#the assimilation maw is not kind

[lancersafetysigns]

[jesncin]

I really hope this doesn’t come across as rude, but why did you decide to make Lex Luthor, whose motivation is basically racism and xenophobia from my understanding, a person of color? This isn’t like, a criticism, more just, I really like your JL remix stuff and you usually have cool reasons for the stuff you change, so I was surprised by this one

I understand the curiosity! But I have to point out that "you usually have cool reasons for the stuff you change, so I was surprised by this one" made me laugh, haha. Long answer coming because I have a lot of feelings- but the point in the very end is worth it, trust me.

So for one, Lex is Afro-Greek in my version. This comes from the popular headcanon that STAS/DCAU Lex is Black (and his design is based on a Greek man). His character design, skin tone, and Clancy Brown's enigmatic performance became unintentional perceived representation for Black fans (and even DC writers). And now in the Harley Quinn show, that's become canonized! For why they like it, that's not my place to say as a non-Black person- so I listen!

I don't agree that Lex's motivation is "basically racism and xenophobia"- his themes are much broader than that. It's the desire to be the Man of Tomorrow, his jealousy of Superman, the way his intellect alone is a match against Superman's strength. Sometimes that jealousy is expressed through bigotry, but it's all a means to an end for Lex. My approach is: if Lex being Black is something we want to integrate more into his character, what opportunities does that open up narratively? Because there's rich potential for him and the characters connected to him.

When discussing MAWS I talk a lot about how when you're writing a bigoted marginalized character, there needs to be specifity with where that internalized bigotry is coming from. So a change like that for Lex Luthor could, for example; discuss how privileges like wealth can assimilate otherwise marginalized people into the kind of power that harms others in their community.

The ripple affect this has on a character like Superboy/Conner is that we get to see how -even though they're both Luthors- Conner is profiled, othered and further marginalized as a Kryptonian and a Black homeless teen because he doesn't get to benefit from any of Lex's privileges. This is just part of the many reasons why I think Conner would be infinitely more interesting if he didn't look like Kal El despite being a clone. You get to see a new intersection of how the Kryptonian identity intersects with Blackness on Earth. The potential ripple effect for a character like Lena is also really fun! What if she's struggling with her own model minority pressure when she's making up for her brother's crimes? It's all very compelling!

And MOST importantly, in a 3 trillion IQ Lex Luthor-style move-making Lex Luthor Black means that some version of Matt Fraction & Steve Lieber's Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen arc exists in my au. Which famously hinges on the twist that LEX LUTHOR AND JIMMY OLSEN ARE DISTANTLY RELATED. THEREFORE!!! We have now found a convoluted way to have Wacky Renaissance Artist Jimmy Olsen connected to The Manifestation Of Black Excellence Evil Edition Lex Luthor in this au.

[le-regrems]

This is superman appreciation post (turned character analysis) , because all my homies love superman. And now I'm going to explain why .

First and maybe the most important of all reasons why I love superman and why he is such a great hero is that he's just a good guy. He just wants to protect people, help them.

Second of all he's a refugee, ( since he flees from the war, at least in my country he would be considered a refugee not a migrant, not sure how it works in US) you can't talk about superman and not touch the subject of migration, assimilation, racism or xenophobia. He stands for all people, not only white Americans. That's also why I appreciate so much that both Lois and Jimmy are characters of color in MAWS, it just makes more sense for them to be more understanding. They also probably heard that they don't belong, to go back to their own country. No matter that they were born in US, because racism.

He helps not only world but also the people, he gives his number to boy he saved from his abusive father, he stops girl from committing suicide (on two separate occasions) he takes cats from the trees. And those are exactly the kind of things I personally appreciate the most in superheroes. I do not give a lot of damn when they save universe from collapsing, or stop alien invasion. Like sure it's cool, but I don't really care, the moment we see superhero interacting with people whom they are protecting is the most important. This is the most heroic part. When we see the hero running in the burning building to save a baby, when they risk everything for one person.

He was raised human, but he's not only that he's so much more and he longs for someone like him, to someone who could understand him, tell him whom he is and where he comes from. He longs for sense of belonging that everyone has. He's a man without the country. I love him so freaking much, he's very precious to me and I need you to know that

[malignant-biomass]

𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆'𝒔 𝑵𝒐 𝑳𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑬𝒏𝒅

Short story from a while back featuring Kieran. Wrote during some heightened emotions, also inspired by the song A Dangerous Thing by Aurora.

Words: 1154.

Content warnings: human death, slight body horror.

Eyes of warm cinnamon gazed into its own mismatched optic organs. They saw into its true being, peered past the façade that so easily tricked the rest of humanity, but not this one. No, he knew that Kieran was inhuman, and yet he still stuck around for some unknown reason.

No matter how avoidant it made itself, the unusually kind human had always come back with those soft eyes and concerned voice.

Kieran would have been lying if it said that it didn’t enjoy the other’s attention, but it confused it nonetheless. It was undeserving, flawed. There was no going back from what it had become, not after the infection had taken a permanent hold, or even before the infection if it was being honest. Its species wasn’t fit for the familial, social lifestyles that the humans lived. Their ways were suffocating at best, yet it always found itself nestled back in his arms, where it currently was.

Skin as soft as butter felt comforting against its own flawed exterior. Fingers gently traced the deep scarring that decorated its entire, tarnished left side, sending a ticklish sensation throughout its body. Its long, silky, obsidian locks were being languidly played with, almost sending it into a relaxed daze.

It hadn’t quit the job that its first victim had worked in order to keep up appearances, which meant that every single human there got to see its ongoing battle with prions. They didn’t know the details, as Kieran kept to itself, but they stared from the corners of their eyes, throwing arrows of judgement. They knew something wasn’t right, but couldn’t put a finger on exactly what it was. The only good that came out of that mundane place was Brandon.

“You can always quit. I’d take care of you.”, its gentle human had said. He was the closest thing to a friend that Kieran would ever have. In a different life, it would have fully accepted his offer, allowed his love to engulf it completely, but it was too broken to ever feel deserving of affection from such a pure-hearted creature.

Now the two of them lie together on his bed, legs and arms intertwined with each other like parasitic vines wrapped around suffocated tree branches. The evening sun leaked through the windows above them, illuminating the room in a golden aura.

“We could live together, you know. I could support you financially. I’d buy all the meat that you wanted, I’d keep you warm, protected. You could keep me safe in return. Please, just let me love you. Tell me how. Open up to me, Kieran.”, Brandon spoke, his lips ever so slightly brushing against its exposed, marred neck.

Kieran swallowed the painful lump that was crawling up his throat. This human deserved so much better, yet the possessiveness it felt over him wouldn’t allow it to let him go.

Slender fingers the color of porcelain caressed his rounded, toasty cheeks, engulfing his entire face in one palm. A face that projected so much emotion, all directed towards Kieran. How silly of him to waste his affections on something that could never return them.

The hunger in Kieran’s mismatched eyes of ice and ebony must have egged him on. Plump lips crashed against its own, messy and passionate. Its sharpened teeth nicked at the soft flesh, causing rich blood to flow freely into its maw.

Kieran couldn’t hold back now, and it shoved Brandon onto his back with a huff, its now-clawed hands digging deep within his thick, tight curls.

With every breath that its human tried to breath, Kieran stole it. Its elongated, rough tongue lapped up every single drop of blood that was shared between the two of them with greedy fervor.

Brandon’s hands grasped each of its arms, the blunt nails digging into its assimilated form, but the desperate attempts at stopping it was futile; Kieran’s strength could overpower any human.

Legs kicked at its unclothed torso, knees jabbing into the useless ribcage that it had formed to appear human. His eyes were wide open now, tears streaming down his reddened face.

It couldn’t fathom looking into those eyes full of terror anymore, that look of betrayal.

A crimson tendril tore free from the confines of its fleshy prison, whipping out into the open. It had never shown this side of itself to any human before, at least none that made it out alive to tell the story.

The muscular appendage covered Brandon’s tear-streaked face, protecting Kieran from having to do deal with the guilt. It was cowardly, but it didn’t need the image of Brandon’s large, wet eyes pleading up at him to be stuck in its consciousness for the rest of its already miserable life.

A second tendril came around, its smooth exterior wrapping around the human’s blood-soaked throat with ease. Kieran could feel his trembling larynx against its raw biomass. He was trying hard to hold back more tears from spilling, being so brave in the face of his imminent demise.

“You are mine. In life and in death.”. Sibilant whispers escaped behind thin lips next to a rounded ear. It took every amount of self control to not sink its needle-like teeth into the meaty part in-between his neck and shoulder.

The trembling became more severe, his entire body wracked with heavy tremors. The tendril that was wrapped around his eyes was soaked with tears, its surface glossy in the dimming light of the bedroom.

A choking cry escaped from his mouth as the tendril around his throat tightened ever so slightly. As every second passed, the appendage pressed further in, slowly crushing the fragile cartilage that lied just beneath his feverish skin.

Skin that Kieran would never feel the warmth from again.

Soft, plush hands that it would never be caressed by again.

Eyes full of unadulterated love and compassion that it would never get to peer into again.

Brandon’s body eventually went limp. Arms and legs that were erratically fighting to keep him alive eventually fell heavily onto the messy sheets.

His body grew cold and stiff, yet Kieran couldn’t push itself to move. It was frozen in place for several hours, refusing to eat or sleep.

It stayed in Brandon’s bedroom for days, until his dark flesh became riddled with the purple markings of death, and his eyes became pale and cloudy.

It felt an emotion that it had never experienced before; regret. As terribly painful as it was, as much as it seized its consciousness with unmerciful tendrils, allowing someone so innocent to devote his love to it couldn’t be allowed.

The human had deserved something more, but in the end, there was no love on Kieran’s behalf, only possessiveness and a burning hatred for itself. It was in its innate nature to destroy everything around it, including it's own path to peace.

It was nothing more than a dangerous thing after all.

[edupiii]

🦇The Cryptic Tales of Coppersfield Update!!💛

Now I’m not entirely sure how many people on here actually read my fic The Cryptic Tales of Coppersfield, but incase you do I just wanna give a small update!

I’m more than halfway through finishing Chapter 10 as well as beginning Chapter 11, however, I am in the middle of final exams and essays for my first year of uni so my attention is focused on that stuff. I checked the other day and realized I hadn’t posted a new chapter in a while so I just wanted to put out this PSA incase any readers were wondering what was happening.

I’m also finishing up the designs for Lizzy and Khan, and sketched out Alice and Beau (even though they aren’t gonna show up for a while, I wanted to draw them). I think I’ll be making a new design for Uzi and possibly Thad since they were the first ones I made and looking back I think I could do better on them. To thank you for your patience and understanding, here is the intro to the next chapter!!

(Uzi uses she/they pronouns interchangeably btw, just a heads up incase you get confused reading)

TW: mention of body horror

Chpt 10, Game Plan

It was getting closer, she was sure of it. They couldn’t hear it over the sound of her own laboured breathing and the crunching of fallen leaves underneath their heavy steps; but they knew it was coming. They had been running in the dead of night for…she wasn’t sure on the exact amount of time, but a long time would suffice for an answer.

She stopped in the middle of a clearing and spun around, feeling the distinct fear of recognition growing. She had already been here. They’d gone in some type of messed up circle. But how?

Without warning, the sound of whatever was chasing her had caught up. They could hear it’s own heavy breathing and it’s snarling grin as it approached the small, tired figure. She begrudgingly turned their form to face their enemy, feeling her gut twist as the moonlight glistened off its torn and broken flesh’s

The creature cocked its head while making some sickly attempt to laugh at its preys reaction. It looked like it could have at one point been human, but its length and height were far too unnatural of any persons. Where Uzi assumed its eyes would be was covered by greasy hair while its mouth hung open. It’s not that it was opening its mouth, it’s that it no longer had a bottom jaw to close its ever gapping gob.

Long, spindly arms helped it crawl its thin yet heavy body closer to Uzi, her feet trying to move but unable too. Finally this thing stood over the terrified teen, drool dripping from its hanging maw onto Uzis hair and face. Its head drew closer and closer, its features becoming more prominent with every passing second.

The filthy hair covering its eyes slanted as it smiled down at Uzi, allowing her to be able to see the creatures face. As they looked in horror, a tinge of confusion began to swell. What gazed back at them were not eye’s necessarily, but two sagging black sockets. In the middle of each empty hole was that strange three pronged symbol Uzi had seen so many times before. They were glowing yellow and shaking sporadically.

Uzi snapped out of their trance as the thing inched its putrid face ever so slightly to her own, causing them to try and retreat. But they couldn’t. She looked back up and gazed at the beast whose warm breath incapsulated their face.

“Wha-what the hell are you?” they asked in a shaking voice. “Some kin-kind of eldritch monster?”

The thing reared back slightly, almost like it was in shock. However, this feeling quickly faded away as it brought its face right back up to Uzis.

“It hurts our feelings you don’t remember us.”

Uzi tried to pull away once again while looking at the things mouth. “How can-can you talk!? Some psychic link! You don’t even-“

“Easier to assimilate then explain.”

A large claw seemed to almost emerge from the shadows, its skin black with webbing between the talons. It rose up quickly and came back down on Uzi who readied for their painful demise, when suddenly-

———

AGN!

AGN!

AGN!

AGN!

Uzi shot straight up from their sleeping position, her alarm clock blaring it’s awful symphony. The noise hurting her very being, Uzi wasted no time scrambling over and slamming a shaking fist on the old electronic. It finally shut up.

Leaning back slightly, Uzi began to notice how much they were shaking. Their breathing was incredibly heavy with her heart rate sending small tremors throughout her body. She also began to notice how sweaty they were (gross! i hate waking up sweaty)

However, like the past week of restless dreams, it’s memory quickly faded from her mind. They couldn’t recall any of it. At least…they’d like to not recall any of it, because the one thing that stuck in her head were the unnerving words that were spoken to them before they awoke.

Spoken in that god awful, familiar monotone voice that chirped in their head.

______

[autisticsupervillain]

It's Fictional Throwdown Friday!

This Week's Fighters...

The Thing vs Steve!

Conditions:

Steve is fully equipped with every possible weapon in his inventory. Half of the village is already assimilated.

Scenario:

Steve goes to a village in a frozen tundra in hopes of trading, only for the villager he trades with to attack him once their alone in his house. Steve decapitates The Thing and both of its halves flee. Steve realizes that some kind of hostile entity is imitating the villagers and he has no idea who is human....

Analysis: The Thing

A stranger approaches you in the snow. "Who Goes There?" You call out. But no one answers. No one is there. Somebody used to be there. It even looks like somebody is there. But there is no humanity beneath the stranger's skin. Only a Thing that has found, in this Antarctic hellscape, that man is the warmest place to hide.

Deep in the icey desert of the Antarctic, an American research team finds that their Norwegian neighbors have seemingly gone mad. Their base has been completely destroyed. The blood from their slit wrists froze before it could even hit the ground. And the one survivor seemed desperate to kill an innocent dog, chasing it down with an attack helicopter. After killing the madman, the crew looked the dog away in the kennel, completely oblivious to what they had let into their base.

The dog wasn't any kind of animal at all, in truth. It was a... Thing. That's really the best word for it. With no true form, no home world, no species name, this Thing simply assimilates and copies every animal it touches on a cellular level. It has no known predators. No naturally occuring weaknesses. If it ever escaped from the freezing cold of the Antarctic, it would doubtlessly overtake the Earth.

Every single cell in the Thing's body is technically its own organism. Once separated from the main body, it prioritizes its own survival over all else. One the one hand, this means that touching even a single cell of the creature will allow it to overtake you, assimilate you down to the cellular level, copy your DNA, and replace you. One the other hand, this means that there is an easy way to see through the Thing's disguises. Take a sample of its blood, expose it to fire, and see if the blood reacts. If it does, it's a Thing.

But that's only if you can narrow down the suspect. It copies every cell in your body. Your memories, your mannerisms, everything that makes you who you are. It can imitate a victim perfectly and manipulate every part of its body to its will. It can turn its ribcage into a gaping maw, turn its veins into tendrils to drag you in, spray acid from its body, and survive anything short of killing every single cell in its entire body, from gun fire to being completely frozen. And the more biomass it absorbs, the bigger and stronger its bodies can get. It's human bodies can smash through solid walls, while it's largest seen bodies are big enough to dwarf entire buildings.

But, that does play into one of the Thing's biggest weaknesses: fire. As none of the cells in its catalog can survive such extreme heat, fire is a good way of putting a Thing down permanently, as would be powerful acids, due to destroying on the molecular level. And while the Thing would assuredly wipe out every animal on Earth, it's assimilation is limited to the animal kingdom. It cannot breach the cell walls of plant cells, it cannot assimilate inorganic matter, and it requires direct skin contact to assimilate and infect its prey.

The Thing is effectively a virus on macroscale and the Earth is it's massive Petri Dish. You can't blame it for its alien behavior. In the Antarctic Winter, man is the warmest place to hide.

Analysis: Steve

Minecraft. The blocky world of infinite possibilities. A hostile, alien landscape just waiting for someone to go out and tame it. And Steve. The avatar of every player who wants to make this vast expanse their own. He can be whoever you want him to be. A farmer, a miner, a trader, and a hero, all in one. The world of Minecraft is a world of adventure, full of infinite possibilities for Steve to explore.

But, such a vast world requires a versatile adventurer to tame it and Steve is a jack of all cards. He's a master with every medieval weapon you can imagine: swords, bows, axes, and halberds galore! Each finely crafted with only the toughest of irons, the hardest of diamonds, and the nigh indestructible material of netherite. He's got a full armory of each of those materials as well, enchanted in full with carefully practiced magic. Their weapons and armor can be enchanted to be sharper, more durable, more effective against certain types of enemies, produce flames with each hit, provide supernatural luck, and so on. The thorns effect on their armor causes an attacker to to experience the damage of any hit they land, frost walker freezes the water beneath his feet, and infinity gives Steve infinite arrows, among countless others!

All of this is enhanced by Steve's deep knowledge of potions and magic. Out of simple snow and iron, Steve can build powerful golem body guards, and with the right set up, he can brew remarkably powerful potions. He can slow down his falling, heal rapidly, make himself immune to fire or capable of breathing underwater, and even inflict the devastating wither effect into his foes with a throwable potion, slowly rotting you into nothing. Enchanted golden apples rapidly heal even lethal injuries while Totems of Undying are each one off resurrections that activate and disappear the second Steve would otherwise die.

All of this is put in the hands of a master builder and trapmaster who, with enough prep time and redstone, can construct elaborate death traps that drop you in lava, spawn hordes of hostile monsters, or blow you to hell with TNT. With his craftsmanship and intricate knowledge of magic, he's built interdimensional portals, constructed elytra devices to fly, and figured out methods of teleportation with ender pearls.

Despite that, he's plenty crafty (ayyyyy) even without the prep. His baseline biology is just bizarre. He can punch down trees bare handed, carry hundreds of tons of gold and diamond, cure any ailment with milk, and slowly regenerate from arrows in his brain. What is this guy? Hell, if Minecraft Dungeons is anything to go off of, he's fast enough to dodge lasers!

With all his tricks in tow, Steve has conquered some of Minecraft's greatest challenges. He's been to Hell, er, the Nether, survived fighting the Ender Dragon, and defeated the Wither, an omnicidal skeleton monster out to destroy everything it sees. With Steve's best gear, he's even survived hits from the Dragon, who can vaporize countless blocks of iron in a blast equivalent to 2.6 Megatons of TNT.

For all the horrors the world of Minecraft has, Steve is the adventurer willing to face them all. The world is his sandbox to craft!

Throwdown Breakdown:

Did you know about the Thing From Another World mod? It's a mod that adds your favorite John Carpenter nightmare to the world of Minecraft. It's quite good and I highly recommend it! It's what inspired this fight in the first place. Let's see how accurate it is, shall we?

Now, as I'm sure the stats I've laid out have made clear, The Thing cannot directly challenge Steve in stats. Steve can dodge lightspeed projectiles and punch as hard as a nuke, that's fairly obvious. Buuuuuuuuuuut, this is far from a simple numbers contest. The Thing has infested the village and is hiding from Steve in this scenario, so it's not a straight fight unless the Thing gets cornered or makes it one. Even then, Steve's blows splattering the Thing all over may work against him, allowing a single drop to slither into his boots while he's not looking.

Logistically speaking, I'm not seeing any reason the Thing can't assimilate Steve and I don't know what all Steve can do to stop the process, assuming he'd notice before it was too late. Despite their.... blocky physiology, Steve is still an organic being. We know that humanoid mobs at least have skeletons and can be infected by viruses (zombies). Steve has never resisted anything like assimilation and I doubt his milk or golden apples can cure it. It's a fundamentally different form of attack than anything Minecraft has. I think the only real counter Steve has would be the Totem suddenly reviving Steve out of nowhere, as it can bring Steve back from being rotted into nothing and this would be destroying him on a similarly fundamental level. It might even be Steve's first wake up call to how dangerous the Thing is, for him to suddenly be resurrected out of nowhere when he thought he was fine, though that can only help so many times.

I do think Steve's well equipped to fight the Thing, but his ability to use it effectively depends on his ability to puzzle out how the Thing works. And that's hard to gauge given he's an empty self insert. Fire aspect weapons, flint and steel, and lava buckets are obvious counters, but I do think there's something to be said for Wither effect potions. An effect that withers you to nothing would destroy every cell just as well as fire could and its a form of attack the Thing has no defense against. Sure, strong regeneration helps to wait out the effect, but as the withering can kill people millions of times stronger very quickly, I don't see it holding out. Poison is less effective, it could just copy the biological attributes of something immune to it.

Ultimately, the Thing's victory depends on its ability to ambush or infect Steve over and over until he's out of totems to revive with, and I don't see that happening before Steve figures out how to win. Speed gap makes getting away from direct ambushes trivial and once Steven puzzles out that directly interacting with villagers is getting him killed, he'd make a point to keep distance with pearls and elytra. Snow Golems and Iron Golems are inorganic beings the Thing can't infect, giving it more hostiles to worry about whenever Steve forces it into the open, and I do think Steve would eventually piece together how to kill it. He would at first treat it like some kind of slime, an entity that splits into smaller ones when you kill it, then kill the smaller ones, but once he sees even singular drops of blood moving on their own in a few encounters, he'd reason he needs something to take it all out at once. Or, he could figure it out sooner just by happening to hit a Thing with a flame aspect sword and seeing how it panics and dies.

From there the answer is simple. Light the villagers on fire and see how they react. If like normal, set them out with water bucket. If turn into giant screaming monster, break out lava bucket and wither arrows. Repeat until all Things dead and village is a flaming wreck.

Or just burn the Village down from the word go. That's the problem with this fight, it depends on who's playing Steve, doesn't it?

Could the Thing close the stats gap by assimilating enough people? Maybe, but it would have to assimilate hundreds of thousands of them. With the calorie method I used to calc Good People's attack potency in the Pressure overview, one Thing would have to absorb over 21151195 people just to match Steve. And, face it, when's the last time you saw a random Minecraft village with more than 12 villagers or so?

There are a lot of unknowns with this fight. How does Steve's weird biology interact with the Thing, how would Smite and Thorns hurt the Thing, etc. But, with what we do know, my vote goes to Steve.

This Throwdown's Winner is....

Steve!

[dreaminlittlenightmares]

I'm pretty sure I'm the first to ask this so yay

What do the characters with superpowers/inhuman abilities (The Doctor, Teacher etc.) do if they ever get out of control like, say, if the Teacher's neck somehow starts stretching on it's own or something?

Did an Opinions on Their Powers prompt eons ago. But, for this...

The Maw

Six: She honestly has the hardest time controlling her powers. She doesn't like asking for help, even if that's the best idea. The best thing she can do is literally eat everything in sight the Lady: Rarely loses control, even when things get too stressful. If she ever feels her magic getting funky, she'll probably go to the Granny for help the Granny: With what little power she has left, the Granny knows when she feels off. Her usual recovery is just sleep it off, or watch a few tv shows to chill the Runaway Kid: Freaks the fudge out when he can no longer understand the Nomes. He won't ask anyone for help since everyone thinks his ability is weird, so he's fixing himself on his own. But in the meantime, he's coming up with an alternative way to speak to his Nomies

Pale City

Mono: Believe it or not, Mono doesn't lose control on his powers often. The one power he has the hardest time controlling is the world bending one. He's warped cluttered rooms on accident before and just leaves them there... the Teacher: She takes very good care of herself and her neck. She has to, or else she'll be in pain for days. As soon as she feels a twinge in her neck, she's seeing the Doctor about it the Doctor: Probably the only person that doesn't quite understand his abilities, as he just does stuff. So, when gravity actually works on him, he stares at the ceiling dumbfounded. In a couple of minutes or hours, his powers will work again; and he's still not sure why the Thin Man: Like the Lady, he doesn't lose control ever. There was a time he tried to be more powerful by allowing the Eyes to full assimilate into him. It became too painful, and it was one of the few times he slept to recover

The Nest

the Butler: Loses control as often as he gets a headache, which is frequent. He knows what to do and forces himself to go rest in a cool, dark room the Pretender: While she's still working mastery her abilities, she's learned that her dissipation powers work on organic material. When she sees that she accidentally evaporated a hairbrush or a doll, she runs to the Butler for help. She has a pair of special gloves that nullify her powers, and that's the only thing that works

Extras

the Humpback Girl: Won't know her powers are out of wack until she passes by a mirror. Things either start falling out of them or something tries to grab her. She'll run and hide, since she didn't want these powers in the first place and this is the best she can do the Forked Boy: Thinks it's funny that he keeps multiplying until there's about 100 of him. He's discovered that his clones have a low pain tolerance, so he and his clones brawl it out until there's one left

the Ferryman: It's safe to say that none of the master lose control of their powers often, but have in the past. For the Ferryman, he's accidentally shapeshifted into something he didn't intend because of an illness. Depending on what it is, he'll take cover and rest until he can be his old, yellow, saggy self again the Mirror Man: Doesn't lose control of his powers, per se, but losing control of the Mirror Dimension. He can just feel something slip away from him and he looks into it quickly. After that, he's back to spying on people from the other side the North Wind: Loses control when embarrassed, flustered, or angered; and you DON'T want that to happen. They're too powerful when they're fine. An out of control North Wind is exactly like watching a tornado race across the land, but it's every weather phenomenon at full force

The Nowhere Peeps

Low: Knows his powers don't/stopped working when he runs headfirst into a mirror and nothing happens. Kind of pouts and waits until his powers come back, but doesn't know why they stopped at inconvenient times

[banshee-king]

Tyranid Model Thoughts:

I love the new poses for the Hormagaunts, they look great. I was kind of hoping they’d get some weapon options similar to Termagants though, oh well. Termagants did get a new gun though, plus some weapons they used to have and lost. Very happy to see that.

Genestealers! They look good, still have their old Ymgarl heads, and now it looks like they’ve got actual parts for their Acid Maws too. Not gonna lie, I was still hoping for more. Kill Team gave units so much customisation options, and Genestealers are the corner stone for an entire faction. In Space Hulk we see so many different types of Genestealers; stealthy ones, armoured ones, exploding ones. Also, Hybrids can have whips and boneswords, that DNA they receive from Genestealers, I’d hoped that therefore they’d get them too.

Lictors! Okay so the pictures are a bit weird. Lictors are one of my favourite units, but the Leviathan one looks bad to me. Like it’s limbs are too thin, too gangly, and its torso too big, like it’s wearing an oversized vest. But the Behemoth Lictor looks great, so hopefully it’s just the camera angle. Neurolictors look great too, I love the tail, and the head, and everything really. Now let’s hope these units actually have good rules and can actually assassinate things like they’re supposed to.

Biovores/Pyrovores! I’m mixed. It’s a dual kit which is cool, but I honestly have trouble telling them apart. Maybe if the Biovore’s gun was aimed up more like a mortar? Their look reminds me of the Swarm Host from Starcraft, which is one of my favourite Zerg units, but I also don’t like that these look like Zerg more than Tyranids. They look more like artillery now which is cool, more sturdy, but they’ve lost the Ork resemblance which I liked. Also how big are they? I thought Bio/Pyrovores were Hive Guard sized, but these seem a little bigger. If Hive Guard are 3-6 models per unit though, and Exocrines/Tyrannofexs are 1 model per unit, I hope the Bio/Pyrovores are 1-3 models per unit. If they are 1 model per units, they might have some issues.

And finally, the Norn Emissary/Assimilator! Their size is confusing, a little bigger than a Wraithlord? Riptide sized? Both these and the Nuerotyrant are disappointingly small. They seem to fill the same role as the Dimachaeron, and they also sort of have the same general silhouette as the Hive Tyrant, which isn’t great. I kind of wished for something more unique. That being said, I still like them, and I’ll probably buy the Emissary.

Overall I’m personally happy with these. I have some gripes, but nothing so bad that it ruins things.

[sepublic]

Okay but Mouthful Mode kinda reminds me of Frewin from The Owl House;

Although rather than consensually guiding someone, I feel like Kirby would just seize control after latching onto their head, like some kind of parasite or head crab; Slowly consuming and assimilating his host. Just stretch and wrap around all over them like a rubber cap, sucking their brain and mind dry in a total lobotomization; Kirby abandons the body and it just flops dead to the ground. The skull and eyes of its upper head are revealed to be peeled off and worn away to access the exposed brain, for the monster to control the nervous system; Bump has already died and been replaced beneath Kirby’s maw.

[savior-of-humanity]

@0f2p0les​

--

Carrie was hungry.

She ignored the piercing sirens and their accompanying lights that bathed her in an ominous red glow, skittering down from a ceiling vent and into an open hallway. Perfect - there was food here. The men in white coats had their fates sealed as soon as the mass of writhing flesh and teeth had her sights upon them - tendrils launched forward, harpooning into their soft bodies before just as quickly retracting towards her awaiting maws.

Tearing them to shreds was easy; effortless, even. It did not take long for her to assimilate their flesh and blood to her own - and even less time for her to shift into her more humanoid form. As much as a physical advantage she had over the average human being, it was smarter to envoke stealth; and what better way to disguise herself as one of the many researchers she had already consumed?

In her - their, his - new form, Carrie was quick to stride away from the gory, nightmarish scene that had been where he was feeding just moments ago, acting as though nothing had even happened. But as he made his way through countless hallways and corridors, past people running in terror from the various creatures and anomalies that had breached containment, the entity quickly caught sight of another that was very distinctively not human.

It was some sort of white mask, with a very exaggerated emotion of some kind on it’s “face.” Black ink seemed to ooze from every orfice - and attached to the mask was some poor soul. Clearly another one of the anomalous beings that were now rampant and on the loose.

[pooktales]

Greymane’s Garters

I made up a fake history because ‘Greymane’s Garters’ is so fun to say and imagine. Enjoy!

The Order of the Grey Garter, more popularly known as "Greymane's Garters", has origins comingled in Human myth and legend. It is now considered somewhat ridiculous, as it instantly conjures a mental image of the noble King Greymane of Gilneas, him covered head to toe in white fur as he is in Worgen form, but for some reason wearing a pink-and-gray frilly woman's garter strapped to his leg.

Image: from ebay (only 1 left!)

This, I assure you, Greymane's Garters are not! They are hardly a male Worgen lingerie trend, but an order of noble knights and also so much more. Firstly, female Worgen find themselves members of this ancient order as well. Secondly, the garter is only a symbol--today it is often worn around the arm at ceremony or as a badge, a flat pink-and-gray belt coiled in a hoop and showing its buckle, that it was once considered part of suit of armor to help keep plate buckled over the legs. Only attend a Greymane's Garters initiation and see for yourself and you can be assured of this. The members proudly wear very little but their fur, to show they have at least embraced their Worgen side (this is a subject of contention even within this royal order, but they at least agree fur is alright). So the wearing of yes, admittedly, skimpy clothing to show off fur and the traditional garter around the leg is a thing. But if it is not buckled around the leg, then it goes proudly on the arm above the bicep, or on a cape--it may look strange indeed to the unschooled, but it is an honorable form of dress. Greymane’s Garters are not 'furries in SM gear' whatever the modern youth mean by that. A Greymane's Garter would maw you and strap you to a pole or a bedframe or some other handy torture device if they ever heard you calling their order a low-key furry headcanon, never that.

Military History

The order was first formed in the Second War. Under pressure to conform to the standards and military norms of the Alliance of Lordaeron, Gilnean leadership made a pledge that they would stay a distinct force as far as they could, focused solely on the political advantage of their own kingdom. As such, they felt a need to distinguish their military leaders on the battlefield with a brand that could not be overtaken by the blue and gold Alliance regalia. Their other goal was to remind their soldiers that their home kingdom, Gilneas, should always be the priority. Of course, this manifested itself in only a token support force sent to aid the Alliance at that time, all of them good-looking men in excellent polished plate, saying things like 'What ho!' and also 'Get gabbin' or get goin!' which were practiced phrases to deflect accountability. They made it subtly clear that they were only interested in doing those tasks for the Alliance that would further Gilnean interests. And they defiantly wore their pink, gray and white garters high up their thighs. The grey garter became an emblem of their stalwart resistance to Alliance assimilation. The effort was a great success from the Gilnean perspective. Not long after the first Greymane's Garters arrived in Lordaeron, the Alliance despaired at them, actually, and didn't prod the Gilnean King for any more his "help". And then the Greymane’s Garters went back home after the conflict and eventually the Gilnean wall went up too, which certain Alliance leaders were pretty relieved for, even if they couldn’t say it. The wall also had the effect of ‘keeping it over on their side’.

Mythical Origins

The more mythical origins of the Greymane’s Garters involve a magical Grey Lady who walked out of the Emerald Dream one evening in the forests of Gilneas, accompanied by gray feydragons. Everything she touched turned into a gray mist. A knight set out to slay her, believing she was a witch, but instead, she mesmerized him and inspired him to gather his fellow knights to return to her and perform a great task that would, she said 'Make little sense now, but will mean everything to saving your kin' in the far future. They Great Grey Knight then returned to the mists as the Grey Lady bade him, with three axemen, five lancers, and twenty-six cavalry men. And then, standing in a circle, she gave them all the garters of their order to wear, attaching them to their legs and buckling each to cinch proud and tight. And then she showed them a traditional dance. It was the gray dance of death that much empahsized squats and lunges with the legs, later used to train King Greymane's personal guard for ages, who one day kept him alive during the conflict with Sylvanas.

Competing accounts say the first Greymane’s Garters never learned a fighting technique, but they did serve her special gray ritual wine made from special silver grapes. And she made them grill her delicious capon and venison for supper. In exchange for that, what she taught the knights was how to create a 'Grey Garter', a special kind of powdered sugar dough dessert that is made in loops of pastry. This sparkling gray dough dessert was passed down in the Gilnean court and would still be cooked today if not for the disruption, again, of Sylvanas laying waste to Gilneas.

Modern Findings

Today, historians cannot find any real evidence connecting the myth of the Grey Lady to the military dance of Greymane's personal guard. (If it can even be considered a dance.) Nor can they say with confidence that a legend of that era really would be an elaborate way to convey a few cooking recipes involving gray food. Most recent research makes a more practical suggestion as to the actual events concerning the Grey Lady. That is, the knights soon discovered the Grey Lady was in fact a witch, or at least a very strange woman with the skill of a pressure salesman and a lot of mist handy where she happened to live in the forest. She clearly had a thing for knights wearing garters so halfway through their weird dinner-date, the men who weren't drunk and drugged off their feet got together and slayed her. They vowed, there and then, to come up with a better story for what happened and be 'reborn in blood'. From there on, the 'grey garter' story became a joke among the Gilnean nobility descended from these surviving knights, and when an opportunity eventually came up during the Second War to give the Alliance of Lordaeron the proverbial middle finger for making them provide aid against the Orcs, the Gilnean nobility reached back for the 'grey garters' story, layered some more meaning in it, and then made it a part official military dress. As an in-joke among the Gilnean crusty uppercrust. The rest, as they say, is history.

Motto

The motto "reborn from blood" has passed into common parlance of course, though many Gilneans may not even realize it. One often meets a Gilnean or a Worgen who, thinking of the turmoil their people have endured, make the remark that Gilneas will be reborn from the blood of their enemies. This derives from none other than the Greymane’s Garters.

Source: wish.com

The Ribbon

As you can see, the ribbon itself has changed over time. First, in the era of the Grey Lady myth, it was a very tribal-looking chevron in white, pink and gray colors. Later, it was a bold pink-and-gray plaid. Even later, due to lack of resources and the loss of the kingdom to Sylvanas' forces, it was mainly the sort of spider's silk, large swaths of pink ribbon were easier to come by in Darnassus where most Gilnean refugees settled.

The pink color of the Darnassian iteration (also referred to as the Gilnean diaspora, so show some respect) isn't "girly" as some consider it. First of all, pink is a color, it doesn't “belong” to anyone. Second of all, the whole thing was going to be abandoned when the order was re-formed after the fall of Gilneas recently, but many of the prouder Worgen members insisted it was also the color of roses, or raw meat or flesh, which connects back to that side of the Gilnean experience. Gray connects back with Greymane and white is the color of a new moon, of hope, of Greymane's own fur hide. So they keep all the colors, pink, gray and white, intermingled whether in the traditional plaid pattern or the primal, very bold chevron that can be easily seen strapped to a Gilnean's leg across the battlefield. Or, yes. In frilly Darnassian pink if that's what's available.

Notable Members of Greymane's Garters

King Archibald Greymane

King Genn Greymane (current sovereign)

Princess Tess Greymane

Queen Mia Greymane

Lord Darius Crowley

Lorna Crowley

Lord Vincent Godfrey (posthumously stripped of rank due to treason)

Speculation

It is rumored that King Anduin Wrynn has been offered a place in the Greymane’s Garters (with a special exception made for his devotion to Stormwind of course). However, Greymane is most likely still awaiting confirmation that Anduin will accept. Undoubtedly he will, of course! Anduin’s biggest reservation is said to be ‘Wait, aren’t those guys a furry group that wears underwear on the outside? This is for real?’ Though SI: 7 refuses to comment on whether the the young king actually said this. It may be that Genn is waiting for Anduin to mature some more before offering Greymane’s Garter again. Or, it may be that other rumors are true, that Anduin is prepared to make his own royal order of garter-wearing knights if he has to, to get out of wearing fancy underwear given to him by Greymane.

Because, of course, two garters on both of Anduin’s legs, ontop of his armor? One leg pink and the other blue? That would look completely ridiculous and anyone would obviously agree.

Unless you are a proud member of Greymane’s Garters that is!!

-fin-

[jesncin]

Hi there! I see your points, but I think should clarify a couple of things. So for one, I personally would never call anyone irl "functionally white" because there's more to someone's identity than their appearance. There are multiple facets to identity where just because someone "looks" white, doesn't mean their experience is the same as that of a white person. Same with how they act, things like assimilation, cultural distance, changing power dynamics etc. all play into something far more complex. I use the term "functionally white" for fictional characters. In the sense that if MAWS Lois was re-designed as a white woman, literally you wouldn't have to change a single thing narratively or a line of dialogue from her. She's that interchangeable.

More under the cut because long thoughts~

Secondly! I think we should be wary of treating fictional characters like real people. Fictional characters are the result of a writer with intentions and decisions to convey a message. When we treat them like real people, we tend to fill in the blanks where the narrative didn't support that kind of reading. In the case of cultural analysis, we might accidentally give too much credit to a creative team that gave little to no effort to convey cultural identity (lest we forget the MAWS crew put a feather on a native Lois hologram and called it a day).

To your point about Lois not being white passing: sure, in reality if she was a real person, she wouldn't be white passing. But this isn't real life. This is a character designed by artists with decisions made to what her eyes, nose, hair etc. looks like. And the end result, as you can see in my essay, was confusion from the audience responding to a racially ambiguous design. And yes, in reality, regardless of how culturally disconnected you are- you would still go through racism as a visibly non-white person in America. But within the fictional universe of MAWS- racism honestly doesn't exist (and neither does sexism, which I covered). It's impossible to name a single time a person of color (like Lois or Jimmy) went through racism, instead marginalization is saved for Superman and gorilla-robot (who used to be a white man) couple. Did anyone ever tell Lois to go back to where she came from? Nope. Clark got that instead. The concept of being "white-passing" is about how when you're perceived as a white person, you are treated as a white person. In MAWS, this concept does not exist. Because racism doesn't exist. Lois wasn't held back from being promoted because she's a woman of color. Nowhere in the narrative is that explored.

To your next point on cultural connection: if you change Lois' outfit to a plain tuxedo, nothing would've changed in that episode. You mention she's confident enough to sport a hanbok. But, in the world of MAWS where racism doesn't exist, be confident against what exactly? She doesn't exist in a fictional universe where she would be shamed or othered for wearing cultural garments in America like in real life. Ivo called her unclassy for spilling food on herself- that's it. And ask yourself what the purpose of the hanbok is in that episode, as my essay outlined. Remember, these are all decisions by artists and writers. What is the relationship culture has with this episode? The answer is it's purely decorative. And says nothing about Lois' character except to nod to the audience that she's Korean. Korean American identity isn't explored at all outside of that surface level visual. We can't mistaken cultural signifiers for actual narrative discussion on cultural identity.

If the episode used the hanbok to talk about cultural identity, bravery, assimilation, marginalization, anything with an ounce of depth, it would be an entirely different story. But we don't get that. We don't know how culturally connected she is at all. Plenty of culturally disconnected people wear cultural outfits, actually. Sometimes that's their only tangible link to something so distant from them. I don't get to learn what Lois' relationship to the hanbok is. She doesn't even comment on it. Lois doesn't speak in Korean when she's alone with her dad, given the narrative opportunity. We don't see her being insecure about a potential language barrier. But it's all because the writers didn't put any thought into it. Asian identity is decoration to these guys. Not a lived experience with great narrative potential when paired with Superman.

Tldr, Lois is still functionally white in the narrative of MAWS. All the characters of color are. Not a single line of dialogue would need to change if they were zapped to being white. Racism doesn't exist in MAWS.

A Failure of Asian Lois Lane: Pt 2: My Adventures with Superman, an honest discussion

If I had to pinpoint the fundamental problem with My Adventures with Superman's depiction of Asian Lois Lane it's in their attempt to subvert the classic two person love triangle: Lois loves Superman but is indifferent to Clark Kent. In MAWS, Lois insta-crushes on Clark Kent and hates Superman. In the show's attempt to make sense of this dynamic, Lois' Asian identity becomes at odds with a story meant to touch on xenophobia and immigrant themes.

Let's have an honest discussion about a show that made fandom cheer as an Asian character removed the one thing that made her most visibly Asian.

Disclaimer: While I am of East Asian descent, I am not Korean. I'll be discussing general Asian diasporic experiences but the specifics of Korean culture are outside of my knowledge (as usual I can't and don't speak for every Asian person ever, I am 1 opinion). Secondly, I'll be pulling from my personal experiences every now and then particularly pertaining to being a butch Asian person watching this show. It'll be a mix of formal analysis and personal anecdotes. Thirdly, this isn't an exhaustive analysis of MAWS Lois' character. We'll be sticking to what I consider is relevant to themes of Asian identity and immigration. Lastly once more, I do not believe the MAWS crew had malicious intent in any (of what I consider) poor writing decisions. We're here to analyze and challenge these writing decisions.

Please read Pt 1 of Asian Lois analysis that covers the comics, as it provides the groundwork for the ideas expanded on in this essay.

We need to talk about Lois' design. In the follow up to MAWS' release, people have been speculating on Lois' ethnicity. CBR writes that the show has "some fans believing that she's at least part Asian" and other articles have the show crew confirm Lois Korean heritage via her hanbok outfit in episode 4. The existence of these articles, my own anecdotal experience of streaming MAWS with Asian friends, and comments I receive from people asserting Lois' Asian identity was never explored in the show ("you'd only know she was Asian if you searched up articles about it"), tells me we have a case of an ambiguously designed Asian woman. Tangentially many people had no idea Livewire, the white haired and blue eyed woman, was meant to be South Asian.

There's a lot to be said about art styles that don't properly stylize ethnic features, but for the purposes of our analysis that means the writing has to deliver the heavy lifting where the design fails. This is the opposite case of American Alien: a comic that relied on the art to portray Asian Lois.

Let's start at episode 3. In it, Lois finally manages to conduct a private interview with the elusive Superman. When she asks where Superman comes from, how his powers work, etc- Superman comes up empty. In this version, Superman can't talk to his Kryptonian father (Jor-El)'s hologram because of a language barrier, so he knows very little about his alien heritage. He leaves Lois, assuring her he's here to help the people of Metropolis. When Clark Kent congratulates her for interviewing Superman, Lois rebuffs him. "Oh, he's [Superman's] a liar." smirking as she says it. This is the start of the Lois Hates Superman For Being a Liar arc.

I'd like you to consider the optics of an Asian American woman interviewing an alien immigrant who honestly told her he doesn't know where he comes from and is still figuring out who he is, only for her to think he's lying. Because she didn't get the answers she wanted. I can't help but think about my own experiences, where I was asked "but where do you really come from?" or "okay but what's your real name?" I think of my Asian American peers who would honestly say they're from Texas or Atlanta and get a vindictive "you're lying" as a response. People want to hear you're from China. They want their biases confirmed. I think about how I honestly can't tell you where my elders hailed from, because of cultural genocide and language barriers. This scene makes me uncomfortable, but let's press on.

Episode 4 is where Lois is most visibly Korean. In this episode the trio of Lois, Clark, and Jimmy are tasked with interviewing rich techbro Prof. Ivo of Amazo tech at an investor event. It's a prom episode. Lois wears a "hanbok inspired gala outfit" designed by Dou Hong and Jane Bak in a deliberate move to showcase Lois' Korean heritage. Bak comments "I remember feeling strongly about wanting to inject some aspect of her Korean heritage without disrupting her characteristic as a spunky and resourceful intern/reporter." while the wording poorly implies that Korean heritage is at odds with Lois' spunky personality- I do want to challenge a couple of the decisions that went into this design.

I want to acknowledge as an Asian butch that there are many ways to sport traditional garments and it's okay to mix and match to figure out what reclaiming culture (and your comfort) mean to you. However we're talking about the opportunity to showcase culture in an episode of a fictional animated show. I also encourage cultural gender expression that thinks outside of western white people's idea of gender (in both fiction and real life).

Whenever artists try to do a non-conforming spin on a cultural outfit, I always have to ask: "what standard of masculinity are we basing this on?" It's clear that MAWS is pushing for a "tomboy" Lois, and this gala outfit is an extension of that. But what's the standards of masculinity in a Korean lens? Men wear hanbok too, so why can't Lois imitate how Korean men wear hanbok, by traditionally accompanying her look with baji (baggy and loose pants)? This design notably has tight pants that hug the form, instead. I know the hanbok look has been modernized in and out of Korea in many ways, but in a show where you have the opportunity to showcase cultural non-conformity, I feel more thought should be put into the outfit outside of a potentially western lens- or the idea that cultural heritage of any sort "disrupts" a character's personality.

Now that we've discussed the design of the outfit, let's look into the narrative role it plays in episode 4. While we can celebrate cultural representation in media, I consider it important to ask "what is this media's relationship with the cultures it represents?" and the answer for Lois' hanbok in this episode is: nothing! It's an aesthetic acknowledgement of culture. "Hanbok" or "Korea" are not terms explicitly mentioned in the show. When Prof Ivo offers beautiful women as compensation for Clark to keep quiet about his company's corruption, Ivo looks over to Lois- who spills food on her clothes, and remarks that she's unclassy. She's not judged for wearing othering cultural clothes- which would have tied nicely into Clark choosing to be silent on issues of Ivo displacing a neighborhood, making Clark realize his complacency actively hurts marginalized people. Despite wearing cultural outfits being a political statement in America, nobody reacts to it. It's clear what the actual goal of this scene is: Clark looks cool for defending his "tomboy" crush.

In a scene blatantly made for fanservice, Lois offers to sew up Clark's ripped tuxedo by undressing her hanbok so she can reach her little sewing kit. Lois never wears her hanbok again afterwards. This scene haunts me. It's a scene that tells you that fanservice is more important than cultural representation. It's a scene meant to set up that Clark gives his tuxedo to Lois later on for warmth. Lois removing her hanbok is meant for not one, but two fanservice scenes.

Lois talks to Clark at the stairwell. She opens up about her estranged relationship with her father, how her mom has passed away, and how she's been an intern at the Daily Planet for a year with no sign of being hired. This makes the narrative decision for Lois to lose her hanbok far more tragic. Lois being a diasporic child with so few familial ties to her culture would mean garments like her hanbok would hold a lot of sentimental value! It's hard enough finding a cultural outfit that fits with your butchess (many of my cultural outfits are hand made to fit my form and gender expression), and yet Lois unceremoniously loses her hanbok. You would think in Lois opening up about being distant from her parents that Clark would be able to culturally relate with the distance he has with his Kryptonian parents. But the narrative opportunity to link their immigrant experiences is not taken, because the show simply doesn't recognize the parallel between the two.

Instead MAWS pushes for the Lois Thinks Superman is A Liar thing again. A far less narratively substantial and fundamentally flawed arc. This episode starts with Lois calling Superman a liar and has Lois ranting about him "dodging her questions" (remember, he was honest with her about not knowing his heritage) thereby rendering her interview unpublishable. She resorts to conspiracy tabloids giddily provided by Jimmy for information. She rather cruelly says "nobody normal believes in aliens". We are uncomfortably seeing the build up of Lois being allegorically xenophobic towards alien immigrants- a Lois on a quest to out an alien before he's ready. This is their justification for flipping the love triangle. Lois loves cuteboy Clark from work, and hates Superman for not confirming her biases that would help her publish an interview that would promote her at work. What a love story.

To wrap this episode up: Prof Ivo ends up challenging Superman to a fight so he can flex his Parasite suit to investors, only for it to backfire, destroy his reputation, and greatly damage the Amazo building (remember this it'll come back later). The episode ends with Lois discovering Superman is Clark Kent. Anecdotally, I was so frustrated with the treatment of Lois' hanbok in this episode, that I went online to search if anyone else felt similarly. All I was met with was fandom thirsting over the stairwell scene where Clark and Lois were undressing. Consider the optics of an Asian character who removed the most visible signifier of her heritage (the outfit far more culturally specific where her character design was racially ambiguous) and how people cheered because that meant they could see her in her undergarments. They can happily thirst over the body they desired now that the othering cultural garment was out of the way. It's just clothes after all. Diversity clothes. This show continues to be very uncomfortable, and a little too real.

In episode 5 Lois is passive aggressive to Clark and Superman, trying to get Clark to admit he's Superman and vice versa. She eventually confronts Clark by jumping off the roof of the Daily Planet, causing Clark to fly down and save her. She proclaims she doesn't want to be friends with him anymore for "lying" to her. This episode caused a huge ruckus online as people were divisive over Lois' actions. Some defended Lois, saying that "women should be messy" and "it's not Lois Lane if she doesn't do something crazy for journalism!". Ignoring that opinion's very flandarized view of Lois' character for a second, let's thoroughly discuss how this relates to themes of immigration and Asian identity.

By this episode, Lois had known Clark for 5 days. In that time she's entitled and angry to the point of friend-breaking-up with him because he wouldn't disclose his marginalized identity to her within less than a week. "A secret is another type of lie!" Lois says, regardless of her lying on sight to both Jimmy and Clark upon meeting them at work, and continued to lie in episode 3 (after promising not to in ep 1) about her intentions to interview Superman. Only Lois gets to lie in this relationship. The hypocrisy of her character is never recognized. Clark calls out Lois for having previously admitted to him that she wanted to dox Superman and "publish all his secrets. MY secrets!". Keep in mind that when Clark brings up Superman feeling uncomfortable about his secrets being published by Lois in episode 3, Lois' response was "yeah, but HE doesn't know that's my plan!". She explicitly admits that she would publish private information about Superman without his permission. But when she's confronted by Clark in episode 5 about that, her response is "I would never do that to you, I didn't know it was you until after the gala. How could you think that?" It's only through conflict of interest that Lois spares Superman of being doxed. He's supposed to magically know this. Extremely cool of Asian American Lois to be entitled to an alien immigrant's identity within four business days.

Episode 6 wraps up the Lois Hates Superman For Being A Liar arc, so let's quickly summarize what happens. Lois and Clark set aside their fight to find Jimmy in an abandoned scientific facility (he's being cared for by Mallah and the Brain). Jimmy admits (very smugly) to having known Clark was Superman all along because he kept breaking stuff. As the trio are chased by killer robots, they emotionally confront Clark for not trusting them with his alien secret- despite neither Lois or Jimmy creating a safe environment for Clark to come out to either of them (Jimmy outed Superman as an alien on his video channel). The moral of the story is Clark should have trusted his friends anyway, because lying is bad. Not once does the narrative hold Jimmy or Lois accountable.

We have Black Jimmy Olsen and Asian American Lois Lane being entitled to their white passing friend Clark Kent's marginalized alien identity. A joke is made at Jimmy's expense that he doesn't understand bigotry, and Lois clearly doesn't understand why an immigrant wouldn't be forthcoming about his identity to his hostile friends at work. This is how that arc ends.

I'd like to quickly compare this Lois Hates Superman For Being A Liar arc to my favorite scene in Superman Smashes the Klan. In this story, Superman debuts as a strongman superhero instead of an alien, suppressing his more othering powers to pass as human. He jumps instead of flying. Roberta, the Chinese American girl targeted by the Klan, calls Superman out for not using his full abilities to save people who could've gotten hurt. Yet, as she's calling him out, Roberta understands Superman's fear of not wanting to be othered. She sees the way her father dresses up to pass as an accomplished scientist, how he tells her mom to speak in English, how her brother makes racist jokes at their family's expense to fit in. She's not mad at Superman, she's mad at the world that would be scared of Superman if he flew.

"I wish it were okay for you to fly!" Roberta yells. This is a beautifully empathetic scene that shows a marginalized person frustrated at a systemic problem, instead of blaming the marginalized for being marginalized. It's the empathy and perspective we're missing from MAWS.

Episode 7 is a metatextual episode where MAWS addresses how their Lois isn't like the other Loises you've seen before. Lois and Jimmy are brought on to a team of alternate dimension Loises to find interdimensional troublemaker Mxy. In seeing the other more accomplished Loises in the multiverses, Lois ends up feeling inadequate about her self worth...in connection to being Superman's girlfriend, of course. Because Superman only loves Lois Lane after she wins a couple of Pulitzers, right?

I'm open to a version of Lois Lane that isn't as accomplished as she's historically known to be. I can like a Lois that's young and idealistic, like in Girl Taking Over. It's hard not to compare this episode to 2022's Everything Everywhere All At Once, another multiverse story about an Asian American woman who is the "greatest failure" version of all the parallel iterations of herself. But while that movie talks in depth about themes of generational trauma, expectations, and self potential within Asian immigrant families, MAWS uses the multiverse to say that while their Lois is less accomplished, she's still a good girlfriend to Superman! Why should I bother giving grace to a different take on Lois only to get such a superficial story out of it. This is metatextual-ly frustrating.

Why is it, the minute we get an adaptation of an Asian Lois in something as prominent as an animated show, we get "the worst Lois in the multiverse"? Lois is historically depicted as excelling in her field. She's an award winning journalist, jaded and mean from having to work her way to the top. She owns her sexuality, she's the experienced city girl. Instead of taking the opportunity to inform Lois' jadedness and excellence with her Asian American identity like in Girl Taking Over, instead we have an Asian Lois that's simply incompetent at her job. Why are we now adapting historically accomplished women into adorkable quirky screw ups? She went from being sexually confident to being insecure over sending a text to Clark. Is it more relateable to see an Asian woman that way? Is it too intimidating to see a butch Asian woman who excels at her job? Who's romantically confident? This is what MAWS would rather do than humanize her excellence or her failures.

Are you tired of an ambiguously designed Asian American woman reporter being xenophobic to Superman in MAWS? Well too bad because episode 8 introduces us to Vicki Vale, voiced by Andromeda Dunker (an Asian actress), with explicit notes in leaked concept art to design this character as "Indian American or Asian American" (as if those are mutually exclusive...) inspired off of real Asian reporter Connie Chung. Vicki wants to write a hit piece on Superman and interviews Prof Ivo's assistant, Alex, for a negative biased opinion on Superman (to Lois and Jimmy's dismay).

This episode is where it's abundantly clear the writers don't know how to talk about xenophobia. They'll make nods to xenophobic rhetoric, but they don't know what the rhetoric means. In response to Alex's derisive opinion on Superman destroying Amazo tower thereby bankrupting the company and putting "thousands out of work", Vicki responds "Superman wiped out good American jobs". This is a misplaced nod to Replacement Theory: the fear white people have over people of color, but particularly immigrants, coming to "their" country to "steal" jobs they're entitled to, ultimately becoming demographically replaced by non-white cultures and people. This rhetoric is also commonly applied to Jewish people.

The problem is, that's not what Superman did in the show. Amazo tech was going to go bankrupt because of Prof Ivo's poor business decisions. Prof Ivo made the mistake of antagonizing Superman and ruining his own image. Superman damaging the building came from his fight with Prof Ivo, not a deliberate attempt to get hired (if anything don't the building repair people have new jobs now?). No one's job is tangibly being taken by Superman. None of this is called out by Lois or Jimmy, who know the full story and were even the ones to attack Alex for helping Prof Ivo (let's be real the writers forgot this happened). In fact, Lois and Jimmy don't react to Vicki's Replacement Theory remark at all! It's like they don't even recognize she said something with racist implications!

Jimmy and Lois meet up with Superman who learns the people of Metropolis are becoming scared of him (from causing some recent property damage in an attempt to hunt a criminal down) and writing mean comments on social media. A user writes "he should go back to where he came from." This is a transparently xenophobic comment. It doesn't work in the context of the show because of a huge plot hole: Superman never publicly came out as an alien to Metropolis. No verified newspaper has explicitly made this fact known. The only source that mentions this is Jimmy's conspiracy channel, which the citizens of Metropolis are apparently treating as fact- therefore (if we're to believe this is how people knew) this means Jimmy absolutely outed Superman as an alien without Clark's consent.

So how does Asian American Lois respond to seeing her alien boyfriend go through xenophobia? She says "Take a break from being Superman and just try being normal." To be fair, the narrative does portray Lois saying the word "normal" as charged (only here at least, not in episode 4), and when she tells Superman to "take a break" it's because he had been overworking himself after suddenly unlocking the ability to hear when someone's in trouble. But was this really the response Asian American Lois thought to say? To her boyfriend going through such explicit xenophobia? At this point it's abundantly clear that racism doesn't exist in the world of MAWS. Being "normal" is to be human. And to be marginalized- or as the show likes to call it "different" is only reserved for white passing alien man Clark (along with gorilla and robot that was once a white man). Any hope of an immigrant parallel between Asian American Lois and Superman should be fully discarded at this point.

After the events of the previous episode where Superman is kidnapped by Task Force X, in episode 9 Lois regrets being allegorically xenophobic to Clark. At least I think that's what's happening. I often describe MAWS as a show that's extremely squeamish with getting political- and I believe the vagueness of Lois' Dark Night of the Soul moment reflects that. "I said awful things to Clark. I doubted him when he needed us most. I was wrong and now he's gone..." Lois says as she cries to Jimmy. Is this dialogue implying she shouldn't have told a sleep deprived Superman to take a break? What did she doubt about him? This dialogue is purposefully vague about Lois being xenophobic. They've universalized Clark's immigrant identity to such a point that they can't keep their argument consistent. Was Lois in the wrong for telling her overworked superhero boyfriend to take a break? Or was she being xenophobic for telling him to lay low for a while? Or is she regretful for hating Superman for Being A Liar? How is that possible when the narrative sided with her and Jimmy in episode 6? It's woefully non-committal. Regardless, the intent of this scene is to pay off in the climax of the episode.

In the end Superman has a showdown with Prof Ivo Parasite, who has grown into a large godzilla-esque kaiju creature. In typical MAWS fashion, the show is more interested in a surface level nod to Asian media instead of engaging with the specific themes of nature and post-war trauma kaijus and godzilla serve in Japanese culture. I digress. Using Jimmy's massive social media platform, Lois delivers a hope speech that instantly heals Metropolis of its xenophobia towards Superman.

Lois says to the people of Metropolis.: "People have told you to fear Superman because he's different from us. But we humans are capable of causing hurt and pain too. [...] Because we want to punish those who don't look or act like us." I mean this in the most polite way possible, but who on Earth thought this line was a good idea for Asian American Lois Lane to deliver when talking about white passing man Superman?? Why did the writers feel the need to specify Superman not looking like us. I simply don't understand how nobody considered the terrible optics of this.

After Superman defeats Parasite, episode 10 is about Clark, Lois, and Jimmy celebrating Thanksgiving at the Kents' house. At the Daily Planet, the trio of interns are promoted to finally being reporters. It only took Clark and Jimmy a few weeks while it took Lois a whole year! Now feels like a good time to remind you that Lois as a character was historically frustrated at sexism in the industry and despised how men were treated better than her (including Clark Kent). Well in MAWS episode 4, Lois has no idea why she isn't getting picked up to be a reporter. According to the narrative, and Perry White's dialogue ("you're terrible interns, so the only thing to do was to make you reporters")- she simply didn't break enough rules yet! Thank goodness she had the help of two men to show her how it's done! This is a pretty clear case of character regression. Keep in mind that in American Alien, at the very least that Asian Lois still underwent sexism, and I gave it the grace that the story could eventually expand to talking about both sexism and racism if it were to continue. But in MAWS? I don't think even sexism exists, let alone racism. Somehow Thanksgiving does, though.

Half the final episode is spent on Thanksgiving shenanigans where everyone's trying to be polite but they dislike Lois' stoic dad (Sam Lane)- who Clark recognizes as the Asian American xenophobic man who tortured him in Task Force X's government bunkers. A parallel is pulled between Sam and Jor-El, two fathers with different ideals when it comes to protecting their kids. There's a huge missed opportunity to have Lois and Sam speak in Korean with each other, to create a parallel in the language barrier between Clark and Jor-El. Maybe Lois isn't as fluent in Korean as Sam is depending on how culturally connected she is. Oh, but the existence of non-English human languages would imply some sort of minority, who would be marginalized, and we can't have anyone outside of aliens and a gorilla be marginalized in MAWS. Non-English languages in America are political, after all. Oh, but they also got a Filipino actor to voice Sam. Generously Lois could be Filipino-Korean but if we're being truly honest it's clear the MAWS crew think Asians are interchangeable.

Let's talk about Sam. In terms of optics, it's already not great that the main villains who represent the face of America's secret government xenophobia are Amanda Waller and Sam Lane- a Black woman and an Asian man. What's doubly notable is that of the antagonistic villains, Sam and Vicki are the most xenophobic. When Sam tortures Superman, he shouts "When is the invasion? How many of your kind will come through this time?" without a hint of irony. Reminder that historically, Asian immigrants were (and still are) considered invaders in America. They are the perpetual foreigner. MAWS loves making nods to Superman being an immigrant allegory, and yet they can't fathom the human beings that allegory is inspired by.

It's not impossible to portray people of color or even Asian American characters specifically being xenophobic. In Superman Smashes the Klan, Dr. Lee is initially antagonistic towards Superman but we understand why. We see him trying desperately to assimilate into whiteness, to the point he rejects assistance from his Black neighbors who help put out a fire in their backyard (that the Klan started as a threat). We understand why he's a character who would turn on fellow people of color, or fellow immigrants, in order to fit in. For MAWS, if we had a flashback scene where Sam was serving in the military and fought against Asian soldiers, showcasing his loyalty to America over his own people- that would narratively explain why an Asian American character would be xenophobic. Writing bigotry from within marginalized communities requires specificity. Otherwise, you've just got a diverse villain. In the end, Lois defends her immigrant alien boyfriend from her xenophobic Asian American dad.

Whenever I bring up how MAWS fails its characters of color but especially Asian Lois, I'm met with people telling me that "hopefully they'll make Lois more Asian in S2" or "they'll just retcon the bad writing in S1" and I hope this thorough analysis on the treatment of Lois' Asian American identity can help enlighten why I personally think that's impossible. The entire concept is flawed from the very beginning. The story MAWS wants to tell is at odds with Lois' Asian identity. In trying to justify an Asian Lois that loves Clark but hates Superman, they never considered what it means to hate Superman. To hate the alien immigrant. The alien other. What it means for an Asian American character to do all that. MAWS is a show that wants to have its cake and eat it too, they want a diverse world without racism or sexism but still want to reap the clout of lightly portraying Superman as "different".

They'll make the most surface level nods to Lois' Korean heritage- but remove all of the cultural context from them. They can't be bothered to acknowledge the inherit political identity being a person of color means in America, they're too busy doing that with Clark. I'm told "MAWS didn't have the time to go over Lois' Asian identity, it's a 10-episode series that focuses on Clark's alienation", and to that I say the potential of an immigrant love story and time frame was there, they simply chose to go another direction.

When I bring up things like Superman Smashes the Klan, Girl Taking Over, and Everything Everywhere All At Once, it's not to say MAWS should have used those stories as reference when crafting their allegory. All of those specific media were released while MAWS was deep in production already. Girl Taking Over was released the same year MAWS premiered. What I am saying is that we, as the audience, should have higher standards. Because better media portraying Asian American characters already exist. Better media portraying Asian characters relating to Superman mythos already exists. What we're doing when we celebrate the breadcrumbs of representation that is MAWS, is allowing mediocrity to exist uncritically.

Shows like Wednesday are known in the discourse for their portrayal of Black characters as being functionally white, yet that kind of scrutiny doesn't seem known for MAWS. The diverse reimagining of Lois and Jimmy is so poorly handled in MAWS that it would honestly make more sense if Jimmy and Lois were white here. The joke made at Jimmy's expense that he doesn't understand bigotry would be actually funny if it was calling out his white privilege. If, for whatever reason, the writers are compelled to write a xenophobic Lois that unlearns her bigotry and falls for Superman, I'd rather she be white for that kind of story. I wouldn't personally root for that kind of couple, but at least it'd make sense. It's a common joke among DCAU fans of color that we like to headcanon Lex Luthor as Black, or Lois Lane and Terry Mcginnis as Asian. It's a cruel irony that the one time we finally have a canonized Asian Lois in an animated show, she honestly feels and acts whiter than actual white Lois ever was.

I mentioned in Pt 1 of my essay that Asian Lois and Superman has the potential to be a definitive love story. One that considers both their backgrounds as immigrants, othered in different ways by American society. The story of a jaded but accomplished Asian city girl who finds hope to be herself again in an alien immigrant superhero. One where she gets the courage to wear traditional clothes again, to practice languages she once suppressed. The story of Superman, an alien immigrant, finding hope in someone with a painfully similar experience.

As of writing, we have yet to see this dynamic in any canon DC media. A second season of MAWS will not give us that story.

[artsydudejude]

Strange quirks in Maw's biology?

there’s seemingly no limit to how much he can consume

it’s unclear exactly where his stomach-mouth leads to; working theory is that it’s some kind of pocket dimension

can only take the forms/memories of thing he eats alive

often mixes & matches parts from the different forms in his ‘inventory’; this includes changing his vocal cords to sound like one person while looking like another

despite having no real memories of anything prior to waking up in the morgue, he does have a distinct personality outside of the ones he’s assimilated

doesn’t seem to feel pain- or, rather, doesn’t react to pain with discomfort like a human would

[lokikingofasgardslover713]

Cicatrix: Part 1

Masterlist

Valkyrie/Brunhilde X FEMALE Plus Size Reader

Part 2

Teamcap4bucky Challenge @teamcap4bucky

Prompt: 27. “What are you doing? I told you not to follow me!”   “Yeah, I didn’t listen.” In bold.

Warnings: F/F SMUT! Inferred rape & violence to reader.

A/N: Reader is, sorry was a part of Thanos Black Order but there was trouble keeping her controlled, punishment often taking the form of ripping her apart to make her obey. Once she had wings but had them forcefully removed for lack of a better word. Reader and Brunhilde first meet on the vessel from Sakaar. I broke this into 2 parts so that you wouldn’t have to attempt this all in one sitting! I hope you enjoy!

Words: +2,500

The first time they met, or possibly the first time the two laid eyes on each other was in the wreckage of the Sakaraaian ship, the large framed warrior pausing in the quiet ruined corridor of the vessel, chartreuse orbs sweeping the destruction that was called Cull Obsidian had just tore through, looking over the dead for any signs of life. The mask covering her nose & mouth kept the stench of death out of keen senses but still didn’t  keep the sting of bile out of them. The metal device that ran heated temples, along hairline of supple cheeks was cold, tuning into the surroundings to concentrate, the light over said temple lighting an eerie green when thoughts diverted to others than the task at hand that was to insure no survivors, but quickly turning red.

Letting out a huff through the mast to home in on the movement that caught in her peripheral, light turning green yet again, a violent sting to the base of her skull as the warrior locked on the lithe woman feet away in grey, gold armor & a blue cape, blue blade drawn readied for a fight. Gauntleted hand twitching for her own blade, moving the cape she herself wore that was meant to mimic wings, a sick joke of what she once had torn from her back & turned into adornment as a reminder to obey.

The pain becoming worse as the two stared each other down, more movement at the others back catching her attention to realize there was children behind the smaller framed warrior that raked chocolate brown eyes over Y/N. The thicker warrior straightening & taking gloved hand off  the blade to take a step back from the group to show she meant no harm. Stepping back further when the lithe warrior hinted to them to hurry out behind her, keeping the other in her sights. The warrior finding herself thinking how beautifully the Valkyrie moved, more pain, blinding now as it had a hand reaching to the base of scarred neck to soothe it away.

“Come with me,” the tanned woman spoke to the other, only for Y/N to shake aching head no as a presence made the warrior step back.

“Come on runt,” came Cull’ hate filled grunt that had the woman taking steps to turn away from the group that was escaping, forcing thoughts to the task at hand so the light would turn red to show she was compliant.

The smallest member of the Black Order taking sure strides towards the massive reptilian like alien that watched gloved hand pull the long blade she carried to drive through the chest of a fallen warrior struggling for breath. The smaller soldier knowing it was either she end it swiftly or Cull would make them suffer longer. The giant ushering Y/N in front of him but not before making sure the halo as they referred to it was lit red.

“He is waiting on us, thanks to you we got the gods cornered,” Cull informed her, his thick fingers touching over what had once been her wings, the woman looking back to the giant creature, the only one who hadn’t mocked her after the titan himself ripped them from her back, that day dark & saturated in green blood.

The walk to the main room of the ship was filled with the speech of ebony maw, the woman rolling sparkling chartreuse orbs at the pale aliens sermon, one heard over & over & made her utter curses under her breath. Cull uttering his own to her to keep them to herself or there would be adjustments made to the halo that would put her on plump ass if she defied them.

Walking past the tall Proxima who looked down at the shortest among them, hinting to her to take a stand closest to the one she knew as Loki, chartreuse orbs locking with the god whom Y/N remembered tending to in secret after Thanos was done with the god for the day. The god noting the halo, knowing she couldn’t do anything to stop the events that where playing out. Loki commenting, they had a Hulk followed by chaos that erupted as the green beast went for Thanos before being beat down & swallowed up in white light.

Though, when she witnessed Loki go for Thanos the warrior couldn’t help but to spring forward herself in hopes of stopping his act of stupidity only for it to send searing pain through thick skull to drop at the feet of Proxima who reached down casually & jerked her to her feet. The taller female alien not surprised the defiant creature had made an attempt to stop the god, the woman had a lot still to learn.

This was her first chance allowed off of the ship after all modifications had been done to assimilate her into the Order, to what end no one was sure let alone why Thanos put up with her. Forcing focus to return, the halo signaling red the moment the gods body hit the floor for Thanos to look over at the smallest member, hinting to Proxima to release Y/N & signaling to the warrior to step to his side hand slipping around scarred neck to keep her close.

The second time the two would meet was after the battle in Wakanda, coming to know her as Y/N, having finally broke free of the halo to help with the onslaught of aliens to only survive the snap& left in the middle of the remaining Avengers, as they called themselves not sure if she should run. Reluctantly following them back to the quiet city they explained was Wakanda, thankfully the one that introduced himself as Bruce Banner was nice enough to remove the halo to give the warrior relief from the burnt-out device before they left for the compound.

Once they had arrived there was a call from the Valkyrie, as Thor called her, that was more of a distress call that had the lithe warrior venturing to meet at the compound. Thankfully Y/N had regained some of her spirit back now she didn’t have to hide true self from the group that had taken her in & were trying to figure out how to fix this. The Valkyrie arriving to immediate recognize Y/N as she sat foot into the compound, Thor introducing the two & the tanned skin warrior unable to take her eyes off of Y/N’ thick frame.

When Brunhilde arrived, Y/N wasn’t sure how she would take to her, having accompanied Thor to meet the Valkyrie on the front lawn of the compound. An anxious hand extended out to Brunhilde to watch realization flicker in cognac orbs at just who Y/N was, shocked to hear the Valkyrie state she was glad the warrior made it out. With a kind smile the thick framed warrior uttered a quiet thank you as Brunhilde threw strong but lithe arm over scarred shoulders to head into the compound telling her that this deserved a drink.

Their umpteenth encounter was when the thick framed warrior entered the common kitchen several months later in a racer tank that revealed heavy scaring on strong shoulder blades when it was turned to the two who sat at the kitchen table. Thor catching Brunhilde looking Y/N up & down as she moved about in a lighter way that told them the stout warrior wasn’t burdened with trying to control thoughts & movements to prevent pain from an unseen device.

A shift kick to the warriors foot getting her to turn attention to the god who smirked at the hate filled look the lithe warrior shot him, the god knowing exactly what the Valkyrie was doing ogling Y/N, more importantly her thick hips as she stretched to pull food out of the upped cabinets.

“What,” Brunhilde snipped at Thor so only he heard, the brawny god smirking at his warrior friend as mismatched eyes twinkled in knowing.

“Ask her,” he smirked, getting to his feet to leave, but the Valkyrie quickly grabbed well-muscled arm to force him back into the seat schooling her features back to the stoic creature to keep up her front.

“What are you talking about,” she asked chancing a glance at Y/N who was turned to expose the scarring once more while pulling a jug of juice out of the refrigerator to pour a glass, the Valkyrie staring once more.

“Ask her or I will ask for you,” he repeated the warrior glaring daggers, more so because he made her look away from the view of ample curves that made the Valkyrie think of more than touching them.

“I'm not sure I'm her type,” she hinted to the fact Y/N didn’t really show interest in her in that manner though the two constantly sparred & hung out, regretting bringing it up to Thor she had feelings for Y/N.

“Then why don’t you ask her,” Thor smiled, the woman in question coming to sit with the two.

Y/N noting Thor get up to hurry away leaving she & the Valkyrie sitting at the high table. The larger warrior surprised that she & Brunhilde actually got along, seeing the lithe warrior was already in the mead at 10 am.

“You not going down to training today,” Y/N spoke up, the tanned skinned warrior acting as though she was nervous as Brunhilde shook her head no.

“What about you? They give you the day off,” she asked Y/N who smiled, the Valkyrie unable to get enough of the smile that held innocence in it despite the hell the woman had endured.

“Yes, thankfully…,” Y/N spoke followed by a few moments of silence before Brunhilde made up her mind to speak.

“Do you have plans for the day,” Brunhilde spoke up with a smile, meeting the gaze of the puzzled warrior that returned the smile all the same.

“Um, no not really, I don’t know a lot about the city still, so I have been staying around the compound mostly. It would be embarrassing to be consider an Avenger & get lost,” the thick warrior laughed before taking a drink of the juice, gods why did this make her nervous this time.

“Then how about I take you around the city? I know my way around a little, maybe have a few drinks,” Brunhilde proposed watching close, noting how Y/N was nervous this time, hoping she didn’t freak out that the smaller warrior was asking her on a date so to say.

“Yeah, that would be good, let me get dressed,” Y/N smiled downing the drink to get to her feet & hurry to the small room she had been given to get dressed.

Y/N watched the way the Valkyrie moved around her, admired how fluid the movements where but never noticed how cognac gaze always watched her, never noticed how she spoke with her, but it had been a long time since Y/N had ever had anyone show her attention. The thicker warrior never realizing it was a date until they were back & sat on the couch in Y/N small room had been given.

“You have beautiful eyes,” Brunhilde began taking a seat next to Y/N as they waited for the movie to start, the warrior cocking Y/H/C head at the statement but saying a polite thank you.

Turning to watch the bronze skin warrior lean in close, hand reaching to cherish over Y/N’ soft cheek, noting the scar from the halo that ran her hair line, the woman pulling away as calloused fingers touched over the flesh. Touch still felt foreign at times & now was no exception, let alone any sign of affection. Not to meaning to be so panicked, jumping to bare feet to look down at the Valkyrie that was quick to her feet, apologizing, reaching for Y/N who was the one to step away & leave the room in shock.

Y/N hurried out to the private patio area, pacing like a caged animal in shock at what had happened. The warrior wasn’t disgusted by no means just in shock that she never realized what was growing between them, mind thinking back to the past months. Turning the instant the door opened for Brunhilde to step out onto the concrete slab, careful steps towards Y/N who paused the pacing ,a habit she had picked up with the Black Order.

“Look, I'm sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you…,” she began, taking a step closer, curvaceous body not budging.

“It's… it's OK, it has been a long time that anyone has… I'm sorry, I enjoyed it, today… I'm a fucking wreck… forgive me…,” Y/N spoke, taking a step towards the warrior but pausing inches away.

“Well, we can be wrecks together… I mean I drink to much & can be a pain I the ass…,” Brunhilde smiled trying to ease the woman’s panic shifting forward, curios if Y/N would move away looking into chartreuse orbs that reflected the dying light perfectly.

“You still want to watch a movie,” Y/N ventured, the Valkyrie noting the thick warrior inch closer tanned fingers wanting to reach up to touch over the scar but decided now wasn’t the best time.

“If it's what you want,” Brunhilde began, giving Y/N a small smile, nodding to follow her into the compound & back to Y/N’ room.

“Is it going well,” Thor asked as he caught Brunhilde sneaking out of Y/N room late that night, having left the warrior crashed out on the couch & not wanting to wake her.

“It's fine, why are you so nosy,” the Valkyrie asked the god who could only smile at the warrior that he noted had a smile on her lips he hadn’t seen in a while.

“You deserve to be happy do you not? And so does Y/N, only fair you are happy together, especially after how long you have watched her around the compound, you could be considered a stalker at this point,” Thor retorted with a quiet chuckle Brunhilde rolling her eyes at him but not thinking he was wrong about them deserving to find a bit of happiness.

“OK, one, I never realized how desperate I looked & two, Y/N’ got a lot going on, I'm afraid I freaked her out I don’t believe she was expecting me to make a move,” the warrior admitted, trying to keep her voice down knowing how keen Y/N’ hearing was.

“She could be afraid of touch, you know how scared she is,” Thor admitted quietly trying to put his friends mind at ease that Y/N was just nervous about being close to anyone.

“Yeah. So I take it I'm not the only who noticed that,” Brunhilde admitted before the door to Y/N’ room opened to revel a bleary eyed woman who looked at the two, studying them over.

“Sorry, didn’t realize,” Y/N mumbled, shutting the door embarrassed she was about to ask the Valkyrie back into her room to stay for the night instead of having to share the room with Thor, remembering Brunhilde talking about having to sleep on the couch.

Thor looked at Brunhilde, hinting to her to go after the warrior that had shut the door, tanned hand grabbing the door knob to step back into the room to find Y/N was cursing at herself for being so stupid & daft to the way the Valkyrie had been hitting on her for the past 6 months.

Tags open! And re-blogs are ALWAYS welcomed!

Tags: @dark-night-sky-99​  @prettybubblesintheair​  @gramaeryebard​  @reallyheckinggay​  @jovanna-shewolf​  @andiyholly​  @katstablook​   @nickyl316h​  @beets1bears1battlestargalactica​ @aslandia726​ @moonfaery​ @furstinnajoelle   @itsbqueenthings​ @lookwhatyoumademequeue​

@whovianwookie86-captainxev@jazzieomega @tomhardy41 @teamcap4bucky

[witchyfoxelf]

[comic review] dark horse's the thing from another world comics (1991-93 & 2011)

the thing from another world (comic 1991-92) writer: chuck pfarrer artist: john b. higgins

struggle, until thought is lost–until dreams are lost–until time is lost– swallowed by the howling maw of antarctic night.

yeah, no, this is not good. it did absolutely nothing to justify its existence.

the only thing stopping me from declaring it a soulless cash grab is that the art is actually pretty fantastic, like i think quite a bit of effort went into it, but they just didn’t have a story to tell here. and to me, that is the absolutely one essential element you need to even bother with something like this. d-rank

the thing from another world: climate of fear (comic 1992) writer: john arcudi artists: jim w. somerville & brian garvey & robert jones

“i give up. i can’t do this anymore, i just can’t.”

this wasn’t great or anything, but it was definitely an improvement over the other one.

in this one mcready wakes up on a base in mainland argentina, and it’s honestly just pretty refreshing to at least have some new characters and something different going on. also there’s a huge herd of sheep on the base and obviously one of them gets infected and it’s very tragic but also aww sheep.

the first issue is probably the strongest one, overall this is just kind of okay, but “okay” is still a definite improvement. c-rank

the thing from another world: eternal vows (comic 1993) writer: dave devries artists: paul gulacy & dan davis

“the conflict between the memories of your human nature and the needs of your cells will take time to resolve. it hurts, but it will pass. and i will always be there for you. now that our blood has mixed, we live within each other. we are one. together. forever. ’til death do us part.”

whoa, dang, one of these was actually good! (and is apparently the most-hated of these. what the heck, guys?)

i knew this one had potential when i first heard about the concept. in this story, one of the things that survived the other two stories assimilates a couple and the pair of them just want to live quietly in a small coastal town, eating as many other humans as they need to to survive.

i don’t think this quite fits in with how the things were supposed to work in the movie, but i kind of don’t even care since we finally got a wholly original story in one of these comics. macready eventually shows up because i guess he’s some kind of thing hunter now, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense imo, but again i kind of don’t care!!

issue 3 has a truly iconic moment where one of the things is in human form but with tentacles going everywhere from her, and she licks up some human blood from one of her tentacles. it was weirdly sexy?

also, just when i was starting to think there wasn’t much more they could do in their current setting, issue 4 takes place mostly on a boat!

seriously, i can’t believe this is the most-hated one of these. it’s one of the best ones imo. and it’s largely self-contained so you can safely skip the other two stories and read this one on its own. b-rank

the thing from another world: questionable research (comic 1993) writer: edward martin iii artists: ted naifeh & w. “moose” baumann & alex niño

“you’ve thrown your sense of science, as well as your common sense, out the window.”

this one was much shorter than the others by virtue of being serialized in dark horse comics’ short-lived eponymous anthology series. it appeared in dark horse comics #13-16 alongside the likes of aliens and predator and whatnot, and each of the four parts was around half a dozen pages long. so if you put all of them together you get basically the length of a single issue.

still, this one was in a similar vein to eternal vows inasmuch as it featured wholly original characters. it’s also even more disconnected from the other comics, picking up with a research team investigating the destruction of the antarctic station from the movie. macready doesn’t even show up in this one!

it’s hard to compare this to the other comics given that it’s so much shorter, but it definitely fits in with the movie better than most of them, if that matters to you. but it manages to do so while still also telling a new story with a new group of characters, which is honestly how all of these should be approaching things in my opinion. macready is great, but having him survive the movie at all never really felt necessary to me. if you want to continue this story, you really should find another way to do it like this comic did. b-rank

the thing: the northman nightmare (comic 2011) writer: steve niles artist: patric reynolds

of all the lands they conquered, the icy mass to the north proved to be one of the vikings’ greatest challenges. unlike many of the lands they explored and settled, it was not the indigenous people who were the greatest threat. the enemy was the land itself.

i really loved the concept of this. the idea of a bunch of vikings facing off against one of the things in greenland had a lot of potential. but sadly this was totally phoned in.

i know this was a single issue but it doesn’t give anything time to breathe, you don’t get to know any of the characters at all, and at the end of the day i’m just not sure why i’m supposed to care even a little. the art was good, though? so there’s that i guess. d-rank

[listmaker-lastcity]

The Flayed Thing

Big as a galleon, it resembles a great, twisted tree made of flayed corpses of every shape and size. It’s base and trunk are made of fused torsos, its roots are myriad skinless legs and arms. It’s branches are arms, ribs, and spines reaching and clawing at the sky. Its foliage is sheets and scraps of flayed skin, including huge pieces of peeled skin that snap and flap like sails broken loose in high wind. Skulls pock its surface like galls, and a great maw opens as its bole.

It only exists in our world at night. It haunts and hunts lonely places. It is quiet despite its bulk – or would be if not for the sound of flayed skin snapping in the high wind that always accompanies it. If it can, it stealthily approaches an isolated building in a rural place, sibling up as close as possible, before bursting multiple windows and doors simultaneously with questing limbs. It drags its prey forth, then drops them one by one into its maw, where they are flensed in individual chambers in its gizzard. These flayed victims are then assimilated into the Flayed Thing’s body, their skulls growing from its surface like pustules.

The Flayed Thing has a number of supernatural powers. The gaze of the creature can strip the skin off of opponents. It does not need to swallow skinned victims, instead absorbing them directly into its flesh. It can also cause a victims skin to peel off with a touch, though this not automatic; it seems to prefer swallowing victims whole to flay them first, then using its flying touch once its gizzard is full. The Flayed Thing can create minions by restructuring and regurgitating the skin, flesh, and bones it has consumed. These spawn include living sheets of skin, flayed skeletons and zombies, and amalgamations of flensed flesh and bone in inhuman arrangements. It is said that the Flayed Thing can skin living things in such a way that they survive the process and may live on painlessly, without complication from infection, shock, blood loss, or other factors. The skinless men created this way are supposed leaders of a cult dedicated to the Flayed Thing. The many skulls of the Flayed Thing can shriek, scream, and roar, producing various effects, such as fear, stunning, deafness, and nausea.

There are many stories and theories about what the Flayed Thing is and where it comes from. Some say the wickedest hags of three worlds, lead by Black Annis herself, created it as the greatest skinning tree in the multiverse. Others claim it is some kind of apex fauna from Hell or Abaddon or the Abyss. Or the final weapon of mass destruction of the necromancer empire. Or a punishment from the gods. Or a new breed of tane derived from the sard and ecorche or skinstealer stock. Or a Great Old One. Or a demigod of flaying, fleshing, skinning, and the amalgamation of flesh in new forms.