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Note to self: “friends of Dazzler” = “friends of Dorothy”

(Love Unlimited Infinity Comic)

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I hate that these coordinates are in the wrong part of New York State. If Warren is 57 miles east of them, the X-Mansion must be somewhere near Buffalo, New York.

Yes, I searched the coordinates because I am that pedantic right now. Warren should be about 210 miles northwest of Salem Center, New York.

𝕩-𝕞𝕖𝕟: 𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕤𝕥 𝕔𝕝𝕒𝕤𝕤 (𝟚𝟘𝟘𝟞)

issue #7

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Agatha All Along Finale Thoughts (A Lot of Them)

Honestly, found the finale kind of a let down. It felt so lackluster and wobbly compared to how insanely strong and awesome Lilia’s episode had been last week. I have a LOT of thoughts and here’s what I felt about each part (spoilers below cut):

About Rio/Death:

I feel like a lot about Rio/Death kinda of fell flat because of a) how they fought her, and b) Agatha turning into a ghost.

The fight felt weirdly lackluster to me. Partly because it somewhat devolved into CGI effects when this whole show has relied on more practical stuff, but also because of the way Agatha flip flopped between (seemingly) legitimately trying to offer Billy to Rio and trying to defend him by sacrificing herself. Clearly, Agatha is projecting Nicholas onto Billy, so why even bother with her still offering him up in the final battle? Why not have Agatha say that she’s not gonna let Rio take another boy she cares about before his prime and give her a heroic sacrifice and redemption?

Since we know that Rio said Billy would have to kill himself, since Rio can’t kill him herself, so why not instead have Rio try and egg Billy into offing himself by feeding his fears that by trying to find/save Tommy, Billy has killed an innocent boy. Rio hands Billy her knife and Billy tries to kill himself but Agatha stops him, takes the knife and stabs herself instead.

Plus, Agatha turning into a ghost so quickly really cheapens Rio as a villain. The whole point of her is that she is inescapable, and this is Agatha finally reaching the end of the road, both the Witches’ Road and her own life. For her to come back as a ghost immediately shows that this ending has no real importance or weight, and that Rio/Death is a kinda pathetic villain. All that build up just for Agatha to essentially escape immediately? Why not have Agatha reach the afterlife, see Nicholas, and feel like she needs to help at least one other boy achieve his live goals before she can stand to face Nicolas? So she begs Rio to let her right this wrong and Rio maybe reluctantly agrees? Or maybe even Rio says that Agatha got a long time before Rio lets her go again, and have Agatha return as a ghost only after Billy has reached some other hardship in the future and he summons her for help, letting her serve as a surprise return?

About Nicholas:

How does Nicholas’ story make any continuity sense? Doesn’t this episode contradict the hallucination Agatha had in episode 3? Why would she hallucinate seeing Nicholas’ cradle with the darkhold inside of that never even happened? Everyone else had hallucinations that were accurate and reflected their real traumas. Why does Agatha have one that is based on rumors? Is it meant to be that Agatha’s worst fear/trauma is what the others think of her? Cause that seems incredibly out of character.

Also, was Agatha killing witches to keep Nicholas alive longer, or just because she was greedy and wanted their power? I really wasn’t sure; it wasn’t super clear.

Why not have Agatha be tempted by the darkhold and sacrifice Nicholas for it, only for her to regret it and try to bring him back, so she kills witches/makes human sacrifices to Rio in an attempt to balance it out? This way, the line about the truth being worse than what actually happened is still correct? Cause honestly I don’t know how the truth is somehow worse than the rumor that she sold Nicholas for the darkhold. The kid just died randomly in his sleep.

About The Road/The Ballad:

I’m also not a huge fan of the Ballad being something Agatha and Nicholas just made up. It feels like it cheapens both the experiences of the coven as a whole and especially Lorna and Alice’s deaths. Their whole lives circled around the song, so for it to all turn out to be one of Agatha’s cons feels dirty.

Plus, if the ballad was a real song (whether the Road itself was real or not doesn’t even matter), I think it could have been a better push for Agatha to become a better mentor for Billy. The idea being that Agatha had tried to reach it in the past but failed because she just wasn’t Scarlet Witch levels of powerful would’ve given her a reason to steal other witches’ powers, thinking that she could maybe get around Rio and bring Nicholas back to life by defeating the Road. At some point, she’s become so powerful but still can’t reach the Road, so she figures it must be a myth and concedes to using it as a con to trick witches, only for Billy to finally open/create the Road himself. This shows Billy as being on a whole other level of power from Agatha, setting him up to be even more powerful than her or Wanda.

About Jen:

Hell yeah Jen survived the road. But what did she do that was so important in the last trial? Didn’t Lilia say Jen was going to be important? All she did was figure out how to unbind herself, and then Billy and Agatha figured out the rest in their own. Also, her leaving without tying up the loose ends or even saying goodbye to Billy afterwards felt wrong. Her arc was coming to care about the others. So why did she disappear as soon as she left the road? I think Billy being shocked to see her all covered in dirt in his room would’ve been a better ending, especially since I think she would be more empathetic towards Billy and understanding of his fear that he killed the others on the road. Plus, she could’ve then asked him if he got what he wanted out of the Road, which he could use as his segue into Finding Tommy.

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Compilation of Silver Age X-Men Sexism

(X-Men (1963) #17, 25, 36, 53, 57)

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I am so confused by this panel. Lorna literally does nothing but get saved by Iceman in this issue, and then when she finally does something, it’s off panel? Why would they make her do something so important, and then not even show it? Did the artist forget to draw this part, so they just wrote around it?

(X-Men (1963) #51)

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So many questions. Unfortunately, none of them can be answered, because even the editor couldn’t find the issue where they wrote this ridiculous idea.

How is quicksilver even flying? Did someone give him this power? Is it a temporary new mutation? Is he just flapping his arms at super speed?

I guess I’ll never know, cause not even Stan Lee himself could tell you where the latest writer came up with this bullshit.

(X-Men (1963) #44)

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Wouldn’t this make it impossible for him to sleep? He would never be able to fall asleep if his eyes get blown open whenever they’re closed for too long and his eyelids get tired. Unless he literally wears some kind of sleep mask/eye cover every time he tries to sleep? Do his powers turn off when he sleeps? I assume so, otherwise no one could never knock him out without him waking himself up automatically.

I mean it’s pretty typical for comics to not make a ton of sense scientifically but this is incredibly distracting to me.

I’m sorry, even his eyelids couldn’t stop his powers? Has Scott ever had this happen on-panel? How would that even work?

Would his eyelids be completely blown off, like Chamber’s jaw? Would he simply be unable to close his eyes?

(X-Men (1963) #29)

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I’m sorry, even his eyelids couldn’t stop his powers? Has Scott ever had this happen on-panel? How would that even work?

Would his eyelids be completely blown off, like Chamber’s jaw? Would he simply be unable to close his eyes?

(X-Men (1963) #29)

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This has been a PSA.

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I am begging you please to draw more Brainiac 5 and Koko.

Really any legion of superheroes material, but especially Brainiac 5 and Koko.

I need more Brain boy and monkey

I Am so sorry for the VERY VERY LATE reply ! Was so busy with other stuff lol. But here's some doodles, I love brain boy and his monkey too

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I agree, the symbolism of his name being spelled 蛍 is perfect! Because of Grave of the Fireflies and also because of how fleeting fireflies’ lifespans are at only 2 months.

I also was confused by 熱る being read as ほとる. I’ve never seen that reading before? Even the dictionary I was using assumed I misspelled ホテル.

Well, his name is 蛍 in my brain now 😂

Is deathdream’s real name correct Japanese? It says his name is Hotoru (ホトル)? I assumed it was a typo and it should be Hotaru (ほたる).

Just finished reading Uncanny X-Men #3 and his name is still Hotoru…

I too have been thinking about this ever since Hotoru's Cerebro Scan came out. I was relieved to find someone else who was wondering the same thing, if his name is really Hotoru and not Hotaru.

If his name is Hotaru(ほたる), it can be written as "蛍" in Kanji and it also means firefly, so I think it's a name that fits his ability. (There's a Japanese animated film called "Hotaru no Haka(Grave of the Fireflies)" that I think could easily be associated with this.)

But in the case of Hotoru(ほとる), Idk how to write it in Kanji and it's not familiar to me even when I speak Japanese. I searched for it in Hiragana and found that it means "熱る(burning up)".

Anyway, I'm not a specialist in that kind of thing, nor am I the writer of Uncanny X-Men, so I'm not sure if it's a typo, or has both meanings, or if there's some other reason.🤔

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it’s been 3.5 months but I’m back. I’m such a slowpoke.

@mjf-af @future-boi @knickynoo hope you guys like

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you’re flabbergasted? *I’m* flabbergasted. I wrote an average of almost 700 words a day. I usually write that in a week, I’m such a slowpoke.

this was incredibly fun, and I hope everyone else enjoyed it too!

✨Last Day of McFly July!!✨

🎸⚡️AH! Thank you to everyone who took part in McFly July this year!!! 🕰️⚡️

Is it just me, or is this community getting more skillful and creative than ever? I found myself invested in everyone's fics and art this month in a way that blew away all Julys before. And your dedication! What!!!

BIG shoutout to: @arumidden @daryfromthefuture @bg-sparrow (and @bgsbracelets) @pinwheel-plant @moonlightandstarshimmer and @doctorbrown

for completing every single day's prompt--and this year there were DOUBLE the prompts, so you get DOUBLE the acclaim!!! Like are you kidding me? That's 62 pieces of fanart or fanfic from each of you. ARE YOU KIDDING?

I am flabbergasted and overjoyed with the support and love and hours of time and hard work you all have put into this project. Whether you participated one day, three days, or the whole month, I am so grateful to have you here and I hope you had fun! 🧡

If you weren't able to complete all the prompts you wanted to, you are not alone! Some folks will be working through them in August. I’ll keep an eye out in the #mcflyjuly tag for you!!

Until next year! 🌲🌲

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MCFLY JULY ‘24 — blind spot.

JANUARY 11, 1986

The key turns in the front door, the winter chill rushing into the house. A moment later, the hall light turns on.

“Mom? You awake?” 

Sylvia smiles at the sound of her son’s voice, putting down her crochet things on the end table.  

“We’re in here, Georgie!” 

Carefully, she stands, easing her grandson’s head off her lap and tucking a pillow underneath. She’s pretty sure the kid must’ve been an acrobat in another life; there’s no way he’d be able to sleep all twisted up like a pretzel otherwise. She readjusts the blanket she’d put over him, smoothing down his hair, before meeting her son and daughter-in-law halfway.

“Well, how was the party?” she asks, leaning up against the breakfast bar as George and Lorraine hang up their coats. “You two crazy kids have fun hobnobbin’ with the head honchos at Simon & Schuster?” 

“It was nice, Mom, thanks,” George answers, way too dismissively for a party he’d been talking about for weeks, full of editors and publishers and everything he’d always dreamed of, “but–”

“How was Marty?” Lorraine interrupts, urgently.

Here we go. Finally, some answers.

“Lorrie, honey, you know Artie and I always love bein’ with the kids,” Sylvia begins, and she meant it, even though Artie had called it a night about three hours ago and was now snoring loud enough to shake the walls, “but seventeen goin’ on eighteen’s a little old for a babysitter, don’t you think?” 

“Oh, we’ve just been so worried about him, Sylvia,” Lorraine pleads, eyes wide. “We… we didn’t think it would be a good idea to leave him alone.” 

“For the last few months,” George elaborates, wrapping an arm around his wife and holding her close, “he hasn’t been himself. He doesn’t sleep, he’s been having nightmares… he’s been having memory problems, too, and I know he’s a teenager, but sometimes he’ll get in his own head and it’s like… he’s not even here, like he goes somewhere else instead.”

“He’ll get so confused,” Lorraine agrees, “and-and he used to love thunderstorms but now he’s just so afraid of them and... other things… sometimes it even feels like he's afraid of us…” She bites her lip and buries herself into George. 

It breaks Sylvia’s heart to see them like this; in mourning for the boy who’s alive and breathing and fast asleep on the couch. Just a few hours ago her and Marty were singing along to the radio while making dinner and laughing until they cried trying to play games on his Nintendo while eating Lucky Charms by the bowlful.

“We must’ve missed something,” George murmurs, “something must’ve happened to him and we missed it somehow.”

“We’ve just been so busy,” Lorraine laments, “too busy. I-I thought it was the stress… with college applications and everything changing… but even Jennifer and Doctor Brown don’t know what’s wrong.”  

Sylvia isn’t quite sure she buys that. 

She may not know a lot of things, but she does know that Carl Sagan from 1931 certainly doesn’t look like that nice young man on PBS from a couple years back but did look a whole lot like that whiz kid Emmett and even more like her grandson’s best friend, that nice Doctor Brown, that Emmett grew up to be. 

She also knows that Sonny Crockett (who is pretty much all they talked about at dinner tonight) is from one of Marty’s favorite shows, not that kid from 1931 with her grandson’s sweet blue eyes and a fake mustache.

She even remembers George begging her and Artie to help him get all dolled up for some dance at the last minute and talking all about how he wasn’t going with a date but he was going to meet up with his new friend Marty there.

Not to mention the date on that Bubble Bobble game of his is two years from now.

When you grow up around liars and cheats, you get to be really good at noticing things. 

“So how was he tonight?” George asks again. “Really?”

“Georgie, sweetheart, he was fine,” Sylvia emphasizes. “We had a great time. As for the other stuff… Remember what you were like when you were his age? I sure do. Any time your dad and I got near ya we’d have to promise we weren’t tryin’ to look in your journals. Even if we were just givin’ you a hug!”

They crack a smile at this, George at least having the decency to look sheepish.

“Whatever’s going on with Marty,” she continues, “he’ll tell ya when he’s good and ready. And remember: you’re great parents. He loves you. He’d do anything for you. Just be there for him until then and let him know that you love him too. No matter what.”

Sylvia looks over her shoulder at her sleeping grandson, a fond smile and a mischievous look in her eye.

We got a lot to talk about, kiddo. I’m ready when you are.

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It’s the final day of McFly July! Today is the two Pepsi Free writes. I did one angsty one and one happy one, to end on a high note.

I’m sad the month is over! I’ve had so much fun! Happy McFly July, everyone! I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did. I’ve absolutely adored being immersed in this franchise for an entire month.

I’m gonna try and keep up my new habit of writing at least once every day and get back to work on my other BTTF fic, Time is Just a Place. Wish me luck!