#this one is for me and the 3 other people who’ve watched Agents of SHIELD

[0mossymeep0]

Destroyer of Worlds

[fantasticescapism]

WandaVision Theory (after ep 4)

I don’t know if someone already mentioned this here but guys, GUYS!!!

I saw this theory in this video but let me summarize it for you.

How did Wanda know that she could bend or create a new reality?

Since she first appeared in the MCU, all we saw from her were mainly telekinesis and influencing other people’s minds. There were no indication in the past movies that she can alter reality. I mean, we know she can do that because it’s in the comics but in the context of the MCU, she couldn’t possibly know this on her own in just 3 weeks after Endgame unless, someone taught her or she’s self-taught. We’ll come back to this later.

---

Another question we’ve always had since watching WandaVision was...

Well, guess what, the answer could be in Doctor Strange. You know where they keep those magic books?

In Wong’s Library at Kamar-Taj?

You know where else? When someone’s using power from the dark dimension!

Even that stand where they keep/display the Eye of Agamotto is a hexagon!

So, the hexagon can be associated to a book that’s powerful, magical and dark. Those who’ve seen Agents of SHIELD and the Runaways would probably know what it is.

The Darkhold

I haven’t seen an episode of the Runaways but I’m more familiar with AoS. There, the Darkhold was created in the dark dimension. It helped Aida with her wish to become a real human and improve the Framework, a virtual reality (alternate reality, right?).

Wanda using the Darkhold to create this pocket reality is a good tie-in to AoS and the Runaways. I mean, the Hydra Soak ad already alluded to the Hydra brainwashing soap from Agents of SHIELD so why not use the Darkhold that grants wishes.

This wasn’t mentioned in the video, but there’s another option...

The Book of Cagliostro

It’s already introduced in the MCU because it’s the book Kaecilius used to summon Dormammu and open the dark dimension. Remember, Kaecilius turned to this path because he lost the love of his life.

Also, in the comics, some pages of the Darkhold (a collection of evil spells) were copied in the Book of Cagliostro.

If this theory is correct, then how did Wanda get a hold of this powerful dark book (either the Darkhold or Cagliostro)?

Did she stumble upon it by chance? Doubt it. Most likely someone gave it to her telling her it will give her the thing she most desired. That’s very tempting given that she just lost a lot. 

So, if true, Wanda isn’t the villain in WandaVision, she’s also a victim. The one that led her to this path (using this magical, powerful book) has ulterior motives.

Was it Mordo? Could be. He made it his goal to eradicate sorcerers (magic users) in the end of Doctor Strange. Did he want Wanda to self-destruct? Maybe. Also, he’s in The Multiverse of Madness.

Was it Mephisto? Most likely. His presence was hinted in Loki.

That’s a devil on a stained glass window. We don’t know what his motives are and we’re sure gonna find out in time.

[sorrytodistract]

One last game of Tag? Agents of Shield #PartingShot

inI’ve been tagged by the lovely @queensimmons and I think she had a wonderful idea so I’m playing along to pay tribute to my favorite show. Here are the rules :

With this tag game, I want to know the answers to these five (5) questions and then tag 5 or more mutuals. Wasn’t tagged but want to join? Join in ! Everyone is an essential part of this fandom! Name from @ agent.of.shield_ on Instagram ( @agents-of-fangirling ) who had a great idea to post a picture of yourself with a drink (or just a drink) and tag it #partingshot as a finale goodbye to the show (which I also am going to post tomorrow on IG).

Where were you in life when you first started watching AOS?

I was just beginning my master’s degree in translation when the show started and it went with me until the end of my studies.  I remember watching the newest episodes during my lunch breaks with my college friend. Then, along my training to become a flight attendant. I remember learning everything about hypoxia right when we found out that’s what happened to Fitz. I was very active on tumblr during the first 3 seasons, giffing Fitzsimmons as much as I could and that’s when I developped my gif making skills. I made a lot of fandom friends here and also through Twitter. I really enjoyed being a part of the fandom during that time.

Where are you now?

I am done with my studies, got two diplomas. I work for an airline, not as a flight attendant but on the ground. I travelled abroad to meet the cast, three times. My main priority is still travelling and I love my job and meeting people from all around the world. The series accompanied me through all the beginning of my adulthood and was a balm to my soul every week (even when the plotlines were heartwrenching). It cheered me up when I was down, which happened a lot more than I’d like but that’s life I guess. Some friends I’ve made on here or Twitter became real life friends who’ve I met and hang out with. I love them.

What character development arc (or storyline in general) did you love the most?

I always related to Fitz the most since we have very similar personality (both Leo, only child, etc) and I loved his character growth up until the Framework arc (still a tough that I have yet to recover from). His resilience after his injury (even in the latest seasons), his unwavering loyalty to his team and friends, his determination to do everything in his power and more for the people that he loves, his courage.  The team becoming a newfound family over the years is also close to my heart.

What will you miss the most?

I will miss a LOT of things. The thrill of waiting for new episodes. The BTS content from the cast & crew. The cast and their banter with each other. The intriguing and often verified fan theories (special shout out to @agl03). Meeting the cast and other fans during cons. The CHARACTERS, gosh I’m gonna miss them.

Favorite Quote?

Of course, I’ll have to go with Jemma’s “the steps you take don’t need to be big, they just need to take you in the right direction” quote as it’s especially helped me the past few years. 

I’m tagging @agentofship @dannyrand @dilkirani @jemmasimmonsy @jemmafitzsimmons @2minutes2midnight @springmagpies because 7 is my lucky number 

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Please shut up about Marvel having too much continuity

That’s a phrase I hear thrown around endlessly by fans, ‘fans’ and comic creators themselves.

 Continuity is bad we need to get rid of it or cut it down because it’s too intimidating to readers.

 This is provably untrue.

  Exhibit A: The Marvel Cinematic Universe

 The MCU has been running since 2008. As of this writing there are 20 movies in the MCU with more on the way and I don’t even know how many short films and episodes of various TV shows.

 Now sure, the movies are mostly self-contained and don’t require you to check out any of the other stuff. The same is true of the Netflix MCU TV shows

 True but the other TV shows (like the long running Agents of SHIELD) aren’t so self contained. The Netflix shows do trade off of events in other Netflix shows. And even if you confine it to the movies you still have those 20 movies.

 And sorry but if you wanna check out the latest of the 2-3 Marvel movies out in any given year being asked to watch twenty films  is a lot of continuity to ask of someone. Far more than is reasonable and honestly for a new viewer it might as well be as intimidating as 50 years of comics.

 And the harsh truth is... a lot of people just don’t do that when they go see a Marvel movie. But it’s also true that most people seem to like Marvel movies.

 How is this possible?

 How could they possibly enjoy the latest instalment in a film franchise without having seen everything before?

 Well this video about Avengers Assemble raises two key explanations.

 The gist of things is that Avengers Assemble in part traded off of the modern way we consume media and trusted people could Google or Youtube what they needed to know to ‘get’ the movie. See the endless number of articles and videos explaining what audiences ‘need to know’ before they check out the latest MCU film or revealing telling things in movies they’ve already seen. An example would be all the articles explaining who Thanos was after his mid-credits tease in Avengers Assemble.

 However the video’s other more salient point is that Avengers Assemble, like the movies leading into it and in fact the movies after it, was actually written to be accessible on it’s own.

 Sure you get a more rewarding experience if you checked out everything beforehand, but it’s not necessary.

 Even in a bonanza like Infinity War, in 2018 everyone is aware of who most of those characters are in the first place and even if they aren’t they know who a few of them are and can thus get invested in the movie for them.

 It’s kind of like every movie is written with the belief that it’s someone’s first...which is exactly how Marvel used to write all of their comics!

 Exhibit B: The DC Animated Universe

 Before Marvel made film history DC made animation history by replicating the shared superhero universe of DC comics in animation.

Comprised primarily of Batman the Animated Series, Superman the Animated Series, Batman Beyond, the Zeta Project, Static Shock and Justice League (with some seasons rebranded under different names and status quos) the DCAU lasted from the early 1990s until the mid 2000s with easily in excess of 100 episodes between the shows. Which doesn’t even count the tie-in comics, video games and more significantly four animated films.

All of these shared continuity in particular in the Justice League TV show where of course virtually every  DC character from earlier in the DCAU cropped up alongside a massive amount of new ones.

What made things even more complicated was that Justice League was released after Batman Beyond, a show set in the distant future of the DCAU, meaning the show was even drawing upon continuity from stories that chronologically took place way later.

Confusing right?

Well...not if you go by the ratings, critical acclaim and strong fan following.

Let me stress the DCAU predated the easier access to the internet we have today, it wasn’t until the DCAU was wrapping up that its various shows began to get complete home releases.

It is extremely unlikely that everyone or even the majority of the viewership of any given DCAU show were fully aware or up to scratch on the continuity of the DCAU as a whole.

And yet the DCAU was extremely successful.

In fact Justice League was so successful that it was renewed twice  after originally intended to wrap up the DCAU as a whole. And both attempts drew upon older continuity, especially the second of these two attempts.

Exhibit C: The market for superhero info books

Fun fact, I’ve worked for D.K. books which has made a lot of comic book based info books diving into the (mostly in-universe) history of the various characters.

The first of those books I know of was Spider-Man: the Ultimate Guide published about oh...in 2001.

It’s fourth and newly updated edition was released last year.

In fact with the surge of superhero popularity D.K. had to make more guidebooks than ever before, so many in fact that they had to drop some.

Here is some inside baseball but to capitalize upon Thor: Ragnarok there was supposed  to be an ultimate guide book all about Thor but due to producing stuff for Spider-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, Wonder Woman, Black Panther and Justice league the project had to be dropped.

Guidebooks about individual franchises were not even the only types of info books D.K. did.

They’ve recently published what amounts to an encyclopaedia about the entire Marvel Universe since the 1940s!

And by the way, these books aren’t aimed primarily at the established/older hardcore fan.

They are aimed at a mass audience, chiefly kids who’ve maybe seen the movies, cartoons or read a little about the characters and now want to go deeper. And they are sold in general book stores as well as comic book speciality stores.

And they’ve been doing this since 2001...internationally!

So OBVIOUSLY there is thriving market for the large in depth histories of these characters. Clearly people love the idea of there being wider lore for them to explore.

It’s not even a phenomenon exclusive to comic book nerds, just ask Lord of the Rings fans!

Exhibit D: the DC Universe

If you count absolutely everything, there has been in truth at least six  different versions of the DC universe since it began in 1938.

That means on six separate occasions DC has chucked out aspects of their history and in theory made it more accessible to readers because hey, there is less history for you to read now. Their biggest attempt of recent years was in the New 52 in 2011.

And yet in general Marvel has systemically outsold DC comics and especially did so during the New 52 when the DC as whole suffered massive sales losses linked in no small part to their decision to reboot their universe and throw out the history readers had invested in.

Exhibit E: Soap operas

Soap operas that are intended to last indefinitely rarely (if ever) have facilities to enable viewers to catch up on older episodes across their massive sometimes 1000+ episode count. And even if they did such options wouldn’t have existed before the 21st century when DVDs and digital media and recordable TV isn’t what it is today.

Yet these soap opera kept running and running and running sometimes for decades?

How? They couldn’t have maintained the same viewership across that entire time.

Could it be that the new viewers of these soap operas just tuned in and rolled with it/the soap opera were written in a relatively accessible way so that they continued the ongoing plots whilst allowing new viewers to jump on ship at any time?

 Exhibit F: The 1980s-1990s

The notion of Marvel’s long continuity being a bad thing, of being a problem hampering them is dependent upon the idea that after a point there is just too much  history in the way of readers to jump on board. The Marvel Universe has lasted since 1961 after all*.

The foolishness in this mentality is that it wholly fails to recognize that catching up on and keeping up with even 20-25 years worth of comic book history is such a daunting task that it might as well be 55 years!

And yet in the 1980-early 1990s the comic book industry was over all healthier than it is now despite there already being a huge amount of history and lore to most Marvel characters.

In fact easily the most popular Marvel franchise of the 1990s was the X-Men which was THE most complicated and convoluted franchise Marvel had at the time.

Compounding the challenge new fans allegedly had to face was the fact that reprints, trades, info books and internet based resources to help them catch up or learn the wider histories either didn’t exist or weren’t what they are now.

There comes a point when getting a grip on 55 years of history when you have endless resources to help you do that and instant access to those stories on your phone  is infinitely easier trying that with 20-25 years of history when you have next to nothing.

But there were MORE comic book readers in the 1980s-1990s than now and they were able to jump into the long running narratives decades into their histories.

How is this possible?

Because back then Marvel practiced a mantra preached by Stan Lee himself.

Every comic is someone’s first.

So every comic pushed the characters stories on but also made sure they invited new readers along for the ride too.

 Exhibit G: Myself

When I was 12 I began watching the Justice League cartoon show and fell in love with all those characters, only slowly realizing that the Superman and Batman of this show were the same ones I’d seen on Batman the Animated Series and those 6 episodes of Superman I’d seen years ago. I didn’t even know who Darkseid and Brainiac were? It didn’t matter they were clearly big deal bad guys and I loved their 2 episodes in Justice League. I loved Justice League Unlimited even more even though I didn’t realize it was capitalizing upon plot threads set up in yet more Superman episodes I’d never seen.

When I was 11 one of my best friends who was nowhere near as much into comic books as I was showed me his new book. Spider-Man the Ultimate Guide. In it was pages and pages about Spider-Man, his powers, his costumes, his friends, his foes and his history over all. I needed my own copy of that book and re-read it multiple times because wow I didn’t know Spider-Man was once buried alive and there was a Spider-Man in the future and this one time Spider-Man battled the Juggernaut and it was awesome and this other time Spider-Man turned into the Lizard and the Hulk!

When I was 10 I read my first ever Spider-Man comic book and began following the character religiously.

This comic book was Peter Parker: Spider-Man #75.

This was the very last part of the very last story arc in the single most convoluted Spider-Man story of all time, the Clone Saga, with even that one issue drawing upon and referencing continuity from 27 years earlier!

And yet it hooked me.

All those things hooked me.

Because it’s not about how much continuity you have.

It’s about how you choose to use it or not use it when crafting a compelling story.

[captainignatiuspigheart]

Last week was very short as I managed to squeeze two days off into it. These have largely been spent outside in my garden office sorting and tidying LEGO. It’s very time consuming and satisfying, but does leave me slightly wondering where the time has gone. With a very warm and sunny Friday and Saturday I moved my watching of Agents of SHIELD outside along with dismantling and washing the LEGO Detective’s Office set. It’s a lovely little thing, but it had become very grubby. I’m now trying to rebuild it with a tray overflowing with parts. Inevitably, it’s becoming a quicker process the more of it I’ve built. Feels kinda exponential, as if by the end it will be assembling itself… Marilyn and I have also finally begun a shared build, the LEGO Brick Bank, which has been languishing on my “to be built” shelf for some years now… It’s pretty ace, and is a fine accompaniment to season two of Elementary.  

A busy day…

Brick Bank ground floor

  In dismantling the Detective’s Office, I re-remembered that I’d built a little half-modular some years ago, but they’ve been joined together for so long I’d somewhat forgotten that it wasn’t part of the set. I snapped a few pics from it before I dismantled it, for posterity, or whatever. The concept was a coffee shop on the ground floor and a bottle shop above. I’d do almost all of it differently now, of course, but I think it did look pretty good. I was very happy to use the Indiana Jones poster tiles to good effect!

On the right is an impostor

Never finished the roof…

Good banister though

Indy!

Booze

Coffee shop action

Alcove!

We’ve started to enjoy strolling around Beeston late at night. I adore the peace and quiet (I’ve been watching bats in our garden!) and I’m in urgent need of more exercise. I’m looking at you, beer… We’ve met up with a couple of our pussy cats pals too, which has been especially lovely. Given the utter clusterfuck of Bojo’s latest update on the UK’s progress with coronavirus, I suspect I’ll be working from home, getting fat, and taking late night walks for some weeks yet.

Hopper’s Beeston

Foxy Loxy

Despite the week’s brevity, I seem to have taken part in two podcast recordings and read some books! Victory all round. 

Watching: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D season 3

Fuck me, I love this show more and more. We’re finally getting into the stuff I remember a little better. It’s getting so hard to summarise… I guess this season is properly focused on the fallout of the Inhuman explosion and on the truly epic and dark history of Hydra! First we have to recover Agent Simmons from the creepy monolith that whisked her away from Fitz’s arms at the end of season two. Turns out its part of an ancient Hydra tradition, who’ve been feeding the terrifying alien entity within on fresh young Hydra enthusiasts for centuries. Their ultimate aim is to unleash the monster on the world! The team do manage to rescue Simmons, but doing so reveals to Hydra that the doorway can indeed be bridged. There are some pretty tense moments, and Daisy/Skye gets to assemble her own team of Secret Warriors, comprised of some of the Inhumans now emerging. The first half of the season focuses on Hydra getting into the alien planet, with former agent Ward becoming the host of the Inhuman ancestor. That’s bad news for everyone… and gives us the second half, in which Ward sets about subsuming other Inhumans and advancing a plan to dominate the whole world. Bad guys with big plans! Mostly though, my heart continues to beat for FitzSimmons, and for Coulson and Agent Mae. Honestly, it’s hard to make any sense of this season if you haven’t seen the previous two, but if you have it really is a gift: long form deepening of relationships, expanding on the major MCU story threads from Civil War, and getting into the backstory of Hydra to a massive extent.

  Doing: The Improv Boost “Happiness” podcast

All round lovely fella, David Escobedo, one of our It’s A Trap: The Improvised Star Wars Show cast members, and rabid user of social media for promoting improv in all its forms, invited me to join him and a few friends for a very short podcast talking about things we feel passionate about. The challenge was to narrow it down to a specific thing to expostulate on for eight minutes. LEGO would be too broad, as would Star Wars, so it sent me down a little rabbit hole of figuring out what I do especially enjoy, rather than the general everything of science fiction and stuff. One of my gateways into SF, or at least one that has cast a lengthy shadow, is the work of the great John Wyndham. Picking The Day of the Triffids was an easy next step. That’s why I read both the abridged US edition then the UK/Penguin edition in a week. The latter is about 10% longer, and just has a little more depth. It’s startlingly apt for our current situation, and I’d recommend it for anyone who finds reassurance in someone else’s words managing to neatly sum up existential and ethical crises. Also, triffids are ace, and plainly the ancestor of all zombie fiction. 

Alas, whatever software David was using to stream Zoom into Facebook fucked us over and we lost the last five minutes. Which means you get all of Jac’s enthusing about calculus (whatever the hell that is… :-} ) but lose Vanessa’s final thoughts on our topics which neatly wedded our themes together. Essentially (I think) we’re both talking about aspects of community and how people deal with the situations they find themselves in. Enjoy!



Reading: The Chrysalids by John Wyndham

Having cheerfully chugged down a double dose of The Day of the Triffids I moved straight on to what’s generally regarded as his “best” novel. It’s not my most favourite, but it’s quite a read. Far future post-apocalypse, humanity is struggling to rebuild itself after what appears to be nuclear catastrophe with radioactive fallout causing widespread genetic mutation. As a result, a renewed fervour for purity and the importance of the human (and all other creatures and crops) matching the design laid down by God / government. The consequences of deviation from the norm are severe: death, destruction, banishment to the badlands. None of it’s very appealing.

Our viewpoint is David, a perfectly normal boy: somewhat lazy, chafing a little under the religious intensity of his father and the demands of being in a small farming community in the newly reclaimed lands of Labrador. Only… he’s telepathic, and that makes him a very serious deviation indeed. In the novel we find a lot more of the social awareness and interest in community and individualism that Wyndham show’s in all of his work, and it’s very thought-provoking while being beguiling easy reading. It’s quite a neat trick to cover abominations and socially-mandated murder with such a breezy and familiar writing style. Ultimately, of course, David and his friends have to go on the run from their peers and family. When his younger sister, Petra, who turns out to be an incredibly powerful telepath makes contact with someone in “Zealand”, the whole of David’s world (and ours, since he’s our only view of it) is turned upside down. Moments of bleakness and fear fight with equally delightful epiphanies and hope for true acceptance. It’s great! Read it! 

Doing: We Are What We Overcome podcast Special Episode #3 Self Care

Our fortnightly Facebook Live podcast recordings continue to catch me unawares! Mondays are not a good evening for me to have my brain in gear, but I’m trying. Last week we talked about self-care some more. It’s really important to look after yourself at the moment. Divorced of much meaningful in-person human contact, I think we’re all fraying away at the edges. We talked about some of the things that frustrate the act of self-care, and some of the tools we use to keep ourselves as sorted as we can be.

Doing: MissImp’s Virtual Improv Drop-In: Duncan Carty – Artist’s Eye for the Improv Guy

This week we got a really special and different take on improvisation and creativity from our Duncan Carty, combining artistic expression, y’know, like drawing, with how we take inspiration for our scenes and performances. It’s a very good workshop, and I implore you to get out your crayons and walls and go at it. Phew, that’s the eighth improv workshop Emily has wrangled onto our website, and it looks we’re gonna be providing them for the foreseeable future. Enjoy!  

Last Week: Sunday 10 May 2020: lots more LEGO, John Wyndham, two podcasts and general bumbling around… podcast fun with We Are What We Overcome and @improvboost talking about Day of the Triffids! #tv #podcast #improv #books https://wp.me/pbprdx-8Ed Last week was very short as I managed to squeeze two days off into it. These have largely been spent outside in my garden office sorting and tidying LEGO.