#the real question is how much time has passed between CC and the second volume of Young Avengers.

[scarlet--wiccan]

One thing I don’t think people talk about enough in regards to Disassembled/HoM is how in-universe Wanda wasn’t lucid, was barely conscious and had absolutely no agency for an extended period of time and how that must have affected her

Yeah. I feel like I bring this up almost every time I'm prompted to speak about House of M. I dug into it at length in this post. But I agree-- one of the most important things to understand about House of M is that if you approach the text with any amount of empathy or, frankly, reading comprehension, it is abundantly clear that Wanda is literally not, at all, in control of what's happening. If you take the story at face value, Wanda is experiencing a mental health crisis due to a pre-existing condition, and everyone around her is just escalating the situation through violence and, in Charles and Stephen's cases, blatant medical malpractice. Revisiting the story post-Children's Crusade, her breakdown is precipitated by a non-consensual intervention by Agatha, years of lies from her friends and family, and, again, active gaslighting from Doctor Strange and Professor X. Wanda is responsible for appealing to Doctor Doom and choosing to go through with the Life Force ritual, so it's not that she isn't culpable, but the fact is that she lost any and all agency prior to the events of Disassembled and HoM.

It's hard to say how long she was living in Transia and, later, Latveria as an amnesiac, but her entire relationship with Doctor Doom was conducted under false pretenses and should absolutely be considered a violation of consent. We don't know... how far that violation goes. I don't want to assume the worst, but it's a pretty grim situation regardless.

Based on the Young Avengers timeline,* I would say Wanda lost one to two years of her life to temporary magic insanity. Assuming she remembers all of it, that's pretty horrifying, and it would be extremely traumatic even if she didn't. Unfortunately, this is neither the first nor the last time that Wanda has been possessed, mind-controlled, or otherwise driven "~crazy~", and these experiences are not exactly uncommon in the superhero genre-- and it's not always treated with the gravity you'd expect. Since realism isn't the standard, it isn't easy to gauge how severely a character has been impacted, but in Scarlet Witch (2016), Wanda talks about going to therapy and taking medication. She even tells Pietro about her PTSD symptoms in #9, but that issue's kind of a mess on several levels.

The moral of the story is, the text HAS actually acknowledged this. If it seems like that point has been lost on the readership, it's probably because most of the people who talk about HoM and it's legacy have no interest in Wanda's humanity, and they're not engaging critically with the text's portrayal of mental illness.

The events of Disassembled take place some time in between Billy's encounter with Wanda and his first meeting with Nate, as seen in Young Avengers Special. And while it's not abundantly clear, those two events seem to only a few days apart.

We know that Billy was already in high school when Nate recruited him, and we know that is sixteen years old in Children's Crusade. Cassie, in the original run of Young Avengers, is fourteen, is noted to be younger than the other kids. All told, the team can't have been operating for more thant two years, in-universe, which means that Wanda was probably missing for less than twenty-four months.

[youknowmymethods]

Content Creator Interview #5

Welcome back again folks! This week in our fifth interview @vermofftiss chats to @mizjoely about her love of lists, her fantasy season five finale, and reveals the truth about who really writes her stories...

Hi, @mizjoely here, chatting with @vermofftiss about my sherlolly writing and fandom experiences, and answering some questions submitted by a few other folks. I’ve been involved in fandom in one way or another since the early 1980s, which is also when I started writing fanfiction - for classic Doctor Who and Star Trek in its various incarnations.

@vermofftiss here, putting forward the aforementioned questions. I’ll also be trying to weasel some advice out of @mizjoely that I can use for my own writing, which has been a casual ongoing thing since I published my first sherlolly fic in 2014.

Vermofftiss: I think our first encounter was in the Sherlollychat in the fall of 2014, around the time I got onto AO3. Which means series 3 was five years ago. How does it feel knowing that series 4 was already two years ago? What’s changed in the time since it aired?

Mizjoely: Oh, I miss the sherlollychat, or at least I did until Channy came up with the discord version! It’s hard to fathom that so much time has passed since I joined the fandom! (I became active on tumblr in November 2013 after discovering Sherlolly earlier that same year, btw.) Series 3 was five years ago. Series 4 was two years ago. Crazy!

As for what’s changed since then, I’d have to say one positive thing is that the fandom wank has calmed way the hell down since S4…. Another change that I’ve seen is probably common to all fandoms over time - new writers and content creators have joined the fandom while (sadly) many others have moved on to other fandoms. Of course, that’s to be expected when your show is essentially over, but it’s still kind of sad to lose folks completely to other fandoms.

V: Which series was your favourite to play with as a writer? When did you really get into writing Sherlolly?

M: I would have to say Series 4 has definitely been a great series to write for - so much angst! The I love you! Mary Watson’s very sad death, Rosie Watson becoming a character, Mrs. Hudson showing us what a badass she is, and of course Eurus Holmes entering the picture. We might not have gotten as much Molly Hooper as we wanted, but the scenes we did get with her were tremendous and gave so much inspiration to me and many other writers.

I really got into Sherlolly as a ship after seeing TRF, as I’m sure is true with many folks - especially the “what do you need” scene. And it was so much fun to dive into the possibilities of life after Sherlock’s ‘death’ between Series 2 and 3, I consider that a real golden age of Sherlolly writing. My first published Sherlock/Sherlolly fic was “Conversations With A Dead Detective”, set Post Reichenbach, which according to fanfiction.net I published on 04/11/13 (so I’m nearly at my five year Sherlolly- versary, woo hoo!).

A quick look at my spreadsheet (don’t judge me, I love my lists) shows that I wrote or at least started 37 fics that year (one of which I’m still working on, yikes! - The World As We Know It, a vamp!lock fic). I’m currently sitting at almost 500 fics for Sherlolly, which still amazes me, that I could be that inspired by a pair of fictional characters! (For comparison, my second most prolific fandom is Doctor Who, for whom I wrote a total of 25 stories over a period of 20 years. And of those 25, only about a dozen were for my main ship, Five/Tegan).

V: A couple of questions from @ohaine - 

1) Based on the sheer volume of your work, I have this theory that you’re actually some sort of artistic collective rather than just one person, please tell me I’m right!

M: You have discovered my secret: I'm actually four raccoons in a trenchcoat! Seriously though, until I was bitten by the Sherlolly bug, my output was much, much lower, even though I've been writing fanfics since the early 1980s. For example, I love the Zutara ship for Avatar: Last Airbender, but I only wrote three fics for that. I wrote about 25 fics for Doctor Who, and about the same amount for the various Star Treks (not including Khanolly). Nothing set my writing muse afire like Sherlolly, and I doubt anything ever will again.

and, 2) You write a lot of AUs, and I’m wondering what inspires them?

M: Considering that I started off as a strictly Canon Universe/Canon Compliant writer in all of my other fandoms, it still seems funny to me how much I enjoy writing and reading AUs now. I started reading them after finally running out of canon compliant fics to read and discovering how much fun it was to transplant the characters into a different universe. And that, of course, made me think about what sort of AUs I could fit Molly and Sherlock into.

In fact, the very first BBC Sherlock story I started to write (never finished or posted) was an AU because I was nervous about trying to write Sherlock and figured no one would complain too much about him being OOC if it was a fantasy setting. (I ended up taking the plunge on a canon universe post Reichenbach fic and posted that and a lot of other canon universe fics before returning to AUs.)

Wait, that doesn't answer the question! What inspires them? The same things that inspire all my writing: wanting to read a specific kind of fic and not being able to find it; fics that other authors have written that make me itch to put my own spin on the idea; dreams; books I've read or movies or TV shows I've watched...inspiration is everywhere when you really, really, really love a ship. (Gawd that's cheesy but it's true - no love, no writing fanfic, period end of paragraph.)

V: This past spring I finally got the nerve to start working on my first proper AU (not CC, CU, or UA) after sitting on the idea for about 3 years. Have you ever had to wait to be “ready” to start working on a concept? How much do you need to know about a project to get going on it?

M: I have absolutely had to wait to be ready to start working on a concept. My very first attempt at a Sherlolly fic (never finished or published) was going to be an AU because I was so intimidated by the idea of writing Sherlock Holmes in the canon universe set up by Moffat & Gatiss. I was terrified I wouldn’t get his voice right, that he would be too OOC for folks, that I wouldn’t be able to make him clever enough or that I’d mess things up a dozen different ways. So I started writing the AU instead, and in doing so (over a course of several months), I finally realized that no, I wanted to start off in the canon universe. Just trying to write him at all, in any setting, made me a little less intimidated by him. But I might never have written anything if I hadn’t started that abandoned AU. (And I look forward to seeing your AU when you’re ready to post it!)

V: Does reader feedback ever impact the plots of your stories or the building of your AUs?

M: It absolutely can, especially when someone leaves a comment that makes me think about my story in a different light. I won’t go so far as to say comments have caused me to redo anything on a larger scale (such as change the ending) but certainly I’ve thrown things into the fic or expanded on ideas expressed in a comment to make the story that much richer.

That’s one of the best things about being active in fandom - the interactions between readers and writers. Of course, the reverse can also be true - I remember needing a LOT of fan-friend coddling when some folks were unhappy with the ending of my story ‘Abandoned’ (i.e., my Molly let my Sherlock get off too easily). But you have to have thick skin to be a creator, and remember that not everyone likes the same things. And you also have to be able to say yes, I could have done this better, or if I had to do it over I’d do it differently. It’s all part of the creative process.

V: Are there any scenes or aspects that were cut from a story that you regretted leaving out at the end?

M: Not really. Most things that I cut have been vetted by my betas (shout-out to ALL betas for being willing to help you make your story better!) and jettisoning those things has always made my stories better. (Plus I keep a folder of scraps that got cut and periodically review those scraps to see if I might be able to salvage them.)

V: On top of being one of the better-known Sherlolly writers in the tag, you’re also the single person behind the Sherlollbrary. As much as I love to organize my life and everything else I can get my hands on, that’s not something I think I’d ever actually want to do. So what made you decide to start cataloguing Sherlolly fics?

M: My love of lists. Seriously, that’s it. I love making lists of things - like, how many stories did I write in 2013 for Sherlolly (37, as you now know!), how many one-shots have I written vs. multi-chapters, how many were prompts...and then I started seeing people doing lists of various tropes. The one that made me decided to start my Sherlollilists side blog was one put together for Sherlolly omegaverse stories. As more and more lists were created, edited, and added (I’m currently at 140 official lists, with more than a dozen unofficial lists), I decided it would nice to organize them all (not realizing quite what I was getting into!) as one spreadsheet, with other tropes and tags and keywords for folks to help narrow down their searches. It always give me a little thrill when I open the library and see folks are browsing, so I like to think it’s a useful tool (although I am looking forward to finishing it someday!)

@writingwife-83 asked: You work tirelessly to organize all the multitude of writing this ship produces, but how do you feel that affects you as a writer? Does it make you less interested in writing your own fics? Or does it tend to help get the wheels turning and inspire you?

M: I have to admit, sometimes curating the lists can completely put me off writing, simply due to feeling oversaturated. This is especially true when I am reading or skimming over fics that are, shall we say, not the best of the bunch. Or the times when I'm just pushing myself even if I'm not really enthusiastic about doing it. Those times, I've learned to just step back, which is why sometimes the lists don't get updated very quickly.

On the other hand, rereading a favorite or a forgotten gem can really get my creative juices flowing. At times like that, I fall back in love with the ship and the fandom all over again.

V: When you’re stuck with writer’s block or just a lack of motivation, does it help you more to reread an old fave or to go back through some of your own works? Have you noticed your style has changed much?

M: It does help, absolutely. It reminds me why I love this ship so much, and helps me reconnect with others in the fandom. People think of reading as passive and writing as solitary, but to me it’s an interactive process. Reading great fics, new can old, helps feed your creativity. And nowadays the internet helps so much as well - there are awesome resources and fandom spaces to talk to other folks about their works and your own, reminding you that you’re not creating in a vacuum. (And I REALLY love the cheerleading section of the Sherlolly Discord site. That can help unstick my creativity like nobody’s business!)

As for my style changing - yeah, it definitely has. I feel like my writing has become more streamlined and less clunky since I first started. I still do a lot of semicolon abuse but at this point I’ve decided that’s just my style and will likely never change.

Thanks for the excellent questions and for letting me ramble on!

V: I’m sure we can do a lot more rambling if left on the trail. How about one last one: In the currently hypothetical series 5, how would you continue the story from where it left off?

M: Oooh, good one! If I was in charge we would see that Sherlock and Molly are continuing their relationship, culminating with a wedding at the end of the third episode. But since I’m not in charge, I’m thinking that Mofftiss would give us some subtle hints, like John casually mentioning to Sherlock that he and Rosie can’t join ‘them’ for dinner that night for whatever reason. And maybe some small changes to 221B to show hints that someone else spends time there other than Sherlock and the Watsons - a cherry patterned pillow, perhaps? A Bart’s ID card with a woman’s picture to show that no, it isn’t one Sherlock nicked to get access to a place he otherwise couldn’t get to? A woman’s coat hanging next to Sherlock’s? Something like that. And some private smiles between Sherlock and Molly, little things like that. Enough to give us hope but not enough to give us proof! They do like to tease that way!

Non-shipwise, I think Eurus would make a return because come on, how do you leave a character like that catatonic? I also think they would return to ACD canon to revise a few more cases for the modern age, and maybe (maybe!) have John start dating again (especially if they’re so married to canon that they killed Mary off - since John seems to have been married at least twice, they would probably explore that option).

I know, that last part is a bit vague but honestly? I hope they surprise the hell out of us in a good way if we ever get that fifth series!

Next Week, Friday March 22nd, @ashockinglackofsatin talks to @sunken-standard

[robertkstone]

2017 Subaru Legacy Sport Long-Term Verdict

In Motor Trend’s version of My Two Dads, MT’s fleet admiral Erick Ayapana and I joined forces to shepherd a young and spirited Subaru Legacy through its journey of discovery in our long-term garage.

Shortly after the June 2017 issue went to press, Erick needed to give up his seat to help foster another vehicle, and that’s when I took over. Between the two of us, we logged 20,460 miles almost exclusively on the means streets of SoCal, although head honcho Ed Loh took it on a trip to Sacramento, and web producer Erika Pizano hustled up to San Francisco for a weekend trip. Other than that, it was mostly used to get me between El Segundo and San Pedro and for the occasional downtown dash for hockey.

This means I didn’t do a lot of open-highway driving, which probably accounts for our combined average of 26.3 mpg being a little less than the 29 and 31.1 mpg estimates from the EPA and Real MPG, respectively. Despite the lower numbers, the Legacy still managed to impress in the fuel mileage department because the whopping 18.5-gallon fuel tank made for a long-distance hauler that would often go 14 days and 500 miles between trips to the gas station.

For reference, our Legacy’s Subaru sibling, the 2016 Outback, which also has an 18.5-gallon fuel tank but weighs 203 pounds more, averaged 23.4 mpg over our year of testing it.

The interior is spacious and comfortable. My preference is to sit high and very close to the steering wheel, and I never felt cramped in the Legacy. It has a height of 59.0 inches, more than 3 inches taller than our last long-term sedan, a 2016 Honda Civic Touring, and I always felt I was sitting a little higher than I normally would in sedan.

Ergonomically, everything is within reach of the driver, the controls are easy to manage, and the steering wheel and mirrors are a breeze to adjust.

The back seat has plenty of room for cargo, human and otherwise, with 38.1 inches of legroom for the former���the same as in the larger Outback. The Legacy also excels in one of the most important back-seat metrics—zero complaints about comfort from passengers.

One disappointment for me was all the scratches the console suffered with what I’d consider a light amount of abuse. Over the year the center console has developed some unsightly scars, presumably from tossing my keys into the cupholder upon entry. An everyday vehicle should be able to withstand a little torture. To combat this I trained myself to leave the keys in my pocket and use the keyless entry, which when you commit to works like a charm. I also took the time to adjust the settings to turn off the annoying beeping that accompanies every locking and unlocking—it was loud enough that I worried about waking the neighbors. The world needs less beeping, and I’m doing my part.

Aesthetically, the Starlink multimedia console could use some work (and Subaru must have agreed, as newer models have updated looks). It does, however, have an actual volume and tuning knob along with plenty of options for listening to music. It offers pretty good clarity when listening loud, as well.

The multiple power and USB ports were much appreciated, as was the smartphone notch built into the center console. However, the execution of a device notch should be further fleshed out in the future. It would have been nice to be able to seat the phone in the notch and connect it to power or the console. Good idea, but not 100 percent there.

One person on staff seems to think my devotion to legacy technology makes me a Luddite. I think that’s a bit harsh and an inaccurate understanding of the word, but you’re the benefactor of my inability to let go of past devices. For a while I was listening to my music and podcasts via Bluetooth streamed from my Dropbox app, and that worked pretty well, but recently I switched it up and have been using the aux input to listen via my iPod classic. I went the aux route because directly connecting the large iPod library was too much for the stereo to handle, and it would often glitch out and restart the iPod. It does work to connect your music device directly via USB, but I had spotty results and went with the technologically inferior analog aux input.

The Bluetooth streaming ability was easy to connect, so much so that while picking up the car from the valet, I got in and noticed the car’s Bluetooth had, from a distance, already synced to my phone and begun playing the show I was listening to. That’s a stereo eager to start streaming.

The Subie does have a CD player, and just to make sure it worked, I dug a disc out of storage. For a second I thought maybe Subaru could be bluffing to see if anyone noticed, but it played.

The navigation system went largely unused until I dropped my phone’s unlimited data plan. To save myself from the data-depleting Waze, I used Subaru’s onboard navigation, and to my delight it worked really well. Using real-time traffic updates, the nav steered me clear of a particularly nasty off-ramp construction project that stole hours from a bunch of co-workers.

Out on the road, although this model was called a “Sport,” it really doesn’t give off a sporty vibe. Its 0–60 time of 9.1 seconds is comparable to the Outback’s 9.5 seconds, and in the passing metric, the time to go from 45 to 65 mph, the Legacy and Outback again were comparable with 4.7 seconds for the wagon and 4.5 for the sedan. The Camrys and Accords of the world are at least 1.5 seconds quicker to 60 and at least a half-second quicker in passing.

So this is not a sports car by any stretch, but despite its name I never really expected it to be. It does get up to speed in a safe amount of time and does not struggle to maintain speed on the highway. The continuously variable transmission seemed to make the right “shifts” at all the right times without any lag or jerkiness. I mostly didn’t notice it.

The ride itself was smooth. The Legacy was able to absorb many of the minor bumps in the road, and it eliminated a lot of the annoying road noise to make for a pleasant commute inside the cabin. This allowed me to cut some of my fellow commuters some slack when they behaved a little less than noble. Oh, well. I’m happy in here.

We took the Legacy to the dealer for three scheduled oil changes, tire rotations, and inspections, and without any other problems springing up, we spent $0 on repairs or normal wear and tear. The Outback long-termer also cost us nothing to maintain, and our VW Passat also included free maintenance. We spent $483.20 on four service visits over 30,828 miles with our 2016 Civic, however.

In the last nine months I’ve enjoyed my time in the Legacy. I’m not naturally much of a lead foot, and generally I prefer comfort over aesthetics, so the very workmanlike, smooth-riding Legacy fit my driving disposition pretty well. It’s nice when you and your car are compatible.

Read more about our 2017 Subaru Legacy Sport:

Arrival

Update 1: Track Days

Update 2: Help!

Update 3: Questions and Answers

Update 4: Driving with AWD and Using the Nav System

Update 5: How it Compares to the Updated 2018 Model

Our Car SERVICE LIFE 13 mo / 20,460 mi BASE PRICE $24,815 OPTIONS Sport Value Package ($4,095: EyeSight Driver-Assist system with blind-spot detection and rear automatic emergency braking, Starlink telematics and navigation, Power moonroof, 18-in wheels, Keyless Access w/push-button start, Sport appearance package); Side cargo net ($88) PRICE AS TESTED $28,998 AVG ECON/CO2 26.3 mpg / 0.74 lb/mi PROBLEM AREAS None MAINTENANCE COST $0 (3- oil change, tire rotation, inspection) NORMAL-WEAR COST $0 3-YEAR RESIDUAL VALUE* $20,100 RECALLS None *IntelliChoice data; assumes 42,000 miles at the end of 3-years

2017 Subaru Legacy Sport POWERTRAIN/CHASSIS DRIVETRAIN LAYOUT Front-engine, AWD ENGINE TYPE Flat-4, alum block/heads VALVETRAIN DOHC, 4 valves/cyl DISPLACEMENT 152.5 cu in/2,498 cc COMPRESSION RATIO 10.3:1 POWER (SAE NE from PerformanceJunk WP Feed 3 https://ift.tt/2EPwYeX via IFTTT