping crust punk encounters the ghost of a fellow train-hopper who fell under the rails and died.

- A living person's computer, gaming device, or phone is inhabited by a flirty ghost!

- There's a friendly but sad ghost living in a living person's new home! (Can you tell I like ghosts?)

Original (and corny) pairing ideas

fairy or elf / vampire or other dark creature

vampire / human

god / mortal

demon / angel or other dark/light archetypical pairings

dragon / humanoid

naval captain / stowaway

mob boss / citizen

superhero / supervillain

serial killer / investigator

serial killer / citizen

Bounty hunter/outlaw

outlaw/sherriff

outlaw/outlaw

farmhand/outlaw

Current Fandom Interests/Cravings

Pokemon - preferably with ocs and in a custom setting ft. all the ‘mons/us playing as humans

Elder Scrolls - pls, i’m craving this almost more than anything, and have been for years

Red Dead Redemption - it is cowboy time now

Legend of Zelda - i have a couple of cute ideas for this!

Avatar/Legend of Korra

Labyrinth - please please please someone play jareth for me, ill give you my firstborn in exchange

Star Wars - currently a little burned out on playing as kylo for everyone, so please don’t ask me to be him dlfkjdslfj

Game of Thrones

Lord of the Rings

Night in the Woods

Brutal Legend - does anyone but me remember this??? Omfg lets rp in this setting PLS

The Dragon Prince

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makeste · 6 years ago

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BnHA Chapter 018: Please Don’t Cut His Dad in Half

Previously on BnHA: Ochako showed that punk Kumogiri what’s what. Iida managed to escape and get help. Bakugou and Kirishima hung out together for a few pages. Aizawa was basically fucking tortured, but somehow still saved Tsuyu’s life and I’m planning to name my firstborn child after him. Deku used One for All without dying. All Might finally showed up after seven years to kick some ass.

Today on BnHA: All Might storms in to save the day, but ends up in over his head. Or under his head. There is a whole suplex thing going on which is compounded by the usage of portals. It’s really fucking weird. Deku tries not to do anything stupid but then almost does something stupid. Kacchan, Todoroki, and Kirishima descend onto the scene looking way more badass than a trio of 15-year-olds has any right to be.

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’ve read up through chapter 27 now, so any ETAs will reflect that.)

oh we have another one of these little side chapter things like what we got with the last volume change

actually, there’s not much here, but this little bit is worth a gander

MISMANAGING FIRE MEANS MISMANAGING LIVES!!!!

these quirks are fucking wild sometimes. did this guy’s hands really turn into water spouts back when he was four. or is that just part of his costume

I suppose if he can control water then he can just make water hands like that lady from The Legend of Korra. idk, I myself like having hands. my own human hands which I have just two of and no extras and which don’t disintegrate anything I fucking touch

Thirteen is such a little cutie, I want a plush of them

that’s about it so let’s move on now

NEW VOLUME COVER

Todoroki makes his cover debut! and surprisingly, so does Kirishima! I guess we’re gonna get some more hijinks with these two. excellent

(ETA: I actually felt like they got only minimal hijinks in the end, but it’s still nice to see them getting that cover recognition)

Facepalm also makes his cover debut. could have done without tbh

I see you in the top left corner there Bakugou

YOU AND I NEED TO HAVE WORDS SOMETIME, CALEB COOK. AND YOU, MIKE MONTESA

looooool what the sunshiney hell is this

I note that this volume is called All Might! that sounds promising

this thing Deku’s riding in is wearing enormous fucking shoes for absolutely no goddamn reason

some sort of steampunk medieval chicken in doc martens

“this is no time to be drawing mixed-up junk like this!” I just. I don’t even know

IT’S A GIANT CHARACTER GUIDE. I OUGHTA PRINT THIS OUT AND PUT IT IN MY POCKET

look at all these fucking hands

Iida getting dangerously close to Nazi salute territory there. just... be careful, Iida

no fucking thank you, table of contents. keep your spoilers to yourself!

finally the actual chapter!

ALL MIGHT DIDN’T EVEN COME BECAUSE OF IIDA? HE WAS ALREADY ON HIS WAY BECAUSE HIS HERO INSTINCTS TOLD HIM HIS SON WAS ABOUT TO BE CRUSHED BY SOME MUSCLE LORD WITH NO SKULL

THEN HE RAN INTO IIDA ON THE WAY!!

IIDA YOUR HANDS ARE A TREASURE

LORD ALL MIGHT MUST HAVE FREAKED THE FUCK OUT

(ETA: I don’t feel like my initial reaction conveyed just how much I loved this part. what I love about All Might -- one of the many things I love about him -- is his empathy. he genuinely cares so much, not only about everyone’s safety, but also about their well-being. like, he doesn’t just want to keep people safe; he also wants them to feel safe, and he goes above and beyond to reassure them that everything will be okay. he doesn’t just go out there and save people, he also inspires courage and strength in others.

and he’s so upset here when he hears about everything that happened. but even now, he barely shows it on the surface (Deku is the only one who notices he’s not smiling), because he knows it’s not what the kids need. and if you look at how everyone reacts, at how the kids’ fears are immediately put to ease and they all feel like the day has been saved -- it all just goes to show that it works.)

ALL MIGHT I’M SO WORRIED ABOUT YOU BUT ALSO SO, SO GLAD TO SEE YOU

“my colleagues did their best” somehow that sounds strangely patronizing which I don’t necessarily appreciate, given all the shit that Aizawa in particular has been through today. THEY FUCKING DISINTEGRATED HIS ARM, ALL MIGHT. HIS FUCKING ARM. AND THEN CRUMPLED IT LIKE TINFOIL

oh shit I just noticed that

“I’ve been waiting, hero. you’re worthless trash.” whoa now. do you want to die fast or slow, son?

everyone please look at the way All Might is skipping down these motherfucking stairs

and apparently this is striking fear into the hearts of these men

actually he seems to have trampled like six people on his way down the stairs, so maybe their fear was justified

and now he’s checking Aizawa

:|!!

my god Aizawa is soooo tiny compared to AM in his full-blown superhero form

(ETA: okay so when I watched the anime version of this I noticed that All Might calls him “Aizawa-kun”, and I don’t know why but that just wrecked me even more. it makes me wonder how well they actually know each other? or if All Might might possibly be older than him?)

(actually, how old is All Might, anyway? his muscle form is pretty hard to judge, and his Skinny Steve self doesn’t seem that old, but if Aizawa is 30 and Might is referring to him as -kun, then he’s at least the same age and most likely older. I’m guessing mid-thirties, but that may just be because I want to date him)

he just kinda plops him onto his shoulder and turns to face the remaining bad guys

OHHHH DAMN

BETWEEN THIS AND HIS LACK OF SMILE AND THE WAY HE JUST RIPPPPPPPED OFF HIS TIE EARLIER, I HAVE TO CONFESS THAT ALL MIGHT IS DOING THINGS TO ME IN THIS CHAPTER, YOU GUYS

OH SNAP I THOUGHT HE WAS GONNA TEAR THE VILLAINS A NEW ONE, BUT INSTEAD HE SCOOPED UP ALL OF THE CHILDREN AND IS CARRYING THEM TO SAFETY

HE’S TELLING THEM TO GO TO THE ENTRANCE AND GET AIZAWA SOME MEDICAL HELP

HE’S SO COOL. HE’S SO FUCKING COOL, YOU GUYS. I WOULD FEEL SO SAFE WITH HIM OH MY GOD

BUT HE DOESN’T KNOW YET THE EXTENT TO WHICH THESE GUYS HAVE PLANNED THIS WHOLE THING SPECIFICALLY TO GET TO HIM

whaaaat... the fuck...

Facepalm’s hands appear to be talking to him?????

“father...” WHAT. EWW. WHAT

“state-sponsored violence” motherfucker are you serious right now, you were about to murder two dozen innocent children and now you’re gonna go off on All Might about him being some kind of government-owned thug? don’t you dare disrespect MY symbol of peace

“you’re fast... but not as fast as expected” oh fucking shit

this is still creepy, don’t get me wrong. but after a few chapters of him doing it once every fifteen pages, I think I’m starting to get used to it

now Deku is frantically trying to explain to All Might just how dangerous these guys are

“One for -- I MEAN, MY ATTACK” jesus Deku. I guess he can be forgiven considering how stressful the circumstances are

All Might keeps saying “fear not”, but the more he says it the more I start to worry that maybe we should be fearing :/

Carolina... well, okay, I’ll count that one as a coastal state (technically two states). still the south, but at least we’ve got ocean!

this smash is very cool-looking but sadly not very effective

“seriously?” lol AM being so shocked and exasperated is more humorous than it rightly ought to be

Facepalm says that Noumu has shock absorption abilities. “if you really want to damage him you’d be better off slowly ripping him apart piece by piece.” hoh-lee shit. what a thing to say

and of course we all know All Might is totally the type of guy to just go ripping people apart limb from limb whenever the occasion calls for it. that’s why he’s known as the Symbol of Ripping People Apart Limb from Limb

-- wow dude I was being sarcastic. you think you know a guy

now he’s slamming him into the ground. how is that going to do anything against a guy whose powers were just established as being shock absorptive, All Might

I do not like the way Deku is carrying Aizawa here at ALL

his arms are fucked up, Deku. please be more gentle!! you of all people should know a thing or two about fucked up arms by now!

they keep glancing back at All Might. we’re all worried about All Might, kids

I’m glad Deku seems to understand that they’d just get in his way if they went back and got taken hostage again, though

but unlike his classmates, he knows that All Might is close to reaching his limit

goddamn it, now they’re flashing back to All Might’s line in the first chapter about smiling to stave off the fear

well. I did ask the universe for All Might angst, now didn’t I

he is not looking too hot

son of a fuck now Kurogiri has gotten involved in the mix once again

this... this is it. officially the weirdest image ever put to paper

I can’t stop staring at it

I can’t believe events in BnHA transpired in exactly the right way to make this image a reality

it’s like those fucking paradox stairs in Inception

fucking amazing

oh SHIT I just realized Noumu’s grip around All Might’s torso is dangerously close to where All Might’s secret wound is

oh my godddd

ugh he’s just enduring it and thinking “cut it out”

both he and Aizawa are just SO FUCKING STOIC in the face of what has to be unimaginable pain and I just can’t!!

Kurogiri says he’s going to close his warp gate on All Might while he’s still halfway through and cut him in half?!

that was their plan? seriously?

why the fuck are they explaining it

fuck, it finally got to be too much for Deku

he’s turning back

DON’T CUT MY DAD IN HALF

aaaaaaaand here comes the feels train!!

I think what got me this time, even more than all the usual stuff (crying Deku/running to save All Might/being afraid of losing him/not having a plan but not caring/doing something stupid and brave out of love), is the fact that there were so many panels prior to this where Deku was repeatedly trying to convince himself that he couldn’t go back, that it would be stupid and dangerous, and that he had to trust All Might. the fact that his mind knew what the “correct” decision was, and he was doing his best to try and follow that, but in the end he just couldn’t go against what his heart was screaming at him to do instead

in fact, if I may, I’d just like to point out the parallels between this scene and the All Might scene a few chapters ago, when he was on his way to work but kept running into people who needed help. and even though he knew there were others who could take care of it, and that it would only make him late and wear him out and use up his already-limited Allotted Daily Hero Time, he fucking helped them anyway, because HIS heart wouldn’t allow him to do otherwise

basically what I’m saying is that they are two of a kind and too goddamn pure and precious for this good earth

-- HAHAHAHAHAHA

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSS

HAHAHHAHAHAH

YOU GUYS. I DIDN’T SAY A SINGLE THING THIS WHOLE TIME, BECAUSE I SO BADLY WANTED SOMETHING LIKE THIS TO HAPPEN, BUT I DIDN’T WANT TO JINX IT, OR RISK SOUNDING STUPID, BECAUSE I KEEP BRINGING BAKUGOU INTO THESE THINGS EVEN WHEN HE’S NOT REMOTELY INVOLVED, BECAUSE I HAVE A BIT OF A FIXATION WITH HIM, YOU MIGHT HAVE NOTICED!! BUT DON’T THINK FOR A SECOND THAT I’D FORGOTTEN ABOUT HIM WANTING TO GO AFTER THE VILLAINS, AND ANNOUNCING THIS IN THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER, AND THE FACT THAT HE’D BEEN ABSENT FOR A LITTLE WHILE AFTERWARDS! AND THEN, JUST NOW, THE FACT THAT DEKU WAS ABOUT TO BE TOTALLY SCREWED IF SOMEONE DIDN’T JUMP IN TO SAVE HIM AT THE LAST SECOND. AND WITH AIZAWA AND THIRTEEN INCAPACITATED, AND THE OTHER KIDS HEEDING ALL MIGHT’S ORDERS AND GETTING THE FUCK OUT OF THERE, PRETTY MUCH THE ONLY ONE WHO COULD DO SOMETHING AT THIS MOMENT WAS BAKUGOU

WHAT I’M TRYING TO SAY IS THAT I SHOULD BE SURPRISED AND DELIGHTED, BUT IF I’M COMPLETELY FUCKING HONEST I’M NOT SURPRISED AT ALL SOMEHOW, BUT YOU’D BETTER BELIEVE I AM FUCKING DELIGHTED AS HELL

JUST. :D :D :D!!!!!!!!!

YES I DID ORDER FEELS ON THE SIDE!! THANK YOU EVER SO MUCH!!!!

somehow this just seems so very awkward

I’m sure that when I reread this later, or watch it in the anime, I will have some idea of what the hell is actually going on. but for now, Kiri’s here as well, and one or both of them is doing something to Noumu, and that’s just swell

oHHHHHHHHH. the reason I didn’t understand it is because there’s a third young chap who’s also just appeared in the nick of time who I didn’t realize was there at first!

Kacchan looks like he’s having the time of his fucking life. this kid was born to bust villain chops

Kirishima still looks SO DAMN MUCH like Mikoshiba Momotaro to me. they’re both so cute too

Todo looks like Zuko and Hibari’s lovechild as always

Kacchan! you other two people!!

well then, villains. how do y’all feel about taking on a few more high schoolers? fair warning that these ones are just slightly less intimidated by you than the last group

gotta say, this is a much better chapter to go to bed on than the one I fucking read 24 hours ago (16), goddamn

and I did write “Kacchan saves Deku” on my wishlist a few chapters back, but this is less angsty than I had envisioned, and is in fact really hype and badass. I guess that’s just the way Kacchan likes to do things. can’t say I’m really all that put out

BONUS:

“someone who could bring the different members of the class together and bridge gaps” sooo... what you’re saying is... Yamamoto. he’s Yamamoto

no wonder people ship him with the closest thing to Gokudera this series has so far

I didn’t even notice he had a scar over his right eye. and of COURSE it comes with a long and detailed history

I really like the story, though. I honestly wonder how more of these kids didn’t accidentally maim themselves when their quirks first manifested. I still think about Thirteen’s quirk, and to be honest that shit is terrifying

those are some sneakers. looks like that auto-lace shit from Back to the Future

#bnha #boku no hero academia #makeste reads bnha #all might #midoriya izuku #bakugou katsuki #kirishima eijirou #and we sure as hell can't forget our main man backdraft here either #mismanaging fire means mismanaging lives

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artsy-alice · 7 years ago

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How about comics/graphic novel recs?

Off the top of my head, the ones I’ve read and loved are–

Saga (Fiona Staples, Brian K. Vaughan) - an adult sci-fi fantasy space opera with a set of diverse lovable characters and an exciting arc. Saga’s storytelling is amazing, combining galactic war hijinks with domestic and heartwarming family moments on top of great art. Seriously - THE ART IS GOALS. Trigger warning though, it’s rated M and can get quite graphic in terms of language, sex and violence..

Lumberjanes (Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis and co.) - Five super cute and rad and awesome girls have summer camp adventures. Also addresses issues like sexuality and gender identity in a positive way, never feeling too heavy. It’s wholesome fun and just an over-all feel-good story. I LOVE LUMBERJANES SO MUCH..

The Wicked + The Divine (Gillen and McKelvie) - problematic teens awaken as reincarnations of various gods and become even more problematic celebrities. But also they’re all destined to die in 2 years. Of course everything goes smoothly. This has a good ensemble of characters that you’d either love or hate, and an interesting story that takes its own pace, and of course delicious spins on mythology. Good commentary on fame, relationships and mortality..

Princeless & Raven: The Pirate Princess (Jeremy Whitley) - Princeless follows a princess who gets tired of waiting in her tower, befriends her dragon and goes on an adventure of her own, rescuing other princesses on the way. Raven The Pirate Princess is a spin-off which follows Raven, princess of pirates, supreme badass, and her all-female crew. Both stories are A+..

Monstress (Marjorie Lu and Sana Takeda) - i picked this up because the art was breath-taking??? But the story also turned out to be amazing. It’s steampunk and fantasy, in an Asian-inspired setting, with priestesses and cats and half-humans and gods and demigods and cthulhu… The world is just so rich in detail, like the art! And the MC is a badass disabled asian woman. READ MONSTRESS..

Sandman (Neil Gaiman) - I faithfully collected all volumes of this series as soon as I started on my first job. This one’s kinda old, and a hella long read but it’s also hella good. It’s by my dude Neil Gaiman, and it’s about Dream of the Endless and his siblings Death, Destiny, Desire, Despair, Destruction and Delirium. Who are… metaphysical entities. It’s a story about stories. And about uhhh… existence and dreaming and death and… stories? Y’know, Neil Gaiman stuff..

The Umbrella Academy (Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba) - This one’s getting a Netflix adaptation real soon and I’m excited~ :D Anyways it’s a fun two-volume romp about a dysfunctional family of superheroes. First volume is great family action-drama. Second volume reads like a swag-filled Doctor Who episode. The narrative voice is very… Gerard Way-ish. Has some lines you’ll swear you’ve heard on an MCR song..

Space Battle Lunchtime (Natalie Riess) - A COOKING SHOW! IN SPACE! WITH ALIENS! A CUTE GIRL! WITH A CYBORG GIRLFRIEND! AND ALIEN FRIENDS! IT’S SO CUTE! AND FUN! READ SPACE BATTLE LUNCHTIME!.

Legend of Korra: Turf Wars (Michael Dante DiMartino & Irene Koh) - C’MON IT’S AVATAR KORRA AND HER GIRLFRIEND ASAMI AND THEIR FRIENDS AND FAMILY ON ANOTHER GREAT STORY.

Marvel titles that are my faves:

Angela: Queen of Hel

Ms. Marvel

Runaways

Young Avengers

Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur

Patsy Walker AKA Hellcat

Loki: Agent of Asgard.

Backstagers (James Tynion IV & Rian Sygh) - queer theater nerds, where you at? I’ve seen this described as the male equivalent of Lumberjanes, and I have to agree. It’s wholesome fun adventures of a bunch of nerdy theater kids who discover weird supernatural stuff in the basement. With many theater and anime references! There’s a character basically described by the authors as their “Momiji” and of course he was the best character. Fun!.

Hopeless Savages (Jen Van Meter) - two 70′s punk rock icons got together, settled down and had four children. Plot twist: THEY WERE GOOD AT IT. This is a family drama-comedy with quirky lovable characters getting thrown (and sometimes running headfirst) into ridiculous plots. The message of family resilience and defying expectations is great. I loved everything about this series..

Nimona (Noelle Stevenson) - shapeshifting girl employs herself to be an evil villain’s sidekick so they can take down a great hero. My copy of this at home is now worn out because it’s been borrowed by countless younger siblings, cousins and siblings’ friends..

The Prince and the Dressmaker (Jen Wang) - strong ambitious dressmaker gets hired by a crossdressing prince to make him dresses. Prince’s dress-wearing alter-ego becomes a fashion icon. Cue drama and coming of age. THIS IS SUCH A SWEET AND GREAT READ GUYS I’M IN LOVE WITH IT..

Daytripper (Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba) - this one is a profound story about an obituary writer, who reflects on his life’s possibilities - how things could have gone differently had he made different choices, and how it might change how he’s remembered (or not) after his own death. It’s hard to describe exactly, but it’s a very cathartic read..

Sunstone (Stjepan Sejic) - whenever someone asks me what I think of 50 Shades of Grey, I always go “50 what? I’ve read Sunstone. Nothing can come close to that.” So. Yeah. Sunstone is a funny, sexy and sweeet romance story between two women done superbly. Plus, seriously, the bdsm community rep here is great. Thanks Mr. Sejic, it’s what they deserve.

Special Mention:

Mythspace ( Studio Salimbal ) - because HELLS YEAH, Space Opera, Filipino Style! I supported this series back when it came as individually self-published issues in the local comic cons, and I was so proud when they got picked out by a publisher and I saw a bound volume on bookstore shelves. - Anyways, it’s a kid and a bunch of Filipino mythological creatures in space battles and other standalone adventures set in the same universe. It’s published in English, and you can check it out in Tapas or buy issues in gumroad!

#books you should read #graphic novels #book rec #comic rec #personal #comics #(ask)#anonymous #long post #ali recs shit

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tinnefoil · 7 years ago

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Dear Asshole Supercorp Fans

1.) Stop pretending the show baited you. The show was as upfront about their intentions as they can be. From episode 1 on. Just because you stuffed your fingers into you ears and didn’t want to hear it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t there. They promised you nothing.

You know what baiting is?

Teasing the idea that something will happen to keep you on the hook with no intention of delivering.

You know what the opposite of baiting is?

Telling you it’s not there/it’s not gonna happen.

And yet any time anybody associated with the show hints that it might not be a thing YOU get offended and act like that’s an insult that they would dare to tell you. Just like you howl in anger when the characters on the show say or do something that violates your head canon/would maybe close the door on some interpretations if you actually didn’t immediately strike them from reality as invalid.

You can’t at the same time run around and go on about how baiting is this horrible amoral thing and then throw a shitstorm any time a show does anything to make its goals clear. That just makes you look like assholes who only pretend to be concerned about these things because you just want to browbeat people into giving you exactly what you want. By creating a fake scenario where the only acceptable choice is them doing exactly what you tell them to do.

HAVING TWO FEMALE CHARACTERS HAVE A GOOD, MEANINGFUL STORYLINE TOGETHER IS NOT BAITING. Female characters having meaningful relationships that are not about sex should be the casual norm. Because an actually surprisingly big chunk of real life women are straight and they still have meaningful relationships with other women.

You acting like any meaningful storyline between two female characters must have been created with the sole intention of torturting you is just selfish asshole behavior to the max.

(btw, and let’s not pretend that f/f shippers haven’t profitted off sexist male culture, because many male creators think girl on girl is hot and actually less of an upset of the patriarchy and less hard to write than a woman and a man who is “not alpha”, not as strong as her or a popular white woman and a black man)

2.) Stop pretending shipping Supercorp is all about representation.

Supergirl has representation. It’s called Alex and Alex&Maggie and Alex&Sara and Alex&whoever she chooses to be with in the future. Alex is not some no-name bit character. She is the secondary lead, she is the person with the second most screentime after Kara. She matters.

And before you whine “it’s not representation unless it’s the lead”. => If you want a lead, hey look, it’s right there around the corner, it’s called Sara Lance, the lead of Legends of Tomorrow (also Korra and Bo and Xena). Are you over there supporting that because it is great representation, writing fic, making arts, posting meta, creating media buzz? Or are you over here obsessiving over one particular show/actress/pairing because your personal narrative kinks are more important than supporting creators and shows and actresses that do actual representation?

Representation is representation regardless of whether the character or ship floats your personal boat or whether the actress in question gets your personal motor running or whether that particular character’s story reminds you of your personal bio.

No, you don’t have to ship and support something just because it is representation. You don’t control what floats your boat. You can love something else even if actual representation exists right next to it. But then stop pretending that your concern is representation when it’s actually about your personal ship/actress preferences.

It’s not the job of representation of fill your and everybody else’s personal preferences.

And for fuck’s sake, stop making the CW the mustache twirling villain in your conspiracy theories. The network that aired the first male on male superhero kiss in a world where a gazillion superhero movies and tv shows exist. The network where 3 out of 5 supehero shows will have canon queer women in core roles (Sara Lance, the lead of Legends, Alex Danvers, second most important character on Supergirl, Anissa Piece, the daughter of the lead character and fellow superhero on Black Lightning). The network that will allow John Constantine be bisexual when his home network NBC didn’t allow it.

There is jack shit proof that the CW makes shows do stupid shit rather than the CW just letting shows do what they want, as in, whether its adding queer characters or writing them off. And yeah, there have been missteps like using the fake Betty/Veronica kiss as promotion on Riverdale. But I like to think they learned, for example by not plastering the big girl on girl one night stand in the crossover all over the promotion.

The reason why you hate the CW is BECAUSE they actually have queer representation. If they had zero then you wouldn’t have anything to complain or suffer about it. But what that means is that you shit all over the person who gives you 50 bucks (because it should have been 80, you fucking asshole, how dare you give me 50!) while letting the person who gives you zero bucks off scott free. How about you take a fucking step backward and realize that your shipping concerns are not the same as being concerned of issues of representation.

And I get it, shipping is a scary personal thing. But it’s not the same as representation and it does not justify treating the CW worse than channels that do zero representation.

And no, queer fannish life shouldn’t just be relegated to just representation. There is many good arguments about moving beyond representation. But that’s precisely why you need to stop using representation as an excuse then about things that are about personal taste rather than using this as a fake club when you want to browbeat people into supporting your particular narrative kink ship.

If the rollercoaster ride of CW shows’ writing is bad for your soul, by all means, back away from it, stick to more mature networks or media, like many webshows, specifically for a queer audience rather than a mixed one. Even warn others. You can give them kudos from a distance for the actual representation work they do without getting emotionally invested.

Also? You bragging about how Katie McGrath supposedly can’t play straight and can’t sell any straight pairings in any show she is on? Is just you bragging that she’s a shitty actress who is incapable of doing the basics of her job description. You wouldn’t praise an actress for being incapable of selling a queer storyline, so why is this different? Shitty acting is shitty acting. And not being able to sell “the characer is in love” when the script says “this character is in love” is shitty acting. And that’s not something to be proud about. (note that some of you claim that about her in other shows as well, so it’s hardly an excuse to claim that she supposedly, in your headcanon, is passive agressively refusing to do her job, as a protest against bad writers)

=> I actually don’t think that she’s that shit. But then I also don’t brag about her being incompetent while at the same time calling myself her fan.

If you are a Supercorp shipper who hasn’t done any of this? Awesome. Then this post isn’t for you. This is specifically for asshole Supercorp shippers.

By all means, keep shipping, keep hoping, keep petitioning, but don't act like you were promised anything or like the network is failing representation just because you didn't get the particular ship you wanted.

#supercorp #anti-supercorp #supergirl #representation #sanvers #queerbaiting #black lightning #dccw #legends of tomorrow #rant

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theyjfiles · 7 years ago

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Time to talk about the Runaways! (But not the rock band... or the Marvel series... These kids!)

In this episode, Rich and Emily discuss the dichotomy of wanting superpowers versus wanting a cure for them, Ed’s complicated relationship with his dad, what the heck Amazo is doing here, the reappearance of Red Volcano, Asami (the teenage Japanese superhero, not the Legend of Korra character) and what exactly her powers are, the presence and absence of subtitles, confusion over how old Neutron is supposed to be, and the interesting new interpretations of these classic Super Friends characters. Then, over in the Canary Debrief, Rich talks about diversity in storytelling and the importance of not falling into stereotypes.

Our segments are as follows:

Hello Megan - Basic info about the episode (title, original air date, writer(s), director, special guest voice actors, etc.). Mission Briefing - Basic summary and breakdown of the events of this episode. Feeling the Aster - Everything that Rich and Emily loved about this week’s episode. Canary Debrief - What you as a creator can learn about writing and storytelling from this episode. Crashing the Mode - Spoiler Warning! Discussion of Easter eggs and hints from this episode that foreshadow spoilers later in this season or connect back to things in season one or the larger DC canon. Fan Service - Rich and Emily recommend a fan-made work they think you should check out.

You can listen to this episode on our website, or find us on iTunes or Google Play. You can also connect with us on Twitter and Facebook to get updates on the show. And, as always, stay whelmed everybody!

#young justice #young justice invasion #tye longshadow #blue beetle #static shock #weekly reviews #yj

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renaramblesaboutcomics · 7 years ago

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Wednesday Roundup 8.8.2017

Okay quite a huge week for my pull list, though with a few sad farewells as a result of that. Will everything pass the muster? Or have we got some duds in waiting?

Just kidding everything’s wonderful and I’m going to explain why that is.

Marvel’s All-New Wolverine, DC’s Detective Comics, DC’s Gotham Academy: Second Semester, Marvel’s Immortal Iron Fists, Dark Horse’s The Legend of Korra: Turf Wars, Marvel’s Silk, DC’s Titans, IDW’s Transformers: Till All Are One

Marvel’s All-New Wolverine (2015-present) #23 Tom Taylor, Leonard Kirk, Michael Garland, Erick Arciniega

Probably my favorite Marvel book coming out right now is All-New Wolverine and I think nothing has helped my appreciation for Tom Taylor as a writer grow than this book. It’s everything I’ve always wanted for Laura and more, but I won’t waste time. Let’s just dig into the specifics~

Story: We’re in the midst of an arc that’s meant to completely avoid the stink of Secret Empire but also probably will limit exposure to Laura that will be given to the stupid asshole male Wolverine they replaced her with on the main team I meant that is meant to bring us into Laura and Gabby’s first big space opera adventure, which is a proud tradition for all Marvel A-listers, and especially familiar to the X-Men. But Laura’s not with the X-Men on this trip because a forced romance with Warren isn’t being shoved in our faces. She’s here with the Guardians of the Galaxy who are enjoying their rise in Marvel prominence quite a bit, I believe.

In any case, the Brood have kidnapped Gabby and this is pissing both of them off immensely because Laura’s protective of Gabby and Gabby’s protective of Jonathan their pet Wolverine, and everybody is trying to get in the way of the Wolverine ladies living a happy life that they deserve.

Now I don’t often give summaries but it’s difficult to really parse what this story gets right and why even as the crotchety woman that I am who usually doesn’t care for superheroes in space, I am enjoying the aliens and the epic giant crossover and the cast of thousands. And that’s because this story and this comic series is about Laura and Gabby. It’s about the sisterhood, the mother-daughter relationship, the friendship, and the just general goodness that they’ve provided for each other throughout the past 23 issues that makes all the dressing not matter nearly as much as the moments where Laura declares her commitment to getting Gabby back or Gabby’s stern rebuttal to the idea that any outcome would be possible besides Laura coming for her. That faith and trust has been earned for over 20 issues and it’s the thing that really makes this comic stand out from the majority of the comics I’m going over this week.

This is a comic that has always been about these two characters and the loving bond that they share for one another. And it is exactly why it works to the point that I can give a hilariously complex summary like the one above without it making a real difference, and it’s why the final page is so gut wrenching for a cliffhanger.

Art: Leonard Kirk, I believe, has done the majority of the artwork for this series so far, and I really appreciate the look he gives to the title and specifically to Laura. She’s treated with every ounce of power and intimidation that you expect of Wolverine and the sexy costumes or posing are brought down to a severe minimum. Really, his designs for everyone are great and service the action of the story well because with so many aliens and sceneries to be had, the precise and direct approach makes the comic easy to follow. And I like that it manages all that without sacrificing action scenes or Kirk’s own style.

It’s solid comic art through and through.

Characters & Dialogue: For the most part I’ve said everything that needs to be said in the story bit, but I need to again give accolades to Taylor here because of the subtle character growth he’s allowed for in the way Laura and Gabby’s world views are evolving.

The dialogue for the two of them is very specific to their characters, but now we’re starting to see the way that they talk is having an effect on the other. Laura has become more artfully expressive about her feelings and love of others, especially Gabby, which is a change that took a long time for her and also is something her father never quite learned as well. We are a long ways away from the Laura who was ready to give Gabby up to the Jean Grey school and not look back. Likewise, Gabby has become more stern, more encouraged. She relies on Laura and believes in her so much that she doesn’t fear, another far cry away from the Gabby who was abused and misused by the lab that created her.

Basically the characterization isn’t just good, it’s subtle and full of depth beyond what people would be expecting from a giant space opera adventure trying to avoid a storyline centered around Captain Fascism.

DC’s Detective Comics (2016-present) #962 James Tynion IV, Alvaro Martinez, Raul Fernandez, Brad Anderson

So, I think my Roundups are a pretty fair record for how tumultuous my relationship has been over time with Detective Comics. It’s a comic and characters I love fiercely but it’s also often subject to fair criticism of being fairly unpolished, rushed, and just generally misses a mark from time to time that’s just difficult to overcome.

A mixed bag if you will.

And we’re coming to the close on this particular storyline “Intelligence” and I think it’s as good of a place as any to really get into the nitty gritty of what the pros and cons of this Detective Comics run is.

Story: I only recently have begun reading Jean Paul’s original solo series Azrael thanks to DC’s new campaign to volumize old comics and it’s been a surprising read. But I’ve always been familiar enough with him as a character to be fairly curious about what more stories centered around him -- and not Azabats him but him him -- would be like. And I’ve stated before that I enjoy seeing the development of his friendship with Luke and would love to see it feature more prominently.

And in all those respects, I feel like this conclusion and really this whole storyline paid very good tribute to Azrael and Jean Paul in ways that even contemporaries of Denny O’Neil tended to miss the mark on. The complexity of his relationship with religion while also dealing with the additional stress and pressure that has placed on him with his abusive past, the allusions to mental illness which serve throughout his stories. And really just Jean Paul getting a chance to be a character in a way he certainly wasn’t in his re-introduction through Batman and Robin Eternal worked out very well with me. And I’m grateful that his injury in this battle and his paralysis are not going to be immediately erased while they do acknowledge that in this universe that’s a possibility.

I don’t really like the state reasoning for the decision or the near certainty that his disability will eventually be “overcome” but it’s better than the nothing that DC has basically given us in the way of the major titles for a while now.

Plus, consequences! It’s nice to have consequences that matter.

The magic part... well I enjoy Zatanna as a character to an extreme degree so my ability to be completely unbiased here was always going to be difficult. But this is one story where the magical elements being blended in with the spiritual.. I’m not really sure if it worked for me. It’s nice to see Zee, but in an ensemble book I’m getting a little tired of all the excuses being fit into the narrative to excuse not ever actually being about the ensemble.

oh look tim’s alive and ra’s al ghul’s behind it all who saw this coming

At least we don’t have another new made up organization that secretly spans across the whole world and Batman didn’t know about it ever. At least they’re finally converging a bit because that shit was getting ridic.

Art: Of the rotating art teams that we have for Detective, I have to say that this is one of the best and most consistent. There’s a good variation between splash pages and regular paneled format, there’s a proper use of shifting and varying panel differing. And overall it’s just a pleasing comic to read with easy action to follow and a great use of color and inking despite being a literally dark comic.

It is not the most stylized comic for those who prefer styles that are Out of House as opposed to the Big Two’s normal aesthetic, but it is a good comic and easy to read without being redundant.

Characters & Dialogue: Detective Comics has way too many characters. Tynion gives all of them good voice, and everyone who’s featured gets quite a lot to do, but there is not enough balance for the ensemble and the constant addition of new characters, new villains, etc. makes even less room for development and especially for relationship building between characters.

Like I guess Cass is just the only kid in the Belfry period now. Alright.

Cass, Kate, Luke, and... *sigh* Clayface have very little to do in this issue, though I’d argue that their small parts are some of the best content when one’s reading. And while it’s more than okay to center different arcs on different characters and Jean Paul getting his long, long overdue dues is more than welcome, there’s still the problem of giving everyone something that pushes their own plots forward, or at the very least, let’s us see the progress that has been made as a culmination of the previous storylines.

Cassandra is still not even adopted by either Bruce or Kate yet for chrissake. Someone give Cass a family.

Zatanna was good and if I have to measure a Bruce this Bruce is good for my tastes, but again there’s just so many characters it’s very difficult to fully dive into their various developments, especially when it’s hard to tell if there is one.

At the very least, I can give this comic thanks for getting Cass’ speech pattern back to normal. I have to agree with some other fans who have contacted me and said that it’s not too terrible if from time to time Cass learns and memorizes a Shakespeare verse thanks to her time with Clayface, but not showing any of the characters working with Cass to teach her to read and speak and then giving her full sonnets or soliloquies is way too much and is painfully out of character to read.

DC’s Gotham Academy: Second Semester (2016-present) #12 Brenden Fletcher, Karl Kerschl, Becky Coloonan, Adam Archer, MSASSYK, Sandra Hope

After a few years of this fun, YA tale of mystery and friendship, we sadly come to a close on Gotham Academy with this final issue wrapping up the series that was very beloved by myself and a number of my comic reading friends here on the internet. It’s a different type of story in the landscape of DC’s Batbooks and it’s going to very much be missed, regardless of how well or not this last issue was going to do.

But, with this cancelation, did the finale manage to feel like it came to a conclusive resolution for all of our favorite Gotham Academy kids?

Story: Given that this is the finale of both this storyline and for the series as a whole, going into story is a much bigger deal than it has been before. I mean, we’re talking about a narrative that really started back with Gotham Academy (2014-2016) and has come to its end here, a reboot and a year later. And it all, as it should have, revolved around the titular friendship between Olive Silverlock and Maps Mizoguchi.

Of course all the friendships, all the support that has been built up for Olive throughout the series still play a fairly important role to her conclusion here, but it was always going to be the friendship that held Olive and Maps together that would be what drove the story at its core, and in that way this ending doesn’t feel forced or strained, but simply like a natural testing of friendship when both have made mistakes and are wrong for various reasons -- for Maps it was coming to terms with her treatment of Olive’s mental illness and accepting her for it rather than simply ignoring that it was a factor, and for Olive it was about relying on Maps and trusting her to be there for her whenever she should fall.

That is what affects the narrative the most and that’s what the resolution to this story got right the most here.

Still, the cancelation of GA has come at the cost of the resolution of a lot of other elements that had been built up over the series. An unfortunate affect of having spent so much of the bulk of the series building up the world, the supporting characters, and more for what was no doubt many more mysteries and subplots to come, but it’s ultimately a little lost here. Colton’s confession to Kyle doesn’t see some real focus in the finale due to time and that’s made all the more a painful thing to see cut short considering the confirmed LGBT+ elements of Gotham Academy never received direct attention in ways I know I wish I could have seen. And likewise some resolutions felt missed entirely or unnecessary, Tristan’s apparent comfort with his bat form by the end as an example of the former and Pomeline being in a romantic relationship again with oh-whats-his-beard in the final pages.

I would not have wanted any of the final issue’s focus to have left Maps and Olive at all, as I’ve said, they are the driving force of this comic, but as understandable as it is that these shortcomings happened under the circumstances, they’re still shortcomings nonetheless.

The one that’s the most glaring, however, is the way that Olive’s disdain and distrust of Batman ended up coming to an end here. This is a character trait that was built up with Olive since the first issue of the series, and that relationship complicated between her, her mother, Batman, and Bruce Wayne, began dropping off the radar the moment we came into Second Semester and became more and more lost only to give us this moment in the finale where she comes to terms somehow with the fact that Batman was just trying to save her mom? I don’t know.

Speaking of which, this all coming down to magic and a secret society using Olive’s ancestral blood to control her or whatever reminded me exactly of when I was watching Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated for the first time and I adored that first season SO much and loved how it stuck to the tried and true Scooby-Doo formula of skepticism winning over superstition and the paranormal, only for the second season to... make a 180 and everything was due to magic after all. That’s kinda how I felt about Gotham Academy, we spent the first series constantly solving mysteries of Gotham Academy through the eyes of the Mystery Club and time and time again the lesson seemed to be that the legends and tribulations of the people at the heart of these things were just that -- they were people and they were real, and their problems paralleled the cast’s for that reason.

Only for that to be somewhat wasted due to the fact that... it was all nobody’s fault and the strings were being pulled by the occult the first series had proved were false. And I suppose that’s okay, save for how it feels as though it tries to use this to wave off the genuine symptoms of mental illness Olive has shown throughout the series.

It’s something I’ll have to chew on for a while, honestly. It’s given me a lot of complicated feelings.

Art: Ah, the most contentious part of the series has been the massive shift in art. Karl Kerschl was the original artist for the first few volumes of Gotham Academy and his style remains a truly unique, very stylized, and very character driven style which was a huge contributing factor to launching Gotham Academy and getting it off its feet with a unique flare to draw in audiences that weren’t necessarily picking up other Batman books at the time. And his presence has been missed since he left the book, without a doubt. I’ve had people tell me personally that a big reason for dropping the book when they did had to do with the change up in art.

I’m not condemning Adam Archer here for not being Kerschl, make no mistake. What I think has truly hurt this book, however, is that Archer either chose or was directed to attempt Kerschl’s style as close as possible which comes off as not feeling natural to Adam Archer’s own talents. That’s unfair because Archer’s work is unique, fun, and lovely n its own without this attempt to mimmic a style that was less his own. I think we would have all appreciated the art more in that respect, since other guest artists between the two like Chen were better received for their issues.

That being said the art for this issue is not bad, but it’s not great, and missing that feeling of sincerity that was connected to by so many readers before.

Characters & Dialogue: Considering how character driven this series is, it’s fair to say that the characterization and dialogue of these new Gothamites is unquestionable. They were always well rounded, interesting, and full of intrigue, and all the way to this conclusion, that remains to be the case. The big difference here would be that because we needed to focus on Olive and Maps, the other members of the Mystery Club were less involved than I would have liked though they very much did at least get to play a part in stopping Calamity (pun intended).

The good thing about having a single team writing from the very start of the book is that we get very strong voices throughout for all of the characters, and that remained true to the very end as well. Really, the characters were the best part and it made this feel like a very deserving farewell to our Gotham Academy family.

Marvel’s Immortal Iron Fists (2017) #2 (of 6) Kaare Andrews, Afu Chan, Shelly Chen

Well, guys, never say that change isn’t real and tangible, because it almost looks like Marvel learned something from the reception of Immortal Iron Fist on Netflix and is creating a legacy from the title that shock of all shocks actually contains Asian characters for once. I know, I was stunned as well.

In all seriousness, I was super interested in this series when I first saw it with issue #1 but hadn’t bought it by the time I was doing my weekly reviews for that week. Obviously, that has since then been remedied and has left me open for a good ol’ review of the new Marvel Infinite series Immortal Iron Fists.

Story: We’re still very much in the early part set of this story, which is a combination of Danny trying to navigate the trials of adulthood while being a complete human disaster, Pei is attempting to fit in her new public school which is middle school and thus inherently filled with racist little sociopaths in training just like real life high school, and also about the two Iron Fists trying to harness all of these magic scrolls which are currently possessed by demons which increase in power each scroll before culminating into this Mega Awful Demon that is the mortal enemy of the Buddah.

So yes. Immortal Iron Fists is basically ripping off Jackie Chan Adventures and believe it or not I am absolutely fine with that, in fact I think it might be the most fine I have been with a Marvel concept in ages. It’s like making Laura Wolverine, creating Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, and now this. There, I had my arm twisted and admitted there are positive things about Marvel this week.

The story itself is a very soft, even light narrative considering the complexity of Pei’s origins and even her connection to Danny, but it’s also at the same time so fitting for what I assume is the intended audience (children and YA) and especially fitting with the art that is positively adorable and awesome.

In this issue Pei makes her first friends, learns that there is a string of missing cases, and also decides that unlike everyone else in middle school she’s not going to be a “key to a single door” but keep all her doors open and try to bridge the gap between the various cliques, who were introduced to us Mean Girls style and it was hilarious.

It’s just a fun read overall, but it’s also a fairly quick read so given that ever high Marvel price tag it’s hard to argue with the assessment that this one could be a trade wait for a lot of you.

Art: As I mentioned before, the art is very soft, gentle, and light. The colors pop, everyone is incredibly stylized, and the action scenes are surprisingly varied and plentiful. While they’re still simple enough to read for beginning comic readers, there is a flow to them, such as the sequence where Pei gets some revenge on some bullies at school through one extended fight sequence across a panel.

I just really enjoyed the art and I’m glad to see so much variation in comic art lately. It’s been a long time coming.

Characters & Dialogue: Pei and Danny are the focus of the comic, obviously, and they play their roles incredibly well. Danny is ... I mean, he’s Danny Rand, he’s a complete disaster of a human being trying to Adult it with an inheritance he never cared about or really earned and as such everything rolls in and catches up with him. He literally can’t teach Pei how to clean the house without tripping on soap, and I feel like that is a perfect summation of everything anyone has ever needed to know about Danny Rand.

In contrast, Pei is a reserved little girl, fish out of water, and drowning in a culture she has no familiarity with while also harnessing power and skills beyond her years. What I find interesting and subversive about this, though, is that Pei neither yearns for normalcy nor does she completely rebel openly against Danny’s orders for her to restrain herself and act normal. It’s honestly a relief to have a character whose problems are so relatable and have her just... treat it with the actions of a kid in the moment: uncertain but trying to play everything out until she decides she doesn’t fit the necessary mold. And she’s pleased with herself for not fitting the mold. It’s honestly kind of inspiring to see that in a kid character these days.

But the big part of this issue was arguably building up the supporting cast, including the nanny Danny has hired for Pei and most of all the kids in Pei’s school. And how there’s apparently no point to her hiding her identity as the tiniest Iron Fist. It’s well paced and all the kids, right down to their overwhelming cruelty to their surprising generosity, are definitely acting like kids.

Dark Horse’s The Legend of Korra: Turf Wars (2017-present) Part One Michael Dante DiMartino, Irene Koh, Vivian Ng

Ah, at long last!

While I was not in on the hype for The Legend of Korra as it was airing, my appreciation for what it’s become has grown over time, and more importantly, I fnd that it provides more possibilities and more opportunity to the world of Avatar, which is always a good thing.

As such, I’ve been waiting for this comic series to come out for quite some time! ... and then had to wait longer because for Reasons we don’t get the comiXology release at the same time as the regular issue’s release in stores. Oh, Dark Horse.

But now to get into the specifics.

Story: It’s always difficult to gage story with just the first issue, but in all honesty I think that the fact that the TV series ended on such an open note really helps the comic in this matter. “Turf War” is an interesting name for the story, but at the same time it’s oddly blunt and fitting. There is a war erupting between the Spirit World, the human lands and property settlement, and with the ever present Republic City triad gang wars. We follow all of these through the Krew members who are exactly where we last left off with them.

Some of the stuff that deserves a lot of attention is the cementation of Korra and Asami’s romantic relationship, which is given a good amount of page time for the first half of the book. They confess true feelings for each other, share a first kiss, have a beautiful vacation together, and we ultimately get to see Korra’s blunt and protective nature play out accordingly. She rushes in to Asami’s aid and frets over her pretty consistently, which could be seen as a callback to the series itself when, as Korra was most down, Asami cared for and nurtured her.

We also get to see Mako and Bolin working together as partners in the Republic City police. They deal with the triads and the general unrest that has come about as a result of Spirits and Humans openly interacting again for the first time in centuries. And this honestly felt like some greatly due development for the brothers’ relationship since in the series it felt like they had grown apart without it ever being explicitly addressed in the text.

And while all this turf grabbing is happening, we also see a parallel drama being played out. And that would be the story of how Korra and Asami choose to come out to their friends, family, and even the world. As usual, Korra barrels in half cocked and not thinking of repercussions, figuring “damned if anyone judges me” whereas Asami is more thoughtful, planning, and reserved. She’s nervous about coming out to people, and she’s nervous about how boisterous Korra is being about it.

But they haven’t communicated this detachment between their processing of the situation yet. It’s fairly obvious that a portion of Turf Wars is going to come to a head with Asami and Korra having to address being respectful of each other’s needs to come out in their own ways first.

In any case, it was a real great start and had lots of little moments to help explain the world without acting as though the intended audience wouldn’t have some more than passing knowledge about what was coming up.

Art: One of the most widely praised and beloved aspects of The Legend of Korra from the very start had been the beauty of its animation, so much so that the same animation house got to move on to other passion projects like the current reboot of Voltron. And one of the things that makes the world of Avatar so unique is that aspect of Eastern philosophy combined with different disciplines which inspire the forms of bending in the series. And, as was pretty clearly seen before in the Avatar: The Last Airbender comics, that is not something that is easy to translate into a more still and less fluid medium like comics.

And that mostly goes the same here. There’s a distinct lack of bending compared to what you would see in an episode of the show, but at the same time that isn’t to say that there isn’t a lot more than I thought there was. It simply did not have that many creative takes on what to do with the bending. No splash shots into the next panels, no using the elements to transition. The sort of things you’d expect from a comic inspired by a show which was all about the uniqueness of bending.

Still, the comic did a fair job of keeping to the style of the series without the character art seeming stagnant and stationary which is usually a problem with cartoons that are adapted into comics. Hair in particular was treated with much more fluidity than I remember the show being able to give it. And the styles of the various nations and cultures were well designed while also fitting.

Everything was well compositioned and especially the events which took place within the Spirit World were beautifully colored, though that came at the seeming cost of a duller color pattern used in the “normal” world.

It’s a good start, and I’d argue it’s better than if it had tried to strictly stay to only the style of the series and not rely on the personal style of the artist.

Characters & Dialogue: Given that this is an ensemble story and there was a limited amount of time to dedicate to each of the characters, we did not get as much individual development for the wider cast. But Korra and Asami got relatively large roles and since they and their relationship seems to be the driving force of the narrative, it worked out well for this issue.

Korra was brash to a fault, but as always it is her conflict and emotions and her validity that moved the plot forward. For a character it is always important that her purpose and her growth be the defining force. And I think we definitely got that.

Asami on the other hand was the quieter personality, yes, but her hesitation and temperance also did a lot to build suspicion for future conflict in the relationship between her and Korra and also in just the world itself. Her perspective and her concerns are as real and as valid as Korra’s which means that our concerns for their coming out narrative are validated here, too.

The dialogue is a bit harder to pin here, as again there aren’t many characters with specific inflections that really pop out, so we’ll have to wait for more issues to get a larger grasp on how the dialogue changes between characters.

Marvel’s Silk (2015-2017) Vol. 3: The Clone Conspiracy Robbie Thompson, Irene Strychalski, Tana Ford, Ian Herring

I can’t believe I’m having to say goodbye to so many books this week. It’s like my personal Cancellation Day, and the only prize is disappointment that more series I enjoyed aren’t coming my way. I’m supremely sad to see Silk go, as Cindy Moon is a hugely inspirational and important character both for being an Asian-American superhero with her own book and for narratively dealing with anxiety in depression.

And it’s also extremely sad to see her go on what was mostly tie-ins to yet another endless Spider Event. I won’t be going into a full review for that reason, it just doesn’t seem fair to recap the end of the series knowing that a lot of the context for The Clone Conspiracy is not included in this book, nor should it really have been, but I do want to say to fellow Silk fans that there’s enough of Cindy and enough closure to her narrative that it will be worth your collection and time, but yeah there will be some lackluster stuff in the majority of the issues in this since it is a tie-in.

And I hate that, I hate how much endless tie-ins have felt like they’re killing books lately.

But Robbie Thompson was a fantastic, thoughtful, and well articulated writer throughout this series and for Silk before this series, really making her a real character where her initial introduction was... not that... ugh pheromones and gross twitter trolls. Anyway, Robbie Thompson truly made a character to love in Cindy Moon, and the two artists who contributed throughout the series -- Irene Strychalski and Tana Ford did amazing very stylized work and weren’t afraid to experiment with style and page correlation.

It was a great read and I’m going to miss it a whole lot.

DC’s Titans (2016-present) #14 Dan Abnett, Brett Booth, Norm Rapmund, Andrew Dalhouse

Hello, world, it’s me, the Titans fan who wished upon the monkey’s paw that her favorite heroes would be restored to their former glory and that their friendship would be allowed to flourish on the page once again. And in return I got Roy’s stupid hat.

But in truth, I’ve been fairly pleased with Titans since the very first issue in Rebirth and have felt taken aback by just how much the creative team seems to love the characters, their relationships, and their history. But now we’ve got to answer that ultimate question: a year later with those rosy tinted glasses still firmly on my face, am I starting to eep out of the honeymoon phase? Or it this book still living up to unrealistic expectations?

Story: We’re in the middle of the sleeper agent storyline and it’s probably more difficult to gage how good a story is doing by its middle than it is by its start, in all honesty. All the same, the distrust running through the Titans, the pain of conflict and second guessing each other’s friendships and so on. It’s not a bad way to flesh out the arc, and I wouldn’t say that like a lot of storylines’ mid-issues this one felt useless or flat.

There is a definite escalation throughout the issue of how the Titans are beginning to fold in on each other, how HIVE’s master plan to destroy them from the inside may be working before we ever get confirmation about a betrayer. And the testing of the relationships among the Titans in that delicate web they weave cause everyone to trip over each other once they’re really put to the test.

That being said, it’s still not hitting all those points perfectly. While you can see an organic build to the relationship of Lilith and Garth that’s been pretty fun and true to the characters so far, the love triangle between Wally, Donna, and Roy is something I’m pretty confident in saying no one wanted. I have seen no one say they wanted this. And weirdly it continues to put all the female characters in romantic relationships as the crux of their developments while we still have at least Dick and Gnarrk on the men’s side who don’t have to be motivated by this bull. The best part of the love triangle so far has been Donna throwing Roy and Wally both when she realizes what’s going on.

As for Dick being the sleeper agent well, I guess it’s one of those... shoulda seen it coming because of course we have Dick involved with another covert secret underground all powerful world corrupting group in another book. I don’t know why I was expecting different. But at least in the defense of Titans, it does feel like a good call back to the original New Teen Titans storyline with the cult of Brother Blood where similar happened and it was Dick again.

People just really like mindfucking with Dick, there’s not really much else to say about it.

Art: Ever since Brett Booth first appeared on my radar I’ve been fairly critical of him as an artist. His style was never really my taste, but he’s proven again and again on Titans to really pull some variation in body types and physicality that I hadn’t seen on his previous works. I like that the guys all have different body types and that the girls’ costumes and personality are reflections of themselves.

That being said, we still have a problem of Sameface with the girls at the very least, where honestly some panels the only difference between Donna and Lilith is hair color. But the colors are vibrant and the panels are all full of details, no space wasted.

Which is both a compliment and a criticism since, to be frank, the absolute refusal to have any normal panels basically gives us the opposite of my criticism of Turf Wars which is that there seems to be no real complexity because of the constant unstable panel work.

This is the comic book equivalent of shooting every scene in a movie with dutch angles. There’s no dramatic or narrative reason to have these panels slanted and all over the place, but every panel will be that way. Even panels where we’re literally reading the characters talking about pizza.

It gives us no real change between action sequences and normal sequences so it’s just kind of boring in spite of the dynamic panels. Which I’m pretty sure is the opposite of what they wanted.

Characters & Dialogue: If it wasn’t clear in the story portion, I’m not a fan of how when it comes to individual character development, we have conveniently gotten all three of our female heroes into romantic subplots with at least one (now possibly two? if we’re hinting at Tula like I think we are) love triangles in the mix. It just feels like it’s 2017 and we should be beyond that sort of “what kind of subplot do we give the girls? love I guess”

That being said, it’s really been amazing to me, personally, to see just how good this comic continues to be at making these characters feel like the ones we knew and loved prior to the New52. Not exact, not perfect, but pretty close to the preferences for each of the characters as we can get with the current character histories being what they are. Like, personally, I’m much more enthusiastic about Dick and Wally in this book than I am about them in Nightwing and The Flash because it just feels like them, Wally’s current romantic entanglements aside.

Still, it’s a fun book and for what it lacks with some characterization quirks it always tends to make up for later in the story so for the current storyline I’m willing to wait a touch longer.

IDW’s Transformers: Till All Are One (2016-2017) #12 Mairghread Scott, Sara Pitre-Durocher, Joana Lafuente

Wow. Another one of my favorite ongoings is ending today and I’m starting to worry it’s me. I hope I’m not actually the kiss of death to these comics because, full stop, Windblade and Till All Are One have been some of the most enjoyable comics I’ve read in the last several years and there’s probably no comic getting canceled this year that makes me sadder than this one.

So, how does Till All Are One leave us?

Story: Mairghread Scott has absolutely blown me away over the last year with her comics and just her obvious, obvious love and understanding of the expansive Transformers universe. Her world building has spanned over several series now and her character work has truly been put to task by having to stand up against fan favorite TF writers like John Barber and James Roberts. And I think nothing has proved her talents more than Till All Are One, where all that build up and all that character work is allowed to at long las come to fruition.

This conclusion could have been use to tease us with the ideas and storylines that Scott obviously had planned (and if people are curious I really encourage you to look up the storylines she had planned and posted to her tumblr), but Scott instead made this a solid ending and a celebration of the comic she was allowed to make. And much like Gotham Academy, she did so by bringing it back home to the characters which have driven the series the most: Windblade and Starscream.

The tumultuous relationship between the two same yet so very different jets has been something that I’ve adored watching play out. Their distrust of each other, their manipulations, their political games, and ultimately their teamwork for the greater good. It’s been fascinating and also has put me on the edge of my seat.

There is nothing more uncharacteristic, nothing more selfless than what Starscream did by putting his own life at risk in order to save Windblade, and the fact that Windblade at last got the confirmation she’s desired about Starscream’s true self feels like a great resolution to all the buildup over the years. This is a very triumphant ending, to the point that 80s Business Woman style Windblade ended by strutting out the door.

I sincerely hope we are going to be blessed with more of Scott’s signature Transformers writing in the IDW’verse and I desperately hope that this is not the end of Windblade who has quickly risen as one of my favorite Transformers.

Art: The majority of the artists on the Transformers titles for IDW are honestly so good and so amazing that I barely know what even to say about the art. The art standard for bringing these robotic transforming cars with heart is so high that it leaves one baffled when it comes to what’s left to say about them, any of them. And even with that standard, Sara Pitre-Durocher manages to amaze me.

Of the Transformers artists I would say her style serves to be the most sleak and the most expressive. Theres not necessarily any time where you think of the Transformers as being “soft” or “pliable” -- they’re still metal and wires with all the complexity therein -- but there’s a believability to the phrase “living metal” that doesn’t always come across in some other artist’s work where the bulk and construction of the Transformers seems more prominent than their expressionism and agility.

The fact that this book gets to at least end with having had consistently amazing art throughout is a highlight and why I think it’s going to be one of the titles returned to the most fondly of the IDW’verse.

Characters & Dialogue: Starscream’s duplicity is his most iconic character trait, of course, and I’ll be the first to say I’m sort of worn out with classic villains being “reexamined” and given redemptions and whatnot these days, but I love how malicious and cruel Starscream has remained in this series while simultaneously showing us and himself through Windblade and Till All Are One the kind of character he could aspire to be (hello Armada allusions) and therefore making it more frustrating and even tragic when he boldly makes the decision to be the opposite of his own potential.

Windblade on the other hand has grown as a character since we first met her. Her naivety and pure intentions have been warped and she now understands how to play the game of politics, but also what it costs -- her honesty, her friends, her belief system. And she was willing to sacrifice herself despite learning all of that -- she was willing to put herself in mortal danger knowing that it wasn’t a perfect, harmonious society she was doing it for but a deeply flawed one. And the fact that she ultimately survived and is now capable of moving forward for herself with the new ambition of being open and speaking for herself more than being a figuehead or politician feels like an arc that was built up to through all this time and yet at the same time was something surprising and unexpected.

Other characters didn’t really play much of a significant role in this ending, which puts it like a lot of the other story bookends this week where a large cast doesn’t really get to close out with homage to the majority of those characters. But this felt more solid, at least to me, because of the wisdom Scott had in using the last several issues to bring the focus in particular to Starscream’s POV and then building up to Windblade’s. It feels like what loose ends for other characters are left are left in ways that are going to be easily picked up by another book or by another creative team entirely rather than everything simply being cut off.

Just an awesome book and I’m so sorry to see it come to an end.

It’s another difficult pick of the week but for me, I absolutely have to give this one to Transformers: Till All Are One. It’s one of my favorite series in a long time and it ended on a resolution that made me honestly puff up with pride for the main characters. It’s a comic which embraces history of its franchise while growing it, a comic that embraces questions of politics, identity, gender, sexuality, and more. It’s been a beautiful ride and I wish the best to the entire creative team.

But I thought all the comics were great this week and highly recommend you check them out! Of course I’d love to hear back from you -- agree with me? Disagree? Think I missed any comics I should’ve picked up? I’d love to hear from you.

Before you go, however, I need to share that I am in a bit of a financial crunch for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which being the medical bills I’m paying for my dog, Eve, who experienced a catastrophic dog fight and underwent surgery just yesterday actually.

As such, I really would appreciate if you enjoy my content or are interested in helping me out, please check out either my Patreon or PayPal. Every bit helps and I couldn’t thank you enough for enjoying and supporting my content.

You could also support me by going to my main blog, @renaroo, where I’ll soon be listing prices and more for art and writing commissions.

RenaRoo Patreon

RenaRoo PayPal

#Wednesday Spoilers #Rena Roundups #SPOILERS #The Legend of Korra: Turf Wars #Titans (2016 )#Gotham Academy: Second Semester (2016 2017)#Detective Comics (2016 )#Transformers: Till All Are One (2016 2017)#All New Wolverine (2015 )#Immortal Iron Fists (2017)#Silk (2016 2017)

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New Releases 8/8/17

Happy New Release Day! This week we have a lot going on in books and a few movie/tv releases.

In Books --The Epic Crush of Genie Lo by by F.C. Yee “The struggle to get into a top-tier college consumes sixteen-year old Genie Lo’s every waking thought. But when her sleepy Bay Area town comes under siege from hell-spawn straight out of Chinese folklore, her priorities are suddenly and forcefully rearranged. Her only guide to the demonic chaos breaking out around her is Quentin Sun, a beguiling, maddening new transfer student from overseas. Quentin assures Genie she is strong enough to fight these monsters, for she unknowingly harbors an inner power than can level the very gates of Heaven. Genie will have to dig deep within herself to summon the otherworldly strength that Quentin keeps talking about. But as she does, she finds the secret of her true nature is entwined with his, in a way she could never have imagined.”

I was drawn to this one because of the cover. It shows a girl doing a superhero landing (thank you Deadpool). It sounds like it could be pretty good.I actually got an arc of this book last week at work. I’m not sure when I’ll get to read it.

--The Hearts We Sold by Emily Lloyd-Jones “When Dee Moreno makes a deal with a demon - her heart in exchange for an escape from a disastrous home life - she finds the trade may have been more than she bargained for. And becoming “heartless” is only the beginning. What lies ahead is a nightmare far bigger, far more monstrous than anything she could have ever imagined. With reality turned on its head, Dee has only a group of other deal-making teens to keep her grounded, including the charming but secretive James Lancer. And as something grows between them amid an otherworldly ordeal, Dee begins to wonder: Can she give someone her heart when it’s no longer her’s to give?”

Based on some arc reviews I saw on Goodreads, it sounds like Dee and the others can get their hearts back by working for the demon they sold their hearts to. Although, it also sounded like some demons might take other body parts. Not really sure yet. It does bring up some questions. By selling your heart, are you selling your actual heart or is it more based on your feelings? If it’s feelings then how could she start to fall for someone? Unless you are able to break the deal yourself somehow. I also wonder what caused the other characters to sell their hearts.

--Legend of Korra: Turf Wars Part 1 by Michael Dante DiMartino, illustrated by Irene Koh “Relishing their newfound feelings for each other, Korra and Asami leave the Spirit World...but find nothing in Republic City but political hijinks and human vs. spirit conflict! A pompous developer plans to turn the new spirit portal into an amusement park, potentially severing an already tumultuous connection with the spirits. What’s more, the triads have realigned and are in a brutal all-out brawl a the city’s borders - where hundreds of evacuees have relocated! In order to get through it all, Korra and Asami vow to look out for each other - but first they’ve got to get better at being a team and a couple!”

This comic has been driving me crazy for a while now. I thought it was supposed to come out several months ago. But when I would check on it at work, it didn’t show up in our systems at all. Then when it did finally appear and I double-checked it with a few other sites, each site had a different release date. So I think this is the right date. But I am not 100% positive. Regardless, I am excited to dive back into the Avatar world. To see how Korra and Asami’s relationship is doing as well as what everyone else has been up to.

--Nirvana Volume 1 by Jina and Sayuki (ZOWLS), illustrated by Sayuki “Humanitarian-extraordinaire Yachiyo Hitose gets a once-in-a-lifetime chance to volunteer overseas - but things go awry when her plane goes down and she dies! When she wakes up, it’s not in heaven, but in a whole other world known as Gulgraf - the citizens of which think she’s their goddess reincarnate! Goddess or not, Gulgraf is beset by ravenous creatures known as the Blau and Yachiyo simply can’t turn her back on her new home.”

First heard about this series a few weeks ago. I really don’t know much about other than it being another travel to another world series. It sounds pretty good though and I like the art style on the cover.

--Paper Girls Volume 3 by Brian K. Vaughan, illustrated by Cliff Chiang “Erin, Mac and Tiffany finally reunite with their long-lost friend KJ in an unexpected new era, where the girls must uncover the secret origins of time travel...or risk never returning home to 1988.”

It’s been a while since I read the second so I can’t remember exactly what is going on at the beginning of this one. I would look it up but that would require moving at least five boxes of varying sizes to get to my comic book boxes. I remember there being a battle with a prehistoric creature and jumping into another portal to a new time at the end but to where I am not sure.

--Reborn Book 1 by Mark Millar with contributors Greg Capullo and Jonathan Glapion “Where do you go when you die? Not heaven or hell; somewhere else. Somewhere you have to fight to survive. Somewhere the people from the past are waiting for you - the good and the bad.”

Pretty excited for this one. It sounds like a good mix of action and soul crushing reunions. I kept hearing about it on a few blogs so I’m excited to finally be able to take a look at it. I love the art style on the cover.

--Shimmer and Burn by Mary Taranta “Faris grew up struggling to survive in the slums of Brindaigel while caring for her sister, Cadence. But when Cadence is caught trying to flee the kingdom and is sold into slavery, Faris reluctantly agrees to a lucrative scheme to buy her back, inadvertently binding herself to the power-hungry Princess Bryn, who wants to steal her father’s throne. Now Faris must smuggle stolen magic into neighboring Avinea to incite its prince to alliance - magic that addicts in a war-torn country can sense in her blood and can steal with a touch. She and Bryn turn to a handsome traveling magician, North, who offers protection from Avinea’s many dangers, but he cannot save Faris from Bryn’s cruelty as she leverage Cadence’s freedom to force Faris to do anything -or kill anyone - she asks. Yet Faris is as fierce as Bryn, and even as she finds herself falling for North, she develops schemes of her own. With the fate of kingdoms at stake, Faris, Bryn, and North maneuver through a dangerous game of magical and political machinations, where lives can be destroyed - or saved - with only a touch.”

Really drawn to this title for the idea that magic can be stolen by a simple touch. There has to be more to it than that, though, or else how would anyone touch anyone? But I might be taking that too literally. We don’t yet know how wide spread magical power is in this world. Is the magic Faris is smuggling in her own or was it someone else’s? I also like to see how the idea of how something as simple as a touch could have huge consequences down the line. Good or bad.

In Movies/TV Series --Gurren Lagann 10th Anniversary Complete Box Set (blu-ray) If by some chance you have never heard of this series:

“This is the story of a man who has yet to realize what destiny holds in store for him... In the distant future, mankind has lived restlessly underground for hundred of years, subject to earthquakes and cave-ins. Living in one such village are two young men: one named Simon who is shy and naive, and the other named Kamina who believes in the existence of a “surface” world above their heads. The destiny of these two starts moving drastically when the ceiling of their village falls in, and a gigantic “Gunmen” and a beautiful girl named Yoko, wielding a superconductive rifle, come from the surface. Together, Kamina, Simon and Yoko ride the mega “Lagann” that Simon digs out of the ground, and fly up to the surface!”

Do I ever regret not watching this series the first time it was on television. I did manage to see it when it appeared on Toonami when it was revived, though. At first glance I didn’t think it it looked like anything overly special (that’s what I get for no trying more than two or three episodes). Giant mechas, suggestive jokes, and fan service. Which it is but it also has a great story line, character development, and an amazing soundtrack. It is a pricey set. Retail price is $189.98 though at the time of typing this, it is $149.98 on Rightstuf. It includes all 27 episodes and two movies.

--Kung fu Yoga “Two professors team up to locate a lost treasure and embark on an adventure that takes them from a Tibetan ice cave to Dubai to a mountain temple in India.”

From the trailer it looks to be a fun kung fu mixed with Bollywood movie. It hosts car chases, fights, and at least one dance scene. I had never heard of the movie title till roughly a week ago but today was the first time I looked up the trailer so I was surprised to see Jackie Chan stars in it. I would like to see it just to see him dance in one of the numbers.

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the-dragongirl · 7 years ago

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Pod-Together Icebreaker, Day 1

It’s that time of year again, folks, when authors and podficcers get together to collaborate on new and innovative projects that are written to be heard, rather than just read. I am participating in four pod-togethers this year. @knight-tracer and I will be creating a sequel to last year’s Obi-Wan/Anakin/Padme screen-play style story, and @lacefedora and @punsbulletsandpointythings and I will be creating another Star Wars story told through vignettes from vary varying points of view. However, I also have two projects with creators I haven’t worked with before: ladybrookeoflorien, and savvygambols. To that end, I’ll be posting the answers to the icebreaker prompts @pod-together is providing this week. So, without further ado, here are the answers for day 1:

1. If you could be any fannish character for a day, who would it be and why?

I am on major Star Wars kick these days, so I would have to say Leia Organa (though, probably EU version rather than current canon). Leia has been my fictional role model since I was three years old. I admired her competence and leadership, as well as her ability to give no fucks and get shit done. Fortunately, I get to live my dream at least a few times a month, when I appear as Princess Leia at events with the Rebel Legion.

2. Name as many books, movies, TV shows, animes, comics, celebrities, etc. that you can think of that you have felt or feel fannish about.

Okay, this list is rather huge, so I am going to sort it by category.

ANIME/MANGA (note that I am not really active in any of these fandoms anymore, and haven’t been since I was a teenager, ):

Cardcaptor Sakura; Fushigi Yuugi; Magicknight Rayearth; Naruto (in my my misguided youth); Sailor Moon; Saiyuki

BOOKS:

Jane Austen: all her books except Northanger Abbey (Pride and Prejudice is my favorite book ever); Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Sherlock Holmes; Monica Furlong: Wise Child and it’s sequel and prequel; Mercedes Lackey: Valdemar Series (we all go through that stage, right?), SERRated Edge Series, Bedlam’s Bard Series; Gregory Maguire: Wicked; Anne McCaffrey: the Pern book, the Rowan books, the Pegasus books; Seanan McGuire: October Daye series, Incryptids Series, Indexing; Lois McMaster Bujold: The Vorkosigan saga; Garth Nix: The Old Kingdom books; Tamora Pierce: Circle of Magic books, Song of the Lioness Books; J.K. Rowling: I love the Harry Potter books so much, though I am not particularly inclined to interact with most of that fandom; William Shakespeare: all his plays pretty much (The Winter’s Tale is my favorite); J.R.R.Tolkien: everything he ever wrote; Timothy Zahn: all of his Star Wars EU novels.

CELEBRITIES:

No. Just no. RPF of any kind squicks me out.

COMICS:

Check Please; Girl Genius; Marvel 616 (though I have mostly fallen out of the Marvel fandom these days)

MOVIES:

Anne of Green Gables (the Canadian miniseries); Assorted superhero movies (again, I have mostly fallen out of this fandom); The Chronicles of Narnia films (though not the books, oddly); Labyrinth; Ladyhawke; Pacific Rim; The Peter Jackson movie versions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings; STAR WARS

MUSICALS:

Pretty much all older musicals, especially Paint Your Wagon, and Wicked. I love Hamilton, but I don’t interact with that fandom at all.

TV SHOWS:

Avatar (Last Airbender only. I haven’t seen legend of Korra); BBC Musketeers; Doctor Who (before Moffat); Due South; The Grenada Sherlock Holmes; Highlander; Firefly; Once Upon a Time; Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, Sense8, The Sentinel; Star Trek (especially Voyager)

3. List 5 things you enjoy in stories (e.g. a kind of trope, story line, kink, etc.). List 5 things that you do not enjoy in stories.

Not exactly five things, but here are the likes and dislikes copied from my standard Dear Creator letter:

Things I like: I love seeing greater inclusion of female, non-binary, and trans characters. I am a total sucker for healthy familial love and found families. I enjoy kidfic. I enjoy happy, consensual polyamory. Physical hurt comfort (that does not violate one of my squicks) is my favorite guilty pleasure. Beyond that, I enjoy world-building and fleshing out of minor characters.

Squicks: I will not consume fanworks which contain: incest, abuse (especially of children), rpf, on-screen sexual assault (references to past sexual assault are sometimes acceptable, provided it is non-graphic and is not trivialized or used as an h/c plot device), or extreme unmitigated power differences in relationships (such as large differences in mental/emotional maturity, or unnegotiated relationships between a person in guardian or supervisory position and their charge/ supervisee).

Dislikes: I really don’t like fanworks which erase or demonize existing female characters, or make non-villain characters in general super villainous (or, conversely, make villains poor misunderstood darlings without a great deal of explanation). I also generally dislike infidelity (note that i do not count consensual polyamory as infidelity.) While I don’t mind smut being part of a fic, I tend to get bored with PWP. I rarely enjoy modern AUs, coffee shop AUs, high school AUs, or anything in that genre. I usually don’t enjoy A/B/O either, unless it is subverted and used to question social views of gender and sexuality.

4. If you could have any super power, what would it be and why?

Looking at my icebreaker answers from a couple of years ago, I like the answer I gave then, so I will just repeat it: I think I would like telekinesis. It would be fun and useful, without introducing complex ethical quandaries.

5. If you were stuck on a deserted island, what 3 fanworks would you want with you?

Am I allowed to list series? Because if so, my list would be Sansukh by determamfidd, the Deeper Season series by lightgetsin, and Re-entry by deadcatwithaflamethrower. Embers by Vathara is a very close fourth.

What are 3 fun/interesting/not-commonly-known/etc. things about yourself (fannish or otherwise)?

Thing the first: I have two paid professional audiobook credits to my name. I don’t list titles, since they are published under my RL identity, but it still gives you an idea of how seriously I take narration.

Thing the second: Between the Saber Guild and the Rebel Legion (and, hopefully soon, the 501st), I am generally dressed up as a Star Wars character an average of once a week.

Thing the third: Yesterday, I bought almost thirty yards of fabric for $30, and that is pretty much the most exciting thing to happen in my life in months.

#pod together #icebreaker #podfic #I am so excited be getting started on all these projects!

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thelegendofkuzon · 6 years ago

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The Legend of Kuzon Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Zhu Li for President!

(Disclaimer! I own nothing of Korra or Kirby!)

We were finishing up a new song Kuzon wrote.

"Awesome!" Kuzon said, "We keep this up and it'll be polished in no time."

Anana was noodling on her bass.

"Let me guess, you came up with this song after visiting the Spirit World on your date with Korra."

"No! ….Yes."

"Speaking of Korra, I heard she was trying to smooth things over with the spirits," Kanji added, "How's that coming along."

"So far so good actually. Looks like Raiko is starting to get on her side."

"Well, looks like my uncle could use a bit more convincing."

"Screw that guy."

"Ditto," Anana added, "What's his deal with benders anyway?"

"He won't say," I said.

Kuzon looked at his watch. "Well, I'm meeting Korra for another date."

"Have fun," Anana and I said in unison.

Kuzon left while we were packing up.

"Looks like Kuzon finally found himself someone special."

"Yeah she's a lot better than her ex, Alliya."

I fake gaged to that name.

"No doubt about it, she is a total C-word."

"You're one to talk Kanji, your girlfriend can be a total dyke sometimes."

"Hey just because she happens to work at a Lesbian Club doesn't make her one herself," Kanji retorted, "And besides, even if she was, at least she isn't addicted to the korrasami fanfic I write that portrays Opal as a booby loving bisexual."

I turned to him, "Dude leave him outta this. Its not his fault he gets easily turned on by that kinda stuff."

Anana intervened. "Will you two stop the boyfriend/girlfriend bash fest?!"

We both calmed down.

"Look, Kanji's girlfriend is cool because she allows us to use her place for rehearsals."

Kanji smiled.

"And if it wasn't for your boyfriend Saria, we never would've earned that opportunity to perform at Kwong's Cusine, and earn $500 a musician no less, so just leave the people that make you happy out of it. They're both cool in my book."

Kuzon was walking with Korra around Republic City.

"You actually did that?" Korra asked.

"That I did," Kuzon said, and boy was he mad."

The two of them laughed.

Kuzon got lost in the sight of his girlfriend's beautiful blue eyes.

"Kuzon what are you staring at?"

"Sorry Kory, its just…. Out of all the girls I've seen in my life, you have the most beautiful eyes."

Korra blushed from her pet name and the compliment.

The two of them saw Raiko and Uncle Wenyan speaking with people about housing.

"The hell?"

The two of them went to see what was going on.

"Kuzon what a surprise," Raiko said, "How may I…."

"I'll handle this," Uncle Wenyan, "It seems this boy doesn't understand how busy you are."

He was about to speak when Korra tapped some metal on his mouth.

"You zip it. Now!"

"Its come to my attention that some of the ideas that Zhu Li and Asami made are being stolen."

Kuzon was pointing to the sign that said "Raiko Residences."

"I thought I told Wenyan not to go forward with this."

"Wait, you mean you wanted to give Asami and Zhu Li credit?" Korra asked.

"Don't act so surprised Korra, I knew it was their idea this whole time."

"So it was you who called off the united forces at the spirit."

Uncle Kenyan pulled the metal off him.

"Behold the woman responsible for this whole mess! And also responsible for the debris that fell from the Father Eagle during the attack on Republic City!"

"Whoa, that is not what happened," Kuzon said intervening, "See what happened was…"

"And where was the avatar when we had an attack by this menace, Takuga? On Vacation!"

The people were starting to turn on her.

"Hold it!" Kuzon said, "Korra may have caused a bit of collateral damage, but at least she's willing to make things right by rebuilding your houses, and helping Asami with her plans."

Uncle Wenyan glared "This doesn't concern you young man. Benders are the source of all the hell that broke loose in the city and should be banished!"

President Raiko came between my uncle and Kuzon.

"Ban benders from this city?" He asked, "With all due respect I strongly disagree."

"Mr. President, remember the election coming. You must keep the people on your side."

"We've had it with you constantly trying to turn the tables on bending kind and leaving us stuck with this guy as our president," Kuzon said before turning to President Raiko, "No offense."

"None taken."

"So I say, let the people decide who THEY want for president!"

The people started to cheer.

"But who would run against him?" Asami asked walking by, "I would nominate you but you're a bit too young."

"Plus politics bore me."

He then came up with an idea.

"Zhu Li!"

Zhu Li turned to them.

"Me?"

"If you could put up with your husband I don't see how you couldn't pull this off!"

"Kuzon's right," said Korra agreeing with him, "Its a great idea."

Zhu Li thought of the idea.

"I never thought of it like that."

"You seem like a worthy leader as you are compassionate to the needs of others."

"And plus I think it would be good for Korra to have someone as a president she could see eye to eye with," President Raiko said.

"I'll consider it, but in the meantime I should get back to work."

Uncle Wenyan glared at Kuzon.

"What?"

"First and final warning; Stay out of my way."

He walked away.

"You actually think Zhu Li could win," I said startling Kuzon.

"Yea, I actually do."

"Well I hope she wins. Somebody needs to put Uncle Wenyan in his place and show him who's boss."

"I'm just worried the people will start to turn on me again like the did earlier," said Korra, "You should see the spirit portal. It looks like a wasteland."

Kuzon took her hands.

"There's gonna be hardships like this all over, but as long as we stick together, we can accomplish anything."

Korra smiled then remembered something.

"I found this back at the fountain."

"My sketch book," Kuzon said, "I knew I left it somewhere."

"I also looked at some sketches."

Kuzon blushed.

"I uh…."

"You're a really talented artist."

"I… really?"

I was grinning.

Korra skimmed through some of the sketches she liked.

"This one is my favorite."

It was a picture of Korra in a suit of blue colors.

"The cleavage is a cute touch actually."

Kuzon blushed.

Korra got close to him and smiled seductively, "You know, if you're a good boy, then maybe I'll model it for you, or wear it to any fancy party we go to."

Korra was playing with his gold hair and kissed his nose.

"Um…. I'm gonna go put this in my bag."

He then pulled me aside, "You say a word about this, and you'll wake up the next morning with half your hair shaved off."

He walked away.

"I…. Honestly didn't hear anything after 'you're a really good artist'."

Most of the days of the Knights of Cydonia were patrol, but that didn't stop us from doing what we could.

And of course Kuzon and Korra were getting some quality time together.

Meanwhile Asami met with a member of the Creeping Crystals who offered assistance to take on Tokuga and she said she would give it some thougut.

I didn't know why but I felt like they could be trusted.

A few days later they also came to me on an idea to get the spirit portals back from my uncle's control.

"They want us to what?!" Asked Anana.

"It seems like our best option," I said, "Traveling to the southern water tribe to get to that portal could be a strategy to keep the portals on our side."

Kuzon thought for a moment.

"I think Saria might be on to something. A good counterattack on Tokuga to give him a taste of his own medicine!"

"Exactly. I know trusting the creeping crystals seems risky, but its our best shot."

"I'm all for it," Asami said.

"Poyo-poyo." Kirby said.

"That's right Kirby, and if Tokuga plans to take this portal, the police can wait there to arrest him."

"Wait, you can understand that thing?" Kanji asked.

"That thing can understand you too so watch it."

"Cydney do you think you can keep Wenyan busy while we take a boat?" Kanji asked.

"We'd be honored to assist our friends in taking back their turf," Cydney said.

"Hold it!" Said someone.

It was President Raiko.

"Fuck," I said.

"I know all about your plan and there's no way I'm allowing you kids to take any of our boats to the Southern Water Tribe."

He gave us keys to his private boat.

"You should travel in style. Tokuga won't take you superheroes seriously traveling in some old boat."

"Wait, you know that we're….."

"The knights of Cydonia," Raiko answered, "I'll never forget that symbol. Your father was a great hero."

Kuzon smiled.

"Good luck."

We and Korra went on the boat and started to travel to the next spirit portal to pull off our plan of attack.

#kuzon tao #The Legend of Kuzon #legend of korra #korra x kuzon #smash bros #kirby nintendo #saria #FFEU Phase 3 #fan fiction extended universe #legend of kuzon #korrazon

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latestnews2018-blog · 6 years ago

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A Conversation With My Friend Who Really Wants To Have Sex With Mr. Incredible

New Post has been published on https://latestnews2018.com/a-conversation-with-my-friend-who-really-wants-to-have-sex-with-mr-incredible/

A Conversation With My Friend Who Really Wants To Have Sex With Mr. Incredible

Earlier this week, a review by The New Yorker’s Anthony Lane of the Pixar film “Incredibles 2” caught the attention of the internet.

The reason was a paragraph near the end of the article that painted a theoretical picture of two parents taking their children to watch the film only to find the mother comparing Ms. Incredible to Anastasia from “Fifty Shades of Grey” and the father catapulting his popcorn in a state of throbbing cinematic appreciation.

Holy crap, WHAT is with The New Yorker’s review of The Incredibles 2? Gross. pic.twitter.com/2PCVW4BQga

— Amanda Wong (@amandawtwong) June 19, 2018

I, on the other hand, could only think of an old friend of mine, Will Wiesenfeld, who, for as long as I can remember, has badly wanted to have sex with Mr. Incredible, i.e. Bob Parr. This is not a joke. Will really, really loves him some Bob Parr.

i want Bob Parr to fuck me up and down the goddamn block

— ● Will Wiesenfeld ● (@BATHSmusic) May 29, 2018

thinking about bob fuckin parr

— ● Will Wiesenfeld ● (@BATHSmusic) June 12, 2018

i don’t think u understand how hot i think the dad from The Incredibles is. Bob Parr. that’s my dude

— ● Will Wiesenfeld ● (@BATHSmusic) May 7, 2018

like honestly Bob Parr is a dreamboat

— ● Will Wiesenfeld ● (@BATHSmusic) February 15, 2018

Wiesenfeld is a professional electronic musician mostly known by his stage name, Baths. He’s very good; Pitchfork loves him. My editor, Tommy Craggs, did not care about any of that. He wanted to know more about my friend who’d like to boink an animated superhero dad. He asked me to talk to Will. So I did. It turns out that Wiesenfeld’s desire to sleep with the man with perhaps the largest chest-to-hip ratio in the cartoon universe is actually just one part of a larger story about coming to terms with his sexuality through cartoons as a teenager ― and becoming something of a connoisseur of the form as an adult.

Here is our conversation, edited a bit for clarity.

Will Wiesenfeld: Hey dude!

HuffPost: What’s up, dog?

Not much. How’s it going?

It’s chilling. I can’t believe I’m interviewing you about this.

So you want to fuck Bob Parr. When did that start? When did you first get into Bob Parr?

How long ago did “The Incredibles” come out?

I must have been 15. I wasn’t out. I would have just found out that I was gay, so probably not yet. I don’t know.

When did cartoons become a thing for you in terms of your own sexuality

That was right away. Basically I found out I was gay because of porn, straight-up porn. I just realized that was going on and I had the realization, and I think through looking for that stuff and then always being a fan of Japanese stuff, I came across porny art and muscular art of characters, and so it started off not [with] American cartoons, but Japanese stuff and people’s original characters and buff men. And that would have been a year after I found out I was gay, so probably 16.

this mode of bob parr could get it ✔️ https://t.co/DLno1tbMBH

— ● Will Wiesenfeld ● (@BATHSmusic) January 16, 2016

Why do you think you had that attraction to anime or cartoon characters?

I can tell you almost exactly. Everything about porn ― at least what I was finding ― was intense and kind of aggressive. There’s nothing really loving about it. It was just sex, obviously, and very intense and very upfront.

And almost immediately the first images I saw of this sort of stuff ― of drawn characters and erotic illustrations and stuff ― it was all softer, even though it was really muscular men. A lot of it was really domestic. There were comics that I found that were just couples at home, or illustrations of dudes doing it in an apartment, outside of a pornographic context, just because they were dating or whatever.

And all of that was brand new to me. Just the idea of gayness as normalcy. That was the thing that allowed me to come out after that point. I knew I was gay before finding out about this stuff, but then I was comfortable coming out realizing that there was a route to gayness and queerness that was chill.

And now is it more just a funny thing than anything else?

It’s not actually much of a funny thing. There are funny things that come up. There are illustrations that are insane, where it’s like, “Oh, my God, look at this.” But it’s a super deep hobby of mine. I collect art. I have a running collection of manga in my house and a bunch of illustrations. I’ve paid for commissions of characters and stuff like that. It’s very real and it’s very deep. And I’m into it in a way that’s well beyond a joke thing, you know? I’m truly down with it.

You’ve done a Bob Parr illustration, I know. Have you done other ones besides that?

Yeah, or I paid for a commission of it.

who can i commission some tastefully hot mr incredible art from . mr bob parr

— ● Will Wiesenfeld ● (@BATHSmusic) May 15, 2018

I commissioned this other character from this series called “Legend of Korra,” which is also an American cartoon. His name is Bolin, and I’m super, super into him. I’ve paid for commissions of him in the past. I actually have one that’s pending right now that somebody is doing [laughs].

Twitter/Tumblr: yoPeppy

Here’s the illustration Will got commissioned for himself.

With Bob Parr, what is it about him that attracts you to him?

It’s a huge mix of things. Physically, he’s exactly my type. Big 40-, 50-something-year-old dudes who are muscular but kind of friendly and approachable ― that’s my shit. So that, combined with all the stuff in “The Incredibles” ― him being a good dad, meaning that it translates to him being a responsible person and, I don’t know, safe? Those things, they’re great. And they are a huge turn-on. And he’s straight, obviously, but you can find comics and illustrations and fan art that people have done that skew it into a fun gay thing, and there’s plenty of it with Mr. Incredible.

I think people would probably think of an attraction to a cartoon character as mostly a physical thing. It’s interesting that what he’s like as a father figure and person wraps up into it.

I think that’s a thing with a lot of the characters that I’m really into. Bolin also is the same way. He’s much younger, but he’s carefree and positive and all that stuff. I don’t have a thing for villains usually, sometimes I do, but it’s usually a physical thing. But I’ll obsess over a character if they’re almost role model-y. I’m realizing it now in my brain that a lot of my favorite characters are the role model of the series that they’re a part of, or the most rounded and the most mature. ’Cause I think that it’s this weird motivator for myself to try and see myself in that.

“@DisneyPixar: Home sweet, crazy home. pic.twitter.com/LHOOqUXDCo”

Bob Parr could get it god damn 😎😎😎

— ● Will Wiesenfeld ● (@BATHSmusic) February 27, 2015

What do you mean? You want to become that kind of person as you age, or you hope to be that kind of person right now?

Yeah, exactly, something like that. Just inspiration to live honestly, the way that I’m doing, and stay positive. And a big part of it is keeping in shape, ’cause all of these stupid cartoons are buff as hell [laughs]. Just looking at it for too long, it sort of works its way into your brain to try and keep doing that.

So you’re saying that by looking at buff dad cartoon characters, you yourself go, “I gotta hit the gym as well” or something?

Absolutely, it’s fair to put it like that.

What are some of the other top characters for you?

Looking around my room, there’s this character Shiro, who’s one of the main characters from the new “Voltron” series on Netflix. He’s literally the dad of the group, and he’s buff and mild-mannered and he’s just super hot. And then there’s this character Daichi, from this show “Haikyuu.” It’s a whole series about volleyball. It’s a sports anime and it’s way, way, way better than it should be. It’s the most exciting, most intense series I’ve watched in forever. He’s the captain of the volleyball team that the show follows. He’s not the lead character, but he’s the one that’s in charge of that team.

A big note: It’s problematic because his character is 17, and in the first season of that show “Legend of Korra,” that character that I mentioned, Bolin, is 16, and I had no idea watching it. I thought he was 24 or 25. When I found out way later on that in the first season he’s 16 years old, I felt so gross.

Then, yeah, later on in the series I think he’s much older. He ages as the show progresses. I’m attracted to Daichi and Bolin because they act older and more mature than their peers on top of the fact that they’re super buff. All these hundreds of artists out there making fan art of them feel the same way.

There exists this whole deep fandom in Japan of every single one of these characters. There’s this thing called doujin, or doujinshi, and it’s like “fan comic,” and it usually translates to being porny most of the time. But there are doujin that are not and are just narratives that people make up.

But they’re fan comics, and there’s a huge market for it, and there’s conventions. The same way you have, I guess, Comic-Con or Anime Expo in the States. There’s huge, huge conventions in Japan where all these different artists sell all this stuff and the market for it is much, much bigger and much more widespread. And so, when I found out about this show “Haikyuu,” I was like, is there any art of this dude that I’m into? And it was insane how much of it there was. There’s so much, and most of it is not actually sexual. It’ll just be a romance novel or a romance movie or something like that. The plot will just be them being attracted to each other and not knowing what to do with it and at times navigating high school and being on a volleyball team at the same time ― that sort of shit. There are comics that are just full plots of that without sex being involved.

Does the character have to be human or can it also be an animal or something like that for you to be attracted to it?

I think I’m cool with anthropomorphic stuff. I’m basically a fan of buffness, so it’s usually, if I see something where the character is buff and they’re also an animal, I’m like, that’s cool. I can get into it or whatever. But I don’t seek it out, and I kind of don’t obsess over it the way that I typically do with human characters. But lately there is ― you know “Zelda”? The new “Zelda” game?

There is a bird-man in that game that is all of these things that I’m talking about with these mentor characters that I get really into. He’s this big, buff bird that helps you on your adventures, and he’s like a good dad and is fair and relaxed, and it hits all the benchmarks for me. And, for whatever reason, they gave him really beautiful eyes in the game. They give them all this eye makeup and intense ― I don’t know how to describe it. You should just Google the word “Kass,” K-A-S-S, in Zelda.

Yeah, and “Zelda,” and you’ll just see this handsome ―

It makes sense, you know what I mean? Me talking about all the other things I just talked about ― it’s like, “Oh, yeah, this makes sense.”

I feel bad for asking you earlier if it’s just a funny thing, when now that I think about it, it’s obviously something more serious.

Don’t even worry about it. I’ve been involved in the hobby of it for so long that I don’t think there’s any question that somebody could pose that could offend me.

What did you think of “Incredibles 2”? I forgot to ask.

I liked it a lot. I think Bob Parr was hotter than ever, and I was very, very down with that. But as an actual movie, I think it suffered from pacing issues.

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odanurr87 · 7 years ago

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My thoughts on... Wonder Woman

I had been looking forward to this movie quite a bit ever since I saw Gal Gadot’s portrayal of the Amazon Warrior in Batman v Superman. DC has had a rocky start with their superhero cinematic universe and I don’t think it’s unfair to say they’re playing catch up with MARVEL. Indeed, that is the reason why their second offering already pitted the Man of Steel against the Dark Knight, drawing upon Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns to create one convoluted, if action-packed, mess of a story. However, despite the movie’s many flaws, I think most people would agree that Wonder Woman’s introduction in Batman v Superman, while unnecessary to a certain extent, helped elevate the film and made people eager for more.

Sadly, I didn’t know a whole lot about her character at the time of BvS, something I rectified in the coming months by reading up on a few of her comics. Based on a recommendation, I started out with Brian Azzarello’s New 52 take on Wonder Woman. It seemed like as good a place as any to start so I dug in. For better or worse, the New 52′s take on Wonder Woman was a bit grim, reminiscent of Zack Snyder’s approach to the DCEU, and centered around an already experienced and weary Wonder Woman rather than retell her classical origin story. It still managed to entertain me and pulled some very interesting twists, focusing more on the strife between the Greek Gods and Diana’s role in that conflict.

My second encounter with Wonder Woman was more due to chance than thorough researching. I do recall searching for a modern retelling of her classical origin story and eventually stumbled upon a digital series called The Legend of Wonder Woman by Renae De Liz. Everything about the series spoke to me, from the vibrant and colorful artwork to the story about Diana’s younger days living in Themyscira, how she came across an American WWII pilot named Steve Trevor, and how that encounter set her on the path to becoming Wonder Woman. I loved everything about this story and I direct you to my Goodreads review for a more detailed breakdown.

Like all Golden Age heroes, Wonder Woman has gone through multiple evolutions.

So enthused was I by Wonder Woman’s story that I decided to go further back in time, all the way back to the 1940s, when William Moulton Marston first introduced the character to the world. I had only just finished reading the excellent compilation The Flash: A Celebration of 75 Years, so I decided to do the same for Wonder Woman. Unfortunately, I was less than thrilled by what I found. Wonder Woman’s earlier stories alternated between the dumb and the ridiculous, and the depiction of characters like Steve Trevor, Etta Candy, and Wonder Woman herself, left a lot to be desired of. Steve Trevor was an idiot, Etta Candy reminded me of the fat kid archetype of the 90s, and Diana had a rather bland personality. Of course, I’m looking at these stories from a different perspective than that at the time they were written. Indeed, Wonder Woman comics sold pretty well into the 50s and 60s, but as readership declined it was decided that a makeover was overdue. As a result, the early 70s saw Diana lose her powers and costume, instead becoming a private investigator and a fashion store owner who fought evil doers with kung fu. It wasn’t long however, before she was reinstated into the Justice League in her role as Wonder Woman. After Crisis on Infinite Earths reshaped DC’s continuity in 1985, George Pérez rebooted the character, reinforcing her link to the Greek Gods.

And this is where I’ll stop with the comics seeing as I still have to read George Pérez’s complete run of Wonder Woman. Instead, let me last draw your attention to the 2009 animated Wonder Woman movie, directed by Lauren Montgomery (who you might know from her work in The Legend of Korra and Voltron: Legendary Defender), and starring Keri Russell as Wonder Woman and Nathan Fillion as Steve Trevor. It has been said that for all that DC has gotten wrong with the Cinematic Universe, they’ve done a pretty neat job with their Animated Universe, and the 2009 movie is a perfect example of this. While not without flaws, Wonder Woman returns to the origin story but set in modern times, and has our titular heroine fighting against none other than Ares, God of War, in an impressive showdown that pits the Amazons against Ares’ minions. Nathan Fillion as Steve Trevor plays the part of the charming rogue who introduces Diana to Man’s world while Keri Russell’s Wonder Woman is a stoic character, initially distrustful of men and their evil ways.

This Wonder Woman is not afraid to throw a punch... or several.

With a variety of interpretations throughout its 75-year history, DC had its work cut out for them to deliver a strong origin story for one of comics’ most powerful female superheroes. To further add to the pressure, it would be Wonder Woman’s first time on the big screen (Lynda Carter previously played her on TV from 1975 to 1979), not to mention it would be the first female-led superhero movie in the DCEU, finally breaching new ground that MARVEL has yet to tread with their own cinematic franchise.

Perchance to distance itself from MARVEL’s Captain America, Wonder Woman takes place during World War I and successfully combines elements from previous stories to tell a compelling origin story for the Amazon Princess. The movie’s first act draws, to my mind, heavily from Renae De Liz’s The Legend of Wonder Woman as we explore Diana’s younger days on Themyscira as a troublesome rascal who yearns to become a powerful warrior like the rest of the Amazons. The movie spends a deserved half hour to forty minutes fleshing out this colorful world and weaving it into Greek mythology, giving us a small glimpse into the creation of the Amazons and Hippolyta’s and Antiope’s warrior days. This scene was so well-executed that I wouldn’t mind a prequel story, with Connie Nielsen and Robin Wright naturally reprising their roles as Hippolyta and Antiope respectively. Their performances were always on point; Hippolyta tried to protect Diana by sheltering her while her sister, Antiope, did likewise by teaching her to defend herself. A small departure from The Legend of Wonder Woman where it is Philippus, not Antiope, who trains Diana, but a welcome one nonetheless. Props also to Lilly Aspell who played the part of young Diana wonderfully (pun not intended).

Hippolyta and Antiope are strong role models for Diana.

Eventually, of course, Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor makes his fateful appearance what puts the Amazons in a bit of a bind. This scene develops along the same lines as the 2009 animated movie, and the Amazons use the lasso of truth on him to compel him to talk, forcing him to reveal his nature as a spy and enlightening the Amazons on the fact that a “war to end all wars” has submerged the world in chaos. Without spoiling much (there’ll be time for that later), Diana assumes this world war is the doing of Ares, God of War, and resolves to accompany Steve to the front lines to kill Ares and put an end to the war. One of the strengths, and at the same time weaknesses, of Wonder Woman is precisely how it toys with the notion that maybe humans don’t need a God of War to goad them into battle, and that their world, and nature, is perhaps more complex than Diana is willing to admit. Understandably, Diana is initially very naive and sees the world through a child’s eyes, firmly believing that man is, at its core, kind-hearted, and that only through the corruption of someone like Ares they could turn so cruel and wage such ruthless war on each other.

Throughout the film Diana struggles to understand this new world she has stepped into, and is eased into it largely through the character of Steve Trevor, and to a smaller degree through his Captain America-like squad and his secretary, Etta Candy. These supporting characters are obviously overshadowed by the leads Diana and Steve, much like Captain America overshadowed his team, but I felt they were serviceable. From time to time these characters interact with Diana, improving her understanding of man’s world in organic, natural, ways, never overdone to the point their conversations rang false. In fact, and unlike Suicide Squad where exposition is shot to the viewer left and right, Wonder Woman takes a more subtle approach and often leaves it up to the viewer’s imagination to piece together what personal wars the characters may be fighting through.

Hats off to a great performance by Chris Pine and Gal Gadot.

As good as the supporting cast might be though, they don’t hold a candle to Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman and Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor. Their story and relationship is at the heart and soul of the film and their starting points couldn’t be more opposite. Like I said before, Diana sees everything through a child’s eyes and feels compelled to help whenever she sees pain and suffering. Steve however, hardened by the reality of war, understands that you cannot save everyone and often butts heads with Diana over this. This eventually leads to the epic No Man’s Land scene that is making the rounds, where Diana comes into her own as Wonder Woman, proving to Steve that sometimes the impossible can be made possible. Fun fact, this scene almost didn’t make the cut as Warner Bros. and some of the film’s creative team members couldn’t understand its significance. It wasn’t until Director Patty Jenkins storyboarded the sequence herself that she was able to sell it.

Having mentioned No Man’s Land, I would be remiss if I didn’t bring up the soundtrack of the movie. Rupert Gregson-Williams composes a wonderful soundtrack truly deserving of the word “epic” and well-worth listening to on its own. This isn’t often the case with movies, featuring perhaps a single great theme to the detriment of the rest of the soundtrack. I now get goosebumps re-listening to the “No Man’s Land” track, knowing exactly what transpires, and I can’t help but be amazed by how perfectly the music fits the scene. Music has the incredible power to speak to our heart, appeal to our feelings and emotions, and thus elevate a movie beyond what we can see and hear, and that is precisely what Rupert Gregson-Williams does with Wonder Woman’s soundtrack. The music is so good that I’d be hard-pressed to pick favourites, even though certain tracks resonate more with me because of how and when they’re used in the film. A few of these include, “Pain, Loss and Love,” “No Man’s Land,” “We Are All to Blame,” and “Lightning Strikes.” If you have some time to spare, I encourage you to listen to the soundtrack and, to that effect, I leave you with “No Man’s Land.”

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Returning to our leads, for all his hardened exterior, Chris Pine’s character ultimately represents the best aspects of humanity, something Diana holds onto throughout the movie, even in her darkest moments when she wonders whether humanity is really worth saving after seeing so much death, misery, and suffering. Their characters don’t always see eye to eye, but they respect each other and their strengths, bringing out the best in one another. Both actors embraced their characters so fully that their interactions were always a pleasure to watch, regardless of the subject matter. Fortunately, the dialogue was always up to par and it never overstayed its welcome. For a film with such incredible action sequences, I must admit some of Wonder Woman’s best moments are the calmer, more subdued, ones.

About the action, both slow motion and CGI are indeed noticeable during certain action sequences, particularly towards the end as Diana unleashes the full extent of her powers, but I didn’t mind because they were so well choreographed, living up to Wonder Woman’s reputation. Seeing her expertly wield the lasso of truth in battle, as if she had been born with it, was far more rewarding than her sequences with the blade.

Another potential pitfall for the movie could have been how it switches aesthetics, turning to a darker, more somber, color palette when the movie transitions to man’s world. Personally, this is the one instance where such a transition is not only justified but also makes sense, marking a stark contrast between paradisaical Themyscira and the gloom of a world at war. Indeed, with Wonder Woman victorious at the end of the film, color returns, if only for a brief moment.

Sadly, villains don’t break the mold in Wonder Woman.

As far as the villains go, I feel that they at least fared better than previous DC movies, although that is not saying much. General Ludendorff and Dr. Poison are not particularly fleshed out characters but, in view of the larger plot, perhaps they needn’t be. Certainly, we get to hear Ludendorff’s rationalization on why he’s eager to prolong the war but Dr. Poison isn’t afforded the same luxury, comfortably settling in her role as henchwoman. At the very least there is one perversely funny scene that adds to the insane personality of their characters, even if it did follow a rather trite and predictable one.

Ultimately, I have little doubt that Wonder Woman is DC’s best movie to date and then some. While it does echo Captain America at times, Wonder Woman’s story is less about fighting the evil Germans, and more about recognizing the darkness within oneself as well as the light. It is the story of Diana coming to terms with the world around her and making that fateful choice between rising up to defend it, or leaving it to consume itself into oblivion. The execution is not flawless, something I’ll address in the spoilers section, and opens the door to a couple of interesting questions, but it is nonetheless a delightful ride throughout that takes the best elements of Wonder Woman’s mythology and combines them into a tale worthy of the Amazon Princess.

SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT

When Steve Trevor reaches Themyscira and warns the Amazons about a World War, Diana immediately makes the connection that Ares must be the one behind it. According to the movie’s mythology, Ares is that last remaining Greek God, following an ancient battle where he killed his brethren. However, in his last battle with Zeus, he was gravely wounded and forced to retreat. Knowing Ares would eventually return, Zeus purportedly entrusted the Amazons with an incredibly powerful weapon known as the God Killer, the blade shown in the trailers that Wonder Woman eventually wields. Naturally, by that point, and given how worked up her mother and aunt both were about Diana’s destiny, I had already figured out that the real God Killer was Diana herself. Why? Because she was not made out of clay as her mother had told her, but was instead the result of a union between Zeus and Hippolyta, following Azzarello’s New 52 take on Diana’s origin story. As such, Diana can wield the power of a God as she proves during her final showdown with Ares. It is a good twist, even if it lacked punch in the movie.

It is during the third act of the movie that this is revealed, and it is also during the third act that some of the more obvious weaknesses of the film start to show. Throughout the movie, Diana was convinced that if she killed Ares, who she then thought to be General Ludendorff, the war would stop, and the darkness in men’s hearts would be suddenly lifted. She’s so passionate over this, nearing the point of obession, that she bolts on Trevor and his comrades to single-handedly pursue and kill Ludendorff. She eventually does... and nothing changes. The wheels of war continue to spin, puzzling our hero and making her wonder whether Steve may have been right all along and that war cannot be stopped by the death of any one man, however powerful. This would have been an interesting crossroads for our heroine, with the God Killer being nothing more than a red herring. So overwhelmed is Diana by the notion that men might have darkness within themselves, that not even Steve’s impassionate speech and plea about overcoming that darkness and doing the right thing is able to move her. At this point, Diana has practically given up on mankind but Steve, being the good guy that he is, is determined to see this through to the end, even if it leads to his death.

In retrospect, this setup would’ve made for a very compeling third act. Imagine, if you will, Steve and his squadmates pinned down by the German forces, overwhelmed and close to being overrun. In fact, we could remain relatively faithful to the movie, and have Steve boarding the plane to blow it up while his squadmates make a desperate last stand to buy him time. It is then that Diana realizes that even amidst all this darkness, Steve and his men are still willing to lay down their lives to give this world a chance. Despite their many failings, they are being selfless, prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice. How can that fail to stir the Amazon’s heart and have her come to their aid? She would honor Steve’s sacrifice, save his men, and do her utmost to bring the light to this world. Perhaps the war won’t stop right then and there, but Wonder Woman would keep fighting for us all. Pretty neat, huh?

For better or worse, shortly after Ludendorff’s death, the movie does introduce the real Ares as the architect of the world war. To my mind, this was a mistake as, instead of having Diana struggle with the realization that war isn’t the doing of a single man, she falls back on her original mission to kill Ares. War was, after all, the doing of a single man, she just got the man wrong. At this point, the movie tries to suggest that, while Ares may have indeed nudged mankind to the point of war by providing new recipes of destruction, it is ultimately up to mankind to decide whether to use them or not. Ares can’t choose for mankind, and what they have chosen makes them unworthy of being saved by the Gods. It would have been an interesting point to consider, certainly, but two things happen that undermine this.

The first is Ares suggesting that there’s not a single shred of goodness in humanity and outright mocking Steve Trevor as an example of this. This is patently false as Trevor represents the best of humanity and Ares should probably know this. A better approach would have been to suggest that even when a bright light like Trevor rises up to fight back it is quickly snuffed out by the darkness that surrounds him. That would have been a more powerful argument to sway Diana to his side but, alas, Ares chooses to be a dick about it and pays the price.

This is what you get for being a dick.

The second event to undermine Ares’ argument is the ending itself. Once Diana defeats Ares, we see the German troops take off their masks and breathe a sigh of relief. They look happy, and no longer see Trevor’s squad as their enemies. To further add to this, the film immediately cuts to the victory celebration at Trafalgar Square. All of this reinforces the notion that, yes, Ares was indeed the single architect behind the world war, and once the world was free from his presence, the darkness inside all men was instantly lifted. This completely undermines the film’s message that we all have darkness and light within us but that it is our choices that define which side comes out on top. Diana herself acknowledges, right at the very end of the film, this duality present in mankind and suggests that it is love what will ultimately save the world, just like her love of Steve Trevor gave her the strength she needed to overcome and defeat Ares.

I give the movie props for at least trying to tackle this subject, but the third act clearly fumbles and muddles the message. It wrestles with the superhero movie legacy of facing and defeating the big villain at the end while trying to suggest there is no such big villain.

Another, smaller, issue I have with the third act concerns the scene where Steve says goodbye to Diana. Steve has already made up his mind about taking the plane to the skies and blowing it up but he manages to catch up with Diana for a last farewell. However, Diana was deafened by a recent explosion and doesn’t understand what Steve is saying. Steve eventually departs but leaves something with her, his father’s watch, something Diana knows he would never go anywhere without what can only mean one thing. This scene is a perfect example of how much you can say in a scene without uttering a single word of dialogue and I absolutely loved it. Which is why I didn’t like it one bit when the scene is revisited moments later in a flashback where we get to hear what both characters said. This was utterly unnecessary and somewhat undermines the impact of the earlier, silent, scene. There is no need to hear their words; Steve’s final act of leaving his father’s watch with her is all Diana needs to understand he’s saying farewell. This is the one time when the movie can’t help itself, needlessly re-writing an otherwise pefect scene.

The ending of the movie also raises several questions about Wonder Woman’s role after World War I. If she was so determined to defend mankind after the events of the Great War, where was she during World War II (a war that arguable did have a chief architect), Korea, or Vietnam? I would have to assume she didn’t take part in those wars or Lex would have found far more evidence than a single, obscure, picture taken in 1918. In fact, had she being more active in her role as Wonder Woman after the 1920s, odds are the world would have already known about her by the time Superman made his debut (further justifying the choice of World War I as the setting for Diana’s origin story). Where was she then? What was she doing? Why did she give up fighting until Batman v Superman? These are questions one cannot help asking but Wonder Woman provides no answers. Hopefully, Bruce will get to ask her these questions in Justice League but I’m not holding my breath.

At the end of the day, despite a weaker third act than the two preceding it, Wonder Woman is one of the best superhero movies to be found in both MARVEL and DC to date. Ironically, Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman perfectly embodies the strength, hope, and innocent, kind-hearted, nature of Christopher Reeve’s Superman, far better than Henry Cavill’s Man of Steel. Director Patty Jenkins has done a truly remarkable job delivering the first great female-led superhero movie and bringing DC back from the brink in the process. DC’s future looks a little brighter now, and they have the Amazon Princess to thank for that.

#wonder woman #diana prince #gal gadot #chris pine #dc comics #dceu #steve trevor #movies

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wakabahiguchi · 8 years ago

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Continuing my Misfits freakout after having seen the best episode of the series Season 3 Episode 3, I just had some thoughts about television in general, mainly nostalgic feels and other nonsense about my emotional and obsessive love for tv

Cue nonsense below:

So the year I really got obsessed invested in television was around 2010/2011 when I was just turned 13 and being a weird antisocial kid in middle school. For some reason, watching Misfits this past month and experiencing All The Emotions™ really brought me back to when I first started loving television and that 2009-2013 era of television that I loved so much.

My first real show was Glee, which I started during the season 2B in 2010. At the time I was also watching Bones in 2010 (all out of order) and also started watching Pretty Little Liars in 2010. I really spiraled out of control when I started watching Elementary in 2011 (yup I started from THE BEGINNING), Modern Family in 2012, The Good Wife in 2012, Hawaii Five-O in 2012, Lost in the summer of 2012, Battlestar Galactica in 2013 (and probably some other show I’m forgetting?). Oh and let’s not forget all the Disney Channel shows I still watched lol. Don’t believe me? Go through my old posts. Actually please don’t.

But it still makes me feel nostalgic when I remember watching a lot of these shows during middle school/beginning of high school. It still boggles my mind that at that age, I was able to understand complex shows TGW elementary Lost BSG etc. Or maybe I didn’t understand them. But I sure went through The Emotions. It was probably because at that age, I was still “finding myself” or at that age where I was really anti-social and started thinking of Bigger Things in life or something. And so many of those shows (Elementary, BSG, and LOST in particular) were so character driven that I was immediately captivated by the stories they told. And BSG and LOST really drew me into the sci-fi/mythology genre that I’ve come to love so much in the shows I’m watching now like Westworld and Misfits. My particular love for BSG/LOST comes from that aspect of character driven storylines with elements of mystery and humanity I guess? It was the first time I was exposed to entertainment and storytelling that made me rethink the way humans and society worked, and I know that’s Going Deep but it’s really true. In addition, shows like The Good Wife (back in it’s better days) and Elementary really made me smarter in a way, because it pointed out things that I wouldn’t have noticed, and there are so many subtleties and nuances that made for thrilling television (Like the iconic Hitting the Fan?! The Season 1 finale of Elementary, which to this day I still remember as the BEST season finale of any show?)

This isn’t to knock on any of the shows I watch now. I still remember those iconic 7 days where I binged all 6 seasons of Scandal, completely enthralled with the political twists and turns. I still remember those first 9 episodes of HTGAWM (still my favorite episodes) where I was literally writing recaps on this blog and thinking about who killed Sam?!?! I remember falling in utter complete love for a character on Daredevil, Elektra, who I related to more than I even knew I could connect to a character. Being able to appreciate the nuances in her characterization and trying to fight a storyline pre-written for her, and fighting her inner demons and darkness all while putting on a front to appear confident and collected. I remember falling in love with Raven Reyes, a character who goes through too much shit on a trashy show but consistently fights for every breath she takes. I remember being shook by a cartoon show, Avatar the last airbender and legend of korra, and the fact that I literally loved every single character for being complex and wonderful to watch. I remember discovering The Flash and the iconic Iris West develop agency and become 1/2 in the most ICONIC ship to exist. FINALLY having an Asian American family to watch in Fresh off the Boat, and discovering the incredibly talented and outspoken Constance Wu. Exploring my love for sci-fi with the ever thought-provoking Black Mirror (before it got popular, mind you!) Delving into the world of Marvel with Luke Cage and the world of ancient mongolia with Marco Polo. And that’s not even half the shows I watched, or still watch today! Honestly, if anything, my love for television hit it’s peak once I entered high school and started discovering a plethora of wonderful stories to be invested into.

But at the core, (and evident by the previous paragraph), what really affected me the most in television were the characters and their stories. I was reflecting on how I don’t really ‘ship’ characters as much as I thought, because I mainly loved the character first, and then any relationship they had with others second (WA is the only exception at the moment I think). And that’s why my television phase in 2009-2013 means so much. Because those shows, and LOST/BSG in particular exposed me to what beautiful storytelling could be. And it made me feel The Feels towards characters and storylines for the first time. I still remember how I felt after LOST 1x06, when Jin is waiting the airport line before showing Sun the white flower. I was hit with The Emotions. And it only got worse as the show went on. BSG was the same, with the concept of humanity, survival, and cylons. (I’m kicking myself for writing such a passionate piece on BSG because I still haven’t finished the last season. But that’s another problem for another day).

So bringing this back to focus, what does this have to do with Misfits? Well, as stated earlier, Misfits was a show airing from 2009, so it fits within the timeline of my early phase of television, and to be honest, it feels like it too. Of course I felt The Emotions while watching shows 2013+, but for some reason, after finishing THE episode of Misfits (S3E3), I was hit with The Feels that I didn’t remember feeling since my early phase of television. And I’m not sure why? It’s a wacky, weird, dark, cheeky, extremely british sci-fi show that’s not necessarily as character driven as Lost, not nearly as mythological as BSG, much shorter than both shows, but for some reason it’s still making me feel The Emotions. The ending scene itself just destroyed me. It made me feel nostalgic. It reminded me of my summers binge-watching LOST and BSG, where I was constantly entertained by ideas that seemed larger than myself. And Misfits doesn’t necessarily ask those hard-hitting life questions like lost and bsg might, but it provided such a relatable feeling to it? Similar to how I could relate to the storytelling and characters in lost/bsg, I connected to the characters in misfits in some strange way. It’s hard to sell misfits in my opinion, because you never really get what it’s about until you actually start watching. To me, I connected with how each of the characters didn’t really fit in? They are all odd, realistically dealing with whatever goes their way. It’s not glorifying or heroic. In fact, it’s ridiculously messy. Sometimes it’s just one big wtf.

So I’m still trying to figure out why S3E3 hit me so hard. Maybe it’s because it was a huge combination of an overarching sci-fi plot (Superhoodie and the time traveling loophole), an emotional core (Salisha? <3), suspense and thrill in the plot (graphic designer guy who isn’t really a villain but just wants to be something MORE, at the end realizes what he wants to do), the combination of superhero and graphic novel/comic storylines that I’m also becoming more invested in, the emotional FEELINGS upon seeing the final drawings graphic designer guy pinned to the wall documenting the final events of Simon, ensuring that he keeps the superhoodie, ensuring that it all works out and realizing how he could help the narrative rather than hurting it. The sheer humanity of the episode (which sounds ridiculous if you’ve seen any of the other episodes) if probably what got to me. Similar to how San Junipero (and to a lesser extent Nosedive) hit with me for Black Mirror. This show has given me zany, weird, strange, etc. but it’s never given me pure emotion and genuine humanity before. Sometimes it’s so narcissistically cynical that you come across an episode like S3E3 that just punches you in the gut because you didn’t expect a show about telekinetic milk powers, the origins of harambe, or a self-proclaimed jesus to hit you all of a sudden with genuine hope and love (similar to how San junipero was so incredible compared to the lineup of gloomy Black Mirror episodes). Additionally, what made me love LOST/BSG was the incredible score and soundtracks that accompanied each emotional moment in the show, and Misfit’s soundtrack game was STRONG with S3E3, and I’m really starting to love the score so much that I’ll probably download it too. Not all episodes have sweeping orchestral themes, but this one did, and it definitely made me feel more feels. It’s not often that a television show relies on scores rather than soundtracks, so maybe that’s another reason why Misfits gave me nostalgic and emotional feels.

So after the episode ended, of course I was an emotional mess. But it was the kind of emotional mess I didn’t remember being in since watching LOST, BSG, S1 Elementary, or those older shows I watched when I was transitioning from middle school to high school, still trying to find my voice or who I wanted to be. I’m still puzzled to exactly why, but I enjoyed thinking back to the shows that really brought me into the world of television and how I still need to finish bsg. It makes me so thankful for these shows that I grew up with and are growing up with now, because those stories really helped to shape me into the person I am now. It’s probably why I’m so selective with tv shows now, because I’ve seen so many great things and have felt The Feels from so many impactful shows that at this point, I have standards lol. (one of them being well written WOC but that’s besides the point).

Anyways, I told myself I’d stop watching misfits after S3 since that’s when all the originals leave (and truly, I loved all the original ASBO 5 characters, and Rudy is kind of growing on me even though I find him kind of pointless and annoying most of the time), but if the show continues thrilling me and producing quality episodes like this one, I might give S4 and S5 a chance. Hell, I’ll probably still watch it because one of the new characters is kind of cute. But basically the whole point of this post was to express all my nostalgia and how my television habits have evolved over the years. And it took the best episode of Misfits to trigger these feelings. But it’s crazy to see how far I’ve come in my television. To see how some shows have fallen off my radar after previously loving them (TGW, Bones) and how some shows are STILL going strong (Elementary!!!). And of course all these new shows I now have to deal with. But Misfits really gave me the ultimate TBT, and the whole vibe really reminds me of the shows I cherished back in 2009-2013. It was a good feeling, and it was nice to go back and document what really made start investing in television and how I’ve evolved in that sense.

Beyond that, I’ll look forward to all my shows I’m watching now, and of course, the rest of Misfits (which sadly will never upstage the glorious S3E3).

#wow this turned into some kind of word vomit documenting my entire television watching history #why did i even write this #apparently i have lots of thoughts today #my thoughts #tv show #misfits #personal

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recentanimenews · 8 years ago

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FEATURE: Crunchyroll Favorites 2016, Part Three: Everything Else!

Superhero friendships ended, the Death Star plans were stolen, we experienced more reboots than you could possibly imagine (although really, that's every year), and Emily cooked a lot of food. After looking at our favorite anime and manga in Part One, and our favorite games in Part Two, we're gonna close up Crunchyroll Favorites 2016 with our favorite EVERYTHING ELSE--movies, books, comics, and more! Let's get started!

NATE MING (@NateMing)

Voltron: Legendary Defender- I think it's safe to say that Voltron--the US edit of Beast King GoLion--was what got me into anime in the first place, so I was pretty skeptical of this new take on the story by the creators of The Legend of Korra. Thankfully, I had absolutely nothing to worry about, as this is a really fun reboot that not only keeps the high-energy feel of the original, but also pays homage to both Voltron and GoLion. I can't wait for the next season (also, Shiro's totally gonna die).

Ip Man 3- The first Ip Man was a cool quasi-historical beat-em-up with some great setpieces, but the second was only okay despite bringing in the legendary Sammo Hung. We're back to the good stuff with the third go-around--the Donnie Yen vs. Mike Tyson headliner is pretty awesome, but the real star is a rival Wing Chun instructor, played by Max Zhang.

Star Trek Beyond- I've always liked Star Trek more than Star Wars, and while Rogue One was great, the real surprise for me was Star Trek Beyond--co-written by Simon Pegg--going back to the series' optimistic roots and giving every character a chance to shine. Justin Lin already has experience delivering with ensemble actioners, and the Enterprise herself has never looked cooler. Just goes to show you can't always judge a movie by its trailer.

Shin Godzilla- This isn't the alpha predator from the 2014 US reboot--the King of the Monsters and reluctant, almost accidental protector of humanity. Hideaki Anno's Godzilla is a ruthless force of nature, death personified that leaves a trail of destruction and levels the heart of Tokyo in mere moments when pushed. Bureaucracy is the real enemy here, as the film constantly switches from meeting to meeting to planning session and back to another meeting to discuss the results of that planning session--sure, Godzilla's blowing stuff up, but nobody wants to take responsibility and act. I hope Anno gets another shot at the King, because this was fantastic.

The VVitch- Low-key, creeping horror can be very hit or miss, but The VVitch wins by never letting you settle down or feel safe. Spot-on period presentation brings us into an American colonial family banished to the frontier for being too religious for settlement life, and how their fanaticism is just as destructive as the dark forces that are literally at their doorstep.

Baskin- On the other hand, Baskin just goes all-out in its ferocity and surreal visuals, where five overly-macho cops investigate a cult and all hell breaks loose. Baskin is horror purity, almost like watching David Lynch join forces with Gareth Huw Evans--hold on tight, this one is absolutely not for the faint of heart.

Batman vol. 2 (The New 52)- Western comics rarely end, or at least they very rarely have good stopping points, which is why I was so satisfied with Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo's New 52 run on Batman. From introducing new villains to really focusing on Batman's relationships with Alfred and Jim Gordon, this 50-issue run came to a close this year with an awesome, gigantic kaiju battle in the middle of Gotham. What's best, you barely need any background character knowledge to get started--just pick up Court of Owls and read all the way through to Superheavy. It's so damn good.

Monstress- Gorgeous, mysterious, and part of an intricate and sometimes terrifying world, Monstress has me hooked. Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda have crafted something that I try and show off every chance I get, something I want everyone to be a part of--a fantasy-horror story of revenge and intrigue set in an Asian-mythology-inspired world is just too good to pass up, especially when it looks this good.

by 多無

Fanart Friday comes to an end- After five years, I decided to close down my signature Crunchyroll column so I could focus on other projects. Fanart Friday - The Final Edition came on September 23, 2016, the exact fifth birthday of Fanart Friday, and it was great to say goodbye to the audience that was there every Friday for a half a decade. What's coming up next? Shaw City Strikers, a martial arts comic (and homage to shonen manga) I'm working on with some friends, and my new column BETTER NATE THAN NEVER. Stay tuned!

That one tweet- It's nice to see this tweet still making the rounds. The initial explosion was a sight to behold--it just goes to show that 1) being in the right place at the right time is a real thing and 2) you know you've made good content when people brazenly steal it and claim it as their own. Also, 3) you know you did a good thing when it makes actual Nazis mad.

PETER FOBIAN (@PeterFobian)

Crunchyroll x Funimation- My personal favorite anime couple of 2016. The partnership between Crunchyroll and Funimation may just be the biggest news for western anime fans since Crunchyroll itself appeared. It’s one of those “everyone wins” situations that’s almost unbelievable. More free streaming anime, subbed and dubbed, for everyone.

Westworld- I’m a die-hard Anthony Hopkins fan, love westerns, and love love love psychological thrillers with existential implications, so basically Westworld was made specifically for me and me alone. I’m extremely concerned with the direction the story is taking with the finale, but everything this season has been tremendous. Their use of a hybrid maintenance process/psychological evaluation to drive story is inspired.

Monstress- I have a love/hate relationship with American comics, and often take refuge in independent works. Monstress has me more excited about a Western comic than I have been since I started reading Powers. The world, designs, and style alone are so gorgeous I feel like I bought an art book, and the story holds a lot of promise with a supernatural revenge mystery with a predominantly female cast and divine implications.

Netflix Horror Serials: Stranger Things, Penny Dreadful, Hemlock Grove, Black Mirror- I’m not exactly a horror junky, but I’ve definitely spent a lot of time with the genre and couldn’t be happier about Netflix Originals diving in. After years of sitcoms, procedurals, and conspiracy shows dominating the environment it’s great to see some new blood (usually a lot of it) making its way out of cinema and into more available media. Not all of them are revolutionary works of art but they’re bringing in new ideas.

Captain America: Civil War- Like almost everyone, I’m a fan of the Marvel movies and feel like the Avengers movies turned over a new leaf with Civil War. Where previously they were the campier, less-directed collaborations of the more interesting personal narratives of the heroes solo adventures, Civil War was just right, reigning in the theatrics of Age of Ultron with a much tighter, character-driven story. I’m eager to see what the Russo brothers do with the MCU.

KARA DENNISON (@RubyCosmos)

Working in the Crunchyroll Newsroom!- I've worked as a subtitle editor/QCer for Crunchyroll's anime side for a while now, but this year I made the switch to the newsroom and it's some of the most fun I've had in ages. The people I'm working with are awesome (and a couple are old friends) and our chats throughout the day are both informative and hilarious. And hey, I can put on my resume that I've written about Tezuka's mouse porn.

(Re)Generation Who- This was my second year working with this awesome Doctor Who convention, and I was so pleased to be back with them again in Baltimore. I got to meet Peter Davison, Anneke Wills, Michael Troughton, and so many others who made the weekend amazing (not to mention re-meeting Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, and even more). Hanging out with them -- whether during an interview or at the bar -- is a delight and a privilege, and I can't wait to see what year 3 will be like!

SPACE.- Curiosity's 360 view of Mars posted as an interactive Facebook video. Watching the Pegasus XL rocket launch live. And the fact that the rest of the world is enthusiastic about it. I'm a big space geek and I always love finding more big space geeks. The fact that the majority of the people I encounter are just as ready to freak out about how awesome space is as I am is... well, AWESOME.

EVAN MINTO (@VamptVo)

Chapo Trap House- In the US, politics defined 2016, for obvious reasons. And for many like me on the left side of the spectrum, the political comedy podcast Chapo Trap House has served as an unexpected but welcome guide through the past year. But don’t let me get TOO sincere on you; the hosts have got a penchant for the ironic and absurd, as you might expect from a podcast named after a drug cartel that started off with analysis of pundits’ sexual pathologies and satirical praise for the Turkish deep state. Then again, between the brilliant comedy, they’ve inspired a lot of listeners like myself to get more involved in local politics, a feat that’s likely as baffling to them as it is to the political establishment they love to hate.

Zootopia- Who would have thought a talking animal Disney movie would steal the hearts of jaded adults like me in 2016? On charm alone, Zootopia is one of my favorite American animated movies of recent years, with its carefully observed and animated animal behavior. The diverse cast of animals allows the animators to portray a similarly diverse range of exaggerated personalities — the tiny, timid rabbit, the brawny, surly bison—and the breezy script puts them all to brilliant comedic effect. But what really impressed me was Zootopia’s social commentary, which uses a mess of stereotypes of both predators and prey to shine a surprisingly stark light on real-world issues of race relations and criminal justice. It’s classic Disney meets contemporary Disney!

Captain America: Civil War- I’ve got a bad case of Marvel fatigue (you’ll notice Doctor Strange didn’t make my list), but sometimes the Marvel Cinematic Universe still surprises me. Directors Anthony and Joe Russo, back after the previous high point of the film series, The Winter Soldier, deliver a similarly gray portrait of the Avengers, with the character flaws of the famed superheroes laid bare. It’s not as political as I would have liked, but Civil War is a surprisingly personal film with a deliberately unsatisfying, morally ambiguous finale. And yes, though he feels like a bit of an afterthought, the movie also has the greatest on-screen Spider-Man yet. Homecoming couldn’t come any sooner.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story- We’re just one year into the new annual schedule of Star Wars movies, so I can still muster some excitement about Disney’s reimagining of one of my all-time favorite franchises. Rogue One stumbles a bit at the beginning, introducing too many characters and planets without justifying their presence, but once the team comes together and heads off to steal the Death Star plans, the movie really kicks into gear. Seeing a classic Return of the Jedi-style space battle is enough to awaken some strong nostalgia even from me, but it’s the thematic resonance with the later films that really makes it all work — the forgotten art of the force, the Rebels’ desperation in the face of the Empire, and of course, the sheer terror of facing Darth Vader.

SAM WOLFE (@_Samtaro)

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story- Despite the release of The Force Awakens last year, Disney has already released a new Star Wars movie this year, and it’s a breed apart from what we’re traditionally used to. Rogue One took risks, and while some die-hard fans may have left the theater conflicted, the movie succeeded in exploring a side of the Star Wars universe never before seen on the big screen. This is the first time in history that two Star Wars movies have been released theatrically in two years consecutively, and although some fear that the brand might suffer from overexposure, it certainly hasn’t gotten stale yet.

Chris Niosi- A smaller story, but one that deserves recognition. Artist Chris Niosi, better known as “Kirbopher”, landed the role of Arataka Reigen in the English dub of Mob Psycho 100 this year. Niosi is known for numerous projects, including animation work on Skullgirls, lending his voice to several shows, and creating the web series TOME, a love letter to anime. This role, in my opinion, is significant because it cements Chris as an anime fan who made his dream of being an anime voice actor. Way to go, Chris.

A Personal Note- Look, 2016 was a rough year for a lot of people for a lot of reasons. Without trying to sound too preachy, as we move into 2017, remember to be kind to one another. It’s very easy, and dare I say it, trendy, to be cynical and apathetic when the chips are down. Take time to recognize what you have to be happy about, and how you can make a positive difference in peoples’ lives around you. If anime has taught us anything, it’s that when somebody knocks you down, you stand right back up and look ‘em in the eyes. I hope everybody has a good 2017!

NICK CREAMER (@B0bduh)

Italy- I took a family trip to Italy this past spring, and visions of Venice’s nestled alleyways and Tuscany’s rolling hills have been dancing through my head ever since. The rural European aesthetic of shows like Kino’s Journey and Haibane Renmei has always been one of my favorite settings, and actually walking through cities that realized those majestic worlds felt like wandering through a dream. It was an inspiring trip, and I hope to one day return.

Westworld- I haven’t really been making enough time for the big western TV dramas, but I was able to catch this year’s Westworld, and I’m glad I did. Though I found the show’s focus on mysteries at the expense of all else a little draining, the fundamental world it established was a fascinating place, and the show built up to some remarkable dramatic high points. It’s the kind of messy but ambitious narrative I always tend to root for, and the fact that it was populated by icons like Anthony Hopkins and Ed Harris certainly didn’t hurt, either.

The VVitch- I’d actually almost forgotten The VVitch came out this year, but it was likely the most gripping new film I’ve seen. In lieu of jump scares or gross-out violence, The VVitch constructed a breathing world that promised danger around every turn, where the fear and distrust of its human characters was every bit as terrifying as its supernatural predators. There’s something fundamentally ominous about the New England countryside - a sense of old secrets and old grudges, a place where humans are not meant to tread. By emphasizing the alien danger of the natural world and tethering it to a precise and claustrophobic moment in history, The VVitch stands as one of the most powerful horror films in years.

EMILY BUSHMAN (@yumpenguinsnack)

Personal Favorite Anime Food of 2016: Mushroom and Cheese Gyoza from Food Wars- This dish never made an anime appearance in this season of Food Wars! but, having read the manga, I really wanted to try this dish out. Soma teaches the gyoza folding method to a class of kids he's teaching, and he lets them fill the gyoza with whatever they want. One kid picked mushrooms and cheese, which at first seemed weird but in hindsight obviously worked out well. Chop the cheese and mushrooms finely and toss with some sauteed onion. Mix with salt and pepper. And simply wrap in gyoza wrappers. It's simple, it's fun to make with friends or on your own, and holy cow, is it amazing! Best of all, the ingredients are easily interchangeable with your own personal favorites, so it's a great recipe to experiment with. I told my housemates that they could eat all the extras I'd made...and sadly had nothing to show after an hour in the kitchen. I'd eaten them all.

Fan-favorite Anime Food of 2016: Katsu Pirohzki from Yuri!! On ICE- This was a big surprise for me. First of all, it's not the easiest thing to make at all. It requires a lot of focus, lots of parts working together, and an ability to handle sticky dough, in excess. Second, it wasn't actually all that amazing tasting. It's an extremely hearty dish, like a lot of Russian foods, and left me feeling over-full after eating one. I also found that I had to dip it in a sauce to heighten the flavor pay-off. For a recipe designer, the ideal is to have a perfectly seasoned, delicious dish, which isn't exactly what happened. But the story behind the dish makes it all worth it, in my opinion. Who would have guessed that this show would be so popular? I love the character dynamics, and the plot was just charming. Best of all, it inspired lots of people to try making this dish, to recreate the magic for themselves. I got more hits on this recipe than anything else this year on Crunchyroll, which is why I designated it the fan-favorite dish of the year.

Magical Roommate Favorite Anime Food of 2016: Sukiyaki from Princess Jellyfish- My roommate, Sarah, is my savior in times of crisis. When I have too much food, she always helps me eat it without a single complaint. So, I felt it was only right to give her a chance to choose her favorite recipe of the year. Princess Jellyfish is by no means a 2016 original, but I came across the recipe for this dish late 2016, and made it for my friends. We all love this show, and had all watched it together when it aired a few years ago. So, I had a hunch they'd enjoy a recipe from the anime, and I was right. It was an instant hit! My darling roommate, who I depend on to eat basically everything I make, elected this as her favorite dish of the year. According to her: "I like it cuz it was just as good as the one we had in Japan and I liked how interactive it was with not only the food but with our friends. I loved the veggies just as much as the meat and the sauce was to die for. It was super fun to eat with everyone and compete for the food with our friends."

A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab- A brilliant sequel to a fantastic first book. The story focuses on a guy named Kell, one of the few remaining members of his kind of magic wielders, and his struggle to protect his adopted family from harm while also living free of their over-bearing protection. Along the way he makes friends with a cut throat thief who keeps him alive, mostly to suit her own desires, a prince who's too good at heart for his own good, and a dashingly dangerous ship's captain who's in the business for the keeping and collection of the deepest and darkest of secrets. I was startled to find that this book not only added onto the world building of the first novel, but did so in a way that skillfully integrated the events of the first book into the second. A heart-wrenching and gut-clasping read the entire way through. The first book in the series is called A Darker Shade of Magic. Not 100% necessary to enjoy the sequel, but it would definitely help.

Morning Star by Pierce Brown- A great cap to a fantastic space opera-y series. This story follows the life of one man, Darrow, and his quest to overthrow a government that takes care of the best of society at the expense of a those considered the lowest. Racism at its worst. What else is new in a sci-fi novel? It's a familiar plot carried out with the elegance and grace of a particularly dangerous chess game. This book takes no prisoners, cuts your throat, and leaves you to die. And while you're busy trying to return from the dead, it carries on carving a savage path of friends loved and lost, lives risked and gambled away, dirty, secret games played in the dark, and an ending that eviscerates you, heart and soul. The first in the series is called Red Rising. I recommend you start there, unless you like working your way backwards.

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And that's a wrap for our three-part series! Be sure to check out Part One and Part Two if you missed them! If you're still in the mood for past CR Favorites, check out the previous years' features here:

Crunchyroll Favorites 2015 Part One Part Two Part Three

Crunchyroll Favorites 2014 Part One Part Two Part Three

Crunchyroll Favorites 2013 Part One Part Two Part Three

Crunchyroll Favorites 2012 Part One Part Two Part Three

Crunchyroll News' Best of 2011 Part One Part Two

What were your favorite "everything elses" of 2016? Remember, this is a FAVORITES list, not a BEST OF list, so there's no wrong answers--sound off in the comments and share your favorites with us!

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Nate Ming is the Features and Reviews Editor for Crunchyroll News, creator of the long-running Fanart Friday column, and the Customer Support Lead for Crunchyroll. You can follow him on Twitter at @NateMing.

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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