#or he has what everyone thinks kyle ron has

[izloveshorses]

i'm gonna say it. qimir has what kyle ron wants

[barcodeboyz]

My top 10 favorite South Park episodes, no one asked but here we go

10. With Apologies to Jesse Jackson

This is a controversial episode to put here because of how offensive it is, and truthfully, I didn't care too much for the A plot. But the B-plot makes up for it. Watching Cartman and a Midget fight to Get Down with the Sickness is so hilariously absurd.

9. You're Getting Old/Ass Burgers

This is the second/third episode I remember watching before I got into the show. I included them both in one spot because Ass Burgers is a continuation of You're Getting Old, but each have their own separate charm. I definitely shed a tear when Stan moved out to Fleetwood Mac's Landslide and split my sides laughing as Kyle yelled at Cartman for sticking the burgers up his ass. I also heavily relate to Stan's meltdown in class in Ass Burgers, because that's real emotion. An amazing storyline overall.

8. Make Love, Not Warcraft

I mentioned that the previous two episodes were some of my first episodes, but not THE first episode. That title goes to this episode. When I was born, my brother was 15, and as I grew up, I often watched him play World of Warcraft. So this episode is very nostalgic to me, not just because him and I watched it but because as someone who plays WOW nowadays (very inconsistently), it's so nostalgic to see how much has changed.

7. The Losing Edge

This is just a classic episode. The boys don't want to participate in baseball and try to get out of it by losing, but the other teams have the same idea. I think we all know who the real star of the episode is: Randy. I thought this was America!

6. Trapped in the Closet

Subtlety is completely ignored in this episode. As Stan is praised as the reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard, his comments about Tom Cruise send him literally into the closet. I think my favorite bit in the episode is R. Kelly's Trapped in the Closet verses, specifically when he pulls out a gun in Stan's room and everyone in the hallway runs away.

5. Major Boobage

This episode is... beautiful. The animation is impressive, and the story is hilarious as well. Kenny and Gerald cheesing and then getting into a fight, Cartman reliving the Holocaust with the cats, and the funny ass press conference given just solidify this episode as legendary.

4. Le Petit Tourette

This episode introduced my favorite one-off character, Thomas. But even more than that, it gave us a great story and a chance for us to see Cartman's plan blow up in his face. While it ultimately never came to fruition due to Kyle's actions, it's satisfying to know that he definitely revealed a deep secret or two in exchange for almost slandering minority groups on national TV.

3. Follow That Egg

I have vague memories of watching this episode as a kid, but I don't consider it as one of my firsts because I could only really recall them running through the crowd trying to save their grade. But it's a fantastic episode. Ms. Garrison's attempts to stop gay marriage from being legalized, to Stan's comical bitterness towards Kyle and Wendy, it all comes together and compliments each other well.

2. D-Yikes!

I didn't expect to get so personal on a South Park top 10 list, but it's the honest truth. South Park became a major comfort for me after my assault. And this was the first episode I watched that made me burst out laughing since the attack; Ms. Garrison screaming "scissor me timbers!" has got to be one of the funniest lines in the show's history. And overall, it's just a fun episode to watch.

1. Guitar Queero

This is an underrated masterpiece of an episode that more people should watch. The plot of the episode feels so fluid, and everything about it makes sense to me. The rise to stardom, falling to drugs (well, video games about drugs), losing it all and returning to give it one final shot just encompasses what South Park can really do when given the right tools. Maybe I'm biased because Season 11 is my favorite season, but something about this episode just really scratches my brain.

Anyways, that's my list! Thanks all for reading.

[theofficefantasyfootball]

WEEK 6 - Wrap Up

What a Week for NYC

What a crazy week for the New York Football Teams....Jets and Giants. With the Jets upsetting the Eagles and the Giants coming so close to taking down the Bills at home....I just kept thinking about this Fred Armisen bit about New York accents and had to post. Nothing more to say - just think he's funny. Welcome to week 6 wrap up!

MALIK MY BALLS vs MOOSES ON THE LOOSES

Sorry Mitch. Sorry that I didn't bet you a bottle of Tequila on this match up. Sorry I took away your precious High Point money. Sorry your kicker only can put up 6 points. Sorry you dropped Achane and that he also got hurt and that Mostert is now starting and that he put up 36 points. Sorry that you seem to be having an amazing season but yet you are tied with me at 4-2. Sorry that you lost...actually sorry, not sorry. Fun week Mitch. Sorry.

TREE HUGGERS vs TRADE WITH ME

OMG...he's 6-0. Scott Krippayne is 6-0. With a modest week of 96 points and without getting a full game out of his precious CMC - Scott Krippayne was matched up against Brett Rutledge who with Ekeler still to play is down 42 points going into monday night - so yes, I am callling it. Brett who was riding high on his 1 game winning streak just could not get it together with disappointing performances from everyone except the Lions Defense. Scott, who didn't have a great week saw amazing numbers from Thiielen, a TD from CMC before he went out and a good outing from Dalton Schultz. Nice win Scott...will you ever lose? Next up for Scott...Cliff Young.

BOOMER SOONER vs LANAKILA

The thing with Cliff is - if you give him a little taste of winning - he wants it all the time. He is now on a 4 game winning streak, and like Krippayne, this wasn't a high scoring week for Cliff either...but he put up enough to beat Stu Jones. Stu's best player - Stefon Diggs only put up 15 points...and he needed 6.05 more to win the match up. So basically had Diggs scored a TD things would have been different. In fact, Stu would have won, I would have won a bet or two, and some needed money...and Cliff would be a loser. Thanks Stu and Stefon. Nice win Cliff - keep it up and we may have a back to back champion on our hands (hope i didn't just jinx ya).

BACKDOOR BANDITS vs HOWARD

Yes, this GIF is because Rob Howard plays the banjo. Most weekends that's what I hear from my house...banjo music from his porch. Sometimes he has an entire polka band out there. It's a really special place to live. This week Rob beat Kyle. Rob put up 124 points so he almost won high point but I had a little bit better of a week so i snag the dough. Rather than talking about what Rob did right let's spend a moment focusing on what Kyle did wrong. He just doesn't have a very good team this year. And those players that you would think would be great like Metcalf, Lamar and Etienne...well, when only one of them put up significant points - you don't win much. So Ron moves on to 4-2 and Kyle to 1-5. Nice win Rob. I am ready for Octoberfests to be over so you are not on the road and the neighborhood can hear you play again.

MR. AWESOME vs TuPADRE

Usually one of my favorite match ups of the year. Gully vs Gabe. Best Friends going at it. At this week Gabe took the stick to Gully and knocked him out early. Gully had a good week from Tua with 28 points, Derek Henry in London managed to give him 17, and Ravens Defense in London gave him 15 but Gabe just had the magic of Tyreek (27), Hall (15), Pitts (10), Waddle (11), Kicker Carlson (13) and Eagles D (10)....and who know what tonight holds with Dak...he may put up 37 and steal my $20 from me. Nice win Gabe. I am sure your friendship will carry on but you should feel better than Andy and Son.

LONG LEFT BALLERS vs FUNK GUY

Why do I feel like we are in the same place every week with Funk Guy. More times than not - it comes down to Monday night...there's a bit of hope but then it ends badly. Tonight we go in with Dana leading 80 to Bebo's 76. Dana with Cowboys defense still to play and Bebo with Keenan Allen and CeeDee Lamb. Dallas defense is always good...they are always putting pressure and getting sacks but tonight the Charges did find a way to score. In fact, the first score of the night was a Keenan Allen TD. So, when the game ended...Bebo won...Dana lost. Bebo moves to 5-1 and Dana to 1-5. Heartbreaking week for Dana - first with his Giants and now with himself.

SURVIVOR

The Final Four Continue. It was a close call for Gully but everyone moves on.

CHEERLEADER OF THE WEEK

Brianna was born in Stuart, FL and now lives in Fort Lauderdale. She was rated by Women Fitness as the most beautiful cheerleader...and as far as I am concerned who would know if that is true, more than other women. I am trusting it. Brianna for the win.

[theheightofdishonor]

So here’s that comprehensive review of the Batman I promised. (full spoilers)

For me, The Batman is one of those movies where the more I think about the movie, the more I like about it. it was by no means perfect and there are still a bunch of shit I didn’t like but overall, it might actually be my favourite batman movie ever.

Imma do this in lists and start out with the things I liked

Bruce’s characterization. It’s absolutely everything I could’ve possibly wanted from a Year 2 Bruce who’s still figuring out what Batman means to himself and to the public. He also hasn’t quite learned to hide his self so thoroughly from everyone yet so we get to see a Bruce Wayne who is openly awkward and blunt and introverted, who’s still figuring out the ropes of this whole scene. I cannot stress enough how much I adore this version of Bruce.

 In the beginning of the movie, there’s a scene where gang member asks Batman who he is, he replies “I am Vengeance” but he slowly learns- in part due to the Riddler who worships him and calls them the same- that Batman shouldn’t only be about vengeance but about what he can do for people.

The slightly frayed relationship with Alfred. This Bruce has some bite and resentment towards Alfred- ie the ‘not my dad thing’ but still is very fond of him. And Alfred to his part, isn’t wholly convinced of this whole superhero-ing business but still does everything he can to help while still be willing to give Bruce a talking-to when needed.

Bruce’s arc with defining the line between Batman and Brucie and Bruce. In the beginning, he’s completely involved in Batman and doesn’t care at all about being a socialite but throughout the movie, he gains a slow awareness that being involved from the public aspect can do just as good and that there’s a lot he can and should do for Gothan using the power and money he has from being a Wayne.

The focus on detective work and actual sleuthing.

There’s this boy that Bruce connects with in the movie, and it’s such a neat touch because for me at least, because Bruce’s thing where he instantly bonds with kids who’ve gone through similar experiences as him is like a Thing (ie ya know, the long list of traumatized dark haired kids he keeps adopting)

the cinematography was so pretty??? There’s this one scene with the water- ya know what i’m talking about

Ik a lot of people hated it but I kinda liked the corruption-angle with the mystery and the depiction of the police force

the costuming was really nice

I liked the set design for the Batcave and the tech and all the other aesthetic stuff.. Like even how baby Bruce using the motorcyle way more than he uses the batmobile, etc.

Pattison absolutely has the Jawline for Batman

zoe was sooo pretty this movie and I liked her snark and the queer vibes between her and Annika

Things I didn’t like  (some of these are quite nitpicky tbh)

It’s kinda a pet peeve of mine when movies take canon characters but then butcher the characterization or change them completely. I hated it with Ron in the HP movies, I hated it when they copy-pasted Deadshot’s backstory for Bloodsport in The Suicide Squad and I hated it here with the Riddler and Selina. The riddler’s character itself wasn’t bad, necessarily, just basic I guess but it’s completely divorced from the iconic Batman villain except for the question marks peppered in everywhere. And Selina Kyle, who I was pretty excited for, was practically an OC, and a barely fleshed out one at that. The shallowness of her character was especially transparent when compared to Bruce’s and I was very disappointed.

Not going to lie, the movie did drag a bit at places. Now i’m not one of those people who think the perfect movie is 90 minutes or something but this one could’ve easily been 20 min shorter and still perfect

the movie’s social commentary was too white liberal-y for my taste. There’s one scene in particular that sticks in my head where Bruce is helping the new mayor while there’s a bunch of people getting swept away by the flood in the distance that no one’s paying attention to and it felt pretty apt.

that scene where Bruce basically says that Alfred’s not a Wayne felt a bit much because personally, I don’t think that’s something Bruce would ever say

the implied Joker at the end. I’m so sick of the Joker, if I never hear about him again, i’d be perfectly happy

I wasn’t a fan of bruce/selina here because I couldn’t understand why this iteration of Selina would ever fall for this Bruce. He’s such a dick to her! Girlie, ik it’s canon that every girl falls at Bruce’s feet but please, have better standard.

Bruce’s apparent prejudice against prostitutes which was v ???

Overall though, I really did like The Batman 2022 but I’m also willing to admit it’s 80% because i’m a nerd for Bruce’s characterization. If you don’t care about that, you may not like it much.

[smallblueandloud]

so i'm now watching a compilation of leia's "best scenes" on youtube and we've gotten to TFA and... guys, was anyone planning on reminding me about leia's characterization in that movie? I JUST HAD TO LISTEN TO LEIA "KILL VADER" ORGANA SAY "THERE IS STILL GOOD IN HIM" ABOUT A FULL BLOWN SITH???

i know he's her son but jesus christ why is LEIA the one believing he can be brought back to the light? AND LUKE IS THE ONE WHO SUPPOSEDLY GAVE UP ON HIM? FUCKING LUKE "THERE IS STILL GOOD IN HIM" SKYWALKER?? AND LEIA IS THE ONE ASKING HAN TO TALK THINGS OUT? PRINCESS WALKING CARPET????

i think it could be REALLY COMPELLING to talk about leia's development between the original and sequel trilogies. i think it could be REALLY INTERESTING to explore her feelings about having a sith lord for a family member and how that changed over her life. she wanted anakin to DIE and yet she's asking for her son to live?? (i know canon doesn't say anything about leia wanting vader to die after she finds out he's her father, but it's in-character enough that i'm willing to consider it canon. also it's just such a cool character vibe that i want it either way.)

i know it's possible for her to be developed in that direction but if so i want to see it. i want to unpack this! i want them to talk about how the leia they've characterized in TFA has thrown herself entirely into the resistance and the hope that finding her idiot brother will fix anything, hating the first order and seeing the danger it presents, and yet she's willing to stay her hand for her son! how does she feel about her son's parallels to the motherfucker who killed her home planet! how does she feel about THE FACT THAT HER SON JUST MURDERED AN ENTIRE SOLAR SYSTEM WHOSE SURVIVORS ARE JUST AS EXILED AS SHE IS!

look, above all else, i'm just sick of female characters who have endless wells of compassion that they are willing to (and always end up) dying for. leia's rebellion (and later her resistance, i suppose, although i maintain that that name is dumb) are her entire life and they are good causes but her faith in them is also a little selfish, because they are hers and they belonged to her true father and she has all of this anger and these are the best outlets. i could understand her being selfish about her son and the leniency she wants to give him that he absolutely does not fucking deserve, but that would require the movies to see this "compassion" as a flaw of leia's and they do NOT and it FRUSTRATES me. leia's not in the right, here! this refusal to see the truth of him kills han!

or, if you don't want to make this a flaw, if you want to parallel it with padme's oh-so-perfect love for anakin (once again, the endless well of compassion that she dies for) and the way luke saves the galaxy by seeing the good in his father, then you need to FUCKING VALIDATE THAT! INSTEAD OF LETTING IT KILL HAN! the continued insistence that there is good in EVERYONE, that there is good in EVEN NOTED CHILD MURDERER DARTH VADER, is a CENTRAL tenet of star wars and it makes NO FUCKING SENSE to make a whole movie that's basically a mashup of every previous sw movie AND YET FUCKING INVALIDATES THAT CENTRAL THEME!! there is good in everyone, everyone is deserving of compassion, people can change, people can do the right thing, EXCEPT FUCKING KYLO REN, WHO KILLS A SOLAR SYSTEM AND THEN HIS FATHER AND HAS NO REGRETS ABOUT IT. but he has temper tantrums about not feeling listened to so it's fine!

look, either you present leia's apparently extremely misguided faith in kyle ron as a character flaw (it's her stubbornness, it's always her stubbornness, this is leia organa and she is always right) OR you make it clear that her faith ISN'T FUCKING MISGUIDED and her faith is character development thirty years after she was ready to murder the last relative who pulled this shit and you don't invalidate a core theme to the central story! you can't do both! what the FUCK, disney focus group who wrote these movies!!!!! what the fuck!!!!!!

[inklingofadream]

Hm. Can I get a tma sci-fi au? (Star Wars specifically would be the favorite but I’m not sure if you like it)

this somehow gave me random recovered memories of my star wars princess bride au wtf (theres art of it somewhere in my backlog crol)

anyway anyway

y'know that theory that han, for all he gripes about the force and not believing in it, is actually himself slightly force sensitive? Daisy

purple lightsaber jon

this is now set in an au where the star wars movies happen but kyle ron doesnt ruin everything so there are a bunch of luke-trained jedi running around. that's jon and basira and sasha and tim and danny and georgie

melanie knows she's force sensitive and has self taught some stuff based on whatever she could scrounge up, but she wasnt formally trained. she makes fun of jon for using a lightsaber, obvs her blaster is much superior (jon: what about georgie, she uses a lightsaber too! melanie: I can't hear suddenly, i don't know). big OT han vibes, honestly i think she could even rock the outfit. her favorite trick is getting "stuck" and then oops i've used the force to grab whatever i needed from across the room, rip to you

I think i've made martin the only non-force sensitive, oops. anyway he was Simply Trying To Vibe in like a space diner, never intending to leave his home planet even a little bit, but unfortunately all these jedi just fell thru his window (jon literally into his arms bc i'm corny, rip to everyone else ending up on the floor)

actually gerry isn't FS either, mary Wasn't Into that unfortunate lil fact. so obvs he even more can't live up to her standards, but he does know jedi stuff even luke doesn't, bc big stash of old stuff mary's been hoarding. Mary's definitely hugely disdainful of both sides of the jedi/sith light/dark thing, same as her canon stance on the institute/avatars

actually i'm gonna say part of the reformed jedi being chiller about the romance and family and attachment stuff is that the lil toddler stoker bros got brought to luke, like, adorably sleeping curled up into each other, and luke looked over at his own long lost sister and was all 🥺🥺🥺 and now it's totally kosher for jedi to have families n stuff, he decided, you just gotta like. be chill about it (tim is not good at being chill)

anyway if there's a plot to this the gang aren't like, involved in any galaxy shaking stuff, they're just trying to live their lives as smugglers or bounty hunters or space waiters, but the jedi gang are trying to Right Wrongs and Be Good Jedi and mostly succeed, but in the process kinda roll thru like a bull in a china shop, and they keep collecting new friends who are giving them a ride/owe a life debt/are in love with them/are now wanted on their home planet and need to get out of dodge/etc

[totallyclevertitlehere]

I’m optimistic after ‘The Mandalorian’ S2 Finale

I’m honestly surprised by this strain in fandom that’s depressed that “The Mandalorian has fundamentally changed” or “this is the end of Din’s arc“ or “we won’t see Grogu again.” Or people thinking the Book of Boba is going to replace Din/Grogu’s story?

Uh...no. Emphatically no! The season finale set up some pretty neat plot lines that all converge on Grogu and Din being both the focus of the show, and eventually being reunited.

The following things personally make me quite optimistic.

Let’s not forget who is actually ‘The Mandalorian’

It’s not between Din or Boba.

Din Djarin and Grogu are the titular character(s). Grogu is just as much ‘the Mandalorian’ as we’ve seen it defined by The Children of the Watch as Din is - he’s a foundling equally as he is a potential Jedi.

So let’s dispel with the notion that anything is happening to Grogu. He ain’t getting offed by Kyle Ron. He’s not disappearing from the show. Grogu is Disney and Star Wars most valuable intellectual property right now. He represents a species that lives for millennia and is a magic user who is portrayed by a puppet and whose image Disney/SW can milk for years to come without needing to pay actors, worry about aging out of stories, or ANY of the traditional challenges that come with live action. I saw on Twitter a comment that ‘well, Disney didn’t expect Grogu to so popular so they didn’t intend to have him stick around.” lol whut. Werner Herzog was obsessed with Grogu. Literally everyone who interacted with The Child fell in love. Disney/Favreau & Filoni know exactly what they’re doing and are planning on banking on Grogu’s marketability for years to come.

Grogu’s Training

Why did Grogu go with Luke? Two reasons.

Within the narrative, we can see Grogu feel/be awed by Luke’s presence in the force and his skill in saving their lives. The camera lingers on him feeling Luke’s presence multiple times. That’s purposeful! By showing us that, Favreau and Filoni are signaling why Grogu chooses to leave - he knows that he needs to become stronger so he can protect his Dad!

On a meta level, F/F knows pairing him with Luke gives us a direct connection to Yoda, the Temple, Grogu’s past - it’s a chance to give backstory. Not to mention it certainly seems like R2 knows Grogu! I predict we’ll get to see a montage of Luke training Grogu as a call out to ESB/RoTJ, and we’ll learn about what actually happened the night the Temple was attacked.

Now, I don’t think they’ll make Luke stick around for too long/many scenes, but with R2 there is a natural vehicle to explore Grogu’s past. I think with Grogu learning to better use his abilities, we’ll see an inverse of this season, with Grogu coming to Din’s rescue at some point.

Din Djarin is Mand’alor, and Bo-Katan is Not Happy

Din Djarin’s arc is over? lol

Din Djarin’s arc is only just beginning. Now, Din has to come to terms with what it means to be Mandalorian - in every sense. He’s given up his foundling, but he’s not alone - there’s a room full of people who have seen his face, which goes against his code but not others. He’s Mand’alor, but he has no idea what that means.

Unfortunately for him, he’s about to face questions from every side about who a true Mandalorian is (as foreshadowed by the dialogue between Boba and Bo-Katan). AND he’s going to have to deal with two antagonists: Gideon and Bo-Katan.

Bo-Katan is a mess; she’s supposed to be. She was a villain the majority of her time in The Clone Wars. She’s at best been an anti-hero. Rebels was the only show she was shown to be more explicitly on the side of the heroes, but a driving force of her character has consistently been her own selfish views of Mandalore and her role within it. And next season, she’s going to be a driving antagonist for Din.

But where I think this all leads is that Din is going to come to terms with claiming the Darksaber - not to be Mand’alor, but to break the tradition of the sword by ultimately gifting it to his son, Grogu (which would parallel Jango giving Boba his armor).

Basically, Grogu’s gonna be the second Mandalorian Jedi and wield the Darksaber to protect his Dad, the Mand’alor.

Gideon, Pershing, and Cloning

I don’t think it’s accidental that Bo-Katan explicitly linked Boba to his clone lineage in the finale. Meanwhile, we also see Imperials explain that Pershing is a “high value” target of the New Republic. With both Gideon and Pershing alive, the exact nature of the experimentation on Grogu and to what end is a story line that reunites both Din and Grogu’s paths.

In fact, both potential plot lines (the nature of the cloning experiments and the Rulership of Mandalore) also potentially converge with the other announced shows Ahsoka and Rangers of the New Republic, which falls in line with what was reported at Investor Day that the finale of S3 would be a major cross-over event. (Ahsoka is connected to both Clones and Mandalore, and the New Republic is probably super interested in what’s happening with cloning and also probably gonna be a bit surprised when Bo-Katan decides to start flexing her small fleet of IMPERIAL SHIPS).

Why did the finale have to be so bittersweet?

For the same reason Aang died in the Crystal Catacombs and the S2 finale of Avatar: The Last Airbender ended with the line “The Earth Kingdom has fallen.” Because it sets up the central character conflicts for the next season.

Yes, it’s so bittersweet how Din and Grogu are apart. But Din said himself - they’ll see each other again! This is a necessary step to give both characters space to grow more before reuniting them. It seems clear everyone working on the show knows how central that relationship is to it. They aren’t scrapping that next season.

so tl;dr Grogu and Din aren’t going anywhere, and they’ll be reunited soon. Keep the faith, may the force be with you!

[counterspelling]

Prompt: Rey, Finn, Rose, Poe, Chewie and the Falcon from the sequel trilogy get sent to the Legends timeline because they deserve better.

I think for me I'd actually rather keep the timelines separate? They absolutely did deserve SO MUCH BETTER, and time travel fix-it shenanigans can be so fun, but I love the EU as a completely separate thing and idk how you could incorporate them. I would rather just throw the sequels in the trash where they belong and keep the characters and just... rewrite everything else?? The only satisfying arc for that trilogy for me would be for Rey to be Luke's daughter since that is IMPLICITLY what TFA was showing us with her force visions of an island she'd never seen that Luke marooned himself on (after somehow failing young Rey and thinking she was dead, since that is the ONLY REASON Luke would ever abandon everyone like that, and even still I don't think he would cut himself off for years like that. We already saw that story!!! We saw Yoda and Obi-wan do it!!! Why did they just repeat the OT!!!) and with Rey calling Luke's lightsaber to her over Kyle Ron, they WANTED US TO THINK she was his daughter. And she should have been! The main SW movies are about the Skywalker family, and throwing away decades of that history to pull the rug out from the viewers and have her be a Palpatine in the name of shock value bc Rian Johnson is a racist piece of shit and JJ Abrams is so enamored of his own writing and thinks writing himself into mystery corners without presenting actual solutions is good storytelling.... that's dumb!

Disney originally letting 3 separate straight white dudes do the trilogy with no oversight or communication between them is dumb! George could pull out plot twists and shock the audience bc he was one man overseeing EVERYTHING and he never undercut the message of his own story. He was vocal about his movies being for kids, the point wasn't just to shock people, Vader being Luke's dad makes everything about the OT more complex and deepens every relationship, the same way Leia being Luke's sister does. It was about tying the characters together and underpinning their emotional journeys together, not pulling something COMPLETELY out of left field just so that the thing that everybody saw coming didn't happen (they resurrected Palpatine in the CRAWL and then never addressed it!!! I just!!! How is that something that actually got written and filmed and produced and nobody had a problem with it!!!). Disney doesn't care about anything but money, and they just need the brand for that, not a good story. I would rather bring Winter and Mara into Disney canon bc Leia deserves her sister and Luke deserves his wife but also I do not want to subject myself to suffering through whatever disney would do to them lol. Also, on top of everything else he's done, Abrams is still on my shitlist for putting out the casting call for Keri Russell's character to be named "Mara."

They set up Rey and Finn to be co-leads with parallel stories, they clearly set them up as love interests, they were two people who immediately recognized each other as someone to care for and trust, exactly the way Han and Luke and Leia all did when they first met, two people with incredibly fucked up childhoods who were never sure who they could trust or who would support them. But they knew from the first moment that THIS person would be someone they could count on, and had such an immediate bond together. And then they threw those characters away completely to woobify Kyle Ron and turn Finn from a lead into a side character without a plot or character arc for the next two movies. Rey and Finn in TFA are unrecognizable in the next two movies, everything about their personalities, motivations, and goals changes and has zero resemblance or flow from the first movie. And Kyle Ron himself is a joke, truly one of the worst SW characters I've ever encountered. I hate... so many sw characters lol, but he's just such a badly written and uncompelling character, and everything about him is so rooted in the racism that John Boyega the actor and Finn the character had to go through, it's just disgusting.

Anyway, if it was purely up to me, I would remove the sequels from canon and then do a 7 movie adaptation of the NJO and LOTF series. I want Jag and Jaina to be the main couple without decades of dumb love squares just bc Jaina is the only girl, I want Tahiri to be treated with the respect she deserves, and I want Tenel Ka to have more of a chance to bond with the other girls and in fact to make the relationships between all the women a priority. We'd get the first four movies covering the vong war, we'd see the twins and Anakin centerstage and having to fight the worst war the galaxy has ever seen as teenagers and how strong they were together, before they were even fully jedi knights. We'd get the bond between them and see them emerge as leaders in the war, and then we'd lose Anakin at the end of 3, see the toll that it took upon the whole family but especially Jaina and Jacen (Jaina! Who was always the protector of her siblings, from the time they were born! The oldest sibling, who feels responsible for their safety!! Losing her youngest brother!! And then coming into her title as Sword of the Jedi when she's knighted, and forever feeling the guilt that she couldn't stand in front of her brother and protect him!! When that was the literal prophecy spoken about her, that she would never rest bc she would forever stand in front of other to protect them!! Also?? To hear that about yourself at 17??? WOW!). And then seeing the last 3 cover LOTF and Jacen's descent, Jaina's realization of what he's become, how it's her duty to kill her twin, her heart, because she's the only one who can. That's the story I want.

[sepublic]

Starkiller Base was unnecessary

           Re-watching The Force Awakens, and… It’s occurred to me that, even more than I initially thought, Starkiller Base is a genuinely useless, pointless part of the plot that’s just shoehorned in for the sake of arbitrarily raising the stakes, in a blind attempt to redo the Original Trilogy while one-upping it at the same time; Taking pot shots at the original Death Star’s ‘absurdity’ to try to make Starkiller Base’s destruction feel more ‘involved’ and ‘sensible’ with having an inside job to sabotage and blow up key components, yadda-yadda; Almost feels like the writers are punching down at the Original Trilogy in a vain attempt to look more clever and ‘self-aware’, without considering how reckless power-scaling doesn’t work (Which we see once more and somehow even worse in The Rise of Skywalker).

           The thing about why the Death Star works is like… It’s relevant. It has build-up. We’re introduced to it from the start, the entire story revolves around destroying it; R2-D2 is important because he has plans to the Death Star, Vader is seen chasing Leia because she had those plans. It all comes around to and circles back to the Death Star, we have a sense of what it is from the start, there’s build-up. You NEED the planet-killing machine for the climax of A New Hope, because the only reason to go there is because, surprise- The Death Star IS there, it just arrived right besides Yavin IV!

           But Starkiller Base… When you watch the movie, it just pops in out of nowhere, amidst the pre-established plot threads. Without any prior context or build-up, we’re just suddenly treated to a shot of this huge, mechanized planet, and then Hux almost casually drops that the ‘superweapon’ is ready, and then suddenly it’s firing and blows up the Hosnian System. The Death Star is justifiable because it’s the first of its kind, Starkiller Base is the third. In canon and Legends, there’s a lot of side-material going into the sheer enormity and horror of the Death Star, the amount of manpower it takes to construct such a thing, its formation is treated with gravitas; And yet something WAY bigger and more advanced comes out of nowhere, from a group even less powerful than the Empire?!

           Again, you need the Death Star, it’s why the rebels are being chased, it’s why Leia was captured, it’s why R2-D2 meets Luke and then Obi-Wan, bringing up the Rebel journey; It’s why Luke’s aunt and uncle die, it’s why there’s no Alderaan and instead the Death Star itself to capture the protagonists when they arrive there. But Starkiller Base is pointless- The plot is about BB-8 because he has the map to Luke Skywalker, it’s about finding Luke through BB-8. Starkiller Base is just so casually dropped for something that should be so much bigger than the Death Star in the narrative… And likewise, we don’t need it for anything.

           Is it to prove to Finn that the First Order is dangerous, that he can’t just ignore its destruction? The thing is, he already has Rey’s capture to motivate his participation. Starkiller Base could not fire, but Finn would still help the Resistance infiltrate, because Rey would still be captured. It’s not needed for Poe and the Resistance to arrive on Takodana, because they came for BB-8 after getting that message, the Hosnian Cataclysm totally unrelated. You could argue it gives the Resistance an excuse to fight back against the First Order in the film’s climax… But that does not justify creating another superweapon, much less one as implausible and redundant as Starkiller Base.

           Like, maybe the writers wanted to REALLY return to the status quo, so having the New Republic be devastated was a requirement… But was it really? Just have the New Republic continue to be ineffectual, it’s even a plot-point in side material that its military is embarrassingly small; So just say the Resistance IS the full extent of that military! You still get an underdog situation. And again, if you really want to forcibly cut off any support for the Resistance… You don’t need a giant superweapon to one-up the Death Star. Just have the First Order demonstrate its traditional military power, by having a fleet invade the New Republic’s capital, unexpected, able to waltz in because everyone is so incompetently lax about these rising fascists; And with recent real-life events, it only makes more disturbing sense.

          Instead of getting a pointless superweapon, have a bunch of Star Destroyers attack Hosnian Prime and take it over, show a montage of destruction and civilian death, etc. This still establishes the danger of the First Order and how it’s quickly decapitated the New Republic and left it in shambles, setting the stage for the underdog conflict; But you don’t have to rely on something as absurdly over-the-top as Starkiller Base, which has no build-up to its unprecedented firepower besides “Oh yeah this exists” and then watching it fire and finding out firsthand.

          The death of trillions with the Hosnian System is senseless violence both in-universe and from a narrative, writing perspective… And again, this arguably establishes the First Order as a threat better, because they don’t need to rely on a superweapon; And even after The Force Awakens ends, the audience still knows that they have access to an entire fleet… Whereas with Starkiller Base, that threat is lost by the end of the film and thus made redundant. The scene could become even more disturbing if we straight-up see some civilians on Hosnian Prime welcome the First Order, adding additional world building that helps explain why the First Order was able to develop, how it got support- And again, being topical to what happens today. It connects with canon lore about the First Order’s supporters in other worlds (such as Coruscant), and could even be a callback to liberty dying with thunderous applause in Revenge of the Sith! We could still have the people on Takodana react in horror, through the Holonet’s broadcasting of the coup.

           Of course, this is Star Wars- And what’s more iconic than thrilling space battles and trench runs? Sometimes you want sci-fi fun and stuff for the sake of it, nothing wrong with that, that’s always important too… But again, you don’t need a giant super-laser to have that. Just make up something else; Like Starkiller Base is the planet that the First Order has taken over. Perhaps they intend to launch a bunch of new Star Destroyers, or are about to finish production of a whole new batch, which would make things even worse. Instead of destroying a superweapon, you could have the Resistance crippling the factories that finish these Star Destroyers- There’s your trench run! Have them blow up a power plant that’s running the factories, instead of a thermal oscillator. There’s still a victory at the end, and while the threat is far from over, time has been bought- And it makes the First Order’s immediate retaliation in the next film more sensible, adds to the idea that every second, every bit of progress helps, you gotta take what you need… Even an extra day to prepare and evacuate is a miracle that furthers the underdog motif.

           Plus, with a batch of Star Destroyers that need to be stopped- There’s still the need to rescue Rey. The Resistance still needs to cause damage at the First Order’s base, and Finn is still needed to infiltrate and lower the shields, while taking advantage of this operation for himself and Rey. Most importantly, you don’t get a contrived superweapon that only adds to the bland, carbon-copy standard of the Sequel Trilogy; And perhaps best of all, we don’t have to see Ilum retroactively bastardized and destroyed, with Starkiller Base’s identity revealed AFTER we see it get blown up… The legacy of the Jedi and its history is not further destroyed with the loss of this sacred planet of kyber crystals.

          And that’s better, because this trilogy about passing the torch, seems as insistent as Kyle Ron, the villain, on interpreting this theme as utterly wiping out all traces of the past, and leaving nothing for the next generation to work with. Which, I’m not surprised at a corporation thoughtlessly razing and salting the earth in selfish disregard for those who will need and use it afterwards, but still. And while a star that burns brighter than most thanks to its heart of Kyber IS a neat concept that could be worked with, especially with what Chirrut Imwe says, in addition to the motifs of flames of rebirth and the Phoenix… It’s not something that justifies the further eradication of Jedi history and effort on a level that even the Empire didn’t go, just to arbitrarily raise stakes with yet another uninspired superweapon.

           Like, the Duel of the Fates script and its concept of a device that blocks off all inter-galactic communication is MUCH more interesting, clever, and innovative than the Death Star Lite, and it hits closer to home in this age of internet and mass communication; In contrast to the Death Star, which fit more in its time as a criticism of the stockpiling and development of nukes, and how that tapped into the public’s fear at the time of nuclear Armageddon. And a device blocking off intergalactic communication provides good reason for why the Resistance doesn’t have the full might of the New Republic behind them, because they can’t even communicate to collaborate, and it adds to that idea of people made to feel ‘alone’ or whatever and thus isolated, so they can’t band together and rise up. That adds to Rey feeling alone, and makes Poe and Zorii’s discussion at the end of the trilogy that much more meaningful… Not that the Sequel Trilogy was planned to consider the latter, of course.

           (Actually, I wonder if it’s possible to cut Starkiller Base’s superweapon scenes from the film. Like a cut where any references to its superweapon, and the scene where it fires, is cut out; I think the film might still work that way.)

[thevictorianghost]

I'm kinda a lover of both zutara and zukka ( personally I love any ship where zuko has a happy and healthy relationship, and sorry mai lovers but mai and zuko isn't really healthy for either of them) I don't understand why there needs to be a need to hate on sokka or katara depending the ship.

I don’t particularly care for Z/ukka. It’s cute, I guess, but they don’t really have a lot of scenes together aside from The Boiling Rock and even then, half the time Sokka is with Suki. So I don’t really... go there lol.

But what I really hate about the more agressive Z/ukka shippers from the ATLA Renaissance is... exactly that. The agressiveness and hate.

But honestly, I’m not surprised. I’ve seen it before. For different reasons. 

People feel threatened by ships that have more chemistry than theirs when A) they don’t think half of of the threatening ship “deserves” the member that is in their ship and B) they need reasons to seem more woke while shitting on a marginalized character.

Is this about Rey/lo? Yes. This is about Rey/lo.

(I’m going to preface this by saying I’m White. So if I’m overstepping, please tell me.  People have talked a lot more eloquently about this than I ever could. I recommend Okiro’s videos on Youtube especially.)

Why do you think people hate Finn so much? Why do you think they love Kyle Ron so much? Why do agressive Rey/los hate John Boyega so much and have boycotted against him since the very beginning? Why did they pick the only white man Rey interacted with during The Force Awakens? And why did they harass everyone so much that Lucasfilms had to backpedal during TLJ and TROS, keep Finn and Rey as far away from each other (across an entire GALAXY no less) as possible, and push her towards KR for no logical narrative reason? Putting Finnrey in canon limbo ever since?

You know why.

Because Finn, a Black character, is in the way of their precious White ship.

I’ve seen the same thing in The Musketeers fandom where the character Athos (spoiler alert) meets a lovely woman named Sylvie (pronounced Seal-vee) at the beginning of the last season and ends up with her. Who did the fandom want him to end up with? Milady, the manipulative villain woman who had no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Why? Because Sylvie was played by a Black woman and Milady was played by a White woman. At least the Three Musketeers writers didn’t chicken out of that one.

And I lasted a DAY in that fandom, for crying out loud. As soon as I saw the lack of Sylvie content (Athos/Sylvie is one of my OTPs from the show) I backtracked VERY QUICKLY out of that tag lol. 

Similarly, why do people hate on Katara when they ship Z/ukka? Especially since it’s not a White ship? And especially since Sokka is literally Katara’s brother, so he’s not more light-skinned than Katara. In this very case, it’s misogyny. Plain and simple. Canon has a fascination with gay ships and, while that’s fine in theory, they love to push the female characters off to the side very easily, doing this for both Suki and Katara. But Katara gets a lot of hate because Zutara is SO popular (which is awesome!). It’s the most popular ship of ATLA, so instead of hating on Mai (who is kind of a blank slate and can easily be cut from Zuko’s love life, sorry Mai/ko), they hate on Katara, the main female character who has a deep connection with Zuko in canon. 

@heavensweetheart following that Z/ukka salt post, would you agree?

[ufonaut]

What’s alan’s opinion of the other main earth green lanterns: hal, john, guy, and kyle? I think the consensus is that almost everyone hates guy, and alan didn’t seem to look like he liked hal too much either from the comics you posted earlier. He seems to have a good relationship with kyle maybe? But didn’t kyle date his daughter? And i’ve never seen anything with john and alan lol. So does alan actually like any of the other lanterns?

ANON I LOVE U...I’VE BEEN DYIN TO TALK ABOUT ALAN, AS I AM AT ALL TIMES, SO THANK U FOR THIS.

i’m assuming you know alan’s not in any way, shape or form related to the glc? while he’s definitely ran into the gang over the years out of pure necessity, he doesn’t know them in any particularly notable way and almost definitely wouldn’t consider any of them a friend (though jury’s out on whether he considers anyone currently alive a friend but that’s a whole other subject). essay incoming!

1) hal jordan

i haven’t actually posted any comics today but i’m assuming you’re talking about these panels from dc first: green lantern/green lantern (2002) #1?

i think this is actually my all time favourite and maybe definitive take on alan’s relationship with hal! it’s actually, as far as i’ve been able to find, the literal only comic to analyse & understand vital pieces of alan’s history that would tint any interactions with the glc -- he was forced out of heroics by huac and can’t help a vague feeling of jealousy about the fact that hal’s so instantly well-liked, not to mention his explicit worries that he’s no longer “the right man for the job”. beyond that, i think it’s also important to note that early days hal is the literal picture perfect definition of a hero! as much as his fly-boy-ness can be grating to people like, say, bruce or alan, he’s very likeable and the perfect candidate for the necessary PR of heroism. alan is... not. even on his best days, his temper either gets the best of him or he comes across as tremendously cold & distant. his dislike of hal is very tied up in these feeling of inadequacy

that being said, after parallax happens, alan is one of the very few people in hal’s corner. not in a major way and god forbid alan ever thinks to comfort anyone but i think as a man who’s lost it weekly for the past eighty years and who understands what their kind of power might make one capable of, he’s faintly sympathetic. in jsa’s (1999) redemption lost arc (#60-#62), he tries to be there for hal in some capacity

and even asks bruce to give hal another chance (no luck there)

while in jsa (1999) #77 he attempts some previously undiscovered form of trying to relate to someone via pointing out that hal’s life might be falling apart but you know what his real problem is? that alan was never there for his kids.

so, i would say alan dislikes hal far less than he dislikes guy & kyle and that’s a major compliment coming from him. their relationship is hard to navigate on either side and i don’t think alan would ever stop feeling that bitterness & jealousy. however, one thing that sets him aside from every other person to interact with hal immediately after parallax & spectre is that alan didn’t trust him to begin with so there’s no inherent loss there but he’s not afraid to reach out either because he understands some small part of hal’s tragedy better than most

2) guy gardner

alan definitely hates guy in the way every person in the universe does (as they should) but he was also at guy’s bar opening night and twice after because he loves subjecting himself to medieval-tier torture but i think their relationship is actually perfectly balanced because it’s all mutual hatred. their most memorable interactions are probably during the emerald fallout issues of gg:w (#19-#21) and they’re frankly delightful

and guy’s got some good nicknames for alan

(”mr green lantern who was never really a green lantern”)

(”blondie”)

and there’s not much depth there beyond the world’s most reluctant allies! gg:w #31 actually has a wonderful alan story where he gets trapped in a living nightmare and the characterisation is just perfect but there’s no actual interaction with guy, which, yknow, makes it even better. i’d say alan tries to keep his distance if he can in order to save himself the annoyance, especially as i doubt guy’s one of the people who’d be particularly cool with certain things about alan that have recently become canon. take the fact that warriors has never experienced a green fiery inferno as a good sign!

3) john stewart

you’re definitely right on this front, there’s not a lot of john & alan out there! i do, however, have a personal favourite moment between the two from the green lantern 80 page giant (1998) #1:

while i don’t agree with the whole ‘old gls meet up and swap stories’ business and i personally think ron marz’s alan characterisation has always been genuinely atrocious because he never once understands that alan is not a member of the glc, i love how at ease alan is around john here. though there’s very few comics with the two of them, i feel like john’s the one green lantern alan actually respects and likes him well enough, even if not in a way where they’d willing spend time together or anything

4) kyle rayner

alan does NOT. i repeat does NOT. have a good relationship with kyle! the greatest thing about every alan & kyle interaction is alan’s tightly reined in need to murder him and his obligation to play nice for jennie’s sake. as i hope we all know, kyle’s an absolute creep and one of my favourite moments comes from one of those periods when he & jennie were broken up

and alan proceeds to break into kyle’s apartment at 5:30 am

and ignores all attempts at conversation just to start gathering jennie’s things. it’s a dream (gl 1990 #120). i think, especially because of the jennie thing, alan hates kyle more than he hates. most things

HOPE THIS ANSWERED UR QUESTION AND IT’S WHAT U WERE LOOKING FOR!! LET ME KNOW UR THOUGHTS!!!

[greenlantern94to04]

The Green Lantern Stories Ron Marz Wrote BEFORE Kyle Rayner

Before becoming Green Lantern writer and co-creating our boy Kyle, Ron Marz wrote some short stories for the Green Lantern Corps Quarterly anthology series. Are these tales absolutely necessary to understand the Kyle Rayner comics this blog is supposed to be about? Nope. But I still read them because OCD compelled me to, so here they are:

Green Lantern Corps Quarterly #4 (Spring 1993)

Fun fact: the first Green Lantern created by Ron Marz wasn't Kyle Rayner, it was Torquemada, the GL who's also a space wizard. In this story, a young guy from a rival gang of space wizards sneaks into Torquemada's secret hideout to steal his GL ring, and hit on his bosomy apprentice Giselle while he's at it.

The evil wizard almost gets away with Torque's ring, but then he decides to force Giselle to make out with him before leaving... unaware that she has a curse that makes everyone she kisses turn into gold. The story ends with the reveal that there's a whole bunch of golden statues inside the hideout, including a female and a giant one, because creeps come in all shapes and sizes.

Not sure how the guy didn't see all those statues there, though. Anyway, Torquemada went on to appear a few times during Marz's run and beyond (without Giselle, unfortunately).

Green Lantern Corps Quarterly #5 (Summer 1993)

Next up is a two-part story about Alan Scott, the original 1940s Green Lantern. Ever wondered why Alan looked so young in the mid-'90s while his Justice Society of America pals looked like old geezers? This story explains it. It starts with Alan dreaming about his wife, the retired supervillain Harlequin (not that one), and waking up to find a young guy staring at him from the mirror.

(This is also how I react upon seeing my handsome face every morning.)

Alan goes out to look for whoever is pulling a Benjamin Button on him, and runs across two supposedly dead enemies of his, the Icicle and Solomon Grundy. They turn out to be illusions created a young lady who also calls herself Harlequin (not that one, either), who says she's only doing this so she and Alan can "be together". Then she disappears and leaves him alone, which is the opposite of being together. To be continued...

Green Lantern Corps Quarterly #6 (Autumn 1993)

Alan visit the JSA to let his friends know he's young again, and they immediately start trying to kill him. Supposedly it's because they think he's an impostor, but it's pretty clear that they're just jealous of his smooth skin and full head of hair.

But that's not really the JSA, it's just another illusion created by the new Harlequin. Turns out she's been obsessed with Alan since she was a kid because she has the same illusion-based powers as his wife, so she figures they should be together. Makes sense! Also, she claims that she's not the one who made him look young: he did that to himself, somehow. Alan looks kind of intrigued by Harlequin's sexy visions, but he snaps out of it when his real wife shows up. When Harlequin hurts the old lady, Alan loses it and shows HER a vision of what it'd look like if they dated, and... they'd be heavily into demonic S&M roleplaying, apparently?

(I suspect this is more about Marz trying to give artist Jim Balent some Jim Balent-type stuff to draw. Maybe Balent put it in his contract.)

This spooks the new Harlequin away and Alan has a tender reunion with his wife, who is still old. And then they went home and did S&M stuff, I guess.

Green Lantern Corps Quarterly #7 (Winter 1993)

This issue is mostly written by Marz and partly drawn by Kyle Rayner co-creator Darryl Banks, so I guess it technically counts as the start of their run. The Marz-written stories are:

The origin of Alan Scott's powers! We see the Guardians of the Universe when they were young, tall, and badass, slaying demons in a hell planet called Ysmault as part of their quest to rid the universe of magic. Once they were done with that, they crammed all that magic inside a celestial body called Starheart, part of which eventually crashed down on Earth and was forged into the magic lantern that Alan bumped into when he was young (the first time he was young, I mean). I'm not sure if this is a recap of previously known information or if Marz was the first to establish the connection between Alan and the early Guardians. Anyone know?

Alan's kids, the superheroes Jade and Obsidian, visit him for Halloween and are surprised to see that their dad is now the same age as them (Obsidian seems particularly shaken by the fact that Alan’s “in better shape” than him). Then Torquemada drops by too and asks for Alan's assistance with a space magic emergency. Jade and Obsidian want to help as well, since they didn't have their own comic at the time and could probably use the exposure, but their dad tells them to stay home with their mom. As they fly off into space, Torquemada tells Alan about all the weird magic-related stuff happening across the universe, which serves as a framing device for the rest of the stories. Including...

Marz introduces another GL who has a second job: Ash, a vampire hunter in a planet infested by vamps. When he finally kills the vampire who murdered his wife (at the cost of three fingers), Ash wants to retire from vampire hunting, but the girl he just saved asks him to keep at it because "there are monsters everywhere". Then we see that her shadow is all spooky, so I guess she was a vampire too... and she wants Ash to keep killing them anyway? Doesn't make much sense, but the story has sweet Tony Harris art so who cares.

Back to Alan and Torquemada, they reach the Starheart, which has become unstable, explaining the weird magic-related stuff going on in the universe (including Alan being de-aged). Torque says that a "Sentinel" was supposed to guard this place and prevent this from happening, but the Starheart's evil side gained sentience and killed her. Evil Starheart taunts Alan and Torque with visions of their loved ones in danger, which is pretty dumb because it just pisses Alan off and makes him fight it harder. The Starheart ends up exploding and its evil side escapes, but Alan says he'll be waiting for it whenever it resurfaces.

This conveniently sets the stage for Alan to adopt the Sentinel name when DC enacts their "there's only ONE Green Lantern and he's Kyle" rule. There was one more issue of Green Lantern Corps Quarterly but it's a (very loose) "Emerald Twilight" tie-in, so I'll cover it along with the rest of that storyline.

Oh yeah, a bunch of magic-related DC characters make very brief cameos during this story, including Blaze from the Superman comics:

And now that I've shown her I have an excuse to link to this post from my Superman '86 to '99 blog and maybe trick some readers into coming here. Hi!

[davidmann95]

Superman’s 10 Best of the ‘10s

Good Miracle Monday, folks! The first third Monday of May of a new decade for that matter, and while that means that today in the DC Universe Superman just revealed his secret identity to the world on the latest anniversary of that time he defeated the devil, in ours it puts a capstone on a solid 10 years of his adventures now in the rear view mirror, ripe for reevaluation. And given there’s a nice solid ‘10′ right there I’ll go ahead with the obvious and list my own top ten for Superman comics of the past decade, with links in the titles to those I’ve spoken on in depth before - maybe you’ll find something you overlooked, or at least be reminded of good times.

A plethora of honorable mentions: I’m disqualifying team-ups or analogue character stories, but no list of the great Superman material of the last decade would be complete without bringing up Cave Carson Has A Cybernetic Eye #7, Avengers 34.1, Irredeemable, Sideways Annual #1, Supreme: Blue Rose, Justice League: Sixth Dimension, usage of him in Wonder Twins, (somewhat in spite of itself) Superior, from all I’ve heard New Super-Man, DCeased #5, and Batman: Super Friends. And while they couldn’t quite squeeze in, all due praise to the largely entertaining Superman: Unchained, the decades’ great Luthor epic in Superman: The Black Ring, a brilliant accompaniment to Scott Snyder’s work with Lex in Lex Luthor: Year of the Villain, the bonkers joy of the Superman/Luthor feature in Walmart’s Crisis On Infinite Earths tie-in comics, Geoff Johns and John Romita’s last-minute win in their Superman run with their final story 24 Hours, Tom Taylor’s quiet criticism of the very premise he was working with on Injustice and bitter reflection on the changing tides for the character in The Man of Yesterday, the decades’ most consistent Superman ongoing in Bryan Miller and company’s Smallville Season 11, and Superman: American Alien, which probably would have made the top ten but has been dropped like a hot potato by one and all for Reasons. In addition are several stories from Adventures of Superman, a book with enough winners to merit a class of its own: Rob Williams and Chris Weston’s thoughtful Savior, Kyle Killen and Pia Guerra’s haunting The Way These Things Begin, Marc Guggenheim and Joe Bennett’s heart-wrenching Tears For Krypton, Christos Gage and Eduardo Francisco’s melancholy Flowers For Bizarro, Josh Elder and Victor Ibanez’s deeply sappy but deeply effective Dear Superman, Ron Marz and Doc Shaner’s crowdpleasing Only Child, and Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine DeLandro’s super-sweet Mystery Box.

10. Greg Pak/Aaron Kuder’s Action Comics

Oh, what might’ve been. In spite of an all-timer creative team I can’t justify listing this run any higher given how profoundly and comprehensively compromised it is, from the status quo it was working with to the litany of ill-conceived crossovers to regular filler artists to its ignominious non-ending. But with the most visceral, dynamic, and truly humane take on Clark Kent perhaps of all time that still lives up to all Superman entails, and an indisputably iconic instant-classic moment to its name, I can’t justify excluding it either.

9. Action Comics #1000

Arguably the climax to the decade for the character as his original title became the first superhero comic to reach a 1000th issue. While any anthology of this sort is a crapshoot by nature, everyone involved here seemed to understand the enormity of the occasion and stepped up as best they could; while the lack of a Lois Lane story is indefensible, some are inevitably bland, and one or two are more than a bit bizarre, by and large this was a thoroughly charming tribute to the character and his history with a handful of legitimate all-timer short stories.

8. Faster Than A Bullet

Much as Adventures of Superman was rightfully considered an oasis amidst the New 52′s worst excesses post-Morrison and in part pre-Pak, few stories from it seem well-remembered now, and even at the time this third issue inexplicably seemed to draw little attention. Regardless, Matt Kindt and Stephen Segovia’s depiction of an hour in the life of Superman as he saves four planets first thing in the morning without anyone noticing - while clumsy in its efforts at paralleling the main events with a literal subplot of a conversation between Lois and Lex - is one of the best takes I can recall on the scope on which he operates, and ultimately the purpose of Clark Kent.

7. Man and Superman

Seemingly geared on every front against me, built as it was on several ideas of how to handle Superman’s origin I legitimately hate, and by a writer whose work over the years has rarely been to my liking, Marv Wolfman and Claudio Castellini’s Man and Superman somehow came out of nowhere to be one of my favorite takes on Clark Kent’s early days. With a Metropolis and characters within it that feel not only alive but lived-in, it’s shocking that a story written and drawn over ten years before it was actually published prefigured so many future approaches to its subject, and felt so of-the-moment in its depiction of a 20-something scrambling to figure out how to squeeze into his niche in the world when it actually reached stores.

6. Brian Bendis’s run

Controversial in the extreme, and indeed heir to several of Brian Bendis’s longstanding weaknesses as a writer, his work on The Man of Steel, Superman, and Action Comics has nevertheless been defined at least as much by its ambition and intuitive grasp of its lead, as well as fistfuls of some of the best artistic accompaniment in the industry. At turns bombastic space action, disaster flick, spy-fi, oddball crime serial, and family drama, its assorted diversions and legitimate attempts at shaking up the formula - or driving it into new territory altogether, as in the latest, apparently more longterm-minded unmasking of Clark Kent in Truth - have remained anchored and made palatable by an understanding of Superman’s voice, insecurities, and convictions that go virtually unmatched.

5. Strange Visitor

The boldest, most out-of-left-field Superman comic of the past 10 years, Joe Keatinge took the logline of Adventures of Superman to do whatever creators wanted with the character and, rather than getting back to a classic take absent from the mainline titles at the time as most others did, used the opportunity for a wildly expansive exploration of the hero from his second year in action to his far-distant final adventure. Alongside a murderer’s row of artists, Keatinge pulled off one of the few comics purely about how great Superman is that rather than falling prey to hollow self-indulgence actually managed to capture the wonder of its subject.

4. Superman: Up In The Sky

And here’s the other big “Superman’s just the best” comic the decade had to offer that actually pulled it off. Sadly if reasonably best-known for its one true misfire of a chapter, with the increasing antipathy towards Tom King among fans in general likely not helping, what ended up overlooked is that this is a stone-cold classic on moment of arrival. Andy Kubert turns in work that stands alongside the best of his career, Tom King’s style is honed to its cleanest edge by the 12-pager format and subject matter, and the quest they set their lead out on ends up a perfect vehicle to explore Superman’s drive to save others from a multitude of angles. I don’t know what its reputation will end up being in the long-term - I was struck how prosaic and subdued the back cover description was when I got this in hardcover, without any of the fanfare or critic quotes you’d expect from the writer of Mister Miracle and Vision tackling Superman - but while its one big problem prevents me from ranking it higher, this is going to remain an all-timer for me.

3. Jeff Loveness’s stories Help and Glasses

Cheating shamelessly here, but Jeff Loveness’s Help with David Williams and Glasses with Tom Grummett are absolutely two halves of the same coin, a pair of theses on Superman’s enduring relevance as a figure of hope and the core of Lois and Clark’s relationship that end up covering both sides of Superman the icon and Superman the guy. While basically illustrated essays, any sense of detached lecturing is utterly forbidden by the raw emotion on display here that instantly made them some of the most acclaimed Superman stories of the last several years; they’re basically guaranteed to remain in ‘best-of’ collections from now until the end of time.

2. Superman Smashes The Klan

A bitter race for the top spot, but #2 is no shame here; while not quite my favorite Superman story of the past ten years, it’s probably the most perfectly executed. While I don’t think anyone could have quite expected just *how* relevant this would be at the top of the decade, Gene Yang and Gurihiru put together an adventure in the best tradition of the Fleischer shorts and the occasional bystander-centered episodes of Batman: The Animated Series to explore racism’s both overt and subtle infections of society’s norms and institutions, the immigrant experience, and both of its leads’ senses of alienation and justice. Exciting, stirring, and insightful, it’s debuted to largely universal acknowledgement as being the best Superman story in years, and hopefully it’ll be continued to be marketed as such long-term.

1. Grant Morrison’s Action Comics

When it came time to make the hard choice, it came in no small part down to that I don’t think we would have ever seen a major Golden Age Superman revival project like Smashes The Klan in the first place if not for this. Even hampering by that godawful Jim Lee armor, inconsistent (if still generally very good) art, and a fandom that largely misunderstood it on arrival can’t detract from that this is Grant Morrison’s run on a Superman ongoing, a journey through Superman’s development as a character reframed as a coherent arc that takes him from Metropolis’s most beaten-down neighborhoods to the edge of the fifth dimension and the monstrous outermost limits of ‘Superman’ as a concept. It launched discussions of Superman as a corporate icon and his place relative to authority structures that have never entirely vanished, introduced multiple all-time great new villains, and made ‘t-shirt Superman’ a distinct era and mode of operation for the character that I’m skeptical will ever entirely go away. No other work on the character this decade had the bombast, scope, complexity, or ambition of this run, with few able to match its charm or heart. And once again, it was, cannot stress this enough, Grant Morrison on an ongoing Superman book.

[bmalsuj]

Mando did what???

Spoilers for the season 2 Finale of Mandalorion under the cut... Also, as a PSA there is an end credits scene you want to watch.

I loved this... but I have questions. 

Cara Dune made reference to a huge reward, one assumes Mando can use that to buy a new ship and get on with his life, but what about the Darksaber??  I don’t think Starbuck can take mando... I don’t think she particularly wants to try.  Mando being leader of the Mandalorian people doesn’t feel like the right character progression... maybe season 3 is about Starbuck convincing him to do it as a whole story arc, or something... the finale could be him accepting his destiny or whatever. Did Kyle Ron slaughter poor Grogu??  Will we see Tween/Teen Yoda later to replace baby yoda (ala Groot)??  Has mando decided to go mainstream Mando instead of “a child of the watch”, or will he just keep his helmet off forever (ala, “If you take it off, you can’t put it back on... ever”)?? He took off his helmet in front of EVERYONE. I am torn between “It was AWESOME watching Luke tear though those dark troopers” and “Can’t we have ONE good Star Wars story that doesn’t go back to that Skywalker well?” Grogu’s blood has already been used to make Snoke or mecha-Palapatine or whatever, I’d guess. Having Moff Gideon survive so he can come back is standard serial fare, I guess... but I don’t need to see him squaring off against Mando again... he’s already been beaten.

[nooowestayandgetcaught]

1-36 ALL OF EM. ALL OF EM.

THIS IS WHAT I LIKE TO HEAR, BRO. ALL FANDOMS.

1. First ship you remember

Peter Pan/Wendy Darling (Disney’s Peter Pan) is my best guess as far back as I can remember. That’s the original OTP next to Bruce Wayne/Selina Kyle (DCU) and Ariel/Prince Eric (Disney’s The Little Mermaid).

2. Your newest ship

Hmmm,,, I haven’t really watched anything new,,,,,,, but I mean I did get into Geralt/Jaskier (Netflix’s The Witcher) recently. I really like them.

3. Favourite ship ever

STARES LONGINGLY AT PETER/WENDY

I go between them and Mulan/Li Shang (Disney’s Mulan) and Korra/Asami Sato (Avatar: Legend of Korra) and  Yuuri Katsuki/Viktor Nikiforov (Yuuri On Ice) and Arya Stark/Gendry Waters (GOT/ASOIAF)  for my favorite ships of all time 

4. Favourite m/f ship

I grew up on the His Dark Materials books and I always was a Lyra Belaqua/Will Parry shipper and that has never ever changed. They’re so sweet. I WOULD LIKE PHILIP PULLMAN TO BRING THEM IN THE NEXT BOOK THAT IS SUPPOSED TO COME OUT. DO NOT FUCK AROUND.

5. Favourite m/m ship

you really can’t wrong with Ash Lynx/Eiji Okumura (Banana Fish) except you can and I don’t care,,,, everyone’s alive and fine and not depressed,,,,,,,

6. Favourite f/f ship

do you know how much my heart broke when they refused to do Emma Swan/Regina Mills (Once Upon A Time) EVEN THOUGH everything in canon said they were True Love????? now I’m just pissed,,,,, I can’t let go of them

7.Most innocent ship

OH GOD,,, KATARA/AANG (AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER). THE FLUFFIEST. THE HAPPIEST. THE SWEETEST BABIES.

8.Most fluffy ship

WHAT DID I LITERALLY JUST SAY???

9.Most angsty ship

good god it’s Clarke Griffin/Lexa (The 100) but I still love them and I know I wasn’t THERE for Lexa dying but I’m STILL livid about what they did and how they treated the LGBT+ community and I’m gonna throw hands,,,, ever since it happened and Clexa is mentioned in the show,,, it’s always so painful,,,,, Clarke is not letting Lexa go and tbh she shouldn’t and I’m gonna get mad again

10. Most smutty ship

Smut is optional, not a requirement for my ships.

11. Ship that you would never have wanted in canon but like in fanworks

I don’t fucking trust MCU so they can have none of my ships!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

12. Character that you can only imagine in one ship

BOOOOOOOOOOOOORING.

13. Most shippable character

Merlin (BBC Merlin) and Harry Potter.

14. Character that you can’t imagine in any ship

Any character I don’t like.

15. Favourite poly ship

I love love love love Rey/Finn/Poe Dameron. Finnreypoe. Jedistormpilot. I fell in love with Rey/Finn and Finn/Poe through “The Force Awakens” and then saw in the novelization that there was hints of Rey/Poe Dameron and LATCHED onto it. Don’t even fight me with “The Rise Of Skywalker” because it was COMPLETELY a Jedistormpilot movie and that’s all I was there for. Those three characters.

16. Characters that you kinda ship but prefer as brotp FRIENDSHIP

since I think Katniss might be aroace,,, I wanna say Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark and don’t get wrong,,,, I do ship but more platonic ship

17. Characters that you ship and can’t imagine to be friends

Spike himself said that Buffy Summers/Angel (Buffy The Vampire Slayer) dynamic could never be friends and only friends and he’s right

18. Guilty pleasure ship

GUILT IS CRINGE!! CRINGE CULTURE IS DEAD!!! YOU SHIP THINGS TO YOUR HEART’S DELIGHT!!!!! HAVE FUN!!!

19. Ship that you never expected to ship.

I was straightbaited by Black Sails while watching as it aired and never saw Captain James Flint/Thomas Hamilton coming,,,, or them unburying the gays,,,,, I thought the whole time Thomas and James were sharing Miranda,,,

20. Ship that you liked but don’t anymore

at one point I liked Callum/Soren (The Dragon Prince) but I’m over them and I’m over that show and I don’t support Aaron fucking Ehasz

21. Ship that one day you were thinking of and thought “wait,when I started shipping it?”

I DO THAT LITERALLY WITH EVERY SHIP I HAVE

22. Ship that you immediately fall in love with after one scene despite not considering it before.

aahhhh I saw Toni Topez interact with Cheryl Blossom from Riverdale after their confrontation which was like,,,, the first time they ever spoke to each other,,,, but then the diner scene happened, and now I ship them. And they’re canon.

23. Poly ship that you ship despite not shipping some of the characters in it outside of poly ship.

I only ship Ryn/Maddie Bishop/Ben Powell with each other. That’s it. IT’S A CANON INTERRACIAL LGBT+ SHIP. IT’S REAL. I’M SO HAPPY.

24. Biggest notp

Dick Grayson/Barbara Gordon (DCU),,,,, oooh don’t get me fucking started

25. Favourite foe yay ship

L/Light (Death Note). That’s a classic. I know Light made sure his ass was murdered but c’mon,,, c’mon,,,, THE CREDITS TO THE LAST EPISODE THO??? DID YOU SEE THAT SHIT???? THAT WAS GAY AS HELL.

26. Characters that you like in every dynamic (lovers,friends,enemies)

we gotta go with Doctor/Master (Doctor Who),,, they’ve been all three,,,,, nobody can tell me otherwise and that’s the beauty of these two! My favorite versions are 1) Thirteen/Dhawan!Master, 2) Ten/Simms!Master, and 3) Twelve/Missy and if you add Simms!Master with the last one then it’s GOLDEN

27. Ship that you expected to ship before reading/watching franchise and you do

I saw gifs and things of Anne Lister/Ann Walker (Gentleman Jack) before I started watching and I already knew I was gonna fall in love AND I DID

28. Ship that you expected to ship before reading/watching franchise and you don’t

this might be a weird one but I really thought I was gonna ship Victor Van Dort/Victoria Everglot or Victor Van Dort/Emily (Corpse Bride) and I just didn’t for either of them. I DO HOWEVER SHIP EMILY/VICTORIA EVERGLOT.

29. Favourite crossover ship

OHHHHH we gotta go with Kate Kane/Kara Danvers (Arrowverse) like look at them look at the gay it’s like SuperBat but the female millennial version

30. Favourite canon ship

Princess Bubblegum/Marceline (Adventure Time)! I’m overjoyed they are canon! I’m not done watching all of this show but still,,,,, and that means we can get Prince Gumball/Marshall Lee to be confirmed canon too?? Yes?? 

31. Favourite non-canon ship

I know we can’t like CONFIRM in canon but Frodo Baggins/Samewise Gamgee are in love and there’s no denying this. They’re canon enough to me.

32. Favourite ship for hurt-comfort

All of my ships are good for hurt/comfort and whump. I don’t discriminate.

33. Ship that you ship in one installment of franchise but not in other (for example in movie,but not in the book this movie is based on)

I ship Hannibal Lecter/Clarice Starling in the movies for Hannibal related things, even though Will Graham exists in them, but I ship Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham for NBC’s Hannibal 100% and won’t ship them with anyone else

34. Ship that you never expected to ship when you were younger but here you are

I never expected to ship Harry Potter/Ron Weasley/Hermione Granger all together years down the road,,,,, since as a kid I flip-flopped between Ron/Hermione & Harry/Me,,,, er,,,,,,,,, I mean Harry/My OC That Was Definitely Not Me At All and Harry/Hermione but here we are

35. Ship that you have kinda love/hate relationship with

right now it’s Rue Bennett/Jules Vaughn (HBO’s Euphoria) because they’re so cute,,, they really are,,, but they can be so bad together and I hate that! I just want it to work out but Jules doesn’t understand her own feelings,,, and is kinda fucking around with Rue’s feelings,,,,,, and Rue needs to deal with her drug addiction problems first,,,, but let’s see what happens for Season 2

36. Characters that you can’t decide if you prefer as ship or brotp

okay FIRST OFF we don’t “brotp” anything no more because the term was created with homophobic connotations so replace it with “friendship” and honestly I can’t decide if I like Lucifer/Chloe Decker (Netflix’s Lucifer) as a romantic or platonic ship or somewhere between. I haven’t decided.

[acting-classes-online]

The cameos of 11 famous actors that you may not remember

Aiden, Smith, Harry and Steve and of course Mr. Big (who has made it known will not be in the anticipated “And just like that” reboot). Here they are the great loves of the four girls of Sex and the city who soon, Samantha s part, will return, in the revival of HBO, to populate the streets of New York showing us how their love stories have evolved - alas, even without Steve and Mr. Big after the rejection of the actors - and of friendship in all these years of absence from the screen.

Yet, the TV series that since 1998 has made us laugh and also learn (about sex, but not only) has had over the years a parterre of stars who, season after season for a total of 94 episodes, have left a memory for the characters they played, even if only for a few minutes of an episode. Any co-star names turned big stars? Elizabeth Banks, Alan Cumming, Heidi Klum, Andy Cohen, Lucy Liu, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Carrie Fisher, even Hugh Hefner and Donald Trump.

Our attention, however, is catalyzed by 11 actors, very famous today, who perhaps you do not remember. Because, despite Charlotte York's theory that everyone in life is destined to have only two great loves, the girls of Sex and the city have had a few extra crushes, waiting for the big love. Luckily, we say. Otherwise, how could they have invited all these handsome guys to the set? Many will remember Trey MacDougal (Kyle MacLachlan), Robert (Blair Underwood), Richard Wright (James Remar), Aleksandr Petrovsky (Michail Baryšnikov) and Jack Berger (Ron Livingston) because they had relationships with the SATC girls for at least two episodes. But you may have missed these really hot cameos, which didn't get over the first date hurdle. And just like that ...

1. Bradley Cooper is Jake Carrie ends up on the cover of New York Magazine with a tired face, accompanied by the question "Is Single Better?". So, to forget what happened, he allows himself an extra cocktail and at the club he meets a young and blond Bradley Cooper, in his first role as an actor.

2. Matthew McConaughey is a fictionalized version of himself Carrie flies to Los Angeles because a producer - Matthew McConaughey - wants to turn his column into a movie. Interested in playing Mr. Big, he asks her how he managed to screw up the whole relationship with the most perfect man on earth, making her give up the option of seeing his pillars of him on the big screen.

3. Gabriel Macht is Barkley Yes, it's Harvey Specter, Suits' established and super sexy lawyer (yes, the one with Meghan Markle). Many years ago he was a model expert, exactly in the second episode of the first season of the series. His role has brought the term "modelizer" into our vocabulary.

4. Justin Theroux is Vaughn Wysel A writer like Carrie, with a few problems in the bedroom. Justin Theroux, Jennifer Aniston's ex-husband, appears once again, just for a few seconds, as a writer named one of the "30 coolest people under 30".

5. Vince Vaughn is Keith In Los Angeles, anything can happen. Even thinking that you have met the perfect man, a prominent film agent, played by Vince Vaughn. Only to discover, in reality, that he is the personal assistant of Carrie Fisher and Ben Affleck.

6. David Duchovny is Jeremy David Duchovny was Carrie's high school boyfriend, who suddenly calls her to tell her he's moved to Connecticut. The two start a story again, until he reveals that he is in a psychiatric facility, making their future complicated.

7. Jon Bon Jovi is Seth Jon Bon Jovi is a patient of Carrie's own therapist. She creates a confrontation, until she discovers that once he sleeps with a woman he completely loses interest in her, making her realize that she is really good at picking the wrong men.

8. John Slattery is Bill Kelley Before being Roger Sterling in Mad Men, John Slattery was the contending politician who stole Carrie's heart. Why didn't it last between them? A certain weakness for a certain type of shower ...

9. Clark Gregg is Harris Before Marvel and Agents of S.H.I.E.LD., Clark Gregg met Miranda on a speed dating. She passes herself off as a stewardess, he as a doctor and then turns out to be the deputy director of a shoe store.

10. Timothy Olyphant is Sam Timothy Olyphant is a 20 year old boy who loves to hang out with the thirties. Carrie loses her head for him until she sees her apartment with him.

11. Matthew Morrison is a waiter Carrie, post Jake (Bradley Cooper) and the bad figure in New York Magazine, accepts her single life and goes to lunch alone, where she is served by future Glee star Matthew Morrison.