Thoughts on Lily Hollister?
Oh man, I've been thinking about her a lot recently. She's from a period of ASM that I do not always like or understand but she fascinates me as a character.
I remember my first impression of her and Carlie being a cynical "Okay, MJ and Gwen 2.0". I still think she was introduced as part of a "back to basics" push to assemble a neo-CBG, but I have no hard feelings there. Parallel civilian drama is always a plus in a Spidey comic and they are quite cute.
But—as a big HarryMJ fan—this isn't really a rehash. (And not just because Harry is now also meant to be a ditzy glamorous party guy.) MJ was just a teenager dicking around while Lily's non-party goals are political and focused. Note that this "love triangle" kicks off when she realizes Peter is an insider at a paper that opposes her dad. I wasn't reading the letters, but—surely someone guessed Menace's identity the moment "he" turned out to be backing Hollister, right?
She's definitely pulling Harry's strings on the politics side, but isn't emotionally avoidant and spends a lot of private time with him. (If we believe her later, worry about his well-being triggered her origin story.) It seems fair to say she appreciates familial devotion.
ASM #586 is my favorite flavor of Spidey Reveal. The villain is someone we knew and almost trusted, and when we look back the seeds of motivation are there, paralleling our protagonist for dramatic tension! Your dad whose reputation you're curating loves your roommate more than you, you say? He always wanted a son, you say?
There's a deliciously Lady Macbeth flavor to this whole speech.
That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold.
What hath quenched them hath given me fire.
My hands are of your color, but I shame
To wear a heart so white.
Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty!
"Okay, you won't be jealous?" she asks seemingly genuinely, in a voice so deep and a body so muscular that everyone has he/him-ed it up until now. The ongoing goblin theme of violence = power = masculinity is blinking neon here. Obvious jokes about Harry's taste in women aside: what kind of philosophy does a woman have to have to be attracted to what the Osborns represent, thinking she's special enough to not be chewed up and spit out?
And she does say she still loves him! You could read that as a manipulative lie, but to me it's more interesting if she does like Harry in her condescending way.
After all, she seems to love her dad similarly, going behind his back to "support" him in ways he'd never want.
It's too bad that this super-intense characterization of Lily is mostly only retrospective. ASM #588 and the jig is up.
Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear
And chastise with the valor of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round,
Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
To have thee crowned withal.
It's very possible that the gender element is writers being weird about a black woman as a love interest. (I have a whole thesis on how Black side characters are compared/contrasted to the Osborns somewhere.) But I believe that just a little weirdness can add flavor. It seems significant that Menace, as Lily's fantasy of power denied to her, reads as a nonblack male, as though she hopes that becoming an Osborn will grant her whiteness, too...
Unfortunately, I don't think anything has lived up to that reveal. It kind of feels like nothing has even tried.
[sighs extremely deeply] American Son. Throwing out her whole villain speech to have her bear a super-soldier goblin son for Norman to use as the next Real Osborn.
Macbeth once says to Lady Macbeth:
Bring forth men-children only,
For thy undaunted mettle should compose
Nothing but males.
But that's right after Lady Macbeth says she'd murder her own baby with her bare hands if it was personally politically advantageous. Why is Lily "if you want something done right, steal your man's role and do it yourself" Hollister now an obedient heir-producing accessory? And that to a guy she beat the crap out of in ASM #571 for being a waste of rich white dude advantages?
We have gone all the way to the other side of Weird. Where did her jealousy and personal ambition and all the weight behind it go? Where's her guilt for ruining her relationship with her father for good? Why is she calling Norman "babe"?
Origin Of The Species (ASM #642-6) makes some attempt to reconnect to the original character threads with the whole friend group banding together to deal with the fallout of Lily's decisions.
But she still feels mostly like a plot device, and her guilt is more wet blanket than "out, damned spot" levels of satisfying. (She jumped to murder to bolster the name of someone who would never have wanted that! Are we ever going to come back to that part!)
Protecting her child from Norman should redefine her allegiances, but she just... got dragged back to bit-part appearances as an accessory to whichever goblin is the biggest deal at the moment. And got memory wiped for a while and became a black cat ripoff.
I feel like this wouldn't have fallen so flat if Bill Hollister hadn't vanished right after her reveal. Did he ever know about his grandson? A severely underrated element of the classic CBG is how many of their parents/mentors knew each other independently of the kids. The larger web of political + financial + circumstantial connections meant that interpersonal family shockwaves stuck around after the first arc, doubled back, mirrored each other in interesting ways. These should've! This should've.
God this post got long. TLDR crazy first arc that nothing else has even remotely lived up to in my mind yet; it would have to follow up on her bonkers family relationships and deeply jealous personal philosophy (or whatever's left of it).
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Playing around with Hero Forge updates, and realizing I never made this bad bitch with it. Dherys the Iconoclast (pronounced "ther-EES" I guess, figured out that Glanfathans don't use y in their names too late 😔), Glanfathan elf, faithful and beloved of Galawain (until she learns some things), member of the Three-Tusk Stelgaer, cipher/fighter, mind hunter, and animancer who was exiled for desecrating ruins one too many times (and also for murder), after she helped to advance animancy the Dyrwood. First (in recorded history, at least) to theorize that Eora has (had) a soul and that gravity is a separate force from the Wheel, which has alternately gotten Leaden Key and Hand Occult assassins sent after her (they never succeeded) and gotten her laughed at by her academic colleagues (to her immense ire). Kit's erstwhile mentor and mother figure, quasi-cult leader, and huge asshole!
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The gif from that Mercury witch show has tempted me. What service is it on? 👀 Want to try and sell it any more on your blog cause I'd love to hear it. Ngl, 'toxic milfs' is very promising 😂😂
only saying its on Crunchyroll to cover my ass, but since the whole thing of them acquiring Funimation and other competitors, price gouging, now just purging titles from their services right after said price gouging, I will suggest that most places you can find anime online for a *wink* discount *wink* you can easily find Witch From Mercury on there.
real reason I'm answering is to make sure that the first episode is you watch is "episode zero" - it was an episode released a few months before the "official" premiere of the show but it fully is the actual First Episode of the show - if you miss it things will get REAL confusing.
it continues the fine tradition of Gundam series ultimately being about how WAR IS BAD and ECONOMICS SUPPORTING WAR IS BAD and does so in a way that I think resonates with people now more easily than 70s Gundam with its modern sensibilities. While it is Lesbian Gundam, which is what drew me to it first, it is also more than that. Season two is clear that production/episode order messed with the storytelling plans and comes off more rushed but when it hits it HITS.
and let me tell you, that MILF sure IS toxic
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