#professorsparklepants

We as a society don't deserve the glory of the Spider-Man newspaper comic.

The post about creative teams reminding you is perfect really because a thing people overlook memeing on the newspaper comic is this was Lee/Romita! For a respectable chunk of years! Possibly their newspaper strip run accumulated to a more one on one collaboration than their iconic ASM run had? I don't feel like fact checking that; don't quote me on that.

I could call that era 616-lite, but honestly, in many ways it's more like concentrated essence of 616. It's like the essential oil of 616. Including how you should exercise caution before applying it directly to your skin.

It's really just fascinating to watch how their styles kept evolving after the main comic transferred to other hands. Romita Sr.'s later inking is just, unf, and it's really a privilege to get to see it in black and white because of the format. And even after he dipped Stan Lee remained insane in the newsprint arena for, even accounting for decades of ghostwriting, way longer than he ever wrote ASM itself. It's bizarre that the newspaper strip exists.

BAD BITCHES ONLY!!! 😤

this isn't your fandom but SOMEONE needs to know that someone else, actually, did write a Silmarillion fic in which [mumbles faintly about timelines] Sauron grabbed Finrod's spirit when he died and shoved him into a baby werewolf, and took baby werewolf!Finrod with him when he fled from Lúthien, and baby werewolf!Finrod grew up into at least teenage werewolf!Finrod in the time it took Lúthien and Beren to catch up, and he doesn't really remember being an elf but he DOES remember that a) he doesn't want to be here and b) he likes Those Other People. They smell like Home and Good Things. So he sneaks out and, after some romping around the forest and adopting a pack of non-were wolves, he finds them...

And the fic ENDS there, which is perfectly fine for a fic but it HAUNTS me as a prompt for more. Werewolf!Finrod! Just torment that elf down to his barest essentials: giant friendly golden retriever who can and will be terrifying and deadly if necessary, particularly in defense of his mortal friends! Werewolf!Finrod giving rides to baby Dior, and then to baby Elwing (out of Doriath), and then to babies Elrond and Elros (and maybe very begrudgingly accompanying them to go with the Fëanorians, whom he vaguely recognizes as Family and Trustworthy With Children, even if they both smell more like blood and fire than anything else, now). (This dramatically diminishes the plausibility of "we're holding them for ransom", but...they were unlikely to hurt those kids anyway, giant blond werewolf guardian or not.)

Werewolf!Finrod whose howls send all but the strongest spirits to their knees in terror and despair, because it is all the power of Finrod Felagund but filtered through a form chosen by Sauron. Werewolf!Finrod whose friends definitely debated mercy-killing him but, like, he seemed okay? And Melian a) did Something to be (almost entirely) sure he couldn't be outright commanded by any Dark Powers again, but b) thought Sauron probably still had first dibs if he died again. Werewolf!Finrod who maybe wasn't generally known to be a werewolf - or, was obviously a werewolf, but wasn't generally known to be Finrod, because none of the above is exactly reassuring, you know? Especially if you didn't know him well enough as an elf to now look him in his big wolfy eyes and say, "Oh yeah, that's my guy, he's still himself." It's just another giant canine whom Lúthien befriended while rescuing her bf, stealing a Silmaril, etc. What, like it's hard?

...Which means it's eventually up to Elrond and Elros to explain this all to Finrod's parents and fiancé, when they arrive for the War of Wrath.

(Finrod is sitting next to them whipping the floor with his tail because Mom! Dad! Girl I was going to marry and live in a beautiful house full of shiny things and go on adventures and have pups with?! If he properly remembered being an elf, his feelings at this reunion would be much more complicated; as is, he's just restraining himself from happily jumping on anyone again. It's rude to make people with swords nervous and there's actually enough of them here to cause him problems, which means he wouldn't be able to properly protect his half-grown half-elf pups, which is still the most important thing.)

right?

I just

frustration with the system, I entirely get. frustration with politicians, absolutely

Emma!! Here's Gen being a lil viper!