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popculturebuffet · 4 months

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Wanna Make Something Of It?: A Justice League International Retrospective: Justice League #1 Review

Keith Ian Giffen 1952-2023 "I"m sick of Darkseid, Darkseid has been passed around the DC Offices like a Bong"

Hello all you happy people and happy birthday to me. Each year either on or around my birthday, or in this case a month later because the end of 2023 was a cold and carpal tunnel hellscape and 2024 opened with bronchitis, I take a look at something special to me, something that means something: From the first apperance of the Legion of Substitute Heroes, to the first volume of Scott Pilgrim, to Scott Pilgrim Vs the World , to last years look at the uncanny x-men's rebirth with Giant Sized X-Men #1, i've always set aside my birthday to reflect on my past and celebrate it with something I truly love.

This year I decided on that.. for reasons that still break my heart. On October 9th at the ripe age of 70 Comics Legend and personal inspiration of mine Keith Giffen.. passed away. He had a long, good life and created countless amazing stories and characters.. but his loss will be a void that can never quite be filled.

For those who hadn't heard of him, Keith was a comic book writer who's best known for his work at DC, having helped redefine the Legion of Super Heroes and Darkseid with the legendary Great Darkness Saga alongside Paul Levitz, created the main man Lobo, the fourth wall breaking before it was cool Ambush bug, the incomprable Jamie Reyes whose first arc I covered this year, and of course, the one punch, the only, the bwahahah-ey Justice League international.

If your asking why it took this long to eulogize him if I respected him so much, the answer is simple: I didn't know. In an age where if someone dies it's usually blasted onto my news feed, even if I don't exactly google that person every day, I had NO idea Keith was dead till reading an amazon review.. which is the kind of sick irony he'd find hilarous, so I have that, but not exactly the way to find out one of your personal heroes died. So I scrapped my original birthday review plan (Letterkenny's Three Wise Men For the Curious) and decided to start a project i've been mulling over for a while now. So welcome folks to Wanna Make Something Of It: A Justice League International Retrospective, an ocasoinal look at this long run.

JLI has an intresting history to it so if you'll sit down i'll tell you

The Not Really Secret Origin of the Justice League International

It was the late 80's and DC Comics had just undergone a massive reboot with Crisis on Infinite Earths, the first true big event comic as we know them with tie ins and a massive reboot in the end as Editorial had felt the various alternate earths had made things too complicated. So a big blue murder man named the Anti Monitor tried to wipe out all of creation, leaving only five earths: Earth 1, where most of the action took place, Earth 2 where the heroes of the Golden Age, the Justice Society of america and their various successors lived, Earth 4, where the recently aquiried heroes of Charlton Comics like Blue Beetle, Peacemaker and Captain Atom resided, an earth not concidentally introduced for this crossover, Earth S, home of the Shazam/Captain Marvel Family, and Earth X, a world where the nazi's won WWII and only the freedom fighters stood in opposition. Basically any heroes DC felt like keeping and their shiny new toys.

The result was a new one world earth with a fresh coat of paint to let in new readers. It wasn't without issues: several corners of the DCU got torn up with my beloved Legion of Super Heroes getting some of the worst of it, with every resonable attempt to fix the retcons or bring characters back.. being shot down AFTER the story had already been started or happened, eventually leaving such a giant mess they rebooted in the 90's, while many a hero was left without an origin or clear history, Donna Troy having to have her origin redone again now her connection to wonder woman was gone, Hawkman became a hawk mess in part thanks to this very book, story for another time, and much more I don't have the time or patience to get into right now.

There was a lot of good in it though, as the reboot left room for new heroes like self promotional himbo with a heart of gold, Booster Gold, the now DC flavored Blue Beetle, and more, and for some the fresh start was badly needed, revitalizing Superman, and giving Wonder Woman and out and out reboot that, while taking her history away, exchanged it for one of the best runs on the character ever via George Perez. And eventually, after some growing pains, it gave us room for an all new flash after a lengthy murder storyline left Barry running out of steam. For all the damage it did i've learned over the years, the crisis still did a LOT of good and helped a lot of characters find their place in this brave new world.

One property vital to DC that needed this was the Justice League of America. A few years before the crisis, DC had noticed the sales of the League were down, and tried to revitalize it: the result was a book I hope to read and cover one day.. still called Justice League of America bu tknown to most as Justice League Detroit. The IDEA was good: feeling the league was a bit scattered after a martian invasion destroyed their iconic satalite headquarters, Aquaman called for them to disband and only those who could commit full time rejoin, leaving it with just him, Martain Manhunter, Zantanna and The Elongated Man. They soon added some fresh recurits in the cyborg steel, the horribly named in hindsight but loveable for her father daughter relationship with the Martain Manhunter, Gypsy and the sterotype tastic Vibe, who'd later be heavily reworked for the better by the flash tv series.

The idea was good but even from what defenders I could find after googling the team, the book had the good IDEA of making the team more of a surrogate family like the Titans or X-Men, but simply didn't seem to pull it off. It's part of why i'd love to look at it some day: the roster is good, with even the rookies being intresting Even Vibe at least had intresting power, a low income background not really see in the Justice League at that point, and cool shades.. even if him break dancing was very much

So I do really want to read this run and possibly cover it and if you'd like me to, let me know. It intrests me.

But while it intrests me now, no one at the time was really biting so DC decided to pull the plut. It really didn't help that , thanks to the crisis.. DC now had a wide buffet of characters they could suddenly ad to the league like Captain Marvel, the Charlton gang, and Dr. Fate.

So the team got the axe in the ties ins for Legends, DC's next big event that was also designed to bring the new team together. Legends has another really cool concept: Darkseid, god of evil and dc office bong , wanted to break earth's heroes for defying him so he could finally claim it and thus came up with Operation: Humilation. He sent his lackey Glorious Godfrey to earth , becoming tele-evanglist and far right loon G Gordon Godfrey, inspired by the times and sadly still relevant. Godfrey lit up an anti superhero fervor, causing Ronald Regan to ban superheroes while Godfrey spread the message of hate, helped by Godfrey setting up Captain Marvel to seemingly kill one of Darkseid's minons who was in fact a robot designed to die and scar a 12 year old for life.

The problem is the series is a bit too fast paced for it's own good, taking a message on how hate movements like this spread oh so easily with the power of tv, and speed running it so we go from Godfrey using real life hate tactics that are chillingly relevant, to the point we get scenes with a crowd nearly killing a 12 year old jason todd or a cop killing his partner after said partner lets Black Canary go then blaming her for making him do it, to ... him making people into murder dogs and storming the captial. In three issues. You have to nearly burn the country down to get people to do a insurrection everyone knows that.

On top of that like many an event after.. a lot of it's about setting up tie ins instead of it's core story so we get stuff like Jason being saved happening off panel or Darkseid deciding to take superman off the board.. and then doing it in a tie in.

That brings us to Justice League where one of the biggest fallouts of this event.. happens entirely in it's own book. I'm split on this as on the one hand, the end of the Justice League of America should happen in it's own book.. but on the other given they brought in another writer to end the book, I don't see why they didn't just cancel it early and say "To be continued in legends" and have Godfrey tied into the league's ultimate end instead of Amazo.

Alas instead Amazo and Despero clean house leaving the league battered, demoralized and in the cases of Vibe and Steel dead. Everyone whose left leaves.. .everyone except the person it means the most to, the person who almost never left and whose the heart and soul of the league for the Martain Manhunter vows it'll live on.

Cue the finale of Legends: With things escalating quickly, Dr. Fate, DC's Resident Mysterious Magic Man, gathers a bunch of heroes together to put an end to this: Batman, Martian Manhunter, Blue Beetle (Ted Kord), Black Canary, Green Lantern (Guy Gardner), The Flash (Wally West), Beast Boy (Going by Changeling back then), Mister Miracle (Scott Free), Superman and Captain Marvel (The future Shazam) to put an end to this, with Jonn clinching the heroes return to legality by coming in the save and Wonder Woman making her debut to the superhero community post-crisis by jumping in to help. The day is saved , and a new justice league is formed from the ashes of the old.

So you may be asking: Why this roster and why aren't Wonder Woman, Superman, the Flash and BB on the cover? Let's explore that under the cut as we delve into why this roster, the creative team for the actual book, and the first issue itself shall we?

Roll Call:

So you'd probably think given how team books work nowadays that future writers Keith Giffen and JM Demattis picked this team themselves, with maybe a member or two picked by dc editorial. It's what I assumed.. but nope, DC picked the team themselves, which .. does kinda bother me. A creator should really pick their own roster as chemistry is VERY important to a team book. It speaks to Giffen, DeMattis and Macguire's talents that, even dropping a few members in issue 7, the book comes off as natural as it does and said drops come off less as "this person we were saddled with isn't working" and more "they simply didn't fit into the group so we used the big rebrand to shuffle them out". DC may of picked the roster, but to their credit they choose well. As giffen himself put in the introduction of a collection of the first few issues back in 2008 "That call was DC's to make and as it turned out.. not too shabby"

So before we got into the actual book and who made it, I wanted to take a second to explore this roster as I wanted to show WHY DC might have choose them as I couldn't find any info on why this roster was picked, and simply have my edcuated guesses to go on

First who WASN'T added despite being front and center in legends: Each of the four members cut from the roster so to speak have good reasons for not being in the team. Beast Boy is the most obvious: he was never going to be in the League to begin with, they most likely wanted a titan to represent their flagship book for the crossover and choose one of the most popular.

For the Flash, Wally's a bit more of an actual misdirect as given he hadn't shown up since his decision not to take up the mantle, this was his big coming out party as the flash, with Wally deciding to embrace his mentors roll. It's also why he didn't take it up in story and likely out: he just put on the tights and didn't feel ready for the league just yet and the character would need some time in his own solo before it made since to plop him in a team book.

For Superman and Wondy it's also simple: Superman was being rebooted: He still had a LOT of his history, but major parts of it like his time in the Legion as Superboy or his cousin Kara were cut out, major villians were revamped, and his world was reshaped for the 80's while Diana was flat out rebooted by George Perez after sales had pretty much died pre-crisis, with said run now being one of my favorite comics and one I can't wait to complete some day and share with you all.

So that left the All New, All Diffrent Justice League with a roster consisting of Batman, The Martian Manhunter, Blue Beetle, Captain Marvel (Now known as the Captain or Shazam), Dr. Fate, Black Canary, Mister Miracle and Green Lantern (Guy Gardner). So for those of you less familiar with some of these guys, let's get aquanited, as well as figure out why DC choose them.

Batman: Batman is here because he's batman.. I could end it there but that'd leave the question of why Bats was okay to go but SUperman and Wonder WOman weren't. The answer is simple: Batman.. didn't get rebooted by Crisis. Things were changed like Jason Todd's backstory, some villians erased, some bits of history tinkered with, but that was standard for most post crisis heroes. He'd have a new defentiive origin with Frank Miller's year one, but Denny O'Neil had already soft rebooted batman back in the 70's, so he wasn't in as big of a rut. Crisis took out weird shit from the silver age that I love but understand why maybe it's best reinstated as a drug hallucination, thank you Grant Morrison, and Earth 2 batman, but it really didn't change who Bruce was, his status quo etc. Batman was selling well, Dick Grayson was super popular over in New Teen Titans, it was something DC knew wisely not to fuck with. Granted I haven't gotten as hands on with just after the crisis batman as I have Superman or Wonder WOman, so I could be wrong, but most of the changes were to villian backstories, stuff that was necessary and handy, but not things that really shook up who Batman was or what stories were going on with him like Superman and Wonder Woman. And since Batman is a lisense to print money, for better or worse, they stuck him on this team.

Martain Manhunter: The Martain Manhunter is Jonn Jonzz, a cop from mars who got accidently kidnapped by an old man to earth and took up resdiense as a detective. Jonn would get a full mini establishing who he was post crisis I have not read by Giffen and Dematties but i'm now dying to now I know it exists. Jonn was a founding member of the justice league and a big hero during the silver age, and comes off as the JLA equilvent to the Avengers Wasp, not in terms of character, Janet and Jonn aren't like each other in the slightest but I do think they'd hang, but in being a hero who has a storied career almost entirely tied to one of their unvierses big super teams, but not much solo wise. The former has meant he's been bounced around a bit and even left out of the team in the new 52 for cyborg, but also means he's a treasured part of it, an elder statesman who gives the team a sense of a heart among a floating lineup. He also gives the team a power house, having most of superman's powers PLUS telepathy and shapeshifting. Jonn is one of my faviorite DC heroes owing to the justice league cartoon

Guy Gardner: Guy is an odd duck in that both John Stewart and Hal Jordan were wearing the ring, this being the first time all three earth lantern's wore it, so WHY Guy was chosen out of the three was a mystery given JOhn was, as far as I know, popular even then and Hal was the old reliable, back before everyone was sick of that and wanted them to remember they had 7 or so people more intresting. Guy was Hal's understudy. He literally didn't get the ring.. because Hal Jordan was closer, and thus was picked to become a space cop later. He was depicted intially as a school teacher before being resculpted into a jingoisitc asshole by Steve Engleheart, something that was cemented and fleshed out here. He also has a three stooges haircut, something I feel adds to his asshole charm and feel had to be brought up at some point.

Dr. Fate: Dr Fate is kent nelson, a vetran of the JLA's predecessor, the Justice Society of America. Originally the JSA was part of Earth 2, but was merged with Earth 1 so now they simply.. existed before our heroes, retired due to Mcarthyism, then came back into action when the new age of heroes launched, with deaging and such used to explain how their still around. Fate was chosen likely because he looks neat, they needed a magic guy, and they wanted a JSA rep on the team. He.. didn't really quite fit as it was clear DC didn't know quite what they were doing with him yet.

Blue Beetle: My boy ted, who I've already covered on this blog before, but this is his shining moment. For those less familiar or who missed the underated blue beetle film, Ted is an inventor who found out his uncle was planning to take over the world with an army of robots, and enlisted his close friend Dan Garret, who turned out to be the OG blue beetle and sacrificed his life to stop Ted's Uncle, passing on the mantle but not the magical alien beetle. Ted compensated by building a ton of gadgets, having plnety of quips and generally being plesant. Ted was part of Charlton Comics, a company DC had bought recently, and having his own series at the time, being fairly popular, and having an outfit created by Steve Ditko himself, he was a shoe in and a nice pick from the b-list. Grante di'm biased and this series is entirely WHY, but Ted's a fresh face in the dcu who comes in hot with plenty of experince and a cool ship for the group to fly around.

Black Canary: Dinah Lance was changed by the crisis, going from an immigrant from earth 2 to the daughter of the original. She was also made a founding member of the justice league to replace Wonder Woman because she as the only prominent dc heroine who who would've been active at the time. And yes she's wearing THIS for her time in the JLI

And honestly it's.. meh. I think they were trying to give her a less casual look, but the fishnets and black leather jacket just fit. Sometimes a superhero just needs something anyone could wear in the right order to have a super outfit. I'm not against civlian style costumes if it fits the hero and dinah's just.. fits. This one just dosen't suit her as it's a bit too bombastic.

Dinah's likely here both for her new jsa connection and new jla founder status. She's also here because the team needed a female member, alongside dr. light, who we'll get to later.

Captain Marvel: Billy is easy. While DC had aquiried their former rival Fawcett back in the 70's, and thus one of the best superman immitators there ever was and ever will be, Billy had been on earth S since they bought him, and like Dr. Fate is there to show off how the earths are all merged now. He's also another power house, and was someone dc was trying to push. DC.. never really knows HOW to push captain marvel and i'm hoping his current series by Mark Waid helps. If you haven't read it check it out, it's possibly the characters best that i've been able to have acess to (Since DC hasn't reprinted the golden age stuff quite yet). For those who haven't heard of him, Billy Batson is a ten year old who was chosen by a wizard to become his champion and thus can act out the movie big but with superman powers whenever he wants. I love him dearly and wish DC knew how to market him.

Mr. MIracle: Last but not least Mr Miracle is Scott Free. Scott is part of the new gods, Jack Kirby's big contribution to DC that also included bong of evil Darkseid. To keep the peace Darkseid and his counterpart Highfather did a son swap, HIghfather getting Darkseid's angsty son Orion and Darkseid getting Scott, who he gave to Granny Goodness, the God of Child Abuse, who gave him othe name to mock how he'd never be free. Naturally this strategy backfired as it only fired up young Scott to escape, becoming the escape artist, hero and wife guy mr miracle. The last part came courtsey of big barda, another one of Granny's charges who came to take Scott back, but was convinced that maybe hellpits weren't the best place to live, and married him in Kirby's last issue on the two. Scott is here to emphasis the new gods,s something DC was playing with more post crisis. His manager Oberon, a cheery fella with Dwarfism, is also here because Demattis and Giffen had a lot of material for the guy it turned out and Oberon is essentially the team's guy in the chair.

So with this motely crew assembled let's see what this dynamite creative team did with them as we begin the storied history of the justice league international... the international part comes later.

Starting with the cover. While usually i'll skip these in an analysis, it's both a habit I need to break and would be a criminal act here as the cover for Justice League #1 is my faviorite comic book cover of all time and my faviorite to see an homage of.

It's simple, but it's perfect. The group shot is well deisgned, showing everyone off, but in a way that's diffrent from the usual action poses we get. Their clearly ready to kick your ass then their gonna fuckin kick your ass, but it's in a way that's unique, shows the team's unity. It also is taken so seriously here.. that it makes it ripe for jokes later in the series. The wanna make something of it ffrom guy both echoes the tough image their going for.. but fits the goofy tone the series is really going to have as it settles in. This comic has been homaged to oblivion and rightly so. Even Keith's memorial image dc put out is this but with Keith and all his creations.

We open the issue proper with a declaration.

It's one of my faviorite opening pages in a comic: It's beautifully drawn by artist Kevin Maguire, sets up the setting well and sets up guy as having his head firmly up his own ass.. it's why he has the bowl cut you see, helps him get it up there nice and tight.

The issue smartly introduces the cast one or two at a time, letting each character get a proper introduction and seeing how they bounce off each other as they file in.

So first in is Black Canary, who marvels at their old headquarters recent reneovations. Our heroes start the run in the Secret Sanctuary, the Justice League's first headquarters built into a mountain in Happy Harbor Road Island. And if it seems familiar to some of you, it should as after the JLI were done with it the Doom Patrol moved in for a bit during Grant MOrrison's Run. Most famously and lastingly, Young Justice, another team I have to cover at some point, made this their main hq, the only team to really make it a home that wasn't a justice league. And to prove that point the JSA also stayed here briefly. It's this weird go to for teams who need a headquarters for five minutes.

Anyways Dinah remembers the good times and all the ghosts, guy's a dick about it humming the twilight zone theme, and assumes he and Dinah will have a sam and diane thing and not a "Stay 50 feet away at all times thing".

Next up is Mister MIracle, whose nervous about the gig, not sure if he belongs there. Out of the leaguers Scott tends to stick to the back, not shy or afraid to speak up when needed, but not as outspoken as his team mates. This nicely contrasts oberon whose all too happy for the box office as even if this lasts a cup of coffee. He's less happy when Guy makes a shot at his dwarfisim and Oberon's grumbling is hilarious.. as would've been him decking guy but we still got a few issues till someone finally does that.

Billy zooms in, shocked by all the press, showing his naivitie: even after all he just went through... Billy is still a bit shocked by just how profile this is and happy to be there. Enter the boys, Martain Mahunter and Blue Beetle, with Jonn not forgetting the whole LEgends fiasco so soon, and having a bit of a mope... though he soon makes a valid point to ted as he turns on the computer.. and shows the Detroit League. It's a nice reminder that even if the team wasn't like.. they were still close and still Jonn's proteges.. and most most of them are dead and those that arent quit due to the trauma. So doing this, while something he feels is necessary. Cue Guy banging a gavel and declaring the meeting started

We then cut to the offices of innovative concepts where we meet the heart and galbladder of this run, Maxwell Lord, a mysterious man in a suit whose watching a row of tv's. Max isn't evil like he'd later be retconned into being.. but he is VERY shady at this point, watching all the coverage on the league and in one of my faviorite subtle little things scratching the "of america' part out of the legue's name on a pad of paper.

I want to take a minute to point out macguire's facial work.. i'ts incredible, nicely detailed, realistic, but still cartoony enough to have tons of personality. Just looking at max you get his smugness, ego and sense of control all at once with him having barely said or done anything. There's been plenty of masterminds sitting behind a row of tv's, but you get Max's vibe immedietly while still wondering what his deal is and what he wants with the team, the latter being the main mystery of the books first year. Back at the Sanctuary, Dinah and Guy argue as SHOCKINGLY the experinced vetran with an eye for the teams legacy dosen't want sylvester calzone here running things. Oberon TRIES to intervene on Dinah's beahlf but get's literally brushed off and Jonn trying to be an adult in teh room.. gets Guy picking him up and making a green giant joke, both funny, both well done.. and enough to get even JONN pissed enough to enter a brawl.

Cue the goddamn batman.. and dr. fate whose here too. That's.. really fate's roll for their time on the team, their just.. here. While Giffen and Demattis did really try to work with most of the roster they were given, seeing who worked and who didn't, Dr. Fate just didn't fit this team. As you can see already.. a key part of this team is disfunction. Some become true companions eventually, but it's mostly a bunch of personalities that barely function together, fairly normal people who put on tights. It's the charm of the series: instead of just getting along or having the usual angst, these guys just make digs at each other and amble along, but DO get the job done and do deserve to be called the justice league. It's just a version of said league that dosen't take itself seriously and has fun with it, and that treats this group like people. Normally the Guy Gardner in the group would just be ingorned but because he actually DOES have the power to toss people around (and props to the creative ways he does), it leads to an actaul brawl.

Fate... doen't fit into this. Fate is an enigma, mysterious and distant. So they simply.. don't work well in a jokey sitcom. It's clear the duo LIKE the character, they'd reinvent him soon enough, but he just didn't fit what they were going for.

So that begs the question how BATMAN does.. and he answers it, cowing everyone else into stopping it and getting guy to sit down before dryly reading out the charter. Bats is the boss in this workplace sitcom, and he's a mean one, being an utter dick to dinah at one point.

This moment horks me off.. but it's also a perfect encapulation of batman's leading style: shut up do what I say. Even someone whose his EQUAL , and who founded the team before him and thus has senority, he just tells them to shut up when she's making a valid point: their fidgity because this meeting is nervous nad because they just went through some crap. What I like is that despite having BATMAN.. the dream team dosen't glorify him. He's still batman, he shuts down the room with a glare, is a tactical genius and thus great at leading in the battlefield.. but it's very clear even this early on he simply.. can't lead this team well. He has a barking "do what I tell you style" and expects them to be good soldiers, treating them like a group of sidekicks instead of experinced heroes.

It's not something the group pull out of thin air either: Batman used to have a team of his own, the Outsiders, formed after Batman walked out on the league for refusing to let him rescue Lucius Fox and turned in his badge when Clark wanted him to sit this one out as a league member. He found a bunch of other heroes along the way, and choose to make them into a team, but it was very clear that the outsiders were partners, and weren't treated as full equals, with the exception of Black Lightning who Bruce felt was on his level. He wasn't bad to the team, helping find the younger amnesaic Halo a home, setting them up with day jobs, but his style is very much "listen to me or there's the door. "

The problem is while the outsiders were mostly fresh faces to being heroes or out of practice like metamorpho or black lightning, Bruce can't let that guard down even whent he heroes have more than proven themselves. It popped up in a crossover with the New Teen Titans where he started ordering that team around, with Dick eventually having to tell him to shut the hell up and let Dick lead his own damn team.

So while it's midly grating here it fits: Batman is so determined to keep this league together he's treating them like his backup i nstead of experinced heroes, two of whom HE'S BEEN ON THE LEAGUE WITH BEFORE.

Anyways Bats does have ONE good point in his leadership so far: he wants the team to keep a low profile. While it's hard given the army of camera's outside, the team dosen't know each other, hasn't trained together yet, and needs time to be in full shape. After all they just barely got superheroes back in the popular opinon: while Godfrey DID juice up people's emotoins, it dosen't mean it won't swing back to negative easily if they fuck up.

Unfortuantely for them... someone else has other ideas.. and i'ts not fate because their in the room. At the UN Kimyo Hoshi is in the bathroom puzzled by receving a JL signal device from Max and not sure if she'll accept. Kimyo is the second Dr. Light, a hero unlike her predecessor and a scientest from Japan who got her powers during the crisis. She.. wont' be here long as while the issue plays her up as a member on the cover, she never fully joins the league. More on that in the future. For now she exits the bathroom.. to find herself a hostage. Terroists have taken the UN. THankfully she activates the device and while Batman's very confused dr. light has one, rallies the team to go anyway.

Naturally Brucey Boy is cautious, having most of the team get in the bug, while he sends Fate and Billy to scout ahead. Guy WANTS to but Batman's response to the idea of sending a human bulldozer who barely listens to him into a tense hostage situation?

The team enters and despite the disfunction so far... it goes easily: Guy seals the premiters and probably invents some new swears, beetle does his best as the guy in the chair in the bug

And Fate.. well fate left and told Billy batman would understand and left the ten year old to explain this.

The league clean house.. but Batman notices a problem: these guys are ameture, clumsy and their equipment is oudated. Something else is going on here.

Time for that is passed soon though as Guy dive sin and finishes the job quickly. It's a nice sequence overall that shows the team REALLY is this good: this is a setup sure, but they don't know that. The lead terroists plans to detonate himself and batman... tells them to clear the room and let him, knowing somethign we don't as the man prepares to fir eon him and after they exit we get a wrapup via news as Max once again watches

So yeah SOMETHING made the leader kill himself, and max is behind anything. not a MASSIVE twist as the batman conversation set it up, but still a neat one: Max has plans for the league. I also like the focus on optics here: it's something I don't THINK the league had done before, the idea of how the media views a superhero team. This verison of the league isn't bad.. but Batman's refusal to talk to the press allows them to paint the narrative they want instead of the league controlling it. It's what gives Max a leg up on slowly wrestling control of it and makes him a compelling character from the word jump: Unlike Batman, he clearly gets optics, having set this up to force the league into the spotlight bright and early and removing the of america part to give the team a bigger calling. His tactics for doing this are also brilliant but we'll get more on them as we go.

For now this issue.. is as good as ever. Amazingly drawn, sharply written and nicely snappy, setting up the team, the myth arc with max and the situation their in all in one issue while modernizing thigns a bit: instead of space monsters our heroes are now fighting terrorists. Not that I mind fighting a godo space monster, but I get trying to give the leauge something diffrent and more part of the world. And part of the world is a major part of this series: putting the League more into our world an dhaving to deal with things like the media, other nations, etc. It's a brilliant start

Next Time: The last heroes of a dead world try to save ours while a greedy bearded man wonders who he can exploit this and the team gets some gold.

#dc comics #blue beetle #batman #justice league international #maxwell lord #keith giffen #black canary #mister miracle #scott free #dinah lance #martian manhunter #shazam #captain marvel #billy batson #the 80s #comics

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shadow-meow · 1 year

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SONADOW HEADCANNON?!?

(i may or may not have been like really intrestes in the language of flowers/floriography and sonic has been one of my special intrest so ykw that means...i have to put the 2 together and project onto the characters )

sonic is like really into floriography and bc he was always out he had to learn alot about plants and stuff he loves plants and nature in general but florigraphy is what made his brain go brrrr (projectingggg...)

shadow knew alot of it from when maria would talk about it back on the ark maria was super interested in floriography and plants and that passed onto shadow and thats one of his core memories and its now his comfort..subject?...idk but yeah he has the language of flowers books the exact ones maria used to read to him

shadow and sonic both infodump about the language of flowers together sonic usually stumbling over his words and getting something wrong from how fast he was talking and shadow correcting him as soon as he dose

thats how they bonded it was something like "ooo look at that its a ___ did you know that ___" and shadow pops in "actually ____ are _____ and that's actully ____ i get those 2 get confused alot aswell" after shadow said that sonic insisted that they were soulmates /hj

#sonadow #sonic headcanons #floriography #shadonic #sonadow headcannons #they are my fav sillies #i love flowers #they make me so happy #i stim every time they get mentioned #shadow x sonic #shadow the ultimate lifeform #sonic fandom #shadow tism #shadow meow

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bimb0fy · 2 months

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I saw your post about Freddy Freeman requests and omg I'm So glad I'm not alone!!!! I have a headcanon about him and I was wondering if you could write it (completely understand if you don't want to) So after Freddy becomes a super hero he starts having nightmares about some of the bad things he's seen. He tries to hide it from the reader but she knows he has them. Freddy tells her that they're not a big problem, which is a complete lie, and the reader wants to help. Freddie has told her that it helps when he has something to focus on to calm him down so one day she brings string lights so late at night when she's not there he can focus on them. When reader learns that her idea worked she gets all happy and the story its just fluffy and cute. Sorry this ended up being a really long request

~🦈

Omg hi!! I'm gonna call u sharky from now on that's them rules babes!! Also. You're a literal genius Also I made it x wayne!reader because this is so Canon. So. ALSO I'm accepting another emoji anons if anyone's intrested!!

You always spent the night at Freddys. You were the bat to man. He has matching stickers printed with that phrases plastered onto your English books. Since you both share that period.

You were always around Freddy, sometimes it felt wrong to be away from him, he was always a clingy guy, and you didn't mind that.

Coming from Gotham you preferred guys like Freddy, it was hard obviously, considering the fact that many of your exes turned out to be psychopaths who just wanted to get a check from your father Bruce Wayne.

It was why you moved here in the first place, so here you are, I'm Freddys arms for another night. You knew about the nightmares, hell, you got them sometimes.

"Can you stay, please?" Freddy whispered into your head as you groaned, looking up to him in tired eyes as he chuckled. "Can you stay. It helps batsy."

"I wore that shirt once!" You giggled as Freddy kissed your head. You shuffled closer to his head, placing a soft kiss to his lips as he kissed back. "I'll stay, so tell me Captain everypower. How does my presence help you huh."

You switched positions, from him hugging your waist to your head on top of his chest, a hand around his torso as the other intertwined his hand as he smiled at you.

"It helps focusing on other things my love." Freddy muttered as he stared at the ceiling, you hummed before kissing his hand, humming a song he instantly recognised as 'Lonely Dancers' by conan gray.

"You can tell me." You muttered as you played with his hand.

"Tell you what?" Freddy asked as he looked down to look at you're face.

"About the nightmares." You muttered as you looked up at him who looked away, trying to find an object to focus on.

"I don't get nightmares." He was always a stubborn person. Freddy always feered that if he was too much of a pain, you'd leave, you wouldn't be the first to leave.

Freddy has had many friends come and go, hell, even his own parents left at some point, but you knew deep down he was hurting, and you loved him, you wanted to help him.

"Freddy." You said sternly as he groaned. You sighed before sitting up in his lap, looking down at him. "I. I just want to help you baby."

"It's fine. Really, you're here yeah?" Freddy smiled as you bite the inside of your cheek.

Your phone rang causing you to look at it, you sighed as you read the contact name. "How is he everywhere-. AH!" Freddy screamed as his own phone rang. Alfred was always impatient with you, especially because you'd always keep him out for longer than he should.

"I should get going. I'll see you at school yeah baby? I would stay the night but-." You started only for Freddy to kiss your lips once more. You smiled as you opened your eyes, finding Freddy's heartwarming smile.

"You stayed last night. I know the rules baby. You want me to fly you home?" Freddy asked you as you shook your head. You kissed his lips once more before jumping out the window.

His parents knew you where at his house, hell, you've never used the front door.

Your father always said you were a hyper girl, so here you are, putting it to use.

Yet you couldn't help but feel bad for leaving Freddy alone, if you could you'd stay with him everynight, but that wasn't an option.

But when you passed a store and the string lights caught your eyes. Thats when you knew you didn't have to be a helpless case.

The next day, you waited for Freddy to return from some mission, while you waited, you and Rose hung up the fairy lights you had bought for Freddy.

You sat down onto the bed, smiling at your achievement before sitting up as you heard the front door, multiple footsteps entering the house.

Freddy and Billy soon entered the room, glancing at the fairy lights hung up on the wall. He looked down to find you sitting on his bed, his eyes switching to you and the light. "Oh god what did you do?"

"Well, you said it helps to focus on something. So i bought you something to focus on when I'm not here. Plus, they're really cute!" You reasoned as he chuckled, Billy raised his eyebrows at his younger brother before walking off to spend some time with Eugene before bed.

Freddy stumbled towards you as you helped him, placing his crutches onto the side of the bed before tucking him in.

"I'm going away for a while to visit my father, so. I thought this would help." You kissed his cheek before taking your backpack. "I just wanted to see you since I'll be gone all week, I'll call you everynight tho, yeah?"

"I'll miss you." Freddy muttered as you kissed his cheek. You sighed before handing him a few letters. You knew that to Freddy, acts were everything. So you wrote him a few letters to read when you were gone. "What's this?"

"Seven letters for seven days." You shrugged before walking towards the bedroom door. You sighed, turning back to face him. "Bye Freddy."

"Bye batsy."

And now here you were.

It's had been two days since you've seen Freddy. You wanted to call him the first night when you got back but you fell asleep with his contact name open and Freddy knew. He always knew with you.

So here you are now. Nails clacking on the desk as you waited for Freddy to say he could face time, yet you still jolted when Freddys contact called you.

You propped up your phone answering and smiling as you saw his face. He waved, clearly happy to see you and you just felt so glad that you'll finally hear his voice.

"Hey babe, how ya doing?" Freddy asked as you smiled. You would be lying if you said you didn't worry for him. You needed to know if you were successful, did they work? Did he take them down because they were annoying?

"So, tell me Captain everypower, did they work?" You asked smugly as he smiled.

"Yeah yeah, they worked."

"I fucking knew it!"

"Okay calm down-."

#x reader #shazam fury of the gods #fanfic #freddy freeman #freddy freeman x reader #shazam fanfic #shazam movie #shazaam

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thesharkcollector · 8 months

Text

Shark of the Week! :Whale Shark

☆ 24/9/23 ☆

FUN FACTS BELOW !! :

♡ The LARGEST known shark in today age (LARGER than a schppl bus :O )

♡ Their literally organic filters! 😋 Meaning they can neither bite OR chew. And instead filter small fish and such in their mouth!

♡ Guess how stretchy their mouth is? 4 FEET WIDE! Thats literally the size of a HOCKEY NET!

♡ Are you an adventurous type and would LOVE to swim near these big fellas, well todays your day because they literally can be found ANWHERE! (Except for the mediterrian sea) In warm waters of course. :D

♡ Could you outrun outswim a whale shark? Well for anybody that competive, you got yourself an easy win! Why? Because they can only swim at not 10, not even 7 or 5 BUT ONLY 3/mph! slower than my grand papa 👴

♡ Makes you really wonder how they can migrate thousands of miles all around just to feed! Their quite motivated arent they?

♡ Their quite literally, a ocean-made strainer! When they close their mouth in a big chunk of small fish, plankton, etc. You may wonder if they just swallow the water with it, but thats far from the truth! Instead they use their gills to just strain the water out!

♡ Your probaly thinking that theirs nothing else intresting about these big sea dogs, WELL DO I HABE SOMETHING FOR YOU!

Did you know they have teeth on their eyes? You read right, TEETH! Their super tiny and are called dermal denticles, baha what a funky name- anyhow, why would a shark need this? Do they somehow eat out of their eyes too? Nope! Its protection against anythong out to harm them as they DONT have eyelids 👀

♡ Wanna know something really neat? Whale sharks can literally live up to 5 generations! A generation is qbout 20-30 while these sharks can live from 70 all the way up to 100!!

☆Now these sharks are all cute and dandy but their is a underlying issue here, their endangered sadly, over the last 75 years their population has dwindled more than 50% and still decreasing each year due to unfortunate truth of them global warming, water pollution and being fished,

where they're captured and have their fins and meat be taken, only to be dropped back into the harsh waters as their forced to suffocate and bleed out...

These whales are EXTREMELY important as their a long term regulation of plankton, with to much plankton it can start to harm the fish, shellfish, birds, mammals and even YOU! ☆

SOURCES!!

• 1-6 :

• 7-9 :

•10 : https://defenders.org

#shark week #whale sharks #AAAAAAAAAA #Their so funky #shark facts #whale shark facts!!#i love sharks #sea life #sharks #marine life #sea #shark #hes just a silly lil guy #their so cute #endangered species #endangered animals #Shark.Week

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charleslebatman · 7 months

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/!\ DISCLAIMER /!\

None, I insiste on this word, none force you to believe in any form of spirituality, mediumship, tarot reading, religion. Or, at least, nobody should force you.

If you're already septic, more down-to-earth than a judge, don't believe in any of this. Don't even read it. This anon was kind enough, and I mean kind enough, to do these tarot readings. They took time and energy, no one holds a knife to your throat to read it.

They clearly said to me, they’re not an expert in this to be aware and not be rash on this anon. So be nice, kind even if you don’t believe in it. You’ve the right to ask questions, if something isn’t clear or strange for you. You can be distributed or doubtful on things, you’ve the right to say.

But the insults, the it’s all bullshit. The condescension, saying it's wrong to do readings on drivers. It will be deleted or blocked.

In this case, you pass and keep your rage to yourself. I'm closing comments and reblogs, I don't want this bestie to suffer hate. Be smart.

What they said to me, to be really aware of them not being an expert and asking no recognition:

“ I'm still learning but this feed back to me means alot I try to be as neutral as I can since I've had times with my fav drivers that I make the cards tell me what I want to hear and that messes up my readings so for charles I went in 1000% neutral ! ”

1. I was asking to this tarot bestie, what about his future with Ferrari, if he would be winning a championship with them. Or not.

Their response:

“ For if he will win with ferrari it was aloot of maybe I pulled 5 cards all a combination of yes and no and then maybe but mostly maybe ?

If he will win with another team I got mostly yes but he will face alot of challenges and he needs to not be impulsive about it ( this could mean in races choices or maybe even a future team choice remember not everything that shines is gold).”

2. I was asking what it can be is in real, his relationship with Carlos. With the tweets, rumors, how the way fans are reacting and all.

Their response:

“ Surprisingly it's not bad I got a looot of pentacles cards like ace, nine, eight , two and they all mean the same thing in regards to friendship means things are going well. Don't expect any arguments or gossip now or in the near future I did a couple of other cards but I think those were more of outside noise? For example queen of swords in reverse that there could be someone a woman spreading rumors?

It could be anywhere from charles camp of media or recently as we've seen Reyes but for them that's all it is really it feels like charles doesn't judge carlos for what his mom does and carlos doesn't judge or hold it against charles in whatever he does I think they're friends maybe not super friends but they respect eachother enough to not let any outside noise speak for them.

I would like to add I feel like the team it's self pits them against eachother more than they do? If that makes sense like I don't see them purposely being ill towards eachother but like other people getting in their heads however they try their best to ignore everyone and just do them. Doesn't feel in a media way but in a "hey I have a really good work friend and I can talk with them about intrests!" Definitely not for the cameras they do like each other.

Overall I think based on the readings I did I feel like he has grown a bit but still with alot to learn on all the cards I pulled I feel like ins career, friendships and relationships he tends to close off himself after a while like he avoids confrontation so he won't tell someone if "hey this isn't working anymore or hey I don't feel comfortable with this" he'll just want people to know or take a hint.

I didn't feel any negative or strange energy fron him at all so idk what that other tarot reader was on about i do show career challenges and it's mostly bc he's kinda stubborn (but aren't we all?) He felt energetically at least like a nice guy. 😊 ”

3. First, I wanted to ask this maybe more late in the time, with how rumors and gossips are all over with them lately. So we might be easily impacted by this with tarot readings. But I found this bestie tarot, very good and the most neutral way as you can be in this practice. So I asked about Charles and Alexandra:

Their response:

“ I've read for them before and they are something.... but I can always update now with more knowledge and experience and see what the cards say. ”

One day later, they gave their reading because they felt ready. I've finally come around to reading for charles and Alexandra and this is what the cards say (which again disclosure I can be wrong).

Their respond later:

“ 3 of wands reversed

3 of cups

The high priestess reversed

10 of swords

2 of cups reversed

2 of wands reversed

5 of cups reversed 6 of swords

2 of swords

Temperance reversed

The emperor reversed

7 of pentacles

4 of swords

So I tried to make it as pulling as much cards as I can bc I want to make sure the message not only comes up one but several times and that's kind what happened here. So starting with the 1st card, the 3 of wands, means that there may be a lack of communication between both parties (which to each person can make their own conclusion).

3 of cups: means connections festivals and reunions now this could be Interpreted as the GP's or pr events but again who knows ? Maybe something in the off season?

The high priestess in reversed, indicates again a lack of communication or being g unable to be honest or express themselves honestly.

The 10 of swords indicate break up, split problems overall.

For this next one, I got it fully online but I think it could apply here:

The Two of Cups reversed, as love outcome, is a sign of a relationship that has soured. The two of you could become distant simply because you feel like you no longer have anything in common.

One of you could become resentful, because you feel like you’ve lost your identity trying to please the other person. There could be obsessive or controlling behaviors with regard to how you relate with each other.

Alternatively, this could indicate that you or your person feel like you’ve sacrificed so much for this relationship that other areas of your life are beginning to suffer. One of you could be treating this relationship like an addiction, creating an imbalance in their life, again make your own conclusions on this.

2 of wands, means that you aren't really felling the same for your partner. Either what they had in common just wasn't enough, or that it's not being enough at the moment.

5 of wands, signifies letting go of the past one or both of them may be stuck in their old relationship. I see this card applying to him more than her, but if he displays that to her it may end up affecting their relationship (he may just bottle it in and that's why so may cards indicating lack of communication come from).

6 of swords, can signify something coming to an end either their problems (getting over them and becoming stronger) or the latter which we know what that may be....

2 of swords, is about balance in the relationship like finding the best way to be in a relationship and maybe be also focused in his job (I assume since this has always been a common reason why his old relationships end).

Temperance, means arguments and conflict and trying to find a way to not make them bigger again. It can all come down to the communication cards, bc if they lack communication with eachother they may make a small issue bigger than it needs to be.

The emperor, means a struggle of power like both parties always wanting to be right and not hear eachother out just be better (be the dominant you could say).

The Seven of Pentacles is a card of waiting, this may indicate standing by a partner while they go through a difficult period in their life. (Ferrari?)

Lastly, Four of Swords, can suggest that you and your significant other are spending some time apart to relax, reflect, and rekindle your romance.

So the way that I interpret this whole reading is very much of a new relationship trying to find what works for them and what doesn't what worries me about this however is early on they are having much issues with insecurities, lack of communication which can lead to arguments and I may be wrong and every relationship is different. But it's something to reflect about them being together so much at all moments may be causing a rift between them who knows?

But it was all pretty much the same with the cards like I've said I've read for them before and that time a lot of insecurity showed up cards indicating one party was jealous of the attention the other party had and not communicating that (back to square one with communication).

/!\ I tried to be as neutral and balanced with this one so I really didn't want to read into the cards too much. ”

Thanks to this bestie, I’m calling bestie tarot. Once again, it was very sweet for doing these readings, for taking on your time.

They're not looking for any recognition, it was really my questions and they answered with great kindness.

They even took a day off for the last question, so sensitive it can be. They were lovely and I must admit that even I was a bit worried that it wouldn't be neutral enough, but in the end it was extremely interesting. I hope you find it as interesting as I did and as neutral as I did.

Love on you bestie. ❤️

#tarot reading #bestie tarot #astrology

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ghostylen · 9 months

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heya i just saw back in jan 22 we kinda talked a little about it being possible for kais fire to be blue im intrested in what u think about Wyldfyre now ninjago Wiki said shes "the Elemental master of heat " which is intresting

Personally i love the friendship she immediately had with kai😭👏

Gonna be honest, I haven’t watched anything past the first half of crystallized 👀

But! I’ve read her ninjago wiki profile and she seems so fucking cool?? Like- her design and personality based on what I’ve seen?? She seems great!

I think her having blue fire for her power being heat does make good sense! Blue fire is hotter than orange/red fire. Different colors of fire can be archived with chemicals, but that’s beside the point.

Also! Blue fire needs more oxygen, explained by it being hotter.

I think her character - from the scenes I’ve seen- actually also embodies this pretty well, with her personality and stuff.

But yea, I think their powers cover each other quite a lot, and I still think in theory Kai could create blue fire - with more oxygen intake or smth. But I think it’s very cool that there’s even a character who does have blue fire!

Maybe, as a headcanon, while Kai trains Wyldfire (ofc I only have the context of the wiki in this) , Kai could also learn smth from her and maybe that’s how he learns how to use blue fire? Idk I’m just speculating at this point haha-

But yea- Wyldfire seems super cool

#lego ninjago #ninjago kai #ninjago wyldfyre

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claypitbees · 2 years

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Sketchy Yong Bao and Hong Mei :) I'll leave my rambling under the cut

Not gonna lie it's much harder to find references for uniforms on Chinese railways during Yong Baos construction date than I thought. Part of that is due to the period of time which was from 1950s-1966 and part of that is due to the fact if you search Chinese railway uniform you get stuff from the Canadian Pacific railway and or images of British railways instead. My mom helped me find a few images using Chinese search engines and I took a few liberties since the uniform back then was supposed to be much more simple but Yong Bao has one of the most over the top designs I've ever seen.

These were according to the website the uniforms of the 1950s, and according to my mom remained pretty much unchanged except for colouration which went from the pictured blue into a grey colour. The 1960 variation also followed much closer the typical workman's uniform from the time, my mom said back in the day all clothing being sold looked pretty much the same. She then gave me an anecdote about how her parents hand made her clothes so she could flex on her peers.

1960s variation

Also when I first started looking through references I had to pretty much rely solely on propaganda posters since they are much better archived. I thought I'd share some of the stuff I did manage to find incase anybody is interested!

1980s variation

1984 and 1994

More modern stuff

Old propganda poster whoops I'm at the 10 image limit

There's so much I want to read about and learn about railways in China it's very intresting. I've taken the trains in Bejing before they were super fun and I wish I had taken pictures but I didn't predict 5 years later I'd become a thomas fan so aha. Also their passenger trains have beds! I've slept in one before it's not very comfortable but very cool nonetheless. Sorry this is very incoherent I'm very excited is all!

#hoping to polish this after my exams #and more importantly hoping to someday visit the railway museums of china so I can get better refrences #ttte #ttte yong bao #thomas and friends #ttte hong mei #myart

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jazzstarrlight · 11 months

Text

My Playable Characters Shipping List

So many characters in genshin impact, so taking screenshots of a wiki character list, I edited them together to make a shipping chart! You're welcome to use it how ever you want

_______________________________________

My Top 10 In Order:

1. Itto x Gorou -

The first Genshin Ship in my collection and still number one. Itto is always the first to fall in my ship and THE definition of golden retriever energy. When Gorou begins to notice his attention on him more often, he gets flustered and slowly falls for him back. Precious wholesome warriors, making a great team and greater lovers.

2. Cyno x Tighnari -

2nd place mostly cause of canon team-up and fanart. Also been debating on which one I'd be good at cosplaying if only I had the money (leaning toward Cyno.) Cyno is the first to fall and even while Tighnari cringes at his jokes, we all know he gives that clear "you're lucky I love you" face. I dream of a relationship like theirs.

3. Kaveh x Alhaitam -

Saw it once or twice on my Twitter feed until it turned into nothing but Kavetham and Cynari, and I eventually began to obsess. Alhaitham surprisingly falls first but can't express it properly, like a neurodivergent with alexithymia. Kaveh slowly shifts his thoughts of Alhaitham from "can't believe I put up with that guy" to "can't believe I'm in love with that guy". I think the autistic introvert -&- depressed extrovert angle may make for some interestingly dramatic angst. Good angst is fun to write. Plus, I'm on the spectrum and I can confirm that reading emotions (even our own) is either hard or near impossible.

4. Ayaka x Lumine -

The traveler I went with in my game is Lumine and I fell for Ayaka hard when we hung out at a festival before Lumine is made an enemy of the shogunate. Clearly, in the game, Ayaka falls in love first; but I also made an OC named Yuna Ren who fell for Ayaka as a child. I know it's cringe but... It's Ayaka-chan! I can admit I'm a bit of a simp for her.

5. Bennett x Razor -

When I found out they were friends, it was cool, but I saw something more building. Razor falls first, though doesn't understand it. Bennett enjoys having a more permanent team member and grows closer every day. They're super cute little twinks.

6. Ningguang x Beidou -

Two boss girls both dom energy however with good communication it works. Also whenever I feel like I ship too many dudes, I look at hot-I mean-pretty girls with chemistry. (Honestly, I'm surprised with how many mlm ships I have.) Ningquang falls first and... I may have an idea for an erotica oneshot. Stay tuned.

7. Xiao x Aether -

Mainly cause of fanart and if Lumine has Ayaka, the twin bro deserves a lil something special too. Xiao falls first. I mean- c'mon. That guy shows up within a second of calling his name like a genie.

8. Albedo x Sucrose -

Such a sweet and gentle intelligent pair. Sucrose falls for Albedo, and I can see Sucrose being his personal art model. If it was possible, I'd most likely cosplay as albedo (since him and HatGuy are the closest things I find to canon enby's in the game and not much a fan of the wanderer except his skill.)

9. Kazuha x Heizou -

Heizou's voicelines about Kazuha are really intresting. He obviously falls first and makes complex plans to hang out with him. They look very cute together.

10. Zingqui x Chongyun -

Sometimes when 2 characters just stand side-to-side in canon and if you see enough fanart, that's enough to ship two characters. Xingqiu falls first for the exorcist. I also think the combos of blue between the two is pretty nice.

#genshin impact #characters #shipping chart

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turkeyjournal · 6 months

Text

Book review: Killers of a certain age by Deanna Raybourn

Just want to preface there WILL be spoilers so, dont read if you dont want spoilers.

OVERALL RATING: 7.8/10

Brief Descripition: 4 old ladies: Billie, Mary Alice, Helen and Natalie have worked for a secret assasination organzation called 'The museum' and forty years have been assasians. When they each are at the time of their life where they are retiring and decide to go on a cruise ship when all of a sudden the get attacked by The museum...

My Personal Thoughts: To be completly honest, i really enjoyed this book. I had alot of fun reading it and it was super fun. I wondered how they could write an action kind of novel in a book. Like how do you even write action scenes but Raybourn proved me wrong. This book is more a thriller/mystery/action type o book and i seriously suggest people read it. I was gonna give it a 8 but everytime they would mention art and descriptions of the art in the book, especially when at the end when they killed the baroness and at the end when they were trying to kill Vance i just got so bored and confused so it kind of ruined the vibe.

I actually thought i found a spelling error but then i found out that the word 'diffident' is a real word. I thought she was saying different but nevermind she wasnt. So there was no spelling errors which is great. I hate when a book has spelling errors it just looks dumb.

The start of the book, so like the first 50 pages were so bored. I think it had a good plot but i was reading it and just felt bored. But ater the first 50 pages, it was like i was stuck. The story was so intresting and thrilling, i loved how the book described every move. Sometimes the fight scenes in this made no sense, like at the end or example. When Billie was fighting Vance, half way i thought "what the hell is going on" and like "how is that move even humanely possible."

Billie was my favorite charcter. She had this kind of cool macho Sylvester Stallone in tusla king feel. It was cool to see a badass and older women who isnt some weird quiet "ive seen so many things and im so dainty and delicate and misunderstood" type of main charcter. Even her realtionship with Tarverner wasnt all angry and stupid, it was really mature and lovely.

During the time when they had killed Sweeney and Helen paused when shooting i thought that maybe Helen had something she was hiding and couldve done some whole betrayel act and played more into that because alot of back stabbing was happening throughout the story, but thats just my opinons honestly.

Overall, would i read it again? Maybe i could. When i rate things 7-8 usually means i really liked the book but it couldve been better and i MIGHT re read it but not 100% likely to. I think the size of the story was really good and i enjoyed it alot and it wasnt a hard read. It did however take me 2 weeks to actually start reading the book but that was only because i had alot to do with school and midterms. But now that i finally got to read it i thourghouly enjoyed it and i will be suggesting people to read this book aswell. I added an actualy picture of the book because last review looked a little dull so i put thisi to make it look prettier.

#books #deanna raybourn #thriller #mystery #reading #murder mystery #crime fiction #books and reading #bookworm #bookish #currently reading

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popculturebuffet · 12 days

Note

Seeing your posts on how you've despised the way season 6 handled the Mordecai/CJ/Margaret love triangle, did you read about writer Matt Price's posts on a Reddit AMA regarding why Mordecai didn't end up with Margaret or CJ in the end?

He said "We felt like the Margaret/CJ story was complete, and they were both on their own path already. We also felt like Mordecai had moved on in his life. He finally left the park to pursue art, and we thought it'd be cool if he met someone while doing that. But we love Margaret and C.J., and we're sure that they're happy without Mordecai! He was too wishy-washy with them!!"

To make things worse, Matt said that Rigby's Graduation Day Special planned to have CJ react to the Park crew going to outer space with an annoyed look implying ""Whatever, I'm glad that guy is in space."" Really feels he was trying to push the "CJ hates Mordecai and Margaret after their breakup" thing way too hard (glad it didn't make it to the final cut).

He also said that CJ apparently cut off all contact with Mordecai, Margaret, Rigby, and Eileen, which is a contrast to him confirming Margaret still keeps in touch with and remains friends with Mordecai, Rigby, and Eileen. Would you say this is kinda sad knowing CJ never got to even reconcile with Mordecai as friends like Margaret did in season 7? Plus making Eileen's sadness on not being able to hang out with both CJ and Margaret in I See Turtles even sadder with the implications of CJ cutting off contact with her in the end (likely just because she associates with Margaret) too.

Nope. I don't really keep up with regular show news. I still like the show and I loved close enough (RIP), but I just don't. But since CJ is near and dear to my heart as a character this does intrest me so let's get into it.

On not having Mordecai get with either of them: It was the right call. I didn't really mind when I saw the finale and time, maturity and what have you have only made me like the decision more. Part of it is where the series was at: The "Mordecai nukes his happy relationship arc" was a mess i've still only barely watched and plan to cover someday, but so far haven't gotten to. It was easily the worst thing the show's done and made me stop watching it for a season.

It was absolutely the right call to instead have him conciously take a break from dating, work on himself. He didn't do much of that before they got shot up into space, but it was a good effort. He burned that bridge with CJ the second he kissed Margret and them getting back together was a huge mistake: Mordecai never really found the right way to apologize and CJ clearly never got over the betrayal or her paranoia he'd do it again. Instead having the major arcs be "setup for next season" and "Rigby tries to better himself by going back to school' were a better choice, as was just.. putting the final season in space.

With those arcs it also meant there really wasn't room to speedrun a new relationship fans woudln't want. It makes more sense that after finally deciding to focus on his art, he grew up, had some time to mature and THEN met the love of his life. Margret had moved on with her life, Mordecai moved on with his. I do think the show fucked up with the love triangle, but this is the only move they could really make and I support that. It may blow a little Mordecai and Margret seemingly ends with a whimper.. but it's what the show and the character sneeded. Sometimes... life and cartoon shows dont' work out. People drift apart.

On the deleted scene: Seconded bud. Seconded. I do think the show REALLY fucked up with how it treated CJ during season 6, and really underestimated how attached fans had gotten.. which itself is baffling. She was part of the main cast. She took Margret's spot. She was in a decent chunk of episodes. Fans liked her and took her side in the breakup, and while she was super paranoid with mordecai, it's really hard not to blame her. Less easy to forgive the attempted murder but what can you do. So having her just go "Whatever I dont' care" feels wrong. Her not carring MOrdecai got shot up into space? In character, she dosen't have to care about her ex anymore. he fucked the relationship up beyond any hope and she made a mistake taking him back as she clearly coudln't forgive him. But her not having the slightest horror at Rigby or Eileen getting shot up , her friend and her best friend, feels so wrong it hurts. Eileen was the only thing that got her to actually be around margret and not fly into a jealous rage. What the fuck.

On the cut off thing: that just feels sad.. but i've come to accept it more. I DO think her cutting off Eileen is dickish and like to think she at least parted as amicably as she could.. but I also get it. Eileen is with Rigby, marries rigby, has his kids. The two are in a fantastic supportive relationship that shows how far he's come as a person and how far out of her shell she's come. It's adorable.. but it also means being around Eileen runs the risk of seeing Mordecai. Being Eileens friend means a pretty solid chance of running into her ex any time Eileen has a party, at the wedding, at the birth of her kids etc.

Being petty about Eileen being friends with Margret is one thing. margret fucked up.. but geninely tried to back off after making a heat of a moment mistake she clearly regretted deeply, and only told the boyfriend lie to save herself from a helicopter crash, an entirely fair reaction. Being shoved on a double date with her ex and his justifably jealous girlfriend who not so justifably tried to unalive her was not her idea. The two could manuver around each other, maybe awkwardly say high, I See Turtles proved they could at least be civil for Eileens sake.

But seeing her ex every time her best friend had a huge life event... that's a lot to ask. Eileen would be heartbroken.. but would understand why CJ had to break off their friendship and while I See Turtles was a good ep.. it WAS a lot to ask CJ to be around Margret right after what happened. Personally even if it's not how the creators see it I see the two reconnecting with time. CJ's moved on with her life, maybe gone pro with dodgeball, Eileen's a professor with a loving stay at home husband.. thier in a place they can be friends again and CJ, while not necesarily ever forgiving mordecai, can stand being around him. I could see her holding that grudge for a while, understandably so and people CAN hold onto grudges forever if they want.. but it just dosen't fit here. CJ grew up, and while she dosen't really keep in touch with her ex.. I like to think she got her friend back. Maybe her and Margret even become friends

Hell honestly I just had the idea margret and CJ eventually hook up: Margret genuinely apologizes for everything, CJ does the thing, one thing leads to another. I mean they do kinda fit: CJ's mordecai with his shit together, Margret is kind and empathetic, and I did really like it the last time an asshole's exes had better chemistry with each other instead of him.

SO TLDR: there honestly isn't anything that obnoxious in this. I don't like the idea of CJ cutting eileen off.. but most of it fits and the one part that didn't was cut out as they realized it didn't. For how badly the crew fucked up that love triangle.. they recovered fine.

#regular show #cj #Margret roberts #mordecai #rigby #cartoon network #gah

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sadasspisces · 11 months

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A secret no one knows about me, it's me. No matter how close I get to someone I can never be me. Because who I am is never enough. How I act, how I talk, how I love, the things that intrest me... it's never enough to make someone stay. Friends or lovers. I have been and always will be a disappointment to everyone I meet. I will leave this world alone. Without a single person to miss me, because they never truly knew me.

i understand this so much lol. it's almost as if i typed this, very close to things i say on the regular.

i'm going to give you some advice that i need to take myself but won't lmfaooo, um so i know it can get incredibly lonely, and idk about you but i have abandonment issues through the roof and it sounds like you might as well. ive found an odd comfort in my own company due to feeling how you described, but again it does get lonely, sometimes you wish you had at least someone to just have to like share things with or just genuinely like you for just who you are and what all comes with you. but there are people that can come around, that won't go and i'm trying to realize that. it's hard when all your life people have literally left. and i'm sure you do have someone that would miss you, my own family don't even know me personally, like no one in it but i know a few that would actually miss me, not many but a count on one hand if that. and tbh that's enough, you don't need a whole lot of people.

there are maybe like a total of 3 people i can say really know me, like the real me. things i like, things that make me cry/sad, my interests, me as an individual. i don't open up to many people ever, because same, the fear of them leaving. but you will find people that will be open to knowing you as a friend/lover. like its possible but you have to shift your mind a bit and also stay true to yourself, don't get too wrapped up when accepting someone in. like i try to give trial runs first, the people i consider "close" i didnt properly open up too until maybe months to years later lmfao literally every year they learn something new about me cause i have problems ofc lmfao. i'm an open book but i'm not an open book, like i won't read my book outloud if you get my drift. but yeah i feel it all starts with you first.

i can definitely relate though, and idk but i feel its a mental health thing. no ome truly knows me and i feel if i was to leave too, no one would truly miss the real me because no one knows who i truly am. so i get it, but try to start with yourself first, find some peace in yourself somewhere. 🧡 sorry this was super long but i hope it helps you some lol alsooo you could always message me, i suck at responding because my own mental health is poor lmfaoo but i will get back to you eventually but yeah take care i'm always here ☺️

#anon answered #anonymous #anon ask #send me anons

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ourflagmeansgayrights · 2 years

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on ur whole ed and izy weren't friends thing a: I dont think u should be putting it in the ship tag let ppl ship in peace. b: my personal headcannons could go either way but I wouldn't find it hard to believe that they were once closer than canon shows but iver the years maybe the hierarchy or eds growing disinterest in piracy makes them feel more distant. Ed has a habit of being dramatic and is not always truthful (I.e when he says he only ever killed his dad but has 'maimed people' im 100% sure he's killed by proxy). So when he says he doesn't have friends he could very well, in the moment, believe it while it not actually being true. Also when they enter stedes ship Ed tries to show izzy all the things that intrest him, to me thats friend behavior

a: that's totally fair, probably could've kept it to myself, but i put it in the ship tag bc 1. i hyper organize everything on my blog bc im insane so it was gonna get that tag anyway and 2. i kinda WANTED ppl to see the post bc im like, kinda curious to hear why ppl interpret ed and izzy's relationship the way that they do bc it's so far from how i (and everyone i know irl who watched the show) read these characters. my tone probably came across more aggressive than i meant but also like, anyone who's actually bothered is free to ignore the post or block me. i wasn't going at any individual fans specifically, so it didn't really register as me NOT letting ppl ship in peace?? but maybe that was the wrong call on my part, idk. my b i guess

b: i agree that ed and izzy in canon are like, in their divorce era at this point and probably got along better back when ed was more into being a pirate, but i really have a hard time imagining that they were ever like. besties. totally get that ed is being very dramatic in that scene, but like, that's kind of the point? in a way, by exaggerating his feelings in that moment, he's being more truthful. in a less emotionally-charged moment, ed might call izzy his friend, but in that scene he feels scared and alone, and he feels like none of his "friends" would accept him at that moment, crying in a bathtub all wrapped up in a fancy robe

it is friend behavior on ed's part to try and show izzy things that interest him, but like, izzy is. not into it. granted, it is kinda a stressful time, with like. the spanish and everything. and izzy doesn't know that ed apparently has a plan already. but like, at no point in the show do we see izzy respond well to ed trying to reach out to izzy abt some non-pirate activity. izzy didn't want to track stede down, izzy's annoyed by ed talking abt the clouds, izzy is glaring in the shadows any time ed is laughing or talking or telling stories with the crew of the Revenge. there's the cut scene of izzy putting bows in ed's hair, but i can't imagine izzy was like, super jazzed abt doing that (and anyway the scene is cut and we don't know what actually happened in it, so it's hard to use that as evidence either way).

i totally think they were closer in the past, but not in a friend way. they had each other's backs, they came up with plans, helped each other when they were wounded. but did they like, talk abt anything other than piracy? did they talk abt their pasts? did they talk abt their interests? people can interpret this show however they want, but ed saying he doesn't have any friends makes me think that they didn't, or that if ed ever tried to, it wasn't received well (and i don't think that's entirely izzy's fault, ed's language can sometimes be hard to understand. but the point is that izzy didn't understand it, doesn't understand it, doesn't understand ed. not the way ed wants to be understood)

#ask #doces-e--tuga #ofmd #our flag means death #ofmd meta #edward teach #izzy hands #mine #meta #og #txt #blackhands

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theultimatenonbinarynerd · 2 days

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Ranking All 4 Fazbear Frights Books I Read

Introduction

Hello everyone, since I got into the FNAF fandom after the film I told my friend as a bookworm that I wanted to checkout some of the novels so I did. My friend first introduced me to Fazbear Frights and I was very curious. Fazbear Frights has been very bizzare but I for the most part have really enjoyed it.

Listen I know people love Scott Cawthorn but his writing has sometimes been questionable in these stories. Sorry it's just my opinion and I hope people can respect that. What he's created is super spooky and interesting but some of the stories made me want to cry at how bad they were.

However some of these stories are some of the best short stories I have ever read and hit me part of these stories. Room For One More left me gagging and generally wanting to throw up. The horror was perfectly done as perfect as the core routes of the franchise. I feel so bad for the kids and the horror of what they went through. Some of the stories felt dull some did actually keep me up at night.

There are 12 books in the Fazbear Frights series and I would have loved to read all of them but I just don't have the attention span or sanity to cope with it especially after reading some of the stories in these volumes they felt physically draining.

With that out of the way let's get onto the ranking...

4: 1:35 AM

Room for one more was one of my favourite stories from this collection it was so disturbingly spooky that it put me off my lunch. 1:35 was repetive but intresting as that's the definition of insanity but the New Kid came and crashed the whole collection to the crowd, I feel so sorry for the people that had to put their energy into reading it as I had no idea what the f*** was going on... If you asked me to recount the plot I wouldn't be able too.

Whilst the stories were just genuine repetive The New Kid physically made my blood boil. There's a way better version of that story called Happs. I like it when a collection is consistent in quality and this one just wasn't it especially after how enjoyable Room For One More. I also just think it was very repetive for no reason at all.

Room For One More truly is the only thing holding up this collection. Stanley goes through it for no reason and its really graphic and gross. I got the concept of 1:35 am but it didn't suit the prose format. It's truly one of my favourite short stories I have ever read and I would recommend this collection soley based on that. It's also the perfect companion to Sister Collection.

Apart from that though 1:35 is definitely the weakest in my opinion and I can only imagine what it would have been like if I read past book 4.

Not as bad as 1:35 Am but taking the number 3 spot is...

3: Fetch

After a fairly decent start with Into The Pit let's say Fetch was rather disappointing for me. The stories felt way too slow burn and I felt like some stories like Lonley Freddy better suited a longer prose novel form to flesh out the characters better as Alec was an a hole for no legit reason, reminded me of my own siblings. Fetch was definitely the best out of the stories due to it's crazy Chucky/Megan/ Black Mirror esc feels. Lonley Freddy was a hundred percent the weakest of the bunch due to it's horrible unsympathetic main character and the horror being only in the last third of the story.

That being said though I think these stories stay more consistent in quality so that's why if I were to read again it'd be much easier to come back to Fetch. Some repetive beats were still there but it's much easy to digest and read. I also know mostly what's going on through the entire three short stories. I also like the fact is has the theme of think before you act/actions have consequences.

The horror is way better in some of the other Frights and Tales books but it's still a well worth it collection to give a go, if it wasn't it'd take the number 4 spot. Fetch has made me even more uncomfortable about AI, Lonley Freddy has made me scared to go to a party and Out Of Stock has made me stick to my vow of never stealing. So despite being for a ya/middle grade audience it can be scary for adults too.

Overall a pretty decent and enjoyable collection. This next one really sucked me into the world of Five Nights At Freddy's...

2: Into The Pit

A very very decent first start. It was very engaging and from start to finish had me engaged in the story of five nights at freddys. It's not here to solve all of the lore but to be honest I don't mind I'm mainly here for the fnaf inspired short story collection and it for the most part very much delivered. All three stories were very creepy and sinister as it had again that theme of be careful of what you wish for. I also actually understood what was going on in every story. The best out of the collection was definitely To Be Beautiful it was a really grotesque and haunting, actions have consequences with it not ending well for Sarah. Worst of the collection was a hundred percent Count The Ways, Millie was really unsympathetic and unlikeable until the end of the story.

I think these stories are really good at balancing horror and set up unlike some of the other stories later on in the collection. They are all for the most part consistent in quality and atmosphere. Even when we get to the mundane stuff it doesn't really throw you out of the story. I also love how all of the stories actually connect to Freddys animatronics whilst being their own unique thing. Eleanor for example is more than a knock off circus baby. The villians in these stories will give you chills.

The stories cross the line between fantastical and super natural but it's still a very entertaining read. I found myself hooked and engaged throughout. I was most sucked in during Into The Pit the Dad trap seemed really funny but dark at the same time. I'm a whovian so I did not bat an eye at the time travelling ball pit. I've also seen Black Mirror so I wasn't afraid of the dark endings in To Be Beautiful and Count The Ways. I also believe that Into The Pits more hopeful ending leads you into a false sense of security throughout the novel.

Very good but not my favourite out of the four I read in the collection. My favourite has to go to...

1: Step Closer

This was fantastic and im so glad I left Fazbear Frights on a good note after the travertsy that was the third collection. The stories all perfectly connected with all being about grief and guilt and it was actually engaging to read. Man my heart couldn't take it, I actually almost cried. It still managed to keep the fnaf aesthetic whilst also trying as a reader to make me feel something. It hit me hard, it wasn't a five star worthy collection definitely not but it was still really well written and way better than other 3 collections. My favourite for the collection was a hundred percent Coming Home, it gave Lovely Bones vibes and hit me hard, it perfectly shows Grief And how Aftons actions might affect other families whilst also at the same time perfectly paying tribute to the first game. Least favourit Count The Ways, I'm tired of unlikeable teenage protagonist, Scott and Co for the most part don't know how to write children and its a massive problem.

The horror was still plentiful and they all did not hold back. Pete went through literal hell more than I've been through as an accident prone person. I also loved that even though Dance With Me and Coming Home had more supernatural horror it was still eiree and uncomfortable especially once you realise that heartbreaking twist in Coming Home. I love complex ghost stories as when I go into horror I'm not here for the blood, guts and gore I'm here for the emotional impact as in my controversial opinion you don't need horror to have blood spilled death for it to be impactful.

When I say Step Closer has cementated it's place as best out of the four I mean it. Step Closer is truly haunting and eiree. It's a collection that can leave you frightened for the protagonist one moment and then emotional to the next. It's a really deep and heartbreaking collection. Susie's story just punches you in the gut even more when you realise what's really going on and Casey is a character who does bad stuff but is actually really sympathetic. Pete as annoying he was, you felt really bad when the curse kept escalating.

Out of all of the four I recommend this one as its the best in terms of quality and consistency. If you done care about the Epilogues this is one to go for.

Conclusion

Overall a very surprisingly interesting but sometimes mid set off books. It might not be everyone's cup of tea as it's mainly for younger teen fans in my opinion but there's still stuff to enjoy. All 12 short stories were very bold in terms of story telling and creativity.

We'll see how some of the Tales Books suffice and then I'll rank those separately and then together. Reading Tales its already interesting to read the contrasting difference. As a casual fan I'm very interested and appreciate all the bold ideas of story telling.

Unfortunately as someone who's going to study creative writing, my brain can't switch off when it comes to my critics.

This has been really interesting to explore.

-Melody-

They/Them

#bookish #bookworm #booklover #book tumblr #bookblr #five night at freddy's #fnaf books #fnaf #fazbear frights #book ranking

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