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jflemings · 10 months ago

Text

— remember to say goodnight

pairing: jessie fleming x aussie!reader

synopsis: when jessie finally gets the nerve to confess her feelings to you, she thinks she sees you locking lips with one of your national teammates

warnings: miscommunication, angst w a happy ending, one pretty little liars spoiler?? 😭 idk just thought i’d include it in the warnings

a/n: sam and kyra always at the scene of the crime….

“just tell her how you feel”

sam’s words snap jessie out of her daze, her eyes darting towards her club captain that’s taking a seat beside her. heat blooms over the midfielder’s already rosy cheeks as sam smirks.

she’d been staring at you from her spot on the bench. you’re happily chatting away with kyra, your arms flailing about as the two of you animatedly speak at rather then to one another. it’s not like she had intended to stare directly at you, she couldn’t help the fact that her eyes somehow always managed to find you wherever the two of you were. sometimes she thought that perhaps the reason she was so drawn to you was because of the light aura that surrounded you, practically begging for the attention of anyone within fifty meters of you.

jessie sighed and leant back “i’ve tried that. lost my nerve everytime i got too close” she confesses quietly as you and kyra begin to walk towards the tunnel, still caught up in eachother.

as you get closer to where sam and jessie are sitting, you lock eyes with jess over kyra’s shoulder and smile. jessie somehow manages to sink further into her seat and give you a small wave before kyra follows your line of sight. the arsenal midfielder brightly smiles at jessie and her national captain, pairing it with an enthusiastic wave before turning around back to you and shoving you in the shoulder.

upon contact, your eyes widen and dart to kyra who can only snicker in response. she throws her head back and laughs wildly into the tunnel, the joyful sound bouncing off the walls and flowing back out to the two chelsea players like a melody.

sam watches the whole interaction closely, a half smirk present on her face as she watches the younger midfielder kick out her legs and run her hands over her face. jessie sighs deeply and looks to sam with her eyebrows dropped and mouth in a straight line.

“this shit is clearly eating at you, jess, just go talk to her” sam pushes carefully “what’s the worst that could happen?”

jessie rolls her eyes “she could avoid me for all of time”

sam’s expression drops almost comically. she of all people know that jessie is dead wrong, there have been numerous times where you had ranted to sam about your, quote, ‘helpless, pathetic and straight up embarrassing’ crush on the canadian. every conversation ended with sam trying to push you to tell your close friend, only to be met without loud protests and excuses.

sam kisses her teeth “she won’t avoid you”

“you’re just saying that to get me out of my head”

“jessie, seriously, i’m not pushing for no reason” sam says sternly “if this is really bothering you then go talk to her. tell her how you feel. you know that, if anything, she’d appreciate your honesty”

cogs rapidly turn in jessie’s head as she thinks of every outcome possible. realistically she knows that sam is right, you would appreciate her honesty and that you probably wouldn’t avoid her, at least not forever. the canadian doesn’t know if it’s sam’s encouraging words or just a surge of confidence that makes her wipe her palms on her shorts before shooting up out of her seat, a determined look on her face as she turns to sam.

“i’m gonna do it” she says confidently

a smile immediately breaks on sam’s face and she hits the back of her hand against her teammate’s hip encouragingly “go on, jess! come back immediately and tell me how it goes!”

jessie doesn’t spare her another glance as she trudges on, her confidence still going steady as she approaches the tunnel. she’s wringing out her hands and going over what to say in her head when she gets to the entrance, her newfound confidence suddenly nose diving as she looks up.

your back is facing towards her, your number and last name on full display, as a pair of tan hands snake their way around your neck and pull you in. your hands immediately go to the waist of the person that’s holding you and that’s when she sees it. the number thirty two printed proudly on the shorts of the person you’re kissing.

kyra.

jessie’s heart drops and she doesn’t hesitate to turn on her heel and speed walk straight back to sam, feeling guilty that she had missed the signs that one of her closest friends was in a relationship. her face burns red as the image replays over and over in her head. she couldn’t help but feel jealous of the fact that kyra was the one who had her hands and lips all over you and not her. she couldn’t help but curse herself for thinking that perhaps your friendship was something it clearly wasn’t.

she sits back down next to sam wordlessly, the latter looking up from her phone confused “what, did you chicken out again?” sam snickers unknowingly.

jess almost curls in on herself “you… did you know she’s with kyra?” the midfielder all but whispers like she’s telling a secret

sam’s eyes go wide, her expression blown out with shock “i beg your pardon?” she questions, confusion laced in her words

jessie looks to her friend blankly “did she ever mention that she’s seeing kyra?” she asks again.

“she’s not with kyra” sam assures confidently “i would know if her and kyra were dating” she says, brows furrowing

wordlessly, and quite helplessly, jessie leans her head back and closes her eyes “i just saw them kissing, they looked pretty together to me”

whatever sam was looking at on her phone before jessie sat back down is long forgotten as she stands abruptly. she shakes out her shoulders and immediately staunches the way jessie came, brows furrowed and mouth turned in a frown.

jessie is quick to react “sam! what are you doing”

“what does it look like i’m doing? i’m going to go talk to her” sam replied huffing, her brows furrowed

“it looks like you’re going to get mad at our friend for being in a relationship” jessie says. her brown eyes are blown wide and pleading at sam to stay put.

sam sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose “jess you don’t get it”

jessie’s face scrunches up in confusion “what do you mean i don’t get it? there’s no rules saying that you can’t date someone in your team and it’s not like you’ve had a problem with it before!”

the australian striker physically deflates and looks back and forth between the direction you went in and the canadian in front of her. her eyes swirl with inner conflict, like she’s trying her hardest to come up with a solution for something she deems a problem. jessie doesn’t know what’s come over sam, there’s no reason for her to be angry right now. sometimes things just don’t work out the way you want them to but that isn’t a reason why sam would be reacting this way.

kyra was a good person and the two of you clearly got along well. sure, she’d fallen into the annoying little sister role for both arsenal and the matildas but she was a talented player who knew how to put her head down and get to work. there have been multiple occasions where sam has done nothing but praise kyra as a person and a player, so for her to suddenly be up in arms about the possibility of the two of you dating is just ridiculous.

sam waves jessie off “don’t worry about it” she says quietly as she sits back down “you’re right, it’s not a big deal”

———

jessie has been avoiding you for almost three weeks now and she’s been shit at pretending she’s not.

of course, she keeps it professional enough that it doesn’t affect the team, but she can’t keep it private enough to keep said team out of your business. when they ask you what jessie’s problem is the only answer you can give them is a vague one, a mere shoulder shrug when you really aren’t in the mood, and send them on their way.

it has been killing you because it happened gradually. first she’d text you less, then she told you that there was no need to carpool anymore, and now she was doing everything in her power to avoid you whenever you had to partner up for training or the bus. you were fucking sick of it.

jessie wasn’t like this at all. if she was mad she’d give the silent treatment for maybe two days before coming back, always preferring to talk things out. because of this you know that she felt comfortable and secure enough within your friendship to come to you on the rare occasion she had an issue. you really had tried everything you could think of from texting her more, to trying to make conversation when you two would happen to be walking into cobham at the same time. you even bought her the odd coffee and left it in her cubby but nothing was working.

which lead you here, curled up on your couch moping around just praying that she’d put you out of your misery and shoot you a quick text.

she obviously didn’t, but it’s good to have ambition.

you can feel your mind going numb as a result of the pretty little liars re-binge you were currently on, too unfocused to watch a show you hadn’t before. it probably wasn’t a good idea though since you’d convinced jessie to watch it with you. you could practically hear her peanut gallery commentary in the back of your mind running on repeat like a broken record.

to say you were in shambles was a bit of an understatement, which is probably what leads kyra into your home. she doesn’t knock, because when does she ever, choosing to instead announce herself loudly as she walks through the door. you don’t answer her but she follows the noise of the tv straight into your living room.

you’re laying on your side under a throw blanket with a miserable look on your face and she can tell that you haven’t moved in a few hours. she gasps when she sees alison dramatically turn around on screen, followed by the signature line ‘did you miss me?”.

the gunner looks between you and the tv “oh wow you’re really going through it, normally that scene gets a reaction out of you everytime” she says whilst manoeuvring herself around you, sitting on your feet at the end of the couch.

she pats your leg “tell kyra what’s wrong”

“you know what’s wrong” you murmur sourly, pulling the blanket further up to your chin

kyra clicks her tongue “jessie still not speaking to you?”

“no!” you say forcefully whilst sitting up “i don’t know what i’ve done! she won’t even be in the same room as me for longer than five minutes” you exclaim

the midfielder purses her lips “that’s a bit of a stretch”

“kyra—”

“okay yup, not helping, fully understood”

you sigh and flop back down on the couch, throwing your arm over your face incase you start tearing up “i just miss her so much”

kyra hears the slight break in your voice and her face softens. she reaches for you and pulls your arm off your face before pulling you up and into her, wrapping her arms protectively around you “she’ll come around, y/n/n. it might not even be about you”

you scoff into her chest “she’s speaking to everyone on the team but me and it’s like whenever i’m around, sam magically appears and creates even more distance between us”

“what?” kyra asks shocked, pushing you back ever so slightly so she can look at you “sam? as in sammy?”

you meekly nod “i don’t know what i’ve done and no one will tell me”

kyra’s mouth turns down in a frown just as tears well up in your eyes, they quickly spill over your waterline in waves and you’re unable to stop them until they’ve completely soaked kyra’s jumper. she runs her hand through your hair as you cry to her, unsure of what to do or say in this situation. sam wasn’t normally one to get involved unless she felt like she absolutely had to so the fact that she was actively making sure that there was always distance between you and jessie puzzled the young midfielder.

your head snaps towards your front door when you hear it open and close, whoever just walked in choosing not to knock like kyra.

sam quietly walks into your living room, clearly not expecting you to have company if her wide eyes are anything to go by “i didn’t realise you had company”

your brow quirks “what are you doing here?” you ask breathlessly.

sam shuffles her feet as she notices your puffy eyes and pink face “we really need to talk”

dread overcomes you, her words sending a chill up your spine “what’s going on with jessie?” you ask, almost afraid of the answer.

the striker’s face contorts before settling again “that’s what we need to talk about” her voice is quiet as she looks to kyra “but i don’t know if kyra needs to hear this”

kyra immediately stands “i can leave it’s-”

“no” you say forcefully

“y/n” sam says through gritted teeth “this isn’t a conversation you want your girlfriend to hear”

both you and kyra’s jaws drop, your eyebrows have raised the highest they’ve ever raised before and you stare at sam in disbelief

“girlfriend!”

“girlfriend?”

you’re both shocked, and quite confused about where sam got that idea from “after the conversations we’ve had why on fucking earth would you think that kyra and i are together!?” your voice raises “have you finally done your head in?”

kyra quickly looks between the two of you “we- no. no, no, no” kyra exclaims whilst waving her hands in an X motion.

“but jessie said-”

“jessie”

sam sighs before starting her sentence again “jessie said that she saw the two of you kissing in the tunnel a couple weeks ago, after the game”

you wrack your brain for what exactly sam could be referring to until it hits you. you bury your face in your hands just as kyra has the sam realisation.

“oh my god we weren’t kissing! i was teasing her about not making a move on jessie yet, it was a joke” kyra defends “i was pretending to kiss her to take the piss out of her, not to actually kiss her”

your captain pulls her lips into a thin line and sighs once again, squeezing her eyes shut “you’re telling me that it only looked like the two of you were kissing because kyra wanted you to kiss jessie?” she asks tiredly

“yes!” the pair of you exclaim in unison, eager for sam to understand that it was all just a joke.

you pull your face out of your hands confused “why would she even care about that?” you ask cluelessly, clearly too focused on the impossible idea that you and kyra were a couple.

sam and kyra stare at eachother silently, the pair wearing identical blank expressions. the hours you’ve spent in front of the tv must’ve really melted your brain because you take longer than needed to understand why jess could’ve possibly been so upset with the thought that you were dating your matildas teammate.

upon realisation, you throw the blanket off yourself and practically push kyra out of the way as you leap up out of your seat to hastily grab your car keys from the kitchen counter. you don’t waste anytime racing to your front door and sliding on your birkenstocks over your socks before practically throwing your front door open “if you leave lock my door and turn off my tv! ‘kay thanks bye!” you shout from halfway out of your flat.

“where are you going?” kyra questions

you pop your head back in “to go see the woman i’m actually in love with!”

you hear kyra let out a grunt of disbelief before you race to your car, not even caring that you’re not really dressed for london weather at the moment. the only thought running though your mind being jessiejessiejessie.

———

jessie’s sat on her bed reading when she hears someone pounding at her front door, practically jumping out of her skin as she throws her covers off herself and speed walks to the entrance. she opens her door to you dressed in your old brisbane roar jumper and a pair of gray sweats, a nervous but wild look on your face.

her brain short circuits as she looks at you, her hand fiddles with the sleeve of her flannel nervously while she thinks of the right thing to say to you.

apparently you’ve already thought of what you wanted to say, though, as the words come tumbling out of your mouth without a warning.

“i wasn’t kissing kyra” you say half breathlessly “she- we- it’s not like that”

jessie’s face burns bright red because of your words, clearly not expecting you to know about what she thinks she saw.

“oh” the canadian replies dumbly

you shoot her an endearing smile and tilt your head ever so slightly “what you saw was kyra making fun of me” you explain timidly “she was just taking the piss, trying to get a laugh out of me”

“she was making fun of you by pretending to kiss you?” jess questions with her head cocked “why-”

“because i haven’t kissed you��

jessie sucks in a sharp breath after you cut her off because never in a million years did she think that the two of you would be in this situation right now. she’d talked to niamh about it, even sam when she felt like she could, but she didn’t think that it would actually happen.

she steps aside and lets you into her flat, holding her arm out wide in an inviting manner. you smile at her and step into her place, the smell of warm lavender instantly hitting you upon entrance.

“can i ask why sam was so upset?”

“can i ask why you thought it was a good idea to avoid me for almost a month?” you deflect, wanting an answer and to keep your cards close to your chest for now.

a blush creeps up jessie’s neck and she looks down “i didn’t plan to but i thought that maybe it would be better if we didn’t spend as much time together for a little while” she confesses quietly before looking back to you “why was sam so upset with you?”

you freeze and scratch the back of your neck awkwardly, having a debate with yourself about wether or not this was the right time to say it. you had known about how strong your feelings are for jess for a while now, but telling her was a completely different ball game. there was every chance that her feelings aren’t as strong or that you scare her off because you’re being too forward.

“we, uhm, sam and i just had a conversation before all this happened and i guess she got upset because she thought i was being an ass”

jessie leads you to her kitchen with a wave of her hand, urging you to sit down whilst she grabbed out two mugs and two tea bags “can i know what the conversation was about?” she questions again.

you toss your options up in your head as she turns the kettle on and grabs the sugar. the sight of her just making tea for the two of you paired with the soft warm lighting of her place makes you feel at home and safe, leaving your heart swelling in your chest at the possibility of this being your future.

“i told sam that i’m in love with you, so when she heard that kyra and i were ‘together’ she was understandably upset” you mumble, casting your eyes down the the bench your hands rest on “she was just being a good friend”

jessie leans her lower back against the counter as she turns to face you, a small, shy smile playing on her lips. she frowns when she realises that you won’t look her in the eye and quickly leans into your personal space, hooking a finger under your chin

“i’m sorry i avoided you” she murmurs “and i’m sorry that we didn’t get the chance to have this conversation sooner”

you give her a half smile and nod “it’s okay”

“no it’s not” jessie says, shaking her head “i’m in love with you and i would really like it if you gave me a chance to be honest with you about it”

your face heats up just as the kettle whistles, leaving jessie to tend to it with a sigh. she pours the boiling water into the mugs, followed by milk, before handing you the steaming beverage with a smile. she places her forearms on top of the counter and leans over again “you know when you drunk called me after you knocked us out of the world cup?”

you grimace “…yes”

“do you remember what you said to me?”

your finger traces the rim of your mug as you think back to that blurry night. knocking the olympic gold medalists out of a world cup on home soil meant that you and the girls went a bit hard that night and you can only recall calling jessie’s contact after kyra had handed you your forth shot of vodka and told you that it was a good idea to get on the phone to your club teammate.

you shake your head in response, and jessie smiles “you said that you were just calling to say goodnight” she laughs lightly to herself “you were absolutely plastered out celebrating with your team and you called me to say goodnight”

you furrow your brows, not really recognising the significance. you said it to her almost every night, no matter what time zone you were in, it had just become a habit.

jessie sees your confusion and hooks a finger under your chin once again “it meant everything to me that you remembered to say goodnight”

suddenly everything clicked for you. your eyes go slightly wide before looking down at jessie’s lips and then back up to her honey brown eyes, wanting nothing more than to kiss her. one hand finds her wrist whilst the other gently grips her cheek, pulling her further into your space.

your lips fit together like puzzle pieces, the kiss becoming as easy as breathing. her hand moves from under your chin to your face, leaving her fingers and palm spread out along your jaw. your right hand curls around the back of her neck and lightly tugs at the baby hairs at the base of her skull, making jessie pull away breathless

“stay” she whispers against your lips “just so you’ll remember to say goodnight”

you smile against her “i’ll always remember to say goodnight”.

#jessie fleming #jessie fleming x reader #jessie fleming fic #jessie fleming imagine #woso imagine #woso fic #woso x reader #woso #chelsea fcw #chelsea women #canwnt #jflemings writes #jflemings woso

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assumptionprime · 3 months ago

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I adore your take on DS2 and wanted to know what ur thoughts were on Elden Ring and/or DS 3!

(also I have been loving ur comics!!!)

First off: Thank you! Glad you like my comics! <3

I mentioned it briefly in the DS2 post, and it's been said by others, but Dark Souls 3 is about ending Dark Souls. And it does that very well. The "time and space is falling apart and that's why the geography is like that" that people sometimes say about DS2 is literally, textually true in 3. The Dreg Heap is a pile of other, older Dark Souls areas collapsing in on each other. This world has been going on and on, repeating and prolonging the Age of Fire that should have ended long ago, and it's just breaking down. You can't keep the same thing going forever, that's true in the universe of the story, and of a franchise of dark fantasy action RPGs.

It's kind of funny and also impressive that Miyazaki and the team hit that point, saying if they keep doing this it's going to fall apart, on game three of the franchise. There's so many series out there that will pump out game after game of the same stuff, to the point they stop numbering them and give them subtitles to hide the fact that they're on game 23 of this thing, and FromSoft said "three's our limit for this one" and gave us the greatest hits final bow before moving on to new different takes on their subgenre of games.

Enter Elden Ring! The game that got me into FromSoft games. Every time people talked about Dark Souls it was always about how hard they were, and the whole "git gud" mentality, which made them seem like they would 100% be not my kind of thing. But I am an absolute sucker for a fantasy open world, so I dipped my toes into Elden Ring, and really enjoyed it! Being able to just go exploring and do something else whenever I got stuck was a huge plus, as are spirit ash summons. The game is hard, for sure, but there's also a lot of ways to ease that difficulty (not eliminate it, but ease it (also there's no excuse to not have a pause button, that's stupid, don't @ me))

As far as lore and storytelling, Elden Ring has a lot of cool stuff (that's my wife Ranni, my cool witch wife Ranni) but I don't know that I have so definite a "take" on its story. It goes back to the Dark Souls 1 and 3 well of "some important shit happened, go kill this list of bosses about it" but I appreciate that you have a lot more choice in regards to your ending. It's not "link the fire or don't" it's "you're creating a new age, what do you want that age to be like?" with a few compelling choices and some evil bastard ones for fun.

Assorted side thoughts:

FP is better than spell uses. More convenient, more flexible, lets you focus on Mind to allow yourself to cast more spells.

All of my first playthroughs were sword and board, both because of caution going in and because I like the "knight with a sword and shield" aesthetic.

Related to the last point, Guard Counters are a great addition in ER, and the "Sekiro style block" crystal tear for the Physick in the DLC should have been a talisman or something permanent, to just make that a play style people can use.

The Alva Armor rules, 10/10 best fit in Dark Souls

I really like Shadow of the Erdtree, but it is the absolute limit on the current version of Souls-game mechanics. Not everyone is Let Me Solo Her, and between both the extremely punishing difficulty and the becoming more repetitive nature of a lot of the boss design, they need to change up the combat to keep things going. Sekiro seems to be a step in that direction from what I hear?

No boss fight in any video game has ever made me feel as cool as Slave Knight Gael in the DS3 DLC. It just worked for me on pretty much every level. The story, the music, the visuals, the difficulty. I can beat him, and it's hard but not a kind of hard that makes me angry at the game. Dodging in and out of his attacks, getting my own hits in, it felt like a kick ass dance of fantasy combat. It's peak.

#asks #dark souls #elden ring #I haven't played Bloodborne or Demon's Souls because I don't have a Playstation to play them on #and I haven't played Sekiro because I like building my own character and changing my fashions

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disguisedcheezed · 3 months ago

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what made you like dirkjohn so much? like how did the ship pop into your head?

"how did the ship pop into your head?"

Okay. So, I just did some digging through my old abandoned accounts, and it turns out dirkjohn was my main reason why I read Homestuck in the first place. XD

They got me with their dumb looking faces and I thought I should just ship them because they're my favorites. And the fact that they were a blue orange color combo, which is the color combination I am very obsessed over, is just a mere coincidence that just made me like them more.

I don't even remember other shit from 2020-2022 because I was busy fighting for my life. 😭 I did knew that they had one interaction, so I just read the comic without expecting much of them as a ship but I loved them as their individual characters.

"what made you like dirkjohn so much?"

I don't just like dirkjohn. I LOVE dirkjohn. It's not even an exaggeration. I couldn't talk about dirkjohn(or just themindividually) without making poetry.

Anyway. The depressed weed boyfriends dirkjohn 2016-2019 shippers were right this. It was made sometime after the release of the snapchats where John is alone in his room for quite a while. And then there's other people who say like "of course they're being paired because they're the left overs of the kids ships", but what if it's like they were meant to be that way? What if they finally get to talk to each other and call out on each other's destructive behaviors? What is more romantic than being understood? Everyone else has figured out what to do with their lives.

Dirk helps John be grounded back into reality and tell him that there are friends that care for him. John tells Dirk to get out of his head, stop over thinking about the future and take care of himself. They inevitably take care of themselves by taking care of the other. They should take care of themselves for the other. And over time they get to share interest in watching animes, shitty movies and pranks.

The above is only showing "the good part" of dirkjohn.

"The worst part" ? Dirk and John were created in love of Everything, but they were doomed to be Nothing.

Similarities : They heavily mirror each other through almost all aspects of their lives.

Ex. (only a few. this isn't even the half of it.)

John: Rise up / Prince: Rise up

Liv Tyler / Lil Seb (puttin the bunny in the box)

Dirk sending gifts to his friends through a sendificator(red box) that helps/interacts with his friends physically(robots). John sends gifts to his friends through mail(blue box) that would give them their unique identity forever.

These conversations have the same vibe where they wanted to know what the other is really like apart from them knowing their adult counter parts:

In what aspect are they The Same? :

They hate themselves. Dirk dwells in it. John pushes it in the back of his head and doesn't want to think about any of it.

Dirkjohn Conclusion/Bare essentials: They effortlessly make the appeal themselves.

This is also why looking at HS^2 through a dirkjohn perspective just makes it a huge dirkjohn fanfiction. X

They ascend the need for a label in their relationship/any form of romance because of how intertwined they are to each other that they are a concept as a whole. (looks at the camera)

Dirk and John are the very threads of what makes Homestuck, Homestuck... Which means nothing.

End of ask mood moard;

My body is a vessel that collected every piece of Dirk and John's showed it back into the audience piece by piece and I will never stop doing it.

#which means nothing.... (inside joke)#asks stuff #dirkjohn #i forgot to correct so many parts because of the adhd </3 #dirkjohn manifesto

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popculturebuffet · 4 months ago

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Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck Retrospective: The Empire Builder from Callisota: "No Scrooge McDuck once had everything. Now all he has is Money and What Money Can Buy" (Patreon Review for WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy people and welcome back to my look at The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. After a long hiatus, it's almost over. Just two chapters left.

We've also got one I forgot..was banned. Yeah turns out a year ago Disney contacted rosa, told him this story was was banned and weren't really up to discussing it. As for why... well you can look above and get a pretty good idea. This story features Bombie the Zombie and Foola Zoola, characters Barks created... and characters who are entirely racist carcatures in their original form. Rosa DID do his best to give Foola depth, taking him from a one note villian to someone who didn't want a colonizer taking his land. Bombie.. really coudln't as he was a zombie and all that, but you can see from above why Disney wouldn't be crazy about reprinting Bombie and... I fully agree. As seen above, I can see WHY disney would choose to not want to print this story in it's orignal form as while Rosa did his best to fix the designs... Bombie still dosen't look that great.

The problems are twofold. The first is with Disney itself, who is unwilling to let anyone talk about it, is content to bury the story at at most suggested having people edit Rosa's art, something he's against. And I do get it: letting someone else walk all over something you carefully made.. isn't fair. I dont' agree with him on refusing to edit it due to being asked, as while as he says himself

“The Dream of a Lifetime” has only THREE panels of its 25 pages in which Bombie appears. Rather than ban this entire story forever due actually to only TWO of those three panels, the publishers suggested that I allow them to have Bombie redrawn. I would not allow art-tampering if my name is on the book. (I can tamper with my own art in reprints if I made some error, but I won’t allow changes forced on me.)

Look, I do think they should allow Rosa, if he's able as I know drawing is hard for him these days, to draw it and I do think just saying outright "you have to" instead of opening up an actual talk with him over the issue is scummy. Disney is being dicks and their possible "solution" of just removing the story is stupid. This is an integral part of life and tims and editing it is the better part. (As noted with dream of the life time it's only three panels).

That said while I love Don Rosa.. he should redraw it. He shoudlnt' of had his hand forced, again he deserves more respect and it's clear Disney is fairly hands off when it comes to it's comics. if he can't, then I do understand. But Rosa does have to understand.. this IS necessary. This WAS an error on his part as while he did do his best to make the characters look less racist and in Zoola's case an actual character, and was horrified by this chapter in Barks history in his commentary.. he has to understand times have changed. And while he considers the Don Rosa Library just for adults.. that's simply not the case. Jason Aaron , who wrote the recent Uncle Scrooge and the Infnity Dime, read these stories with his kids. Other people will do the same. And black children.. deserve to not have to see a racist caracture. I'm not saying ther eisn' ta market to have an unedited version with a warning label on it, Scrooge has adult readers, but I am saying these comics , while written smartly and fitting everyone.. are all ages and always will be. I'd rather the story be edited slightly to be updated than gone all together.

Let's be fair though: While I do think Rosa is being stubborn, Disney.. is still the worst and still shoudl've given him a more resonable chat than this. Disney clearly dosen't give one iota of a shit about these stories or how important they are to comics as a whole and while this chapter could use an update, it's callous to chuck it in a bin as some racist artifact when while the art.. again could use a slight touchup, maybe make bombie a full on green zombie like the 2017 cartoon.. the story itself.. isn't racist. Rosa took a racist old tale and made it a story of collonalism and scrooge's worst moment. The worst thing he ever did.. was forcibly take land from the people already living there and that's worth telling and Disney is fucking stupid for not getting that.

Lucky for me I own the story already, but I can't say that for everyone and hopefully at some point Disney gets their head and finger out of their ass and compromises with rosa while he's still around to compromise with.

For now the story itself.. and this is the one I was dreading. Not for all the above, i'd happily forgotten that till I went to get the image then had to dig into it a bit. Thank you reddit. No.. this is the sad one. See when we first met Scrooge.. Barks hadn't quite worked out who he was. He was always a bastard but he wasn't the layered bastard we know, one who will undersell his nephews but also do the right thing in a pinch. As a result he entered the story a frail old recluse donald hadn't met yet with Night on Bear Mountain, and earlier stories had him more as an antagonist before Barks took a shine to him and found out just how well the old man fit the adventure stories that he'd been telling with donald.

One of those early stories... was a massive headache for Rosa. Voodoo Hodoo, the story with the racist carcatures mentioned above, one where Scrooge gleefully admits to tearing down an african villiage and getting cursed as a result.

Like me Rosa had dreaded this part as how the hell would this fit: he coudln't ignore it due to his pride, trying to weave everything in, but it was incredibly hard to parse that with who scrooge became.. till it hit him: USE the fact it was horribly out of character for Scrooge. Have it be the one moment that in rosa's words "he became flintheart glomgold" that one moment of weakeness where he became his worst self for just one day, succumbed to every bad instinct he had did something truly unforgivable... and have it have consequences. Have his worst moment, his one bad day, be the reason his family left and he didn't reunite with them till inviting donald and the boys for christmas all those many decades later. It's why I dreaded this chapter: it's the one where Scrooge gains everything he ever wanted.. and looses what he had in the process. It's one of the hardest chapters to read and it's under the cut.

So we open with Matilda closing her scrapbook. Up to this point her scrap book had been the opening page, tracking her brother's journey.. but now she and her sisters are adults working for their brother, staying at the office while he travels the world and the seven seas building his empire and slowly filling his bin. It's a nice bit of symbolisim considering what's about to happen.

Scrooge returns as you'd expect.. inside a canon as he refused to pay extra shipping to ship himself. He could, as Hortense points out let someone else run the show.. but he refuses. No one else has his grit and while he dosen't say it... no one else simply has his stubborness. When mugged and having his hat shot he runs down the new generation of mcvipers in a flashback simply because they shot up his hat and cost him money. The man DOES need a better work life ballance.. but he isn't wrong. Scrooge is simply at his best when he's doing some of the work himself. His 2017 self does delegate more.. but truly thrives when his nephew and niece and later passel of nephews and daughter he never knew he had remind him of adventure. He dosen't always turn a tidy profit.. but the experince is well worth it and for every loss there's a gain.

This mindset makes a LOT of sense in story: We've seen scrooge struggle and scrape to get this far. Fight every minute as he will not settle for a life he does not deserve nor feels his family dosen't. Every time he seemingly got up the mountain and won... something shoved him back down with only a small handful of cash as progress, enoguh to get to the next adventure. Over that, with Rockerduck and Roosevelt's help, he learned he just.. loved the chase. He's in a comfy enough place where he can still keep going on the chase.. but every small loss isn't a gutting reminder he hasn't gotten anything but experince. He can take risks. He sometimes dosen't because he's a cheap old bastard, but he can adventure.. because he can afford it. Before it was just to survive.. now it's because it's what he WANTS to do. He wants to be richer than god, to keep going keep growing his empire and he was taught the only way to get that far is to do the hardest work yourself and maybe let others come to you for money once you got it.

Case in point Scrooge really didnt' see the need for a larger office staff, leaving only his sisters to run it.. and thus hilariously passes out when he finds they hired Ms Quackfaster. For those more familiar with Ducktales 2017 Quackfaster here is more timid, put upon back when it was entirely okay to abuse your secretary/office assitant. Ah the 40's.. please stay 50 feet away at all times thank you. He goes catatonic at finding out they have a full staff, but Hortsens is unphased throwing a whole cup of coffe in his face and making it clear that A) They couldn't do this with two people ya jackass and B) we're comnig with you.. ya jackass.

The girls have brought quackmore to office manage so they can go globetrotting something scrooge is suprisingly happy with.

Sadly this is about as light hearted as this adventure gets as we head into the congo.. where

The story strangely dosen't say, which is uncarctrastic for Rosa. This story has that racist habit a lot of stories do of just saying "Africa' instead of "what country exactly on the largest continent in the world". Which is not great when he was far more specific when we did the previous jaunt to south africa. Yeah... some oft his story has not aged well and Rosa can and should have done better. He does through research but here just... plunks a very plot importnat villiage int he middle of a giant continent.

Scrooge is intent to impress his sisters.. but instead shows them, and us, how far he's fallen: Scrooge does one of the oldest tricks in the colonalist playbook, offering the cheif a quarter for the land rights since the man genuinely DOSEN'T know he's getting screwed over. This trope is.. awful, that old "Oh stupid indgenious peoples they'll belivie anything. So it's not great.. but it is softend a bit as the chief offered a tiny war drum something sacred to him, something not worth money, but worth a lot to their small community.. and scrooge faked that gesture while really screwing the poor guy over. While the optics are sketchy.. the intent works: Scrooge has sunken so low that rather than make his money square and returning a heartfelt gesture of someones cutlure sincerly.. he tricks the person for his own ends.

The sisters call him out for this... and it's a scene I forgot.. but boy does it hit

Seeing Scrooge fallen this low.. is hard. While it's not the man gut punch of the comic, Don Rosa's not even close to done working the body, it still hits to see how much he's changed. It was to the point I THOUGHT this was a bit abrubt, that while it's been a while since the last chapter, it surely can't of been THAT long.

Thinking back though... this was set up most of the story. Scrooge's dark side has always been part of his character, especially in the comics: Even in the better days ahead in the prime of the barks and rosa eras.. he's still rageful, barely pays his family or workers, petty and often wont' do things he easily could simply to be a selfish dick. Christmas for Shacktown has him refuse to help pay for christmas for orphans even when Donald put in the hard work to get 25 dollars.. which is, to my shock 294 dollars and 17 cents in today money. So yeah donald gathered nearly 300 dollars in charity.. that scrooge refused to repay. I'd say he's the worst evil billonare in fiction but his competition is pretty stiff

Point is part of Scrooge's charm is he COULD be an asshole... it thankfully got toned down with time and Ducktales and ESPECIALLY 2017 Ducktales toned it the fuck down, the latter having what I consdier to be my faviorite version, but he's still some form of bastard, and his need to grow as a person or suprising bits of depth and humanity are what make him so fascinating. He's a dick.. but he has a lot of layers to him and a moral code.

This chapter shows just what thin ice that code is on: how it wouldn't take too much for him to tip over the line and become an even worse glomgold. While that darkness isn't there in the early chapters, as younger scrooge is both a tad more naive and way more kind and trusting it slowly builds: in Raider of the Copper Hill he nearly goes mad with power at just the THOUGHT of his newfound fortune and only having to sell his newfound wealth immediatly for pennies snaps him out of it. The Terror of Transval breaks his trust in most people completely, thanks flinty. In King of The Klondike while still sympathetic you can see his harder shell having fully formed, how he avoids other people, is rude to just about everyone and later in the next chapter, is fairly cold to people.It's been bubbling faster and faster: In the billionare of dismal downs, he snaps at the townspeople threanting to leave them all homeless out of petty spite. And finally in the previous chapter, he kicks those boy scouts out rather rudely, which bites him in the ass when they assume he's a foreign spy. The last part is just them being dummies, but there's this harsh sharp edge we simply don't fully notice forming.. because it's who scrooge is even after he takes about ten percent off. The guy is mean.

But Barks uses this opportunity to show why he's a hero.. by showing him, for one shameful moment, as a villian. As a pure monster who gladly tricks an indigenous person out of their land and his response to being called out on it by his anchors, the thing noticably able to snap him out of his worst insincts... is to say "i'm done playing fair."

Scrooge is often honest.. because he's got people around to curb his worst insincts. His family keep him grounded: having the goal of helping provide for them kept him honest, his dad kept pushing him away from his worst instincts and his sisters and mom kept doing the same.

The problem is.. slowly but surely.. he's just about lost everyone: His mentors are long gone or in the white house. He dosen't trust anyone enough to have actual friends. And as for his family.. h'es slowly lost them: His Uncles have passed by now, he lost his mom and found out in the worst way possible, and he just lost his dad. He has his sisters.. but like Donald and the Boys later, he's on an uneven enough playing field with them to ignore them if he wants. After all he provided for them, he gave them a home in america, what fucks should he give they don't care. Their the last tether he has to his humanity and he's kept them at arms length, keeping them at home whlie he journied and letting himself get more and more corrupt. Without the humanizing aspects of his goal to gain wealth, having saved his ancestral castle, given his sisters a good life and become rich, all that's left is gaining more and more money whatever it takes. Scrooge may be unscrupoious on a good day.. but he has enough honor to do the right thing, to be honest about his money. Without that is just the monster barely contianed under the surface and the last thing locking it out.. is about to go away.

So Scrooge confronts the Voodoo Part of the tribe, which while... once again about as researched as Tintin in Africa, is one of the better parts. Again Barks casual racisim.. shows a bit. It's something I didn't notice on previous readings but is kinda.. obvious now as the man just didn't bother ot put in the research he did for white legends and locations. He's not always racist, he put true effort into researching the dreamtime for the Dreamtime Duck of Never Never, but it's clear when it comes to africa he didn't really give a shit.

That said while he has issues I WILL give Rosa credit for how he redid Foola. The racist aspects are gone aside from fangs for teeth.. and characterzation wise he's treated not as some cheap villian.. but as a man who puts on scare tactics because he's used to men like scrooge: Greedy white assholes who try to take everything they can from his sacred land. Foola is unimpressed by this colonizing asshole and it's a part of the story that, unlike most of the other villiage stuff, holds up very well: Barks clearly respects Vodoo even going on one of his signature "old man yells at cloud" rants about how "traditional" zombies are nothing like the ones we know now. Foola is only in the story for a short while but makes a hell of an impression, being one of the few characters to truly best scrooge

Now Scrooge probably woudln't of takent his well in any form at any time. The diffrence is the scrooge later could at least be talked down by the nephews or would've barged back in solo to fight Foola. He also never would've done the racist offering a quarter shit to him or the chief. This scrooge.. does easily the worst thing Scrooge McDuck has EVER done in any medium.

I love the heavy shadows over his face in this scene, just the pure.. evil radiating off scrooge for a moment. Anger, malice.. we've seen it.. but we've never seen him as a complete and utter monster destroying people's lives and homes all for his greed and every minute of it is painful, seeing just how... Broken matilda is by it. You can see just how sad she is to see her brother not only tear her apart for no good reason but tear innocent people apart.. while Hortense.. prepares to pack.

Somehow scrooge manages to do MORE horrible shit, pretending to be someone else to get foola to sign the contract. Foola swears his revenge... and Scrooge returns not to his sisters forgiving him and gladly taking the money as he expected... but a letter

While dishonesty is kinda underselling it, it's a truly painful moment. It's also an awesome one as the whole time Scrooge has ignored what they've had to say.. and now he can't. All he can do is gripe about WHY he's sunk this low: that if the world isn't honest why shoud he be? It's a problem that feels extra relevant these days: if the world is a dumpster fire... why shouldn't I be one too? If nothing we do matters, what does anything matter?

I'd forgotten this scene.. but damn it hits. The one thing that gets through to him.. is his dad. He can lie to himself.. but he can't lie to his dad. And the answer to that hypothetical above was simple: to be true to yourself, to respect yourself enough not to sink to tohers levels.

This does convince scrooge to go reunite with his family.. but first he has bigger issues. Foola's back..a nd he's brougth bombie. And bombie's design isn't great, but Barks reimagines him well: more as an unstoppable juggernaught than a mildly racist zombie. Thankfully Rosa also needed to retcon something else: Scrooge looked like a young donald in the flashback, something that didn't really stack up with later versions, so in not ignoring this story, Rosa found a clever way to deal with that; his earlier disguise looked like donald, so bombie only goes after him when he has a hat on.

The next section is kinda weak, if understadanbly so: Rosa had to cover DECADES of Scrooge's life this time around, so we follow him as he doe ssome buisnessy buieness buienss and outwits bombie, along the way picking up a candy striped ruby. IT's all pretty standard though the climax of it.. is fucking amazing. Bombie follows Scrooge to the titanic. Where Scrooge dosen't notice the boat sinking because he's busy with bombie. It's a sequence I just kinda eyed over in past readings but in this one.. hot damn is it fun.

After he beats bombie we then get a montage as Scrooge makes a global empire, mostly nods to various barks stories I don't think i've read yet, like the gilded man of el dorado.. who then runs in fear as he forgets who he's dealing with. Nothing bad but it feels like it's there more to cover all the gaps in scrooge's history left before the finale than tell a story for the most part. There is one exception though: after he gets shoved off a cliff.. he finds he's picked up a new ability, one of his most famous

Also props to rosa for explaining the "how he can swim through coins" thing: As ducktales 2017 put it it's a hard won skill and just diving in would kill anyone else. Rosa like barks takes this seriously, as while this world has fantastical stuff in it he grounds it in the logical explanation, ones that don't feel like nitpicky fan wankery, but a logical reason why Scrooge can do the thing people know him for.

Turns out Bombie wasn't lost in the titanic... which makes sense: If James Cameron the Bravest Pioneer didn't find him while taking underwater footage of it, he must've been gone. The Chief of an Island scrooge is negotating with takes the ruby in exchange for binding Bombie for 30 years and Scrooge is sur ehe'll NEVER see him again.

Some time ,more finagaling and proftering later, Scrooge FINALLY returns home to a warm reception.. an ddickilsh bashes the mayor with the key to the city

Sadly his return to his office.. means our ending. And it's one of the hardest things i've had to write about. And I had to write about frasier mowing down the ACLU a few weeks back.

No this ending is simple but crushing: His sisters decided to let bygones be bygones, enough time had passed. Sadly.. Scrooge taking the long way round.. meant he just.. dosen't care. He brushes them off, storms into his office and when Hortense storms in.. he angrily tells them they didn't care when he was abroad all that time supporting them before. What he misses.. is that things changed. Two, when he started his trip, small children with no real agency seeing their brother off versus two grown women who simply want him to acknowledge them.. is diffrent. They don't need him anymore.. and Hortense tells him if he shoes them away NOW, it's over. And sadly.. Scrooge pushes them away. While before it was due to his darkest hour.. this time.. it's just due to who he is. Scrooge is a prideful old bastard who can't accept weakness and sees his emotoinal ties as just that. IT's why it takes him so long to actually admit, and rarely to their faces, he cares about Donald and the nephews.. and his sisters need and deserve that. THey deserve to be acknowleged. Donald and the Boys did.

Speaking of Donald he and Della were here and whiel Della was only a character enough at this point to get a cameo Donald... gets the last shot in.

Bout sums up their relationship really.. but it's also oddly sweet.. donald kicks scrooge's ass, literally and desrevedly.. because he made his momma cry.

Scrooge has a chance, to reconcile, to fix this.. but sadly instead...

God that last panel, his sisters sadly resigned to letting him go as the Bin towers over everything, showing off just how lonely he is and forever will be. Even if this story as a whole has a happy ending, this ending... guts you.

And somehow.. I found a way it guts me even more on a second reading. This.. is the last time Scrooge talks to hortense that we're aware of. He DOES see Matilda again, a story we'll certainly get to someday, and one of Rosa's finest.. but it's heavily implied Hortense and Quackmore are gone by the time Donald and Della are adults as we never see them and unlike Della, we never got an explination in the comics. Scrooge's last time seeing his sister was a terrible argument and him turning his back on his family out of pride. He lost so much time with her, her children and his family.. all for nothing.

The Richest Duck in the World is a good story.. if an uneven one. Parts of it are mildly racist, with Rosa again not having cared enough to do actual research this time and that's damming from a guy who prides himself on it, and it drags for a bit as Rosa has to stitch together decades of noodle incidents in Barks work. The titanic scene is great but most of it is pretty much fanservice and while I am a fan of Barks work, i'm not the super student Rosa is, so I don't get nearly as much out of it. I'm fine with fanservice, but the rest of the comic does a better job threading it in naturally.

That said while the chapter is uneven.. the parts it nails.. it really NAILS. Scrooge's darkest hour is truly chilling, a monsterous act that is truly horrifying to watch and the ending just hits like a truck. While we get a SLIGHT breather with Donald kicking his ass, it ends on a gut punch that reminds us Scrooge.. lost his family. The very thing he set out to help... he lost.

Thankfully.. this isn't the end. While this is the climax.. i'ts not the ending. So

Next Time: We end this trek as Scrooge gets to know his nephews and has to deal with an old foe. Till then thanks for reading

#the life and times of scrooge mcduck #scrooge mcduck #donald duck #hortense duck #matilda mcduck #the empire builder from callisota #disney #ducktales

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osomatsuconfessions · 2 months ago

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vaping and general smoking thoughts long long long

osomatsu: sticks with just cigarettes mostly, antiquated frame of reference where old and comfortable is the best with little change allowed. matsuzou smokes so i think oso just followed by example and liked the relaxed feeling and repetition aspect. he would maybe try a vape under the idea that a buzz is a buzz and a buzz feels good but would find the synthetic taste and experience to be offputting. has many complaints that comically go against audience expectation: 'whats the point! it doesnt even smell bad! it doesnt even make YOU smell bad! it doesnt even make my lungs burn!' etc etc

karamatsu: impossibly weak nicotine tolerance, smoked one cigarette and got extremely sick and took it as an omen. wouldnt vape because sucking on a little rectangle doesnt line up with his idea of coolness. holds cigarettes and cigars in his mouth to get the image of being intimidating and tough without ever lighting them.

choromatsu: WOULD be interested in vaping out of the fear of what smoking is actively doing to his body and what it says about his restraint and responsibility over himself by putting his lungs in danger, plus (kiddish and so, hard to admit) the flavors sound appealing. would sneak hits of tottys vape really obviously in the middle of the house any time hes not around and would over time want to start branching out with different pods, making his own rankings in his head. choro does not see this as lame but instead something akin to taking up wine tasting as a hobby (same level of prestige in his mind but less cost so its even better. hes even better). writes whole entries in a journal bought specifically for this purpose about the notes and undertones and things. to him this is for explorational AND educational purposes. this is the hobby of a discerning mind. this is not him being addicted to drugs. this is not JUST some guy vaping a ton for the sake of vaping its DIFFERENT. the other matsus find the journal and mock choro and his analysis of unicorn 50w by reciting passages back to his while she goes catatonic and silently switches back to cigarettes. never gets any buzz ever again from the insane tolerance build up but will never share this fact or think deeper about what it says about his habits

ichimatsu: explicitly doesnt smoke nor would vape. shit in his lungs is shit in his lungs it all sucks

jyushimatsu: intermittent cigarette smoker just whenever the chance presents itself. in line with him sharing the coffee milk with osomatsu where its probably more about the taste and getting to chug it and spin around than the effects of caffeine, its a vessel for comedy and appearances (for reference humor to specific archetypes or doing physically impossible tricks) and stuff more than an actual enjoyment of nicotine. he probably finishes other peoples but doesnt start his own. also thinking of jyushimatsus fixation with chewing and teething on shit like cybers heads or the lollipops theres no way hes not chomping the shit out of the filters. i think vapes initially would kind of confuse him same as all the others, but hed be reeled in by the idea of super sweet flavors and the comedic potential of making giant clouds. hed be like a fog machine. teeth marks on the vape too nothings safe if its going in there

todomatsu: would vape, specifically orange or strawberry pods. totty also doesnt really get it but it SEEMS like its hip cause there was a lot of buzz about it a couple years ago and he is forever multiple seasons late to any kind of trend so hes more than willing. hitting it around other people makes him feel like his fingers on the pulse of modern culture and not a guy who spends his time gambling and fishing like an old man. confidence booster plus he thinks it makes you smell better to women, especially compared to tobacco smoke, which is another plus (and cuts down on buying gas station perfume 2 in 1 bargain). when not accompanied by people totty means to impress (the other matsus) he would smoke cigarettes. he (like the rest) is a fiend of habit and behaviors set by osomatsu especially are ingrained so its pretty inevitable that he followed along in earlier adult years and then got hooked. but by s3 hed give it up more (riceballs using their electronic vape things further pushing the idea that this is futuristic and impressive and something that they should get with the times on, which totty would feel self conscious about not understanding/already doing + additionally having already made his extreme departure from following osomatsus actions beat for beat as he otherwise was predisposed to in s1) but would have an itch for it that hed mostly only scratch when drunk or making excuses. to compensate for his late switchover and to further distinguish himself as The Sextuplet In The Know Of Things hed rub in their faces how bad tobacco is for your lungs and how hes gonna live way longer and chide them about how they prioritize getting a hit in over living a long time like 'good luck having sex when youre DEAD with TAR LUNGS idiots!!!' when asked how vapes are at all better for your lungs he goes silent and looks away

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winns-stuff · 2 years ago

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LO RANT:

This is from the fastpass preview that I stumbled across but genuinely nobody gives a flying fuck about Hades. Out of everything that this comic has disrespected Leuce with the most insulting out of all of them has to be her lowering her standards for an absolute man child like Hades, there’s nothing inherently attractive about him and the only reason Persephone is so infatuated with him is because of the fact that she’s literally 19 FOREVER and her brain is too underdeveloped to get better taste. But to sit up here and say that Leuce is just so incredibly desperate for Hades of all people when she’s so desired and sought after that the king of all gods deemed her worthy of marrying his brother is absolutely incredibly insulting. If this was realistic no one would be scared of Persephone’s pick me ass, I’m so sick and tired of Lore Olympus making every woman make an absolute fool of themselves over someone as low as Hades, literally any guy would be more worthy than fucking Hades like come on man are you serious?

Anyways, I’m just so over the mistreatment of the nymphs and I’m over people calling this a girl boss move. The fans love to sit up here and say that this is women supporting women but brutalizing women of a lower class and making fun of their mistreatment isn’t something we should deem feminist worthy. Like genuinely why the fuck is anyone applauding this shit? The fact that nymphs are at the gods’ mercy and they’re constantly being degraded, insulted, and abused by the upper class just for existing is sick. I can’t even say that it’s because of greek mythology since the nymphs were at least respected, like you knew the difference between them and their power but they weren’t treated like disposable waste like the nymphs in LO are. The nymphs have to be the only characters in the comic who deserve nothing but love and support from everyone since every chapter seems like a dig at them and it’s getting really awful to watch.

Another thing is the title of the episode. Are you fucking delirious? Leuce is a homewrecker?? How?? Homewrecking is blaming someone for a breakup of either a marriage or relationship because they engaged into an AFFAIR or other things in that matter with the member of the relationship. Unless Rachel is saying that because of Leuce they’re finally breaking up I don’t ever wanna hear about homewrecking ever from Lore Olympus trying to describe a character like that. Quite literally the only legitimate homewrecker in this entire series is Persephone’s ass and no one gives a fuck because the way she did it was “cute” and “pure”, she’s your little cinnamon roll while everyone else who does the exact same thing are evil witches. Which brings up my main point, Leuce barely poses a damn threat this woman is as small as a mouse and not up to anything nefarious, instead of focusing on KRONOS possibly coming back and taking over your ENTIRE kingdom that you’ve only ruled over for a few days you’re worried about some poor confused woman who got led on by your cheating ass husband while you were away. The major reaction is cringe and laughable, you don’t feel angry towards people disrespecting you or stomping on your values but as soon as it’s something with Hades you’re suddenly the biggest bad guy ever, give me a damn tissue. It’s truly sad that this is giving me more of a reason to believe that Persephone has no personality outside of being a “soft wife”, like where are your morals? What the hell do you stand for if you allow shit like this to happen.

This is why I get so angry and upset with Lore Olympus as a whole it’s upsetting seeing this insufferable main character do the most hypocritical shit that another character got dragged through the mud over yet we’re all supposed to clap our hands and put them on the highest pedestals. The fans don’t make it any better either because they survive off of stuff like that, that’s quite literally all they do all the damn time. They just eat up every little thing Persephone or any of the main cast does and enables this shitty behavior to continue because I swear if there was a time where Rachel decided to do something in her story that a massive amount of the fans hated she would never implement it into her story again, but since everyone absolutely loves these two women idiotically fighting over a pathetic man she keeps this stereotype around every other season.

Moral of the story is stop taking the dignity of these women and stop using them as some sort of cover up for your main character being incredibly boring and bland because I know the only reason for Lore Olympus’ demonization of Leuce is because they needed to prove how “much better” Persephone is. How about Persephone takes her red eyes and shove it in the faces of those who actually fucking deserve it instead of acting cowardly and only using it against nymphs because “they’re beneath you” since I have yet to see her have an actual backbone towards anyone deserving of this shit.

#lo critical #anti lore olympus #anti lo #lo hades #lo persephone #lo minthe #lore olympus criticism

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love-is-a-pearl · 6 months ago

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wait, in one comic where you drew Ash around 5 years old (The one where he got the Z marks on his cheeks) he was already masc presenting there. Does it mean he had been trans since he was a toddler or something? That's highly critical to me, good for him if he really is trans but it seems like Delia really wanted a boy if he'd been trans for so long

is more like.. for me in pokemon universe people just leave their kids go ungendered until they're 10? Kinda?

Like, think homestuck "you only get a name at 13" kinda deal and the whole "what's your name?" and "what do you look like?" that the professors ask in pokemon games intros.

I like to think those are not by accident, they're more like a way to make sure kids are being gendered in the way they prefer once they become "working class", "official adults" or whatever being a pokemon trainer means in pokemon society.

Is more like.. up to the point they get a starter, kids are free to do what they want, go by different names every other day and just have fun exploring that shit yknow?

And when they get their starter, they get to make a BUNCH of important decisions, like picking their forever partner, the name that will go in their ID, their pronouns, all that shit, yknow? So, most parents will raise their kids taking that into account.

(changes can happen of course, I mean I LOVE the idea of gender fluid Ash but that's something i cant say its "canon" in my AU since I havent explored that idea in detail yet)

Is not really "he always knew he was a guy deep inside uwu" but more "kids in pokemon universe are raised in environments that just lets them test this shit out" kinda deal.

And like, I favor drawing the characters close to how they look in the anime cause I prefer that for continuity sake, but since they are cis in there they will never look too different, but I will always try and tweak some small things here and there (like, giving Ash longer hair in that comic) to imply something more.

(also Ash was canonically bullied by his peers because of the issue with his father so.. i wouldn't put it past him to dress up more "boyish" or even using his father's clothes to prove he would go and be like him but better yknow? before realizing that "Hey, is not that I wanted to be like dad. I just wanted to be a dude" lmadopaspd)

...

But for real... sometimes... is just not that deep? People will give sonic top scars and he is like.. 9? and a hedgehog asopdjasiodj

pokemon is just my little escapist solarpunk utopia and I like pretenting it is a better place than real life even with the smallest little things QwQ

#answered asks #|→ not not #no offense but what does it even means to be “masc presenting” for a child anyway lmao??#the way i drew baby ash is based on how his younger self is shown in the anime but also how... i dressed too????#take the suspenders away and that's baby me #and i was NOT seen as a boy in my baby years so

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hbosscreations · 2 months ago

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Fixing Hellblazer: Dead in America

Apparently I'm not doing being negative today, so I'm going to channel my bullshit into fixing things.

Let me tell you a bit about me. I love bad horror movies. I LOVE horror movies that aren't great, but you can see how they COULD be great under different circumstances. My favorite thing to do for years was take a movie that wasn't good and think about what needed to be done to fix it.

Dead in America actually has a pretty simple fix that would help with the rewrite. You'd have to rewrite the whole thing, this draft isn't salvagable, but if you really want to tell the story about American Racism, it's such an easy fix, I don't know why they didn't do it in the first place.

Make Noah Ikumelo the main character.

Seriously. That's the big change.

Maybe he's not the focal character for the entire 11 issue run, but have him be the perspective of at least one issue instead of the random racists that keep getting their stories told like we're supposed to care about them.

Issue 1: Flee

Tommy is dead, K-Mag is dead, they're on the run, and John says 'well, I've got friends in America who could help us out'.

Noah's scared, Nat's scared, John seems to have a plan. So, they're off to America with no money, no papers, nothing but the clothes on their backs.

It's okay at first, John's magic lets him manipulate people a bit, gets them through security checks and keeps them fed, but it's definitely not enough to keep them safe forever.

Noah has a bunch of exposition he gives about being black in the UK, about being disabled, about his feelings about his mother (being a cop, being in a coma, being weird about magic).

How he has always felt unheard until John came into the picture and saw him.

They're traveling, the fear starts to wear off, Noah realizes they've fled the country and his mother is alone.

Where's his gran? This is a point to show flashbacks. Maybe she's not mentally all there? Maybe Noah has been sleeping on John's couch. Maybe he's been learning magic during the months we don't see in the original run. Not a lot, John tells him that he likes that Noah's not really involved in this shit.

Until the murder dreams, when Noah starts getting a crash course in magic and hasn't had a chance to think about anything except John and his stupid plans.

The issue ends with them on the freight ship they stowed away on approaching the docks. They've arrived in port, and it's time to leave. John puts his hand on the double decker bus and reassures them both that he's got this. He's got a plan, and things are going to be okay.

He looks fondly at Noah, and Noah wonders if he can trust that face. Can he believe John?

He doesn't really have a choice, does he?

Issue 2: Where is everyone?

This issue is mostly from John's perspective and his narrating voice takes control again.

John reaches out to old contacts. They're gone. Dead or never existed in the first place. No capes and cowls in this universe. Just magic, divinity, and damnation.

They're fucked.

Meanwhile, Noah and Nat both realize that they're being treated differently than John is. Both have experienced different types of prejudice based on race, gender, disability, and now there's an extra layer of it. The American layer that the story really wants to talk about.

John gets a little, but it's pretty clear that people are generally cooler with a blond haired, blue eyed, white man with an accent than they are with Noah's lack of speaking and Nat's heavy Glaswegian accent.

There's a level of cruelty that makes being trapped in another country, unable to call anyone and tell them that you're alive, unable to know if your family is safe, unable to know if you were even a suspect in the crimes committed, extra fucky.

John's contacts he'd normally call are all of touch the easy way.

So, fine. If he can't call them, he'll go to their usual haunts and track them that way.

Hence, road trip.

This leads into the actual comic scene where John is in St. Augustine, Florida and talking to the statue.

You can still have the Girl Scout come and be cryptic and cruel, have John losing his shit over the fact that he's damned Noah to hell.

(Or we can include my favorite headcanon that Noah was supposed to be a tulpa designed to distract John. I don't know if it would work here, but a story about a kid literally designed to be a sponge for prejudice and cruelty might be a mirror this story about racism could play with. It would need a MUCH more competent writer than me and at least two sensitivity readers.)

Noah wants to pull over for a hitchhiker, they've got the space and he's kind, but John cautions him that America is VERY different from London. We learn that Noah has not traveled much outside of his home city if at all because of his mother's profession and then her coma, leaving him in the care of his gran, who lived on the estate and therefore didn't really have much in the ability or desire to go far.

The dream with Dream still happens, which gives us a nice connection to the previous story as well as John's whole...being dead thing. They're looking for the sand, they're looking for friendly faces, they're looking for magic in a world that John quickly realizes is GASPING and DYING.

Because the multiverse still got punched in the dick by Tim Hunter, and while this world hasn't been hit by him specifically, it's feeling some of the multiversal repercussions of an apocalypse that massive.

And John doesn't have the power to get them out of this while he's a corpse. The longer he rots, the weaker he gets.

Dream gives his orders. John agrees.

They wake up, Noah is being threatened by the cop because he's black and driving a bus. We don't make it about the cop being too stupid to know what a bus is this time, instead, we make it because the bus looks strange and 'why is a black boy driving a bus unless he stole it? obviously he's a thief and he's refusing to speak out of disrespect'.

That fucking sucks, but it also works more to the actual threat of racism in the US. The OTHERING. They're dangerous because they're OTHER. They're lesser because they're OTHER.

Nat keeps the cop's gun after he's frozen. She's freaked. Noah's freaked.

John calmly tells them the spell won't last forever and they need to drive. Nat goes to the wheel and we watch Noah sneak up to the upper level and cry.

John watches from the stairs until he's sure Noah is asleep. He doesn't know how to offer this particular kid comfort, how to offer to hold him without revealing his death or just being too attached.

We see him put his coat over the boy as a symbol of protection. He brushes a hand over Noah's head and asks Dream to look out for the kid.

"I know you're pissed at me and I don't really have the right to ask, but hasn't he had enough nightmares for now?"

Noah's dream about all the horrible things he's processing from the previous issue, the previous run, and that night melt into something more pleasant. Maybe the groundwork for him learning John is his father.

John is back with Nat as she's driving. She's angry. The conversation from the original issue can stay and be expanded on. John tries to comfort her, tries to ease the tension, and it eventually works.

She gets what he's doing, even if he's not doing a good job.

This is a Classic John Constantine who cares about other people but isn't necessarily good at showing it.

The sun starts to rise.

"Where the fuck are we going now? We're a target in this thing, John, and that cop's gonna call us in."

John reassures that they're fine and he's got a new plan.

Most of the hero types don't exist now, but that's fine. He's started to tap into the multiversal memories that he'd repressed in the 2019 issue, and he's pretty sure that he's got a friend who will exist in this universe, even if people like Zatanna and Superman don't.

After all, the Green is a multiversal constant.

This leads into the ending of the original issue 1, with the swamp being filled in and turned into a golf course.

And that ends issue 2.

I don't know if I want to invest energy into re-imagining the entire run, and I suspect that would require the run to be finished before I can properly fix anything except the opening. If you actually read this...sorry about the way it's written, this was all just thought to typing, so it has 0 polish.

I think this is a series that could have worked under different circumstances. I think there are elements here that are good, but this was clearly not written with any real oversight or a coherent story beforehand.

I would have loved for them to learn magic on the bus. Scenes of Nat and Noah picking up spells, Nat teaching Noah the proper way to throw a punch that won't fuck up his hands. Noah being REALLY good at making sure they all manage to eat properly (I am deeply invested in this child shoving oranges into people's hands because 'do you want scurvy?').

A scene of John teaching Nat sign language while Noah slept because he's already so isolated and they all need to take care of each other. Nat forcing John to drive, only for him to hit a car and immediately switch back to her driving. Nat reading a novel aloud to keep Noah awake while they drive at night.

Basically, we need to make them seem like they're actual people who actually spend all of their time trapped together.

Also, does John eat? How have they noticed that he doesn't eat? Does he sweat? If he showers, does that damage his skin and hair, since he's apparently molding at the start of the series?

#Lore is Writing Again #Hellblazer dead in america rewrite #John Constantine fanfiction #Noah Ikumelo #I'm not saying I could fix it #but I think I could make it something I hate less #and in the end isn't that what fanfiction is?

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iholli · 1 year ago

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I would absolutely love to hear about your faves 👀 Tell me everything you know 👀👀👀👀

AAAAAAVUYCDTIGCTUGCH YOU'RE A GEM THANK U FOR THIS 😭😭😭💚

this is super long bc I'm Completely Normal abt J'onn lmao whoops 😂

omfg where do I start. FIRST THINGS FIRST. HE. MY BELOVED. J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter, my favorite favorite of all time. no really it's coming up on 8 years and I still love him sm 😭 my one braincell may wander off to new fixations but I always circle back around to him sooner or later.

I have like 4747058 images of him ofc but these are SO good bc they tell a lot about him ??? he's cute, he's silly, he's dramatic, he's sassy, he's the heart of the Justice League twenty times over despite DC refusing to give him any time to shine (I'm going to fight them with my bare hands for that).

I've never posted this but it's been in my drafts for ever so I'll throw it in here 😂 I have so many thoughts about him omg

ALSO I have a whole thing analyzing J'onn's moral compass & development through Justice League Animated, Unlimited, and some of the comics a while back so there's tHAT WHICH,,, was super good imo 👏

uuuuughghghghh I could talk about him forever 😭💚

When it comes to people Superman wouldn't want to fight, J'onn is top of that list, that's canon. He's OP as FUCK. He has most if not all Clark's powers, shapeshifting, intangibility, invisibility, phasing, telepathy, seriously his powers seem to never end ??? But he's terribly underutilized :") like I get it but come on DC,,,

J'onn is addicted to Oreos. no, really. in MM 98 issue 24 Blue Beetle and Booster Gold have this Super Funny Idea to hide all the Oreos from J'onn, and you gotta applaud the dedication to the prank bc they literally went out and bought ALL the Oreos from the ENTIRE vicinity of the JL Embassy building. J'onn proceeds to Hulk out and tear up half the city chasing them for it. It's revealed by Batman that Martians can get addicted to Oreos. At the end of the issue it turns out this is just a story J'onn is telling Diana but... he winks and asks if she's got any cookies, so it's up for debate if it's really just a story [I think there's some truth to it. bc it's very funny.]. And the Oreo thing comes up many times in many places including JLTAS 😂

He also likes sweet things in general !! he canonically drinks coffee with a TON of sugary shit to take off the bitter taste. I also made the hc that was the case for him just days before reading it in MM Identity and I'm very real for that 👏

J'onn is a cat person. One of his aliases is even an Italian street cat named Tommaso. And he has an orange cat named Double Stuff,,, of course 😂

however,,, he's totally a dragon nerd, he knows everything about dragons, he likes reptiles in general but dragons are his fav. He shapeshifts into draconic creatures all the time and he talks many times abt a specific species of moon nesting dragon called quonars. He also telepathically connected with an iguana once and it was a wholesome experience 🥺

J'onn lives in Colorado, in a suburb named Middleton, which is actually the name of a real ghost town! it's interesting that Denver is his preferred climate bc you can assume Mars was similar 👀

He is THE sass master. He goes toe to toe with Batman constantly. One of these days I'll just make a list of every sassy line he delivers in JLTAS but I think that would be a whole book by itself. There's a video of sassy moments from Batman: The Brave and the Bold that I watch 400 times a week. One of my favorite comic sass moments is when Batman expresses his annoyance at J'onn for leaving on the middle of an important meeting, which J'onn happily counters with a "you're so right, it would look bad on the League if someone just vanished at random all the time, huh Batman :)." he then also takes a crack at Bruce's lack of people skills. iconic.

He's also a silly little guy. The Batman 2007? J'onn OWNS the noir detective role, down to the cheesy old fashioned music. He also has like, a whole list of quotes he's just waiting to use when the time is right. He waited years to say "You're probably wondering why I've called you all here today." love him fr

J'onn is canonically kind of an adrenaline junkie. He loves driving, particularly an 87 Chevy Impala which he affectionately says "vibrates like a Chihuahua with a head cold." He once physically linked with an entire damaged spaceship to steer it out of danger and got carried away bc he was just having fun. He also said it was similar to the video games he plays with GL-- so he's canonically a gamer, too 😂👏

I 100% believe he's got anxiety or at LEAST separation anxiety [and that may be the case for the entire Martian race]. I already thought as much but then JLU issue 24 kinda confirmed it and it was devastating :") the League is taken over by Starro, J'onn is the only one who dodges the attack and he's left to fight his teammates which. is already awful for him. and it triggers flashbacks to a time on Mars when he was separated from his family in a nasty sandstorm. J'onn went pretty much feral with panic until he broke down and then forced himself to calm down enough to think of a plan. Meanwhile back with the League he's frantically trying not to panic again bc, while fire is a Martian's greatest weakness, "being alone is a Martian's greatest fear." I cried the whole time I read that issue and then I bought a copy LMAO. can DC stop putting him through the PTSD wringer for five seconds thanks

One short comic run J'onn spends the whole time being chased by the Martian god of fire, H'ronmeer, bc it turns out he was psychically keeping the souls of the entire Martian population tethered to the mortal realm. he's super powerful and HE'S GOING THROUGH IT. ALL THE TIME.

I don't have the context for either happenstance at this time, but J'onn has been both a Black and a White Lantern in comics. I have no idea what any of it means, either, I just know it's happened. I'll get there eventually. maybe. [I think he's dead for the Black Lantern thing so...probably...not...]

^^^ this is up there with the whole "J'onn was actually an advance agent for the invading Martian species but rather than let them use him as a weapon he essentially committed suicide after fighting the whole Justice League [beat them easily, it wasn't even a competition] and somehow this split his consciousness into like 4 different people" of comic runs that I really don't want to read [even though I own this one] :") help

I don't know what it is about forcefields but his brain just shuts off when he gets near one fr. Multiple times when there's a forcefield, EVEN IF HE KNOWS IT'S THERE, J'onn just yeets headfirst into it. He's just generally super impulsive tho ??? This guy is constantly jumping into action without a moment's thought. pls stop handing off the braincell to absolutely no one when there's danger, J'onn [he does not actually have the braincell at any given time. only Bruce has it. occasionally].

He totally enjoys starting shit. J'onn is Here for teammate drama. He once gave Batman absolutely what for and called him immature just bc J'onn was annoyed with his attitude. He sends people on League missions that will either bring out complete drama or make them find common ground. Though he says the contrary, J'onn is absolutely in the background of every team squabble with popcorn like Thor watching Tony and Cap argue. "You're all so petty. And tiny."

J'onn's name means "light to the light" and it's so poetic 😭😭 of COURSE he's the heart of the League. akdjfndckdnxkd

I'm going to stop there bc I could go on forever but I've held this ask hostage in my drafts long enough 😂😂 ENJOY THE RAMBLING THANK U FOR SENDING THIS ASK AAAA 💙

#possum screms at this #sorry it takes me 5-10 business days to answer asks i get too excited #enrinchment but i am a dog with an egg. bark and bounce around it with delight instead of interacting Normally #ratkingresponds #j'onn my beloved #here tumblr have a bunch of infodumping abt my beloved #martian manhunter #j'onn j'onzz #dc #long post #i know ive dropped a lot of this info on tumblr before but now its all in One Condensed Post #I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT HIM. brainrot real #some other favs include loki death the kid shadow the hedgehog donnie rottmnt luigi bowser & king boo #but J'onn is like. my Main Guy yk 😭😭#THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS ASK I CANNOT SAY IT ENOUGH 😭😭#nothing brings me seratonin like talking about he fr fr

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practically-an-x-man · 10 months ago

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👻💢🍧🍁🌏📣 💗 for Nikoletta and Katherine? (Sorry it's a lot lol)

Ooooh thank you!! And don't apologize for it being a lot, I love a chance for a good OC ramble :D

OC Emoji Asks

👻 GHOST - do they believe in ghosts? what are their "ghostly experiences", if any?

Nikoletta: No. She's so deep in "haunted history" from her voodoo scam in New Orleans, she's fully convinced it's all a load of shit. Once or twice, she's had an experience that's rattled her a little more, but she'd never admit that.

Katherine: Yes. At this point, she's had so much exposure to magic and gods and other supernatural events, it would be almost stupid to try and claim ghosts couldn't exist when so much else clearly does.

💢 ANGER - what are some habits they have that will take some getting used to?

Nikoletta: She subconsciously tries to control the conversations she's a part of. It's mainly a survival reflex, but she'll duck around questions she doesn't want to answer and try to flip the focus back to the other person instead. It makes extended conversations a little difficult with her, at least at first.

Katherine: She takes on way more projects than she can actually balance, then gets frazzled and scatter-brained about finishing them. If she's bouncing off the walls with some unexplained anxiety, it probably means she's stressing herself over finishing something and can't handle anything else right now - even just suggesting going out for a walk is another thing to think about, so it's best just to let her take the lead for a while.

🍧 SHAVED ICE - do they still have any objects from their childhood? what significance does it have to them? what would their reaction be if they lost it?

Nikoletta: No. She had hardly anything growing up, which already makes it more difficult to hold onto things for sentiment, and on top of that her personal belongings were lost/stolen while she was captive in STAR Labs and she had to start completely fresh once she escaped.

Katherine: Oh, of course! She's got her old comic book collection, a lot of childhood drawings, some stuffed animals... she probably wouldn't be too upset about losing one of those things, shit happens and objects do wear out over time, but it would crush her to lose it all.

🍁 MAPLE LEAF - what is their favourite season? why?

Nikoletta: Early fall. College football and milder weather brings in a lot of tourists, so it's usually her most lucrative few weeks out on the street (it's about the only time of year where she can count on 3 meals a day and a decent roof over her head). And in Belle Reve, the seasons don't matter much since she's effectively always inside

Katherine: Summer. It reminds her of home, and she can't stand how cold New York gets in the winter anyway (especially compared to Memphis)

🌏 EARTH - will they give up the world for someone they love? is this decision easy for them?

Nikoletta: I think she wouldn't realize how attached she is to the person she loves to even make this decision. She's so used to being alone that she's more than a little rusty with having someone to care about like that, so she's more likely just to freeze up entirely.

Katherine: She would, and not even in a romantic-love context. She'd do anything for her friends or family... and actually gets awfully close to this sort of decision in the climax of Who Waits Forever Anyway?. She doesn't give up the world, but she does come awfully close to giving up her life for the people she loves.

📣 MEGAPHONE - how loud are they? what do they speak like? got a voice claim?

Nikoletta: Not very loud. She speaks clearly, but she only speaks when she needs to (in her mind, superfluous chatter makes her seem less powerful or respectable, it breaks the illusion of her being "above" the others). She has a clear New Orleans accent (not Cajun, but Deep South) since she spent her whole life there, and her voice claim is tied to her face claim: Teyonah Parris.

Katherine: A little louder than average, mainly because she gets very exuberant when she's excited. She also has a Southern accent, though hers is a slightly milder Tennessean drawl as opposed to Nikoletta's Deep South. I don't have a particular voice claim for her right now.

💗 GROWING HEART - if they have a crush, is it noticable? what changes when they're in love?

Nikoletta: As I said before, she doesn't really process how much someone means to her since she's spent so much time on her own and putting a mask up over her emotions like she does. Still, though, I think it's obvious to others - when the antisocial ice-queen that is Nikoletta suddenly starts lingering near another random, equally-antisocial prisoner, even performing such bizarre acts as smiling and holding hands, you know something's up.

Katherine: Oh, it's so damn obvious. She's the queen of pining. She doesn't do flings since she's ace, so a genuine crush is a very deep, emotional thing for her. It's very obvious: she's all smiley, she keeps talking about them, her art ends up being a lot more romantic for a while since she's always thinking about them. When she's genuinely in love, she's settled a bit from that whole butterflies-crush stage, though she still talks about her S/O a lot

#my friends!!!#answered asks #ask game #my ocs #oc katherine johnson #nikoletta bordeaux

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