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Latest Posts by casualwonderlandtale - Page 6
Batman 2016 #issue 17
nothing has what avengers assemble has
"you lead, i'll follow" "keep leading like that and we might actually stick together" "do what you do best, cap, save the day" "WE ARE NOT FIGHTING EACH OTHER" "stay with me stark" "i was brave long before i was captain america and tony was a hero long before he was iron man" "there are a few old fashioned things worth keeping around" "fall backwards i'll catch you" "you are your father's greatest invention" *steve picks up tony and spins him around* *steve takes care of de-aged tony* *tony risks his life to save steve* *tony risks his life to save steve* *tony risks his life to save stev-
collection of clark, bruce, and what they think of each other’s voice
IMAGE I D: comic panel of batman and wonder woman talking to each other. Dialogue is as follows: Batman: choosing gifts for him is always difficult. This year, i paid a horticulturalist to breed a new strain of rose called "the Krypton." I'm pretty certain no one else will have got him flowers... Wonder woman: uh, Bruce... END I D.
Posting this panel in honour of Valentine's day.
The thing that's always struck me about this isn't even the whole "having someone invent a whole new strain of rose, of all flowers, for his lover teammate", but the line "I'm pretty certain no one else will have got him flowers."
So much revealed in just that one line.
First I want to point out how Bruce refers to this new rose strain as just "flowers".
You could either read that as Bruce having no idea how absolutely insane his behaviour is, thinking that having someone invent a whole new species is the same as just "getting flowers". And I guess what's new with that, this is the guy who dresses up as a bat cryptid to fight crime and thinks that's, like, fine.
You could also read this as a genius billionaire knowing exactly how it looks and being a blasé little shit about it.
Both interpretations are good imo.
Second, he wants so badly to get Clark something that's both unique and that he'll like and appreciate.
Bruce Wayne is loaded, he could just buy him a fancy watch or car or sth, but they're pretty generic gifts, even if they are expensive. Plus they're things that other people could get Clark, if not to the same extent, price tag wise.
So he wants something unique, that Clark will like and his solution is to have someone cultivate a piece of Clark's adoptive home planet and name it for his native home planet.
And if that's not the most romantic shit you've ever heard, you're wrong.
SteveTony Dark Reign: Fantastic Four #2 Earth 3490
Superbat Elseworld Story: Shogun of Steel
Superbat Moments #5
Superman memorizing & tracking Batman’s heartbeat in every universe
Superbat Master Collection
interviewer: Mr. Wayne, have you heard of the popular internet jokes about you dating Batman?
bruce wayne: Yes I have heard of them, but if I were going to date any superhero it'd be Superman and not an overdramatic furry
this art meme
this couldve happened if they ended up doing that dc x tf crossover
the full lineup of the earth stranded autobots
posted some these before but now I added characters and updated most of the old designs so yee
also if you art intrested in the main human cast they can be found here
still cannot get over the fact that Yog-Sothoth has fucked. like. canonically as written by Howard Philips Lovecraft himself, Yog-Sothoth, the One Beyond All, The Lurker at the Threshold, the Key and the Gate and the Keeper of the Gate. . .
is a DILF
the “best friends who had plans of changing the world together but then one of them betrayed the other and now they’re on opposite sides and the one who betrayed the other is now morally grey and kills people but they still can’t bring themselves to kill the other because deep down they’re still in love with them” trope>>>>
the brotherhood of mutants just had to accept they never going to win bc magneto is in love w their #1 enemy. prof x really cruising around in a metal wheelchair and the mutant w the ability to control metal and be like “oh well nothing we can do about him”
Idk if you do stuff for the Rogues but what did Batman catch them doing that's weird but not illegal?
Harley Quinn: egging her own house
Poison Ivy: growing a pumpkin carriage
Catwoman: putting pickles in her spaghetti
Riddler: making TikTok reactions to Tumblr posts
Two-Face: writing with his non-dominant hand
Mad Hatter: bringing his own cart to the store
Scarecrow: wearing underwear outside his clothes
Mr. Freeze: ordering ice water with whipped cream
Penguin: sitting in an elevator
Black Mask: petitioning for his own Batburger item
Clayface: picking clay out of his ear and sniffing it
Killer Croc: licking his sandwich before eating it
Bane: doing push-ups in the middle of the sidewalk
Joker: saying his pronouns are hee hee hee
BONUS – Jason: sleeping on the Batcave floor
Broke: Jason hates criminals because they break the law.
Woke: Jason hates criminals because they all wanna fuck his dad.
Someone today will read Shakespeare’s hamlet and say omg he’s just like me fr. Another person will read moby dick and proclaim Ishmael as an adhd king.
A person grieving for their recently deceased lover reads the iliad and they watch as Achilles rages and rages and god how righteous anger fueld by love is so devastating that it’s ramifications still affect the world several thousand years later.
We might one day settle down and read the epic of gilgamesh and watch as a king has to accept the death of the person he loved the most. One of the very first stories ever written and it was about coping with death, and how to grieve.
We don’t read classics because they’re old, we read them because they remind us that we are never alone. That a character created over 500 years ago struggled with the exact same problems we all still have today. That even a king from centuries past had to deal with death just like me. That’s what makes stories so powerful–they prove to us that we are never truly alone in what we are feeling.
You ever think about how the Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the oldest stories we still remember, even incomplete, and it may be a deconstruction? The implications? Gilgamesh citing other stories, some of which we’ve lost, as to why he won’t accept Ishtar’s proposal. The whole concept of ‘this is Gilgamesh, he’s unbelievably arrogant and handsome and strong and he’s two-thirds god and a king– and now we’re gonna explore why he’s a complete asshole and his subjects dislike him, and how for all his greatness he too is just a human with very human faults and fears, and how he had to walk a VERY rocky road to become an ACTUALLY wise and benevolent king.’
Just like. One of the lessons of my theatre classes that always stuck with me is that every play is a point in an ongoing conversation about dozens of different things, and I think that applies to other mediums of art as well. You see enough of a specific trope or argument made, you make your own response by deconstructing or subverting or reconstructing or defying that trope. If the Epic of Gilgamesh was a counterargument, how many original arguments as stories existed, until someone went ‘you may all have a point. But listen to this.’
I’m familiar with a few other Mesopotamian myths that may have been earlier, fragmented as they are, but it just makes me feel So Many Things to consider if the Epic was a deconstruction and how that implies prior existing works– conversation!– and how long humans have just. Told stories. How many of those works we’ve lost were counterarguments? How long back does it go? Probably to the beginning, but man. To just someday die and look down at the world and see the conversation of humanity in its entirety… what I wouldn’t give…
the best kind of ships are the ones where the characters make their relationship everyone's problem
#bosscelot
When their entire relationship is toxic, but they're both so fucked up that it's actually the best case scenario, because subjecting anybody else to either of them would be a human rights violation.
cassian: you look pretty tonight
jyn: what
k2-so: he said you look shitty goodnight
Something something about little imps being protected by their feral boyfriends ✨
The kombatants had a field day the moment Johnny's BTS photos dropped.
Bonus:
Love Confessions be Like:
Perceptor to Brainstorm: Every day, the moment I met you, I found a new reason to keep trying, to keep exploring, to keep getting right back up… because that’s what I saw from you.
Drift to Ratchet: I started living when I first met you, before that, I was just surviving.
Prowl to Jazz: You are my light, that leads me home. The moment you are gone, I’m lost.
Ultra Magnus to Rodimus: My love for you is like fire, it burns more today than it did yesterday, but it will only grow tomorrow.
Mirage to Hound: I learned I can be and that deserve to be happy because of you, from the moment you laughed and smiled, I never realized how laughing could be so natural… I want to continue to be happy and share those moments with you.
Starscream to Windblade: I never wanted to be alone. I never wanted to be like this. What I want is you not to go… stay. Please. Stay.
Greenlight to Arcee: From every return, from every embrace, to the next battle, and then repeat… I don’t want you to go without hearing this, I love you, Arcee. My spark speaks to yours and yours alone.
Red Alert to Inferno: I know I can’t stop you for helping others. I know I can’t prevent you from your selfless ways. I wished you could be more selfish as me, because I want to keep you myself, to keep you safe until our sparks flickered out.
Soundwave to Blaster: Silence scares me. Not hearing your voice scares me. To not hear your footsteps, your laughter, you… please never make me start living in a world without you, because it scares me.
Octane to Sandstorm: I’m a lot of things, I’m everything that wouldn’t let me deserve you as my friend. I know this. I also know that I love you. I love you. I love you. I will continue to work hard to be worthy of the love you give me because you deserve more than a ‘I love you’.
Cyclonus to Tailgate:You saw something in me that I thought I lost years ago into an abyss of darkness. You helped me find that again and I promise, I will always find you in every abyss of darkness to save you.
Knockout to Breakdown: Beauty fade as we grow older… I disagree. You have only gotten more beautiful as time went on and at every moment I laid eyes on you.
Bumblebee: Damn… what are you guys waiting for, kiss already!
Sideswipe: Don’t be shy, be happy!
Bluestreak: Primus, they are doing it!
Smokescreen: They are really going for it.
Sunstreaker: Wow…
Whirl: Yeah~ gets some!
The bots and cons: AWWW.
The Wreckers, Aerialbots, Protectobots: *snickering nearby*
The Combaticons and seekers: OwO
MegaOp: *Megatron pretends to stretch and rest his arm on Optimus’s shoulder as Prime chuckled fondly*
Learning Transformers lore is an absolute trip. For example:
TF Wiki: Some transformers have mutant sparks. They’re called ‘outliers’ and have unusual powers as a result!
Me: Wow, neat!
TF Wiki: Skywarp is one such transformer - his ability is teleportation!
Me: Cool!
TF Wiki: Thundercracker has one too, which allows him to produce sonic booms!
Me: Appropriate!
TF Wiki: In fact, the entire command trine are outliers!
Me: Absolutely fun! What’s Starscream’s power?
TF Wiki: He’s fucking immortal.
Me: …what?
if a character could be the definition of “understood the assignment” it would be big boss’ model in the mgs3 remake trailer, because that man looks majestic.
I can’t explain how much i love you and everything that just wrote
I used to talk about this a lot but
IDW Prowl is probably one of the most complex characters in the comics and I absolutely hate it when hes reduced down to “the asshole character”
Cause like
Yeah sure hes got a bit of a stick up his ass
But I feel like people just end there analysis of him there
Has he committed a lot of war crimes and done unethical stuff
Yes
But so has literally EVERYONE else in this universe
Starscream is literally the pinnacle of war crimes
The comics make a point calling out even Optimus for his questionable actions and orders during the war with the Dinobots saying he makes them do the dirty work for him
Megatron literally commits genocide and yet his story ends with an alternate version of him going free and exploring the universe with the LL
The literal war lord was treated better and is looked upon more positively than Prowl and I think it just came down to how fucked Prowl got by the writers
Because while Megatrons redemption was all in your face and you got a shit ton of flashbacks that try to justify the eventual atrocities he would commit you don’t get that with Prowl
Even when Prowl is absolutely in the right you constantly have it disregarded by characters making jokes about him overreacting (being mad OP is sending the space tyrant away with free reign of his own ship isn’t overreacting btw-) and as such you start to think of him as a genuinely irrational character when hes not
Prowl is bad at keeping the relationships he forms yes
But he is not always at fault for that
While his relationship with CD ended poorly Chromedome is also shown to be kinda of a dick sometimes and commits his fair share of fucked up things such as when he literally ATTACKS PROWL AND FORCES HIS WAY INTO HIS MIND TO PROTECT HIMSELF FROM THE CONSEQUENCE OF HIS ACTIONS WHEN PROWL THREATENS TO TELL REWIND ABOUT THE SHITTY STUFF HE DID IN HIS PAST
This leads to Prowls inevitable snowball out of control when this attack leads to an opening for Bombshell (I think its been a while since I read the comics) to use his tech to mind control him forcing him into combining with the contructicons
Something we learn is an immensely intimate thing with their minds being kinda melded
This was something Prowl did not want
And when all was said and done and he was calmed down he still had to live with that gesalt he was forced into with them following him around like fanboys
Nobody ever even really stopped to check in on him
And as such he understandable went a little bit insane
He had just faced an immensely traumatic invasion of his body and mind and on top of stress form feeling like everything was out of his control and like he couldn’t stop the bad things from happening alongside bitter emotions being brought back up with a return visit to Earth and reunion with spike AND the fact that he feels like Optimus doesn’t trust him and like hes just letting Starscream do whatever he want (something that understandably freaks him out seeing as how he spent 4 million years fighting Starscream) he just kinda snaps
He trys to destroy the space bridge so that no one else can leave or get through and so he can regain some semblance of control
Is it wrong
Yes
But he was not in a good state of mind and no one was helping him at all
And immediately following his arrest afterward Prowl is confronted by OP who is supposed to be his friend and when Prowl doesn’t say the right things to him to placate him Optimus’ response is to punch him out a window and beat the shit out of him
And not being given any room to breath this is immediately follow up my him getting kidnapped by Tarantulas who is very obviously an impactful and negative part of his past
Prowl just has bad event, one after the other, happen to him over and over again and not only does no one check up on him afterwards to see if hes okay but everyone actively makes fun of him for being understandable unstable
Prowl is a fucking tragedy and not many people seem to be able to see beyond what characters in the comics think of him
"The Jungle Book", or "How to take a Beloved Adaptation and Utterly Ruin It by Reading the Original Works"
not gonna lie, here: I blame disney's "the jungle book" for a few fetishes I have. most people can probably guess because there's a few there's an origin for. and I rather liked the disney film when I was in elementary school. I also tended to like the text-adaptations of the film. disney frequently does something right in text-adaptations by capturing mood as well as scene setting.
but then sometime in high school I was introduced to kipling's "rikki-tikki-tavi", and from there managed to find the original set of jungle books. yes, two, though they're now frequently sold as a collection because they are basically short-story collections. that being said, eight of the fifteen - more than half - are about mowgli and the characters that are used in the disney film, and they actually form a pretty cohesive narrative.
thing is, once you start to grasp the original narrative and characters, it completely ruins the disney films. because they're just so much better written.
it's not bad to have it be fun and amusing. but there's a couple of glaring plot-holes and enough flimsy characterization points that holy shit, unless you're in it for something specific, the film gets its ass beat by the books easily.
I'll break down the points that really stick for me as "why do you like the disney version so much when this is way better".
1) narrative
plot of disney film: shere khan is trying to kill mowgli because he's a man. we need to get him to a man village to make sure he's safe. baloo gets the biggest characterization because he needs to take responsibility.
[I swear I'm not trying to over-simplify it. this is literally what happens.]
plot of kipling stories: a man-cub orphaned by a tiger attack takes refuge with a band of wolves because a panther pays his debt. while trying to repay his debt to the wolves for taking him in, the man-cub seeks his revenge on the tiger, learns about man, and realizes whatever hard lessons he learned in the jungle are preparation for living among men because goddamn, most men are as fickle and vindictive as any jungle beast if not worse. mowgli gets the biggest characterization here, because half the stories are literally him going through the five stages of grief because he's spending his formative years trying to resolve the existential crisis of "where do I fit in here."
[this is me trying to oversimplify it.]
2) characterization: mowgli
mowgli's characterization in the disney film: "waaa I want to stay in the jungle because the jungle is fun. sure I almost get eaten by a snake twice, piss off the elephant herd, consort with a schizophrenic monkey, attempt to get high with the jungle's layabout, and am a twig so can't fight back against a tiger, but it's just more fun here."
mowgli's characterization in the kipling books: "I love my wolf brothers and would do anything for them... so why do they cast me out? I can learn to love these humans because they're not as experienced with the jungle as I am and I can teach them... so why do they treat me as a demon? where do I go when I try and give my all to both but neither of them treat me as one who fully belongs? what do I do when even my closest friends can admit I'm different and so unlike the rest of those they know that I won't ever fully fit in? ...perhaps its time for me to make my own way, using my upbringing but making my own path through here."
problem with this part two: mowgli's our viewpoint character in both circumstances. tying back to the narrative problems I have, baloo has greater characterization than mowgli in the disney film but we're left with a whining p.o.v. protagonist who really can't get a lesson through his thick skull, and it becomes really hard to root for him. kipling's mowgli manages to carry both the emotional heft with his inner turmoil and the physical heft of leading the narrative through his wit and ingenuity to overcome obstacles. mowgli is the primary planner of the books with one story exception ("kaa's hunting") and does well enough that he comes out on top physically, but it's balanced by the result usually lending itself to an emotional cadence that drives home "you're respected a little more but don't quite belong", either from outsiders or, towards the end, even from mowgli himself.
and if you're going to defend it by saying the disney version is like a child giving up their innocence, let me stop you right there. disney's mowgli isn't innocent, he's ignorant, willfully choosing to ignore danger in preference of hedonism and whatever pleasure he's receiving in the moment rather than truly thinking long-term. kipling's mowgli undergoes the true loss of innocence, believing that things would fine so long as he followed jungle law to realizing he doesn't fit in as well as he thought to realizing even the group he's supposed to belong to isn't that much more accepting of him.
3) characterization: baloo and bagheera
it's less the personality types themselves, as both baloo's and bagheera's personalities are present in the books. it's not even the fact that the personalities are inverted, where kipling's bagheera is closer to disney's baloo and kipling's baloo is closer to disney's bagheera.
no, it's the fact that, despite these two being our primary narrative force in the disney version, they're both very much 2-dimensional and flat.
bagheera in the disney film establishes himself early on as a firm friend of mowgli, caring about his best interests, but kind of sick of his shit early on. baloo takes a little longer but gets there eventually: he's lazy but really does like mowgli, and he can teach him something but needs to be spurred into taking true responsibility.
bagheera is the invert in kipling's stories. he's still mowgli's firm friend and occasionally sick of his shit while younger, but also more relaxed enough to indulge in his stranger interests and both emotionally supportive and caring no matter which way mowgli is currently feeling. of all the jungle residents, bagheera is the least inclined to send him back; it must happen, but it's going to happen on mowgli's terms and the best he can do is be a supportive friend and have his back either way. it might take a hard lesson or two, but bagheera will do almost anything to keep him safe until mowgli makes the decision.
baloo's role in kipling's stories is also an invert. he's the responsible one of the two here, and even mowgli's primary teacher about the jungle, but is shown to frequently go into a panic if something upsets what may be considered the natural order of the jungle. nevertheless, while one of the ones who most easily accepts mowgli going back to the realm of man, baloo still takes mowgli as his charge to make sure that, when he does go back, he can still respect the jungle and keep him as safe as he can in both situations.
what you end up getting is a bagheera and baloo is, in the disney film, are fairly one-note and single-minded in all of their scenes. meanwhile, in the book, you can have situations where scene one and scene two are very much different sides of the same coin; two parts of the personality but very much the same character. the best example is bagheera's behavior in "letting in the jungle", where you have the bagheera afraid of what mowgli's going to do to the man-village... and then giddily accepting that he has a part to play when mowgli informs him of it and carrying it out in the same regal and concerned-about-mowgli's-well-being manner in both scenes.
4) characterization of kaa
hoooooo boy. it cannot be denied that the disney kaa is where one of the fetishes came from. but damn... in a one-on-one kipling's kaa would put disney's kaa to shame.
this is not including how disney's kaa sounds like herbert from "family guy" and thus the pedophile jokes.
this does include that the kaa we have in disney is a powerful predator with an intimidating skill, but one who both only has a sole motivation in each scene and becomes one-note plus getting a little too caught up in his own pride and conceit to be a true threat. in fact, I would say both of the times he nearly wins it's rather less his own skill than the fact that mowgli is a little shit and too stupid for his own damn good (seriously, how did this f*ckin brat survive 10 years in the jungle by now!?). he's not one to be taken lightly, but at the same time a smarter protag along the lines of kipling's characters would likely have zero trouble dispatching him. he's also only motivated by hunger, less a blue-and-orange morality than a neutral party who's an antagonist by virtue of you're not supposed to root for mowgli to get eaten. but, depending on your p.o.v., even if you're not in it for the fetish content you likely will be rooting for that because mowgli's that stupid and he makes kaa look smart by comparison.
kipling's kaa is a true force of nature. head like a battering ram, capable of powers of fascination (read: hypnosis) that can knock the socks off dozens or potentially hundreds of potential victims, a temperament that even the wisest are afraid to cross, strength that even baloo and bagheera (the mightiest warriors and some of the most feared even in lore) can't match, and a mind like a steel trap with at least a hundred years behind it. kaa in kipling's mythology is treated as damn near a physical god and potentially borderline eldritch given how the other jungle creatures react to him.
and then you have his relationship with mowgli.
kaa's relationship with mowgli does two things. it first displays exactly how powerful and knowledgeable kaa really is that even the older mowgli is in later stories, where baloo and bagheera are starting to run out of things to teach him, kaa still can. but secondly, kaa's portrayal is one of the best and most sympathetic for any snake you can find. it's shown early on: "a brave heart and a courteous tongue. they shall carry thee far through the jungle, manling." kaa's first direct line to mowgli is a compliment - unveiled, without any sort of malicious intent, non-deceptive, and one of the first to fully give respect to mowgli. my favorite bit of kaa's characterization comes from the story "red dog": mowgli, looking for kaa, trips over him and kaa gets moody, but the moment he figures out it's mowgli who disturbed him, kaa drops the moodiness. these two are fire-forged friends: a young outcast and a temperamental but wise and surprisingly understanding emotional support. while still clearly showing his status as a force of nature, kaa is the weird benevolent half-god who intervenes when the time is right and the situation is as clearly out of our main protagonist's hands as much as can be stated.
most people who like jungle book fantasize about encountering disney's kaa and how that could go wrong. me, I want an encounter with kipling's kaa a-la "the king's ankus", where he and mowgli can bathe in the pool and participate in wrestling matches yet neither is in fear of the other, where one feels safe not in a false sense of lulled security but in a strange partnership-cum-friendship with someone who absolutely could snuff you out yet displays a surprising amount of gentleness and respect.
I go on about this point for so long because kaa's first appearance in both media is what cued me in onto how different these were and what the problem with the disney film is. by kaa's first appearance in disney's film, you have a whiny protagonist who isn't making things easier to root for him, a supporting character who is already settled into his position and won't see much more character development, and an antagonist whose motivations aren't much more fleshed out than our protagonists. at that point, if you aren't just entirely giving up and settling in for a popcorn flick, fully setting your disbelief aside, the animation quality is really the only thing going for it. by kaa's first appearance in kipling's second story, we've already seen two sides to every single character included in the disney film (except hathi, who is also a travesty but hadn't appeared yet in the kipling stories) and have both a protagonist and supporting characters we actually can root for because the emotional problems are much more than simple vanity and hedonism. and our support characters aren't the primary driving force but emotional and narrative bolsters that help progress but don't dominate the story.
if you like disney's jungle book? fine. but if you want to absolutely have your perception ruined of it, read the books. and in either case, at least do me a favor: realize that the disney film and continuity, by this point, is in name only to how the original books go. not adapted, hardly even inspired by, just with everything lifted off and pasted onto something completely different.