#so the comics option is just general comic versions of the character

[adaptations-polls]

Which version of this do you prefer?

See tags on original post for further notes

[mel-addams]

Get Started Drawing...

...even as a complete beginner!

In my efforts to help some friends who are only just starting to learn to draw (as adults! glorious!! <3), I kept digging around for resources that cover things I remember learning in the various art classes I've taken...but that does a better job than I can of laying it all out in a comprehensive, but not overwhelming, manner. (I am far too prone to rambling as you can see from this post, and bounce around topics as I remember them, rather than in a sensible order.) I've found a few guides here and there that cover one thing or another decently well...but I've finally found a free site I'm really keen on as an overall source if you're just starting out with learning to draw!

It's incredibly clear and concise, whereas many of the other sites and books I found could sometimes be overwhelmingly detailed. It's arranged in a way that reminds me of the flow of art classes, starting at the very first steps--how to approach art if you've never done it before, and the fact that you only need basic tools to begin with. If you go in approximate order, it then establishes that you should start sorting out a solid foundation by practicing simple lines and shapes--the same way you learned to write letters so you could ultimately make words, sentences, stories... This includes some neat little practice exercises with questions to consider while you do them, so you also learn to see and observe things like angles and proportions, which are critical for being able to accurately draw more complex things.

It evolves from there into how to take those basic shapes and turn them into simplified human bodies--and from there, how to consider more complex 3D versions of the shapes to give those bodies a sense of dimension and physicality. It even touches on things like composition, silhouette, negative space, and line of action--all in a quick, straightforward manner. It plants the seed of understanding for these more complex illustration concepts, which you can then research further, armed with relevant terminology to dig up more in-depth resources as they catch your interest!

The style itself is usually simple, but even if your aim is to draw with a more detailed style, this one can serve as a base sketch to add that detail to. (Combine learning this base with photo studies, plus more detailed style guides for wherever you want to take your art, and you could use this as a base for comics, cartoons, anime, realism...the core concepts and skills remain the same!) There's also examples of how to adjust for varied body shapes, so it provides more flexibility than some drawing guides do, which often only focus on one "ideal" body type. (This style can also be used for that, if it's what you want--you just adjust the proportions of the basic shapes as you need! But this provides examples of how to handle variety, which will give you a better foundation for drawing people and characters so they don't all look the same, instead of having to figure out how to adjust for it later on.) The Shape Dolls for reference are also incredibly delightful, and a great cheap way to have a little pose reference mannequin of sorts!

There's also links to sources if you want to dig into concepts more deeply--available both as a general source page, as well as some specific topics including relevant sources at the bottom of their respective pages. There's also a patreon with some extra thoughts that is fully accessible for free, but has a paid option if you want to support Tan for providing such a lovely resource! (Also they have a legit vegetable farm?? How cool is that.)

So yes! If you have any interest in learning to draw--whether you've ever tried before or not, and no matter your age--try looking through this site, and let it guide you through the process!

[fountainpenguin]

Short Version: I don't even know how to begin explaining this, so take these 'fic doodles with no context.

Wish Fixers, my chronically unhelpful beloved...

Long Version (City Lights AU #ridspoilers beyond the above implication. Mentions of death and trauma; it gets pretty dark)

Nalooksthrough, I tag you below because I cited your co-dependent toxic friendship comic and said it was cool- If you don't want to click, that's all the tag was :)

So I started outlining my Dale backstory 'fic (Lemonade and Papercuts) since I am the most predictable person alive and of COURSE I can't resist 7 years of trauma and intimacy anxiety <3. But planning a 'fic like this requires many pieces and many questions.

First and most obvious- How did Vicky lure in Dale? From previous planning, I've already decided that since they're the same age (maybe one year off), they probably knew each other in school or activities.

Ex: Squirrely Scouts & Cream Puffs... Not unreasonable- Throughout the series, many kids participate and the organizations seem to have a big following in Dimmsdale. Vicky's sister Tootie is in the Cream Puffs and Vicky is seen bossing them around in the Season 0 episode "Scout's Honor" ("Oh Yeah! Cartoons"). There's a comic by the same name depicting Remy in Squirrely Scouts (after "Fairy Fairy Quite Contrary" but before he gets his memories back in "Remy Rides Again" and I always thought it was cute). I mean, look at him:

Pictures courtesy of the FOP Wiki

It's not unreasonable that Dale - who's also rich - might've gotten into that (especially since Doug is big on the cowboy theming and of all the rich parents, he's probably the one most okay with his son playing in dirt). Something scout-related could be an option even if Dale and Vicky went to different schools.

A friendship that gets increasingly toxic until it spirals into full-on abuse sounds really interesting (and @nalooksthrough portrayed this idea beautifully imo in THIS comic I can't stop thinking about).

Sounds fun to write, so let's go with that. What's next?

Hey, remember when 7 years ago, I headcanon'd H.P. as Dale's godfather because of this doodle in Da Rules that specifically refers to Pixie godparents and depicts a fluffy-haired kid in a purple shirt?

I recently found out I still had Dale listed as a godchild of H.P. on his full character profile on my fanfic sideblog. I was waffling over whether to retcon that (since I hadn't yet done anything with it), but I started brainstorming whether I COULD do anything with it.

I've always written Wish Fixers in 'fic [e.g. Origin of the Pixies] as a therapy business run by H.P.'s dad (which H.P. bought off him out of spite despite not being licensed for therapy) but, like...

Does Jorgen know H.P. isn't licensed? I can't see why he would... As far as he knows, H.P. owns and runs the place- especially given my lore that Wish Fixers has been in his family for many generations. Sounds qualified to me!

In "School's Out! The Musical" (episode that Da Rules screenshot is from), we learn Pixies are at the back of the line for godparent work, even under creatures like unicorns (Hence the Musical's plot requiring them to remove magical creatures from earth before they could assign themselves to Flappy Bob).

I said in a recent liveblog post that I'd always imagined this was a punishment given to them due to H.P. absolutely failing as godfather to Dale- Thus, the origin of the doodle on the page for that rule. But... I never decided what happened.

See, Dale SEEMS like a guy who would qualify for a fairy. He was probably pretty miserable under Vicky's 7 years of torture and he's still holding onto that trauma in his adulthood.

DID he have a fairy?

I'm just saying, we know from S4's "Wish Fixers" that H.P. is legally(?) allowed to make contracts that swap a fairy godparent with a pixie one if godkids choose to sign of their own free will... Hmm... I'm connecting dots I don't think I like... (I am lying).

I mean?? Dale clearly did not get out of the pit due to magical interference. If I'm committing to the doodle being Dale and reflecting an actual godfather-godson dynamic between him and H.P., then something sure went wrong there. I can't NOT make Dale suffer...

What on earth could've made Dale sign a contract for something a fairy couldn't give him? We know from "Nectar of the Odds" canon that he wished to see his dad, and thanks to previous liveblogs, I DO already have a headcanon of Dale being extremely desperate for his dad's love... Hmm... I can work with that.

I went down a rabbit hole trying to answer the question of how Vicky secured lemons for 7 years for Dale (and other kids) to work with. Here are some lemon tree facts:

- Lemon trees bear fruit after only a few years - They can bear fruit multiple times a year (depending on variety) - A single lemon tree can produce 1,500 lemons in one growing season - Dimmsdale is in California - a state known for lemon orchards.

That feels likely... An orchard of even a few trees can keep you going for a while.

But lemonade doesn't sell for much compared to other things Vicky could've set a kidnapped child up to do (Ex: In "Microphony," she has kids doing a bunch of other tasks like answering phones for her babysitting service, painting houses, and washing cars).

So... WHY lemonade? What is going on that makes this the thing Vicky has Dale do for 7 years?

And who owns the orchard? I need Vicky to obtain lemons without being stopped for 7 years.

Is it a Dimmadome orchard? Maybe, but several episodes imply Vicky's not familiar with the Dimmadomes - and she probably would have turned Dale in for cash reward if given the chance - so those are two things I need to keep in mind.

Does the orchard belong to her family? That's a possibility- Vicky is shown drinking lemonade after "Nectar of the Odds." She definitely could've bought it - It can't be too expensive unless prices were jacked up after she lost her cheap labor - but it's a drink she's seen with in multiple episodes. She definitely likes it.

And we know from "Timmy's 2D House of Horror" that Vicky's parents are terrified of her. It's not likely they'd stop her from taking lemons from the family orchard.

One problem... If Dale goes missing when he's about 9 (Closer to 7 or 8 in my planned timeline), Vicky is also 9 or younger. Are her parents scared of her when she's that small and inexperienced in the ways of the world?

In "The Switch Glitch," she's 5 and seems mild and sweet until 10-year-old Timmy mistreats her- She clearly didn't have memories of Timmy, implying she totally regressed to how she acted when she really was 5. Worth pointing out she goes off the deep end and chains up Cosmo and Wanda, so... she IS mean even at age 5. But also, she's 5. She wears the same purple hair bow in "Switch Glitch" (at 5) that she does when Timmy drains the meanness out of her in "Vicky Loses Her Icky," which is interesting.

So that begs the question... Can I turn my Dale backstory 'fic into a double story of Dale abuse AND Vicky going from a pretty innocent child to Totally Messed Up? Keeping in mind that according to Vicky in A New Wish, Vicky IS the one responsible for abusing him and he "spent 7 years' worth of Saturdays in a factory underneath a lemonade stand."

If that's the way I want to play it... Something happened to send Dale and Vicky down the dual victim-and-abuser path, destinies intertwined. And for some reason, Vicky stuck with the lemonade theme.

Dale just says he spent his Saturdays "in a factory underneath a lemonade stand." It's not out of the question he and Vicky made more lemon products than just lemonade, especially given Vicky's love for money (and those 600 lbs of lemons one tree can produce in a year). We can assume they changed locations a few times or someone would've found the trapdoor on Timmy's lawn. Plus when Dale started his abuse, Vicky hadn't started babysitting Timmy, whom she only met when he was 8.

So, I've set Dale up to be lured in by Vicky because they were friends. I like the idea of things gradually getting worse as Vicky slowly morphs from a friend into a very cruel person. If Vicky was bullying him, what stopped him from just... leaving?

Vicky's transformation was probably subtle if he stayed for so long..... I also pointed out in a recent post that Doug's underground milk empire where he uses hypnotized people for labor bears a striking amount of similarities with Vicky's lemonade stand, even down to the general vibes of "trapdoor entrance" (although it's implied there's another entrance in small building).

And if we want to be technical about things... We don't know if Doug and Dale pressed charges against Vicky. She clearly continues to babysit Timmy and other kids after "Nectar of the Odds" (Season 2).

In Season 4 ("Channel Chasers"), Doug remarks that Timmy's parents should've guessed Vicky was evil because of the Chip Skylark song "Icky Vicky," but he doesn't mention Vicky kidnapping his son. That's.... sus. He even offers to buy a car from her in Season 3's "Engine Blocked" (after Dale's escape).

Why would such a powerful guy let all of that slide? Did they just not have enough proof? Did Vicky wipe the place clean? Did Dale "not want to make a big deal about it" because he was so exhausted and grateful, he just didn't want to think about it or struggle with the legal system? Was he covering for her?? Was he scared to speak up?

... Did Dale not tell his dad the whole truth about where he was?

What if Dale was - in some vague and early concept way - in on the lemonade scheme from the beginning, back when he and Vicky were friends and she wasn't so cruel? Maybe she turned on him and sentenced him to the pit before long?

Why the underground-ness of it? Why the lemonade, which probably doesn't turn much profit... as lemonade. Unless you have unrestrained access to tons of lemons that you can turn into multiple products - Dale DID call it a factory - and no one is stopping you from accessing them...

... but how do you set up a situation where kids have access to a whole lemon orchard - presumably carefully maintained - and the adults don't take it away from them (Because... surely they would've found Dale and multiple other kids if they strayed close).

And Dale didn't leave. He does in "Nectar of the Odds" - apparently of his own volition - but not before. Was he kept there mentally as well as physically?

We KNOW Vicky can't be monitoring him 24/7 because "Nectar of the Odds" is the only episode depicting her paying attention to him, while others show her doing many other things in many other places (though it's worth noting Dale says in that episode that "Vicky's kept him locked up for so long").

Did he stay so long because it was the perceived better fate up until he miraculously crossed paths with his dad (via fairy magic) and took the risk? Would he have gone back in?

Maybe it wasn't supposed to get this out of hand. Dale and Vicky were young when this started... Somewhere between 7 and 9 (given that Dale was kept there for 7 years and Vicky is 16 when he escaped and he tells 9-year-old Dev this happened when he was Dev's age).

Maybe there was an accident. Something not just Vicky, but even Dale felt the need to cover up, especially in regards to the orchard and the fact that it needs to be Vicky's consistent source of lemons (and not something she lost out on before Dale's escape... an illusion of ownership maintained. Kids can't own the orchard, but what if they fooled people into believing it wasn't owned by kids?)

Hmm... some kind of accident that got two mostly innocent kids into huge trouble, thus setting up a horribly intertwined fate where if one of these toxic co-dependent friends backs out and squeals, even the squealer might suffer worse compared to trucking along on the cruel existing path.

tl;dr - if Vicky and Dale accidentally killed the orchard owner but they were kids and terrified to tell an adult lest they go to jail for life so they hid the body in the basement (or like ?? threw it to the coyotes or hyenas that inexplicably lurk on the fringes of Dimmsdale??) and are trying desperately to wipe their hands of this by pretending the lemon orchard is still operational so no one investigates until they can figure out a plan, and then Vicky hardens herself as a trauma response and manipulates Dale into believing it was solely his fault and she'll pin him with murder charges if he gets cold feet and turns her in, and he's miserable and gets a fairy (then loses his fairy via Pixie contract through Wish Fixers, presumably in an attempt to negotiate a way to protect himself from Vicky and somehow not gaining the ire of his father) and then H.P. (lawyer and unlicensed yet de facto therapist pulled two ways) is suddenly Dale's godfather and trying to comprehend what the flip is going on between misery and manslaughter while he's also juggling Gary, Betty, and Flappy Bob at the same time in preparation for the Musical because we know he spent 37 years on that plan...

... Would that be one messed-up yet hyperspecifically canon-compliant 'fic or what?

These thoughts have been haunting me all weekend and I HAD to get my "I'm not that kind of lawyer or therapist" joke out of my system, so there's your context. #Sorry. Is this the direction the actual 'fic will go? ... It's not the direction I really had in mind, but ?? It's off the wall and therefore I must shake it in my teeth. I can't not write Dale backstory this horrific. what. hey.

[sweettjrose]

Quick question for you cuz you seem to know very well the little guy

Do you think Mickey has any bad sides? Bad qualities/Habits

Ooh! I was hoping someone would ask this question. It was sitting in my mind for a while. I love sharing my thoughts on this little guy.

I do think it is important to remember that when it comes to characters like Mickey it can be challenging to ascribe specific traits to him since there are so many interpretations with differing personalities. Mickey in the black and white shorts is different from Mickey in the Gottfredson comics who is different from Mickey in the Paul Rudish shorts and etc. So some traits may fit better for some versions than others.

I don't know if I can say I am the Mickey expert. But I do think about him a lot and if I came up a list of what I think are bad habits or flaws that he has, based on how is generally portrayed and my own personal interpretation, I would say:

Stubborn - To start off, I feel like a common flaw for Mickey is his stubbornness. Once he sets his mind on a certain idea or situation, he has a hard time being convinced of anything else. It can be really difficult to change his mind, though not impossible. I don't think it comes from a place of seeing himself as better than anyone though, but rather from his desire to hold fast to what he believes in. And in some cases, it can have beneficial results. Such as when he is investigating some kind of mystery he tends to drop everything else, unable to change focus until he finally solves it. This usually gives him the push to solve problems most people give up on. But unfortunately, it tends to result in him ignoring the world around him which can be frustrating at times, especially for Minnie. Sometimes I think Mickey even uses these situations as an excuse to push aside things he doesn't want to do and focus on something he would much rather do.

Untamed Curiosity - I feel like this is actually an offshoot of his earlier personality. He was much more mischievous in his earlier appearances, but that was somewhat tamed over the years. However, I do think one element that has remained is this mouse's curiosity for the unknown. It seems like Mickey can't help himself but stick his nose into things he probably shouldn't. Whether it is listening to a conversation, checking a locked room, testing out a weird machine, or even following an odd feeling. I also feel like his stubbornness doesn't really help as it seems like once a curiosity is in his focus, he can't let it go. Mickey rarely likes to cause problems, but if his curiosity overtakes him, he usually ends up being a troublemaker. Sometimes this usually leads to him catching a crook. But other times it results in a big mess that he would have to clean up. I do think though that his mischievousness isn't entirely gone and does pop up every once in a while. Especially when trying to get out of things he finds boring or doesn't want to be in. And sometimes he just wants to be a prankster and have fun with his friends and family. Which is funny until things get out of hand.

Overthinks - Mickey is very intelligent and can come up with pretty clever plans when trying to solve problems. Unfortunately, this comes with the side effect of him overcomplicating even simple situations. This is usually why Goofy is such a vital friend for Mickey. Mickey tends to come up with complex solutions while Goofy tends to show the easier option Mickey tends to overlook. I think part of this does come from Mickey being afraid of being wrong and making mistakes, so he tries his best to be as thorough as he can be, which unfortunately can lead to more mistakes.

Lack of Self-Protection - One positive about Mickey is that he cares about others and would stand up to protect them. But unfortunately, this doesn't always extend to himself. He is not a doormat but tends to lean more "Turn the other Cheek" approach when he is the only one getting bullied (unless things go too far or if others get involved). To be fair, it is important to know when to pick your battles, but this tends to lead into other areas as I feel like he doesn't really share his problems and tends to keep personal issues to himself. I personally see him as the kind of guy you really have to pry to get him to talk about what he is feeling as he would much rather bottle it up to not cause any trouble. I also feel like he rarely is one to ask for help and tends to try and solve it all on his own, especially if he is worried that others may get hurt. The issue is, he doesn't seem to worry about whether he would get hurt.

Takes on Too Much - I also feel like this connects to another flaw as he tends to take on too much and constantly puts himself in risky situations. Whenever a life-threatening situation comes up that could help everyone but is extremely dangerous, he is usually the first in line to do it. It feels like Mickey doesn't even consider his own safety or limitations at all. Sometimes it feels like he is overconfident in his abilities and just believes that he will be okay, which works until it doesn't. It also doesn't help that Mickey has a hard time saying "No", so even if he didn't want to do something or knows he is not capable of doing it, he would probably still do it, not wanting to disappoint anyone. He rarely thinks of himself. And seldom considers what would be best for him. Usually, his friends are the ones to think about his safety and needs.

Need to be Perfect - Though I feel like part of the reason Mickey takes on so much is his need to be the hero. He feels like he has to be a perfect, selfless, and brave role model who does everything without a single complaint. I feel like he overexerts himself because he is afraid of what happens if he doesn't. He is afraid of not being needed or wanted. He is usually the underdog, a small mouse in a world with characters twice his size, and if he isn't constantly proving himself people will leave him behind. I also feel like he has a hard time admitting to mistakes (which connects to his stubbornness) because he feels like he can't make mistakes, or that would show that he isn't as capable as people think. I also think this explains why he has more of a heated rivalry with Mortimer. Mortimer somehow taps into his insecurities in the ways others don't. I feel like Mickey is kind of jealous of Mortimer because he tends to be taken seriously (at first) while Mickey usually needs to earn it. I also kind of wonder if he is worried that if he starts messing up, Minnie and the others will leave him for someone like Mortimer, so he feels like he can't mess up. Ever.

Lack of Self Worth - Unfortunately this means that he is very reliant on others for his self-worth. Luckily Mickey is really good at making friends. But he tends to rely on the existence of his friends for his worth. I can imagine that if for some reason they all stopped existing, I don't think he would even know what to do with himself. While he doesn't need everyone to like him. He does need at least one person to like him to help ground him or I can see him going into a deep depression. I feel like he would really struggle with being alone for too long unless there was some hope of being able to be with his loved ones soon.

But yeah these are the bad qualities that I feel like Mickey generally has. There are probably more, especially ones more specific to certain interpretations, but these are the ones I was able to come up with. As nice as Mickey is, he isn't perfect and his insecurities, overthinking, stubbornness, and curious nature tend to get him in trouble. But fortunately, he is also just as capable of getting out of trouble.

I would honestly love to see other people thoughts on this as well.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Season One was Fun, but it’s the Reason for All of Chat Noir’s Problems

While season one of Miraculous is certainly not perfect, it’s got a lot of good content. Fun episodes, interesting character setups, and interesting plot setups make it a solid opening season to this type of show. There is, however, one massive flaw, the repercussions of which we’re still feeling to this day. That flaw is the dynamic that it establishes between Ladybug and Chat Noir. A dynamic that works great for a duo, but falls apart when you add a larger team.

General Talk About Team Dynamics

When you’re writing a story with a team or core group, the characters need to be designed around each other. How will they interact? Who are the key characters? Who is the leader? Who is the brains? Who is the comic relief? And so on. 

Each character should, by and large, fill a unique role. This is especially true in larger cast because you’re going to have to balance writing all of these characters, so you need to have clear logic for who will be doing what. This is a big reason why having 18 heroes with only one clear main character is a terrible idea. There just aren’t 18 unique roles to be filled. There will be overlap and characters will end up being defined by their powers and little else. That’s why most shows cap out at 7 or 8 people in that core team and why the core team usually starts as much smaller group.

The size of your team is a huge factor in deciding how clearly the character roles need to be defined. If it’s a team of two, then the fact that the team is so small will make the characters feel important just because they’re the main focus. This means that you can get away with one of the characters being more silly and less obviously important. One of the best examples of this is Kim Possible.

That show sees the titular character doing most of the heavy lifting. She’s the fighter, the badass, the brains, the one everyone knows. Her partner, Ron, is mostly there as comic relief. However, you don’t watch this show and think “why is Ron even there? Why doesn’t Kim bring X?” Because there is no X. Kim and Ron are the only options, so Ron can be as silly as the writers want him to be without coming across as just another part of the team. There are even episodes centered around showing that Kim and Ron can’t function without each other. They are the only viable team.

Let’s contrast them to these four:

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are four of the best know hero characters in modern media and they are exceedingly well balanced. While different versions will mess with the family dynamics, the general pattern is that Leo is the serious leader, Raph is the tank/second in command, Donnie is the brains, and Mikey is the artsy comic relief. The property would not be enjoyable if you didn’t have all four characters there to balance each other out.

However, if the world is ending and you have to pick two turtles to save the day, then you’re probably not picking Mikey for your roster. He’s a strong fighter and a fun character, but the roles that the other three play make them better picks in almost every scenario.

This is true for pretty much any show with this kind of dynamic. If you have a comic relief character, then they’re going to be fun. They might even be the fan favorite! But from the perspective of the story, the comic relief character is there to lighten the mood and assist the team. The other ones are there to take charge and solve the problems. The only way to get around this is to give the comic relief a strong second role that elevates them to more than just the comic relief. (Quick note: this isn’t something that you need to do, btw. Mikey is fine as-is because he doesn’t need to feel more narratively important for the story to work.)

A decent example of a character who is both the comic relief and a key member of the team that you can’t remove if you want to win is Sokka from Avatar the Last Airbender. If you look at the core team, Sokka is the one who is usually cracking the jokes and lightening the mood. He also has no powers, making him the weakest fighter. However, he’s also the one who makes the plans. He’s the “idea guy”. Take Sokka away and the story doesn’t work. The team can fight without him, but they probably won’t win without him because they won’t know where and when to fight.

This is Chat Noir’s problem.

Team Dynamics in Miraculous

Miraculous season one didn’t make Chat Noir a Sokka. It make him a Ron and that worked because there was only Chat Noir and Ladybug. Chat Noir didn’t need to have his importance clearly defined, he was important just because he was Ladybug’s partner. He was the one who kept her from fighting alone. No one else was treated as a viable alternative.

But she’s not alone anymore. There are 17 other people on her team. We’ve seen her fight with different groups and win even though Chat Noir wasn’t able to make it (something that you would never see in Kim Possible). This is the problem. The issue that’s been building and building ever since Rena Rouge first got her miraculous.

If you ignore personal preferences and just look at the roles filled by the different miraculous holders, then Chat Noir doesn’t feel like the obvious pick to stand beside Ladybug. What does he offer that no one else does? What is his unique role outside of comic relief? What makes him scream “duteragonist”?

To fix this problem, you have to go all the way back to the beginning and either nix the larger team or rewrite season one to establish Chat Noir as something more than the comic relief. This doesn’t need to be an aspect of his powers (though I do have thoughts on that). Looking at the previous examples, we see that Donnie is vital because he’s extremely good with technology. Sokka is vital because he makes the plans. Chat Noir could have been vital for a reason as simple as “Ladybug trust him above all others and they constantly work together.” But that’s not what the show did. Alya is both Ladybug’s second in command and her sole confidant. The one who knows all the secrets. Now that Alya - and the rest of the class - have permanent miraculouses, be ready for even more episodes where Chat Noir feels like he’s just there to be Ladybug’s silly arm candy. Which isn’t a problem if Chat Noir is mostly just the love interest a la Tuxedo Mask, but if that’s all he is, then maybe don’t have his family be the center of the plot or put his name in the title?

(Yes, I simplified some of these characters' roles. I'm just making broad statements here to provoke reflection on the writing. I'm not critiquing any property save for Miraculous.)

[whywoulditho]

I'm glad, that DC writers are changing constantly and therefore the characters are protected from the Bat-family. The Bats are the cancer of DC comics. There wouln't be any independant characters anymore if they could gez their grubby hands on the other DC families

That's another way to look at it.. I agree that they're trying a bit too hard to connect every character to the bats' storyline. so you might have a point there. maybe it would create more bad than good if they let batfam authors interfere with the other storylines... but i still wouldn't call the bats the cancer of DC. I think if you took the bats out of DC, it would lose like half of its charm and quality.

with all that being said though, i still think the biggest problem of DC romances (or comic book romance in general) lies in each run having separate authors. think about why harley x ivy worked. it's because both of those characters already existed before they got together. both of them were loved villains and later anti-heroes, they both have their own story, their own past and their own redemption arcs. they're both INTERESTING. and when DC made the risky choice of making them a couple, it worked.

i'm not saying it would work with any other characters, or that they should make all their major characters date each other. but if you want to explore romance in your comics you have to give the readers an actual relationship, involving two realistically written and interesting people. not a major character and their accessory love interest. that's my issue with tim x bernard, or jon x jay. no one will get attached to, or even invested in, these relationships because we don't know anything about the love interests. they're just some random people. even if you try to give them personalities they will still not have a story outside of their relationship with the major character. bernard and jay were only created so tim and jon would have someone to kiss. it's hard to care about them, and therefore their relationship. they're just boring romance side plots.

you can introduce a character with the sole purpose of making them a couple with one of your major characters and still make it work, like batman and catwoman. you can create chemistry with a new character just as well as you can with already existing ones. but i think we need more of the first option. less last minute love interests and more people falling in love. i think what makes DC special is that they show us so many different versions of their major characters, we get to see them grow and change (take notes, marvel) so it wouldn't be off-brand to see already existing major characters, like superboy and robin, ending up together. not when it's DC. to be honest i think it would be like super iconic of them to do that. and i also think that DC fans would much rather have their favorite characters end up with the kind of person they went through hell and back with instead of like, a random citizen. tim and kon have so many parallels. they're both people who didn't have to be heroes at all, but still chose to do it. they both struggle with carrying a mantle too big and the fact that they were not chosen for it makes them even more insecure. they also have a past together, they're close friends, they would take a bullet for each other. so much potential. dont even get me started on damian and jon. those two are like, literal mirrors of their fathers. they have huge legacies on their shoulders and they're like quite literally the only people that could understand one another. again, so. much. potential. i'm not saying they have to be together, but if DC was gonna write romance for these characters I wish it could have been with each other.

[gffa]

Hi :)

I'm a pretty new SW fan, not because I didn't like the movies/hadn't seen them but because I grew up thinking it was extremely nerdy and would often feel awkward trying to bring up anything related to SW.

Fortunately I've finally reached and met awesome people who love SW just like I did but I feel like I lost A LOT of important stuff and there's so much content to the saga that it's extremely overwhelming for me to even think about diving into the whole SW universe and catch up.

I've been following you for a bit and your posts are just extremely interesting to me but again, sometimes I'm a little confused about certain things and so I wanted to ask you if you had any recommendations about where to start catching up (besides the movies which I will be binge watching soon hehe)

Hi! Welcome to Star Wars fandom, I hope you're having a good time! And around here we embrace being as nerdy as possible--I mean, fandom is such a mainstream thing these days, but I still like to embrace being a nerd about things because it leads to a lot more happiness, to just be silly and having a good time with the thing that tickles our brains.

But, yes, it is pretty overwhelming when you're first arriving, I still remember when I first came back to SW several years ago, having really only watched the movies as a kid, and there was All This Stuff and it seemed impossible to ever reach the deep end of the pool, and that was before the last seven years of books, games, movies, comics, etc. came out! I will hopefully set your mind at ease with this, though: The vast, vast majority of content that Star Wars puts out isn't anything I would consider "essential". It's wonderful, fantastic stuff! But a lot of us have just been around so long that we're combing through the finer details of supplementary material, rather than those being absolute Must-Read/Watch To Get A Feel For Star Wars.

My recommendations for How To Get A Feel For Star Wars is basically, start with the animated series and the live action series, they're the second layer of foundation in the Star Wars building, all the comics and novels and such will be built on them, and in this order: - The movies, this is the foundation on which everything else will be built. - The Clone Wars, season 1-6 are part of George Lucas' story and they're pretty essential (at least in this corner of SW fandom) to understanding wtf anyone is talking about or even watching many of the live action series. (Season 7 is fine and should be watched! It's just not part of Lucas' Star Wars.) - Star Wars: Rebels, starts off light-hearted but really is one of the best developed shows and does a lot of connective work between the prequels and the original trilogy. - The Mandalorian, set 9 years after Return of the Jedi, this show just massively blew up and while each season is slightly less well-done than the previous one (imo), it's well worth watching for wtf fandom is talking about half of the time. (The Book of Boba Fett is somewhat optional in this corner of fandom, but imo worth the watch. Generally, it should go Mando s1-2 --> TBOBF --> Mando s3.) - Obi-Wan Kenobi, because this corner of fandom lost our goddamned minds about it and still haven't gotten them back. - Andor, which is a really great show and, as long as you've watched Rogue One first, you'll follow along just fine. Does some solid connecting the dots between the prequels and the originals, but not as much as Rebels did. - Jedi: Fallen Order, you can look up a "movie" version on YouTube for the story of this game, which is a really good plot, has some great new characters, has some genuinely effective cameos, and will be referenced fairly often in other materials/in fandom.

If you're not feeling overwhelmed by All The Star Wars You've Consumed, I would personally suggest going for the comics next, over any of the novels. The novels are great! But the vast majority of them are self-contained and meant to be supplementary material even more than the comics, which get to tell bigger, more connected stories. I always suggest starting with: - Star Wars 2015 by Jason Aaron + Darth Vader 2015 by Kieron Gillen, both of which are really, solidly fantastic stories about the timeframe just after A New Hope, like there are so many absolutely banger lines that came out of these comics. I won't spoil them, just know that I think these were legitimately good comics, not just legitimately good Star Wars comics. (The first six issues of each series are meant to be read concurrently, but after that, you can just pick one and read in that specific title.) - Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith 2017 by Charles Soule, which is set in the immediate aftermath of Revenge of the Sith. If Gillen's Vader keeps the mystique of the originals Unknowable Darth Vader, then Soule's Vader is more about the absolute BATSHIT DRAMA that is blending Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader. This series is BANANAPANTS in the absolute best way. - Obi-Wan & Anakin 2015 by Charles Soule, which is a five-issue mini-series set between The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones and is both stunningly beautiful art and a solidly good plot that survives fairly serious analysis of. It's got some great worldbuilding details, but even more I like it for the look at why a young Anakin chooses to stay with the Jedi Order.

The one book I will recommend--for a list aimed at getting you caught up on what fandom is referencing--is the Revenge of the Sith novelization by Matthew Stover, that book is quoted constantly, and I'm not sure any other SW book has ever been as good as it is.

I feel like this is the best set of reading to get you familiarized with the source material that tends to come up the most! There's lots more that's really good, but once you get through the above, you can let me know what era or characters you're most interested in or if you have a specific question about something and want to see where it comes from!

But there's one thing to address and you're kinda going to have to figure out how to approach it on your own. 😂 There is a ton of stuff in SW fandom that's ostensibly from a book or a comic, but the version in fandom often comes from those who never actually read the books/haven't read them in a long time or are just picking them up from other fic and meta.

For example, the AgriCorps or Melida/Daan get referenced in fic and in posts all the time, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend reading the Jedi Apprentice series (I mean, I'm not your mom, feel free if you want to!) and often times how they're used in fic is not how they were used in the source material. Or the clones speaking Mando'a comes from the Legends books by Karen Traviss and she is a whole big can of ugly worms (both what she wrote and her IRL politics), as well as much of what she wrote was overwritten/discarded when The Clone Wars came out, but fandom likes the idea and so they put that into their fics (as they should, if they like it!). The idea of Mace using the lightsaber form of Vaapad is from Legends sources (the best source probably being the Shatterpoint novel by Matthew Stover, I'd guess?), same for his ability to see "shatterpoints" in the Force, which aren't part of Lucas' continuity or Disney's continuity, but fandom enjoys using them to flesh out Mace's character. This will get you started and, if you're looking for something more specific, feel free to ask, I enjoy these kinds of question--and don't feel you have to stick with any of the above if they're not fun for you. This is meant to be enjoyable, it's meant to have a good time, there's no wrong way to consume Star Wars media! <3

[christiansorrell]

TTRPG Read-Through: Traveller - Book 1

Here is a read-through I did about a year and a half ago (originally posted on Twitter) of one of the all time classics: Traveller by Game Designers' Workshop! This read-through just covers Book 1 - Characters and Combat from the original Traveller box set trio of books. - Christian

This is the 1981 Second Edition printing of the classic Traveller three zine box set! Been wanting to read this for ages now. It's discussed A LOT in Mothership circles.

Really interesting to see GM-less and solo play options here. Didn't realize that was being done explicitly at this time. Also, nice to see "he or she" language here rather than the just "he" you see a lot in older games.

The UPP is clearly the creation of an utterly deranged mind. This seems like a huge overcomplication of just listing stats (unless all your players are proficient in hexadecimal).

[Hi, it's me from the future here (aka now - 2024): I've learned to embrace and love the UPP (or more specifically the planet stat version from one of the other books). It's complicated at first but really quick and cool once you know how to read it.]

I really like Social Standing as a stat replacement for charisma or charm or other social skills you tend to see. Feels like it would have more impact on the story and less of a "Roll to see if you convince him, I guess" sort of anticlimax social skills have most of the time.

I'm now into the "you can die during char creation in Traveller" bits. Really cool in some ways. Really comical in others. It recommends you enlist your bad stat characters into the Scout service because of it's high mortality rate (so you can roll a diff char before play), lol.

Essentially, you roll stats and that's your entire character but to give them some experience they can enlist in a Service. You have to roll to get in and may get rejected. If so, you submit to the draft (get into one at random). You can die. You can gain skills and promotions.

Honestly, the char creation feels like a solo game unto itself. Risk v reward of how far to push your enlistments to boost your skills and standing and benefits. You could have a whole story in your head by the end of it. Great Session 0 material.

As a 34 yr old, this hurts. Apparently, I have -1 Strength, Dexterity and Endurance now...

I admire commitment but asking GMs to use this full char creator for all NPCs (which means generating chars until you get one capable of filling the role you need) is truly too wild. Best part: at the end, it just says you can also pick whatever you want for stats and skills.

The weapons and intro text have much more of a space as a new age of sail vibe to them than I was anticipating. It's cool. Far more Dune than Alien (so far).

Interestingly (unless I missed something), skills are detached from your stats. Your base stats make getting into a Service easier and help you with Saving Throws and such, but skills have their own modifiers based on the situation and your expertise. It's cool (if a bit dense)!

In case you were wondering, there is absolutely no art in this entire book. I'm hoping we'll get some in one of the other two books with vehicles and ships and such but won't be holding my breath. Gives the whole thing a very Serious vibe.

Always interesting to see how older games chose to handle this (or not).

Here's the UPP in action along with quick listing of other character info. Interesting even if it is just too overcomplicated for my tastes.

Can't overstate how much char creation feels like a whole solo game of its own. You can roll a character at age 18 and have them go through seven 4-yr terms in a Service before retiring and having substantial cash, specific possessions, memberships and social standings. Wild.

The character sheet mentions PSIONICS which is exciting (but I'll have to wait till Book 3 for more on that apparently).

Combat is straightforward but has some unique bits: a focus on stealth as an option and movement/attacks occur by all parties simultaneously which means everyone (enemies too) gets to move and then everyone chooses who to attack and you roll them all. Sounds really fun.

Stats have cool effects in battle. Your Endurance stat is the number of attacks you can make before needing to rest (can you imagine if DnD just didn't let you do a base attack at a point?). Strength and Dex can boost or lower certain weapon rolls like you'd expect.

If trained in a weapon, you can give your expertise as a negative mod to your enemy's rolls to attack you to reflect parrying and blocking which is cool. The skills also add to your attack rolls. Skills just seem really useful overall here.

I just love that we get stats for broadswords, revolvers, and laser carbines. Plus, there are even special tables for archaic weapons for when encountering lower-tech civilizations. It feels like a really wide open interpretation of what space could look like. Feels exciting.

A few more equipment tables and a final quick reference page at the back and that's all for Book 1. I'll be back with Book 2 and 3 in the coming days!

Main thoughts: Character creation is very involved but really cool - its own game practically. Skills are very deep in a way that feels refreshing when compared to more stat-focused games. Combat has some fun, chaotic twists. Feels like a wide universe of possibility here so far.

I'll add Books 2 and 3 to this thread when I give them their own read-throughs. In the meantime, here's my newsletter (last two months have Mothership freebies): https://meatcastle.substack.com

And here's my website (with links to my games and modules and all that good stuff): https://shop.meatcastlegameware.com/

Thanks for reading!

[sweettoothvn]

Welcome In Valued Customer!

Welcome to the official Sweet Tooth VN tumblr page! This page is run by @flavorcrash and in the works of being created.

[As of March 2024, progression has resumed! It will be slow but we're back on track now that our team has expanded!]

This is an 18+ blog! Minors should not interact for the safety of the creators and themselves.

Content Warnings are subject to change as the story is still in development! Current warnings:

Gore, Death, Violence, Mentions of Non-Con/Non-Con Elements, Mentions of Dub-Con/Dub-Con Elements, Cannibalism, Aliens, Religious Themes/Cult Themes, Substance Abuse, Abusive Relationships, Physical/Mental/Emotional Abuse, Child Neglect/Abuse, Suggestive Themes

If you are uncomfortable with ANY of these topics, please do not feel forced to indulge in this content. The official base version of Sweet Tooth will be SFW and there will be an option to censor most of these topics, but I cannot guarantee a full censor.

Lore, Character Designs, and any information given in the asks are subject to change! The mind is a fickle thing after all.

Page Conditions:

No ‘What if’ scenario prompts- they were fun at first but we received so many that it eventually became draining and hard to keep up with

No asks about children - Unless its asking about what the character was like as a child please stop asking how the characters react to Y/N having a child it makes me uncomfortable (sorry)

Use common sense - this is self explanatory. (racism/general bigotry/harrassment)

No fetishizing genders/sexes - I dont understand why you would like a character solely because theyre trans/cis/etc, so please stop including that in some asks its weird and makes me uncomfortable

If you wish to post any content about Sweet Tooth you may use the following hashtag:

#SweetToothVN

If you're interested in supporting the creation of this game or flavorcrash's work feel free to check out her social media pages:

Etsy Kofi Twitter Linktree

For additional content that may not be posted on Tumblr, feel free to join our discord server! Just know that you will require an ID to verify that you are at least 18+

Discord

[sonicshipbattles]

Knock, knock it's Knuckles! And he's looking for love. The two things we know about our lone echidna from Angel Island is that his weakness is girls (he's a shy guy) and that he once asked his dad if he could be date men and his dad said no (Archie Comics - also, this is a comedic exaggeration of what actually happened, don't quote me). Clearly, this confused bisexual needs our help, which is why we've gathered here one more time to do another ship battles: this time for Knuckles ships Submit as many ships as you like - the more nominations we get, the bigger the bracket. Repeat nominations also help with seeding by showing the popular options, so please don't hesitate to submit ships you assume will have already been submitted SUBMIT YOUR SHIPS HERE:

Submission/tournament rules under read more:

Most importantly: BE NICE. No bashing of any ship will be welcomed. Use your propaganda to uplift your own ship, not put down others

Any Knuckles ships from any media is welcome - be it the games, comics, cartoons or anything else

Only ships including the character Knuckles the Echidna will be accepted (e.g. Knuckles/Blaze, Knuckles/Vector, etc.). Ships for other characters in the series that do not involve Knuckles (e.g. Tangle/Whisper, Dave/Meh Burger, etc.) may get their own tournaments later on. Submissions that do not follow this rule will be ignored

Submit as many ships as you want, but don't spam submit a single ship

No Knuckles x OC ships. All of your OCs are great and we wouldn't want anyone's feelings hurt by seeing them knocked out :( For the sake of this tournament, an OC is a fan-made character that has never been used nor was created to be used in licensed Sonic media (So yes, you can submit cancelled character ships if any of those apply to Knuckles)

We do accept crossover ships. Preferrably from series that Sonic has officially crossed over with. At the end of submissions there will be a week-long period in which crossover ships will be judged to see if they'll be included

Polycules are welcome

If you have a specific version of the ship that you like, specify what it is and this will be counted as separate to the general ship, e.g. Knuckles/Sonic (general) and Knuckles/Sonic (Boom) would be included as separate ships

Ships pairing Knuckles with younger characters like Cream or Charmy obviously won't be accepted. If a ship is submitted and I'm worried it might make waves, I'll run a poll to see if it should be included in the tournament or not

Also, just gonna put this out there: But Knuckles/Julie-Su and Knuckles/Rouge are acceptable ships for the tournament and I don't want anyone being weird about them. If you feel uncomfortable with them, then mute Knuxouge and KnuxSu

Submissions will be open until Sunday 24th September or until I feel we have enough to run a tournament

[devine-fem]

Hii I know the post is a few days old by now, but I just wanna say I get you with the fact that "lego batjokes is the only okay batjokes"

I LOVE that movie with a passion, but I will become its number 1 hater if someone uses it to push puritan shit on me

The ship itself is okay, but I don't think it's a good batjokes shit I think it should have its own little corner separate from batjokes tbh

No, I actually cannot stand it anymore like I don’t seriously, seriously hate it that bad its just like the constant remark of how people are gross for shipping batjokes outside of one piece of media is literally SO ANNOYING.

STOP BEING A COWARD. you’re not better than anyone here. like dude, if you want to ship just one specific iteration of batjokes that has not been touched in years, SHIP SOMETHING ELSE. We don’t want you here.

Honestly the WHOLE “you can’t ship this ship anywhere but this universe” IS SO ANNOYING IN THE COMIC BOOK FANDOM. like i even get that for jondami where people said you can only ship them in dceased. DUDE JUST SHIP THEM, NO ONES JUDGING YOU AND NO ONE CAN STOP YOU. STOP MAKING IT EVERYONE ELSES ISSUE.

like huh???

its just annoying like i want to make these people bite concrete. like lego batjokes is a bit cute but the allure of batjokes is that its messed up.

okay, let me calm down.

the appeal of batjokes is exploring the relationship between bruce wayne and the joker if you add explicit romantic or sexual elements to it. its more of a study than anything. what would happen between these characters if you gave them a bit of dick?

BUT ISNT THAT JUST SHIPPING IN GENERAL. like yes, its toxic, yes joker is horrible, yes bruce is horrible but like thats the point, it could have an interesting turn about to it THAT YOU WONT GET WITH HEALTHY SHIPS.

did you ever think about how interesting it would be to watch bruce jump over mental hurdles to pursue something with the joker WHEN HE HAS KILLED JASON? CRIPPLED BABS? did you ever think about how someone likes that?

you ever read dark romance in your life cause lemme tell you… and it might surprise you… ITS DARK. GASP !!

like yes my only option is to be a hater to lego batjokes now. do i hate them? nope, because i ship them and i love every version of batjokes because i ship them dude and media like lego batman and telltale batman is a TOOL FOR ME AS A FAN TO USE if i want something more healthy and domestic between these characters, not for some rando who doesn’t touch comics to use against ME for BEING NORMAL. oooo, you don’t like this piece of media the EXACT SAME WAY I DO AND CONSUME THE EXACT SAME WAY I DO, GROSS! kys.

sorry, i get passionate about batjokes but oh my god, one day can we PLEASE stop saying this. its so annoying.

[sineala]

Steve/Tony Starter Comics Recs: 2023 Edition

I have been asked this month to talk about essential 616 Steve/Tony comics for a new reader, who is aware of the broadest strokes of their relationship (Civil War, Hickmanvengers) but wanted more context as well as recommendations for the best and/or most essential comics. [This is a repost from Patreon.]

First up, quick advice for newbies getting into Steve/Tony comics: I know there are thousands of comics and trying to figure out what to read is kind of like trying to drink from a firehose. It's going to be okay. You don't have to read everything. You're not going to read everything. Almost no one has read everything. A lot of things flat-out contradict each other. If you're looking to read fanfiction that is close to canon, most fic authors will generally give you an idea of when their stories are set, and you can look the issues up if you want. Or you can just wing it and see how far you get and look something up if you're really confused. That's what I do. Where do you find all these comics? If you are willing to pay money to access comics, the best thing you can do is subscribe to Marvel Unlimited, which is about $10/month and gives you digital access to pretty much every comic that is from more than three months ago. This is the way to go. They also have reading lists for characters and events. And they have recently introduced a line of comics called "Infinity Comics" that are only available though Marvel Unlimited that are designed to be read on your phone -- they're a single long comic that you just scroll through -- and as of right now they have just had a very fun Steve & Tony storyline in Avengers Unlimited. If you have a tablet, a regular-size tablet screen (mine is 9.7") will show you one page at a time, about the size of a regular page in a paper comic, and is definitely the optimal way to go. You can also read on your phone; most of the digital comics on Marvel's app are set up so it zooms in on a panel at a time. You can also read them on a computer, on their website, but the website version is much harder to use. There are a lot of different options for getting comics in paper -- and I'm happy to talk about them if anyone wants to know any of this, especially since some of the reprint lines have changed since the last time I probably made a guide about this. Just let me know. But I think for the newbie, digital is the way to go until you know more about what you like. Then you can fill your house with paper comics. If you are in the US (I cannot vouch for other countries), your local library almost certainly has comics in book form (usually paperbacks collecting multiple issues) and you can read paper comics for completely free. If your library subscribes to Hoopla, you can also read some digital comics for completely free. It's worth checking out. Right. I think that's probably all you need to know about acquiring comics for right now, so onto the recs. I have made some similar lists before. I have a list of essentials I previously made (yes, a lot of them are the same) and I have a flowchart of what the different volumes are. So a lot of this is going to be repeated from previous lists because the old stuff is still relevant. So, since the content will be similar, I thought I would arrange this a little differently than I've done previously, to liven this up. I feel like "best Steve/Tony comics" and "essential Steve/Tony comics" are separate lists with separate purposes, although some of the comics on the list overlap. There are a lot of comics with great Steve/Tony moments that we all love to read and share pictures of and so on and so forth. Like, "One Night in Madripoor." Great comic. A lot of fun. Would definitely recommend. But is it going to show up in fanfiction? Probably not all that much. It's just not a comic that inspires a lot of fic. So it's probably one of the best to read, but it's not essential to know. If you get what I'm saying. (The essential comics are generally also ones that are best to read, so it's really more of a subset/superset relation. Probably.) Okay, yeah, "essential" is basically the angsty shippy stuff and "best" is the fluffy cute shippy stuff. Essential Steve/Tony If you're coming from MCU fandom, the dynamic between 616 Steve, Tony, and the rest of the team may not be what you're expecting. They're not SHIELD's pet superhero project -- they in fact tend to have an uneasy and occasionally adversarial relationship with the government, for all that Tony originally founded SHIELD and Steve often works for them. The Avengers have existed in a world that's basically been full of weird shit for their entire adult lives, and so they've been dealing with it for their entire adult lives. They are seasoned professionals. They are also friends. You know all that 2012 Avengers MCU fic where the Avengers all live together and they eat meals together and they hang out and watch movies together? You know the fanon I mean? That's comics canon. People wrote MCU fic like that because that's exactly what the comics are like and everyone assumed it was going to be similar. The Avengers are also a little more structured than you may be expecting. They've got bylaws and procedures and -- when necessary -- courts-martial. It's also not a case of "Captain America always leads the team." He often does, but not always. He's not the team leader right now (Carol is; before her, it was T'Challa) and in fact he's not even on the team right now. When they started out, they actually rotated the position of team chair; the longest-serving chairs are Steve, Jan, and Natasha, in that order, but I think most of the major Avengers have had a turn at some point. Characters also leave and rejoin the team fairly often; it's unusual for the same lineup to persist for more than a couple years. So Steve's not there right now, but he probably will be again. It doesn't mean they're breaking up forever if someone leaves the team. They'll probably be back. If they're dead they'll also probably be back. The timeline's a mess but basically everyone was in their mid-20s when they started and is going to be in their mid-30s forever, for reasons that are too complicated to go into. So if you're looking for context, here's the best high-level overview I can come up with, focusing on Steve/Tony: The founding Avengers (Iron Man, Thor, Wasp, Ant-Man, and the Hulk, who is retroactively un-foundered) have all been doing the superhero thing on their own for a bit in their solo books when they team up to defeat Loki, decide that they work well together, and decide to form the Avengers (named by Jan). They all move into the mansion. The Hulk then quits the team basically for forever (if you're here from MCU fandom, you should know he's... really not an Avenger) and he disappears, and while the Avengers are out looking for him in a submarine, they instead find a block of ice, containing Captain America, who is miraculously alive. (Iron Man is the first person he sees and also the first person who speaks to him. Fandom likes this.) After saving the Avengers, Steve decides to join the team. The team only remains the same for about twelve issues, at which point all the other founding members decide they need a break while Steve is off on a mission and he gets back to find that they have left him three brand-new Avengers (Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver), all of whom are career criminals. He's not real happy at first. The Avengers' roster changes many times over the years, and Steve and Tony are often but not always on the team together. Highlights in Tony's life include when he gets a heart transplant and no longer has to wear and charge the chestplate to survive, and also when he decides to stop making weapons. Steve quits and becomes Nomad for a few months while he gets over his feelings about the government, because the president of the United States has been conspiring with aliens to take over the world, and then commits suicide, shooting himself in the head right in front of Steve. Understandably, this messes Steve up more than a little. Steve and Tony first get a bit contentious in The Korvac Saga, in which Steve at one point punches Tony (well, Iron Man) in the face. They get over it pretty quickly. Tony develops a drinking problem. Then Tony gets sober, which lasts for a few years. In the intervening time Steve finds out Tony is Iron Man. Then Tony starts drinking again, it gets very bad, Steve is upset, and Tony nearly freezes to death in in a blizzard. Then he gets sober. At this point Tony has quit the main team to join the West Coast Avengers and then Force Works, where he stays for about ten years in real time. So he and Steve are on different teams for quite a while. Then Steve and Tony start to have fights. We get Armor Wars, where Steve disagrees with Tony trying to take back his technology, and we get Operation Galactic Storm, where they disagree about whether the main villain should die. Eventually they make up. They're still not on the same team. Eventually there's a massive plot that involves Tony being a brainwashed murderer, Tony being replaced by his teenage self, Tony dying in Steve's arms, and then everybody dying (except not really) while fighting Onslaught. They come back. Then we get a very nice run where basically Steve and Tony are friends and everyone is on the same team and everyone lives in the mansion and it's great, until Wanda loses her grip on reality, murders a few people, and blows up the mansion. Whoops. But Steve and Tony are still trying. They form the New Avengers together, move into the Tower, and everything is great until Civil War happens, at which point Steve gets killed (Bucky, who just came back to life, becomes Captain America) and Tony spends a lot of comics lying on the floor crying. Many bad things happen, including a Skrull invasion, which Tony doesn't really deal with as well as he could have on account of the lying on the floor crying. Eventually Steve comes back to life, and for Reasons, Tony develops amnesia and has now forgotten the entire Civil War. Steve remembers it, though. They don't immediately get back together. Things are a little rough and Steve isn't on the team because Bucky is still Captain America and Steve is off doing black ops with the Secret Avengers, which he is very bad at and is also depressed about, but eventually comes back, joins the Illuminati, gets the shield back, rejoins the team, and everyone generally has a good time other than the part where Tony has to drink to save the world and also the part where everyone punches the X-Men. Then the multiverse starts ending. Thanks, Jonathan Hickman. For reasons that seem like a good idea at the time, everyone kicks Steve off the Illuminati and then wipes his memory about this. Steve and Tony continue to be BFFs while Tony is lying his face off about this, until Steve remembers this and then attempts to hunt Tony down and kill him, which is complicated by Steve becoming suddenly old and deserumed and Tony becoming evil. Then the multiverse actually ends, a bunch of weird things happen, and then everything on Earth 616 comes back with basically the only difference being that Earth 616 now contains the Ultimate Universe's Miles Morales and the Ultimate Universe's Reed Richards who is a murderous psychopath. No one ever talks about the murdering or the part where the world ended ever again. After that, Tony is no longer evil, but Steve is still old. They aren't on the same team, I don't think -- Tony is main team, Steve is leading the Uncanny Avengers -- but then a Cosmic Cube makes Steve young again, which would be great except for the part where it secretly replaced him with an evil Hydra version of himself who then takes over America. This is a phenomenally unpopular move and this event ends much earlier than Marvel had planned. People tend to like this for villain AU purposes and also the AI version of Tony (because human Tony is in a coma). Also, oh, yeah, Tony finds out he's adopted. He found out a little before this, but now he's found his biological parents. Don't worry, his biological parents hate him too. We've spent the past five years having Jason Aaron's Avengers run which I don't think anyone really liked (it was okay) but at least Steve and Tony were both on the team, a couple of Cap runs with a lot of conspiracy theories in them (IMO, they've both been okay runs but not outstanding), and an Iron Man run where Tony gets addicted to morphine (do not read this run). Steve and Tony are on generally good terms at this point and have not tried to murder each other for years. (The brand-new Avengers run by Jed MacKay is really too new to say much about yet. The new Cap run hasn't started yet and will be by JMS, which I am excited about. The current Iron Man run by Gerry Duggan is absolutely the best IM run I have read in the past ten years.) So if any of that sounds interesting, that would be a place to start. If you're looking to familiarize yourself with comics that will give you the most context for fanfiction, I would recommend Civil War and surrounding events, as well as Hickmanvengers. This is because these two eras have a fair amount of fic about them and they have so much going on that's hard to figure out just by reading fic about it, and a lot of fic will be about the details. Whereas with something like Onslaught, it might get occasionally mentioned but you will probably never need to know anything more than "most of the Avengers died but they didn't really die and then they all came back a year later." So which comics exactly am I recommending, you ask? At some point you should probably read some version of Tony's origin story. The original is in Tales of Suspense #39, but there are a lot of retellings. Many people like the one in Extremis (IM v4 #1-6). Founding: The Avengers form up in Avengers v1 #1. Steve is found in Avengers v1 #4, and he and Tony are on the same team until Avengers #16. After that they are often both on the same team but this is the classic run with the founding Avengers. Heart transplant: This happens in Iron Man v1 #17-19 and Avengers #69. You probably don't actually need to read all this stuff to know what happens, but it's a great arc where a LMD tries to take Tony's place and Tony wanders around in the rain charging his heart from a car battery and then is kidnapped by people who think they are kidnapping the LMD and will train him to replace Tony. Weaponry: Tony stops making weapons in IM v1 #78. Nomad: Cap v1 #176-183. Steve isn't Nomad for very long. But he is in our hearts. Korvac Saga: This is Avengers #167-177. Demon in a Bottle: This is IM v1 #120-128. It's not actually the story whose events you think of when you think about Tony drinking (most people are probably thinking of the second drinking arc) but it is the storyline that first made him an alcoholic. Features Steve teaching Tony self-defense. This is by Layton & Michelinie who are responsible for a lot of fan-favorite classic IM arcs (this, Doomquest, Armor Wars, the introduction of Ghost, the Kathy Dare arc). Steve finds out Tony's secret identity: This is Avengers v1 #216. It involves Molecule Man stripping Tony out of his armor so he's standing there in his underwear. Second drinking arc: This one's the one with the blizzard. This is (most of) Denny O'Neil's run. It lasts from IM #160-200. Yes, it really is forty entire issues. Steve makes an appearance in #172 (the "flophouse" issue. where he has an argument with Tony). The blizzard is in #182. The rest of it is Tony trying to put his life back together. The villain in this one is actually Obadiah Stane; this is where he's from. This is probably my very favorite Iron Man run. I made a reading order for this. While you don't need a reading order for the main arc -- it's just a straight shot through forty issues of Iron Man -- it is referenced in other comics at the time and some of them contain scenes you might want to read. One issue that is not in that list (because I didn't know about it until recently) is Daredevil #204; Denny O'Neil was also writing Daredevil at the same time and he has a very drunk Tony make an appearance at a party Matt is at. Armor Wars: This is IM #225-232. The issue you actually want is #228, which is Steve and Tony having their first big fight. A bond is broken! Operation Galactic Storm: This is a crossover with about 20 issues across multiple comics; you can find a list somewhere. If you read fic where Steve is mad at Tony because Tony wanted to kill the Kree Supreme Intelligence, that's a reference to this arc. The easier option is to skip every issue in this except for the Aftermath issue, which is Cap #401, which features Steve and Tony discussing all the fights they've had. There are apologies. Kaminski IM: Len Kaminski's IM run is #278 to #318 and not all of it is great (however, if you are reading it, it's pretty easy to tell which parts are not great) but there's a lot of flashbacks here to Tony's childhood that often get referred to in fic; if a story has a canon detail about Tony's childhood, there's a pretty good chance it's from this run. 286 has the famed "Stark men are made of iron" flashback. 288, Tony's parents die and he buys the company that made their car and fixes the manufacturing defect. 313, the flashback with Tony taking his first drink, as a child. v3: I'd just like to issue a blanket recommendation for all of Avengers, Cap, and Iron Man volume 3 (this is the 1998 run). This is basically the very last of the classic Avengers dynamic, when everyone was still friends and lived in the mansion. Avengers v3: The first half of the Avengers run is by Busiek and Pérez and is, deservedly, a classic. The second half is perhaps a little less memorable but does contain Red Zone, which features everyone's favorite dramatic moment where Tony removes his helmet and exposes himself to a deadly airborne disease in order to give Steve CPR so Steve can live. No, don't think about the science; just enjoy the entire page of their mouths pressed together. Cap v3: I actually haven't seen much fic about the specifics of this Cap run (people will occasionally mention the part where Steve lost his shield and Tony helped him find the pieces) but it's by Mark Waid and in my opinion contains one of the best modern characterizations of Steve. IM v3: The first 25 issues of this is Busiek's run, which features both Carol's drinking arc and Sunset Bain's appearance in Tony's life. The rest of it has such great moments as the Sentient Armor arc (in which Tony's armor acquires sentience and then tries to kill him) and both DreamVision arcs, which are where Tiberius Stone is introduced. Civil War and surrounding events (CW, Secret Invasion, Dark Reign, Siege, Captain America Reborn): This is where I (and a lot of other people) started reading. There's a period of maybe two years of comics including the lead-in to Civil War (mostly the beginning of New Avengers v1 and the beginning of the Iron Man and Cap runs), Civil War itself, Steve's death, then the events Secret Invasion, Dark Reign, and Siege. Then Steve comes back to life. Even if you read none of the rest of this you absolutely have to read "Civil War: Casualties of War" and "Civil War: The Confession." The Confession is why we have a Steve/Tony fandom in the first place. I have a reading list for this, but please make sure to read those two comics. Avengers v4: The last of Bendis' Avengers runs (he started with New Avengers and then basically wrote every Avengers book for like seven or eight years); this is basically the story of Steve and Tony trying to figure out how to be friends again after Civil War. The era opens with Avengers Prime, which is a great miniseries featuring a truly epic Steve/Tony hug, and then about two-thirds of the run is Steve and Tony having screaming fights in front of all their friends, and then Steve gets to be Captain America again and rejoins the team and then everyone is friends until Hickman takes over. Hickman (Avengers v5 & New Avengers v3): The epic saga of Tony betraying Steve and then the entire multiverse ending. If you're going to read any of this, this is about 100 issues long and you have to read all of it in a very precise order (reading both series at the same time) or it will make almost no sense. Steve gets old. You probably will want to read Superior Iron Man, in which Tony is temporarily evil. Then the multiverse, in fact, ends. Then Secret Wars happens, but Steve and Tony aren't there. I also have a reading list for this run. Secret Empire and surrounding events (Standoff, Civil War II, Secret Empire): So after the multiverse stops ending (everything's fine, don't worry about it) and Tony stops being evil, we get the event Standoff, where Steve is young again but is secretly evil (he is replaced by a Hydra version of himself), and he continues being secretly evil throughout the events of Civil War II, which this time is Carol vs. Tony and Tony ends up in a coma. The one thing you will absolutely want to read is Civil War II: The Oath, an epilogue issue in which Steve villain-monologues at Tony's comatose body and tells him that Real Steve always loved him. Then Secret Empire happens, and Steve decides to be openly evil and take over America. Tony is an AI. Eventually Evil Steve is defeated and Real Steve comes back. I think that's about it for what Steve/Tony fandom considers to be important angsty events. There's been more recent good stuff, I promise, but it's all mostly been fluffy, in the sense that Steve and Tony haven't fought each other since then and nobody's died. I mean, not permanently. Best Steve/Tony (that isn't already essential) And now the fluff. I mean, it's not entirely fluff. I put 1872 on here. In my defense, I think a lot of the 1872 fic that gets written is fluff and/or fix-its. Tales of Suspense #58: Tales of Suspense, the comic book that Iron Man debuted in in #39, became primarily an Iron Man comic book for nearly twenty issues after that. But starting with #58, he shared the book with Captain America -- every issue from #59 to #99 (when the book ended) had one IM story and one Cap story, but not related to each other, just two separate stories in the same comic. The exception to this is #58 here, a story about both Steve and Tony, in which Steve is impersonated by the Chameleon. Tony at first thinks Steve is in trouble, and then he tries to chase him down -- but he ends up chasing the real Steve. Whoops. (This is one of the stories mentioned in Civil War: Casualties of War.) Tales of Suspense vol 2 #1 (1994 one-shot): Better known in fandom as "the azure eyes" issue, this is a Steve & Tony team-up where they've been on the outs for no reason I can determine but they have to work with each other and learn to be friends again. There are two pages that are Steve and Tony's interior monologues about each other and how they both think the other one is amazing and way better than them. (Tony is particularly fond of Steve's eyes, hence the fandom name for the issue.) Captain America & Iron Man 1998 Annual: This is technically part of my blanket v3 rec but I'd like to mention it specifically here. It's a standalone team-up issue where for Reasons, Tony decides to give Steve some amnesia, but they eventually make up and are friends again and it's very sweet by the end. Captain America & Iron Man: Invasion Force: This is an obscure internet-only team-up comic (you can find it on YouTube in four parts) which includes, among other things, Steve joking about Tony's dick and Tony, in response, offering to make Steve a sex tape. No, really. Captain America: Man Out of Time: This is generally my first rec to everyone; it's a modern retelling of Steve's origin story with some cute Steve/Tony moments and the addition of giving Steve a choice about whether to stay in the future. One Night in Madripoor: Technically, this storyline is Captain America & Iron Man #633-635; "one night in Madripoor" is on the cover of the first issue. This is some excellent Steve & Tony shenanigans in Madripoor with a lot of great banter. Avengers Annual vol 5: This is the annual from Hickman's run, but it's not by Hickman. It's a Christmas story and it's also the story that features the panel where Tony has made Steve's password "Captain Handsome." Avengers: Endless Wartime: The overall plot in this graphic novel is not at all what I would call fluffy but if you pretend that the only panel that exists is the one where Tony calls Steve "beloved" then it's pretty good. I don't recommend paying more than about five dollars for this. 1872: This is one of the AUs from Secret Wars, a Wild West world where Steve is the sheriff and Tony is the town drunk. Yes, I know 1872 is not fluffy. I know Steve is eaten alive by pigs in issue #2. However, there are some really sweet Steve & Tony moments in the first issue and I think most of the fic is a little softer than canon. Captain America/Iron Man (miniseries): This is a relatively recent (2021) team-up miniseries. Five glorious issues of Steve and Tony fighting villains, bantering, and also being really nice to each other. Avengers Annual 2021: This is the last annual in the Infinite Destinies annual series and it's basically "Steve and Tony hang out at home together and work out together and Steve feeds Tony his own breakfast and then they go fight a robot who makes them fight projections of each other because it knows they are weak for each other." Avengers Unlimited #52-54: Civil Score: New as of last month, this is a fun storyline where Steve and Tony attempt to steal a flash drive from the Serpent Society at a fancy party except they're both trying to get it before the other one does. (The very first issue of Avengers Unlimited is also worth a look, because it features Steve and Tony teaming up to fight Ghost and Taskmaster, and Taskmaster stops Steve's heart and Tony has to put Steve in his armor. It is some great h/c.) That's all I can think of! I'm sure I've missed some. I hope this gives you a place to start.

[panda-escapades]

Easter Eggs/references from Kiss Kiss Fall in Portal

I wanted one place where all of this was together so I'm putting it together. I was hooked when I saw that the episode title itself was a reference to Ouran Highschool Host Club. I primarily enjoy DC content through their animated works, please let me know if I'm missing something from the comics, live action, or something else.

First we get Superman from Earth-F aka Superman from the Fleischer Superman Theatrical Shorts(1941–1943) (Mxy calls it Earth 12, this seems to be a typo in the script as Earth 12 is the MAwS earth and mentions that earth just before in the list, or there are multiple Earth 12s.)

Then we get Superman from Earth 50 aka Superman from Super Friends (1973-1985)

Then we get Superman from Earth 508 aka Superman from Superman: The Animated Series (1996-2000)/ Justice League (2001-2004) / Justice League Unlimited (2004-2006)

Then the final Superman from this scene Superman from Weird Earth. I think this is first instance of this kind of variation with superman as doing a quick search links the DC character 'The Weird' But I also love when multiverse productions just do weird and silly versions of things (looking at you hot dog hands Everything Everywhere All at Once)

Our next batch of References is to and to the League of Lois Lanes, founded by Lois Prime, the first Lois to discover (and based on how she is talked about communicate and or travel to other universes). Our introduction to them has he League of Loises asking Lois lane and Jimmy Olsen of Earth 12 to come with them. While discussing the situation The League of Loises tell us that Earth 12 was a previously unknown universe to them (until Monsieur Mallah and the Brain opened it up last episode) and Mr. Mxyzptlk has used that opportunity to get MAwS Superman to help them. (We know that the League of Lois Lanes has lied to our MAwS Lois and Jimmy, and that Lois Prime didn't trust everyone. The very foundation of the organization could be fabricated to some degree as they all could be considered unreliable narrators but I can't see why they'd like about that big of world building so for now I'm taking that exposition as is). Lois Prime is also always refereed to in the past tense so we as the audience are supposed to assume she's dead.

For the Time Being I'm not going to discuss the League memebers as I am trying to just focus on the easter eggs (or so I told myself) But in the credits they are listed without an earth number and as Leader Lois; Grizzled Lois Lane; Robotic Lois; Lewis Lane; Jalana Olsen

Here are the images we get of Lois Prime. She appears to also be from the Fleischer Superman Theatrical Shorts(1941–1943) just with the art style blended a bit with MAwS.

The next batch of references are the ones from the museum, which is said to be on earth prime.

First we get some establishing shots with a Big Mace (Thanagarian Mace) aka Hawkgirl's next to a Mother Box. This version of the mother box is based on Jack Kirby & Mike Royer's design.

The Next Establishing shot we see a green lantern Power Battery, a T-Sphere, and a leather bound book with a that has a circle with a triangle in it. I'm just not sure what it is. The Book of Black does have a circle with a triangle on it, but it's black so I figure it's probably not that.

Then we have Mxy and Superman enter and Mxy drops the act and admits he just wants to steal and knocks off a golden helmet. The gold helmet that is Doctor Fate's Helmet. Then in the background we have some metal objects, a sword, and a blue cloak. The silver and gold metal objects could be shields, but there's just not enough details for me to sink my teeth into looking deeper. The sword is very generic, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was Excalibur as that shows up from time to time. Another Option could be the Vorpal Sword as its in the same display case with a blue cloak which could be Blue Boy's Witching Cloak. Though its also possible to be Raven's Cloak, or anyone who used a blue cloak.

Next are named objects by Mxy Cosmic Rod aka Stargirl's staff.

And the Flight Ring aka Legioneer flight ring. In the background we can also see Wonder Woman's gauntlets as well as her lasso of truth. The flight ring also blocks the view of a triangle on a staff as well as some metal tubes.

Then Mxy Passes by the Soultaker Sword (The Katana) before grabbing the tape recorder he came for and that's the last of any clear objects in the museum.

Then we get a cute bonding moment with Jimmy and Jalana where she shows off meeting Comet the Super-Horse.

While that happens Earth-12 MAwS Lois sneaks into the locked room to see files on other Loises. The first we see is Lois Lane from Earth-52 who's an award winning reporter.

Then we see Lois Lane from Earth-24. She's sporting a key to the city, but with her style of fashion is very kingdom hearts. They even have the detail of using one of Utada Hikari's hairstyles for her as has been done for Kairi.

Then we get the last computer file Lois Lane from Earth-1 who is "Ready to meet with Dad" I personally think this is another foreshadowing moment that in this iteration of the characters her dad is going to be "The General" that we saw back in episode 2.

Next bit we get is the meet up in Earth 14, which could have them landing in an uninhabited area, or it could be fully desolate. While everyone else is there Mxy steals the ship with Earth-12 MAwS Lois and go Headquarters. The entrance of Headquarters has holograms of several Loises.

The front most Lois lanes we get include Lois from Earth-F aka from the Fleischer Superman Theatrical Shorts(1941–1943) (just like the first other Superman we saw). And across from her we get the another Lois paired with one of the other Superman we saw. Lois Lane from Earth 508 from Superman: The Animated Series (1996-2000)/ Justice League (2001-2004) / Justice League Unlimited (2004-2006)

Next to Lois Lane from Earth 508 we see a Lois Lane as Superwoman.

Next to Lois Lane from Earth-F we see a woman with a Hijab and Labcoat. There are 3 more holograms on this side of the hall, but we don't get a close up and the other Loises.

We do get a few more details of the others as Mxy and Lois of MAwS walk through the hall. We see one black woman and an indigenous woman.

The Last bit of HQ potential Easter Eggs we get is this shot of Mxy opening storage for weapons. However, if they are references I think they're to things outside of DC. The biggest sword in there is Gut's sword from Beserk. I would love to hear from people if they recognize any of these objects. I'm going to make a second post focusing on just that shot here.

The the last ones we get are Lois reviewing the Superman File X

The first Superman we see doesn't have any kind of chest logo is Overman from Earth 17

The second Superman with white cape is Superman is a villainous Justice Lord called Lord Superman.

The Last Superman we see with the face scar doesn't seem to have any counter part so my money is he's a Superman from one of the League of Loises Earths.

I'm really enjoying My Adventures with Superman. The team seems to really get what a Superman story is supposed to be about and how there is supposed to be fun and love in it. I do wish we could have a longer season because the pace is just so fast and it would be nice to settle in. But that's a bigger issue with the industry right now with studios ordering seasons to be short mini series instead of the traditional 26, but that's a conversation for another post and not a reflection of the team making the show.

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

I feel like miraculous will just do the most bare bones use of the Multiverse with evil heroes and good villains, Miraculous is a Franchise in which the multiverse is a great idea

They’ll probably just make say “they’ve always been evil” without making a explanation of why Hawkmoth is good and the Duo are bad, imagine if they gave the Re-verse a cool backstory like “marinette parents died in a accident and she became the worlds youngest top criminal which discovered about the miraculous, she stole the Ladybug and cat miraculous but master fu misinformed her about which miraculous granted the wish and instead making her go after the two miraculous Master Fu knows nothing, the butterfly and Peacock miraculous, and so Ladybug rampages trough paris trying to get her hands on the miraculous and even discovering Adrien agreste is a sentimonster in her pursuit for the Peacock miraculous making him he’s pawn which will use the cat miraculous [see that play of words? Paw-Pawn?] and Gabriel agreste has to fight Ladybug and save not only the world and the miraculous but also he’s son” but I doubt they’ll do that

Heck with the obvious Spider-verse inspiration I would have wished they would have gone through actually interesting Universes

Post apocalyptic universe in which the akumatized villain are like zombies and only the miraculous users are inmune

A world in which Queen bee got her redemption arc

A world in which Marinette got the butterfly miraculous (a fan favorite)

A world in which Marinette had the bee miraculous and Chloe the ladybug (scarlet lady reference?!)

A world in which Adrien is a Healthy teen with a happy family and nothing went wrong and nothing of the super hero related events of the series happen

A world in which the kwamis are evil and the Duo has to fight the eldritch monsters trying to take over their body’s meanwhile they try to find who is the poor man being used has a puppet by Nooroo which is trying to free the other kwamis to end the world

Chat blanc universe

A super futuristic world in which magic is dying and the villain is the order of the miraculous trying to resurrect magic even if that comes to a high price so they can keep existing and have meaning on their lives since they wasted hundreds of decades of their lives guarding the miraculous which will soon stop existing

A world in which humans don’t exist and instead the characters are creative monster designs

A world in which Marinette was bitten by a radioactive ladybug and Adrien has a eldritch horror alien goo named plagg which gives him super powers (yes like venom and Spider-Man)

A world in which Lila/Chloe and Marinette Swap places

The world of the movie!!! (which is very different from the series world might I mind you)

And the world of the comics (although the only difference I can remember is the American heroes and yes before you ask this is the comics the infamous Ghetto blaster came from)

There’s so many options yet I know they’ll only do the Evil universe trope instead of actually using the potential the world of miraculous has for parallel universes

You'd think for a special that seeks out to explore the multiverse, they'd do more than just your generic dystopian mirror universe where all the characters aren't made evil are part of some resistance faction judging from the trailer. There may be a chance that we'll get glimpses of other universes, but there's still going to be more focus on the "Re-Verse".

The idea of a world with Ladybug and Cat Noir being villains could work if you decided to focus on the circumstances that causes them to snap and turn to a life of crime (sort of like Spider-Carnage's backstory from the finale of the 90s Spider-Man cartoon), but given how the show handles the morality of its characters, there's a good chance that this universe's version of Ladybug and Cat Noir will just be evil for the sake of being evil. Either that, or the writers pull a cop-out and make them completely different characters, like Chloe and Lila.

[raccoonfallsharder]

what’s your favorite version of rocket? for me it’s between eidos rocket and mcu rocket

this is such a great question ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶

it’s like asking “what’s your favorite star in the sky?” “which ice cream is the best ice cream?” “what flower do you prefer?” “what bird is the coolest bird?” “what cat is the best cat?”

it’s not that i don’t have a fave (i do, or at least i think i do), it’s just that im picking from such a fucken splendor of options. truly spoiled for choice. there’s no wrong answer here (although some of the comics artists have never, i think, seen a raccoon. here’s lookin at you timothy green ii).

so i’ll rank these motherfuckers but understand that i love them all differently. also im sticking to various versions of canon but honestly some of my fave rockets come from fanfiction writers like @hibatasblog, @caesarhamato22, @aliasrocket, & @elegant-fleuret ~ and what is mcu rocket or cartoon rocket or eidos rocket really but fanfiction with a budget?

anyone else who wants to share their faves and why, please do. it's so fucken fascinating to learn why certain rockets appeal to different people!

Grounded: Rocket Raccoon (2016) story by matthew rosenberg // pencil & ink by jorge coelho i love this furry bastard so much and this whole arc pulls on all my heartstrings which is probably why my first rocket fanfic was based off this storyline. he's at his snarkiest, most cynical self, still saving people in spite of how fucken thankless everyone around him is. as much as comics-rocket talks about how everything he does is for the money, i feel like this series really exemplifies his begrudging willingness to do the right thing for people even when people suck. i just wanna love on him tbh (platonically, romantically, domestically). wanna take care of him. wanna build him a blanket-fort and feed him hot cocoa. grumpy asshat

MCU's Guardians of the Galaxy (2014-2023) created by james gunn, et al. nose to tail, this rocket has the most consistent and coherent character development and we get to see so many sides of him in one long-lived arc, and it's fucking beautiful. just because of the nature of comics in general, we never get to see this much growth in any single incarnation of rocket. but here we have sad-rocket, dad-rocket, lonely-rocket, friend-rocket, baby-rocket, captain-rocket - i love him so much and what this movie has given us in terms of a fully-fleshed out character. plus we get to hear lines like "oh yeah" (you know EXACTLY what i'm talkin about) and his goddamn singing. not to mention that beautiful expressive face.... the way he moves when he's beating the shit out of ravagers... what? huh? where was i?

Rocket Raccoon: Blue River Score (2017) story by al ewing // pencil & ink by adam gorham i fucken love this comic arc. we get a lot of rocket in a suit and we get to see his impulsive behavior, his softness for otta (and by extension, his desire to love/be loved) despite their history, his cleverness in the colon and the final heist, and his relationship with gatecrasher. PLUS if you thought one sad snarky gun-wielding maniac wasn't enough, there's a subplot where rocket and deadpool team up and it's the best thing in the world. just a perfect little kiss from every five-star chef in the galaxy. i love rocket's last few lines to deadpool in this segment. perfection

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Game. (2021) by eidos-montreal and marvel entertainment. just to note: 4,5, and 6 got real murky for me in terms of figuring out how to rank these rockets. i wish i could watch this game multiple times so i could get a better feel for who this rocket is but it is SUCH an undertaking tbh. still, this rocket is so good. bitter, hilarious, sassy, isolated. i love him so much. i just want to play with his beard and also say lots of nice (occasionally naughty) things to him so he blushes really hard like in that sequence where pete was like "you deserve some praise" (i think that was the closest we've ever seen rocket to actual death, volume three included). there's a thing about rockets-in-general that i think this rocket in particular really pulls out of me: the desire to trust, and to be worthy of trust. ...that and the fact that you just know this guy is fuckin filthy. when he decides he wants you, he's gonna make you miserable in all the best ways. like, the level of teasing would be so over-the-top you might spontaneously combust before you get into bed (though luckily, he is an expert when it comes to manipulating combustibles).

Assorted other comic appearances that I've smushed into one thing in my mind. i dunno, friend. rocket who blames himself for pete's apparent death breaks my heart. rocket who thinks he's the only one of the guardians left breaks my heart. rocket who blames himself for groot's death breaks my heart. rocket who is sick and alone on halfworld like an animal crawling under the porch to die but ends up leaving inside a giant mech-suit to save his friends breaks my heart. rocket who protects chewy's kids breaks my heart even though it's supposed to be a lighthearted fucken arc. there are more.

Rocket Raccoon, Volume 2. (2014-205) story by skottie young, pencil & ink by various artists. yo. this rocket is so different and yet still perfectly rocket. he's a hyped-up little gremlin of a guy who fucks and is probably constantly high off blaster-fumes and engine-fuel. i fucken love him so much. imagine rocket with no self-confidence issues who pops caffiene pills and energy drinks every half-hour and smashes anything that can orgasm, and you've got a skottie young rocket. while other rockets might get you off because they think they've got something to prove or want to keep you coming back, this is a rocket who has learned how to use his tail solely for the fact that it's a claim to fame that means he can get laid anytime he wants. he never lacks for an excited partner (or partners) because everyone in sixty-nine systems knows how fuckin good he is. ultimately, he fucks like a god for the most (apparently) selfish, shallow reasons (and then inevitably ghosts his partners). or maybe not. maybe he's also just obsessed with the idea that anything he's gonna do, he has to do over-the-top. like planning an intergalactic scavenger hunt for your friend's birthday. ...but scrape the surface and underneath you find a guy who's just so afraid of being the only one of his kind that he's gotta fuck or shoot everything in his vicinity. what a wild little shithead. i love him so much, so much. p.s. the fron storyline - the cold, parts one and two - is one of my favorites. he loves groot so much. and princess jink is the fucken best

Guardians of the Galaxy TV Series/Cartoon. (2015-2019). i enjoyed this rocket and his gremlin ways. his fascination with duct tape is a particular point of charm. the take on his backstory was interesting. loved the episode with ja kyee lrurt - like it was so fuckin cute i could die. i need more of THAT storyline in particular.

Rocket & Groot TV Series/Cartoon. (2017) i loved this so much but it just left me wanting more (just because, you know, of the nature of this type of short-episode media). big skottie young energy. ultimately, trevor devall does a fine job but i think his voice in both this and the other cartoon make it a little harder for me to fully embrace these rockets. like his interpretation of rocket's voice just doesn't match mine, you know? and that's okay. still would rewatch 5,739 times.

how's that? i still need to watch telltale but i think i got most of the iterations in there lol. anyone i forgot, or who is worth specifically pulling out and mentioning by author/issue/edition?

[ferronickel]

Lettering Tips for Comics Artists!

Lettering is an easy to overlook aspect of comics creation, partially because good lettering is designed to be invisible, but bad lettering can ruin an otherwise well crafted project.

Now, I'm not a letterer by trade, I'm a colorist who thinks too much about comics craft, but I've picked up on a few common mistakes I've seen new webcomic artists making, and I thought I'd share my tricks.

#1: Get a Dialog font

Sorry, despite Comic Sans having the word comic in the name, it's not actually good for lettering comics. Comic book letterers usually use specially designed fonts when they're lettering comics, and they often have websites where you can get these typefaces for a reasonable fee (or sometimes even free!)

What makes dialog typefaces special?

The barred-I! (and other contextual options)

This one is subtle, but generally, you want to only use the barred-I for the personal pronoun "I" or for roman numerals. It helps clarify that what you're looking at is an I and not an L, but it takes up more space in the word, and we're trying to reserve as much space as possible for the art on the page.

Specially made comic book fonts will also be custom designed to be legible at a distance, have multiple bold/italics options, and might even include special versions of individual letters for when you type multiple of the same character in a row! It'll give your lettering a personal touch that you won't get from typefaces designed for other things.

Blambot is a great resource for all your lettering needs. Here I'm using Backissues and Nightmark

#2: Dialog Stacking

Dialog should always be stacked such that your longest line of text is in the middle. The block of text itself should have a sort of diamond shape <>. Sometimes this is difficult to do, especially if you have any long words at the beginning or end of a sentence. You can't always get it to work (and if you're unwilling to rewrite your dialog so it fits), so sometimes it might not be perfect, but if your text block is more hourglass shaped >< that's a good indication that you should try putting your line breaks somewhere else. Basically try to make your text as round as possible if it's in a balloon.

#3: Balloon Shape

One of the more common mistakes I see webcomic artists making is using perfectly elliptical balloons. It's actually kind of difficult to fit text into balloons that are perfectly elliptical; there ends up being a lot of uneven space around the text, and it looks kind of cheap. Making your balloons slightly more rectangular is going to give you more bang for you buck, they'll fit the text block a little better. I like a hand drawn balloon, I tend to think they add variety.

One thing you definitely shouldn't do is this:

This might be a personal preference thing more than any kind of hard and fast rule, but these lettering styles give me the impression that the text is pasted on top of the art, and that no real thought was put into arranging it thoughtfully with the art. These are probably more appropriate for captions, not so much for dialog

Lettering is a part of the medium we're working with, the dialog should be approached as a part of the artwork, and treated as such.

#4: Balloon Placement

The number one, most important rule of lettering, is that the placement of your balloons should never confuse your reader. The goal of balloon placement is to guide your reader around the page, each one should naturally lead your reader towards the next thing they should read. Here's an example of something I see a lot:

While yes, it is true that on a comics page, people read left-to-right top-to-bottom, if two balloons are connected with a line, I am going to read them one after another. Readers are not going to intuitively assume they should jump to the other side of the page just because the #2 balloon is slightly above #3. In this situation the balloons should be interwoven.

It should not be possible to look from one balloon to another and skip over intermediate dialog. If your reader misses a part of the conversation and has to double back to figure out what they missed, you've broken the flow and immersion of the page.

Like I said, lettering is all about guiding your reader around the page, it should be a part of your composition from the beginning, don't forget to incorporate lettering into your work when you're first laying out your page. Put yourself in the place of your reader and see how your eyes track across the page.

Hope these help! Like I said, I'm no expert; it took me a while to learn a lot of this. I would have found these tips super useful when I was first starting out. If you're interested in the technical side of lettering, I highly recommend The Essential Guide to Comic Book Lettering by Nate Piekos. It's one of the most useful reference books I own, and I learned most of this from that book.