#sometimes i wonder where my bruce characterization comes from and its really like... All This Run LOL | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

spaceshipkat · 3 years

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i think so much of writing respectfully and inclusively is being aware of what you’re putting down on the page. what do i mean by this? what better author to focus on than sj///m, right? i’ll start with CCity on this, since it’s the one where it’s most obvious she’s trying so hard to fix her mistakes, but the problem always comes back to her fundamental misunderstanding of why and how her shit is problematic in the first place and what she must do to fix said problematic shit.

i’m sticking this under a cut bc, surprise surprise, i rambled 😌

take, for instance, Hunt: i think it’s pretty widely-accepted he’s coded as a MOC, (potentially an Asian-coded man) since he’s given “golden-brown skin” and “angular” eyes. sj//m was trying to be more inclusive by writing him in such a way that he shouldn’t be perceived as white, but what she failed to realize is two big things: 1) the fact he’s a slave of centuries who is constantly tortured, mutilated, and manipulated by his oppressors, and 2) the fact he lusts after and is demeaned by Bruce, a white girl. furthermore, Bruce constantly makes comments about how Hunt should fight back, shouldn’t allow himself to remain a slave, and taunts him into either disobeying Micah (the man he’s enslaved to) or killing for her. it’s made clear time and time again that Hunt doesn’t like that he’s an assassin for Micah, and yet there are so many instances of him wanting to kill or hurt someone for Bruce, which not only makes his characterization inconsistent, it plays into the problematic trope of the dark-skinned aggressor (a trope that sj///m seems to be particularly fond of, what with the Illyrians).

(on the topic of Hunt, a quick side-note: the idea of the “alphahole” that comes up again and again in CCity and that antis have critiqued up the wazoo (though not with the “alphahole” colloquialism until CCity came along, but i don’t think many antis actually use “alphahole” as anything but a joke when talking about her obvious love of the hypermasculine alpha male). sj///m is clearly trying to call out her past mistakes and work to rectify them going forward, but she completely fails bc she only succeeds at 1) mocking her readers, who are often fans of hers bc they like the alpha male douchebag sj///m is infamous for, and 2) making herself sound like an idiot when she calls out “alphahole” behavior while actively writing “alphaholes” and making them (possible) endgame love interests (i say possible bc it’s anyone’s guess if sj///m will actually subvert everyone and their mother’s expectations by making Hunt endgame). Hunt is an “alphahole,” even if he’s not quite as bad as riceman or rowboat and even if sj///m thinks she’s not actually writing an “alphahole”. with his aforementioned behavior toward anyone who’s mean to Bruce (aka wanting to kill them for her), he still falls under the “alphahole” category.

but i digress.)

another example of sj///m writing without being aware of what she’s actually putting on the page is her inclusion of queer rep. sj///m queerbaits quite a lot with Danika, thanks to lines she has involving Bruce and her relationship with Bruce, not to mention how many times others wonder if Bruce and Danika are “just” best friends and not actually lovers. we have Hunt wonder about it, after all, several times iirc. one that stands out the most is when he says that they have to be more than “just” best friends because Bruce doesn’t mourn Danika like someone mourns “just” their best friend, thus implying that Bruce is mourning Danika like a lover and/or spouse (bc obviously people can’t be torn to pieces over losing their best friend in a horrific attack, right?).

here’s some lines that have romantic connotations bc i am nothing if not a historian who likes citations:

page 38 of my ebook:

Danika just said it. “If he grabs his phone to check his messages before his dick’s barely out of you again, please have the self-respect to kick his balls across the room and come home to me.”

page 45 of my ebook:

But it was Danika’s added “Love you” as [Bruce] slipped out into the grimy hallway that made her hesitate with her hand on the knob.

It’d taken Danika a few years to save those words, and she still used them sparingly. Danika had initially hated it when [Bruce] said them to her—even when [Bruce] explained that she’d spent most of her life saying it, just in case it was the last time. In case she wouldn’t get to say goodbye to the people who mattered most. And it had taken one of their more fucked-up adventures[...]to get Danika to utter the words, but at least she now said them. Sometimes.

page 258 of my ebook (aka the line of Hunt’s i referenced above):

The silence pressed on [Hunt] enough that he asked, “Were you and Danika lovers?”

He’d been told two years ago that they weren’t, but friends didn’t mourn each other the way [Bruce] seemed to have so thoroughly shut down every part of herself. The way he had for Shahar.

[...]

Hunt turned in place as [Bruce] padded around the other end of the kitchen island, flinging open the enormous metal fridge to examine its meager contents. “No,” [Bruce] said, her voice flat and cold. “Danika and I weren’t like that.”

page 696 of my ebook:

[Bruce] swallowed, looking at the ground that was not earth, but the very base of Self, of the world. She whispered, “I’m scared.”

Danika grabbed her hand again. “That’s the point of it, [Bruce]. Of life. To live, to love, knowing that it might all vanish tomorrow. It makes everything that much more precious.” She took [Bruce’s] face in her hands and pressed their brows together.

page 700 of my ebook (and i was torn on including this one, but it’s from Danika, so i think i should):

Danika had whispered, “I love you,” before fading into nothing, her hand sliding from Bryce’s.

page 703 of my ebook (also torn on this, but it does sound a little queer, so):

But it wasn’t okay. Not even close. What had happened, what [Bruce had] done and revealed, the Horn in her body, all those people dead, Lehabah dead, and seeing Danika, Danika, Danika—

Her breathless words turned into pants, and then shuddering sobs.

also, not for nothing, but the fact Danika dies without an actual male love interest to make Her Straightness Obvious kinda also implies she’s queer, but *sips tea*

furthermore, there’s the way sj///m writes Fury and Juniper: we see the two women together in one scene, in which Juniper is fetishized and goes to sleep with some random guy. for the rest of the book, they never interact on-page and thus we are never given the chance to see their dynamic, which would provide crucial context clues to what their relationship really is by the time this exchange happens between Fury and Bruce on page 494 of my ebook:

“And yet you can still talk to Juniper?” Bryce’s throat closed up. “I wasn’t worth the risk to you?”

Fury hissed, “Juniper and I have something that is none of your fucking business.” Bryce refrained from gaping. Juniper had never hinted, never suggested—“I could no sooner stop talking to her than I could rip out my own fucking heart, okay?”

“I get it, I get it,” Bryce said. She blew out a long breath. “Love trumps all.”

i’ve talked about this scene to death, but this is written in such a way that it can be read as “just” best friends or as two women in a romantic relationship, depending on the reader. the fact that Bruce “gapes” (which faerug also does to Mor, and which i talk about below) implies that being openly queer isn’t accepted in this world, that it’s not very likely you’ll see two women holding hands as they walk down the sidewalk or kiss at a romantic restaurant. it also implies that Bruce, no matter that she says about “love trumps all,” might not be as accepting as sj///m would like us to believe. maybe sj///m has never had a friend come out to her before, but if i came out to someone and they gaped at me (and i’ve come out to several people several times now, both about my sexuality and my gender, so i have some experience here), i don’t think i would be very happy with them/want to remain their friend.

on the note of queer rep in sj///m’s work, Mor is another fantastic example of trying to be inclusive through a response to criticism without sj///m being aware of what, exactly, she’s writing. Mor comes out because faerug all but forces her to by not shutting up what a good guy Azriel is and that Mor should just give him a chance. that right there is fucked on so many levels, not just because Mor is a lesbian, but bc she’s supposedly faerug’s friend. no one should ever force their friends to date someone they don’t want to (i’ve had this happen to me! i had to literally snap at my friend to get her to back off bc i wasn’t going to go to the dance with this one guy who ignored my every rejection and bought us tickets to winter formal, just bc he’s a nice guy and i might like him if i gave him a chance), but i don’t think sj///m could figure out how else to write Mor’s coming out scene, largely bc she has no fucking clue how disgusting the scene we’re given is. the problem with Mor being a lesbian is threefold: 1) she’s a woman who was tortured by her father and left to die bc she was no longer a virgin; 2) Azriel spends centuries lusting after a woman who makes it clear time and again that she does not reciprocate his feelings and yet he cannot take the fucking hint, so much so that sj///m has to now dangle Elain in front of him like a piece of meat to get him to let go of Mor; and 3) sj///m was obviously setting up Mor and Azriel to be an endgame couple in ac0maf, as evidenced both in canon and in her pinterest board:

even stans picked up on it, what with their vocal outrage over how Mor “led Azriel on” for centuries instead of just outing herself to a man she obviously does not feel safe around, and posts like these:

and fanart like this:

the tl;dr of this ramble is this: if you want to write inclusively and respectfully, you have to be 100% aware of everything you’re putting on the page. when people ask for advice on this kind of thing, my first comment is to always say they’re already on the right track bc they’re already thinking of this, rather than being unaware of problems bc a state of unawareness is where the problems begin to appear. Hafsah Faizal has talked about this before on her twitter (i wish i could find the tweet, but this is from eons ago), but if you write a character of color when you yourself are white, you have to be wholly conscious of how your white character talks to this character of color. if the character of color is constantly yelled at or ordered around or ignored by the white character, that’s a big problem. if you write a queer character when you yourself are straight, you have to be conscious of how your queer character comes out, is perceived by the reader, and is treated by the straight character. if the queer character comes out by comparing their bisexuality to forced prostitution, as is the case with Aedion and Lysandra in t0g, that’s a big problem.

the moment you share your work for public consumption, it no longer matters what your intentions are (something sj///m has a lot of trouble understanding, hence why she over-explains everything in her interviews and on tours, not to mention why she force-feeds us her opinion of her characters in canon so we’re forced to share the exact same outlook on them) bc all that matters is what you’ve put down on the page. your words, at that point, have no choice but to speak for themselves, and if they do any of the above, your work is going to come under warranted critique, and unless you learn from that critique and do more than half-assed jobs to write more inclusively and respectfully, you’ll run into the exact same problems that sj///m has with CCity.

#anti sjm #anti ccity #anti acotar #anti tog #long post #stans being stans #writing advice #writing tips #sorta

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ectonurites · 3 years

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do u have any thoughts on the whole “tim is zapped to time prison” storyline? bc i feel like it could have been pretty interesting and a good way to bring back young justice/tim’s memories more immediately if it hadn’t been such a blatant attempt to just get tim out of storylines bc they had no ideas for his character

sorry lol u don’t have to respond i just kind of wish people talked about this storyline more? and the fact that tim lowkey became one of the only people in dc with knowledge of the other timelines (i think so at least) and nobody really addressed it?? like going into the next phase where people learn about other timelines after death metal.... tim should already know some of this stuff right?

YES YES YES OKAY LETS TALK ABOUT THIS this got incredibly long because I just have a lot to say (and i included screenshots) and i prob got a little off topic but. but lets get started anyways:

i haven’t read that particular storyline in a few months so i might be missing/misremembering some details here, but that whole ‘time prison + future tim’ thing was like. a really really interesting concept and the implications/impacts it has are a big part of why i liked tynion’s detective comics run as much as i did even with it’s flaws in characterization (such as treating tim like he was jimmy neutron boy genius and making steph..... be all ready to quit/breakaway from the team like that. the steph quitting characterization really started i think in batgirl convergence and unfortunately has haunted her since, even though pre reboot never giving up was like...... one of her defining traits. dc i hate you sometimes)

i think that one of the biggest things that bothers me about the situation is how little we saw most of the other characters in the batfamily grieve (aside from steph and some with bruce, but again the way steph was portrayed just... hhhhhh. it very much reduced her to ‘tims girlfriend’ more than i’d have preferred) but otherwise like...as far as I can remember there was maybe one line in that monsters crossover thing where dick mentioned tim was gone, jason had a single line about avoiding the funeral in rhato, i dont think they showed any reaction from babs at all until after he was back, and the most for damian I recall is at the end of the 2014 teen titans run (#24) where he looks at... a case with the old red robin uniform Tim wasn’t even wearing anymore when he died? and that just bugs me. Instead of getting to see the actual funeral we get one flashback to it way after the fact once Bruce already knows Tim’s not actually dead

But at the time when they all DID think he was dead? the closest thing we see was in that same teen titans issue (#24) there’s a memorial-type ‘sharing stories’ thing after the funeral with tim’s titans friends but.... we don’t see something like that with his family. tim is a major presence in these peoples’ lives, they are his family, when he gets sent into time prison its even SAID how loved he apparently is

its just... idk. they all thought he was dead, and if they had put more emphasis on showing not just telling how that effected EVERYONE (not just steph) in the batfam, it might have felt a lot less like they were just putting tim away until there was a story idea for him. (like obviously I know they can’t make everyone’s stories revolve around Tim, but I’d have way preferred a detective comics issue of the funeral/memorial with the family than having there only be a teen titans one, I think it would have... held more relevance & meaning... but instead they just went right into that monster crossover story instead of lingering on this)

but then the Tim story itself once it does pick up way later, with titans tomorrow/future tim coming along having that whole “tell conner you’re sorry” “who’s conner?” exchange with current tim... that opens up A LOT of things to think about, and I think was pretty interestingly done if i’m remembering correctly. future tim recognizes the timelines are different, and ya know goes off to try to change things further ("whaddaya got there?” “a gun to kill batwoman” “NO!!!!”), theres lots of fighting etc etc the good guys win as we expect, but once that’s all settled tim’s left there with this whole. thought process

which ya know is the big indicator there’s weird timeline/reality fuckery going on (or also the read here can be that tim and kon are so connected across all space and time that their bond can transcend anything even timelines and realities and reboots... “and they were soulmates” “oh my god they were soulmates”)

ANYWAYS lets not forget that tim isnt the only one who learns about this other timeline stuff during this whole situation!

Brother Eye has records of future tim’s timeline, and cass & steph see who they used to be! and as soon as steph finds out ‘holy shit i was ROBIN and BATGIRL?’ she also desperately wants to know more! which then a bit later leads into young justice 2019 where instead of going off to college like they told Bruce they were gonna, Steph and Tim go get the help of Zatanna to see what might be going on in their brains with these timelines and weird feelings (as we see in flashback form in yj 2019 #5)

and HOO BOY DOES SHE FIND THINGS! she gets in there and finds out that oh yeah, their brains had very much so been tampered with, and with her magic she undoes some of it, by unlocking memories, and Tim finally remembers Conner! (also in case u were wondering, that panel is specifically a callback to this one from yj 1998 #17 when Cissie quit the team)

one thing that I think is weird/interesting/idk if it gets... properly addressed even, was that Zatanna also poked around Steph’s brain too and she didn’t remember everything? Might have something to do even with how Tim had been in time prison, might have taken less work from Z to open things up because of that? Who knows

additionally i wanna call attention to how he said “That entire chapter of my life” which... leading into my next point a bit... strongly leads me to believe even though he’s remembering some things he definitely does not have ALL of his memories back (because theres a lot more than just the young justice ‘chapter’ of tim’s life that was drastically changed by the new 52 & rebirth)

BUT moving on, i wanna bring up this part from later on (after they figured out that there was a crisis that caused things in the world to change, which is why their memories/brains were messed with) in issue #16

so yeah, I think it’s indicated even though Zatanna brought back some memories and opened up his brain a bit, there’s still many holes, and some things seem more like dreams rather than memories and he’s probably unable to tell which are which on his own to some extent. (also for reference the real thing that Tim thought was just a dream is... likely yj 1998 issue #1)

So based on the things i’ve brought up here (which are the things I remember off the top of my head, I could easily be accidentally leaving shit out LMAO i haven’t fully read through any of these books in at least 3 or more months now) I think it’s safe to assume that Tim definitely has a head start on getting back his memories before Death Metal happens, but that it was by no means a complete thing. So the after effects of Death Metal are probably just gonna... be a little less drastic for him vs most other people because it was already happening, but it’ll be kinda filling in the remaining gaps?

And like you said he is absolutely one of the few people that already knew about about the timelines/the fact that these crises have happened and changed things, but pretty much all the other young justice characters are also aware that there was meddling in the timeline/that multiple timelines and alternate universes like this exist since they were all together as a group when it got explained (in like. yj 2019 #15 i believe is where most of the explaining happens) (and cass as well is aware of things to some extent because of her and steph’s interaction with Brother Eye) but the difference is that Zatanna didn’t go into everyone’s brains, so they aren’t dealing with the same memory things as Tim (and possibly Steph? because again Z DID go in her brain, she just wasn’t able to unlock all the same things as she did with Tim)

but yeah in general i SO wish this was explored more, both in canon and in fanworks (fanworks tho... that can still happen >:3c). Memories hazily coming in for Tim while Kon and Bart are able to confirm or deny things, him dealing with conflicting memories and feelings about his past as they trickle in... like I think we’ll start to see these types of things moving forward across a lot of titles with Infinite Frontier (i BELIEVE dont quote me on this but I BELIEVE the person writing Damian’s upcoming solo had mentioned in an interview that the memories coming back of the other timeline aren’t going to be an all at once thing but will be more gradual for most characters) but the fact that it theoretically had already been happening for Tim for MONTHS and we only got that one crumb indicating it in #16 of it instead of any actual exploration makes me SAAAAAAD

#Anonymous #tim drake #dc comics #meta #sam talks about tim too much #if anyone has diff thoughts interpretations im always down to discuss!#this sent me down a rabbit hole thats why i didnt answer last night it was Suddenly 1am djsjsjs #also sorry no issue numbers on the detective comics stuff but those r screenshots i already had #from my readthrough a while back or google images. so i didnt go check

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jinmukangwrites · 4 years

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Hi Jin! Since you are looking for some DC hc what's your opinion on Flash? Honestly I like his character and his interaction with other heros, esp. Batman. I like to hc that sometimes Flash says/does something so deep and profound completely accidently but it shocks and touches others and they see him in renewed light. If you don't feel like Flash, what about some grandpa Alfred and his horde of superhero grandkids? xD Just some options for you, have fun and thank you for your amazing writing!

So I... don't reallllly have much experience writing for Flash or the Justice League in general? I based Flash's characterization off from what I remember from watching various cartoons and from pannels I've happened across over the years. I need to read his comics. He's such a dork. Anyway, sorry this took a million years DF, hopefully this is sorta what you were wanting <3

Also if you're wondering when exactly this takes place, just know I am constantly rejecting canon and substituting my own 😤

-o-o-o-o-

When Dick was nine years old, he wanted to join Bruce on a Justice League mission.

Bruce—being the clear-headed, calculative, newly foster father that he was—panicked and said he couldn't go on an official League mission until he was twenty-five years old... which is what Bruce was at the time. When Dick tried to argue back, well, Bruce pulled some strings—meaning he glared at the other League members until they agreed—and made it official.

No one under twenty-five would join an official Justice League mission.

Bruce wishes now he set the bar higher and told the young man to just deal with it. Because Dick is twenty-six now, and that's all Bruce can think about as Batman punches his way through an alien spaceship. Twenty-six, somewhere on this ship where Bruce can't see him with a different team comprising of newer members—not because he's untrained, but because there's no one else Bruce would trust to keep the newer recruits alive.

Meanwhile, Batman and other original powerful members of the League fight their way towards the leader of these attacking aliens. The mothership is large, practically a maze, and filled with soldier creatures with no individual agency to note. They're not an Apokolips level threat, but it would still be preferable to stop them before they enter the solar system.

Batman stops in his tracks, slamming his back against the wall to avoid getting blasted by an enemy soldier around the corner. Then, after a beat, he jumps out and launches a baterang at the attacker and takes them down with a few well placed jabs. There's the sound of something creaking violently somewhere behind him, probably Superman or Wonder Woman deciding doors are too tedious to find and the walls are weak enough for them to just plow through.

Which is why Batman is paired with none other than Flash for the moment. Despite his abilities, he can't go vibrating through walls whenever he finds it quicker to do so. He needs to save his strength; which means he's in the same boat as Batman, finding tedious doorways and navigating winding corridor filled with flashing red lights and steaming pipelines.

There's the sound of a blaster loading up to his right where he didn't notice another soldier hiding in the shadows. He just manages to pull up his cape in an attempt to lessen the damage when there's a blur of red and a flash of yellow lightning, the alien goes flying against the wall with a snap, falling limply to the ground.

"You good, B?" Flash asks, stopping in front of Batman with a grin. His voice is light, a little joking. Batman rolls his eyes. "I mean, it's a good thing I was here, It's not normally me who's doing the saving for destracted teammates."

"Let's move," he replies before moving on.

Behind him, he hears Flash sigh dramatically. "Good talk."

They move further into the ship, the blue glow of a fuzzy, half-detailed map hovering from Batman's wrist computer. Flash is a constant chatter behind him, which only serves to remind Batman further of a certain talkative, pun-slinging acrobat somewhere on the other side of the ship, taking down the ship's main controls.

Then, suddenly, the holographic map glitches violently like an old corrupted silent film as the entire ship jolts. A large boom crashes through the air, creaking pipes and tilting the entire gravitational system, causing Batman and Flash to throw their bodies towards the nearest wall as the ship struggles to realign itself.

Batman keeps his grip firm while Bruce keeps his eyes on the map, his stomach dropping when he sees a flashing red dot appear near the ship's main control room.

Nightwing...

"What was that?!" Flash wheezes as the gravity returns to something similar to what it should be, but it's shaky now, like one wrong move and everything will be sent spinning.

"Something exploded in the control room," Batman growls, pushing all thoughts that don't involve the alien leader and finding said alien leader out of his head.

"'Wing's on the other side," Flash says, his voice suddenly devoid of his constant joking and light tone. "You think they're oka-"

"We need to finish this."

And Batman is moving before Flash can argue. He doesn't say he's sure they're fine, or we should turn back, or let me attempt communications; he just moves forward because the mission is important. The world is important.

Whatever trouble the other's have gotten into... he is positive they can handle it.

Then, just moments later, they run into more trouble. Only this time, it's not just one or two mindless soldiers, but a whole group of them. Immediately, Batman launches himself into battle, cape fluttering behind him like an omen, using the shadows between the flashing lights to his advantage. He can hear the static of a speedster's energy all around him as Flash winds between bolts of enemy fire. Batman pushes his companion to the back of his mind, throwing his fist out into slam the door deformed jaw of an attacker.

The ship jolts again, along with the floor beneath him. He grunts as he's thrown into the wall, the explosion sounding like it came from the same area as before. Everything's sideways now: the ship, the gravity, his train of thought. He just manages to grab at clawing hands as an alien jumps on top of him, snarl in its lips and teeth dripping with drool.

The alien screeches, it's taloned feet digging into the Kevlar over his stomach, practically doing it's damnest to gut him open. Batman growls, his stomach twisting as the ship's gravity tries to fix itself once again, causing Batman and the alien to go rumbling from the wall into the floor. Batman grunts as he crashes through a branch of pipeline, landing harshly on the ground and sucking in a breath as his ribs scream at new bruises.

What is going on over there?!

And he doesn't even have a chance to think more into it, because he realizes he's been laying on the ground, worrying, when he should have noticed the alien finding it's bearings and scrambling forward with a scream to attempt to pin him down again.

He bunches up, preparing himself to defend himself at last moment, before there's Flash, once again, coming in at the perfect time. Flash slams the alien into the wall, it's skull making a terrible thunk noise, before it slides to the ground unconscious.

Batman pushes himself to his feet, his ribs throbbing, and opens his mouth to command they keep going, but Flash—in the blink in an eye—ends up right in front of Batman, his mouth twisted in a rare frown.

"What is wrong with you," Flash demands, grabbing into the clasps of Batman's cape and holding Batman in front of him so he can effective snarl in the other man's face. "I was joking before, about you being destracted, but now I think you actually are."

"I'm not destracted," Batman growls back, moving to shove Flash off of him, but the Flash doesn't back down. He tightens his grasp and glares.

"You are. You're destracted and worried for Nightwing because you're a dad-"

"We have a mission to finish-"

"The mission is a failure if you die, Bruce! I can't watch them be told you've died again!"

Everything goes still, nothing but the flashing lights and creaking pipes exists while Barry clutches the clasps of Bruce's cape and breathes hard. Barry swallows roughly, and then gives Bruce a narrowed look.

"When will you realize that?" He asks, sounding close to hysterical. "That your self preservation is worth more than the world to them?"

And Bruce remembers Wally, and Bart, and Iris, and their plans to have kids and find a better house with a bigger lawn. Bruce takes a deep breath and lets Batman take the backseat.

"What do I do?"

Relief flashes through Barry's face. He lets go of Bruce's cape and a smile twitches in his lips. "Go find him. Check on him. Get yourself un-destracted."

"What about you?" Bruce asks, and Barry shrugs, looking way too relaxed now. Like a weight is off his shoulders. Like he can really run now.

"I'm sure Oli is around here somewhere. I'll meet up with him." Barry looks Bruce right in the eye. "We'll finish the mission, it'll be a done in a flash. Just go make sure your kid is okay first."

And for once, Bruce doesn't groan at the pun or argue the phrase his kid. He just nods and turns back the way he came, his legs pumping, to make sure his kid is okay, which he should have remembered in the first place was always the mission. Always the top priority.

He'll have to thank Barry later... and send Iris some flowers.

#bruce wayne #batman #barry allen #the flash #dc comics #jin writes #drabble fic #justice league #fanfiction #fanfic #dc drabble fic #long post #add keep reading later

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moistwithgender · 6 years

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Curry Read 60s Marvel, King-Size, Nuff Said

According to my tag, it took me about a month to get through this decade (eight years, technically), spending most of my free time reading. I’ve been following Comic Book Herald’s “My Marvelous Year” reading guide because it seemed like the quickest way through while cutting out the chaff. This was not...consistently the case. But, I’m still glad I followed it because this started out with me just chewing through early Spider-Man in black and white (don’t do this to yourself, nice flat colors do wonders for these older stories). I’m gonna go ahead and give the disclaimer that because I was following a speedy reading guide, I missed a lot of stuff, so if you know some really good issues I missed feel free to say so.

I’m afraid to type all this out because it’s a lot and idk where to start!

Okay well I have one idea of where to start.

Fantastic Four

This is Marvel’s best series up to this point and the fact that we’ve had so many garbage movies is a tragedy (don’t @ me about The Incredibles, I know). The FF comics are consistently the most fun, the weirdest, and the most creative.

Going through my reading list, I had to skip parts of FF, which is probably going to be where more of the good stuff was. Though, I will say that I prefer the latter half of the decade over the first half. FF started off with Mole Man, Skrulls (something I first realized was a thing back when they showed up in MvC3), The Puppet Master, The Red Ghost... The first few years of FF was probably best whenever it involved Namor and Doctor Doom. I don’t think anyone’s gonna argue with that. The latter half had The Inhumans, Galactus, The Silver Surfer, Black Panther, the Negative Zone... a whole lot of neat stuff! I actually missed the introduction of the Negative Zone, so all of a sudden Reed’s just got a portal to A Very Bad Place in the middle of his lab and he keeps opening it whenever things get slightly inconvenient. Stop doing that, Reed.

Highlights: - Namor being Namor. Usually at his best as a fish out of water (heh) in human society. With his absurd monarchic pride, and his occasional anti-hero tendencies, he’s...kind of like a wet Vegeta in hot pants. - The Thing. For a while he was back and forth as a character I liked or tolerated, and his incessant backtalk would occasionally become one of those “telling an unfunny joke until eventually it’s hilarious” things. - The Watcher. A being so committed to his vow to never interfere with the fate of the universe that he jack-knifes out of his lane every single time he gets the chance. EXCEPT FOR THE TIME HE WATCHED THE BIRTH OF GALACTUS AND DID NOTHING. THANKS UATU. - The fact that Doctor Doom is a Romani character being written by Jewish authors. That’s a lot to unpack. - The Sandman. Wait, you say, you mean that one Spider-Man villain who was played by the guy from the sitcom Wings? Yeah, it turns out once he’s done being a Sinister Six villain, he goes on to harass the Fantastic Four and gets his own Jack Kirby style super villain outfit!

Look at that badboy. Also he teams up with an angry furry made of explosions from the hell dimension that is the negative zone. - The Inhumans. All of these kids are cool, Lockjaw is an adorable giant bulldog that can teleport across infinite distances, and even Maximus is some sort of play on Shakespeare villains. The fact that differentiating these guys from mutants is really awkward. The short version (if I have it right) is that mutants are born with a unique x-gene, and inhumans come from a hidden society that commonly did genetic manipulation on its citizens at birth. - Galactus. He is arguably the weirdest thing Marvel has in this decade. A thirty foot tall man who flies around the universe and eats planets. He’s literally so powerful that he and the narrative both treat his eating habits as natural, and any victims that happen to get in the way as unfortunate but unintended sacrifices because GALACTUS MUST NOT DIE. Galactus is a vegan metaphor (maybe). - The Silver Surfer. The shiniest, angstiest boy in the multiverse. Originally from a planet where global society had literally hit its logical utopic conclusion, he was bored as shit. Galactus comes along, the entire planet gets spooked and blows itself the fuck up on accident, and Norrin Rad agrees to be Galactus’ herald and pick out planets safe to eat if he leaves his planet alone. Sometime after that he gets punished for trying to fight Galactus, and is punished to remain on Earth, where he would play around with being a very obvious Jesus analogy for a while. - That time where a guy impersonates The Thing in order to kill Reed, and then ends up getting respect for Reed and sacrificing himself atop a meteorite speeding off into an atmosphere of explosions. Really fucked up issue, honestly. - Black Panther. Wakanda is not as cool as it would eventually be portrayed, and BP’s first appearance is as an antagonist (he kidnaps the FF and hunts them for sport), but he has a fucking slick cape. - That time Doctor Doom stole The Silver Surfer’s infinite cosmic power and nearly fucked up everything for everybody for four straight issues. Also he got into a fist fight with the Thing, which is like...hell yeah. - The Negative Zone. WHY DO YOU HAVE A WINDOW TO HELL IN YOUR HOUSE, REED. - The Kree. I have no idea why the Kree are just white people in space. Bad move imo, even Namor’s race are mostly blue people. Anyway, there’s a rad fight with a sentry robot, and a decent introduction to Ronan the Accuser, who you might remember was the (reasonably overshadowed) villain in the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 1 movie, where he is blue. - Psycho Man. This guy has a remote control that makes you feel emotions and that’s kinda dumb but more importantly he’s from a microscopic universe and controls a non-microscopic robot version of himself to fight the FF and the implications of all that is absurd. - Reed goes into the negative zone (again) to try and find something he knows nothing about that might help his pregnant wife and unborn child survive the gamma radiation they still have in their bodies. He gets pretty lucky. Jesus christ, dude.

The worst parts of the FF this decade is probably every time Susan gets the shaft because she’s a woman, whether it’s her being talked down to by Reed or whether it’s her being written as way more concerned about ~lady things~ when things are going to hell. In the issue where her life is on the line and the baby is coming and Reed has to go into the negative zone, she doesn’t even make an appearance until like the last page. Susan deserves better. My reading guide actually didn’t recommend any 1969 issues of FF? I wonder what was going on...

Oh, skrulls impersonating 1920s gangsters and doing super-human trafficking, of course. Well, let’s move on.

The Incredible Hulk (Tales to Astonish)

I have had a soft spot for the Sulk ever since...probably the 2003 three Ang Lee film? Where I realized that 1) Bruce has bad dad issues and no one likes him, and 2) Hulk isn’t just a big boy, he is really fast and jumps crazy far and that’s a physical concept my teenage brain had never considered. I hadn’t even considered liking the Hulk growing up because I was so uncomfortable with almost all expressions of masculinity and machismo. My mom in fact was the one who told me “Don’t you want to see the Hulk? He’s big and scary like a bad guy, but he’s a good guy!” and I assume that’s what helped change my mind?

Anyway, Hulk has had a rough time in terms of popularity as well. His magazine lasted some six or seven issues before being canceled and his stories would continue, shorter, in Tales to Astonish, alongside Ant-Man (and eventually Namor’s own series). In the last few years of the decade he’d get a new magazine starting with The Incredible Hulk #102 (following Tales to Astonish #101... comic numbering is extremely bad), and...it’s okay so far! In the modern era, Hulk had a cartoon I never watched, a few nonstarter films, there was that series with Lou Ferrigno I know nothing about... He seems to always function best as a side hero. It doesn’t help that all the villains in his series are, like. Weird? Not like FF crazy weird, just like weird and not seemingly a great match for Hulk himself. Most of the ones that come to mind are dudes who are also mutated by gamma radiation or something else (and sometimes also green? why is the green supposed to be a common thread, that feels coincidental).

Which reminds me, Bruce is almost never present in what I’ve read so far. It’s just Hulk, usually talking way more than feels natural for him (it took a while for him to start speaking mostly in the third person). As a result, Hulk is usually given a very limited range of characterization and expected to coast on that, and it doesn’t often work. You have to put Hulk in casts and settings that complement him. For a while there he has a support character in Rick Jones, a (very uninteresting) teen boy who eventually can’t keep up with the increasingly antagonistic Hulk, bounces over to Captain America as a ward, eventually is confused by a cosmic cube-wielding, Cap-impersonating Red Skull, and fucks off on his own. He is immediately possessed by, and becomes a host for, Mar-Vell/Captain Marvel. I do not give a single fuck about Rick Jones.

In the earliest issues, the Hulk is gray, and also...just a non-furry werewolf. HE changes at night, until issue #102 retconned this.

Highlights: - That first issue has some really nice panels but I’m gonna say that’s all Jack Kirby’s doing. - Ends up harassing the FF, Spider-Man, the Avengers (after being one of them and then getting buttmad and running off), the Silver Surfer, the US military (regularly)... - Hulk goes to the far dystopic future?? He gets back I guess. - Hulk goes to Asgard! This is arguably the most interesting place to put him because all Odin’s warriors try to fight him and then decide lol this guy’s cool let’s go hang out. Meanwhile, Loki keeps fucking with him. But then the Enchantress and the Executioner become the villains and things get kinda boring again. - The Leader (that’s actually the name of a villain) makes a big robot and Hulk throws it into a volcano and then activates said volcano with his FISTS to fuck it up. Then he manually diverts a nuclear missile into the atmosphere after suddenly caring about people even though he has no reason to. Shrug! - Hulk goes to Attilan, the hidden nation of the Inhumans! There’s potential for interesting stuff here, but it’s mostly wasted by a full cast of extremely uninteresting one-off characters. This is all in a double length annual issue with a gorgeous cover by Jim Steranko, but the issue itself is drawn by Marie Severin. She does good stuff! But Steranko’s work is gorgeous.

Whatever!

The Mighty Thor (Journey into Mystery)

Thor’s winged helmet is really dumb, goodnight everybody!

Okay but yeah Thor started out in the Journey into Mystery magazine, and I guess I’d describe his stuff as... Dungeons and Dragons by Marvel? I struggle with it aesthetically but I like some of the ideas. Mjolnir is fucking cool, Asgard is both a real place and an planet (a flat one, even?), fucking Olympus is also a place and Hercules exists, Loki is... well, Loki hasn’t come into his own yet, but we’ll get there one day. On the other hand, some of the villains are dull as dishwater and a number of the good guys took their time getting interesting. Clearly there was some appeal, because he did eventually get his own magazine starting with Thor #126, I think? There’s that bad numbering again.

A big weird problem with Thor is that originally he has a secret identity. Like. Donald Blake is a surgeon who needs to use a cane to walk, and he goes hiking by himself and gets lost I guess and finds a stick and it turns out oops it’s Mjolnir and he becomes Thor! And Thor is not just a new identity, but also a person that is both the Thor of Norse myth, and the actual son of Odin up in Asgard and has been so forever and aaaaaaa

Donald Blake is not super important. He mostly exists to give Thor a weakness in that he can’t let go of his hammer for 60 seconds or he’ll turn back into a guy with a PhD. Eventually, in the latter half of the 60s, they add on to his backstory in a way I like, by saying “oh no no, he was always Thor. At one point Odin punished him by sending him to Earth with amnesia and in the guise of a handicapped guy getting through medical school. For some reason.” Which really only makes his dual identities more confusing, and I actually dig that. The MCU does not fuck with this at all, and I’m assuming the comics throw it out in the decades to come. Also, this semi-retcon was not included in the reading guide, I found it on accident. Anyway.

Highlights: - Thor joins the Avengers! I mean, duh, of course he does. He eventually leaves because he’s too popular and needs his own series or something. He occasionally pops back in to do cool stuff. - Thor accidentally ends up on Olympus and gets into a big sweaty fight with Hercules. They decide they are pals. This was an annual issue. - Thor goes into space! This is where things get good, and I really like Thor’s archaic ass as a cosmic sci-fi hero. Great juxtaposition. - Thor meets/fights Ego, the Living Planet! Okay, I said Galactus was the weirdest thing, and I was wrong. Ego is. Ego is almost as described on the tin, because he is actually described as an entire “bioverse”, and capable of changing the entirety of his physical makeup at any time. It is intensely cool. He’s also kind of evil and wants to spread out to control everywhere. Also, Thor makes friends with a nice recording robot and becomes an ally of robot rights. - Thor dies! A guy with a giant crowbar is accidentally given asgardian power by Loki, and then kills Thor because Thor has lost his power because Odin is punishing him again. And then Hela shows up as the goddess of death and says hey Thor. And he says hold on I got this and gets back in his body and saves the day and it’s fine. Hela does what she does best, stand there and look cool and do nothing else.

god she’s hot

- Thor rescues Ego from Galactus? Kind of on accident, he’s just trying to save the people inbetween who got their planets ate. Actually though, this arc fucking kicks, and he hangs out with the recorder bot too. In the end, Ego is grateful and lets the planetless nomads live on him. - Thor hangs out with Galactus and listens to his tragic backstory! Then Thor decides he’s gonna hit him anyway, and Odin decides “that’s enough for this story arc” and whisks Thor off to fight a robot instead. - Volstagg. - Volstagg.

- VOLSTAGG.

- Thor’s dudes go to the human world and there are shenanigans. It is good.

The Amazing Spider-Man

We all knew this was coming. Marvel’s own Pikachu. Possibly the most popular superhero alive (well, second to Batman anyway). And probably the hero I cared about the most growing up. We got associated a lot because we share a name. Spidey is probably the coolest idea for a superhero anyone has ever had, and they better CGI gets, the better his fights look. I do not care how many QTEs are gonna be in that new videogame, I wanna look at Spidey swing. Spider-man is just cool cool cool cool.

Early Spider-Man comics are fucking boring! Goodnight everybody!

Okay just kidding sort of. Spider-Man takes a while to pick up, in my opinion, and I’m 100% positive part of that is because I’ve seen these early stories retold in better and better definition so many times. I watched the cartoon as a kid, but the Sam Raimi movies are probably what comes to mind when I think of Spider-Man. Steve Ditko nailed a fucking iconic costume design, and did a great job of visually communicating Spidey’s agility on paper. But, in the earliest issues there was rarely any variation in panel size and shape, and action scenes were laid out like diagrams. Both those factors, along with the fact that each panel had dialogue because Peter kind of never shuts up, meant that pacing slowed to a crawl, and I had to chew through those issues. Also sometimes he just fought, like, mobsters with lassos. Jesus christ that’s boring. As the decade goes on, we start getting some good stuff, and to be completely honest, I’m looking forward to the weird dumb 90s stuff the most?

Highlights: - Peter has a persecution complex and uses his secret identity to be an asshole! Even after Peter’s iconic and still very well written origin story, he spends a lot of time harassing people, good and bad. He regularly breaks into JJ’s office in costume and makes fun of him, he crashes the Torch’s party to beat him up and flirt with his girlfriend, he breaks into the Baxter building to fight the FF in hopes they’ll recruit him with pay, he...gets into an argument with black students who are very passionate about affordable housing? He wasn’t even in costume for that one. Jesus, Peter, go to a therapist. - Nobody likes Spider-Man! Kind of makes sense why he’s got those personality issues, though those start with jocks calling him a nerd (he’s a nerd). Half the city doesn’t trust him, he works for a newspaper that is dedicated to anti-Spidey propaganda (Peter, you’re partially at fault for this), even the X-Men just assume he’s a bad guy, and that’s usually a problem they have to deal with. - Really appropriate villains! Wow! The Vulture matches his high up action, Doc Ock is both another victim of weird science and an intellectual rival. Also, like, their namesakes have a lot of legs. The Lizard is...Florida Man. Maybe the better argument is that many of these villains are memorable, in a decade that featured a concerning amount of “large humanoid monster/robot” baddies in all of the running series. - Like the Green Goblin. Who knew that would be Spider-Man’s Joker? Maybe that’s a bad comparison. Also bats and clowns aren’t usually connected with each other. Where was I going with this. - Spider-Man tries to quit the superhero gig twice, I think? He’s the only Marvel hero to consider this, as far as I know. Part of Peter’s appeal is that not only is he a young adult, unlike the rest of Marvel’s adult cast, but he’s also financially disadvantaged, has a non-nuclear model family, and has to look out for his often ailing Aunt. He has to work a side job while going to school while fighting bad guys, and it’s a lot more interesting than what Tony Stark’s doing up to this point. This has all been said so many times by so many people, but it’s an obligatory mention. - Peter donates blood to Aunt May at one point and accidentally gets a radioactive particle in her body. OOPS. Spider-Man goes on a rampage to find an antidote and tears a metal stairwell off its hinges. He also, like, completely destroys a villain’s underwater base and nearly doesn’t get out himself. - The Green Goblin discovers Peter is Spider-Man! Most of the Marvel heroes have this anxiety, but it never ends up a problem, so this is pretty big. The Goblin kidnaps him in broad daylight, ties him to a chair in a secluded place, and infodumps his origin story that he’s actually the father of Peter’s college roommate and is kind of very unhinged and obsessed with Spider-Man? In the end, Gobby gets amnesia and forgets the whole supervillain and mental illness thing and turns back into a good dad. - Spidey goes to the Casbah! Yeah, go figure. He learns his parents were traitors to America, and it fucks him up so much he flies there to find the truth. He ends up exploding the Red Skull and learns his parents were actually double double agents and were spying for America and so things are a-okay!

also peter kills a dude with a missile

- That aforementioned thing about affordable housing happens! Some black college students are unhappy that the university is taking old dorms that could be used as low rent housing for students and instead giving it to visiting alumni, and start a big protest and the narrative actually pins them as sympathetic even when they get overzealous and physical? I’m...kind of surprised, to be honest. Not used to seeing this at all.

Ant-Man, and...other identities. (Tales to Astonish)

ima keep it real with u founding member of the avengers hank pym, this will not improve marvel’s declining sales

This guy is a goddamn mess.

People like to say “pfffft there’s an ant-man? that’s goofy! that’s the weirdest thing ever! that’s a bad idea!” and buddy let me tell you, Hank Pym has a career specializing in bad ideas. Let’s list them!

- Adopt a young woman while she is grieving over the loss of her father and take her in as both a crime-fighting ward (The Wasp!) and also a love interest. Feel bad about it for about five minutes so it’s okay. - Develop a “growth capsule” that allows you to turn huge and decide to adopt two super hero identities, Ant-Man and Giant-Man. Assume this will not confuse anyone. - Eventually do weird science to make it so you can grow and shrink at will. Assume this will not have negative repercussions on your body. - Change the name Giant-Man to Goliath because you feel like Giant-Man is a dumb name. Confuse everyone for multiple issues. - Get stuck as a twelve-foot tall 90s beverage mascot lookin ass motherfucker (you are terrible at costume design, hank) and get real mad at everyone all the time about it. - Create an evil robot called Ultron and forget about it. Oops! Surely this will be fine.

IT’LL BE FINE

- Fail to relate to your robot-grandson-turned-avenger The Vision. Be a bad grandpa. - Inhale chemicals and get all fucked up on temporary schizophrenia (???), adopting a second personality. Call yourself Yellowjacket, claim to have killed Hank, and kidnap your girlfriend and force her to make out with you. - When assaulting your girlfriend makes her, uh, somehow realize that you are Hank, she will rope you into marrying her, thereby...uh...legally cuckolding yourself I guess? Realize you are Hank during/after the wedding, and be perfectly fine with this egregious violation of consent. Nothing about this will have lasting negative consequences. - Adopt the identity of Yellowjacket, and abandon Goliath. Continue to confuse people. On the bright side, finally have a nice costume. - Make a new Goliath costume in celebration of refusing to ever be Goliath again (WHY), and store it and a beaker of growth serum (WHY) in an unlocked locker out in the open (WHY). Hawkeye will steal it and become the new Goliath II.

So far that’s everything about Hank-Man! Stay tuned to see more of this trainwreck.

Iron Man (Tales of Suspense)

YO THIS DUDE SUCKS

I really like Iron Man’s origin story and his overall concept but the tech culture would not advance far enough to match it for a while. Also this was in the era of the Vietnam War and so Tony’s greatest enemy is The Mandarin, an extremely awkward asian stereotype and I! Ain’t! Got! Time! For! That!

Avengers

The Avengers are, at their most interesting, characters already in their own magazines. At their worst, they’re a bunch of characters no one cares about, fighting villains no one cares about, with last second ass-pull victories. There was a brief period there were I suspected the Avengers magazine was going to be true gristle of Marvel I was gonna have to chew on for hours to get through. Thankfully we are eventually given Marvel’s goodest boy, Vision. After that, things start to pick up a lot.

bless him and his little intangible heart

Highlights: - Captain America is found frozen in an ice cube! He’s been in cryo for twenty years, wow how the world has changed. I guess. Another case of time passing eventually making an origin story better. At this point Marvel has revived three 1940s comics properties: Cap, Namor, and the Human Torch (the lattermost in this case being an entirely different person). - Kang the Conqueror! Kang is a hell of a villain concept. He’s a time traveler who once ruled ancient Egypt as a pharaoh named Rama Tut and, uh, will eventually rule over Earth in the 41st century. He keeps harassing the 20th century for some reason. Also he is hint hint maybe related to Doctor Doom, I guess. - Hawkeye joins, having previously been a one-off villain, and proceeds to be an asshole to everyone forever. Eventually he becomes Goliath II because why not I guess. - Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver join, having recently bailed on Magneto’s Brotherhood, and they are...kinda boring, tbh. Wanda’s “hex power” isn’t very well defined (it makes unlucky things happen), and neither of them have much personality yet. At one point they fight Doctor Doom and he uses a machine to cancel out the hex power (???) and outpaces Quicksilver without using any enhancements (???). Some of these issues really blow. Quicksilver’s costume is lazy as hell. - Hercules joins for some reason, even though he says he doesn’t wanna be part of a team. - Magneto does some sneaky bullshit and tricks Quicksilver into thinking someone at the UN shoots at Wanda on purpose. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch join Magneto again because fuck normies. - The Avengers are killed (sort of) by the Grim Reaper! Their newest member, the Black Panther, rescues them.

Pick a color you trilobite.

- The Vision joins, Ultron-5 is introduced, and things finally settle in for the good stuff. - Ultron rebuilds himself in adamantium as Ultron-6 and replaces his legs with a rocket chariot thing. No one is brave enough to tell him it looks dumb.

no shut up its cool and i can fit still fit through doorways

immediately the next chapter he re-rebuilds himself with legs and calls himself Ultimate Ultron. mmmhm.

sounds like somebody was havin some self esteem issues about their body. sounds like a talk that ultron and their dad hank pym could probably relate to each other over.

- The decade ends with an arc where Kang abducts the Avengers and ends up himself wrapped up in a proxy wargame with the Grandmaster. Kang uses the Avengers as his pawns, and the GM creates four superhumans that he totally didn’t get from DC no sir. Perfectly original characters, do not steal.

I just...I just really feel like that last one could have used a few more minutes in the boardroom.

- Even better, the second half of the arc pits the avengers against Captain America, Namor, and the Human Torch...in their 1940s renditions!

Hank even comments on the fact that Namor’s diction is different. It’s great.

The Uncanny X-Men

So I grew up in the 90s, and despite never really engaging with comics, I was quite aware that Marvel’s hottest shit at the time was Spider-Man and X-Men. The X-Men had a slow start, but once they caught on, they never really dropped off. Actually, I think they might be less popular now? They’re at least not the ever-present icons they used to be, and I suspect that is partially to do with middling-quality movies diluting the brand.

But, the appeal is there from the start. Children born unique but feared by society are adopted by Patrick Stewart and spirited away to a special boarding school that is secretly dedicated to teaching them to use their powers for the sake of fighting evil. This was the proto-Harry Potter, though Snape’s gonna win no contests against Wolverine.

Unfortunately, we don’t have Wolverine, yet. We’ve got...these guys!

(Not pictured: Marvel Girl/Jean Grey)

The creative potential in mutant design has not quite picked up yet, so the main team (of five teens and an old man) includes such marvels as Guy With Wings, and Guy What Got Big Feet. Seriously, Beast’s feet get way too much attention.

I cannot wait until you are a blue cat instead of this.

I wish I could comment on the political commentary on the series, but it hasn’t quite started up yet, whether that is intentional or not. The rampant fear of mutants is there, we’ve even had a Sentinels arc, but it’s mostly just surface stuff. I had a lot to say about Spider-Man, so I feel kind of silly coming up short here!

Highlights: - Magneto. Despite the slow start this series is going through, Magneto is immediately introduced and has his wonderful costume design and his super threatening magnetism powers. I am a bit confused as to how his magnetism affects all things, not just metal, but magnets are an irl mystery and I’m willing to let it slide. - The Juggernaut. The two-issue arc introducing Juggz himself are effectively told, if not sliiightly silly in structure. The first issue has the X-Men building up defenses because he’s coming, and later, as he tears through each single one, unseen to both the kids and the reader, Xavier explains his and the Juggernaut’s tumultuous childhood together. It builds the tension really well, but it’s a bit funny by the fourth time the X-Men are saying “we gotta go meet him before he breaks in here where we are!” and Xavier’s like “I’M NOT DONE TELLING MY ORIGIN STORY.” - The Sentinels. This is probably the last interesting arc in the 60s, published as early as ‘65. It’s almost the last material in the reading guide, next to an issue where they all get into a fight with Spider-Man for no reason. If I understand correctly, the Sentinels are later depicted as humongous robots, where here they’re closer to ten feet tall or so. I’d always thought the idea of “a bunch of mass produced robots designed to kill mutants” seemed uncreative growing up, especially given that they don’t, like, have an x-gene suppressing ray or anything, but it works well enough in the moment. - Wholly unnecessary amounts of sexual harassment towards Jean Grey. All the boys have the hots for her (well, maybe not Iceman (pun not intended)), including even Xavier saying that she’s attractive when she first arrives. What the fuck, dudes.

X-MANS IS CANCELED

Doctor Strange (Strange Tales)

The reading guide included a ton of Strange Tales to read, including an 11-issue arc at one point. Good grief it was a lot.

Steve Ditko, of early Spider-Man, did the art for Strange for a good while, and I found that contrast between the diagram like action of Spider-Man, and the much more fantastic illustrations of Strange to be the most interesting thing. Eventually Marie Severin would take over as the penciller, and it would take a bit of time to adjust, but the more abstract it got, the better. Also, I don’t really like the footie pajamas Severin draws him in.

This is Steve Ditko. He has thin lines and exact shapes and while you don’t see it here, his magic fights are very clear and easy to follow.

This is Marie Severin. In comparison her lines are thick and smudged (well, okay, we have to give credit to the inkers for these as well, though I think she did her own inking?), but is capable of uniquely evocative images like this. Her action scenes are harder to follow, but she is equally capable of the kind of surreality that appears in Doctor Strange’s comics.

Also, while the topic has been touched on a lot, especially around the time the movie came out, it still bears repeating that Doctor Strange is built on a foundation of cultural appropriation and mystic eastern boogie woogie nonsense. I’m parroting the words of people that know this much better than me, but it’s a problematic and somewhat common trope that media will depict a white protagonist in a foreign setting who not just excels but surpasses everyone else, particularly peers who are native to the setting. At best it’s well-meaning and oblivious, at worst it perpetuates a narrow worldview where everything has to revolve around white people.

Anyway, when the comics focus more on the dread dark dimension of Dormammu, most of these problems aren’t around, and you get lots of fun and bizarre imagery and goofy spell casting.

Highlights: - Dormammu. He’s a prideful otherworldy being who refuses to be caught explicitly going back on his word when beaten at a game of skill, but easily breaks down and claws at loopholes with which he can attempt his petty revenge against Strange. He is also portrayed as a necessary evil, in that he uses his power to erect a barrier that keeps his servants safe from mindless laser-eye cyclops monsters that are just perpetually punching each other. That conflict makes for complicated situations where usurping him may be more harm than help. Also his head is always on fire, and that’s cool. - Trippy visuals. Ditko’s backgrounds lean closer to pop art with abstract shapes, bright colors, and twisting pathways. Severin’s art, if I can remember (there hasn’t been a lot yet) leans closer to mysterious and somewhat vague settings. I’m describing it very poorly.

That’s kind of it for Strange, I guess!

Daredevil

oh my god how many of these have I done now im so tired

I haven’t read much Daredevil yet! The reading guide has given me some seven issues so far out of the full decade, and while there has been some good stuff, I don’t know if I can draw a big mental picture.

DD is, theoretically, in that same category as Captain America, where rather than being a super powerful character, he is merely very very good at what he has. DD got hit in the face with a radioactive dildo or something and it blinded him but enhanced his other senses so intensely that if you sneeze he can tell what brand of nasal spray you use. Also, he’s super acrobatic and has a swiss army walking cane that he can use to do just about anything. And he’s a working attorney. Fuck you and your eyeballs, Batman.

Marvel has not begun to embrace noir, and as I understand it, that seems to be the genre most people know DD for aligning with. As a result, things are kinda silly! DD’s first outfit was yellow and he fought a man who had robot stilts in broad daylight.

Highlights: - Killgrave, the...Purple Man.

I can’t believe this is how Jessica Jones starts.

Uhh, Killgrave got some pheromones or something embedded in his skin on accident and now everyone just does what he says to no matter what. He’s purple now, too. This has not been taken to its terrifying possibilities yet, but I’m very excited to see where it goes. - Daredevil fights Namor. Okay, seriously? Seriously? This is my favorite issue, no joke. Namor busts out of the ocean demanding a lawyer (Matt himself) so he can sue the human race. Shenanigans ensue, and a trial is attempted, but ultimately falls apart when Namor decides “you know what? fuck this I’m gonna start breakin shit”. Matt changes into the DD costume and takes on Namor with everything he can think of, including construction equipment, but fails.

Out of respect, Namor leaves.

- Stilt-Man.

Stilt-Man. (Stilt-Man eventually shrinks into a quantum state that he remains trapped in for months until he suddenly isn’t.)

- And finally, Mike Murdock. In an attempt to ward off suspicion that he might be Daredevil, Matt...pretends to be his twin brother who is never in the same room at the same time as him. As Mike, he is a cocky jerk to everyone and insists that he is Daredevil. And people believe him.

As you would expect (for once), this nearly gets people killed.

Nick Fury (Strange Tales, Agent of Shield)

NICK FURY IS THE BEST GOD DAMN SONNUVA BITCH IN THE WHOLE MARVEL LINE UP

Nick Fury is like if you took James Bond and made it not suck. You get to keep all the gadgets and world traveling but swap out the “ooh, I’m so cool and serious” with kicking open doors and telling fascists to go fuck themselves. Most importantly, it’s a near-parody of the overwrought machismo that the series runs on. It’s so busy getting from point A to point B in as fun a way as possible that it’s impossible to take seriously.

Actually, it might be like if Battle Tendency was less sympathetic to real world fascists. Which is to say, it’s the pinnacle of evolution.

Look me in the eye and tell me this isn’t a JJBA action scene. (Also, Jim Steranko blessed us with a shirtless Fury in latex pants.)

A highlights list would be ridiculously long because I love these comics, so I’ll instead focus on one thing in particular.

- Jim Steranko’s art is gorgeous

Yes, these are all Nick Fury title pages.

Captain America (Tales of Suspense)

Steve is just now starting to get interesting, mostly through his own series, but he’s had plenty of time for notable moments throughout his screentime (pagetime?) in Tales of Suspense and Avengers. While talking about Daredevil I mentioned Captain America and how he’s less of a nigh-supernatural being like most heroes, and more of a particularly exceptional human. He hits really hard, but more impressive is his stamina and agility. Something that I’ve liked in the MCU is how they’ve portrayed him as always capable of what is just one step beyond what people think is possible of him. He can’t fly, but he’ll do as many impossible leaps as necessary. He’s not super strong (well, not to the degree of Spider-Man), but he sure can run for miles, and he knows his way around that shield.

I feel like a lot of what I’m writing is surface level readings of these comics, but the characteristics of Steve that really identify him haven’t quite shown themselves yet, I think. When I think of him, what always comes to mind is that his “american good boy” values take priority over allegiances, and so you’ll see Captain America himself abandon his title if America no longer represents the values of protecting the weak. Steve Rogers is kind of a perfect flawless human (when not written terribly), but that’s pretty okay at the end of the day, when a superhero is more of an icon than a person.

Highlights: - That time the Red Skull got the Cosmic Cube (not the Tesseract), and became a god for like five minutes.

- That time Cap fought a giant baby.

- That time Cap pretended to be dead and then stopped Hydra from burying all the avengers alive even Vision who would...be able to just phase out of the grave. I’m not really sure what the plan there was. - That other time the Red Skull got the cosmic cube and then switched bodies with Cap and they made a lot of facial expressions.

- That time Rick Jones thought Captain America didn’t like him, meanwhile Cap was stranded on a desert island and hanging out with The Falcon and it was cool. Nobody cares about Rick Jones.

Namor, The Sub-Mariner (Tales to Astonish)

I didn’t read a fuck shit about this dude! Sorry!

Captain Marvel

we’re so close to being done

The reading guide gave me nearly nothing on this dude. Issues #1-3 and then #17. He’s a Kree (whoa!) named Mar-Vell (lol) who should be helping to fuck up Earth but ends up liking it and chooses to defend it. He’s got a jet pack and a laser and a really shit costume and he’s NOT BLUE.

Marvy, I need you to move over, the more interesting hero is behind you.

He’s got an asshole commanding officer who keeps trying to get him killed because he wants to fuck his girlfriend and SNORE, I do not care. Come on dude. I have been psyched to learn about

At some point in-between chapters #3 and #17, and...shit, I’ll just quote wikipedia for this:

After aiding humanity several times, Mar-Vell is found guilty of treason against the Kree Empire and sentenced to death by firing squad. Mar-Vell escapes in a stolen rocket, but becomes lost in space. After drifting for 112 days, he is weak and on the verge of madness. He is manipulated by Ronan the Accuser and Kree Minister Zarek into helping them overthrow the Supreme Intelligence. To better help them, Mar-Vell is given a new costume and enhanced abilities. After the conspiracy is foiled, Mar-Vell tries to return to Earth. On the way, he is hit by a blast of radiation that traps him in the Negative Zone.[16]

The Supreme Intelligence enables Mar-Vell to telepathically contact Rick Jones, which he uses to lead Jones to a set of "nega-bands" at an abandoned Kree base. When Jones puts on the bands and strikes them together, he trades places with Mar-Vell and is encased in a protective aura in the Negative Zone. The pair discover they are able to maintain telepathic contact. Using this method, Mar-Vell can remain in the positive universe for a period of three hours.

well what the fuck that might have been worth reading, thanks reading guide

Anyway, so yeah, Rick Jones! Both of these characters were pretty boring, and mayyybe this will help the both of them. Or not. At least the new costume is cool.

Silver Surfer

IT’S THE LAST ONE THANK GOD

Once again, I don’t have much to say here! I wrote all my thoughts on the surfer up in the Fantastic Four section, so you can read that if you haven’t. The reading guide only gave me three issues to read, though they were quite good. The first was his origin story, which I already wrote about above. The second one was about invisible aliens that manipulated the surfer and people’s distrust of him (part of this is because he keeps occasionally attacking humans because he thinks it’ll make them be nicer to each other). And in the third issue, Mephisto kidnaps his long lost girlfriend from his home planet. It works out kind of badly for everyone involved.

begone, thought

And that’s everything for the 60s. Phew! This took a long time and I don’t know if it was worth it. Let me know if you read it, if you enjoyed it, if you pity me, whatever. I got more comics to read.

#curry reads comics #long post #very long post #fantastic four #the incredible hulk #thor #the amazing spider man #tales to astonish #journey into mystery #tales of suspense #avengers #uncanny x men #strange tales #daredevil #captain marvel #nick fury agent of shield #silver surfer #marvel

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dontcallmecarrie · 7 years

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Fic Idea: Welcome To The Family

[In Which Natasha Is A Better Friend]

Warnings: Natasha Romanov’s background and POV [which…yeah, be careful because child soldiers are the least of it; plus a different take on what Graduation consists of], canon-typical violence, mental health issues [hi, Tony’s PTSD and Co.], loss of trust, probably OOC in some places, gradual canon divergence [wow isn’t that familiar], not Steve friendly, not Wanda friendly, closer-to-Skynet-than-is-comfortable!JARVIS, dubious morality, some pretty unhealthy things in general [childhoods, coping mechanisms, etc], mercy-killing [mentioned as a past thing, rather brief but in the context of Natasha’s Graduation]

Main changes here from canon: Natasha’s characterization [as in, it doesn’t change on the turn of a dime]. Her relationship with Bruce isn’t something I’ll delve into, because guess who can’t write romance to save my life?

Also, JARVIS lives, because the day I acknowledge his death is pencilled in for never. And in this AU, Zola implied something a bit less specific than he did in canon.

Full thing’s under the cut because you guys know how I roll when it comes to fic ideas [read: very, very, very long outlines]. I’ll get to writing the fic on this sometime in the future, but in the meantime here you go.

Natasha Romanov was a very dangerous person. In more ways than one.

It came with the ‘was raised as a living weapon during one of the most politically terse times in history’ package, after all, only a complete and utter fool would claim otherwise. And with it, came an appreciation for some things other people might take for granted, like the various applications of duct tape, the lifespan of granola bars, and even more fundamental things. Like trust.

No, make that especially trust, and faith in humanity in general; just what kind of childhood did these people have, to just believe someone’s word? To take a known assassin and just…extend their hand like that? [Weird. But strangely adorable, too, there was that.]

…Yeah, years later, and Clint Barton is still very baffling.

Point is, Natasha’s…unique background meant she had a perspective very few people ever got. The Stark Industries/Natalie Rushman mess meant she got a front-row seat as to the show Tony Stark put up. And that was what it was; a front, she knew. [Like knew like, after all.]

The entire fiasco had also been a case of “I know” and “you know I know” and “you know I know you know”, because Stark Industries apparently had a very unique stance on corporate espionage, and SHIELD hadn’t been very subtle in their attempts to get her in.

The “Iron Man yes, Tony Stark not recommended” bit was a convoluted snarl of politics and dynamics and if Natasha hadn’t been born and raised in this, and if Tony hadn’t been a genius with Maria Stark and Peggy Carter as role models, he might’ve missed some of the nuances in what went unsaid. As it was, neither Fury nor Natasha missed the laughter in his voice, when he’d gotten to that bit.

Natasha didn’t blame him; years in, and she still didn’t get why SHIELD loved melodrama so much.

But it wasn’t until the Avengers assembled, that her observations started paying off. Clint’s being compromised had been jarring, to be sure, and none of her training had ever covered huge green monsters, but Natasha had done her best to roll with it.

If anything, Tony’s presence had been a comfort; yes, he was a pain in the ass, but he was familiar, an ally, and tended to come with a side of explosions and breakthroughs. The man was a force of nature, and Natasha sometimes wondered how things might’ve gone if he’d been born to anyone else, or anywhere else…then again, that sounded like nightmare fuel, never mind. [Don’t imagine him as a trainer in the Red Room, don’t imagine him as an enemy operative—no.]

Steve Rogers might have been an icon, might have been a bastion of principles and what it meant to be American—but Natasha was Russian, and she’d known to see past the propaganda to see the dazed and confused man who was still learning how to pick up the pieces when his world turned to ash.

He looked like he needed a friend. [Which…huh. There’s an idea.]

New York had been…interesting, to say the least. But it wasn’t until later, until Tony set about with cleanup after the invasion was over, that their friendship really kicked off.

It helped, that they were very similar to each other; Clint might have noticed, if he wasn’t busy trying to piece himself back together, but as it was Tony tossed her a business card and sauntered away with Dr. Banner in tow, with a faux-careless “keep in touch if you want, Pepper wanted to talk to you about going out for drinks sometime” over his shoulder.

But Natasha had noticed the guarded look in his eyes, even if nobody else did, and she knew, without a word being said, that, despite all his trust issues [which she’d only glimpsed during her stint at SI, but had seen enough of to know it was a beast], this was Tony making an attempt to reach out.

Well…it’d be rude not to, after that, right?

And…Tony looked like he could use a friend, too. Not to knock Happy or Pepper, but this was something few could relate to, trying to atone for past sins [and failing miserably], plus the ‘hey we fought aliens together that one time, now what?’ thing.

So, Natasha did what she could, to keep in touch. It was very off-again-on-again, because of missions and general work-related issues, but she managed. Things were rather rocky and awkward at first, but enough late-night phone calls thanks to time differences and downtime and boring stakeouts meant a very convoluted friendship soon bloomed.

Which…Natasha couldn’t quite wrap her head around it, actually. The man had trust issues and one of the most full-blown cases of PTSD she’d ever seen, and yet he somehow mustered up the strength and kindness to reach out and befriend the person who literally stabbed him in the neck?!

What even.

Tony Stark was added to Natasha’s “Weirdest Humans Ever Met But Would Gladly Murder For” list, because of that. It wasn’t very long, there were only three names, now, because Clint’s wife was just as baffling as he was.

Time passed, and while work at SHIELD meant that Natasha’s social life was 85% work-related [counting Clint and Steve], the other 15% had Natasha glued to her phone while keeping tabs on Tony and Pepper and JARVIS. [Which…she hadn’t known the AI was so sophisticated, before. Actually, she’d be surprised if anyone outside Tony’s inner circle knew, and treasured the show of trust like the rare thing it was.]

Time passed, and Natasha was feeling pretty good about everything; work was going well, Steve seemed to be settling in and making good progress in moving on [now if only he’d let her help him get a date], Clint and his wife were expecting their first baby and had asked her to be a godmother, and though Tony was having a hard time, he looked like he had things well in hand [and she couldn’t exactly visit him while in the middle of an op in Vanuatu].

So, of course, Murphy’s Law struck with a vengeance.

HYDRA hit with all the force of a sledgehammer, and the Winter Soldier had rattled Natasha badly. If she’d trusted her [SHIELD-issued, when’d she gotten so complacent, dammit?!] phone, she would’ve called Tony for help, but as it was she didn’t doubt someone was monitoring his communications, since doubtlessly someone up the chain had noticed his friendship with the Level 7 Special Agent.

The reveal that the Nazis weren’t as gone as the world had hoped, that she’d been working for them, that her efforts to atone for all the red in her ledger had been for nothing, tasted like ash. It was a cold, bitter realization, and Natasha couldn’t imagine how Steve must be feeling. She, at least, had practice with this, after all: with realizing that everything and everyone she’d been surrounded with was an enemy agent, with the feeling of nothing was safe, not when empires crumbled and regimes turned to ash.

Steve really hadn’t taken it well.

In retrospect, she should’ve seen it coming, really.

But Natasha carried on. Though…Zola had mentioned something, back at the bunker, and what he’d implied had left her feeling cold.

And…Tony needed to know.

Natasha had heard him talking about his parents, once, when he’d been running on two carafes of coffee and not much else, mid-way through his 27-hour-long engineering binge, and the mention of how much of an ass Howard had been had stuck with her, nearly as much as how much he’d clearly cared for his mother.

Natasha might not have have the kindest of childhoods [ha-understatement of the decade], but she did her best to be as supportive as possible, even if she went ‘that sounds fake but okay’ to what others claimed were normal childhoods [jury was still out in regards to Tony’s mentions of having built a bomb before puberty, though, no matter how relatable that experience was].

Steve must’ve told him, though, right? Because he might have been understandably hyperfocused on Bucky, there was no way he’d missed HYDRA’s hand in the death of Howard Stark. And though Steve and Tony might’ve had their differences, there was absolutely no way the man Natasha knew would keep something this huge from her other friend.

Not when Steve’s searching for the Winter Soldier, not when Tony’s moving heaven and earth to clean up after them in DC. Not when the team started to regroup, and work together to take down every last vestige of HYDRA once and for all. Time passes, and things continue in this vein.

Sokovia’s where the rose-tinted lenses came off.

Ultron caught everyone off-guard, really. Natasha had talked to Tony often enough to know he hadn’t been remotely close to interface, and while the Iron Legion was intimidating, she approved of its various applications.

And yet the team tried to blame Tony.

No, strike that, they did blame Tony, and that she hadn’t seen the cracks in the team before Thor nearly snapped his neck [because she’d seen that technique before, in the Red Room, and it had never been in a nonlethal application], she tasted bile in the back of her throat because how had she missed this?!

The Red Witch’s recruitment didn’t exactly help, either. Ignoring the dredging up of memories best left forgotten [Graduation and the mercy-killing of the only childhood friend she’d ever had because she wouldn’t stop screaming and wouldn’t have survived the Serum and remained sane], Natasha recognized the look in Wanda’s eyes. She saw it in the mirror, after all, and was intimately aware of her capabilities, of what it felt like to have nothing left to lose.

Of how to use people.

She didn’t get why Steve had recruited her, really; he already had a hard time just adjusting to life in general, why the hell did he invite a viper into the fold?

…again, it was one of those things that were embarrassingly obvious in retrospect.

It was no surprise Tony’d retired, really. Not when the only other friend besides her had flown the coop, not when everyone else had seen him being choked by an ally and hadn’t batted an eye, not when nobody else seemed to care that JARVIS had nearly died.

But at least they were still friends.

Even if Wanda threw a contemptuous look her way whenever Natasha’s phone started to play AC/DC [because Tony’s sense of humor knew no bounds and Natasha didn’t have the heart to say no when he’d offered to program in a few ringtones], or Steve frowned when she laughed at a Snapchat from Tony showcasing DUM-E’s latest attempt at a smoothie. [Sure, it was when she should’ve been sparring, but he’d been running late and she’d been bored.]

It’s not until after he retired, that it came up.

In her defense, Natasha had been busy with cleanup, since depressingly few STRIKE teams had actually been SHIELD rather than HYDRA and she’d been one of the only agents with enough clearance to access the more sensitive areas.

In one life, Natasha never told Tony, had trusted in Steve’s judgement and called it a day.

In this life, however, Natasha was a far better friend.

She’d referred to it in passing, because it’d been months since HYDRA’s fall and weeks since Sokovia and cleanup was still being a bitch for both, when she’d caught the look of confusion on his face.

“What?” He’d asked, and Natasha felt ice at the pit of her stomach.

“Steve didn’t tell you?” She asked, and abruptly realized she didn’t know Captain America nearly as well as she’d though, and that—oh shit. “You don’t know.”

“Know what?” But there was a look of growing suspicion, and…

“You might want to sit down for this, Tony. And call Pepper and James, too. Hey, JARVIS? Gear up, too.”

Natasha didn’t know how to do this. [Why couldn’t she have had to fight a death squad with her bare hands instead? It was so much easier!]

But Tony was her friend. He trusted her, and she refused to betray that trust again.

“Tell me what.”

In this life, Natasha told Tony, of HYDRA’s involvement in murdering his parents.

Tony didn’t take it well, of course.

[Perfectly understandable, what with having nearly made his peace with Howard’s alcoholism having been what killed his mother.]

Natasha ended up being used as a impromptu teddy bear, while JARVIS immediately made arrangement for Pepper and James’ arrival, because Tony’d need all the support he could get. Even though this was way, way out of her comfort zone, and she didn’t know what the hell one did when a friend started crying, she did what she could to support him, and quietly cursed Steve Rogers and Zola to hell and back for putting her in this situation.

And Tony…Tony lost all respect for Captain America, that day.

“You know, he said something about teammates not telling him things?” He managed to get out, after the initial shock wore off. [Pepper and Natasha shared a dark look, at that.] “Looks like he didn’t have much room to talk, after all.”

It was no coincidence, that the Compound’s funding got cut, after that. Or that Natasha’s gear was top-of-the-line while everyone else’s barely got the basics of maintenance, afterwards. Or that team dynamics weren’t so much frayed at the seams so much as ‘even existing in the first place’, because Vision had the same sense of humor as JARVIS and Steve seemed to find that off-putting for some reason, and Natasha never let Wanda at her back.

There’s a few different ways this could go from here, of course.

Maybe Civil War doesn’t even happen, because Tony’s not on the back foot when it comes to all the hurdles life’s throwing at him, not with his friends at his side and JARVIS in his ear.

Maybe Civil War does happen, except Natasha never lets the super soldier duo go, takes them down instead, and Siberia never happens, and reality and consequences ensue.

If, somehow, someway, Siberia were to happen, however, it wouldn’t go down like it did in canon.

Instead, Tony, having been able to wrap his mind around the ‘HYDRA killed my parents’ reveal with enough time and support to be able to cry about something that happened half a lifetime ago and ever-so-slowly start to heal from the still-raw wounds, would take it differently.

Here, Tony would still be horrified and shocked by the video of what happened. But here, Tony’s not on the verge of breaking down, isn’t scrambling for a moment of peace, isn’t desperate for a peaceful resolution. Tony’s doing this in memoriam of the man his father had spent decades and millions on, and…

Here, Tony’s furious.

But, having had the warning from Natasha, he takes it differently. The video’s still shocking, of course, and he’s fighting down nausea as he’s hearing his mother’s screams and his father’s desperation, but…here, Tony’s not on the verge of losing it when he turns to Steve.

“You knew.” But here, it’s not tinged with shock, isn’t colored by the hurt of fresh betrayal. Instead, it’s accusatory, it’s wrathful and Tony knew Steve was an ass but this was beyond the pale.

In one life, Tony might’ve snapped, and lunged after the man who he’d just seen kill his mother. In this life, however, it’s the other supersoldier who gets decked with all the force of a pissed-off Iron Man.

“Son of a bitch, you knew it was him.”

Here, there’s no hurt “He was my friend/So was I”; instead, this might’ve been how it went down:

“He was my friend.”

“And she was my mother.”

But either way, Tony’s not losing it, here. Or, at least, not the way he did in canon. Because, here, JARVIS is a comforting voice in his ear, but he’s also support, and the Iron Legion is at hand to help apprehend these criminals with minimal fuss, so even if he’s repulsed by just how much of a hypocrite Steve turned out to be, he’s not alone in the bunker.

And afterwards, Tony’s not alone either.

Here, it’s a new future, a new day, and with Pepper, James, Natasha, and JARVIS at his side, Tony’s helping forge a new tomorrow.

Here, Thanos arrives to an Earth with a team of Avengers who have been preparing for his arrival for years, and with all the efficiency that bone-deep trust engenders.

…there’s so much more I could do with it, of course.

I haven’t even touched on the shenanigans and puns that ensue when Natasha hears about their newest recruit, meanwhile Spiderman’s leaning back wide-eyed as Natasha takes down a room in less than a minute and tosses a casual “I’ll teach you how, spiders need to stick together” over her shoulder.

Stephen Strange’s low-key terrified by the women Tony’s surrounded himself with [and resolves to either keep Christine and Pepper as far away as possible, or simply lay low for when they inevitably take over the world through sheer competence], and Hope Pym’s very happy to have someone capable of keeping up with her on the sparring mats.

James Rhodes, meanwhile, is sitting back with Vision and watching these dorks and wondering what the hell went wrong with his life choices to lead to movie nights with assassins and sorcerers and teenagers who thought “the new Star Trek movies were awesome” [and thus sparking the movie marathon to teach him otherwise].

Tony, of course, is very relieved to have people he can trust to have his back, and so proceeds along with his plans to take over safeguard the Earth. [Then again, the Accidental World Domination fic’s already in the works, so maybe not.]

Another thing I changed: the Red Room’s Graduation process.

Not sure what canon’s involves, but here it features their version of the Super Soldier Serum. It’s not graceful, it’s not elegant, it’s pure brute force and painful and only the strongest survive the first 12 hours [and renders the person sterile, because of the drastic changes].

The low survival rate is only part of why it’s considered graduation; the other part’s killing the other girls who got dosed with the Red Room Serum, because most of them are halfway out of their minds with agony [and also because the Red Room’s Serum’s effect on sanity is really hit-and-miss, too].

There’s more to this, but cutting it short for now because this is supposed to be the outline only and at this rate the fic’s only going to be a repost of this.

Hammered this out because I’ve got a lot of fix-it/break-it-differently ideas on the brain, and got sick of Natasha’s fluctuating characterization. It also led to my different take on Graduation, because wanting to have kids isn’t exactly every female’s life goals, [hated that scene…I could go on for hours, I s2g] and to consider oneself a monster implies something that goes a lot deeper than that.

#fic idea #fic ideas #orignal outline #now the time is here for iron man to spread fear #if you're going to be evil might as well do it right #welcome to the family #naught rambles

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dryasiulia · 7 years

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August 21st: Fanfiction Writers Appreciation Day

This idea is fantastic and I want to support it as best I can. I’m constantly amazed that you guys take your free time to provide this for us; so this is quite literally the least I can do! There’s a lot more below~~~~~~

I wish I had the time today to reread everyone’s work; AND to read everything I haven’t yet. You all deserve pages and pages of praise; I’m sorry this is all I can do today. In roughly the order in which they were originally consumed:

@claudeng80 Even if it hadn’t been my fanfic introduction (If you don’t count watching GoT), Noble AU would still hold a special place in my heart. Honestly everything you’ve done is amazing. I still haven’t made it through the RIDICULOUS amount of happy you made for us during bingo. And that’s not even considering the ones I DID get to that I want to reread ASAP (omg that fairytale obi dragon one). And of course Snowdrop~~~ No words~~~~ I even enjoy the stuff you do that is outside my wheelhouse *cough* star trek. Plus, Akagami on the Bayou is literally perfection.

@sabraeal It’s lovely to see someone who is so talented spend so much time appreciating and supporting others. The comments/reviews that you (and Joanna and Andi) leave in the community are literally as entertaining as the stories. That said, obviously now I’m going to mention Seven Suitors because duh. It is Canon But Better and I hope there isn't a sekrit counter somewhere that shows how many times Ive read it....maybe even with the Haki B-sides inserted timeline appropriately~~~~ And I don’t have enough time to get into Truth In Masquerade (Or In Which There Will be Ascots; yup, I’m pretty sure that was promised, even if it was just in my head it still counts), modern AU, OFC fae AU (why am I capitalizing AU?), high school, daemons, the kiss of life (I may think about randomly at times) all the bb obi backstory stuff, the amazing haki stuff, and the one shots! Your 100 prompts was frankly, astonishing, and during a Very Bad Time for me. It was so amazing to have something like that to escape to. This workings of this site remain a bit of a mystery to me; things that are original and amazing frequently get missed or ignored; and a picture of a shoe with a cat in it like breaks the internet?

@superhappybubbleslove again with the “someone who is so talented spends so much time appreciating and supporting others” For me, watchtower is like “Uncomfortable RL Canon but Won’t Ever be Canon Because Shoujo” You do such an astonishing job of like Easter Egg Multi Level Pains. As if the over-arching pain isn’t enough; there are little poison barbs expertly sprinkled in specially designed for the utmost torment. Of all the pains (main story pains; not touching the B-SIDE pains because I’m still recovering from Friday) the little ones stick with me the most. Ugh, that part where he drops the spoons is honestly like the worst for me…..I’ve just upset myself again. And likewise with the I REALLY REALLY don’t want to know my reread count xD I don’t have the time to even get started on what Melt, the Mountain Lion au, and everything else deserves. (Like, I’m still kind of angry about how much I enjoy the ballet au - I mean wut?!)

@infinitelystrangemachinex your commentary is ALWAYS +100~ Automation Heart……I love your Shirayuki so much. She’s always a science badass. And the chemistry with Obi, LITERALLY no matter what the set up, is ALWAYS perfect. I’m not comfortable admitting 1. how many times I have read Analysand 2. how many times I then REREread it when you did Overflow — also rereading Overflow obviously and 3. How many times I read St Elmos Fire once I finally realized I hadn’t read it. Let’s just leave it at….a lot…. There are still a few things from last year I haven’t gotten to; someone might point out that I MAYBE would’ve had more than enough time to read those I had I skipped a rererereread or two….don’t pester me with your logics~ I’m sure they are equally amazing; I can’t wait to get to them!

@nebluus Apparently I’ve missed a few things on the classic “you must read” obiyuki lists. However, I have at least read Blizzard. ~~~~A FEW times. It most definitely belongs on the list. Everything about it is perfect. Ugggh….the part about how he would be a great father… “Are you the fire Obi?” Dead. Even though no true relationship stuffs happens it literally kills me every time.

@xaphrin sometimes I worry from your tumblrs you don’t understand how awesome you are; but then I think surely you see how many people tell you your awesome….right?!?! I can be a little bit of a cinnamon bun when it comes to reading sexy times, but I feel like you always try (nay succeed) to include it as part of the Whole Relationship. AND AND AND can we talk about how phone sex AU obi is. the. hottest. obi. Which is so weird…I mean if someone would’ve told me I’d love “phone sex” au I would’ve rolled my eyes. BUT ITS SO GREAT. And obviously diplomacy. OBVIOUSLY.

@ruleofexception for me you are like a box of cakes. (real talk, some chocolates are gross, all cake is delicious) “dead obi with oxygen shirayuki” nuuu please don’t do that….omg that was amazing. Hunger games?!?!?….moar pls all of the hunger games. Disembodied voices??…..amazing yes please (I loved Knowing You so much!!!). Whew and there are many things I haven’t yet said about Fall of the Crown….but I super love it’s gothic feels and I am super excite~~ (The knife naming/giving?!?!!) And you have more I haven’t even gotten to yet; I can’t wait~

@akai-vampire you take the bare-bones of canon and breath life into it~ When the smallest obiyuki bit happens, my initial reaction is “oh god nina will make me pay for this shortly” Late at Night is so lovely; I feel like “what happened if Shirayuki didn’t make it out” isn’t explored much~ And omg that blurted confession in Dreams….. And honestly, if you seriously SERIOUSLY get to 50 in “The Fifty Times You Stole My Heart” you WILL kill me. It’s only at 6 and I can barely make it now~~~ Srs. All of it.

@vivianwisteria okay, the “how Obi and Shirayuki met as kids” canon mystery is ongoing… However, the way you handled it in Adagio Appassionato is my absolute favorite~ (Canon needs to retcon Violin Shirayuki if Sorata ever actually gives us the backstory there.) I love it so much that when you dropped that bomb chapter I MAY have put off a serious work assignment to go reread everything IMMEDIATELY. I LOVE all of Conductor Obi with Issues so much~ Okay, and Love and Other Monstrosities I mean WUT. There are no other words for that…just WUT WUT WUT!!! Whew, and Impasse, the Damon Lindelof (but better) bad guys here are very mysterious and exciting. And OF COURSE I love found in translation…. And obviously I am SO VERY EXCITE about Ex Gratia~

@jaygirl987 The “worldbuilding” for Neighbors is astounding. For srs, you have fleshed out Bruce, THE CAT, more than most fiction manages to with human side characters. I literally can not wait to see where this goes; everyone’s been established so beautifully. I adore your obiyuki relationship one-shots as well. I can’t wait to catch up on the bingo stories I missed!!!!

@meibemeibelline I haven’t finished all of Apple Red and Gold yet…I REALLY need to make a obiyuki “to read” list post it note. However, I did get to Counting Coins and Motel on the Hill during Bingo. I LOVE your storytelling. Your descriptions and atmosphere are wonderful. Counting Coins was adorable, plus Obi as a hot teacher yes please. Motel on the Hill is so lovely~~~ It’s beautifully melancholy. I can’t wait to read the rest; I’m sorry it’s taken me this long!!

@codango obviously the road to Clarines is gravel is amazing. You succeeded where 18 years of my real life experience did not…you made the cowboy aesthetic attractive~ I adore your characterization of EVERYONE in this and I’ve been super excited for every chapter. Seriously, the individual elements should not appeal to me, but your skill and ability made them in to something I love.

@glitter-and-golden Okay, I never knew that I needed a mithra obi, BUT I DID. If I Walk It's With You Beside Me is a pleasure to read~ SO, I’m also a sucker for fictional food; and after I read this the first time I totally had to eat breakfast for dinner~ I love everything about this, Ryuu, their cottage, Zen, sassy mithra Obi. I am so excite!

OMG this was supposed to be faster… -.- I’m past out of time, so please forgive my abbreviated loves:

@onoheiwa - both your kiss stories were absolutely adorable~~ And I loved the amusement park; Obi’s disappointment when the park was closed was perfect. I can’t wait to read the rest of your stuff!!

@krispy-kream - I loved haki as the amyrlin and izana as forsaken SO MUCH. My memories of early WoT are mixed to say the least….If you want to go ahead and redo all the early books I’d be %100 on board with that.

@another-miracle - your intermissions are beautiful~ your prose is also lovely in general, I’m so sorry I’m behind!!! I’m VERY MUCH looking forward to reading everything you’ve given us~

@littleaverill - your role reversal au was great~~~ I love the idea of obi growing up in the shop~ I can only imagine how he’d be different. I REALLY love your style; there’s an element of the unknown and the implied that always leaves me like I just had a piece of cake that was EVER SO SLIGHTLY smaller that I would’ve cut myself — super delicious but if you even want to send me another slice I’d be okay with it! xD

@nonstopdoodle - The Spice of Life was so cute! Ryuu as AI was perfect~~ There was something very nostalgically Firefly about it that I loved so much~ And just ftr, your ponies are SO SO SO CUTE

@rebeccaravenroth - okay, the balcony-plants story for bingo was so adorable. I am fluent in passive aggressive post it notes. I adore your writing style and storytelling~

I’m sorry I left out a few AO3 people that I don’t know their Tumblr blog name or may not be on Tumblr!!!

#fanfic appreciation day #obiyuki #thank you all so much for what you give us #I wish there was more I could do to appreciate you~~~#<3 <3 <3

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sazorak · 7 years

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My Hero Academia’s hero and villain are not very good

My Hero Academia, Kohei Horikoshi’s shounen manga take on Western super hero comics, has been running nearly three years now. I am something of a binge-reader when it comes to media; I don’t care for the drawn-out schedule that comes from following serialized releases. But My Hero Academia (alongside One Piece, Berserk, and One Punch Man) is one of the few that I actively follow. Lately though, I’ve been wondering why.

It’s not that the comic has taken a particularly egregious downturn in quality or pacing – it’s been fairly consistent all in all. The current arc about the class becoming intern sidekicks has been interesting, and it’s been moving at a rather brisk pace. The issue I’m struggling with is more fundamental. It’s a problem My Hero Academia has had since the beginning, and it’s done little to ameliorate over time.

The main protagonist and antagonist of My Hero Academia are just not very good.

The lead of My Hero Academia, Izuku Midoriya, isn’t a bad character per se. The angle of an ordinary kid born into a society of supermen finding himself entrusted with power by his world’s urhero is a pretty good one. It’s an underdog story with tons of good karma built in as Midoriya is forced to struggle to surpass those who had mocked his lack of abilities. It’s also good for hitting those power-fantasy notes that are so crucial to making the shounen genre work. He’s earnest and likeable. It’s easy to root for Midoriya and put yourself in his shoes as he is manages to pull himself to the front of the pack by sheer heart and willpower alone. These are all good attributes for a protagonist in a heroic work!

But as time has gone on and as his powers have developed, he has ceased to be the underdog. Where he was once only keeping up with his classmates’ inborn genius by hard work and determination, now he’s not only the most driven but also the most talented. Midoriya’s climbed what should have been the first foothill on his journey to the top, and we’ve found that there is actually nothing else on the horizon— the foothill was the mountain. Midoriya’s journey of growth being essentially complete is dire, because it’s all Midoriya actually has: It turns out he’s REALLY boring.

Midoriya’s character revolves entirely around his desire to become a hero and imitate the super hero paragon, All Might. That’s it. This is literally all there is to him. He has no other interests. No particular ambitions beyond the dream to be The Best Hero. The only real struggles remaining for him are narrative happenstance and the gradual power-ups that are practically prescribed at this point. There’s nothing else to his story.

Here’s an example: In order to convince All Might’s former side kick to give him an internship, Midoriya has to make him laugh. This isn’t going to be easy; the sidekick is a straight-laced nerd, AND he has the ability to see the future. This concept has a lot of good goof-potential. You could conceive Midoriya in all his earnestness constructing an elaborate comedic scenario that, while perhaps falling on its face, would at least show off his good qualities. Maybe he’d screw up and it’d result in the kind of unplanned comedic pratfall that would be easy for the sidekick to laugh at.

Instead, what does Midoriya actually do? He does a bad impression of All Might of course, because “I want to be like All Might!” is his entire character! It pisses off the sidekick so much that the whole laughing angle is completely abandoned, and instead a scenario is contrived where Midoriya has to steal the approval stamp from the future-seeing sidekicks hand. Ultimately? He gets the internship because he didn’t damage any of the All Might memorabilia in the room. Midoriya’s All Might-mania would be a funny gag if it wasn’t the crux of who he is.

The only other aspects to Midoriya’s character beyond his hero-crush is his very typical shounen budding romance with Ochako Uraraka (that has not and will not ever be developed until the very end of the story, as is the staid shounen manga way), his willingness to occasionally break the rules in order to save lives (and then let McGruff the Crime Dog unironically say that he should have let his friend be murdered in front of him), and a mostly one-sided rivalry with his childhood bully Katsuki Bakugo. Only the rivalry actually feels that impactful to the story, and that has more to do with Katsuki’s personal arc than Midoriya’s.

The issue isn’t that Midoriya doesn’t have any major flaws necessarily – though that certainly doesn’t help – it’s more that there’s not much else to his personal story at this point beyond the narrative events unfolding before him. He fundamentally lacks agency and meaningful personal struggles. Things happen, and he reacts to them; his arc is essentially complete. It’s a foregone conclusion. His single-mindedness makes the story flat in a way that it really need not be.

Narratives revolving around villains doing nefarious things tend to lead to reactionary heroes, but the best heroes are ones who are more than just the mask—they’re also people. Peter Parker has a day job, has to deal with people trying to constantly hunt him down and kill him, and has to fight to balance his romantic dalliances with the responsibilities of being Spider-Man. Bruce Banner may fight the occasional radiation monster, but the Hulk’s story is more about his struggle with his own inner demons than him punching real ones. Hell even Superman, the poster Generic Nice Boy, tries to have a personal life beyond the cape and liven up his Fortress of Solitude.

There’s more to good stories than Good Man Beats Up Bad Guy. While personal struggles can be completely ancillary to the action at hand, they can also be far more challenging for the hero to surmount and far more engaging. Even if the are trivial, that doesn’t make them unimportant. Diversions may not matter much to the ongoing “plot” always, but they give the characters character. Something as inconsequential as the heroes going out to get Italian food can be huge as far as characterization goes; it speaks volumes to the interests of the characters, it humanizes them, and makes their situation more relatable.

The tragic thing is that there are major characters in My Hero Academia who would make for far better protagonist material than the actual lead if the story had been built differently. The frog-girl Tsuyu Asui is a good example. She’s been raising her siblings on her own while going to hero school due to her parents being constantly away at work. Her powers seemingly have low potential (she does whatever a frog can do), but she rises to the top by being smart with them. She wants to become a hero to help people— but seemingly doesn’t have too much of an interest in getting into the bad-guy fighting side of things. Throughout the story, she’s also wrestled with the whole legality / morality of saving people without a license, which frankly the most under explored aspect of the narrative by far given how weird and complicated the subject matter is. These are all interesting angles that easily have been built out to create a different, more engaging My Hero Academia.

Not having an engaging protagonist for your narrative puts a greater onus of the villain being interesting. For My Hero Academia, this is a BIG problem. If the hero Izuku Midoriya is uninteresting, the main villain Tomura Shigaraki is outright lame.

As is the super hero convention, Shigaraki is dark mirror of Midoriya— where Midoriya is a child who looks up to heroes and wants to grow up to be like All Might, Shigaraki is a man child who never grew up, doesn’t like heroes, and wants to murder All Might. And just like Midoriya that’s literally all there is to him. He has some kind of tragic past due to heroes not saving him when his parents died, but even that’s paper thin. Ultimately, he’s just a petulant kid who never grew up; he occasionally sends mutants his spooky adopted dad made for him to punch trucks. Because that’ll show ‘em.

The narrative openly acknowledges the fact that he doesn’t have any particular beliefs beyond disliking heroes. Other villains with actual raisons d’etre confront him about it, and he no joke throws a tantrum over the fact that they have views. Like Midoriya, the single-note nature of the character comes across as borderline comical. (Also: his character design looks stupid.)

Villains, like protagonists, need motivations to be compelling. That motivation can be as small as being a crazy mofo or just plain greedy, but it should at least be understandable. Shigaraki isn’t a revolutionary— he’s a child with a gun. An inordinate amount of power has been thrust into his hands for no particular reason. That doesn’t actually make him feel like that great of a threat to society as a whole; it just makes him a deadly nuisance if anything. Earthquakes are unpredictable and can hurt a lot of people but that doesn’t make them particularly compelling villains.

Villains need to be likeable. Not necessarily as a people— far from it in most cases, really. But they need to have some trait that is inherently admirable to make them work as the foil for the protagonist. In X-Men, Magneto is a fantastic villain because he’s ultimately a flawed idealist; his charisma and the fact that his views sometimes seem attractive is what makes him so compelling. He’s complex. Single-mindedness too can be admirable if it’s portrayed well. Kira Yoshikage, despite being an outright serial killer still has admirable traits in just how ruthlessly efficient he is at maintaining his “ordinary life”. That doesn’t make him less reprehensible— if anything those traits are what makes him so potent a threat, far more than his murderous tendencies.

Totally uncharismatic antagonists can work as small-bit villains – but there’s a limited lifetime for which their existence is tolerable. Past that point, their continued position as a central part of the narrative just becomes annoying, if not totally implausible. How are we the audience supposed to believe that Shigaraki can amass followers and inspire loyalty in them when we cannot muster the slightest bit of admiration for him ourselves? He’s not even shitty enough for it to be played up for comical effect!

This situation is all the more crazy when you remember that My Hero Academia serializes alongside One Piece. One Piece’s Oda Eiichiro has writing good bad guys down to a science. His bad guys range across the whole spectrum, from the immeasurably bad at their job to the point where you’re actively rooting for them (who the hell doesn’t like Buggy the Clown?) to the dark-mirror of the lead that you just love to hate (Blackbeard you monstrous son of a bitch), to a whole heap of over-zealous enforcers of law and order (go to hell Akainu). Oda’s a master at manipulating the audience’s feelings and creating characters that work in both short and large doses. Characters with short-lived appeal are dealt with appropriately, while those more sweeping interest and unexplored complexities are kept around for years. Oda will occasionally even turn past arc’s main-villains into bit-players in ongoing ones. Knowing when and how to subvert expectations like this speaks a lot to Oda’s abilities at constructing characters and narratives.

The sad thing is that I just can’t see Kohei pivoting with My Hero Academia. The trajectory My Hero Academia is on looks to be the one it’ll stick to for the future. The foregone conclusion of Midoriya’s journey is in plain sight; while I’m sure the ongoing story will take some amount of twists and turns, there’s not a lot of mystery left in how Midoriya fits into it. Shigaraki taking his place as the main villain is outright uninteresting and unappealing at this point. While the actual writing of characters and the flow of the chapters is good, the broader sweep of the work viewed from a weekly-perspective now leaves something to be desired.

I suppose there’s nothing left for me to do at this point than to let it fall to the wayside and just read at my own pace when more of the material is built up. Actively following a work as it releases requires considerably more personal investment, and I’m not sure I can muster that for this story anymore.

Oh well!

#think piece #nonfiction #writing #my hero academia #midoriya izuku #shigaraki tomura #super heroes #manga #anime #media

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gigsoupmusic · 4 years

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SORAIA's New Album 'DIG YOUR ROOTS' Out Today

Personal growth, rebirth, even revolution – such transformative concepts are the heart of what Soraia is all about. These heady themes inform the songs on Dig Your Roots, the band’s latest album, out March 13 on Wicked Cool Records. “I look at Dig Your Roots as a continuation of what was begun on Dead Reckoning,” says singer and frontwoman ZouZou Mansour of the new album’s relationship to their 2017 Wicked Cool LP. That record’s release prompted Rolling Stone/Mojo scribe David Fricke to write Soraia’s “searing guitars, burning soul and true CBGB grit…are the rock you need, in your face now.” “Dig Your Roots is coming to terms with the light and dark inside myself and in the world,” ZouZou shares. “I come from a diverse multicultural and multireligious background – my father was Muslim and Egyptian, and my mother was Belgian and Catholic. I was ‘different,’ and I hid some of my background from people, thinking I wouldn't be accepted. Digging my roots is being proud of who I am, letting it come before me even at times, being proud of where I come from, and asking the listener to do the same. “Dig Your Roots also refers to loving what grounds you: the people, the lifestyles, the places you live, where you grew up. It’s being willing to dig up your roots and re-plant if where you are no longer keeps you free – metaphorically, of course. Inherently, I want this to be the message of the record: if you're down, get up.” As a spiritual descendent of iconic women in rock such as Patti Smith and Joan Jett, ZouZou’s Philadelphia-based band also embodies elements of kindred spirits of the ’90s and beyond - like PJ Harvey and The Kills, with more than a sprinkling of ’60s Garage Rock and Soul. Their primal sonic attack spreads a message of perseverance through trials of love, loss and letting go. Bassist Travis Smith continues to be a crucial root of the Soraia tree, co-writing five of the album’s new songs with ZouZou, including “Superman Is Gone” and “Wild Woman.” “Travis delved into places on this album that we didn't go to on the last record,” she reveals. “That's scary. But he did it, which ultimately made me do it, too. It's like, ‘Hold my hand, we're going into this dark cave, and who knows what's going to happen…” Roots also finds drummer Brianna Sig with her first Soraia co-write, the enchanting “Don’t Have You.” “Her melody for the choruses reminded me of how The Sirens would lure sailors in Greek mythology,” ZouZou relates. “It was haunting and beautiful – and if Soraia isn't both of those things, then I don't know what we're doing here.” The band faced an unexpected challenge when guitarist Mike Reisman, who co-wrote four Dig tracks, including 2019 single “Evergreen,” left the group. “Mike can’t tour for longer periods of time anymore,” says ZouZou. “It hurt. He still works with us and we still connect. But you grow closer with who remains, and grow yourself.” Going forward, Nick Seditious is handling guitar duties. Further nourishing their roots is the continued support of Wicked Cool’s Stevie Van Zandt. The label head has been an advocate ever since naming their breakout track “Love Like Voodoo” the Coolest Song in the World on his syndicated radio show and SiriusXM channel Little Steven’s Underground Garage in 2013. In January 2020, Dig Your Roots' opening cut “Dangerous” becomes the tenth Coolest Song they’ve earned. Van Zandt has even become a creative collaborator, penning “Why” for Dead Reckoning and co-writing two Roots tunes: 2019 Coolest Song “Still I Rise” and forthcoming single “Darkness (Is My Only Candle).” “I trust him more than anyone in knowing what I'm trying to say and who I am,” says ZouZou. Complementing them in the studio once again is producer/engineer Geoff Sanoff, whose credits include notable work with Bruce Springsteen, Fountains Of Wayne and Dashboard Confessional. “He’s a member of the band when we’re in there,” ZouZou acknowledges. Soraia has come a long way since their punked-up cover of The Kinks’ “(I’m Not) Like Everybody Else” hit #1 on Rock radio in South America in 2015. Their independently released debut album In The Valley Of Love And Guns from 2013 features five songs co-written with Jon Bon Jovi. “I'm all about playing a fun song and throwing myself around, that's Rock ’n’ Roll at its heart,” ZouZou remarks. “But I'm also about telling the stories of resurrection and life and hope and darkness.” And now, the songs of 'Dig Your Roots' in ZouZou’s own words… 1. Dangerous I was listening to a ton of Jet and The Vines at one point, and just loved the recklessness – especially in the screams on those songs – and the pure Rock eruption of it all. It's less than three minutes and explodes the entire time. “Dangerous” was born from that specific decision to write a song with those kinds of explosive dynamics and lyrics – and as always – easy and passionate conversations about the things we love. 2. Wild Woman I had been listening to this female preacher talking about being “born inside the wild” and not knowing where you were – but that strong women thrived in the wild. I fell in love with that idea of birthing yourself – which is one way to put it – over and over when you enter into situations you're uncomfortable in, or have never been in. An added bonus is the notion of being a “wild woman” in that way was a different take on the idea I think social consciousness has on being a “wild woman.” Empowering instead of denigrating. Travis had written this swampy, mysterious riff, so we took that and made it the forefront of the song, and took the subject matter – pieced them together – and VOILA! WILD WOMAAAAAAN!!! 3. Evergreen Mike played this riff that became the verses and said he heard this drumbeat like “Howlin’ For You” by The Black Keys for it. I had been watching the movie Black Snake Moan and heard this line that the main female character “had the devil in her.” That conjured up this old South feeling for me, so I wanted to put that in and give it that vibe. The story is told with a sometimes playful and teasing attitude, and sometimes aggressive and frustrated tone. It really felt freeing and gave the speaker the power back she didn't feel she had in the first place. 4. Foxfire Travis had this intriguing idea of “foxfire” for a title line. I didn't know what it meant, so he told me all about it. It’s this phosphorescent light emitted by certain fungi on decaying timber. It’s beautiful when it glows, but it isn’t real, it’s a momentary thing. And when people would see it in the woods, many got lost being guided by it. We thought it would be interesting to write a song about depression from the standpoint of “foxfire” – or these glimmering thoughts that lead you astray and only give the illusion that everything's alright. The struggle to believe in any one thought, to characterize the confusion of that type of struggle from the speaker's point of view. 5. Darkness (Is My Only Candle) Again, a song written almost together in a room. There's a line of a Rumi poem, “Darkness is your candle.” At the time, there had been the Charlottesville riots, and lots of violence that seemed horrifically reminiscent of the racial injustices of the ’60s. I remember thinking “Where are we?” and being really upset about all the hatred and racial slurs. This song came as a result of anger, pain, sadness, worry, and ultimately the idea we can't be separate anymore or stay quiet. It took a few sessions to write because Travis and I were both so impassioned about making sure we told the truth and stayed with the times as we saw them. 6. Nothing Compares 2 U I had always felt so strongly about the Sinéad O’Connor version of this song. But despite being a big Prince fan, I had never heard his version. When I did, and heard the first line lyric change – “It’s been seven hours and thirteen days” – I knew immediately this was the one. Those numbers alone and the darker, more soulful approach he took to the lyric and melody spoke to me in a different way than the more popular version by Sinéad. In the studio, Geoff Sanoff really wanted to bring this Mott The Hoople vibe to it like “All The Young Dudes” – which added a lot more to our style of approaching it. 7. Superman Is Gone Another Travis and I song, this one was specifically about the idea of being high and feeling like “Superman” when you did that first line of anything. I'm a recovering person, so it was important to me that I also tell the story of the anger I had at my father over being absent when I was going through that. I have already forgiven him and me about that, but I wanted to tell the story honestly. And there's a part of me that still questions where were a lot of different people in my life when I was busy getting high. That idea that you wonder where people were and what they were doing when you were hardcore in this addiction – with no feeling attached to it – just a human curiosity. 8. Way That You Want It It's really just about this guy who is frustrated by a girl he digs but can't have. It's based lyrically off the same idea as “I Hate Myself For Loving You” by Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, but from the viewpoint of another character – where I'm singing as the storyteller/observer instead of the person it's all happening to. 9. Still I Rise Based on a Maya Angelou poem. I live my life in no particular time, almost in a time vacuum. And no matter what, you get up. Mike and I had originally written the song, and called it “I Am (Rise).” But Steven Van Zandt got a hold of it and loved the story of the song, so we rewrote the lyrics, and he rewrote the music to it, to really tell the story of people getting up after falling. I had taken a few lines from actual conversations or experiences I had. Then, Steven and I tried to pay homage as much as possible to the original poem. We rewrote it together in an afternoon – one of the best experiences I've had with him. 10. Don’t Have You This was officially the last song written for the album. Brianna sent me two separate song ideas that ended up becoming “Don't Have You.” This was also the last song recorded for the album, and Geoff knew right away the approach to the piano. It became something really beautiful, and I wanted to keep it simple and stripped in the front end, so the lyric could pull in the listener. This was about my own heartbreak, and that little feeling of hope and possibility still inherent in the relationship is really powerful in the middle of the song. It was Geoff's idea to speak that part instead of sing it, and I was thrilled with how it came out. 11. Euphoria “Euphoria” was written by myself and Travis. I loved the bluesy and spacious riff he came up with. I felt it left a space for some sort of testimony – so I told the story of all these experiences smashed together. Though each line seems to stand alone in some parts, they weave a truthful story of this woman coming back from the dead. I love the lyric in this one. Brianna had this great idea to end it in a church-y way, since it's mainly about wanting this high experience in life. And what a great way to end the record! Read the full article

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