#i feel like humpty dumpty in the way that i will never be put back together again

[thekingofspin]

I feel like 10 the way im shouting at the screen.

"Regenerate, just regenerate, please, PLEASE JUST REGENERATE"

[queenofbaws]

Back to being annoying with my hyperfixation. Could I please get jossam for any one of the dialogue prompts?

After everything that had gone down, his head felt like it was full of sludge. Not whatever weird, gauzy, cotton-daze bullshit Cochise talked about after a migraine, but straight up sludge. It was as though someone had sawed his skullcap off, poured in a handful of liquid concrete, then went along their merry way to leave him scrambling for a way to keep himself upright.

Everything behind his eyes felt heavy. Thick.

Sludge, Josh thought as he lowered his head into his arms to block out the emptiness of the room the rangers had sequestered him in, that about summed it up.

"None of us are supposed to go to sleep, you know."

Through the sluggish ooze of his thoughts, he noticed the effect her voice had; there was a distance between him and it, however, making him feel like a scientist taking down observational notes instead of...well. Whatever he was anymore.

The chair beside his was pulled from the table, the legs scraping against the linoleum. Sam smelled like smoke and sweat and antiseptic - hardly the kind of thing you bottled and sold - but even so, he could feel the way his pulse quickened in his wrists. His heart triphammered beneath his ribs. All the fight and flight had gone from him by then, and he'd never been one for freezing or fawning, but still that adrenaline remained, begging him to do something, anything.

He kept his heavy head in his arms.

Sam let out a quiet breath. A sigh. He'd watched her climb her way out of the mines, hand over hand and foot over foot; he couldn't begin to imagine how tired she must've been, how exhausted. And yet here she was, sitting in the dark with him, flinching every time the watercooler in the corner bubbled.

"Until they can figure out if we're concussed or...you know."

For someone who'd spent the last nine months or so gestating a mad scientist scheme, it took him an awfully long time to connect her two statements together. He told himself it was the sludge - the come-down from whatever break he'd suffered down there in the belly of the beast - not him, never him.

She was quiet for a long, long time beside him. "You scared us all back there," she admitted after a while, her tone light despite the sandpaper rasp in her throat. "Including me."

A lifetime passed.

"Especially me."

He dug his fingers into his arms, strengthening the wall between them. Already his eyes were shut, but he squeezed them tighter for fear of catching the slightest glimpse of her expression. After everything he'd survived, there was no question in his mind that would kill him.

She took a deep breath. One of her nostrils whistled faintly with the effort. With that same scientific distance, he found himself wondering how hurt she really was, whether things had broken inside of her that couldn't be put back together, Humpty-Dumpty style. He wondered too, how much of that was his handiwork.

"Don't scare me like that again, okay?" she asked, and then there was a weight on his shoulder that could only be her head, a pressure around his middle that could only be her arms. "I can't lose you too."

And even the heaviness of his own thoughts, the thick, sludgy mess inside his head, couldn't protect him from the hitch in her voice. Or the tears he felt soaking into his sleeve.

[i-logophile]

So I made that playlist for Game of Shards (and just generally, the turtles), and I've decided to explain the TGP-specific songs in excessive detail bc y'all don't understand the depths of my hyper-fixations.

For the most part, the playlist is in chronological order; however, some of the songs are grouped by general vibes (e.g., songs for Leo's various timeouts in the darkness are all grouped together as opposed to being chronological with the story), and whenever it switches perspective, it may go back to previous chapters (e.g., the first 40-ish songs follow Leo through Ch. 1-7, and then it jumps back to Ch 2 for his brothers' POVs). Instrumentals/OSTs are scattered throughout as interludes between scenes and/or perspectives.

Tbh I don't even mind if people actually read this; I just wanted to write this down lmao

If y'all have any suggestions or song recs, feel free to put them out there! (I reserve the right not to add them to the playlist tho—no hard feelings 🙃) I will probably continue adding to this list because I keep finding more and more songs lol

TGP spoiler alert (duh...). Also TW for mental health issues in some songs.

ROTTMNT Movie

1. "Everybody Loves Me" - Okay, but this song is just like LEO all the way. 2. "give a little." - Leo, stop that angsty middle-child nonsense (saxophone slaps tho). 3. "Expectations" - I ain't got much to say about this one tbh. I feel like it fits the vibe though. 4. "Doomsday" - Leo's getting frustrated with all this leader/hero business. He wants to go back to the simpler times when all he had to do was look pretty and smooth talk. 5. "Not OK" - Leo's tired of being told what to do. the lyrics "Sorry can you please repeat the question? / I'm broke, and I never pay attention" really give that Leo+Raph scene in Leo's room in the movie. 6. "ight bet" - Leo gets cocky and impulsive. 7. "One Wrong Turn" - It's not so much the lyrics as the theme of the song. In other words, Leo, you done fxcked up. "Something funny that I've learned / Is just how quickly fate can turn / How one simple mistake can take you out (out, out, out) / Something funny that I've found / Is just how quickly worlds burn down / Make one wrong turn and you can't turn around ('round, 'round, 'round) / One wrong turn can burn things to the ground." 8. "The Tornado" - LISTEN TO THESE LYRICS. They fit the movie perfectly, especially "Every fiber in me screamed out, but I couldn't make a sound / The whirling of a vortex, a violent carousel / It sounded like a freight train was draggin' me to hell / And this was my prayer / "Save me from this terrible nightmare!" / That was when I saw my family with my eyes shut real tight / Would they know how much I loved them if this was how I died? / No, I vowed I'd not be murdered by a monster in the sky that night." 9. "Otherside" - Leo's existential crisis following the Invasion Pt. 1 10. "When I Die" - Leo's existential crisis following the Invasion Pt. 2.

TGP Ch. 1: Leo Reminiscing

11. "Hold It Down" - More existential crisis, but now with that ever-familiar side of guilt and regret. 12. "Humpty Dumpty" - Something's wrong (*cough* PTSD *cough* chronic injuries *cough*). Leo's trying to push through it. 13. "Home" - The lyrics "When I fall, will you show me who I'm meant to be? / Because I'm getting tired of who I've become", "I'm not a hero or a child, I'm just something in between", and "Days passed as I would start to scream / I'd hear the words around my head like they were circling / You'll never be who they all want you to become / Oh will I make them proud enough / Or am I even worth the love / Don't let my self-doubt take my pride away, yeah / Because my spirit felt the cuts / And my ego lost its luster just as fast as I could say" hits my soul. Poor Leo. 14. "Growing Sideways" - Leo's brothers all seem to be healing, why isn't he? 15. "Superkid" - Leo's a ninja, a hero, yet something is still wrong—he realizes it's him. He surveys the damage to the city and thinks of the struggles his family has faced. He blames himself. ("So, hide your face / Smile at the people even if it's fake / 'Cause they can't know your kryptonite / Fly around the city, make 'em think you're fine / But you can't save them.") 16. "Tread On Me" - Leo's trying to take responsibility, but he's drained. "Lotta miles, lotta folds, I'm still tryin' to just get back up / Don't you tread on me / I could hardly sleep / So I don't / And I can hardly speak / So I won't." "I'm tryna live in the moment like you told me / I'm tryna control it without givin' it up / I'm a soldier and I'm on my feet for now." 17. "Porcelain" - It's the glass theme, guys. 18. "One Winged Airplane" - Self-deprecation with just a touch of despair. ("Even though I keep on fallin', I just pick myself back up / I just keep puttin' my all in, even though it's not enough / I've lost so much already, so what? I'm not afraid to show up.") (I'm biased toward the ADHD songs ngl.) 19. "Corner of the World" - Depression(TM): Leo Style. ("It was tough when he was younger, but he finally got it down / Convincing everybody he's a comic, he's a clown / 'Cause he hides it so well that it can't possibly be found / He's constantly let down, but he says that he heals / He laughs and jokes about it, but it isn't real / He just mirrors the emotions that he wish he could feel / But if no one ever noticed, it's a victory still.")

Ch. 1: Leo's Run

20. "Run Away to Mars" - The song's a vibe, and it fits the scene, what can I say? 21. "Run" - Leo was getting stir-crazy in the lair. Luckily, he can go for a nice run while he waits for the pizzas. ("Something isn't right, I can't hear the inner me / But my shell is doing well, so nobody intervenes / Convos feel like interviews, I get through by any means / Mirror on my face, I'm just displaying what you give to me / Every day I fantasize of burning it all / Go somewhere where I would never be a burden at all / Take every penny that I ever earned and give it away / Disconnect the telephone and disappear in a day.") 22. "run little hero" - "Run, run, run, run from your friends, from your family / Like they're the next calamity / Cut them out like profanity, – into insanity / Running from your commitments / You're running up on the price / You better run little hero / 'Cause you're running out of time." Also, the last lyric of this song killed me. 23. "Run Boy Run" - Just a run, a nice, chill, definitely-not-gonna-have-consequences run.

Ch. 1: Leo and the EPF Van (plus ~panic attacks~)

24. "Paranoia" - Leo notices a black van. Again. And again. 25. "Overwhelmed" - Pretty self-explanatory if you know the song—though this is a different cover than the OG, so a bunch of the lyrics are different. (Personally, I like this version better.)

Ch. 1: Leo v. Mark and Clark

26. "OH WELL" - Everything's gone to shit. 😃 27. "life is good" - Leo cannot, in fact, dodge tranquilizers. "Face down, but I can feel my body moving / Is this real or am I in an illusion / Get up get up I’m only human / Pupils dilated like I’m bout to lose it / so crazy so I turn off the news / Living in a lie and we can’t see the truth / Every one fighting tell me which side are you" 28. "Redecorate" - "I don't want to go like this / At least let me clean my room. / I don't want to leave like this / 'Cause the last thing I want to do is / Make my people make decisions / Wondering what to do." 29. "alive (it's a lie) - demo" - As Leo succumbs to the tranqs, he can't help but think of his brothers, all seemingly on the road to full recovery. Meanwhile, he's stuck. Some ninja he is.

1. Interlude

30. "Sinister Intentions" - Get it? Bc the EPF has sinister intentions? Somebody stop me

Ch. 3: Leo Wakes up and Meets Bishop

31. "Lucky Charms" - Leo wakes up in his cell and thinks lots of lovely self-loathing thoughts. ("Wish I could say, wish I could say / That this won't last forever / But every day, but every day / It never seems to get better / I hate myself but I don't want to / I'd ask for help but I'm too strong to / I got some feelings I've been fighting / Always hiding the truth.") 32. "Now That We're Alone" - Bishop and Leo vibes all the way.

Ch. 3-7: The Darkness (AKA Leo's timeouts) & Bishop's Interrogations

33. "Black Water" - Just listen, you'll get it. 34. "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" - Leo goin' crazy, y'all 😜 35. "Timebomb" - Leo's thoughts toward B-Man during literally every interrogation. 36. "Panic Room" - All bets are off when the lights turn off. 37. "Talking To Myself - demo" - He misses his family, your honor. 38. "Pretty Little Smile" - Leo's trying his best to hold it together. 39. "Ship in a Bottle" - Leo spiraling about Bishop and the EPF and his brothers and... 40. "SAD (Clap Your Hands)" - Thinking specifically of Leo doing the Cup Song here.

2. Interlude

41. "Solas" - Felt like this one was properly somber, but still a good transition into the frantic energy of Leo's brothers in Ch. 2.

Ch. 2-6: Donnie, Raph, & Mikey Want Their Brother Back

42. "Enough" - Donnie is angry at everything. He just wants Leo back. 43. "Me Myself & I" - Donnie regrets fighting with his family. 44. "Happy Song (Low Key)" - Mikey's gonna keep smiling if it kills him. 45. "Brightside" - Mikey tries to hold the family together while dealing with his own issues regarding Leo's capture. 46. "I'm Doing Fine" - Raph struggles under the leader's mantle.

3. Interlude

47. "Glacial Basin" - An appropriately unnerving prelude to Bishop's plan(s).

Ch. 8: Bishop Tries To Manipulate Leo

48. "Twisted" - Leo is (high on pain and painkillers but also) so confused. Come on, Bishop, you're hurting his concussed, drugged-up turtle brain.

Ch. 9: Bioagent-X

49. "Control" - Leo gets angry at Bishop, escapes, and finds his brothers, but he doesn't know what's going on with himself. (I know this song's kinda overused in a lot of fandoms, but I couldn't not include it. I mean, it makes sense here, doesn't it??)

Ch. 10: Turtles v. EPF

50. "Clouds" - Bioagent-X takes its toll. The EPF attacks. 51. "CHOKE" - The plan falls apart. Leo is taken once again. Angst, spice, and nothing is nice.

4. Interlude

52. "Fade (Interlude)" - It's a sad moment, dammit.

Ch. 11-12: They Are All Struggling

53. "everything is falling apart again" - I felt like this song fits Raph very well, especially here. One of his themes in TGP was that he felt like things were falling apart, and since the first half of this chapter is from his perspective following the disaster that was Ch. 10, this was the perfect place for this song. 54. "Gravedigger" - Leo is throwing reason and caution to the wind. If he's his own gravedigger, why not dig his grave as deep as possible and make it even more difficult for the EPF? 55. "Dark Room" - Back home again to his cell and the darkness and Bishop's manipulations. "Way down we go / To the dark room / Where your pain's the only one to greet you / Down we go / To the mind that / Will deceive you. / Only out to get you." 56. "Numb" - Leo struggles with despair. 57. "Headlights" - Leo's had enough. "Is it only me or do you / Ever feel like you've had enough? / Screaming at the top of your lungs / These days it's so dark and I can't get my head right / Mind is spinning out of control / Running, but there's nowhere to go / These days it's so dark that I can't see with headlights."

5. Interlude (and Ch. 12)

58. "Rain, in Your Black Eyes" - I know it's long, but this is my favorite instrumental piece. It's solemn but gradually hopeful. This song follows Leo regaining his Ninpō in Ch. 12.

Ch. 12: A Small Spark, A Blue Flame

59. "Power" - Leo uses his Ninpō and faces down the EPF with his escape in sight.

Ch. 13: Mind Meld

60. "Brother" - They've found him (granted, in the Mind Meld). (And, yes, I know the song's overused yada yada, but it fits.) 61. "can you hear me?" - Leo's gotten this far, but he can't get out alone. 62. "No Chances" - "We want you home in one piece now / We come for you, no chances"

6. Interlude

63. "The Last Survivors" - Cinematic and dramatic.

Ch. 14: Leo Holds On

64. "Come Home" - Leo's trying to come home. 65. "Bones" - Leo plays a desperate, painful game of hide-and-seek while his Ninpō fades in and out of his control. 66. "Bleeding Out" - This song makes me specifically think of when the EPF overtakes Leo after Bishops turns off the lights. 67. "My Tears Are Becoming A Sea" - Leo sees his brothers' light in the impenetrable darkness.

Ch. 14: Hamatos to the Rescue

68. "Flares" - Leo's family is here for him. 69. "Edge of Rain" - Hamatos v. EPF (Take 2)

Ch. 15: They Got Him Back

70. "Call Your Mom" - Yes, I know the song's about Noah Kahan's girlfriend, BUT "Stayed on the line with you the entire night / 'Til you let it out and let it in / Don't let this darkness fool you / All lights turned off can be turned on", "Waiting room, no place to stand / His greatest fears and wringing hands and the loudest silence / If you could see yourself like this", and "Don't wanna drive another mile wonderin' if you're breathin' / So, won't you stay, won't you stay, won't you stay with me?" IT FITS DAMMIT.

Ch. 16: Bishop's Boutta Get It, Guys

71. "Start a War" - Okay, but why does this song describe Game of Shards (not just TGP) so well? I think specifically of the lines: "Bang, shots fired. / Pain is what you desire. / The pen is mightier than the sword." ;)

7. Interlude

72. "Nuvole Bianche" - The send-off. For now.

Once again, feel free to suggest other songs. You may have noticed that some chapters/scenes didn't have any songs, so if you think you know a song that would fit somewhere, lmk! (I'm particularly salty that I haven't found songs for any scenes with the Krang Sister :P)

[uniquejellyfishqueen]

A bandaid wouldn’t be able to cover a metaphorical bullet wound forever. Eventually the wound would either get infected and then you would die, or it would burst back open and never stop bleeding.

If she used black and white for the tortured poets department to imply that because she is broken and battered and wounded that she had lost her colors, but then in that same album she is saying that she is just now getting color back in her face

When you heal, and really heal you have to rip yourself open to the darkness inside, all the painful things that made the wounds in the first place, sometimes those wounds have multiple attached that make up a pattern or web inside that you didn’t even know you were harboring until you took a moment to break yourself apart and put yourself back together just like Humpty Dumpty. But to do that you have to open up the wound again to fix it at its source, you can’t sugar coat it, you can’t cover it up to make it look pretty on the inside only and then feel ugly on the inside and never show your true colors. To show the true you, the authentic version, the colorful version is how you heal the wound. It has to hurt before it feels better. Because thats the thing, it was your wound to begin with not anyone else’s. And if you worry about fixing others wounds before yourself you’ll never be strong enough to heal yourself. Hence the perpetual people pleaser lyric. Or you’re losing me perhaps is about the fact that she was killing herself from the inside out by pleasing everyone but herself. Carrie Underwood did say “I guess it’s gonna have to hurt. I guess I’m gonna have to cry. And let go of some things I’ve loved to get to the other side.”

Her outfits are patterned with colors starting to appear in them. Just like getting color back in her face her true colors are finally starting to surface from within. And it’s her own pattern, it’s never gonna look like someone else. But that is part of the healing, it’s okay with knowing you’re different.

Maybe that is the point of the song ME! She was searching for the true her and to achieve that she had to face the darkness first to come out in the light.

In personal experience, i have realized something that I really wish I would have listened to and looked at way harder. I think advice not only should be listened to but also looked at. once you hear it you need to visualize yourself in the situation and take a moment to process the advice and see how it aligns to your perspective. Therefore I have been trigger happy in all my decision making in my life. Freaking yikes, man. So the thing that I realized is this.. if you start to heal and see that the broken version of yourself isn't really who you are at the true core how can you be okay with staying with a partner that never wants you to find your center? A partner that never wants you to bloom into what you're meant to be. They water you enough till you bloom enough that you don't die but don't give you nearly enough sun to thrive.

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: West Coast Avengers #44: BETTER A WIDOW...

May, 1989

VisionQuest continues

Vision forgot to put his skin on today...

And Hank Pym's 'I'm not like the other superheroes' jumpsuit is awfully maroon today.

Anyway.

Last times on West Coast Avengers: John Byrne took over the book and a bunch of things changed between issues. Tigra, Wasp, and Dr Pym rejoined the team.

Then, a fake-Ultron attacked and Vision was kidnapped and unpersoned while the West Coast Avengers were distracted.

Mockingbird showed up to Explain It All and took the Avengers to the secret Vigilance base where Vision had been taken due to fears he'd try to take over the world again.

Only the West Coast Avengers arrived Too Late. And Wanda found her husband disassembled, his parts strewn everywhere. It'd be way too much gore for comics if he weren't a robot.

Even this splash page is kinda too much, even with robot bits.

My boy! Look how they massacred my boy!

;_;

The various scientist who were just taking Vision apart are very concerned that Scarlet Witch and probably the Avengers are here instead of somewhere else being distracted.

And Wanda is not sympathetic. In fact, she's as angry as someone would be if they found their spouse turned into a pile of anatomy.

Mockingbird, who has still more exposition to exposition, explains this was the end goal of the kidnap Vision scheme. To erase Vision along with any top secret data he may have picked up when he was the internet for a hot minute.

Wonder Man shows up with project head Cameron Brock under arm and tells him to exposition more.

And since Vision has already been taken apart, Brock has no problem spilling the beans.

Vigilance is not a KGB operation but they are involved running the detention cells, which is why Mockingbird thought it was a KGB operation.

Brock reveals, he's not KGB and he's not SHIELD either. He's CANADIAN.

DUN DUN DUNNNN

Wonder Man jokes about the concept of Canadian spies, showing that he has never heard of Wolverine. He then jokes about Australia, because he's going for all the hits.

Brock goes 'well actually my deputy chief is Australian.'

And he explains that Vigilance is actually a truly worldwide joint venture. Almost every security network on Earth sent a representative.

The Americans, the British, the French, the Russians, etc etc.

The kind of global cooperation almost unheard of -- all to specifically fuck up Vision.

Brock reiterates what he told Mockingbird. As long as Vision wasn't on the Avengers, everybody was willing to grit their teeth and let bygones be whatevers. But as soon as he rejoined (because Hawkeye was a sad sack who couldn't keep together a team), all the intelligence agencies put aside their differences to fuck up Vision.

Global peace, just like Vision wanted when he took over the internet. What ironies.

Wanda claims that Vision can be put back together. He is a robotty robot so clearly they just reassemble him and good as new.

Hank Pym shows up just to say nuh uh.

This is a theme in this issue. People showing up in the nick of time to say nuh uh.

Even though Hank is an expert in robotics despite being a biochemist and even though he's more familiar with Vision's systems than almost anyone, he's skeptical that humpty dumpty can be put back together again.

If Vision's brain was erased like Mockingbird said, Hank has no idea how to deal with that.

Wanda says that they can just borrow some brain patterns from Wonder Man again and use the backup memory file that Vision kept in the Avengers' computers.

Again, with this idea that Vision's brain is a computer that can be uploaded to external storage. I feel like that's at odds with how Vision has been portrayed in the past.

But it doesn't matter.

Vigilance wiped the Avengers' computer systems with a virus. Both the East and West Coast teams. There's no back-up.

(This is where John Byrne put in a backdoor, as some writers do when writing something that may be contentious. In this case, his backdoor to get out of this was that there's a copy of Vision's brain in the Titan supercomputer ISAAC. From the time that Vision linked with ISAAC.)

(John Byrne also uses the idea that Vision's brain can just be backed up as evidence that Vision isn't a real boy and is just an overly sophisticated appliance. The idea that he introduced. Sigh.)

With all the problems on the table, Hank says lets ignore the fact that Vision's unique personality is probably gone forever, erased by magnets or whatever. Just putting all the pieces back together is going to be hard enough.

Heck, the Vision was built from the base of the original Human Torch, the most sophisticated android ever created. That might be beyond Hank's level of skill!

And then Wasp shows up and goes nuh uh!

Not about Hank not being able to do it but about the thing he said about the robot Human Torch.

The shocking prisoner she found in the detention level that was so shocking it had to wait until this issue to reveal?

It's Phineas Horton, allegedly!

He supposedly died in Vision's backstory but we're about to take a big dump on that.

Vigilance wanted an expert in Vision's systems so they tried to find associates of Phineas Horton that might have worked with him on the Human Torch.

Instead they found the actual dude. Just casually not dead.

Hank is like okay weird that Vision thought this guy was dead but he could have been mistaken. Either way, hot damn, the exact expert we needed is right at hand!

And Dr Phineas Horton says nuh uh. He's already here so he didn't pop in just to say it but he's complementing Wasp's earlier nuh uh.

He's definitely the real Dr Phineas Horton (this man will later be retconned to be an imposter, womp womp, retcon tennis) and he doesn't recognize Vision's systems at all.

Vision is definitely not Horton's creation.

DUN DUN DUNNNNN

Elsewhere, Hawkeye didn't get the memo about waiting just outside the lab to pop in and nuh uh things so he's wandering around the backlot of the Vigilance base.

And I say backlot because aside from the main areas that Mockingbird saw and the stuff related to disassembling Vision and holding people prisoner, this entire base is just a mock-up. Just enough actually functional stuff to fool Mockingbird into thinking it was a fully operational secret SHIELD facility.

Hawkeye also wonders how the Vigilance team was able to capture Vision, which I also am wondering.

But he hears Tigra growling and follows the sound to find her having cornered a couple of Vigilance guys.

Vigilance Person: "You're Hawkeye! Help us!" Another Vigilance Person: "For god's sake... stop her!!"

Hawkeye calls Tigra's name which makes her swing her attention from nameless asshole 1 and 2 to pounce at Hawkeye.

I guess one of her uncontrollable cat instincts is to kill birds.

(Despite the narrative caption promising that all kinds of horrible injury is about to happen to Hawkeye, he's fine when we next see him and Tigra. Typical sensationalism, tsk tsk.)

For some ding dang reason, the narrative cuts to Absolom College in Texas where some shadowy collegiate figures are trying to choose a suitable subject from a list of mutants.

Forty-one candidates are rejected before Scarlet Witch is chosen for whatever this is all about.

If you're curious and have trouble with the tiny headshots, here's how the judging sorts out:

No: Angel, Avalanche, Blob, Caliban, Callisto, Cannonball, Cyclops, Destiny, Firestar, Forge, Iceman, Karma, Multiple Man, Magma, Malice, Mandrill, Marvel Girl, Mastermind, Mesmero, Mystique, Nekra, Nightcrawler, and Pyro.

Too powerful: Apocalypse, Magneto, and Rachael Phoenix.

Too weak: Banshee, Black Tom Cassidy. This category is reserved for the Cassidys, I guess.

Too unstable: Beast, Cloak, Dagger, Legion, Quicksilver.

Dead: Colossus, Cypher, Dazzler, Havok, and Rogue.

No longer viable: Magik, because she retconned herself back to a young girl in Inferno, or something.

Unverified: Sabra, Sabretooth.

This was hard because the marvel wiki didn't have them all. I had to go looking other places and at one point just pull up a list of Marvel mutants and check everything that fell between certain letters. Because, thankfully, this is alphabetized.

What's funny about the dead category is that Cypher is the only one who is actually dead. Everyone else just faked their deaths and moved to Australia.

Back at the plot, some paramedics take Dr Phineas Horton away for treatment. Because he was an old man and Vigilance was keeping him in a KGB-type detention cell. He's not in a great state.

Wanda asks Hank why Dr Phineas Horton IF THATS HIS REAL NAME (lol, its not, retroactively) would say that Vision isn't his work when we all know that Vision was repurposed from the body of the robot Human Torch.

Hank has no idea but he's also distracted by the police coming up and asking what they should do with the Vigilance dudes that the West Coast Avengers captured.

And Hank says 'fuck if I know, let them go, ain't no law'

Specifically, since Vigilance was every intelligence agency working together specifically to fuck Vision, they all have government approval and nothing they did is wrong. And/or have diplomatic immunity because they're from Canada or whatever.

Project head Cameron Brock smugs about how Hank figured out how untouchable they all are.

Wasp is like uh geez are you sure, Hank? They kidnapped Vision and reduced him to piles of bits. And Hank says they sure did but we can't do anything about it. We didn't know we were fighting the law but the law won. Can't fight city hall. Best they can do is call Agent Sikorsky, the Avengers' government liaison, and whine about it.

Hawkeye and Tigra rejoin the group, having missed the plot, and Hawkeye covers for Tigra by downplaying the incident as Tigra getting "a little carried away."

Since the West Coast Avengers can't do anything except take Vision's various components home and try to put him back together, Hank proposes they do just that. Just leave Vigilance and go home to pick up the pieces.

Scarlet Witch has one thing she wants to do first.

And she blows the Vigilance base the fuck up.

Good thing everyone was already outside.

I'm not through this arc yet. I'm not even through the issue yet. But I looked at marvel wiki and Vigilance only has two appearances. This issue and the previous issue.

So I'm going to maybe jump the gun a little and talk about why, however things play out from here on, this story is going to be unsatisfying.

I don't like that the Avengers just have to shrug and accept that the government(s) killed Vision and there's nothing they can do about it.

It's a lot like how many spider-fans are still pissed about One More Day. It's not just about the marriage. Spider-Man made a bum deal with the devil and he's never going to get to redeem himself as things stand.

Sometimes cruel things just happen and there's no recourse except to pick up the pieces and try to live your life. But the superhero genre tends to be more active than that. Situations can be punched. There's always someone that can be punched.

If the Implied President of the United States is behind an evil plot to use a mutant powered UFO to take over the country, you don't shrug and decide he's too big to fight. If you're Captain America, you chase him to the Oval Office and unmask him. For one, particularly bizarre, example.

I don't know that it would make a better story if the Avengers COULD fight Vigilance in some way but it would feel less empty.

This whole thing feels less like a story and more writer fiat. Just like starting the team with Tigra and Wasp and Dr Pym back so Byrne doesn't have to do the legwork to get the team where he wants it.

An evil governments conspiracy kidnaps Vision and takes him apart so he can be rebuilt in Byrne's preferred way, everyone stands around talk talk talking about how this change is totally irreversible and the Avengers also can't do anything to the people that did it. And then Vigilance fucks off to never be heard from again.

There's more legwork done but only enough to get the change on paper. Because having Vision change like he is going to (spoilers: Vision is not going to be a pile of parts forever) and have it happen between issues is too much for the audience to buy.

Also on topic, also spoilers: this is going to lead to one of the big OH NO WANDA HAS GONE CRAZY stories which was apparently the only research Brian Michael Bendis did before Disassembled. And it may not be a good story but it may have been a better story if Evil Crazy Wanda had gone after Vigilance. Instead of what she does do. Which is apparently try to have sex with Wonder Man.

Byrne is going to ragequit the book at some point so I'm not sure how much of that is his fault. But what a blatantly obvious plot point to leave on the table.

Anyway. That's my feelings about VisionQuest. Before we even see how it falls out. It's a drastic change jammed into the book without respecting the audience enough to make it a good story.

You know when a writer really wants to write to a certain conclusion and has to expend walls of text assuring the reader that this is clearly the only way this could possibly go down? That's what this all feels like.

So that rant having been ranted, let's move onto the beginning of another dumb plot point.

When the West Coast Avengers arrive back at the West Coast Avengers Compound, they discover a distress signal has been activated from the guest house - where Wanda and Vision have been living.

Understandably, Wanda assumes the worst. That Vigilance has come after her children too, she runs to the guest house.

The racist governess Miss Bach tries to tell Wanda that babies Tommy and Billy vanished into thin air after she put them into the bath. But when Wanda runs into the bathroom in a panic, she sees that her two babies are happily splashing around in the tub.

... Add John Byrne onto the list of artists that just can't draw a baby to save his life.

Miss Bach insists that she looked everywhere for the twins but Wanda assumes that the governess was playing a sick prank.

So she fires her ass, right on the spot.

Miss Bach appeals to Wasp that she was telling the truth. But Wasp can't tell Wanda not to fire her own personal staff. She at least promises Miss Bach that she'll get the proper severance pay.

Then we time skip two days later, where Wanda is sitting outside Hank Pym's lab while Hank tries to reassemble Vision.

It's apparently not as hard as Hank feared, just tedious. Each piece has only one place it can properly go so its just a matter of trying to find the proper place for hundreds of thousands of pieces.

Wanda wishes that they could contact the Real Professor Horton not that lying fake. Y'know, the real dead guy who died in Vision's backstory.

Scarlet Witch: "If that central fact was now to become untrue... everything we think we know about the Vision would become equally suspect."

Wonder Man says he wasn't around at the time but he loves poking holes in the Celestial Madonna Saga. That's his Thing now. So given what he's heard, he thinks Vision's backstory is sketchy if only because they heard it with the help of Immortus, who is a sketchy, manipulative man.

But then there's a loud WUMP as well as CRASH CLANG tinkle! THUD! from within the lab.

Hank sealed the lab behind a bunch of airlocked doors to prevent contamination to Vision's kibbles 'n bits and it'll take three minutes to open them all.

Or.

Wonder Man just forces them all open.

And then a robot hand shoots out of the lab and shoves Wonder Man to the floor.

Ohhhhhh! It's just Vision! He wandered off without putting on his pants or his skin!

Wanda caresses Vision's bare skull, begging him to say he recognizes her.

Terminator Vision backhands her.

Boo. Boo to you, skinless Vision.

Wonder Man grapples Vision, saying he's going to put him down for a nice nap until they can finish fixing him. But he's hesitant to use his FULL POWER on his brother so skinless Vision tosses him across the room.

Elsewhere in the building, Hawkeye is sitting around thinking about how weird Tigra has been.

What we missed off-panel is that he just used a gas arrow when she pounced at him, knocking her out until she calmed the fuck down.

That narrative caption promising horrible violence really lied.

After coming back from the Vigilance base, Tigra has been hiding away in her bungalow.

Hawkeye isn't sure why he promised to cover for her but WHOOPS INCOMING A-PLOT.

He hears the ruckus going on in the lab and hustles down to see skinless Vision hoisting Wonder Man around.

Hawkeye shoots a constrictor arrow at the rampaging synthezoid but Vision just flexes his way free.

Wonder Man tells Wanda she's got to use her bullshit win-button powers to win because brute force isn't working and that's all he knows.

Wanda refuses to use her powers against Vision because she's worried that she doesn't have precise enough control of her hexes and that she might make him blow up.

She DID blow up a building a couple days ago. But she was really mad at that building.

And while Wanda is paralyzed, refusing to help, Vision picks up Hawkeye and shakes him upside down.

Its pretty funny.

I will say that it does make sense that Wanda would be hesitant to use her powers on the robo-man she loves. Its similar to how Wonder Man is pulling his punches.

But I do note that Wanda has been pretty useless this entire story. She was hypnotized to be unable to fight Fake-Ultron. Not sure why that was actually necessary but it was the explanation. And now she's not able to participate in the fight against skinless Vision.

She did blow up a building though.

I also have to say that Skinless Vision is a pretty intimidating antagonist.

His arm shooting out of the smokey lab to grab Wonder Man. Striking Scarlet Witch with no trace of emotion. Staggering around in the shadows as he moves on the collapsed Wanda. The way he tosses around Wonder Man and Hawkeye using just his robot strength, not his density powers. His robot noises being more audible without his skin in the way. Just the way he looks like a flayed corpse.

I gotta give props where props is earned because otherwise this post is going to be just bitter. And props, skinless Vision is alarming.

Anyway. Back to the plot. Where Scarlet Witch refuses to help.

Wonder Man: "You've got to take that chance, Wanda! Trust that your power won't permanently harm someone you love! But do it now! Before he kills Hawkeye -- or me!" Scarlet Witch: "No! No! Forgive me! I can't! I just can't!!" Dr Pym: "That's all right, Wanda..."

Hey, thank goodness for Hank Pym.

And that answers how Vigilance kidnapped Vision.

The device Hank has is a neutralizer that Vigilance used to shut Vision off for kidnapping reasons.

All the ruckus Wanda and Wonder Man heard in the lab was Hank reactivating Vision and then Vision smashing stuff up because when he's activated without his brain functioning, he defaults to defensive actions.

Hank only just regained consciousness and shut Vision back down.

SO THATS ALL EXPLAINED.

Skinless Vision is more of Brainless Vision. Head empty, no thoughts, just lashing out.

Hawkeye decides that this is his cue to call Washington and yell at Avengers liaison Sikorski.

Hawkeye: "Look, Sikorski, I don't care if I woke you out of your death bed! I want to know what you paper-pushers are gonna do about the Vision!" Sikorski: "Do? You seem to be missing the point, archer. We've already done it. The Vision has been rendered harmless. He presents no further threat to the security of this nation... Or any other, for that matter. You Avengers are now at liberty to reprogram him to suit whatever function you wish."

Wow. What an asshole.

He's still better than Henry Peter Gyrich but only because Gyrich would have said the same things and been 1000% smug about it.

God I hate Gyrich.

I'm glad Abigail Brand shoved him out of an airlock.

Anyway. Implication seems to be that Sikorski was In On It or at least was told after the fact and agreed 'yeah, excellent decisions all around.'

Vision isn't a dude. He was a malfunctioning appliance that had to be reset to factory settings so he could get back to Fighting Crime Or Whatever.

Hank argues that a) the Avengers can't just reprogram Vision that easily, b) the Vision they knew has effectively been killed by death of personality, and c) even putting aside all that, this is going to fuck up Wanda.

Which Sikorski acknowledges and says he regrets. That specific point.

What an asshole.

Anyway, as long as the Avengers called him to yell at him, Sikorski has some information he should have told them earlier but I guess he forgot or he's just shit at his job.

On top of killing Vision, the government has also decided that the West Coast Avengers and Vision need direct government oversight and have sent someone to take over the team. And the West Coast Avengers either accept this or the government cracks down on their future activities.

OKAY HAVE FUN WITH THE NEW GUY BYYYYYYE

And judging by the silhouette, it seems like the new guy is an old guy. A guy they can all get along with.

But silhouettes often lie in comics and this is the opposite of all that. A new guy that none of them can get along with.

When the government issued an ultimatum our way or the highway to Captain America and he quit and became the Captain, the government gave the Captain America name, costume, and shield to John Walker.

But recently, you may have noticed that good ol' Steve Rogers is back in his old costume and name and shield. Well, the government gave Cap's the Captain outfit to John Walker and dubbed him U.S.Agent.

And by editorial mandate governmental order, he's joining the West Coast Avengers.

Yeah, actually, it was editorial mandate.

According to John Byrne, editor Gruenwald, who created John Walker, insisted that Byrne put him in the West Coast Avengers book.

A captain-esque guy on every team!

John Byrne, who rankles at any degree of editorial meddling, had him written in as being forced on the team by an uncaring asshole higher power so he can annoy everyone on the team and not fit in.

John Byrne is not subtle sometimes.

Buuuuut. Like I said with the Worst Roster. A team having friction is very often more interesting. And there's a kind of poetic irony to Hawkeye having been the asshole constantly butting heads with Captain America getting his own Brand X Captain America to be the asshole to butt heads with him.

It rhymes.

So VisionQuest continues for another issue but AS OF RIGHT NOW I have to say it takes a sharp dip in quality after the first issue.

The first issue really jumped into things with a newish team suddenly assaulted by a Fake Ultron and having Vision stolen right out from under them.

Issues 2 and 3 are in full justification and retcon mode so it all bogs down into walls of text and explaining how this sequence of events is the only sequence of events.

I'm actually excited to see U.S.Agent here to shake things up and be a pebble in the team's shoe right when they're already going through the identity death of a beloved teammate.

Just please. Fewer walls of text.

Follow @essential-avengers for all these posts but only all these posts. Like, reblog, and comment perhaps.

[empty-pizza]

thoughts on gideon the ninth chapter thirty

yeah, this isn't good for my theory. culprit reveals are about surprise. if we're actually seriously discussing the possibility that harrow is the culprit, that severely lowers the chances that it really is her. it doesn't completely erase them, but damn. not sure how the book is gonna play it from here on.

if harrow is not the culprit, then what? because again, when you put something as clear and obvious as A HEAD HIDDEN IN HARROW'S STUFF and let's be real harrow would not hide it that sloppily when gideon lives there too and why would she even keep the head, then it's gotta be a red herring. harrow wards her doorway, doesn't she? but if i can think of a bunch of ways for harrow to have committed the locked room murder that happened to jeannemary, then there's surely a way someone could have put a head in here. one is not exactly coming to mind for me yet, but there could be something.

palamedes is so based, saying he'd help camilla bury a body.

gideon says harrow didn't kill the fourth or fifth. i suspected she did. not sure where this is going.

ooh, gideon didn't just see the parents commit suicide, but killed them. wild.

okay, she didn't really cause that. whatever. there are SO MANY unknowns in that situation. what is in the locked tomb!! why did they kill themselves! did harrow cause it!

palamedes stop trolling me and claiming to be the culprit smh. you can't just do that. it made me realize that most of my predictions for Harrow as culprit had to do with Isaac and Jeannemary, and there actually could have been a different culprit behind Magnus and Abigail's deaths. hell, maybe palamedes is double trolling and he really did kill them.

that piece of paper gideon found still does need to be explained. also, the corpses in the incinerator. the paper, sorry, FLIMSY, is the kind of thing that might not even be explained this book, but honestly i feel like the incinerator corpses are as important to this book as the named characters who died.

wait what

wait what

oh okay, he was already dead, that makes sense. maybe the rest of his body was in the incinerator, and that explains why the corpse was months old technically. wait, were there two bodies in the incinerator? not sure.

humpty dumpty ass can't believe dulcinea said "i'll never be able to put him back together now"

the question is, how did harrow find out? did she seek it out, did the magic stop working on its own, or did protesilaus try to kill harrow?

since we've gone back to "harrow is not the killer" this means that "harrow is the killer" is a little more possible, again (i am coping and want my theory to be right)

ianthe can't do it like gideon but she did just make a good pun. "a head" lmao.

bingus

[marshmallowprotection]

Chloroform Girl by Polkadot Cadaver kinda reminds me of bad story ending 2 in Ray’s route

Chloroform girl, how have you been? Don't let me catch you sleeping again You're only alive because I like you (Because I like you) It's been three years since you've seen the sunlight But I know you're having fun Bound, gagged, and chained up in my basement

I see what you're saying but the song feels more surface level of what people think that ending is more so than it does it actualization of what the ending is.

I think of that ending less in the vein of torture and more in the vein of having broken something beyond reason and realizing way too late that you can't put it back together. Suit Saeran thought he had to be strong, and the only way to be strong in that place was to be the worst monster he could think of. He put on a suit because that is representative of his father, and he repeated the words of his Savior and his mother. He became cruelty itself because that is the only way to survive.

I am the strongest is a melody that is a desperate plea to be the strongest in the way he has to be. When that doesn't go according to plan and follow the route that brings us to the good ending, we are subjected to a pitfall. His so-called strength becomes his undoing.

In doing so, he not only destroyed himself but the one person who had faith in him, but by the time he realized that, he was in too deep, and the only thing he can think to do is do anything in his power to draw a reaction out of you but he's never going to get one because you cracked under the pressure of his misery and the torture. He keeps trying and trying over and over to pull a reaction out of you with the cruelty that has allowed him to survive in this place, but you'll never give it. You don't have a reaction to give because you've given up.

We should definitely pay attention to how miserable the ending is because what he's doing isn't right, but it's a lot deeper than just somebody relishing in the "pleasure" pain can cause. Focusing on that aspect doesn't let you see what's under the surface. The truth in his agony and why he acted like that to begin with. To be the best monster he could be to survive was the only way to live given the fact that gentle love and warmth was destroyed under the heel of his savior all for a kiss and a few lies. He was the strongest but it was never worth it.

Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall and couldn't be put back together again. MC was crushed and couldn't be put back together again.

[bestworstcase]

clearly the wonderland stuff has hit critical mass because it’s 6 AM and i’m lying here wide awake trying to line up thoughts in order of which ones i want to write out most except i keep bumping into more SO LIKE. send help i am losing my grip

- kernel of a thought i’ve been gnawing on for a while now that there’s a pattern to the wonderland allusion that i can’t quite put my finger on yet. but it’s like—there’s a sort of temporal wobbliness to what and when that feels like it might be something but also just continual swirling it all around D4, D6 and D7, looping in the aaiw stuff and the red queen by constructing new associations (the queen of hearts was the red king, the duchess’s baby becomes the jabberwalker, the cat leads to hatter leads to hatta, the caterpillar lives in the forest where ruby loses her ‘name’, the beach is the garden is the pool of tears is the island for hunting the snark (<- are the mice the bellman��s crew lol. what are they hunting) and like the connecting thread here is mirrored pairs, the tweedles and hatter/hatta and the immanent reflection of the self in mirror-written jabberwocky, with the cat emerging as both the cheshire cat and humpty dumpty to the jabberwalker’s poetry (<- which draws another circle around neo and the jabberwalker in that the cat belongs to the duchess and the duchess is fanatically concerned with meaning in a way that sits kitty-corner to humpty dumpty’s determination not to let denotative meaning get in his way) and then there’s this undergirding idea of ascension and like—never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them otherwise. the you you wanted to be when you were still you. it’s a matter of perspective, i’m afraid. & they want to get to the tree but can’t but the intertextual layer of the narrative has them oscillating back and forth between primarily D6 and D7; they are so close to winning the game but they can’t see the forest for the tree—and the tree functions like looking glass gardens and perhaps more saliently like the red queen, in that alice wants to meet the red queen but cannot find her until she turns about-face and walks away. (“her tree” huh.) (the blacksmith is the tree is the queen; all the ways about here belong to her and, of course, a cat can look at a king. or a queen.)

- the speaker, the subject, the jabberwock; the knight, jaune, the jabberwalker? (<- also occurring to me suddenly that the reason the only critters from the first stanza not present in the marketplace are the raths is, the duchess’s baby turns into a pig—and a rath is a sort of green pig—and neo is both lost and driven by wrath—and her constructs have recently gained the ability to outgribe.)

- in light of the jabberwalker being the story’s [unwritten, unfinished] ending i am feeling SOME TYPE OF WAY about specifically houston!worst day of my life bc like. man. “once upon a time/i knew who i was/some of it was true.” “i feel as if i’m caught between/what i say and what i mean” “could there be someone else to blame/for why it always feels the same/inside this woman i became” MAN.

- actually yeah no no more equivocating someone on the writing team saw this musical during the houston run. i don’t care who i don’t care to confirm i just know in my heart where all the brainworms live. what’s your title/what’s your purpose :)

- c o r n w i n k l e

- laughing hysterically forever about what this implies about ozlem OH YOU MEANT DIVORCED DIVORCED. LOL. LMAO

- ahem.

- wonderland—more precisely hunting of the snark—has a particular invocation of the rule of three (anything said thrice is true) and given the obvious fun rwby could have with an idea like that i’m wondering if we’ll see it repeated in the ever after in some capacity, whether as a literal narrative rule within the ever after or thematically. it occurs to me that it might have done already; “i am a huntress” is repeated thrice before crashing into ruby’s existential dread and uncertainty (<- the beaver loses count and mathematical panic ensues, which incidentally is also the part of the poem where the jubjub bird appears and, further incidentally for the bees people in the audience, is also the bonding moment in which the friendship between the butcher and the beaver becomes so homoerotic that there’s academic discourse about whether the beaver might actually be female, so make of that what you will.)

- the lively carpenter is not the blacksmith so Question Mark. the thing is the walrus and the carpenter is the tweedles’ poem so its inclusion fits the 4/6/7 focus and it connects to both the forest without names and the red king directly, and perhaps to the jabberwalker in the more roundabout sense that where jabberwocky is a poem about slaying a creature the walrus and the carpenter is about people behaving monstrously. who’s the carpenter and what are the oysters

[reveriesofawriter]

nursery rhyme fic structures

head shoulders knees and toes: where one character is described in detail in four separate scenes, no the last one does not need to be focused on their feet and yes you can interpret knees as legs in general bc I've never had a particular fascination with anyone's knees no matter how pretty I think they are but everyone's different, maybe you'll replace toes with armpits, less of a plot structure and more just a way of formatting an essay musing about the prettyboy (gn) spinning in your head

old mac donald: where a character has a series of interactions with a number of individuals where the other characters' personalities are made clear (in his friend group he had a luke, with a singsong here and a *guitar solo* there etc), a 5+1 with the benefit of not having a set number of sections

jack & jill: went up a hill in this case meaning going on a Quest or a Journey, one of them gets hurt and they fail the quest but they figure out that love was always more important (hurt/comfort for if you like adventure stories I guess)

twinkle twinkle little star: I mean this feels very similar to the first one just without the body parts, waxing poetic, that's about it

itsy bitsy spider: two options for this either A) character is trying to do something and keeps failing through no fault of their own but eventually does the thing and it's a triumph, or B) character is trying to do something stupid and keeps failing (bc it's stupid) and their friends/love interest are egging them on despite watching them fail (something silly obviously, not a serious getting feelings hurt thing)

humpty dumpty: hurt/no comfort? or the characters are just watching The Great Fall and they're in the crew trying to put humpty back together (solve a mystery) in order to get revenge or reward money, make it a thriller perhaps if you're feeling serious

mary had a little lamb: the rest of the song is that the lamb follows mary to school so maybe this fic is about a less unusual pet instead, a dog escapes and is trying to find its owner (main character) but the love interest finds the dog wandering and tries to figure out who they belong to, maybe they end up keeping the dog at their own house and bonding while they're searching or maybe they find each other immediately, writer's choice

this little piggy: slice of life but following different characters on their days alone and then all coming together for a scene in the end, or if you're like me and you could easily go overboard with third person limited from an endless number of irrelevant observing side characters this one might be fun to do as a bunch of people interacting with the main character all the way until they go home, and then the last chapter is from the pov of the love interest who's waiting for them at home 🥺

[channeleven]

Revisiting The Secret of NIMH 2

 A long time ago I did a review of The Secret of NIHM 2. In that review, I essentially echoed the complains others had over the film, many, many others. Called it a cash grab, fan fiction, hits harder when time after you see others basically saying the same thing and you feel partially responsible.

Of all the things to hold Nostalgia Critic accountable for is influencing general perception of movies for years to come, whether he was the loudest voice at the time or did it earlier than others where traction would be had by that time. The Secret of NIMH 2 is among his many casualties and they're still trying to recover, held back only by a number of washouts who forgot what year it was. Wanna know what got me to review this movie? A Nostalgia Critic type review that was released on July 24th... 2024. Yikes.

I was on the fence when it came to NIMH 2, but then I saw a video created by my good buddy Timey that defended the film, and credibly as well, and if you ask me you should check her video out first.

Now, for the movie in general, is it really as bad as people claim it to be? To that it's a resounding... sorta. There are some issues with this movie, but half the time people focus on less important things or just go solely by its connection to the first NIMH alone, if not regurgitating everything Nostalgia Critic said just differently enough to not make anyone side-eye.

I'm just saying, if Bobsheaux were to do a review of this movie, I imagine him just copying Nostalgia Critic's points questioning logic where it doesn't need to be questioned, use a rat puppet in his place and maybe charge two dollars just to watch it. He can't possibly be that destitute.

Whatever I may say about this movie, while it's not great, it's not the worst movie ever, not even close to being the worst sequel, a guilty pleasure at the most, and if you want an idea to what that's like for me, here's a list of my personal guilty pleasures: https://letterboxd.com/channeleven/list/guilty-pleasures/

But shameless plug aside, there's no better place to start than the beginning... of the film... 's inception.

Background

The Secret of NIMH 2 came out during a period where video/DVD rentals/purchases were on a continual rise. Companies like Disney would begin putting out sequels for the sell-through market in order to capitalize on the success of their properties. Lacking the same budget as the movies they followed (why put in extra effort for the home video market in the event ticket sales outdo rental payments, and the whole shebang behind shares?

While a lot of these sell-through movies aren't great, at best don't have the same staying power as their theatrical contemporaries, I mean companies weren't making fine art here, they were out making a profit, a necessary evil for them, you'd be a fool to expect anything more. But you don't have to always see it that way, if these movies made up your childhood or you can look past the obvious dips and enjoy a movie for what it is, more power to you, I'd probably relate depending on what movie's on the table anyhow.

Back on topic, The Secret of NIMH, the first, its success cannot be understated. Breaking new ground when it comes to storytelling and having gorgeous animation to boot, I can see why a lot of people loved that movie, and MGM would feel the same to the point they would try to continue it in some way, but with conservative spending.

The Secret of NIMH 2 was the second to last movie put out by MGM's animation division, one of four to be exact. MGM Animation originally produced a sing-a-long series of tapes, along with a handful of cartoons based on IPs they owned at the time. But regarding the movies, they first began with Babes in Toyland, which I only saw the latter half of and became one of many films that I could never figure out until recently.

But I swear that Roger Corman took the design of Humpty Dumpty for Aladdin and the Adventure of All Time.

This was followed with An All Dogs Christmas Carol which is based more on the All Dogs television series, something that Bobsheaux never even touched upon in the slightest, at least as far as I know. Anyway, that and NIMH 2 came out the same year before ending with a mousified Tom Sawyer in 2000.

NIMH 2 was directed by Dick Sebast. Sebast primarly did work as an animator for Disney productions like The Rescuers and Winnie the Pooh, later doing work for various Hanna-Barbera and Ruby Spears cartoons among other small roles. On one hand, he was involved with X-Men Evolution and even directed nine episodes of Batman: The Animated Series, those that at the very least aren't considered to be on the lower end. But on the other hand he is also somewhat attached to shows and movies I'm not particularly fond of, here's looking at you Sonic SatAM and Ultimate Avengers. The last thing he's credited to is the DreamWorks movie Home, where he was not credited, but chances are he doesn't mind that.

The film's story is credited to three people. Sam Graham and Chris Hubbell appear to be a writing team, sharing nearly the exact same credits. They had contributed in some capacity to the writing of films like Oliver and Company and The Little Mermaid, they wrote a later season episode of the Beetlejuice cartoon, four for The Real Adventures of Johnny Quest and wrote the teleplay for Night of the Twisters. But like Sebast they also have a BTAS connection, writing for one episode of that series, you wanna know what it was? You ready?

I've Got Batman in my Basement

Yes, what is generally agreed upon to be the worst BTAS episode of all time, you have them to thank for that.

But what about the third person? Jymn Magon is attached to quite a bit, but for more notable ones he was tied to Quack Pack, a product of its time at best, and was also attached to cartoons produced at DiC entertainment's French division Les Studios Tex, handling The Wacky World of Tex Avery, hated as that show is and serving as the headwritter for Archie's Weird Mysteries, a show I thought was cool, but then realized it's an E/I show using a cool premise to trick people into learning things. As far as other movies go he wrote Casper: A Spirited Beginning and Casper Meets Wendy, all two of those live-action Casper TV movies, An All Dogs Christmas Carol, I mean granted he did the story and part of the screenplay for A Goofy Movie, but you wanna know what else he was involved in?

Titanic: The Legend Goes On

Yet another punching bag of many years ago, he served as a consultant on it just for the record. If you want my opinion on the film there's an uncut version that, while not a great movie at least is better held together than the more commonly spread cut version.

As far as the cast goes it's a who's who of celebrities who were falling or fell off long ago and are looking for some easy money. Among them being William H. Macy, Ralph Macchio, Harvey Korman, Eric Idle, and we do get two returning actors, Dom DeLuise who was clearly never picky when it came to movie deals, and Arthur Malet in his final role... before he would retire and die in 2013.

I also wanna single out Meshach Taylor as I used to watch Designing Women reruns, but you may recognize him Mr. Wright from Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide. And speaking of Nickelodeon actors, the second, or third if you count the 1994 pilot Arnold Shortman, Phillip Van Dyke was also in this. Also Hynden Walch, who you may recognize as Penny Sanchez from ChalkZone... and nothing else. But something tells me her presence here and what she became known for later on had given her some slack relating to who she played. Lastly, it's important to note that the voice of Mrs. Brisby, Elizabeth Hartman, had passed away under very dark circumstances. She was played by Debi Mae West in the film, and she is perhaps best known for playing Meryl in Metal Gear Solid, and she does a decent job in this movie for whatever it's worth.

If it wasn't obvious before, Don Bluth had no involvement in this movie, but whether he was on or not wouldn't affect the quality of the movie because throughout the 90s he had begun to lose his touch. You may argue Anastasia was an outlier among his more mediocre movies, and that MGM greenlit this movie because the Bluth name was more or less redeemed for a time, but that's a stretch. You already know how this movie turned out, so I'm not gonna go into the impact, it's a byproduct of trying to be like the biggest reviewer out there and share his opinions on movies, and it's never going to stop. I'm delaying the inevitable by rambling on and on about behind the scenes stuff, I should stop.

Okay, the movie, finally

As something different, I'm gonna do my best to try and explain the issues people have with the movie, it may not work, but it's different.

NIMH 2 would center on Timmy, a character who served a purpose in the first movie, but was otherwise relegated as part of a goal had by Mrs. Brisby to help him, while contending with the rot... whatever the first movie was about.

The movie would begin with a recap of the first, and this is where red flags are raised for most people, as it presents Mrs. Brisby's husband Johnathan as the main hero. As much as I'd love to bitch in the name of a cartoon rat, I think I know what they're going for here. Mrs. Brisby is the main player in the rest of the first NIMH movie yes, but Johnathan Brisby was the one who helped free the rats from NIMH, giving them the means, the will, to start their own civilization, he may've even lent a hand in the creation of Thorn Valley.

You may say Mrs. Brisby was also instrumental in helping Thorn Valley, I mean you may be right, but don't act like Johnathan had no influence either, if anything I give the movie props for trying to provide extra focus to the rest of the Brisby family, bar certain stretches. And in the case of Timmy, who spent the entire first movie sick, it's a good way to better flesh him out, what more is there to him?

Now, his selection as the rats' golden boy is kinda forced, I'll give you that, and some claim it should've been Martin in the lead, as Don Bluth also would've suggested, but I also see what they're trying to do here. Timmy is just coming into life with a greater purpose, and he feels he isn't ready for it. Martin who had more experience feels he is better suited for what's in store for Timmy, which would be a setup for what happens later in the movie.

As far as him being the chosen one, I mean I get citizens of Thorn Valley expressing optimism and fate for the next in line in the Brisbys thanks to their help. A little overblown, sure, but these reviewers going on and on about how Mrs. Brisby is a god they prey to you'd think they'd see something of her in Timmy. That would explain that celebration at the start of his arrival.

As for the cautious nature of Mr. Ages, he has faith in Timmy, but wants him to work to earn his reputation, to not just base himself solely on the achievements of his family alone, to have the experience and discipline to back it up. You don't become a hero in a day, you gotta work your way up. At least that's what I feel like they're going for.

Along with Timmy there's also Jenny, who is considered to be one of the film's few objective positives. She has enough personality and tact so she wouldn't feel out of place, as well as some importance to the plot. She had escaped NIMH and would inform Thorn Valley's higher ups about what's currently happening. For when they refuse to act on it and for those who say they should throw caution into the wind and do it... you wouldn't last one presidency, if conflict is the first thing. Yes it's ideal to help, but as the first movie shows, there will be bodycounts, and the rats escaped NIMH to live.

Oh but, building up Timmy. Perhaps he wasn't ready yet and his training amounts to protecting Thorn Valley from outside dangers, and that them going back to NIMH may lead to NIMH finding their way to Thorn Valley.

Up to this point I've ignored the musical aspects, and yeah... the songs are pretty bad. On paper they're decent, but in practice... you know what, no, I'd still take off-key singing over the autotune or swapped voice they used in The Loud House Movie. It seems like the songs are used just to help bolster the length, or because that's what kids were into, even if it doesn't fit in the context or tone of the film that came before.

I mean say what you will about Ferngully 2, at least it began as a musical of sorts.

Now as for Jeremy who is seen helping to scam forrest animals by pretending to be the Great Owl, I dunno, I guess they had to have him do something and justify him being within reasonable distance so he could rejoin Timmy and Jenny. So basically plot convenience, guess they backed themselves into a corner with that.

Getting to NIMH, remember how Martin acted earlier on? And how even more we were led on to believing one particular scientist was the big bad? It's a good ol' bait and switch, sorta. Anyway blah blah blah, evil Martin, agreement, blah blah. The rest of Thorn Valley would arrive, presumably realizing Timmy and Jenny were gone they would set out to find them and then they were like, fuck it, we're here, we may as well see this through, fruitless to go back now.

Alright let's talk about this. Martin was jealous that he was not considered to be sent to Thorn Valley, early on it was shown he knew where it was, hence how he could get out there. One can assume he traveled to NIMH to prove himself by stopping them, and either he got caught and experimented on, or his selfish desires led him to become corrupted.

Martin being the bad guy actually has more weight than people want you to believe. It plays a part in Timmy's character where he cares deeply for his family, Martin especially, so to realize the one behind all of this was his own brother, it hits hard. Compared to it just being a generic scientist that few of them know beyond some aspects, it gives this film one above sequels/d2v movies by representing an emotional connection, you don't get that as often, and while that is offset by a very goofy song it's still there.

It also says a lot in regard to Timmy's character, where he would be willing to help his brother even in spite of his corruption, "I have my brother back!". For his bravery, proving himself and potentially destroying NIMH for good, he is given a statue alongside his father for helping to bring the rats to where they are now, literally and figuratively.

Of course some of you may say "Wait a minute where the fuck is Mrs. Brisby's statue for the millionth time!?"

Alright I'm gonna be real, I'm aware of what she has done in the movie, benefit of the doubt to naysayers that maybe she did enough to warrant one. Maybe it's an oversight, maybe the extent of what she did was big but not statue big, she wasn't trying to prove herself against Johnathan Brisby, she was just trying to help her family and those close to her and faced her own journey to do so. I don't know, I really don't know, but there's a reason somewhere, I can feel it.

Animation

The animation in this movie is about what you'd expect for a straight-to-video film, not amazing but above average compared to others like it, and those others typically came out in the 2000s whereas this came out in 1998. It's not bad, but not mind-blowing and people would turn the other cheek given this is riding off of a movie best known for its animation.

Final Thoughts

A lot of people really hate this movie, and for a time I did too and I made a review to that effect. But the fact that even to this day people are still complaining about this movie and bringing nothing new most of the time it comes down to the same thing... it's getting old, and maybe this movie isn't as bad as Nostalgia Critic made it out to be.

The Nostalgia Critic had a negative impact on movie reviews, you can owe the reputations of certain films to him. For instance Garbage Pail Kids was more relatively obscure until he did a review and got more people to talk about it. The same effect occurred here as well evidentially as few could do anything more than just echo what Nostalgia Critic said in the name of a movie, of all things.

Once you take that away, you're left with a movie that, yes, isn't great but is far from the worst movie of all time, let alone one of the worst sequels. I'm being blunt here, because after seeing the same reviews multiple times and looking more into the movie, things just don't add up. Is this really that bad, or are we just regurgitating what we heard before with no variation? Only credit I can give to this is that most of the time they don't throw Don Bluth into the discussion, and since this movie came out as he was still alive there goes that go-to.

There's more to a movie than what you hear from the reviewer of the week, and people need to have the confidence to go against the grain if there is something that is getting missed. High risk, high reward.

[sinceileftyoublog]

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds Album Review: Wild God

(PIAS)

BY JORDAN MAINZER

During the chorus of "Song of the Lake", the first track from Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' incredible new album Wild God, Cave finds himself in a familiar place: telling a story. "And he sang the song of the lake / And all the king's horses and all the king's men," Cave beckons. You expect him--and perhaps he expects himself--to jump into an English nursery rhyme, using the fable of Humpty Dumpty to somehow comment on the bleakness of the human condition. Instead, he tells us to "never mind, never mind." It's a moment that sets up what the man himself has described as the unbridled joy that pervades Wild God. If throughout his career, Cave has been a troubadour of everything from murder ballads to real life-inspired funeral dirges, on Wild God, he's more preacher of the gospel than shaman working with evil spirits.

It is and will be forever impossible to separate Cave's music with the unfathomable grief he's experienced this past decade, the loss of of two of his sons. Though he knows grief is a non-linear process, Wild God represents the ways in which he has received a newfound sense of optimism and hope and perspective on life. On "Frogs", he's walking home, gazing wonderous at the sight of a frog in the gutter, "leaping to God, amazed of love, amazed of pain, amazed to be back in the water again." On "Joy", Cave at first confronts an all-too-familiar feeling: "I woke up this morning with the blues all around my head / I felt like someone in my family was dead." Accompanied by French horns, piano, and an omnipresent backing chorus, he shares that "a ghost in giant sneakers, laughing stars around his head"--maybe his son, maybe a stranger, and either way, funny--tells him, "We've all had too much sorrow, now is the time for joy."

Cave also sounds invigorated back with The Bad Seeds, sounding like this. Two of their previous albums, 2016's Skeleton Tree and 2019's Ghosteen, were primarily ambient and electronic, staring trauma in the face. Even 2013's Push the Sky Away was moored in minimalism in comparison to the band's back catalog. Indeed, they haven't sounded this upbeat since 2008's Dig, Lazaurs, Dig!!!, trading that album's sexed-up goth garage rock for time in the church. The songs are bolstered by drummer Thomas Wydler, who has apparently put behind him the health problems that prevented him from joining the band on tour in the 2010s. His crisp snares and meaty beats are front and center, even delving into hip-hop on "Conversion" and "O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is)". In conjunction with the backing vocals, the drums make the songs anthemic. On the album's title track, the protagonist is searching for people to believe him and believe in him, Cave in beckoning and wailing mode: "He's moving through your body like a prehistoric bird!" If the backing vocals on Skeleton Tree sounded like a Greek chorus, on Wild God, they sound like a gospel choir, begging us to "Bring your spirit down!" On "Conversion", Cave's lines are syncopated with the chorus's repetition of "Touched by the spirit / Touched by the flame," as propulsive as an MC, a tangible contrast to the song's abstract hues of synthesizer, piano, and flute. And on piano ballad closer "As the Waters Cover the Sea", everyone prays for "peace and good tidings to the land."

That Wild God is a bright album doesn't mean it's lacking in realism. Two of its best songs dive back into earthbound pain. On "Cinnamon Horses", beside circular prickles of acoustic guitar, Cave waxes on the complexity of love through contrasting imagery, "cinnamon horses and the turpentine trees." And then there's "O Wow O Wow". It's dedicated to another deceased loved one, ex-Bad Seed and ex-girlfriend of Cave, Anita Lane, who passed away in 2021. At first, Cave's obscured by vocoder, singing whimsical, beatific verses like, "The country doctor whistles across the meadow / The schoolboy he hops up and says gee whiz!" (Carly Paradis gives us a whistle to aid the story.) But during the song's outro, we hear a recording of Lane in conversation with Cave, reminiscing on the past. There's Cave, again, making us look at death straight in the eyes, but preparing us for a universal truth, asking us to consider that life is beautiful not in spite of it, but because of it.

[diary-of-an-addict]

I’ve always been partial to the poem about people being in your life for a season, a reason, or a lifetime.

It’s funny because even with my liking to this poem I often forget that I am a season person.

I’ve always struggled to make and maintain lasting relationships. It’s almost as if the majority of not all the people I encounter no matter how much I want them to stay around are merely there to either teach me a lesson or be there and gone when things benefit them.

I learned this lesson again recently. It was my daughter 1st birthday and of course I have a new group of friends found where most adults do in my place of employment so that’s who I invite. Yet attending a 1 year olds birthday isn’t exciting. And neither is supporting your supposed friend on the first anniversary of what was likely one of the most traumatic days of her life, but they don’t see those thoughts those feelings. Or maybe they do and they just don’t care.

I often find myself remembering a time when my life was much more hectic yet I was so happy the people in my life some still even around like family to me. The people who continue to cheer me on from a far but always show up when you need them. Why is it so easy for me to forget about them and be so upset about those who obviously don’t even care.

I feel like I’m drowning within my mind. My thoughts float away from my mind and quickly as I think them lately.

It’s like I have a flickering bulb in my brain one minute it’s on then the next it’s blank. I’ve felt this shut off once before. Unable to remember door codes I had set the day before.

I’m sinking into the darkness and I have no where to turn so here I am again writing words. I come here every couple months spill the thoughts that flow through my mind. I wonder if anyone reads this probably not so I just continue to write.

Pointless complaints about a mind so broken even humpty dumptys men couldn’t put it back together again.

I’m a burden. A strain on my family, a menace as a mom, a train wreck as a daughter, used to be the only thing I did right was work and I can’t even do that anymore.

I drown my sorrows without the ability to stop but why would I want to it’s the only thing that seems to care and want to take away this pain I’m in.

You always hear check on your strong friends. Don’t forget to check in with the happy one of the group. Blah blah blah yeah that’s me smiling on the outside while inside I want to die of a thousand cuts. Never allowing anyone to get close enough to me to know the darkness that lies within. Maybe that’s the problem I don’t let people be lifetime friends. It must be my fault why people can’t be there for me. I’m too awkward, annoying, clingy. Too soft spoken to express my needs or boundaries then when I do if they are questioned I just put them back in the padded box they came from because why do my needs care when they obviously are interfering with what someone else is trying to do.

I fucking hate myself and i wish so badly I didn’t but I do. I try so hard to be the person everyone wants me to but while doing so I’ve lost sight of myself. The things I love, and simply enjoy to do. Im miserable in my own skin but the sad thing is I don’t see another way.

[fandoms-in-law]

Queen Alice

@maritimecorpse suggested I rewrite Alice in Wonderland for the 400th fic I'm posting to AO3. This isn't a rewrite so much as playing in the world after remembering that the book does describe a chess game that ends with Alice able to become a queen.

Summary: Alice made it to the other side of the board and became a queen, now people are wondering how she'll get her army made.

/\/\

Now I'm no genius at chess and rarely ever play. I couldn't immediately recall where the pieces all begin or precisely how they interact.

But that's of no consequence here, for though our darling Alice played the game, she never realised what game it was. Of course she thought her day in wonderland was fragmented but a lot of days feel like that, especially when you're young and lessons make up your days.

Since her adventures following the white rabbit, Alice has carried on dreaming. She's been forever curious, wanting to know everything or figure out the answers to everything whether they're right or wrong.

We've mentioned chess already, and perhaps the average reader doesn't know why, or the average person who has seen the movies but not the books and probably assumed the story rotated around a card game instead of a mix of chess and nursery rhymes. After all, the Queen of Hearts is always there, and that's a playing card, not usually seen as a mixing of the queens in chess and the nursery rhyme about tarts being made.

It is however the reason that Alice finds more and more unusual reactions the next time she encounters Wonderland and the areas related to it. Because Alice made it across the board and changed from being a pawn into a queen, only she never gained the team beyond that; No king to defend as he hides behind walls, no rooks or bishops to work beside, nor knights and pawns to command in defence, just Queen Alice a victor with friends made along the way.

“You definitely don't know what's going on, dear. I assume you figured out the way you want to go at least?” The Cheshire cat is back, just his head, hanging in the air beside her as Alice is off again wondering why it's so important to know the locations of countries.

Glancing over she nodded confidently. “It's the way my feet are going.”

“A solid plan for deciding where to go.” He agreed. “You've cause chaos as nobody knows how you're going to form your army, let alone who you've claimed as your king.”

“Kings are rather stationary. Perhaps the Hatter would like that role. He has said he's stuck waiting for teatime forever more so he can't get much more stationary than that.” Alice mused, thinking back over her adventures. “But for the kingdom and army, I'd much prefer to just let people decide if they'd want to join me. Why not just make a group of friends instead of an army?”

The Cheshire cat laughed and she had to check he remained with her and didn't vanish with the noise. It seemed like he'd actually gained the rest of his body. “You've been managing that already. The Duchess has already been making comments over joining your lands and I believe the faux turtle and the gryphon would like to as well.”

“Then they can. Have you heard how Humpty Dumpty is doing? Have the kings men been able to put him together?” She enquired, not doubting for an instant that the cat would know these things even if he hadn't been around them at the same time as her.

“Not yet, but they're still trying. The horses have however given up and started making noise about the endeavour being pointless.” He sighed.

Alice nodded, going to say something more when she was suddenly getting yelled at by someone storming across what she now recognised as a garden, arms waving quite wildly. The recognition also made her realise that while walking with the Cheshire cat she had been walking over flower beds and apparently bent or broken a good many flowers.

It was unquestioned that the cat had dissolved into the air just as soon as the yelling began.

“What do you think you're doing? Damaging all my plants. Those pretty maids were almost in full bloom before you destroyed them.” The gardener yelled, gesturing back to the broken plants which did indeed look more and more like small fainted ladies the longer Alice stared at them.

“I do apologise. I was simply distracted discussing things with the Cheshire cat.” Alice offered, smiling in the hopes it would calm the gardener down some.

The gardener was not calmed and instead turned, glaring across the garden at a fence opposite. “Bad enough I can't get Miss Not a Peep over there to stop her sheep tramping the cockle shells, now I've got someone talking to invisible cats. Carry on with you. Stick to the grass on your way out!”

“Can I know your name please?” Alice asked, but did make her way towards the gate that she could see a sheep unlatching from the other side of it. The scene was reminding her of a rhyme but she wasn't quite certain which one.

“It's Mary.” Came the curt response.

Alice nodded slowly. “Well then Mary, I hope you won't find this impolite but perhaps a different type of fastening on your gate would help keep the sheep away?” She suggested, pointing to the one that was just trotting over to the flower beds.

Before anything could be done towards removing the sheep or finding a more secure gate fastening, it was opening again to a shepherdess Alice could only assume was the one Mary had been complaining about. “Has anyone seen my sheep? I've lost a number of them, you see.”

“There's one over here.” Mary stated, hefting said sheep over her shoulder only to dump it in front of the woman a moment later. “I keep telling you to look after them better and stop them destroying my garden.”

The shepherdess nodded, all too willing to agree. “I'm trying my best, Mary, but it's difficult when they escape in ways I can never figure out.”

“I'll come and look for the rest with you.” Alice decided. “I'm Alice. What's your name?”

“Little Bo Peep. Are you the new queen establishing herself?” She got a curious look from Mary at Bo Peep's question.

She nodded, “Yes. I'm rather just letting the establishing happen around me however. It's far less stressful that way and I've seen how frustrated the other queens are on the daily.”

“Then I'd be grateful for your help.”

As I began, Alice has been dreaming a lot, if you ask her family, ever since she first mentioned a white rabbit in a waistcoat, but there's good reason that a queen would need to be present in the places she gained her title.

[lilkittay]

GET BACK

there was a time in my life where i had a very close deep platonic friendship with a person. at times, i felt simply that i wished they were closer by and not far away. i struggled to explain or understand what my feelings for them were, or if they were even reciprocated. they could never replace my partner, my feelings were of a "i would like to be close and share resources but in a platonic way and with separate living spaces but in the same city" to hang out more but not drive anyone crazy.

our friendship for years was stable, they were a rock i could rely on. or so i thought.

i went through a major change in my life, and at the same time my partner also began a major change in their life. different, and our paths were each our own and very different terrain and yet we could support each other side by side.

my friend decided they needed to have their ownl crisis, they decided not only to mimic the change in my life, but to mimic the change in my partners life as well. and to execute these changes simultaneously.

it felt like a lot of things. one up us? special snowflake olympics? not wanting to be left out? reenactments of childhood traumas where our personal struggles represented siblings ordeals. ohh not this time i wont be pushed to the back burner. im gonna be the pan of grease on fire that ruins dinner! psh.

the one thing it never felt was genuine. no matter how much they tried to convince the kitchen sink their struggle was real, it was fabricated and they built a whole fantasy world in their memories to convince themself of its truth. too rushed. too much haste and later searching for reasons, grasping at any threads, and making up stories by tangling that mess together.

sunk cost fallacy. wont give up the one last thing in it all either.

get back to where you once belonged

it felt crazy. it was crazy. they became crazy. crazier and crazier... it had always been and only became more like watching some kind of sad mockery of a mountain of misguided misunderstandings.

their mimicry/mockery of our struggles, always generating a bigger crisis than what we were struggling with, made me feel as though the tears sweat blood and pain of my own journey were meaningless. unseen. every word i shared met only with some personal anecdote, some self-centered blather. i didnt matter at all and they didnt understand what i or my partner were going through, despite bumbling along in our wake...

the damage is done and sorry will never put humpty dumpty back together again

the creature that replaced my friend i hardly recognize. i swear i was once best friends with a real person, not some overthought persona. not some piecemeal shattered psyche.

i don't care about cartoon card games

i stepped back a bit, put in a little distance for a while just to get a clearer view.

apparently in my absence they reached for the nearest human object in orbit and now theyre "dating" theres so much pathetic desperation there and now its my fault some other person is stuck with it.

i haven't had enough time to process this into words to begin to describe the underlying deeper implications of such behavior, or its underpinnings, or how i feel about it. it isnt mentally healthy.

im not happy for them

as usual, this crap always comes when my path in my career life is taking its own turns. When my growth there hinges on me breaking through the few walls made my neurodivergence that i have to dismantle brick by brick to understand the things i just dont get.

never me always thee

because i was given a different instruction book than everyone else but im playing their game

even if i had my old friend back, im not sure they could help me through this. my partner is here for me serving their role and being always my better half so that is as it should be. no complaints there

but i must face this alone. so much of it is going to be laying bare my own flaws and shortcomings to myself, and having them laid out before me by my leaders. flaying raw my ego and emotions. my friend is incapable of true, dedicated support. no insight. no hint any thoughts or fucks are given.

its all mememememe in there. i swear it wasnt always that way... sigh

never time for me. never time for a halfass attempt at it being about me only me. without payment without exchange without forcing on me their needy needs when i am vulnerable and theyre not welcome.

and fuck. will this ever get better. i dont know.

my old friend helped me through a lot of the past few years of my life in invaluable ways.

then their bff irl died and i guess i filled the void. at first i was bittersweetly honored to fill that role. but i never knew what that friends role was.

i dont know what anything is, im just a tourist

sometimes i feel like i think it would do me some good to go camping alone and just get away from everyone. take my bike, and my tent. hug my partner and say feed the cats and ill text you odten so you dont worry. and just go be alone with myself.

and remember what it was like.

and find out if i still like being alone with me

get back to where i once belonged

it used to feel like talking to my friend was like i could let them inside my head and show them the carnival in there and they could share that space and see me but now i wonder did they ever see anything at all?

no.

this time im owning my crisis. nobody is going to steal it. nobody is going to copy it. nobody is going to yell louder through it and invalidate my existence.

help me dont trump me

get back.

[magiclwritings]

How did one gauge how truly horrific ones circumstances were when hearing another's? Especially when such a word as slave was involved. He wanted to ask so badly but knew it was not his place. Given the time he could only imagine and he decided that he'd never ask but would listen if this man would ever wish to discuss further. Afterall, what else was he to do? The flames licked at their faces and extremities and Grady found himself finally easing out of the chill that set deep in his bones from his arrival. It was then that he'd realized Beckett hadn't eaten anything on his plate. A bit more than remorse followed for him and he sighed softly to himself.

He'd managed to eat the fruit himself but found it ... odd. But maybe that wasn't right to say. Everything was a bit odd for him. Especially the prophecy of this fountain that this man was clinging to. He had absolutely no idea what the hell he was speaking about or what to even say about his ordeal. Because quite honestly, a time traveler from the twenty-first century finding a fallen king and helping him reclaim his rightful throne hadn't been on his bingo card for that year. Or any year really. But the way Beckett was looking at him just then made him feel something he couldn't quite place. It wasn't pride or longing but something ... more.

He placed his plate to the side and turned so that he was facing Beckett fully. There was absolutely no chance he had a plan on how to put the king back where he belonged with, what looked and acted like Humpty Dumpty's men. Though he was sure they were all quite nice and did they best they could. Well, he hoped anyway. But that look of hope ... he couldn't squash that. He was far more advanced. Well, educated anyway. He knew things about life in this time that they had no idea about and they'd lived it. He'd also had knowledge of the future and things that could bring change for them now. The problem was the technology he'd need was not. But there had to be a way.

"If I'm being perfectly honest." He started, finding his voice a little difficult to find in the first moments. "I'm not sure what to tell you to do about it all. Family is a messy thing especially when there's something so coveted on the line." Though he wasn't exactly surprised the bastard part about inheritance had been right, he just wasn't sure how to convince people that this man was truly their king without ... well, he supposed they'd call it sorcery in these days. Maybe not quite that drastic but still there was a hard road with difficult decisions. "But I do think we can outsmart him." He said tactfully, remembering just how much public opinion did truly matter in these times. He really was going to have to make an effort to educate himself more when he got back. If.

Grady looked past their fire, watching the rest of the caravan in their little groups and the few stragglers between. "You have more than an army at your disposal." He wasn't referring to the men but they played apart. "How long has it been since you've heard word about your brother or any talk from the castle itself? I'm sure you've seen a tavern between the time they picked you up and now, yes?" He didn't wait for him to answer but instead went on with the plan coming together as he spoke it into existence. "It doesn't take a lot to sow the start of discourse if you're smart about how you say something and when you say it." Though most of their history had been doctored in favor of the winning side, that was still true.

He shrugged his shoulders and turned his gaze back the Beckett. The man was quite striking. He had hoped that if he'd ever seen his picture in a textbook at any point in his life that he'd remember soon. Because all of the kings he'd ever learned of, didn't look like him. They didn't look strong and driven, ready for a fight. He was quite something. "I suppose it's a matter of your conscience and how dirty you're willing play." He thought about what he said and offered a small smile. He was going to have to figure out how to speak without sounding so much like him. Beckett was going to give him grace but he wasn't sure everyone else would. "By laying breadcrumbs, you may be able to attract what you're seeking right to you without much effort." Yeah, that sounds super mystical and mysterious. Idiot.

“No, not a knight,” Beckett replied, crossing his arms over his chest. He propped his foot against a tree trunk, steadying himself while waiting for Grady to dress. While he had appreciated the foreign, form-fitting clothes the man had been wearing when they met, he was eager to see how he looked in clothing Beck was familiar with. “A King. Forgive me for the lie earlier. I wasn’t sure if you were who I was looking for or if you were a trap laid out by my brother. I was lucky to escape unscathed from his first assassination attempt on me; I’m not eager to test my luck again.” 

And then Grady came into his view. Beckett’s eyes scanned the man’s body, nodding his approval at the clothes. Seeing him like that…Beck’s eyes twinkled with memories from his past coming up to the surface, memories he had buried so long ago. He tried not to think about it, but seeing Grady looking like that, looking like him. It was impossible not to remember. “Here,” He moved towards Grady, gripping his shoulder, and lightly guided the man back to the fire the others had started. “Let’s get you warmed up and some food, and I will go over it again.” He had to be patient with the man. Beckett didn’t know where he came from or what had happened to him. Grady appeared to be in some state of shock. It was a lot for the man to handle in one night. 

He settled next to Grady at the fire, stretching his arms and legs out so the flames would warm him. It wasn’t long before Elias returned to the pair, handing them plates of cooked meat and various fruits they had gathered while on the road. “My father passed away two years ago, and I was coronated right after his passing. My brother, my half-brother, was expecting to sit on the throne. He and our father were always so much closer, but my father next set that in stone, and the council wouldn’t appoint a bastard to be King, and rightfully, by birth, I was next in line. I thought my brother had understood. A couple of months ago, he requested a meeting with me one night, and when I went to receive him, he had a group of men with them. They staged a body and created a scene to make it look like I fought and lost. His men sold me to a neighboring country, one loyal to my brother’s rule, and I was held as a slave there until my men, the ones we are with now, found me.” 

Beckett grew quiet, playing with the fruit on his plate but not attempting to eat anything. “I can’t say for sure what you are meant to be to my cause, Grady,” He explained, looking up and staring at the flames licking into the air. “I always thought it was just a story made up by past kings, but it is said that if a king of my line goes to the temple when in need of help, help will be provided. I went to the temple tonight to do that, and you turned up like magic. I was actually,” Beckett twisted his body to face Grady, aiming a soft smile at him, “I was hoping you could tell me how you being here would help get me back in my rightful place as king.”

[thesoulspulse]

Danny Phantom Randomness (Reality Check)

One thing really I love about the episode “Reality Trip” is how sincere Jack and Maddie are about accepting Danny because he’s Danny, their precious baby boy. It was nice to see them admit that yeah sure, they do tend to get carried away with all their ghost hunting stuff, but at the end of the day they love their children very much even if it doesn’t always show and if they knew better neither of them would EVER harm a hair on Danny’s head. Everyone makes mistakes and this is by far one of the most heartfelt moments between Danny and his parents in the show so it’s a shame that when Danny revealed his secret to the world again in the series finale all we got was-

Jack: Nice job, Danny. Or should we say, Danny... Danny: What? Uh. Sorry citizens, but I have no idea what you're talking about. Maddie: Isn't there something you wanna tell us? Jazz: It's okay, Danny. They know.

Then Danny changes back in front of everyone, they clap, and that’s it. Now, let’s compare that to the interaction at the end of “Reality Trip” just after Danny saved Sam, Tucker’s, and his own parents from Freakshow which if you’ll recall is ALSO a time when everyone in the world technically knew Danny’s secret because he accidentally changed back on camera during a Dumpty Humpty concert.

Jack: Danny! Maddie: Young man? Danny: I...I'm sorry. Gah! [Jack crushes him in a bear hug] Jack: We're very proud of you, son. Maddie: Oh! Oh, my baby boy! [Kissing his cheek] Danny:  But I lied to you. Over and over for a really long time. If I were you guys, I'd be furious. Maddie: Well, of course you lied to us. We never gave you a reason not to. Jack: All this time we've been yammering on destroying and dissecting ghosts. I'd have been terrified too, if I were you. Maddie: We love you, sweetie. You. Jack: Whether you're ghost, boy, or something in between.

Like, seriously despite their flaws I think under the right circumstances Danny could have told them the truth about himself which could have changed everything for him in a big way. That’s actually the point of this post, to talk about how things could have been different if Danny erased everyone’s memories EXCEPT for his parents. So first of all, since Jazz knows too and pointed out the reasons why Danny was scared to tell them in the first place I think it’d be nice for them to sit down and talk it all out.

First of all, I’m assuming it’s been at least a year now since the accident and Jack’s first sighting of the ‘ghost boy’ which made him change his mind about giving up ghost hunting after he and Maddie got carried away thinking Jazz was a ghost when they thought she was ‘acting out of character.’  To be fair, Danny’s probably not going to tell them EVERYTHING since he did overshadow his dad a lot early on which could be embarrassing for them both and get Danny in trouble for literally manipulating him like that. But the big kicker here is, ironically, how he’s going to have to tell them about Vlad since the whole half-ghost thing technically started with him first.

You think they feel guilty now attacking their own son, try imagining how horrified they’d be to find out that Jack DID ruin Vlad’s life to some extent and he’s been fighting their son ever since who has been trying to protect them from their former best friend. Vlad’s manipulation is SO much worse than anything Danny did and oooo, Maddie isn’t going to be afraid to rip HIM apart molecule by molecule once she finds out Vlad is the one who rigged it so they’d end up in the Rockies that one time AND sent those ghosts after her son while he was powerless. Jack’s going to be pissed too realizing Vlad possessed HIM during their college reunion, putting Maddie and his kids in danger. But all that aside for now, the big thing to note here is how Jack and Maddie are going to have to take responsibility for their part in both portal accidents now that created the only half-ghosts in the world...

It’ll be a tough pill to swallow for sure but based on that chat Vlad and Jack had in space while trying to destroy the Disasteroid, Jack does understand what he did and feels bad about it. He’s not stupid. And most importantly, Jack realizes Vlad’s not his friend anymore and ends their relationship. That’s why I feel like if Maddie and Jack found out about all the horrible things Vlad actively did to Danny over the past year, they’d cut ties with him altogether for the good of their family. Meanwhile, Danny would finally have his parents a 100% on his side and willing to try to understand him and the unusual circumstances he’s been dealing with on top of being a teenager.

I won’t get into the major changes like how most of season 3 wouldn’t have happened but what I will say is that having Maddie reject Vlad to his face for endangering and tormenting her son is something that would actually send Vlad off the deep end. Honestly, he’ll be lucky if Jack and Maddie don’t threaten to expose his secret to the world themselves and actually ruin his life unless he stays away from their family from now on. Think about it, Vlad has attacked Danny, their 14 year old son countless times but it’s not like they could get him arrested without revealing Danny’s secret too which means this would have to be the next best thing.

Anyways, let’s say this is when Vlad decides to take over the world to force Maddie to be his or...better yet maybe he’ll start looking for a way to change the past or reality altogether to get what he wants at any cost. Danny already destroyed the Reality Gauntlet, but there are probably other powerful relics hiding both in the real world and the Ghost Zone for Vlad to track down. Vlad might even try another classic villain route with brainwashing/hypnotism as a last ditch effort to win Danny’s loyalty and Maddie’s love. Meanwhile, now Danny has to deal with a new problem of his parents AND Jazz being overprotective and getting in the way of his ghost hunting until they come up with some ground rules or something. Not to mention there’s still Valerie who is technically still working for Vlad at this point and still doesn’t know the whole story after Danny reset the rest of the world to forget his secret who might just be able to convince her to kidnap Danny to free him from the ghost Danny PHANTOM possessing him.

Blegh, sorry I have a lot of thoughts in my head about this so sorry if I’m rambling. The point is, I would have liked to see the real ‘reveal’ to his parents go more like it did in “Reality Trip” when it comes as a huge relief that his parents openly accepted him without Danny having to deal with the world at large knowing his secret too. His life could have become easier in some ways but harder in others which would have been really interesting to see since we never got to see what happened after “Phantom Planet.” I might go into more detail later but for now, lets leave it at that.

P.S. You can watch the clips here for more context!

Link: https://thesoulspulse.tumblr.com/post/700197230039138304/these-are-the-scenes-i-was-talking-about-in-my