#this was actually a halfway decent adaptation

[ennaih]

Every Film I Watch In 2023:

255. Cujo (1983)

[fortune-maiden]

It’s still wild to me how even if Tempest made all 4 routes a canon part of the story instead of AUs of each other (except for the epilogues although 3 of them could still take place in the same world)

[fullmetal-scar-simping]

Average fma fan talking about 03 positively: Man, it's such a miracle that the 2003 anime is written even halfway decently! After all, the writers who, as we know, have never written anything in their lives before [citation needed], they had to work while locked in individual underground cells [citation needed], only fed scraps of fma lore by Arakawa herself [citation needed] while her story was actually fully formed by the first printing of her manga in Monthly Shonen Gangan [citation needed] but they were adapting the initial first volume of manga and oopsy-daisy shot past it [citation needed], so they made up every plot beat, character arc, storyboard, and lore change completely on the fly and very randomly [citation needed]. Even though they tried to 1:1 adapt her story [citation needed, contradicted by existing sources], they fumbled the job and butchered her story, characters, and lore. Arakawa sagely forgave them [citation needed]. But somehow it's a cohesive story?! Wow! Even though the story is sad, dark, scares me, makes me cry, violent, gorey, and my fave ships aren't endgame, so -50 demerits. Still, good job team! A treat! A treat for the monkeys working the typewriters at Studio Bones circa 2002-2004! #fullmetal alchemist brotherhood

[brucebocchi]

brief reviews of all the manga i read while i was procrastinating from finishing my anime reviews

instead of actually watching a lot of the new anime that's coming out this season, and also instead of writing the anime reviews i had been planning to write for the previous three and a half months, i read a ton of manga in my downtime. here's what i read:

kindergarten wars: action romcom? say fucking less. it nails both sides of that dichotomy very well, though i'm still waiting for a little more commitment to the romance side. it gets surprisingly heavy at times and those emotional beats pack some serious punches. this is gonna make a banger of an anime one day.

blue box: save for dungeon meshi and maybe frieren, this is my favorite manga i've picked up so far this year. a damn good slice of life romance and a damn good sports manga at the same time. i'm beyond excited for the anime this fall.

hirayasumi: god, this rips. cozy as fuck, sweet as all get out, but doesn't shy away from portraying its characters as jealous, selfish people when things don't go their way. the art has a lovely sketchy vibe to it; almost gives off "grown up skip and loafer" vibes, and how appropriate that the scanlation group handling it also does skip and loafer! already bought the first volume.

kagurabachi: i hated the memes surrounding this manga when it debuted and never once found them funny, but i eventually gave in and picked it up while it's still relatively new. it's solid! i can see this continuing to improve as the mangaka finds more of a voice. some really excellent splash pages and i can see this being adapted into a really good-looking anime somewhere down the line.

the way of the househusband: it's pretty one-note as gag manga go, but it's a very funny note. seeing an ex-yakuza tackle daily mundanity with the exact intensity you'd expect is always great. it can get a little repetitive, and it even lampshades its running jokes, but it still works most of the time. the art is OUTSTANDING in this too.

telework yotabanashi: i already talked about this when i finished it and it's a short one but it's worth mentioning. kintetsu yamada can do no wrong. i adored sweat and soap so i knew i was gonna like this one, and i was right! very satisfying despite its length and a very lovely story for a very specific moment in time.

tales of wedding rings: yes, the anime drove me halfway insane until i dropped it, and i went ahead and read the manga anyway. it's decent as trashy isekai go. the story goes in a slightly unexpected direction and it's very slowly approaching the finish. the surprising thing was that all of the nudity in the anime was anime-original; the manga doesn't really lean into full-on nudity until a major story climax (lol) and from there the floodgates burst open (lol). my complaints from watching the anime still stand, and the anime still looks like dogshit (especially compared to the source material), but i'll finish it out.

i also read nozoki ana but uh, we're not gonna talk about that today.

[tenebriskukris]

Oshi No Ko Chapter 164 - My Thoughts/Analysis

It seems the authors have somehow managed to pull off a chapter that was worse than I could have intentionally come up with myself. Spoilers for Oshi No Ko Chapter 164 below.

This chapter starts off with a montage of events that have absolutely no relevance to the Aqua’s life hanging in the balance. How many pages was it? Three pages that could’ve been dedicated to the actual plot rather than a Windows Powerpoint Slideshow. I’d be more lenient with things if there weren’t two bloody chapters left.

And now, back to Oshi No Powerpoint, we see Aqua’s probable death. Nine panels of a slideshow that could’ve easily been folded into the past three or chapters. More than half of the chapter at this point has just been close to, if not completely superfluous. This “death” scene might as well have been thrown out because last chapter’s ending could’ve been enough to put the nail in the coffin for any hope of survival for Aqua and this series’ ending being somewhere even remotely close to decent. 

I don’t even care that Akane is basically infodumping everyone’s reactions to this travesty and her thoughts on Aqua’s death. If the police found his body, that means it’s over. They’re not going to mistake Aqua’s body for Hikaru’s especially since Akane mentions that the damage to the corpse was minor. I guess that confirms that Aqua’s dead, huh. As sad as Akane’s reactions are, I just can’t bring myself to care about the writing equivalent of someone’s shit being smeared onto a plate and having it actually being published. It’s an insult to all the well written manga that only have a fraction of success this godawful manga has garnered thanks to one lucky anime adaptation. 

I’d heard off the grapevine that one of the author’s other mangas that wasn’t Kaguya-sama was axed and if This is the kind of output that the author has been churning out, then that cancellation is more than deserved. These last ten chapters might as well have torched the series. I wouldn’t trust the authors to teach a fucking high school writing class, let alone go anywhere close to writing a popular manga again.

Alright. Fine. Final thoughts on the chapter. I’d like the time investment that this manga stole from me back. I don’t even feel the need to rub my braincells together to type out a competent analysis of a chapter that was just so objectively garbage from almost every angle that you’d think that they were trying to completely trying to nuke the manga’s quality. With how these past chapters have been going, it’s not the worst media ending I’ve ever seen, but it’s certainly up there. At least in the top 20 at best, and we’re not even fully over.

On a more serious note, it’s hard to meet this chapter where it is mostly because I don’t want to get my boots dirty in the filth that it’s swimming in. It’s difficult to meet the manga halfway and actually putting effort into analyzing something that the authors obviously didn’t even put a smidgen of effort into in terms of anything but the art. It’s almost the inverse of trying to analyze that one piece of installation art that is literally a urinal. If the creator of said piece of art wasn’t an actual good artist and didn’t put thought into Why the bloody thing was a urinal, then people wouldn’t be debating endlessly over it even to this day. Unfortunately, this manga isn’t a urinal, though with the quality of it being so piss poor, it might as well deserve that title. There are children’s television shows that can handle themselves better than the ending of this series even on a bad day.

So. Aqua’s dead. Probably. They found his body so he’s probably dead. Doesn’t mean that Crow Girl can’t deus ex machina him back and reincarnate him again. Would not even be surprised at this point. Maybe he’ll reincarnate as Ruby’s child. That feels about on the level of garbage writing that this series has been doing. I went on a whole tirade on Why this was a bad decision in my last analysis, and oh boy the authors proved me right again. This chapter was executed so badly that I think there are some people who have zero writing experience who could end it better. It’s actually impressive.

With this chapter out, it almost invalidates the last one. Which is certainly Not what you want to do when you only have a handful of chapters left. Hell, you could probably just read 162 and 164 and skip 163 and you would lose absolutely nothing but Aqua pitying himself for making some objectively bad decisions, because somehow Nino trying to stab Ruby was forgotten by the narrative at large. So was Akane, by the way. If Aqua really wanted to get rid of Hikaru in a more subtle manner he could’ve very easily just asked for her help for an alibi after getting rid of Hikaru. It’s all just so idiotic.

It’s a fucking crime that we don’t get to see Ruby in this chapter. All these side characters get a turn on the react couch to Aqua’s death and Ruby is just a footnote in this entire thing when she was the reason that Aqua went to these extremes in the first place. I’d say that the authors don’t know how to handle their characters, but that implies that they knew how to handle them in the first place, which is very debatable. The cracks in the series may have become more evident as it leapt toward the finish line, but they were still there at the start. They were just hidden because there was still decent writing that distracted from the rot hiding beneath the surface.

From what I gather, this arc’s title was Toward The Stars and Dreams. I have a better title for it. Toward Burning The Manga Tankobons Down. The funny thing is that all the emotions I have for this manga have crystallized into apathy with all the horrible decisions the manga is taking. I didn’t feel sad at the end of the chapter when everyone was reacting to Aqua’s death. It felt too much like a slideshow of things that should’ve been given more time in the spotlight. It’s just a feeling of “oh, that’s how they’re going with this? huh. that’s garbage!” and then go on my merry way. If you’re losing the emotional investment that your readers have with the work as as you sprint toward the finish line, then you’ve done something really wrong.

Two chapters left. Let’s just get on with it. I’m not going to be getting my time investment back with this godawful series, but at least I can put a little bow on it and rip it to shreds when its over.

[skenisasleb]

Teddison and Oliver in:

The Phantom of the Opera

AU/Spinoff idea for Ted and Oliver

Roles

Oliver as Erik (Phantom of the Opera)

Ted as Christine (Called Teddison in the AU)

Story

For clarification, I am not try to follow the story of The Phantom of the Opera by every detail. There are many similarities, but this is my own OC adaptation of it.

The story follows Teddison as he gets sent away by his father to study and become a renowned pianist. Teddison’s family line has been filled with famous musicians throughout time, and Teddison seems to be the only one who sucks absolute ass at it, being only halfway decent at the piano.

Teddison’s father sends him to multiple destinations, one of them being a historical monument, an opera where the death of a child prodigy pianist died from a falling chandelier accident.

On the tour, Teddison hears the beautiful, melodic and sad playing of a piano in the alcoves below the opera. No one else in the tour group seems to hear it but him. Straying away from the group; Teddison finds Oliver, playing alone in the alcoves.

Oliver isn’t a deformed man like the original tPotO, he is an actual ghost who haunts the ground below his death site. Having no one else to talk to and with Teddison being a beginner pianist himself, Oliver takes Teddison on as his protégé and eventually ends up falling in love with the boy.

Oliver does have deformity, but it is the result of the way he died and how the fatal blow stayed with his soul in its external form.

[nyarlathotep-thecrawlingchaos]

Hiiiiiii just emotionally destroyed myself watching this movie and will probably never be able to wipe it from my memory ever!!

I wasn't planning on reviewing any more movies on main, but this one deserves it.

It details in a horrifically realistic manner what would have happened if the bombs had actually dropped during the Cold War, with the focus point of the movie being the city of Sheffield, England.

I knew exactly what I was getting into and I still watched it. Easily the most devastating movie I've ever seen. The way it gives you just enough time to get to know the characters before everything goes to hell. The imagery after the bombs drop. The complete lack of hope and the utter realism of it.

I don't regret watching it, but I don't think I'll ever watch it again. Once was enough. Even though it was made in 1984 it's still terrifyingly relevant today.

As such, I petition that we get all the world leaders locked in a room together, particularly those that possess any nuclear weapons at all, and force them to watch this movie. Or at least make it required viewing for anyone running for a major political office, because if they're not emotionally affected by it then they should be disqualified from running altogether.

We had the Fallout adaptation recently, which did do a decent job of bringing the risks of nuclear war to light in a viewer-friendly format, but the storyline of the show and the games alike offer themes of hope for society after the initial catastrophy.

This movie does not offer any hope.

And it's terrifying.

I've been watching and reading horror basically my entire life, and this is easily the most terrifying movie I've ever seen. Which is saying a lot, considering I've made a point of seeking out banned films out of general curiosity throughout my life.

Like I watched A Serbian Film a few years back. I absolutely regret watching it and would like to meet the filmmaker just to ask WTF is wrong with them because it's absolutely deplorable and disgusting, and I will never ever recommend anyone seek it out to watch it. I never thought I'd see a movie that bothered me more.

But Threads did. It bothered me a LOT more. Not because the content or subject matter was worse, but because it was so devastatingly real. Because it was so believable. Because it could actually happen. It shows so much more than a documentary on the potential catastrophic fallout of nuclear war, because it focuses on what happens to the people who are forced to suffer through it.

In contrast, if I ever met the filmmaker for Threads, I'd shake their hand and thank them.

I think it's free to watch on YouTube, and while I feel like it's something that everyone should watch at least once in their life, I don't necessarily recommend diving straight into it unprepared. You should read about it first and make sure you can handle it. Don't feel ashamed for shutting it off if you have to. I almost did halfway through. A few times.

I have to give this 10 stars. The acting is sublime, it doesn't shy away from the subject no matter how terrifying or bleak, it depicts everything with unforgiving realism, and it leaves a serious emotional impact.

It's honestly a work of art. And I'll probably never watch it again. Once was enough.

[popculturebuffet]

Supermay!: President Luthor Review (Comission by WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy people and welcome back to SUPERMAY, a month long celebration of all things superman.

Today we spotlight one of the greatest villians of all time. Not even going to undersell it I LOVE Lex Luthor, in large thanks to Clancy Brown's performance as the man the myth the legend in Superman the Animated Series and Justice League. Wether he's a super scientest, a super buisness man or some combo of the three, Lex is a fascinating character.

Lex is a perfect mirror to clark: Clark had two loving wonderful parents, Luthor's were abusive. Clark has incredible power, but uses it to help people, while Luthor has incredible intellgence but uses it to crush others under his heel metaphorically or quite literally depending on the day. Clark is empathetic and belivies in everyone, while Lex belivies in no one but himself. They don't just come into conflict because Luthor is a terrible person.. they come into conflict because it's hard for these two to coexist: Superman wants Luthor held acountable and as a rich white man in america, that's a tall order, and Luthor simply can't STAND that all these people love Superman and not him.

So that lead's us to today's comic, an intresting chapter in Lex's history borne ENTIRELY out of that egocentric spite: In 2000 Lex Luthor ran for president.. and he WON. Most of you are likely aware this happened as it's been adapted a few times, the movie superman/batman: public enemies adapting the end of his presdiency, Justice League Unlimited featuring him doing said campaign (if JUST to piss superman off/further his evil plans), and Smallville has that happen somewhere.

It's an iconic storyline.. that's sadly undercollected. Yeah today's review covers trade released after an even less subtle evil billionare won the presdiency.. and the probelm is Luthor's campaign was less a storyline and more a big status quo change. As such this collection covers a handful of stories, dosen't really feel like an actual storyline, and only covers up till just after Lex is elected.

There IS a decent reason as this trade was likely reconfigured from the original trade released around the time the storyline happened, and the year after this they began reprinting the era these stories come from in "Superman: The City of Tommorow"... which stopped after two volumes. DC.. isn't great at collecting it's own history, though marvel's only a smidge ahead thanks to their Epic Collection line. They have a bad tendency to stop halfway through and this was a casuality.

Still this trade does at least provide a peak into the election of lex luthor, why he ran, who his running mate was, and how Clark took his greatest enemy WINNING. So join me under the cut for all that and more!

Our first of many stories, and pieces of stories, is The Why. And it's easily my faviorite collected here as it's simple yet brilliant. It's a story with no dialouge till the final panel, with muted colors around, that follows a day in the life of Lex Luthor.. and how no matter what he does or where he goes he can't escape superman: He sees him on a news, at newstands, an employee having a superman action figure (who he naturally gestures his assitant to fire), even a tatoo on a woman he was going to flirt with and maybe unsatisfygly do sex with. I mean lex CAN be hot but let's face it: there is no way in hells someone that egocentric is not selfish in bed.

So we get to the final page.. where he sees a headline with superman and gets an idea. A wonderful awful idea

It's a true masterpiece and while some would say "would luthor REALLY be so petty as to run for president just to spite superman", I say "Early into this post crisis version of the character the man spent billions of dollars and had a woman kidnapped to find out his secret identity and later created a temporary cure to Lois Lane's mother's terminal illness just so she'd date him". Pre-Crisis he was sore superman made him bald and dedicated his life to destroying him. Lex Luthor is a petty bitch and always has been.

This brilliant story was by Greg Rucka, who if you haven't heard of him, you rmissing out. Rucka has done a ton of work at DC with the two standouts to me being his sadly short lived run on Wonder Woman, redefening the character, givnig her her own lex luthor and really just killing it. THen eh did it AGAIN for rebirth. The other is his run on Catwoman, which took Frank Miller's edgelord riffic Year One retcon of Catwoman having been a sex worker.. and recontexualizes it, making Selina's rough background part of her and making her a champion for sex workers and others who simply dont' have one, taking what was meant as stupid fanservice and giving it depth and weight. What i'ms aying is he's really awesome so it's not a shock some of the best stories here are him.

So we then go to part of a story called Adversaries, by JM Demattis, one half of the masterful team behind Justice League International. As Superman is having his morning meditation and thinking "golly gee nothing could ruin this gorgeous day"... Lex Luthor announces he's running for president.

Now you may be asking "Jake how in the flying fuck is lex luthor running for president. " And while 2000's superman is one of the gaps in my comics knowledge I know enough about the time period to know what's going on here and thus why Lex has a shot, with the various storeis themselves filling in a gap or two.

Okay so a while back, Lex Luthor was dying. This was the famous "Kryptonite gave him cancer" story, which I know thanks to the Justice League cartoon. Like the cartoon he eventually escaped it, but rather than Braniac curing it he found another way out: Cloning.

Yes folks Lex Luthor cloned himself, and then pretended to be his own illgitamte child for a while. I mostly know about THIS because I did read the death of superman, reign of the supermen and return of superman all of which happen while Lex is pretending to be his own son and also romancing supergirl who was a shapeshifted alien blob who trusted him for something at the time rather than a teenage girl, which still dosen't make it less creepy as it's still lex luthor grinding up against a member of superman's family. He's also the reason she didn't intervene in said death, telling her to back off clearly hoping superman would die. Granted he ALWAYS hopes superman will die this time he just happened to be correct.

The clone eventually degraded, Luthor blew up metropolis, and he made a deal with the demon neron for a new body. He later pinned all his crimes on a "failed clone" and thus was scott free for any overt supervillany. So as far as anyone knows Luthor's record is clean.

Helping this are two factors: one is that while Luthor was shady as fuck, like most buisnessmen in the 80's and 90's he didn't go around announcing it or hoping he can get courts to ignore his crimes and put them down to "politics". He kept his hands clean like any shady billionare so superman could stop his nonsense, but couldn't really stop HIM, with superman the animated series keeping with this line of thought.

The other is that any shady stuff left tha tcould be dug up.. was erased. See something very weird I haven't read the storyline for happened right before this: at the dawn of the millnieum, braniac attacked and converted metropolis into a literal city of tommorow, a futurestic city packed with fancy tech, robots and other stuff. Braniac was beat but Luthor barganed with him: His baby daughter for the knowledge of how to work all this. Thus Lex was able to make everything run well and had the popular vote.

Finally we have the climax of the year long Batman epic No Man's Land, a story that like president luthor has been adapted a few times because it's that good an idea. Now what it was was a bit nuts.. after a massive earthquake and a plauge, the goverment, backed by some shady folks hoping to profit off the situation, decided Gotham just.. wasn't part of america anymore.

Yeah they just.. set up guards so no one got in or out, and it was declared a no man's land, hence the title. Many evacuated but some coudln't and some like Batman, the GCPD and most of Batman's partners stayed behind to try and save the city. It introduced Cassandra Cain Batgirl, and was where Nightwing and Oracle finally hooked up.

The important part to this is towards the end, as the goverment was finally shamed into doing the right thing Luthor stepped up to help rebuild the city. Naturally this being Lex Luthor he can't do a nice thing unless it either benefits him or pisses off superman somehow, and so he tried to steal the city out from under it's citizens, foiled naturally by batman. So while Batman stopped his shit, the public at large just sees this as a huge humanitarian boost and a bane against the incumbent who you know, signed off on no mans land in the first place. Granted any presidency would struggle after electing to abandon a city and let the joker sort it out, but Luthor being the guy who went in and cleaned up the mess only makes it worse.

It's also here I want to stop and point out the obvious parallel: Lex Luthor is a buisnessman, with a reputation for putting his names on things, having heavy ties to one of america's big cities, flaunting his wealth and being pettily vengful at everyone who so much as sneezed at him wrong. As much as I don't want to talk about him, we really can't talk about this arc anymore without talking about Donald Trump.

Luthor getting elected got comparisons to Trump, to the point they threw in the story Luthor the Unauthroized Biography in here despite having happened long before this arc , simply so they could use this cover

The thing is though while the two have SOME similarities, Luthor's campaign was done long before Trumps.. and thus Luthor presents himself as an actual human being instead of some shouty sack of skin and hair plugs who dosen't understand how anything works. Luthor may be evil.. but part of what makes him an intresting villian is the presentation: Luthor wants to be seen as a good man, to be praised. His reputation and power is everything. Thus luthor packages two evil schemes as him trying to help people, packages everything he does carefully.

Trump DOES have a carefully cultivated brand.. but also has zero filter. He never has. He flat out admitted a few months ago he'll be a dictator on day one.. and day 1001 but he didn't say that part, but he sure is thinking it. Trump is a bafoon who got into office preying on people's need for some sort of economic upturn, pandering to racists and other anti-change bigots, and getting a loyal army of fellow dumbasses to back him and whatever he does, to the point his loyalists held the senate hostage and that he's been able to use them to get away with formenting an insurrection. Would lex luthor storm the captial? yes. Would he do it in a way that couldn't possibly be linked to him? Yes.

Again i'm not saying Lex is a good person: he gave his daughter to an alien robot man. Lex Luthor is a monster. I'm saying that he dosen't really resemble trump.. because he's a FUNCTIONAL monster. Part of why this arc works is that you can see WHY lex can sell america on this as he uses a mostly pristine image. Trump had a combination of luck and racisim. Luthor actually worked at it.

Anyways one of Superman's foes The Adversary, a guy I know nothing about and whose unrelated to the trickster god from marvel far as I know, kidnaps luthor, superman rescues him.. and superman is all too happy to give him a haughty "your welcome" after luthor is a dick about it saying his people could've handled the giant flying man as strong as superman.

Our next story is another Greg Rucka banger, The Most Suitable person and is another tie to Batman. Lex knows he can't keep his company and since he gave away his only children to use as a puppet king, he instead courts the best woman for the job: Talia, daughter of Batman superfoe Ra's Al Ghul. It's an intresting pull and makes sense: He could have his right hand woman mercy run it.... but he needs her at his side for his evil schemes and it'd still look like he was running it. He needs someone he can trust to run it and not take it from him, but also not make it less evil.

Talia at the time was on the outs from her dad and not really in a mood to accept given the centruies old head of a large terrioist group kinda wants her dead. Lex naturally takes her no.. by having a bunch of mercnaries pretending to be her dad's men. It IS left ambigious if it was really them.. but like Talia I fully think Lex set this up and despite his refusals he WOULD blow up a building and get 17 mercs killed just to get what he wants. She agrees to here him out if only because it's clear he won't take no for an answer... and there's no telling what he'd do for an encore.

Next is the great debate, a fun short story and another likely backup. This time it's from my boy Peter David, writer of X-Factor over at marvel, and Young Justice and Supergirl here at dc among a LOT more. It's a fun three pager where Luthor has a nightmare of a debate.. with two face.

Next is some forward movement with the concept, the american way by Jeph Loeb, who'd not only write superman for the luthor presidency as a whole, but would also write it's end with Public Enemies.

Lois and Clark get an ugly suprise that morning: Luthor's picked his running mate..and it's Clark's childhod friend Pete Ross, a former senator and clear pick to get the vote of midwesteners. And living in the mid west I can tell you this ploy probably woudl've worked.

Clark heads down there to find out what the hell and after LUthor exploits his sudden apperance for press, Clark asks pete what the fuck. Pete explains he's given up on dreaming: he wants to be a winner dammit and Luthor is going to win.

Clark confides in his parents, with Pa not knowing what the hell got into Pete.. I mean he was apparently always a moron but my god. Clark considers talking to his wife Lana, Clark's childhood sweetheart, and Ma tells him he should but that she's suffered enough and he shoudlnt' write a piece against pete.. even though pete did this dumbass thing himself and it's clark's job as a reporter, not to mention pete FLAT OUT ADMITTED he's only doing this because he wants to win.

Lois goes to work where Perry, SHOCKINGLY isn't happy. Also she ignores Jimmy, expect that to be a theme here. At any rate, Perry is pissed, but Lois is more concerned about a ticking time bomb: she agreed to kill any one story luthor asked and is afraid the bill will come due. This.. dosen't come up strangely. I THINK it plays into the arc, but I can't be sure as it's missing here.

Superman decides to deal with his own issues with this whole situation the way he does.. by battling a giant monster in the atlantic. He wins.. but finds a bigger problem, Aquaman, whose still in his angry phase but is ANGRIER than even usual: turns out it's Lexcorp that's been causing creatures like the giant monster thing to go nuts, and he's going to do something about it even as Clark TRIES To get him to calm the hell down. Thankfully this isn't bad character writing as there's a reason for Arthur being mopeier than usaul.

For now Clark swoops into an event for Lex, but before he can talk to Lana, Aquaman shows up with a giant net to kidnap lex luthor

Superman naturally goes after him only to find THE ARMIES OF ATLANTIS led by former aqualad and current tempest garth, who orders superman to stand down or he'll flood the city

Garth is the key indicator somethin'gs up: arthur does have a tendency to be a grumpus in this era, him doing this isn't SUPER out of character.. but declaring war and Garth participating in it and activating a giant wave machine? Something's fucked.

Superman may be faster than a speeding bullet.. but he isn't fast enough to stop garth.

Thankfully he gets some help from the boys YOUNG JUSTICE IS HERE! Specifically the comics version, which I love dearly and which is nothing like what got on screen. Nothing against the cartoon, Weisman did a great job, it's just based more on the teen titans with bits of greg's own ideas. Young Justice is more like the teen titans cartoon , which was intended to be a YJ adaptation but they coudln't get the rights to some of the cast.

The lineup for this crossover is the core of the team: Robin (Tim Drake), Superboy (conner king) Impulse, and Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandmark), along with their mentor and advisor and babysitter my boy red Tornado. Clark is.. less than enthused, but takes the help as they hit the streets. Naturally things don't go on too long before robin and cassie get eaten by that big thing from earlier.

This is on purpose though: Tim revs up the super cycle, had cord attached to it and superboy and later superman PULLL PULLL while he revs up, allowing them to pull the thing back into the ocean. Superman sincerly compliments them, which is nice: clark may be mildly frustrated with them.. but he's still superman. He's not a dick and as weird as the plan was, it worked. He quickly saves lois , as he do then goes to rescue Luthor.

This being Luthor though.. he spins it in his favor. He claims he had no idea the braniac tech he was using was turning sea life mad.. including the atlantians, explaning why Arthur done did a war crime, and vows to actually fix it, spinning this pr disaster into a win.

Then he gets another PR win.. the hard way. He gets shot. The culprit is Jenny Hubbard, a minor character I had to look up, a waitress he once offered a million dollars to spend a month with him... then left long before she could accept the offer, it being a cruel prank he does to fuck with people. Naturally the media spins it as her being delusional... it also uses the same shot for an entire page but i'll only show you 4 panels

Also for some reason they didn't think to not have a shot wher eluthor looks like a preist getting down instead of having just taken a bullet... he smiles in his hotel room. It's as if he planned it.

The next story is another Loeb story, and another backup, tales from the Bizzaro World. Batman shows up and he's understandably nettled: As I mentioned, and learned from this story, the braniac 13 thing wiped Luthor's records. That means there's no dirt to dig up, the planets records also wiped and Batman wants to know if Clark personally has anything.

Clark dosen't.. but is pissed Bruce would even ask, pointing out this isn't the usual try to take down luthor thing: their talking about a political canditate running for office and this isn't something they should be doing.

I see both points: Luthor should be stopped and Batman is right ot question the american people's judgement when they let no man's land happen. But Clark is right: he can't just suddenly DECIDE who can be president or can't. He's not king superman. He put away the pope hat ages ago. He can vote, he can use his power at the planet to TRY and stop this.. but they can't just start deciding who runs america. Even if the people choose wrong they should be allowed to choose. Granted i've now seen how bad the people choosing wrong can go.. but the whole point of elections is to prevent a dictator ship, just like this one and likely others after it given the way the republican party is going. If someone else is sinking canditates ;using their billions and connections and bat skills, that's not freedom and clark is aware of it.

We move on to election night as everyone prepares.. and we get a really nice moment with Clark and Jonn

A reminder the leauge isn't thrilled about this either. More on that in a minute

In the office Pete White considers two headlines: Luthor Loooses.. or Luthor wins.

We then get Triumph Over Tragedy, a heavily doctored detaling of luthor's past, leaving out that he killed his dad, that the evil clone was him, etc. It's a neat piece that goes over his history and shows just how mnuch he's buried..a nd he buries it again as he asks cat to cut out the piece. This ending is chilling.. especially now as we have full channels like fox news dedicated to telling blatant lies and propping up people like luthor.

We then get the results as Jimmy is assigned to do a story on where they were when they heard about his announcment.. only for him to be interuppted. Perry announces, comparing it to other disasters.. that luthor has won. They have to press on because shit is going to get bad.. but they ahve to. While the Luthor trump comparssions don't really work for the most part.. this part hits as it's the reality most of us faced that day: that someone truly bad won.

Next up is another greg rucka story. Batman shows up , wanting the kryptonite ring. Luthor can have it or the presdency. Luthor says nah he can have both.. and shows just how bad things are now. While he said in the cartoon "you know how much power i'd have to give up to be president" this shows how much he GAINS: every wet works orginzation in the us now responds to him and he threatens batman: come after him again and he can track him and his allies 24/7 and he will. Bruce says he'll be back.. but it's an empty threat. Luthor.. has once again won. It's a great shor tlittle story, showing WHY Batman was so afraid of this and how even Superman's equal... can't lay a finger on him. Luthor.. has won.

We get a jeph loeb short story next: have you heard the news. it's a fun short three pager as Superman goes into an absolute RAGE on saturn's moon. He's.. not happy and luthor can see that. I also would like to take a minute to praise Ed McGuinnes, who did the art on Jeph Loeb's story. He has this nice bombastic cartoony style i REALLY love and it's always a pleasure to see him when he pops up and we'll be seeing him again when we cover public enemies at some point.

Next is the confrontation with Lana. Turns out part of Superman's understandable bafflement is that he kidnapped her like I mentioned.. and she never told pete as she couldn't without compromising clark's identity and admits they have NOTHING on luthor and that maybe pete will make it better and her marriage has to be mor eimportant. In other words.. it's all justifications: while Lana COULD have told Pete what happened and it's on her to not trust her husband enough. Clark would've let her. The truth is she just didn't want to and cries as she hopes he won't be president. Unsuprisingly this marriage did not last.

We get one final piece of election night: Superman storming in.. and admitting defeat

I love this image as it just convey's both how little clark wants to do this.. and how much he has to. To show america he won't undercut the president even if that president has cameras on saturn just to see if superman has a venting session.

Next up is a snippet of an issue, where Luthor has his big innaugration parade. He even hired an old friend to help celebrate

Trust. It's interuppted by some protesters from the Suicide Slum, a poorer area of Metropolis that got left behind by the Braniac updgrades to the rest of the city. Luthor dances a little sidestep saying he's not in charge of Lexcorp, he'll look into this, bullshit bullshit.

Clark and Lois go to talk to John Henry Irons, aka Steel aka Lana's next better husband. Then we cut off but we'll be seeing my boy here soon

For now we have my other faviorite story in this collection, a very close second to our first: Help.

Help is set at christmas and follows Clark as he talks with the other members of the Justice League about the shit that just went down, clearly stressed to hell given the people he protets and tries to inspire.. just willingly choose an egomaniac with a shady history to be their new leader. We also get a murder's row of artists for each vingette, written again by Jeph Loeb.

The first is the Martian Manhunter.. and Plastic Man as he was the only member of the expanded league from Morrison's run to stick around because he's awesome. Fun fact; Ben Schwartz has apparently campaigned to play him. James Gunn.. get.. get on that buddy.

Jonn is TRYING to help Clark relax but he can't because he's a boinger. And again a sociopath is in the white house. Clark wonders if he shoudl've done more to stop this.. but Jonn helps put it into perspective: Clark is integrated into this world a bit better than Jonn is, something he envies... especiallys ince what happened made no sense. But he assures clark the second Lex does something illegal, he's there... which also feels like his way of assuring his friend he did the right thing. We also get a sweet moment as plastic man makes him smile. Clark gives the two a gift: rubber bands fo rplastic man, choco's, jonn's faviorite oreo stand in, for .. well guess. It's a fun runner as I love the idea Clark gives his friends each a cheesy gag gift.

Next up is aquaman, by rob liefeld, which is shockingly passable. Clark and Arthur both look pissed off and dead at the same time but at least their spines are in tact. Arthur is actaully on lex's side since he's the first world leader to both promise trade with atlantis and offer commuincation and while Clark admits those are probably lies, Arthur warns they better not be, implying Luthor would be kinda stupid to do anything. Arthur then gets his gift a snowglobe and cracks the closest thing he can to a smile.

Next is a talk with green lantern drawn by Mike Wirnego, who i'm less familiar with but whose art looks sensational and expressive here. Granted anything is expressive after Rob Liefield but still, it's good stuff.

The League's green lantern is Kyle Rayner, imaginative boy and 90's guy. So naturally his stance is Luthor is crooked.. but so was the last guy and so will likely be the next guy. Things really don't change. Kyle still votes though as he has to hope things will be better. It shows Kyles' character off well: he's flip and easy to crack a joke.. but he's an optimsit at heart. His stance here is honestly mine: the system is broken, our vote only pivots thing slightly in elections where a known criminal and tyranical narcsist isn't running.. but it's worth voting just to TRY and make things better. There's no reason not to vote even if sometimes it's the lesser of two evils. Kyle's gift is ring polish, which he cracks up about.

Next up is Wally West, the flash by art motherfucking adams, an artistic legend and a genius at the pen. Truly fantastic stuff as always. Wally is picking up some chcoclates linda wanted, last minute of course since when your the fastest man alive you can do that cliche without coming off like a douche. Also when you have undiagnosed ADHD. Wally's stance is voting early and often, as that's the american way and admits he'd drag luthor out if Clark asked.. but he won't ask that because that's not the american way. The American way is putting your faith in something and hoping it works out. Wally gets tube socks for some reason.

Next is Diana, Wonder Woman and it's by Ian Churchill who i'm less familiar with.. but i'ts not drawn great. Diana also has large fake nails for some reason. It's this weird tendency i've noticed: artists tend to give long painted nails to women even if it didn't fit the character back in the 80's through the 2000's. I don't mind it if It fits and I could see diana doing it for a fancy occasion or fun, but not for a sparring session.

Diana dosen't care about the electoin and while she probably did vote she's more worried Clark is slipping and has already let Luthor win mentally. He hasn't but it's good of her to worry. She does have a valid suggestion that comes off as more in character though: take some time off. Granted i'ts written as "as a woman and as your only friend whose a woman " which just tells you a 2000's man wrote this. He gives her a tiny mjonr, which I again don't get but gets him a hug. Awww.

We end on Batman whose still pissed at Clark, rubbing the whole "letting humans have free will thing' in his face and saying when the time is right we will take down luthor. In other words prime bat dick behavior, not suprising for the era wher Batman was extra dickish at times.

So Clark takes the advice of a friend who didn't want him to interfere with free choice and takes a few days off in kandor with lois, content for now to accep tthe situation

We then get World without Superman by Mark Schultz... and this story is just..

The IDEA for the story is good: Around christmas time we see Clark depressed that Luthor won. Granted it dosen't jibe well with the previous story: Luthor won, but clark at least tried to take some time away from. I can still allow it though thanks to personal experince. Like with Perry's line before CLark depressedly watching the tv as Luthor makes good, butters up to the league and geninely seems to have america's approval hits harder after the 2016 election. Anyone on the left.. was left dismayed and shocked this actually happened, that this openly racist, sexist, homphobic pile of hair and spray tan won. I can sympathize with Clark having GENUINELY belivied in the people.. and them having let him down. I can buy that Superman, one of the most hopeful and hope inspiring characters in all of fiction.. could be laid low by this.

So the followup, Lori Lee of the time traveling Linear Men who i'd only vaugely heard of before this, shows up because things are going VERY bad thanks to decisions clark makes soon, that he quits being superman and gives up.. and the world goes to hell as a result. This idea.. is brilliant. While the it's a wonderful life riff is common, I like merging it with the future segment of a christmas carol here.

The problem is that they go WAY too far in this distoypian future to the point that it defies logic and sense. A good bad future has to have some sort of logic to it. To use an X-Men example because I got x-men on the brain now and always, Days of Future Past was effective because it was so simple how things went wrong: a mutant killed an anti-mutant senator, that ramped up anti mutant tensions, and things slowly escalated to the regestration act and the sentinel program going public. It took TIME for the world to go to hell in a realistic fashion.

This story does try to do that, it's 15 years later, Lexcorp runs the world. A large part of this is due to Our Worlds at War, a massive crossover and interstellar war that happened next year. During that war a powerful being named impereix decided to unmake reality due to a percieved imperfection in the cosmos and given his drones were incredibly powerful and if defeated detonated like nuclear bombs it took ALL of earth's superheroes as a united front, along with a few villians of course, to fight it back. Luthor proved his presidential chops by directing the conflict. The idea that this war goes badly without supes is a good one.

The problem is it dosen't really make sense with the storyline next year or even objectviely: Luthor apparently spent through a bunch of heroes with costly battle strategies.. but while Clark being gone DOES impact the superhero community severely and his clear replacement, Wonder Woman, was also gone, replaced by her mom, they still have the rest of the league, and if they coudln't inspire hope, there's the justice society of america, who the whole superhero community looks up to and who have vetran clout. Sure Lex could TRY and send them on a suicide run and did send them on a risky mission in the actual war, but the fact of the matter is it'd be a bit hard to both overtalk and cover up the deaths of world war II vetrans. Heroes who as far as I can tell have a unviersally good reputation. It's also overlooking the younger generation like DIck Grayson or Wally West, both of whom have enough collections across the various dc heroes to rally them.. and rally tem against luthor if he went to far.

Even putting that aside.. the second step, putting in laws to fuck with all them, is more plausable.. but the fact their ALL gone but batman and co by this point dosen't make any sense to me. Only one league member wasn't against luthor's election on some level, Arthur, and even his terms were VERY conditional. Luthor would have to do a lot of state sec killing to get the heroes down to a point where they couldn't just overthrow him and while he has the b13 tech, the heroes have geniuses like Oracle, Steel, and Batman on their side to help reverse engineer things. I also don't think bruce would remotely wait to go commando on Luthor and is smart enough. I'm not saying batman's a god : many a weak story has made batman a gary stu by forgetting he's a flawed man.. but he CAN beat lex luthor even with the world against him and wouldn't let Luthor get this far.

With days of future past the X-Men are a bunch of average people, with only charles having any political pull at the time. Batman.. is a billionaire. Wonder Woman and Aquaman both rep whole nations. Kyle and Wally while average joes are both gods. The only reason the justice league didn't say, remove Luthor the second he got elected.. is he was rightfully elected and they respect that. Even Batman, as pissy as he's been, knows better than to do that. But if things got bad enough they would and would let america hopefully pick someone better. Even if they ended up jailed.. they'd expose luthor if it killed them. Maybe i'm just an optimist, maybe the world would beat them all down.. but i've read enough dc comics of all kinds to know these characters.. don't give up and would fight their hardest for a better world even if it killed them. So it feels reductive to say superman being gone instantly means their all fucked. It'd mean they'd be more depressed, might go to darker places without clark, and some MIGHT give up.. but I can't imagine everyone giving up because superman decided.

And yes folks.. THAT'S what they went with. Superman just GAVE UP ON earth. I could buy Clark giving up on being superman if pushed enough: the world is full of heroes and as seen with the later storyline up up and away, which I hope to cover one day and might save for the next supermay, the dcu.. didn't burn down because he was gone a year after being depowered. He can still do good as Clark Kent. I can't buy Clark being SO fed up he'd leave. Retire maybe, and even then that's hard to buy.. but it's PLAUSABLE. Superman abandning his parents, wife and friends to fend for themselves and NEVER coming back is ludcirious, especially since the imperix war ended up spreading wide enough hat there's no way he wouldn't speed back to help. Darkseid pitched in for fucks sake: you think he'd let Superman sit out a war he had to humble himself to get help for? No. Darkseid is. Darkseid would be PISSED superman gave up and demand he come help or he'll kill his ass. I get the writer probably didn't have all the pieces, but said pieces really hurt htis series longetivity

What also hurts it is the present day part: Lois, Jimy and Perry try one last hail mary to save journalism.. and fail, as Luthor saw it coming a mile away and has his personal hit squad kill them. and some tigers. I don't buy Lois being this dump or thinking cozying up to luthor would remotely work. He took satstifaction in Lois, Jimmy and Perry joining his propoganda.. but he never forgot.

We also get another insult with that.. see some heroes.. sold out to luthor.. and who they choose...

Yeah normally on this blog I try to be positive. I will point out when a work is bad or not great.. but I try to be constructive. Explain why it is or at least thrown in a joke. I try to avoid nerd raging.. but my GOD does the choice of having Plastic Man, Booster Gold and Huntress honk me off. Part of it is i'm a big fan of the latter two thanks to JLI and Birds of Prey, respectively. So I admit to a little bias. That being said, said bias is from having actually read the characters apperances and not just picked who would make a good edgy shocking luthor justice league out of a hat.

I get WHY each one was picked: Plastic Man comes off a tad shady and entirely unserious, Booster is both not all that serious and was introduced as a willing corprate shill: he had standards but DID it for the fame and to escape his criminal past and once bought an island with justice league money, while Helena often clashed with the bat fam at the time due to her more violent methods and bruce being a tad dickish.

The problem is NONE OF THIS MEANS THEY'D SIGN UP WITH LUTHOR. Plastic Man is loosey goosey.. but he's not so loosey goosey he'd agree to work for luthor to opress people. Booster sold out.. but he both grew past that and already fueded with Luthor in his solo: he knows he can't trust him and if he's going to make money, he'll do it on his own and if things are going THIS bad he'd either go back to fix them.. or just go back entirely to avoid this crap if the's that cynical. He also wouldn't blow up a building full of people under any circumstances that aren't accidental, and even the latter is a bit much for Booster. he may be a fuckup.. but he's not a "murder a bunch of people fuckup" and is a good guy, i'ts just buried under layers of self intrest.

Finally Helena.. has a super strong sense of justice: she DID start her career killing and went after the mob because they murdered her family. She'll do things Batman won't , or at least would at this point in her career.. but I can't remotely buy her selling out to luthor and not trying to put a bolt in his head, even if he is the law. She went outside of the law in the first place, why would she trust it enough to work under lex? This feels like the writer picked three characters he thought might do it and didn't bother to think thorugh how their fans would feel, which happens a LOT and always feels cheap and has only gotten worse since booster and helena got furhter fleshing out in the later 2000's that makes this somehow dumber.

Our last few stories cover his actual swearing in and right after and i'm going to rapid fire them as they aren't BAD stories, but mostly either small one offs clearly designed to set something up later.

The first is the actual innugaration which is a full story.. but I simply don't have much to say about it. It's by the same guy who did the previous dumbassery, but he does a good job here. I'ts innaguration day and Steel and his niece and future steel herself Natsha plan a protest. They even run into some othe rheroes: Pat Duggan, formerly Stripsey sidekick to the star spangled kid.

His daughter courtney, bitter about having to move when her mom married pat and being a bit of a brat at the time found the equipment and became a costumed hero just to piss him off. Pat used some powered armor he was making to become S.T.R.I.P.E. to keep an eye on her. That's where we are here, with Courtney and Pat having bonded but still not being on the same page a lot of the time. This would soon change as Courntey realized her bio dad was a piece of shit, and accepted pat as her dad, becoming Stargirl and taking up that legacy.

For now though their just at the inagguration because history and all that, but naturally superhero stuff breaks out as Steel's protest was leaked to team luthor. HIs bodyguards mercy and hope attack, but with an assitn from Courtney Steel wins the day.. and asks how they knew. He figures out itw as a setup.. just in time for someone else.

A supervillian attacks, having been created by the same circumstances that John Henry and co were protesting: luthor's devistation of the suicide slum. Naturally superman sweeps in as he planned not to attend, a silent protest but WAS nearbye just in case. He, Steel, Stargirl and Stripsey win of course, and Luthor also wins of course, getting a photo op with superman as "you wouldn't deny your president would you". A masterful dick move sir.

The next one is cleaning up a loose end, courtsey of Karl Kessel, long time superman writer and superboy co-creator and writer.. the connor kent one. Luthor was actually married once to the Contessa, an immortal buisness woman he secretley married who is the mother of his child and once took over his company. Luthor blows her up with missles as you'd expect.

The last two are setups for later... that i'm baffled are in here. The first one I get a little. Cerce, wondy's arch enemy I mentioned (one of them anyway, she has a few contenders) waltzes up planning a partnership but Luthor shoots her down and is naturally a dick abou tit. Some shady man offers her his help and.. that's about it. It's a decent story showing that Luthor's old criminal buddies aren't getting any free rides by this administration, it just baffles me it's in here. You could've used the pages to finish one of the other stories from earlier or put in a story from his adminstration. We also get one setting up his bumbling assitant Mercy is bitter about. That's.. really it. That's how it ends.

So overall this trade.. was a bit better on the second go round. The first act, while pieced together, does tell a cohesive story.. they just felt for osme reason the need to include the innguration and some other stories to pad it out at the end. It would've been better to end at luthor becoming president, maybe at the justice league story dealing with it. We really didn't NEED the terrible future story or the innaguration and tales. The rest tells a good story of how luthor GOT here, how he won, and how Clark feels about it. Throw in the unathorized biography and it would've been enough. Still if you have a few bucks the trade IS worth picking up, and did the best it could with the space it had. IT's an intresting look at an intresting storyline and has some real gems: like I said "The Why" and "Help" are really great stories and worth the price of the trade alone. Thanks for reading

Next time: We get super serial as we look into "The Clan of the Firey Cross"

[lochblocknroll]

who: an open starter to anyone interested! what: SciPNET Login SetUp

Loch fancied he could be forgiven for having been the first in line for this. It was, perhaps, a bit of overkill to have arrived as quickly as he did when he heard exactly what this was, but the mere possibility of being able to touch a keyboard again was enough to push him to a level of punctuality he'd never before demonstrated. It was as exciting as the first time Nathan Drake realized he had the ability to survive the impossible. Survival was not, perhaps, Loch's strength, but adapting was and he was confident in his ability to jailbreak even this limited system into something more useful. Christ on a bike, he was excited about this.

Turning to the person with the (mis)fortune of standing behind him, Loch began asking the questions he considered to be of paramount importance. "So, have you worked with this system before? Is it pretty standard, like Linux or Windows? I've heard it's more like a search engine before. Have you heard if it's particularly intuitive or is it running off of like Windows 84-style bullshit? And, most importantly, how good is the WiFi? If it only works on WiFi, we'll need a halfway decent connection, unless someone's willing to get into the details of hardware, which I'm not. I'm more than happy to optimize the software, but actual hardware is so far beyond me, it makes a summer trip to Andromeda feel feasible."

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

Okay it a mixture, but since a lot of them tell their ages.

Why do so many progressive millennials want to give black people sloppy seconds?

Is it because they are too scared shitless to get out of their comfort zones to properly research African kingdoms and such?

I mean Black Panther made over a billion of dollars and it’s sequel was profitable. So people are interested in African cultures some way.

Why don’t they make fantasy African kingdoms? Because they can’t take the hard pill that it will take a while to make things iconic?

Jesus we bitch about boomers mishandling of different cultures. But the current generation of fantasy writers are so uncreative. One would wonder if they every left their houses growing up?

I talked about this a week or so ago, but writers actually are writing fantasy stories based on African history/folklore. I don't know how good they are because I haven't read any yet, but the genre does exist and it seems to be growing. The problem is that people doing adaptations don't want to touch any of those works with a ten foot pole. With the way everyone seems obsessed with promoting black people at all costs, we should be in a golden age of these novels, if they're even halfway decent, being optioned left and right. Black creators should be raking in the sweet, sweet studio money. Instead, we still live in the world where executives are executives. They have no real interest in black authors or their works. They're just interested in ticking off a box on a DEI checklist. All they want is to put a dark face on a screen and make money. It's much easier to do that by blackwashing a property that's already a proven moneymaker than it is to promote a brand new work with original black characters. You get the DEI payouts and you maybe get some normies to go see the thing they liked as a child on the big screen, despite the way they vandalized it. Rinse and repeat. We won't see any of these works, or their creators, get any kind of mainstream recognition or big pay days until the current lazy model of "representation is all that matters" is no longer generating a profit with minimal effort.

[drachonia]

hiii, drac 💕 how are you doing today?

for noele: 🎮 💯 🐶 💘 🍰 🤩

I'm good! How are you? :D Also THANK YOU FOR THE ASK EEEEE I'm excited for this.

🎮: Noele's into baking, horseback riding, and sparring with her friends in her particular squad.

💯: 1. Some of the besties (specifically Celicia and Cure) actually gave me the inspiration to develop her a bit more, so she's a knight under Licht's command to boot.

2. Noele was an OC I came up with about halfway through 2023, but I really started developing her more during my history class on the Viking Age, so that was a decent inspiration for her homeland and her ideals.

3. Her home, Quartz, is partially born of the setting I had been building for my old DnD characters, a former duchy that broke off to become its own nation with a climate and landscape somewhat reminiscent of Norway and Iceland's coasts and fjords. (So...really fucking pretty with some seascape outside Noele's front door while she was growing up.)

🐶: She has a horse named Menthe, but otherwise not really a pet person. Her family and friends would have hunting dogs, though, and she doesn't mind getting a pet, she's simply too busy for anything not related to her profession.

💘: If anyone's been unfortunate enough to be in my vicinity when I talk about my brain babies (read: OCs) like Noele, she's my MC for Nokto's route. Safe to say she holds the goofy fox awfully close, even likes teasing him a fair bit!

🍰: Noele's favorite dessert is probably roll cake, the more fluffy, moist, and cream-filled, the better. Make her a vanilla roll cake, fill it with strawberry whipped cream, frost with buttercream or ganache, and top with fresh fruit and you have a very happy Noele.

🤩: Mostly spontaneous, she's usually not a thinker, she's a doer. A friend's caught up in trouble? Time to rush headfirst in with a greatsword and see what happens. Though sometimes she will plan things out if she judges her impulses to have a negative impact. She's an adaptable sort.

[anniesocsandgeneralstore]

So I may or may not have thought up a whole lotta back story for Jake in that NFL au we've been talking about.

And uh, spoiler alert, I totally did! 😆

Enjoy!

(there are also fixes for the timeline issues we discovered due to the length of an NFL season so that Ronnie can actually end up going into labor at full term after they win the Super Bowl😄)

Jake went to the University of Texas on a football scholarship

Towards the end of his freshman year, he starts dating a girl he met in his Comparative Literature class (Jake is secretly a giant bookworm).

Jake’s always been a hopeless romantic, so he falls for her hard and fast. They end up dating all four years of college and by the end of their senior year Jake is sure she’s The One. Can imagine his whole future with her.

She’s the picture perfect college football girlfriend and when he tells her that he wants to put his name in for the NFL draft she is enthusiastically supportive of the idea.

Senior year rolls around and while he doesn’t win the Heisman there’s still a lot of talk in the world of college sports media and NFL media about his draft possibilities. 

The Minnesota Vikings take him at number 25 in the first round. Not as high as the analysts thought he’d go, but still pretty decent. 

While Jake wasn’t exactly excited to be moving to Minnesota, he was thrilled nonetheless that his dream of playing in the NFL was coming true. His girlfriend on the other hand, was almost embarrassingly vocal about her dislike of having to move to Minnesota. She also kept making little comments about how purple really isn’t her color and that she looks better in a light blue “like that LA Chargers blue”.

Jake’s rookie year in Minnesota is not his best year, both professionally and personally.

Jake and the other rookies quickly realize that playing in the NFL is way different than playing in college and they all struggle to adapt, with Jake taking the longest. Which frustrates him to no end.

At home, his relationship with his girlfriend is starting to crack but Jake refuses to admit it. He’s also refusing to admit the painful truth that his girlfriend wasn’t still with him because she loved it, she was still with him because she loved the idea of being the girlfriend/wife of a professional athlete. 

If he had been truthful with himself, he would have noticed his relationship was headed south based on his girlfriend’s reaction to not having unrestricted access to the account his NFL money went to.

At the end of his rookie year, Jake is traded to the Indianapolis Colts and his girlfriend breaks up with him. She admits to him that this was not the kind of life she envisioned when he said he wanted to play in the NFL. She was expecting a life like that of Tom Brady & Gisele Bundchen (before the divorce lol), hanging out and becoming friends with celebrities and living in a million dollar mansion. 

So Jake starts his second year in the NFL in Indianapolis with a broken and now jaded heart. He decides he’s not going to let anyone get close to him again. No relationships, just fun and done. 

It doesn’t take too long before he’s got a reputation as both a player and the team asshole.

Cue Ronnie showing up a little over halfway through his second year with the Colts.

Jake freely admits to himself that he finds her attractive. During practice he makes comments and remarks that definitely toe the line between appropriate and not appropriate.

But Ronnie gives as good as she gets and Jake starts to admire her for that.

Towards the end of the season, the two of them have definitely become more flirty with each other.

The Colts just miss making it to the AFC Championship that season.

One of the other guys on the team hosts a Super Bowl party for those who are still in town and both Jake (who lives in Indy year round) and Ronnie go.

A drunk kiss or three happens between the two of them.

When sober they admit to each other that they find the other one attractive. With it now the off season, they decide on a no strings attached fwb thing.

Over the next four months, Jake starts to catch feelings. Somewhere along the line, Ronnie has (unbeknownst to her) chipped away at the walls around his heart. (if he was honest with himself, she basically blew them up). 

But he doesn’t want these feelings because the last time he let a girl in, she broke his heart.

And just as Jake is finally starting to think that it might not be so bad to let Ronnie in, that’s when she tells him she’s pregnant (Ronnie taking some antibiotics for strep throat plus one night where they had a bit too much to drink to remember to use backup protection equals oops).

Jake freaks out.

He freaks out because his first thought wasn’t “shit”, his first thought was “our baby is going to be so adorable”. Quickly followed by “this baby is half Ronnie and I already love it” with images flashing in his mind of Ronnie living with him at his place, watching her glow as her bump gets bigger, Jake holding a baby that has his nose and Ronnie’s eyes, watching a toddler run down a hallway, giggling as Jake & Ronnie give chase.

Jake slams the brakes on that train of thought as fast as he can.

Instead what comes out is "Look, we had fun. It was good! But, you know...I didn't sign up for this. I'm not exactly cut out for the parenting life." despite the fact that he’s always wanted a family, always wanted to be a dad. Ignoring how much his heart is breaking again, he just looks at Ronnie and tells her to take care of it.

This happens around mid to end of June. Jake stops talking to Ronnie.

They don’t see each other again until training camp in August.

Jake asks Ronnie if she’s “solved her problem” and that’s when Ronnie tells Jake she decided to keep the baby. He’s secretly relieved and he may or may not have cried when he got home that night.

He still keeps his distance from her because he still refuses to admit to himself his feelings for her. Plus Ronnie has made it pretty clear she doesn’t want or need his help.

And then the rest of it plays out like how we talked about before with Ronnie just starting her second trimester when the season starts.

She ends up staying with Jake at his place because something happens to her apartment - like it catches on fire or mold is found? Or maybe Ronnie starts getting disturbing hate mail from people who don’t think women should be allowed to coach in the NFL or a stalker and the team is like “you need to find someplace safer to live for a while until the police catch this crazy person” and Jake just “casually” offers up one of his spare bedrooms.

Ronnie gets to his place "For someone who lives by themselves, why is your place so big?"

"I don't know. I didn't want to deal with buying a house so I told my agent to deal with it. Just said it had to have a pool, privacy, and enough room to have parties. Oh, and a nice bathroom."

INDY THIS IS MY FAVORITE THING ON THE FUCKING PLANET I AM SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP YOUR MIND I CAN'T

new and improved timeline y'all she's going on the masterlist

the broken heart?? the guardedness to protect himself?? being in the NFL not what he thought it would be?? him falling for ronnie despite every attempt not to (a running gag with this man i see)?? i am SCREAMING

[spacetrashpile]

HIHIHIHI!! okay i have multiple ummm. 25 and 13 for elena, 4 and 1 for hex ^_^

HIHI!! so context on both characters!

elena sherwood (she/her) is a tiefling oath of glory paladin of the raven queen. i cant divulge Too Much of her backstory here as some people who are in this campaign follow me and i don’t want to spill my secrets, but she’s currently a pirate traveling with a band of other tieflings: chandra and phylanx, two siblings who appeared on her ship through a portal from the fae wild one day, saartaashath, a large and quiet man who has worked on her ship a few times, myn, a flamboyant circus performer who works with saartaashath’s sibling, tabitha AKA talbin, a rock obsessed goblin/tiefling who is Tall (for a goblin), and lev, an amnesiac with a vampire wife.

hex palethorpe (she/her) is a dnd rogue with a subclass i CANNOT remember turned mechanisms oc. she spent a portion of her life traveling with the space pirate crew the revengers, but after they got caught in a terrible web of cults and child experimentation and powers that be that resulted in the deaths of two of their party members, she split. she got caught up in the space mob after that, where she was killed and brought back as a mechanism to work for her boss, lady saturn, for eternity. that… wasn’t in the cards, so she got the hell out of there and now travels with a group of other mechanized space pirates on the ship the caesura.

13. what languages do they speak? how fluently?

elena only speaks common and infernal. common she, of course, speaks very fluently, but she only knows bits and pieces of infernal. both her parents were tieflings too, so she’s kinda far removed from the actual demonic parts of her bloodline by now.

25. how good/bad is their hearing? what about their eyesight?

she’s got halfway decent hearing- certainly not as good as it used to be, as she’s spent a fair few years on a pirate ship, surrounded by a lot of loud noise a lot of the time, but she gets by. her eye sight is FAR better than mine, she’s one of the few characters i have who i didn’t give glasses. i actually checked as i was writing this for the joke- i did in fact give her proficiency in perception, lol.

1. are they associated with a certain color? what color do they wear the most?

whoops i yellow-coded a character again. i also associate hex with black and green, but her main color scheme is yellow. it’s my favorite color what can i say!!

4. how crafty/resourceful are they?

EXTREMELY. hex has had to struggle to survive in some capacity for most of her very long life, so she has gathered a million skills and is always looking for new ones. she will attempt to adapt well to every situation, because her other way out is suffering and dying, and while she can just do that with no consequences, it’s not like it’s any fun to die.

[rangikuxmatsumoto]

This is a collection of headcanons I have never formally written down and gives some additional information into my thoughts on Rangiku and some of her relationships. The headcanons that involve other canon characters will not be implied in roleplays unless discussed upon with the mun of that muse. Additionally, if the mun of that muse wants they’re welcome to adapt these into their own headcanon.

While Rangiku and Gin are close in age, Gin is slightly older by at least two years but no more than seven.

Rangiku followed Gin to the academy, entering at the same time as him. She completed the academy in the standard six years. Initially she was not in the advanced placement class until her second year, but even while in it her grades were mediocre at best.

Just prior to graduation as students began to speculate about which division may offer them acceptance, Rangiku didn’t have one she generally leaned towards however she did have one she didn’t want to be in.

She originally considered the Fifth, but Gin talked her out of it.

The First was crossed off from the get-go. Too strict and she wasn’t meant for something like that.

The Eleventh and Twelfth were absolute no’s for very obvious reasons.

The Fourth was also off the list mainly because while she was halfway decent with healing kido, she couldn’t see herself in that position.

After careful thought, she did end up with a short list of divisions she’d actually consider. She had been open to the Eight, the Ninth, the Tenth and the Thirteenth. She only received an offer from the Tenth. She would have considered the Second, but she really didn’t want to deal with perfecting/mastering her hakuda.

Her progression through the ranks in the Tenth was gradual. Other than the length of time she held the position of fukutaichou, her longest held position was when she was the third seat. Upon her advancement to fukutaichou only a few years prior to her encounter with Toushiro, she convinced Isshin to keep the space vacant for reasons.

Rangiku always appreciated that Isshin took a chance on her, even if they butted heads, she respected him as her captain and as a trusted friend and mentor. She’d always feel like the Tenth was a family, this opinion didn’t change with Toushiro joining the fray and after he became her captain.

It was Rangiku’s assistance to Isshin, really her demand, that they bring Toushiro into the Tenth. She felt a strong sense of responsibility and loyalty to him, as her insistence brought him into the academy and then the Gotei.

[thebuzztrack]

A Review of Billy Hanson's 'Bone Cold' (2022)

Billy Hanson's psychological thriller Bone Cold (2022) is a decent attempt at being a parable about mental health, even though the movie feels like it runs longer than its 109-minute run time. The story follows Jon and Marco, two Black Ops snipers sent on a mission to take down a person of interest. However, they are only provided with a basic physical description of their target and given little other information. After they attempt to complete the mission, they receive word from dispatch and their commanding officer that they have killed the wrong person. Their commanding officer instructs the pair to return and complete their task, leaving the Black Ops snipers with little information about the mission parameters. The churning wheel of frustration for the main characters grows with intensity. The instructions for completing their task need further clarification, leaving them unsatisfied with the low level of detail provided. The remainder of the movie builds on the emotional and mental pressure Jon and Marco face.

The initial part of the movie may seem slow as it focuses on world-building and introducing the characters to the initial conflict they will encounter. However, things start picking up pace when Jon, one of the main characters, confronts the actual conflict of the story around halfway through. This battle becomes the central focus for the remainder of the movie, which is the more intriguing storyline. I am fascinated by the emotional story that develops in the movie's second half more than the precursor of its first half.

The entire theme of the story is about mental health, post-traumatic stress disorder, and depression. When Jon returns home to his family after the military mission ends, he is overwhelmed by the trauma and stress he faces. He experiences night terrors on a repeated basis and hallucinates a totem of his fear and stress moving around every corner just out of his reach.

The man behind the scenes of Bone Cold is Billy Hanson. He is a writer and director who has worked on various projects in different genres and media. He owns Dirigo Entertainment, a production company based in Los Angeles. He is best known for his adaptation of Stephen King's short story Survivor Type, which he wrote and directed in 2012. The movie received numerous awards and even received praise from Stephen King. He also wrote and directed Lightning Dogs, a comedy web series that premiered on Funny or Die in 2018. His other works include Earworm, a sci-fi short film he produced in 2016, and Spider Season, a collection of dark stories he published in 2018. He has a degree in film production from Florida State University and has been working in the industry since 2006.

[ravenkings]

gotta say i am more excited about the various fantasy tv series coming out soon that are attempting to fill the GOT void than i ever really was about GOT