#repeat timeline: before the reboot

[zahri-melitor]

What can you infer about the editorial meddling Young Justice went through?

Oh god. It’s like the old quote about pornography: you know it when you see it. Spend enough time reading comics and you can just tell.

Notable problems with the Young Justice 2019 run that smack of interference:

You can really tell there was external pressure to include Steph in the run and that she was not originally intended to join the team or appear any further than occasional cameos such as the flashbacks at the Hall of Justice as a link to Tim’s final scene in Tynion’s Tec run. Structurally her story makes no sense whatsoever for how to put a plot together. Steph’s not an original Young Justice character, the run already was supporting two new female characters plus a reboot of Amethyst introducing Amy to a new generation, even before we look at the crossovers from other titles in the imprint. The fact they ended up throwing in a single issue entirely about 'what Steph has been up to and her fight against Cluemaster' in the last section of the run makes it even worse, as that was valuable page time wasted pandering that could and should have been used to give Jinny Hex or Keli Quintela more development.

The entire ‘Drake’ situation, which for a costume change had very little build up, was under-designed, and then disappeared with Tim back in the Robin costume between two panels. It was a test balloon from someone that was comprehensively shot down by some mix of the fandom and editorial, and I remain convinced that DC is gunshy about a new costume and identity for Tim all the way up to the present day because of how badly it was handled.

It was being used as the anchor for Wonder Comics, leading to the required mega crossover (that also spilled over into Bendis’ Action Comics to give it some more space), putting even more pressure on the title to be telling a big crossover story when it was still trying to re-establish “your favourites are back” and suggesting potentially expanding the Young Justice lineup out to around thirteen characters, a massively oversized team that the title was not set up to handle.

Lost in the Multiverse was where the story started to get bogged down by being pulled in too many directions by expectations.

It’s also super telling that the last third of the book got turned over to essentially doing one-shot character pieces about the Core Four, the last defence of a run that can see cancellation coming and doesn’t feel confident launching a new story arc they don’t expect to get to finish. Some of this stuff was clearly background character work they would have preferred to have dripped out over a longer run.

Also I know I’m repeating myself, but having the Tim piece focus on Steph mostly, in the frame of Tim and Steph’s relationship? That’s not where I’d be spending my time when looking at Tim Drake in the focus of Young Justice. How he’s coping with his returned memories of having two or three different lives now? Thinking about what ‘Tell Conner you’re sorry’ means? Discussion about his feelings in terms of moving on from being Robin or not? Nah let’s talk about Steph's problems with her dad instead. That’s not a natural fit compared to what everyone else got and does not follow from any of the preceding story.

Still ropeable that the whole set of storylines about regained memories and alternate timelines doesn’t get to intersect with Lois Lane (which spoilers but also is committed to storytelling about ‘people have memories of other places bleeding through’ prior to the full Infinite Frontier retcon) or explore how those memories change things for Tim, Bart or Cassie (Kon at least does get a story about reconnecting in Action).

And that’s just off the top of my head, ignoring any of the more subtle signs.

I love Young Justice 2019. It is a run that adores Bart, Kon, Cassie and Tim (and particularly Bart. I cannot explain to you how much this story adores Bart if you’ve never read it) and the opening 6 issues make me feel warm and fuzzy every time I read them in terms of how cleverly it works to explain how we get everything back. There are clever subtle moments in the text that give a lot more depth to the story that are implied rather than spelled out: how Cassie suddenly remembers Bart when Bart comes near her, suggesting that her returned memories are a Speed Force side effect from being a lightning rod to Bart; Cassie and Tim sense Kon using TTK and recognise it as familiar, something the new characters cannot; the fakeout in the art where when Tim’s memories are restored, he sees Cissie in his memories, but unless you know the exact YJ98 page being referenced you’d think it was Steph; etc.

But gosh it would have been so much better if it had not been required to devote so much page time to crossovers and to pandering to fans, among other elements.

[ganondoodle]

just to get this out again though

zelda lore is dead to me and i have never hated the sonau (zonai) more than now, shoved literally into everything, all the way into skyward sword, if that is even canon still

i hate this stupid ass book (masterworks 2.0) before its even out, if that is whats on no more than 4 pages (-take it with a grain of salt, just repeating what i have seen- hylia made the stupid magic pebbles and gave them the sonau, they lived since skyward sword at least, possible triforce and skyward sword retcon, totk gan being the literal first gan(?) and rauru being the literal first king of hyrule(???) and also the gerudo having been their own established COUNTRY, thus making raurus goal to take them over too even WORSE together with how ganondorf is meant to be seen, AND it possibly meaning that totks past was actually that far back to the literal beginiing of the timeline even though it looks 1to1 like botw even which SUCKS on more ways than one- (edit: ALSO NONE of botw seemed to lead up to anything like that, totk was supposed to a DLC and it shows and yet they do this with its lore????the fuck are they smokin?? botw was a neat like soft reboot that leads to like, a new kind of zelda without changing the past, then they do THIS literally brute force it back to the literal start?? as if totk couldnt get more seperate from botw) ) what else are they gonna fuck with on the lot of other pages, i cant WAIT to find out!

they can shove their weird sonau obsession elsewhere, didnt think my hatred for totk could get even worse, id have happily locked it away and out of my memory as possible at some point but i guess you cant escape it anywhere bc they are literally everywhere apparently weehooo!

(my franchise now)

[mockerycrow]

Undercover IV (Soap x GN!Reader)

undercover series masterlist — previous | next

Summary: You have a rocky introduction with John Price and you continue your interview, despite a certain someone’s hesitant protests. You finally have your dreaded psych evaluation while your stress reaches it’s peak.

A/N: considering this is a reboot timeline + Makarov is only vaguely mentioned in mw2, i’m taking inspo from og mw and adding my own spices. and holy shit why was this so difficult to complete??? i also apologize for this taking so long, i live where the smoke from the canadian fires dragged across and my chest hurts. update: russian was corrected!

[WARNINGS: flashbacks, Price is a bit of an ass but trust me, vague descriptions of torture and murder, angst.]

“I learned from him that often contradiction is the clearest way to truth.” -Patti Smith.

“We need to get your head on straight.”

That’s what Price said, and I don’t know what about how he said it made me mad, but oh boy, did it fucking piss me off. “What?”

“We need to get your head on straight,” He repeats, crossing his arms in front of his chest. He’s wearing his tactical vest, dawning a U.K. badge. I eye his gear before making eye contact with him again and he continues. “We can’t afford to sit around, we need that intel. We have reasonable suspicion Makarov will move on with his plans quicker than we anticipated.” My nose scrunches up a little bit as he’s basically avoiding saying it without saying that he’s avoiding it. “You want me to continue with the interview.” I say it like a statement and not a question because all three of us know it’s not a question.

“Price, that isn’t a good idea,” Soap says, his voice considerably alarmed. He grinds his teeth together because he knows my reaction to just fucking closing my eyes while talking about it was extremely concerning. “I know it isn’t, but we don’t have a choice,” Price mutters before pinching the bridge of his nose and sighing. He looks at me with a pointed look, eyes flickering over my body in confliction.

I mimic his look because as much as I would love time to calm down, I know what he’s saying is true. If they truly have reasonable suspicion that Makarov is going to advance in his plans early, they need what I learned.

Fuck, man..

“Okay.” I move the pillow around on my lap. “Let’s do it?”

Soap’s head snaps towards me, eyebrows furrowed. “What? You’re agreein’ to it??” I look back at him with a frustrated look and I can feel myself wanting to explode. “What choice do I have? Not say anything and risk peoples lives, or have a little freak out and no one dies—except maybe for him?”

The room goes silent except for the beeping of the machines and Soap sighs, taking the recorder out of his front pocket. Price remains on his side of the bed but this time finds a chair, pulls it around and sits down. His hands stay on the armrests. I glance at Soap who presses a button and holds it a bit away from himself. “This is Sergeant John MacTavish, Callsign Soap, this is day two interviewing Sergeant [Name] [Last Name] of the Eclipse Task Force.” Soap hesitates to say the next part, his eyes tracing him face as he mutters. “Last subject was Makarov’s ‘entry tests’ and ‘loyalty tests’.”

I feel my stomach collapse in on itself, tightening into a painful knot. I know this was coming eventually, even if I didn’t want it to. “Yeah, uh..” I trail off, averting my eyes to stare at something, anything but the two men looking to me for answers. “After two months of living in Russia, I got into contact with Makarov. It was completely by accident too, I was just trying to collect information about him, seem like I was interested and then I was.. picked up.“ I pause for a moment before continuing. “I had to build up a reputation, something that made it look like I didn’t pop up in this city out of the blue, y’know?”

“Мы не используем здесь его имя.” We do not use his name here. “Секретность должна быть сохранена, не так ли?” Secrecy must be kept, right?

There’s a hood over my head and my heart is pounding inside of my chest—I could die, right here and right now and nobody would know. I could fail this entire mission right at this moment and that’s fucking terrifying. I twist my wrists ever so slightly, not in an attempt to get away, but I can’t help but check out tight the rope is. I’m surprised they didn’t use handcuffs. I blink rapidly as my eyes burn a bit, trying to properly adjust to the bright light above me.

I look around and I’m in a warehouse with two men—neither of them being the man I want, but one of them is Sergei Orlov, one of the men I had been tracking since I’ve gotten here.

The intel suggests he has close connects to Makarov, indicating that he may be in a right-hand man type of situation. That’s the position I’m trying to bury my way into. Sergei’s eyes are sharp and intimidating, the color being a deep, cerulean blue with dashes of green near his pupils.

There is absolutely no light in them, no positive emotion—I didn’t expect to see any, but it makes me wonder if Makarov’s eyes are the same? Will I be able to get close enough to see?

“Мы наблюдаем за тобой уже несколько недель. Ты пытаешься предать свою страну и начать войну. Почему?” We have been watching you for several weeks now. You are trying to betray your country and start a war. Why?

My fingers twitch as I offer a scoff, a snarl curling at my lips, like I’m snapping at another dog. Of course, I show no disrespect. I need this to be perfect. “Вы не представляете, что этот мир сделал со мной, люди, которые в нем живут, сделали со мной.” You have no idea what this world has done to me, the people who live in it have done to me.

Sergei has his hands behind his back as he slowly walks around me, circling me. I keep my eyes on him as much as possible, I’m radiating distrust—trying to keep up the character I’m playing.

“Это правда, я не знаю. Но я точно знаю, что такие, как ты, просто так не появляются.” It's true, I don't know. But I know for sure that people like you don't just appear. I feel my heart drop into my stomach because fuck, man—I thought everything was good?? My backstory, my profile, I didn’t think I had any holes—

“К счастью для тебя, у нас есть сложная викторина для людей, которые, казалось бы, появились из ниоткуда. Чтобы предотвратить явку шпионов, м?” Lucky for you, we have a challenging quiz for people who seemingly appeared out of nowhere. To prevent spies, yes?

I immediately nod in response, brows furrowed, eyes filled with determination. Sergei’s lips curl into a dreadful smile—one that screams “get away from me or else”.

“Хороший.” Good. He unties my bindings, allowing me to rub my wrists. I don’t have a good feeling at all. Sergei grabs my upper arm and has me stand up, and him and the other man lead me out of the warehouse, going to a truck. “Куда мы идем?” Where are we going?

He doesn’t bother to answer me besides motioning me to sit in the back of the car. I hesitate for a moment out of weariness, but I comply. I open the door to the truck and climb into the back and Sergei slides into the back with me. The other man climbs into the driver’s seat. “привод.” Drive.

I can feel myself begin to space out with every word and I can vaguely feel my fingers tightening into a fist. I pause my retelling of events as my train of thought breaks apart, the crawling feeling on my back intensifying. “Hey,” Price’s voice is low. “You with us?” It takes everything inside of my goddamn soul to nod, but God, I wish I wasn’t. I know we’re getting close to the part of my.. atrocities.

My heart jumps inside of my chest and my monitor beeps loudly for a moment. Don’t close your eyes. Don’t close your eyes. Don’t close your eyes. Don’t close your eyes—“Hey!”

My eyes snap to Price who has a furrowed brow, annoyance lacing his features. I notice my chest is moving up and down with every harsh breath coming out through my nose. “Focus.” I grit my teeth, my fingernails digging into the palm of my hand. “I’m trying.” I retaliate with a tight voice. I understand they need this information, but they have to understand how hard it is to recount literally every single life taken, innocent ones??

“Clearly you aren’t,” Price scoffs, his lip curling in anger. “You’ve barely started the bloody report, what’s the issue?”

I laugh humorlessly, my eyes going wide. “What—Did you actually just fucking say that?” Soap stands up, putting his hand out towards his captain. “Price, I—“

“Stay out of this, Soap. That’s an order.”

I can feel my bones ache under my harsh clenching of my hand, an angry smile coming to my lips. I feel this weird smoldering feeling in my gut that’s spreading heat across my body and into my limbs. I hear my heart monitor picking up speed. “You have absolutely no fucking idea what I’ve been through—what I’ve had to do!” I’m aware I’m raising my voice, but I honestly cannot bother to give a fuck by now.

Price crosses his arms, glaring down at me. His eyes are scrutinizing and it makes me want to punch the fuckin’ daylights out of him. “You’re right,” He begins. “I have not the foggiest idea because you’ve not said anything of actual value thus far!”

Oh, he wants me to fucking punch him. This man is so fucking asking for me to knock his teeth out. I open my mouth to speak but Price swiftly interrupts me. “What did you have to do, [Name]? Kill a few innocent people? Children, maybe? Did you have to torture them?”

I can feel that hot feeling turn to ice cold in a split second, a ripple of sweat dripping down my temple. “..What?”

Price waves his hand around as a general statement. “So what, you had to gut a few children? That’s nothing. Oh, did you have to keep them alive? Did they force ya to hear their screams, [Name]? Or did you have’to—“

It’s like I don’t have control of myself when I reach forward and snatch the front of Price’s shirt and pulling him near myself, my voice loud and booming, nearly cracking. “YES, IS THAT WHAT YOU WANTED TO HEAR? DID YOU WANT TO HEAR THE SICK DETAILS OF WHAT I DID?” I take a deep breath, continuing. This fucking rage is flowing through my bones and I just cannot shut myself up—“DID YOU WANT TO HEAR ABOUT HOW I BROKE BONES, INFLICTED WOUNDS AND LEFT PEOPLE TO ROT?”

The room goes silent, aside from my harsh breathing and the beeping from my heart monitor. I lower my voice, but i don’t stop the absolute anger dripping from every word as I speak through clenched teeth. “Every dirty fuckin’ detail is a weight on my goddamn conscience and you don’t seem to understand that, Price.”

The room is eerily silent again and I fucking hate it. I look down at the pillow on my torso as I feel their beady little eyes peering into my soul, judging my every sin. I hear Soap turn the recorder off and I feel hot from embarrassment for a moment because I just realized.. he was recording all of that. Of fucking course.

Before anyone else can say anything, the door to my room opens. I pick my head up and see a woman in business casual clothing with a notebook, pen, and a clipboard. “Hi, my name is Doctor Elaine Stewart, I’ll be conducting this comprehensive psychological and psychiatric evaluation on you today.” Her voice is soft and light like how her hair looks—dark curls that seem to bounce right above her shoulders, her skin is a darker tan too. Her eyes are big, round, and soft. She’s British—I can’t place what region she grew up in, though.

They probably picked her because she would feel less like a threat towards me.

Dr. Stewart turns to the two men, glancing between them. “I’m going to have to ask you two to leave for patient doctor confidentiality purposes.”

Price goes to speak up, but she puts her hand up to stop him. “I’ll call if I need anything, but I’m sure we’ll be just fine.”

I hear Price sigh, but I refuse to look at him. Instead, I look to Soap, who’s peering down at me with concerned eyes. I still don’t get why he’s so concerned.. Or why he’s so quiet, because he really doesn’t seem to be a quiet person. Soap takes his notebook sketchbook thing, murmuring a “see you later” and takes his leave next to his Captain.

Once the door closes, Dr. Stewart smiles at me and walks over to my bed, heels clicking, and then takes a seat. “You know how this goes, yeah? You’ve been in the military for quite some time now.” I nod in response, taking a deep breath. My back is beginning to ache from not getting up or moving.

“Yeah, I know.” I say anyway. I put my hands on the bed and go to use my strength to sit myself up, but immediate tight and bursting pain bubbles where my stitches are. One of my hands fly to my stomach—which is covered by the pillow, followed by a loud curse. Dr. Stewart quickly sits up, alarmed. “Are you alright??”

I nod as I hiss in pain, clenching my jaw in an attempt to distract myself from the pain. “Didn’t realize it would’ve hurt so bad..”

Dr. Stewart nods, leaning over and click a button a few times which raises the back of the bed to a proper sitting up position. I feel my face heat up from embarrassment again. Fuck.

Dr. Stewart holds her clipboard and looks at me. “Have you experienced moments where you felt like you were not in your body?”

I take a moment to think about that. “Yes, but only when I was actively tortured or, er.. uh… did the torturing.” I look away from her and back at my lap, a weird feeling bubbling in my stomach. She takes a moment to write down my answer. “Have you ever felt out of control of yourself?”

I shake my head no—and then I pause. Have I? I shake my head no a second time after thinking.

“Within the last 6 months, have you heard disembodied voices or noises no one else around you could hear?”

“No.”

“Have you ever found yourself back in an event that already happened? Maybe you’re just sitting down and for a moment, you’re back in that warehouse?”

I look at her with a furrowed brow, and I immediately want to deny it, but I can’t. “I mean..” I trail off for a moment. “I don’t.. I don’t hallucinate that I’m back with Makarov’s group, if that’s what you mean.”

Dr. Stewart leans forward a bit, her perfectly painted nails tapping against the clipboard. “Then what do you mean, [Name]?” I swallow the spit in my mouth before speaking, yet it feels like my mouth has gone dry. “I don’t know, all I’m saying is that I don’t experience that.”

She looks at me—why is she staring??—and then she writes something down. “What have you done to them, [Name]?”

My heart skips a beat. “What?”

“I said, what have you experienced? I’m talking about anxiety, maybe dread, everything you’ve felt within the last day.”

Did I.. did I mishear her? She definitely said ‘what did you to them’, right?

“[Name]?”

I blink rapidly and look at her. “Sorry. What?”

Dr. Stewart bites her lower lip for a moment, watching me with worried eyes. “I think it’s best to conclude this evaluation for now. It looks like you’re having a hard time adjusting, so I will check back in with you in a few days.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” My voice is teetering on the edge of anger and I know I shouldn’t be mean, but I feel like my skeleton is trying to shed my skin from how jumpy I feel. “That means I don’t think you’re coherent enough for your interview, nor your evaluation; the one that’ll tell your superiors that you can return, anyway.” She picks her pen up and she begins to write something down—seemingly a longer paragraph. “So.. that means you have a temporary conclusion? Of my psyche?” I ask slowly, and I know that isn’t the right wording, but I’m not sure how else to do it.

Dr. Stewart stands up and begins to collect her things. She sighs and looks at me with.. sympathy?? Pity? I can’t tell. “You just went through something extremely traumatic, [Name]. You’re still in fight or flight. I can’t conduct a proper assessment like this.”

I hold my tongue from barking at her that I’m fine, from telling her to get the fuck out or me making some obscene threat.

I feel my heart sink in my chest because I feel like she’s vaguely suggesting something I cannot handle right now.

🏷️: @hardnutpost @glitterypirateduck @elowynnlane @boycigs @wolfyland07 @escapefromrealitysm @tapioca-marzipan

[sweethoneyrose83]

Glitchcore dialogue prompts

1. "Reality is buffering… What happens when we hit pause?"

Character A stares at the glitching horizon, where the sky flickers between pixelated voids. Character B frowns, “Maybe we’re not meant to see the code behind it all.”

2. "You’re a corrupted file. But that doesn’t mean you’re broken."

Character A experiences moments of disconnection, their speech fragmented by static. Character B tries to reassure them, but each word feels like it’s slipping through the cracks of reality.

3. "Every time I blink, the world skips a frame."

Character A notices the world is out of sync. People flicker, objects disappear, and their reflection isn’t quite right. They turn to Character B for answers, but even their words are distorted, glitching mid-sentence.

4. "I was never programmed to feel this… but here I am, crashing."

Character A, an AI or digitally enhanced human, starts to experience emotions for the first time, leading to a system overload. Their thoughts flash like corrupted code, scrambling their sense of self.

5. "We’re stuck in a loop. But maybe this time, we can break it."

Time is glitching for Character A and Character B, repeating the same moments over and over. As they try to escape, reality fractures, showing distorted fragments of alternate timelines.

6. "If I glitch out, don’t follow. I’m just data—nothing more."

Character A is fading, pixel by pixel, as the virtual world they live in begins to collapse. Character B insists on trying to save them, even though the lines between digital and physical are breaking down.

7. "I hear the static whispers… It’s like they know we’re here."

Character A starts to pick up on strange sounds—static, broken transmissions, and voices from somewhere beyond. They believe the glitches are alive, watching them.

8. "We’re just echoes in the system, flickering between what’s real and what’s not."

Character A questions their existence as the world around them constantly shifts and deforms. The glitches feel too intentional, like someone—or something—is controlling it all.

9. "I saw myself glitch today… but it wasn’t me. It was something pretending to be me."

Character A sees their own reflection glitch and morph into something unfamiliar. Is it an error in the system, or is something trying to overwrite them?

10. "I’ve been patched up so many times, I don’t even know which version I am anymore."

Character A has been modified, both physically and digitally, so many times that they’ve lost their sense of identity. They question whether they’re still the same person they once were, or just a collection of fragments.

"You're not seeing me right now, are you? I'm stuck between frames."

"The code is breaking down. I can feel it. Every time I blink, something new glitches."

"We were perfect once. Now, we're just corrupted data fragments trying to piece ourselves together."

"Reality doesn’t crash. It fades, like static, until the lines blur and you can’t tell what’s real anymore."

"Don't trust what you see. It's all just a simulation rendering too slowly to hide its flaws."

"Every time I move, I leave a part of myself behind, like I’m lagging between timelines."

"I’m not sure if I’m the glitch or if the world around me is. Does it matter?"

"The pixels around your face—they’re unraveling. We need to reset the program before you disappear completely."

"I keep hearing this… echo. It’s like my thoughts are repeating, but they aren’t mine."

"I thought I deleted you. Why do you keep reappearing in my feed?"

"The horizon just flickered. Did you see that? I think we’re reaching the edge of the simulation."

"Every time I think I’ve fixed it, the glitches return, worse than before. Maybe we’re meant to stay broken."

"If I lose connection, you have to promise to reboot me. I can’t afford to stay stuck in here."

"It’s strange, isn’t it? How the glitch makes everything look more real than reality ever did."

"What if I’m just a copy of me, and the original got corrupted long ago?"

"I saw the world tear for a second. The sky turned into data streams, and I think I saw someone behind it all."

"I can’t trust the mirrors anymore. They show me… versions of myself that I don’t recognize."

"They keep trying to patch me, but it never works. I think I’m beyond fixing."

"You keep glitching. Are you real or just an error in the system trying to communicate?"

"I can feel myself desyncing from reality. Every moment, I drift further away."

"I’ve been seeing static in the mirror. Like I’m glitching in and out of existence."

"I can’t tell if I’m in the real world or a simulation. The lines are all blurred now."

"My thoughts are stuttering—like an old video buffering. Can you hear it too?"

"We’ve got less than a second before the whole system crashes. Are you ready?"

"Every time I blink, I lose a part of myself. The screen flickers, and I'm gone."

"There’s a glitch in my memory. Did we meet before, or is this another loop?"

"I’ve been coded wrong, haven’t I? My emotions don’t feel… real."

"I tried to log out, but the world didn’t let me. Now, I’m stuck in the error."

"We’re all just data points now. I can see your code unraveling."

"You’re breaking the system. If you keep doing that, everything might collapse."

"Sometimes I hear a voice, like a distorted signal. It tells me the end is near."

"I reached out to touch you, but my hand just passed through like you were a hologram."

"The colors are bleeding into one another, like corrupted files. Can you fix this?"

"I’m not supposed to exist, not like this. I’m a glitch, an error in the code."

"Reality froze for a moment. Did you see it? Everything just stopped moving."

[sinimake]

MK1 is such a bizarre experience bc on one hand some characters have benefited a lot from the "universe reset" (Baraka, Reptile, even arguably Shao who is less than a muahahaha conquer villain but someone who actually seems to care about his realm?). Others kind of raise interesting questions, like Shang Tsung : is he doomed to be bad or can he be good for a change? (In the story he choses to become a snake-oil salesman before joining the imperial family + there is an Union of Light Shang Tsung so him being good is a thing that could happen).

But then, instead of using that full reset NRS just leaves some things the same? Like. It's a reset. In 2023/2023. That was the perfect moment for implementing some (maybe not lots) changes. Perhaps starting making Johnny canonically bi? Just a small ripple towards a bigger change? Instead of getting stuck in same old ways?

YOW EXACTLY

Things i loved about Mk1 change:

Mileena and Kitana sibling relationship

Rain's character design

Tanya and Mileena!!!!

Sindel being badass empress and outworld thriving in peace under her reign

Baraka and Syzoth on the good side!!

Kenshi's yakuza past

Geras and Liu Kang's friendship! Liu Kang actually treating Geras as his equal 🥺 and Geras being so loyal to him 😫😭

Shang Tsung's zitsy behavior

Lin Kuei brothers 🥺

What i hate:

Hanzo being a kid and essentially everything about him being handed to Kuai Liang

Kung Lao being the second best again

Raiden and Kitana romance

Mileena and Tanya having the barest screen time

Controversial opinionated rant down below

I hated that they essentially just switched Liu Kang and Raiden's places. I started MK1 right after MK11 that i was furious to see Raiden chosen as the champion (IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN MY BOY KUNG LAO LET HIM SHINE ISTG) and then flirting with Kitana with Liu Kang's exact line (I hope we meet again under different circumstances)??? Tf??

I understand that some plot elements are too good to change but character romances? Don't replace one side of the pairing, then try to serve it to the audience again! Reboot should give us more variety of character designs, stories, dynamics, and relationships. Give us the genderbent, queer, poc characters BC YOU'RE NOT EVEN SACRIFICING ANYTHING when we literally have infinite alternative timelines you can recall classics from. For example, we have our human Raiden and old man titan Raiden. We can do variety. I wanna see female Fujin, i wanna see Scorpion Harumi and fighter Suchin, i want actual deserved queer representation in Kung Jin, and i. wanna. see. canon Johnshi!

My hypothesis is that NRS is gonna bring in mk children through dimensional travel so that they don't need to age up our current characters. I'm saying this to push my point further that we don't need to repeat romance plotlines (dont come at me. I have bais just as you have bais for ur fav old pairings)

Listen, i loved Sonya and Johnny in previous games, her and Cassie were a huge part of Johnny's character arc, but since Johnny is already maturing by the end of mk1, i don't see a point in Cageblade anymore (very controversial but it's my blog so i will yap as much as i want) We are not erasing anything by possibly making Johnny queer. Johnny and Sonya can be married in different timeline and Cassie is still their child. If anything, we are enriching the character, expanding the universe. Really, I don't wanna buy the exact same game story in different graphics. I don't want to see Suchin die again just to serve Kenshi and Takeda's dynamic.

And don't even get me started again on heteronormality of the game. We have 6 realms that have diverse variety of biological and sociological configurations AND YOU'RE TELLING ME THEY ARE ALL HETEROSEXUAL?? NRS is a fucking pussy for not having enough queer representation. They think they can give us vague "blink, you will miss it" moments and move on. There are so many high selling good games with good lgbtq characters. Literal 2023's the game of the year, BG3 is so fucking gay that it's off to space and you're telling me that NRS is just going 🥺👉👈 but our fans 🥺👉👈

Anyways, NRS can eat shit and Johnshi for the president 🤘

[patheticpeoplesupreme]

It’d be so incredibly funny if Rory the Roman (Power of Three Rory) got sent back to the past into Vampires of Venice Rory (his body) and both Past Doctor and Past Amy realise how different he is.

Rory the Roman didn’t realise it back then, but the 2 thousand years really did change him. He’s also more nonchalant about dying (which scares Amy)( and the Doctor a little bit because of Past Rory’s whole “You have no idea how dangerous you make people to themselves when you’re around.” quote

Rory has become more fearless, more of a warrior

Yet still kind, still himself

Even as Rory tries not to reveal himself as Future Rory, him understanding the timelines and fixed points so well makes the Doctor suspicious, doesn’t know what to do with him.

Also… Rory the Roman has so much trust in Past Doctor. While Vampires of Venice has none. It reminds Past Doctor of River

Also, Rory the Roman is less jealous than Past Rory

Here are some little snippets that could happen lmao

—

Past Amy POV:

“How do you know how to fight so well?” Amy questioned, trying not to stare at Rory’s…. eyes.

They were piercing, focused yet blank. Her Rory never used to look like that. It makes her nervous and thinks about what the Doctor said. An Imposter. If… If that Rory is an Imposter, then.. where is her real boyfriend?

Despite the differences, she could—she could still see her Rory in him.

“Hm?” He didn’t spare a glance at her, thankfully, he raised the broom in his hand mechanically, more like a soldier than a nurse. “Practiced.”

When? She stopped herself from asking. Instead, they ran to the next room, hiding from the fish alien things that were chasing them all

—

“So… She kissed me.” The Doctor mentioned out of the blue as they walked, repeating what he’d said before, trying to see if Rory was an imposter or not.

Rory made a face at that, grimacing, though he took a long pause before speaking, “So.” What did he say in the past again? “You kissed her back.”

This was a really strange situation to be in, and they had rebooted the universe before! Oh, it was incredibly hard not to think of this Doctor as family, but he knew he had to act less friendly towards him. It made him feel… bad.

Not too bad of course, but, he could empathise with his daughter like this.

oh bloody hell he couldn’t mention river during this whole thing can he?? He’s not supposed to know her!

The Doctor’s brow furrowed slightly but they continued forward.

oh how does River do this…. Trying to talk to younger The Doctor at Lake Silencio was hard enough, and now, the Doctor doesn’t even think of him as his father-in-law friend

He really needed to find a way to contact someone from his future.

OR PO3 Amy fully realising how selfish she was in VOV and noticing VOV Rory’s insecurities much more easily when she’s not burying herself in her own trauma, and she tries very hard to make it up to him, all while trying not to let the timelines fall apart

Just like Rory the Roman, she fails spectacularly hard

Although it was more because, VOV Rory’s unused to the sudden affection PO3 Amy is giving him

[the-game-spirit]

I have been going so insane over the zelda timeline regarding totk like I am LOSING my mind

like. either 1. botw/totk is a completely new continuity. worst option. boring.

2. it is SO FAR in the future of the (probably downfall) timeline and there has been SO MUCH canon-typical time bullshit in between that the other two either bleed over OR the ever-funny hyrule warrior's convergence theory happens that it may as well be just a soft reboot and history is just. repeating endlessly. also kind of boring imho

OR 3. totk memories happen sometime after skyward sword. interesting. also a completely fucking insane idea.

it's a misconception that SS zelda and link founded hyrule! they almost certainly didn't!

did the zonai make the timeshift stuff in SS? the tower of the gods in WW? the ooccoo? a fascinating concept!

what about the triforce? who knows! i don't think minish cap has anything to do with it either and it does get sealed away at some point sooooo

but more importantly

is there a fucking dehydrated ganondorf sealed away underground for every single zelda game

most people would be like, 'no, of course not, thats so stupid how does oot ganondorf exist if totk ganondorf is in hand jail already' and 'ganondorf has a history of reincarnation/revival but that can't happen if he's still alive ya dingus' and normally I would agree! I did agree! I've been scratching my head trying to make this work since I started playing totk

except!!! except!!!!!! we have literally already seen this happen before!!!!

so. skyward sword.

skyward sword is a closed loop time travel story. I cannot stand when people try to shoehorn another timeline split in SS because no split happens. that's the point. that was hylia's plan. the first hero? before skyward sword link? hylia's chosen knight that defeated demise? that was always skyward sword link in the past. demise even confirms this in dialog. something something he's 'never seen a hylian stand up to him before.' idk the exact quote but it Very Much Implies demise has never encountered any incarnation of link before.

so. how do we kill the imprisoned (demise) in the future and then go back and kill demise again in the past in a closed loop?

because we seal demise's consciousness in the sword, and his body in the ground

the imprisoned is clearly mindless. even more mindless than downfall timeline ganon post-resurrection. it has one single goal, which is to reach the temple and.... the master sword. with the consciousness of demise sealed within.

we have confirmation that two versions of the demon king can, technically, exist entirely separate from eachother.

it isn't a stretch to think that if his body is sealed away, effectively dead and unable to spread his malice, that the spirit of demise's hatred (if its not sealed with the sword, like in totk) would reincarnate until the time comes that the seal weakens enough (the first calamity) that it doesn't need to.

obviously there are still problems here like. where are the rito? (personally I think they just fuck off to hebra, which only barely exists in any other game, and I wholeheartedly believe the WW rito are a completely different species)

if totk ganondorf is sealed under the castle before oot, but the great plateau is implied oot castle town, why didn't we find dehydrated dorf there? uuuuuuuhhhhhhh next question

(listen the great plateau doesn't really match up with oot castle town anyway, no other details really match, definitely not the typical 'death mountain to the north(east), lake hylia down south' geography we usually see)

is rauru totk and rauru oot the same or different? zelda actually calls the sages 'ancient creators of hyrule' in oot, and since rauru is the only actually ancient one there.... uh. its entirely possible! why does he look hylian in oot? uhhhhhh? magic? because seeing some giant talking goat person that has never been seen before might not inspire trust in the traumatized monster-fighting 9 year-old-turned-16-year-old. also isnt oot rauru ALSO the owl? its been a LONG time since I played oot so I genuinely don't know if I just made that up but if so the guy has a history of changing form I guess

honestly I think we do have to allow for a certain level of handwavy 'new game' leeway, just like we do with EVERY game, in order to make this work. the map is always different. some things are introduced that have never once been heard of before in any other game. some things DONT exist that have in other games. some things are so different they're nearly unrecognizable. there are little easter eggs and no, they don't always have to mean something.

[theotherbackgrounder]

About the reboot: is there any character that you think could give in to this existential dread and become a villain after all the revelations?

I have a few ideas.

Dexter Charming would be one. Basically after witnessing all his previous timelines, new Dexter becomes sickened by the fact of how complacent he has been in the past lives. He knows he was happy in those times, but he sees it as ignorant bliss. He wants his story to change this time, but he doesn’t know how to be different.

Honestly, he’d rather go back. He would rather the story to continue to repeat itself so that he, and everyone else, can live in ignorance and return to those happier moments of being blissfully unaware of these moments.

Blue Fairy- when it comes to the Blue Fairy’s daughter (Sky) she was such a no name (considering she was only in Farrah’s diary) that when time reset she was one of the few characters that never changed. This of course meant that her fate was always the same. She would die. After witnessing her daughter die in every timeline and she could do nothing to stop it, the Blue Fairy snaps as she tries to find a way to bring her daughter back.

Then there are characters like Cupid, while she wouldn’t become a villain, she has to live with the fact that she holds memories of all the previous timelines. And as things change, she would rather things to stay the same.

Then there is the reason behind the changes in the first place, the person that gave the Book to duchess in the first place. Though her existential dread started before Duchess.

[tzigone]

What age first comes to mind when you think of each of the original NTT?

I've asked this previously with the JLI. It's not about how canonically old they are or you think they should be (absent de-agings, universe reboots, etc.). But when you first think of each of these characters, how old do you think of them as? So much depends on the eras you read with them, and what of that sticks with you, and which eras and aspects and relationships you most value. Not to mention how fast in-universe time was moving in your favorite eras.

Wally, of course, got married and had kids. They never let Dick do so in main timeline, but he has associations with younger Batfam members that make me think of him as older. Poor Raven and Gar were deaged and kept on younger teams even before the universe reboot. And we have Vic and Kory after.

For me, so much depends on the era I read them in. All have eras I just don't read them in, either because I don't like what's going on with them or because of general disinterest in what's going on with DC at the time (that especially covers recent times, as I kept waiting for continuity to settle, then the constant Events, which aren't my thing).

Speed-aging Wally's kids throws him off to me, too, as I'm not fond of speed-aging kids at all (or skip-timing as with Jon Kent). So in my head he ends up a new dad in his mid twenties.

Dick ends up late 20s in my head. Relative ages of other Bats play in, but I sort of cut off for him before New 52 (and I honestly never think of him as Batman) because I've never really gotten into anything of his after that (hate the de-aging). He should be older, of course, but I don't first think of him that way, again probably due to not reading later stuff much.

The others haven't had the same degree of solo work after the team, and I abandoned NTT shortly after Titans Hunt. I've read stuff with them here and there since, but never consistently read a Titans title since.

Raven and Kory pretty much stop for me then. It's hugely important from a storytelling perspective, but I simply dislike the whole concept of Dark Raven or Rachel Roth or the goth-y influences from the cartoon (which I liked when I watched it, but didn't want to influence the comics I didn't read comics then and now resent character being largely remade from it), and even though I know they exist, they don't enter my headspace. So Raven ends up in her early twenties.

Kory, as I said, is in a similar headspace to me. I know other storylines happened, but I'm even vaguer on those than Raven's. Another dead husband, more pain for Tamaran - sounds like basically story on repeat to me, though I didn't read it, so can't speak authoritatively. Don't get me started on having her and Jason (or Roy as Jason) as a team or even worse on putting her on Damian's Teen Titans. Anyway, I always think of her as early twenties, too.

Gar, interestingly enough, I tend to think of in his slightly older, more mature fashion. Not making his obnoxious jokes and sexually harassing female teammates. And operating in a time when Dayton simply isn't around (and Rita is dead). I'm not at all sure it isn't some not just amalgamated, but constructed version of him built out from what I wanted him to grow up to be. Anyway, he sits in his early twenties for me.

Now Vic - I kinda feel in some aspects like I do with Gar and in some aspects like Raven and Kory. Certainly the post Titans Hunt events don't factor in at all (I didn't like storyline even a bit before like, quit reading a few issues after, and forget a lot of what happened after that era with Vic even happened). More like Raven and Kory and less like like Gar, he was older and more mature. I think of him early or mid twenties and having found peace with himself and belief in his own humanity (which happened a couple times before he'd reset on it), but don't think of that as having just happened, so ending up adding a couple years.

Donna is the wonky one. I tend to stick her in two categories - recently married early twenties or recently separated mid twenties. While I think motherhood and her son were extremely important to her in-universe, I didn't read that era, so it doesn't stick with me. I have the before, when I was reading NTT. And I have some of the time during the separation (when she showed up in other comics I was reading) and cutoff before Robert dying, as that was really part of a soft reboot of the character/origins that didn't work for me. I mean, her origin has always been a mess, and moreso since COIE, but another changeup was not the solution.

[earth-93]

EARTH-93: PROJECT INTRODUCTION

Hello, all.

I go by the handle "TheMysticSpyral" or just Mystic here on the interwebs, and I've been hashing out a fan project I call "Earth-93" for a few years now. Earth-93 is a simple but sprawling undertaking on my part, an attempt to revise the greater Marvel canon on a fixed, linear timeline. Though I bend this guideline here and there, on the whole I try to adhere to the 4:1 ratio of Marvel Time (Four years of IRL publication time to one year of in-universe continuity) in order to map out how I want events and arcs to develop, and when characters debut or become prominent.

As an example, here's a rough outline I have in mind for "Season 1" of Earth-93, roughly adapting the original 1960's run of comics:

November, 2002 - The Fantastic Four publicly debut.

December, 2002 - Janet Van Dyne is nearly killed in an act of sabotage. Her boyfriend Hank Pym flushes out the bugs within his family's company.

January, 2003 - Project: Gamma goes horribly wrong. Bruce Banner goes on the run. Donald Blake takes a vacation in Norway. He does not return the same man.

March, 2003 - Tony Stark is found in Afghanistan, after being presumed dead three months prior. The X-Men overthrow the Brotherhood of Mutants and their occupation of the nation of Santo Marco.

April, 2003 - Dr. Steven Strange returns from his extended sabbatical in Asia, purchases a townhouse in Greenwich Village as his new residency.

June, 2003 - Matt Murdock begins practicing law. Peter Parker is bitten by a spider during a college campus tour in Empire State University.

September, 2003 - After repeated delays, Reed Richards and Susan Storm hold a Fantastic Wedding in New York City. The Vault prison facility loses power, a Breakout ensues. Five mighty heroes find themselves united against a common threat.

October, 2003 - Captain America appears during a battle in Central Park, having been unearthed from ice deep below the English Channel a month prior.

February, 2004- The newly-crowned King T'Challa hosts a diplomatic visit of his nation of Wakanda.

May, 2004 - Mar-Vell makes his debut as Captain Marvel.

September, 2005- Galactus menaces Earth, but is narrowly repelled by its heroes.

From there, it's a little less squared away, though I absolutely have plans so don't hesitate to ask. In the meantime, I'll say that as a bridge between seasons one and two, I have plans to implement one of many crossover franchises into my Marvel canon, so stay tuned for that.

At the risk of jinxing things, I feel that I've reached a point in life in terms of writing ability, personal scheduling and mental health that I can produce and upload content far more consistently than before, and since I have been intending to branch out to other platforms aside from my starting place of DeviantArt, I may as well use this momentum to do a "soft reboot" of sorts. None of your content I have previously shared on dA will suddenly become non-canon (Though I definitely need to go back and update several details), nor will I stop uploading on dA altogether.

All content uploaded here on Tumblr will be the most official and updated, however, and for the time being will most certainly become my priority, since unlike dA and even Twitter, Tumblr's fate isn't exactly dangling above a bottomless pit at the moment. I will most definitely be posting separate fanworks and pitches down the line, but Earth-93 will very much remain the majority of my content. If "Earth-93" is not in the headline or in the tags, it's its own thing.

MASTER LIST

Fantastic Four

Invisible Woman

Mister Fantastic

Human Torch (Coming Soon!)

The Thing (Coming Soon!)

Avengers

Iron Man (Coming Soon!)

Thor (Coming Soon!)

Hulk

Ant-Man

Wasp

Rick Jones

X-Men

Professor X

Cyclops

Marvel Girl

Beast

Angel

Iceman

Mimic

Unus the Untouchable

Quicksilver

[whistlingstarlight]

I got one: rate Zelda games you've played in order of preference?

Haha so here's the thing-

I've only actually beaten one Zelda game (two if you count the spinoff Age of Calamity)😅

I'm notorious for being terrible at actually playing the games despite loving the series, most often because puzzles are not my strong suit.

So this list is gonna be focusing on my overall liking of the game and it's content, regardless of how much I've actually progressed through it (otherwise it would be a pretty boring list)

1. Skyward Sword. I love the artstyle of this game and the locations are beautiful. Skyloft is one of my favourite hub worlds in a game, the characters are all very unique and distinct, and I love exploring a land before Hyrule.

2. Breath of the Wild. I've got so many hours in this game, there's so much to do! Whilst I personally think Zelda is stronger as a linear series than open-world, I had a ton of fun exploring this open Hyrule and the Champions (new and old) are some of my favourite characters from the series. I completely got the wrong end of the stick as to what the plot was going into it, so it was fun finding out the real plot.

3. Phantom Hourglass, for one reason: Linebeck. He's one of the most well-written and distinct characters in Zelda (and probably my overall favourite), I love his progression from selfish coward to a hero in his own right. And that final boss fight omfg-

4. A Link Between Worlds. Lorule is a super interesting concept to me, and whilst I didn't play ALttP I'm aware of how this game continues on from it. I love this version of Hyrule's overworld, and it's always neat seeing the more hostile Zora.

5. Minish Cap, mainly because I love the Minish as a race and Vaati as a villain. The tiny world is super fun to explore, and I love seeing how the different groups of Minish live.

6. Spirit Tracks. For a very simple reason: I'm a railfan. I'm absolutely terrible at this game but I love the introduction of trains, the completely new Hyrule, and a unique villain is always a plus! I love Zelda's more (physically) active role in the story, and I'm a big fan of Byrne as a character.

7. Majora's Mask. I did atrociously trying to get through this game too, but I absolutely love its premise. Termina is a very unique world and despite a lot of the character models being recycled, still feels completely independent from Hyrule. Skull Kid is one of my favourite Zelda characters, and the heavy emphasis on death and loss makes it a very unique game

8. The Wind Waker. I initially thought this game was kind of overrated ngl (and I still think it overshadows games that deserve more praise), but I had fun with it. The concept is very unique, and whilst I found the sailing a bit boring at times I loved exploring the islands.

9. Tears of the Kingdom. I... set myself up for disappointment with this one. That's not to say it's a bad game! I've had fun with it for sure, but there was a lot of wasted potential imo. Whilst I love the unique styles of each dungeon (and the respective bosses), they were infuriating to get through because it's the same shit every time. Use Sage ability to open five locks, rinse and fucking repeat. Same reason I didn't enjoy the Divine Beasts. The exploration in the open-world Zelda games is phenomenal, but it comes at the detriment of story and dungeons. (Not to mention it's sort of a soft reboot and I'm... not really a fan of those).

10. Ocarina of Time. This one is so low basically by default (and because I'm kinda tired of hearing about it so much). It's a good game, don't get me wrong. But it's weird the timeline split came from this one and not.. idk, the game with an actual canon game over (Minish Cap)?? I love the Kokiri as a concept and really wish they'd returned, and the group of sages introduced in this game are probably my favourite.

And I don't really know where to rank it as it's a spin-off, but I had a huge amount of fun with Age of Calamity. A significant improvement over the original Hyrule Warriors imo.

[sigynpenniman]

My winning band recommendations from my 72 hour power metal fixation adventure

Plus other opinions I don’t have near the knowledge to have, various other thoughts and a link to Spicy Metal Takes: the google sheet; or, Girl who has only ever listened to Trans-Siberian Orchestra listens to other metal for the first time: Getting a lot of "Trans-Siberian Orchestra" vibes from this

I've never really listened to metal before. But Kenny got me listening to Versailles, and suddenly I'm considering for the first time in my life that I might like metal, or at least some metal. Then a couple days ago I got introduced to Gloryhammer (by a random suggested reddit post I think?), and then Alestorm. Very amused by the existence of incredibly seriously presented dwarf legend and pirate music, I combed threads of related bands, and someone recommended Rhapsody of Fire.

Here's the other thing you need to know about me: I love Trans-Siberian orchestra. Like, really love. I listen to TSO on repeat from September to January of every year. Few things on earth inspire the joy in me that Wizards in Winter does. So when I hit play on that first Rhapsody of Fire album and got hit with...well, Rhapsody of Fire, my whole world shifted on its axis. You're telling me this whole time there's been more Trans-Siberian Orchestra out there, without the Christmas, and I just didn't know about it because I don't listen to metal?

(this is why I am forever seeking out new music - statistically, the thing you are going to love most in the world is something you've never heard of yet)

Completionism, autism, and an academic fascination with music in general, and hungry for more of this magic, and the next thing I know I'm on Encyclopedia Metallum, Reddit, and Apple Music, scrolling related artist lists and suggestion threads collecting the very best of power metal. It ended up being so many bands I had to make a spreadsheet.

I've spent the last couple of days working my way through the spreadsheet and taste-testing all of the recommended bands. I figure out that the term for what I enjoy is Symphonic Power Metal, so that was my focus. My criteria was fairly simple: do I enjoy listening to this, would I listen to it on purpose, and does it make me start stimming happily the way TSO does.

So here's my fixation-fueled list of recommendations. I'll include a link to my actual google sheet at the bottom so you can all read my spicy metal takes and maybe laugh at me if you like metal and think my taste sucks (which it probably does, and I absolutely do not care if you think so).

RHAPSODY OF FIRE - If you like books with maps in them, can I interest you in a band who put maps in their CD BOOKLETS?

And their approximately 27 related, spinoff, and reboot bands. If you want to get into Rhapsody, check out this illustrated guide to the ROFECU (Rhapsody of Fire Extended Cinematic Universe) that a kind soul made on Reddit here. There is a huge controversy and drama among fans of the band about which is the "real" Rhapsody but I absolutely could not care less. They're all good, don't worry about it.

A film score orchestra handed several electric guitars. TSO on steroids. I don't even know how to do ROF justice in description alone.

Compositionally stunning, complex, gorgeous, orchestral and symphonic masterpieces overlaid with power metal, prog rock, and sometimes medieval music.

Here's the icing on the cake: ROF live for the concept album, and their dozen-plus album discography comprises at the moment 2 complete (and a 3rd still being actively recorded) Lord-Of-The-Rings level fantasy sagas told over 3-5 albums each, complete with MAPS IN THE CD CASES. These guys are NOT FUCKING AROUND. There are multiple long reddit threads and google docs detailing the plot outlines and timelines of each saga, including this 201 page behemoth. I've only scratched the surface here and I genuinely can't remember the last time I was so excited to have so much of something still ahead of me.

TWILIGHT FORCE - Can I copy your homework?

We're not Rhapsody of Fire, we promise! (and I mean this as a compliment.)

Twilight Force is a newer band, and therefore have a bit of a newer sound, but it's the closest thing to ROF out there - probably not by accident, since one of the band members was in one of the ROF spinoff bands. I haven't dug into their lore yet, but the music is spectacular, epic and sweeping and gorgeously composed.

VERSAILLES - Immortal vampire neoclassical VKei with a twist of Gender

If you haven’t ever heard of Versallies…now you have.

A really incredible, absolutely delightful visual kei band with a commitment to their very self-aware bit that takes them to the next level, Versallies make incredible, headbanging, neoclassical metal. Lead vocalist Kamijo has one of the most incredible voices you’ll ever hear, and the whole thing is enhanced greatly by their visuals - sumptuous costumes, full on anime hair, an a general Victorian-meets-rococo aesthetic that takes gender performance to a space of high art. There’s lore for the band too, but I don’t speak Japanese at all, so I haven’t gotten to all of it yet.

MALICE MIZER - high art VKei pioneers

90s Visual Kei band Malice Mizer are the foundational text of much which came after. You can really feel the effect of Dead or Alive’s Pete Burns here (who, legendarily, had an influence on the emergence of VKei due to his popularity in Japan) and everything happening is just beautiful. The least “metal” of everything on this list, Malice Mizer have more of a metal-flavored new wave sound. I highly recommend checking out these guys’ filmed concerts - the visual is half of the fun with VKei, and the number & broadness of the influences here is incredible - you can feel the push and pull of classical music, new wave, prog rock, metal, rococo aesthetics, goth, mime - it goes on and on. I haven’t gotten to spend as much time with this band as I want, and I feel like there’s more to understand, appreciate, and analyze than I’ll ever have enough hours for.

ALESTORM - Pirates. Yaar.

What do I even say about the kitsch pirate band other than that they’re a pirate band. And they’re…really, really good. Sea Shanties in metal form, metal music full of accordions, aggressively Scottish, and delightfully committed to theme. It's hard not to smile listening to this.

AVANTASIA - Opera Time

More rock operas than albums.

The other close-to-a-TSO clone on this list, Avantasia make symphonic rock operas. Another band I need more time with, there's some REALLY good stuff here if you like rock operas (which, clearly, I very much do).

KAMELOT - Pure Power Metal

Slightly less symphonic than the other choices (though there's still some violins in here), Kamelot is a more metallic and classic rock/epic rock sound with some killer vocals. There's something a little dated about their sound, but I mean that as a compliment.

POWERWOLF - Dad music

There's something delightfully 80s about this sound. Feels lifted directly from classic rock. This is your dad's music, and I mean that as a compliment.

STRATOVARIUS - Barely not Journey.

These guys go back and forth between being metal and sounding like Journey, but it's good. I approve.

AYREON - The English language is insufficient.

It feels like no matter which song I put here, it's going to be wrong - because no single song you listen to is going to give you a good picture of whatever the hell Ayreon is. The songs have a metal influence, but every song feels like a different genre - I would describe the overarching genre as closer to Prog Rock, but oh man, it is all over the place. The strangeness and all-over-the-place nature of it is fascinating. I was gratified to find that my inability to describe or even decide how I feel about this band is reflected in the band's actual Wikipedia article, which includes this incredible comment from a music reviewer:

"Idk man this shit defies description."

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Epica - Incredible operatic vocals combined with black metal growls over a heavily orchestral metal background.

Opera Magna - these guys really only have the one album but it's heavily classical and really good.

Fairyland, Deridian, Dragony, Dark Moor - All very similar sounding "symphonic power metal but not quite as good as ROF"

Sabaton - some really good power metal around historical war themes. Well made, but I am not super interested in the thematic content so it doesn't hit.

MY ACTUAL SPREADSHEET:

Tier: classic tier list tier - S, A, B, C, D, E, F

Library Tier - a simpler, more subjective system I added for myself - would I save this into my music library, would I only put it on a playlist for a specific mood, or do I just not plan to listen to it again?

A complete list of the bands I taste tested with my ratings and notes. I have literally no previous knowledge of this genre. My taste and opinions might be bad, they might be awful, I do not care. I hope you all enjoy them anyway.

[dbittz]

Mortal Komabt 1 Story/Theme Thoughts (Spoilers)

Mortal Kombat 1 released recently. I haven't played it cause I don't have a PS5, but I want to be apart of it so I've watched gameplay and I know how the story unfolds. I have a lot of thoughts about everything but if there is one thing I want to say/express is that while I love a lot of what happens with this game and the "reboot" aspect of it all, part of me feels that they dropped the ball in a way at the end. I'll try to explain as we go and I think the biggest clue or upset is the tagline and ultimately how the story unfolds.

"It's in our Blood". That is the big tagline for the MK1. What I got from this and what they initially showed is that no matter what changes Liu Kang made to restart the universe and make it better, it wouldn't work. That humans/creatures/characters at their core are violent or that combat is an essential part of life. I see this type of theme or tagline and I'm like "Yes! Let's roll with it." I was really excited to see these Iconic characters in the "perfect" world Liu Kang made when he restarted it at the end of MK 11, only for it to all fall apart because no matter what changes Liu Kang made, each character had a core aspect of their personality that brings them back to the character we know them as. Thus, the cycle/events would repeat themselves.

An example I would love to see this with is Shang Tsung. We know him to be a bad guy. He's always been a bad guy. It would be interesting to see how someone would go about making him not a bad guy. How would they change his life? Would they take his powers away? Give him a good life where he didn't need anything else? How would he fall? How would he become a villain again? Is it circumstance? Or is there a fundamental part of Shang Tsung that will always bring him back to the villain we know? It's in his blood. That is the story I would've loved to follow with him Shang and the rest of the MK characters.

Instead, SPOILERS, the story we get is that, Liu Kang is the villain and he has no one to blame but himself for setting up Shang Tsung and Quan Chi to be bad guys. Why? He made their lives fucking miserable. Sure, I get it. The two fucked up a lot of shit and are responsible for some problems, but instead of trying to fix their lives and make them good, Liu Kang tries to make their lives "mundane". Sure he could've done that, but what did he do? He made Shang Tsung a snake oil salesman who would get beaten up when it's discovered his product doesn't work while we learn from the story that Quan Chi worked in the mines. Heck, Havik was a slave who was treated poorly by the rulers of OrderRealm. Like no wonder he wanted to rebel against the governing class. Given the situations these characters were put in, it's no wonder they jumped at a chance for power, to be who they see themselves as.

Now, you could say this is in line with the theme of "It's in our blood" and I see it. No matter what Liu Kang did to restart the world, it ultimately would be one of conflict, kombat, where people are mistreated, evil returns and good must fight back. We find out that there had been a War in Outworld. Jarrod is dead again, like the guy just can't live happily with his wife and daughter(s). But part of me feels like Liu Kang could've tried a little harder to make the universe a better place before it feel apart.

Maybe I'm just upset they did the multiple timelines things that intersected where all the events unfold because evil Shang Tsung from MK 11 manipulated MK 1 Shang Tsung. Lol. Like, in a way it's cool because it takes in account the multiple endings from MK 11, but it also feels like such a cop out.

Overall, the story for MK 1 is a lot of fun. The new origins for everyone and everything were fun to see and experience. And in a way it was fun to see that despite the changes, these characters are still who they are. That they held on to the core aspects of their character, for better and worse. The new changes were also good, like Baraka actually having a character/personality instead of just being a goon. lol

[portalwalker]

World Jumper Techniques - Continuum Shift

This technique is only useful in RP events or in stories I write and post on AO3. But I'm posting it here anyway because it's technically a part of Maria's inter-dimensional traveling moveset.

Let's get into it.

First vs Second Generation

First Generation World Jumpers cannot under any circumstances utilize this ability. Second Generation, on the other hand, can, but only under specific circumstances.

The Continuum Shift: A Reset Button Failsafe

This ability is exactly what it says on the tin -- a World Jumper has the ability to reset a dimension's timeline as far back as they need to in order to avoid what would otherwise be the end of a reality.

This power is not one the World Jumper can trigger on a whim, unlike their ability to summon portals. Instead, the ability is triggered by the circumstances of the dimension itself, forcing an energy surge that alters reality and forcibly ejects the World Jumper from the affected dimension. If they are able to return to the reality they were forced to reset, it is highly unlikely that they will recognize the dimension in its new, reset state.

This power is my way of establishing branching timelines where rebooted franchises exist: a dimension either branches on its own, creating multiple parallel realities with differing events, or the dimension branches because a World Jumper was forced to get involved and initiate a reset, overwriting the original reality with a new one.

It is incredibly rare for a World Jumper to come into contact with this technique. Most don't. Some hear rumors about this power existing, but are never given the chance to use it.

And some are forced to because of events outside their control.

Circumstances for Reset Activation

The Continuum Shift is usually activated when a dimension is tearing itself apart. This type of dimensional collapse can be triggered by the inhabitants of a given dimension, or outside forces. Regardless, when a World Jumper gets involved, this damage is reversed by the Continuum Shift, which also pulls the timeline back far enough to confirm that these events will not be allowed to repeat. Whether that means pulling back before the start of any experiments, or back far enough to confirm that the experimenters are never born, really depends on the needs of the dimension in question.

If outside forces are involved, the Continuum Shift may cause unforeseen consequences to the external meddlers. They may either be completely wiped for existence, trapped in the void between realities, trapped in a time loop, or have something else happen to them that prevents them from repeating their actions.

Side-Effects

Dimensions are changed in more ways than just a timeline reset. If the World Jumper made friends in that reality, all memory of the Jumper's existence is wiped from their allies' and enemies' minds, along with any memory of the previous timeline. If the World Jumper manages to return after being ejected during the reset process, they will not be known, much less recognized.

If a World Jumper is in that reality and is not the one that sets of the Continuum Shift, they will forget their previous lives and have a new one written over by the dimension's new timeline as it attempts to work them into its reality somehow.

If the World Jumper who reset the dimension is capable of returning to it, they can cause their close allies (and sometimes enemies) to remember them and the previous timeline. The multiverse is not so cruel as to deny them friendship. All it takes is physical contact of some kind, and the in-dimension inhabitants will remember the old timeline and their inter-dimensional traveling companion. There are negatives to this, however, as the "awakened" inhabitant now has to reconcile two timelines worth of memories and keep straight the details of their current life without mixing in old details that some might find confusing or alarming.

Some dimensions require that certain inhabitants remember the old timeline, but this is not guaranteed.

In the event a World Jumper resets their Dimension of Origin

This is a highly unorthodox event, but it has been known to take place.

If a World Jumper returns to their dimension of origin and finds they need to initiate a reset, they are ejected to a secondary, arguably safe dimension they consider a second home of some kind. At this point, they can either choose to make for themselves a new home base at this secondary dimension, or they can return to their dimension of origin.

If the Jumper does return to their dimension of origin, adjustment to the new series of events will be incredibly difficult to reconcile, especially since they weren't written into the new reality's timeline. Either they will live as a stranger to their own dimension of origin, or their dimension of origin will scramble to find a place for them and bombard them with a second timeline's worth of memories. It is a traumatizing process, and it is not recommended that World Jumpers return to their dimension of origin after resetting, for the sake of their own mental health.

Resetting realities is one thing, but resetting one's own home can be immensely distressing to the World Jumper.

Most World Jumpers do not live long enough to reset their own realities, however, so this is not usually a concern. In the event that it is, it is more than likely that the World Jumper has set up a home elsewhere for themselves already, and has long moved on from their dimension of origin.

The fewer ties back, the easier it is for a World Jumper to reset their original dimension, thus cutting all ties with the reality they used to call home.

[getmemymicroscope]

Man, I wanted so much to live this movie as much as I loved Spider-Verse, or GoTG3, or even Quantumania. But the DCEU has two major problems:

First- and I cannot stress this enough - announcing that the DCEU is dead/being rebooted before this movie came out was the stupidest decision ever, and they've made A LOT of stupid decisions. Like, way to totally make this entire thing anticlimactic before it's even started. This was a chance to even reset things, sure, but don't announce that Cavill's out and Affleck's out and Gadot might be out before this movie. I'm not much of a comic book reader, and most of my exposure to Flashpoint is thru a friend who absolutely loves the comics and the bits I've read around watching The Flash TV show, but like, way to totally kill it. DC and WB absolutely destroyed this DCEU, well before this movie hit theaters, and it makes this movie seem almost ... irrelevant. I mean, I'm all for making a movie just for the movie and not just as a piece to a universe (as apparently happened with Tom Cruise's Mummy movie), but like, DCEU is a little too far into the whole thing for that. But after the epicness of the Snyder-cut, there was hopes that the DCEU could be saved - and instead, much like that film, this one has been destroyed by plain stupid decision-making.

And, on that note, second - whomever DC has in charge of making the trailers, and then okaying the trailers, needs to be fired on the fucking spot. Like, holy shit, this was BvS all over again. Cameos are great, and they can be so much fun (they even are here, really). But to throw everyone (or, almost everyone) into the trailers (Affeck, fine - but, Keaton and Supergirl could've/should've been left out, and maybe Zod as well, since the movie should've been more about Barry) absolutely takes the fun out of it. Even the dramatic build up to 'I'm Batman' was spoiled, taking away the excitement of that. This is partially why No Way Home was so brilliant - yeah, there were rumors, but they kept Garfield/Maguire officially under wraps - so when they showed up in the movie, the fans were audibly excited. No so much here. Sure, we get a couple of quick cameos which are nice (the one near the beginning is funny; the ones at the end are pretty cool, albeit sorta just "show up and wave" appearances) , but Keaton would've been a great one to surprise people with. Supergirl too - it is almost like they saw that the whole "spoil Wonder Woman's presence in BvS" was a bad idea, and decided to repeat that exact same thing here. Utter nonsense.

And those two things really sorta quash what could've been a lot of fun with Barry Allen x2 running around some universe where he's utterly destroyed things in the hopes of saving his mom. Though, honestly, in this entire DCEU, it seems like the whole Flashpoint thing about the death of his mom is completely changed - and unexplained - so, well that doesn't go far. And the movie ends with it still apparently being a break-in instead of Reverse Flash, which, well, is not as cool for the movie.

There was also, I think, too many attempts at humor that just fell flat in what was essentially a 2-hour viewing of Ezra Miller in double role (towards the end, with the mask, for example). They tried for some humor, which is great, but not sure a lot of it stuck well.

What I really enjoyed were a couple of cameos that showed up unexpectedly in the end - both entertaining because of the history of DC movies. Keaton was also great, from the moment he shows up; explaining the timelines with spaghetti was also interesting. The end credit sequence/cameo was, like many of the DC cameos, entirely pointless and will almost certainly lead to nothing. And since it fails also at being humorous, you have to wonder why they even included it (other than getting another cameo in).

The movie, indirectly, acts as a Flash origin story, as we see him teaching the younger him from his own prior experiences - but, again, that's all for naught with them having already scrapped the DCEU. Which, again, is dumb, because it means this movie is fighting against everything simply because they've already come out and said "this is irrelevant." Like, I want to know more about Flash and Reverse Flash and Flashpoint - and this movie, really, sorta glosses over all of that.

I do love the idea of him going and learning, indirectly, about canon events/nexus events (to borrow from Spider-Verse) and what-not, but I feel they had so much material to work with and so much opportunity to make this great - and then the rug was pulled out from under them and we're just left with a mid-story swan-song to the DCEU.

DC, and WB, and HBO - they should all be fucking ashamed. What a waste of an opportunity to tell a fucking amazing story, and to delight DC fans of the old and new (there are fans of the new movies, right?) alike.

[badoccultadvice]

The Third Era of Humanity

The Old Era came first. Then the Second Era. Maybe you think they should have called the Old Era the First Era, but we've learned by now to stop assuming that we knew what came first in this crazy timeline.

The Old Era is what people think of as "history." What was, and what came to pass, and we are what came after. This is not the case, though--what we think of as history, from the dinosaur bones to just before the birth of Christ, is all stuff of the Old Era. A few megafauna managed to eke past into the Second Era but, generally, all the legends happened back in the Old Era. Fire breathing dragons, giant humans, floating continents. Heroes. Villains. Magic.

It all really did happen. Once. Then humanity moved on. Reinvented itself. Found a new groove.

Enter the Second Era.

It's hard to explain how humanity's Second Era was fathered by the Robots, but essentially, humans managed to invent something so long-lived that it outlived humanity, and then it figured out how to bring it back. How to restart time. How to reboot everything, so that humans could be in the world again.

To live it all again.

Humanity flourished in the Second Era. It lasted longer, lived deeper, created more vibrantly. It found new and more complicated magic, and science, and things that existed in the strange alley betwixt them. It was a shining, astounding, glorious timeline, with humans having the faint deja vu memory of the previous era and using that memory to improve themselves the second time around.

The Second Era never ended. Humanity is still going, still thriving. Somewhere else. Somewhen else in the far, far future, humanity goes farther than any of us could dream of.

We are in the Third Era, though. I know, it is confusing. The Second Era never ended.

But it was never ours.

The Third Era began before the Second Era ended and possibly before the First Era did. The Third Era was begun by a group of beings who live beyond the stretches of time, and consider themselves to live after humanity ended, even though humanity has not ended yet. They began the Third Era as a way to learn from humanity. To watch it under the conditions that it flourished in, to understand what it invented, and most of all to reenact humanity's strangest physics experiments--the experiments that explored nuclear fission. They reenacted the Manhattan Project.

To do this they would need to reenact all of human history up until World War II. From this they learned much about humanity's nature and accomplishments. They also learned that as much as humanity had a saying about history repeating itself, humanity hated repeating its own history word for word.

The first variations were small, and easy to attribute to programmatic variation. The experiment was all in a computer. This was a simulation. Just data. The Third Era of humanity was just data. And if a few ones and zeroes moved out of place, as long as it didn't impact nuclear physics, what was the harm? Humanity's observers watched with interest to see how far things could diverge, confident that history would follow its preprogrammed track.

It was when the American Civil War went the other way that they wondered if they'd gotten something wrong in the data. The Second Era had clearly settled the American Civil War with a truce between both sides, the two forming their own separate independent governments and eventually settling into a trade partnership that benefited both.

The humans of the Third Era had, for some reason, gone another way. The USA was undivided. There was peace. There was a crying out for justice, and a doing of justice, that the Second Era had not dreamed about. The Second Era had never considered this a historical wrong, having eventually worked out relations peaceably according to the feelings of the ruling majority. General Lee had become a national hero. Abraham Lincoln had never been elected.

Had that not been enough? The observers were confused. For a little bit, they attempted to correct the measure, adjust the program, eliminate unpredictable factors. Abraham Lincoln fell to a bullet that was believable enough, but the union still stood, and the observers left it like that and just kept watching the experiment.

They'd come too far. They were so close. Less than a hundred years to go in the computer simulation that was the Third Era, and then they'd finally have the test explosion to observe. They'd have the data. The observers would just need to guide history a little, here and there.

Because humanity had gotten the taste for revolution, it seemed, and now much of the world of the Third Era was in the mood to throw off rulers and try out new forms of government. It was taking more and more trouble to move human history towards World War II at the rate it needed to go. It took another assassination to start World War I--the world was resisting, war-weary, ready to enjoy the riches of the 1800s gilded era that were still all around them. But it was time to obliterate all of that.

The observers needed to see something else. Something very destructive, gilded not by gold but uranium.

Besides, the humans of the Third Era, and all of their world, were just a simulation running inside what, upgrades permitting, might become the most powerful computer in the universe. This was all just a game.

It didn't really matter.

The Trinity Test--the detonation of the explosive nuclear device that would be the end culmination of any species's foray into the realm of particle physics--scrambled the observers' instruments in unimaginable ways. Some chalked it up to the level of realism in the simulation program. Others noted that instruments had failed due to a power surge at a critical moment. None thought of the possibility that the Trinity Test had affected anything on their end of things besides in the realm of data collection.

Discussion started as to what to do--could they re-run the simulation, watch the test again? Was there any data backed up? This would have proceeded for some time if not interrupted by another power surge.

The humans of the Third Era had done something they had not done in the Second Era. They had deployed a nuclear bomb in open warfare onto their own species, on their own planet. It was something that the observers had not even imagined, and there was some discussion as to what this meant about humanity--had they misjudged humanity? How dangerous was humanity in the light of this new revelation? Were the observers culpable for any of the damage done--to nonexistent creatures, of course.

This was all a simulation. The observers calmed themselves. The humans had simply gotten bored with their timeline again, and this was yet another variation. It posed its own opportunity, in fact--an upcoming second wartime deployment of a nuclear device allowed the observers to finally do what they came here to do all along.

They observed.

It would be a shame, they thought, to stop things here. Humanity was doing such interesting research in physics, more spurred on to create a nuclear deterrent in the Third Era than they were in the Second, for some reason. Some observers concluded that this betrayed the more savage nature of humanity that had been hidden in the Second Era. Others simply wondered at the third power surge, and its timing.

How was a human nuclear physics experiment overloading the processing power of the machine? It was as if it was overheating from the load. That shouldn't be possible, not according to the observers' knowledge of nuclear physics. There must be something more to fission they'd yet to discover. Nuclear radiation could warp time, after all. Perhaps the simulation of such an effect was causing too much drag on the system?

No matter. Upgrades were commencing. Soon they'd have enough for whatever bombs humanity invented next. Humanity seemed to be arming itself for something big.

The next explosion didn't bring about a power surge.

One of the supervising observers didn't show up to work that morning. Broken limb. Freak accident. No one understood how their apartment's furnace blew.

Test five eliminated a department executive's vehicle. Tests six through eleven were referred to as "a difficult week for us all" and were when everyone acknowledge that This Was a Thing, Now.

There was a vote on whether to shut the simulation off, but when they started to discuss what the logistics of such a maneuver would look like, the lights went out in the entire building for the rest of the day. No one brought it up again. Whatever this was, there was no abandoning it--not with a nuclear arsenal like that building up.

It turned out that the humans of the Third Era had memories of the Second Era and its glories. But many people didn't remember glories. They just remembered watching others glory while they suffered. So this time around, in the Third Era, when the time came to defend, to rebel, to protect--humans acted who didn't before. Humans made different decisions than last time.

Humanity regretted the Second Era just as much as it missed it. And what's more, humanity understood, on some level, that something was watching.

Someone.

And whatever it was... humanity needed to arm itself to protect itself.

The Cold War burned. The observers tried one more time to alter history. One more time to see if they could nudge the crosshairs. Maybe the humans of the Third Era could be convinced to discard their nuclear weapons if something tragic enough happened. To turn away from this conflict altogether. A showdown ending in explosions and massive losses of life, originating in Cuba and overtaking the rest of the world. The generators were ready for the power surge, engineers on standby, for what would be the largest nuclear detonation impact that the computer had yet withstood.

And then, when the observers expected humanity to blow itself away one more time, it showed restraint. The observers watched in shock as an invasion of Cuba was called off, as "cooler heads prevailed." As a peacemaker president was slain by forces even the observers couldn't identify from their lofty vantage. As inexplicably a species decided, instead of burning in anger, to turn to the stars and race to the Moon.

The observers watched. Proven wrong at every turn, educated at every opportunity, always waiting and hoping for more, that humanity would keep going, this strange Third Era, this iteration of a species that never technically existed in any world. This weird yet poignant expression of ingenuity and hope that resided in a computer's memory.

They watched.

They watch still.

When will we say hello to them?