#this comic will make sense for like 60 people maybe

[professorcalculusstanaccount]

Tintin through time! 

Thought it would be fun to have my various designs for Tintin in one post. The canon comics have a floating timeline and Tintin never ages. I think rooting him in a specific time and context makes him feel a little more real (also I am a sucker for historical fiction). Click below for a potted timeline and notes about each design!

Left to right, top to bottom:

Child - in my timeline Tintin was born in 1915, a year into the First World War. He was probably picked on a lot by his peers for being small, ginger and slightly effeminate, and was picked on by adults for being “difficult” and asking too many questions.

Early canon - He leaves school early and becomes a reporter at 14. He’s unhinged, he’s blasé, he dresses like Spongebob. Coming right out of Catholic school he has a lot of unhealthy beliefs he needs to confront and unlearn. I imagine his editor is a pretty shady person as they are willing to send this kid off to dangerous places. His naivety prevents him from spotting any red flags at first.

Late canon - Tintin as we know him! His journalism career is at its peak at the tender age of 17. He’s found a family and stability at Marlinspike. His politics are evolving. He is, however, pretty neglectful of his own personal life, almost fully focusing on his career. He’s starting to grow wary of his editor and they frequently argue, Tintin often winning out as he knows it’s his articles that sell papers.

Young adult - With the Second World War breaking out this is an unstable time in his life. He’s come to terms with being gay but is fired from his paper after being forcibly outed. Tintin and the Marlinspike team take fighting fascism into their own hands. 

For his design here he wears a turtleneck like Captain Haddock, glasses like Professor Calculus (also representing a renewed perspective on things) and his hair is more relaxed like Chang’s! The idea was to show how he has been impacted by the people he cares about. 

After the war ends he struggles with unemployment and burnout, insecure that he might have peaked as a teenager.

Middle aged - It’s the late 50s - early 60s, Tintin is jaded and cynical but still kind and willing to help others. He is absolutely horrified by the events of WW2 and carries an enormous sense of guilt, feeling he didn’t do enough. His faith in journalism has also been thoroughly shaken, witnessing the spectacular failing of the system himself, and realising there are people who genuinely do not care for the truth, and are only concerned with power. 

Elderly - if he somehow makes it to old age he’d be a chaotic little old man who doesn’t give a Single Shit. It’s the late 80s and early 90s, at this point he has retired from journalism and has published his own books, and has taken to becoming a full time political activist (here he’s wearing an AIDS awareness ribbon from 1991, in the 70s Herge had Tintin wear a helmet displaying a symbol for nuclear disarmament). Kids adore him, cops hate him! 

He has taken to technology, being an early adopter of the Internet and desktop computers. He and Chang have since been able to reunite with Chang’s family and they often spend time with Didi’s grandkids!

I don’t know what would kill him. Old age? A car bomb? Maybe he falls over badly and bangs his head one last time. I don’t think it’s my place to decide.

#fanart #tintin #adventures of tintin #photoset #headcanon #historical fashion #might do this again for other characters! #professor calculus would be very interesting to research for #homophobia mention

[maxwell-grant]

So, as a lover of superheroes, supervillains, super-science ETC, i've had Venture Bros on the mind recently, for reasons that should be obvious, and my mind has run into an intersting question I kinda want to pick your brain on: Why does Venture Bros work. Like, it's a show that is absurdly cynical and dark and bleak. It's comedically dark, but sitll dark. Downright mean-spirited a lot of the time. And normally, I find that kind of cynicism very dull, but...For some reason, here it feels like it works. Maybe it's just the sense of affection, of real love for classic 60s cartoons and superhero comics sprinkled throughout, but...I don't know, it feels like it should make me as angry as something like Velma does but it just doesn't. I don't know why. ANy thoughts

I said as much that a lot of that has to do with the fact that the show stuck around, and the characters were developed so vividly, that the creators had to answer the "...okay, so now what?" process, that usually stops those kinds of mean dark parodies right on their tracks when they run out of cheap shots to take. But honestly, going back and rewatching it? Venture Bros was always going to go there, the whole Jonny Quest parody thing just did not last past Season One, hell you could argue it didn't even really last past the pilot or midway through S1. By episode one of Season 2, the show had gestated into it's own thing. The show was allowed to grow, and change, and develop. It got to move past itself and say goodbye to old favorite ideas and say hello to new ones, it got to breathe new life into itself with the soft-reboot of Season 6 and keep being so much more with every new season.

The artbook goes into this quite a lot, actually, with Jackson talking about how Venture Bros started as a one-off gag observation about how Jonny Quest ripped off Tom Swift, and then became a concept when he realized he could fit all of his unused ideas for The Tick and superhero parodies and weird comic ideas. He and Doc Hammer actually specifically address how the parody element faded and why:

I like the pilot. It isn't the show that we made. but I like the pilot. The pilot was made with a different concept. I can watch it and not tie it into Venture Bros. I can go, "Okay, here are these characters in their first bid for comedy,", and it had moments when we both said, "Yes, we will perpetuate these moments. This is who these characters are." And it had moments of single-beat pilot jumps. It was fine. It was not the show that we kept writing, because we couldn't.

There's something about a straight parody that I think has a cap. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe people can write a parody forever, but I think you can only make so many jokes on one thing for a certain amount of time before you go, "We have to develop the world that these people are in.". It needs a revolving door.

You would need to approach it like Harvey Birdman, which said, "We're going to take every character we can get a license for, bring them onto the show, and have them do their thing in our world so we can demystify all the characters you remember from your childhood". It's a great straight-up parody. But if you take Sealab 2021 - that had nothing to do with the original. They took these drawings, and they said, "These are totally different people. We're going to give them their own different world, their own language, characters", and that worked.

We were leaning towards that. Venture Bros was even weirder because we said, "Let's make this world rock solid and deep and long and have just an abundance of information. Let's have the jokes come from everywhere, and the speed is hard to keep up with. You have to watch it twice". And that was nothing that Jackson and I talked about. Let's make this smart, rich and meaningful, and hope that other people have our sensibility and eventually get it. - Doc Hammer, Go Team Venture!: The Art and Making of The Venture Bros.

There's even this quote from Jackson regarding one of the earliest attempts made in trying to figure out the show's look and design where it was supposed to be animated in CG at Will Vinton Studios, and it was intended to look gorgeous as well as outrageously expensive and within six months everyone aboard had left and Jackson's time in The Tick was up so he had to get production on the new thing moving along. And he describes what wound up being a pretty effective summation of the show post-animation bump;

"Screw the bad-on-purpose sixties Marvel thing. Screw irony. Isn't it way more subversive to do this smart-ass, darkish comedy but have every aspect of it look gorgeous?

That's what got me thinking that it's way cooler to make things well and beautiful than to try to make them crappy on purpose - Jackson Publick, Go Team Venture!: The Art and Making of The Venture Bros.

Most if not everything that makes the show work, that makes it's character work, you can trace pretty directly from that process, of where the show started versus where it ended. It's Rusty Venture becoming a more complicated character and less of a mean caricature. It's Brock Samson needing things to do besides being the action badass who kills armies of disposable henchmen, and the show needing to move past him and make him so much more as a person. It's in how the show was originally conceived in a villain-of-the-week format and The Monarch was a throwaway gag character for the pilot, but The Monarch's defined personality and shtick worked well enough that it made it much easier and more rewarding for them to just go back to him for most episodes, until he wormed his way into becoming the show's other protagonist. It's Hank and Dean growing past literally and textually interchangeable and disposable Hardy Boys pastiches into actual people, distinct people, people who can carry their own plotlines and take center stage and actually be The Venture Brothers as something more than just a throwaway gag concept.

I'm certainly not saying it works for everyone, or that it works 100% of the time, again rewatching the show is putting a lot into perspective for me and a lot of jokes kinda did just age abysmally, but the show knows what it's doing enough to skirt by and avoid a lot of catastrophic pitfalls that usually happen with similar projects.

And really I'd say the main reason it works is, and it's never really just one reason, is because it was, and is, a painstaking labor of love founded on a marriage by two geeks (I'm not even exaggerating, that's how the two described their partnership at least a few times) shooting the shit at a treefort for nights on end, getting to do all these dumb voices that you only get to do with friends, laboring extensively for years on making this thing they'd created the best that it possibly could be, something they put all of themselves into again and again. It's them making a dozen different comedy duos voiced by themselves and finding ways to make each distinct so they can fit in all these dumb and lovely little conversations and skits, it's that combination of their skills and preferences and even disagreements. It's got that Asterix thing where the work is so inseparably intertwined with the partnership that made it, that the work's growth over time is tied to.

So honestly the best way I can summarize why I think the Venture Bros works is because it was 19 years of Jackson Pollock and Doc Hammer at AstroBase doing exactly this, just replace the cartoon sound effects with deep cut pop culture riffs and in-depth earnest extrapolations of why the comic books and cartoons they love and obsess about are deeply stupid on a fundamental level and why this something great that you can spin endless stories and scenes out of, actually no keep the over-the-top battle sound effects, those are equally important.

"Jackson and I, we'd go every day and talk and laugh and get to know each other and not even talk about the show, but just find out what our sensibilites were. It was like the process of falling in love"

We played darts and made up these little skits, much of it became The Venture Bros. It was all kind of based around this idea that Aquaman and Black Manta were not who they were but people that were much chattier and more social. It's almost like what The Monarch and Dr Venture became, actual people that have these bizarre jobs: chaser and chasee. This strange bureaucratic relationship with the paradigm of villain and hero.

I'm a goofball and name shit. Of course I named my studio. We took over the place and AstroBase as this entity - a really filthy fucking painting studio - became a creative tree fort. Owning the AstroBase is one of the things that made The Venture Bros.

A place where we could go at two in the morning and scream at the top of our lungs that had nothing to do with commerce. It was a clubhouse. A pure idiot invention. And if we wanted to stay up all night making costumes or rubber swords, we just did. - Doc Hammer - Doc Hammer, Go Team Venture!: The Art and Making of The Venture Bros.

#replies tag #the venture bros #the venture brothers #jackson pollock #doc hammer #adult swim #man that movie rekindled my fixation at maybe the worst time #or maybe the best idk

[quitealotofsodapop]

[Jackpotshipping/Ace and Joker are both laughing cus "We're old as hell! It ain't happening!"]

Maybe if they only stick it in the backdoor, eh?

[Cue them learning the term "geriatric pregnancy" and both panicking Hard.]

Why can I picture Starfruit just googling it after Jackpot said the previous statement and just showing the results to them?

[One half of their twins could still be a dumpster baby/hospital freebie thats a doppleganger for their bio one - just for funsies.]

Ooh! Ooh! Thought! There is this comic that makes rounds on tumblr about some fairies replacing a human child with a changeling - but they forgot to take the human child! So, the mom is confused by the second kid and the dad is like 'hey, twins, good job, honey'.

What if that happens? Like, some demons wanted the child of the Great Sage for some nefarious reason and to keep it hidden, they planned to replace the kid, but they fucked up.

And now Jackpot is 30% certain only one had been born, but 70% are like 'hey, free baby' XD

Referencing these posts about Jackpotshipping having more kids + possible destined Eclipse Twins.

Oh gosh, Ace and Joker are just bragging about how unlikely it is for them to have bio kids at their age, meanwhile Starfruit casually starts typing into his phone like;

Starfruit: "Yeah, oldest mortal human parent was 74." Ace, pauses mid-brag: "Excuse me?" Peach: "Lao Tzu's mom was also preggers with him for like 80 years. So she was like mega-old when she had him." Ace: "Excuse me!?" Starfruit: "Yeah and with changes in like nutrition and stuff, people are having their first bio-kid like a lot later than during ancient times. You guys are like... in your 50s or 60s? You're not out of the woods yet dudes." Ace & Joker: *caught between horror at the knowledge + offended that Starfuit thinks they look that old*

[comic that makes rounds on tumblr about some fairies replacing a human child with a changeling - but they forgot to take the human child!]

I remember that comic!

And that def sounds like a scenario Jackpotshipping finds themselves in. Like they're in the post-natal room after having their single kid (surprise miracle baby), look over, and see that there's suddenly two?? Like, when did that happen???

Joker: "I mean... that epidural stuff is wild. Thing 2 coulda slid out when we weren't looking." Ace: "Makes sense. But now I can't tell who arrived first." Joker: "Eh, lets just say they arrived at the same time. No one will question it. If they do; just say shapeshifting." Ace: "Hehe, gross. Welcome to the world Two-Pair!" Joker: "Oh man, Xiaozhēn [their grown-up dumpster "MK]" is in for a shock."

(Meanwhile with the most incompetent demons ever...)

NewGods!Jin: "I 'fink we forgot a huge step of that changeling plan." NewGods!Yin: "Eh. Probably ain't important. Plus they look better as twins." NewGods!Jin: "Too right. Also I can't remember which is the one we left." NewGods!Yin: "Me either."

I'm also reminded of that brief moment in Good Omens, where the Young parents see the accidental extra baby and are like "Yo, is that a twin?" and the nurse doing the antichrist-baby-swap panics like "Uhhh..."

The Jackpotshipping twins also don't know whos the "bonus" of the pair. The spell used to create a perfect copy of the bio baby is really powerful & rare and doesn't wear off like a hair-clone does. No way of knowing who was a freebie unless you ask Buddha himself.

#pregnancy tw #childbirth tw #wukongverse #jackpotshipping #new gods nezha reborn #sun wukong #liu er mihou #six eared macaque #jttw inspo fan children

[blackstarchanx3new]

Creations AU FNAF 4, But I obnoxiously over explain it PT 3

FNAF 4 pages 60-90

*Warning ahead for heavily abusive language.

Oh boy I sure hope we get an answer.

Lmao mom and dad are fighting.

Yikes Diana that's not very nice.

Hah nope.

Okay but why did people think this genuine moment between William and his son was somehow malicious???

Dude is just talking to his son who is currently breaking down wtf is wrong with some people??? XD

This was after Sister Location on webtoon too so there should be no excuse for this bad faith reading of William's character after some of the scenes in that comic. I won't spoil but like...??????????

Like William is a bad person in cannon and this comic but it's legit-

William: *breathes*

Audiance: YOU BASTARD!!!!!

HE'S A PERSON TOO AND IS WRITTEN AS SUCH?

The reference to being a devil will only make more sense as the FNAF 1 ARC draws to a close.

Oh ho ho hooooooo.

So, that's why Sammy's a fucking weirdo about robots in the FNAF 1 Arc.

Also this gives context to the whole scene where Mike and his sister in law talk about Charlie still being alive while having a grave in the FNAF 1 Arc.

The one walking around is a robot.

So unlike everything implied in cannon: Creations William loves his children.

Is it always in a healthy/good way: NO. AND THAT WILL ONLY BECOME MORE APARENT AS FNAF 1'S ARC COTNENUES.

He even loves the one that indirectly KILLED one of his others lmao.

I just enjoy giving William an actual character. Lmfao. Unlike a lot of people who get on a high horse for making him a plank of wood. X'D

Yes. he's evil man you wrote the most basic boring bland mother fucker on the planet to be said antagonist. You're very cute making that your antagonist while not thinking about how making him that fucking boring and personalities affects the themes or ideas of your work. Here's a fucking cookie???

I hate this way of writing William if you can't tell lmfao.

"He can't have a motive or you're humanizing him" is such a horse shit take and I won't stfu about it considering how prevalent of an idea that shit was on Twitter. X'D

Idk if this is a wake up call that women can be abusers too but like, they can be lmao. Trust me on that.

Oops. The demon thing heard you.

William's default to dealing with Diana is to try and fix things and placate her enough to where she won't go nuclear. Which is sad, but he sucks in different ways.

Really they are a tale of "A match made in hell".

Everyone makes shitty choices here lmao.

Diana antagonizes somebody off their rocker and William's a spinless bastard to both his wife and his creepy demon.

He didn't wanna do it himself and I find that amusing.

The poorest of poor choices were made by everyone involved.

There's little sympathy for any parties here lmao. Except maybe Ballora. X'D

That instant regret lmao. "I MADE A MISTAKE WOOPS"

That's a repeat thing with our good ol Willy boy.

He makes a mistake, and then keeps repeating the same mistake lmao.

William is stuck in a loop of perpetually falling into making the same mistakes over and over and it is a theme of the series WILLIAM is the one who needs to solve HIS OWN problems.

William takes no accountability where it's REALLY NEEDED, blames and pushes it onto others can't find the strength to fight his own inner demons and falls into the same pitfalls over and over.

Hehe your house is a bit odd there William.

William's just fed up with everyone involved in this situation lmao.

I mean yeah, the demon thing IS a bad liar.

He directly cause Diana to die lmao.

And I like William calling him out on that. William in some part is scared of his own inner demons taking form as this thing that mimics him.

"The demon" as I call him is important and also a direct reflection of William's own mistakes. William not confronting or taking care of this "Demon" in any meaningful way part of the damn problem.

Why the fuck you lyyyyyyin.

Why you always lyyyyyyin'-

That bold faced lie will only become more apparent as the story goes on. This bitch has plenty of agency he just likes William to take the fall for everything.

Which in a way is fair. He is a result of William's as well. ;)

Once again have reached the image cap because WHYYYY

#fnaf 4 #creations au comic #creations au #fnaf au #fnaf #five nights at freddys #five nights at freddy's #fnaf comic #fnaf crying child #fnaf 4 comic #fnaf 4 cc #fnaf 4 afton #fnaf 4 brother #circus baby #josh afton #cody afton #golden freddy #william afton #diana afton #ballora

[blaithnne]

So I was just curious as I’ve noticed you’ve made reference to your 60s au (which I absolutely adore btw) so I just wanted to ask if the 60s au is just a drawing and reference on tumble kind of thing or if it’s a work in progress so in other words are you writing fic involving those versions of the characters? —and if your not you totally should your ideas and writing is fab and I’d love to hear more about them :)

First of all TYSM ANON!!

Second of all basically yeah the AU is just art stuffs! It’s something I’ve had floating around in my brain for a long time, and I decided to just combine it with a general ducktales rewrite type of thing and start posting my designs bc it’s fun !! I love character design so creating a lineup of characters is a great time :)

Unfortunately no there is no overarching fic, or really any extended story stuff out there. I’m just drawing stuff as it comes to me! Maybe one day I’ll scribble out some one shots, but I don’t want to start any new writing stuffs until Plenism is complete (for my ducktales followers, Plenism is my long running Hilda fanfic! It’s currently on hiatus but it’s a project of mine I’m very passionate about lolz). At some point though, maybe after I’ve got some more designs out there, I’d like to sit and write out some of my ideas as bullet points or something, and there’s some wee doodle comics I’d love to whip out sometime!

I have a LOT of lore ideas for this lil universe but, I don’t want to put pressure on myself if that makes sense? In the past I’ve quickly burnt myself out on projects like these and I don’t want to do that here, so I’m just doing whatever peaks my fancy in the moment! The only “rule” I’ve got going currently is that I want to get my character designs out in era appropriate order, so I wanna finish my main 60s designs before moving onto 90s era or present day ones, just so it’s not too confusing for you guys. But hey I might end up breaking that rule, I’ve already got a couple present day designs complete and I don’t wanna hold onto them forever, so I’ll just see how it goes!

In conclusion I am THRILLED people are enjoying my little AU, but I’m just drawing whatever I feel like and not putting pressure on myself to do something big like a fic or a proper consecutive comic, lest I burn myself out. With that in mind, if you guys have any questions about the AU send em in and I’ll see if I can answer them! Either with lil doodles or with rambly explanations lolz

#ty for the ask!! #anon #ask #ducktales human au #ducktales #ducktales 2017 #au #my au #ducktales au #textpost

[sineala]

What do you think was the better* “later addition to canon”?

Steve being frozen post WW2

Or

Tony being an alcoholic

Because those aspects weren’t part of the original sell of the character but it’s such a big part of each

Or a third option!

*better can be “I think this adds the most interesting things to the canon from a writer’s perspective” or even “I like this most 🙂”

Interesting question! Thank you for asking! Honestly, I feel like both of those things are very different from each other, in terms of narrative function, and if you're actually looking for moments in canon that added something new and major to Steve and Tony's characters that wasn't there before, I wouldn't pick either of those moments for either of them.

I have some thoughts about this!

Steve getting iced was basically just a retcon to put Steve in the comics at the age that they wanted and not having to deal with him having reached the ancient and decrepit age of 40, an age that is clearly forbidden for superheroes. It's not really much different from how they keep adjusting things as the timescale keeps sliding -- Sharon is Peggy's niece and not her sister, Tony's origin story moves to wars that are later than Vietnam. It's just one of a number of changes Marvel makes regularly to keep character ages consistent; sure, it might even be the first of them. But I don't think the icing itself is a fundamental change in who Steve is as a character.

Now, you could argue that the Man Out of Time aspect -- which came in as a direct result of the icing -- is a fundamentally different part of Steve's character that wasn't present in earlier comics and changed who he was. But in response to that, I would argue that, in a lot of ways, Golden Age Captain America isn't really the same character at all as later Steve Rogers. I would say that the Steve we know and love is one who has pretty much only existed since Avengers #4 and in a sense has always had the ice in his backstory. Sure, a character with the same name, powers, and origin as Captain America existed in the Golden Age -- but that guy, he doesn't really seem like Steve, and modern canon sure doesn't treat him like Steve. The fact that there was also a discontinuity in publishing -- unlike how DC, IIRC, never really stopped, Timely kind of isn't actually Marvel, and everything from before Fantastic Four #1 kind of doesn't count. I think.

I don't know how much Golden Age Captain America you've read. I haven't read all of it. I've only read about a dozen issues, but I feel like that's enough for me to get a sense of the character. So the thing about Golden Age comics is that they all just feel… really weird, compared to anything from the 60s and later. You get a sense that everyone at the time was still working out what a superhero comic, and maybe just a comic at all, was going to be like. The plots are weird, the villains are… okay, the villains being usually Super Racist is sadly not unique to the Golden Age, but it's really prominent. The characters don't really behave in ways you would expect. Bucky is treated as an actual child would have been in the forties -- like, there are panels of Steve threatening to spank him as discipline -- and the characters just don't feel the same.

Other than the fact that the super-soldier serum turned Steve Rogers into Captain America, and the fact that Bucky is his sidekick, and what Steve's powers basically are, nothing in these comics really feels a lot like the same character. Canonically, most of it isn't the same character! Everything after Captain America Comics #48 has been retconned to be people who aren't Steve, which shows you how much he isn't like Steve. Even the stuff that supposedly happened to Steve and Bucky doesn't really get referred to all that much. When later comics talk about Steve's time in the war, it's almost never the events of the Golden Age comics themselves -- instead, Marvel created a whole lot of stuff via flashbacks and then they refer to that. You never see Steve and Bucky talking about, say, the time they had to be in a drag show as punishment, although I swear this was a real comic. Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos? Not in the Golden Age. The Invaders? Not in the Golden Age as a team! The All-Winners Squad was, but again, that features Captains America who were later retconned as not Steve (William Nasland, Jeff Mace). Most of Steve's villains other than Red Skull are not really there. It's just… not really the same character and there's not much of a meaningful sense of continuity between any of the events in the Golden Age and later comics. Later comics are working mostly from their own retellings and flashbacks. So I feel like Steve basically starts anew in Avengers #4 and thus has always been a Man Out Of Time.

Okay, so what about Tony's alcoholism? Tony before and after Demon in a Bottle is still Tony Stark, but the thing is, I feel like Tony's alcoholism isn't a drastic alteration to the character, and it fits very well with established canon, and it has been easily accepted as part of Tony's character, unlike something that just comes out of nowhere and is true now and everyone is all WTF at it (looking at you, adoption arc).

Tony's worst villain has always been himself. Specifically, it's been his own body. At the beginning, it was his heart damage and the chestplate, and the terrible curse inherent in Being Tony Stark was that someday soon his heart was going to give out. There are so many panels of him dramatically plugging himself into the wall and thinking about how close he is to death. Tony's origin story was essentially Here, Have A Disability. His body betrays him. His body doesn't do what he wants. He can't control it. There's something wrong with him and it's hurting him. Every so often they take away whatever's wrong with him, but they always revert to it -- his heart's been bad, and then fine, and then bad, and then fine, and here's the alcoholism, and oh no now he's paralyzed, and now it's his brain and he has amnesia, and so on.

In that sense, the alcoholism really feels like a natural escalation from the heart problems and that it fits well with all of this all of this. Here's something else about his body/mind that isn't right, that's causing him harm, that he initially tries to hide from almost everyone, and that he often has difficulty controlling. It's just that it's not his heart anymore.

So what would I pick for canonical moments in comics history that weren't part of Steve and Tony's original character conceptions and that really represented a new addition to his character?

For Steve I'd pick either the original Secret Empire arc (Nomad) or The Captain, because those basically both show the same thing. Sure, Captain America has always been a symbol of all the ideals of America as a country, and sometimes America lets him down, and sometimes he has to lecture people about how they should be better people -- but, as far as I know, Secret Empire was the first time Steve basically said, "Yeah, no, fuck the government." He loves his country. He doesn't always love his government. He doesn't think what happened in Secret Empire (which, yes, we all know, is secretly Watergate) is right, so he's going to… simply stop being Captain America. He's going to be Nomad. The government itself has now massively let him down, and they don't get to tell him what to do anymore. And now we're all like, "Oh, yeah, of course Steve is mad at the government and has decided to stop being Captain America right now! He's gonna go on a road trip to find himself! Here he is in Civil War telling the pro-Registration side they're wrong and becoming a fugitive from justice." But… he didn't start out like that.

This is a character who was created to be a soldier and to do what his country asked of him. Sure, there are early arcs where he gives up the shield for a little bit, but they're because he's going through one of his usual "who am I when I'm not Captain America?" crises and then he comes back pretty quick. It wasn't that he didn't believe in his government; it wasn't that kind of crisis of faith. But then Secret Empire happens and he's like, "yeah, no, I can't represent a country when the president was conspiring with aliens to take over the world" and he's just out of there. Same deal for The Captain. The government wants to tell him what to do because he's Captain America? Nope! Someone else can be Captain America now. Of course, then John Walker does a terrible job and Steve has to come back anyway. John Walker is like your awful roommate who half-asses the dishes so no one will ask him to do the dishes again even though he clearly knows how to wash dishes and chooses not to, except with murder instead.

But, anyway, the moral stance depicted in Secret Empire and The Captain is pretty much the same -- when the government does something he thinks is wrong, he just simply stops being Captain America. He's not afraid to go against the government in Civil War or (for a more modern example) Devil's Reign. And it's not really a stance he had before Secret Empire, as far as I know. If you told comics readers in, say, 1970, that you really liked the fact that Steve wasn't afraid to quit being Captain America to protest unjust laws, they would probably be very confused. Steve is Captain America! He works for SHIELD! He does what the government tells him! Why wouldn't he? Except, well… these days, he doesn't.

And I think you can tell that this is important to the modern conception of Steve's character because it made it into the MCU. Okay, true, any adaptation of Civil War was probably going to have to involve Steve going against some kind of law about superheroes because he thinks it's the right thing to do -- that personality trait is basically baked into the plot. But they put it in the MCU way before Civil War, presumably because they thought this was important enough to Steve's character that it needed to be included. CATWS is an adaptation of Brubaker's Winter Soldier arc that I would say is a lot more faithful to the comics than many of the MCU entries that share names with the comics. But you know what the 616 Winter Soldier arc doesn't have? A plot where Steve decides that he's unable to trust anyone at SHIELD because they're secretly Hydra and therefore we are right to be suspicious of the US government which may not be acting in our best interests anyway because apparently even the good guys in SHIELD were still interested in building helicarriers to shoot people down -- they just had a different target list than Hydra did. The 616 Winter Soldier arc does, in fact, have the Red Skull infiltrating SHIELD. He then proceeds to successfully murder Steve. There's not really a Trust No One plot going on because Steve doesn't get that far, and he dies before any of this is discovered and also misses out on Secret Invasion. Plus, hey, the scene that introduces us to Steve way back in CATFA shows him sitting there staring at a sign saying it's illegal to lie on his enlistment papers and then we find out he's been lying a lot. Because he thinks doing the right thing is more important than obeying the law. Yeah, they went there pretty early.

For Tony, my pick for a similarly significant character development that absolutely wasn't part of his original character is his decision to stop making weapons in Iron Man #78. He was created to be a defense contractor. He spent about ten RL years making weapons and, as far as we can tell from canon, not really experiencing any kind of crisis of conscience about, say, being a superhero and also making weapons at the same time. And then (because readers complained) he meets a pacifist, changes his mind about everything, stops taking SHIELD weapons contracts, and then stops making weapons entirely. This is a pretty significant career change for a character who started out happily making weapons. He just stopped. He doesn't do it anymore. He hasn't in years. And now it's absolutely part of who he is as a character, such that it ends up being a defining trait of his in multiple universes -- even in 1872, Tony stops making weapons. In Superior Iron Man, one of the first things he did when he went evil was make weapons again. If he is making weapons, we know that something has gone very wrong with him.

This also made it to the MCU -- "Tony becomes Iron Man and stops making weapons" is basically the plot of the first Iron Man movie, right? They decided that "Tony stops making weapons" was important enough that it is absolutely had to be right there in the first movie. Sure, alcoholism is one of Tony's defining traits in modern 616 comics and I'm not saying it's not, though I am saying it's not coming out of nowhere -- but that didn't even make it to the MCU. (I'm sure a lot of that was Disney's fault, yes.)

You also might not know this from looking at modern comics, but The Government Wants Tony To Keep Making Weapons is actually a pretty salient arc after Tony stops making them. Half of the reason Demon in a Bottle happens is because Tony is forced to kill the Carnelian ambassador because Justin Hammer sabotages his suit, but the other half is because Tony is incredibly stressed because Nick Fury keeps trying to find a way to make him make weapons for the government and Tony doesn't want to. (Maybe Tony would have fewer control issues if people stopped trying to control him.)

If I had to pick a second new character trait for Tony, it would also be his willingness to defy the government (and, really, anybody else) and do what he thinks is right. (He and Steve are more similar than I think a lot of fandom gives them credit for. But that would be a different meta post.) I mean, they do what they do with opposite reasoning but they both kind of have the same problems to solve a lot, because comics plots are very often Here's The Trolley Problem. Utlilitarianism versus… what's the other one? Deontology.

Anyway, yeah, I'm talking about Armor Wars. The arc when Tony decided that the ends justified the means and he was simply going to steal his technology back from everyone who had it, including the government, and that he was willing to hurt anyone who got in his way (hi, Steve) and alienate both Avengers teams in the process, because he decided that he knew what he had to do, what he had to do was right, and nothing was more important, no matter what the consequences were to himself. This is the thought process that gets you Armor Wars, Operation Galactic Storm, and eventually Civil War. And before Armor Wars, Tony just… didn't do things like this. After Armor Wars, he does, and everyone expects him to, and none of that was there before as part of his character. So I'd say that's a pretty big change.

Interestingly, of the four things I've named, two of them each basically happen at the same time -- Tony stops making weapons in the early 70s, around the time the Secret Empire and Nomad thing is happening for Steve, and of course in the mid-80s Steve is The Captain when he confronts Tony during Armor Wars. I guess those were two very transformative time periods for Steve and Tony.

But yeah, those are my picks for the biggest changes to Steve and Tony that weren't part of their original conceptions -- Steve's willingness to say Fuck the Government and go do what he thinks is right even if it means not being Captain America; and Tony's decision to stop making weapons, as well as Tony's willingness to say Fuck the Government (And/Or Possibly Also All His Friends) in order to do with he thinks is right. There's a sense in which they're really not all that different.

#replies #visitant-dispatch

[wakandaiscoming]

What You Need to Know about Namor and Talokan

I haven't done a comics-explainer post in awhile. Thought maybe now would be good. Except this isn't just about comics now, it's also about some real world mythology.

In the comics, Namor was one of Marvel's oldest superheroes. He was created in 1939, the same year as Superman. You may know that most of Marvel's biggest superheroes were created by Stan Lee. But Lee's best-known work happened after World War II, during the 1960s. So unlike DC, Marvel doesn't really have that many "Golden Age" superheroes.

Though some of the Marvel Golden Age characters have been retconned and reimagined in newer stories, only three really have been consistently popular since their original publication: Captain America, Namor and the Human Torch.

So Namor is important, not just because he is a powerful character in the comics, but because he was integral in Marvel's early publishing success in the real world. (Marvel, like many other comics publishers, struggled to stay in business during the 1950s because of a crackdown on comics as a "bad influence" on young people.) He's one of these three that kept the company in business.

He is, of course, also important for in-story reasons. Notably, Namor is considered Marvel's first mutant. That is, he was the first mutant character to have stories published about him by Marvel. Though he wasn't revealed to be a mutant until the 60s, he had books about him dating since the 30s, if that makes sense. (This was confusing to me as a kid because we knew there were older mutants inside the comic book continuity, nor the first to utter the word "mutant" but the first mutant superhero in our real-world chronology, if that makes sense.) I mention this because it will probably come up that he is the "first mutant" in press, as the world is dying for the X-Men to be introduced into the MCU.

It would make perfect sense if Namor is included in "The Mutants" or other mutant-related MCU projects. He is known to be part of the X-Men team in the crossover event "A v X", when the X-Men fought the Avengers. (I'm not going to get into the specifics there regarding the Phoenix force, but just known he was Team X.)

Inside the books, Namor is both Human/Mutant and Atlantean. Atlantis is the fictional world under the sea. In comics, his father is a human (with a mutant gene) and his mother is a princess of Atlantis. Thus he has both the powers of Atlanteans and human mutants. Because one set of superpowers isn't enough!

It seems, from the trailer, that in the film Namor will still be half-human but rather that his mother was human and his father was from Talokan.

In Mexica/Aztec traditions, Tlālōcān is a paradise ruled by the rain god Tlaloc. The name "Atlantis" has been removed for the film, as "Wakanda Forever" is trying to root this fictional world in Mesoamerican traditions, not Greek ones. As a mythology nerd, I will point out that Tlaloc is the name the Aztecs/Mexica used for the rain god but the Mayans used the name Chaac. There seems to be some picking and choosing with names because "K'uk'ulkan" is referenced in the trailer and that is the Mayan name for the god the Aztecs would have called Quetzalcoatl, which is the opposite choice.

In any case, it is not "Atlantis" in the film and it is also Talokan with a k not a c, which seems to give some distinction between the mythical place and underwater kingdom of the film.

The war cry used by the kingdom in the film translates to "Talokan rises" and is their version of "Wakanda forever".

But back to Namor himself. What are his powers? We don't really know exactly what he can do in the film, but in the comics, he's super strong and durable--something he gets from the non-human side of his family. He's over 100 years old but still looks good in tiny swim shorts. (Edit update: Tenoch Huerta said in a press conference that the film version of Namor is over 500 years old. This lines up with the speculation that the old timey scenes we see in the trailer are of the Spanish conquest of "the New World." So we may see his people forced into the sea to survive.)

His mutant abilities are related to the wings on his ankles, that give him the ability to fly. They also seem to have amplified his non-human powers, making him stronger and more durable than the regular undersea dwellers in the comics.

In the trailers, we see him easily deflecting attacks, suggesting he is as durable as the comics (where he can just stand there while people shoot at him with guns). He can also fly via the wings on his feet. Most notably, we see him using an ability to control water.

In the comics, Namor stole his hydrokinetic powers from the Spider-man villain Hydro-man. But it makes more sense to simply give him these in the film, as possibly mutant abilities. It is more impressive than feet wings (though those are adorable).

Namor is often an antagonist but also often a hero. This comes from his differing perspective from land-dwelling humans. Like, he did come out of the water to fight Hitler, for example. And he will help with alien attacks that might destroy the entire planet, but he is often at odds with humanity itself. (And to be fair, we do pollute his ocean and kill his people so maybe we deserve it.)

Namor and T'Challa are rivals in the comics, though they are also both teammates on the Illuminati at times (yes, those guys that Wanda killed in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.) And, it should be noted, he has a particularly history with the Fantastic Four as well. It was the Human Torch (Johnny Storm, the second hero to carry this moniker) who helped him regain his memories and restore his powers in the 1960s. He is also often portrayed as in love with Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman, putting him at odds with Reed Richards, her husband.

Many hope that Namor in "Wakanda Forever" will help set up both the X-Men and the Fantastic Four in the MCU.

"Namor" is pronounced "Nay-mor" in the comics. In the film it will be pronounced that way and also "Nah-mor" (meaning "no amor" or no love), an intentional commentary about the way Latinx people often have their names mispronounced by the masses.

#black panther: wakanda forever #wakanda forever #namor #namor the sub mariner #tenoch huerta #mayan #maya #aztec #mythology #talokan #talocan #x-men #mutants #fantastic four #human torch #reed richards #sue storm

[scarlet--wiccan]

What do you think the twins and their family would do professionally in a world without super powers/sci-fi royalty?

Well, I don't know what you mean by "sci-fi royalty," so... can't answer that. And for the sake of brevity, I'll just assume you're asking about the Maximoff twins and not, I don't know, the Beaubiers.

Something that comes up repeatedly for Wanda and Pietro in the 60s is that she wanted to be an actress, and he wanted to be an acrobat. Their original costumes also remind me of dancewear, albeit heavily modified and accessorized. So, when it comes to no-power AUs, I usually imagine them both working in theater, in some capacity.

Beyond that, you know, they're both very smart and very studious, and they're both polyglots. I really like the idea of Wanda working as a translator or interpreter, and Pietro as maybe a journalist or non-fiction writer? It's also been hinted at a few times that Pietro can play multiple instruments, which I think is neat.

Even in a world where magic isn't "real," the way it is in canon, I do think Wanda would have an interest in historical and cultural magic practices, particularly if that is a part of her family's history and traditions. There are plenty of Romani people today who work in occupations like fortune telling, or do research and writing on magic and spirituality with a focus on cultural restitution and authenticity. I would actually really like to see this explored in canon with Wanda's shop, although it would call for an actual Romani writer.

As for their kids, Luna's still in middle/high school, and the boys are only like... twenty-one? Tommy's current situation, where he's just doing a lot of odd jobs and figuring things, makes perfect sense for him. I always picture Billy as a young adult working in a book store or comic shop.

#it's probably worth noting that in a very straightforward no-powers scenario Wanda and Pietro would probably still be living in Transia #and they never would have met Vision or Crystal so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ the kids wouldn't exist lol

[astroboyanalysis]

3. Plant People

Splort haha. Wait don't do that where the fuck are your grown-ups who gave you that lighter

Aw the first appearance of calves! I do wonder what the first chronological (in order of creation) appearance of the calves is. We saw them tons in the 80s anime though. It's especially interesting because on the last page he had boots to fly

and then on the next page or so here he is flying without the boots, just the calves, followed promptly thereafter with boots

Referencing the last post, here's an instance of Atom recognizing that a spaceship can be controlled remotely, but it may have been so out of the question that it seemed like only alien tech could accomplish it?

This story was also published in 1961, same as hot dog corps. I suppose it wasn't all that out of the question, either, because there were successful radio-controlled model aircraft as early as 1938 [Source]. So maybe Tezuka did just have Atom go in the rocket in hot dog corps for plot reasons. It would make sense.

Hes so dramatic. Also, calves. I actually won't keep pointing out every time it swaps between calves and boots, but I will just say that this specific story is really inconsistent on that detail (not that it really matters) so if you're interested just read it and keep an eye on his legs. It seems more like what happened is the intention was for him to have calves in this comic and Tezuka occasionally forgot and did boots instead. I'll do a count of boots vs calves at the end of the post.

ATOM!

Modern sensibilities tell us that like, who cares if someone else is bothered by the way you look. That's not really your problem. But I wonder if this was a more reasonable thing to say in the 60s...?

To be honest, this story's so short and sweet there's not much for me to do with it. I like it, but it also hasn't ever been one that struck me as all that notable, so it's always been curious to me what Tezuka saw in it, as he says this in the intro comic:

Anyway, here's the final boots vs calves count (I will only count the boots when they appear in an outfit shown at some point with calves. This means the initial outfit in the skiing portion does not count toward the boot count - plus, it's a consistent boot on those.)

Boots: 5 panels

Calves: 23 panels

So I think I was right in that guess that the intention was for that outfit to have his calves look, but in 5 panels he just got mixed up and drew the classic boots. I cannot stress enough that this doesn't matter and is only interesting to me.

#astro boy manga analysis #tetsuwan atom #mighty atom #astro boy

[starfiretruther]

i feel like ever since comics left the silver age there has been this bizarre nearly fetishistic desire to associate robins with this stripping of innocence that has to do with you fundamentally still seeing them as the child robin figure for it to be shocking. like killing robins, having them be in these toxic relationships, showing them being sexualized (often by notably older chars) is all part of this really uncomfortable still ongoing trend. and i’m not saying that as robins grow up they can’t experience sex and sexual exploration or dark themes, i actually think ntt’s take on this was really honoring of dick and explored what it would be like to grow up under the robin mantle and also what it would take to come into one’s own identity afterwards, but usually this trend makes me really uncomfortable, like how dick has been written to be sexually assaulted multiple times (ive never seen it done tactfully), or how more than one adaptation has harley make a comment about how much dick has grown up (ew), or how they wanted to kill tim drake with aids in the 90s (they instead went with extrano). i guess while there is nothing technically wrong with making an adult male character a little sexy, the modern obsession with dick’s ass feels like an extension of this to me still. like dc and it’s fans don’t know how to be normal about robins. idk if that makes sense or maybe i project too much but i just really wish there was more skill and intention with writing robins and less schlock and awe

hm while i don’t disagree i feel like the general ‘stripping of innocence’ happened to most child or at least happy go lucky characters (e.g. bucky barnes), not just robin. Robin stands out cuz they’ve been the most recognisable child/sidekick hero in media. Comics in general took a turn to darker (less fun) “serious” stories in the 80s. Robin in particular has been a target for hate since the 60s because fans thought he made batman campy and gay (there was the whole seduction of the innocent thing where they said batman and robin were coded queer messaging trying to indoctrinate the children). I think rather than Dick, Jason got hit with the most ire of the editorial and fans and when stories kept getting darker and darker, he became an unfortunate victim. Dick (at least in this time period) had a lot of dignity, getting a well-thought out coming of age narrative through nightwing and being firmly cemented as a respectable, reliable adult hero (thanks to the titans and his romance with kory). While comics always had a touch of fanservice, his sexualization really started around the late 90s and had a resurgence during the n52-rebirth era. I think any of his prior sexualization was standard male fantasy stuff (this guy gets all the ladies type thing). I think in Tim’s case they weren’t going for a “let’s destroy his innocence “ thing and more of a way to both modernise him for a contemporary (90s) audience and also distance him far away from the gay allegations (how ironic lol). They still wanted the kid watson to Batman’s brooding sherlock but also just more “normal” so the kids relate. Which is why they made him a cheater etc and i know how tf is that better but they really didn’t want him to be gay fhdjfj. I don’t know much abt the aids story pitch though. Steph and Damian are also better examples of “stripping the innocence” storylines for Robin than Dick and Tim. Steph also had a tragic death, and Damian’s first introduction is as a child assassin (antithesis to innocence). I agree that it’s weird people are so weird abt robins (and child characters in general) but imo it reflects more on an audience’s (and editorial’s) insecurity regarding childish, campy things because why are you mad at the camp medium for being camp? Learn to have some fun LEWSER.

I feel like most dick grayson fans feel so strongly abt this is because they like his prudish and insecure ntt characterisation (and so do i tbh it’s very interesting) and also the multiple SA storylines that a) never got resolved or b) were handled poorly. BUT that dick grayson hasn’t been in comics for a while now. We haven’t seen any acknowledgment from dc’s editorial that dick is a rape survivor, he’s been consistently characterized as a confident metrosexual (eww hate that word) guy both in his civilian and superhero persona (and that agent 37 grayson thing is the biggest culprit here). He’s also retroactively being portrayed as a smooth talking flirt in his robin days now so clearly that’s what they’re going for (imo i think they’re doing what they did with tim to dick's robin just to make him look more “normal” and relatable and straight).

Dick’s robin era is still treated as peak batman&robin era and he’s still a symbol for innocent, “simpler” times. He’s gotten the most grace when transitioning from child to teen to adult hero. On the topic of his sexualization aka the butt issue, it’s only cuz he’s one of the most popular male hero they can sexualize. I genuinely don’t think there’s any malice from the editorial since Dick has been an adult for 40 years now and there’s nothing wrong with sexing up his stories BUT ALSO i get why fans are upset cuz they’re deliberately ignoring his past characterization and sexual history to make him into a more palatable, marketable character. And tbh it’s been going on for long enough that it might as well be his defining character trait now :/ .

#most casual fans know dick grayson for his butt like that’s not smth you can just change overnight now #and tbh even if we get the most groundbreaking era defining nightwing story where the sexy assman characterisation is erased #it’s still not gonna go away comics is a visual medium and dick grayson will always be drawn (relatively) attractive #comics have always had eyecandy. it’s just been recently that the eyecandy treatment is applying to men too not just women #SHOUTOUT TO THE NTT DISCORD they helped a lot in organising my thots abt this #anyways sorry anon if i got derailed from ur point #ask

[demetriandelibinaryboyfriends]

@allvalley100

Prompt: Superstition

Pairing: Hawkmetri

The rest of this AV100 prompt that I didn't have time to finish before the prompt closed XD This one is a 7-parter--700 words total! Only fitting they should get a happy ending for the last AV100 post I write for them <3

***

Day 38

Talked to Eli about his…interesting new lady friends. They’re making me miss when he was hung up on Moon, honestly.

Anyways, turns out they’re just some exiled lesbians he took pity on. Families disowned them for kissing women, growing fangs, etc etc. Last I heard, Yas is single—maybe she’d want their numbers?

Woke up with a couple (bite?) sores on my neck, so I asked Eli about his pest control situation. He says everything’s fine, but I have my doubts.

Side note: Are metal allergies possible? Had to toss that silver crucifix—damn thing gave me hives.

*

Day 40

Confession: I’m worried about Eli.

There was an…incident a few days ago, and I hoped if I mulled it over enough times, it’d start making sense. Wishful thinking.

Was shaving the other morning when Eli barged in. Funny, I didn’t see him coming in my shaving mirror—can those things glitch? Thought that was only Smart Mirrors™️.

He started ranting about how “mirrors are for pussies,” and threw mine out the window??? Incredibly inconsiderate.

He insisted I didn’t need to shave because I’d look hot with a beard. How do you tell if someone’s joke-flirting or actual flirting?

*

Day 45

Have I mentioned Eli’s weird about blood now? Unsure I like it.

Cut myself on some loose board (this castle needs renovation), and he freaked out. Wouldn’t even look at it! Wailed about “blood being too precious to waste” and ran away. Huh.

Townsperson banged on the door today, telling Eli to stop eating people. I opened to tell him that was nonsense, but I noticed he smelled...appetizing? Like a gyro wrap.

He made himself scarce before I could say anything, but…kind of hurtful, honestly. I know I’m a bit gangly, but I’m not that ugly, am I?

*

Day 47

Finally got a wifi signal in here! Only took 4 hours of fiddling to make Eli’s TV work.

We binged Castlevania today. Eli’s favorite character is Dracula, supposedly because he’s “such a badass and is gonna kick the asses of every one of those lame humans.” I think it has more to do with Dracula having a soft spot for a smart, good-hearted human who he goes absolutely batshit avenging, but Eli’d never admit to this.

Side note: Is it hypothetically possible for one’s reflection to gradually grow more and more translucent and dead-looking? Asking for a friend.

*

Day 50

Bad news: Eli ate the mailman today, and I…may have helped.

Walked in on him draining the guy’s blood, and naturally demanded an explanation. Eli said to settle down because “there’s plenty to share!” What an insane suggestion.

But since the mailman was already dead...

In my defense…best AB positive I’ve ever had. Not that I’ve had much. I’ve dabbled a couple times, but who hasn’t?

In better news: Wearing the “amnesia” down! We’ve been reading through the library together, and Eli’s instinctively remembering what kinds of fantasy and sci-fi I like. He remembers me—I FEEL it.

*

Day 60

Okay! Know what’s going on now.

We were reading Buffy comics when Eli clutched his head and started shrieking. Everything came back at once.

After I calmed him down, he spilled everything. Getting involved with a Kung-Fu-practicing vampiric “organization” promising nigh-unlimited badassery. Being taken to Europe, undeadified, and given a blood-only diet…none of which sharpened his memory.

Admitted I’m not inheriting a Greek estate, and I only came to find him. He tearfully told me that’s a shame. He imagined us building a life there. Maybe raising some goats?

Fuck it—if he wants, I’ll make that happen.

*

Day 140

Been a while! Busy, busy!

Surprisingly easy talking “distant family members” into giving us a land plot. Maybe it’s superstition. Maybe it’s healthy fear. Regardless, people don’t like saying no to weird, sharp-toothed out-of-towners.

Made Eli promise he’ll discuss with me before joining any new martial arts-related cults (especially ones that strand him in isolated castles as soon as he “isn’t evil enough”). Now he only feeds every so often! We’ve gone through some neighbors, but it’s an improvement over Transylvania.

Also, our eldest nannygoat gave birth! Eli named the kids Hellraiser, Slayer, and Wrathchild. I love them.

#allvalley100 #amnesty week #hawk x demetri #demetri x eli #binary boyfriends #hawkmetri #hawkmeat #elimetri #demetri x hawk #eli x demetri #demetri alexopoulos #demetri cobra kai #vampire!demetri #(spoilers lmao) #eli moskowitz #hawk #vampire!hawk #vampire!eli #cobra kai #dracula au #vampire au

[opheliaintherushes]

I told myself I was done tormenting my kind and non-Riverdale-watching mutuals, and besides, I am too old and weathered for this fandom anyway, but really, the final, final thoughts on this finale and season as a whole:

First, and separately, does anything that happened after the characters got their memories back make sense? What was the point of it? They seemed completely unaffected by anything and happy to roleplay 50s teens. Were they even teens? Were they twenty-somethings sticking around high school like the vampires from Twilight for no explicable reason? Also, I'm sorry if you want to play the sentimental card, but if I was one of a handful of people who had traveled back in time and was stuck living in the past for 60 years or what have you, I would not lose contact with the others who also had. You would go insane! What did Archie tell his Modesto wife and child? Was Veronica picking up options on scripts she already knew would win Oscars? Did Jughead and Betty rewrite old issues of Mad and Ms. they might have read in the past? And is Gloria Steinem okay??? Also Betty and Jughead should remember they kind of hated each other in the future after the cheating and the voicemail, and Veronica should be so jealous of Betty for getting Archie, and Jughead should be so jealous of Archie for getting Betty, and my brain is hurting -

Almost more irritating were a) this idea that Archies are fundamentally stuck in the 50s (I owned the decade collections as a kid and the 60s and 70s were by far my favorites - very groovy), and b) the presumption that they did anything to address, expose, and or/fix actual problems of the 50s. Let us recap:

The school is already desegregated and this is never, ever discussed. The Black students are allowed to compete in beauty pageants, form their own literary club, dance on an integrated TV show, and join cheerleader squads, and this all happens with zero fight from the villains of the season. Fake Ray Bradbury and Fake Ray Bradbury's sweet but stupid wife think they could have settled in the south as a married couple in the forties. But? This is Riverdale, you say? They fixed everything? Sorry, you don't get to use Emmett Till to open the season and then eat your cake too.

Homophobia seemed to be the writers focus this season - except that every other episode someone would threaten Cheryl or Kevin, and then the next episode it would be an open secret at school with zero repercussions. Also, of course only the bad guys are homophobic (sorry Evelyn); our heroes are as forward thinking as they come. Hell, even Buffy had a moment to be wigged out by Willow and this was 1999! Anyway, look up what Lou Reed's parents did to him ('don't you know they're gonna kill your sons')

Let us not even discuss Reggie, who conquers racism through the power of athletics. Look up Richie Allen. Heck, watch the actual School Ties. It doesn't work out so well for David Greene in the end.

And then there's Fangs and Midge: first, rock and roll was seen as a huge menace, Fangs should've been on the school's hit list. Second, the writers obviously never read up on rock and rollers (who were generally older) and teen girls if they thought that was a good storyline. Third, they definitely never read any memoirs written by women in the 1950s, which all feature back alley abortions, slimy lovers, and shady doctors. (We don't even have time to get into Betty's idea of feminism being about sex all the time, everywhere, and becoming a burlesque dancer rather than, like, equal pay. Who knows, maybe she could have been the one harping on non-stop about the Beats and seen the cold face of her future there).

They didn't change anything. EC (sorry, Pep Comics) shut down. The Comics Code Authority won. So apparently all those artists who never worked again were just fine, right Tabitha?

#I don't even have the strength to hit it all #but where do they end up when they die? an eternal nightwashed sockhop in the sky #iconography with no context #hey I love Diner but even they had an unwanted pregnancy storyline and the girl doesn't get married! #I wouldn't care if they didn't get so high-handed about it #lest we forget voting on sundown towns and having the FBI save MLK #they cannot be trusted #Riverdale #a multiple choice ending because of Betty's failing memory really could've worked

[angrywarrior69]

Star Trek Rant: Strange New Worlds and disability

Hi, I'm the easiest person to please when it comes to sci-fi, and I'm even easier to please when it comes to star trek. I will not be trying to sound scholarly or even smart in this post.

That being said I have some issues with strange new worlds and how it keeps having story lines chalk up to the idea that having a disability is worse than death.

Like I get that the original series captain Pike ends up in the chair and that was so scary/cool in the 60s that people went feral over it, but it's 2022 now and I simply cannot comprehend how no one on the writing/producing staff said "Maybe we should tweak this?"

I bring receipts so my examples are as follows: MAJOR SNW SEASON 1 SPOILERS HERE

1. Captain Pike equating his getting badly injured to a fate worse than death.

2. Hemmer, the blind chief engineer, being killed in the dumbest way possible.

3. M'benga's daughter's fatal illness escapist fantasy miracle cure/fridging/character death.

4. Spock's alternate timeline fate that was being equated to Captain Pike's original timeline fate.

1. Captain Pike being a sadboy about his fate in the chair is understandable at the start. If I had seen that shit for myself I would have said what the fuck and done some happier psychedelics to mitigate it. Unfortunately, he is straight edge like most starfleet captains in their pilot episodes so whatever. He's sad. He's scared. He's not being objective. It's plot and that's okay by my standards. The show has to have plot based on something, so sure. Make him sad about the time crystal vision that people who didn't watch Discovery have no idea what's going on. Whatever, I'm easy to please, so I didn't question it much.

2. Hemmer, I could make a whole post about Hemmer, but here goes: Hemmer is introduced as the blind chief engineer, but with super cool brain powers to make up for it. It’s not like Geordi on TNG. Geordi gets to be disabled with a technological aid that makes him able to see more visible spectrum than humans can. Geordi’s VISOR does not “make up” for him being blind. Without it he is very much still blind. Geordi gets to be smart and good at what he does. His coworkers and friends love him for who he is. ALL THE WHILE, he’s literally just some guy. Geordi legitimately is just some guy at the end of the day. Whereas Hemmer is introduced by Spock to Uhura like,

“This is Hemmer Ebony Dark'ness Aenar Ravenway and he has long blue antennae and precognitive abilities and a massive fucking brain that makes him the coolest girl in school.”

And then... they just make it so he can’t sense the Gorn? I get the Gorn are supposed to be next-level shit right now. Unstoppable. Intrepid. Yada fucking yada mean scary lizards a la Alien style (a whole other rant about the gorn there). But they take Hemmer, arguably the most interesting person on the ship, (probably because everyone else is so boringly human) the coolest OC they’ve made... and turn him into an exploding egg sack that commits suicide to save everyone else? They turn him into an EGG SACK because he can’t SEE the acid SPIT or the SCARY LiZaRds. His disability is turned against him for the first time and it kills him. And just like DC comics The Flash universe is always built on the bones of Nora Allen, the SNW crew decided to throw Uhura’s universe on the bones of dead Hemmer. This is completely fucking unnecessary considering Uhura starts off this ride with a TOS legacy to carry her.

They didn’t have to build Uhura’s story on the bones of this dead man, they didn’t have to build Uhura’s story on the bones of ANYONE. It was quite literally. so. dumb. This decision invalidates Hemmer’s capabilities and invalidates Uhura’s I-don’t-know-if-i-want-to-be-in-stafleet storyline. She just decides to stay because a blue dude told her to open her heart before he died?

What the hap is fuckening.

3. Oh boy oh boy M’benga’s daughter. The fatally ill child... who looks perfectly healthy! We are told she is sick so we must believe it. I digress. Rukiya, CMO M’Benga’s daughter, is dying. She’s so sick that she can’t even be out of the transporter buffer for more than a few hours or so by the time the 7th-8th episode rolls around. There is no cure for her illness. M’benga tries and tries to do something to help her but in the end all he does is put her on ice. This child is nothing more than a plot device. They literally put her on ice in the transporter buffer and bring her out for plot purposes and have no shame about it. At this point it’s like they’re saying sick people shouldn’t exist with healthy people. No one else is sick or disabled other than Rukiya and Hemmer. I feel like I’m losing my fucking mind. And then as @sneasingsneasel put it so nicely. The issue with this kid is not that she is sick, or cured, or becomes a god-like being; it’s that the miracle dream escapist fantasy becomes reality just to give M’Benga something to cry and then be happy over? Why was this even done at all? This plot didn’t do ANYTHING for anyone. We all just had to watch a kid who looks perfectly fine be put on ice and then fridged (i.e. the practice of killing off or hurting a minor character in order to motivate or torture a main character) Again, what the fuck is happening? WHY was this a thing?

4. Spock and Pike’s fate being switched and Pike’s actions immediately after seeing it. This is what got me GOING y’all. This is what set off the rant and this is why I’ve wasted so much time trying to form some thoughts here. We’ve come full circle back to point one.

To summarize, Pike goes forward in time and Spock gets fuckidy fucked up by some shit and we’re told that burns cover 40% of his body, his spine is wrecked, and he has head trauma. Nurse Chapel says “if he comes out of this he will never be the same.” and... that’s it. That’s enough for Pike to chose his original fate for himself over attempting to change his own fate and having it land on someone else. AGAIN captain Pike is seeing the future of someone who very well may LIVE and deciding that it is So Bad that he must bear the burden of it alone.

They went too far with this mindset. It’s GROSS. SNW is easily my least favorite trek because of this bullshit. Actually, I don’t even think I like the show after the season finale. How and Why did all of this get produced? Am I losing my fucking mind here? Disabled people shouldn’t be the bane of society. Fuck these writing choices.

#ableism #disability #snw #star trek strange new worlds #captain pike #st snw #posting this so i don't waste any more time on it

[darklightsworld]

I came back from Taiwan a week ago (been dead for several days afterwards), and it was amazing. I really hope to go back maybe next year. I still have many sights I want to see, and maybe experience a different season. And I miss the food! Taiwan is heaven for vegetarians (probably because of Buddhism), there are great and extremely cheap eateries literally everywhere. Sure, it’s usually like you eat on the roadside, but who cares?! There’s still so much I didn’t try. Aside from one day I had great weather, albeit with higher temperatures that expected, so I really went into summer mostly with around 25��C. One day had 27°C and the only bad weather day had 15°C. Traffic is really extreme, riding and getting off the bus is outright scary, but cheap and necessary, and there are a lot of scooters. The temples were gorgeous, and I also checked out stationery, used book stores for Taiwanese comics and the Taipei Animate. Many of their translations, especially book editions of webtoons have gorgeous extras, but they are so expensive… In the end for new release I only bought one Taiwanese comic that was published in Japan but in monochrome. Stationery were cheap, and I regret not buying some more stuff… The spoken language was a challenge. Young people speak some basic English, but the pronunciation can be tricky. With older folks it was up to gestures – I learned the strange way they show 60 XD On the other hand, basic written things were quite okay for me thanks to kanji. I had great fun with the way some “newer” things are written here and there: the stop button on the bus is 降車ボタン in Japan, but 下車鈴 in Taiwan – and it makes perfect sense :D Anyway, it was really great, very exhausting with the kilometers I walked and then the trip back from Tokyo to Akita, but I can’t wait to do it again.

#taiwan #travel #sightseeing #taipei #jiufen #tamsui

[deacblues]

i feel like the superhero secret identity is slowly being washed away in movies and in comic books. like seriously think about how many superheroes have secret identities in, say, the mcu. like, pretty much none, right? all the avengers are pretty much celebrities.

back when the fantastic four started, it was a big deal to have a team of superheroes all without secret identities, it made them unique! and it was because they were a unique superhero team different than what was coming out at the time. and they are a family, duh. but now that’s just like... every superhero. i mean, hell, in the comics superman doesn’t even have a secret identity anymore! neither does his son!! like... it just doesn’t make sense to me. i guess it’s not so much that “NOTHING CAN CHANGE EVER ABOUT COMICS”, but that secret identities are such a clear opportunity to mine drama from you are kind of cutting yourself off at the legs here guys.

if you go back and read old issues of spider-man, he is SO paranoid about his secret identity it’s perfect. like you believe this guy keeps his secret identity cause it will occasionally take you through the minutia of peter having to keep things under wraps, or his insane paranoid thought process about how someone will figure out his secret identity. but in modern comics you just get... none of that.

(seriously this guy has issues, but that’s why he’s great)

a good counterpoint to peter is miles morales. his whole supporting cast pretty much knows his secret identity. and that is all well and fine, and it’s probably much better for his mental health, but at the same time it seems kind of uninteresting. same with kamala khan. i dunno. maybe i’m just overthinking it. but it’s kind of sad to see a major part of the superhero mythos just kind of fade away.

ah, when i was gathering images to put here i thought of more stuff. i think i’m fine with the shift away from the truly-secret identity in characters like kamala and miles because they’re the new generation. they’re not so paranoid, and are a little more in touch with their feelings, which i think is true of today’s youth vs. teens in the 60s. but in the movies it all kind of rings false because it’s NOT young people. it all stems from iron man, which ditches the secret identity because the movie thinks that superhero comic books shouldn’t be silly (eg. tony stark tossing away the “iron man is my bodyguard card”). so it’s all an extension of that way of thinking, which always got on my nerves. because superhero comics ARE for kids, or they were meant to be. and most of the best ones were written for kids ages 6-11. and yeah there have been exceptions but there is intention behind them that makes them good. like watchmen isn’t good because it’s “for adults”, it’s good because it’s good and adults happen to be the target audience. but not everything is watchmen, certainly not the avengers, and certainly not spider-man. blargh. this post because something else entirely.

#ramble #seriously what is up with fans insisting that superheroes comic books are for adults like #theyre for kids just own it dude i own it #plus all the comic books written for fans? have sucked! #seriously its like write something a kid can read or youre never gonna get any new readers #jeez #comics #spider-man

[disappointingyet]

This is my now traditional list of favourite movies of the year. These are all films that – as far as I can tell – were first commercially available either in cinemas or on streaming in the UK this year. So it doesn’t include eg, Hit Man or The Holdovers. Other than that, these are solely being judged on: did I like them?

As I did last year, I’ve also written about other stuff I have seen that you might be interested in – which this time turned out to be so long I split it into two: Broadly Mainstream & Documentaries and Arthouse & Indie.

2023, then, the year of Barbenheimer (I saw Barbie, didn’t see Oppenheimer). And the year of the great superhero box office crash. Meanwhile, there were two austere French courtroom dramas critics loved, two films about young women born in Korea but raised elsewhere trying to make sense of their identities that also got excited reviews plus an avalanche of movies featuring cast members of Chicago restaurant TV drama The Bear.

I saw plenty of films, and there weren’t many I think I missed out on. Ridley Scott’s Napoleon felt like a film to watch with friends but we couldn’t sort out a time. Eileen and Dream Scenario sounded interesting but non-essential, but BlackBerry I very much did want to see but couldn’t get round to.  Saltburn generated a fair amount of debate, but by most accounts is precisely Ripley x Brideshead set in 2006 with tunes by Flo Rida and MGMT by the director of Promising Young Woman, and that’s a film I don’t need to see. 

Some near misses from this list: The Innocent, Alcarrás and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. Oh, yeah, and maybe the most fun I had in a cinema for what was officially a 2023 release was seeing the 4K etc restoration of Stop Making Sense, but a bit of a scrub-up does not equal an actual new movie. And on that note, here’s the list:

1. Kuolleet Lehdet (Fallen Leaves)

This is recommended cautiously – there are other films on this list I would steer most people towards before this one. But it is a movie I absolutely loved. I think it’s the 18th feature film made by director Aki Kaurismäki in a 40-year career, and easily in his five best. If you’ve never seen a Kaurismäki film, the easiest way to describe them is like Jim Jarmusch movies but Finnish. And if you haven’t even seen a Jarmusch film? Well, his movies are slow (but crucially short!). Most of the characters dress like they are living in the late 1950s or early ’60s and drink in bars that seem to come from that time too, but the films are set in the present day. The characters are usually somewhat on the margins of society and often somewhat lonely. There’s not a lot of dialogue. And, this is very important, they are funny as well as melancholy. In short, this is a very distinctive world that you’re likely to find either very appealing or pretty baffling.

Fallen Leaves is a simple story about a woman and a man who meet and have a series of misconnections while other stuff is happening in their lives. It’s very lovely but if you lose patience within the first 10 minutes, I get it, I really do. But I think it’s great. 

Full review here

2. Past Lives

We open with someone speculating about the two men and a woman drinking together in a New York bar at 4am – who are they to each other? Then we are whisked back to Seoul a couple of decades earlier, and gradually make our way to that late night and learn who Na Young/Nora (Greta Lee), Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) and Arthur (John Magaro) are. Céline Song’s drama is about friendship and love but also very much about the trauma of (bourgeois) emigration – the sense that not only did you leave a place and its people behind, you left a version of yourself there.

It’s an elegant, restrained yet emotionally raw film. I was going to say it feels in places like a three-hander but would be to forget Hae Sung’s drinking buddies, who provide welcome comic relief. And when your quibbles are as nit-picky as ‘maybe one too many magic-hour shots’, then you’re talking a seriously good movie.

3. Rye Lane

Delightful romantic comedy that manages to both play by the rules of the genre and feel fresh. Girl meets boy at an art show and they spend a day and evening wandering around together and getting into low-stakes misadventures. Set and very tangibly filmed in places I know extremely well* and does so without triggering my ageing South Londoner’s prickly defensiveness.  (*In my review, I say that the geography is all plausible. Recently I had dinner with friends who live locally and have seen the film, and they were not buying into the idea that you would buy hot food at Brixton Market and eat it in Brockwell Park – approx 15 minutes walk away. Which I guess makes them even more South London than me...)

Full review here

(Disney +)

4. Fremont

Afghan interpreter for the US military tries to get to grips with life in California. Gruelling social realist drama about trauma and exile? Uplifting/flag-waving account of the power of living free? Broad culture-clash comedy? No? How about ultra low-key indie, filmed in lovely black & white, in which Donya (Anaita Wali Zada) shuffles between her job making fortune cookies and her sessions with an eccentric psychiatrist (Gregg Turkington). The b&w, the gentle eccentricity of many of the characters, how little Donya says even though she is on-screen in almost every scene, have prompted comparisons with Jim Jarmusch, which I think are fair, although there’s much less of the fetish-of-cool stuff here (also, as it happens, in none of the Jarmusch films with a sole protagonist is that character female.) Very little happens, and I really liked it.

5. Anatomie d’un chute (Anatomy Of A Fall)

Bloke falls to his death out of the window of his house up in the snowy French mountains – question is: accident, suicide, murder? If murder, the only suspect seems to be his widow (Sandra Hüller), a writer who doesn’t much like living in France, especially not in the mountains, and also doesn’t feel confident expressing herself in French (the bulk of her dialogue is in English), attitudes that doesn’t seem likely to endear her to the local media or legal system. Because, yes, this is a courtroom drama, if very much not one in the manner of John Grisham. It’s an intense, relentless film, one almost without a score (what music there is – and it’s important to the plot and the film – is mostly diegetic, but there is a little cheating on that). Hüller is very good as the protagonist we’re not meant to be sure whether to root for (although I’m inherently sympathetic to anyone who would rather be in London than stuck up a mountain, however beautiful that mountain is). A few side thoughts: the kid made me think of The Omen, the prosecutor of reality TV  judge Rob Rinder and I would have sworn blind that the defence lawyer was in some band that had an EP out on Creation Records in 1988, only the actor is about 15 years too young for that. 

(It’s a very good film.)

6. Asteroid City

Wes Anderson’s latest comes with multiple levels of story within story that felt unnecessary the first time I saw it – on rewatch they made more sense. But the main narrative – of parents and their children fetched up in a sun-baked nowhere town in the 1950s – I found effective and very moving both times. Anderson’s films always have at least an undertone of sadness, but this is probably his most directly mournful picture since Moonrise Kingdom. As usual with Anderson, the cast is ridiculously stacked – Tom Hanks fits in surprisingly well – and there are actors (Ed Norton, Adrien Brody) who are vastly better in his films than they generally are in anyone else’s. I laughed, I cried – no, I really did, and I think this was the only film this year that made me do both.

7. Killers Of The Flower Moon

Is Killers Of The Flower Moon a masterful piece of film-making, a supreme example of Martin Scorsese’s novelistic ability to guide a camera to the details that bring a culture to life, featuring a luminous performance from Lily Gladstone and telling an important story? Yes. Is it a sadistically long* movie that runs you through the same incidents three and sometimes four times, one that inflicts on us many scenes of Bob De Niro and Leo DiCaprio doing that terrible Method-bore jutting lip/downturned mouth thing at each other? Yes, that too. 

It tells an ugly tale from American history – we’re in the 1920s and oil is discovered on Osage land in Oklahoma, making that nation’s members all very rich. Inevitably, tragically, a lot of white folk aren’t having that, and start scheming about how they will get their hands on the wealth. What I wasn’t expecting is that along with the murder the film’s title previews, the plot involved lots of white guys marrying Osage women. It’s fascinating and horrible and Scorsese tells it with great images and some humour and there’s great casting. But it’s still unnecessarily long (think of the span of time covered in GoodFellas – and that came in at a respectable 2hrs 26mins).

*In the debate about whether there should be intermissions in this movie, some people were saying. ‘Who are you to presume to know more about films than Scorsese and his legendary editor Thelma Schoonmaker?’ Seems like a fair point… except: these are people who seemed to have thought Polar Expressing De Niro in The Irishman looked OK, so I’m saying their judgement isn’t what it was. 

8. Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse

By and large, the critical response to Across The Spider-Verse was split between those who felt it was even better than Into The Spider-Verse and those who thought it was good but lacked the ‘blimey, look at everything they are managing to do and oh my god it makes so much more sense to do superhero movies as animation than clunky CGI’ shock-of-the-new of the first film. The latter is basically my position: this is a very good film but Into The Spider-Verse was a near-instant classic.* ATSV is not as funny, and suffers (for me) from the fact that much of it happens at a larger scale and there’s more multiverse stuff to get your head around etc, and it ends on a cliffhanger (boo!) But it’s still easily the best big budget/action film of the year for my money.

(*Although somehow only 7th on my films of 2018 list! In retrospect, I’d move it up, but still only to maybe 3rd – 2018 turns out to have been a great year for films I like.)

9. Reality

If you are phobic to excruciating small talk, you should probably avoid this film. The dialogue comes entirely from an FBI transcript, and the agents spend a very long time trying to put their suspect at ease before finally getting to the questions about what she allegedly did. So many awkward attempted bits of connection about pet ownership and going to the gym…

It starts with Reality Winner (yes, that is the name of a real person), played by Sydney Sweeney, driving home. Before she’s out of the car, two FBI agents have come up to her window. Almost all of film is them and her standing outside her bungalow doing the prelims for the questioning and then finally going inside to interrogate her. It feels like real time but it’s not quite that. The look of the film is quite raw, there’s no score, it feels very plain although there are a couple of welcome weird touches. 

It’s an uncomfortable watch, but if you can stay with it, it’s an impressive and rewarding film.

10. All The Beauty And The Bloodshed

This documentary wants to tell you two important stories. One is about the campaign to get artistic institutions to distance themselves from the Sackler family, the generous donors who (alas) made their money from Valium and Oxycontin. The second is a history of assorted art movements and bohemian scenes of the late 20th-century US. The person whose life connects all this is the photographer Nan Goldin (the art world’s most influential figure, apparently). Goldin’s pictures are also a key part of this film’s visual appeal, and the director Laura Poitras is well of aware of that, and happy to give them the space they deserve. Quite a brutal watch, but worth it. 

Full review here

11. Wham!

The angle this documentary takes gives us the story of Andrew Ridgeley and George Michael as a benign version of Single White Female with a touch of All About Eve crossed with Pygmalion. Here, the person who has had their look and career appropriated turns out to have been coaching the impersonator and at the end wishes them well as they soar off into superstardom. 

That’s how I’ve long understood the Wham! story but this fills in the details and adds some ambiguity: Ridgeley enjoyed songwriting and being tagged the ‘talentless one’ clearly hurt him. The image choices that led some to assume George Michael was gay (many years before he came/was forced out) were actually made by his busily straight bandmate – we were right for the wrong reasons, which is to say wrong. But what I found fascinating is that once George* – who had been strong-armed by Andrew into a music career – started to understand how good he could be, he developed a Michael Jordan-esque competitive fury.

The voices of the two Wham! members provide the bulk of the narrative, added to by lots of excellent archive. The short span of Wham!’s career is a huge plus for a pop documentary - it avoids the usual problem of what to do about the later stuff only the subjects of the film care about. Just like the band, the documentary knows how to stop when the going is good.

*I can’t treat ‘Michael’ as a surname in this context.

(Netflix)

#films of the year #2023 movies #films of 2023 #films of the year 2023 #movies of 2023 #movies of the year 2023