Yes, you read that correct.

Remember the thread I made 3 months ago about Sam Maggs writing Star Trek comics?

https://kotakuinaction2.win/p/17r9N9IYuv/sam-maggs-is-now-writing-star-tr/c/

Well in issue 3 Picard gets mentally raped by a classmate

https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Star-Trek-Picard-s-Academy/Issue-3?id=223257#12

And then physically beaten by the same classmate after Picard tries to push the rapist away.

https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Star-Trek-Picard-s-Academy/Issue-3?id=223257#13

And nothing happens about it.

No charges filed. No firing of the cadet who just raped another. Nothing.

Because it happens to a man.

Those of you who will have seen older ST media may remember the concept of mind raping to have been addressed before. Deanna gets mind raped in both the TNG series and later Nemesis movie. T'Pol has a male vulcan force a mind-meld on her in Enterprise that has lasting consequences to her health for several series. Other series also looked into this but as was the case with Deanna and T'Pol the one being mind raped was always a woman.

In this comic Sam Maggs writes Picard being forcefully mindscanned, something likened to rape by many telepathic species both in Star Trek and other franchises, yet there are absolutely zero consequences brought towards the rapist.

So that's Sam Maggs now with "rape advocate and fetishist" to add to the list of things when describing just how badly any works written are.

I'm not really reading as much comic wise as I used to because the genius decision was made to return the X-Men to the "status quo" of being next to extinct and hunted, which require wiping out the majority of the existing mutant population for like the third time and forcing various other stupid plots through in order to set up drama. All this instead of exploring something new because Marvel is incapable of that, much like Disney.

Anyway, the topic at hand, X-Men Blue 2023 has retconned Nightcrawler's parents from Mystique and Azazel to Mystique and... Destiny.

https://i.ibb.co/c14ngV2/017.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/hfhLqmJ/018.jpg

So no longer is Nightcrawler the child of what is basically a red version of himself and someone that is blue, now he's the child of someone who can see visions of the future [badly], and someone blue.

Oh and Mystique is no longer his mother, she's now his father because she's been retconned from "shapeshifter" to SUPREME TRANS OVERLXRD "gene-shaper".

Now there might be some of you that had vague notions of this because it was supposedly Chris Claremont's original idea back in the 80s but the world wasn't woke enough yet for this. Now however, despite Claremont himself being under attack in 2022 with attempts to cancel him, the story has been made canon. Until the next retcon that is.

Eugenics eat your heart out.

Keep in mind these two characters are two of the worst in the X-Men lineup. They are the reason the Days of Future Past timeline happens. It's Destiny's visions and Mystique's actions that lead to the assassination of Robert Kelly and the eventual rise of the Sentinels. More recently the Sins of Sinister timeline happens because Destiny wants to spend more time with Mystique as in every other timeline one or both of them die earlier. That's how selfish they are, plunging the entire galaxy into a nightmare hellscape because they want to snuggle for 5 more minutes.

So normally when I make one of these I post various pics from the comic but since I'm reading these on the high seas anyway I figured I'd be an extra grumpy bastard and actually link the entire thing for people here to suffer through.

Note, use an ad-blocker. Seriously.

https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Star-Trek-Picard-s-Academy

Basics: It's a Picard prequel comic when he's at the academy set in 2325 decades away from any show material.

It's written by Sam Maggs. Yes, that Sam Maggs.

I was expecting the comic to be shit. I was no disappointed, the cover alone shows the modern woke trend of "diverse" characters, and why the fuck one of them is wearing glasses is anyone's guess since that's all but eliminated with the exception of a rare allergy to the modern cure which was the reason Kirk needed reading glasses.

I was expecting blatant pandering and shitty references to occur. Again I was not disappointed. Picard not only doesn't like tea [yet], but when offered it he is warned "Careful, it's hot." Oh Sam you retarded wetwipe, that line wasn't anywhere near as witty as you thought it was nor however much anyone then praised you for it.

The dumb cameos don't help things either.

For anyone wanting to further lose brain cells you can check what other works have been done by Sam Maggs. The tl;dr is Captain Marvel, Critical Role, and My Little Pony.

I. Shit. You. Not.

So Stellaris, the "4X" game by Paradox, is releasing various updates to some of its older, previously "cosmetic" DLCs which includes the Humanoid pack. In these updates are two new portrait options that are being described as "Elves".

Behold, "elves": https://i.ibb.co/1f3ZyxJ/elves2.jpg

Don't worry, they come in many colours, the fact the default option is brown is totally a coincidence.

https://i.ibb.co/wLrcCqQ/dfa5a33825065088193e525adb199e510ad02a7e.png

https://i.ibb.co/HGD7DJZ/eec8cf19bf79a5de08f7069acceb264e38cef117.png

Do note that so far that second image is still labelled as "Females", so wait and see how soon that changes to "Body Type 2" or something else.

The second set aren't much better: https://i.ibb.co/ZSDWdJ5/085749c6cadb73a8aeb68cf0be5b83dd18d47db2.png

The response has been somewhat cathartic with many players calling out the new designs as of a quality not befitting a game such as Stellaris which has been running for 7 years now.

There are also some very expected comments about how the portraits have certain slants towards actual human appearances. As well as bats.

Some of the nicknames for the portraits even include "Nubians" more so because they look less like Elves rather than more like certain Human groups.

Keep in mind Stellaris is the game which previously banned certain mods that would skew leader/population appearances in certain ways, in this case towards Caucasian, however as is known by many here it's acceptable when The Message is "correct.

Oh and a final point, these changes to the past DLCs are coming with a price hike. Those who have them won't be charged extra but a previously cheaper tier of DLCs that added in species content instead of "Story content" as the larger DLCs are referred to is now on par with the newer DLCs which brings the total DLC cost for Stellaris to something like $270.