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popculturebuffet · 10 months ago

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Wanna Make Something Of It?: A Justice League International Retrospective: Justice League #1 Review

Keith Ian Giffen 1952-2023 "I"m sick of Darkseid, Darkseid has been passed around the DC Offices like a Bong"

Hello all you happy people and happy birthday to me. Each year either on or around my birthday, or in this case a month later because the end of 2023 was a cold and carpal tunnel hellscape and 2024 opened with bronchitis, I take a look at something special to me, something that means something: From the first apperance of the Legion of Substitute Heroes, to the first volume of Scott Pilgrim, to Scott Pilgrim Vs the World , to last years look at the uncanny x-men's rebirth with Giant Sized X-Men #1, i've always set aside my birthday to reflect on my past and celebrate it with something I truly love.

This year I decided on that.. for reasons that still break my heart. On October 9th at the ripe age of 70 Comics Legend and personal inspiration of mine Keith Giffen.. passed away. He had a long, good life and created countless amazing stories and characters.. but his loss will be a void that can never quite be filled.

For those who hadn't heard of him, Keith was a comic book writer who's best known for his work at DC, having helped redefine the Legion of Super Heroes and Darkseid with the legendary Great Darkness Saga alongside Paul Levitz, created the main man Lobo, the fourth wall breaking before it was cool Ambush bug, the incomprable Jamie Reyes whose first arc I covered this year, and of course, the one punch, the only, the bwahahah-ey Justice League international.

If your asking why it took this long to eulogize him if I respected him so much, the answer is simple: I didn't know. In an age where if someone dies it's usually blasted onto my news feed, even if I don't exactly google that person every day, I had NO idea Keith was dead till reading an amazon review.. which is the kind of sick irony he'd find hilarous, so I have that, but not exactly the way to find out one of your personal heroes died. So I scrapped my original birthday review plan (Letterkenny's Three Wise Men For the Curious) and decided to start a project i've been mulling over for a while now. So welcome folks to Wanna Make Something Of It: A Justice League International Retrospective, an ocasoinal look at this long run.

JLI has an intresting history to it so if you'll sit down i'll tell you

The Not Really Secret Origin of the Justice League International

It was the late 80's and DC Comics had just undergone a massive reboot with Crisis on Infinite Earths, the first true big event comic as we know them with tie ins and a massive reboot in the end as Editorial had felt the various alternate earths had made things too complicated. So a big blue murder man named the Anti Monitor tried to wipe out all of creation, leaving only five earths: Earth 1, where most of the action took place, Earth 2 where the heroes of the Golden Age, the Justice Society of america and their various successors lived, Earth 4, where the recently aquiried heroes of Charlton Comics like Blue Beetle, Peacemaker and Captain Atom resided, an earth not concidentally introduced for this crossover, Earth S, home of the Shazam/Captain Marvel Family, and Earth X, a world where the nazi's won WWII and only the freedom fighters stood in opposition. Basically any heroes DC felt like keeping and their shiny new toys.

The result was a new one world earth with a fresh coat of paint to let in new readers. It wasn't without issues: several corners of the DCU got torn up with my beloved Legion of Super Heroes getting some of the worst of it, with every resonable attempt to fix the retcons or bring characters back.. being shot down AFTER the story had already been started or happened, eventually leaving such a giant mess they rebooted in the 90's, while many a hero was left without an origin or clear history, Donna Troy having to have her origin redone again now her connection to wonder woman was gone, Hawkman became a hawk mess in part thanks to this very book, story for another time, and much more I don't have the time or patience to get into right now.

There was a lot of good in it though, as the reboot left room for new heroes like self promotional himbo with a heart of gold, Booster Gold, the now DC flavored Blue Beetle, and more, and for some the fresh start was badly needed, revitalizing Superman, and giving Wonder Woman and out and out reboot that, while taking her history away, exchanged it for one of the best runs on the character ever via George Perez. And eventually, after some growing pains, it gave us room for an all new flash after a lengthy murder storyline left Barry running out of steam. For all the damage it did i've learned over the years, the crisis still did a LOT of good and helped a lot of characters find their place in this brave new world.

One property vital to DC that needed this was the Justice League of America. A few years before the crisis, DC had noticed the sales of the League were down, and tried to revitalize it: the result was a book I hope to read and cover one day.. still called Justice League of America bu tknown to most as Justice League Detroit. The IDEA was good: feeling the league was a bit scattered after a martian invasion destroyed their iconic satalite headquarters, Aquaman called for them to disband and only those who could commit full time rejoin, leaving it with just him, Martain Manhunter, Zantanna and The Elongated Man. They soon added some fresh recurits in the cyborg steel, the horribly named in hindsight but loveable for her father daughter relationship with the Martain Manhunter, Gypsy and the sterotype tastic Vibe, who'd later be heavily reworked for the better by the flash tv series.

The idea was good but even from what defenders I could find after googling the team, the book had the good IDEA of making the team more of a surrogate family like the Titans or X-Men, but simply didn't seem to pull it off. It's part of why i'd love to look at it some day: the roster is good, with even the rookies being intresting Even Vibe at least had intresting power, a low income background not really see in the Justice League at that point, and cool shades.. even if him break dancing was very much

So I do really want to read this run and possibly cover it and if you'd like me to, let me know. It intrests me.

But while it intrests me now, no one at the time was really biting so DC decided to pull the plut. It really didn't help that , thanks to the crisis.. DC now had a wide buffet of characters they could suddenly ad to the league like Captain Marvel, the Charlton gang, and Dr. Fate.

So the team got the axe in the ties ins for Legends, DC's next big event that was also designed to bring the new team together. Legends has another really cool concept: Darkseid, god of evil and dc office bong , wanted to break earth's heroes for defying him so he could finally claim it and thus came up with Operation: Humilation. He sent his lackey Glorious Godfrey to earth , becoming tele-evanglist and far right loon G Gordon Godfrey, inspired by the times and sadly still relevant. Godfrey lit up an anti superhero fervor, causing Ronald Regan to ban superheroes while Godfrey spread the message of hate, helped by Godfrey setting up Captain Marvel to seemingly kill one of Darkseid's minons who was in fact a robot designed to die and scar a 12 year old for life.

The problem is the series is a bit too fast paced for it's own good, taking a message on how hate movements like this spread oh so easily with the power of tv, and speed running it so we go from Godfrey using real life hate tactics that are chillingly relevant, to the point we get scenes with a crowd nearly killing a 12 year old jason todd or a cop killing his partner after said partner lets Black Canary go then blaming her for making him do it, to ... him making people into murder dogs and storming the captial. In three issues. You have to nearly burn the country down to get people to do a insurrection everyone knows that.

On top of that like many an event after.. a lot of it's about setting up tie ins instead of it's core story so we get stuff like Jason being saved happening off panel or Darkseid deciding to take superman off the board.. and then doing it in a tie in.

That brings us to Justice League where one of the biggest fallouts of this event.. happens entirely in it's own book. I'm split on this as on the one hand, the end of the Justice League of America should happen in it's own book.. but on the other given they brought in another writer to end the book, I don't see why they didn't just cancel it early and say "To be continued in legends" and have Godfrey tied into the league's ultimate end instead of Amazo.

Alas instead Amazo and Despero clean house leaving the league battered, demoralized and in the cases of Vibe and Steel dead. Everyone whose left leaves.. .everyone except the person it means the most to, the person who almost never left and whose the heart and soul of the league for the Martain Manhunter vows it'll live on.

Cue the finale of Legends: With things escalating quickly, Dr. Fate, DC's Resident Mysterious Magic Man, gathers a bunch of heroes together to put an end to this: Batman, Martian Manhunter, Blue Beetle (Ted Kord), Black Canary, Green Lantern (Guy Gardner), The Flash (Wally West), Beast Boy (Going by Changeling back then), Mister Miracle (Scott Free), Superman and Captain Marvel (The future Shazam) to put an end to this, with Jonn clinching the heroes return to legality by coming in the save and Wonder Woman making her debut to the superhero community post-crisis by jumping in to help. The day is saved , and a new justice league is formed from the ashes of the old.

So you may be asking: Why this roster and why aren't Wonder Woman, Superman, the Flash and BB on the cover? Let's explore that under the cut as we delve into why this roster, the creative team for the actual book, and the first issue itself shall we?

Roll Call:

So you'd probably think given how team books work nowadays that future writers Keith Giffen and JM Demattis picked this team themselves, with maybe a member or two picked by dc editorial. It's what I assumed.. but nope, DC picked the team themselves, which .. does kinda bother me. A creator should really pick their own roster as chemistry is VERY important to a team book. It speaks to Giffen, DeMattis and Macguire's talents that, even dropping a few members in issue 7, the book comes off as natural as it does and said drops come off less as "this person we were saddled with isn't working" and more "they simply didn't fit into the group so we used the big rebrand to shuffle them out". DC may of picked the roster, but to their credit they choose well. As giffen himself put in the introduction of a collection of the first few issues back in 2008 "That call was DC's to make and as it turned out.. not too shabby"

So before we got into the actual book and who made it, I wanted to take a second to explore this roster as I wanted to show WHY DC might have choose them as I couldn't find any info on why this roster was picked, and simply have my edcuated guesses to go on

First who WASN'T added despite being front and center in legends: Each of the four members cut from the roster so to speak have good reasons for not being in the team. Beast Boy is the most obvious: he was never going to be in the League to begin with, they most likely wanted a titan to represent their flagship book for the crossover and choose one of the most popular.

For the Flash, Wally's a bit more of an actual misdirect as given he hadn't shown up since his decision not to take up the mantle, this was his big coming out party as the flash, with Wally deciding to embrace his mentors roll. It's also why he didn't take it up in story and likely out: he just put on the tights and didn't feel ready for the league just yet and the character would need some time in his own solo before it made since to plop him in a team book.

For Superman and Wondy it's also simple: Superman was being rebooted: He still had a LOT of his history, but major parts of it like his time in the Legion as Superboy or his cousin Kara were cut out, major villians were revamped, and his world was reshaped for the 80's while Diana was flat out rebooted by George Perez after sales had pretty much died pre-crisis, with said run now being one of my favorite comics and one I can't wait to complete some day and share with you all.

So that left the All New, All Diffrent Justice League with a roster consisting of Batman, The Martian Manhunter, Blue Beetle, Captain Marvel (Now known as the Captain or Shazam), Dr. Fate, Black Canary, Mister Miracle and Green Lantern (Guy Gardner). So for those of you less familiar with some of these guys, let's get aquanited, as well as figure out why DC choose them.

Batman: Batman is here because he's batman.. I could end it there but that'd leave the question of why Bats was okay to go but SUperman and Wonder WOman weren't. The answer is simple: Batman.. didn't get rebooted by Crisis. Things were changed like Jason Todd's backstory, some villians erased, some bits of history tinkered with, but that was standard for most post crisis heroes. He'd have a new defentiive origin with Frank Miller's year one, but Denny O'Neil had already soft rebooted batman back in the 70's, so he wasn't in as big of a rut. Crisis took out weird shit from the silver age that I love but understand why maybe it's best reinstated as a drug hallucination, thank you Grant Morrison, and Earth 2 batman, but it really didn't change who Bruce was, his status quo etc. Batman was selling well, Dick Grayson was super popular over in New Teen Titans, it was something DC knew wisely not to fuck with. Granted I haven't gotten as hands on with just after the crisis batman as I have Superman or Wonder WOman, so I could be wrong, but most of the changes were to villian backstories, stuff that was necessary and handy, but not things that really shook up who Batman was or what stories were going on with him like Superman and Wonder Woman. And since Batman is a lisense to print money, for better or worse, they stuck him on this team.

Martain Manhunter: The Martain Manhunter is Jonn Jonzz, a cop from mars who got accidently kidnapped by an old man to earth and took up resdiense as a detective. Jonn would get a full mini establishing who he was post crisis I have not read by Giffen and Dematties but i'm now dying to now I know it exists. Jonn was a founding member of the justice league and a big hero during the silver age, and comes off as the JLA equilvent to the Avengers Wasp, not in terms of character, Janet and Jonn aren't like each other in the slightest but I do think they'd hang, but in being a hero who has a storied career almost entirely tied to one of their unvierses big super teams, but not much solo wise. The former has meant he's been bounced around a bit and even left out of the team in the new 52 for cyborg, but also means he's a treasured part of it, an elder statesman who gives the team a sense of a heart among a floating lineup. He also gives the team a power house, having most of superman's powers PLUS telepathy and shapeshifting. Jonn is one of my faviorite DC heroes owing to the justice league cartoon

Guy Gardner: Guy is an odd duck in that both John Stewart and Hal Jordan were wearing the ring, this being the first time all three earth lantern's wore it, so WHY Guy was chosen out of the three was a mystery given JOhn was, as far as I know, popular even then and Hal was the old reliable, back before everyone was sick of that and wanted them to remember they had 7 or so people more intresting. Guy was Hal's understudy. He literally didn't get the ring.. because Hal Jordan was closer, and thus was picked to become a space cop later. He was depicted intially as a school teacher before being resculpted into a jingoisitc asshole by Steve Engleheart, something that was cemented and fleshed out here. He also has a three stooges haircut, something I feel adds to his asshole charm and feel had to be brought up at some point.

Dr. Fate: Dr Fate is kent nelson, a vetran of the JLA's predecessor, the Justice Society of America. Originally the JSA was part of Earth 2, but was merged with Earth 1 so now they simply.. existed before our heroes, retired due to Mcarthyism, then came back into action when the new age of heroes launched, with deaging and such used to explain how their still around. Fate was chosen likely because he looks neat, they needed a magic guy, and they wanted a JSA rep on the team. He.. didn't really quite fit as it was clear DC didn't know quite what they were doing with him yet.

Blue Beetle: My boy ted, who I've already covered on this blog before, but this is his shining moment. For those less familiar or who missed the underated blue beetle film, Ted is an inventor who found out his uncle was planning to take over the world with an army of robots, and enlisted his close friend Dan Garret, who turned out to be the OG blue beetle and sacrificed his life to stop Ted's Uncle, passing on the mantle but not the magical alien beetle. Ted compensated by building a ton of gadgets, having plnety of quips and generally being plesant. Ted was part of Charlton Comics, a company DC had bought recently, and having his own series at the time, being fairly popular, and having an outfit created by Steve Ditko himself, he was a shoe in and a nice pick from the b-list. Grante di'm biased and this series is entirely WHY, but Ted's a fresh face in the dcu who comes in hot with plenty of experince and a cool ship for the group to fly around.

Black Canary: Dinah Lance was changed by the crisis, going from an immigrant from earth 2 to the daughter of the original. She was also made a founding member of the justice league to replace Wonder Woman because she as the only prominent dc heroine who who would've been active at the time. And yes she's wearing THIS for her time in the JLI

And honestly it's.. meh. I think they were trying to give her a less casual look, but the fishnets and black leather jacket just fit. Sometimes a superhero just needs something anyone could wear in the right order to have a super outfit. I'm not against civlian style costumes if it fits the hero and dinah's just.. fits. This one just dosen't suit her as it's a bit too bombastic.

Dinah's likely here both for her new jsa connection and new jla founder status. She's also here because the team needed a female member, alongside dr. light, who we'll get to later.

Captain Marvel: Billy is easy. While DC had aquiried their former rival Fawcett back in the 70's, and thus one of the best superman immitators there ever was and ever will be, Billy had been on earth S since they bought him, and like Dr. Fate is there to show off how the earths are all merged now. He's also another power house, and was someone dc was trying to push. DC.. never really knows HOW to push captain marvel and i'm hoping his current series by Mark Waid helps. If you haven't read it check it out, it's possibly the characters best that i've been able to have acess to (Since DC hasn't reprinted the golden age stuff quite yet). For those who haven't heard of him, Billy Batson is a ten year old who was chosen by a wizard to become his champion and thus can act out the movie big but with superman powers whenever he wants. I love him dearly and wish DC knew how to market him.

Mr. MIracle: Last but not least Mr Miracle is Scott Free. Scott is part of the new gods, Jack Kirby's big contribution to DC that also included bong of evil Darkseid. To keep the peace Darkseid and his counterpart Highfather did a son swap, HIghfather getting Darkseid's angsty son Orion and Darkseid getting Scott, who he gave to Granny Goodness, the God of Child Abuse, who gave him othe name to mock how he'd never be free. Naturally this strategy backfired as it only fired up young Scott to escape, becoming the escape artist, hero and wife guy mr miracle. The last part came courtsey of big barda, another one of Granny's charges who came to take Scott back, but was convinced that maybe hellpits weren't the best place to live, and married him in Kirby's last issue on the two. Scott is here to emphasis the new gods,s something DC was playing with more post crisis. His manager Oberon, a cheery fella with Dwarfism, is also here because Demattis and Giffen had a lot of material for the guy it turned out and Oberon is essentially the team's guy in the chair.

So with this motely crew assembled let's see what this dynamite creative team did with them as we begin the storied history of the justice league international... the international part comes later.

Starting with the cover. While usually i'll skip these in an analysis, it's both a habit I need to break and would be a criminal act here as the cover for Justice League #1 is my faviorite comic book cover of all time and my faviorite to see an homage of.

It's simple, but it's perfect. The group shot is well deisgned, showing everyone off, but in a way that's diffrent from the usual action poses we get. Their clearly ready to kick your ass then their gonna fuckin kick your ass, but it's in a way that's unique, shows the team's unity. It also is taken so seriously here.. that it makes it ripe for jokes later in the series. The wanna make something of it ffrom guy both echoes the tough image their going for.. but fits the goofy tone the series is really going to have as it settles in. This comic has been homaged to oblivion and rightly so. Even Keith's memorial image dc put out is this but with Keith and all his creations.

We open the issue proper with a declaration.

It's one of my faviorite opening pages in a comic: It's beautifully drawn by artist Kevin Maguire, sets up the setting well and sets up guy as having his head firmly up his own ass.. it's why he has the bowl cut you see, helps him get it up there nice and tight.

The issue smartly introduces the cast one or two at a time, letting each character get a proper introduction and seeing how they bounce off each other as they file in.

So first in is Black Canary, who marvels at their old headquarters recent reneovations. Our heroes start the run in the Secret Sanctuary, the Justice League's first headquarters built into a mountain in Happy Harbor Road Island. And if it seems familiar to some of you, it should as after the JLI were done with it the Doom Patrol moved in for a bit during Grant MOrrison's Run. Most famously and lastingly, Young Justice, another team I have to cover at some point, made this their main hq, the only team to really make it a home that wasn't a justice league. And to prove that point the JSA also stayed here briefly. It's this weird go to for teams who need a headquarters for five minutes.

Anyways Dinah remembers the good times and all the ghosts, guy's a dick about it humming the twilight zone theme, and assumes he and Dinah will have a sam and diane thing and not a "Stay 50 feet away at all times thing".

Next up is Mister MIracle, whose nervous about the gig, not sure if he belongs there. Out of the leaguers Scott tends to stick to the back, not shy or afraid to speak up when needed, but not as outspoken as his team mates. This nicely contrasts oberon whose all too happy for the box office as even if this lasts a cup of coffee. He's less happy when Guy makes a shot at his dwarfisim and Oberon's grumbling is hilarious.. as would've been him decking guy but we still got a few issues till someone finally does that.

Billy zooms in, shocked by all the press, showing his naivitie: even after all he just went through... Billy is still a bit shocked by just how profile this is and happy to be there. Enter the boys, Martain Mahunter and Blue Beetle, with Jonn not forgetting the whole LEgends fiasco so soon, and having a bit of a mope... though he soon makes a valid point to ted as he turns on the computer.. and shows the Detroit League. It's a nice reminder that even if the team wasn't like.. they were still close and still Jonn's proteges.. and most most of them are dead and those that arent quit due to the trauma. So doing this, while something he feels is necessary. Cue Guy banging a gavel and declaring the meeting started

We then cut to the offices of innovative concepts where we meet the heart and galbladder of this run, Maxwell Lord, a mysterious man in a suit whose watching a row of tv's. Max isn't evil like he'd later be retconned into being.. but he is VERY shady at this point, watching all the coverage on the league and in one of my faviorite subtle little things scratching the "of america' part out of the legue's name on a pad of paper.

I want to take a minute to point out macguire's facial work.. i'ts incredible, nicely detailed, realistic, but still cartoony enough to have tons of personality. Just looking at max you get his smugness, ego and sense of control all at once with him having barely said or done anything. There's been plenty of masterminds sitting behind a row of tv's, but you get Max's vibe immedietly while still wondering what his deal is and what he wants with the team, the latter being the main mystery of the books first year. Back at the Sanctuary, Dinah and Guy argue as SHOCKINGLY the experinced vetran with an eye for the teams legacy dosen't want sylvester calzone here running things. Oberon TRIES to intervene on Dinah's beahlf but get's literally brushed off and Jonn trying to be an adult in teh room.. gets Guy picking him up and making a green giant joke, both funny, both well done.. and enough to get even JONN pissed enough to enter a brawl.

Cue the goddamn batman.. and dr. fate whose here too. That's.. really fate's roll for their time on the team, their just.. here. While Giffen and Demattis did really try to work with most of the roster they were given, seeing who worked and who didn't, Dr. Fate just didn't fit this team. As you can see already.. a key part of this team is disfunction. Some become true companions eventually, but it's mostly a bunch of personalities that barely function together, fairly normal people who put on tights. It's the charm of the series: instead of just getting along or having the usual angst, these guys just make digs at each other and amble along, but DO get the job done and do deserve to be called the justice league. It's just a version of said league that dosen't take itself seriously and has fun with it, and that treats this group like people. Normally the Guy Gardner in the group would just be ingorned but because he actually DOES have the power to toss people around (and props to the creative ways he does), it leads to an actaul brawl.

Fate... doen't fit into this. Fate is an enigma, mysterious and distant. So they simply.. don't work well in a jokey sitcom. It's clear the duo LIKE the character, they'd reinvent him soon enough, but he just didn't fit what they were going for.

So that begs the question how BATMAN does.. and he answers it, cowing everyone else into stopping it and getting guy to sit down before dryly reading out the charter. Bats is the boss in this workplace sitcom, and he's a mean one, being an utter dick to dinah at one point.

This moment horks me off.. but it's also a perfect encapulation of batman's leading style: shut up do what I say. Even someone whose his EQUAL , and who founded the team before him and thus has senority, he just tells them to shut up when she's making a valid point: their fidgity because this meeting is nervous nad because they just went through some crap. What I like is that despite having BATMAN.. the dream team dosen't glorify him. He's still batman, he shuts down the room with a glare, is a tactical genius and thus great at leading in the battlefield.. but it's very clear even this early on he simply.. can't lead this team well. He has a barking "do what I tell you style" and expects them to be good soldiers, treating them like a group of sidekicks instead of experinced heroes.

It's not something the group pull out of thin air either: Batman used to have a team of his own, the Outsiders, formed after Batman walked out on the league for refusing to let him rescue Lucius Fox and turned in his badge when Clark wanted him to sit this one out as a league member. He found a bunch of other heroes along the way, and choose to make them into a team, but it was very clear that the outsiders were partners, and weren't treated as full equals, with the exception of Black Lightning who Bruce felt was on his level. He wasn't bad to the team, helping find the younger amnesaic Halo a home, setting them up with day jobs, but his style is very much "listen to me or there's the door. "

The problem is while the outsiders were mostly fresh faces to being heroes or out of practice like metamorpho or black lightning, Bruce can't let that guard down even whent he heroes have more than proven themselves. It popped up in a crossover with the New Teen Titans where he started ordering that team around, with Dick eventually having to tell him to shut the hell up and let Dick lead his own damn team.

So while it's midly grating here it fits: Batman is so determined to keep this league together he's treating them like his backup i nstead of experinced heroes, two of whom HE'S BEEN ON THE LEAGUE WITH BEFORE.

Anyways Bats does have ONE good point in his leadership so far: he wants the team to keep a low profile. While it's hard given the army of camera's outside, the team dosen't know each other, hasn't trained together yet, and needs time to be in full shape. After all they just barely got superheroes back in the popular opinon: while Godfrey DID juice up people's emotoins, it dosen't mean it won't swing back to negative easily if they fuck up.

Unfortuantely for them... someone else has other ideas.. and i'ts not fate because their in the room. At the UN Kimyo Hoshi is in the bathroom puzzled by receving a JL signal device from Max and not sure if she'll accept. Kimyo is the second Dr. Light, a hero unlike her predecessor and a scientest from Japan who got her powers during the crisis. She.. wont' be here long as while the issue plays her up as a member on the cover, she never fully joins the league. More on that in the future. For now she exits the bathroom.. to find herself a hostage. Terroists have taken the UN. THankfully she activates the device and while Batman's very confused dr. light has one, rallies the team to go anyway.

Naturally Brucey Boy is cautious, having most of the team get in the bug, while he sends Fate and Billy to scout ahead. Guy WANTS to but Batman's response to the idea of sending a human bulldozer who barely listens to him into a tense hostage situation?

The team enters and despite the disfunction so far... it goes easily: Guy seals the premiters and probably invents some new swears, beetle does his best as the guy in the chair in the bug

And Fate.. well fate left and told Billy batman would understand and left the ten year old to explain this.

The league clean house.. but Batman notices a problem: these guys are ameture, clumsy and their equipment is oudated. Something else is going on here.

Time for that is passed soon though as Guy dive sin and finishes the job quickly. It's a nice sequence overall that shows the team REALLY is this good: this is a setup sure, but they don't know that. The lead terroists plans to detonate himself and batman... tells them to clear the room and let him, knowing somethign we don't as the man prepares to fir eon him and after they exit we get a wrapup via news as Max once again watches

So yeah SOMETHING made the leader kill himself, and max is behind anything. not a MASSIVE twist as the batman conversation set it up, but still a neat one: Max has plans for the league. I also like the focus on optics here: it's something I don't THINK the league had done before, the idea of how the media views a superhero team. This verison of the league isn't bad.. but Batman's refusal to talk to the press allows them to paint the narrative they want instead of the league controlling it. It's what gives Max a leg up on slowly wrestling control of it and makes him a compelling character from the word jump: Unlike Batman, he clearly gets optics, having set this up to force the league into the spotlight bright and early and removing the of america part to give the team a bigger calling. His tactics for doing this are also brilliant but we'll get more on them as we go.

For now this issue.. is as good as ever. Amazingly drawn, sharply written and nicely snappy, setting up the team, the myth arc with max and the situation their in all in one issue while modernizing thigns a bit: instead of space monsters our heroes are now fighting terrorists. Not that I mind fighting a godo space monster, but I get trying to give the leauge something diffrent and more part of the world. And part of the world is a major part of this series: putting the League more into our world an dhaving to deal with things like the media, other nations, etc. It's a brilliant start

Next Time: The last heroes of a dead world try to save ours while a greedy bearded man wonders who he can exploit this and the team gets some gold.

#dc comics #blue beetle #batman #justice league international #maxwell lord #keith giffen #black canary #mister miracle #scott free #dinah lance #martian manhunter #shazam #captain marvel #billy batson #the 80s #comics

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bubblegum-blackwood · 1 year ago

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VC Fic Rec Friday is back! Here's some more random fics I enjoyed.

Zealotry for the Damned by @faerywhimsy - E, 13607 words, Armand/Daniel (sort of). This AU is AMAAAZING!!! Based on the idea that Armand was originally the villain of QotD, it explores his adventures serving Akasha before she ultimately chooses Lestat over him (devastating!). This made my lil monsterfucker heart so damn happy because it's a dark twist on The Devil's Minion and it's DELICIOUS. Armand is so mean to his pet and it's just 🥵🥵🥵 Nik absolutely NAILED the creepy awful monster-human "romance" I read this fic two months ago and it still haunts me (compliment). Daniel being the goodest lil bloodbag boytoy too 🥺 And the really artful tie-ins to actual scenes on QotD and other events in the Chronicles! Ugh it's just so good. I'm throwing a fit.

Out, Damned Spot by @covenofthearticulate - G, 2774 words, Louis/Lestat. No words just 🥹🥹🥹 It's ADORABLE!!!!! Reminders of just how young Lestat is, of how much he and Louis do love each other despite everything, just them being cute and domestic with Claudia!!! Definitely a fic to read if you need something that will make you smile and giggle and kick your feet like an idiot.

Aftercare by lani/@santinos-neckline - Not Rated, 1908 words, Mael & Santino. Listen I am just so starved for fics with my guy Mael and this was a godsend. Vivid, poetic imagery, the awkward petty teenage rivalry, the SALT, the fact that despite whatever it is they have going on Santino chooses to help Mael anyway. I love it!

Fate as it Flows by @apoptoses - E, 14808 words, Armand/Daniel. The "watersports" tag had me a lil hesitant because I had never read that before and I didn't know if I would like it, ngl, but YOOOOO it was SO WORTH IT to read this fic!!! Istfg @apoptoses can make anything sound hot as hell if she tries hard enough. It hits all the buttons for me with Armand being creepy and spying on Daniel's mind, Daniel being too embarrassed to ask for what he wants (mood), the little details about their relationship like Armand not specifying that Daniel had to ask permission but Daniel waiting for it anyway 😂 10/10 would recommend this fic fundamentally changed me as a person lmao

Moon Above, Sun Below by @monstersinthecosmos - E, 9767 words, Armand/Daniel. CAUTION: PRODUCT MAY BE HOT. Omg this is everything. A really fun take on the Devil's Minion years when Daniel was doing other people for Armand, looking into just how fucking thirsty he was for this freaky lil vampire!!! And then Armand realising, oh shit, maybe I'm just as thirsty for this crazy-ass monsterfucker lmao. It's SO GOOD!

#vc

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green-angst-and-ham · 11 months ago

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YET MORE INCOHERENT SCREAMING

Did that have even the slightest resemblance to the comic? Not in any way. Was it absolutely amazing and was I grinning all over my face like an idiot and bouncing up and down on the couch? Forsooth, I was delighted.

Methinks that was the greatest half hour of television to ever exist, or possibly the greatest of my life, I shall never recover

Yes this is a Buckynat blog but Loki alas-poor-Yorick-ing!!! I just know Tom Hiddleston put his entire Shakespearean soul into that and it was glorious, my theatre-major self is content

The Odinkids are getting along!! I’m so proud!

Tony, drunk in a hayloft, as he is wont to be.

Rogers Hood and Maid Margaret is the most brilliant thing to have ever graced mine eyes, long live the Outlawvengers

BUCKY!!!! Look at this man and his gauntlet-arm and his crossbow and his best friend Steve, he is beautiful and I love him and this is brilliant and perfect and AJDHSHDK I AM HAPPY

Red Skull fight!! Bucky’s just getting to mix it up with all the Hydra folks this season, isn’t he?

Since Clint was mentioned and Natasha is AWOL, I choose to imagine that Clint rescued both of them from a medieval Red Room or something, and the thought of the resulting shenanigans brings me great joy

You can HEAR how much fun Jon Favreau is having voicing Evil Happy. “The pipes, the pipes are calling!” Also that role in the original comic tie-ins was played by the Punisher which would have been very bad so I’m glad we went the fun route

On the subject of King Thor, I feel the need to inform the masses that the king in the original comic was King James, who is Scottish and angry and possibly gay for Quicksilver and is also Wolverine, which makes me wish they could have borrowed Hugh Jackman off the Deadpool set

“Shut thy mouth” is now a permanent fixture in my vocabulary

I will think about nothing but this episode for the next week, I want to write a bajillion fics

I can end my incoherent screaming in no other way than with an emphatic HUZZAH

#marvel #what if season 2 #i’m back on my bullshit #bucky barnes #natasha romanoff #MY CHILDREN MY BABIES MY MEDIEVAL SUPERHEROES #marvel 1602

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which-star · 1 year ago

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Hi! I just reread the Spider-Women crossover and was wondering if you recommended any of the Spider-Verse events for Cindy/Gwen friendship content?

Another related question, do you recommend any of the Spider-Verse events for any specific Cindy Moon content?

Hi ink! I've been refreshing my memory on the spiderverse events for you and I have a relatively long answer that's honestly a really short TLDR: none of them are must-must-reads 😭 I'm going to go through every spidey event Cindy was apart of (that I could think of) so, if any of these interest you, you can check them out for yourself or ask me to summarize/condense in another ask because I would be happy too! Long post ahead!

For Silk specifically, she played the biggest role in the original spiderverse event where she was introduced. That's where she meets Gwen and Jess for the first time, so you get the background of the Spider-Women dynamic and there's some fun back and forths in the middle of all the running. Fair warning: this is before her solos so the Cindy/Peter undertones are still there and she's not really the Silk we know now. She's fresh out of the bunker, just became a hero, immature and reckless... and still being underestimated and babied --- just really different. (I can do more meta but I won't make this ask a ten page essay bc I love you guys). Still, I think it remains to be the spiderverse event where Silk plays the biggest role.

For that event, Spider-Woman Vol.1: Spider-Verse (Spider-Woman 2015 #1-4) will get you into the thick of it. It's right after the big group breaks off into a bunch of tie-ins and missions (The Amazing Spider-Man 2014 #9-10) so we get to focus on a narrower cast. I don't think you particularly need to read TASM when the Cindy-writing is... not great, but if you want further background on the event itself that's the starting point for the whole event. If you find yourself wanting to know the end after the Spider-Woman tie-in: TASM 2014 #12-15 is your answer!

Otherwise, I can't really name a particular big spidey event where Silk is particularly relevant. You can skip Spider-Geddon (the sequel event to Spider-Verse) since it's mainly centered around Otto Octavius and Miles Morales, but Cindy does pop up throughout Spider-Geddon #0-5 to say. like. two-three lines total. Peter had a mini spidey team-up for the Sins of Norman Osborn/Last Remains arc that Cindy participated in with the other 616-adjacent spideys + Gwen. Not a must read but you get to see them team up again! It's not the best Spider-Man run, but when the spideys show up it's right as it finally starts picking up so it's not as much of a slog like it would be if you were reading the whole Kindred arc.

Last Remains you can start reading at TASM 2018 #48, TASM: The Sins of Norman Osborn #1, TASM #49 and then TASM #50LR-54LR with #55. The issues denoted with LR follows the spidey team-up while the regular #50-54 just follows Peter.

The Edge of Spider-Verse 2022 event leads into the End of Spider-Verse event and issue #5 shows an alternate universe Silk from Earth-71490, which is fun! Marvel Voices: Spider-Verse 2023 has a Cindy short that was interestingly done even if the ending fell a bit flat for me. Spider-Verse Unlimited Infinity Comic (2022) is also, surprise, not really required reading but for the sake of being thorough her solo episode is #40 and she is part of the final act in episodes #49-53. I liked ep.51's paneling and you get a good grasp of the storyline Cindy's a part of with just reading the episodes mentioned above.

Oh! Speaking of Edge of Spider-Verse, Cindy does play a relatively big-ish role in the End of the Spider-Verse (Spider-Man 2022 #1-7) when they explore a world with Silk as the main character and Peter as her guy in the chair. BUT the writing is soo 2D, plot paper-thin, and it manages to mischaracterize everyone involved. Slott doesn't even touch Cindy till she becomes a plot point and even then it feels like he's scared of writing her after the backlash of him creating her (as he should be tbh). It's not worth reading but there are certain things established that might play a larger part later like Cindy being retconned into being the Queen totem instead of the Bride. If you wanna get mad at all the spider-girlies characterization, read this event LOL, just keep in mind that it's not a good representation of anyone and boooo Bailey.

Now as for the ones I'd recommend... to be honest, there's a lot where I liked the ideas there but not particularly enough to say you should go through the trouble to read. I would definitely recommend Edge of Spiderverse #5 because it's fun and cute and the Marvel Voices short since it's unique and both of those are easy to find/read. Events where Gwen and Cindy actually exchange a line or two are in Spider-Verse, Last Remains, the Infinity Comic (I think, either that or they share a panel lmaoo) and the End of the Spider-Verse where Gwen calls Cindy bossy pffft. I liked seeing what would've happened if Silk was the main spider-character in EotS and there's a Felicia cameo in LR where silkcat shares one panel and two lines ragging on Peter. As much as I don't like Silk's early depiction, I do think the original Spider-Verse event shares some interesting nuggets about Cindy so if you are a brave soldier you can tread the waters there. And if you made it this far... thanks for reading; you get a medal!!

#cindy moon #ask #which comics #silk #spiderverse #this ended up so much longer than it was supposed to be sorry ink!#ink tag #I'm just a completionist so I've read all of these 😭😭😭#long post

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ladylaviniya · 11 months ago

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I know lots of people had a bad 2023 and there's really traumatising things happening in the world.

But I will be selfish and share the good things that happened in my year that drowned the bad:

1. Friendships have been made. I have been incredibly lonely since 2020 due to a plethora of reasons. I met my online bestfriend in person this year. I have made friends here on Tumblr over fandoms I didn't originally know about.

2. I learnt how to date and what men really mean when they're actually using an innuendo. This has led me to unashamedly put my standards high and my boundaries strongly walked.

3. I got diagnosed with ADHD, which has given me the opportunity and privilege to access medication that has significantly improved my mental health.

4. I got a new job that I actually love with a respectful boss! No more living paycheck to paycheck on government supports.

5. I get to live in a affordable flat with a roof over my head in a safe neighbourhood. No fearing for break ins and no worrying about making rent in on time.

6. I learnt how to balance giving myself a break and motivating myself. How to give myself real self-care.

7. I managed to get help, therapy that helped me find outlets and strategies to express my anger, anxiety, depression, rage and controversial thoughts without everlasting abundance of shame.

10. I survived my own mind long enough to turn 22 years old. Kinda a big flex 💪 telling my intrusive thoughts to fuck off.

11. I have reconnected to the happier version of me. I have embraced the joy I had when I was 13. When I got butterflies over actors and characters and the thrill of reading new fanfics.

12. Despite being shadow banned, I was able to create a new account and start fresh and happy. Tagging and organising posts.

13. My Abuser is still alive and well. She remarried and had a baby. But she finally changed her lastname from my fathers to her new husbands, cutting the important tie we shared. I want to say that I hope her daughter grows up and grows to hate, despise, and abandon her, even murder her...but I also don't care anymore. I think I'm healing. I'll never forget those horrors, but after over 11 years I think I'm accepting there's nothing I can do to get the justice back and even if I got my revenge entirely...it wouldn't have changed what happened. Those are words for the universe.

In a year I am sure there will be lots of things that might change my life again. But after so many years...I'm getting used to it. This year has been relatively peaceful. I pray we all have a peaceful and accepting 2024.

I'm going to reblog this and see if in a year how much life as changed. ��️ A message to future me... You might be scared, you might be sad, but you are alive and loved and your creativity brings joy. You have survived before, you will survive again. There's always a way out of trouble with the right support and resources. Don't give up. Stay proactive. You can do it because you've done it before.

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televinita · 1 month ago

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Shelves I Am Debating Adding to My Goodreads

(talking random ideas out in a public forum helps me think)

Maps (I would like to remember which books have cool maps inside them!)

Illustrated (for books, mostly children's and vintage, with pencil sketches within the text and similar)

Endpages (we love a book with illustrated endpages) (it would also help remind me which books are Not Good Enough to get as ex-library, whose stickers and tape ruin them)

Mixed/multi-media? (I have a "unique books" shelf that already covers the coolest ones, but stuff like A Good Girl's Guide to Murder that just switches up prose with things like text messages, emails, etc. might be interesting to keep track of too. I'm just not sure exactly what the best term for this is)

Mass Market Genre (cozy mysteries and more generic/Harlequin-type romances, which just aren't quite on par with normal standalones. the recommendation feature is mostly garbage now, but keeping those out of consideration can't hurt)

Romance (genre tag for the standalone contemporary style right now, because I have an "OTP" shelf, but that's specifically for book couples I ship and that doesn't happen for me in all of them, or maybe even most)

Mystery and/or Thriller (actually criminal I don't have this yet, but for a long time I didn't read enough adult fiction so if it wasn't horror or historical I just slapped it all under 'contemporary-adult' (separate from longstanding #1 shelf Contemporary YA) but I should really divide them out)

Ugly Covers (I finally made a Cover Love shelf for the beautiful ones, and I don't usually read books with ugly covers for obvious reasons, but sometimes there's only one edition of a book that came via friend rec and whose summary sounds irresistible, and you don't have a choice. Across The Desert. I want to yell about them)

Hollywood or Celebrities (I finally made a 'music' tag but that covers pretty much any book where the main character is a musician or listens to music; I need one for actors too because I'm starting to read more of those. Celebrity memoirs will stay in the Memoir tag because those are mostly the kind I read anyway)

Film And TV (I have a TV Tie-ins shelf for those kinds of novels specifically, but I also want a place for my nonfiction related to the entertainment industry, a reading category which continues to grow)

Gift Books (this is a category in my book catalog for how I would hypothetically shelve the small and pretty books together; why not make it GR Official)

UK and Ireland (I have an International Setting tag but it never quite felt right applying that to the Isles when it evokes more far-flung lands. On that note, may also need a Canada one) (I HAVE thought about doing one for every state, too, just for data reasons, but the idea of adding up to FIFTY new shelves on one theme seems like it would overwhelm my system)

EDIT:

Movie Cover Accepted (or something like that! Most of the time I'm happy to join in on the movie cover hate bandwagon, but on occasion, I actually like them as much or more than the originals. Specific ones I've seen recently are The Storied Life of A.J. Fikrey, Daisy Jones & The Six, and It Ends With Us. also let's not forget about the random LOTR book I bought because of Viggo Mortensen on the cover...)

Beautiful Buildings (you slap a beautiful old mansion on a cover and I'm 50% more likely to read it. I have a lot of these. I would like to gaze upon them all at once)

Restoration (I ALSO read a lotta books, both fiction and non, about restoring old houses)

#hypothetical goodreads shelves

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stardestroyer81 · 3 years ago

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Happy third anniversary to Mega Man 11, the blue bomber's triumphant return since Mega Man 10, which released eight years prior! I've mentioned in a previous ask that Mega Man 11 is not only tied with its predecessor as my favorite Mega Man game, but it's also a contender in a three-way tie for my favorite video game ever— and for good reason!

Mega Man 11 is noteworthy for a variety of reasons, but for me, I feel like its strongest point is staying true to the classic Mega Man formula while trying enough new things to form its own identity. More or less, it's like a modernized NES Mega Man, with the addition of a game-changing mechanic, a solid team of voice actors, and perhaps the most expressive robot master line since Mega Man 8!

Speaking of the eleventh line of robot masters, back in March I began making posts that showcased the eight robot masters of Mega Man 11 sprited into an NES-esque style. The posts were certainly way more well-received than I thought they would be, and they were a whole lot of fun to make!

Anyone who's been keeping track of said posts, however, knows that there's still two robot masters left to be seen sprited, those robot masters being Blast Man and Impact Man. Really, the biggest reason I haven't gotten around to making posts for them yet is because of both bosses' backgrounds (Especially Blast Man's) have a lot of detail in them, and it's been really hard trying to get them to look right.

But with the anniversary of Mega Man 11 finally upon us, I didn't want to keep any of my followers waiting for any longer for the last two bots of the lineup, so I figured what way to show them off...

... than showing the entire line all together!

While I still feel a little bad about not having sprited demakes for the boss rooms of Blast Man and Impact Man yet, the arrival of Mega Man 11's release date made for the perfect opportunity to get around to showing their respective sprites since I have had both done for quite a while! With that, let's start with the robot master who was originally going to be next in line to be showed off... Blast Man!

Blast Man is unique in a way that he bears a more simplistic design (In a similar vein to Fuse Man and Block Man) while still having just a touch of the modern design influences that the rest of the lineup has. However, he still has a lot of cool features that aren't really explored a whole lot, such as his tri-button torso piece and his segmented boots, which I find to be really neat!

To make up for the lack of backgrounds for both Blast and Impact, I've made gifs showcasing the process I took in making their sprites as I've been doing for my more recent sprite posts! The biggest challenge in spriting Blast Man for me was accounting for the smaller details on his armor, as well as nailing his red headpiece, which I found was detrimental if I wanted his overall sprite to look good.

Another small detail I wanted to account for was Blast Man's skin tone— there are a lot of Blast Man sprites out there that portray him with the same skin tone as most of the other vaguely humanoid robot masters, which I always found to be off-puttingly inaccurate. I made absolutely certain that this was something I would correct with my 8-Bit interpretation!

And with the ins-and-outs of Blast Man's sprite design process done and out of the way, now we can move onto the last robot master of the pack, who I regard as being my favorite of the eight...

BEHOOOOOOOLD!!! IMPACT MAN!!!

The overall design of Impact Man is an interesting one; I remember when I first saw him that I thought his yellow/orange color scheme was just how he was shaded, but as it turns out, that's actually a component of his design. I also didn't really understand the spike on his head until we got around to seeing his full-body... though now knowing that he's made up of the Impact Brothers, it's a really cool design approach!

Impact Man's hulking size resulted in a particular challenge when I got around to spriting him. A lot of the Impact Man sprites out there fall in under two categories: they're either accurate to Impact Man's design, but are much too small, or they keep his size in check, and as a result doesn't necessarily have that Mega Man feel to it.

Perfectly striking a balance between the two was an astronomical feat, too. The biggest thing I wanted to make sure my sprite of Impact Man had were those classic 'robot master eyes', and from there I would sprite the rest of him as accurately sized as I could manage, all while still having him be smaller than Bounce Man.

Color choice was also very important, too! My original Impact Man sprite from 2018 used seven colors, and my version from 2019 had six colors like the present version above, though the color I swapped out for the latest version was a shade of grey so I wouldn't have to color every dark section of him a solid black.

It feels so wonderful to finally get to show off all eight of my sprite demakes of the robot masters from Mega Man 11, and I hope that you've enjoyed them and the processes in making them that I detailed! I do intend on spriting out backgrounds for Blast Man and Impact Man when I get some more practice, but for now, here's to another year of the Double Gear!

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raindancer2004 · 3 years ago

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Memories

Word Count: 1,492 Jane x male OC Warnings: Fluff, Angst, mentions of being burned at the stake

Hello! I was wondering if you could please do the angst prompts 37 and 21 with Jane Volturi ??? For @bugmanor

Volterra – Present day

Jane was on guard duty in Aro’s private study staring out the large window, lost in her thoughts as he dealt with the piles of papers on his large oak desk.

***Memory***

England – Sometime after 800AD

Jane was sitting in the Daisy field by her home making Daisy chains with her twin brother Alec and younger sister Anna when he walked by. Jane’s eyes followed him as he walked through the field to get home, missing the look her brother gave her.

Micha was a few years older than Jane but spent time with her nonetheless, he was one of the few villagers that didn’t seem scared of the twins, that didn’t appear to the hate the twins. Alec was unsure of him but he put that down to the fact that the majority of the villagers were not very nice and that he disliked them as much they disliked him and his sister. Alec decided to give Micha a chance as Jane seemed to like him and she seemed happy.

Micha watched how the villagers treated Jane and her brother Alec, he watched as they ignored the twins, watched as they whispered about the twins whenever they walked through the village, some going as far as pointing at them. They were treated as outcasts because the superstitious villagers thought they were Witches.

Micha never spoke up in public when he heard villagers speak badly of the twins but he offered his support to Jane whenever he saw her upset.

As the weeks passed Micha courted Jane and they spoke of a future away from their village, setting up a home somewhere new, somewhere where noone knew them. “Do you think you could ever love me?” Jane asked Micha “I already love you” He kissed her cheek before taking hold of her hand “I want to show you something” He led her to a clearing where she saw a stake surrounded by logs and twigs “Wh-what is this?” She asked looking up at Micha, confusion clearly shown on her face “Your end Witch” He replied smirking, as he pulled her closer to him before shoving her towards another villager “Tie her to the stake” He called out as Jane struggled under the other man’s hold.

Tears began to build behind her eyes as she tied to the stake and then her heart dropped when she saw two villagers dragging Alec towards the second stake that she hadn’t noticed originally.

Once the twins were secured to the stakes Micha’s father lit a touch and made his way over to each stake setting them alight. Jane looked at Micha and saw the wicked smile on his lips and she felt her heartbreak at his betrayal.

Flames began climbing up the twigs towards them, grey smoke climbing upwards into the sky. Jane cried out in pain as the flames started licking at her ankles and she tried to focus on the desire to inflict pain on those who were hurting her. Alec grunted as he felt the flames licking at his ankles too and he tried to focus on escaping the pain he was feeling.

Flashes of black and grey passed by them, multiple screams filled the air followed by the sound of broken bones although the later was drowned out by the screaming and the sounds of the roaring flames. One of the grey flashes stopped beside Jane’s stake and pushed it over so it hit the floor, landing away from the burning fire. He then repeated the action with Alec’s stake, both of them saved from being burnt alive.

“Felix are they safe?” A male voice called out “Yes master. They’re safe, they just need to be untied” Felix untied the twins and helped them both to stand “Hello my dears, I’m Aro and this is Felix” “Hello” Jane and Alec replied together.

They all watched as Caius and Demetri began setting the village alight “Not our home, please. Our mother and sister” Jane cried out as she watched two figures walk towards their home. “Demetri” Aro called out and he nodded in response. Demetri looked inside the home in question and found two dead bodies, a dark-haired woman and a blonde-haired child. “I’m sorry master but they are already dead.” Jane and Alec both began to cry upon hearing that their beloved mother and sister had been killed by the villagers.

“NOT HIM!” Jane called out as Felix went to kill Micha “He comes with us” Aro told him and he nodded “Master.”

Aro, Caius, Felix and Demetri returned to Volterra, taking the twins and Micha with them. Once back at the castle Caius threw Micha in the Dungeon whilst Aro and Demetri showed the twins to a guest room. “Your rooms are not ready but they will be once you wake up” Aro advised “Our rooms?” Alec asked “Yes. Your rooms, this is your new home” Aro replied smiling “I can offer you immortally, a home here forever…if you’d like?” The twins looked at one another and nodded, Aro smiled at them “I won’t lie to you, this is going to hurt but after what you have endured, I’m confident you can handle this” Aro said before stepping closer and biting Jane. Demetri laid Jane on the bed as Aro turned his attention to Alec.

***End of Memory***

Volterra – Present day

“Jane. Jane, my dear are you ok?” Aro’s voice brought her back to the present “Sorry master. I’m ok, I was just lost in my thoughts, that’s all” She replied and he nodded, continuing with his work. Jane turned back to face the window, staring out of it again.

***Memory***

Volterra – Two months after being turned

Demetri entered the library and saw Jane sitting at one of the tables alone, he sat in the seat opposite her “Good afternoon, how are you doing today?” He asked “Fine” She replied not looking up from her book “Are you settling into the castle ok?” “Suppose” Demetri sighed, “Holding everything in doesn’t help, you know” Jane looked up from her book and glared at him for a moment and he prepared himself to feel the effects of her gift but she blinked once breaking eye contact. “You’re right it doesn’t” She replied and got up from the table and made her way down to the Dungeon. Demetri followed her, curious where she was going but stopped outside of the Dungeon door, standing at the top of the stairs waiting for her.

Once inside she walked over the cell where a dark-haired boy sat, his skin pale, drawn, his clothes hanging off of him. She noticed a plate of stale, mouldy bread and a bowl of water in the corner of his cell and smirked. The human looked up at the sound of heels clicking on the stone floor, a look of shock and fear shone in his brown eyes as they locked onto her ruby ones.

Jane took Demetri’s advice about not holding everything in and took a deep unneeded breath before fixing her gaze on the boy in front of her. He screamed out in pain as she unleashed the heartbreak of losing her mother and sister, the hurt she felt at his betrayal and finally the agonising pain of being burnt at the stake. His screams became louder, higher in pitch the longer she stared at him, her gift burning him from the inside out.

Demetri smirked from his place at the top of the stairs when the screaming started but grew concerned the longer it continued. He entered the Dungeon and stepped beside her cautiously as newborns were unpredictable “This isn’t exactly what I meant when I said holding everything in doesn’t help” He chuckled lightly “Maybe not but it’s helping me. He caused this pain, he’s the reason I lost my family, my life. He doesn’t deserve to live” “I agree but how about we take a walk and I’ll send Felix in to…finish him?” He asked and she thought for a moment, breaking eye contact with the human “Why?” “Because little one, you have been through enough recently and you are better than him. Let Felix end his life and I assure you he will make sure that pathetic excuse of a human suffers greatly” Jane nodded and let Demetri lead her out of the Dungeon.

Felix met them at the top of the stairs “Kill that human but make sure he suffers greatly” Demetri told Felix “It would be my absolute pleasure” “Thank you” Demetri replied and Felix smiled at his friend and Jane.

***End of memory***

Volterra – Present day

Jane entered her room after guard duty to find a daisy crown on her pillow with a note

For you little one. D

Jane smiled at the gesture for Demetri did this on the same day every year, marking the day he stopped her from killing that human, marking the day they became friends.

#jane volturi #alec volturi #demetri volturi #felix volturi #aro volturi #marcus volturi #caius volturi #jane x oc #volturi #twilight #SoundCloud

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goddamnwebcomics · 3 years ago

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Got a few, though it’s been a while since I read a lot of em…

- Zoophobia - lady with a fear of animals goes to a school in hell where most of the students are animals/animal like. She teaches theatre there. Meanwhile villains are doing whosywhatsits.

- Magick Chicks- by the same person who did Eerie Cuties, and about the same almost-porn ideas, just replace monsters with magical girls. Forgot to mention that the artists style is some mix of anime and Archie like comic aesthetics, and it can be distracting.

- Sinfest - a really odd one to me. On one hand, I feel like it tackles a lot of interesting ideas, and you can feel there’s a lot of meaning behind it with the art which swaps between newspaper comic and a heavily shaded serious look. On the other hand it just feels like it’s trying to handle a million ideas, it kinda hamfists a ton of ideals, and many characters are not very clever or likable to me. (Literally, a background character reads poetry that describes another character, as if it’s a metaphor or just something unrelated)

-Kick Girl- A young lady demon gets caught by a cult (led by her ex, essentially) and used to unseal hells legions. Afterwards she travels to find someone to help, coming across a naive and hopeful monk, jerkass angels, and giant spiders. It’s a friend of mines comic, and I do not think it’s bad so much as flawed, there are ideas here I feel that couldve been more thought out than they were, but I found it to be good.

- Manly Guys doing Manly Things - One I remember liking a lot, even if there are a ton of references. About a Supersoldier type guy running what is essentially a support/employment office for other famous characters (mainly from video games, like Ganondorf, Kratos, etc.). It’s mostly little scenarios from comic to comic, but they do story arcs from time to time.

-Mokepon- A Pokémon based comic where a Teen is forced to go on a Pokémon trainer adventure. Another one I like, cause it strikes more of a balance between the nonsense the Pokémon first Gen had and the original stuff being added, though some choices are strange, like the tie ins to the creators other comics.

My thoughts on all of these.

1. Ah yes, Vivzie’s webcomic before she would go on to make those animated thingies. Apparently it’s a highly problematic webcomic according to some and it’s also on Bad Webcomics Wiki, I’ll have to really consider this before adding it.

2. Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen!

3. Uhh, Sinfest is complicated for me personally. It was good at first but then it turned into the author’s vent journal. It’s one of those bad webcomics that everybody knows. Maybe when it ends.

4. Sounds like a wacky happy time comic with decent amount of obscurity. I can add it to the rifflist.

5. I have a harder time riffing gag a day comics, but story arcs may probably be easier to cover. I need to tear apart more crossover based webcomics!

6. That doesn’t sound too mockable, but I’ll include it either way. Some Pokemon webcomics have a tendency to become really pretentious or gritty.

#bad webcomic #weird webcomic #furry webcomic #not exactly safe for work #submission #sinfest #magick chicks #manly guys doing manly things #mokepon #zoophobia #kick girl

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murasaki-murasame · 4 years ago

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Thoughts on Higurashi Gou Ep22

All of this ‘the culprit’s motives are super shallow and they’re just unhealthily obsessive’ discourse is giving me war flashbacks to . . . . basically every other part of the entire When They Cry franchise, lol.

Thoughts under the cut. [Plus spoilers for Umineko]

I feel like at the end of the day we’re all just gonna have to agree to disagree about how we feel about how Ryukishi is handling Satoko as the culprit here, since I don’t really think any amount of social media posts detailing our interpretations of her character are gonna change anyone’s minds, lol. But I’m still gonna give my thoughts on her anyway because it’s fun, even if I’m basically just preaching to the choir.

To be honest, this feels pretty much in line with how Ryukishi already wrote characters like Takano and Beatrice, in terms of them having unhealthy obsessions that lead them to mass-murder. The amount of violence Satoko has caused is arguably worse than either of them, but they’re all pretty awful if you think about the reality of what they all did as villains.

Sorta like with how a lot of the old-school Umineko discourse went, I think people are too focused on the whole idea of Satoko hating studying, and ignoring everything else about her character and her circumstances. Although even then I feel like people are being kinda unfair toward Satoko about how strongly she feels about academics, but maybe I’m just biased because of my own history with schooling and the intense levels of anxiety and self-hatred that can go along with it.

Plus the fact that Satoko already has a long history of sever abandonment issues, and has basically always had HS that amplified her feelings of paranoia and persecution. It’s pretty obvious at this point that she never really got ‘cured’ in the first place, though it’s less important to think about HS as an in-universe fictional disease with it’s own rules, and more important to just think about it as a representation of real-life mental illnesses which aren’t bound by the rules of made-up brain-worm parasites and aliens or whatever.

Also, the Satoko that started all this looping in the first place was one who never dealt with Teppei returning to the village, and thus never went through her whole character arc related to that. The series is kinda ambiguous about how it handles the idea of people’s character development carrying over between loops, but it explains a lot about Satoko’s attitude here if you go with the idea that she never really had to overcome any of her trauma or coping mechanisms in the “good ending timeline”, and this is the consequence of that taken to it’s logical extreme. The idea of her view of the world being skewed by the fact that she only remembers the “good ending timeline” is also kinda lamp-shaded by the part where she hears about Rika’s looping and is like “oh yeah, that’s the month where we had that cool action movie stand-off with the Mountain Dogs :)”. By the time she really got to understand exactly what was going on beyond the specific timeline she had experienced, she was already way over the edge.

I get why people don’t like the idea of Gou ‘tainting’ the VN’s happy ending, but I honestly like the idea that it’s examining the consequences of how Matsuribayashi was such an overly-specific timeline where basically nothing bad happened and everyone just banded together to beat Takano. It kinda glossed over a lot of the personal problems that the main cast had in the rest of the series, and this really goes to show the effects of some of that stuff not getting properly addressed. It also reminds me that Minagoroshi is a timeline that even in the VN, Rika completely lost her memories of, so I can see how even post-Matsuribayashi she might have never let Satoko know about the details of that one timeline where she overcome her abuse.

I also feel like it only really got to this point because of Featherine’s meddling. In the original Matsuribayashi timeline, Satoko just started drifting away from Rika and ended up wandering into the Saiguden and meeting Featherine before anything actually serious happened in that timeline. I think that if she had just been left to her own devices and that timeline had just kept going, Satoko probably would have either found a way to reconnect with Rika, or they would have just slowly drifted apart for good. But then Satoko got given the power to time travel, and only started going off the deep end after going through another five years of identical suffering.

And on that whole note, it reminds me of how in Umineko, Lambda had a whole conversation about the idea of an abused person becoming an abuser themself if they’re given the power to lash out. Which is basically what’s happening here. Satoko is being given the tools to completely detach herself from reality and try as many times as she likes to get what she wants.

Which also reminds me that this episode in particular REALLY lays the Umineko parallels on thick, lol. Particularly the whole ‘Satoko is turning into Lambda’ thing, which feels just about 100% confirmed now. They straight up have Featherine bring up the exact same ‘monkeys using a typewriter’ analogy to explain Rika’s situation that Lambda uses in Umineko to explain Bern’s situation.

I know a lot of people don’t like the increasingly blatant Umineko tie-ins, and that a lot of people still think it might just be misdirection, but considering how much stuff in Gou has been surprisingly straightforward and predictable, I think it’s pretty much exactly what it seems to be.

Though to be more specific, this is probably more about the start of Lambda and Bern’s relationship, and their appearances in Umineko, rather than the very first origins of them as individuals, if that makes sense. Obviously the concept of Bernkastel as an identity has been around since Higurashi itself, and we’ve known for a long time that Lambda was the one who originally gave Takano her blessing of certainty, but we’ve never known the full details of how those two started their relationship, and Featherine’s whole series of name-drops in the last episode makes it seem like Lambda as a meta individual more or less already exists, with Satoko being an iteration of her. So I think they both technically already exist, but this is how the two of them come into contact and start their whole unhealthily obsessive relationship.

I guess it’s still possible that, even if she’s already existed for a long time as a meta individual, she hasn’t actually come up with the name ‘Lambdadelta’ for herself yet, and this might be where she does so. Even with the list of names Featherine referenced, she didn’t technically bring up Lambda’s name directly. So in that sense this might be ‘Lambda’s’ origin story, even if she already exists.

Considering how basically the entire story at this point seems to be acting in service of setting up the whole LambdaBern relationship dynamic no matter what, I’m becoming increasingly convinced that this will end with Satoko and Rika fully embracing their codependency and mutually ascending to the meta plane so they can stay together once and for all. There might still be human versions of them that stay behind in the real world and continue living normal lives, though.

At the very least, it feels like that’s the logical outcome of the whole Chekov’s Sword Fragment plot device that’s been hanging in the background for ages now. I think it’ll just be the in-universe explanation they use to show the mechanics of how exactly that process works. It’ll probably be used to ‘sever’ Satoko and Rika’s meta consciousnesses from their physical bodies and allow them to basically become witches.

Mainly I just can’t really see this having a ‘happy ending’ at this point, aside from the whole idea that maybe the severing process leaves behind ‘normal’ versions of the two of them who stay in Hinamizawa and go back to their normal lives. I dunno if that’d make people happy, but it’d at least be a way for Ryukishi to have his cake and eat it too, lol.

I just don’t think that there’s any real chance of this ending with them just talking to each other and agreeing to put an end to all this, though. For one thing that’d just feel kinda anticlimactic and honestly make Gou’s story feel even MORE pointless, if it just ends with literally the exact same ending as the VN with nothing really being changed. But I also feel like Featherine wouldn’t be willing to just let Satoko ‘give up’ without having one of them definitively win their current game. In general I just feel like Ryukishi should just commit to the story he’s setting up at this point, instead of just backing out at the last minute and circling everything back to the same ending we already had like nothing in Gou ever happened. If we’re gonna have this whole new story to begin with, it should at least have some lasting consequences.

Anyway, I think in the next episode we’re finally going to loop back to the Damashi arcs and see how they played out. At this point I don’t care too much about getting answers to the ground-level mysteries of those arcs, and I doubt the story will spend much time on that, but I’m curious to see how it progresses Satoko’s whole development through these loops, since I think she goes through some changes with her motives and methods over the course of them.

Specifically I think that the actual experience of being physically present in her own set of loops and causing so much pain and suffering started to get to her, and she might have almost given up in her own way during Tataridamashi and wanted to just stay in that arc, but things went south anyway. Maybe, if that’s what happened, Featherine basically let her know that she won’t let her give up, and will force her to keep looping until one of them ‘wins’ no matter what. Either way, I think that arc was a turning point for her. Like how she asked Featherine to arrange things so that Satoko can make sure that she and Rika’s loops are synced up, she probably asked Featherine after that arc to change the rules again so that Rika will start remembering the details of her deaths. At this point it’s pretty obvious that the Hanyuu fragment Rika was talking to earlier in Gou was more or less just Featherine putting on an act and manipulating her, so the scene of Hanyuu giving her the power to remember her deaths was probably just Featherine telling her about the rule change.

And going by how the Nekodamashi arc went immediately afterward, I think that rule change was related to Satoko becoming increasingly desperate to put an end to the loops as soon as possible. And considering how she was willing to spend so much time reviewing Rika’s hundred years of looping just to prepare for this, it’d make sense to me if she becomes desperate because she basically gives up, but realizes that she isn’t actually allowed to give up, so she has to try and make Rika give in as fast as possible. Either way it’s pretty obvious that Satoko’s methods start becoming more violent in that arc, and she basically tries to brute-force Rika into submission, leading up to the loop where she just spawn-camps her and straight up starts screaming at her to just stay in the village while tearing out her guts. It’s still possible that her attitude in that loop was just one big act, but I think that was the result of her being genuinely desperate to just have Rika give up once and for all, and her starting to crack under the pressure of doing all of these things with her own hands across so many loops.

So now we’ll just have to see how the confrontation between them at the end of Nekodamashi plays out once we get back to it. In the long run I just think it’ll lead to the ending I talked about before, with them using the sword on each other. The exact nuances of how that sorta ending might play out are up in the air, though.

Either way, I think there’s probably enough time to wrap up all that in two more episodes, but there’s still reason to believe that there might be some kind of sequel in the works. I don’t really want to bet on it, though, so I’m just gonna assume that there’s two episodes left and base my theories on that. In which case I think the next episode will go over the Damashi arcs and end with Rika and Satoko’s confrontation at the end of Nekodamashi, and then the final episode will wrap everything up. Considering that they both more or less know exactly what’s going on with each other by that point, there isn’t really that much that needs to be wrapped up. I think that will be the final loop we get, so it’ll all just come down to how their confrontation plays out, and what decision they come to about how to handle each other.

I honestly don’t really know how I think a full sequel would go, if it’s at least one cour long. Assuming that it’s not just a new Umineko anime that more or less continues Rika and Satoko’s arc via Lambda and Bern, but is a straight up ‘Higurashi Gou Season 2′. It just feels like there isn’t really that much that needs to be done to wrap things up, now that everything’s being laid out in the open, and Rika and Satoko are both aware of each other’s looping. They might switch it up so that they both end up teaming up to take down Featherine, but I kinda doubt that’ll happen.

I’m still hoping this is leading into some kind of new Umineko anime though, lol. That feels like it’d be the main reason for putting so much effort into this whole elaborate LambdaBern origin story we’re getting here.

I’ve heard rumors that there’s been listings for a 25th episode of Gou, so it’s possible that rather than another full season, there’s just one extra episode at the end. I’m not exactly sure what the point of doing one extra unannounced episode at the end would be, though. It might end up being a bridge between Gou and a new Umineko anime.

At the very least, if it’s just ‘Satokowashi Part 8′, it makes me wonder why they haven’t announced it yet, and why they didn’t just split that arc into two BD volumes with four episodes each, instead of having it be one big volume with seven episodes, and one random episode at the end for some reason. But if it’s more of an epilogue or a bridge of sorts between Gou and something else, with Gou’s story concluding with episode 24, then I guess it’d make some sense to do it that way.

We also know there’s gonna be a panel for Gou at a convention around when ep24 comes out, so if anything gets announced it’ll probably happen there.

Anyway, this whole episode can be summed up as “Satoko does a gay little psychological torture that pisses Rika off”, in the most morbidly entertaining way possible, lmao.

#murasaki reblogs #higurashi #higurashi gou

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