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ask-carmenpondiego · 17 days

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Chapter 19: The World Will always Need a Good Librarian

Weeks go by and the most progress Carmen and the others had gotten is that the holes do form a star alignment. M had held it up and the light shone through onto a table. “Thats why! It was backwards! I recognize this constellation now! But that doesn’t really tell us where this is. These stars can be seen all around.” Asta exclaimed, looking at a digital map and globe. Carmen peered over Asta’s shoulder to look. “But technically there are places where they are not. See? It never crosses over these few places. So it narrows our search, marginally but it still helps. And these lines look like a meteor shower. If we can figure out which one, that narrows it down further!”

Blendin had visited that day, he was seen swiveling back and forth on the kitchen barstool he brought in so he could watch. “Hey Mom? Can that light be dimmed a bit? The scroll looks a bit textured. Kinda looks like a map itself with the different thicknesses making shadows.” Their attention suddenly went to the light against the scroll and not what shined through on the table. Kiros adjusted the light as M kept hold of the hide. With the adjustment, more shadows formed to what did look like a near 3D render of a topography map. The inked dots lined up with where cities or villages may be. “Clever boy! I didn’t even notice that! Thats perfect! Now these locations may not exist any more but land mass may not have changed as much. Let’s get this matched up!” Carmen grinned excitedly as Blendin kicked his legs happily.

He found that he liked hanging out with the Agents when they weren’t all about being criminals. He still felt a moral divide with the fact his family was pretty much a non murderous mafia, in his opinion. He didn’t know if they collected protection money or threatened to steal things if demands were not met but seeing his mom surrounded by walking apocalypses, by his technical terms, that was all he could imagine. Outside crime, he liked everyone, save for M. Then again M was not the most open to friendships to most people. Blendin found him a bit more abrasive than everyone else. “Can I get a snack, Mom?” Carmen smiled and one arm hugged him, barely tall enough to kiss the top of his head, “Of course you can. You remember the way to the kitchen, right?” Blendin nodded and scampered out towards the snacks. “The kid has a good idea, how about we break for now and pick this up after a bit of a refresher? We have been at this for quite a while and my eyes are ready to bug out of my head.” Kiros chuckled. Drake and Vasha agreed and seemed to have already grabbed a couple of alcoholic drinks.

Blendin opened the fridge and poked around a bit, grabbing some starfruit and blueberries. Wally sat up from reading a book at the kitchen island, “Hey there Kiddo. I think you are like the first kid I’ve seen that doesnt go straight for junkfood.” Blendin sat opposite of Wally and popped a few berries into his mouth. “Eh, I just dont like junkfood. I’m a vegetarian so this naturally tastes better than greasy chips or candybars. I mean I like them as a treat but if theres fruit, I’ll take that first over junk.” Blendin shrugs, peering over to his dad’s book, “Whatcha reading?” Wally smiled and lifted the cover, “I’m catching up on your sister’s novels. This is just the first book. She seems to have a lot of fun if all this is true. I’m sure she embellishes some for the excitement of the reader but overall its fascinating!” Blendin nods, scrolling on his phone, “Yeah she takes her work pretty seriously. I mean we hang out sometimes but she’s either prattling on about work or complaining about something. I think she’s going into an emo or angry phase. She’s just so tempermental.” Wally thought a moment, “And she’s two or three years older than you.. oh I see. Mare issues. She’s probably inheriting her mom’s cycles. Moody and needy for companionship, and your mom’s can get pretty intense. Speaking of, hey Lekir! You all on a break or something?” Lekir was walking in with Asta, “Yeah we’re done for the day. Ninoga and Kiros are keeping Carm busy… its gonna be a while, the pirates are enjoying the show. Bug boy is brooding somewhere trying to find eye bleach again.” She reached over and stole a piece of Blendin’s starfruit with a wink, much to his protest. “Hey! I had plans for that!”

“You snooze, you lose, bud. There’s more in the fridge!” She called back as she followed Asta to their room. Wally laughed as Blendin pouted. “Were you looking for special treatment? You’re one of the family. They all pick on each other in a loving way.” Wally smiled, turning the page to his book. “Dad, does Mom ever hurt anyone or threaten people?” Blendin asked hesitantly, Wally looked up at the ceiling a moment before shrugging and shaking his head, “I don’t believe so. If she did, it would be unintentional. She would rather strike without warning but keep everyone alive and safe. I’ve heard people call her the thief with a heart of gold.” Blendin smiled, “So she’s not a mob boss?” Wally laughed, “She may have a crime family but she’s no mob boss. I swear she wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“Don’t be too fuckin sure on that, she can have a mean right hook and a stinging slap when she wants.” M sauntered in and looked into the fridge, taking out a tupperware of odd looking dried meat. He leaned on the countertop and he gnawed on a piece. “Haven’t you and Mom been at each other’s throats since she came back from Siberia?” Blendin asked, trying to ignore the meat. M chuckled, “Don’t worry yer little twink head. We have our disagreements but she can’t resist my illustrious charm all the time.” Wally actually cackled, “Oh she can resist alright. Like full body shivers of disgust some days!!” Blendin frowned and asked, “Whats a twink?”

M pulled on the colt’s hoodie strings, making the hood cinch up around Blendin’s muzzle. “You’ll find out when yer older. Nothin to waste time worryin about right now.” He continued to chew on the dried meat for a bit more. “But yeh, she and I will be fine. Nothin ta worry about. She and I are dealing with a bit of a heavy side subject and tryin ta figure out how to fuckin deal with it before lettin anyone else in on it, to keep it from gettin too fuckin complicated. Ya know?” M picked out a piece of wood from his teeth and threw it in the trash.

Wally put his chin in his hand as he leaned on his elbow, “Does it perchance have to deal with that hunk of junk in your mech lab?” M waggled a piece of meat at his brother, “079 is not a hunk of junk, its just a self centered prick that has this attachment to Kiros for some forsaken reason.” Wally sipped his can of soda-pop. “I thought 079 is a nice ai. Its always nice to me, in a no nonsense way.” Blendin sighs, “I wish Mom would let me see the ai but she doesn’t think I’m old enough yet.” M roughly patted his back, “Probably for the best with how it is. It aint the easiest thing to get to know. And its also fer security reasons. She don’t let yer dad in there all the time either, just when he happens to be by her fuckin side does he get a chance to talk with it.”

“I dunno, it seems to be quite friendly to me. We always have a good time chatting.” Kiros chuckled, walking past, with a happy yet disheveled looking Carmen over his shoulder. Ninoga was following behind, “If you need us, we’ll be in the dungeon!” M drooped his shoulders, growling “Didja at least fuckin clean up in there?! I ain’t yer fuckin janitor!!” Carmen smirked as she hung over Kiros’s shoulder, she held up a middle finger and blew a sarcastic kiss to M just to rile him up even more, his insect chitter growing louder as he clenched his fists. “Mom has a dungeon? Like a brig or jail? Why would they be going there?? Did she do something wrong?” Wally and M both look at each other, M cackled loudly as Wally winces embarrassingly, rubbing the back of his neck, “Son, there are things that grown ups see as fun while kids like you find as punishments…” Blendin raises an eyebrow and glances over to M who had then started choking on his own spit from laughing so hard, punching his own chest to clear it up. “Like taxes?” Wally puts his hands together and to his lips as if to pray, and deeply inhales, “Nnnnnot quite. You see.. when a mare and a stallion like eachother alot..” Blendin slow blinks, “Mom and Lekir like eachother alot too. Just say its a mating thing. I’ll find out eventually.” Wally looked so relieved, “Oh thank Celestia. I thought I was going to need to give you the birds and bees talk.” Blendin shook his head, “I know biology but the details and subcategories haven’t been taught to me yet.” M catching his breath, still chuckling, leans on the kitchen island, “So you know what fucking is but don’t know the different combos that can be used in fucking. Got it. Hang around here, you’ll catch on quick.”

“She has a WHAT?! My stars.. they’re all just a bunch of criminal degenerates.. As your elder sibling, I forbid you from cavorting with the likes of them! What kind of role model is proud of being a sex crazed cat burglar?! I mean her last caper didn’t even make sense! A rusted box that she just went to destroy?! Is she going to destroy anything else?!” The young golden yellow pegasus paced around, screaming into her phone at her younger brother Blendin. She was just reaching her 18th birthday soon and she was almost free of possibly being in a criminal’s custody. She brushed her hair, the different dark silver and grey shades almost sparkled with just having been washed. “But I’ve spent time with her, she’s a good person! She actually cares about us!” Blendin’s voice came through the speaker as Daring still got ready for the day. “It may seem like that now but I promise you, she’s up to no good! She wants to use you and your Library knowledge to get your artifacts! Don’t freakin trust her or her goons! The sooner you cut ties, the better!” She huffs, glancing at the half opened box with an obsidian dragon in her closet and shuts the door. “Dare, she is really not that bad! She has fed me, shown me a lot of what you would consider secrets, even flown in her jet! I’ve seen her be protective! Even Dad vouches for her!” Blendin goes on as she sighs, “Blen, no. Don’t even count Dad into this. He hasn’t been there either for us, I can excuse the amnesia bit but he’s still too love blind to see what she’s doing to us! And she’s trying to blind you with shiny things to gain your trust into handing the entire Library to her! Why else would she stick us into these places if not to try to use us for easy access?!” She rubs her forehead, her feathers ruffled, “Blen, we have gone over this so many times! You’re just too young and naive to understand! I’ve been out in the world, you’re just starting to see it. Get more exposure of the real world without HER and then see what you’re being blind to.”

Blendin sniffles a bit, “I really hope you are dead wrong about her! She never puts me down like you do! She’s called me brilliant and clever! You just complain I’m too young and stupid! I know I’m not a prodigy explorer like you but you don’t have to treat me like that!” Daring winces, “Bro, I didnt mean it like that, you know that! I’m trying to protect you! You’re the only family I have!” Blendin sniffles a little more, “If you just give her a chance, you can have more than just me for family! You don’t have to do it all alone! You’re the one pushing away!” Daring snapped, “Its not that simple, okay?! Its not all happiness and rainbows! I’m sorry if I call you stupid but things like this you should be more smart with! Its not all found in books!” There was silence on the other end for a little while, “I… I think I better go, let you calm down a bit. I’ll talk to you later, Dare.” The phone clicked as the call disconnected. Daring threw her phone into her small mountain of pillows on her bed and sat at her little desk by her window, her typewriter sitting with a half page already written. She pushed it aside a little bit and set some books down, opening one to a page about legendary golden eggs of Babylon.

Blendin hung up the phone and sighed, looking at his dorm ceiling. He just didnt understand why Daring just didnt want to try getting to know her family more. Other than the stealing, he didn’t see what was so bad. He didn’t condone his mother’s crime sprees, but he saw that she was a good person over all.

A knock came from his door, a messenger handed him a letter when he answered, “The Keeper is giving you an assignment. Do your research and be prepared to depart by the date stated inside. Its your first one, Congrats, young Librarian!” Blendin beamed and thanked the messenger, closing the door before jumping around cheering. “I gotta tell Daring!.. I gotta tell Mom and Dad!!” He stopped and repeated as if just realizing for the first time, “I get to tell Mom and Dad..” he grinned and ran out of his room to the Ley travel doors, letter in hand. In the letter was his permit to use the doors to his needs.

At VILE HQ, Carmen and Lekir were just finishing up a sparring session for close combat. They had the sparring room littered with various padded objects like an obstacle course to simulate a crowded area. Carmen was more of the quick jab kickboxing type while Lekir preferred a more graceful tai chi approach. Carmen tried her stronger right hook as Lekir brushed it off and deflected, hooking her arm around and locking it, twisting and flung Carmen onto her back, hitting the ground with a grunt. The two girls breathed hard and took a break, laughing. Lekir grabbed Carmen’s hand and helped her to her feet as Blendin applauded, he had just seen the last bit of the fight and was highly entertained. “Hey Kiddo. Like how I just owned your mom?” Lekir laughed as Carmen punched her arm playfully, “Oh So you owned me? I’ll get you back for that.” Lekir raised an eyebrow and licked her muzzle hungrily, “Oh I’m sure you can try, but you know I dominate not only here but-“ Carmen laughs nervously and cuts her off, “So! What brings you around here unannounced, you usually give a heads up. Not that I mind, I just thought thats what you prefer.” Blendin bounced and holds up his letter, “I wanted to surprise you. I got my first assignment out into the world!! Its not for another six months or so but I need to do my research during the waiting period. I think its due to the location only being available during certain times. But I got in!! I’m a full Librarian now!” Carmen and Lekir both cheer as Carmen hugs him tight, “Oh my heavens! That is amazing!! Congratulations!! This is so wonderful!!” Lekir thought a moment, “We should celebrate with something special.. I know! Lets bring him to someplace authentic! Like Mexico or Italy! Where do you wanna go, Squirt?” Blendin adjusted his glasses, “Um.. I always wanted to try Korean HotPot.. their vegetables look so yummy there!” Carmen smiles, “South Korea it is! I think I know a good place in Seoul that you’ll love!” Blendin smiled, “Is it ok if I bring my best friend? He’s a Librarian too. He’s a mythical sphinx with Egyptian and Sumerian parents.” Carmen nodded, “Sure! The more the merrier! Tell you what, go get your friend and meet us back here in about an hour. And we’ll go get things set up with reservations. Ok?” Blendin nodded and grins, bouncing off back to his door portal. Lekir hangs her arm around Carmen’s shoulders, “You know you basically gave that boy a reason to ask his friend on a date, right?” Carmen chuckled knowingly. “I had a feeling, but I think he can handle it. He’s old enough to start figuring things out himself now. And what better way to test the waters than with some good news and good food?”

An hour later the front door glowed blue and Blendin peeked in and helped a young blindfolded winged feline across the threshhold. Blendin closed the door behind them and took off the blindfold, “Tahdah!! Look at this place! Isn’t it huge?!” The feline blinked and looked around, “Wow, its actually kinda modest. I was expecting a ginormous palace or something. Just reminds me of one of the big rich houses on old sitcoms, just modern.” Blendin grins and holds his hands in front of him, “Ok so… I know I said I wanted you to come with me for dinner, this isnt the restaurant. My parents and her group is joining us to celebrate. They offered to cover dinner and travel.” The Sphinx tilted his head, “I was gonna say, this place doesnt look like a hotpot place…. Holy shitake.. is that a demon?!… And a dragon?? TWO DRAGONS?! Dude… who the hell are your parents?!” He retreated behind the teal colt as he saw the VILE Agents start to heads toward the foyer in some of their nicer outfits. Carmen and Waldo walked out, she in a red and black blouse and pencil skirt and he was in his usual striped sweater and jeans. “Mom, Dad, Agents, this is Ty, my best friend. Ty, this is my family. Carmen Pondiego, Waldo Wander and the VILE Agents.” Blendin introduced everyone as Ty was still wide eyed. “Dude… you ARE aware your family is like… wanted in every country for grand theft, right?” Carmen chuckles and offers her hand to shake, “Ty, its a pleasure to meet you! We may be thieves but we’re probably the nicest and most honest thieves you’ll know.” Ty nervously shakes her hand as Blendin bounced, “So where’s the hotpot??” M tapped his wrist watch a bit. “Let’s see, its about 3am in Seoul. Lets speed that fuckin day up to say… 2pm? Was that the reservation?” Carmen looked at her phone, “Yep that should be right. Got the chronoskimmer warmed up?”

“Up and fuckin ready to roll.”

“Sounds good, ok kids, into the mech lab and load yourselves into the van.”

M rolled his eyes, “Its not a fuckin van, its just a pod, like an elevator. Its not that fancy yet. Not like a fuckin Delorean.”

Once everyone entered the mech lab, the roughly made multifaceted pod stood in the corner, just large enough to hold the entire group. M opened the tall hatch door letting everyone file in as he finalizes the destination and time. 079 looked less than thrilled. “Great, the circus is in town and the clowns are getting into their car..have a good show, dont get pie all over my consoles.” M flipped it off with his middle finger, “I’d offer you to come along but I ain’t gonna even miss ya, pixelbreath.” 079 sighed, “Oh please, do hesitate to call if you need me, rude one. I won’t be waiting up.”

With a flash, the group finds themselves in an empty alley near their venue in Seoul, South Korea, a few minutes before 2pm. The two young boys were looking at their phone clocks and looking around, “This is so lit! Its supposed to be in the middle of the night here!!” Ty exclaimed, Blendin looking at the sky and back to his phone, and over to M, “Uncle M, you did it! You actually made us go through time! This is amazing! Mom, after hotpot, can we go shopping?!” Ty’s face lit up, “Hey yeah! We could get some Korean manga and gachapon!” Blendin grinned excitedly, “Do you think they have the new anime figures out yet?! You know how Korea gets things way sooner than we do!” The two teens huddled together to excitedly discuss their current anime hyper-fixations, Lekir and Kiros gently nudged and herded them towards the restaurant. Carmen met the hostess with a bow and spoke Korean to her, explaining her reservation. The hostess was surprised and pleased, requesting them to follow her to their reserved dining room. As they were seated, they were presented with drinks and menus, the table having two heating plates and one large grill in the center. They were instructed how to use everything and how to cook everything. Within moments, the food and broths were served and the group feasted and cooked the foods.

There were laughters and conversations between them all, even Ty was warming up to everyone, asking some curious questions about different strengths and powers, while Blendin was trying to explain his first assignment to his parents, asking for pointers on how to prepare for it. What they found was that his assignment was very similar to the duck hunt they were on. Blendin got worried that both missions may disrupt eachother. Carmen put her hand on his and smiled, “Hey, don’t worry. We will figure something out one way or another. We’re looking for a duck and some regular eggs, you’re looking for some golden eggs. They seem to be from the same region so we can collaborate as much as we can without interfering with your Library mission. I just wish your sister was here to celebrate.” Blendin rubbed the back of his neck, “Yeah, about that. She refuses to be in the same room as you. She tried to forbid me from even seeing you. She doesn’t get it. She doesn’t see what a good person you are. She’s more furious with you than dad, she just thinks he had amnesia and that you blinded him with love for your own gain. And she thinks that you are trying to blind me with good parenting just so you can get into the Library.” Carmen and Wally chuckle, “I have thought about hitting the Library a long long time ago but with their security and what they do to help protect the world, I’d rather save the library from other thieves rather than steal from it myself. I have too much respect for it and the Warehouse. Which is why I sent you kids there. I knew they would raise and educate you two the best way that I couldnt. I’m still trying to figure out what happened. I didnt feel like it was a safe environment for some young foals. We had to move the mansion around more than once because of some close calls but where its at now is the safest place we have. And you two are old enough to technically take care of yourselves. I just want to be a part of your lives before mine is over.” Carmen sneaks a glance at M who looks back at her then look away and busies himself with drinking nearly a whole pint of ale.

Blendin smiles and uses his chopsticks to grab some mushrooms from the grill and sets them on his plate with some daikon glazed with sauce. “We got a long time for that! I’m not even 18 yet! And unicorns technically would have a pretty good lifespan compared to other ponies. Not by much but a good few years longer. It might be due to their magic. How come I don’t see you use your magic, Mom? You always do it all the manual way.” Carmen sputters her drink a little, not expecting the subject. “Uum.. well. I was born with a bit of a handicap that got worse with the issue of a past trauma I had to deal with when you were an infant.” She clears her throat, realizing she hasnt spoken about it in years. “Let’s just say I’m unable to use magic without the attempt putting me into a coma. But you can! I’m so glad you can use your magic!” Blendin smiles but felt guilty for bringing it up due to her reaction, “I’m sorry, I didnt know.” Wally patted his back, “Hey, thats why you asked. You didnt know and thats ok. Its good to ask. Some people may not be ready to answer and they will let you know the best way they can. Ok? Nothing to be sorry about.” Blendin nodded, looking over to Ty. “I think I have one more question but I’ll need to wait for the right time for that.” Carmen smirks, “Take all the time you need, theres no rush. Especially when it comes to love.” Blendin looks at his mother, and blushes with a smile when she winks back, sipping her wine.

#mlp oc pony #carmen pondiego #ask blog #story update #ao3 fanfic #blendin #marehem #waldo #daring do #chronoskimmer

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a-tale-of-legends · 3 months

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Kohaku/Amber Power

I think Groudon is fairly straightforward. Groudon is said to be the embodiment of the earth, so Amber can control the earth. She's an earth bender now. But I'm still going to try and break down exactly what she can do.

Spikes of earth - a lesser version of precipice blades. While seemingly straightforward on its own, it can be used for several things. For one, it's a good means of trapping. The spikes can be used to corner someone. They can also be used as a means of travel- think toph from Avatar. The spikes being shifted into a wall for protection is also very useful. But above all else, it's a simply good attacking move. Though knowing Amber, she likes to use it in terms of intimidation than anything else.

Heat resistant - Bulbapedia says that Groudon has lava proof scaling, and while I don't know if I want to make Kohaku lave proof, her being able to handle severe heats is something I can do. Though I think bc of that she doesn't fully realize that she herself is hot- as in her skin,she might be hot to the touch. In terms of combat that's great, no one can touch her, but it gets annoying in the day to day life. ESPECIALLY when she has two partners she wants to cuddle. I think over time she learned how to cook herself down, which is nice. Wally n Jin help with their water n wind powers respectively.

Slight magma manipulation - I say slight bc from the sounds of it, Groudon doesn't really have that much control over magma? Not in the way I think Heatran does anyway. Though I could be wrong. Magma to Groudon is more so a place of rest, but! The reason why Groudon can even walk on water is bc it's using magma to form its path, so that's gotta account for something right? For now, I'm just gonna have Amber do the same. Shift magma into a walkable surface for her. This kinda goes the same with lava. She could cause things to erupt from the ground buuuuuut I think she'd rather stick to shifting the earth. Don't want to cause major harm to the environment.

Earth Sensing - This one was inspired by a fangame I'm playing :) And it'll also be tweaked a bit because of Zygarde and Shauna, since both in a way deals with the earth but in different ways. Now, Earth Sensing is pretty straightforward, like a lot of kohaku's powers are. You can use the earth to sense those around you. It does require focus and concentration. While it is possible to do with while moving, focus is still necessary. Also in order to sense anything at all, you and your target have to be on the ground. If you're not, no dice. I think Zygarde might be a similar case but works differently. But that's for a different post.

Sunny Days - very very minor compared to Groudon but she can cause some small shifts in the weather. If she's in a bad mood I think things will get uh. A bit hot. Oh! I think that reminds me, bc of the heat she can actually melt objects! Pretty common among fire type Chosens but yeah.

It kinda goes without saying, but if Kohaku is in the air, she is pretty much useless. No earth to control, nothing to sense, and she doesn't. Exactly have clear fire powers question mark? So. Yeah she's mostly relying on her super strength and durability by that point. It's hard to get Amber down but it's easier when she's in the air.

Ironically, being in the water gives her a slightly easier time. It still sucks, but there's still some pieces of earth that can be manipulated, plus underwater volcanoes.

And yeah! I think that's everything about Kohaku's powers. Sorry got switching between Kohaku and Amber so much. I've been thinking about ditching one for the other completely but I can't decide heh. Anyway! This was fun, I like exploring my ocs powers.

#r rambles #legendverse #oc: Kohaku amber birch #Legendverse ocs

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crystalelemental · 1 year

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Yesterday, I talked about my horrifically missed predictions in Masters from December of last year. And what fun is it if I don’t do the same this year? So now, here’s my hopes for new sync pairs in the 2023 year.

First Timers We’ll start off easy with the brand new characters to the game. Like last year, but for real this time to avoid temping fate again, I’ll be putting forth five options I’m hopeful to see.

Drasna. With Bertha now in, Drasna is the #1 hope. And she is inevitable. They added both Sinnoh and Hoenn CS, and now all that remains is Kalos. And Paldea. If Kalos loses out to Paldea, I will laugh. And then cry because When Drasna? Ideally, I want her with Dragalge, but I really love Noivern too, so there’s no failing here. Just let her in.

Brassius. “Wow, even more than Iono?” Yeah dude. Arboliva would be his ace, and he’d be general pool, which means general pool access to Grassy Terrain. That’s good shit. Also Brassius is super cool and I love him.

Iono. But I also love this gremlin child and want her in the game too. I actually kinda want Support. I know that doesn’t make a great deal of sense, but given how Bellibolt works, the concept of taking damage to boost power seems ripe for Team Shout 9 and some new effect for potentially Moves Up Next at like a 30% rate when taking damage. I do see Iono being one of those “PokeFair on arrival” types, but I could be wrong about that.

Anabel. Specifically Gen 7′s version of Anabel, because Anabel and Looker are a set and they are currently separated and I’m not okay about it. Let her in. Mega Salamence, Raikou, whatever you want just get her in here.

Rika. Dude, she mains Clodsire. Come on. That’s cool. Clodsire is cool. And having an option that’s potentially going to have Ground and Poison-type damage? It’s like SS Giovanni but maybe cooler. I’m on board.

Sygna Suits Ah, Sygna Suits. With Cynthia revealing that actually you can have three of them if you want, there’s a high level of potential here. But I’m mostly going to stick to “They don’t have any yet,” unless there’s something specific and really exciting I can think of.

Caitlin & Gothitelle. It has to happen. This is my most wanted thing in the game. If it winds up as a seasonal, fine, but I really need to see this. Gothitelle is her ace. They gave her Reuniclus because at one point they must have expected an alt for her down the line. Deliver the goods, DeNA.

Lusamine & Nihilego. This. This is the exception. Because I am SCARED. Anni Lillie is rerunning now. Alola VA is, at an estimate, about 6 months away. Archie and Maxie got rerun with their villain arc. DO NOT DO THAT TO LUSAMINE. I do not want to see just a rerun of Necrozma, who is now super outclassed by SS Steven. I want a new thing, and it damned well better be Nihilego. If they give it to Lillie...honestly I’d probably be okay because I really like Lillie, but it would be really annoying.

Darach & Gallade. I really like Darach’s team, in terms of the thematics of always being like...super Butler-aligned designs. Gallade in particular was a big hope, specifically as support, to provide for Caitlin’s base form. I’d like to see that play out here. I think a support Gallade, or shiny for if they want to SS Wally it, could be great. I will, however, also accept Male Indeedee.

Kahili & Baile Oricorio. I secretly like Kahili a lot, for a character who gets effectively no attention. And I really like Oricorio, with at least three of its forms being really cool. I am 100% on board for a Baile form Oricorio and Kahili alt. I think it’d be great. It would also be Fire. But this is what life is like now.

Glacia & Froslass. I know it’s unlikely, but Glacia should get a Froslass alt. We have Froslass as a BP pair, but it’s a known allowance that another unit can get it as well. I think Glacia makes a solid amount of sense, given that this evolutionary line is her ace, and she deserves something. Hoenn supports got blasted so hard, but Glacia feels way worse due to the whole 5* thing. They did not need to do this to her.

Seasonals I’m including Special Costume here. Basically, anything that’s limited in the way where it’s like once a year appearances.

Lisia. I cannot tell you how hype the rumored leaks for New Years make me. New Year Lisia would be to die for, and while I know full goddamned well it would be with Jirachi, that’s fine. I’d prefer Meloetta, but...we know. We all know. I’m just desperate for Lisia to get an alt. I like her, and I really like her hair, and I’d love for her to get an outfit I don’t hate.

Fantina. Special Costume, for a contest lover type deal. I’d specifically want Frillish. It feels very cute, it saves Jellicent (whose design I like less) for Marlon if he gets anything ever, and would be great for me.

Cheryl. Palentine’s. Appletun. Think about it. She showed up in the first event, knows how to bake, is all about HP as the highest stat which Appletun has. This is a slam dunk.

Gardenia. Halloween. Someone pointed out that each year, someone who appears in the Halloween event without an alt gets one the next year, and that this means this upcoming year is likely Gardenia or Lusamine. I will obviously prefer Lusamine/Nihilego if it doesn’t happen with the Villain Arc, but assuming I get what I want there...nothing would be cooler than Gardenia/Trevenant. It’s such a cool pair concept.

Alder. Legitimately, I just think the guy deserves something, don’t expect a Sygna Suit for the villain arc, and his entire team is accounted for so they’d have to go outside of that, and seasonals tend to do that. I don’t even particularly care what he gets, I just want him to get something. Although as an alternative for the bonus round...

Summer Cynthia. But specifically in an outfit similar to like Summer Lyra or Summer Hilda. Just annihilate the hopes of the worst in the fanbase.

Master Fair Master Fairs have gone off the rails at this point, allowing multiple alts with the same effect, and the same character to have multiple effects. This is mildly bananas, but I guess opens a lot of possibilities. I’ll take a stab at three I’m anticipating.

Champion Dawn. I feel like this one’s an inevitability. Protagonists now have access to Champion alts, with Serena and Calem leading the pack. Dawn is a known popular protagonist, who is like...destined for this. I’m not even sure what I want. Mesprit feels like an ideal, but I kinda feel like that might be the rumored New Year partnership, and like that, if nothing else, Calem and Serena got general Pokemon.

Lilllie & Magearna. Lillie will absolutely get another Master Fair with the Villain Arc, and my hope is that she gets Magearna. I don’t have any else I’d particularly want with Magearna, it carries on Lillie’s Ghost/Fairy-type trainer status, is a cute partnership, it doesn’t take away Nihilego from Lusamine, and DeNA gets to continue its love of slapping mythic legends into villain arcs just to have them around. Everyone wins.

Geeta & Glimmora. “I thought you didn’t like Geeta all that much?” She came out kinda bland, not gonna lie. But I like Glimmora, and most significantly? I want to see what they do. Because Geeta Tera-types to Rock, which is an objectively bad move. Poison-type would make tremendously move sense for it on every level, but especially in this game. And given DeNA’s fear of making Poison-types good because they already have that passive damage why do they need more, I’d want to see the first instance of a Master Fair worse off than Anni Steven. Sometimes I just live for the thrill of things going badly.

BP I was so horribly wrong about last year, but surely this year nothing bad will happen. I’ll predict four, since we only got four.

Roxanne. Golem or Relicanth. I can’t decide which I want more. Golem has the emotional attachment of her talking about always having wanted to raise a Golem, while Relicanth as a fossil Pokemon is just fitting.

Clair & Dragonair. It would be such a cool support pair. I like Dragonair’s design better than Dragonite’s, and think that either BP or Lodge Clair should get Dragonair as her focus.

Gordie. I need to be fair and include some guys here. And we desperately need Galarian units to be free. So my pick is Gordie. Partially because Gordie’s a cool guy, and partially because Rock-types feel scarce and I’d like another.

Wikstrom. I couldn’t bring myself to pick a BP unit for one of the Kalos male gym leaders. So I’m picking from the E4 instead. Wikstrom’s alright. I’d be good with any of his team, but something about the idea of Klefki tickles me, so maybe that one.

Master BP I was even wronger about this, but now I’m on to them, so this should be easy. I’ll predict two, since that’s how many we got.

MU & Raikou. It just feels like it fits. Like, Electric Teamwork and a Main Character theme skill just...fits with the Electric-type Archetype at its peak right now. I’m not even sure it would need to do anything, either. Not like Red or Ash have ever needed help.

Morgan & Virizion. Her trio focus is the swords of Justice, and we already have Rock and Fighting accounted for, with Cobalion being with MU. So the only logical connection is Grass Teamwork with Virizion. Which works because I like Virizion a lot. She could also get Latias with Dragon Teamwork and I’d be cool. Basically, this would be hard to mess up. Just...Morgan over Dana. I don’t dislike Dana, but if I get to pick, you know?

Lodge Lodge is an exciting time. We only get 12 of these units a year at current pace, which is...sobering. It really does not look good for the characters I’m hoping for. I’ll take a shot at five I’d really, really like to see. I’m also going to try avoiding the obvious picks on my end, so I won’t mention Caitlin or Jasmine.

Steven & Skarmory. I think it’s safe to say Steven is an inevitability. I’m actually looking forward to his addition. While I do ultimately want him to get Aggron, I’d rather that be with a different alt where it can mega evolve. In this situation, I think Skarmory would be a cool pick. I just love Skarmory, and it left a really big impression on me in Emerald. It’s such a strong lead for a main game fight.

Lysandre. I just think it’d be hilarious. I don’t know if he’s actually popular, but like...Serena’s accounted for, and Kalos isn’t a popular place. Calem and Diantha are the only two options that offer like any competition to this happening. And I just think nothing would be funnier than antagonists in the Lodge. Like...come on. You know you’re curious.

Iris. I’m really, really hopeful that Unova Act 2 comes with Lodge Iris, if nothing else. I don’t even particularly care what she gets, I just want her to get the Lodge alt, because I feel like she deserves it.

Kris. I don’t have a strong preference for what, I just want Kris to get more stuff. I’m really happy this year focused on her, she deserves it. Fantastic Sygna Suit, really cool Eevee alt despite all the trouble surrounding that focus, I just think she deserves a bit more than she gets. Maybe with Dunsparce. Or Dudunsparce.

Cyrus. Okay, look. There are too many options for this to happen. At a minimum, Dawn. But hear me out. Lysandre was mentioned because I think he legitimately has a chance in his region, given that almost no one else exists that competes. Cyrus is closer to that mark, but also infinitely funnier. Lysandre is social. Lysandre is charismatic. Lysandre could hold a conversation and go on an outing and be a pleasant guest. Cyrus cannot. And you have no idea how much I want to see that in action with Lodge. Just imagine it.

NPC Trainer Classes NPC Trainer Classes are one of the coolest new additions DeNA made. I actually love these. That said, I don’t tend to care all that much about the trainer models, so I’ll stick to like...three.

XY Female Ace Trainer. Top pick, this design was so cute, I love her outfit and her hair and I would kill for this inclusion.

DPP Aroma Lady. Aroma Lady was just a really pretty design in this gen. I’m invested.

GSC Kimono Girls. If they count here, which I imagine they do, this is where I’d want them. Kimono Girls were so cool when I was a kid, I really want more of them. I know the Eevee alts are happening, but listen. They can do Eevee again. No one will mind.

General Pool Sync Grid Expansions General pool grid expansions rule. They’ve consistently been fantastic, except for Glacia who bears the Hoenn Support Curse, and I’m really hyped to see more of these. I’m going for a full five of them, but like...there are so many.

Caitlin. I just want the best for Caitlin. She’s a striker without a single multiplier anywhere in her kit. If she doesn’t get full Brainpower benefits, heads are going to roll. Just ramp up that damage. I’m sorry, I love the idea of defensive striker, but it does not work. We’ve tried. It’s not successful without stupid levels of specific utility that she does not have.

Lisia. Lisia is one of my most anticipated grid expansion for a few reasons. One is, much like SS Leaf, she’s a utility unit with a lot of avenues for play. Unlike Leaf, Lisia gets a normal expansion, and thus half cost, meaning Lisia has a much, much better chance of her expansion mattering. Secondly, her grid expansion’s offensive needs are so hilariously obvious that you can fix the whole thing in two. Towering Force, Tough Cookie. Done. That means she can have a nice blend of power and utility in the same set. Finally, the transition of Mega Evolution means losing out on her AoE flinch rate, which is a rough time. So the inclusion of utility tools that kick ass but she didn’t even have before, like a flinch on Dragon Pulse and removing weather on Defog to perfectly set up her sync nuke, is enticing. Lisia has a metric ton to gain from an expansion, and I’m expecting big things. Do not Glacia this.

Jasmine. Jasmine’s a support, so I anticipate dramatic levels of failure. Which is sad because Jasmine’s support feels pretty easily salvaged, you just have to pick which way to go. On the one hand, recovery from Recuperation is huge, and that grid leaves 16 energy to work with, so you can just add special defense boosts for a better tanking set. On the other, expanding on her offense buffing seems the way to go, as she currently only powers up defense with any reliability. But then there’s also the fact that Jasmine’s slow as dirt, but has strong offensive capabilities somehow, so speed boosting wouldn’t be a terrible call either to work the meme build with Palentine’s Marnie. She’s got a lot of options, and I’m very hopeful for something fun.

Dawn. Dawn feels a bit like Jasmine, because of the defense buffing support designation, and the ability to spec into offense. What kills me about Dawn is that if she had some self-buffing for crit, or her attack buffing wasn’t so slow and locked to getting hit, she’d honestly be pretty respectable in multiple ways. Her best attribute is being super sturdy, and I’d like to see them play into some team support that also facilitates her surprisingly nice damage potential.

Gladion. Gladion feels very much like a product of his time, similar to like...Anni Lillie, frankly. “We gave them a really good utility tool, so time to dramatically limit everything else they can do.” Gladion hits everything for super-effective damage, but critically misses out on significant multipliers or really all that much of value. Worst of all, he can only change type once, meaning Gauntlets that change weaknesses tend to ruin him pretty badly. Gladion feels like a very clear-cut fix. Give him some multipliers, and a second shot at trainer move guaranteed to shift his typing a second time to keep on top of fights like Regirock, and he should be good to go.

Lusamine. I lied, one more. Bug-type damage is rare, Lusamine is another product of her time where really high offenses meant lackluster multipliers, but we get shit like SS Hilda now, so I feel like Lusamine deserves some raw firepower. But what I do like is that there’s openings for utility. Double drops on Lunge and Bug Buzz. The AoE freeze on Blizzard. Lusamine has some interesting potential.

PokeFair Sync Grid Expansions PokeFair expansions are a lot less hype to me because 5/5 and full energy cost tends to gimp their utility, but we’ll talk about five I’m looking forward to.

Diantha. My top anticipated upgrade. I really like Gardevoir, and I like Diantha a lot. The upgrade feels very easy. Gauge control, move damage multiplier. I feel safe saying that, while they will 100% give her something like Brainpower to power up her sync, what she really wants is DPS. Diantha’s Moonblast DPS is really strong, and I think granting it another multiplier on grid would be tremendous.

Steven. Metagross is going to be an interesting one to me. If it were a 3/5 style upgrade, I’d say no question it would be devastating. But 5/5 and full cost means he may wind up losing Aggravation or Haymaker, significantly limiting his overall impact. I’m dying to see it, because I’m dying to know if they make him worse.

Alder. Alder feels like someone who can reasonably ignore his entire grid right now, and thus is the perfect kind of candidate for this expansion. He’s likely going to be Raihan’d, where everything gets overwritten in a way that these six new tiles are better than the entire previous grid.

Lance. I’m dying to know. Like, isn’t everyone? The man with Hyper Beam, whose limitation was not being able to buff a single stat? That’s such a fascinating limitation that had to have been terrible even at the time. I’m dying to know what they do. They try self-sufficiency for stuff like this all the time, but he also doesn’t have multipliers on either sync or move damage. Lance’s demands are through the roof, and there’s no possible way to fix all of it. But god I want to see them try.

Gloria. Similar to Alder, but way more real. Gloria’s grid is downright bad. They put all their eggs into the natural multiplier basket that no one likes. She’s absolutely discarding the whole grid for whatever the new tools are. All she really needs is damage, too. I’m just so curious what they’ll aim for. Especially since her self setup isn’t that great either. Gloria feels desperately in need of help.

#pokemon masters #sync pair predictions

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kidflashimpulse · 2 years

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i think what Bart's shared with people varies from person to person e.g., i like the idea that he and Gar can talk about a lot of the shit they've been through without any awkwardness because they both get it. i doubt he's told his family much beyond vague stuff, and i doubt he and Jaime have talked about it at all beyond s2 because it'd probably make Jaime feel like shit about himself (like, Bart shouldn't have to sugarcoat his own LIFE, but Jaime shouldn't have to know all the gory details)

I agree! I think anyone in the know from season 2 most probably has at least a basic understanding that he came back to the past to stop a big bad. Then depending on who from that time hes close with/was most involved, they're the ones who'd most probably have a bit better of an understanding of his background. I don't think the moment someone joins the team they get an instant pass into every single persons backstory, so for people from beyond season 2 they most probably know the least. Its not really something that comes up in daily conversation, or really in any conversation unless someone explicitly asks about it. And even then the answer is mosts probs "oh this guy is the flashs grandson from the future", it seems a bit awkward to add in "apocalyptic" into an introduction lol

Also about the family bit, its hard to explain but I find that especially with Wallys death at that time it meant there wasn't much opportunity for them to even try to most probably coax stuff out of him because everyone including him were in mourning. And that's not really a time to want to bring up dark stuff.

Kinda off topic but in terms of family, my personal headcanon/understanding is that Joan/Jay were/are the closest to parent figures hes had in the present. Hes most probably closer to Iris than Barry for a whole list of reasons lol but I doubt he'd talk much about his past with her, I think he wouldn't really want to tell his grandma about all the suffering her kids had to go thru in an alternate timeline.

I like to think that when he first arrived in the past, he bonded the fastest with Wally and if anyone had the means to coax stuff out of him it would've been him.

About him and Jaime, I don't know. On the one hand like u said, both sides are both in an awkward position with how closely related their trauma has to do with the other, but I feel like they have a pretty good friendship and Jaime is the kind of guy who would try to put his own discomfort aside to coax stuff out of him whilst Bart would try to be considerate and not bring stuff up which ultimately leads to both of them being like mad at each other for trying to be thoughtful LOL but I feel like beyond their backstory they probably have a good understanding of the other as a person which always helps in creating a comfortable environment for ppl to just open up.

#YJ asks #bart allen #kid flash #young justice #impulse #wally west #jaime reyes #blue beetle

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bigskydreaming · 4 years

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Making this its own post because replying to the ask got so weirdly formatted I can’t even. Oh tumblr. You work so well.

@themessofthecentury asked:

jsksjf my tumblr notifs are bugging and i didnt see your post but!!! The patron Saint of Robins?? I am much intrigue!!

(This is from this ask game, just....gotten to late, lololol. And I still have more I’m getting to, no worries. Just had a rough couple days is all, laid me up a bit.)

Okay, so The Patron Saint of Robins is kinda like the situation at the end of Grayson, except also not at all. And actually this is one of my older WIPs, and according to Scrivener I started it in 2015 afhislfhalhfalf, so it really has nothing to do with that. Also, its Young Justice-verse, but for two specific reasons:

1) YJ-verse is my go-to for Good Dad Bruce Wayne, when I don’t want to actually tackle the issues I have with his and his kids’ dynamic in comic book canon. I don’t carry over things like the adoption issue or the Robin succession into YJ fics, as I don’t think there’s anything that suggests they’re ever a specific issue in YJ and I don’t feel a need to make them one. So pretty much anything and everything I write in YJ goes with the backstory that Dick’s already adopted by Season One, and he’s the one to grant each later Robin permission to use the mantle, with no conflict over that, and more of a pre-Crisis transition to Nightwing than the post-Crisis firing from Robin. And this fic inherently needs Good Dad Bruce Wayne to work, lol.

2) I needed Klarion the Witch-Boy. Who of course exists in comic book canon, but is muuuuuch different there, and I just needed him to be a little demonic evil shithead, who sets everything in motion to get payback on the heroes for thwarting the Light in Season One, and he targets Robin due to being the oft-cited ‘first of the baby brat heroes’ and the ‘heart of the cape community.’

You don’t really need to be familiar with YJ canon at all for this one, as it goes sharply AU from after Season One, and only faintly and vaguely references specific events from that season. And I use my own YJ-ized version of the Titans as much as the actual YJ Team.

So basically, the plot of this one is to take revenge on the heroes for spoiling his game in Season One, Klarion plays a new game, by putting a chaos curse on Robin. It essentially erases him from peoples’ memories, though he’s perfectly able to make new ones. If he re-introduces himself to someone ask Dick Grayson, for instance, they don’t suddenly remember who Dick Grayson is or was, but they don’t forget about him again from that point onward, its like they meet him for the first time as a stranger.

But the curse part of things is only Batman can break it and restore everyone’s memories of Dick and his actual history, and only by identifying him for who he really is. And Dick can’t be part of breaking his own curse or else it seals it and makes it permanent and unbreakable forever.

Which of course leaves Dick completely miserable at first, understandably, and Bruce (and everyone else Dick knows, to varying different degrees) feeling some kind of loss but with no idea what it is they think or feel that they’re missing. Dick makes some half-hearted attempts at starting a new life for himself in Gotham, and in the process befriends a street kid named Jason Todd, though Dick introduces himself to Jason with just the name Robin.

The way the curse operates is it restitches together peoples’ memories to cover up the gaps where memories of him would go. So for instance, even though Jason never knew Dick before the curse, he was familiar with Batman and Robin just as much as any Gothammite was.....but due to the curse, the name Robin, upon meeting Dick, had no special meaning to him or anyone else. As far as he knew, Batman had always operated on his own in Gotham, the first teen superhero was that Speedy kid in Star City, etc. So when Jason first meets Dick, he just thinks he’s some dude whose name happens to be Robin.

Eventually, because Dick’s been kinda torturing himself by spying on Bruce just to ‘keep an eye on him’ and still watch his back, and he’s recognized by now that Bruce is mourning his loss without even knowing that he’s missing something....so Dick, who has also kinda come to see Jason as a little brother figure due to watching out for him as well....decides to kill two birds with one stone, unfortunate pun not intended. (Jason doesn’t die in this one, lol). Basically, Dick puts in motion the chain of events that lead Jason to stealing Batman’s tires, because he doesn’t know EXACTLY what Bruce will do but he knows it’ll get his attention in a big way and Bruce will take it from there.

One thing leads to another, Jason ends up living with Bruce and when eventually he wants to be trained by Bruce so he can do what he does and protect kids like he used to be.....when asked to pick a name....Jason names himself after the guy who always looked out for him, and who led to him being found by Bruce in the first place. He doesn’t know that his friend ‘Robin’ steered him towards those tires deliberately, just to bring him and Bruce into contact, but he does credit him with making the suggestion that ‘inadvertently’ (as far as he knows) enabled his and Bruce’s introduction, and so he names himself in honor of the boy who helped him and who he tried to track down again to similarly help, after Bruce adopted him, but was never able to find again.

Over the years, Dick also ends up steering Tim, Cass, Duke and Damian to Bruce in different ways than comic book canon (Steph and Babs’ debuts remain their own, as family adjacent but not family specifically) and thus is integral to the forming of the Batfam and has a connection with them even before the curse ultimately ends up broken and he’s able to reclaim his full identity. And each of them end up Robin at least briefly, like Steph is never Robin in this AU, and sticks with Spoiler, whereas Cass IS briefly Robin before becoming Batgirl after Babs. I did this for a few different reasons...

One, I really like that Cass is never Robin in main continuity as it creates a different dynamic between her and Dick than most of their siblings have, BUT I’ve always been curious to play around what Cass-as-Robin might even be like, just for an AU. Two, part of the Black Bat and Batgirl but never Robin sequence of mantles for Cass in the comic book continuity is like.....although it doesn’t get explored nearly enough, Babs was as much a kind of mother figure for Cass as Bruce was a father figure, despite Babs’ young age. So it makes more sense for Cass to stick more to just Bat-mantles than to ever be a Robin in the comic books. But in YJ, Babs is even younger, and just way too young to have the specific kind of dynamic that leads to that in the comic books, so its not as unreasonable IMO for her to have a different dynamic in her early days in the family here, before becoming closer with Babs and taking up the Batgirl mantle after she moves on to become Oracle.

And then also, and this is also the primary reason for making Duke a Robin briefly, before Damian is old enough....I got hung up on the title and it just didn’t work as well if it was Robins + Cass and Duke, lololol. See, in addition to helping steer the family into the points of introduction that make them a family, over the years he also acts as like, a guardian angel figure to the various family members, looking out for them and interceding in times of extreme danger, like when Jason is almost killed by the Joker. He’s always in disguise, but the kids eventually compare notes and realize there’s a singular figure behind each of their introductions to Bruce and the guy swooping out of nowhere to save their behinds whenever they’re most in danger, and Jason eventually connects this back to the guy who apparently NOT so coincidentally suggested he go after the Batmobile’s tires that fateful night, and the kids end up jokingly/not-so-jokingly referring to this figure as the Patron Saint of Robins. (Shout-out to the occasional mentions/allusions of Jason’s Catholicism).

They never tell Bruce about this figure (at least before Bruce starts to put together clues on his own), because they all figured out that for whatever reason, this person despite wanting them all to meet Bruce seems to want to avoid Bruce himself, and they kinda want to respect that as a kind of payback for his help, and also like....Bruce, even a kinder, gentler Bruce, is still Bruce. And when Bruce is gonna Bruce, that means Batparanoia. And all of them for various reasons DO trust that this guy has nothing but good intentions towards them, and so they don’t want to like....ruin or tarnish the positivity they associate with his intercession in their lives with paranoia or treating him like a bad guy. Which ultimately is really just smoke and mirrors for saying that he’s kinda a ‘just for them’ secret. Its a Robin thing.

(Until its not).

Because meanwhile, Dick, in between meeting the various Batfam members and pulling strings and looking out for them from the shadows, at first travels the world looking for ways to break his curse. But when ultimately its clear that the only way to break it is the loophole built into it already, Bruce identifying him for who he really is, but without Dick doing anything to steer him towards the answer, Dick settles into a new hero identity as Nightwing, and forms the Teen Titans, a public group of young superheroes (minus Roy and Wally, unfortunately, but still with Donna, Garth, Raven, Kory, ignoring season 3 Vic and also Terra because AU redemption arc what what, etc). And the Teen Titans avoid both the Young Justice Team and the Justlce League with EXTREME measures, much to the other heroes’ confusion and aggravation, because in the early days of the Titans, in a moment of what he’d term weakness, on one of his ‘bad days,’ Dick tells them enough of his story that they’re able to put together a good sense of what happened and who he really is by reading between the lines and what he leaves unsaid....

BUT as a result, all end up extremely committed to not mixing and mingling casually with the rest of the cape community because they don’t want to risk dropping any hints about the guy under Nightwing’s mask, in case that might count as steering Batman towards clues and seal the curse for good. So I have a lot of fun with having the Titans just nope out of the scene the second the bad guys are defeated even when they have to team up with other heroes, leaving the other heroes confused as hell and trying not to be all ‘WHY DON’T YOU LIKE US??”

Anyway, so yeah, that’s the gist of this one, lol. With it of course following the eventual plot that like...the Batfam starts to Detect and put things together.

ANYWHO!

Snippet

Damian versus Klarion: Round One

“Aww, its adorable that you think you’re in my league,” the Witch-Boy cooed in an absolute mockery of sympathy. Damian bristled, but before he could do anything more than that, he was faced with a much more pressing matter as reality completely lost its mind.

The walls of the cavern fell away in an instant, only to be replaced with a whirling dervish of winds all around them, as if they now stood in the center of a cyclone that bled red and silver and black. It shrieked and wailed in a chorus of voices just on the other side of being comprehensible, a symphony of the damned that set every nerve in Damian’s body aflame with a primal instinct to get out, to find silence, to be anywhere but here.

He’d barely staggered a step backwards when the ground erupted beneath him, splitting apart into jagged obsidian shards that bobbed precariously in the sea of magma barely glimpsed through cracks now spiderwebbing their way across the floor. Spears of lightning burst upwards through them, stabbing impossibly at the heavens rather than raining down from them. They hissed and crackled as they flickered like forked serpent tongues of electric violet and black. The forks becoming branches, the pillars of sky-shattering light transforming into the trunks of great trees that grew upwards and outward, weaving a canopy overhead. One that wept violently red leaves that fell gently to the ground, only to hiss and bubble like acid once they did.

“See, normally this is when I’d hit someone with a little razzle-dazzle like this,” Klarion called out over the song of madness he’d created, as it crooned and careened wildly all around them. He snapped his fingers, and in the span of a second it all ceased. Reality reaffirmed itself, and all was right with the world once more…except now the two of them stood at the end of a hallway in Wayne Manor.

Damian stumbled, the sudden reappearance of firm ground paradoxically being the thing to challenge his balance. The demon boy standing beside him crooked his thumb and forefinger in the semblance of a gun, the smile pasted across his face one of wickedly gleeful malice.

“But you, kiddo, you’re special. Cuz there’s nothing I could do to you now that could top what I’ve already done, so why try when I can just savor the moment instead?”

“What are you babbling about?” Damian demanded roughly. In the wake of what the Witch-Boy had just conjured up with nothing more than a gesture, he was keenly aware of how flimsy a shield his bravado made. He just had absolutely no idea what else to fall back on.

Klarion only threw back his head and laughed though, skipping merrily down the hall as he did.

“I know something you don’t know,” he sing-songed and Damian lost what little grasp of his patience he’d managed to hang onto.

“You overestimate my need for an answer. Attempt to intimidate me all you wish, but I have no desire to indulge your little game any further.”

Klarion jerked to a stop and spun around, his face screwed into a childish pout. He stomped his foot, petulance personified. “I’m not intimidating you anymore, I’m gloating! Ugh, you’re so stupid! They’re completely different, how can you not tell?”

Every light in the hallway flickered and fizzed abruptly. The walls wavered, bubbled, momentarily molten as if made of wax.

Again Damian was reminded just how mercurial this being he was faced with was, and how dangerous. Perhaps, as Father would say, this was not the time to indulge his own instinctive inclinations. Or as Todd would put it, just because you’re already fucked, that’s no reason to fuck yourself over more than you have to.

Crude as his older brother was, there was occasional merit to his…pithiness. Not that he would be admitting that any time soon, of course.

“Fine. What is it you wish to gloat about then?” Damian grated out. The appeasement, such as it was, tried its best to stick in his throat before finally clawing its way free. But at least it proved worth the effort when the godling’s mood reverted back to impishness as readily as with the flip of a switch.

“Well. Its like this, you see.” Klarion said. He dragged it out as he folded both legs underneath him to sit cross-legged in the air, plopping his head into his hands. “I did a baaaaaaaaaaaaad, bad thing to your family, a loooooong time ago. And none of you have done anything about it, because you don’t even know! Isn’t that funny? Doesn’t matter how big a hero Daddy Bats is if he doesn’t even know what needs saving huh? Little Catch-22 there, you might say.”

“Yes. Quite hysterical,” Damian said dryly. “So what is it you claim to have done then?”

The Witch-Boy just sat there, regarding him with amusement, and the seconds marched on into minutes. Damian’s skin crawled. Prickling with impatience and possibly something…more. He wasn’t quite ready to name it anxiety or something as melodramatic as all that yet. In fact, he’d rather not put a name to it at all, but today did not appear to be a day for configuring things to his liking.

Klarion’s wicked grin grew as if sensing his thoughts, though to the best of his knowledge (and Damian did quickly ransack the library of his memory just to be sure) there was no indication telepathy was included among the Chaos Lord’s many, many powers. And still that detestable smile stretched slowly wider all the same, in perfect synchronization with the rising tide of Damian’s unease. Perhaps the Witch-Boy’s file was in need of annotation.

“How many doors would you say are in this hallway?”

“What? Seven.” Damian snapped out his answer, annoyed by the non sequitur. Not to mention baffled. Was it too much to expect even a semblance of linear thought from the Chaos brat?

“Are you suuuuuuure?” The Witch-Boy stretched his query out obnoxiously. “Maybe you should count again. Just for kicks and giggles.”

Damian throttled back each and every retort attempting to spring to his lips, stuffing them back down and cramming a lid on everything he most dearly wished to say to this most vexing of…shitheads. Once again, it appeared as though nothing less than Todd’s preferred form of nomenclature would suffice. Wonderful. On top of everything else Damian had to deal with today, he seemed to be finding common ground with the man all over the place. Was there no end to the indignities he must suffer?

But marshaling his own formidable willpower, Damian took a deep breath and indulged the Chaos Lord, glancing his eyes down the length of the hallway and counting out each doorway one by one. There was his own room of course, with Cassandra’s to the right of his, and the room Brown used when staying over to the right of hers. That was three. Then there was Thomas directly across from his own room, with Drake to his right and Todd just beyond that, with Father’s room at the very end of the hall, his master suite staggered and with no direct opposite like the others. Seven.

Except all of a sudden there was a door directly opposite his father’s. For a total of eight.

Damian’s brow furrowed in consternation. The faint whispers of uncertainty already seeded throughout him bore fruit, ripening into poisonous stabbings of doubt.

“That’s not real,” he stated with as much conviction as he could muster.

The Witch-Boy’s smile only grew wider still. “Isn’t it, though?”

“There’s never been a door there before,” Damian persisted, striding confidently down the hall towards it. The Chaos Lord flitted ahead of him, inverting til he was upside down and skipping merrily once more, though this time from the ceiling.

“Or has it been there all along?” He sing-songed some more.

“I would think we might have noticed if it had been,” Damian growled.

“Yes, you’d think, wouldn’t you? You are all supposed to be a family of detectives, I thought. Makes you wonder…if you could miss this, what else might you have failed to notice?”

Damian snarled to himself and did his best to shut out the demon boy’s prattling. He quickened his strides, eating up the length of the hallway in his haste to reach its end. He wasn’t sure what opening the door would prove, let alone what bewilderment the godling had conjured on its other side, but it appeared the only end to this game of his was through it, so let there be an end to it already.

And yet, for all his certainty - or best facsimile of it - he couldn’t help but pause once he reached the door in question. His hand hovered within reach of its brass knob, but some instinct, some…caution, held him at bay. As much as he wanted to dismiss all this as just one more of the Chaos Lord’s inane charades, there was a tension in the air that felt too weighty to be the product of just magical conjuring. Something more was in play here. Real forces were at work. His father might disdain magic, but Damian had been around enough of it himself to know when true power had been raised. And the span of empty space between his hand and this hither-to-unseen doorknob held more of it than Damian had felt throughout all the mad warpings Klarion had made of reality thus far.

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Klarion asked from somewhere overhead. His voice, usually pitched to carry, was so soft for a moment Damian mistook it for his own inner doubts. “Some doors are easier to open than to close again, you know.”

Even knowing the goading for what it was couldn’t stop Damian then, and with a simple breath to fortify himself, he reached for the knob, spun it once, and shoved the door open all in a single sharp movement.

The Witch-Boy giggled up above.

The door swung wide, a forceful arc that should have revealed anything and everything within it all at once; the better to react quickly to whatever that might be. Fine in principle, perfect in execution, but thwarted by one small detail:

There was nothing on the other side.

And not in the sense of it being just an empty room, but true nothingness. A pitch-black abyss darker than the deepest night, yawning forth from the doorway in a vast, impenetrable shroud. Nor was anything hidden in the darkness, Damian knew, even if just intuitively. He could feel it, that he stood on the edge of an impossible cliff, that there was nothing beyond this threshold but an aching chasm of emptiness and loss. The surety of it hung in the air, thick and heavy, a miasma that seeped through to his side of the doorway and clung to him like the moisture of a fog beads upon the skin.

Klarion’s head suddenly popped up alongside him, hovering just over his shoulder.

Albeit still upside down.

“Well that doesn’t seem right,” he mused, tapping at his lips with a forefinger. “What do you suppose is meant to be in there?”

The last of Damian’s brittle patience shattered.

“Enough! What is the meaning of all this, demon? Speak plainly, for once in your miserable existence!”

His self-preservation instincts and the reminder of just who it was he was shouting at kicked in too little too late, but he wouldn’t take his exasperated fury back even if he could. He was who he was after all. But fortunately, that described the Witch-Boy just as accurately, and rather take offense or perceive any actual threat from Damian’s rage, the Chaos Lord just shrieked with laughter and sprung backwards. He flipped right side up, still hovering in mid-air, and clapped his hands with glee.

“Oh, I should have done this ages ago,” Klarion sang out. “Why, you’re almost as fun as he used to be. Back before he got all droll and serious, that is. He’s no fun at all anymore, nothing like this. Never wants to play, always just running back to his tower with that little bitch of a demoness.”

His face soured like he’d just sucked on a lemon. But rather than stop there, his countenance kept morphing into an increasingly savage scowl, the longer he ranted. The hallway was suddenly sweltering, baking with unseen heat that twisted the air into shimmering ribbons. The small horns sprouting from his forehead burst into scimitars of flame that cut through those ribbons and set them similarly ablaze.

“Always putting on airs like she’s some kind of royalty, just because her Daddy Dearest put the fear into a few peasants back in the day,” the Witch-Boy snarled viciously. “As if that’s enough to put her on par with the likes of me. No one is the likes of me. NO ONE!”

Reality itself quaked with the force of his shout. White-blue flames spat forth and crescendoed down the length of the corridor, splashing against its walls and searing them to a crisp. Damian braced himself for all the good it would do, keenly aware of the void still gaping hungrily behind his back, but before the fire could become an actual danger to him as well, all was quiet once more.

Silence hung in the air much like the demon boy, poised yet motionless. Suspended. Waiting.

And then Klarion simply inhaled and brushed his hands down the front of his garments, smoothing out the wrinkles as he reclaimed his calm. The corridor restored itself to its former self, curtains of vintage reality unrolling from the ceiling to the floor as though papering over the damage. Damian felt rather than saw when the portal behind him swung shut and was replaced with the expanse of ivory paint and ornate sconces he was used to seeing in its place.

“I am one of a kind, after all,” Klarion finally remarked. It was a casual drawl offered forth almost off-handedly, as if more a reminder to himself than uttered for anyone else’s sake. He used one hand to spell out letters in the air. They appeared and vanished again in bursts of fireworks and fluorescent flame. “U-N-I-Q-U-E.”

“As I, apparently, am not,” Damian said, seizing upon the Chaos Lord’s restored calm and good cheer. “Who is this ‘he’ you mentioned? If I’m to be pitted against him as entertainment in your eyes, might I at least know his name?”

“Nuh-uh-uh,” the Witch-Boy scolded. He wagged his finger at Damian. “No spoilers. That’s not how the game is played.”

Keenly aware of the boy’s power once more, Damian gritted his teeth and pressed on. “Well, if there are to be rules, shouldn’t I at least know what those are?”

Klarion sucked in a deep breath, drawing himself up along with his inhalation as though preparing for some great speech…and instead just toppling backward, flopping onto an extravagant fainting couch that suddenly appeared beneath him, though similarly floating in the air.

“I can’t recall at the moment.” His now-faint voice drifted up from where he lay buried amid a mountain of pillows. “I’ve had a terribly exhausting day. But you’re supposed to be a detective, remember? Go…I don’t know. Detect things.”

He flapped an arm at Damian dismissively, and then crooked a finger into a twirling motion that set his divan to spinning in lazy circles.

“Isn’t life grand?” Klarion sighed fondly. “With all its twists and turns, its eddies and swirls. I mean, take the two of us. Scant hours ago, we were mortal enemies, and just look at us now.”

The Witch-Boy lazily rolled his head to the side as the couch drifted to bring him face-to-face with Damian. His lips spread wide in that malevolent, wicked grin of his once again, but somehow it managed to be even wider than any he’d shown off before. His eyes blazed with a hellish inner light, and his voice, when next he spoke, dropped deep into a demonic register. A bass that boomed forth and set Damian’s very bones to rattling.

“Ain’t we got fun?”

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twiststreet · 5 years

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I read the extremely-celebrated first volume of Bitter Root.

It’s successful by the standards of current comics. The current standard: just have a really, really great high concept that resonates on both a simplistic genre level and that has some ultra-basic political moralizing that you can’t really “disagree” with, without exposing yourself as being retrograde, and thus easily dismissed; executing on that high concept is *completely optional.* That’s Maneaters, that’s Bitch Planet, that’s Bitter Root, anyways.

The high concept: during the Harlem Renaissance, a black family of monster-fighters takes on the worst monsters there are -- WHITE DEVILS. White people who do racism magically transform into devils that the black characters punch or shoot or some shit.

That’s a successful concept under the current rules of engagement. And that’s all you need; again, execution is optional. Whee! Maneaters had no noticeable craft to it whatsoever-- the execution was embarrassing, plus, boy, the creators sure seemed to mistreated their readers, that ugly business with the tweets. Bitch Planet, my memory’s not great, it’s been a while, but I just remember there being an unusual amount of football or soccer or something in there...? An unexpected quanta of foozball.

Bitter Root, past the premise, it’s just sort of a 90′s Cliffhanger comic (e.g. Dangers Girls or Battle Chasers), though without a Cliffhanger comic’s open horniness. It’s trying to do a shonen thing-- the characters face a bad guy, but don’t get around to defeating the bad guy but oh no there’s a worse bad guy on the horizon. The bulk of the 123 pages is just a single chaotic monster fight that just goes on and on and on and on, and all takes place in a single night. Didn’t feel like they had to move that story forward too fast, I guess! Just wanted to take their time... I don’t know-- I just get bored when I can tell a comic’s not going to get around to attempting to tell a story anytime soon, but I guess I’m out-of-touch that way.

(TV tried to pace things like that for a minute, and then a bunch of them figured out like “if we do that, people will stop watching.” Comics as a whole just dug their heels in on slow pacing and simultaneously jacked up the prices, which ... you have to admire the stubbornness at least!).

I mean, there’s nothing wrong with 90′s Cliffhanger or with shonen. But the reviews for this are so orgiastic-- like the book has one guy who’s like more of a Wolverine/Blade type character (but who really doesn’t do anything that cool past issue #1 or 2!), or as one review put it: “It's a deliberate callback to the debates of civil disobedience versus militarism during the Civil Rights movement... or the more recent debates between discourse and more harsh responses in today's fights against white nationalism. Bitter Root is a fun book, Bitter Root is a smart book, and most importantly Bitter Root is a necessary book for today's world.” *A necessary book for today’s world!* It’s a fight comic about monsters...!

Plus, the trade comes with like 7 essays about how the publication of Bitter Root is the most important thing to happen to all black people since Nino Brown got shot down. It’s not that the comic’s bad exactly (except for one character who they just give thesaurus words to-- comic people love to do that and it always sucks)(Frank Miller did that in a Sin City; I’d hazard to guess 90% of crime comics have had a “guy who owns a dictionary” character at some point-- it’s like the Opposite of Wally Wood’s 22 panels that always work). But it’s mostly not bad. It’s just... Seems pretty inessential. Good drawings-- fun art to look at. Interesting coloring though sometimes some pretty curious choices with the lighting (like what’s going on in this panel with the girl’s face???). A couple cool lines of dialogue here and there, though an awful lot of the dialogue involves some character or another saying “I’ve seen this before! I’ve seen this before and yet do not feel compelled to tell you when or where or what we did about it!” Plus, some storytelling choices I wondered about-- like, I think one issue ends on a cliffhanger of a character getting sucked into hell, but rather than let that have any dramatic weight, they show you that character’s fine on the NEXT page (fatally undercutting that character’s later “resurrection” having any zazzle to it whatsoever...).

None of the characters really make an impression beyond their half-sentence "logline.” It’s an Image comic, so you know: the joke we all make is those are all TV / Movie pitches. So the girl character being “a girl who wants to fight even though society is like don’t fight you’re a girl” and not being anything even one iota more than that... You can kinda look at that and go, “well they didn’t need more than that for a pitch.” I picked out this panel of art (above) because of that line about “the big bad” which is like a 90′s Joss Whedon show term. They’re having their characters in a Harlem period piece use Joss Whedon Writer’s Room lingo!!!! That sort of nerd shorthand spoke immediately to me about what kind of comic this was, who it was meant for, the limits of its ambitions...

And you know, maybe that’s unfair because this feels really influenced by manga and manga has certainly a particular rhythm that while it resembles television, isn’t... doesn’t feel inorganically arrived at(?); it feels true to the creators. But. I guess what’s in my head is: with manga, the characters are the content. With Cliffhanger comics, the art was the content. When Cliffhanger was coming out, there was also Vertigo at its peak-- there, the story/aesthetics were the content. Here, with these Image books, I just always end up sitting here feeling like the concept is the content, which is ... there’s no motivation to keep reading when that’s the case! But I’m not you know... I’m not a very giving or generous reader, either, so. I know that about myself at this point so...

(Tangent: Larry Fishburne was doing a podcast that was set around this same era, but in Chicago that... At least had Larry Fishburne’s voice in it... but no monsters-- I mean, it’s an interesting era if you think about... like that argument Killer Mike makes about black businesses and the black dollar pre-desegregation, an economic environment which Fishburne’s podcast I think touched on more, whereas this comic doesn’t really... doesn’t really dig into Harlem or the period at all, as it’s too busy being exclusively about a 100+ page single fight with some monsters...)

As for the thematic content that gets people so inspired-- ehhh. I don’t know. I mean, think on Milestone for a second. To me what made Milestone so remarkable when it was coming out-- the thing that always struck me-- a lot of those books weren’t awesome to look at or read sometimes; I never dug the colors; but... In my memory of them, at least (perhaps rose-colored?), they actually embraced diversity in a really dedicated way. Milestone I think recognized the diversity that existed within races themselves, so you’d have ... black superheros who were conservative Republicans, while other black superheros were scrappy nerdy kids, while the black characters who were in a street gang had their own worldviews that were diametrically opposed to the other two, or. I mean, they didn’t just focus on the black experience-- they had Xombi in there which I really loved; Hispanic characters; et cetera. Or they’d do a miniseries but it’d be about Holocaust, the bad guy in the evil black gangs.

Part of what Milestone tried to explode was the idea that only some model minority got to be a superhero or was uniquely part of the American experience moreso than any other minority. Whereas this Bitter Root is instead about like ... This one special family where everyone is more awesome than the rest of the community... So, yeah: ehhhh. By comparison that feels significantly less-than.

Or for me, this felt like it was speaking to the sort of modern internet-fave notion that only white people can be racist. That horseshit about “only white people can be racist because of the power differential” or whatever...? I think that whole argument is just pretty dopey, personally. I don’t get down with that talk anyways, though it has its utility and places where it’s appropriate. (I mean, the argument at least suggests that its audience consider power structures and institutionalized racism, I suppose, but).

But I found Bitter Root’s project to be one that was ... celebratory; meant to “give black audiences the fantasy genre experience they’ve been waiting for.” Which I guess is powerful for people-- that reaction to Black Panther suggests that, say. I've just had a hard time understanding that as an end goal. For me, being Indian-American, I was more struck by something like Master of None, when that came out, the experience of ... recognizing its world, of being able to finally feel that the world it was set in and talking about was finally closer to the world I lived in. As opposed to it handing me some power fantasy for lame Indian boys (besides the fantasy of being good at making pasta which... actually that part got to me a lot but)... I don’t remember being young enough to remember if an “Indian-American-specific power fantasy” was a desire I ever had; I remember wanting to be whichever X-Men got to do sex with Kitty Pryde, not an Indian-American X-Men, you know? But even if I did want a more racially-specific power fantasy back then, I’m glad that desire wasn’t one that was indulged! I mean, when has giving kids power fantasies ever worked out okay for them? People who like power fantasies too much seem all fucked up by those things, except for when I watch low-grade Japanese porno, then thumbs up. Like, we’re supposed to believe if we give little minority children power fantasies they’ll all end up in NASA, but my experience tells me they’ll just end up shouting at minority girls for “trying to steal X-Shaft away from them” or whatever the hell...

Anyways, it’s a good looking comic, though, and it’s not un-entertaining. It deserves some level of praise. And if it got more than that, heck, great. What’s the harm, I guess? People were all excited today about a $6 X-Men comic. (Or $6 on Comixology at least). So I mean, what’s the harm if Bitter Root gets talked up, I guess...? It’s fine. I mean, I guess it’s fine. Fine. I don’t know. There was a nice page where two characters talk while a different set of characters talk in caption boxes, while a bird flies around between the two sets of conversations. I liked that page, I guess. I don’t think this one’s just my kind of thing though... I was into some of the drawings, but just... It just went on a bit without really just moving shit forward, I think was just the part that rankled more than anything...

Sorry to ramble on and on. Strange few weeks at work-- been needing to blow off steam I guess...

#Worst Hobby or Worstest Hobby?

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lazyfartbouquet-blog · 6 years

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Read It For The Pictures 24: Dry Country by Rich Tomasso

NK: Welcome to Read It for the Pictures, the comic book Blog where we read it for the pictures! I’m Neil Kapit, and with me as always is the man who taught me how to properly eat a meat pie, Dave Clarke! How you doin’ Dave?

DC: Doing good Neil, enjoying a bright sunny early March day, riding my kangaroo around town, eating a vegemite sandwich, fosters, shrimp on the barbie, etc.

NK: So this week we're taking a break from DC's air quotes "new" hero line and doing something you picked, want to give some background on this?

DC: Yes, this time it was my pic and I wanted to get away from DC superheroes as much as possible so I picked Dry County #1 by Rich Tommaso. Initially just cos it was an image #1 but it seemed to be the perfect pic for what I was going for.

NK: And what you were going for was?

DC: The opposite of a DC superhero book. This is an autobiographical(??) slice of life story that seems to approach storytelling completely differently than Damage (tm) did. At least that was my read on it, how did you find the book?

NK: Let's hope we can discuss this book's merits on its own terms and not damn it with the faint praise of being a better story than the Terrifics, because I thought it was an exceptional piece of cartooning. It made me want to read other Rich Tommaso books like Spy Seal, which was described to me as "Tintin Noir".

DC: That is a very Tintin cover, but his art reminds me most of newspaper cartoons (which this protagonist of this story makes. That’s why I think it may be autobiographical not cos I did research or anything).

NK: The protagonist Lou Rossi lives in late 1980s miami, and while the time period isn't explicitly stated, the art leaves a lot of subtle cues to indicate the period. They include rotary phones, T-shirts for Nine Inch Nails and Social Distortion, and the fact that Lou is paying his bills as a newspaper cartoonist.

DC: A dip into the past where America was doing the bop and print wasn’t dead.

NK: Ahh the 1990s, a golden age when a little more than 1% of the population was contented and innocent, but I digress....

DC: One thing that’s going to limit our discussion is being unable to read this as a broad analogy of global politics. And also our limited experience with women. (Don’t act surprised folks were writing about comics on the internet).

NK: The plot is pretty simple, boy meets girl, boy wants to get with girl, girl is stuck in abusive relationship, boy keeps pursuing girl, and not sure where it goes next issue. The storytelling and page layouts really sell this as a unique work.

DC: Yeah, have you ever read ‘Understanding Comics’ by Scott McCloud?

NK: Well, duh. Everyone who hasn't should seriously read it, if only to understand the kind of image juxtaposition that is used so effectively here in Dry Country.

DC: Hehe, of course, well for our readers who haven’t in that book he outlines the different types of transitions that can exist between panels. Most superhero comics focus on action to action shots, which makes sense if you’re story is about super people punching each other. This book most does scene to scene transitions, which allow the writing to do most of the heavy lifting for conveying meaning

NK: I thought most superhero comics were now about gaudily dressed men having long maudlin talking heads sequences with the occasional two-page spread of violence. Anyway, Worth noting that Tomasso focuses on single objects a lot to reinforce the mood, like the fan in the foreground of the miserably hot apartment. Inanimate objects go a long way towards creating a sense of place and mood.

DC: Yeah, while simplified they are nicely composed panels. In a way the illustration style echos the storytelling style, there’s just enough there to convey the idea without getting bogged down in details. The same way you don’t need every sentence of his conversation with the woman (sorry I forgot her name I will try to be better) you also don’t need to get obsessive about the shadows cast from the bars in the above panel to get the feelings of the scene

NK: (Ironically, a book called Dry Country has a protagonist who's getting drunk most every time he has a moment free). Which gives everything in the book that's there in the panels a sense of deliberation and importance. And also serves to illustrate how effective those choices are, particularly with setting and character design. Within one panel of seeing, say, Lou's loudmouth friend, I got a great sense of who he was without feeling like he was a one-dimensional trope.

DC: Also there’s something to the heavy use of scene to scene transitions that makes it more personal, maybe with the sketch pad background to all the captions makes you feel the hand of the creator more. Kinda like an hourly comic. I wonder if the same technique could be used to, say, make Hal Jordan seem more like a real person or would that just be nakedly artificial.

NK: The yellow legal paper captions do help us get deeper and deeper into Lou's head, but they'd pierce right through Hal's skull because his broke-ass ring can't do shit against yellow. It’d be interesting to compare this with Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis’ Green Lantern: Secret Origin, based on that criteria. But this is a noir story, not a superhero one. A bright, mostly sunny noir story

DC: Is it a noir? Like, the packaging suggests that it’s going to have a crime thriller twist in future issues but this issue is just a slice of life story

NK: The creeping sense of fatalism, the hero's far-less-than-pure motives, and the extralegal confrontation with the abusive asshole boyfriend suggest that it's getting into that genre. Which works in its favor, because it looks no more like a crime story than an average Batman comic, except there are thousands of Batman stories and only a few Rich Tomasso stories.

DC: Yeah, this is more Harvey Pekar than Maltese Falcon, but it’s possible that the juxtaposition could work to make the comic more unique and memorable. (Please forgive my weird references, I need to make a certain number each week or my family will starve).

NK: Those are appropriate references. This is a simple, inviting art style that would fit a Harvey Pekar story, but will be extremely disarming and unsettling if it gets into Dashiell Hammet territory. The virgin Phillip Marlowe and the chad Lou Rossi, now that's an inappropriate reference.

DC: That being said, while there’s a lot of craft on display here it’s not my cup of tea. Can’t relate to people who don’t solve their problems with violence

NK: Don't you think violence will occur in future issues? Lou is sexually frustrated, borderline alcoholic, and has the perfect complete bastard to take out all his aggression on.

DC: Possibly, but it could just as easily happen off-panel and we could be treated to an, admittedly effective, few paragraphs of our protagonist talking about how it made him feel. If you’re interested in making comics this is worth seeking out cos it shows an approach to doing talk-y scenes interestingly that goes deeper than the wally woods 22 panels that always work.

NK: If you're turned off by us giving you some culture this week then you can tune back in on April 4 when we have Curse of the Brimstone by Phillip Tan and Justin Jordan from DC's New Age of Heroes.

DC: Neil thinks he can just announce this stuff in the chat without consulting me, and it works every time!

NK: Consider me Jigsaw and this your torture chamber.

#comic books #image #dry country #comics #graphic novel #read it for the pictures #neil kapit #dave clarke #spy seal #rich tommasso #art #cartooning #illustration #how to draw

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isaacathom · 7 years

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whatever happens, ONE of these rivals has a route where they join the evil team. this, this is canon. one of these fuckers joins the bad guys. alright. we’re square. the fucks with the other guy

like, alright. if you treat the first guy well, they stay on your side as a good friend. you treat them ehhh, s’aight, they’re an acquaintance, aint going out their way to help you. treat em like shit, and they join the evil team with the direct intention of fucking up your shit. goes good. goes great. fantastic.

so, THE OTHER GUY. whats up. same basic set up. treat well, friend. treat aight, acquaintance. treat shit, enemy. alright. now, the idea of them have an essentially opposite progression - where if you treat them WELL, they join the Org - is kinda neat. like, you treating them nicely inspires them, i suppose. puts the fire cracker up their bum and sends them off into the world to do good. whereas if youre an ass? they simply dont participate. like they just dont interact with you past a certain trigger point, just like how after a certain threshold is passed, your rival is going to be in the Team no matter what. many thresholds. and that could work? i dont see why it couldnt.

what would be the effect, though? like, for the Team guy, the effect of these things changes the amount of battles you have in some of the story moments, since pissing them off has them join the team and fight you. would treating the Org guy nicely instead remove a battle? like, ok, the way it works is that the ‘base’ is a neutral route, in which the Org and Team rivals are just chill. admittedly in the neutral route the Org guy participates, but thats down to innate character so whatever. point is. in neutral/neutral combo route, lets say there are 10 fights. if you piss of the Team guy, this rises to 11 fights, assuming the Org guy is neutral/pissed. if the Org guy is your FRIEND, meanwhile, the base 10 goes to 9 (OR LESS???) are they talk some grunts down from fighting you. these would be at different sections of the ascent, of course. the Team additional fight comes in Rhia/Elliot’s route climax, whereas the Org lesser fights would come in its lead up, as you enter the tower. ooh, actually, that could be it. You work your way through the city in chaos to reach the tower, and once you do, friend!Org will appear at the door to let you in, negating a confrontation at the door. you still have to fight as you work up, but the immediate fight at the door is removed by Org. thats kinda neat, i think?

plus then there are other benefits/bad times for each permutation, independent of each other. friend!team accompanies you up the tower, presumably healing your pokemon. bearing in mind that in the tower, you are ALSO accompanied by Elliot. so maybe your pokemon are kept healed no matter what?? lets say thats the case. Elliot keeps your pokemon healed. so what does friend!team do? perhaps there are a few double battles on the way up, which otherwise you’d do alone (meaning Elliot is doing something else, like maybe fighting off someone else who appeared, etc). or, at least specifically in that Room Where Shit Occurs, theres almost definitely a double battle, possibly multiple! which youd have to do alone without team (because this time elliot is definitely preoccupied, as the grunts were given VERY SPECIFIC instructions to fuck with him), but if team is there, then bam! you’ve got a buddy! nice.

neutral!team doesnt appear at all in the tower sequence. they COULD be out in the city, but it would be minor at best and not really mentioned, or they’d be at home, safe and sound. and, of course, enemy!team is in the tower sequence and offers a mini boss battle during the Room of Horrors, where they fight you solo after your double battles. itd actually be a kinda grueling gauntlet. sounds kick ass. im into it.

friend!org, of course, is at the door to the tower, lets you in, negating boss battles. they do NOT accompany you up the tower, however. because their ‘arc’ is focused more on them impacting others, rather than impacting you, if this makes sense. uh....... ooh, or maybe they actually help you throughout the city. if the ‘10′ fights include fights on the streets, those are the ones removed, rather than the fights in the tower itself. they basically escort you to door and says ‘good luck, stay safe, im gonna stay out here and help people!’ and off they go! cya, friend. and if you actually backtrack, the fights they stopped will stay stopped - it wasnt one time. they totally disabled those fights. i THINK that works? though the people on the streets should be Team members...... though Org likely has no idea theyre the same org, only that shits gonna batty. maybe what they did was they’d actually been fighting those trainers after hell broke out at the tower?? yea, that’d be it! like, you leave the pokemon center and work your way towards the tower, and you’d encounter friend!Org fighting a team grunt, then coming over to you and explaining that they’re holding everyone off and that the route to the tower is clear, even though they don’t really want you to go there. but they send you on your way with wishes of luck and some curatives, and then they rush off into the city to fight more Team Grunts and help more people. godspeed, ya bastard.

neutral!org.... doess.... hmm. theyre still in the city, i think, because its in their nature to help others (unless youre a cunt, but we’re getting to that). but they havent fought off the trainers. instead, they’re at the pokemon center, maybe guarding the door or just inside with some younger people keeping them in check, smth like that. you chat, they wish you luck, but no items. off you go, buddy.

enemy!org is just not there. they just are not present. not at all. the idea HERE being that their default nature is to help others, and that by you treating them like dirt, they get this idea that people are ungrateful and dont deserve help. as such, enemy!org is off sulking at home. probably posting platitudes on twitter and doing jack shit. good on you.

i THINK those two arcs generally work. with both, they have a ‘default’ nature, them without having met you. for org, is that they like to help people. by being nice to them, you encourage this worldview and they take it to a higher level, joining the Organisation and directly helping you in the tower sequence by making a clear path to said tower. by being mean, you give them the idea that people are ungrateful and undeserving, and they go off and sulk and are just generally kinda bitter. for team, its that they think you’re ok. by being nice, they think youre Really Cool and want to help you succeed! they wanna see you achieve your dreams! by being mean, they think youre a Righy Cunt and want to destroy your dreams.

team does seem pretty shallow there.... there is more to both, of course, its just their routes revolve around these specific aspect. for instance, org is almost definitely a naive character, perhaps an out of towner. team, contrarily, is a little more worldly and their view of the world is more stabilised - its their view of INDIVIDUALS that can be altered. so orgs view of society is altered by your actions (they see you as a sort of rep for it all), while teams view of individuals is changed. thats the difference. i like that.

now, which one is which. is your Rival org, or team? if the other player team, or org??? hmmm.... well, a naive rival who grows more worldly has sorta already been done, with Wally specifically. so on that front, having Rival be the team one is more interesting to me. on the other hand, having a more neutral character whose sole big changes are player based makes more sense for the other player, and them going the Team is frankly really interesting as a sort of fulfilment of player dreams. mmm.... on the other hand, the other player being org keeps them as a more neutral force on the story, akin to a character like Ethan/Lyra, which leaves room for the Rival (silver/hugh) to breathe. minimises the other player as a character while not completely removing them and keeping them as part of your starter set squad. i kinda like that? that feels like a better way to deal with the other player character. i guess actually what’d really compare to is Brendan/May and Wally, except that in this case you meet brendan/may and wally at the same time rather than slightly staggered. but brendan/may still falls off the map in terms of actual rivalry towards the end to be replaced by Wally. in this case, no matter what, Rival is still your rival, its just the CONTEXT for them fighting you is different. in friend!rival they fight you to improve you. in enemy!rival, they fight you to fuck you up. nice! fucking nice.

i think i prefer that. Rival joins the team, ‘Alex’ joins the org. i dig it. also they wont be called Alex, since now they can be two ‘separate characters’ who are largely interchangeable but with minor changes. whereas if they were like a gym leader or elite they’d need to be REALLY interchangeable to make shit easier. im into it.

#story blogging #codename seren #long post #ok i figured it out we good

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bigskydreaming · 4 years

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For the fic ask meme, 4, 16, 24, or 28

I will answer 16 now, because No Reason, Just Whimsy, but stay tuned as I’ll probably end up answering 4, 24 and 28 at some point anyway, because like. No Reason, Just Whimsy. *Shrugs*

16. If you only could write one pairing for the rest of your life, which pairing would it be?

I can’t tell you, see, because I would simply make that one pairing endgame and everything else leading up to it like, contain all the other ships I could not bear to be without. (Hahahaha this is why I could never be a romance author, I can not abide by the rules of HEA or HFN in relationship stories to save my LIFE). So, y’know, SPOILERS.

No but also I’m completely aware that this is cheating and not the point of the question. But I can not choose though, that is the point, like, have you met me? I am the original poster child for ADHD. I’m THAT old.

So instead I will simply say that in the realm of Teen Wolf, Scanny is very very very important to me, which like, surprises no one. But also I would still fight someone who tried to take either Scira or Scallison from me, I remain obnoxiously fond of Scackson’s potential, and I’m still out here being like, the sole Scosh (Scott/Josh Diaz) shipper in all the land, I’m pretty sure, lmfao.

And I mean, also there’s Scyle, of course. I could never give up the Scyle.

As far as Marvel goes, like, I am going to be riding the high of Bobby/Christian being canon for quite some time, as anyone who has known me long knows that I have been shipping this ship since Christian was first introduced and then written offstage like two issues later….seventeen years ago.

(I have a lot of issues with straight writers making gay characters’ gay-specific tragedies and traumas like….someone ELSE’S angsty back story, while they themselves are just shuffled off the page and considered irrelevant. For those who don’t know, Christian is Emma Frost’s gay older brother who she adored and when their father had Christian institutionalized against his will because he was gay, this was what made Emma break away from the rest of her family for good and set her on the road to becoming the White Queen of the Hellfire Club.

And then, despite like, this being life-defining for her, not a single writer in the next fifteen damn years ever thought to ask themselves…..hmmm, why would Emma Frost, one of the most powerful telepaths in the world and someone whose personal morality in no way makes her above using those powers, her wealth or Hellfire resources however she damn well pleases in the name of protecting herself, those she cares about, and advancing her agendas…..why would this woman who has never let anything stand in the way of what she cares about before like….simply just…never once in all the years since she was a teenager think to herself….hmm, what if I simply go to the institution where my beloved brother is kept against his will, and just…..made them release him?)

So, aside from always thinking Bobby/Christian would be a great ship with amazing potential given Bobby’s unique history and dynamic with Christian’s sister and the fact that Christian shares a lot of the same traits, backstory and other elements that make Emma an amazing and multi-faceted character and he’s just been sitting there in Limbo for fifteen years with all this untapped potential just waiting to be mined….

I’m always going to be gleeful about this ship and with a special fondness for Sina Grace for bringing Christian back from comic book Limbo and laying the foundation for this ship, like, just because like……I feel its long overdue and the only way to ACTUALLY make anything decent out of the bullshit that was mining his oppression for the sake of another character’s angst: by finally giving HIM the chance to be a character who is affected by all that, developed and moved forward from all of that, is the FOCUS of all that…..and even more importantly, now after being left offscreen for fifteen years by writers who considered his narrative nothing more than tragic filler….he finally has a chance to be an example of a gay character who gets to come BACK from all of that and move FORWARD from it, and like…find healing and happiness with another character, like Bobby.

So Bobby/Christian is actually hugely important to me for a variety of reasons, especially right now since this is all just happening recently, and I will love them forever and in defiance of the inevitable bullshit some future writer pulls that will piss me the hell off. Y’know, just going off of Vegas odds or whatever.

Aside from Bobby/Christian I’ve also always had a weakness for Bobby/Johnny Storm because they are the most iconic ice and fire characters out there and I am basically twelve. I also have blogged at length in the past about all the reasons I’m a huge fan of Bobby/Bishop and not just because their ship name would make them a literal bop. Again, I refer you to the thing where I’m basically twelve. But yeah, there’s a whole history there where when Bishop first came back into the past and met the X-Men who’d all been legends in his time, he kinda fanboyed a little over Bobby because of Bobby’s future legend, and then was kinda like….oh, that’s it? about him once he got to know Bobby and Bishop became like, the physical embodiment of underwhelmed.

And ever since then Bobby’s always low key been like, a hyper-active puppy around Bishop, like, trying not to SEEM like he cares an awful lot about whether or not he’s managed to impress Bishop but because he can’t be subtle to save his life, mostly just coming across as “am I living up to the hype now? how about now? am I legendary NOW? What about now?” and I dunno. Its just kinda cute and a fairly unique dynamic, and Bishop has this deliberately bland, blink and you miss it sense of humor with the right writers and that I’ve always thought has a ton of potential for him to be privately amused by this tendency of Bobby’s, enough that he’s unwilling to confess to him that Bobby actually earned his respect years ago by this point, and he just doesn’t want to let Bobby know because then he’d stop.

And then in terms of DC, I’ve posted a lot a lot a loooooooooot about my love for Dick/Kory in canon, and how they - and by extension we - were robbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbed, and if DC doesn’t give me my canon Mar’i and Jake Grayson one of these days, I don’t care if they have to import them from another universe and then have this universe’s Dick and Kory awkwardly try to co-parent them while living their own lives separately before finally coming back together and falling in love all over again and then becoming a single united family unit forever and ever in the most ridiculously complicated comic book version of the Parent Trap ever, like…..

I can’t even think of an over-exaggerated threat creative enough to convey just how badly I want and need this, DC, give it to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee plzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

And then also, I’ve actually posted a lot a lot a loooooooooooot (though not in a few years, probably, so those posts are all super old, lol) about how I think Kyle and Donna are a criminally under-rated canon couple and were actually really really good together because they went through so much together and Kyle literally grew so much as a character specifically on the things Donna called him out for the first time they dated, like, literally so he could be BETTER, and then with how anticlimactically they ended...because the thing is, they never actually even broke up! It was this thing where like, when Donna went to LA with Kyle for his high school reunion and to literally MEET HIS MOM, like HELLO, that is not a basic relationship step, that is Advanced Dating, like…..that is where they were at in their relationship when Donna literally got the call then and there that her ex-husband and her son had just died in a car accident.

And Donna was devastated of course, and Kyle was devastated too - for her, and also in his own way, because he’d adored Robert and like, there were these issues where they were super cute and took him to the zoo together and Kyle was bonding with him and just like, melting over this kid, and Robert and Terry were killed by a drunk driver, and like, there was a later story where Kyle just went apeshit on this drunk driver he encountered because he had all these repressed feelings about Robert’s death and how it had hurt Donna and he’d made sure not to show any of that to her or even let on that he hurt for Robert’s loss in his own way, because he didn’t want to make it about him, he KNEW better…

And anyway, the point is…they never actually broke up in the sense of either of them at any point being all, oh we no longer love each other or think this can work, we need to end it. Instead, Donna said that she needed to take some time away from Kyle and everyone else and just…come to terms with what she’d lost and figure out who she even was now in the wake of that….and Kyle totally understood, didn’t argue or try and change her mind, he just said take as much time as you need, I’ll be here when you’re ready, and oh btw, here’s this lantern construct of a locket that I want you to keep because as long as it exists you’ll know that a part of me is still thinking about you and wanting you to be happy, wherever that is.

And then like…..less than a year later, DC did their super weird Dark Angel story where Donna was erased from reality and then had to be ‘recreated’ from Wally’s memories, and for awhile just existed in the form and identity she’d been recreated from, which was based entirely on what Wally knew of her and thought and felt about her, and so there were huge gaps in her identity where she was missing stuff she should have known but didn’t now because WALLY didn’t know about it.

Such as how when Donna met Kyle’s subsequent sorta-girlfriend Jade some time later - I say sorta because she and Kyle were still figuring things out at that stage, and Jenny-Lynn in part didn’t know if she wanted to actually get into a relationship with him because she thought he was still in love with Donna - well anyway, when Donna and Jenny-Lynn met in a later issue and she said all this to Donna, Donna reassured her not to worry about it, she was reading more into it than actually existed because she and Kyle had never been that serious anyway.

Which. SCREECH! Brakes please. HOLD UP.

Like, I’m sorry JAY FAERBER YES I REMEMBER IT WAS YOU WHO WROTE THAT ISSUE UGGGGGH, but like, in what UNIVERSE is “dated, broke up, then got back together later because she thought Kyle had matured a ton since they first tried dating and now they were so much stronger as a couple that she oh I dunno, introduced him to her son and they went on playdates together, went with him to meet his mom, had a never-vanishing lantern locket construct that signified just how much he would always love her” uh…..’never been that serious anyway’? I’m. What? Does not compute.

BUT WHATEVER.

LOL. Anyway, point is, so things like that actually make sense when you factor in the role Wally’s memories and perspective played in who Donna literally WAS for awhile (and the understandable existential crises she went through as a result). But like, at the point in time when Kyle and Donna were most serious, Kyle was still fairly removed from a lot of the rest of the DC universe, he wasn’t a core member of the JLA yet and usually operated independently, and he and Wally were NOT close at all yet, let alone friends….in fact, for as long as Donna and Kyle dated, Wally pretty much still actively hated and resented Kyle for just existing, since he’d always been close with Hal since he was a kid and Hal was his Uncle Barry’s BFF-and-homosexual-life-partner-in-all-but-name.

Like, it was only after Kyle became one of the core JLA alongside Wally that the two of them finally worked out their mutual antagonism and became friends, but before that, Wally was NOT shy about expressing he hated this new GL guy and wanted nothing to do with him, even though it was for unfair reasons, sooooo……like, its not really that shocking that even though Wally and Donna are two of each other’s oldest friends and super tight, like, he was never going to be the friend she called up to let him know how great things were going with her and Kyle these days, lol, y’know?

So it makes sense that when Donna was first magically reconstituted thanks to Wally’s memories/view of her (btw, this was because Wally was out of phase with reality and was in the Speed Force at the precise moment that Donna was erased from reality by the Dark Angel’s magic, and that’s why he alone remembered her and was the template for undoing what the Dark Angel had done). But anyway, it makes sense that she would for a time have had very little memory or even knowledge of her and Kyle’s prior relationship, and basically just know/remember what little Wally actually knew of it. So from her perspective then, it could very well have seemed that they were never that serious, and everyone but Kyle like….kinda just nodded and figured okay, you would know after all, and just…..everyone ended up walking away with the idea that they were just this brief fling and neither had ever had strong feelings for each other, let alone love.

The problem I’ve always had is that eventually Donna DID regain her full memories and her own sense of self, and like….she was Donna again, through and through, existing as she always had without being limited to just Wally’s view or memory of her.

Soooo, at THAT point, she should have been perfectly aware of what her and Kyle’s relationship had ACTUALLY looked like, in its entirety, and I mean, I can understand them not getting back together at that point. It’d been years, they both were in very different places, Kyle had eventually gotten together with Jade after it was expressed by Donna herself that there was no reason not to, given that its not like they were ever that serious….so by the time Donna herself would have realized otherwise, I can totally understand her feeling that the moment had passed for them, that Kyle had moved on (just as Kyle had only ‘moved on’ once he felt there was no longer a chance of them returning to what they were). Like, all of that is super weird and complicated even by ridiculous comic book soap opera standards, so I mean….lol, how do you even BEGIN that conversation, y’know?

Buuuuuut, it just kinda sucks that at no point after that Faerber issue has any later writer ever had either Donna or Kyle discuss their previous relationship(s) in terms of what it ACTUALLY was, for BOTH of them, rather than just this trivial, ancient history fling that neither had ever been super invested in….even though for several years in the nineties they were one of THE major hero couples in comic books.

So. Yeah. As evidenced, I have a lot of unresolved Donna and Kyle feelings lol.

And then of course, there are and always will be my epic “OMG DICK AND KYLE COULD BE THE GREATEST SHIP AND END ALL THE SHIPS LIKE COULD YOU EVEN IMAGINE” feelings, but like. That’s a thirty pound tome in and of itself, so. Like. Just picture the two of them standing staring soulfully into each other’s eyes and then me, creepily fixated on them twenty feet away, chin propped up on my hands and going awwwwwwww while my own eyes like, sparkle anime style but also are the heart-eyes motherfucker meme at the same time.

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