#so weird flipping my own icons around too

[halfdent]

I may as well now make separate verse section for animated universe Batman I mean I have BTAS of course and I'd love to include The Long Halloween Film mayhaps as separate from my comic verse for it and then by extension two game verses being Telltale and Arkham too. Also quite literally this was an AU where in Harvey's case everything's the same aside from he's a massive asshole , which is why I would be particular as fuck about Caped Crusader as a verse but I enjoyed it so it's here !

[suethesocks]

Egyptian Ben 10 AU!!

A long while ago i got the idea of making an au where ben is an Egyptian Orthodox Christian (the idea entirely spawned off a joke my friend made about a hypothetical ben like that having to explain his fasting to rook)

At first the idea was gonna be that his parents are Egyptian immigrants and he was born and raised in Bellwood, but last second before finishing his character bio i decided to flip everything over and make this AU *in* Egypt

The timeline i have in mind for these bios are all at around right after the highbreed arc, but also before season 3 straight up starts. I feel like thats a good jumping-on point

In terms of aliens mostly i just get to explore what the aliens would look like as teenagers since uaf and ov didnt really do much with that (they didnt even bother giving wildmutt a tail) and have fun trying to make his flannel into outfits for the aliens. Hoever if i get any cool ideas for entirely revamping aliens id definitely do it

I tried to make fourarms darker skinned not sure if its showing. Id have done the same with stinkfly but the uniforms colorscheme wouldve crashed. I wanted to try giving wildmutt black fur because this ben has darker hair but nothing really quite worked hsjhds wildmutts obnoxious orange is just too iconic

Prep school is mostly an american thing, here the closest equivalent for the early 2000s would be an international school. Also i changed lawyer to doctor as thats the sort of "go-to" job that makes a lot of money, lawyers in egypt arent usually as fortunate

Here she doesnt wear her uniform this is just how she dresses. I tried to fit the cat motif like OS but i couldnt really think of something that fit. If i were drawing UAF or OV gwen in my own take id have given her cat imagery but i think for Jwanas personality it actually makes more sense for her to be boring and lose the cat

Jwanas also a lot more angsty about her magic (and it is magic) since her parents and basically entire surrounding community both Muslim and Christian are very against magic and consider it sin. Shes also a lot more angsty in general because like the bio says shes under alot of stress and is very jealous of ben, which is conflicting because ben is also her best friend and she doesnt wanna feel this sort of animosity to him. She also doesnt realize how much he looks up to her as someone who is a lot more intelligent and disciplined than he'll ever be (for example the concept of jwana having the spark isnt here, ben just can never learn magic because he doesnt have what it takes)

Kevin much like ben is more or less the same as he is in the show. With jwana i went with my own take but Ben and Kevin are more of, culminations of what i think are their best parts in the series and then just fleshing that out more

I felt like the outfit he has in earth-prime works best with a few touchups. Prime kevin has consistently had that rugged guy-who-lives-in-a-garage look so despite being the most basic outfit it works the best with a few touchups

I did change his anatomy, i wanted to make him look like a mutant freak. I gave him this sort of frankenstine's monster posture (a small reference to him being an amalgamation in os). He also has these stretch marks all over his body since his material absorption doesnt just create a coat around him but also alters his skin itself (so these markings arent there for os-era kevin) He also has a lot of weird bumps over his body

This kevin is 100% mutant no alien shenanigans. If i do aggregor i'll uhhh think of something else for him to be. His transition to the lightside is a lot longer and for the majority of the highbreed arc hes not even there hes more of an occasional ally if he feels like helping

Was his dad a plumber or not im not sure tbh, im leaning towards not though

Next post is gonna be a bunch of villains for funsies

[ansbobcar]

My thoughts on the mashle stage play becuz I'm sad I didn't record the whole thing

Only thing I didn't record but I did watch once was the Abel vs Mash part so I think I'm okay enough.

So, overall it was fun. Reminds me of how much fun I had while watching one of the mha stage plays (think the 3rd).

I love the details they added in this medium:

1. Mash NEVER sings showing just how unmagic he is (really looking forward to what the Divine Visionaries will sound like) it reminded me of Shrek and why the Shrek musical felt weird when I watched it. Like everybody sings and dances—except for Mash which really shows just how out of place he is. It makes you focus on the other characters too ngl.

2. Mash's muscles wearing creampuffs for headgear AND having nametags was just *chef's kiss*. I found it extra funny and they really help emphasise the absurdity of Mash's physical powers AND have their own personalities? They're like Mash's minions—the Duello moment where they score a bunch of goals—iconic.

3. Just the stagehands/prop ppl in general working with the projector to make the magic—magic itself in reality was extra cool. Like Abyss' Secondth Spell set up was kinda wild as if his own magic wasn't with the people waving around arrow flags. Using fabric for Wirth's Mud stuff. HECK THEY ONLY HAD 3 PARTISAN PROPS AND STILL MADE IT LOOK COOL.

Alright, so any highlights?

Let me go in order if I can.

The first door prop was wild. I think they used magnets in order to make it work. Pls use it againnnn in the next stage play.

The way Lemon and Love are the only two who use the rewind function is really funny, becuz Lemon's is for her introduction solo song and also semi-glosses over what happened during the entrance exam just like the rest of it was in song while also establishing her delulu love for Mash, honestly she's so real for it. Meanwhile, Love's isn't a musical number and is just the one where she explains how they got duped a coin. The use of practical magic tricks is really cool (I think they used one for the coin itself, those flipping blinds things to make the illusion of a diff object yk.)

The Magia Lupus choir-y ensemble songs were prolly one of my favourites, although I think it's just becuz I really liked Love Cute's presence as a whole since they only focused on Love, Wirth, Abyss and Abel as like the lead singers and Shuen is nowhere in sight? (I forgot if he was Magia Lupus in the first place) alongside the Finn-Lemon duet about like "ganbare Mash" (istg they made FinnMash so much more possible with this one song) and they're like definitely bestie coded 100%.

Anything with Mash's muscles is super funny too.

Lance's solos are emo, Dot had such a main character entrance but I dunno how to feel about the fact he doesn't tuck in his shirt (for context: the tea and the grades) but the fact I can't tell when his actor changes his fucking wig for the Ira Kreuz reveal is crazy.

RAYNE'S ENTRANCE GUYS. Bro has like my favourite musical solo entrance out of all of them. AND HE ALSO DANCES. HE FUCKING DANCES GUYS. KPOP IDOL RAYNE IS SO CLOSE TO BEING REALITY GUYS. They triple killed me in less than 10 minutes for that one.

Also the way they manage to put on the puppet masks without ruining the pacing makes me lose my mind becuz like... HOW???

I forgot to mention Wahlberg but honestly, him and Regro weren't my favourite favourite parts—I think it's becuz they have a lot of exposition dumps and more of a comedy out of the plot element since him and the cop interact with the audience quite a bit—oh but the acting that Regro does to make it look like he's squeezing from the neck makes you as the audience feel and believe his pain (when tehre isn't any). Like it was convincing. Plus they were funny during the entrance exam, they were dancing too.

Also Wahlberg pulled off the flash-paper thing. It was cool. I'm hoping for the thirds magic they make it look really cool in the next stage play.

The best part I looked forward too... was the Shu Cream Funk dance the main 5 did. They also made the others do it on the 2nd and 3rd time. Including Rayne. I recorded this in low-res. It was great.

Overall, highly entertaining. I think considering how they had to cut down 4 hours down to 2 hours with song, choreo (fight and dance numbers) they were pretty successful. I just think as someone who cannot understand japanese that the first 20 minutes was really REAAALLLY plot dump exposition a bit like the funny stuff from Ep 2 and Ep 3 with the entrance exam doesn't exist.

But they made up for it enough.

There's a lot that I skipped like the bullying thing and Bamboo guy. I don't remember his name but that's kinda covered with the rest. I'm really wondering how they're gonna pull off the next arc... I forgot who they cast...

[arecipeforfeels]

Got high and decided I’m watching ca:tws so be ready for incoherence:

Marvel movies used to MEAN SOMETHING

They did however always live in the pocket of the military

I don’t care I would eat this movie if I could

They were so insane for it and they had to do civil war as the worlds worst no homo ever

HE DOESNT HAVE ANYONE AROUND THAT SHARES HIS EXPERIENCE COS HES LOST IN TIME

THE WHOLE MOVIE IS HIM BEING UNSUCCESSFULLY SET UP ON DATES

I hate everything

I also am not immune to an action sequence and some fun music….

Also it is very impressive how violent they can make these movies and completely get away with it if there’s no blood splatter

Bad guys r French, more at 10

I took a kickboxing class in like 2013 bc I thought black widow was hot and wanted to also be hot

(Sidenote, I also played basketball for five years bc of high school musical. I have never had an original thought in my life)

FIGHT SCENE NUMBER TWOOOOO

This is an iconic one cos it’s the one where he puts his shield on his back to fight for Even Footing (and also ON VA VOIR U WILL ALWAYS B FAMOUS)

people went so bonkers for that

Tag urself Im the giant harddrive

Okay goofiest admission ever: in this movie there’s a bunch of time spent in this one big building that’s supposedly located in dc. But it’s got this big giant atrium with a huge high steel and glass ceiling, and at some point during this movie someone hits it or crashes through it or shoots it. And every time I hear the words “glass ceiling” I think of this fuckin movie

CHEKHOVS ELEVATOR

“Wow yayyyyyyy war machiiiiiiime!! For sEcUriTy”

US Army wet dream while still trying to keep Cap there as a voice of reason

It’s a fascinating dichotomy

Air and spase! Museum (great night at the museum 3 reference)

Also I cannot believe he goes to his own fuckin exhibit

...actually upon reflection I too would go to my own exhibit

The endgame revisionism of him going back in time is soooooo stupid she does not exist to me

It’s such character assassination of everyone involved

(I don’t care, I say caringly, as I care deeply)

I also had (had??) a massive crush on Hailey atwell

Robert Redford is here

Weird joke about Algerians and the French

THERE IS AN ACTUAL COMPELLING CONVERSATION ABOUT PTSD

This movie is also a Chevy ad

Also I remember seeing the big SUVs in this movie and being like “damn those are tanks” they are also nothing compared to what’s out there now

This movie also feels so much more grounded in actual life

Like we talk abt all the CGI coming in later movies, this one feels gritty in comparison, on simply a mechanical level

Speed tour of dc

We have reached the civilian casualty stage of the movie

I can’t imagine how much money Samuel L Jackson has made off these movies

THE CAR FLIP SHOT W BUCKY IIIIIIIIII (editors note: this is where the coherence begins to go downhill. You can sense the trend)

god this movie

THE SHIELD CATCH IM EATING MY SHOES

Elevator scene lets fuckin goooooooooo

Let’s GOOOOOOOO

the tension build is so good

Everyone say thank u Steve rogers for breaking the glass ceiling

This movie is also an apple ad…2014

GUY WHO FULLY HITS ON STEVE AT THE APPLE STORE

Look the fuckin Natasha Steve bromance in this is lovely

Buddy comedy

I will say this was such a moment for the MCU, the hydra reveal

Esp cos like agents of shield was in its heyday etc etc

2014 sure was a time

This man [Toby Jones] has been so comically typecast forever

OPERATION PAPERCLIP CASUAL NAMEDROP

god

This is so fascinating to me Bc it’s like “Here is how we revisionize the United States’ history of interfering in coups etc etc it was bad guys in the government doing it etc etc”

“What we need to to is get back to the good government”

Sam Wilson the man that you are

Bucky shows up at any time in this fucking movie and I start barking

I am also always thinking of the “we shot him in ze legs” vine

This is my Roman Empire

“I knew him” oooouuuuugggHHHH

RIP Stan Lee

Bucky yeets a guy into a jet engine and by god does he look good doing it

This stupid movie (editors’s note: caught in a miasma of 2014)

[starlit-mansion]

okokok. i am not entirely sure i have ever seen you talk about this and how dividing the books all are is fascinating to me so... what's the opinion on the novel trilogy, or even frights/tales if you're willing to touch that w/ a ten foot pole --scrappedbaby

I feel like this is a pretty controversial take but I think the Silver Eyes itself is… fine. Okay, I tried to actually read it once and I couldn't get more than a couple pages in, because it read like when someone posts their homework assignment that was secretly fanfiction on fanfiction dot net. I have a little bit of a soft spot for the graphic novel, actually, due to it being bad in an interesting way rather than blandly decent like the other 2, which I've only flipped through. (Also the shitty saturated coloring fucked over the inks. Setting aside any opinions of the artist as a person, i think her style has character and added something to the series that is still present in other parts I like much better, like the glamrock concepts. And the muted test pages that someone scrounged up from a trade show copy or whatever would have probably done wonders for the atmosphere.)

As for the story of TSE itself… Idk, I think it's kind of funny that it's Stephen King's IT for fourth graders. Also, because it's aimed at that demographic, they had to conjure a young protagonist from somewhere, and I think the concept is pretty solid, and Charlie's a good character, and I'm also fond of what a little freak Dave-era William is. That's really my favorite concept of the villain motivation in the series, actually: creating this twisted little dollhouse to go sit in and pretend to be a robot. The immortality/mad science/lich/trancendance from the flesh thing is… it's fine. I made my peace with it. But it's a little too Herbert West for my tastes. (Also like… this is why I like Glitchtrap. He's kind of doing the same thing, making is little diorama and reliving his glory days.) All in all, for what it is, a solid 7/10, imo.

As for the rest of the trilogy……. ah, it's not for me. Like I said, I've flipped through the graphic novels a bit, and own them secondhand as curiosity pieces/weird little relics, but it seems like it gets up its own ass to cater to people who like lore (a separate but related demographic as people who like the horror part of the games, in my 100% honest opinion). I hear about the illusion disks and I am austin walker's iconic "do you ever see a take so bad you immediately have to go to sleep?' tweet.

As for Fazbear Frights: I'm not gonna lie, i think it's pretty good. I feel so fondly about the ghostwritten chapterbooks of my youth (I was a Babysitter's Club and Animorphs girlie, and weirdly… not an inaccurate cross-section for Fazbear's Frights), and I think it's perfectly fine to play around in the universe and create a bunch of AUs and related concepts. Is there criticism to be had of the stories themselves? SURE. They're very weak on diversity, QUITE fatphobic at times, and some of them are unnecessarily ghoulish, though there's only so much disgust I can muster for undeserved child death in the child death series… NONE of them deserve it, even the ones that are mean to their siblings or too vain or whatever, and the fact that it's equally likely for any given story to end in brutal death or "wow I really learned my lesson!" is actually pretty fun. Reminds me of Goosebumps a bit (though I was never a huge fan. Too easily creeped. That was my brother's preferred ghostwritten series though, so I sampled here and there. I also somehow had my hands on a novelization of one of the Tales from the Crypt movies too, and that made a big impression).

I don't love that FF takes every fan theory and milks it, and I'm sure the process for actual production has some ethical problems based on everything I know about the industry. But I do firmly believe that a little body horror is good for the youths, and just making it a multiverse rather than sticking to any one canonical thread lets you have your animatronic rabbit and wear it too, as it were. I also kind of like the lower middle class vibe that the series has… There's very frequently a sense of economic desperation and cheap escapism that resonates so well with the games, and reminds me of how going to Chuck E Cheese truly was the marquee birthday activity of my youth (though I liked the arcade more than the animatronics as a wee millenial).

Part of my fondness for FF is just that I had 2 months during late quarantine where I would buy a copy of the next one I hadn't read while I was doing my weekly grocery/target run and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE OUTSIDE OF MY HOME, and I would read these very unchallenging short stories and be like "I liked that one! …I did NOT care for that one" and it was a little pumpkin full of meat to chew on in my cage. I stopped it pretty abruptly when the proof of Scott's Republican political donations came out (I mostly do not buy any new fnaf items now, though I have ended up doing it here and there, and I mostly class it on the scale of like, buying Overwatch microtransactions even though activision blizzard is a shitty abusive company or smth. Not a moral good, but not on a "funding a person actively involved in politically crushing trans people" level of problematic).

As for the stories themselves, I liked Into The Pit (it really reads like a reused movie script, but in a good way), Count The Ways (a friend of mine, iirc, did NOT like the two non-title stories in vol 1, but I have a soft spot for Funtime Freddy's villain era in that one, and Millie's safe and self-inflicted teenage self pity reads as an affectionate self-callout to me), Out of Stock (this one's just so CLASSIC kiddie horror and also a really good use of an otherwise forgettable part of canon), Room for One More (another good use of forgettable parts of canon, i think the series really shines when it clicks into stuff like that), Coming Home (the jewel of the series, and gets me in the Sixth Sense nostalgia too), Bunny Call (mostly forgettable obvious moral lesson story with a surprising twist of poignency in the middle and an iconic antagonist), The Man in Room 1280 (I wish this was better utilized in the game series, it feels like Security Breach juked around this concept for a much worse and dumber version, and also Andrew is my special little bastard child), and The Real Jake (a sweet, if maybe a bit maudlin, exporation of the deeper concepts in the lore that is solidly a cut above the average FF story, and i like the stitchwraith parts of the books too).

There's none that I have a huge hate-on for, though I thought 1:35 am in particular was VERY bad (I skimmed the last half). While it's notorious, to me, In The Flesh is just dorky, particularly fatphobic and I don't know how everyone is getting MatPat from it. Mat's persona is kind of smug, but not cruel and hateful towards women or a shitty friend (if anything, his peers speak SO warmly of him that makes me give him more credit than he deserves as a cc), and you'd think a real hit piece on him would involve... a theory. A G A M E theory. Okay, I did it the legally required time.

I stopped at Book #6 and i'm not sure if i'll ever go back. I just got a library card so maybe I'll get around to it the next time i'm sucked into the franchise, but for the most part, I'm dormant except for things I really adore about the series (Springtrap, the Funtimes, Afton Family Drama in general, nostalgia for the first few games, etc), so I can't muster up too many more opinions on middle reader books as a 34-year-old. Tales has no appeal to me even as a future "maybe if the fixation hits hard" option, because a bunch of satellite stories around a setting that couldn't muster a third act in the tentpole game is just. Sad.

[prettyentertaining]

Look I don't generally YGO-post on this blog but I CANNOT stand by and watch my beloved cringe angel Mai Kujaku, a character I imprinted on irrevocably at age 12, lose this poll without throwing in some propaganda.

Mai is such a weird lonely girl icon. Most of her arc revolves around her attempts to make friends with a bunch of card game nerds, and all the ways in which she's too terrified of her own vulnerability to ever allow herself to belong.

At the beginning of the series she has decided to repress her deep loneliness by being a Ruthless Manipulator who will happily cheat and trample her way to the top, but her own integrity prevents her from getting anywhere with this. Her method of cheating is completely insane, involves memorising the smells of 30-40 perfumes (and then presumably hauling them around in a rucksack for days), and crucially doesn't help make her card draws better at all, and therefore still requires her to be legitimately good at Duel Monsters.

Like every other Yu-Gi-Oh good guy, she's ride or die by nature. She has countless opportunities to pull the ladder up and never does: when she meets Téa she immediately offers her use of her shower in an act of solidarity, and spends most of the rest of Duelist Kingdom stubbornly winning double the duels she needs to because she feels emotionally weird about the fact that Yugi did her a favour. Also meets Serenity and immediately decides that she will protect her with her life. Terrible at girlbossing. Absolutely useless.

Aside from all this she's just an incredibly funny character within DM. Almost everything she does is a girl what are you doing moment. Zero concept of cause and effect. Some of my favourite baffling Mai moments include:

Despite all this earnest desire to be good and loved and wanted, she's so scared of the mortifying ordeal of being known that she constantly self-sabotages, constantly cuts off her own nose to spite her face, and then has to power through the avoidable consequences of her own terrible decisions. As somebody who has believed in my time that turning up your nose and saying well I didn't want you anyway is a good and dignified way to deal with feeling rejected, it is a joy to watch Mai attempt this and immediately eat shit. Solidarity with my girl.

Her whole approach to tournament preparation. In Duelist Kingdom we see her pull an all-nighter refining her deck. Girl what are you doing! Get some sleep! Then in Battle City we see her sit down - and I must stress that she is at her happiest and best-adjusted here - with her cards and an entire bottle of wine. At least Bakura's raw steak won't give him a hangover.

When she gets petty revenge on Joey for minorly socially embarrassing her - an event that happened, from her perspective, several eternities in shadow realm torture hell ago - by playing a cruel prank and pretending to be dead, after, er, spending hours in a coma. The long shot of absolutely nobody finding this funny except her is so chef's kiss. Cringe icon. What are you doing.

More petty revenge, this time on Valon: stealing his motorbike to ride home, which presumably inconveniences her about as much as it inconveniences him, since she left her own motorbike there, and now has to ride a bike she isn't used to. Girl!!!

The entire trainwreck that is the DOMA team meeting with Dartz, in which she goes in asking for something, immediately fucks it up and insults Dartz to his face, beats a hasty retreat before he can reply either way, then does a cunty little hair flip on her way out as if the situation went entirely as planned (reader: it didn't)

She is a stubborn, independent Scorpio icon. Despite all the ways in which she gets done dirty by the narrative, she has a legitimately tragic arc in which she allows herself to be emotionally honest and is immediately betrayed and landed with deep, terrible trauma that she then has to grapple with all alone. She is in some ways like Beth Harmon if Beth Harmon was obsessed with Magic: The Gathering. I love her, and I am so sorry this is so long, and I could definitely write three times more. YGO best girl of my heart! Weird girls rise up!

BEST YGO GIRL: Round 3, Group D

Match 1

please use this as an opportunity to say why you like a character, not why you don't.

Propaganda under the cut!

Serena

The epitome of "kitten dreams of nothing but murder all day" Ppl talk about wanting morally gray women, but can't handle a child soldier who doesn't immediately roll over for the first person who tells her to. But she isn't heartless and clearly cares about ppl, seeing her get to actually have fun in her duel against Yugo was the best, and now with her in Duel Links we can see that in a casual environment, she is also the funniest silly little guy She's awesome and kicks ass for 90% of the show. Lunalights are so cool and one of my absolute favorite archetypes. She is such a badass opposing the Fusion Dimension. She also deserved better and more screentime.

Mai Kujaku

She basically walk so YGO can have bad bitches ultimate conwoman who can tell the difference between at least 40 different perfume smells. her first arc is learning how to connect to other people. like, when you think about, mai is literally similar to seto in the sense that she lost her parents when she was young and grew hardened to the world around her - except she didn't kill anyone (that we know of). battle city sees her lean into a damsel in distress, sure, but her oricalchos arc actually attempts to her trauma (something we don't get in the manga). she's literally a careless man's careful daughter idk what to tell y'all. vote for mai.