#once I figure out how to draw dc characters (again... it's been so long) then it's OVER for you bitches
Note
Since you mentioned that Williamson would probably launch a Superman ongoing. How do you imagine his run would look like?
Well I called it, not that it was a hard thing to predict:
Looks pretty much exactly what I expected. All the classic elements get plenty of focus, Lois is back at the Daily Planet, Clark will be going up against a bunch of classic villains - Parasite is the villain of the first arc, seems Livewire, Bizarro, and Silver Banshee won't be far behind - classic supporting cast members like Jimmy Olsen will be getting used, and there may be either some new faces or revamps of old ones. That cop with the pony tail in the upper right might be a new take on Inspector (Commissioner?) Henderson. Williamson is at his best when he's focused on one character and just doing fun superhero adventures instead of trying to write big events or copy Morrison. Robin and Flash delivered that for me and were enjoyable, he should bring a similar level of quality here. If nothing else the use of classic Superman Rogues who haven't gotten attention in a while like Livewire, Silver Banshee, and Bizarro get points with me, I don't expect him to write the definitive Parasite arc, but if he can at least provide entertaining Superman stories featuring classic Superman Rogues I'll be happy.
Kaminski (head editor for the Superbooks) hinted on Twitter that Zod was going to play an important role in the Superbooks next year. Given Williamson already used him once for Batman/Superman - his use there of Zod was good - I wouldn't be surprised if he uses him again here. Perhaps Zod is the figure in shadow if it isn't teasing a new Superman Rogue. I've long wanted Zod to fill the Ra's role in Superman's Rogues Gallery and Williamson did position him as that, if he is writing Zod I hope he continues to develop that characterization for him.
Obviously Campbell's art is gorgeous, but does anyone really think he's going to last long on a monthly ongoing? Naomi and Far Sector really struggled to come out on time, if Campbell can do just one arc I'll be happy. Dragotta is a good artist too, but I don't know if he's fast enough to do a monthly these days. I'll enjoy their time on Superman regardless, can't wait to see them draw the villains!
Now for the rest...
Anonymous asked:
New Superbook lineup?
First DC panel thus far to actually talk about the big plans for 2023. Honestly I'm pleased overall with the news that was shared.
Action is becoming a Superfamily book with PKJ continuing to write the main feature, which will still be standard issue length. Lineup is Clark, Kara, Conner, Kenan, Jon, Natasha, and the two Phaelosians from Warworld that Superman adopted: Osul and Othul. Ever since Detective Comics became a Batfamily book during Rebirth I've been wanting to see someone try and do the same for the Superfamily. Metallo is going to be the main villain for the first arc starting in Action 1051, and seeing Metallo be a threat strong enough to challenge the entire Superfamily has me hyped. Loved how PKJ has written the book up till now, hopefully this switch doesn't cause him to struggle. If he does a good job he'll be delivering sorely needed development to Superman's Rogues and his Family, two areas I've long been begging to see more attention given.
It's a small detail but I love that Kenan still has his white and black yin-yang s-shield underneath his jacket. Everyone looks good to me, although perhaps Nat should just change the color of her armor rather than wear a hoodie. And PKJ finally gets an artist who is both good and fast! Sandoval hasn't had trouble meeting a monthly schedule so Action should finally have an artist who can draw consecutive issues. Just need DC not to poach another artist from PKJ for their events, first Sampere then Federeci, go find another book to swipe artists from!
Two backups are being added, Jurgens writing kid Jon stories set in the past and Leah Williams writing Power Girl. Jurgens Lois and Clark was my favorite thing he's done since the Triangle Era, but this sounds boring. Doombreaker (aka Doomsday with four arms instead of two) is not a villain who is attracting my interest, PKJ already brought back Conduit Jurgens, you've said repeatedly you were going to tell a Conduit story after Action 1000 if you got to stay. Go tell that story instead of something conceptually dull as Doomsday 2.0. No opinion on Williams, her Trial of Magneto was terrible but her Mary Jane series was entertaining, I think PG will be a good fit for her, and there's always Johns' JSA if not.
Superman: Son of Kal-El is ending with issue 18 and DC is launching a new Adventures of Superman: Jon Kent 6-issue miniseries where Jon will fight Ultraman and meet Val-Zod. Taylor was claiming he was writing post-Kal-El Returns SSOKE issues a while back on Twitter, so I assume that DC is taking what he had planned for future issues and just doing it as a mini in hopes of increasing sales. My hunch is that this mini will mark the end of Taylor's time with Jon, and he'll either depart the Superman sphere entirely or go do a Val-Zod mini, since all he really cares about is using Jon's book to spotlight his OCs. I want it to flop so he'll be done for good, he's done jack shit to establish Jon outside of his bisexuality, countless other more pressing developments need to be done for Jon to really stand on his own as a hero, but of course Taylor would rather bring in his successor to Superman and try to push Val one last time over actually developing Jon as a character.
Saw that yet again you have people theorizing this is going to end with a version of kid Jon returning or Jon being deaged and at this point I don't even care if that happens. Taylor completely squandered the opportunity Jon represented, long as Val-Zod fucks off back home to Earth 2 and Taylor doesn't try to keep him on the main Earth then fine, whatever, you lot can have your kid Jon back. Completely wasted the potential he offered, might as well reset him back to default. I don't think that's happening, Othul and Osul are filling the kid role for Clark and Lois, plus there might be that Legacy League book coming yet. If it does I don't even care anymore. There's one ray of hope for me even now: Waid, Yang, Watters and PKJ might be writing him soon.
Coming up after Dark Crisis, we have the Lazarus Planet event. Waid has a good track record with weekly events - 52, the No Surrender trilogy - and the supporting writing lineup looks great: Yang, PKJ, Watters, and more. No Multiverse bullshit and any of those guys writing Jon will be an improvement over Taylor. Given this is where Jon is getting his electric blue powers, which will still be a thing over in Action and AoS, this event is going to be important for his direction as a character. Obviously this is me projecting, but I want to believe that one of the writers here is going to end up taking over control of Jon after Taylor's finishes his mini, ideally Yang or Watters. Hey Yang if you can bring Kenan into this event, do it. Taylor keeps trying to make his Superman stick, might as well assert yourself and use your Superman too where you can.
Good lineup generally. That's not counting other projects we know are coming such as Porter's Superboy mini, Waid's Superman: Testament book with Hitch, or Venditti's Superman '78 Season 2. Taylor hinted on Twitter that there are more announcements coming too after Action 1050, and PKJ hinted that something might be coming with Lana. Praying that a Steel miniseries with Lana in there as secondary protagonist/love interest is coming, written by Greg Pak, is in the works. Steel isn't in Action or advertised as being anywhere else, but he had a badass Action 1050 variant and it would be weird for him to just disappear. Irons is being positioned as a key player for PKJ Action, for him not to be with the Superfamily post 1050 must mean he's getting a book of his own. That's how I'm coping anyway.
Anonymous asked:
Thoughts on the NYCC announcements? Personally I'm afraid the Authority will go into the background if Action is becoming the Superfamily book, but I still trust PKJ to introduce interesting concepts.
Yeah I'm resigning myself to the Authority crew getting dropped. PKJ was asking on Twitter if people thought there was any interest in an Authority book not by him, and saying he'd want to get an LGBT+ writer for them. Later said that DC was trying to find a place for those characters, so maybe we'll get a new Superman & the Authority book down the road. I wish they'd induct Apollo into the Superfamily, getting him away from Midnighter who always overshadows him (heh remind you of another duo?) would be good for him. Let him play off of other flying bricks and show how he's similar and how he's different. Let him bond with Jon over being a queer hero and the difficulties that come with that, of trying to establish a place for yourself in the shadow of one of the greatest heroes of all time. I want Apollo so badly to be inducted into the Superfamily but I don't think it's happening. Can always dream though!
#superman#nycc2022#joshua williamson#phillip kennedy johnson#tom taylor#jamal campbell#nick dragotta#rafa sandoval#clayton henry#dan jurgens#leah williams#conner kent#kara zor el#jon kent#kenan kong#val zod#power girl#action comics#john henry irons#natasha irons#steel#nycc
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once again i am answering asks in a big compilation post. included is... gotham, patrick stump, tips about drawing backgrounds, tips about drawing in general, links to my faq, and infinity train
like.... the tv series? No... I’ve drawn dc comics fanart before, though. But it’s been years since I’ve been really into it. I like jumped ship like 10 years ago when the New 52 happened LOL.
AFJHDSLKGH I’m sorry I (probably) won’t do it again??
Actually full disclosure I have a truly cringe amount of p stump drawings/photo studies in my sketchbook right now LOL. He’s just fun to draw... hats, glasses, guitar, a good shape... but I don’t think I’ll rly post those until I can hide them in another big sketchbook pdf.. probably Jan 2022. Stay tuned........ (ominous)
(ominous preview)
These are all sort of related to backgrounds/painting so I grouped them together even though they’re pretty much entirely separate questions.... ANYWAYS
a) How is it working as a BG artist? Is it hard? What show are you drawing for?
I think you’re the first person to ever ask me about my job! Being a background artist is great. It’s definitely labor intensive but I think that could describe pretty much any art job (If something were rote or easy to automate, you wouldn’t hire an artist to do it) and I hesitate to say whether its harder or easier than any other role in the animation pipeline. Plus, so much of what truly makes a job difficult varies from one production to the next, schedule, working environment, co-workers etc. But I will say that I think while BGs are generally a lot of work on the upfront, I think they’re subject to less scrutiny/revisions than something like character/props/effects design and you don’t have to pitch them to a room like boards. So I guess it’s good if you don’t like to talk to people? LOL
A lot of my previous projects + the show I’ve worked on the longest aren’t public yet so I can’t talk about em (but I assure you if/when the news does break I won’t shut up about it). But I’m currently working on Archer Season 12 LOL. I’m like 90% sure I’m allowed to say that.
b) ~~~THANK YOU!! ~~~
c) What exactly do you like to draw most [in a background]?
@kaitomiury Lots of stuff! I really like to draw clutter! Because it’s a great opportunity for environmental storytelling and also you can be kind of messy with it because the sheer mass will supersede any details LOL.
I like to draw clouds... I like to draw grass but not trees lol,,, I like to draw anything that sells perspective really easily like tiled floors and ceilings, shelves, lamp posts on a street etc.
d) Do you have any tips on how to paint (observational)?
god there’s so much to say. painting is really a whole ass discipline like someone can paint their whole life and still discover new things about it. I guess if you’re really just starting out my best advice is that habit is more important than product. especially with traditional plein air painting, I find that the procedure of going outside and setting up your paints is almost harder than the actual painting. There’s a lot of artists who say “I want to do plein air sometime!!” and then never actually get around to doing it. A lot of people just end up working from google streetview or photos on their computer.
But going outside to paint is a really good challenge because it forces you to make and commit to lighting and composition decisions really quickly. And to work through your mistakes instead of against them via undo button.
My last tip is to check out James Gurney’s youtube channel because hes probably the best and most consistent resource on observational painting out there rn. There’s lots other artists doing the same thing (off the top of my head I know a lot of the Warrior Painters group has people regularly posting plein air stuff and lightbox expo had a Jesse Schmidt lecture abt it last year) but Gurney’s probably the most prolific poster and one of the best at explaining the more technical stuff - his books are great too.
e) Do you have tips for drawing cleanly on heavypaint?
@marigoldfool UMM LOL I LIKE ONLY USE THE FILL TOOL so maybe use the fill tool? Fill and rectangle are good for edge control as opposed to the rest of the heavy paint tools which can get sort of muddles. And also I use a stylus so maybe if you’re using your finger, find a stylus that works with your device instead. That’s all I’ve got, frankly I don’t think my drawings are particularly clean lol.
f) Tips on improving backgrounds/scenes making them more dynamic practicing etc?
Ive given some tips about backgrounds/scenes before so I’m not gonna re-tread those but here’s another thing that might be helpful...
I think a good way to approach backgrounds is to think of the specific story or even mood you want to convey with the background first. Thinking “I just need to put something behind this character” is going to lead you to drawing like... a green screen tourist photo backdrop. But if you think “I need this bg to make the characters feel small” or “I need this bg to make the world feel colorful” then it gives you requirements and cues to work off of.
If I know a character needs to feel overwhelmed and small, then I know I need to create environment elements that will cage them in and corner them. If a character needs to feel triumphant/on top of the world then I know I need to let the environment open up around them. etc. If I know my focal point/ where I want to draw attention, I can build the background around that.
Also, backgrounds like figure compositions will have focal points of their own and you can draw attention to it/ the relationship the characters have with the bg element via scale or directionality or color, any number of cues. I think of it almost as a second/third character in a scene.
Not every composition is gonna have something so obvious like this but it helps me to think about these because then the characters feel connected and integrated with the environment.
Some more general art questions
a) Do you have any process/tips to start drawing character/bodies/heads?
I tried to kind of draw something to answer this but honestly this is difficult for me to answer because I don’t think I’m that great at drawing characters LOL. Ok, I think I have two tips.
1) flip your canvas often. A lot about what makes human bodies look correct and believable is symmetry and balance. Even if someone has asymmetrical features, the body will often pull and push in a way to counterbalance it. we often have inherent biases to one side or another like dominant hands dominant eyes etc. you know how right-handed artists will often favor drawing characters facing 45 degrees facing (the artist’s) left? that’s part of it. so viewing your drawing flipped even just to evaluate it helps compensate for that bias and makes you more aware of balance.
2) draw the whole figure often. I feel like a lot of beginner artists (myself included for a long time) defer to just drawing headshots or busts because it’s easier, you dont have to think about posing limbs etc. But drawing a full body allows you to better gauge proportion, perspective, body language, everything that makes a character look believable and grounded.
Like if you (me) have that issue where you draw the head too big and then have to resize it to fit the proportions of the rest of the body, it’s probably because you (I) drew the head first and are treating the body as an afterthought/attachment. Sketching out the whole figure first or even just quick drawing guides for it will help you think of it more holistically. I learned this figure drawing in charcoal at art school LOL.
oh. third mini tip - try to draw people from life often! its the best study. if you can get into a figure drawing/nude drawing class EVEN BETTER and if you have a local college/art space/museum that hosts those for free TREASURE IT AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT, that’s a huge boon that a lot of artists (me again) wish they had. though if youre not so lucky and youre sitting in a park trying to creeper draw people and they keep moving.. don’t let that stop you! that’s good practice because it’s forcing you to work fast to get the important stuff down LOL. its a challenge!
b) I’ve been pretty out of energy and have had no inspiration to draw but I have the desire to. Any advice?
Dude, take a walk or something.... Or a nap? Low energy is going to effect everything else so you gotta hit that problem at its source.
If you’re looking for inspiration though, I’d recommend stuff like watching a movie, reading a book, playing video games etc. Fill up your idea bank with content and then give yourself time/space to gestate it into new concepts. Sometimes looking at other art works but sometimes it can work against you because it’s too close.
Also something that helps me is remembering that art doesn’t always have to be groundbreaking... like it’s okay to make something shitty and stupid that you don’t post online and only show to your friend. That’s all part of the process imo. If you want to hit a home run you gotta warm up first, right? Sports.
I should probably compile everytime i give tips on stuff like this but that’s getting dangerously close to being a social media artist who makes stupid boiled down art tutorials for clout which is the last thing i want to be... the thing I want to stress is that art is a whole visual language and there are widely agreed upon rules and customs but they exist in large part to be broken. Like there's an infinite number of ways to reach an infinite number of solutions and that’s actually what makes it really cool and personal for both the artist and the viewer. So when you make work you like or you find someone else’s work you like, take a step back and ask yourself what about it speaks for you, what about it works for you, what makes it effective, how to recreate that effect and how to break that effect completely, etc. And have a good time with it or else what’s the point.
for the first 2, I direct you to my FAQ
For the last one, I don’t actually believe I’ve ever addressed artwork as insp for stories/rp but I’ll say here and now yeah go ahead! As long as you’re not making profit or taking credit for my work then I’m normally ok with it. Especially anything thats private and purely recreational, that’s generally 100% green light go. I only ask that if you post it anywhere public that you please credit me.
(and I reserve the right to ask you to take it down if I see it and don’t approve of it’s use but I think that case is pretty rare.)
a) @lemuelzero101 Thank you!!! I haven’t played Life is Strange but actually that series’ vis dev artist Edouard Caplain is one of my bigger art inspirations lately so that’s a really high compliment lol. And yeah I hope we get 5-8 too...!
b) Thank you for sticking around! I’ve been thinking about Digimon and Infinity Train in tandem lately, actually. They’re a little similar? Enter a dangerous alternate world and have wacky adventures with monsters/inanimate objects that have weird powers... there’s like weird engineers and mechanisms behind the scenes... also frontier literally starts with them getting on a train. Anyways if anyone else followed me for digimon... maybe you’d like Infinity Train? LOL
c) @king-wens-king I’M GLAD MY ART JUST HAS PINOY VIBES LOL I hope you are having a good day too :^)
a, b, c, d) yessss my Watch Infinity Train agenda is working....
e) aw thank you!! i think you should watch infinity train :)
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No Matter Where You Go, I Will Find You. Part 4
Hello All! Sorry for the delay! My Hubby and I have had a busy month of July and I wasn’t able to keep to my schedule like I wanted too. Sorry about that. From Baseball games to Comic-Cons to Disney trips, we’ve been stupid busy. I am working furiously on the other chapters and hope to at least have some words on Cody soon! Y’all, not going to lie, the fact that there has been ZERO mention of him on The Bad Batch is killing me.
As Always:
This will eventually be a 18+ older fic and deals with anxiety, death, sex, PTSD, murder, loss, found family, Order 66, and coming to terms. This is not just a fluff fic. It will very much be dealing with very dark and hard themes, so please, if that is something that can be too hard for you, don’t read.
Pairings: Rex x Reader x Cody (polyamory) I should say this is NOT a Rex x Cody fic. There will be ZERO Clonecest on this blog or story. Reader is a consensual relationship with Rex and with Cody. Yes they share, yes they will eventually have sex together, but Cody and Rex are NOT in a relationship nor will they be intimate.
Rating: 18+
TW: Death, Murder, infanticide, death of the Jedi, PTSD, Loss, Anxiety, eating disorders, sleep disorders, Order 66. I will add other things as I think about them
Part 4: It’s You.
You waited with your back to the door on Hondo's ship; another one was docked right outside, carrying the crew that had something either of you wanted. You took a deep breath, adjusting your blaster in your thigh holster and checking over your clothes before putting on your helmet. The base of it was a black Ubese helmet, edged with black dyed bantha hair and painted to resemble a Kaleesh skull in white. The edges of the white skull were rimmed in a dark red and the faux eyes were painted an electric green, almost making them glow.The breather of the helmet was pointed down, tapering at the end and etched with designs reminiscent of a certain Kel Dor. Twin points also came down from the sides, once again resembling a Kel Dor breather, but painted to look like the fangs of the Kaleesh skull. When you wore it, you were an incredibly fearsome sight to behold.
Hondo had stepped out of the cockpit while brushing off his clothes, but when he saw you he went on and on in a poetic manner making you snort behind your mask, "Pretty Lady must you put on that horrid thing? How am I supposed to gaze upon your beautiful Visage? How am I to write songs of your shiny eyes if you insist on covering them? How am I to chant loudly into the heavens about the glory of your smile when all I see is that ugly thing staring back at me?"
The sound that came out of the modulator was a loud crack of static. It wasn't lost on him though, and he waggled his brow at you, knowing he made you laugh.
"Hondo, one of these days I'm going to launch you out of an airlock. Then you'll be Wild Space's problem."
He laughed loudly, but before he could give a retort, the door-lock opened and the crew from the other ship began to board.
Immediately the hair on your neck stood up and your hackles raised. It was time to go into heartless bounty hunter mode, another mask that became easier and easier for you to put on.
Hondo noticed your posture change and went to greet whoever had come aboard, stepping in front of your turned back. Whether it was to hide his best and most terrifying asset or to put space between you and them for your sake, you never knew. You liked to think it was his way of still protecting you, even after all these years. It probably was.
"My friends! My friends! So good to see you again! Ezra Bridger! It has been too long!"
You heard the cacophony of voices greeting him in a less than enthusiastic excitement. If these people were your friends, you would have laughed again. But you didn't have friends.
From the sound of it, there were four people behind you. Nothing difficult to take down, but not something you should be careless with. There was something off about one of them though, you couldn’t put your finger on it, but they were...familiar.
"Allow me for introductions! This tall, imposing creature behind me is my associate, bodyguard, smuggler, chief pilot, chief mechanic, artistic muse, platonic soulmate, oldest friend, and beautifully deadly bounty hunter, all rolled into one. And this band of colorful characters are the crew of the infamous Ghost!" Hondo waved his hands in a grandiose manner between the group and your back; this was a well rehearsed situation that you both had done several times, though for whatever reason, he decided to over exaggerate your titles. Normally he would do the talking and you would scare the clientele. And if you had too, if they had something that you knew belonged to them, you'd kill them. Nothing would keep you from the last remnants of the ones you loved and lost.
"Ahh, Hondo? Does your associate have a name? Or talk? Are they even awake? Are they just going to stand there?" You heard a boy's voice, a cockiness only found in the young lacing every word.
"Ezra." A woman, probably someone important, chastised the boy.
You waited for Hondo's signal for you to turn, but the door opened once more and you heard one more set of boots and something soft, furry, stepping across the steel. A voice spoke. A Lassat. Dangerous creatures, you had seen a few when you were still a young Padawan with your old Master. Before the war. Before they died. Back when your biggest concern was the eventual Trials. You knew a fight wasn't going to be easy and you hated the idea of killing an already dying race. But you would if you had too.
The Lassat male was arguing with someone about something, but you weren't paying attention.
Hondo touched your shoulder softly, your signal to turn. He had spent the time making pleasantries and lulling them into a false sense of comfort, probably. He could have been talking about the weather on Jakku for all you cared. You were more concerned about making sure the straps on your holsters were open, giving you easy access to draw.
Slowly you moved, letting them see just how dangerous you were, how in control of your body you were, how much they should fear the creature behind the helmet. But, you halted mid spin.
All of the blood drained from your face, your mouth went dry, your throat tightened up, and you were overcome with such anger and gut wrenching sorrow you thought you would snap.
The man that walked in with the Lessat was wearing HIS armor. The armor you had spent 15 years looking for.
You blanked.
Somewhere there was yelling and cries to stop, but you couldn't make it out. Your head was spinning and it felt like there was cotton in your ears and as tunnel vision took over, everything knocked your senses for a loop. You didn’t realize you were doing it, but you grabbed both your blasters, turned fully, and pointed them at the man. Half the crew jumped out of the way, the others pointed their weapons at you, and Hondo tried to reason with both sides, standing with his back to you while the man had his own blasters trained on your head. Hondo quickly got out of the way of the four barrels, still trying to diffuse the situation. You couldn't understand what he was saying, everything sounded so dull and muted.
No, wait. Those weren't just any blasters. You would know those DC-17s anywhere.
"HOW DARE YOU!"
Someone was screaming. You couldn’t tell who it was or where it was coming from. It was garbled and cracking, a mechanical sound. It hurt your head. You just wanted everything to stop, just for a moment. But the world kept spinning and you felt like you were going to pass out any moment. You just wanted everything to be quiet, you needed to think, you just wanted a moment to figure out what was going on. Why was it so loud? Why did everything hurt? You just wanted everyone to just be still. Just be still, if only for a second.
You could feel your breathing pick up, that tightening fear in your chest, that ache that gripped your heart and threatened to pull it from your body. ‘Just be quiet, please, please, be quiet. I can’t...I need to think, I need to think..’
"HOW DARE YOU WEAR HIS HELM!” More screaming, “DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHO HE WAS?! DO YOU?! HOW DARE YOU WEAR HIS ARMOR AS YOUR OWN! HOW DARE YOU STAND THERE AND KNOW NOTHING OF HIM!"
Maker, the screaming was coming from you. You were yelling at him, venomous spit falling from your mouth, words meant to shame and kill. Your blasters were trained on his chest, fingers laying on the triggers.
"TAKE IT OFF OR I WILL RIP IT FROM YOUR BROKEN CORPSE!"
You could feel something wet on your cheeks but you didn't know what it was or where it came from. Did this man kill Rex?! Did he rip his beloved armor from his broken body? Did he leave him to rot in some cursed field? Or did he just take it from his already forgotten skeleton? Your heart beat a mile a minute, you were sweating and your whole body shook in anger, but your hands never wavered, blasters trained perfectly on the man.
How dare this cretin dishonor Rex, dishonor his memory.
"YOU WILL NEVER INSULT HIS MEMORY AGAIN! TAKE IT OFF!!"
You were panting and your modulator was straining under the volume of your voice.
No one lowered their weapons. No one spoke. No one moved a muscle. All that could be heard were your wheezing sobs through the helm.
There was a beat. And then another. And then the man did something unexpected.
You just knew you were going to have to kill everyone. You just knew you were going to peel bloodied, beloved armor from some backwater nothing.
But when he slowly lowered his arms, holstering the DC-17s, you faltered. Was he giving up so easily? Perhaps he didn't want bloodshed after all. Good. But it didn't make you lower yours. Nor did it make the others lower theirs.
Slowly, like he was trying to coax a scared lothcat, the man raised his open hands to the old helm covered in hatch marks with jaig eyes and pulled it off.
First you saw weathered skin tanned from the sun, a white beard trimmed nicely, then a strong nose and finally golden eyes, eyes you had seen a million times before. Eyes that haunted you every time you went to sleep. Eyes you thought you would never see again.
When he had taken the helm completely off and tucked it under his arm, he spoke.
And everything inside of you shattered.
"My name is Rex. Captain of 501st regiment in the Grand Army of the Republic. This is my armor that was issued to me almost 20 years ago. I don't know who you think I am, but I can assure you, this is my armor."
The others watched you, weapons trained. No one moved, no one spoke, no one breathed. You, on the other hand, felt everything rushing back at you full force. When he spoke, his voice was a punch to your gut, knocking the wind out of you, causing you to hyperventilate. Your blasters, still trained on him, began to shake violently in your hands.
You were panting and your eyes blurred from all of the new tears. Panic rose high in your throat, cutting off your breathing. It can’t be. How could it be? He died. The Empire recorded him dying after Mandalore. You were there, you saw the absolute destruction. No one survived that.
Involuntarily you dropped your weapons and they clattered loudly to the durasteel ground, but your arms were still stretched out, still holding onto phantom guns.
You inhaled sharply, your modulator cracking in a loud hiss.
Slowly, trying to control the tremors that wracked your body, you moved your hands to your own helm and unlatched the buckles on the sides. There was another hiss as the airtight seals released the pressure and vented.
"What's going on..." the young boy started.
"Hush, Ezra Bridger." Hondo cut him off, silencing him with a hand on his shoulder as you and Rex stared one another down.
You lifted your helm up and then let it fall to the floor, a loud clank shaking the silence between you all.
Rex sucked in a breath and released it in a harsh shudder, his mouth hanging open. "Mesh'la," he whispered; he could feel his knees giving out, causing him to stumble forward and push his way through his crew.
His eyes were as wide as saucers and glistening. Fat, heavy tears tracked down his face and fell into his beard as he reached shaking hands out to you. He paused for a moment, afraid that if he touched you, you would disappear like every dream before. But carefully his hands gripped your face, gently turning it side to side, taking in the scars and faint crows feet and wisps of grey hairs you now sported. Your age and harsh life showed, but you were still just as beautiful, just as ageless, just as perfect as he remembered. Still the same eyes that he dreamed of every night.
You couldn’t breathe. It felt like all the air had been sucked out of your lungs and every nerve ending burned. You could hear your blood pumping in your ears, creating a painful rush like being thrown under the oceans. Every part of you felt like it was on fire. You couldn’t think, you couldn’t move. Slowly your shaking hands gripped his wrists and held him close. Your body tried to take a shuddering breath, but it only came out as a choked sob while you squeezed your eyes shut.
As the noise left you, Rex pulled you close, his mouth over taking yours in a passionate kiss, full of tongue and teeth. Your hands left his wrists and wrapped around his neck, pulling him closer as he continued to hold your face.
"Rex. I thought....I thought you were...Rex," you whispered into his lips between kisses.
"I searched for you, Cyare. I looked everywhere. I thought you died. I thought Cody.."
Your breath hitched at his name, making Rex pull you impossibly closer. You both stood there, wrapped in eachothers arms, crying, kissing, whispering love to one another, completely oblivious to the others.
You weren't sure if your knees failed you, or if it were his, but one of you fell to the floor, taking the other with them, still wrapped in each other, crying and holding on for dear life.
The Twi'lek woman quietly ushered the others, a man and a Mandalorian girl, along with the boy and Lessat, out. Hondo followed behind, a smug smile on his face, ridiculously proud of himself, giving you both much needed privacy.
#Rex x Reader#Rex#Cody#Cody x Reader#Rex x Reader x Cody#Hondo x Reader Platonic#Hondo x Platonic!Reader#Rebels fic#clone wars fic#Poly#Jedi!Reader#No Matter Where You Go I Will Find You#Star Wars#Reader is an Ex-Jedi#Reader is now a Bounty Hunter#Big reveal#finally meeting Rex
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#13: Doctor Strange [Marvel]
By the Eternal Vishanti, I welcome you back!
Today we're making the Sorcerer Supreme of the Marvel Universe-616, Doctor Strange. This spell-slinging master of the mystic arts has been my favourite superhero for quite some time now, and I'm always excited whenever we get something related to him. Now, just a quick note – this build is going to be based on the comic book version of Strange, not the MCU one. We're having real spells and incantations, not some thinly-veiled Clarke's Third Law. #LetMagicBeMagic.
Next Time: The Gods call for us again. The Dragon King blesses us with his presence.
Now then, let's examine what we need to become the mightiest mystic of the Multiverse:
Arcane Artillery: Doctor Strange holds enough mystic knowledge to give Mind Flayers an indigestion. What he doesn't know, he can look up in his Sanctum Sanctorum's library. We need to be prepared to have a spell for almost any situation.
Mystic Fists of Fury: Before opening his Third Eye fully, Strange spent some time in Kamar-Taj under the tutelage of the Ancient One, practising his combat skills in case he was ever in a situation where magic would fail him.
The Old Favourites: Whatever incarnation of the character we encounter, Doctor Strange is almost always certain to have the following items on him: the Eye of Agamotto, the Cloak of Levitation, and occasionally the Book of the Vishanti. After the Last Days of Magic event, Strange found a likeness for weapons like shortswords, staffs, and axes.
---
Stephen Strange was an ordinary human, but due to the years of exposure to otherworldly mystic forces, his biology changed to not accept regular human food anymore. This sounds like a good excuse to make him Variant Human. We get a +1 to two abilities of our choice (Intelligence and Constitution), we know how to speak Common and one other language of our choice, we get to pick one skill to be proficient in (Investigation), and we get to pick a feat. The Medic feat gives us a +1 to Wisdom, proficiency with the Medicine skill, and the ability to tend to our party members' wounds on short rests (Medicine check [DC 15], if successful - the player can use the maximum value of their Hit Dice to regain Hit Points).
Although he started as a simple physician, the turning point of Strange's life was his training in Kamar-Taj. He gained skills and knowledge, vast enough to call himself a Sage. From this background, we gain proficiency in Arcana and History, we learn two more languages, and we gain the Researcher feature; when we're to recall a piece of lore, and we don't know it, we usually can figure out where to find the information (be it a library, a temple, or somebody's private collection).
ABILITY SCORES
Intelligence is our primary stat, serving as our casting ability and our pride. Next is Constitution, all casters need to keep it high. We follow that up with Wisdom, lessons of the Ancient One granted us both humility and broadened our horizons.
Dexterity is a little low, but we'll take care of that later. Charisma is next, even after his training was complete Stephen can be a bit of a jerk and refusing to hear anyone but himself. Finally, we'll dump Strength.
CLASS
Assigning a D&D class to Doctor Strange was a very (and I mean very) difficult task. Starting off, I had to disregard his Sorcerer Supreme title, because in D&D sorcerers are born with the ability to wield magic. Strange had to study and practice to get his powers, so that makes him a Wizard. Kamar-Taj is also dedicated to studying the teachings of the Vishanti, a trinity of god-like beings who give the Sorcerer Supreme their powers, so that would make Strange a Cleric. Finally, he also draws powers from deals he made with otherworldly entities (such as Cyttorak, the Faltine, Munnopor, Watoomb, sometimes even Dormammu himself), which screams 'Warlock', except there's no way to incorporate multiple patrons without homebrewing. It wasn't easy, but I am satisfied with what I've created. Hopefully, you'll be, too.
Level 1 - Monk: We start just as Strange started, by honing our body first. Monks get the d8 Hit Dice, [8 + Constitution modifier] initial Hit Points, proficiencies with simple weapons and shortswords, and proficiency in one set of artisan's tools or a musical instrument (I'd go with alchemist's supplies). Our saving throws are Strength and Dexterity, and we get to pick two class skills (Insight and Religion).
Monks start with Unarmoured Defence. When we're not wearing armour, or holding a shield, our AC equals [10 + our Dexterity modifier + our Wisdom modifier]. We also get Martial Arts, which gives our unarmed strikes some more power. We can now use Dexterity instead of Strength for our unarmed strikes attack and damage rolls, we replace our Strength modifier with a d4 for damage of our unarmed strikes, and if we use the unarmed strike (or a monk weapon) on our turn as an Attack, we can use a bonus action to make an extra unarmed strike.
Level 2 - Monk: We get more mobile with Unarmoured Movement. Our ground speed increases by 10 feet if we're not wearing armour or holding a shield.
We also get access to the Monk's signature feature, the Ki energy. We start with 2 Ki Points, which we can spend on the following abilities:
Flurry of Blows: Spending 1 Ki Point after making an attack, lets us make two unarmed strikes as a bonus action;
Patient Defence: Spending 1 Ki Point lets us take a Dodge action as a bonus action on our turn;
Step of the Wind: Spending 1 Ki Point doubles our jump distance for the turn, and we can take the Dash or Disengage actions as a bonus action.
Level 3 - Wizard: We finally begin our study of spells and arcane arts.
Unfortunately, multiclassing into Wizard does not give us any additional benefits. We do, however, get Arcane Recovery. Once per day, during a short rest, we can choose a number of expended spell slots and refill them. The number must be equal to half of our Wizard level (rounded up), and the recovered spell slots cannot be 6th-level or higher.
Wizards also start with Spellcasting at their 1st level, and they know both cantrips and ritual spells. Our spellcasting ability is Intelligence, but unlike many other casting classes we do not get a full access to our spell list. Instead, we start with six spells in our spellbook and get two more each time we level up. Then, we can only prepare and use [Our Intelligence modifier + our Wizard level] spells at once. Describing all of those spells we pick would make this post over a mile long, and I've made that mistake with Sypha. To not make this a chore for you guys, I decided that from now on whenever I make a Wizard (or, a build where Wizard is a majority), I will simply list the spells we pick without descriptions. Let's be honest, if not here, you'll certainly find those in a different build. Alright, let's begin! First, we get to pick three cantrips:
Fire Bolt
Mage Hand
Minor Illusion
When it comes to our starting spells, let's take these six. Remember, we can only prepare a certain number, and we start with only two 1st-level spell slots.
Alarm
Detect Magic
Fog Cloud (to represent the Mists of Munnopor from the comics)
Shield (of the Seraphim)
Magic Missile (as a stand-in for the Daggers of Daveroth)
Sleep
Level 4 - Wizard: We get to pick our subclass, our Arcane Tradition. For Strange, who can be any combination of Wizard, Cleric, and Warlock, the best choice is to pick Theurgy from 2017 Unearthed Arcana. Theurgists are religious magic-users, who focus more on the arcane research rather than prayer and worship.
With Divine Inspiration, we get to select a Cleric Domain and a deity we wish to follow. Ask your DM if it's possible for you to worship three gods as a collective, a magical triumvirate. For your own Vishanti I suggest Mystra, Mother of All Magic, Azuth, the Lord of Spells, and Savras, the All-Seeing. For a Wizard, I'd say there's no better choice than Knowledge Domain.
We also get Arcane Initiate, which lets us replace spells we learn as we level up with the cleric spells of our chosen domain. What's cool about that feature is, other wizards cannot copy those spells from our spellbook. If we get all of our chosen domain's spells, we can keep replacing spells we learn with spells from the Cleric spell list.
Finally, we gain the Cleric's unique skill - Channel Divinity - except in our case it becomes Channel Arcana. We start with two effects: Divine Arcana and the effect granted by the chosen domain. Unlike Clerics, we can use the Channel Arcana once per short or long rest.
Divine Arcana lets us use a bonus action to control the flow of magic in the area. The next spell we cast gets a +2 to its attack roll or saving throw DC.
Knowledge of the Ages grants us quick insight into a skill we're not familiar with. For the next 10 minutes, we're proficient with one tool set of our choice or proficient in one skill we choose.
We gain one more 1st-level spell slot, and for this level's two spells let's get Feather Fall, and Command from the domain list.
Level 5 - Wizard: At this level we unlock 2nd-level spell slots, and we can access 2nd-level spells. Let's get Hold Person (for Strange's famous Crimson Bands of Cyttorak) and Icingdeath's Frost from 2021 Unearthed Arcana: Draconic Options (for the Icy Tendrils of Ikthalon).
Level 6 - Wizard: Time for our first Ability Score Improvement! As is the rule of thumb with all Wizards, boosting our Intelligence is a priority. That's what we shall put the 2 points into.
For this level's spells, we get another cantrip (Light), and let's take Locate Object and Mirror Image (to represent the Images of Ikonn).
Level 7 - Wizard: We unlock 3rd-level spell slots. Let's get Dispel Magic, and we can get Fly to finally get a representation for our Cloak of Levitation.
Level 8 - Wizard: We get our first subclass upgrade. Arcane Acolyte grants us the 1st-level benefits of our chosen domain. For Knowledge domain, it's Blessings of Knowledge; we learn two languages of our choice and get proficiency in two skills... which we pretty much are proficient in already. To not waste a feature, ask your DM if you can double your proficiency bonus for those two skills instead. If you get a 'yes', pick Arcana and Insight.
For this level's spells, let's get Counterspell and Magic Circle.
Level 9 - Wizard: From here, we get access to 4th-level spell slots. Banishment and Dimension Door seems like exactly what we need to keep enemies at bay and have fun with portals.
Level 10 - Wizard: Halfway through the build, and we get an ASI. Let's cap our Intelligence at 20, with those two points.
For this level's spells, let's grab Arcane Eye and turn back a little and get Speak with Dead from our domain list, as it is one of few spells not available to Wizards.
Level 11 - Wizard: We get access to 5th-level spells. With Contact Other Plane and Legend Lore, we become an even bigger magical know-it-all to aid our party.
Level 12 - Wizard: For our subclass upgrade, we get Arcane Priest, which grants us the Knowledge Domain's 6th-level benefit - Channel Divinity: Read Thoughts. One creature within 60 feet of us must make a Wisdom saving throw, or grant us access to its surface thoughts (emotions and active thoughts, no deep secrets or hidden motives) for 1 minute. During that time, we can also use our action to cast the Suggestion spell on the target; they fail their saving throw automatically.
We also get our final cantrip for this build (Sword Burst), and we get two more 5th-level spells: Planar Binding and Wall of Force.
Level 13 - Wizard: We unlock 6th-level spells. With Globe of Invulnerability and True Seeing, we upgrade our Shield of the Seraphim and give our Eye of Agamotto even more mystic abilities (as it should have had!)
Level 14 - Wizard: Time for another ASI! Let's put one point into Constitution for better HP chance, and one into Dexterity.
Arcane Gate finally gives us a proper yellow sparkly portal thingy, and let's get Chain Lightning for some much needed offensive capabilities.
Level 15 - Wizard: We're getting into 7th-level spells at this level. Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion allows us to recreate our very own Sanctum Sanctorum, and with Project Image we can get Strange's Astral Projection.
Level 16 - Wizard: At this level, we get our final subclass upgrade (and we cross the 100 HP mark, yay!). Arcane High Priest grants us the Knowledge Domain's 17th-level benefits. Visions of the Past lets us spend at least 1 minute of meditation to receive information about a specific object we're holding, or our immediate surroundings:
Object Reading - we learn of the object's previous owner. We know how the person came into contact with the object, how they lost it, and a significant even in their life tied to the object.
Area Reading - we see the events that transpired in the specific location (up to 50-foot cube), going back a number of days equal to our Wisdom modifier.
For this level's spells, let's get Plane Shift and Teleport to double-down on Strange's interdimensional travels.
Level 17 - Wizard: Time for 8th-level spells.
Illusory Dragon is a nice nod to the great "Doctor Strange and the Sorcerers Supreme" series (go check it out, it's awesome!), and Maze is another good banishment-type spell to have. Just don't use it on minotaurs.
Level 18 - Wizard: For our final ASI, let's put two points into Dexterity, leaving us unfortunately with an odd number (hopefully, you'll manage to find some ability-increasing item or benefit in your adventure).
For this level's spells, let's grab Power Word: Stun and Demiplane is a good combo to immobilize a foe and send it to the Shadow Realm Mirror Dimension.
Level 19 - Wizard: We unlock the pinnacle of D&D arcane, the 9th-level spells... that is, unless your DM introduces High Magic, which is... whew, a league of its own.
Time Stop and Foresight give us those Time Stone abilities (for all you MCU degenerates. Yes, I know what I said, but Strange was given the Time Stone in his new run, so I did not lie!)
Level 20 - Wizard: Our capstone is Wizard 18, which gives us the Spell Mastery feature. We get to choose one 1st-level spell and one 2nd-level spell from our spellbook and make them our signature moves; we can now cast them at will, without expending a spell slot. Shield and Hold Person seems like a good choice here.
For our final spells of this build, we cannot go without Astral Projection, and let's get Imprisonment a chance.
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And there we go! Doctor Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts. Let's see what we've created:
First of all, we're the epitome of Wizard, we're a great utility caster and a pretty good support, with Internet-like capability of finding information. We're don't have a lot of damage-dealing abilities, like Sypha did, but remember - Wizards also get spell by finding them in the world and copying them in their spellbook. This here is only what we get automatically. Go and roam the world in search for that Fireball!
We have AC of 14, but with Shield (and later making it pretty much permanent) it can get up to 19, and we have 130 Hit Points on average. Our speed is also a little better, with 40 feet of movement (plus flying thanks to the Fly spell).
Unfortunately, our Charisma and Wisdom are not great, so those saving throws might be difficult. Our Strength is also not the greatest, so we're pretty much forced to fight with magic.
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And that is it! Next time, we return to SMITE for a few builds, as I absorbs information about Fire Emblem: Three Heroes. Also, the game devs just released a teaser for Morgana le Fay, and my first reaction was 'Hexblade Warlock'. Do you agree?
Anyway, hope you enjoyed it and your day is going great. I'll see you next time!
- Nerdy out!
#dnd#d&d 5e#dungeons and dragons#character building#marvel#mcu#doctor strange#stephen strange#sorcerer supreme#wizard#theurgy
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Fate and Phantasms #146: Medusa (Lancer)
Today on Fate and Phantasms, we’re making the mini-dusa, Medusa Lancer. In this build, Medusa is an Eldritch Knight Fighter, and only that. Sadly Flesh to Stone is a little to high-level to get, but we’ll make it work.
Check out her build breakdown below the cut, or her character sheet over here!
Next up: The closest thing we’re getting to a Tiamat build.
Race and Background
Having been kicked out of godhood by Athena, Medusa is the ultimate Hermit, giving her Religion proficiency. We’ll also switch things up and give her Acrobatics proficiency for sick anime flips while fighting.
Like her sisters, she’s also a Yuan-Ti, giving her +1 Intelligence and +2 Strength, thanks to Tasha’s. She also gets Darkvision, Innate Spellcasting for the Poison Spray cantrip and unlimited uses of Animal Friendship on snakes. At third level you can also cast Suggestion once per long rest. All these spells use charisma to cast. You have Magic Resistance and Poison Immunity as well, the former giving you advantage on saves against magic, and the latter making you completely immune to poison damage and the poisoned condition.
It’s a shame you aren’t Small, but no race is perfect.
Ability Scores
Even if you’re wearing armor it doesn’t cover much, so make sure your Dexterity is pretty high. After that is Strength, which actually becomes your highest stat after racial bonuses if you’re using the standard array, because you’re swinging around a giant scythe and you aren’t a monk. Third is Intelligence, you know more than you let on and that’s the stat your eyes are attached to. Your Constitution isn’t amazing, but it’ll be plenty. Your Wisdom is kind of low, but we’re dumping Charisma. You just are not a people person, and you’re easily bribed with sweets.
Levels
1. First level fighters get a Fighting Style, and Thrown Weapon Fighting makes your scythe and chains a little more deadly, adding 2 to its damage rolls. Drawing the weapon can also be done in the same action you attack with it. You also get a Second Wind, letting you heal yourself as a bonus action. Your goddess core might protect you, but it’s important to pace yourself too.
You also get proficiency in Strength and Constitution saves, as well as two fighter skills. You’ve been on your own for a bit, so Survival is a good pick, and your character arc starts with you not being a fan of humanity, so I bet your Intimidation rolls will get a workout.
2. Second level fighters get an Action Surge, letting you slap an extra action onto your turn once per short rest. Copying an anime is always hard to do in D&D, but this’ll make it a bit easier at least.
3. As an Eldritch Knight, you get a Weapon Bond, letting you summon a weapon to your hand as a bonus action. You also can’t be disarmed while you’re conscious, but you’ll be throwing that thing around so much it probably won’t do much.
The big draw of the E. Knight, however, is the Spells you can cast with your Intelligence. Most of the spells you get will be abjuration or evocation, but that doesn’t stop you from getting Booming Blade and Mold Earth as cantrips. The former makes your scythe a bit scarier, and the latter is one of the few things proving your legitimacy as an earth goddess. You also get Mage Armor, because let’s be honest that outfit doesn’t count, Snare for some quick and dirty immobilization, and Longstrider to make yourself a little more mobile.
4. Speaking of mobility, use your first Ability Score Improvement to grab the Mobile feat, making you 10′ faster per round and making it so you can ignore attacks of opportunity from creatures you’ve tried to hit this turn.
You also learn the spell Protection from Evil and Good, making it harder for the gods to continue to ruin your life. Gods: not even once.
5. Your Extra Attack lets you attack twice per action, or four times with your action surge. Chains aren’t that deadly a weapon, it’s more about the quantity over quality.
6. Use this ASI to bump up your Intelligence for stronger spells. Trust me, you’ll want them.
7. Seventh level eldritch knights learn War Magic. If you use your action to cast a cantrip, you can then use your bonus action to hit somebody. How nice of them. You also learn the first of the two “none of the spells from 2nd level really work for you so we’re taking things that could reasonably be construed as Not Magic” spells, Enhance Ability, which lets you try a bit harder to gain advantage on one kind of ability score check. If you pick one of the physical scores, you also get a little bonus for your troubles.
8. Use this ASI to bump up your Strength for stronger scything. You also learn the one good 2nd level spell, Hold Person, forcing a wisdom saving throw (DC 8+proficiency + int modifier) on a humanoid, or they become paralyzed for the duration of the spell, up to a minute. They get to remake the save each round, but we’ll get a way to deal with that in a bit.
9. Before that though, you’re going to be Indomitable, letting you re-roll a failed save once per long rest! Your wisdom save’s looking a little weak, but we’ll patch it up in a bit.
10. Tenth level eldritch knights get an Eldritch Strike, giving creatures you hit disadvantage on saves against your spells for the next round. That means hitting people makes your hold person work better, and hold person makes your hitting people work better. It’s symbiosis.
Your war magic is so powerful it almost makes True Strike not useless, and you also get the second NOTSF2LRWFYSWTTTCRBCANM spell, Arcane Lock. It’s a lock, just pretend you’re carrying a lock around for some reason.
11. I hope the Extra Attacks aren’t getting too repetitive yet, because you’re getting another one this level! Now you can attack three times an action, or six times a turn with action surge.
You also learn the spell Thought Shield, because I was so tired of second level’s nonsense I turned to the UA to pad this out. For eight hours, one creature you touch can’t have their mind read, and it has advantage on saves that would determine if it’s lying. If people could figure you out, you wouldn’t be a god.
12. Twelfth level fighters get another ASI, and this one is making us Resilient, giving you +1 Wisdom and proficiency with wisdom saves. Actually getting magic cast on you is for plebians.
13. Your second use of Indomitable per long rest isn’t that flashy, but what is flashy is getting to use third level spells, like Intellect Fortress! For up to an hour, the creature you target has resistance to psychic damage, and gets advantage on Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saves. You already have advantage on most of those saves thanks to magic resistance, but now you can pass that onto a chosen champion as well. You could also use that third level slot for hold person, to hold two people at once.
14. Let’s make your magic even stronger with another ASI going right into Intelligence. That should make your eyes almost inescapable! You also learn the spell Haste, doubling your movement speed, adding 2 to your AC, and giving you most of an extra action each turn for the duration of the spell. You have to take a bit of a nap the turn after it ends, but the fight should be over by then.
15. Fifteenth level eldritch knights get an Arcane Charge when you use your Action Surge, letting you anime teleport behind someone immediately before or after your second action, to make sure the enemy knows it’s “nothing personnel, kid”.
16. Use this ASI to round up your Dexterity and Wisdom for better saves and a higher AC. You also learn Counterspell, because your scythe is literally sharp enough to cut magic. I’m sure Medea isn’t jealous at all.
17. Seventeenth level fighters get an extra use of Action Surge and Indomitable. Not much else to say about this level. You’re just you, but better.
18. Your last eldritch knight goody continues the trend of “you, but better” with Improved War Magic, letting you attack as a bonus action after casting any sort of spell. Hit some people, action surge, cast hold person on them while they’re weak, then hit them again for more fun.
19. Use your last ASI for more Constitution for better concentration and more HP. You also learn the spell Stoneskin for even more defense, giving you resistance to physical damage types.
20. Your last level gives you yet another Extra Attack, giving you four attacks per action or eight with action surge. You also get your last spell, Protection from Energy, which can give you resistance to one type of damage: acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder, for up to an hour.
Pros:
Normally hold person’s “save every turn” weakness would be an issue, but thanks to eldritch strike you can use it effectively for crowd control. Hit people, freeze them in place, then hit them some more!
You’re also pretty mobile, with 40-50 feet of movement and teleportation making it hard to pin you down for retaliation.
On top of all of that, you’re strongly resistant against magic, with ways to cheat spell saves and reduce damage even further with Protection from Energy.
Cons:
Using daggers, scythes, and whips to represent your chained weapons is fine and all, but it does mean all your attacks only do 1d4 damage. Even paralyzing your enemies for guaranteed crits isn’t going to make you scary.
Eldritch Knight spell slots only go up to level 4, so you won’t be able to cast Flesh to Stone. Maybe the big you can do it...
Your mobility spells, Hold Person, and protection spells all use concentration, so you’ll only be able to do one of those at a time.
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holy fuck, four part grant morrison superman/authority mini (bonus points for DILF grey temples superman in the modern day), launching into a tom taylor jon title, pkj action comics, and tom king supergirl? i dunno' about you but this is the most excited i've been about the superman line in ages
Anonymous said: Hilarious that Taylor is finally writing Superman just as you’ve started to fall out of love with him. Also holy shit Morrison writing Superman IN-CONTINUITY AGAIN FUCK YES and he’s using Ultra-Humanite! I always thought it odd that his Golden Age inspired New 52 run left out Superman’s first supervillain. And oh man did you see that variant for Action in July? DC acknowledging Morrison’s t-shirt and jeans Superman again!
adudewholikescomicsandotherstuff said: So Tom Taylor on Superman?
Anonymous said: Taylor writing Jonathan Kent??? No main Superman title???
Anonymous said: Fuck it if ai’m Morrison and I’m writing an in-continuity Superbook I’d fold as much of my Action run back into canon as I could. If Jurgens got to, they do.
cheerfullynihilistic said: So, Jon's promotion is happening bizarrely soon (or bizarrely late, depending on how you want to look at it) after the soft-reboot. Thoughts on the Superman family titles in July?
Anonymous said: What's your take on today's newly announced BOLD NEW DIRECTION for the Superman line?
apocryphist said: so, how about that Jon Kent news that's trending on Twitter?
Anonymous said: With the new Tom Taylor Son of Superman announcement, I have to say that I'm really suprised that DC is really sticking to the new and interesting directions with Future State and the Superman characters. You think they would have backpedaled, especially with the reactions to the Bendis run. What do you think is the reason that DC's finally doing interesting things with Superman now ?
After years of “so they’re gonna make Jon Superman, right?” it comes at last...via Taylor, right after he's delivered his first couple books to really disappoint me. Still, between his enthusiasm, the presence and fanbase he brings with him, and that the pressure on him to give it his all here is surely entirely different from any project he’s taken before, he might just be the guy to put over Jon in the cape as a long-term prospect in a way some preferred choices of mine wouldn’t have been. A Fraction for instance would have done more to blow me away, but in doing a single brilliant run there might have been more of an impetus in the aftermath to go “well, we saw the idea done well, that’s nice, now back to normal”, while it solidly purring along for a good long time with continuous support might do more as a running start to actually put fandom and ultimately higher-ups behind the idea of this as a desirable semi-permanent state of affairs that could lead to way more good stuff later. Put another way, Morrison Batman got us two years of Dick in the cowl, while Ron Marz gave Kyle Rayner a decade of uncontested stature as Green Lantern. Time will tell, but I think Taylor’s often been at his best when writing Superman - the earnestness and awe tends to short-circuit some of his worst instincts, as opposed to how Nightwing is feeding them - so I don’t really doubt this’ll be fun. I enjoy Timms too, and that cover (which thankfully is apparently not necessarily an accurate representation of the page/price ratio) rules. Kinda odd though neither Taylor (nor Morrison for the below) had any quotes to go with these announcements.
As for the other books (other than Supergirl, which doesn’t really have anything to announce):
Good lord that Tedesco Action Comics variant, make a grown man wanna cry. T-shirt Superman getting some proper love! More importantly, glad to see Lois on the main cover and in the solicit apparently ready to throw down with some Warworlders; I got an ask I was going to get around to before today changed the landscape asking about my thoughts on her absence in PKJ’s run. I was going to say that given his space-focused focus that didn’t bother me too much - yes, Ignition would have solved that problem, but you can’t blame someone for not having a game-changing brainstorm and convincing DC to go through with it as the status quo - especially with her playing a big role in Checkmate starting in June, and that I was more put off that the Tales of Metropolis backup specifically intended to spotlight everybody who wouldn’t fit on the cosmic side wasn’t doing anything with her. But now it seems after his initial arc she’s coming into the fold properly, so happy about that.
And hilariously buried in the announcement because it was already leaked so I guess they figured there was no point hyping it up any harder than everybody already had, Morrison’s presumably no-I’m-serious-this-time-you-guys final DC book. Aside from what I had to say when this first leaked, my main two thoughts are:
* Four issues rather than two oversized ones, huh? I said at the time this was avoiding Superman Beyond-style segmentation; ah well. Wonder whether Janin’s doing 30 pages per issue or if there are backups, and if so what those will be (please god, PLEASE, let Morrison finally do the Superman Squad story they once talked about here so I can finally rest in peace). And given this being a little more spaced out, along with notes that elements from this will play into Son of Kal-El as well as Action, I suspect/hope we might end up seeing some of Morrison writing Jon as Superman in here after all.
* This seems...shockingly minor? Not only is it apparently not in the future the way I’d assumed (even if I think the themes I envisioned for it will still largely be the case), but rather than a relatively standalone epic that PKJ’s Action would then draw from it’s instead this that’s explicitly a spinoff of that. Even given Morrison might conceivably want to take a backseat to the new guard, it’s shocking DC would go with it; the only particularly Morrison-y aspect in the description is that, as their final DC project, this is pitting Superman against his first villain in Ultra-Humanite (notably a baldie genius who ended up supplanted, wink-wink nudge-nudge).
Between these, the aforementioned Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, Superman: Red and Blue, Superman ‘78, Batman/Superman, Justice League, Justice League: Last Ride, RWBY/Justice League, and the newly announced as I write this Justice League Infinity, that’s a damn stacked lineup for everybody with the S, quantitatively and creatively (Superboy being relegated to Suicide Squad notwithstanding) - you can even throw Project Patron on top if you’re feeling greedy. As for why this push is suddenly happening as the last anon asked, I think it’s entirely a matter of the new ownership: it’s easy to picture a fresh suit sitting down with DC’s upper brass and shitting a diamond-hard brick on the spot when told that there was a time not that long ago where their #2 property was being regularly outsold by this guy. Mass-media moves may be expensive and risky (and even his prospects there have clearly changed), but they can throw a couple bucks at their print division to keep churning stuff out in bulk until something sticks to reboot the franchise around in a decade.
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How'd you discover TW and MHA, and what do you like about them (kink and non-kink wise)?
Oh, boy...this is a bit of a long story, so I'll try to keep it as succinct as I possibly can. XD
I found out about both franchises because of @calico807. She's done a lot of art for MHA, and in the case of TW...back when the game was first announced, she made a one-page comic featuring Malleus. So that was how I found out the two EXISTED...however, I wouldn't say her work was how I DISCOVERED them. I didn't know anything about them beyond her fanart.
In the case of TW, one day in the loathsome year of 2020 - admittedly BEFORE everything went to Mephisto's Kitchen - I was scrolling through her gallery (I was looking for a specific image I wanted to share with a friend; not someone any of you know), and I found the Malleus image again. I went, "Oh, yeah. I remember that! Hey, I wonder if the game ever got released...?"
So, I went looking, and - by sheer luck - it turned out that was only a WEEK before the game was set to BE released. So I promptly started looking up all the info I could find on the game via its wiki and other sources, and once video walkthroughs were available, I started watching them. The rest is gorgeous lion body-I mean, history. >///>
As for MHA, you can thank @belliesandburps for that one. See, he did a lot of artwork for MHA, too, and he decided to start sharing MHA with me, episode by episode. As he fully expected - I fell in love with it. And he's still sharing it with me, episode by episode, as we speak. (Incidentally, I got him into Moriarty the Patriot AND TW kind of the same way, so...(singing)..."What can I say, except You're Welcome?" ;) )
NOW, in terms of what I like about them? In terms of non-kinky stuff...I love the kind of world MHA creates, above all else. I love how it normalizes superheroes in a pretty interesting way: with things like Marvel and DC, there's always this sense the heroes have to stay secretive, despite the fact there are a BAJILLION of them. In this world, that goes out the window: heroes are just a part of everyday life, and people sort of accept that. That creates an interesting and unique dynamic I haven't really seen before, in terms of how this world functions and operates. There's a lot of other things to love, but I think that singular element is the biggest draw for me: just seeing the way this universe works.
In terms of TW...for those who haven't guessed yet, I'm a big, Big, BIG Disney fan. And I love how Twisted Wonderland...well...TWISTS the characters we know and love in so many interesting ways. Particularly with the central cast at Night Raven. It would have been so easy for them to just make them "Human Scar" or "Male-ficent," or else to make them cliched stock characters who are really only interesting in their crazy costumes and the fact they're handsome as heck. But no! The game goes out of its way to very cleverly and expertly create unique characters who, while certainly owing much to their classic counterparts, do truly stand out as separate characters in their own right who you care about and find interesting for their OWN issues, not just simply as proxies of the villains they are based on. I don't love Leona just because I like Scar, I love Leona BECAUSE I LOVE LEONA AS LEONA. I love seeing how the characters compare and contrast to their original counterparts, and figuring out what makes these boys tick.
Now, as for the kinky side of things? (pauses) I don't want this response to be a novel, so I'm just going to say...(points to Leona for TW and Bakugou for MHA)...that. All of that. That's why. Yes.
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On Lovecraft Country and the way the narrative presents queerness
"No masters or kings when the ritual begins
There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin
In the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene
Only then I am human
Only then I am clean"
Hozier, Take Me to Church
oh, boy...
i knew some of these deaths could happen in the finale, but i definetely wasn't prepared for any of this, wow.
i guess that, with the events of the finale, including atticus' death, there really is no point in getting the show renewed for a season 2, as as i hoped and wished before, because all of the conflicts that were set up were resolved. i mean, there's always the possibility of using time-travel to do a retcon and bring all the dead characters back, or, at least, two of the protagonists and the villain, but, maybe it would take too many alterations in the narrative, because it seems like the whole thing was planned for a mini-series.
so, now, all we have left is to do a breakdown of what worked and what didn't in lovecraft country's limited series run.
i think that, overall, the message of black ppl taking back the power of ancestry that was stripped from them by white supremacy and structural racism was well-done, and the symbolism was very well-crafted in the final takedown of the season's main villain, which was a representation of how the racism based on indifference born out of white privilege is almost as bad as the racism based on pure hate and despise, which is a valid message, considering the former is a bystander to the abuses and rise to power of the latter.
although i still find the timing was poorly chosen because, well, as of now, all over the world, it's not white ppl who dub themselves "liberal" or "progressive" and claim themselves to not be racist but refuse to act anti-racist that present an actual threat to our human rights, but literal, actual fascists and neo nazis...there are bigger fish to fry now...
but i digress...
on the final score, i guess that when it comes to queer/LGBTQ+ representation, the show fell actually felt real short for a product that crafted so well the race issues, proving that there is still a lot to go before we get to see intersecting identities being portrayed in media the same compex way they exist in the real world.
no, lovecraft country is not guilty of queerbaiting, unlike some of the same ppl in fandom that are the firsts to either erase the half of a couple that is a BIPOC or to deny a canon cis het biracial ship to hype up a fanon white wlw ship and other problematic stuff plenty of times in LGBTQ+ fandom spaces might say.
but that doesn't mean that the treatment of LGBTQ+ issues was satisfying or can be considered good rep, and it actually repeats some of the same tired tropes about queerness and blackness.
while we can say that the show did a relatively good job with montrose as an individual, the same can't be said of the other characters and the final messages.
like, for example, introducing a trans/non-binary indigenous, the Arawak two-spirt Yahima, only to kill them on the next episode was insensitive, to say the least.
while it's true that misha green apologized for the mistake, and said she and the writers tried to make a point that even oppressed groups are capable of oppression, the final score was that a trans/non-binary character was introduced as a plot-device and brutally murdered before having even a chance to properly develop.
in other words, used as a prop.
in a world in which trans ppl are brutally murdered at alarming rates, and most of the victims are BIPOC trans ppl, that is something that we can't let it slide just because the general message of the show was good for cis het black ppl.
the same can be said on the treatment of sammy in the narrative.
while it's true that montrose being aggressive and acting the way he did, pushing ppl he cared about away and shunning every chance of vulnerability due to internalized homophobia, toxic masculinity and misogyny, as this very interesting critique by amani marie hamed of nerdist pointed out, his characterization nonetheless falls into the same old stereotype in american culture of accusing black ppl of falling behind when it comes to queer acceptance and associating black masculinity with homophobia.
also, the author of the article says it better, but, overall, sammy's existence ends up being just another plot device, serving to say to the audience that the producers and writers know that queer ppl existed in the 50's, but, at the same time, repeating some of the same tropes as usual, like associating being queer with being clandestine and deviant instead of showing it as a natural thing that was perceived as deviant at the time, as we can see by that scene of sammy having a sexual encounter in the alley behind his bar.
the author even mentions that queer ppl overall had houses, and most of the encounters actually happened there, and that scene reinforces the idea that queerness is inherently animalistic.
the article also points out how sammy is mostly there just to be shutted out, first by montrose and latter even atticus, and, ends up being another prop to lift montrose to deuteragonist status, being rejected and abused by montrose solely to highlight tic's father journey with his personal issues that apparently he simply wrapped up in a span of 2 episodes.
the fact that sammy was a also a more feminine gay man, even participating in ball culture as a drag queen, and yet most of his appearences involved him being degraded or shut out or overall mistreated by montrose, even tic, and that scene in which atticus forgives montrose after he revealed he never acted on his homosexuality and cheated on tic's mom, even though it's implied she did cheat on him with his brother george, just reinforces the idea it's ok for black and brown men to be gay, as long as they are not THAT GAY™️.
the introduction of thomas in episode 1x09 only to be murdered in the riots is another example of how queerness seem to come with a price in this show if you act on it.
once again, a gay character was introduced in the narrative to further montrose's pain and trauma.
and his introduction was absolutely not necessary, because being a survivor of a massacre like the tulsa riots and a survivor of parental physical abuse is already was already enough for making tic and the audience begin to emphatize with montrose's pain, there was no need to kill another queer character just for that.
not to say we should agree with everything the nerdist article says, of course.
at times, it felt like the author was saying that addressing these issues in the black community is a problem on itself, and that is definetely not the solution.
but, when we consider the setting of a limited series with a plot-driven approach to the scripts, the way the topic is addressed ends up being superficial and rushed, and what could have been a delicate approach to a complicated man discovering his sexuality if the show was an on-going series, ends up being just a narrative built to put montrose in the spotlight in an attempt of getting a few emmy nominations for outstanding performances, and that's about it.
now, what really serves to cement the LGBTQ+/queer representation in lovecrat country as a disservice is the treatment of ruby, christina and their relationship.
i did a few metas explaining christina's and ruby's characterizations, including one i posted before the finale started explaining why ruby was so important to queer black and feminine-aligned nbs being a dark-skinned fat black queer woman discovering her sexuality and figuring out there was more to life than the social roles that were pushed into her, and how the parallels between her and christina, two different women separated by race and class but with the common feeling of being interrupted by social restraints that binded them, were a way for a character like ruby to be treated by the narrative the same way white women get to be treated in fantasy stories, as someone worthy of being courted and romanced as a light-skinned and thin black woman like her sister leti.
but with that finale, and the way the whole thing played out, with not only christina and ruby dead, but also with christina killing ruby, felt, ironically, like the very same trope that's been the norm for queer characters for a long time.
if we consider the tropes of the genre the show and the source material draw inspiration from, pulp fiction magazines, a medium that was very popular until the rise of the cinema and TV in the 50's and 60's that also served as an inspiration for them, then we know that in this medium some of the harmful tropes about queerness that exist until this day were particularly prevalent, including that of the queercoded villains.
to talk about this, i'm going to refer to this amazing article by tricia ennis on the history of queercoding for syfy wire.
first, a definition:
"queer coding, much as the name suggests, refers to a process by which characters in a piece of fictional media seem — or code — queer. this is usually determined by a series of characteristics that are traditionally associated with queerness, such as more effeminate presentations by male characters or more masculine ones from female characters. these characters seem somehow less than straight, and so we associate those characters with queerness — even if their sexual orientation is never a part of their story."
between the hays code in cinema going from 1934 to 1968, the comics code authority in the comics industry from 1954 to the early 21st century (with dc comics and archie comics being the last to break with it in 2011, mind you), the code of practices for television broadcasting from 1952 to 1983 and its predecessor for radio NAB code of ethics, the authors all over mass media couldn't approach the topic of queerness and portray openly and proud queer characters under the risk of being persecuted by the censors, and so, begin to hide queer chracters under the disguise of subtext.
and given the content creators couldn't show any form of positive queer/LGBTQ+ representation under the risk of being punished by the censors, the alternative they found was to portray the queer characters as the villains or antagonists or degenerates, and punish them with death.
the syfy wire article says it better than i ever could:
"even dangerous LGBTQ tropes rose out of this time period, as the depictions of pulp noir femme fatales and other deadly women rose in popularity. these women were usually written as promiscuous and sexually devious, both with men and sometimes with women. they were also evil and usually met their end as a result of their sins. While depictions of LGBTQ characters were frowned upon, depictions of them in this specifically negative light were not. you were not endorsing an “alternative lifestyle” if your gay characters always met an untimely demise. Instead, they were merely paying for their poor choices. this trope would eventually give way to what we now refer to as 'Bury Your Gays.' "
and the thing is, all those censorship laws are over by now, but the tropes/clichés that arised on that era are still prevalent in pop culture 'till this day, consumed by the audiences and reproduced by content creators, in the industry or in fan spaces, whether they are aware of said trope/clichés or not.
now, that is where ruby, christina and their affair on the show enter.
to explain how problematic and harmful the way these characters have been portrayed is, and what kind of message it sends about black queerness, i first have to explain christina's function on the story.
christina, as a character, was basically the texbook pulp noir femme-fatale, checking most of the boxes of the tv tropes description of the trope, from the "red equals evil and sin" imagery to being a wild card, that character who changes sides according to their own desires and individualistic goals.
in her specific case, helping the white supremacists and the black heroes alike in her pursue for unlimited power to protect herself from the oppression that comes with being a white woman, particularly a wealthy one, in which the very same presumption of innocence that gives them privilege over BIPOC is used to infantilize them and strip them from their agency, putting their bodies and choices under the tutelage of cis het white men.
so, her function on the show was basically to manipulate the characters on the two sides alike.
and that is where the problems in queer representation come in, because, to manipulate them, she acts as a sensual seductress.
and what does the script uses to highlight that this is a character willing to go to the most immoral places to achieve her goals? it makes christina a sexually fluid and gender fluid character.
that is basically playing a move straight from the hays code era.
not only does the show plays christina's sexual and gender fluidity as her being "freaky" and a proof of her deviant nature, but it makes her seduction of ruby as a central part of the scheme that positions her as the main villain of the show.
this portrayal of christina as a textbook femme-fatale with a touch of white feminism is already very problematic on its own, especially when we consider her death and how brutal it was, because, yes, while it's true she is privileged because she is white and wealthy, she is still a woman and a queer one at that, and giving her the same traditional treatment for femme-fatales in pulp fiction ends up reinforcing harmful stereotypes about gender and sexuality.
but, when we consider what it means for ruby as a character, it gets WAY worse.
ruby is a character that's been shown to feel very frustrated about the ways in which societal structures of power interfere in her life, not only on a professional level, but even on a personal level as well, making her feel "interrupted".
dealing with the same issues that all black women and feminine-aligned nbs who don't fit into the eurocentric standards of femininity and of beauty do, and not matching the criteria for being hypersexualized by society as the black women considered conventionally pretty -- with thin bodies like the white women or hourglass body frames, being light-skinned and so on --, ruby has her humanity stripped from her because everyone expects her to be stronger than it's humanly possible.
everyone seems to expect something of her at home, her younger sister took advantage of her money for years, and not only all of her goals in the professional realm seem to be frustrated by social structures of oppression, but even her relationship goals as well, given that most of the men that she gets involved with, whether they are black or white, seem to believe they have the right to abandon her and treat her like trash because she doesn't feel a thing and is "strong" enough.
ruby feels frustrated and tired, and she has every single right to do so, because, as what happens to most black women and feminine-aligned nbs, she is disrespected and disregarded by everyone, white and black alike.
so, when christina comes in with an offer of improving ruby's life with magic, of course she takes the opportunity.
and it seemed like the show was willing to deal with the moral complexities of christina's shapeshifting potion and validating ruby's feelings, or at least, sort of validating.
but, by killing her at the end, it just played out as if ruby's feelings meant she was merely a traitor to the race, and not a woman who was tired of feeling frustrated with all of these impossible obstacles society sets for black women and feminine-aligned nbs, especially dark-skinned and fat ones like her, and justified in her anger and frustration.
she did everything right and accomplished nothing, and, when she finally decided to rebel and focus on herself for a change, she met her demise.
but that is just the tip of iceberg, really.
what makes this situation with ruby so frustrating is the fact that, when the show presented christina's queerness as another sign she was "on the wrong side of the tracks" and a villian that should be defeated by the black heroes, which consist in a family, the narrative is implying that a person has to choose between their queerness, on one side, and their blackness and community on the other.
of course, one might argue that the fact montrose was turned into a gay man himself in the adaptation prevents this from happening. but, when we consider montrose was forgiven by tic only after reinforcing he never did cheated on dora and acted on his queerness and lived his gayness, when he really had every single right to do so, especially because it's implied dora slept with his brother george and the three of them knew she was just montrose's beard, then we have the message that it's ok to be queer as long as you don't act on your queerness at all.
there is a part in the review for nerdist that i mentioned above, in which the author says that one of the book's best qualities was that "the source material also illustrates the importance of family and community ties between Black protagonists", and that the TV show ruins it when it "introduces abuse, alcoholism, and family dysfunction, and strips Black characters of their own magic."
that is a part of the article, published in october 14 2020, that now no longer makes sense after the finale, because that message is there.
but, the actual problem is that the ideas of family and community shouldn't be taken for granted bc they are always under political dispute, and are oftenly used to reinforce backward messages when it comes to gender and sexuality, serving as a tool for the control of the bodies and authonomy of ppl of various marginalized groups and intersecctions, including women, BIPOC and queer ppl alike.
while these things are not inherently good or bad, and they are also part of the culture and identity for plenty of BIPOC ethnical identities, the concepts of family and community are usually weaponized by conservatives and used to justify things like queerphobia and the restrictions over reproductive rights.
queer ppl in all walks of life and skin colors all over the world have to deal with plenty of conflicts about coming out because, by deciding to live their own truth, they can never know for sure whether coming out will put them at odds with their families and community until they dare to do so.
so, ruby's dillemma for not knowing what to choose, her family or a life with christina, plays out as the type of experience queer ppl have to deal on a daily basis, and when we consider the intersection with race/ethnicity, it gets even more cruel because our gender identities and sexual/romantic/aesthetic orientations, that are natural parts of us, make us being invisibilized and silenced in our own cultures and feel like we have to give up on our own communities in order to be able to live our queerness.
there are few things more gut-wrenching than that feeling of fear that you might be disowned by your family and relatives and your community -- whether is it a neighbourhood, a village, a small town etc -- because a part of yourself is considered at odds with your heritage.
and when we consider all the christian imagery in the show, the final result is a really troubling one.
while it's true that being christian and believing in god doesn't authomatically makes anyone a bigot (i actually still retain some of the beliefs i was raised into as a catholic latin-american), it's also true that now, more than ever, we can't ignore science, including history.
the entire way in which they referred to magic as a devil's work was very troubling and evocates the same discriminative rethoric that white european colonizers used to justify the destruction of the ancient old religions and beliefs of BIPOC in their own homeland, the ancient culture of our ancestors, and also the oppression of peasant women in europe.
while we can't generalize, given each culture had its own particularities, there's an agreement in the scientific community that, overall, the cultures of the first nations and indigenous folks from the american continent, the african continent, the asian continent and oceania/pacific islands were far more accepting of different manifestations of queerness.
that means that queerphobia was part of the colonial project, once the traditional family values of christianity were used as a tool for the white colonizers to regulate the bodies and sexuality of the colonized and keep them under control.
and that is why the association of these ideals of family and community as inherent to blackness ends up being problematic, because we can't discuss racism without discussing colonization, and we can't discuss colonization without considering the ways in which queerphobia and religion were used as tools of colonial oppression.
the worst part is that, when it comes to ruby, the producers and writers really didn't need to do kill her at all.
and while the show did right in not showing how christina killed ruby, sparing the audience from watching another black body being brutalized, it's also true they didn't have to kill the character to get her out of the way from the final confrontation between christina and tic's family.
they literally went and changed her background from her book counterpart and made the woman a musician, and a blueswoman at that.
all they needed was to have her share a goodbye scene with christina the same way she had with leti, saying that she wanted to be with christina but couldn't fight her family and friends like that, grab a copy from the safe travel negro guide and set off in a bus to travel all over the U.S., singing very sad blues songs about falling in love with a white devil once.
that's all the producers and writers needed, to use the "sent in a bus" trope.
but the choice was to portray ruby as a character facing the consequences of following her desires , which ends up feeling like a punishment for a dark-skinned and fat queer black woman for daring to question the position society has placed her because of who she is.
this is in no way an attempt to "cancel" the producers or the writers, because a) their work is still important as a team of mostly black creators and b) canceling doesn't seem to have significant consequences, and seems to lead only to more social media wars than anything else.
but now that it finally seems diversity is getting more space in media, this type of discussion gets more important.
there is a slow increase on more representation of queer/LGBTQ+ characters in media and more productions involving queer/LGBTQ+ creatives, but, most of the time, the characters and are white, or, when there are biracial couples, the characters of color are just token minorities, and the same happens with the creatives involved in the production.
there is a slow increase in BIPOC characters representation in media and more productions involving BIPOC as creatives, but, most of the time, the characters are cis heterosexual, and the same happens with the creatives involved in the production.
but, for pop culture and media to be truly diverse, there has to be more space for the narratives of ppl that exist and belong to the two groups to raise our voices and be heard, whether is it in the entertainment industry, society at large or even in fandom spaces.
because she shouldn't be forced to pick between one identity over the other.
our existences shouldn't be interrupted just because society doesn't know how to deal with them.
and if that make us sinners, then so be it.
#lovecraft country#ruby baptiste#christina braithwhite#ruby x christina#rubtina#rutina#montrose freeman#lgbtqiap+#lgbtq representation#queer representation#poc representation#woc representation#moc representation#black women representation#representation in media#representation in fiction#tv representation#it's ok for non-BIPOC queer folks to reblog#and it's ok for non-queer BIPOC folks to reblog
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Now that the initial shock has worn off--mostly--I feel like I can ramble about the Supergirl comic news in a more coherent fashion.
Under a cut because there’s a good chance it’ll be long. XD
So yeah! Tom King, writing Supergirl. Wild!
As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been jokingly entertaining the notion that King’s teased ‘Super’ project would actually be a Supergirl thing, but I always assumed that if it was, in fact, a Supergirl thing, it would be in the vein of Mister Miracle or Strange Adventures--a prestige, out-of-continuity take, possibly featuring an older Kara, from pre-crisis continuity. Maybe interrogating the whole, ‘her most famous story features her death’ thing.
I never expected mainline, in-continuity, teenage Kara from him.
As I said, wild!
Wild, because King is like. A HUGE name in comics, and his wheelhouse is primarily Sad Dads. He’s also known for making really controversial, polarizing decisions WRT characterization of fan-favorite characters. (See: Wally in HiC, Batman in Batman, etc.)
So, like. I get that immediate ‘What?! Oh no!’
...But also...
He’s written Superman: Up in the Sky, which, barring one particular issue, is an extremely good Superman story.
(The whole premise of Up in the Sky is that Superman leaves earth to rescue an orphan girl who’s been kidnapped by aliens. The issue that’s a bit ‘yikes’ features Clark trying to reach Lois from deep space, and he can’t, so he’s imagining that something terrible has happened to her. That, I feel, is a perfectly fine, in-character reaction, and an idea worth exploring. HOWEVER, in execution, it ends up being Lois dying in several different, awful ways on-panel, which...yeah. Kinda Yikes! I can’t remember if it was terribly graphic but, still. I don’t think it needed to be seen, you know?)
So aside from that misstep? A really good Superman story.
(On the topic of King and Lois, I frequently cite his story in Action Comics 1000 as an example of a writer just being like, ‘screw it, Lois is alive 4 billion years in the future, and still with Clark.’ So I give him props for that.)
Back to Up in the Sky--King’s referenced that in describing Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, so. That’s mostly a positive!
The ‘Tom King’ thing also starts to make more sense once you look at like, the money/sales side of things. I’ve already seen a bunch of tweets from people who are like, ‘I’ve never read a Supergirl comic before but I’m gonna get this because you’re writing it!’
Yeah. I see you, DC. I see you. XD
We’ll probably never know the behind the scenes stuff, but I gotta wonder if this wasn’t so much DC choosing King as King wanting to do this, and DC letting him.
Another valid criticism/concern I’ve seen mentioned: Another dude writing Supergirl!
Which...yeah! Kinda crummy! Would be nice to see a woman write Supergirl for more than, you know. Three issues.
(Side note, though: personally I do not ascribe to the ‘only men can write men, women write women’ thing. That’s kind of a separate topic, but I mention it here because I don’t automatically assume that a book will be better/worse based on the gender of the person writing/drawing/etc.)
(For instance! Bennett just churned out one of the worst Supergirl comics I’ve ever read so...it’s equality! Anyone can write an awful Supergirl story!)
Speaking of Bennett...
The solicit text...kinda sounds like Future State 2.0, which...
Is not promising.
It’s really weird, IMO, that DC is like...letting such similar premises happen back-to-back?
A lot of DC books are incorporating stuff from Future State but this isn’t so much, ‘teasing out plot threads’ as like. Just doing it over again. XD
I mean. Worst thing that can happen is we get another ‘dead in the backyard with the dog.’
(I’m intensely curious about the DC editorial situation, like. Which pitch came first? Was the Future State Superwoman book always going to happen, what with FS being built from the ruins of 5G or whatever? Did King come up with his stuff at the same time FS was being developed? The world may never know...)
Given that this is King’s next big thing...kinda hoping we get some press coverage and interviews. I wanna get a better sense of like...where he’s coming from.
Also, it means absolutely nothing re: the book, but I appreciate that King used a gif from the show to respond to some well-wishes on twitter. Specifically, the ‘thumbs up’ gif from one of the season blooper reels. Good choice, sir.
Okay, enough about King. Let’s talk about the ONE SUREFIRE THING ON THIS BOOK.
BILQUIS. EVELY.
Wait, I take that back. TWO SUREFIRE THINGS:
BILQUIS EVELY, AND MAT LOPES!!!!!
Gosh this book is gonna be so pretty.
Like, just look at this:
Now I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking: that looks stunning. BUT WAIT!
BOOM. LOOKIT THOSE COLORRRSSSSS!
Guh, it looks so GOOOOOOD. And it’s just the cover.
(I'm ignoring the sword because I need more info before jumping to conclusions, but as some sharp-eyed folks have noticed, that *might* be a red sun which*might* mean a de-powered Kara, in which case the sword could be used in self-defense. Also, give me a Super wielding a sword over a gun any dang day.)
Evely drew an AMAZING Silver Age Kara back in Sugar & Spike and had a pretty stellar run on Wonder Woman.
Fun fact I just learned from a few interviews she shared recently! Supergirl is the character that got her into superhero comics, and when Giffen was writing Sugar & Spike, he asked if there were any characters she wanted to draw specifically. She said Supergirl, so Giffen made sure she showed up in one of the issues. :D
Also from those interviews: She’s excited about the book, and enjoys working with King. It was harder to figure out the art talk in said interviews (I was using Google translate) but I think...she was saying that there’s some specific influences that folks will pick up on when the book comes out?
Also, when asked to tease anything about the book she just said Mat Lopes colors and stars.
WOOOOO, pretty space backgrounds, yay!
It cannot be overstated, how pretty this book is going to be.
Evely’s a little similar to Sauvage in that they both have like...an almost fairytale quality? To some of their work?
(Evely just did a Batman: Black and White story that was quite literally a fairytale.)
But Evely, I think, has a little more range, particularly in the area of expression/acting.
And Lopes knows how to make her work shine.
Who knows about the writing though. XD On the one hand, the bar for bad Supergirl comics is so incredibly low, but also.
...Future State.
*shudders*
TL;DR: I refuse to let myself get excited for the story side of this because you could make an IHOP-size omelet, with all the egg on my face from my Future State hopes, but if nothing else: EVELY. DRAWING. SUPER. GIRL. *wild muppet flailing*
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An interview from 2019; of interest are Jimenez’s comments regarding his run on Wonder Woman, reposted below:
Not long after that you took over Wonder Woman and you said that making Tempest, you were left alone to do your thing, and I feel like Wonder Woman was the opposite. Which may be unfair.
It is not unfair. From the very first issue, it was a fight. It was a fight with the same person who I was fighting with on Team Titans. [laughs] It reads that way in the pages, but looking back, there’s enough stuff in there that makes me go, that’s pretty good, but the struggle I was having with the company was clear from the first few pages.
In those couple years there’s a lot of crossovers and she’s neck deep in continuity and stories keep getting disrupted.
Part of that was that at the time, she was not considered an A-list character. She was more of a burden than anything else. Nobody could figure out how to get her sales up. When I came in, I pitched a 12 issue maxi-series. I didn’t want to be on the regular book. I’d had success with Tempest and I knew the story I wanted to tell and I wanted to be isolated a little bit, but then they put me on the regular book. On some level that’s why I got into comics – to write and draw Wonder Woman – so this was a dream come true. I’d just turned 30, I think. Of course it was a nightmare from page one. The funny thing is, I kept thinking, this is never going to happen again, so do what you can to make the best of it. There was an enormous amount of conflict and crossover and I had to truncate stories and elongate stories and kill off a supporting character and 9/11 happened. I look back on it and there was a lot of shell shock.
My original pitch would have been so simple. Twelve issues and four stories and each one did a different thing. I’m always amazed at how difficult we make it on ourselves – partly me, partly the publisher – because again, we’re a reactive industry. You hired me so let’s do this. I’m not here to sabotage your company. I will give you something that is good. But again – and I’ve told this story so many times – I had to kill off her mother and her mother was a major part of my 12 issues so I had to truncate all these stories because I was losing a character halfway in. Then they weren’t going to let me kill her off. She was going to die in a Superman event and it would happen in Superman. What was amazing was that all of the Superman creators were fighting for me saying, shouldn’t her only supporting character die in her own book? The Editor in Chief finally conceded, not happy about it at all, and it ended up being one of my most successful issues. It’s funny because I still look back on it and don’t understand the fight we had about that. Or the fact that we fought about every issue. I don’t know what was happening above him or around him, but boy was that a constant struggle. That having been said, I did get some good material out of it. I read an issue and I was making some smart observations back then about stuff I still believe in and somehow I got it in print. It’s kind of messy and paced strangely, but it’s there. Clearly it touched certain people in the way that I hoped it would. So in that weird way it was successful.
Were those four stories you had about different aspects of who she is?
I just read an academic essay about how the tenor of Wonder Woman had been changing. Post-George Perez, DC wanted something almost anti-Perez. They were very clear, don’t do what he did. They wanted her integrated into the DC Universe more. They wanted less mythology. She wasn’t seen as a particularly valuable asset and they were highly Superman and Batman focused, so I think she was the ugly stepsister – and treated as such. Editorial at the time didn’t have a point of view about the character. So I came on with a distinct point of view. I said, she forgot what her mission was. I wanted to remind her who her villains were. One story was about her relationship with her mother, which is such a crazy relationship. I forget what the fourth idea was. It was very specifically to get the character realigned so people would stop asking, who is she? Because every creator who came on that book took her in a different direction. Often in an attempt to either explore the political nature of the character or eschew it entirely. I think Mark Waid is on record as saying when you strip the character of her politics, she’s really boring. She’s most interesting when she’s most political. She changes radically decade to decade because ideologies about what she stands for change. Creators try to figure out how they feel about it, but still make her a salable property for Warner Brothers. I think that remains the longstanding conflict with that character.
So often she’s portrayed as a warrior first and foremost.
I think that’s because it’s a very commercially viable iteration. Dudes like chicks with swords and shields and metal bikinis fighting monsters. I say that not to disparage. I think there’s truth to that. There are certainly some women who find empowerment in that idea and that imagery. That imagery is something that is familiar and easy to digest. It’s not a challenging iteration. It’s the default.
Default is a good way to describe it. And what was so interesting about Perez trying to incorporate mythology is that in the myths characters had so many facets. Athena wasn’t just the goddess of war but of wisdom and handicrafts.
She’s also the goddess of cities and politics. Part of the thing people forget – again because of imagery – is that very early in his run, the Amazons gave up their armor. They melted it down because the only reason they had it was to protect the Gates of Tartarus and keep the monsters from escaping. Once they were defeated, the Amazons had no reason to be warriors and so they melted down their swords and shields and said, now we can live in paradise. They did for years until War of the Gods. Then they all disappeared when Bill Messner-Loebs wrote the book because he didn’t want to write them. What’s interesting to me is that everyone seems to forget that for several years of Perez’s run, the Amazons did not use armor or swords or shields. They were not warriors. And they were happy about it! There’s that famous image of Wonder Woman in the gatefold cover and that’s the image that many people associate with that run, but for most of that run, there is no armor. There’s very little weaponry. And the Amazons are good with that.
One of my favorite things that ever happened to me was I reinvented Paradise Island during my run and it became a sort of cosmic United Nations and a school. George Perez called me and said, I have to tell you, that is the perfect culmination of everything that I wanted to do with the Amazons. That it was now this peaceful place. He was raving about this decision I made which was inspired by the roots he’d laid down in his run. I was just using what he’d established and building what made sense to me. He and I have less militarized versions of those characters in our heads, which again, is not always commercial and a different take from most people’s. Most people think to make them soldiers – not even warriors, but soldiers.
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Shadow of the Batgirl: A review type thing
I just read the graphic novel Shadow of the Batgirl by Sarah Kuhn and Nicole Goux, which reimagines the superhero origin of Cassandra Cain.
It was overall good and EXTREMELY cute! If you want an awesome story about a teenage assassin running away from her shitty dad and finding a neat library, a community of cool ladies and the hero within herself, AND WHY WOULDN’T YOU WANT THAT, definitely get this!
It’s a standalone Batgirl story completely accessible to all and with none of the weird baggage and the complicated continuity of the regular Batman universe! it’s appropriate for younger teens but still a good read for adults, the art’s colorful and great, it’s packed to the brim with joy and hope.
And on top of all that, it gives a great character who’s been traditionally horribly neglected by mainstream comics for some reason (*cough its because she’s not white cough*) a spotlight and a chance to shine (and get written by an Asian American author for once!)! This also features one of my other faves, who had her disability and adult identity erased in the main universe, but not in this comic, hurray!
SO YEAH, if you like superheroes at all, highly recommend this!
NOW for a more detailed review, calling on all my expertise as a Cassandra Cain superfan and going into pros and cons. This’ll be long, but I’ll do it as a list to break it down.
Let’s start with the good stuff, there’s a lot of it:
- This story takes place in world where Barbara Gordon as Oracle (and former Batgirl) and Cassandra Cain as Batgirl exist, but Batman and The Killing Joke do not appear to. That is honestly transcendentally great to finally see this as an officially realized concept, Batgirl allowed to stand on its own as a legacy of powerful women, with all history of these characters being victimized for the sake of manpain erased. I am elated.
-The art was adorable, the designs were great, the clothes and Cass’s costumes were super cute, the setting was vibrant.
-Jackie was a really fun character and mentor figure for Cass. Loved her snark and how she and Babs basically become Cass’s two Moms and an awesome team in their own right. The relationships in this were just heartwarming. Loved the range of characters in general.
-Cass basically lived in a library aka my life dream. I mean, she did it because she was homeless and on the run from her assassin father, but like.
-Cassandra FINALLY knows her own race, (she’s half-Chinese) and gets to have a goddamn connection and basic feelings about it (Jackie bringing up what the bat means to Chinese culture), etc, god it should not have taken this long for this to happen.
(And it’s really important to have a version of Cass’s story where, y’know, the positive inspirational figures in her life include other Asian people, they aren’t just white people. it wasn’t until I read this it fully dawned on me how screwed up it is she never had that before.)
-For the first time in her entire existence, Cassandra Cain got to be in a canon romance that wasn’t fucking awful, can you believe it. Her love interest Erik was adorable, and him being a budding romance writer was an especially sweet touch- and I think there’s an implication/hint his dad’s the Bronze Tiger? Which is really cute Easter Egg for Cass fans, considering she had a strong friendship with the dude in her original series!
-The idea of Cass liking to draw and expressing herself through art is really fun and fitting. Her being visually focused, it makes a lot of sense.
-Cass extending her body language ability to sort of being able to guess at people’s underlying emotional problems from how they carry themselves is a really neat idea- it could have been implemented a little more smoothly but I like the concept.
-Cass going after the “evil-doers” in the library after becoming a hero was one of the best things I’ve ever seen. Deserves to be framed. I love what a huge nerd Cass got to be in this.
-The comic understood that core of Cass’s character is compassion and empathy, that how she reaches out for people, refuses to harm, and really believes in people and embodies change, rebirth, hope. THAT’S IT, THAT’S MY GIRL, THAT’S MY HERO..
-I’ve read a ton of comics with Barbara Gordon and this is the first one I’ve come across where she discussed her relationship with her mother having any sort of influence on her interests and personality, she isn’t even the main character of this and her mother matters more in it than every other comic I’ve read with her combined how sad is that
-I liked Babs just casually making gadgets and stuff all the time, and loved that she expressed she honestly preferred doing this and that was why she was giving Batgirl to Cass. MADE ME WANT TO SCREAM FUCK YOU DC ALL OVER AGAIN.
-Compared to the original Cass Batgirl comics, this story is obviously more accessible as a standalone, but it’s also just overall more appropriate for a wider range of ages since the darker elements of Cass’s story are way toned down. I was a young teenager when I read Cass’s series and was fine, but there are young teenagers that DON’T want like, graphic onscreen deaths in their comics, so it’s good there’s a lighter Cass story for them. It was just a really sweet, affirming story.
Now for some cons, none of them damning:
The romance was cute, but wish it’d had room to breathe. Ideally, it didn’t need to be happening alongside Cass’s origin, I think it would have been better if it was just hinted at and then was allowed to fully play out as an after-she-became-Batgirl thing, but I can get that Kuhn didn’t know if this would get a sequel and there were probably a lot of good reasons she wanted to include it.
-I think this came from Kuhn being used to writing as a YA author rather than doing comics, but it was weird to read a Cass comic with so much narration and the way it was used really detracted from the potential power of the story. We’re told through Cass’s super chatty narration she’s not a normal teen, she TELLS US that she barely knows how to read and speak and TELLS US she’s better at reading body language-but we never get a sense of this, not even at the beginning, because the story doesn’t trust the reader to take in the visuals without narration, and then she’s able to talk like a normal teen pretty much right off the bat.
I’m okay with Cass becoming a chatty girl, and her voice in this comic was fun- I know “silent Asian” has a lot baggage and Cass’s original character leaned into some stereotypes- but the first chapter/part would been far more powerful if it had her world be a little more silent and fully emphasized the visual, for her interactions with people and words be garbled and confusing, and if it gave us more of a sense of the world she comes from and how her perception of things differs from the average person. Cass’s original debut and the beginning of her original series did a really good job giving us a sense of this, and took great advantage of comics as a visual medium, and I missed that.
-Cass learns to read and talk SUPER EASILY and it just comes off as unbelievable. I do like the idea of her camping at a library, eavesdropping, and teaching herself, but I would have liked to see her actually struggle like a person would. Moreover, while I know the presentation of it was very flawed, Cass basically had a learning/language disability in the original series. I was kind of hoping this comic would lean into that, and actually give a more realistic and nuanced representation of that kind of disability (it could have been presented as something she always had that was exacerbated by how she was raised, not caused by it!).
Honestly, I think her romance with Erik would have been far more interesting and meaningful and tied in better if she’d actually struggled to read, maybe even discovered she was dyslexic and couldn’t quite read the same way he could. That could have been a source of development between them.
-David Cain’s a super flat as a character in this comic, he doesn’t have much presence, menacing or otherwise, and Cass’s complicated feelings and relationship with him is not nearly as painful as they were in her original series.This is partly because there wasn’t a lot of a space for it though, and that’s fine.
-Overall, the main thing that hurts the story is that we don’t see all that much of what Cass’s life was like as an assassin, and her life with David Cain was like. It’s harder to invest in Cass’s transformation into a hero when we don’t really have a sense of who she was before,it’s hard to appreciate her breaking free when we can’t get a sense of what kind of cage she was even in. How much language DID she know? How much of the world was she exposed to? What was she really deprived of? I hope if there’s a sequel we can see more of this.
-Babs isn’t the main character of course, so this isn’t a real complaint, but I did miss her cynical and angry edge. She’s pretty much just a chipper nerd with no sign of her own baggage in this, and it makes her relationship with Cass less interesting. It’s implied that her “accident” did affect her and she just managed to work through a lot of it before she met Cass, but I missed the element of their relationship where they both were hurting from losing “the world they knew” and working through it together, sometimes clashing, etc.
-I read one of Sarah Kuhn’s YA novels in anticipation of this, and while I’m relieved this is better about it than her first book was (I expected it to be, writers improve, I definitely know how messy a first book is) there’s still some cringe-y ideas of how “average” teens talk creeping in, occasional clunky pacing etc.
But all in all? It was a really nice little story that did a lot of cool things, and I really want a sequel and want more of this version of Cass and her universe. As someone who was driven away from DC comics in part because of how badly they treated Cass, Oracle and the Batgirl legacy. it’s really like a salve on old wounds.
#cassandra cain#batgirl#shadow of the batgirl#oracle#barbara gordon#sarah kuhn#graphic novels#dc comics#my reviews#reviews#batfamily#nicole goux
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Justice League Spectacular #1 (1992)
Just off-panel: Bibbo's ice cream truck.
I probably shouldn't be reading this or Justice League Quarterly before I read the Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League but what can I do? That's the order they were placed in the short box! It would be a different story if free will were not an illusion but since it is, my hands are tied. It's either read this or, um, I don't know. Die from a temporal paradox? I won't risk it!
I was looking through a bunch of my old writing and art last week and discovered a bunch of the kind of sentimental and sort of intellectual crap young people write. It's the kind of stuff you hide away and never show anybody ever and hope that when you die, it'll just get tossed in a dumpster with your old porn and Magic the Gathering cards. But it got me thinking about how brave I am! So brave! The kind of brave you wouldn't hesitate to call some jerk who signed up for the military because he couldn't live as a civilian. No, no. More braver than that! And being this super brave kind of person, I thought that maybe I should share some of this old poetry with everybody!
But not yet! You have to work up to being truly brave! So instead, I'll share this piece of artwork I did that was supposed to be the first in a lengthy and disgusting series. It's of Lord Fondlerot, a character I created for the Dwarflover online comic I used to do. He was really into fucking things and I thought, "Hey! I should do a series of drawings where he fucks every creature in the monster manual!" But instead of doing an entire series, I drew one picture and grew either bored or disgusted with the concept. So here's that one picture:
Lord Fondlerot fucking an Axebeak.
Now you're probably wondering just how terrible my poetry must be if I'm opening with that! Well, you'll see soon enough!
This issue begins with Sue Dibny still alive and visiting a Florida theme park with her husband, The Elasticated Man. Wow, remember when Sue Dibny was killed and all the heroes freaked out about their secret identities and considered doing intense brain damage to every single person who ever knew any of their identities until they found out that The Atom's ex-wife Jean Loring had gone cuckoo for Atom's cocoa puffs? She wanted them back so bad that she began threatening and murdering the loved ones of all the super heroes. It was the kind of story DC sometimes does where you read it and think, "Well, the twist at the end of that mystery was definitely worth the destruction of the most stable marriage in the DC Universe and also the death of Firestorm and Captain Boomerang! So good!" I mean it doesn't make you think that. It makes you think the exact opposite. Tom King would eventually do pretty much the same thing in Heroes in Crisis but instead of Jean Loring fucking up by accidentally killing Sue Dibny and murdering more people to cover her tracks, Wally West fucks up and kills Poison Ivy and some others and then tries to cover his tracks. But at least Tom King's had all of those entertaining scenes where the heroes are doing therapy and we get to see how much they're all suffering from PTSD. That's always a fun aspect of super heroes we never get to read enough about.
Dammit! I keep doing it. I meant it was the opposite of fun! Although I still liked it because sometimes I just like seeing other people in pain. Not in a sick perverse way where I pop a boner or something! Just in that way where you sit around all day thinking, "My life is terrible and everything is wrong and I hate my parents for bringing me into this wretched existence and the only thing that might make me feel better is to learn that Superman sometimes feels the same way."
Oh, remember when Tom King was writing Batman and he had that two issue Booster Gold arc where we got to see how fucking insane Booster Gold was from living through all of those horrible, wretched, dark alternate timelines? And the only way he can deal with the trauma and the PTSD is by making a joke out of everything? I'll have to think of that as the canon Booster Gold when I'm reading Giffen and DeMatteis's Justice League. Maybe it'll make all of Booster and Beetle's inappropriate joking more appropriate.
Back to the story, Sue Dibny, alive and well, and her husband Ralph "The Elasticated Man" Dibny are busy showing a bunch of European diplomats around the non-Disney World theme park.
See? You can tell they're European because they're all smart and shit.
The first stop in the park is to Alice's Wonderland where the diplomats are attacked by the Royal Flush Gang. They are a gang whose theme is playing cards and not expensive toilets. Their powers are the ability to ride on gigantic cards and to make poker puns.
If looking good in tight fitting costumes is also a power, it's my new answer to the question of which super power would I choose..
Ten's outfit reminds me of the days when nipples were allowed to show through tops without being erased away through some kind of editing software. The 70s were a wild decade! Sure, there were also nips on television in the 80s but the 80s, generally speaking, sucked and were a huge contribution to the downfall of America.
The King of Spades mansplaining their entire concept to the Queen of Spades.
It's true that the royal flush beats any other poker hand but I doubt Superman is going to surrender after this concept is explained to him because, in the end, they're not fucking playing poker.
It turns out Maxwell Lord paid the Royal Flush Gang to make a little trouble so the Justice League could beat them up and get some media attention. But the Justice League has apparently broken up and The Elasticated Man just isn't hero enough to save the European delegates all by himself. He might have been if the Royal Flush Gang had done what they were told and not really fight back. But why would they do that?! Wouldn't they still be in trouble with federal agents?!
Booster Gold finds Blue Beetle busy pouting in the old Justice League cave headquarters. Booster has decided to try to cheer his old buddy up although why wouldn't Booster just travel to a timeline where Ted Kord is already cheered up? Is that how time travel works in the DCU? Or did Booster already try that, it went horribly sideways, and now he's a little more fucked up in the head when he returns to the "real" timeline?
For some reason, Ice and Fire have also come down to the cave. Probably to accidentally go on a double date with Booster and Beetle.
Booster and Fire and Beetle and Ice hear a news report about the Royal Flush Gang and decide to go save Ralph. Superman also hears about the situation and heads to Florida where he's almost immediately defeated by The Royal Flush Gang. Not because they're dangerous and competent super villains but because some mysterious benefactor has give them weapons capable of knocking out Superman's powers. Maxwell Lord is not that benefactor so who could have done it? Certainly not Guy Gardner, right?! What would he want with getting the Justice League back together. Isn't he busy being Warrior or something by this point?
Power Girl, Metamorpho, and Guy Gardner all join in on the fight. The guy behind it all is that Weapons Master dude who is desperate to get a new weapon for his arsenal: a Green Lantern ring. The attack on the Royal Flush Gang fails to get him the ring so he decides to attack directly. But not in this issue! He has to wait for a regular series issue.
Ice uses Guy's ring to contact Hal Jordan because somebody finally decided this Justice League wasn't really a big league Justice League. Everybody reading it knew it for years. But I guess Dan Jurgens was assigned the task to get a new, more believably powerful League together. So Hal Jordan flies around to pick up some new members to save the day. He chooses The Flash and Aquaman which seems about right. But he also chooses Crimson Fox which seems like sliding backwards into goofy Justice League territory. Not that I totally approve of Aquaman but I have to admit he's a "serious" choice for the League.
Doctor Light also joins the party. Although why she'd keep the name of a pedo, I couldn't guess. Just become Lightwoman or something. But no! Once some jerk earns their doctorate, they just have to demand to be called Doctor.
I'm sorry. I was too distracted pointing out that Doctor Light joined the fight and how her namesake was a pervert to comment on Metamorpho acting like a huge fucking pig.
Crimson Fox beats up some guys dressed as cards and admits that she's a boring idiot whose favorite part of the game is shuffling the cards. I understand the need to think up some kind of goofy one-liner when you go into battle but shouldn't you at least try to think up one that doesn't make yourself sound like a pathetic asshole?
Weapons Master's plan failed but he figures he has enough information to get Green Lantern's ring next time. He'll then sell it to a Dominator for a few bucks and maybe some slaves.
The big hitters talk it over and decide they should start a new Justice League without the approval of the United Nations. Yeah! Who needs some stupid Earthly authority when you've got an invulnerable Kryptonian, an all powerful space cop, and the king of the seven seas! All they need is a Greek Goddess and a mentally ill furry with a long history of violent behavior and they'll have the big team back together! Booyah! I mean, without that stupid Booyah shit because Cyborg is basically a toaster at this point. Maybe. I don't know! What am I, Johnni DC, Continuity Cop?!
The heroes make one more decision: split the group into two Leagues. So once again, they're forming Justice League America and Justice League Europe. How come I don't remember this shit?! Did the comics get canceled in '92 and then immediately fired back up? I don't seem to remember two different incarnations of these teams. Maybe I should have stored my comic books in chronological order so it would all make sense.
Justice League Spectacular #1 Rating: C. I just read the letters pages and it looks like this comic book takes place between JLA #60 and JLA #61! So editorial decided the teams needed to be shaken up and the best way to do it was to disband the League in the regular series, have a special one-shot comic that gets them back together but with a different roster, and then send them back to work in the next issue of the regular series. I guess I should just shove this comic book into the middle of the regular series so when I reread it all again in my 80s, it'll make more sense! Let's close with the worst drawing of Aquaman I've ever seen:
Actually, he looks a little bit like Grunion Guy.
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remypix said: So. How do we get you to become the main writer for Dick at D.C.?
LOL! I appreciate the flattery, but tbh, I don’t really see that ever happening. Its something I’ve thought about a LOT, to be honest, and went back and forth on for years before I ultimately arrived at the conclusions I did and figured out what it was that I really want and what matters the most to me as a writer.
So the following ramble is just my train of thought on all of that, in case its of interest to anyone else for whatever reason. LOL, no scraps of meta to be gleaned from this particular wordvomit-bomb, so don’t feel you’re missing out on anything by skipping past it, its pretty much just how I went about working through my own personal priorities in terms of career goals as a writer, before settling on what path I want to take ultimately, and what paths I’m not really interested in working towards.
But yeah....although I absolutely invested a LOT of time and dream real estate in envisioning my future writing for DC or Marvel someday, came up with entire Giant Size lineups of my own X-Men characters I couldn’t wait to make canon and actually wrote out honest to god To-Do lists for things I wanted to do with certain characters once I got my grimy little hands on them before anyone else had a chance to realize what a mistake that’d been to allow.....
Now, tbh, I don’t really see that as ever being likely....largely because its no longer a career goal I have any real interest in pursuing.
Not because I don’t aim to write professionally - I’ve made a living at it before, and expect I should be able to manage to again once I’m out the other side of my living situation of the past few years where my body only tolerates my attempts to get it to like, function, for a few hours at a time. Writing professionally is a hustler’s game, lol, its not enough to just do the writing, you have to be prepared and able to follow up on any opportunities that come your way quickly and that’s just not in the cards right now.
But I know how to do it, have done it before, I know how to network and while there’s no such thing as guarantees, there is such a thing as my single-mindedness and refusal to quit even when I probably should, so with that thrown in and all other factors considered, I do think I COULD potentially work my way up to at least a trial writing gig at either Marvel or DC someday, if I focused my efforts on that career direction specifically. Like its possible, I think my skills are at the requisite level, I’ve got the drive, etc, etc.....
But I just don’t see myself likely to set myself on that course ever, at least not any time soon. Not as something I’d need to commit to for a considerable period of time in order to break in and land the right opportunity, because the one thing I know myself well enough to know I lack completely and totally.....is my willingness to ‘play the game.’ The politics that go along with working in a corporate creative environment like Marvel or DC, particularly at the very bottom rungs of those corporate ladders, where I’d inevitably start out and need to kiss a lot of asses to have any chance of someday working my way far enough up the ladder to have any real kind of creative control over what I was writing.
*Shrugs*
Part of the problem is, as much as I love the characters DC has to play with, I do not love the structure that playground is formulated around. Like I’ve talked about a fair amount recently.....for years now, a huge creative problem with DC’s content is how disparate and isolated the various characters and franchises are kept from each other.......and while I know I COULD come up with stories that worked within those kinds of limiting parameters, I wouldn’t really WANT to, you know?
Like as much as I love the idea of writing Dick professionally, making canon stories for him.....in all likelihood, I wouldn’t even have the option of bringing in most of the other characters I’d want to draw upon as supporting elements in those stories. Dick is my favorite member of the Batfam, granted, but like I;ve said before, I do actually like all of them, when written well. I don’t WANT to write a Dick Grayson who’s kept isolated and solitary by editorial mandate, and at most allowed a guest appearance by one or two other Batfam members, as long as its kept brief and nothing significant enough to potentially impact their own storylines occurs in those appearances.
And you just can’t really write a family like that, at least not well. Not without being severely hampered, to such a degree that even if I did find workarounds to allow me some pagetime with the characters I needed/wanted to include, figuring out a way to make that work creatively within whatever limitations are put forth, like, that would no doubt be stressful and exhausting and the complete opposite of the entire POINT of creative endeavors in my opinion.
There’s not really a whole lot about that scenario that I’d enjoy, that would make the experience worth the time and effort it’d take to get to a point where its even a possibility......and chances are, it’d be more likely to sour me on the whole creative process of dreaming up and writing stories about this character I love so much, and potentially even leak into my ability to enjoy him, just because of how much personal negativity I now associated with it.
And then the other aspect of things is just.....there’s a degree of game-playing that’s expected and even required of working as a writer for major companies like Marvel or DC, where you’re one little cog in a very big machine that quite frankly, doesn’t give a damn about your opinions beyond thinking you should be really careful about not expressing any that potentially reflect badly on them or any of their content....not if you want to KEEP working for them for any length of time. Trust me, I’ve known writers and artists who’ve worked for both companies, even known some pretty well, and I wasn’t kidding about the ass-kissing that falls under the heading “job requirement” thanks to a lot of the egos that sit very high up on the creative ladders there, and in key, critical positions that mean you can’t afford to piss them off or seem overly critical of them or their own content or work.
And that’s just....not me. Not anymore, anyway. Don’t get me wrong, I’m more than capable of holding my tongue when necessary, and doing and saying the right things to advance in those kinds of environments. Like I said, I’ve done it before, and quite well, and for years. Hell, forget the writing for a second, just in my acting career alone....working as an actor is nothing BUT networking, and to get and keep any kind of jobs at all you have to be just as good at that side of things as you are at actual acting, if not better, and well, I worked pretty steadily. I know how to network, how to keep my mouth shut, how to DO it and just focus on my end goal and where all that networking is hopefully going to lead me to.....
I just don’t WANT to, anymore.
Because it really is exhausting. And more than a little soul-crushing. I absolutely LOVE acting, as in the actual craft, just like I love writing, and creating in all kinds of forms. But the hierarchies of bullshit and egos and completely unnecessary power plays that go hand in hand with a lot of the professional work in those fields, is just......really, really draining.
I’m not someone who likes keeping my mouth shut when I feel I have something to say.....having things to say is for me a huge, integral part of what draws me to story-telling in its various forms in the first place. And for me, that doesn’t begin and end just with what I write and act in myself, it also applies to the atmospheres and environments AROUND what I write and act in and where I write it and act in it. I love big, immersive shared universes like DC and Marvel because of their scope, their potential, the inter-connectivity of it all, and just how BIG it all is, and how big it allows stories to be, how big it allows various characters and their impact to be. But to actually be a PART of one of those myself, on any level, to be one of the pieces that make up its whole, my work a representation of it and thus all of it, to some degree, a representation of me....it wouldn’t be enough for me, to just be proud of what I create in that environment, I’d want to be able to also be proud of what my work is a part of, the other pieces surrounding that.
And the reality is just.....for all that I like about Marvel and DC, there’s a shit ton I don’t like, and most of that falls under the header of specific tropes and trends and MINDSETS. And I don’t need things to be perfect, or ideal, or exactly as I want them to be personally, I really truly don’t.....because nothing is perfect, and unlikely to ever be perfected within any person’s lifetime. I know that. I understand that. But a lack of perfection doesn’t mean that things can’t constantly be worked on, improved upon, made BETTER, at least heading in that DIRECTION.....and the thing is, I don’t bitch about the various things and trends and mindsets I dislike in my fandoms, in the media I consume and enjoy, like, just to do it. Just to be negative. For me, criticism exists in order to point out existing flaws or areas where something is lacking or could be improved upon.....so that at least the OPTION of improving upon those things even exists.
If you truly think there’s a flaw in something, something that makes a story or character or creative work less than it could be, holds it back, limits or detracts from its enjoyability at least in some small ways.....the one and only guarantee that exists, is that there’s not even a chance of those things being worked upon, tried a different way, being CONSIDERED by their creators or even just given more thought when creating along similar lines in the first place.....if like, nobody who has a problem with it as is ever like, MENTIONS having that problem with it, or seeing it as being lacking, or less than it could be, in these specific ways. To improve upon a thing, one must first be looking at what could stand to be improved upon, and SEEING it as something to potentially make better or do in a better way, instead of just....exactly the way it was already made.
Criticism is integral to making things better, stronger, MORE than what they already are, and I honestly think the truly great writers and artists of all kinds are the ones who are not just open to criticism, but who THRIVE on it. Who see it not as a judgment, but an opportunity. Who take whatever they can get from it and know how to leave behind the parts that have nothing useful or productive for them.
And Marvel and DC are just....not environments that I see as being all that open to hearing criticism, whether from outside or inside. In fact, I think that’s a huge part of the problem both have, something that’s stagnated them considerably......they’re never really improving upon any of the many areas they’re criticized for, because they refuse to hear that criticism, regard it as having any validity, and when you won’t even LOOK at something that needs improving upon as something that you acknowledge as needing improvement, FOCUS on improving, make that criticized flaw something you focus on rather than ignore, so you can LEARN from its mistakes rather than deny any mistakes exist at all....
Then the only way anything ever gets better at all, whether a little bit or a lot, is by pure blind chance, by just happening to not make the same mistakes next time out or because you focused on a new direction and were lucky enough to avoid stumbling into any particular pitfalls.
And that’s just....not appealing to me at all, even a little bit. Not something I care to be a part of, and I think its a waste of my time or energies, to work for a company that has a lot of problems that I see very specific areas that could be made better and not just for the sake of pointing out flaws, but because I also see various ways they could do things differently and potentially improve upon things......but working for a place who churns out content I think has a lot of flaws, or that I see and hear other people pointing out and commenting on those same flaws and others I didn’t see myself at first but saw after they were pointed out.....and yet knowing that company more than likely wouldn’t be receptive to hearing any mention of existing flaws, but would rather I just keep my mouth shut and just focus on my own story, no matter how I worded any criticism of the broader universe or directions or went about trying to raise said criticism or float it out there even as a hypothetical to consider......
Nah. No thanks. Not for me.
I know how to play these kinds of games because I was raised playing them and surrounded most of my early life by nothing but game-players, people who played games with everything from the truth, to peoples’ lives, to social issues and politics, all of it was the same and they played games with it all just because they COULD. And I was tired of it a loooooong time ago, and at this point in my life, especially looking back on the last several years that I can’t help but view as largely wasted, because I flat out didn’t even have the OPTION of doing any of the things I wanted to do, was so consumed by day to day survival to such a massive degree that there literally wasn’t even the possibility of trying to work towards the longterm or do anything to advance any of my various career paths or goals.....like, that’s over three years now, going on four, that have just come and gone with nothing to show for them in terms of things I really want for myself and my career, things I actually want to do, things I want to say, stories I want to tell, NEED to tell....and in light of that in particular, like, I honestly can’t stand the thought of wasting potentially years more of my life keeping my mouth shut about things I see problems with purely for the sake of towing the company line, when literally NOBODY benefits from allowing problems to exist unacknowledged and just fester and grow and become entrenched.....not even the company itself.
*Shrugs* It just seems wasteful to me, and I’m already chafing at the bit as is to get back to a level of health and energy and focus, not to mention financial security/stability enough that I can even START moving forward with my actual careers again, working on selling and putting out there the kind of stuff I really want to put out there, put my name to.....it honestly just makes me shudder, thinking about the likelihood of wasting years more of my life in service to priorities that aren’t mine and that I don’t agree with, for the sake of egos I have no stake in, just because the company in question is full of people who are perfectly content with everything they create as is, who don’t aspire to ever be any better than they already are, are okay with already having PEAKED......just so long as it means they don’t have to listen to anyone insinuate or outright state something that everyone already claims to already be aware of and thus shouldn’t actually be all that hard to hear: that perfection doesn’t exist, its unattainable for everyone, and thus the things they’ve created and are working on right now....aren’t....perfect. Meaning, by extension.....they could be made better. Improved upon. Grown or evolved or honed into something that reaches MORE people, resonates MORE strongly, touches MORE hearts, changes MORE minds.
Why don’t people, artists, want that for themselves? For their work, that they put so much of themselves into, expend so much time and effort to make? I’ll never understand. Can’t relate.
And the real kicker for me, the thing that ultimately helped me make up my mind on this awhile back, and more than that, make my PEACE with the possibility of never getting to work professionally on these characters who mean so much to me already, even though I think theoretically I’m capable of it, could potentially make that a reality....
Its that....I don’t HAVE to waste that time, catering to those other peoples’ priorities, just to tell the stories I want to tell. Aiming for that particular path, constraining myself in ways I’m not really comfortable for the sake of people I don’t really like and messages I don’t actually agree with.....its not actually anything I need, and doesn’t actually offer me anything.
I do love Dick Grayson and other existing characters, and want to write them the way I truly see them, and immerse them and surround them with other characters I like as well and think SHOULD be around them, supporting them, their narratives entwined with them......and I already can do that with fanfic. *Shrugs* I can write the stories those existing characters inspire in me, that I really want to tell, and not worry about the oversight or by-committee mandates or approval of uncreative DC higher-ups holding me back or limiting me or telling me I can only use certain characters and only to certain degrees or in certain ways. I can scratch that itch, I can put those out there without DC, and an audience exists for them, and always has and always will. Yeah, its a limited audience, compared to the platform DC has and the greater number of committed fans their Brand Name and existing properties help direct to every new writer who works for them or new story or new characters....no fanfic I write will ever reach the number of eyes Tom King’s or Scott Lobdell’s stories get in front of.....but honestly? I’d MUCH rather have a limited audience, than be limited in the stories I can tell.
And as for reaching wider audiences, getting my content, my stories out there in front of more eyes.....I have my original content for that, and I’m fully comfortable and confident in my ability to create characters and build immersive worlds that can be just as compelling as anything existing, whether that’s actually self-confidence or hubris, lol, who knows and who cares. Point is, I love DC’s characters but I don’t NEED them in order to have characters to play with, and I don’t need to try and break into a playground that honestly seems full of a ton of crap for every square foot I’m ACTUALLY interested in and there for.
I can make my own, and have, and will continue to do so. I’ve got my own superhero universe called The Ellis Eighteen that I’ve been building most of my life and might not have the history or scope of DC’s decades of existing content and hundreds of creators, but its still more than enough content to keep me busy for the rest of my life, even just that one universe of mine alone, and when my problem with that particular project is not having enough time or energy as is to write all the stories I already want to write there with just my own characters and universe and narratives........there’s absolutely no reason for me to settle elsewhere.
Because similar to what I was saying about why I’m okay with writing just fanfic for Dick, even if that puts a ceiling on how far I can ever go with that......its about personal priorities and everyone ultimately needing to figure out what matters most to them in terms of personal ambitions and longterm goals, and in a world where nobody can ever get everything they want all the time, exactly on their terms.....figuring out where you’re most willing to cut losses and what you most strongly feel you need to do your way.
My own original superhero universe could be the best thing anyone’s ever seen and leaps and bounds above anything DC or Marvel create, and it doesn’t matter - the mere limitations inherent in creating new characters and universes in an already saturated market, the struggle to compete with household names and give people a reason to direct even a second glance towards characters they’ve never heard of when there are four different titles out this week containing even just one of the characters they already know and love and have been reading for decades, the basic math of one individual creator’s content never in a million years ever going to have the real estate or reach that even the least popular and worst written of DC’s titles enjoys just because association with all their other established and proven content gives them an automatic boost that I’ll never be able to match or replicate on my own with original characters....all of that is real, and a factor and things I’ve considered and accepted.
Because at the end of the day, I decided the most important thing for me is bottom line, I like telling stories. But I like telling MY stories, the ones that only exist because I came up with them and thus will never exist for anyone else unless I write them the way they read to me in my head, the stories that CAN’T exist without me to tell them. And I like to tell my stories my way, in the sense that they may not be perfect and they might have areas of their own in which they’re flawed or lacking or could stand to be improved upon, but they at least don’t make the mistakes I see as mistakes in others’ work, and they prioritize the things that are important to me, and tell the messages I want to tell.
And with all that in mind, I would much rather devote myself towards walking a much longer, much harder road with absolutely no guarantees of ever gaining the kind of audience I might have if I worked for Marvel or DC......as long as it means that for all its drawbacks, every step I take on that road, I get to take while telling MY stories, MY way, the way I think they were meant to be told and without people I don’t respect or agree with backseat driving as I tell them, trying to give me directions as if they know how to get to where I want to go with my stories better than I do myself.
Compared to having a (comparatively) shorter even if no less difficult road to GET to a place where Marvel or DC hired me to write for them....at which case they’d shuttle me off in whatever direction they wanted to send me on a shortcut that admittedly gets me to a much wider audience in a much shorter time, and with far more guarantees of profit and thus a smoother ride.....but every step I take on THAT road, I ONLY ever get to tell the stories they allow me to tell, the ones that they like personally, and only after I’ve run them by them for approval first, and reshaped it into the form THEY want it to have and read the way they want it to sound, before ever reaching a single other person’s ears, with that vast audience only ever getting to read those versions of the stories I came up with....rather than the versions that read the way I originally wanted them to, that tell the stories I REALLY wanted to tell.
Again - its not about not being willing to compromise or settle or an insistence on things being the way you want them to be and no other way.
Its about the fact that everyone has to decide for themselves what they’re willing to compromise and what they aren’t - because it is OKAY to have things you’re not willing to budge on, you’re not rigid or unreasonable for having SOME things exist as dealbreakers for you, that make or break whether you head in a certain direction when a multitude of other directions are open and available to you.
And similarly, its up to the individual to figure out for themselves WHERE they’re willing to settle and in what ways....and where and in what ways they have to stand firm because settling there means sacrificing too much of what’s most important to them.
Like I said, for me, personally? The journey and the destination are the same thing. Whether I’m acting or writing, I view it as just different forms of story-telling. THAT’S the career I secretly dreamed of even as a child.....it was never that important what medium I told the stories through or logistics or superficial elements....the important part was the story, that was the point, that was the endgoal. *Shrugs* That’s all that’s really most important to me, priority uno at the end of the day: finding ways to go through life maximizing my ability, my freedom to spend my time telling stories, MY stories, the ones only I can tell because I’m the one that came up with them and they don’t exist outside my head, and telling them the way I truly want to tell them, the way they seem to me are MEANT to be told - because there’s only so far and only certain ways you can deviate from a story as you initially conceive it before it becomes actually a different story, that says something other than what you actually meant for it to say.
Big audiences and large royalty checks and movie deals and getting to use characters that others created but I fell in love with and see myself in all the same - all of that is great and has its place. But to me, the stories themselves are the point, they’re what any story-telling skills or talents I have seem FOR....
And if I’m going to bust my ass telling as many of the stories that pop into my head as I can, to the best of my ability, in hopes of them reaching the most people in ways I WANT them to reach people, resonate with them, speak to them, always trying to become better with each story I tell, each criticism I’m given, not out of some expectation I’ll ever actually craft a ‘perfect’ story or some sense of moral superiority, but rather just because stories IMO are meant to be enjoyed, and the better each story is, the more people are likely to enjoy it and what else is even the point of story-telling if you ask me personally...
Well. I’m just saying. If I’m gonna put in the best work I can either way, put in the time either way, and basically spend the majority of my effort, time and life telling stories one way or another.....
I’m sure as fuck only doing all of that so I can tell MY stories. Not someone else’s stories.
Because when writing for DC, even for the chance to write characters I’ve loved for most of my life....also means having to shove each story I want to tell through a woodchipper that shaves it down according to someone else’s priorities, expectations and rules for how and in what ways I’m allowed to use which characters and to what ends or what degree - or worse yet, a whole COMMITTEE of someone elses - when all of that is going to whittle away whatever story I WANTED to tell, to such an extent that by the time it actually ends up in front of readers, it stands as much chance of being the story one or more of them actually wanted out there as it does of still being or saying anything I actually wanted or intended.....
Then as much as I used to dream about writing the X-Men or Green Lantern or Nightwing as a kid.....now, I’m more than comfortable saying nah, hard pass. I’ll go my own way with my own characters in terms of professional content and output, even if it never gets me as far as working for Marvel or DC might. And it costs me absolutely nothing to do so. I lose nothing in making that choice.
Because for me, its the alternative that would actually feel like settling.
And if any writers out there prioritize differently or choose differently or see all this differently and writing Dick or Bruce or Jason or some other existing character is still the dream, and the goal they still focus on working towards....there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, as long as its what works for you, and aligns to what YOU prioritize as most important for your career, art, goals and how you want to spend your time and effort as a writer.
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OH HEWWO here’s the two new characters for ATS I’ve been gushing about nonstop!! Their refs have actually been done for quite a while, I wanted to draw more of them before I shared but I just got so excited I couldn’t wait!!
Their inspiration is probably pretty obvious lmao as stated several times by my pals but well, Albion’s been planned to look smth like that for a long time now so :’Dc
Albion’s on the top!! And Ikaia’s on the bottom!!
Their backgrounds and story details are under the cut, but be warned, it is LONG lol
Albion Kerrigan
Age: ??? (Physically, early twenties)
Hair color: Black and white
Eye color: Black and white (Dual-user)
Element: Light and Darkness
Remember when I introduced Edan and Valdis way waaaay back? Well, Albion is one of their companions--the Grandmaster of Light and Darkness! (His name was Alva previously, but I changed it.) He’s existed within Kishuniia for countless millennia, ever since that world was created. However, unlike his Grandmaster brethren he doesn’t like to play by their rules, and goes to interact with humans despite the fact that it’s strictly forbidden by Astraeus (the Grandmaster’s leader and the only existing tri-user (besides Kaz, who is a special case)). Because of his Grandmaster status, he serves as a pillar for Shima’s world, being an existence that keeps it thriving. If a Grandmaster were to be killed, the entire world would collapse instantly, for those seven pillars are needed to keep it functioning. And that is the reason why they conceal themselves from humans, spending thousands of years avoiding humanity or just in hibernation, and why Astraeus, being their leader, is so cautious about interacting with humans, who could easily abuse them for their power and unknowingly cause the world’s destruction.
Even so! Albion has always been an outsider within the Grandmaster group--not because he doesn’t get along with them (Edan’s his closest friend among them) but because he doesn’t like being tied down by their rules. Humans fascinate him and he’s always seeking knowledge on how they function and evolve, and he’s sorta inherited their mischief, always getting into trouble with people. But that’s just because he’s playful! Being a very curious and energetic person, he easily falls into misunderstandings, and also enjoys playing pranks on people lol
Astraeus is a really calm and laid back person, but with Albion they’re kinda strict--they pretty much act like a parental figure lmao and Albion HATES it. Astraeus kinda treats him like a kid, mostly because they don’t believe Albion is capable of understanding just how important of a being he is, being a god of this world, and it frustrates them. They’re quite protective of all of their Grandmaster allies, especially Albion since they know he attracts trouble and will disobey them no matter what they say. Albion’s constantly just like “Go away” and Astraeus is like “If I don’t keep an eye on you, who knows what will happen” so they’re just constantly arguing. Family squabble. Mkdmasdas
Ikaia Belcour
Age: 23
Hair color: Blonde (very subtle pink gradient at the bottom)
Eye color: Pinkish-red
Element: Water
Ikaia is my newest baby...I would and can die for him...he’s a good soft boy that doesn’t allow any bullshit and pretty much does whatever he can to achieve his goals. He’s also trans!!
He actually met Albion when he was 8 years old, after finding him collapsed in some bushes outside his house--apparently Albion had irritated some of the boys in town and gotten into a fight with them (but of course, he pulled his punches, letting them get out their anger and trying not to inflict too much damage). Ikaia then tended to his wounds and started asking all sorts of questions. Albion found him immensely entertaining. When Albion asked for his name, Ikaia hesitated because he didn’t like the name he was born with--so Albion gave him the name Ikaia, and he’s stuck with it ever since!
Albion stays around town for a little while, and he slowly starts getting attached to Ika along the way. Ikaia, being the youngest of a large family, is ostracized by them, especially since they’re all gifted with elemental abilities and can use them brilliantly while he fails to master his powers of water. The only person who really cares for him is his older sister, but it’s hard for her to protect him when everyone else is essentially out to get him. Ikaia tells Albion he dreams of running away and being free from the ties of his family, and doesn’t have to put up with their misgendering and bad treatment of him. Ikaia excitedly suggests traveling with Albion, who sorta just goes with the flow and travels to wherever, being the adventurous type he is (which is smth Ikaia dreams of doing), and Albion jokingly says maybe he can one day.
By mistake Albion realizes that Ikaia’s elemental gifts lie more on the side of ice rather than just water--as elementals tend to specialize in different fields of their element, down to specific battle styles and practical uses. Once Ikaia discovers that he’s able to control his ability EASILY--he realizes he’s better at freezing things, developing a knack for it right away! Albion trains him a bit and teaches him a few Grandmaster tricks that only he knows. Ikaia excitedly goes home to show off to his family--they are proud at first, but immediately turn around and start using Ikaia for his powers, which makes him miserable. They also start noticing Ikaia hanging around Albion, which they find VERY suspicious, and punish Ikaia for meeting with him. Albion feels immensely guilty for getting Ikaia in trouble, and even worse, a very furious Astraeus shows up and berates Albion for interacting with humans, fearing that the secret of his Grandmaster status might leak.
Astraeus threatens to erase Ikaia’s memory of Albion, to which Albion protests, saying it isn’t fair to erase all the happy moments they had together just to preserve their secret. (Also they’d have to get Valdis to come do that who is like halfway across the world anyway.) Because of how close Ikaia and Albion had become, Astraeus says they won’t erase the child’s memory, but that Albion has to leave town and never look back, and forbids him from ever seeing Ikaia again lest Ikaia realizes that Albion’s immortal. At this point Albion’s been driven into a corner and can’t really oppose that decision, so he goes along with it, reluctantly, because he’d actually wanted to see the type of person Ikaia would grow up to be.
Finally, Albion resolves to leave town. Ikaia is absolutely distraught, of course, not wanting to lose the only friend he has, and the person who’s taught him so much. Albion tearfully says he’ll come back one day, and Ikaia makes him promise to take him with on a journey across Kishuniia and show him everything he knows once he’s grown up and mature enough for the journey :’) Ofc this is a lie but Ikaia doesn’t know that;;
Years after Albion has left, Ikaia becomes stronger and trains more often to master his elemental abilities--and also lashes out more frequently against his family. At this point, he’s become a bitter sort of person, under his family’s control and the promise that Albion never came back to fulfill. His sister gives him encouragement but Ikaia tells her there’s no point in believing in lies, that Albion had probably just been humoring his childish fantasy. Still though, he finally leaves home at age 16--sick of his parents and siblings’ manipulation, he starts traveling around and participating in tournaments to hone his skills.
And then, 15 years after Albion had left--Ikaia is in his early 20s at this point, and has become a renowned champion of local tournaments, going under the name “Ruka” because he doesn’t feel super comfortable using his actual name, especially because of how important it is to him, being the one big reminder of Albion he has. People refer to him as the “Frigid Prince” because of his use of ice and his cold personality lol. It’s at one of these tournaments that Albion stumbles upon him again, completely by accident 👀 Ikaia is shocked to see him from the audience and almost loses his match but he uses his irritation at Albion to win lol. He honestly thinks it was just a hallucination for a while, but he runs into Albion again outside of town--who had been avoiding meeting him--and just. Shit hits the FAN LMAO. Ikaia is absolutely FURIOUS at Albion for breaking his promise, and ofc is very confused as to why Albion still looks exactly the same. Albion refuses to reveal his identity as a Grandmaster, since he knows the truth would put Ikaia in danger with both Astraeus and any other humans looking to take advantage of them. But it becomes clear to Ikaia that Albion definitely doesn’t age, and probably isn’t human like he’d assumed--and he realizes that was the reason Albion never came back, and slowly but surely forgives him. (He’s still irritated for a long time after tho lmao)
With that said, Albion’s finally able to fulfill his promise and take Ikaia with him on a journey :’D They do a lot of catching up and they spar against each other occasionally, tho most of the time it ends in a draw since Albion’s afraid of hurting Ikaia despite the fact that Ika’s definitely strong enough to handle his blows lol. To Albion, Ikaia feels like an entirely different person, and it takes him a while to adapt to how snarky he’s become, and slowly begins to realize that Ikaia definitely doesn’t smile as much as he used to when he was a kid. (He then starts blaming himself for this drastic change in his friend, wondering if Ikaia’s become such a bitter person because of Albion’s “abandonment” of him.)
It takes a long time for Ikaia to finally start opening up to Albion, but when he does, and when he finally discovers Albion’s status as a Grandmaster--he resolves to protect Albion no matter what, and even stands up to Astraeus and challenges them to a fight in order to prove he’s worthy enough as a human being to stand by Albion’s side :’) Before this Ikaia had kinda been going through life without any real purpose, only wanting to get stronger without knowing why--but when Albion crashes back into his life again, he realizes that Albi’s been the driving force behind everything he’s done in his life, and finally knows what he wants to do from then on out. Seeing Ikaia stand up to Astraeus moves Albion tremendously, and that’s when he starts Catching Feels >:3c (It also doesn’t help that Ika looks REALLY good in thigh highs. Albion’s very weak for them fnadkald)
Ikaia’s pretty popular with his fans--especially the girls, who find him to be very handsome and charming with his cold and quiet demeanor--and Ikaia’s ignorance of them usually makes them freak out over him more lmao he just can’t avoid it :’D He doesn’t really care about fame particularly, and is disinterested in the affairs of his peers in the tournaments, but he does appreciate the support he gets! He’s a very careful battler and strategist, preferring to think first before charging in, while Albion is the exact opposite lmao. Being so cold and calculating gives him an air of arrogance, but he’s not like that, not at all! Deep down he’s still the excited, kind child he used to be, and he still really looks up to Albion a lot and is inspired by him! He likes teasing Albion a lot; they’ll get into friendly arguments and bicker over silly things. Ika thinks Albion’s an idiot despite being an all-powerful immortal being and sorta appoints himself as a babysitter for Albion under Astraeus’ instructions and Albion’s fury at that lol. Ikaia teaches him a lot about the human world, what humans are like, and how they function--which is something Albion’s always been extremely interested in.
They do fall in love, eventually! But it takes a long time because Albion’s never developed feelings for a human before, due to their lifespans being so short and him never being super attached to any of them in particular. He’s curious about them and he likes them, but human lives are fleeting and fragile, so he doesn’t really allow himself to get really close with any out of fear of losing them. After he starts getting closer to Ikaia he becomes very...overprotective of him, and worries constantly about his health and his state of being, and nags at him to be more careful when he gets hurt. Eventually Ikaia snaps back at him and tells him to stop coddling him and acting like a mother hen lmao. He does understand Albion’s fear, as Ikaia feels the same, worried that someone will take Albion away and try to use him against his will, and does his best to reassure him...!
A long time later when they finally get the balls to confess to each other, Albion pleads for Astraeus to let Ikaia become an immortal (who had already considered his options and decided yeah, spending an eternity with Albion would be really nice), and Astraeus, having seen how important they are to each other and viewing Ikaia as Albion’s only true friend, grants him immortality!! (Which they can easily do, being the Grandmaster of Time, Space AND Stars--) And then, Albi and Ika begin their eternity together. Insufferable partners to the end. LMAO
There’s this whole thing where people do eventually find out about Albion and there’s a huge battle arc where they fight to get him back and he turns into a raging demon and unlocks his Grandmaster Destruction Powers or something after Ikaia gets hurt and. Yeah. That’s a story for another time LOL
WHEW sorry that got long but that’s the gist of it!! I love my boys very much and would lay my life on the line for them, yessir
Bonus screencaps from me blabbing on about them in Discord:
#Original character#OC#Character art#Character design#Character sheet#Illustration#Artists on tumblr#Digital art#Among the Stars#ATS#Ikaia Belcour#Albion Kerrigan#Shima's OCs#AlbiIka#Long post#That got so long. I am so sorry. Except I'm not#//jazz hands#THEMST#Shima arts#shima-draws
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Sugar and Salt
Chapter: Two of ?
Summary: When Sin is bullied on the bus ride home Sara meets with their teacher Ava. The two butt heads on the best possible course of action, but later realize the other might not be so bad.
Fandom: DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.
Relationship: Sara Lance/Ava Sharpe.
Characters: Sara Lance, Ava Sharpe, Kendra Saunders, Sin, Amaya Jiwe, Zari Tomaz, Behrad Tomaz, Kuasa, Aldus Boardman, Mona Wu, Nora Darhk, Mick Rory, Quentin Lance, and Laurel Lance.
Chapter Rating: General Audiences.
Additional Tags: Bakery and Coffee Shop, Teacher AU, Mutual Pining, Parent-Teacher AU, Non-binary character, Trans Character.
Read at AO3
Read at FFN
Special thanks to @canaryatlaw for editing this for me.
……………………………………………………………………
Sara bounced from one foot to the other and rubbed her arms. It was an unusually cold day for early March in Star City, dropping below the average 40 degrees to 33 degrees. There was frost on the trees and the plants along the sidewalk of the apartment building when she saw Sin off on the school bus from the bakery that morning, although it had melted when the sun chose to shine that afternoon.
Sara checked her watch again, yep, the bus was late. A whole ten minutes late. She’d been pacing in and out of the small foyer to the steps and the sidewalk, before deciding to just stick it out on the curb. She could wait inside the entryway for the bus to pull up, but she felt the need to sit out on the sidewalk and freeze because she missed her kid that damn much.
It was Monday, so not her usual day off as the bakery and cafe was open on weekdays, but an entitled asshole had come in to pick up their online order of cupcakes and had insisted on a discount they didn’t have. The role of kicking them out usually fell to Amaya and Sara, and Amaya was out delivering a wedding cake leaving Sara to deal with them alone. It didn't go well. It was one of the few times that she was thankful her dad was a cop. Quentin had dropped everything to rush over to the shop after that asshole got violent and took a swing at her.
After Amaya got back, she insisted Sara take the rest of the day off and go spend some time with Sin. Sara tried to switch with Kendra and pick up the kids, babysitting until four when they closed, but they all but pushed her out of the shop and told her to go home. Her plan was to take Sin to the skate park then, rent that new superhero movie, pop some popcorn, and settle in for a quiet night.
Finally, the yellow, number thirteen, Glades Elementary school bus turned up the street and stopped in front of her, the doors swinging open. Sara smiled as she saw Sin’s black pants and matching converse at the top of the stairs, her little punk rocker. The bus driver Mona, stepped out of her seat behind them with her hand on Sin's shoulder. As she followed them down the stairs, Sara's smile fell when she saw Sin step off the bus.
Their usual happy face was somber, with red eyes that sparkled with tears. Their hands were straight at their sides and clenched into fists. Sara rushed to them, kneeling down to their level and placing her hands on their shoulders.
“Sin what happened?” Sara tried to keep her voice even, but her heart broke at the sight of them crying, and her mind rushed to the worst case scenario.
Sin didn't even look at her. Instead, they stared down at the ground then, they quickly brushed off Sara's hands and ran past her, up the stairs and into the apartment.
Sara stood up in disbelief and looked at Mona with pleading eyes. “What happened?”
“Some of the other kids were bullying Sin.” Mona said, then quickly added. “I stopped it as soon as I noticed it happening and pulled the other kids to the front of the bus.”
“Do you know what it was about?” Sara asked, still in disbelief. Nothing like this had ever happened before, not even when Sin had come out as non-binary over the summer.
“I'm not exactly sure, but the girls were calling them unintelligent. They used the R word. I radioed the school to let them know what happened and they'll probably want to meet with you tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Sara said. Still in disbelief, she started to turn away.
“Sin’s a great kid, so I don't know what they're talking about,” Mona said, giving her a small smile.
“Thank you,” Sara said nodding, with a tight lipped smile of her own.
Mona let her go and she rushed up the stairs and into the apartment building, not bothering to take the elevator to the third floor. The apartment door was left swinging open in Sin’s haste, and Sara quickly closed and locked it. She headed over to Sin's room and grabbed the tissue box along the way. The door was closed and Sara hesitated, knocked under the letters that spell out Sin’s name, painted Black with silver spikes.
“I’m coming in,” Sara announced when she heard no response and opened the door to see Sin sprawled out on their bed face down sobbing with their backpack and shoes still on.
“Oh baby,” Sara sighed, walking forward and sitting on the bed next to them. She leaned down and wrapped her arms around them, backpack and all.
“They.. they called me stupid... and… and… dumb... and...” Sin said through tears, their voice shaking.
“I’m so sorry baby. They should've never said that to you. You didn't deserve that.” Sara whispered in their ear.
“It's all her fault!” Sin yelled.
“Whose fault honey? Tell me, it's okay.”
“Ms. Sharpe.”
“What?” Sara was shocked at Sin’s revelation. Although she had only met the 4th grade teacher a few times before on orientation night, parent’s night, and stuff, she really seemed to care about her students. Sure she could be strict, but she was kind and Sin had always come home from school happy, going on about how great school was.
“Come here” Sara said, pulling Sin up. She wiped away their tears and slipped their backpack off, leaving it on the floor. “Why don’t we grab some ice cream from the freezer and you can tell me the whole story, okay?”
“It's too cold,” Sin whined.
“Then we’ll make hot chocolate, with the big marshmallows.”
“On the stove, like Papa Quentin makes?”
“Of course!”
Sin nodded and Sara pulled them up, carrying them out into the hall. Sin barely weighed 60lbs, but they weren't a toddler anymore. Sara specifically worked out just so she could still do this, even if the times she did had become few and far between.
Sara set them on the counter, then got to work pulling out the chocolate chips and the double boiler. They made the hot chocolate with extra big marshmallows and once they got settled on the couch with their favorite mugs, Sara waited for them to start.
“I didn’t do my math homework from this weekend,” Sin admitted with defeat. “I just don’t like it, it’s too hard!”
“Okay,” Sara said, choosing to ignore the admission in favor of hearing the whole story.
“Well, Ms. Sharpe has this hour at the end of the day for us to work on homework and stuff, and she talked to me about it. She showed me how to do long division, but I just didn’t get it. Then she said I would have to go to the special ed class, because I’m re….”
“Sin,” Sara said softly stopping them there. “You are not the word that the kids on the school bus called you. Everyone struggles with math at some point. I know I did. You are capable of anything and we can figure this out together. I promise!”
Sin nodded, drawing strength from Sara and sitting up straighter. “Will I have to go to the special ed class?”
Sara knew her kid, and she knew that with a little extra help Sin could catch back up to her class.
“You will remain in your class with your friends and I’ll try and work things out with your teacher.” Sara assured them, “In the meantime, I’m gonna help you with your homework and we’ll get it done together.”
“Us against the world?” Sin asked with a smile.
“Us against the world,” Sara said, matching their smile and holding out her fist. Sin enthusiastically fist bumps her, making the explosion noise afterwards.
……………………………………………………………………
Sara paced back and forth in the hall, holding her phone to her ear, waiting for Kendra to pick up. She caught Sin looking over at her from their spot at the kitchen table and sent them a smile and a thumbs up, before turning back to the dark green walls. She didn't know why their landlord wouldn't let her paint, even with the extra floor lamp Sara had squeezed in by the door, the dark hallway was never lit enough.
“Hey you,” Kendra said, finally picking up and enthusiastically greeting Sara.
“Did you know that she has them doing long division with three digit numbers?” Sara whisper yelled into the phone.
“Umm,” Kendra hesitated before Sara heard her yell at Carter. “Honey, is Hector doing three digit long division?”
Sara didn't hear his reply, but a second later Kendra gave her an answer. “Yes.”
Sara sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Why didn’t I start helping her out when it was just division?”
Kendra chuckled, “If it makes you feel better I can’t do it either and I thought Laurel was helping Sin with their homework?”
“Yeah apparently they were telling Laurel that I was helping them, so they were giving both of us the runaround.”
That night Laurel was planning to head out with friends so it would be just the two of them. Sara was hesitant to move in with her sister after she and Nyssa were forced apart two years ago, but Laurel helped her out a lot. She was always there for them. Sara tried to return the favor by doing more than her fair share of the housework and making sure Laurel didn’t drown herself in work.
“Well at least you're helping them now,” Kendra said, and Sara just shook her head.
“Not by much, It’s been an hour and we’re only halfway through this worksheet that was supposed to take twenty munites.”
“Why don’t you come over now and Carter can help you two get a hold of it?”
“Thanks, you're a lifesaver,” Sara said, grabbing her coat and Sin’s from their hooks. “We’ll be there in five and can we come over tomorrow as well? I’ll bring dinner.”
“Yeah, sounds good. So what clued you into the fact that Sin was lying about who was helping them with their homework?”
Sara sighed, leaning up against the wall. “Sin came home in tears today after a couple of kids were bullying them on the bus. Apparently, they overheard Ms. Sharpe telling Sin they might need to go to the special ed room for math help.”
“What? She said that?” Kendra said in disbelief.
“I know right! How dare she tell Sin that before even consulting with me!” Sara tried to keep her voice down, but she was just so angry. “I have a meeting with her tomorrow morning so I’ll let you know how it goes.”
“Okay, see you soon.”
“Yeah, thanks again.”
“No problem.”
Sara hung up and then walked back into the kitchen. “Hey so I called Auntie Kendra and she said that we could come over and Uncle Carter is gonna help us get your homework done.”
Sin nodded and gathered their papers in their backpack, Sara pulled on her coat and held out Sin’s coat for them to put on. Sin ran out the door and down the hall pressing the button on the elevator as Sara locked the door behind them.
“Mom, how come I have other aunts and uncles?” Sin asked once Sara had joined them waiting for the elevator.
“What?” Sara asked, still thinking about that last math problem.
“You know like how Auntie Laurel is your sister, and Aunt Lisa was Dad’s sister, but Auntie Kendra and Uncle Nate, they aren’t related to us?”
“Well,” Sara said, putting her arm around them and leading them onto the elevator. “Auntie Kendra, Uncle Mick, and the others became my family when I was in college and when I had you, they became your family too.”
“Were they Dad’s family too?” Sin asked.
Sara smiled, but she felt a familiar pain in her heart. Talking about Leonard, Sin’s father and her then-boyfriend had gotten easier since he had died six years ago.
“Yes, your Dad and Uncle Mick used to get into all sorts of trouble.”
“Really?”
“Yes, like there was this one time…”
……………………………………………………………………
Sara walked the halls of Sin’s school with Sin by her side that morning. She felt confident as she went over what she was going to say to Ms. Sharpe in her head. The night before Carter had walked her through the steps on how to do long division. They were able to get the homework done in time to be in bed at a reasonable hour. Working with Carter had solidified Sara's belief that Sin just needed a little extra help.
Now all Sara had to do was talk to Ms. Sharpe and things would be taken care of. Sin could go back to class without being bothered and Sara could spend the rest of the day knowing her kid was happy and taken care of. Sara hesitated at the door to Sin’s classroom, peering in the window to see that Ms. Sharpe was sitting at her desk. She had to be civil about this if she wanted it to go anywhere. She felt Sin squeeze her hand and looked down, so she gave them a smile and squeezed Sin’s hand in return. Then she took a deep breath, pushed open the door, and plastered her fake customer service smile on her face.
Sara would never admit it but, she kind of had the hots for Ms. Sharpe. She was tall, with soft blonde hair, dark blue eyes, and an oval face that had soft features. Not usually Sara’s type, but then again she never really considered herself to have a specific body type, she was bisexual. However, she did like people who were confident and passionate, if not a little wild. These days she just wanted someone who was kind and treated her and her child with respect.
“Hello, Ms. Sharpe, I'm Mrs. Lance, Sin’s mother.”
Ms. Sharpe stood up and straightened her white button up shirt and buttoned her suit jacket. “Mrs. Lance, a pleasure as always. I didn't know you were bringing Sin along.”
“They are the reason we're here,” Sara said, placing her hands on Sin’s shoulders and leading them over to Ms. Sharpe’s desk.
Ms. Sharpe gave her a tight smile, and Sara knew that most teachers prefered to have meetings without the children present, but nonetheless she gestured to the thankfully adult-sized chair in front of her desk. “Please have a seat, Mrs. Lance and then why don't you grab a chair as well Sin.”
While Sin grabbed a chair from the nearest desk, Sara took a moment to look around the classroom. The morning sun peeked in through the blinds, casting its glow over the desks. They were pushed together in groups of four at the front of the classroom, facing the projector and white board. The side of the board listed the schedule, as well as the topics for that day's lessons. There had been talk of getting smart boards, but Sara knew it wasn't in the budget; regardless, Ms. Sharpe worked well with what she had. In the back she had child sized comfy chairs with a floor lamp that looks like the one they had in their apartment hallway surrounded by wooden bookshelves.
It wasn’t like the classrooms of Sara’s childhood, there were no bright colors or boards filled with the same kids projects, colorful maps and bright alphabets. Instead, there were lots of plants, succulents and other little house plants lined the shelves, there was one palm tree in the corner about halfway to the ceiling.
There was a large map of the U.S. in greens and browns, and a list of words were organized with magnets on the left whiteboard that Sara had seen some of the kids use many times. The other wall was filled with artwork and each child's abstract picture was unique with different colors, styles, and shapes. The way it was displayed on the wall was more alike to a parent putting their kids pictures on the fridge than an overt display of work. The only bright and colorful things were fish in the large tank at the back of the room. All in all, the classroom looked homey.
“Well, let's get right into it,” Ms. Sharpe began, once they were both seated. “I’ve been informed that Sin was verbally assaulted by Cassandra Savage and Freydís Eriksson on the bus ride home yesterday. I've spoken with both the girl's parents and with the principal over the phone this morning and rest assured it will not happen again. I've moved Sin’s desk away from the two girls and Mona has agreed to keep the kids separate while they're on the bus and when she’s helping in the classroom. Going forward, I will be keeping an eye on the situation and I will not let it happen again under my watch.”
“That's good,” Sara said, letting go of some of the stress she had and partially relaxed back into the chair. “When can we expect an apology from the girls?”
“They will write an apology and present it to Sin this afternoon.”
“They’re gonna be at school today?” Sin asked, suddenly timid.
“I thought they’d get suspended?” Sara asked.
“That's not the school’s policy. We believe in having the children face up to what they have done, with more appropriate methods, such as the apology letter and a true understanding of why what they did was wrong. Not a vacation from school. Kids like Cassandra and Freydís will benefit from being here more than at home.”
“Having a tough home life doesn’t excuse their behavior,” Sara said.
“I'm not excusing it. I'm telling you why, and what I'm doing to try and help everyone.”
Sara huffed. “That makes sense, but you really shouldn't be openly talking about your student’s home life like that.”
“I never said anything about...” Ms. Sharpe started, then paused and gave Sara a look like she wanted to continue, but instead, she took a deep breath and straightened her jacket again.
Sin tugged on Sara’s arm and gave her a nervous look, “Mom do I have to go to the special ed classroom?”
Sara wrapped an arm around them and tugged their chair closer to her and whispered to them. “No, it’ll be okay.”
“You have nothing to fear Sin, this class is a safe place for you.” Ms. Sharpe said, having assumed that was what they were whispering about.
“Yeah, about that,” Sara started, taking a less than amused tone. “Yesterday Sin said that you wanted to place them in the special ed classroom after they struggled to finish the math assignment that you gave them.”
“I said that…”
“Why would you say that without talking to me first?” Sara demanded.
“Let me explain.”
“Oh please do!”
Ms. Sharpe looked away from Sara to Sin, who still sat at Sara’s side, leaning into her and gripping her arm, while bouncing their leg.
“Sin, Miss. Nora is in the library setting up for today, I’d bet she’d love your help!” Ms. Sharpe offered.
Sin looked up at Sara, who just gave them a squeeze and turned back to Ms. Sharpe. “Anything you want to say to me you can say to Sin.”
Ms. Sharpe took a deep breath before speaking. “I believe Sin may have Dyscalculia. It’s a learning disability like Dyslexia, but it involves numbers rather than letters. It’s characterized in children who have difficulty organizing and memorizing numbers and other math concepts, even telling time can be a struggle. I had a few examples of Sin’s work that highlights these aspects if you'd like to see.”
She held out some of the math work Sin had done and Sara took it from her and quickly glanced over. “I believe Sin would benefit from going over to the special education classroom or getting some extra math time with one of our Paraeducators like Mona, for the last hour of class and receiving some extra guidance in this area a few times a week.”
“Sin doesn't have any learning disabilities.”
“I know this is hard to hear.”
“I know for sure!” Sara said. “After their father died, I took Sin to therapy to help them. The therapists noticed something just like you did and thought it would be wise to have her tested as well. We went through the whole process and nothing came of it. The school should know about it, Sin’s teacher knew and we kept the school in the loop. What we did find was that Sin just started making more mistakes when they felt nervous. Which isn't so unusual for any kid.”
At that point, Sara was surprised that Ms. Sharpe gave her a confused look. “I never saw or heard anything like that when I went over Sin’s file at the start of the year.”
“Well I'll have the paperwork sent over to you,” Sara said, with more malice than was necessary.
“Well, I'd be happy to read it,” Ms. Sharpe said, giving Sara every ounce of sass right back to her.
“Great.”
“Great. I think we're done here,” Ms. Sharpe said standing up and offering her hand to Sara.
Sara remained seated and she could feel Sin glanced over at her but there was one more thing she wanted from Ms. Sharpe.
“I believe you owe me and my child an apology, especially since your words were the reason Cassandra and Freya were bullying them.” Sara said, raising an eyebrow at her.
Ms. Sharpe clenched her teeth, but nonetheless looked down. “I didn’t know that’s why they were bothering you Sin.”
Her words were sincere, then she looked back up, looking them in the eye. “I am sorry for what I said to you in front of the other children. It should have been discussed in private.”
“Thank you,” Sin said, standing up and offering her hand for Ms. Sharpe to shake. Sara’s eyes bugged out as they did so, they had done the mature thing and forgiven Ms. Sharpe.
“Of course,” Ms. Sharpe replied with a smile that Sin returned.
Sara decided to do the right thing and shake Ms. Sharpe’s hand as well. She stood up and went to leave with Sin.
“You could stay if you wanted to,” Ms. Sharpe said. “I usually open up my classroom for the early kids right about now.”
“We’ve still got a half hour or so and I figured we could play on the playground. That sound fun to you kiddo?” Sara said.
“Yeah,” Sin said excitedly, grabbed her arm and raced ahead of her.
In the hallway Sara put her arm around Sin’s shoulder, giving them a side hug.
“I'm really proud of you holding your hand out to shake your teacher’s hand and accepting her apology. That's what I mean when I ask you to be the bigger person sometimes.”
“Thanks Mom. I'm proud of you too, you stood up for me.”
“I am always on your side,” Sara said. Then she switched to her ‘monster Mom’ voice wrapping her arms around Sin and swiping them up in a hug. “Because I love you so freaking much.”
“Mom,” Sin complained, trying to sound angry at her. “You're ruining my hair.”
“Right, sorry,” Sara said, returning to her normal voice and setting them down.
Sara grabbed the compact mirror from Sin’s backpack and held it up so they could fix their hair. Sin ran their fingers through it, styling their short black hair into a spiky swept back style. Their Uncle Nate had helped them cut it and learn to style it when they had first cut it short. Sara was grateful for friends in their lives who were there for both of them like family.
It was almost time for school and there were several kids in the hallways milling about and talking with other teachers and kids. Sara figured she could play on the playground with Sin for a few minutes before sending them back into the classroom. However, once they got outside, they hesitated instead of running towards the playground as they usually did.
“Mom, do I have to go to school today?”
Sara followed their line of sight to where Cassandra and Freydís were playing on the playground.
“I think we could take a mental health day and spend it at the skatepark if you wanted to?”
“Can we?” Sin asked in a way that made Sara's heartbreak as she heard the pain and need in her child's voice.
“Of course,” she said, putting her arm around them again and leading them over to the car.
……………………………………………………………………
The second the door closed behind Sin and her mother, Ava slumped back into her chair. In her ten years of teaching, she had never had a parent come after her like that, although there were several who had been particularly terrible. Parents never wanted to hear about their child's potential disability or struggles in class. She wished they were more open about it, as they were only hurting the child they were so desperate to protect.
But maybe Ava was wrong, maybe Sin didn't have a disability like she thought. She sighed and looked over Sin’s homework again, as she looked over the little mistakes the child had made. It could have simply been because they were stressed, or there could be something more to it. Honestly it could go either way, and Ava would have preferred to have a more professional opinion, but without Mrs. Lance's approval, she knew she would never get that answer.
Ava looked up at the clock on the wall. School wouldn't start for another hour and the majority of her early students wouldn’t be there for a couple more minutes and they probably wouldn't mind hanging around in the halls or on the playground. She grabbed her keys and locked her room but, before she headed over to the library, she peeked in the classroom of her grade neighbor and brother, Nate Heywood, to check on her son Gary. She smiled when she saw him completely absorbed in one of his adventure books. Nate saw her and waved her in, but Ava declined with a shake of her head, not wanting to disturb Gary during his favorite pastime.
She turned around and headed down to the hall, quickly finding Nora among the shelves as she put away the books that had been returned the previous day. The library was mostly empty, save for a couple of students in the reading nook around the corner.
“Hey,” Nora said when she saw Ava approach her.
“I just got the tongue lashing of a lifetime from one of my student’s mothers,” Ava whispered to her.
“Oh?” Nora said pausing. “What for?”
Ava looked around, all of the bookshelves were no taller than her rib cage and the other kids over at the reading nook could easily overhear them.
“Let's go to my office,” Nora said, putting the book away and wheeling the cart down the aisle.
After being seated in one of Nora's comfy chairs, Nora brought Ava a cup of tea and waited for her to start.
“Okay, so I said something to one of my students about introducing them to Ray so they could get a little extra help understanding math. My plan was to have Ray drop by at the end of class if he had some extra time to give her a little extra tutoring, with their parent’s consent, of course, but now that's never going to happen. And just to be clear that was all I said, nothing more, but everyone knows that Ray is one of the special ed teachers. So some of the other children in my class overheard what I said and on the bus ride home yesterday they started teasing this child.”
“Oh that’s terrible,” Nora said, tilting her head. “But that's not your fault.”
“I know!” Ava said, raising her voice a little, but it felt good to talk this through with Nora and get all her emotions out. “So this child goes home in tears and tells the parent that it's my fault because they thought I wanted to have them placed in the special ed classroom, which is something I would never do; it's much more helpful to have the kids stay in their own classrooms with their peers.”
“Um hum,” Nora nodded, having heard both Ray and Ava discuss the benefits of such on multiple occasions.
“So I got a phone call about what happened on the bus and I set up a meeting with the parent through the online appointment system the school has and they came this morning. We all sit down and at first, it goes great. I tell them how I'm handling the bullying and everything's going great until this mother insists that I apologize to their child for what I said. She won't even let me fully explain myself, she just insists that it's all my fault. So I just tried to explain why I wanted them to get some help from Ray, and I pulled up some of the child’s work to try and show the parent that maybe their child should be tested for a learning disability. And the parent just goes off insisting that it's because the child just stressed about math, which I guess is a possibility, but I've been observing this kid for months I think they could really benefit from at least a little one-on-one time with either Ray or Mona.”
“Did you get a chance to explain to the parent about all of this?” Nora asked.
“Oh no, she just got so defensive saying she already had her child tested, but that was years ago, things change, new things come to light. Anyway, I think what I'm going to do is just try and give this kid a little extra one-on-one time during my study hour at the end of the day. I'll just keep observing them and helping them and if things don't improve, I’ll meet with the parent again at parent-teacher conferences in April.”
Ava finally let out a breath and slumped back into her chair. “Thanks for letting me rant a little.”
Nora giggled, “It was more like a lot, but I'm happy to listen.”
“At least none of the kids are getting bulled for being queer,” Ava said taking a sip of her tea for the first time. “I feel like I could handle that, I mean I am a trans woman and a lesbian, I’ve faced my fair share of homophobes.”
Nora giggled, “Yeah I remember that time we were at the department store, buying clothes with Gary and that lady kept flowing us around and whispering, ‘lesbians can’t raise a son.’ in that confused and angry tone and you just spun around and laid into her. I thought she’d die of embarrassment.”
“Yeah, that felt pretty good.” Ava looked up at the clock, realizing that she had fifteen minutes before school started. “I should get going.”
Just then Mona peeked in like she usually did after she had parked her bus to the depot and returned to the school for her shift as Paraeducator. “Hey, I'm glad I caught you both, are we still on for book club tonight after school? Also, the secretary told me to tell you that Sin Lance won’t be in class today. ”
“Thanks Mona,” Ava said. She should have known that Mrs. Lance would pull her out of class that morning, but she was glad that she at least had Sin’s trust back and could help her student further.
She returned to her class after checking on Gary again to find several of her students waiting for her in the hall. They all greeted her with big smiles and happy hellos, and she gave them all hugs or high fives as she let them in the classroom, smiling as they all filtered in and went to their desks. This was why she got into teaching, because she loved watching all these little kids learn and grow, and the joy they admitted whenever they accomplished something, filling her with pride. Apart from being a mom, to her, it was the best job in the world.
……………………………………………………………………
Sara and Sin had rushed home to the apartment to grab their skateboard and head out to the skatepark. By the time they got there, all the high school students had left and they enjoyed the freedom of the empty skatepark. Sara had been riding a skateboard since middle school, and when Sin was three years old she put them on a board and her toddler had taken off. If it was up to them, they would have never gotten off.
After spending the morning going up and down the pipes and riding along the rails they grabbed some lunch at Big Belly Burger, calling Laurel beforehand and agreeing to meet her at Quentin's precinct.
“Papa!” Sin called out the moment they stepped off the elevator, running in between the cops and detectives towards Quentin's office. Most of her dad's coworkers were used to Sin’s antics and just smiled as they ran past them.
Sara followed behind, choosing to walk through the bullpen and leaned up against the door to her Dad’s office.
“Shouldn't you be in school, you rascal?” Quentin playfully asked as he had Sin wrapped up in a bear hug.
“Mom said I could take the day off and we went to the skatepark,” Sin answered as they pulled back.
“Oh did she now?” Quentin asked looking up at Sara. “Hey kiddo.”
“Hi Daddy,” Sara said, walking over and leaning down to give him a hug as well as depositing the bags on his desk.
“Yeah, it's cuz Cassandra and Freydís were mean to me on the bus yesterday,” Sin said quietly, looking down at their hands.
“Oh, I'm sorry to hear that,” he said, he still had his arms around Sin and gave them an extra squeeze.
“We worked it out with their teacher this morning,” Sara said, sitting in one of the chairs across from him. “But they just didn't want to go back yet.”
“Hey, hope I didn't miss much,” Laurel said, appearing in the doorway and dropping her purse and herself into the chair next to Sara.
Sin immediately ran from her place at Quentin’s side to hug Laurel, who gave them a tight squeeze.
“There’s my favorite Niblet,” Laurel said, using the gender-neutral nickname for Nibbling she had started using when Sin came out.
“Auntie Laurel, I'm your only Niblet.”
“Yes, and therefore my favorite,” Laurel said bopping their nose as they both giggled.
“You know ever since I had a kid, I always feel like you guys love them more than me,” Sara said with a pout.
“That's not true,” Quentin insisted.
“Yes it is,” Laurel said, with a sly smile.
“Rude,” Sara replied, waving her finger at Laurel.
“Be nice,” Quentin said, while Sin just giggled. “You know for Christmas I think the only thing I'm going to ask for is for a whole day where my daughters don't fight.”
“That's completely unrealistic,” Sara said.
“Yeah that's not going to happen,” Laurel added, before the two of them burst into laughter.
Quentin and Sin joined in laughing and they all dug into the burgers and fries Sara had brought.
……………………………………………………………………
“I don't want you to go to work tomorrow!” Sin whined as they stood at their desk in their classroom.
Sara took a deep breath, closed her eyes and counted to ten before responding to Sin. This was the argument that they had been having ever since Sara had told her yesterday that they would be opening the bakery and cafe on Saturdays.
“Saturday is our day!” Sin insisted.
Sara opened her eyes and kneeled down so that she was at Sin’s level, putting her hands on their shoulders. “I know. I know you don't want me to go to work. I know you want me to just stay home and hang out with you all day long.”
She poked their stomach trying to get them to giggle while using an exaggerated voice, but Sin didn’t respond as they usually did. Sara tried to keep smiling, but she was at her wits end. They had been fighting all day yesterday, and this morning Sin had dug their heels in and wouldn't let the issue go. Sara thought that driving them to school and dropping them off herself would help so that they could spend some extra time together, but clearly it hadn't worked.
Sara looked around and spotted a glitter jar on one of the shelves. She quickly ran over and grabbed two, brought it back and handed one to Sin. “I know you’re mad, so take all your anger, push it into the jar, and shake it out.”
Sara shook up the jar as hard as she could, watching as Sin did the same. They shook the jars for a few moments and then Sin stopped to watch the glitter in the bottle spin around. After several minutes they looked up at Sara.
“Do you have to go to work Saturday?”
“I do kiddo, and I'll drop you off at Aunt Zari’s around the time you would go to school in the morning, but before I leave we can try to go to the skate park.”
Sin still looked disappointed and their face scrunched up, as they shook the jar again so hard Sara thought it would break.
“Do you know why?” Sara asked, just wishing she could take some of the hurt feelings away.
“No,” Sin said, as they stopped shaking the bottle and continued to gaze into it. Like it held all the answers to their problems.
“Because your aunts and I are not just making pies and cakes, we’re helping the Wedding Fairy,” Sara said in an absolutely serious voice, it was a thing they said around the bakery quite often especially as of late, as it was an epithet for over the top brides and mothers. However to the kids the wedding fairy was very real.
“Really?” Sin asked, looking over at her.
“Yeah,” Sara said with a smile on her. “You see, wedding fairy needs some extra help making some special treats for some special people, her kitchen is just too small to try and do it all this year.”
It was partially true, they were swamped with June and May weddings and all the last minute wedding planners flooding them with orders. With the wedding season rush kicking into gear as spring approached and the bakery and cafe being so popular, they had to add an extra day to their schedule if they wanted to be able to take on the new orders. Amaya hated turning people away, especially if they were cute couples in love. It would only be until spring break and summer, and in an effort to avoid the insane cost of childcare, they were alternating Saturdays so that one of the four of them could watch the kids.
The business had always made just enough money for everyone to live comfortably. Amaya’s hope was that with the extra orders, everyone would be able to splurge that year. Sara agreed to it because she wanted to be able to afford a good summer vacation for Sin. Of course, Sara didn’t tell Sin any of this, as she didn't want them to worry about money.
“The wedding fairy isn't real.”
Sara turned around to see Cassandra Savage standing next to them, but before she could say anything Ms. Sharpe approached them. “Yes she is and I'm sure she's very thankful to have Ms. Lances’ help.”
Cassandra sneered and looked like she was about to say something else but Ms. Sharpe led her away, talking to her on the other side of the room.
“Why can't I help the wedding fairy?” Sin asked, with curiosity rather than disappointment.
“You can! How about tonight you and I work on thank you cards for all of the orders!”
Sin thought it over and nodded. Sara sighed in relief and smiled, then leaned up and kissed Sin’s forehead.
“Have I told you that I love you and that you're the best kid in the world?”
“Yeah, you say that every day,” Sin teased, rolling their eyes.
“Well I mean it every day,” Sara teased her back, then tucked a stray strand of hair behind their ear. “Are you going to be okay today?”
“Yeah,” Sin said, with a somber nod.
“You want me to go or stay a little longer?” Sara asked, her eyebrows knitting together, she couldn’t help but worry, especially when it came to Sin.
Sin looked around before answering, they still had a few minutes before class started and most of the kids were already there milling around. Sara looked around as well and saw Hector wave at them from his desk. They both smiled and waved back.
“You're picking me up today, right?”
“Yep.”
“Okay,” Sin said and then took off their backpack and walked over to talk to Hector.
Sara smiled and watched them for another minute before heading out. She stopped in the doorway, realizing that she was still holding the glitter bottle.
“You can take it if you want to,” Ms. Sharpe said, catching her at the door. “I'm sure Sin would love to have one at home.”
“Thanks,” Sara said.
“I keep the bottles around for situations like this and I'm glad you were able to use them. You handled that really well,” Ms. Sharpe replied.
“Thank you,” Sara said, surprised at her genuine words. The two had been exchanging petty notes and words since their meeting a week before.
Ms. Sharpe gave her a genuine smile before turning back to her classroom. Sara took one last peek at Sin, who was laughing with Hector before leaving. She looked back over at Ms. Sharpe who was talking with one of the other students, maybe Sara had her pegged wrong, maybe she should give the teacher another chance.
#Sara Lance#Ava Sharpe#Avalance#DC's Legends of Tomorrow#legends of tomorrow#DC#Kendra Saunders#Sin Lance#Amaya Jiwe#Zari Tarazi#Behrad Tarazi#Kuasa Jiwe#Aldus Boardman#Mona Wu#Nora Darkh#Quentin Lance#Laurel Lance#Carter Hall#otp: I love you ya goober#My FanFics#my writing#my Avalance fics
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Around the World in 20 Pages
Hey there, bug fables. I think I'm probably out of the long-winded lead-ins by issue 3, so let's just jump into another New 52 Teen Titans review~
Here's the cover:
For a moment I thought Tim here had skates built into his shoes--not the right place for Heelys, but close enough--but it's actually just his logo. Because that's the best place to put your logo. In contrast, Bunker shows off his greatest power: his own Hulk Hands! Truly, he is the greatest hero on this team.
We pick up immediately where we left off last time, with Kid Flash encountering Solstice. This is probably a good place to introduce the character. Kiran Singh is a girl from India with light-based powers. She was actually introduced in the last ten or so issues of the previous Teen Titans series (the Geoff Johns era, though not created by him). As you might expect from a series that went on for 100 issues (especially in DC), it got a bit dour sometimes, and Kiran was a bright spot in those issues--literally and figuratively. So of course, instead of the bright golden look she had that also reflected her Indian heritage, the New 52 reinterprets her as a black void of smoke with glowing cracks all over her. Honestly, a fitting metaphor for everything the New 52 did~
Solstice begs Kid Flash to leave her behind, but Kid Flash won't give up on someone. This leads to a confusing two-page spread where he races all over the facility to retrieve a hose to tie Solstice up so he can carry her. It's not very well done, as you can tell by the fact that they had to number it and draw a line from each sequence, since it doesn't flow naturally. Comics are supposed to be sequential storytelling, right? Not scattershot storytelling. Anyways, they escape the facility, and discover that they're being held in the Antarctic. Solstice demonstrates another of her powers is being a jinx, as she comments that Kid Flash can't have that great traction running on ice while in sneakers. So it is of course at that moment that he slips, and the pair of them tumble into an enormous ravine.
But the survival of these characters isn't important! Instead we cut to "the badlands"--any old badlands, it doesn't matter--where a kid in a sweater vest and John Lennon sunglasses jumps aboard a passing train. Once inside the car, he discovers a huge mysterious cocoon and freaks out a little bit. He freaks out even more when a grizzled old crusty guy appears behind him and puts a grizzled old crusty hand on his shoulder. Even in superhero comics, we still have train hobos. Before we can pick up on that, though, we're gonna cut away again.
So here's a one-page scene showing us that the Teleport Trio actually survived and are alive in the hospital. Cassie enters and threatens him to give up who hired him. It then cuts away yet again to show Solstice learning to fly with her powers, saving herself and Kid Flash. And then we cut back to Bunker and his hobo buddy, because this comic has fucking ADHD. I can't wait until all these people are on the same team, so we can stop cutting away to see what they're doing. Bunker and the hobo shared an apple, and the hobo points out that no one with clothes as nice as Bunker's needs to be sneaking onto a train he could buy a ticket to ride.
Things suddenly get tense, and the hobo kicks Bunker across the face. Usually you have to prod them into bum fights, but here we are. Bunker demonstrates his powers of making psionic bricks. Basically, he's a Green Lantern who can only make bricks. It's actually a pretty neat power, if you're clever and played with Lego a lot. The hobo then suddenly pulls off his face--takes his face... off--revealing he's actually Tim Drake in disguise. This actually ends the fight instantly, since Bunker has actually been following Tim's career and wants to team up. He changes into his costume and volunteers his service. And in case you were wondering, Skitter's the thing in the cocoon, conveniently writing her out of the issue~
The train stops abruptly, and Tim and Bunker take a look outside. They immediately start talking about how all the people look possessed and zombified, but the art doesn't convey this at all. They may be slightly lurching towards our heroes, arms outstreched, but they look like healthy, smiling people. Tim points out that this can't be the work of NOWHERE, because NOWHERE exclusively focuses on those age 20 and under, and these people are multi-generational. They're never going to be a successful terrorist group if they don't broaden your demographic appeal. Tim flies off to find the source of the hypnosis, while Bunker keeps them out with his bricks.
Upon landing on a big radio tower, Tim notices some of the equipment is much newer than the tower itself, and must be the problem. It's at this point he's attacked by a big scrap-pile goon. Like, imagine Clayface, but instead of clay, he's made of rusted bits of metal and wire and other mechanical bits. He calls himself Detritus and brags about how he's an AI that suddenly became intelligent, now intending to wipe out humanity. He reaches for Tim, and then the next page shows Tim landing gently back on the train. He's mumbling about how he has to remember, repeating Detritus' name... and then smiles and gives a canned explanation to Bunker about how he found something on the radio tower and disabled it, and everything is good now.
Well, with Tim either under mind control or at the very least amnesia, the issue ends on two revelations. The first is that Skitter's cocoon has opened up and dumped Skitter back out--a completely human Skitter, with no idea where she is. The second is back in Antarctica, where the cold is finally taking its toll on Kid Flash and Solstice, and they're about to pass out. As he fades into unconsciousness, Kid Flash notices that he seems to have wandered from the snows onto... a cheerful, paved street...?
While I didn’t have super serious complaints about the first two issues, I do have them here. Namely, the comic’s inability to focus. It seriously keeps jumping from character to character, with no time to settle on any one plot point. Cassie appears for only one page, wherein it’s implied she tortures somebody who’s already in the hospital. Like, we didn’t have to cut away, we could’ve just had the Bunker plot and then the Kid Flash plot. It just feels really unfocused, which makes it difficult to read. Like I said, can’t wait for them to be a team so we can focus on them collectively~
Next issue, we’ll follow up on what is undoubtedly the introduction of Danny the Street. I’m... unsure about how to feel about that. Again, we’ll get into it next issue~
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