#they are the dream team but serious this was a fun comic

[grotesquehydra]

“Boomerang and some of Spidey’s deadliest baddies prove that with terrible powers come terrible responsibilities!”

The Superior Foes of Spider-Man (2013) written by Nick Spencer and artist Steve Lieber

[qs63]

I've seen many posts about the way Riza and Roy address each other, and I wanted to add my 5 cents as someone who is learning Japanese and reading the Japanese manga as part of that process (it's been fun and informative!).

There are two particular scenes I want to discuss in this post:

The first scene is their conversation under the tunnel on the Promised Day.

貴方は そちらに 堕ちてはいけない･･･!

You must not fall into that…

If you've been around here for any amount of time you probably know that Riza breaks protocol in this scene and calls Roy "貴方" (anata, you). You might also know that in Japanese people don't usually address each other as “you”, preferring to use someone's name and/or title to address them. So Riza calling Roy “anata” would sound too rude or too intimate (as this is what a wife might call her husband).

HOWEVER, anime and manga don’t use conventional Japanese. Any Japanese person will be quick to tell you that anime’s Japanese is not proper. It's often exaggerated for comedic or creative purposes. This phenomenon was once also common in English comics.

Think of all the cringe lines in the old Batman TV shows and comics. I even remember reading a note from Stan Lee in a 1960s Ironman comic saying: “We know people don't talk like this in real life”. So yeah…

The use of the many forms of “you” is common in anime/manga even if it's not proper Japanese. Fullmetal Alchemist is no exception to this.

Here is Riza calling Rebecca anata:

And Winry:

And even Barry (lol):

Riza addressing Roy as “anata” is not exactly special or a sign of them being close to each other. That's just how she normally addresses people.

Well kind of…

FMA does follow its own internal formality logic. The way the members of the military address each other is very well defined. Riza not calling Roy — a superior officer — by his official title or by “Sir” IS breaking protocol. It's not how she usually addresses him, nor how she should be addressing him.

The reason why she does this here — to my still in-training Japanese eye — is not because of closeness, or kinship, or whatever. I read this as a plea from Riza — not Lieutenant Hawkeye — to Roy — not Colonel Mustang.

Arakawa actually goes out of her way to preserve a sense of distance and propriety between them by using the kanji form of "anata" (貴方) — which can be read as more formal or stiff — instead of the commonly used kana form (あなた). This is the only instance where we see the kanji form in Riza's speech (see Rebecca, Winry, and Barry above), so its use here is VERY intentional. To me this is Arakawa's way of showing the reader (not to Roy because he will hear "anata" regardless of how it's written) that even though Riza is using an improper, somewhat familiar, way to address him, she is still trying to be proper and show reverence to him as her superior officer.

In a sense this line is actually the opposite of Riza showing a sense of closeness to Roy. What it does show is just how much she looks up to him, and how serious she takes both of their roles.

貴方はそちらに 堕ちてはいけない･･･!

You must not fall into that…

Is both an order and a plea to the man that carries her and her father's dream.

The second scene I want to discuss is the one time Roy calls Riza by her first name.

リザ！！

Riza!!

Again, this might look somewhat weird or overly familiar. Calling someone by first name without any honorifics is usually a no, no in Japanese.

HOWEVER, Amestris is not Japan. Like I said, FMA follows its own formality system, which seems to align more closely with what you would expect in an Anglo society than in a Japanese one. The use of honorifics is not overly common, especially for honorifics like “chan” which may be the one expected from Roy in this scene.

In FMA “Kun” and “Chan” are pretty much exclusively reserved for children. And its use seems to be more of a form of endearment than a social protocol. For example, Riza and Fuery both use "Kun" for Ed and Al, but the rest of team Mustang does not.

Winry using “chan” with Elicia.

Roy knows Riza's name, she's not a small child, they're of a similar social status, and she's not in a position of authority. There's no reason why he should call her anything but Riza.

This btw doesn't indicate any closeness between them. Just like someone calling you by first name wouldn't necessarily indicate any closeness in an English-speaking country.

Here are some examples of people calling each other by first name right after meeting:

Ed calls Rose by first name.

Winry calls Paninya by first name right after introducing themselves.

Al calls Ling by first name shortly after meeting each other.

More interesting than Roy calling Riza by first name, is Riza calling Roy “Mr Mustang” in return.

Riza calls Roy "マスタングさん" (Mr Mustang).

“San” (Mr/Mrs/Miss) is by far the most common honorific used in FMA, just like “Mr” would be in English. But regular people don't usually go calling each other “Mr last name”, especially not outside of a formal environment like school or work. In FMA “San” is mainly used for older people you're not very close to (The Elric brothers call many of the adults as "Mr Last name"), and for people with authority (Knox calls Roy “Mr Mustang” despite Roy being significantly younger).

The combination of first name (Roy to Riza) plus Mr last name (Riza to Roy) tells us that the relationship between Roy and Riza is NOT that of equals. In Riza's eyes Roy is in a position that warrants the use of “San”. And it makes sense, he's older, he's a Warrant Officer, and judging by Roy's questions about her family, and her “Do you remember me?” during the war, they're not too familiar with each other at this point.

Yeah… the way Roy and Riza address each other throughout the series is distant and proper of their station and rank. In terms of Roy's relationships the way Roy and Hughes, Chris and Roy, and even Knox and Roy, address each other is way more unusual than the way Riza and Roy do (I could make a follow up post about this if anyone is interested).

As a Royai fan I must say seeing this made me a bit sad. I can only wish and imagine a future where these two can finally address each other on equal footing and with the closeness their devotion to each other deserves.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

What if Idia added the school staff to the team to defeat Malleus? After all, the more, the merrier. How would they react about Idia’s video and everything else as well?

This is an idea I’ve actually discussed before (in the context of “would this actually happen in canon”)! So while I don’t think this would be canonized, I at least want to get my own thoughts and headcanons out there.

I feel like Crowley may have ulterior motives that have yet to be elaborated on, but assuming no such thing, he’s the comic relief of the group. Probably claims he is worried about Draconia-kun’s health + safety but in actuality he is worried about how a disaster of this scale could negatively impact NRC’s reputation and donors. (Also probably whines to Idia demanding to know why he didn’t include his dear old headmaster’s handsome visage in his explanation video.) But because he is such a maganimous headmaster, of course he will use the full extent of his magical might to properly punish the misbehaving Draconia-kun!

I’m not sure what Crowley’s dream would be since his backstory is so mysterious. By extension, that also means I’m not sure what would wake him up.

Crewel I think would be very mad. He taught his students better than this, how dare they betray Crewel-sama’s trust!! Since the Draconia pup has been so bad, it’s up to his owner (the game’s word choice, not mine 😭) to discipline him. You can only imagine how strongly worded his lecture would be… No holds barred. On a not-as-serious note, he has great fun with Idia’s Dream Form Change—they’re such fast wardrobe changes! Crewel even praises Idia for the innovation, but it makes Idia feel weird to receive compliments in this context…

As for Crewel’s dream… Well, since the dreams appear to be based on a shallow, convenient idea of the dreamer attaining happiness, perhaps Crewel stayed in the fashion industry and made it big. Like he owns his own popular fashion house or something, owns a house huge enough to house 101 dogs, never has to deal with the frustration of teaching or getting his student to behave ever again. Buuuut as we can see from his voice lines and vignettes, Crewel actually does like teaching (even though it’s tough on him sometimes) and, more than that, he loves seeing his pups learn and mature. He’d need to be reminded of the pride he feels when he sees his students succeed, and knowing that he had played an active role in shaping that success and interest in the sciences.

Trein would be the most interesting of the staff reactions, in my opinion. He would be able to relate a lot to Malleus’s struggle to accept loss, since Trein experienced the passing of his wife as well as the empty nest syndrome that comes with his adult daughters moving out. Because of this, I can easily see Trein empathizing with Malleus but also being extremely disappointed in him. He’d resolve to knock some sense into his student, and then deliver a harshly worded “tough love” lecture afterwards.

Trein’s dream would be so sad, man… Him living out a happy life with his wife and daughters, and then you have to come in knowing this peace has to be disrupted. Trein has been shown in the past—particularly when he interacts with Crewel and during GloMasq—that he cares deeply for his students and blames himself for failing to teach them right from wrong if they act out. Maybe the students would intentionally misbehave or act morally despicable in his presence, causing Trein’s emotions to get riled up. (After all, he did get pretty upset when his students suggested abandoning the flower infested city.)

Side note: both Crewel and Trein would worry about the health of their pets/familiar (Lucius) while they’ve been dreaming.

I unfortunately have a lot less to say about Vargas and Sam (since I feel like we don’t have enough significant lore about them to formulate concrete thoughts on this subject)… However, I do think that they’d be sort of similar in that while they do feel disappointed with what’s happening, they try to stay upbeat and optimistic about the circumstances. Like Vargas and Sam are encouraging everyone to keep their spirits high even if the chips are down! (Vargas in a more arrogant, “never fear, I am here!” way, Sam in a more “I’ll tell you some interesting stories to distract you” way.) If we wanna talk more superficially, Vargas might mention being worried about his irl muscles wasting away and Sam about his store and profits.

Of the two, I see Vargas leaning towards more disappointment and Sam being slightly impressed by what Malleus has pulled off. This is because Vargas strikes me as someone who values real, tangible gains rather than using shortcuts. That’s pretty self-explanatory from how he constantly talks about muscles, working out, and the effort it takes to get there. Sam is someone who also deals in desires + has a dark, mischievous sense of humor. He might take a look at the sheer scale of what Malleus has achieved and crack a joke about how he wishes he were the one that could take credit for it. If he had the power to make dreams come true… well then, there wouldn’t be a need to keep stuff in stock, now would there?

As is the case with Crowley, I feel like I don’t know enough about either Sam or Vargas to determine what a feasible dream for them would be. I guess maybe a world where everyone adores and fawns over Vargas like the village does for Gaston??? And maybe Sam is the one who ends up a super wealthy entrepreneur, although maybe there’s something more he wants if he’s actually indebted to his friends on the other side like Dr. Facilier is.

Anyway, those are my thoughts ^^

[ben-talks-art]

Trapped and Dreaming Freedom

So I've been reading these two webtoons lately about female leads stuck in very toxic and unhealthy relationships (while being aware of it), and I'm loving every second of it!

If you know me, you know I just love a badass cool female lead and I also love seeing characters stuck in very difficult situations and watching how they use their brains and/or skills to get out of it, and both comics excel at these aspects!

First series is "Trapped", a comic about this taxi driver who got tangled by accident with a vampire who develops an obsession with both her and her blood after she manages to outsmart him a couple of times, something that hasn't happened to him in years.

It feels very "Tom and Jerry" with both characters trying to get the upper hand on their relationship, and you would think it would be super one-sided but vampires actually have quite a bit of annoying rules on how they work that severely limit their freedom and our female lead exploits as many of them as she can to make him eat sh*t! It's just glorious!

"Dreaming Freedom" is... somehow less dark, and at the same time way darker of a series.

It's not as violent or gory but it deals with more realistic problems that hit closer to home for some like school bullying, abandonment, harassment, family abuse, and so on.

The premise is that our female lead teams up with a guy that has the power to use dreams to affect people in the real world, and they use this ability to get revenge on all the girl's classmates that harassed her, but the more our female lead does that, more the male lead gets obsessed with her and we later find out that he has some serious anger issues making him extremely dangerous.

Our lead basically goes from "I can use him to get payback!" to "Oh my God, I'm the only thing that's keeping this dude under control and away from people!"

It feels like you're being handed a living knife that you just pray won't run out of control or turn itself against you. It's so uncomfortable but at the same time so thrilling!

While I really don't like when unhealthy relationships are glamorized and used to send some kind of "Oh, he's kinda dangerous... But at least he loves you, so it's okay, right?" message, I do like it when the unhealthiness of the relationship is the focus AND is painted as a problem that needs to be fixed.

I like how both female leads always call the male leads on their bs and keep them in check whenever they start going too far, and it's fun to see how they use them whenever they're backed into a corner by the antagonists of the stories.

Also like the themes these series explore, about how when you keep dealing with people that act like monsters you see yourself slowly turning into a monster yourself and start to attract other monsters as well, eventually making you question how far can you go? How far should you go? Can you get back from it? And so on.

But most of all, I like that both series make sure to show that these "bad boys" were their last freaking options. Not the first, not the second, but the very bottom of the barrel. They went to them only after they felt they had no other choices and were sure that nobody else would take their side.

This isn't just "Oh, I went to him because he's a hot bad boy", this is "The world turned its back on me so I'm gonna use the only cards that I have left."

They basically made a deal with their devils and now the fun is watching to see how/if they're gonna get out of it.

This is how I like to see problematic relationships. You don't paint them as something normal or something good, you paint them as a hardship that needs to be dealt with and use it to do clever commentary on the worst aspects of humanity so we can learn how to be better and as a source for good and intense drama to make us worried for the main characters and invested in seeing them get out okay.

[ariel-seagull-wings]

Hey ariel.

This is a little more serious than some of our previous conservations.

So I few years back, I made a post on the X-Men subreddit about how I thought it would be a cool idea for a potential Wolverine and the X-Men revival to explore LGBT themes with Iceman and Shadowcat (given how their canonically now LGBT).

But I was meant with a surprising amount of backlash.

Saying things like that they shouldn't do that just because they weren't LGBT in the original run, or how it's just me trying to be woke or something.

And unfortunately, this isn't the only time I've seen this.

I saw a similar post about wanting to explore themes in a potential X-Men Evolution revival, but that also received a lot of backlash.

It's honestly strange how X-Men fans seem to be cool with LGBT representation in the comics, but when it comes to literally every other medium, the idea of including it is apparently just horrible.

(How much to want to bet that these are the same people who bitched about Morph being non-binary?)

But if there was Wolverine and the X-Men revival and they were allowed to have LGBT representation, how do you think Iceman and Shadowcat would be handled?

I could honestly see both of them starting off as being in the closet, Iceman especially.

I mean, his parents definitely seem like the type of people to be openly homophobic.

Also, who do you think would be a good match for them?

Kitty feels like the more brave and confident to pull Bobby out of the closet in WATXM, while she was more shy in Evolution.

That backlash is ridiculous, but sadly not surprising: there are still people who treat you like crazy if you point that the movies included queer themes like Bobby's Coming Out as Mutant and Charles and Erik being in love because Ian McKellen, an activist for gay rights, made sure to explore this angle along with director Bryan Singer who is bissexual.

But on the fun side: Besides the famous ship with Illyana, it has been popular to pair Kitty with Rachel Summers (Claremont being a huge advocate of these two together) and Xian Coy Manh (Karma).

Personally, I like the later, Kitty X Karma, and also enjoy the ship of Kitty X Dani Moonstar introduced to fandom by their interaction connecting trough dreams in Evolution.

Is important to have a ship that is both queer and interethnic.

As for Bobby, I like to pair him with St John Allerdyce (Pyro): Besides the theme of Fire and Ice love, both are the most playful members of their respective teams, with Bobby having a mathematical mind as an accountant while Pyro has a more imaginative mind of romance novel writer, and both are younger mirrors of Charles x Erik in terms of being a romance between members of X Men and Brotherhood rival teams, that could avoid the mistake of their older leaders and embrace their relationship wholeheartly instead of being separated by Mutant Infighting.

Think of it as Mutant and Queer Montague x Capulet.

[qweenofurheart]

could u explain ur ocs and ur uviverse? theyre pretty cool but idek what their names are💗

DW I GOT YOU! I know my posts aren’t very organized so I’ll try to make this sort of an overall guide.

GUIDE TO MY ORIGINAL CHARACTERS:

1. You Ate My Heart 🎀

This was an idea for a graphic novel I started in high school. The premise was a bit ridiculous (involved love spells, multiple dimensions and very abstract existential ideas) but I still am very fond of the characters and the themes of friendship, romance and depression, so I might eventually make something with them :)

Characters:

Kitty Chau/Zhou 🐈

She is the protagonist. She’s a Malaysian-Chinese student who immigrates to the USA in order to live up to her own academic expectations. She is honestly kind of a depressed and irrational person, but she also feels a lot of empathy from others. The premise begins because in a lapse of judgement she eats two hearts and ends up casting love spells on two others.

Winghead 🪽

He is one of the most popular guys at Kitty’s school. He is absolutely normal aside from the fact that he has wings on his head and no one knows his real name except for his family. He is well liked for being nice and chill to everyone. He used to date a girl named Inez (shown below) but they broke up at the end of Junior Year, and he still seems torn up about it. He is one of the people Kitty casts a spell on, and because he knows everyone in town, pretty much everyone knows when he starts acting awry.

Veel Abigail Drake 👹

She is a demon princess lol?? Kitty is jealous of her ability to express herself unflinchingly. She has some magical abilities like breathing ice and fire. She comes from another dimension (that is well known in the world, it’s just treated as like another country) and has a belligerent and extreme temper. She has a strong moral code that doesn’t really apply well in delicate situations. She is another person who Kitty spells, and bc she’s a princess, it messes up generations of politics LOL

The story seems SO serious but to be honest 90% of the time I draw these guys, it’s for the shits and giggles

2. Driver OCS 🏎️

I got really into motorsports this year (NASCAR, Le Mans, F1) so I started working on a story just to enjoy researching and writing a realistic + fun character within the world of racing!

Characters:

Santana Marsh 💥

He is half-Spanish one-quarter-Catalan and one-quarter-Irish. He was born in Louisiana but moved to North Carolina as a kid. He is 27 years old and I have written an entire backstory starting from when he began go-karting at age 8. He’s pretty much been driving his whole life. He’s competed in the Allison Legacy Series, Xfinity Series, Nascar Cup Series, and the WEC/Le Mans, and in 2024 he was signed onto the Scuderia Ferrari Formula One Team.

He’s very calm, jokey, and drives like no one else. However he also doesn't like to examine his own emotions due to his difficult relationship with his father after the death of his mother, which is something he needs to work on.

So if I were make a comic or something about him, it would be about his 2024 season, where he meets my other F1 driver characters, etc.

Logan Abujhaad 🌊

He is a rookie - two years into his F1 Career on the Mercedes Petronas team. He is 23 years old and Franco-Marocain. He has had a much less lucrative career than Santana and has a wealthy background - he grew up in Marseille. He competed in Formula Renault, Three, and Two with the support of his family.

He is polite and charming and has a lot of female fans. He’s ruthless on the circuit, and is quite promising as a rookie from his determination alone. His story follows his rivalry with his teammate and his friendship with Santana, as well as his personal struggles with his nervousness and regrets.

I also have other Formula One characters but these are the main two. You can see my other characters in this post.

I think my dream outcome for this project is to make an animated film. Who knows!!

If u have other questions or just want to add a comment feel free to send an ask!

[asexxxualauthor]

Listen, all I’m saying is that Gen 5 gave us the biggest change in the series yet, and that was aging up the protagonists.

When Pokémon first started out, it was a fun, light-hearted story of little kids befriending monsters—like My Neighbor Totoro if Totoro was a street fighter. It was Ghibli-esque, in the sense that the world was bright and fun and beautiful, and children were the hope for the future, facing down comical villains not for any personal reason but because it was the right thing to do. And that theme carried the series for a time, but when discussions of Gen 5 started to make their way out, the two big notes were that it was going to be a soft reset of the series, and that the story would be more serious this time around.

Suddenly, as if a switch had been flipped, the world of Pokémon became more layered and grounded. This wasn’t just the lighthearted optimism of Ghibli—no, this was stark, serious Shonen storytelling. Where before we had cartoonish villains with ill-planned ambitions, there was now a team with a truly compelling mission— “save Pokémon from abuse”—and how that mission got twisted by corrupt individuals, and how idealism could be used as a tool by those with power. How even good intentions can lead to disaster when puppeteered by a villain. It was everything it set itself out to be, and more.

And to fit that heavier, more mature story, the characters were aged up to match. Hilbert and Hilda, the main characters, and their friends Cheren and Bianca are canonically 16 years old, and the antagonist N is about 20. These aren’t children having fun with the big friendly Snorlax they befriended in the woods—these are teens, young adults, who see injustice in the world they traveled out into and decide to stand up and make a difference, becoming national heroes in the process. While past villains were defeated quietly and anonymously, this time the whole of the Unovan League knows what you’ve done, and how hard you fought to save the region.

This game was very much made for a specific group of fans—the young teens who had been in love with the series since the first remakes, and were now stepping into a world that was scary and unknown. It was a story of community, of uniting with others in the face of oppression, and holding tight to your ideals, your dreams.

And it did so with a protagonist about the same age as its most ardent players.

No other game in the series has been able to match the drama and spectacle of Black and White, but the effects from it have certainly lingered. The drama of Lusamine’s grief, the spectacle of Galar’s Pokémon Championship, the awe and wonder of Area Zero and its mysteries—each are glimpses of the Pokémon Company trying to recapture that lightning that left the bottle. But the most telling and most undeniable ripple leaving Gen 5 are the ages.

Where once pre-teen protagonists were the norm and rule for Pokémon games, now they are the exception. Gen 6’s Calem and Serena are clearly meant to be in their early teens—a little younger than the Gen 5 crew but still older than the past protagonists before them. Gen 8’s crew of Gloria, Victor, Hop, Bede, and Marnie are all in their mid-teens. Rei and Akari—or, rather, Lucas and Dawn—in PL:A are stated to be 15 in-game. And while there is no clear age given for Florian and Juliana, the vibe of Scarlet and Violet as a whole is very much that of a Middle or High School, with Nemona and Arven clearly being a few years older.

Pokémon isn’t just the silly idealism of childhood whimsy—it’s a game for everyone, young or old. It has always been that sort of game, but it took the shonen-ass energy of one generation in particular to make that absolutely clear.

[hiding-in-the-vault]

That last comic made me squeal because of C!George's last expression. I love the shadows over his eyes that you see in anime or comics when someone is deadly serious. Like C!George is already planning 100 ways to make C!Quackity talk meanwhile C!Sapnap's last expression gives me the impression he still wants to believe that his former fiance had some reason for doing all of that and wanting to hear him out.

It's just... chef's kiss.

eeheheh thank you :) !

George may not be so good with words of comfort, and Dream wouldn't want that rn anyway. But he knows when he sees something upsetting, and.. that sure was upsetting. (also to clarify a thing ppl have commented on while I'm at it, they both know Dream got tortured by Q, they figure he had scars, but their shock and questioning came from underestimating just how bad it was. Surely it couldn't ALL be from him--- except)

The thing (that i haven't explained yet) that caused them to really team up is related to Quackity, so Sapnap is already aware that he needs to be stopped™, outside of torturing Dream. But he's not excited about it and it took a lot to get him to get on board to begin with.

Fun stuff!

[denimbex1986]

'It’s been a long time since Doctor Who got to be outright goofy. Previous showrunner Chris Chibnall’s era was often an overly serious one, despite Jodie Whittaker’s 13th Doctor’s reputation for being a cheery iteration of the time-traveling alien. But with the return of Russell T. Davies as showrunner and writer, and with the (temporary) return of David Tennant in the title role, Doctor Who is back to being a silly, goofy old time. And that’s never been more clear than in the campy, bordering on ridiculous, anniversary special “The Star Beast.���

The first of three 60th anniversary specials airing this year, “The Star Beast” is Doctor Who in full franchise mode, with writer Davies and director Rachel Talalay (returning to Who after helming the best episodes of the Steven Moffat-Peter Capaldi era, and in perfect lockstep with Davies’ particular brand of camp), scrambling to turn the show back into the bona fide blockbuster event it once was. And they mostly succeed! Reams of fan service and transparent franchise-building can be forgiven because of how wildly fun the whole thing is — even if clunky resolutions and cheesy narrative choices mean the episode doesn’t quite hold together.

Fresh off his mysterious degeneration in “The Power of the Doctor,” the 14th Doctor lands his TARDIS in 21st-century London, where holiday celebrations are starting to be underway. He immediately runs into Donna Noble (Catherine Tate), the same mouthy and brash former companion whose memories he was forced to erase to save her life. That mind-wipe was a fragile procedure dependent on Donna not remembering the Doctor, which becomes a problem since the Doctor looks like David Tennant again. Something seems to be bringing them back together — but what?

“The Star Beast,” a jam-packed hour of television that drops us into the action and rarely stops to take a break, doesn’t give us much time to ponder this mystery. The Doctor’s shock at encountering Donna is interrupted by a crashing spaceship, which sets off a series of events putting them both on on a collision course with a cute, furry alien named Beep the Meep (voiced by the inimitable Miriam Margolyes) and an army of alien warriors chasing it across the universe.

It’s all so immediately campy it’s almost jarring after so many years of Chibnall’s plodding pacing, but that camp is — even if his interpretation of the 14th Doctor is basically just a redux of his 10th Doctor performance. Tate gets to stretch some of her dramatic muscles once again, particularly in scenes with her daughter, Rose (Yasmin Finney, warm and immediately likable in her Doctor Who debut), whose transgender storyline provides one of the episode’s more elegant narratives.

It could frustrate longtime Doctor Who viewers to learn that “The Star Beast” doesn’t bring anything new to the table. The special is almost entirely fan service, down to Donna’s quips, the Doctor’s catchphrases, and the many winks and nudges to Doctor Who history. But this is an anniversary special, after all, and it’s designed to look back, not go forward — even if its gaze backward falls disappointingly short.

But the special’s greatest shortcoming, but also its sneakiest strength, is that it is very much made with fans of the Tennant-Davies era of Doctor Who in mind. Apart from the plot, which is ripped almost verbatim from the 1980 Doctor Who comic strip by Pat Mills and Dave Gibbons (credited in the special as story writers), “The Star Beast” feels frustratingly limited in its celebration of Whovian history because it’s so focused on the “Tennant is back!” of it all. But this also feels like a calculated choice by Davies, who made clear his intention to turn Doctor Who back into the global mega-franchise it once was. Tennant’s Doctor was the closest the show had to a superhero, so if Doctor Who is going to reach Marvel levels of blockbuster spectacle, it needs to double down on the most dashing aspects of its hero.

The obvious franchise aspirations of “The Star Beast” might grate at those who have been feeling Marvel fatigue for a while. But its quippy humor, campy high jinks, and many ridiculous scenes of the Doctor saving the day with a flash of his sonic screwdriver all bring the show back to the baseline of what made the Tennant/Davies era of Doctor Who so successful: It’s in on the joke. Davies was, and still is, intensely aware of the inherent ridiculousness of a show where a time-traveling alien did battle with tin robots and calls attention to it in the most ludicrous ways possible.

Is there such a thing as too goofy? Doctor Who often does find that oversaturation point and some of its best episodes deftly walk that line between silly and serious. But “The Star Beast” doesn’t walk the line as much as it dances a merry jig over it. And in its silliest moments, it never forgets that this is a show about an alien with two hearts and twice as much capacity for compassion. Yes, it sometimes goes overboard, but 60 years in, the show has probably earned it. It’s TV as cotton candy — it’s never quite filling or satisfying, but darn, does it taste good.'

[covington-shenanigans]

I genuinely and unironically want a comic/book/movie/whatever about a superhero corps whose only job is taxing the rich and enforcing the fuck out of it, like the IRS (US tax agency) except overpowered, but also very boring. maybe they're an outside group who the IRS consults when some billionaire is managing to evade the IRS and the IRS knows that fucker is hiding money somewhere but they can't track it down so they call in the Special Forces of the tax world.

like, the protagonist, the head of this elite corps, is a 55yo woman named Doris. her entire job is finding where rich fucks have squirreled away their money to avoid paying taxes and making them pay up.

she is, and I cannot emphasize this enough, deeply boring as a person.

her entire life is about her work. not in a tragic "Cat in the Cradle" way, but in a "neuroatypical dream job" way. she's found her niche: auditing and tax law and tiny little legal loopholes that rich fucks use to avoid paying their fair share, and her biggest enjoyment in this life is catching them in some tiny trip-up that gives her one thread to pull. once she pulls that thread she's able to unweave the whole rotten tapestry and they either pay up and continue to pay up, or they go to prison for several decades. it's beautiful to watch, in a stultifying kind of way, if you know enough about tax law to understand what she's talking about.

she has an entire team to assist her. they are, to a person, also excruciatingly boring. they talk about auditing and tax law and tiny little legal loopholes at parties, for fun. not because they're invested in being annoying but because they genuinely find it interesting. they have forgotten more about tax law than any of us will ever know. they are spoken of in hushed tones by aspiring CPAs in business school and by the very IRS agents who brought them on in the first place. they are legends.

one billionaire gets all high and mighty behind the scenes of a right-wing fundraiser, unaware he's being recorded by a highly motivated waiter who lives to rat out their shithead employer. he starts bragging a little to his other rich fuckhead friends about how much more they're raking in at his online shopping company now that they've started cutting break times and staffing and forcing their warehouse employees to work double shifts at the last minute, often cutting power to a minimum to save on the utility bill, forcing employees to work in the dark.

two days later his expansive, airy, sunlit office is invaded by a small army of finance nerds, lawyers with stacks of paperwork, and very cranky, very large, very serious FBI people with guns, just in case the billionaire gets any bright ideas about calling in some goons to avoid this particular conversation.

can Doris and her Special Forces enforce employee/employer law? no, they can't - that's not their job and maybe that billionaire isn't technically doing anything illegal yet in regards to his treatment of his warehouse workers. right to work state and all that. but Doris knows a rat when she smells one, and she's been collecting little bits of evidence on this guy for a while now. just little tidbits - an anonymous tip here, a trove of emails there. the waiter's recording was the last little bit she needed to provide her team with concrete evidence to give the IRS, enough to get the FBI involved and have this billionaire trust fund baby arrested in the middle of a board meeting in front of his horrified stakeholders.

the company stock plummets within five minutes of his arrest, obviously. the public audit and legal battle that follows takes a while, but in the end he's sitting in prison for a very long time and the government breaks up his company into about twenty different parts, which probably should have happened a while ago anyway.

it's possible Doris might have gotten access to the man's Outlook calendar somehow.

every one of the nerds in this crack unit are so, so fucking boring that you'd chew your own arm off rather than be cornered by one of them droning on about their beancounter shit, but by god since they started assisting the IRS not one billionaire has opened his fucking mouth to whine about his employees demanding a living wage because they know Doris and her Special Forces are just itching to have one excuse to audit their books.

and Doris never, ever fucking loses.

Let's do that again.

[relxion-kunp]

New transfer kid named Minato Shirogane.

[you-cant-fuck-megaman]

one thing that i've always found kind of interesting about dr. light's design is his hair.

from original incarnations

to recent incarnations

to mega man x

the dude straight-up rocks a pomp. inafune said he based doctor light’s design off santa claus, which i can understand, but last i checked santa claus had a cool hat covering his hair, not a goddamn biker ‘do

and it's funny, because in-game he's generally pretty straight-laced and serious. he's the Dad. he's megaman's dad. the kind of father figure he is depends on whether it's the archie comics (navigator/moral support), fully charged (invested in his son's life), ruby spears (addled), the classic games (non-existent), or the X games (not existent), but generally he acts as the caring father figure overseeing megaman and trying to cheer him along.

but what does capcom think of him?

ライト博士のコンセプトはひとことで言うと「父性」ですね. / Dr. Light's concept could be summed up in a single word as "father". 優しくて大らかで、でも時には厳しさも見せる、ロックマンの生みの親であリ、ロ��ツト社会の父です。 / He's the creator of both Megaman and modern roboticism, and is quite a kind and generous man, but he has a rougher side to him... (My japanese is not professional, please take this translation with a grain of salt)

pardon?

that light has a rougher/harsher side is honestly surprising, considering you can count the amount of times he's been genuinely angry on-screen on a single hand. he's one of the most successful and revolutionary men of 20XX and still manages to be chill a f, always coming up with an answer for even the most out-there situations.

but that would explain the delinquent hairstyle.

so, what do we actually know about light? - he attended class with Wily and shot down Wily's double gear thing - depending on the translation, they either worked together as a team (english) or were only colleagues (japanese) or were cooperative rivals (megamix) - the dude's biggest school accomplishments are winning the LIT Manual Design contest four years in a row, and a World Engineer First Prize, both tasks focusing on technical prowess rather than strictly academic prowess - that said, he has a Nobel Prize in physics so fuck me i guess - nowadays he works as a professor at the Mecha-Chuchets Institute of Robology - despite that, he likes keeping his hands busy, since he's got a side hustle as a contracted roboticist for O.D.A. Electronics - it's something that he actively enjoys and wants to keep doing for the fun of it, since in exchange O.D.A. provides electronic parts to him, rather than silly things like "a paycheck" - he REALLY likes keeping his hands busy, since he also provides technology to Nakaume Heavy Machinery and Tsubakuro Precision Machining - the dude super-believes in peace and justice - he hates fighting and hated giving rock a weapon to turn him into megaman - despite this, he knows martial arts, since he teaches X the Hadouken and Shoryuken. this is questionable in canonicity but i'm going somewhere with this, trust me - according to his diary, he likes playing fighting games to unwind. - he likes to smoke (don't smoke, kids) - he likes rock and roll, as in the music genre. though i guess he likes rock and roll the characters as well. i guess. - generally he's kind of a music fan. - he's an optimist and generally tries to believe the best in others, that people can change and evil can be redeemed - he's transhumanist before capcom knew what that word meant, and worked towards a dream world where humans and sentient robots can live side by side in harmony

if there's a hard side to him, we've rarely seen it so my brain decides to start taking several jumps, right? what if the bitterness lies in his history? we don't actually know much about light's history.

the pompadour and love of rock bring to mind a very specific kind of image, that of the greaser from the 1950s. rebels without a cause, delinquent teenagers causing problems and getting into trouble. coincidentally enough, it's a style that the franchise has flirted before, with hideki ishikawa's art of roll and rock dressed up in old americana fashion, with rock sporting a greaser pomp.

but where would he have gotten that from?

let's delve completely into the realm of headcanon. what if light wasn't the most upstanding youth? the fact that he actively enjoys working with his hands and pursues mostly the physical aspects of engineering rather than the academic aspects seems to be the most telltale part of this angle. it's quite possible that he simply didn't do well at academic pursuits.

struggled at school. wore a leather jacket. smoked. hung around at arcades. listened to rock n' roll. played with hearts. probably broke some hearts, too. given his extremely pained stance on violence now, it's possible he very much saw the effects of violence first-hand in his youth. got into brawls, started fights. probably got into real bad fights. maybe ended them too. but Something Happened along the way. something that made him change course. and so, light started cleaning up his life. started learning and practicing martial arts to focus, to become one with himself. went to a technical school to start working with his hands, and managed to pick things back up and get his life back on track. he was in a dark place, but he managed to change, and so he knows first hand that people can change. that good lies in people. and that he knows even the most seedy of people have the potential to change and to become great. and a good decade or two later, that throwaway good-for-nothing delinquent starts excelling in this new field. something that lets him get his hands filthy and to make things--make PHYSICAL things. things that have an impact. and a good several decades after that, he's finally advanced enough in his skills that he wants to make someone he can be close to. someone he can love. someone he can call family. i notice rock and roll aren't super-curious about their metaphorical grandparents.

probably not important, have a rough sketch i did instead:

[nightskywonderer]

✨Favorite SuperWonder Moments✨ (Part.1)

Okay so I was asked this a while ago and honestly every SuperWonder moment, in comics, is my fave but if I just had to try to narrow it down, here are a few and why…

I love that Superman and Wonder Woman has basically been connected since the beginning of the shared DC universe. There’s no denying it given Diana was meant to be Clark’s counterpart/equal and the romantic tease came naturally later with the silver age of team ups.

Here we go:

Superman #5 (May '87)... Clark dreams of Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman #15 (Apr. '88)... Diana dreams of Superman in

Wonder Woman #162 (Nov. '00)…Sparring and a little friendly flirtation in

Wonder Woman #300… Diana dreams of marrying Superman

DC Comics Presents - Superman and Wonder Woman #32.

Frank Miller Verse: Yes it’s crazy but it’s fun and we got Lara and Jonathan, two of the most powerful ass kids.

Wonder Woman #130 (1962), Diana Prince goes on a date with Superman to take revenge on Steve Trevor who keeps treating her like garbage...

This particular scene is funny and interesting because again, even at the earliest of time, it was known, if not for the back and forth of tradition default pairings, the better option for Diana is Superman.

Justice League of America #69, after Diana announces to abandon the team, we learn that Barry Allen has always felt that some day Superman and Wonder Woman would get married, comparing Superman losing Diana to Aquaman losing Mera and Hal losing Carol.

One of the first of many DC characters used by writers to allude to a potential romantic relationship between Superman and Wonder Woman.

The fact that Clark and Diana’s close relationship was so obvious and must have had some very serious romantic moments in front of the League, Barry believed they would go so far to marry?!

World's Finest #204, a computer-dating service match up Superman and Wonder Woman ...

It’s pretty much self explanatory. They are the perfect match.

Wonder Woman #141 (Feb. '99), Trapped in a dreamlike state resulting from their subconscious desires, Diana and Clark live a "dream" where things have gone differently between them: they got together, shared their mission, marrying and had a child...

Sharing a dream together is powerful. This is their deepest desire. Although denied because of the status quo, this was very much true to their feelings.

Superman #165 (Feb. '01), Sparring and... what do those silhouettes are depicting? Are they kissing at sunset? LOL.

So this was sweet and sexy. Best Friends with obvious sexual tension sharing a moment that’s only between them. Is that an embrace or a kiss?? The art seems intentionally ambiguous for the reader to interpret how they want.

Action Comics #818 (Oct. '04), Superboy asks Diana if she loves Clark

Kon been peeping things out between them for a long time. Putting Diana on blast and straight up asking her was so right. She needed moment to collect her thoughts. The dialogue afterwards seemed more like editorial mouthpiece for the sake of status quo but the art says otherwise with her drawn to caressing of Clark and her facial expression.

Kingdom Come (1996) become a couple at the end of their character arcs and conceive a child, symbol of a new beginning and better future.

The Kingdom (1999) follow-up to KC and introduction of the Hypertime, a "reality" where SM/WW's son will have the power to travel into.

My entry into DC. Still the best and most prolific story DC has about the reality of the world and how the heroes stumbled, completely fell at a point but they learned from mistakes/hardships and fought for a new beginning.

DC - The New Frontier (2004), A bit of attraction between Kal and Diana during the post-World War II

Diana calling Superman “my Kal” has such intimacy. They are best friends with this undeniable bond. Again, no matter the status quo, this was at the center of the story and it was beautiful especially with Diana’s monologue.

[starswallowingsea]

I'm scheduling this out for when this ends just because I knowwwwww I'm gonna forget to do this but here's an explanation of everything!

Starting with the comic by the pop team epic guy because that's the "most normal" thing on this list. There is a comic called Ensembukubuku Stars done in the same art style as PTE and it releases twice a month related to recent game events.

Here's a sample from the main story, which also segues into our next one!

Guy who lived in a basement his whole life and crawls in the vents! That would be Mayoi Ayase, whose introduction happens after the characters hear him scuttling around in the vents above them. He also made hand and footholds around the building to help him get to the vents. Guys who have severe anxiety and purple hair and sharp teeth.

The vampire characters are also pretty easy to guess if you've seen any art of them, especially that Rei card from Resurrection Sunday. They have a chronic illness that manifests similar to vampirism (weak to sunlight, low iron, have more energy at night). Rei also has a coffin that he keeps at the school to sleep in and it's now used by BandBB club as a storage area.

Scifi version of the main story was actually an April Fools event in 2021 called Endless Vide/Endless Coda. It's a dream Hokuto had about Eichi moving ES to space and making everyone into clones that can fight endlessly for entertainment in space mechas. You'll see a lot of people talk about this as a serious AU though, especially fans of RinNiki. You can watch Endless Vide on youtube here!

Character who is an ex-god would be Kanata Shinkai, who was raised as a living god of the Shinkai cult. Other characters like Madara Mikejima and Souma Kanzaki were previously also involved in the cult, though Madara has been working to take it down. Madara also has some uh. Really fun lore we'll hit in a second here. Before we get to that have a Kanata. Also read Meteor Impact if you'd want to know more. No the trigger warnings are not a joke.

This CG of Kanata is from a scout story called a Myriad of Colors and Flowers, which is Madara's White Day scout. In the story, Madara has planted a flower field for Kanata and blown off one of his juniors in the track and field club, Mitsuru Tenma. Mitsuru is upset by this still a year later and runs into Madara's sister, Maguro, who convinces Mitsuru to get back at Madara. The way that they do this is by uh. Luring Madara (and Kanata by extension due to some other things) to the flower field and then planting landmines that will explode and scare them. Knowing Maguro and Madara's family history and strained relationship, it is not entirely out of the question that Maguro was trying to kill Madara. Maguro also buried herself in the ground to keep an eye on them because her wheelchair is too conspicuous in the flower field without any trees or anything for cover. Madara's CG below is him revealing his sister in the ground.

The orders not to kill (among other things) and the dropping people in a jungle to prevent them from participating in a competition are from the same set of events. The orders run across every part of the SS Arcs or Main Story 2 and range from "Must participate in every job for your unit" to "Do not kill anyone" to "Don't eat foods with gluten in them" (Mayoi, Kohaku, and Niki's orders respectively). Most of these are only punished by fines except for the leaders' secret orders for every unit* which have unique punishments. That's a post for another time though.

As for the jungle, that's from the very first SS Arc called Satellite which features Trickstar and Alkaloid. Trickstar won the previous SS and were given the option to be seeded right away in the main competition rather than compete in the qualifying round, but they chose to do the qualifiers anyway. In order to give the other units in their region, Hokkaido, a chance of moving on, Trickstar was dropped in the middle of a jungle and told to just find their way out. Tatsumi was able to give them help through his own orders, though it wasn't always super specific or great, and he took advantage of them by making sure Alkaloid got the first dibs to show Trickstar jungle survival footage. And also maybe Hokkaido's crabs are just built different.

AND FINALLY the fake out of the poll, the Womb War. This is hugely popular fanon on tumblr but the premise is that Mika Kagehira from Enstars and Suzu Kuromori from Engirls (The original idol training game by Happy Elements that is now defunct) are twins. They met in the light novel and it was remarked upon that they look similar, are about the same age, and have heterochromia. People have speculated that they might be twins, but since heterochromia isn't a genetic condition, they would have had to have developed it in a different way. One of the ways someone can develop heterochromia is by cannibalizing a twin or other sibling in the womb, essentially. And since both Suzu and Mika have heterochromia with different eye colors, it's speculated that if the womb war theory is true, they would have originally been quadruplets and each of them consumed one sibling and kept their eye. It's fanon guys happyele hasn't even confirmed officially that they're siblings that's ALSO fanon.

*every unit but fine, trickstar, and eden got orders. Trickstar and eden were exempt for winning the previous SS and fine were exempt because they have Eichi privileges.

And this has been Ensemble Stars lore with Shay.

I've seen a few of these for other fandoms so I thought I'd do one for Ensemble Stars (totally normal idol rhythm game)

I don't know if everyone does this but I'll reblog this after the poll is over with context on each one of these (including the fake one) because none of them get better with context honestly.

[tobi-smp]

you might be able to expand on this in a way that’s smarter then me, but honestly; i think technoblade apologists rely far too much on word of god for their analysis.

like, it feels like every time technoblade (the character) is analyzed in the context of the Text Itself, the fans will say “that’s not what techno intended” or “he didn’t think that when acting techno”.

this is probably because cc!techno cares so little for the the fourth wall. but as someone who analyzes techno it also annoys me. “cc!techno didn’t plan to kill anyone canonically during doomsday, cc!jack just challenged him” regardless of what your cc intends, c!techno still bombed a country and shot at other characters, and for him to think there would be no casualties in that is ridiculous.

this fourth-wall-breaking honestly gives quite a few issues like this; techno acts like killing tubbo was unimportant or even funny because “it’s minecraft” and anyone still angry at him about that is just irrational. obviously, because c!tubbo still has to live with the scarred body and the huge amount of trauma, this makes c!techno seem like a Huge Dick. but pointing that out always gets so many angry responses.

rivals duo enthusiasts make so much “techno heals and cares for dream” content, but in actuality techno wants his lore to be only funny so he says “i’m not getting tortured. that seems like a you problem.”

i’m not saying that techno isn’t nice— because he is, to ranboo and phil and niki— but because he participates is HUGELY SERIOUS topics (bombing a nation twice, tommys exile, terrorism and taking hostages, dreams torture) and then acts like he doesn’t care, it just makes him look…. Bad.

i dont really know where i was going with this. basically i just wanted to complain about how one of the most argued about characters doesn’t even seem to be serious about the serious parts of the lore.

perhaps you can somehow expand on this in a way that’s smart T_T

Honestly, techno apologism takes techno's word as absolute truth Way too often in general (both in character and out). which isn't unique to techno fans by any means, but it's particularly bothersome because it leaks out into how they talk about other characters, All The Time.

a quick example would be techno arguing that l'manberg was corrupt because tubbo was given presidency without an election. the reality of the situation was that they were in the middle of a crisis (a war that just came to an end, the death of the president with no one to take his place, and the destruction of the entire nation), so it Wasn't under normal circumstances. l'manberg would've then held elections every couple of months had they not been exploded before that could happen. (there's also the fact that nearly everyone that'd be a part of l'manberg was there and could've voiced their concerns, instead the crowd cheered. they didn't get a ballot but they still expressed their approval).

and of course things that he says about other characters being taken as word of god (him wholesale inventing the character flaw that tommy sees himself as a hero with the theseus speech despite the fact that tommy denied it right then and there. or cc!techno making the joke that tommy's only facing the consequences of his own actions, Twice.)

but more on the topic, there Is a massive tonal difference between techno's viewpoint and everyone else's, and that's completely on purpose ! but that creates some of the worst discourse this fandom has to offer Because techno involves himself in serious lore while still insisting on carrying his non-serious roleplay style.

when you take his word on it and Only his word on it it strips other characters of their nuance because he doesn't see or Care about their motivations or the context behind them. that's why it's so easy to paint the butcher army as purely evil from his perspective. Technoblade doesn't care about releasing withers on l'manberg, Technoblade doesn't care about having shot tubbo, Technoblade doesn't care that quackity is terrified of him, so why should they? why should anyone?

people refuse to see the butcher army as a response to technoblade's actions because technoblade doesn't treat his actions as if they have weight. and so quackity is taken to the fandom alter to be sacrificed as an uncomplicated villain (either alongside tubbo or while painting quackity as a manipulator who coerced the rest of the butcher army), and this Long before las nevadas was a part of the lore.

but then of course, if you look at his actions and attitude from any other perspective (minus philza) he just looks, Cold.

he's bombing l'manberg because of a failed execution and philza's house arrest but he won't even acknowledge that tubbo's execution or his destruction of l'manberg was something that he should've apologized for. he painted tommy as a dehumanizer because tommy chose to stand by his best friend, but techno is risking the lives of people who haven't wronged him without remorse because philza (his best friend) got hurt. he's angry at tommy for betraying him (to the point that he's indifferent to his literal death), when he refused to take tommy seriously over feeling betrayed with tubbo's execution and when He was the one who lied to tommy during their partnership.

he refuses to engage with other characters on an emotional level because that would suck the dumb fun out of his actions (and I don't mean dumb fun as an insult here, I love his roleplay style when it Isn't tonally dissonant from everything around it). but from the other perspective that comes across as indifference to suffering, willful ignorance, hypocrisy, or just outright cruelty.

which just isn't how his character Should be read with how its being acted, but it's the only way To read it in context.

techno wants his character to be the comic relief on the server but he still wants to involve himself with heavy lore, which would still be Possible if he was fine playing a villain (just look at jack and niki with their team rocket arc). but the problem is that he presents his character as emotionally disconnected from everyone around him outside of a select handful of people (and even then, he won't engage with certain things seriously for fear of being pulled into serious lore) while still wanting his character to be read as good (or at least lighter on the gray morality scale).

the solution to this would be a more careful implementation of techno's involvement with the lore. keeping him involved in conflicts in a way where his character doesn't bump elbows with the darkest aspects of the server. either by having him Not involved with things like doomsday or having him involved in a way where he isn't an instigator, Or by technoblade the content creator taking the L and taking his roleplay more seriously when he involves himself in serious lore.

instead we have the insistence that it's not technoblade's fault that people died when he killed them because it doesn't fit with how cc!techno wants to engage with those events.

[nanowrimo]

Meet Our New NaNo Interns: Josie and Lena!

We feel super lucky here at NaNo HQ to be able to work with some excellent interns! Today, meet our newest cohort of interns: Josie and Lena. You’ll be getting to know them better throughout November, but today they’re here to tell you a little about themselves:

Josie, Editorial & Programs Intern:

I discovered NaNoWriMo at an important time in my life. I was in sixth grade and was known by my teachers as a lover of books, writing, and art. I never thought about combining those interests in a serious way, outside of the silly little comics I would produce.

And then I discovered there was a month-long challenge to write a novel. Anyone could do it, even if I was just a spunky twelve year old! I instantly signed up and dove right into the challenge. I don’t really remember what I wrote that year, since that word document was lost to the depths of time. I know it didn’t make any sense. I also know I didn’t even win that year. But I had fun writing way past my bedtime. I had fun drawing my characters and planning out wild shenanigans for them to get involved in. This experience with NaNoWriMo was something that would happen year after year and I enjoyed sharing that time with other young writers. 

Now, I’m an adult. I never lost my love for books, loving them so much I ended up getting a degree in analyzing them. I never stopped drawing either.

It would be a lie to say I stopped writing. I wrote plenty and I have many essays and scripts to prove that. It’s just been a while since I wrote 100% for myself, outside of a graded assignment. I started to miss that feeling of being surrounded by other writers and getting lost in the world I created. I was reminded of those Novembers long past and found myself thinking, “Hey, remember NaNoWriMo? When was the last time you did that?”

Then I saw there was a NaNoWriMo internship opening for this fall, and well, here I am, your new Editorial and Programs intern!  I’ll be writing alongside each and every one of you. It’s a daunting task and I have a lot to learn, but I know this journey will be an enjoyable one.

Lena, Marketing & Fund Development Intern:

Hello all! As someone whose been following NaNoWriMo since the age of thirteen, now that I’m starting 21 as the first Marketing & Fundraising Intern, I’ve been nothing but excited to be on this journey. I’ve been in love with stories since I was small, reading, writing, daydreaming to procrastinate my writing, all the things. My mother is Yaqui, Indigenous to a tribe from Sonora, Mexico, that later fled to the United States. In my journey to accessibility, education, and action, I’m hoping to tell stories of my family’s history and of the future of our world. It doesn’t hurt if there are magic and dragons involved though, right? My go-to stories are fairytale and mythology retellings and re-imaginings, predominantly in the fantasy genre. Give me Legendborn, Percy Jackson, or Cinderella is Dead any day! In lieu of my college career, I’ve become a full-time caregiver for a loved one. Being a part of a team that is so incredibly accommodating to that in my dream organization and being able to interact at community events has been the greatest blessing. I’m so excited to further engage with all of you this November!