#which explains why they only appear in the comic universe

[random-iz-stuff]

Everything I could find that points towards something being real strange with Recap Kid:

The fourth wall awareness.

They can use their fourth wall awareness to see the future by creating the comic that is currently taking place and reading ahead.

Recap Kid being able to get their hands on objects that either shouldn’t exist in that universe (the same Invader Zim comics that they appear in, a copy of Enter The Florpus, a plush Zim, etc) or do exist, but Recap Kid REALLY shouldn’t be able to have them (a Gir costume for example, which does exist in universe but only as a unique Irken disguise made by Irken technology).

They CANONICALLY have shapeshifting powers, with Recap Kid briefly changing their physical appearance at least three different times in the comics.

Recap Kid also manages to change positions at least three times in one panel while also recapping everything with only a single text box, meaning that they can move extremely fast. Fast enough to create literal afterimages.

They also have canonical creation powers, with Recap Kid creating objects out of thin air and getting rid of them just as quickly, which does answer exactly where they’re getting the things that they shouldn’t be able to have.

Recap Kid also canonically has some sort of pyrokinesis, not only creating a ring of fire around Zim and Dib on command but also creating an explosion powerful enough to destroy an Irken ship.

Recap Kid is basically unharmed after getting rammed by Zim’s Voot at full speed and also being sucked into the Massive’s heating vents.

I haven’t even mentioned the pocket dimension they live/recap things in.

There are two separate occasions where it’s implied that Recap Kid doesn’t need air to live. First they mention that they hold their breath in between every comic release. And then there’s this line in issue 40 where Recap Kid questions how the Recap Brain can sigh without air or lungs, acknowledging that the space they’re in has no air, but continuing to go around like it’s perfectly normal.

Despite being able to breathe in space, Recap Kid still wears a spacesuit when we see them in space.

On a similar note, how does Recap Kid know that the Recap Brain doesn’t have lungs?

Recap Kid only exists in ONE universe, that being the universe that the main comics take place in. They just straight up don’t exist in Enter The Florpus, the Quarterly Comics and Dookie Loop Horror.

The fucking Recap Brain. A cosmic being with godlike power that looks like Recap Kid with the same hoodie and hair, who’s job it is to observe, record and recap the multiverse.

The Recap Brain implies that they aren’t the only member of their kind while tossing Recap Kid back into the comic universe, mentioning that “only a few people [presumably other Recap Brains] even know it [the comic universe] exists.

Point is, there’s something up with this child and I refuse to believe the wiki when it lists Recap Kid’s species as “human”.

[thankskenpenders]

IDW's Fang the Hunter miniseries! All four issues are out now! I don't have as much to say about it as I did with the Knuckles show, but I do have some thoughts.

So! This is a pretty fun miniseries. I liked it.

It's fun to see Ian get to write a four-issue arc starring the Hooligans, his precious boys, with a B-plot showing Sonic and Tails' perspective on this little adventure. As always, Ian captures the characters' voices well. In particular, I really liked Bean in this, who despite being a slapstick screwball is actually a pretty perceptive guy. He often acts as sort of a voice of reason for Fang, seeing right through his sweet talking and pointing out how badly all of their schemes go but sticking around nonetheless just for funsies. And the art (illustrated this time by Mauro Fonseca for the first issue and Thomas Rothlisberger for the rest) is as good as we've come to expect from IDW's Classic Sonic output. Overall, this is a fun little romp that captures the vibes of the Classic era very well.

...But...

Well, as I've said before with the Amy and Tails anniversary specials, I feel like we're kind of seeing diminishing returns with these Classic spinoffs. They're fun, sure, and very nice to look at, but their writing always leave me wanting more.

A big part of this is just that there's just less to work with compared to the Modern universe. The Classic cast is much smaller, and within that cast there are a bunch of characters currently going unused, some of which are currently off-limits. Aside from the appearance of the Witchcarters in Tails' special, we've pretty much just stuck with the cast of Sonic Mania and the Hooligans, as established in the first special. No Chaotix, no Battle Bird Armada, barely any Honey. (Classic Vector was able to get a tiny cameo in the Amy special only because he was so obscured that it gave the IDW team plausible deniability to say it was actually a different character if Sega complained.) It's a very small box, and Ian's recent Classic comics haven't particularly expanded the boundaries of that box. They're just excuses to play the hits for old times' sake. And that was a lot of fun the first time around, but the novelty is starting to wear off for me.

I will admit, sure, the tighter focus on a specific set of characters from the games is a big part of the appeal of these Classic comics. They're simpler. They're nostalgic. They're shining the spotlight on characters that can't be used in the main series. They're the slavishly faithful old school Sonic comics that we could never get in the '90s, because the comics we did get diverged into their own continuities with tons of new characters. I get all that.

But the thing is, the Sonic comics have always added all those new characters because you can just do so much more with them. The game cast is great! But they're corporate mascots Sega keeps on a tight leash. You can do so much with a character like Sally or Surge that you could never do with any of the game characters, and by pushing into new territory with these new characters you can also bring out interesting new sides of the game cast. Maybe Sonic himself can't have some crazy complex character arc, but you can see how he'll respond to the things going on with these other characters, and how these other characters' arcs are informed by their relationships with Sonic.

So I look at the Fang miniseries, and I'm like. This was pretty fun. But by the end, what was the point of the story? What did we learn about the Hooligans as characters that we didn't already know? Is the point just to depict an adventure where things go off the rails a little and Bean and Bark end up a little miffed, explaining why they weren't with Fang in Superstars? There's potential for an arc there about the dissolution of the group, but it really does come off more as the type of spat these three probably get into all the time before coming back together for the next job. It's neither super dramatic nor super funny, feeling more like it ends on a fairly matter-of-fact note where Fang's like "welp, time to go do the events of Sonic Superstars" at the end, not particularly plussed by anything that happened in this arc. What we're left with is four issues of the Hooligans encountering recognizable characters and visiting recognizable locations from the Classic games, with little that really feels new or fresh here.

Ironically, the most interesting story element to me here (aside from Bean's characterization) is its tie to the main comics, something previous specials couldn't do since Sega had yet to reunify the Classic and Modern timelines. The plot of this comic revolves around Fang following the myth of the "eighth Chaos Emerald," riffing on both old playground rumors and Sonic the Fighters. What they actually end up finding isn't an extra Emerald, but rather the Warp Topaz that would eventually end up in Starline's possession in the Modern era, having apparently been found by the Hard-Boiled Heavies in the cave seen in the 900th Adventure special.

That's kinda neat, and the abilities of the Warp Topaz are used in fun ways. But this isn't exactly something to write home about for people who aren't lore nerds like me. There isn't a particularly meaningful connection between Fang and Starline's arcs here due to the presence of the Warp Topaz, it's just a thing for the wiki. Again, Ian's in his connect the dots mode a little more than I'd like here.

(...So wait, if Starline didn't find the Warp Topaz himself, did he track down the cave where the Heavies found it to leave that "greatness began here" graffiti? Eh, I guess that sounds like something he'd do. He's known for nothing if not his obsessiveness.)

So, again. This was a pretty good miniseries. This all makes it sound like I hated it, but I did like it overall. I particularly liked seeing the Hooligans fight the Hard-Boiled Heavies. But it leaves me feeling less fulfilled than something like Scrapnik Island or Tangle & Whisper or Imposter Syndrome. I get that, by the very definition of the word, Classic Sonic is always going to remain trapped in amber to some extent. This isn't the version of the franchise that's supposed to grow and change. That's what Modern Sonic does. Classic Sonic will always be trapped in the early '90s. I'm not asking for them to add a dozen new characters with complex dramatic arcs to the Classic comics, since that's not what Classic Sonic is about. But I think the other Classic Sonic stories not written by Ian - i.e. the driving school story by the McElroys and the two stories about Amy by Gale Galligan - show that you can tell fresh new Classic Sonic stories that aren't just about remixing the hits from the games.

If we're going to continue getting Classic Sonic comics from Ian (and I hope we do!), then I just hope he's able to find a better balance between familiar and new ideas, like he and Evan do so consistently with their Modern Sonic output.

[j4gm]

SPOILERS!!! REFERENCES AND EASTER EGGS IN F&C ep. 4: Prismo the Wishmaster

This is the Drift from Distant Lands BMO! I wonder if Y5 is mayor yet. It's been about 23 years since the events of that episode. Overgrown Hugo-Mats can been seen in the background of some shots.

It's hard to figure out if any of these captured cosmic criminals are returning characters. The one in the middle looks strikingly like a catalyst comet.

Void Caster was one of the prisoners in the Citadel with Martin. He was also seen chronologically before that in Distant Lands BMO.

Martin's entry raises some questions. Was desertion the cosmic crime he committed which caused him to be imprisoned? Or is this a crime he committed after being freed? He's not marked as neutralized, despite the fact last time we saw him he discorporated and became one with the universe. Also, he's flipping the bird for real, which is the first time we've seen that in Adventure Time unless you count Shelby in Five More Short Graybles.

Wyatt keeps sneaking his way into things because writer Steve Wolfhard likes him a lot. Last time we saw him was in Together Again, when he was the only soul left in the First Dead World after Mr. Fox became Death, suggesting he did some pretty terrible things in life. It appears those dark deeds were in aid of his quest to reach the Time Room, presumably to wish for something creepy involving Tree Trunks. Luckily he doesn't get to make that wish.

The silent movie universe is fun. There is a very creepy Lich in this cave behind Princess Bubblegum. This could be the result of the Lich Hand that got pushed into every dimension during Crossover. The Snail is also there. I believe this is the Snail's first living appearance in Fionna and Cake.

Peps and Blaine are still in Wizard School, and they seem to have become good friends. They must be graduating pretty soon.

Susan and Frieda!

Simon mentions that Prismo was unable to bring Betty back, which is why he took things into his own hands. This is a reference to the scene in the finale montage where he attempts to wish her back but it fails.

Apparently the Misadventures of Flapjack is a universe within Adventure Time's Multiverse! This is a show that Pen Ward, Adam Muto, and Pat McHale all worked on as storyboard artists before they went to work on Adventure Time.

This is the alternate universe from Beyond the Grotto.

The shot on Prismo's laptop when he first creates the Fionna and Cake universe is from the original Fionna and Cake title sequence.

Fionna has her sword from the comics in this brief scene.

This obviously explains the red beam from Fionna and Cake and Fionna.

New cosmic entities! The one on the left is cracked. I wonder if that's an indicator of how long the Multiverse has left.

This depiction of the Multiverse is based on the depiction in Crossover, which itself is based on an illustration in an article from Scientific American.

This is the bed chamber from Is That You. This old man is actually an alternate Jake. Prismo has reworked the room into a GOLB chamber so Simon can perform the same spell that brought Fionna and Cake to Ooo.

The credits scene is a bunch of yellow children's building blocks. Sort of like the Time Room.

[longwuzhere]

My Adventures with Superman Season 2 Easter Eggs

Welcome to another week of My Adventures with Superman! Oh man what a good ep and some fun easter eggs in this one too! Ok lets begin!

My Easter eggs lists for season 1 is here if you haven't seen it!

My season 2 episode 1 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My season 2 episode 2 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My season 2 episode 3 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman comic issue 1 post is here

My season 2 episode 4 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My season 2 episode 5 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My season 2 episode 7 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My Easter eggs and references for My Adventures with Superman comic issue 2 post is here

My season 2 episode 8 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My season 2 episode 9 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My season 2 episode 10 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My Easter eggs and references for My Adventures with Superman comic issue 3 post is here

Spoilers if you haven't seen the episode

Ok so starting things off Superman wakes up from the capture coffin and is immediately like WTF Kara?! He tries to escape the ship he's on but needs a helmet to breathe in space and the suit grants him one. The way it looks really evokes either Injustice 2 Superman's default costume or his Electric Blue Superman look from the comics [Cover art of Superman #123 (1997), the glow in the dark variant cover, by Dan Jurgens, Joe Rubenstein, Patrick Martin, and Todd Klein].

The title of this week's ep is based on Rudyard Kipling's book, The Man Who Would Be King which is about two British adventurers who become kings in Kafiristan. Appropriate for the ep considering Brainiac who wants to flex his strength and might on other planets by sending Kara and his robots to level the entire civilization. How British colonizer of him. Fuck the colonizers.

On Kara's ship, Clark tries to get to know her better and show her that Earth is cool, being kind and gentle is not a weakness, anything to get her away from the whole might makes rights idea and Kara name drops some locations Brainiac and her sacked after seeing some trinkets she stowed away on her ship. The locations are Thanagar, H'lven, and Euphorix. Clark asks Kara to take him to Thanagar where they see that its all just ruins. Later in the ep we learn why. The screenshots of the last two locations are from later on in the ep.

Thanagar makes its first appearance in The Brave and the Bold #34 (1961) [W: Gardner Fox, P&I: Joe Kubert, L: Gaspar Saladino] where Hawkman and Hawkwoman make their first appearance too. They are looking for the criminal Byth Rok. They meet Midway City's commissioner and tell him about their planet and people and explain who Byth Rok is and what he did. Later in the ep we do see a Thanagarian, but I doubt its Shayera/Hawkwoman cuz she would be using a Thanagarian mace not a polearm. Give the latest Hawkman series a read to explore more of not just Hawkman himself but also a look into Thanagar. Also read Batman: Universe if you want to see Batman get humbled by a Thanagarian guard because the guard assumed his cape was wings and Batman says "I can't fly, only glide with the cape" and the guard replies "ha, cute".

H'lven makes its first appearance in Green Lantern #148 (1982) [W: Paul Kupperberg, P: Don Newton, I: Dan Atkins, C: Anthony Tollins, L: John Costanza]. Its a heavily tree covered planet home to Ch'p and B'dg of the Green Lantern Corp (more on the GLC later). It's located in space sector 1014 where the inhabitants are all chipmunk/squirrel-like aliens. So yeah Brainiac destroyed a civilization of adorable anthropomorphic squirrels and chipmunks, what a piece of shit.

The final place Kara mentions and returns to later in the ep is Euphorix where its first appearance was in The Omega Men #2 [W: Roger Slifer (yes that Roger Slifer who Slifer the Sky Dragon from Yugioh was named after), Keith Giffen, P: Keith Giffen, I: Mike DeCarlo, C: Petra Scotese, L:John Costanza]. The silver planet you see in the panel there is one of the last free planets that has not been touched by the Citadel and it is where the Omega Men operate out of.

Kara and Clark have to cut their Thanagar visit short and she mentions that they must return to Kandor which if you know your DC universe is very different to the main satellite/mothership that Brainiac helms.

Unlike what MAwS did with Kandor so far, in the comics, Kandor was a bottled Kryptonian city for trading and commerce that Brainiac stole before Krypton's destruction. It's still populated too. It and Brainiac's first appearance was in Action Comics #242 (1958) [W: Otto Binder P&I: Al Plastino] where Superman was also shrunk down by Brainiac after he stole several cities on Earth and Superman finds Kandor and eventually rescues it. Most of the time the bottled city of Kandor is always seen located in the Fortress of Solitude or its been brought somewhere else to be enlarged to its normal state in different DC continuities. Very smart of the MAwS team to use the name as Brainiacs main transport to keep that Kandor-Brainiac connection and speaking of Brainiac...

Brainiac is, as Kara designates him, Primus Brainiac who I talked more about here. Very smart of the MAwS crew to use the DCAU origins of Brainiac to really make it personal when it comes to Brainiac and Superman. Btw if you've never seen Superman the Animated Series, go watch it its fantastic. It and MAwS are my favorite adaptations of Superman.

Brainiac takes Clark to his combat training chamber where we see a Parademon of Apokolips, a Green Lantern, and a Thanagarian who are just more robots taking on these projected forms of aliens that Brainiac has conquered or battled. I talked a bit about the Thanagarians already but...

Parademons make their first appearance in The New Gods #1 (1971) [W&P: Jack Kirby, I: Vince Colleta, L: John Costanza] as the army troops for Darkseid. They're usually sent out in waves as an advancing force for whatever invasion Darkseid has plans and they swarm like crazy. The New 52 continuity makes them even more horrifying because Parademons are made from living or dead native species the planet the troops are invading and get genetically modified to be additional Parademons for Darkseids army.

As Clark fights the alien monk, we see that they wield a Green Lantern ring so we can presume they are from the Green Lantern Corp. The name Green Lantern was first used in All-American Comics #16 (1940) by Alan Scott who became Green Lantern and his ring was more mystical based compared to how everyone things of the Green Lantern Ring is now which is more sci-fi based.

That Green Lantern was Hal Jordan who gained his ring from a dying Abin Sur who was the protector of space sector 2814, our solar system, and Abin Sur's ring chose Hal to take up the Green Lantern mantle. This is the Green Lantern that pop culture is more familiar with. Any time a Green Lantern Corp member dies, their ring will fly to another person who has the strongest willpower to be a Green Lantern. We can assume that alien monk has their ring fly somewhere to find a new worthy owner. Very cool that the MAwS crew were able to bring a Green Lantern ref in this ep! Also this is how I envision my War Forged monk that I use in DnD fights.

Clark gets swarmed by the robots after beating the three and we see that Brainiac also has a red sun emitter on his craft. I talked more about that Superman weakness here

Kara discovers whats going on between Clark and Brainiac and after a chewing out, Kara goes into a trance like state and wakes up in an empty room. She finds her treasures from Thanagar, Euphorix, and H'lven and that wakes her up. She flies off to those planets again seeing them all in ruins and Thanagar shows that she caused all this. All alone and sad by this discovery in the emptiness of space, Kara sees a blue portal open up and its Lois, Jimmy, Mallah and the Brain from season 1 who I talked more about here and here.

And with that we are at the end. Come back next time to see how Lois and Jimmy meet up with Mallah and the Brain again!

My Easter eggs lists for season 1 is here if you haven't seen it!

My season 2 episode 1 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My season 2 episode 2 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My season 2 episode 3 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman comic issue 1 post is here

My season 2 episode 4 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My season 2 episode 5 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My season 2 episode 7 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My Easter eggs and references for My Adventures with Superman comic issue 2 post is here

My season 2 episode 8 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My season 2 episode 9 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My season 2 episode 10 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My Easter eggs and references for My Adventures with Superman comic issue 3 post is here

[gallifreyanhotfive]

Random Doctor Who Facts You Might Not Know, Part 53

The TARDIS's blue box exterior slightly changes in appearance due to chameleonic fluctuation. (Novel: St. Anthony's Fire)

The Eleventh Doctor claimed to have a seventh sense - the Finding Evil Sense. (Novel: Magic of the Angels) This would make sense, considering that the Doctor often gets prickling sensations or other odd feelings when he senses something evil nearby.

The Fifth Doctor wore question mark patterned pyjamas. (Novel: Divided Loyalties)

According to the Twelfth Doctor, the three best coffees in the universe are: the ones Sergeant Benton made, the ones made by Elisabeth Pepys, and the ones made by Intergalactic Coffee Roasting Station. (Short story: Lights Out)

The Laika Protocol is the name for the TARDIS protocol that disposes the Doctor's body in case of their death. (Novel: Too Many Hands) This protocol was likely named after how the Relic was disposed in Novel: Alien Bodies.

The Fourth Doctor began writing a series of books called Doctor Who Discovers while he was still associated with UNIT. The Fifth Doctor would later be threatened by the publisher's robot after not completing the series. (Audio: The Kingmaker)

The Thirteenth Doctor absolutely does not like olives, and she'd need weeks to explain why. (Novel: The Good Doctor)

The Fifth Doctor hates celery as a food. He only wears it to detect praxis gases. (Audio: The Gathering)

Clive Flinch had many pictures of people he believed could be different incarnations of the Doctor. One of these was a tall, bald black woman wielding a flaming sword, and another was a young-looking child in a wheelchair with a sonic screwdriver and a K-9 unit. Also included are many photographs of numbered incarnations as well as some of Morbius Doctors. (Novel: Rose)

The Tenth Doctor once had a reaction to praxis gas after disarming a booby-trapped bomb, but he was saved by Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. (Comic: Nurse Who?)

The Entity was a being composed of two minds that had created their own space, termed grey space, and brought the Doctor in for their own amusement. The Doctor convinced them to play Monopoly, so the Entity tested the Doctor, using a bet to determine who plays first. He had seven chances to disable an android, open a door, and evade an imposter version of a companion trying to push him through the door. The Seventh, Sixth, Fifth, Fourth, Third, and Second Doctors all failed the test, being pushed through the door by their respective companion imposters, but the First Doctor passed. (Audio: Seven to One)

The Sixth Doctor traveled to the Dawn of Time and wrote "The Doctor was here" on an early planet shortly before regenerating into his Seventh. (Short story: Gone Too Soon)

The Fourteenth Doctor's kidneys are blue, which is apparently normal. (Comic: Liberation of the Daleks)

The Eleventh Doctor brooded in his TARDIS for several days after being accused of committing deadly crimes. During this time, he imagined all his previous incarnations interrogating him. When he tried to tell his past selves that he always left things better than he had found them, they all turned away and left him in disgust. (Comic: Pull to Open)

River Song's imprisonment in the Stormcage overlapped with the Delgado Master's. (Comic: The Master Plan)

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[cypherscript]

Comic Con-versation

Had this little blurb idea while I was mowing at work, I seem to get these a lot while doing that...

This comes from the idea that during the episode Reign Storm, when Pariah Dark rips Amity Park from the land of the living it's not quite put back into its right dimension which ties into Reality Trip when Danny finds out there's a comic book series about him that heavily goes into his backstory to his dread. The universe? DC where Danny Phantom is essentially the same level as DC is here.

____________________________________________________

The Justice League was currently called into a meeting, not that is was a new thing for Billy aka Shazam. What WAS a new thing was that Constantine, workaphobic/smokeaholic Justice League Dark member, was the one to call in the meeting. Billy gets deposited by the zetatubes and sees some familiar faces around the table; Batman, Nightwing and Red Robin on one side while Flash and Kid Flash/Impulse sat across from them adamantly talking. Constantine stood by the projector controls with huge stacks of comics, newspapers and magazines.

One of the comics catches Billy's eye; a young man in a hazmat suit looking into a screen that loops onto him watching the screen titled Masters of All Time. He quickly flies over and snatches it from the pile, "Awesome! I didn't know we were aloud to bring comics up here. I've been meaning to catch up on this series." He kicks up his feet and starts reading.

Constantine gives a tired look at Shazam, "You mean to tell me that you know this series? I've just spent that last bloody three weeks studying this bollocks."

"Of course, who doesn't know about Danny Phantom?!"

The remaining league walks in at that point as Batman, Nightwing and Flash raise their hands. Impulse flashes over and reads them in a second.

"Dude that's so crash, these are CLASSIC~. Dad had an incomplete set that he gave me for my birthday. Oh dude! Reality Trip, I remember this one; Danny, Sam and Tucker are chased-"

"HEY! Spoilers!"

"Sorry."

"Constantine if you can just start the meeting about why we're here?"

"Right. As Shazam said; this is a comic book series about a ghost themed superhero. Sorta like Deadman but not magical." Constantine types into the console and brings up multiple pictures of Danny Phantom's scenes from the book. "The comic book series has been running for nineteen years, it's had multiple adaptations and crossovers. Thousands of roleplaying accounts across multiple social medias, millions of enjoyers of the media across the globe."

"How is this a problem for us," Aquaman asks as he flips through one of the comic books. "It's fictional."

"Yes and no." John presses a key and a real life picture of a town comes on screen."

"Holy Geez! Is that Amity Park?!" Red Robin exclaims as he takes over a personal console and makes a 3D render of the city, rotating and zooming until he finds a brick building with a heaping monstrosity of metal atop of it with a sign stating Fentonworks. "It's real..."

Batman looks at Red Robin calculatingly, "I wasn't aware you partook in that kind of media."

"It's a guilty hobby."

Constantine clears his throat, "It appears real. This city didn't exist four months ago and not just that." He pulls up an actual picture of Danny Phantom in the flesh, "This has magical bullshit written all over it and the only thing to explain it is a Tulpa. All of the evidence points to it; millions of thoughts based on one subject, it suddenly appears out of nowhere and there wasn't a blip on our systems."

"Is a tulpa that much of a problem," Wonder Woman asks as she looks over the pictures of Phantom and Amity Park."

"It can be difficult; seeing how this character's powerset changes more than Supe's does and he's just as strong. The problem is if it's NOT a tulpa and the comics are prophetic."

"Why," Batman asks straight to the point.

Constantine looks through the stacks of comics and pulls out two of them; one with a black gauntlet wearing a green skull ring taking up the front page and the other a grim scene of a large blue skin version of Danny Phantom with fire like hair standing amidst skulls and ruin buildings.

"This first one is about a King of Ghosts ripping the city from their plane of existance, he manages to defeat him in single combat and return his city to his world. Sound familiar?" John gestures at the images of Amity Park. The second is where the problem comes from; this is an evil version of the stories hero, corrupted after the lose of his family. He destroys his world with Amity Park being the only remaining city."

"Ok," Flash asks bored as he flips through the comics.

"Ok? Ok?! It's not bloody ok. It hasn't happened yet but other things have happened exactly as they did in the comics!" He pulls up videos of Danny Phantom and Danny Fenton being split apart and a satellite feed of a massive armored vehicle firing at something that can't be seen.

"The next part is Doomsday! Those two events happen directly after the city is ripped from its dimension and dropped into this one. We all die! Dark Danny comes back in time to reassure his future, we have to stop this."

The Justice league shares a look as Constantine keeps ranting about the incoming apocalypse from a comic book.

"Constantine when is the last time you had a vacation?"

[angel-gidget]

Gidge's Guide to Amethyst

I did one of these a while back, but with reeaallly low-quality images. These days, there’s more Amethyst stuff out there, and that’s worth an update in its own right.

Amy’s first appearance was technically in Legion of Super-Heroes #298 which featured a “pull-out preview comic” to entice people into picking up the maxi-series. I’ve yet to get my mitts on it to confirm if it’s just sample art from the maxi-series, or has dialogue/art never seen anywhere else. Regardless, your best starting point is probably gonna be…

I. 1980’s 12-issue Maxi-Series (+ follow-up Annual)

High jump-through-portal fantasy. Fantastic creatures, creepy villains, magical royalty, intricate world building that explains some things and lets your brain fill in the gaps for others, and consistently gorgeous art. Can’t recommend enough.

The annual shown takes place after the maxi-series and sets the stage for the ongoing series that follows.

Get it by Patron methods: Dc Universe Series Page DC’s Showcase via Amazon or Abe Books (Note: no color art for showcase, only black & white)

Get it by Peasant methods: Over here. 💎

II. 1980’s 16-issue Ongoing Series (+ follow-up Annual)

While there is a lot of fantastic stuff going on with the ongoing series, it is more of a mixed bag.

While I am forever in love with cover of issue #11, I remember turning to page 1 and wondering what the heck happened to the inside art. It’s not bad, really. It just doesn’t meet the high bar of the covers (or earlier interiors). Looking back, I realized the art was getting less detailed well before that, but my reading was all over the place as a kid bc I’d just read whatever issues I could find.

This here, at issue #12, is actually a good place to stop. By which I mean, the next 4 issues + special reek of grimdark edge-lord bs that doesn’t even make sense without reading Crisis on Infinite Earths. However, if you wish to proceed…

The final issue of the ongoing is technically a cliffhanger, and the Special grants the writers the extra pages they need to finish wrapping up their whole Lords of Order & Chaos/Dr. Fate tie-in.

After this, someone in DC editorial raised their pencil and went “Hey! What if we made the Gemworld the origin for one of our Legion of Super-Heroes villains?” And thus…

Get it by Patron methods: Dc Universe Series Page DC’s Showcase via Amazon or Abe Books (Note: no color art for showcase, only black & white) (Also note: Showcase contains both Maxi and Ongoing series)

Get it by Peasant methods: Over here. ⚔️

III. 1980’s 4-issue Mini-Series

This thing is all kinds of whack, but it is gorgeous. I get the impression that when Kieth Giffen and Mindy Newell were assigned this sucker, they just read a summary of the OG series and winged it.

Probably not, since they technically wrote those final issues of the ongoing, but that’s how it feels. Despite this, it’s grown on me like a fungus, and the mind-blowing art by Esteban Moroto is, like, 98% of the reason why.

Amethyst is always at her weirdest when Dc is trying to tie her in with the rest of the DCU. In this case, the mini is supposed to explain how a Legion of Super-Heroes villain has origins that go back to the Gemworld. Why? Idk. But if I remember correctly, it was even part of the advertising for this series.

Get it by Patron methods: … you can’t. There are no re-prints of any kind and it’s tough to track down. If ye crave this treasure, best ye look to piracy, matey.

Get it by Peasant methods: Over here. 🔮

IV. 2012’s DC Nation Amethyst Cartoon Shorts

In hindsight, these may have been made as the advent of the Sword of Sorcery series, but they really were a charming sip of water after two decades of nothin’. A cute lil’ standalone series that turns the Gemworld into a video game. Amy is then, of course, sucked into it.

Fun fact: the producer, @briannedrouhard is on tumblr, and often posts art and further ideas she had for the series.

Watch it: Full Series is officially free on Youtube. 👸🏼

IV. 2013’s Sword of Sorcery: Amethyst

This New 52 eight-issue (9 included the ‘0’ issue, oy) series got my hopes up after all those years, but I gotta admit I was a bit disappointed by the completely new supporting cast. Apart from Amy herself, none of the original characters made it into the series.

It feels likely a completely different fantasy series with an “Amethyst” label slapped on it. That said, Aaron Lopresti’s art is beautiful, and this version of Amy—Amaya—eventually joined the New 52’s Justice League Dark and picked up a bit of a cult appreciation over there.

That said, I’ve had some spoilers for her time on JLDark, and the storyline is just a bit… too… dark for my tastes. So I’m quite content to see her nu52 series retconed, even though I did nearly collect all 9 issues.

Get it by Patron methods: Dc Universe Series Page TPB via Amazon or B&N

Get it by Peasant methods: Over here. 💜

V. 2019’s Wonder Comics - Young Justice: Gemworld

Remember how I said Amethyst always gets weird when she collides with the greater DCU? Yeah, forget I said that. Never mind. Most brilliant combo idea since peanut butter and jelly.

No, I’m not biased not at all bc I’m a big Young Justice fan. Nope. Ok. Maybe a lil’ bit. While the continuity here is it’s own thing, there are a lot of nods to the original Gemworld in the world-building.

Does this series fully explore the potential of all the ideas in it? Frankly, no. YJ fans complained a lot about the lack of breathing space in this series for a reason. But I’m still happy with it and happily re-reading it for the fun ideas it slaps together.

If you are reading this for the Amethyst, however, there isn’t much point in reading past issue 6, aka volume 1 of the trade. After that point, Amy stops getting much spotlight, though she remains on the team’s roster until the series’ end.

Get it by Patron methods: Dc Universe Series Page TPB via Amazon or B&N

Get it by Peasant methods: Over here. ✨

VI. 2020’s Wonder Comics - Amethyst Miniseries

The fact that both this series and the YJ one appear under the “Wonder Comics” label is a bit misleading. They do not share any continuity at all. However, the opening splash page of the first issue references multiple events from original Amethyst continuity!

Later world-building details make it clear that this is a different version of Amy and the Gemworld, but Amy Reeder’s affection for the original series remains apparent.

Get it by Patron methods: Dc Universe Series Page TPB via Amazon or B&N

Get it by Peasant methods: Over here. 👑

VII. 2021’s Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld by Shannon & Dean Hale

This one is actually a kid-oriented graphic novel. Again, with its own continuity and world-building. I think the thing that stands out to me the most about this take is that the Hales give Amy a kid brother and make him quite relevant to the plot.

It’s pretty stand-alone and not really marketed as a comic book per se, but it is charming and the art is quite cute.

Get it by Patron methods: Graphic novel via Amazon or B&N Get it by Peasant methods: Over here.

🏰

In Summary:

“Original” Amethyst Continuity (by Dan Mishkin & Gary Cohn and later Kieth Giffen & Mindy Newell ) is contained in Volumes 1-3. This is made of up the Maxi-series, Ongoing, and Mini-series from the 80's.

New52 Sword of Sorcery Continuity (by Christy Marx) is completely separate and self-contained.

Wonder Comics: Young Justice continuity (by Brian Michael-Bendis) is separate and self-contained, but has many nods to original continuity in it.

Wonder Comics: Amethyst mini-series continuity (by Amy Reeder) is mostly separate and self-contained, but implies that it shares events with the Volume 1 maxi-series.

Kid-friendly properties like Brianne Drouhard’s DC Nation shorts or Shannon and Dean Hale’s graphic novel make for fun additions, though they were not marketed as though they might tie in with any comics.

[goth-pod]

Episode 1 Repost!

Welcome to Goth-Pod! Join host Juda Boone discuss all things Gotham City. Today we dive head first into one of Gotham City's more relevant mysteries: Who is The Batman?

[goth-pod is a fictional in-universe podcast based on the DC comics universe. Juda Boone is an original fictional character, not based on any real person or known comic book character.]

Transcript under the cut

Hello everyone! Welcome to our first episode of the season. If you're new here, hi! Thank you so much for joining us here at Goth-Pod. Unfortunately we are not a gothic-lifestyle podcast, though I do understand the confusion. 

Goth-Pod is a Gotham City based podcast for all discussions of Gotham. The weird and the wild, the rogues and the rakes, the heroes and the heretics. 

You are listening today to your favorite non-binary holy heretic, Juda Boone. Yes that is my real name and yes I did pick it myself, thank you. 

For the first episode of the season I wanted to start us off with something that has been a heavily discussed topic, and therefore something comfortable for our Gotham residents. The age old question, the thing that gets people more up in arms than the moon landing- Who is The Batman?

There's this idea that almost all people have, that heroes have to have a secret identity. Which is fair. We watched things like Cinderella, or the Mask of Zorro all our lives. The idea of changing the outward appearance in order to do something one normally couldn’t.

 If you’re fighting for your life every night against some of the most dangerous people in the world, you don’t want those people to know your home address. So you don a mask, and a new persona and you do what one normally couldn't. 

But the Bat, as most Gothamites know, does not follow the normal rules we see with other heroes. Less of a mask, and more of a.. casing. Not so much a persona, but instead a state of being. 

The Bat is. Weird. That's why we love him. That's why he’s ours. 

But what if that went further? What if Batman wasn’t much of a man at all? Batman, or, The Bat, as I like to call him, is more of a.. Manifestation of Gotham. Or of the justice Gotham needs? An earth-bound spirit that haunts just as strongly as it interferes. 

You know I used to have a belief as a kid, that Monsters would just disappear when light touched them. 

Strangely, I’m not alone in this weird meta-physical belief. I actually adopted it from a good friend here at Goth-Pod. Of course, I don’t speak for everyone at the podcast and definitely not for everyone in Gotham. My uncle still texts me blog posts that try to explain the crack-pot theory that Batman is in fact, world-renowned reporter, Vikki Vale. 

But what do you think? Does the Bat have a face behind the ghostly white eyes and inhuman abilities to cling to the shadows? 

Unrelated, but did you know that Gotham is one of the only cities that has an urban bat population? Something to think about tonight. 

Thank you for joining! If you enjoy this podcast, let us know! We love to hear from our neighbors in Gotham, or if you're listening in from outside our home city. I’m Juda and you’re listening to Goth-Pod. Until next time, stay safe, Gotham.

[flowers-of-io]

Tithe (to) me baby one more time

This post is my personal attempt to understand Season of the Witch, and potentially defend my hypothesis that at its core it doesn't make sense. I may yet change my opinion on this as I write and research, because here at flowers of io dot tumblr dot com we do real science and do not let ourselves be blinded by prior assumptions, prejudice, and bitterness. Maybe there is yet something there that I don't see.

Disclaimer: This essay is nearly 4k words long and has not been beta read, so any typos, tangents and formatting issues you may find here are my fault only and I preemptively apologise for them. Please tell me if anything is unclear or worded weirdly! I haven’t written a longer lore analysis in a good while and I may have got a little rusty.

With that out of the way, let's take a look at how Hive tithes, tributes, and willpower actually work!

1) Anthem Anatheme

Over three years ago in this post I wrote a bit about anthem anatheme, which is the way both worms and ahamkara feed. I did not explain it well, though (and I was being very comically exasperated over Truth to Power), so let me try again.

From the Merriam-Webster:

First appearing in Old English in the form antefn, anthem derives ultimately from Greek antiphōnos—a word meaning "responsive" that is a combination of anti-, meaning "over" or "against," and phōnē, "sound" or "voice." The Greek root gives a hint as to what the musical form of early anthems was like. Originally, anthems were devotional verses sung as a response during a religious service.

French anathème and English anathema is the formal exclusion from the community of Christians (in the New Testament) or the Catholic Church (in contemporary canon law). The original meaning of the word was a little different, though. I'll quote the Wikipedia article because I don't think I'd be able to word it better than it is explained there:

The word anathema has two main meanings. One is to describe that something or someone is being hated or avoided. The other refers to a formal excommunication by a church. These meanings come from the New Testament, where an Anathema was a person or thing cursed or condemned by God. In the Old Testament, an Anathema was something or someone dedicated to God as a sacrifice, or cursed and separated from God because of sin. These represent two types of settings, one for devotion, the other for destruction.

Anathema derives from Ancient Greek: ἀνάθεμα, anáthema, meaning "an offering" or "anything dedicated", itself derived from the verb ἀνατίθημι, anatíthēmi, meaning "to offer up". In the Old Testament, חֵרֶם (chērem) referred to both objects consecrated to divine use and those dedicated to destruction in the Lord's name, such as enemies and their weapons during religious wars. Since weapons of the enemy were considered unholy, the meaning became "anything dedicated to evil" or "a curse".

Combining these two meanings would give us something like ‘a hymn of offering’, the ‘offering’ part having a derogatory ring to it.

In the most recent Destiny loretab on the topic (Queensfoil Censer) Anthem Anatheme is explained as "a manner of subjecting reality to one's will, similar to a Lightbearer's ability to affect paracausality", and this is in line with the prior, much more vague definitions that we've had. It is both the invocation and the act of changing reality to match your will. It does have a similar vibe to aiat, which I wrote about here: "Ahamkara drive power from the space between ‘what-is’ and ‘what-is-desired’. Stating ‘aiat’ creates this connection between ‘what-is’, ‘why-it-is’ and the space in between: ‘why-it-is-?’."

It is also what worms and ahamkara feed on. The reason ahamkara "tweak" the wishes they grant is precisely to widen that gap between how the universe was before the wish and how it will be after it - the impact it will make on the universe - how much it will change.

2) Tithe to Power

Worms feed in the same way, except they are not the ones invoking Anthem Anatheme, and instead it is their hosts who do that. Contrary to the popular belief, worms do not feed on *killing*, per say--but killing is one of, if not the most efficient way of reshaping universe according to your will. Toland says: "This is the shape of victory: to rule the universe so absolutely that nothing will ever exist except by your consent".

The worms sort of... cede the ability(?) to invoke Anthem Anatheme to their hosts, and so also it is the host who gains power from that — the worm feeds, yes, but there is also something else there, something I don't quite understand but it's tied to the Darkness, Ascendant Plane, and Taking. The power that allows you to will things into existence, to define and dictate the rules. "Nothing will ever exist except by your consent".

Ergo: the more powerful—or rather... impactful, or influential—entity you kill, the bigger is the space of their absence; the more sustenance the worm gets, and the more power you gain — because you've asserted your will over them, you did not permit them to exist. As Toland explains: "Oryx inhabits a world where power is truth. To win is to be noble, and to be real. [...] The echoes of Oryx go forth to ask a question: are you the truth?"

So what I will be referring to in this essay as power is the total sum of your impact on the universe, which (thanks to your worm's paracausal abilities) gives you paracausal abilities. Willpower given shape, sort of. That is the foundation the entire Hive system is built on: magic, runes, philosophy, everything.

Now, I used to think tribute and tithe were two different things, but they are apparently used interchangeably in the lore: "The Worm within demands tribute. Now you shall kill what you can and take what killing you need to grow—or for your own purposes, if you dare—and tithe the rest to that which rules you. Thus, tribute will ascend the chain and the excess shall pool at the height, as unlike a river to an ocean" (Truth to Power: Injection). This entry is supposed to quote Oryx in the Books of Sorrow, but it doesn't repeat the words exactly, and omits something very interesting (and confusing). In Carved in Ruin, where Oryx dictates his law, he actually says: "You Thrall, each of you will claw and scream, and kill what you can. Take enough killing to feed your worm, and a little more to grow. Tithe the rest to the Acolyte who commands you."

"Take enough killing to feed your worm, and a little more to grow" seems to suggest the Hive-host and the worm feed on the same thing, or at least that the same thing that the worms feed on is what allows the Hive to grow. The whole shtick with the worm pact was supposed to give the Krill power over their own flesh and the world around them, so we can presume they grow physically as they attain more (will)power - to will their form to change. The lore about it is very vaguely worded though, and a lot of this is my own interpretation, so don't take it as indubitably true.

What I want to make extremely clear, though, is that neither tribute/tithe nor (will)power is a physical thing. Of course the power you have can manifest as paracausal abilities, but it's like with hitting something really hard with your fist - the stronger you are, the more impact you will have on what you're hitting, and the effects are very tangible, but your physical strength itself is not an, I don't know, physical object. It's the potential energy in your muscles I'm struggling to word it better, but I hope you understand the metaphor. The more you affect the world, the stronger your paracausal muscles get, so to say.

The way I understand the logic behind tithing, then, is that in the Hive pyramid scheme you transfer some of your power to your direct commander because they have power over you. Your will is subservient to the one above you, so they demand a cut of its potential growth. It's a way to organise the Hive society, really, because without this system in place everyone would be mindlessly killing each other to survive, while now the ones in command have an incentive not to slaughter all their soldiers if those soldiers are a source of power. It's delicate calculation - is it more beneficial for me to kill my underling and gain the entirety of their power in a single slurp, or allow them to live and transfer to you a percentage of their own power gain? How risky is it to leave them alive, in case they get too powerful and strike against you? But then again - the more power they gain, the bigger the percentage that you get. Is it worth to kill them now, or wait for them to get more powerful, so you can then gobble up a larger meal? It's like fattening a pig but the fatter it gets the more it is able (and willing) to kill you. At which point does the risk outweigh the potential future gain?

2.1) Nature

This part of Hive gods lore also ties into the way aiat works, and the whole thing with definitions and essences that I wrote about in that essay, so I won't go into this right now. What is essential to remember for the purpose of this post is that the Hive gods emulate their natures, or are their natures, and by invoking those natures they can be fed power, summoned into a given place, and even brought back from beyond the grave. I’ll just put a few lore quotes that sort of explain this concept, or at least illustrate it. It will be important later.

You must obey your nature forever. In your immortality, Aurash, you may never cease to explore and inquire, for the sake of your children. In your immortality, Xi Ro, you may never cease to test your strength. In your immortality, Sathona, you may never abandon cunning. (IX: The Bargain)

.

Oryx made war on the Ecumene for a hundred years. At the end of those hundred years he killed the Ecumene Council on the Fractal Wreath, and from their blood rose Xivu Arath, saying, “I am war, and you have conjured me back with war.” […] He drove the Dakaua Nest into a trap, and they were made extinct. From their ashes rose cunning Savathûn, saying, “I am trickery, and you have conjured me back with trickery.” (XXIX: Carved in Ruin)

.

In each act of His power Oryx seeks to incarnate the self-sustaining, immortal suzerainty that He worships. The power that He uses to wash his Taken clean and etch them into useful shapes. (Echo of Oryx)

.

He is not a simple thing to kill. He wants to be isomorphic to conquest, to triumph, to killing and death.** He is a syllogism, now, but in time He hopes to become an axiom. (Oryx: Rebuked)

.

[Xivu Arath, hear me.]

[You are war, and I conjure you with war and blood.]

[A gift for my favorite sister.]

(Empress: CHAPTER 5: NEW GODS)

.

MY HOME IS WAR. MY VOICE IS A BATTLE SONG. FOR AS LONG AS YOU HAVE WORSHIPPED WAR, YOU HAVE WORSHIPPED ME. I AM HERE TO CLAIM MY TRIBUTE. IT IS OVERDUE. (Empress: CHAPTER 6: BATTLE SONG)

3) Season of the Witch

So now let's talk about the premise of Season of the Witch.

We don't know what Savathûn's plan was exactly; we didn't get a scene of Immaru dictating it to Eris or Ikora, only scraps of it mentioned by various characters. But the gist of it, pretty much, was this: Eris plugs herself into the tithing system through the ritual in the first cutscene, and we - using the Acolyte's Staff, which contains worms - transfer the power we generate through killing to her. I say generate because I'm not sure we would've been able to actually use that power (for example, to create a throne world) if we're not connected to the system, but then again Hiraks had done it somehow, so idk.

Another thing, which I hadn't caught while playing the season, but either @winnower-winnower or @the-goldendragon pointed it out to me when we were talking about this, is Eris' nature as the god of vengeance. Every act of violence done in revenge against the Hive and/or the Witness, either by her hand or ours, should technically give her additional power.

So what was the goal of all of this?

Well, apparently the whole point of Eris becoming a Hive god and plugging into the tithing system was that she could become more powerful than Xivu Arath and beat her at her own game. And how would she get all that power? Why, by killing, of course! That's the sword logic, right? Nothing is permitted to exist except by your consent. That's power. And Eris already has so much power, as the hand wielding the blade which ended both Crota and Oryx, and possibly Nokris, and Hashladûn, and Alak-Hul, and countless other Hive. She did not perform these feats alone, granted (something that very cool sword logic cutscene seems to have forgotten), but she was the inciter, guide, and main motivator for them.

And this is all true, except for the one small detail which is exactly the reason why Xivu is (used to be?) such a compelling antagonist: this is not how you beat her at her own game.

3.1) Xivu and War

Remember imbaru? Remember how Savathûn made an entire power-generating scheme based around the idea that she, the god of cunning, cannot be outsmarted or outwitted, and every wrong guess about her would only feed her power? It was conveniently forgotten for the duration of The Witch Queen, an investigation-based campaign, but it HAD BEEN a thing.

And Xivu Arath had done her homework, and copied this idea. If she is war, then every act of war will invoke her and so give her power.

I AM THE WAR YOU CRAVE. PURPOSE ETERNAL. A LEGACY IN BLOOD. WHEN YOU DRAW BLADES, YOU DRAW ME. YOU CANNOT RESIST WITHOUT INVOKING MY BANNER. (Immolant Pt. 2)

And earlier seasons remembered this! The whole reason why Rasputin sacrificed himself was because Mara had enlightened everybody on the idea that Xivu would've gained power from any act of war and slaughter, regardless if it'd been against ours or her own soldiers. She'd set herself up to be struck against, and it would've been a power factory for her. Rasputin had no other choice than to fold and disable the weapons entirely. That was his sacrifice, that was what set him apart from the god of war in the end.

Season of the Deep had some insight on that too:

Zavala: Rasputin proved we can't beat Xivu Arath in direct conflict, but..

Sloane: Zavala, I tried every which way to fight her when Titan went dark. I never managed to put a dent in her plans. Just survive.

Zavala: So it is truly it. [sighs] And all that's left is for us to accept it.

(Deep Dives, Week Six)

And my absolute favourite:

Sloane: This report is interesting. Xivu Arath intended to use Rasputin's Warsat network as an unwinning scenario. We fire the Warsats on her army, she gains power through death. She fires the Warsats on the City, everyone dies. We only achieved victory through defeat. Through a... moment of sacrifice. It makes me wonder about our approach to defeating her.

Lord Saladin: Winning without fighting. Philosophers of war have contemplated this very thing, both in our culture and, as I've learned, those beyond Earth.

Sloane: How do you defeat the undefeatable? That's an interesting problem.

(Salvage, Week Three)

...But then we got Season of the Witch, and it turned out the way to defeat the undefeatable is simply to hit it harder.

Okay, but why shouldn't it work? I've said before Eris was extremely powerful by herself, and with the plan to boost her with our tithes, she'd be even more beefed up on sword logic. Why couldn't she hit Xivu Arath harder?

Well, for the simple reason that Xivu gets power from war--all war, or at least all war against herself. Even disregarding the sheer disparity in power at the start, the billions of years of tithes that Xivu was ahead of Eris, this idea was doomed at the start, because for every ounce of killing-power we passed over to Eris, Xivu got the same amount of tribute. We were making war on her, for Eir's sake, what else were we expecting?

Same goes for the idea that we cut off the tribute Xivu was getting from her powerful lieutenants like Ir Uulxal and took it for ourselves/Eris. Yeah, that's probable, but at the same time we were powering Xivu up by making war on her. That had been the whole point of her as an undefeatable antagonist.

I've heard people argue that what we were doing in Witch wasn't direct violence against Xivu, so it didn't count as war. And to those people I say that hybrid warfare is a thing. Seriously, my country neighbours both Russia and Belarus, and I don't want go on an IRL tangent but claiming the only act that count as war is the direct clashing of blades is some extremely medieval thinking. It's like saying the Cold War wasn't a war. Planning, plotting and strategising how to destroy an enemy absolutely is war, gathering power in order to destroy the enemy is war, trying to outmaneouver and outplay the enemy tactically is war. If the point is aggression or counteraggression, if there is An Enemy, it is war.

I'm willing to accept Eris got some amount of power from Xivu invoking her nature of vengeance in her acts of war against us, but still, it would be ridiculous to believe that would've been enough to match and surpass the might of Xivu herself. I'm sorry, it's simply unrealistic. In her acts of vengeance Xivu did not alter the universe in any meaningful way, she just threw a few beefed up Taken at us and that was it. If she'd, idk, kicked Venus into the Sun in her vengeful rage, then maybe we could've talked about Eris gaining a substantial boost of tribute, but as things stand there was barely anything to go by.

3.2) Savathûn and Death

Alright, but what about that extremely sexy assassination of Savathûn that Eris performed after the final mission? The game said that this was the source for the missing chunk of power Eris needed to defeat Xivu! Savathûn had been super powerful, right? Why wouldn't that be enough?

There are two problems here, and let's tackle the smaller one first. We don't really know how powerful Savathûn was after she had been raised as a Lightbearer, exactly. The tactical obliviousness of the entirety of Witch Queen to imbaru suggests post-rez Sav is no longer in the tithe system and cannot gain power through the Hive magic means because she doesn't have a worm anymore. That doesn't mind she isn't powerful, and that by deposing her one wouldn't make an enormous change in the universe, but we don't know if she can get more powerful anymore. SotWitch reintroduced the imbaru engine, but doesn't elaborate on what it even does now that Sav doesn't have a worm, or how it works.

And now the bigger problem: Eris did not claim Savathûn's power when she killed her.

This whole system is based on Anthem Anatheme, remember? Making ripples in the universe. Creating spaces between what-is and what-is-wanted. What Toland says after we kill Ascendant Oryx puts it well:

Dwell a moment on the weight of what you’ve done. Contemplate the story you just ended. Will you ever do anything that screams down the millennia? Will you ever hammer your will on the universe until it rings and rings and rings? Oryx was an awesome power. Show reverence. (Oryx: Defeated)

There is a reason why the Grimoire card unlocked by killing Oryx in Regicide is called "Oryx: Rebuked", and the one we get after killing him in King's Fall is "Oryx: Defeated". We did not defeat him in Regicide. We put a dent in his plans, sure, we weakened him, but we did not kill him. That's the point of Ascendance, of throne world and oversouls and other means of hiding death: they make you harder to kill permanently.

Ghosts are funny, because they serve pretty much the same purpose. They hide their Guardians' death. The Guardian isn't dead as long as their Ghost lives. That's our conditional immortality - we depend on our Ghosts just as Ascendant Hive depend on their throne worlds.

Death doesn't stick unless it's permanent and irreversible. I'll even risk the claim that the power Mara generated (and would've assumed, has she been in the tithing system) by indirectly causing Savathûn's death—immense power—was removed from her tally, so to say, in the moment of either Savathûn's resurrection, or when she got her memories back and decided she was still herself and not a new person with a clean record.

Eris couldn't have claimed Savathûn's power for herself without killing Immaru, just as she couldn't have taken the power generated by Oryx's death if he'd been killed in the physical world only. This wasn't an "interesting sword logic stunt", this was a suspension of logic priory established in-universe and it infuriates me to the point of pulling out hair. There is no way this can work. If it DID work, Ascendant Hive would've created power batteries for themselves by killing each other in the physical world and coming back to life as if nothing had happened eons ago. The Books of Sorrow go out of their way to point out that Savathûn and Xivu's deaths in star by star by star were "true deaths" and that's why Auryx was able to claim his sisters' power.

This is either a lazy retcon serving to nerf a character too powerful for the narrative to handle, or the writers not understanding how their own universe works. It's infuriating, it's stupid, and it does Xivu Arath so dirty I struggle to find words for it. It strips her of the most compelling part of her as an antagonist. And down at its core, it's a lack of creative courage. Did her undefeatability make Xivu Arath an extremely difficult antagonist to handle? Of course!! But when you write characters like that, you should be brave about it. You should commit. And as things stand now, it appears the creators had been challenged by their own story and instead of picking up a fight they backed out and changed the rules. They were been defeated by their own creation. Which is, of course, a note of praise to how good the creation was, but in the end it leads to a sad conclusion. Bungie can no longer handle the story they're telling; and whether that is because of the seasonal model, or the speed at which they've forced themselves to update at, or a lack of communication in the writing team, or any other reason, I sincerely don't care. The result remains the same either way.

[lonelywretchjervistetch]

Okay, you like birds and you like superheroes, so you seem uniquely qualified to answer a question that’s bothered me for awhile: WHY is Red Robin named that when there’s already a Red Hood AND a Robin. It just. . . Blends with the rest of the post robin personas so poorly

(If the Crow wasn’t already taken I would have suggested that since Tim has that whole thing going on with the court of Owls and those two species notoriously hate each other.)

So if you could redesign Tim Drakes vigilante persona what would be your pick?

Hoo boy, now there's a goddamn question, isn't there? I answer it at the end, I promise, but I wanted to explain my reasoning. So, yeah, scroll down if you want the answer quick.

But OK, I can answer your first question really easily: why is Tim Drake called Red Robin if Red Hood already exists? Easy: because Red Robin came first. And I don't mean that as a concept or nursery rhyme or expression; I mean that a Robin, one of Batman's sidekicks, taking up the identity of Red Robin, existed first, complete with the costume. BEHOLD! Mark Waid and Alex Ross' brilliant comic book Kingdom Come, one of the most important DC Comics stories ever published, and arguably one of its most iconic near-future stories!

First published in 1996, this story came out after Tim Drake was introduced in comics, and well before Jason Todd came back to life as Red Hood. And...is actually Dick Grayson in the future, not Tim Drake. In fact, Tim never appears in Kingdom Come for some reason, but a future version of Damian surprisingly does! Ask Mark Waid, not me. Anyway, when DC introduced Damian Wayne into the main continuity, they realized two Robins weren't going to do. SO, they reintroduced the identity of Red Robin, and this time gave it to...Jason Todd. Yeah, Jason actually picked up the identity in main continuity first, during the Countdown to Final Crisis storyline. He was given the costume by Batman from an alternate universe that was a utopian society yaddayaddayadda, you get the point. Jason had it first.

But, that didn't last very long, and Jason became Red Hood again after that event was done. And so, Red Robin was eventually picked up by...Ulysses Armstrong. Yeah, the identity was stolen by a Nightwing and Robin villain previously known as the General, who was basically a child genius that used the identity to...well, kill Robin. Ulysses is an asshole, it's a whole thing. Anyway, after this event, FINALLY, Tim Drake takes up the mantle of Red Robin. So, yeah, Tim is the THIRD Red Robin in continuity. Which, now that you mention it, DOES make it odd that Tim would adopt the identity after it was stained by Ulysses. But, DC editorial wanted the Red Robin character to exist in canon, and Tim was the only character that made sense to wear the mantle. It's a reference for reference's sake, which isn't great, admittedly.

But, OK, you're asking me what I would do if given the reigns to Tim Drake's identity after Damian Wayne essentially steals the mantle of Robin. OK, Anonymous, I'll play your game. And I actually do have an answer to this question. First off, what does Tim Drake represent amongst the Robins, especially compared to the others and their superhero identities? All of the Robins are reflections of Batman himself, often somewhat unintentionally. Their superhero identities similarly reflect this. Let's give the two most prominent examples.

Nightwing is the superhero. Dick Grayson, originally, was the kid sidekick of Batman, and embraced that with a lightness that Bruce could never manifest. As a result, his ideals were that of the traditional superhero: the day-saving good guy who does the right thing for the disadvantaged, old chum. So, his adult persona reflects this. It's a reference to Superman (Nightwing was originally a superhero and Krypton that Superman told a young Dick about early in their friendship), and it's a sort-of cheesy heroic name that also references Batman. Nightwing, savior of Bludhaven! Has a ring to it.

Red Hood is a vigilante against the law. Jason Todd, originally, was a little street punk who stole the tires off of the Batmobile. He's a criminal. When he becomes Robin, he embraces the vigilante identity by also embracing his temper, becoming a rougher-around-the-edges Robin who doesn't follow the rules very well. And then, he dies at the Joker's hand. When he comes back to life, he embraces the idea of being a brutal vigilante that doesn't care about the rules or morality, essentially becoming a criminal in the process. And so, when he has to choose the name of a criminal, why not name himself after the man who created him: Joker. So, he names himself Red Hood, which is also the Joker's old identity before getting acid dipped. Maybe this was on purpose, maybe it was subconscious, but it doesn't matter. He wants to be a lawbreaker, so he gets the identity of a lawbreaker.

Damian Wayne is the martial artist. To be fair, Damian still hasn't come into his own as an adult, since he's...well, a teenager. Because of that, we don't know what his identity is going to be, other than...well, Batman. Yeah, he's quite literally the son of Batman, so it does make sense that he'd become the next Batman. But again, that is yet to be seen. In terms of being a reflection of his father, though, he's the overdisciplined and overserious martial artist, and also...a child. Yeah, no offence to Bruce, but he's still in many ways a child in a mask. And so, Damian originally represented that. But now, as he's grown older in comics, he instead reflects the self-assured determination of his father, as well as the superior martial arts skills. And that finally leaves one major aspect unaccounted for, and you know what it is.

Tim Drake is the detective. Look, Tim is known as the "smart Robin" for a reason...because he is. He's the smart Robin. But in terms of being a reflection of Batman, he represents the Dark Knight's more Holmesian aspects. He's the inquisitive analyst, the tactician, the observer, the planner. So, whatever Tim's adult persona is, it should reflect him as a detective and tactician. And here's a question: should it be a bird at all? I mean, Nightwing only evokes a bird, and Red Hood definitely isn't a bird. So maybe Tim should actually be the only one to keep the bird thing in earnest. But if he does...maybe he could be a little smarter about it.

Y'know, I like your suggestion of "Crow", Anonymous. Smart bird, love the enemy of owls point, too. But Crow feels...off. It's not a great superhero name, as you pointed out. Of course, we're really looking for the name of a good detective. So, maybe you have the right family, just the wrong member. SOme people I've seen suggest Jackdaw, which...come to think of it, may just be a Reddit joke, but either way, I don't like it? So, instead, how about...

The Rook (Corvus frugilegus) is a Eurasian corvid known for its ability to solve problems. It's often seen in the presence of similar, related birds (like the Jackdaw), and lives in nests called rookeries. They have the ability to use complex tools, and even understand the concept of gravity. But perhaps the biggest reason why I think Tim should take up the name Rook, other than the fact that his hideout already has a name now (the Rookery), and the fact that he can keep the "R" on his costume, AND the fact that Rook is also a pretty good codename for a detective or spy...is the double meaning.

After all...I feel like Tim is the kind of person who plays a lot of chess to harness his skills in planning and tactics, amongst other games. He probably has played a lot of games with Alfred, maybe with Bruce. And another name for the castle piece is, of course, the rook. A double-meaning, and BOTH work for the character. And for some reason, I've never seen anybody suggest this as a name for Tim Drake. Maybe I haven't looked in the right places, but thinking on it now...I honestly really want this name for him in the future. Give him a dark costume, maybe replace the red with blue, or even give him the Red Robin costume, recolored to reflect this identity instead! The possibilities abound, really.

Hopefully that was a satisfying answer for you! May not work for everybody, but that's what I would do if I were in charge of Time Drake! Definitely not Drake, or Sparrow, or the other names he's been given in the last few years, just sayin'.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s3 episode 9 thoughts

i have so much to say. i just copied and pasted my notes, and my thoughts were COMICALLY long. but it was SUCH a good episode so i have a LOT to point out. even more than usual, somehow.

(screams to let it all out and then tries to take a deep breath and gather myself)

okay. OKAY FUCK. okay. whew. we start from the top. the very very top, in which i click on the episode. and so begins an emotional rollercoaster.

this episode description mentions a train. as does the one after that!!! am i in for a two parter?!?! well, if so, at least i am prepared with this information, so i don’t get a massive shock like with duane barry! (author’s note: i was right!)

a train. huh. would love to ride one of those someday. unfortunately i’m american. we only really have cargo ones hanging about. but their noise is deeply familiar and comforting to me regardless.

(little did i know that this was the very kind of train to be featured in this episode!!)

camera opens on tennessee! children are riding bikes to watch a train. ah, good to know the desire to stop doing other things and instead watch a train go by is universal.

now it’s night at the train. is some graffiti action going to take place? the music is getting weirder as we look at the top of this train, and it appears we are in for no ordinary graffiti moment as some cars pull up. 

and these people are from japan! in tenneseee! boarding the train…? which is full of science stuff!! this is odd on many levels.

(japan to tennessee… whew, that’s a long flight. give these men some caffeine now!)

caffeine seems to be ignored because they are in surgery looking gear cutting something open. and green stuff flows into a jar? hey. not liking that. 

they are cutting into what looks like, in my opinion, some guts.

until people run in and start shooting!!! really truly shooting and killing everyone!!! what!!! what the hell!! who are these guys!! are they with cig man??? holy fuck, if that WAS an alien autopsy, way to ruin the scientific method with bullets in the lab!!

and they are zipping an alien into a bag!! so it was!!! the blatant disregard for learning here!! it’s appallingly american! who are these people?!!

bum bum bum bum… woo woo woo woo wooo wooo… woo woo woo woo WOOO woo… intro time.

mulder has his feet up on the desk. fiddling with… something. scully opens the door and he tells her to come on in, with the face of a man who is scheming. he has it all dark like a movie theatre!!!

LMAOOOO he ordered a video from a magazine of an alien autopsy. and that must be why he looks like a kid in a candy store. $29.95, plus shipping!!! THAT IS A LOT!!

she’s like, you literally cannot see what they are operating on. and she says it’s hokier than the one they aired on fox news. which means i have to google a few things to learn if that actually happened. actually i don’t want to even know.

he mentions the green goo and he says “it’s widely held that aliens don’t have blood, scully” <- girl how would she know that. also you literally almost died FROM alien blood. so explain.

they’re arguing the merits of what makes an authentic alien autopsy tape, and then he points out how the people burst in with guns right before the film cuts off. well, that could make it look more authentic, or less!

some guy in allentown got the tapes so they’re visiting LMAOOO road trip road trip!!!! to a very old looking house. 

the studio is called “rat tail productions” okayyy. i kinda like that. but it’s all boarded up so they have to try and break in.

and they find a dead body!! that is still warm!!! what is going on!!!

someone else enters!! and mulder chases after them and jumps the fence yelling that he is a federal agent. zooooom that is a speedy man. 

and just when it seems mulder has the guy, he starts kicking and punching and BOOM! down goes mulder. until he shoots something nearby to show he isn’t playing. 

mulder is wet from falling into a bunch of garbage… king. and the language barrier is being a barrier!

(sidenote i’m surprised they didn’t make mulder learn another language in school or for the fbi?? like actually really shocked. you’d think he’d have at least one other one, or a few basic phrases, under his belt. idk, where i’m from higher education in humanities related fields requires language learning, but he somehow escaped)

mulder is pretty despite being covered in garbage and bringing a man to a police station

scully says they can’t find an interpreter! this is not really shocking because they are in pennsylvania. 

“well look at this… a beacon in the night” says mulder whilst smiling, and who is it he glances upon but SKINNER?!?! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?? are they in trouble?? does… skinner know japanese??

(mulder asks and he does not 💔)

skinner says they have to let the guy (kazuo sakurai) go because he is a high ranking diplomat. so if you’re a diplomat can you just… walk away from a murder scene and that isn’t a problem?? at all? i did not think it worked like this.

skinner asks what they’re doing and mulder says he’s tracking down a “video piracy thing” LMAOOOO least convincing lie ever. 

skinner tells him to go back home, and then very purposefully brushes into his shoulder before walking away. yowch! that has got to sting. mulder looks like he just got caught and is trying to charm his way out of it

scully rightfully points out that this makes no sense, and asks if he wants to drop it, but mulder says he paid his $29.95 and he is gonna get his answers!!!

LMAOOO he “forgot” to turn in the suitcase kazuo was carrying. it has a list of members of a ufo society with a local woman’s name circled!! was she gonna be their next target…?

he tells her to get a motel and he is going to go back to D.C. and be “a good boy” for skinner… LMAOOO, and he’ll show the files to his besties 

back in D.C., and woah, mulder looks like a real slut with his hands on his waist and his jeans and tucked in turtleneck sweater. i am NOT complaining. just merely observing. it’s kinda giving that one photo of the rock. i see where he took his style inspo from.

so the lone gunmen say that the japanese were looking for a sunken ship from wartime, and it looks like they found it, but they brought it to virginia? very weird. maybe they did not find a sub… but something else.

the diplomats are heading home. or not. because someone is beating up kazuo! huh?! WHAT!

scully on da scene in allentown pa. serving. knocking at a door of the person whose name was circled in the files.

but the person goes to answer the door and she says they know her. she’s like umm not sure about that?? until another person comes to the door and says “oh my god… she’s one” WHAT??

(is this like a secret society of people who were abducted or like. are they trying to scam her or something?)

she looks super freaked out. she’s trying to explain that she’s here for murder investigation reasons, but the lady in pink (penny) is calling and saying everyone needs to come over right away. this will surely make scully even more stressed.

they ask her if there was some unexplained event that happened last year. and also to please sit down. so you KNOW things are about to get wild.

mulder is asking about the ship that allegedly was returning through panama. and the boat was stopped! but then kept going? the guy he’s asking to look into this does not seem to be pleased to discuss this subject. 

scully is freaking tf out but trying to gently explain that she does NOT KNOW THESE PEOPLE. but they’re talking about being taken to “the bright white place” and that she was only taken once, but these other women were taken many times. WHAT IS GOING ON.

they ask her about regression hypnosis and she’s like i do not want to talk about this. (and yes i even TRIED IT) and she looks around at all the other women and it is creepy. SAVE HER… save them all.

mulder is running away from the guy he asked for the files from. he’s always going somewhere. looking at a boat. looking at another boat. is he gonna sneak on the boat? YES HE IS. HE IS JUMPING ON IT. elbowing a window open to get in. this is a wild man!! he will break into your boat!!!

he’s going through drawers looking for stuff and i’m thinking, oh man i really hope the boat doesn’t start heading out to sea… he has nothing to survive on. and we’ve seen them kill people, so don’t say “accidental” boat abandonment with a guy on it is out of the realm of possibility. but it IS the boat he was hoping for. and now he’s sneaking about its underbelly. 

NO! he has been caught. the boat is being swarmed by men with guns. he seems too tall to hide…. but he did!! AND HE JUMPS INTO THE HARBOR LMAOOOOO, NOOO, THE POLLUTANTS!!

back to scully. i was so caught up in the boat espionage i had forgotten about scully’s dilemma. and they say that she won’t remember what happened to her for a while. cut scene to her being blowed up again like we saw in s2.

and she is really freaking out now, because they point out that they all have the mark and she just wants to learn about this murder, damn it, not unpack trauma!!

but betsy, who she came to see, is dealing with very severe cancer. and they say that what she is dealing with is going to happen to all of them. WHAT??? “we’re all dying because of what they do to us” OH MY GOD??? she has tears in her eyes. WHAT!!! what. 

back to the boat. do i look like i give a damn about the boat!! no!! but mulder is crawling- at night- from the harbor. so did he stay there all evening or….

so he’s once again on the run. and soaking wet. please take a shower, my friend. you know not what they do in that harbor. 

he sees people pulling in to the warehouse nearby!! with guns!!! and we see him sneak by!!! no, mulder, consider going home and not getting caught!! but what if he finds something that can help scully…? and oh my gosh, he doesn’t even KNOW she’s slowly dying yet. oh my gosh wait i need to sit down (said by the girl who is literally sitting)

the orchestral score is popping off, too. he peeks in a window and sees a giant… thing? being gassed. with cameras out and about. like a blimp looking thing. 

somehow he gets a change of clothes. and he goes home but his apartment door was unlocked! so he has his gun. is it skinner? 

IT IS!! whew! that was best case scenario, so it was just wishful thinking on my part, but maybe i really am deeply attuned to this show. skinner is sitting there in the dark. we see some photos on mulder’s desk but they kinda just look like random places. one is some sort of field? and the other is a house, i think? not recognizable to me. but back to the plot at hand.

skinner tells him to put the gun down. sort of like you tell a dog to drop it. he obeys. aww, he is a good boy for skinner, like he mentioned earlier.

so skinner has some tea; kazuo’s body was found in a canal!!!! he didn’t make his flight!! and they government thinks he was killed over his BRIEFCASE!!! 

mulder plays dumb. then he admits that scully has the briefcase in her car. he seems like he’s trying to play it cool but skinner is NOT having it. “this is bigger than me, you, or the FBI, agent mulder” okayyyy king of being vague. and he says he is not getting involved!!! woah!!!

so mulder goes to… a senator!!! yes, the senator we saw very briefly a few times before, whose name is richard matheson? i didn’t really understand that in the past, but maybe it was building up to this. richard says to return the photos, but mulder says he’ll be entangled in a murder investigation, which he cannot afford because he is so close to the truth!

this senator claims to be telling mulder the truth about what is going on. and he explains what happens in tennessee, how the japanese doctors were murdered doing a secret thing. 

“what am i onto here?” , he asks. “monsters begetting monsters”, says the senator. ohhhhhhh that does not sound good.

(i hope he exposes the alien people and the torture and they blow up all the people that hurt scully and the rest of those women and then hold hands)

he’s back in his office with his glasses on. and i would be glad for a glasses mulder win under normal circumstances, but my heart is sick over scully. i take what i can get when i can get it, though, because he is a beautiful man in glasses. 

SCULLY’S BACK!! and she is still freaking out. she relays the news that she might be dying, and he looks up at her so innocently and says “but you’re fine, aren’t you scully?” OHHHH BABY. BABY. GROWN MAN. BUT BABY. OHHHHHHH MY HEART. MY HEART ITS MELTING. MY EYES ARE TEARING. “but you’re fine, aren’t you?” oh lord… he cannot lose anymore people. 

she is terrified- “am i? i don’t know, mulder” NOOOOOOOO MY BABY. STOP. DO NOT DO THIS TO HER.

he pulls up a photo and she says she knows someone in it, but that guy has been dead since 1965. mulder seems to find this difficult to believe, but last episode he was suggesting that someone was bleeding another person’s blood, so i feel he of all people should be open to this idea.

(oh…. they’re using unit 731 for the storyline here. and they have done that in the past as well but. wow. awful lot of baggage to dredge up there. very very painful and unhealed wounds)

((and i guess before they have done similar things involving nazis, right, remember victor? and his experiments? even if it was done before though, it doesn’t make it any less chilling to me. i’m not sure how i feel about using real horrific war crimes as plot points in an alien show))

but my reckoning with history aside, mulder says that four of the men in that photo were in the alien autopsy video. and they were murdered.

“murdered for what? or murdered by whom?” oh scully, you deserve none of the suffering that the world has given to you. NONE OF IT. if i were mulder, i would hug her and never let go ever. ever ever. 

he thinks they’re still trying to make an alien-human hybrid, but she still isn’t buying it, even after everything; she needs proof. she says believing is the easy part, but he disagrees. “you think that believing is easy?” he asks, and it hangs in the air.

oh, i want to linger in that space forever. the tension it creates, the things it reveals about him. how belief is centered on hope, how he has to fight for it, that it doesn’t come as natural as breathing as he might have you thinking. it’s hope for a better future, it’s hope for righting old wrongs, it’s looking where no one else will go find the answers. it’s about getting family back. it’s about fighting and sneaking and learning and even killing to get what you need to know. but it’s never easy. 

FUCK. I’M LIKE GONNA JUMP UP AND DOWN. THIS IS WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!!!!!! THIS IS THE STUFF!!!

they hold eye contact for a bit, until she sighs and breaks it (fuck me, i’m emotional) and he points out that they DO have proof, as he reaches for her arms- the spy photos were tracking a ship that pulled a UFO out of the ocean, and the UFO is in that warehouse that he saw earlier!! that thing i said looked like a blimp!!!

he says the US has a secret railroad. i yearn so desperately for accessible transportation. if the government said tomorrow, yeah, we have a secret rail system, i’m not sure how i’d react. perhaps relief?

there is very very very charged eye contact. 

okay, bringing the thingy from her neck to a guy who can understand it. it’s a “micro processor”, and there are a few companies that make them. and they are being used for many things. so was it made by ordinary people, and not alien tech…? who is doing the torturing and testing…? and to what end???

it’s all women in that room… is it for alien breeding purposes… oh, i shutter to imagine

back in west virginia!!! mulder has a leather jacket on and a dream as he climbs up into some sort of railroad building’s roof. his hair blows dreamily in the wind as he busts out some binoculars. if he were to be caught, he could probably convincingly claim he was a birder. i understand they go through a lot to find their birds. 

people are showing up. they’re speaking japanese and getting what looks like a LIVING ALIEN onto the train? mulder is on the move. the train is taking off. is he gonna play subway surfers irl and try to jump on that thing? yes, he is SPRINTING. but he realizes he cannot outrun a train. 

back to scully cam. she is watching footage. a japanese surgeon is taking off his surgical gear and she recognizes him!! OH MY GOSH SHE RECOGNIZES HIM FROM HER TESTING! NOOOOO!!! NOOOO!

she answers the phone like she wasn’t unpacking horrific information and mulder reports from west virginia. and she points out that she recognizes the doctor… but not from the video tape. NOOOOOOO. realization crosses his face, and i’m sure only adds fuel to his fire to get on that damn train.

so mulder is trying to catch up with the train. a handsome japanese man is being followed by the dude that killed the other guy earlier. AND NO!!!! the killer just killed the handsome japanese man and locked him in the bathroom. then adjusted his hair???

mulder JUST misses the train. perhaps this is for the best?

scully going home. WHY IS X THERE?!?!?!? he’s telling her to tell mulder to get OFF OF THE TRAIN. she rightly is suspicious but he is NOT playing around.

mulder is about to leap on top of the train when he gets the call from scully. and he asks who told her what he was doing and to stop it, and like me, she is also probably realizing she doesn’t know this dude X’s name. 

and he jumps on the train!!! but loses his phone in the process!!!!!

TO BE CONTINUED!!!!

WHAT THE HELL.

okay, my yelling aside, THIS is when the show is at its best, imo. THIS is the blueprint for me. character driven. heart of the plot. reveal after reveal but vague enough to keep me wanting more. the government is evil and every conspiracy has more conspiracies. getting to know what is ACTUALLY going on in snippets. skinner is there. this episode truly had it all.

EXCEPT an ending, of course, because now i have to WAIT to watch the next part. SO TRULY DIABOLICAL!

no no, i jest, i can take a cliffhanger most of them time. i just better not have ANY distractions tomorrow. 

whew, so much to unpack. i think there are two things that are sticking out the most to me here: scully’s terror and mulder’s belief.

her not knowing what to believe is true about herself and the world she has studied so carefully, being surrounded by strangers who claim to know her, that know things ABOUT her, and who tell her she is going to die slowly and horribly. how she tears up when she learns this. how she tried so hard to get control over the situation by pivoting to the murder case, only to be denied. how the reigns of control slip from her hands, and it is left to fate. and how horrific that is. how she cannot handle processing what was done to her, but is forced to, by seeing this guy who did unspeakable things to her again. how she says she needs proof. as if she’s biding her time, waiting for a full answer so that the reality of what she has gone through can sink in. if there’s never proof, maybe she’ll never have to process it.

and mulder, who thinks that belief is hard. who has sacrificed so much of his life to belief, put himself in danger countless times to find the truth that everyone around him either denies or ridicules him for. how he has little more than his work, because he needs there to be hope. if belief is terror for scully, to him it is a source of possibility. how they’re both wrapped into the same tragedy with entirely separate takes on what it means and how to proceed but whatever is bringing them together keeps weaving them tighter and tighter. 

AUGHHHHHHHHHHHHH. i could scream.

i actually typed all of that, took way more notes than usual, and STILL feel like i’m barely scratching the surface. i feel like i need to give a lecture on this subject matter to even sort of drain the giant well within me of feelings regarding them. his face, how he insists she has to be okay, right? right? and her terror when she admits she doesn’t know.

now. i hate to say it, but i have seen vague spoilers about what happens in the next season, involving illness. and i have a feeling i’m gonna cry like a baby because i’m so messed up just by this. maybe it’s a sensitive topic for me, or maybe i’m just too deeply attached to these nerds and need them to be happy. 

but the depth of my feeling is indicative of how amazing this episode was. it was fast-paced, but not too fast to follow. it explored our character’s hopes and dreams and fears. the dialogue and acting was excellent. how much can be said with just eye contact, and then it breaking, is stunning. i want to know what happens next, and despite my eagerness, i am too disciplined and sleepy to go onto the next episode. 

(i have some thoughts that i need to gather and articulate at a later time regarding the use of unit 731 as a plot point, but they’re still loading, and frankly it would be better to make a post just on that subject once i can figure out how to verbalize them and if i feel that i can confidently tackle the subject matter)

goodnight world, i’m gonna scream. 

[thebearme]

Thoughts on Pauline? I know she’s not in the Mario vs Donkey Kong remake but in the spirit of those games I just wanted to ask

I'm neutral on Pauling overall, as a kid I liked her alot more over Rosalina. I was soo hyped when she appeared in odyssey, although it had me reevaluating the lore and my life. LIKE SERIOUSLY-

Pauling is the mayor of New Donk City but does that mean that the og lore doesn't exist or is Donk City = New York?? If so, Does the pipe that Mario and Luigi took doesn't exist anymore? I decided not to think about it for a looooong time, BUT BRIGHT SIDE! I have thought of a theory/headcanon that solves EVERYTHING! I just don't know if I should tell you all yet.

I know Im a lazy bear when I don't have the right motivation to do something, which is why alot of stuff are just in my bucket list but I have a Mario Galaxy comic idea that helps explain my theory more naturally and help explain my overall hcs for my Mario universe.

Anyway something that always got at me as a kid was when people said the Mario is cheating on Peach with Pauling. I was deep in the Mario shipping trenches, but in order to please my inner demons I have the now headcanon that they're bitter exes.

Neither of them are bad, just bad for each other. It's just consistent arguing and clapbacks till Luigi got tired of sleepless nights so he begged Mario to finally cut it off. Now the used to be high school sweetheart just passively aggressively insult each other on the tennis court. But hey I guess thats no different to how Mario acts with any competition.

Peach and Pauling are cool with each other but Pauling just doesn't understand why a Princess would lower her standards for someone like Mario. Although Peach explains she just doesn't understand her decision and thinks Peach should have gone with the nicer brother.

Peach would like to talk or have tea time with Pauling if only she wasn't flustered and intimidated by this tall lady. 

[apostacism]

What are your thoughts on the Architect and its impact on the lore regarding the Blight? Do you think we'll see anything about it in Veilguard? Its always frustrated me that something with such wild implications has been so absent from the narrative throughout the games and I cant figure out why

I'm hopeful! It's clear that the DA writers aren't done with the Blight by a long shot - consider Solas' extremely strong feelings about the Blight and the Wardens in DAI, as well as Corypheus'... everything. When you look at the books as well, the Calling came out in 2009, and in it the Architect was spreading the taint using enchantments - which is to say, lyrium. So the possibility of lyrium being tainted was also a thing that was known very early in the dragon age universe, even if not explicitly presented during the games. My impression is that a lot of large story and worldbuilding pieces in Dragon Age have been in play since nearly the beginning, and that a large thread like the Architect being not exactly picked up (but not exactly dropped... there's been ongoing blight and warden stuff in every game) doesn't mean that it's been forgotten, just that it hasn't been woven back into the story yet.

While I do agree that I would prefer for there to be Less in the tie-in materials (novels, comics, Absolution, whatever) and More in the games, particularly when it comes to the things that are actually relevant to the games (having a novel about Maric's rebellion, which is only background material, is great. Having most of the information about White Spire and the mage rebellion be tie-in stuff that is explained in a way not entirely to my satisfaction in the game... less great), some of it might also be a pacing dissonance. Apparently the ancient elves appear in books that came out before (?) DAI (or at least before some of my mutuals played DAI), and then the concept is introduced in DAI as well. So, as I noted above, not in the games yet doesn't mean not in the games ever and relegated to the world of additional materials/dropped stories.

The biggest piece I feel like has been missing continuation of the ideas raised by the Architect is that of darkspawn "awakening". We've continued to investigate the magisters, lyrium, and the blight itself, but not the idea of darkspawn being or having the potential to be self-aware and discrete individuals.

That was one thing I really liked about Origins - even the unawakened darkspawn had intention. I'm thinking of an emissary - the forgemaster in Return to Ostagar, I think, who looks directly at you and draws a line across its throat. That's communication. We don't know that it's not hivemind communication, the darkspawn receiving instructions from a more conscious archdemon and carrying it out as a thoughtless body, but I personally think it wasn't. That darkspawn in particular wanted you to know that it was going to kill you, wanted to threaten you.

Similarly with the vigor of destroying Duncan's fire or hanging up Cailan (whatever else I might think about that particular narrative choice) - all of that demonstrates that the darkspawn have thoughts and desires, however limited, beyond simply spreading the blight. Hurlocks have a culture of self-scarification too. And those marks (presumably) have meaning to them. Darkspawn goals may be violent and limited, and their social groups simple and nebulous, but they do have both social behaviors and desires and intents, which means in a way they're already self aware, already at least somewhat individuated even within the horde. They may not think as we do, but they do think, and the Architect's modifications are just bringing them more into alignment with a human experience.

Nonconsensually, I might add! Awakening is so real for including the Mother and her disaffected darkspawn who didn't want to be cut off from the call of the Old Gods. They have an "awakened" existence and it's not preferable to them, which raises very interesting questions as far as darkspawn autonomy and what is owed to them in terms of respecting their desires for their own existence, when one of the options for that existence compels them to acts of violence against other peoples.

I would love to get back to all of that. Mechanically, too - there's something very fucked up going on with Warden blood, if giving it to darkspawn disrupts their connection to the Blight Mind, not to mention Avernus doing experiments on other wardens that allowed him to live more than 200 years, tainted, holding off the final stages of the taint (the song, the rotting of the body, etc). The progress of our growing knowledge of the Blight through the games has been towards its source, and I think bringing a reckoning with the darkspawn themselves back in would be a fitting and interesting next step in that direction.

So yeah, I would love to more directly address the Architect's research and the implications for the wardens and the darkspawn themselves in the games, because there's a lot of really fascinating stuff there. My thought about the "reason" for the absence - if there is one - is that we have instead been developing our information about the Blight itself, taking more of a big picture view, which makes sense with protagonists who are at a remove from the darkspawn and wardening. It would have been possible to investigate with Hawke or the Inquisitor, but I think not doing so makes sense too and I'm not writing off the possibility of picking up those threads in VG or beyond.

[extracurious]

Alright ,

here is the final part of the comic. 😊

THOSE UNSPOKEN WORDS AND THE LINGERING THOUGHTS...

Chapter 4:And what was left of time...

"Paying attention" had now became out of syllabus for him cause thinking about her was one of her comforting subject which he didn't want to miss.

It felt suffocating... kind of alienated... as if sustenance became a new predicament among the top scorers of Vision Academy which he already realised from the submission of the earlier assignments. So somehow managing to complete all the classes, he quickly left the place .

He had his hands in his pockets and his head down,as he walked towards his dorm room without slackening his pace,which gave him a deceptively tired appearance.

On reaching his destination, he gently pulled the door shut behind himself.

Taking off the blazer and laying it out across the chair,he pondered over the situation and began chiding himself for the mess he was in. After all, he didn't want to disappoint his caring parents with his deteriorating grades.

Yes he should be working on it instead of screwing up everything!

He took a deep breath,to calm his nerves..

Miles leaned back in his chair, drinking the the water while staring at the ceiling.

As usual, his heart pounded excitedly and his imagination soared.He wished he could squeeze all the freedom out of his strenuous time;exploring,wandering afar and getting lost in relativity of time and finally succeeding in finding the special universe he wanted to visit the most. But he constantly reminded himself that it was just one of his forbidden fantasies and should stop dreaming about it day and night.

When an opportunity for friendship did present itself, as it had one of the previous days, he recoiled away, preferring his own company and of course his loyal roomate,Ganke. Definitely keeping the identity secret was a tough job for him.

He had a certain innocence which was not likely to leave him. He didn't want to burn out like the sun at the end of the day, he wished to break way. Just being authentic and raw. Simple.

He got inspired from the spider gang to pursue his spiderman life and eventually became the inspiration for someone dear to him unknowingly.

Sometimes he would lay awake, eyes wide open, brimming with tears, he didn't know if the tears were for himself or for her...

He assumed that she looked touched by his friendly support and that was the reason why she talked to him but part of him felt she did to make him feel better? Of course all these assumptions and theories were due to her not explaining the actions towards him.

On other hand he knew what he was doing.

It was not just merely a gesture of empathy, more like overwhelmed with want to know her fully as a person behind that mask.

Snapping himself from the fantasy, he tried to wake up and face the reality, to make his mind accept the truth!

But could he deny what his gut would say? Maybe it would take time but not yet...

The city needed him and he would push himself too hard,to figure out how to balance, cause one thing he was sure which reminded him of his uncle ,that he had to keep going..... being brave and selfless....adapting himself to changing circumstances just like a true hero, thereby taking the people's safety and his fate in his own hands. Atleast that much he could do as a proud son of his mom and dad ... just not to shatter their high hopes for him , cause he only desired to embrace what he had got and gather the courage to move on in life.

-extracurious

(Not to be reposted 😊|| like, comments,reblogs allowed)

[picklerocket]

Happy 3rd Anniversary Little Nightmares 2!!

I have not finished my pointillism piece for the celebration, so it will have to be belated. Instead, I will share a disjointed rant about how I think Thin Man and the Signal Tower function!

In my mind, the Signal Tower from Little Nightmares 2 (pictured on the right) is a Lovecraftian Shoggoth (pictured on the left), and it crashed to the earth thousands- perhaps even millions of years before we see the game take place. This is a theory I have personally had since the game came out, but I know there is a theory video floating around somewhere about this same theory, and a few of my fellow fans also share it.

(If you have not played/watched LN played or listened to the podcast, and do not want it spoiled, be warned! Spoilers ahoy!)

I will attempt to explain how I see Thin Man and the Signal Tower having a sort of symbiotic relationship, and what exactly Thin Man is and where Mono comes from.

In "The Sound of Nightmares", we learn that children almost always get to the Nowhere in their sleep, with a few possibly having been born there (i.e. the Pretender). However, Mono seems different, and not just from Six. His abilities of walking through tv screens, and whatever other powers he possesses as he grows into Thin Man, seem to be completely natural to him- to the point that he must cover his face with a bag to keep them at bay.

I am going to take this a step further and say that Mono was not only born in the Little Nightmares universe, but he wasn't even born on their version of the earth!

This is where my theories begin to seem a bit far-fetched, so stay with me.

I have decided to call what Mono/Thin Man is, a "Broadcaster" (a name which was assigned to Thin Man by fans when he first appeared in the secret ending of the Residence DLC), and has been a populr name for him in fanfiction, as well as fanart and comics as well.

Well, now I want to take a closer look at Thin Man's powers- and how they are comprised of electromagnetic fields and frequencies of light. So why can Thin Man manipulate these things in his environment to the point where he can pretty much control reality?

Because he is part of a species- a "Broadcaster". An alien. He has these superhuman abilities because he isn't a human at all!

You may have noticed that I said "a" Broadcaster. Implying there are more- which I believe there are, somewhere, out in the universe. I personally think that they are ageless beings similar in life cycle to the fabled pheonix; Growing old and being reborn again new each time.

But where do these Broadcasters come from?

The way I think, the only way any being could manipulate the laws of matter and light could be to have it composing their bodies as well. Yes, I am indeed implying that Thin Man is a solid projection of light (yes, like a gem from Steven Universe lol). All this to say, I believe they are born amongst stars forming in nebulas. They are made of/powered by stars! Made of light!

I mean, think about it! Whenever he's seen in-game, he looks black and white and staticy just like he's on tv! Like he's made of fizzling and flickering light. But what about Mono? Mono is solid, and he can even die!

Well, we can explain Mono being more physical and vulnerable as him being a tiny baby of course! I don't think he's just trapped in a time loop by the Signal Tower- I believe the Broadcaster life cycle for Thin Man starts over when we see Mono wake up in front of the TV in the forest at the beginning of the game.

"But why is Mono 'born' as a 10/11 year old?"

That, my friend, is because the Shoggoth that composes this particular Signal Tower is garbage at approximating human anatomy! It's never seen a human baby, and therefore can only replicate what it has seen- children.

"But Pickle, what do you mean the Tower made him look human?? What???"

Well, if you were a giant behemoth that consumes entire populations, you'd need something to lure them in. Like an anglerfish! And what did I pose is made of light? Broadcasters. That's what I think so far. The Shoggoth rips through nebulas searching for a Broadcaster, and once it traps one it its body, it takes it to a planet and uses the Broadcaster's abilities to consume the populace. Make him look like them and plaster him all over their communications and entertainment.

So there you have it! My current Thin Man/Mono theories and headcanons. I may elaborate on this further, and draw up some broadcaster life cycle examples. Let me know what you think! 👁️✨

Again, Happy Anniversary Little Nightmares 2!! 🎉🎊🎁

[thevindicativevordan]

Thoughts on the new announcements on absolute comics

Anonymous asked: Hello! How are you feeling? What do you think of the new creative teams DC announced for October?

Anonymous asked: So ! What are your thoughts on the All In initiative and the new creative teams for the existing books like Action ?

txtmasterblast asked: On a scale of 0 to 10, how much are you looking forward to the upcoming Absolute Universe line?

Thought I'd save this for SDCC since there are still some rumored books that are yet to be confirmed, but I can save my thoughts for when those are officially announced. Short version is that this is extremely exciting.

Dawn of DC was DC playing it safe, and they botched the initiative because of how they spammed low quality events like Knight Terrors. Now they're stepping up to the plate and trying to tap into the energy created by Marvel's Ultimate Universe and the Energon Universe. They're trying to take a big swing and hit a home run. After multiple attempts by Didio to create something like this, it's downright ironic that Snyder finally is the one to do it given the two of them clashed at the end of their tenures. Once again Snyder seems to be trying to infuse the DCU with the essence of Metal, and at least this version appears to revolve less around Batman. I won't lie, hearing Snyder name drop Doomsday Clock and talk about "Darkseid Energy" in the promo video made me cringe.

The success of Hickman's Ultimate Universe and the Energon Universe came because they broke free of the usual shared universe comic nonsense. The Maker is an evil Reed Richards who eliminated all the heroes who couldn't be turned in order to build his perfect world. Energon was a reboot with no prior knowledge required. Simple! If the Absolute Universe requires me to know about the "Metaverse", throw it the trash because it's doomed. If the first issues of these books are not able to be read standalone with zero prior knowledge required, it's going to fail. The All-In one shot should tell us why this universe exists, what the pitch is, but it needs to be free from the kind of esoteric meta commentary which has poisoned DC for the last decade or so. Darkseid meddles with an Earth in order to understand his foes better is an easy concept to grasp. Don't make it any more complicated than that.

Absolute Batman by Scott Snyder & Nick Dragotta - Least exciting of the bunch. Unless Snyder is going to radically change up his writing style, we know how his Bruce sounds. Even without the wealth Batman usually has, I expect this will feel very familiar. Since I've dropped all the other Bat books however, I plan on getting this and two others for my Bat fix. Snyder has teased that Scarecrow and Bane are the two Bat villains he wished he could've done more with during his first run. Scarecrow is my favorite Batman villain and the thugs in the ashcan look like thugs of his to me. I think this Batman will be juicing himself with Venom, explains why he's huge, which is a much better justification for why Bane seeks this Batman out than anything they've come up with elsewhere. That logo sucks but I assume it's because this Batman has to make use with whatever he can scavenge, maybe that is a literal bulletproof plate to guard his chest which he shaped to look like a Bat as best as he could.

Absolute Wonder Woman by Kelly Thompson & Hayden Sherman - Thompson was a fan of the Azz/Chiang New 52 Wondy up until the reveal about the Amazons being rapists. Between the reuse of the silver/red color combo for this Wondy's armor, and how she doesn't have access to Paradise Island or other Amazons, I'm getting very similar vibes. I was a fan of Azz's run even though I acknowledge he "broke" her in several ways, I'm up for a second stab at a Wondy like that with Thompson. Tattoos show Hecate's symbol from Historia, perhaps this Wondy got her powers from Hecate only? My theory is Hippolyta went with her Bana sisters to war, and was never Queen of Themyscira. When she had Diana then, it was in Man's World. If this is dark urban fantasy Wondy, that would make for a good contrast with King's current political thriller run.

Absolute Superman by Jason Aaron & Rafa Sandoval - Bizarro arc was great, Sandoval is one of the best artists in DC's roster, I'm all in (hehe). No Fortress is a shame but since Bats and Wondy don't have their bases either I accept it. No family and no home is particularly intriguing. Seen a lot of speculation about what that entails, from this Superman being raised in an orphanage like the Action #1 origin, to Kal being sent from Krypton when he was old enough to remember it. If it's the latter then Absolute Kara will likely be dead, since she would overlap too much with this Superman. I love the design, grey suit with Morrison's first All-Star shield that Quietly only drew for one panel is a peak look. Hairstyle reminds me of Corenswet's "Clark" hair only longer, also reminds me of Anakin/Luke Skywalker which might be exactly the intention. His "cape" appears to be made of solar energy, perhaps this Superman has trouble controlling his powers? His solar battery biology might work differently here, with him "leaking". Or perhaps he even has a different powerset entirely? Seems like he can channel power into his arms/fists, if we get heat/ice fists instead of vision/breath, that would be the kind of silliness I love. Don't think this Superman will be paired with Lois, which frankly is a good thing. All the other major Superman projects focus on the Clois romance, for this to stand out I believe Absolute Superman needs to be dating other people. Since he seems to be a drifter, Aaron might eventually have him travel to other planets, where we could get Maxima or someone entirely new.

Other books have leaked and are probably right considering Bleeding Cool accurately called the Trinity, but I'll wait until they get revealed officially - likely at SDCC - before giving my thoughts.

For the mainline universe:

Justice League - Superman is apparently building a new JL that will be going after Darkseid and reshaping the cosmic hierarchy of the DCU. If DC had any brains left in their collective heads they would give this book to PKJ, but he's denied being on JL. Ram V still has a book to announce, maybe it's him? I would've said Waid but without Mora I don't think he'd take the job. Aaron is a possibility albeit not one I'd want. Seen some people say Lemire, and he did write the JL crossover with his Black Hammer verse. Please let it not be Taylor.

Superman - Mora joining the book took me by surprise, that is sure to have generated major fuming from certain corners. Doomsday arc is going to be a joy to look at

Action Comics - Waid and Henry are finally announced. Action going weekly was unexpected however. Only question I have is, does this mean Waid is staying on past that one arc? Not clear but since he will have more issues that the previous three Superstars I would assume so. Bitter as I am over PKJ getting kicked off before he could tell the Aethyr story he was building up to, Waid bringing in Morrison's Phantom King does make me happy.

Detective Comics - Taylor taking over made me breathe a sigh of relief. For now he remains quarantined to the Batbooks and Elseworlds.

Nightwing - Watters and Soy are going to finally give us the epic run Nightwing deserves. Watters deserves to be a "big writer" and with any luck this will be what elevates him to that level.

Batman & Robin - Damnit PKJ, you really going to make me read a mainline Bat book? Fine but you better continue the Olgrun plotline through this somehow. In all seriousness with Zdarsky and Taylor being on the other books I expect this will be the best mainline Batman book on the stands. Every previous time PKJ has written Batman has been enjoyable, and I trust him of all writers to do something different with Batman. Let this be the book that gets the general DC audience to take notice of how good he's been elsewhere.

Titans - Nah.

Green Arrow - Wish Montos luck, he deserves to be one of DC's A-List artists, but not interested in Green Arrow.

Exciting shake-ups are on the way, going to have to start trimming my pull again. Anything that doesn't wow me is getting dropped because I need the cash for all those Absolute books, which appear to be stacked creatively.