#i need to meet the version of me who lives in a dimension where i never read homestuck lol

[moodr1ng]

im well aware that its profoundly cringe to admit to this publicly, alright, but sometimes i just stop to think and realize.. literally my entire life would be radically different if i hadnt been into homestuck when i was 14. like, i would not have had some of the fundamentally important relationships that shaped the way my teen years and young adulthood went. and due to this i would not be living in this home. i would not have the same friends today. i would have been in very different social circles and mightve evolved very differently as a person. i literally might not be alive - i have had my life quite literally saved by friends who i met or bonded with through being into this shitty comic, and by literally i mean was physically prevented from dying last minute. like thats crazy?? and all over homestuck????

[ddoxhan]

my love is all mine

my baby here on earth showed me what my heart was worth so, when it comes to be my turn could you shine it down here for her?

word count : 4.4k words

genre : fantasy; alternating between fluff and angst that would make your heart clench; childhood best friend! aeri x pianist (but actually a time traveler)! reader; arriving at this dimension, you realized how much you still love her

t/w : mentions of death, apocalypse thingz

a/n : full version out weeeeee :D that was some roller coaster of realization and pain knowing that nothing lasts but one thing :') please do leave some feedback so I can improve when it comes to plot heavy fics and enjoy !

tic, tic, tic, tic.

'where am I?'

your surroundings were unfamiliar, as it should be. but with it, came a sense of comfort. whenever you warped through the portal, your head would hurt like the worst hangover for a while. but this time, it unusually hurt less. you were sitting by the piano, a music sheet of chopin, perhaps. you weren't the most well-versed around music.

you stood from the piano stool to slowly observe the things in the room in hopes of gathering more information about this person. undoubtedly, you looked like yourself but this body you possessed wasn't you. you were orphaned, barely survived the apocalypse of your own world, thrown into a dystopian organization served to stop further apocalypses in other worlds.

learning about the countless dimensions you had to travel to, surely, this one couldn't differ more than the rest. the person who lived as you in this world had everything you had ever wanted. loving and supportive parents, friends who were always there for her, a promising future career as an aspiring pianist. but as you gain the memories of this person, the depressing emotions were rather contradicting.

this person felt lonely amidst of everyone, she never felt understood. no one had ever saw through those smiles and laughs. not even this girl who looked like her best friend. then tears started to flow down your cheeks uncontrollably. it couldn't be. she couldn't be.

feeling a little dizzy, you took a seat on the piano stool as you dried your tears and tried to wrap your head around the current situation. of the many dimensions, why this one? you tried so hard to forget everything about her, drown down emotions that were unnecessary for your line of work. it had been forever since the last time you had thought of her. and this time, she wasn't going to just be a memory.

as the metronome lulled you into a daze, you were brought back out of it by the sudden swing open of the bedroom door.

"hey! we literally said to meet up at our usual place! what's taking you so long?"

"huh?"

a girl barged into your room and folded her arms against her chest, seemingly upset that you had stood her up. but you couldn't seem to remember when you had made that promise to her.

it was her. it had been so long, too long since you've seen her with your own eyes. you didn't know if it was a blessing or a curse that you had never encountered her in the past dimensions. but seeing her in front of you, it was getting really hard to not break down in tears.

the wave of guilt and sadness washed over you as you took in how beautiful she still looked, or rather this version of her looked exactly like the love of your life. the love of your life who you couldn't hold onto as her hand slipped from yours, forever gone as she disappeared into the smoke of debris.

you still needed time to gain the memories, so you made up an excuse, hoping she would buy it.

"sorry, it must've slipped my mind. you still up for it?"

you stood from your piano stool as you flashed her an apologetic smile. that made her sigh and roll her eyes, once again defeated by your puss-in-boots eyes cause really, there was never once she had been able to not waiver at the sight of them.

"you bet I am, now get your ass outta here and we have to hurry cause we're already late for the performances."

the look of confusion on your face makes the girl pause in her tracks, extremely confused and cautious of you because you didn't seem to be her best friend, in the sense that you didn't feel like her.

"performances. weren't you there when jaemin told us they'd be busking today?"

"right, yes. the boys' first big performance for that influencer's event."

that part of the memory registered just at the right timing. if you took any longer to respond like her best friend, she would have probably took the shovel in the backyard to whack you. the girl wasn't like your lover, way feistier and carefree. it served as a reminder that she wasn't, this girl was not the woman you had loved wholeheartedly and should not be.

"yes. now let's go."

the girl had to drag you out of your house because of how slow you seemed unusually.

"god, I was so close to knocking some sense into you."

"sorry, I've just been really out of it today."

your infamous cheeky smile never fails to have her shake her head in disbelief. in disbelief of how adorable you always looked with it.

"jaemin! we're here!"

aeri screams across the barricade as the said boy turned his head towards her direction, while you trudged behind her, ensuring that she wasn't falling over anything or anyone from excitement.

you learned her name when you two left your room as your dad shouted her name from downstairs. aeri, it was a pretty name and suited her really well. you couldn't help but draw similarities between the woman you knew and her. but they were also two very different people and that was something you shouldn’t forget.

"hey! I thought you two wouldn't make it before our cue. what happened?"

he had known you two for ages and it was unlikely of you to be late to something, especially when it involved close friends.

"this girl here had forgotten about this. unbelievable if you ask me."

"that's quite true. you good?"

aeri and jaemin truly cared for the person you are temporarily posing as. the gazes that you were receiving felt foreign, accountable to your lack of interaction with people. people who actually mattered to you. each and every time you had warped to another dimension, you would disappear to do what you must to prevent apocalypses regardless of what memories flowed through your consciousness.

it doesn’t take long to get everything in place and run the plans to break the sequence of events, given that you were one of the organization’s elite agents with a flawless portfolio. all that didn’t matter to you, life was already meaningless so why care much?

but the moment you had seen that very smile on her face in that photo frame, you wanted to stay in this dimension longer. even if it meant spending more time than you should in a single dimension.

"yeah, don't worry about me. I just had a splitting headache earlier today and I've just been out of it. I'm all good now though."

you regained your composure after some time and adjusted well with your new surroundings. the reaffirming clutch of your hand in aeri's was very comforting surprisingly, but you didn't understand why.

although she had bore similar physical traits with your lover, there was no reason to feel the warmth seeping through the clasp of your hands. and before your consciousness could give you an answer, your blood ran cold as the image of watching her slip through your fingers into nothing, bringing up the very emotions you were trying to suppress for years.

there was not a single day that you could sleep well as the endless nightmare of that event left you in a void of emptiness and desperation. the desperation of wanting to redeem yourself by saving other dimensions where different versions of her would live, regardless of whether different versions of you were there for her.

but absolutely none of that, would bring your lover back into your arms, safe and sound. smiling at you like those mundane days you had, which you would give anything to get them back.

"great. you two find your seats near the fronts, performers' privilege."

he proudly points towards two empty seats which were inevitably yours since the show had already started 20 minutes ago.

"wow, for once, na jaemin has done an amazing job."

"for once, stop roasting me. now shoo, I need to get my hair fixed."

the bickering between the two seemed so natural that you had kept quiet, not knowing if it was your place to interfere the conversation.

this was something you had always feared when you meddle with a dimension, the feeling of belonging. belonging somewhere that wasn't meant for you. would it hurt to feel? no. but it hurts knowing that whatever you did in this dimension, it wasn't you who did it. in the eyes of others, it was someone else. the deeds you do, the memories you share, the love you yearn.

once upon before the apocalypse, life was like this. concerts, outings, bonding, but it was also a time of weakness. your weakness of being powerless to protect the things precious to you, the people once dear to you. but when you've found the power to, you've lost beyond salvation, and there was nothing left to protect.

as you made your way to the seats, aeri couldn't hold back the urge to ask. because the way your eyes didn't carry that special shine her best friend naturally has, concerned her.

she could sense something different seeping from your usual aura. on certain days when you're not in the best condition, there would be times where she can tell that you aren't happy or upset about something and she'd find the right cure to your sour mood.

however, today felt odd. it was seemingly an aura that she hasn't seen from you. you weren't feeling good, but it felt as if you lost the fire in you. the fire you had bore in your soul for your passion. if it had been a bright red fire, it's like it turned into a calming blue one. somewhere in you, you've lost something, never able to ignite a bright red fire ever again.

aeri had convinced herself that perhaps you were tired from piano, burnt out and taking a break from it to regain that passion.

the previous act had just ended, and everyone were to take a five to check if everything was in order. the blaring speakers and annoying mc finally stopped ringing in your ears. instead, a soft voice tickled your right ear, sending shivers down your spine.

"baby, are you really okay? you don't seem to look well."

the girl had leaned in to whisper, and it almost short-circuited your brain with how proximity was out of the window instantly by that small gesture.

"yeah, I'm fine, what makes you say that?"

"you look.. different."

"and you feel different too."

it was as if she had known from the start, that you weren't her best friend she knew. yet, she was trying her best to make sense of her confusion. deep down, you knew that all of this was making no sense. absolutely no sense how you were sitting here with a person in the face of your lover, waiting for your friend's performance in the middle of the summer. all it took was a step out of the house and another step back to report to your superior of your work.

and here you were, reminiscing the memories you had. they were irreplaceable, and will never be. but no one can stop you from making new ones either. just this once, you say. just this once to hold her in my arms one last time.

as your arm grazed against hers, you were looking into her eyes for the first time since the evening started. never have you realized that she had such mesmerizing eyes, pulling you in like gravity.

when you had gazed into her eyes, she spotted a glimpse of admiration, the one that she was ever so familiar with. it put her at peace, reassured that you were alright that night.

your demeanor changed since that night, but she decided to brush it off, convincing herself that she was just overthinking again like she usually does. but maybe, she should have questioned further.

who were you?

you were a fever dream, but also a lifetime nightmare.

minutes turned into hours, and hours turned into days. the sense of time is only perceived in dimensions that were able to escape apocalypse. back at the headquarters, time was fluid, seemingly long at certain moments and short when you don't even notice. which was why you weren't too worried about residing longer in this dimension beside aeri.

"hey, what do you think about love?"

as she laid her head on your lap as you leaned against her bedframe, the question took you aback a little. this very question was presented to you ages ago by your lover, vaguely remembering the scene in your head. but you remembered your response to it, and it doesn't apply to you anymore. 'love is when I find myself staring at your eyes and get the butterflies each and every time.'

"love is like a thorn in a rose waiting to prick the chosen one."

"it's something so beautiful you can't help but to get close to, and once you admire and realize its worth, it pricks you. leaving you to bleed, it creates a kind of pain that numbs you, yet you reach for it again like none of that happened."

"it makes you yearn for it, and when you've had too many wounds, that's when you notice that you're hopeless."

you never forgot how it felt to love her, it was all too familiar when it felt so natural to fall for aeri, which you almost couldn't resist. the way her eyes curve into crescents as she smiles, the way her scent fill your senses when she leans on your shoulder, the way you feel the butterflies when you stare into her eyes.

it scared you.

this wasn't where you were to belong. yet, the feeling of loving her permeated through your entire being, unable to shake off as you willingly dive deeper into your emotions.

"girl, did someone hurt you?"

aeri laughed away, thinking that you were half-heartedly joking and sarcastically answering the question. her best friend wasn't the type to dwell in the topic of love and dating. she had better priorities in life, which was the piano that sat in her room across from aeri's.

the lack of your laughter made her frown instantly, cursing at herself for perhaps making a mistake.

"what's wrong? did someone really-"

"no no, nothing's wrong. I just thought of that when you asked me. it just felt like love is a rose, it can be beautiful and romantic to some, but also a painful past for others."

"well, you're not wrong. remember that guy from middle school? he was literally the biggest idiot in class and he had the balls to confess to you with a bunch of roses in front of the whole school."

"yeah, that was definitely not it."

you laughed along, but you couldn't. the story was too familiar, this was what happened to you ages ago. not this person you were posing as, but you. the details matched your experience, but only that the person receiving the confession being your lover.

it was too hard to just brush it off as a coincidence. many could be, but this was too specific. timelines matched but with only the people as a difference. the thought of this dimension being a parallel universe of yours brought shivers down your spine. what if it was? what if this dimension's apocalypse was inevitable, just like yours?

many what ifs were not going to stop the apocalypse. you were the only hope to save the world, but screw the world. all that crossed your mind as you caressed her hair was only one thing that mattered to you.

'I will keep you safe, even if it meant that I'd never be able to see you again.'

jaemin and jeno had agreed to go together to a frat party you were technically forced to go by some jock you bumped into in the hallway while you were on your way to meet aeri. the dude kept pestering that you blatantly spat in his face that you were going. he didn't mention that you couldn't have people tag along, so you had asked the boys if it was possible to stick around in case things get out of hand.

the girl though, she had the balls to say that she was worried about you. she was going to stick with you the entire time you were there in case some idiots decided to hit on you, she'd be able to swat them away. the audacity, you thought.

if anything, guys were clearly going to swarm over her instead, and you'd have to act as her bodyguard. given that you're a good three to four inches taller than her, that itself would be possible to scare a majority. nothing could get her off your arm as you walked into the house, reeking of alcohol and sweat already at nine. before you could even show your face to that jock and perhaps head to the quietest area which was probably the pool, you felt eyes on her. maybe this was a bad decision after all.

you didn't want to ruin the mood for the many people who were enjoying this, so all you could do was subside that indecipherable internal anger of yours and find that idiot so you could leave this instant. the dirty looks all over aeri made your insides churn and boil, no matter how much you tried to understand why, you never could.

you didn't love the girl, she was a different person from your lover, just bearing identical physical traits. it was something that you had been telling yourself ever since you arrived here two months ago. that was how long you’ve spent being here, than the usual one-week stay.

trying so hard to deny that you harboured feelings for aeri, your efforts were all in vain when all it takes is just a flash of her smile. even during this moment of her laughing along with jaemin and jeno, it reminds you too much of her. the smile you would see when she feeds the stray cat outside your office, the laughter you would hear when you tickle her during pillow fights.

why was it so hard to walk away and do what you were sent to do here initially? why did fail to resist the sweet temptation of being in love again? when you couldn’t even hold onto that hand of your lover? the hand in yours felt so warm, contradicting the chilly feeling that set into place ever since that day.

she started melting the glacier of ice, while you took a step back to freeze it again. because it’s wrong, so wrong.

"I see hyunjin there."

jeno's voice caught your attention along with the name. following his point of direction, you finally spot that jock chatting away in the kitchen corner with presumably his friends. definitely, you weren't going to let the girl tag along cause enough was enough, another guy and you were going to tear this place down.

"aeri, can you stay with jae for a bit? I'll go say hi then I'll be right back. jeno's gonna be here so don't worry."

although she was very reluctant to let you go alone, you showed her those shining eyes, praying it works again this time. thankfully, she gives you a nod and heads off with jaemin first.

as you made your way towards hyunjin, you were extremely disgusted at how his friends were eyeing you up and down, like you were nothing but just an item. him on the other hand, was a lot better surprisingly.

it reminded you a lot of your high school days. the times when your lover had numerous suitors waiting in line to be her one and only. but she had eyes for you. you were still oblivious of the heart eyes you got from her then. it took you years to realize before you dated. it was the exact definition of ‘she fell first, but you fell harder’. until now, it still pretty much applied.

"hey! you made it!"

"yeah, you were following me around for three days, asking me to come."

he laughed awkwardly, even a little shy. what was this boy's deal?

it was as if the tables have turned, you now dealing with these boys who were fawning over her. perhaps in this dimension, you were quite a popular one.

"I just wanted to get to know you more, so I thought of getting you to come and spend some time together."

as much as he seemed nice, you weren't interested, and unwilling to lead him on to thinking you were.

"sorry, I have a boyfriend. but we could still be friends."

a little lie wouldn’t hurt him, and jeno was conveniently standing on guard with his supposedly scary aura which you found amusing.

you extended your hand politely in hopes he wouldn't have a freak out and frantic screaming that his love interest had an alleged boyfriend.

"I see... well then, great to be your acquaintance. I hope you have enjoy your time here."

you started to notice that his friends weren't eyeing you eerily, but rather that it seemed that they were wary of your intentions with hyunjin. it was as if you were about to play with this boy's heart, and that's when you remembered that rumor of a varsity player being dumped by that good-for-nothing cheerleader.

in fact, you witnessed that cheerleader sucking off some other guy’s face in the stairways. you’ve never made such a fast u-turn in your life, which you probably should have when you were making that decision to join the organization. but have you not joined, you wouldn’t have had the chance to meet aeri. and maybe you would have been long dead.

who knows? you might have met your lover in the afterlife when the creatures found you, had it not for the organization.

if fate decided to play a game, you had no choice but to shoot your shot at it.

"thanks for the invite."

"jaemin, please tell me I'm not crazy. I swear that's not her."

"if that's not her, then who is she? come on, aeri. be real."

"I am being real. she keeps avoiding the hugs I give her, and when I get a little closer, she literally freezes up."

the girl ran her hands through her hair in frustration, not knowing what is the truth and what isn't anymore.

for the past two months, she sensed something different about you. were you drastically different? no. something was, and she just knew. but what? these were the questions that had occupied her head for the past week.

she noticed you avoiding her eyes, taking brief glances only, as if you were afraid. afraid of getting your feelings hurt. but why should you? you've been best friends with aeri for as long as you could remember. if anything, you two were inseparable according to reliable sources like jaemin and jeno.

the only thing was, the memories you gained from the owner of this body. it was torturing you more than you thought it should. the smile on her face through these eyes, the sweet laughter through these ears, the gentle touches through these fingertips. endless nights of witnessing aeri fall asleep before you did. just like those times you did when she was your lover.

"that's it? sis, I thought she'd turn into a werewolf or had poisonous potions in a secret room or something."

"and you're the one who's telling me to be real."

"and you're an idiot. sounds like she just likes you to me."

a thousand questions popped in her head. then those questions were given their respective answers as she put together the puzzle one by one. maybe, you liked her. maybe, you loved her.

but why? nothing had changed between you and her so why now? she admits that she had felt attracted to you at times, but she couldn't be sure that she had feelings for you. however she was uncertain, you hadn't been the most expressive these days and she wasn't a mind reader.

when she saw you emerging from the crowd with jeno, she knew that she needed answers before the night ended.

unfortunately no, aeri didn't get any answers because she didn't have a chance to ask. her frustration fueled the endless beer refills which ended her drunk on your back as you prepared her for bed.

and you were lucky that she hadn't gotten the chance to do so. for the past two months, every day you woke up to was a curse in disguise of a blessing. the realization that hit you every time that like a reminder at the back of your head, that aeri wasn't your lover. and every single thing you've done with her won't remain as time spent with you, but her best friend who's the best pianist to her.

all she remembers when she woke up the next day was nothing, with a hangover that was giving her the worse headache. and you remember everything too vividly.

that night, as you tucked her hair behind her ear, all you could do was hold back sobs as a tear managed to escape, trickling down your cheek.

you couldn't sit by and enjoy this newfound life any longer. the day this world ends was getting closer and you had a mission to prevent the apocalypse. you weren't waivered by the possibility of a punishment that would cost your life. you were terrified of witnessing another time of losing someone you loved, someone you love.

you love aeri, yes. but was it the remnants of the love you had for your lover? although that may have been the case, you couldn't deny that her and aeri shared countless similarities. it was wrong to keep drawing resemblances between the two. nevertheless, one thing was for sure.

this version of you in this dimension, had loved aeri for a long time.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…"

"I love you so much."

"please forgive me."

"nothing in this world belongs to me. but this love, my love is all mine, forever for you."

[ane-doodles]

Yuridia's sons

Join me for a while in this little infodump…

I have previously shown pieces of information about Yuridia, being the alternative version of Narinder in the goat dimension. Also in the past I showed some slides explaining some details about the differences between the dimensions… and much longer ago I talked about my beloved OC Juvenal

And guess what?

EVERYTHING COMES TOGETHER!! >:D

Notice of long post talking about the history of ocs with a little blood here and there (descriptions of abuse and violence, and poorly detailed images of decapitation.)

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Yuridia is the main goddess in her dimension, she reigns over the cycle of reincarnation, being able to kill and bring her followers at her convenience in new bodies designed by herself. She herself can even prolong the cycle's waiting time, but she can also prevent the reincarnation of a soul into its designated body (this is considered a punishment of the worst kind). In the very distant past she was also the goddess of death, but after her blossoming as a goddess her powers were diverted to reincarnation. Something curious is that, being the goddess of reincarnation, she can kill a body… but not a soul (save this fact for later).

Yuridia is also a kind of "master of lies." She herself transforms her body into the appearance of an adorable puppy (Samoyed) to make herself look beautiful and harmless, when in reality she is terribly selfish, aggressive, manipulative and disinterested in anything that does not bring her any benefit.

The goddess also has one… three (?) children, and they are these here:

From left to right their names are 1) Ceracela, 2) Bernabé, 3) Canio. And together they make "Cancerberus"

(Jsjsjs I feel like I have a big brain for thinking about this, let me enjoy it)

Cerberus takes the place of Baal and Aym in this dimension, so here they are kind of guardians and warriors too. Unlike their mother, they are completely dogs (omitting the part with the three heads of course).

Long before her false imprisonment, Yuridia noticed how a rumor was spreading among her followers and the bishops that one of her sons would inherit the crown in the future, and that the most anticipated candidate was Canio, being the most physically similar to his mother. and with a more gentle personality "as a god who takes and gives life should be."

Although rumors spoke of inheriting the crown, Yuridia assumed it was a theft of her position, so she took matters into her own hands (literally).

Reuniting with her children, Yuridia tore off Canio's head, leaving the body of her other two children damaged.

She gets rid of the head but not having the power to permanently kill Canio's soul ends up reincarnating in a different dimension, the dimension of the lamb. This is where my oc's existing little lore comes in:

Juvenal is Canio who, having forgotten his identity, ends up receiving a new opportunity to live. He retains a sweet soul but tinged with fear due to trauma resulting from his death. Although he does not have all the powers he had, he has the trait of immortality and does not need to be turned into a demon to be taken to the crusades.

Ceracela and Bernabé develop an immediate ear for their mother having killed their brother just to maintain a position she was never in danger of losing. Despite this, they must continue their work as guardians.

Neither of them are in Yuridia's domain during her imprisonment, but are instead in charge of guarding the cult grounds in the goat's absence.

When the goat has completed his mission and is about to meet Yuridia again, they try to stop him, warning him that what he does will be terrible for everyone. The goat only thinks about ignoring them and continuing but Yuridia takes the body of her vessel and attacks her sons, considering them traitors.

Similar to Canio/Juvenal's fate they are separated and stripped of their powers. They also retain the trait of immortality.

When the goat discovers the possibility of traveling between dimensions, he is surprised to see Juvenal, immediately recognizing that he is related to Yuridia due to their physical resemblance, although the dog cannot explain it to him. It is in a meeting with the twins that he learns the story of their separation and proposes (beyond Yuridia's knowledge) to reunite them once again, bringing the boys with him to the cult of the lamb.

I'm still thinking about their reunion and what it will be like. I'm also working on a character sheet for all three, although at this point I'd have to draw all three of them separately.

These three have been occupying my mind for a long time and I have tried to give them a good story. I don't know how often I'll be able to draw them in the future (because it's hard for me not only to draw furries but also to draw three heads on one body!) but I'll always be willing to answer questions about them.

Oh! And if you have ideas to improve the story or what their reunion could be like, tell me! I would love to read it…

I hope you liked my little tragic story with a happy ending :)

[tamtuliko]

Well well well...

Episode 6... the episode you are... you have everything, top-tier acting, camerawork, lighting, music, characters. You made me climb to the highest mountains and 9th sky, only to drop me dead.

I have talked about 10 dimensions, butterfly effects, timelines, timetravelling, and timezones.

Let's talk about characters. How gray they are, their non existing morals, and how they copy with everything.

Let's start with Great.

Born as mistress child, he was happy when it was just him and his mother. But she wanted more, for herself and of course for her only son. So they got their place at main house. Which made Great lose mother to money. He didn't gain anything from becoming rich. He lost his favorite person, maybe got big brother, but while growing up he became cold, distant, no emotions. We see him crash the car and see the woman bleed. His first move is to run away, knowing that his rich dad will get him out cause he might have done similar things before. Title did mention fighting, condoms at his condo, drugs Korn asks.

So Great is not a good person. Of course, he is not. He killed someone, hid it, helped Title to kill Dome, and went for a drink. Met hot doctor and was like, yeah let's fuck, you're hot and I'm in need of to get my brain fucked out.

So no, Great is not a good person. Great is broken, lonely, very sad person. His brain was so overwhelmed that it created the beat scenarios from him. He wanted to be a better person, but with society he lives in, didn't get him the opportunity to be a better person, better son, better brother, better lover, and better friend. His family is fucked up, his friends are fucked up, his lover is fucked up. So no, Great is not a good person, Great is a broken child who is acting on impulsices, knowing that he can do whatever he wants, and nobody will say a shit.

Until he meets Tyme. Until he understands that, he cant get all, until Tyme tell him truth about himself, the truth he's been avoiding, the truth of his cowardence, the truth about his family, the truth about the world he is living.

Great is not a good person, but Great is not bad either. Great wants to be loved, Great want attention, he wats to love too. But Great didn't get the chance to love or to be loved, and in his 4 minutes, he created his broken, perfect world, where Tyme is the one chasing after him, where he chooses to save people, where he choose right side, where he loves and where he is loved. Where he is the best version of himself. Not perfect, but the best.

So yes, Great is not a good person, but Great is trying his best to be a better person.

Please look at this shot. The only light is behind, where the family portrait is. Around is all dark. Family must be the most important in one's life. They must be each others pillers. For Great, they are just soulless figures frozen on photo, placed on the wall. That's his family. He is alone. In his own home, with his family. That's the saddest part of Greats story. To live, to have everything, yet missing the most important thing, thing that makes us decent human beings: family, love, friends.

His story, his tjmeline, is twisted.

I don't think anyone would be able to portray Great better than Bible. 1-5 episodes, he baby girled so hard, in 6 episodes he was brat, his eyes full of mischief, but sad same time. The way he chased after Tyme like lost kitten. Oh boy, the duality of this man. I'm impressed. Trully, wow.

Let's go for the next baby. -> will be Tyme.

But I need to put this here

This, dears is hungry, lust, need, hurry. I've got no words to describe the beauty of this scene.

[fairytale-poll]

SEMIFINAL ROUND, MATCH 2 OUT OF 2!

Propaganda Under the Cut:

Bug:

Their a bug that falls in love with a human they rescue and becomes human, but even when they don't get to keep their human body, they still get to be with their love. It's a sci-fi fairytale musical.

Little Mermaid meets Starship Troopers musical starring awesome puppets and the most trans coded main character ever. Please. Please vote Bug Starship I love him. Go watch Kick it Up a Notch from Starship. Go watch Status Quo from Starship. You will understand.

He's a bug and he lives in space on a bug planet but he really wants to be a starship ranger which you can only be if you are a human and then one day a spaceship lands on his planet and so he goes to an evil bug called Pincer who then helps him become a human. And Bug falls in love with a human on the spaceship and it's very sweet. The musical and storyline are based on the little mermaid story, the creators themselves called it "the little mermaid but in space". Bug wanting to be a human/a starship ranger and achieving that and falling in love with a human is very much like the little mermaid

Starship is a musical that can only be described as The Little Mermaid meets Starship Troopers. It follows Bug, an alien bug who dreams of being a Starship Ranger, a galactic explorer/soldier, but the rigid confines of bug society keeps him trapped in a job he hates. He reaches a Starship Ranger named February from the hive and immediately falls in love with her. In order to be with her and pursue his dream, he makes a deal with a giant scorpion named Pincer who through sci-fi bs gives him a human body. Near the end of the second act he sacrifices his human body and returns to his bug body, and saves the day and wins February's heart. It's truly the ultimate Little Mermaid. He has multiple songs, and his bug body is portrayed by a puppet!! Vote for Bug!!

“It's a big, big, universe So many dimensions And unanswered questions Not to mention Life What an invention Life There's no choice involved in what you are given One mind, one voice, one body to live in It's a short, small thing we lead With so much potential Pointless or essential Which one can I be? Where do I fit? Where do I stand? Who are they to say what I am? And how can I stay inside this awful world I know? I need a way out I need an escape I'd rather be dead than to live in this place I wish that something or someone could just take it all away Someone take me away” dear god….. can anybody hear me…. (song from starship)

They are the purest little mermaid adaptation done in the most unuque way. An alien insect gets turned into a human, a race he has always loved and admired, to be with the woman he fell in love with. Also just a great musical.

Bug's whole arc is so so in tune with that of the little mermaid. He is an alien who has fallen in love with humanity through a crashed spaceship and trades his place in the hive for a chance to be with both with the human he's falling for and to be a Starship Ranger. He body swaps with human in a cryogenic pod! It's literally sci-fi Little Mermaid!

Original Fairytale:

The OG, she suffered so much more than Ariel in the Disney version, and gave up her love for Christianity. When she's turned into a human her feet are in agony with every step, but she dances anyway to enchant the Prince. The Prince marries a princess who found him after the Little Mermaid rescued him. The Little Mermaid is distraught at the prince marrying another, so her sisters give her a dagger from the Sea Witch that will turn her back into a mermaid if she kills him. She refuses to kill him, and then she turns into sea foam and dies, but because she was a good person she becomes a spirit of the air and does good deeds for 300 years until she dies again, gains a soul, and goes to Heaven.

[dramadramallama]

Love Supremacy - brain rot part 1

So I have a problem. I enjoyed the first half of Love for Love's Sake without knowing I would get absolutely bowled over by the second half. I have so much to say holy fuck, I'm all over the place.

Unfortunately for everyone, my brain has been love supremacied, and I'm unable to move on. The show has a high rewatch value. It’s full of details; big, important ones, and small, insignificant ones, but they all add a lot of weight to the story. I need to exorcise my thoughts for my own sake. I guess if I have to intellectualize it somewhat, I really liked the show cause it’s perfectly balanced in terms of structure, and its themes. Judging from the amount of notes I have made on this show on my second watch, it’s safe to say it’s got some substance. It cleverly uses a mise en abyme, “a story within a story (within a story)” to really stack all those layers, and answer an age-old, quite difficult question: “what’s crucial to a happy life?” Dialogues, scenes, characters, and motifs all echo, mirror, and circle back to one another, giving the story enough dimension to avoid banalities.

Simply put, the thesis of the show is surprisingly philosophical, with universal themes. It posits that life is neither fate nor chance, and the answers are in mundane details of life. "Happiness is hidden somewhere in each of our days."

It’s obviously about love; a double love story even. Myung-ha learns to love someone else, and himself too. It's about life, and it's about death, new beginnings, and everything in between. The show made me feel like this, and like this, and like this, and...

▶️1. Mirrors/Symmetry

2. Fate, Free Will, and Happiness

3. Game/Reality

The story structure is very symmetrical. Circular almost. I LOVE IT, I EAT IT UP LIKE A HUNGRY, GRUBBY GOBLIN. Things begin where they end, elements keep repeating themselves like a series of mirrors.

By going through the game, Myung-ha finds himself on the other side of the mirror: he is supposed to find his own happiness, and will to live.

Yeo-woon is introduced to the audience as a sad side character in someone else’s story, victim of his “fate.” He almost perfectly mirrors Myung-ha: his background is eerily similar to his. He was raised by his (recently deceased) grandma, with an absent mother and a dead-beat dad. He’s lonely, unhappy.

When Myung-ha first meets him, Yeo-woon is resolutely standing on top of a building, about to fall or jump, which directly parallels Myung-ha's own suicide. In this new iteration of life, in this “game,” he saves Yeo-woon from hurting himself, which is the start of his own salvation. Saving Yeo-woon, the poor guy who didn’t get his happy ending, is saving himself. Yeo-woon is like a version of him right before he lost control of his life, after his grandma died, and he felt abandoned by all. It’s the core of the game, and the core of the drama, but Myung-ha (and we, the audience) can’t understand it right away.

Several details, in retrospect, show that he is the driving force behind this "game", and that it’s, by lack of a better term, both a test (as in, an exercise, a learning mechanism) and a Test (as in, an exam you don't wanna fail.) Myung-ha’s main, most important mission is to “make Yeo-woon happy.” Which he happily and enthusiastically tackles. He does what we all do: he takes a liking to the character most relatable to him. Time and time again, the way he reacts when presented with someone who struggles the same way he did is very telling.

He provides comfort. The comfort he lacked in his own life. (distant sounds of my heart shattering.)

But Yeo-woon isn’t the only one mirroring elements of Myung-ha’s life. Sang-won is a careless, tough-looking student, who seems slightly directionless. He picks fights easily and has a reputation at school for being “crazy.” He also smokes and rides a motorcycle (both illegal lol). His mom having abandoned Myung-ha, it’s also relevant to note Sang-won doesn’t seem to have a very good relationship with his own mother, and craves her attention. Although, he is your typical badboy, he is overall nice, sensitive, and has good intentions.

Myung-ha himelf appears to have been quite the turbulent student, with his own “mad dog” nickname. He, just like Sang-won, knows a thing or two about school fights, also drives a bike (lmao 100% sure he didn’t wait to have a license to drive though). Although he berates Sang-won for his rebellious side, with the patronizing tone of someone who’s done it all before, he shows genuine care.

Finally, Kyung-hoon. To me, he’s like another facet of Myung-ha’s personality. An absolute sweetheart, without friends, but always ready to help, and open to be befriended. While Myung-ha seems nonchalant about speaking badly of himself, he cannot stand it from others. He makes him his friend on the spot.

Once again, he provides like-minded friends the safe space he probably would have liked as a troubled, most certainly depressed teenager. Of course, it turns out Yeo-woon hates himself the most too (and by extension, dislikes everyone else.) It's the first clue for Myung-ha to realize some self-love might be the answer.

As it will become increasingly clear, Myung-ha has no issues protecting, providing for, and loving others, but fails to realize he should do the same for himself to achieve balance, and maybe, a little bit of happiness. The journey to get there makes him care for someone else the way he should care for himself, love someone else, like he should love himself. 

The last episode does a wonderful job of confirming what seemed to be threaded through the whole show, and explaining very clearly, in no uncertain terms, what it was all about.

However, the interesting aspect of this “mirror world," is that all of them, and Yeo-woon in particular, flip the script, in more ways than one. They all are a reflection of Myung-ha's life, but transcend their condition of “fictional character.” They’re not virtual. Yeo-woon is not made of something unreal, and he’s not a messed up copy of someone else. He has his own needs, desires, and quirks.

I don't think I can name them all here, but one of my favorite circular storytelling moment happens when Yeo-woon parallels Myung-ha by running to "find his fave." That moment in ep 8 counterbalances the one in ep 1.

Nothing is written in stone, and both of them set off to build their own happiness, against fate.

[thesharktanksdriver]

Oh! When I asked about magical girl! Y/n in Teen Titans (2003 version), I forgot to mention about how she would interact, meet or deal with the Titans’ villains like the HIVE, Slade, Red X, or the Brotherhood of Evil

No prob, I was actually wanting to add a bit about the hive in my first response but didn’t want to make it too long lol. I’m just gonna do the hive and Slade for this since I can’t remember the brotherhood of evil very well and red x would need his own thing lol

Is it any surprise that y/n ends up befriending the light? I mean really? With her track record the light are probably the least Bruce has to worry about. But anyways she would have probably heard about them through the teen titans but kinda didn’t pay them any mind till she ran into them. They at first think she’s a potential “no good goody two shoes” set out to stop their fun until she pulls out a sniper rifle and quite literally blow off the head of a shadowmite on one of their shoulders, effortlessly scaring the crap out of them and also making them quite interested in her.

I’d say she’s find them to be pretty fun, but she’d especially get along with Jinx and surprisingly Mammoth. Y/n is tired and exasperated half the time making her a kinda low energy person who would take to answering their questions as long as they got her bat-burger which leads to some interesting conversations.

“Yeah Robin has been pretty miffed lately cause-“

“Wait so you know Robin?”

“Yeah, both”

“Both???”

“Well you guys are from a seperate dimension right? Well there’s a Robin from my dimension who’s a different Robin from your Robin but still Robin. You can tell them apart cause your Robin is adverse to any real violence while my Robin would try and cut your arm off”

“….your Robin has a sword?!?!?!?”

“Yeah he also used to be an assassin too”

Yeah after that they start to think that they lucked out in the Robin department knowing theirs wasn’t the type to possibly cause real injury. That’s not even to mention when you mention other hero’s in this world or hell even the villains. Cause Jesus, Joker wore his own face after it was cut off?!?!? Or that an end of the world scenario happened just about every year?!?!?

They’re starting to enjoy where they live in comparison to you especially after you explain Shadowmites to them. How you hunt these monstrous creatures by your lonesome (maybe not as much as before since one of the bats typically tags along but still, there are times you go off on your own) and how your the sole thing keeping these things from literally devouring the universe.

But with that comes with you saying something oddly sad that makes them pause

“Hey….if the Shadowmites end up in your world and a magical girl is defending against them? Tell her about me. Tell her that I wish I could have met her myself and that…it’s gonna be hard but to keep going”

Damn…..that’s more depressing than they’d like to admit nor think about.

Her meeting 2003 Slade would be an….odd scenario considering she knows the Slade in her universe. So it’s definitely an awkward meeting when she’s like “yo Slade how’s rose doing” and 2003 Slade is wondering who the fuck she is and how she knows about his daughter.

When y/n learns that this is 2003 Slade though….she definitely tries to avoid him for various reasons. Cause listen, as much as her Slade is an asshole sometimes and has some weird ass morals he doesn’t act like a creep towards literal children. When hearing what he did to Raven she is appalled, she did not think being a hired murderer could get worse before she had heard that.

She does not in the slightest want to be around him

But him on the other hand is interested partially due to the fact he can see she’s skilled and some of the techniques she uses are some of his moves.

Which means that she must have known and trained under her universe’s version of him

When y/n now meets up with her version of Slade she thanks the gods he isn’t the same one from 2003

(Y/n to 2003 Slade be like lol)

[ot3]

finishing up fionna and cake... overall it was a fun ride but i really don't think it worked structurally. 6/10 show. i didnt think this was gonna be a long post but apparently i've got some thoughts. sticking below the cut

this last episode is kind of underwhelming... theres a couple of parts in this ep where they just sit and explain to the camera how simon realized betty was constantly sacrificing her own desires for simon and how simon wanted to put on the crown because he thought he didn't deserve to live. and it's not like those are bad realization for the show to come to but the show has very clearly established that it's intended for a more adult audience than the original adventure time, and so this kind of writing just feels really condescending when not directed at literal children. like yeah we could have figured this out from the writing, but. you didn't have to just tell us

i also didn't vibe with scarab as a villain, he felt super arbitrary to me. like they needed Something to be forcing them to move between dimensions, but i feel like scarab was an extremely meh choice for that. he wasn't particularly funny or interesting enough as a character to get to be one of the only people who showed up in every episode. i honestly think it would have been better if the existential threat these characters were facing was more of a force than a character, because it was already running so tight on time anyway it didn't really have the space to develop a good villain.

gary and marshall's screentime was another thing that i felt like is a huge waste of space. them doing their whole meet cute bakery au romance is something that's funny on paper but it's not compelling on its own and the only slight interest it has comes from our pre-existing investment in marceline and bubblegum's much more interesting dynamic. it didn't add anything to the overall arc of the show and took up time that could have been used to deliver more solidly on the core premise.

fionna and cake themselves were really cute but i don't feel like fionna's arc was as strong as it could have been. like ohhh yay shes come to love her normal world with all its imperfections.... obviously thats where it was going the whole time and once again. its not like i mind that ending. i just feel like they didn't do anything interesting with it. her character doesn't get to learn and progress as much as she's just marching down a straight path that we all already knows where it leads. i wish they would have just called the show 'Simon' so i wouldn't have to feel so disappointed in this.

adventure time has always been on the cutting edge of bizarre stuff in animation so the biggest let down overall with this show is how much when you strip away the Adventure Time coating of surrealist visuals on top of it it just feels like any other middling adventure cartoon. it didn't lean enough into the episodic structure to benefit from that the way the original show did, and it was too beholden on the episodic structure to linger on any of the parts that were actually compelling.

overall, the show feels like pandering to the adventure time fanbase, but in kind of a lazy way. Compare this to the distant land specials which I think were pandering in an excellent way. im not anti pandering by any means. The whirlwind tour through universes and characters that lifetime adventure time fans will recognize tries to come off as a love letter to the series, but instead just comes off as the adventure time version of that 'rejected ready player one theme song' video. remember farmworld? remember prismo? remember the vampire king? remember shermy and beth? remember Up a Tree? like. yeah. i do remember. thanks. do you have anything to say about any of this stuff or - oh. no. just showing me. got it.

its not someting i think i'll ever rewatch but at just ten eps definitely worth one watch through. theres some really good fun to be had in it and the art is gorgeous all the way through, it just fails to come together into a successful complete work.

[only-lonely-stars]

Orange is the New Black (Chapter 2 - Doppelgängers)

[Chapter 1] // [Chapter 2 - you are here!] // [Chapter 3] – (FFN) (AO3)

Part of @ninjago-fic-fest!

Summary:

A rift opens in the sky above Ninjago City just as Cole continues his track record of falling from tall places. The place he wakes up in isn't the same as the one in which he fell... and who's the kid with a man bun who looks just like him?

Chapter summary:

Cole receives a few mediocre explanations and meets some "new" people.

Cole stared at the teenage boy in front of him. “Uh… care to run that by me again?”

‘Cole’ glared at him. “You’re not the Black Ninja. So who are you? Are you impersonating me?”

“No! Dude, you’ve got it all wrong.”

The boy scoffed. “Garmadon put you up to this, didn’t he?”

“Garmadon? Woah, woah, woah. I’m not working with him!” Cole crossed his arms. “Now I’m sure something weird is going on.”

“Yeah, it’s weird that you’re impersonating me!”

“No, not that kind of weird!” Cole laughed in disbelief. “Geez, kid. You gotta believe me here, I’ve already said it twice. I am not trying to impersonate you. How do I explain… it’s like I’m from an alternate dimension, okay?”

The boy scoffed, but before he could argue the shorter boy piped up, “That’s impossible. There are no alternate dimensions.”

“Actually, there are! There’s sixteen. Yours must be one of them.” Cole reached out a hand to shake his. “What’s your name, kid?”

The boy was hesitant, but he shook it. “...Lloyd.”

“Lloyd Garmadon?”

“Yeah. But I’m not like him, honest!” The boy looked on edge, close to panic. “Trust me, I don’t want to be a warlord and attack the city all the time. I don’t even live with him. I just want to be a normal teenager!”

“Woah, chill!” Cole put his hands on the kid’s shoulders, ignoring how the other Cole gave him the stink-eye. “I believe you. I’ve got a Lloyd back home, and he’s not like his dad either. Our Garmadon even turned good, if you can believe it.”

Cole scoffed. “That’s not possible.”

“It is, but that’s irrelevant.”

Lloyd laughed, but it sounded a little hysterical. “My dad is an evil warlord. He cries lava! I couldn’t do that, even if I tried.” 

“Oookay, so ours doesn’t do that, but he really did get better!” It seemed convenient to leave out the part where the evil version of Garmadon had been resurrected as an Oni monster, so Cole ignored it. “Anyway, that’s not so important. Are you a ninja too? If you guys are both ninja, do you have a team? Maybe a teacher?”

Lloyd and ‘Cole’ looked at each other before Lloyd spoke. “My uncle, Master Wu, teaches us. We can bring you to see him.”

“Yeah, that’s great! I’d love to. Maybe he knows how I can get home.”

It was wishful thinking, and Cole knew it, but it would have to do. If Wu didn’t know what to do, he didn’t want to think about what kind of trouble he’d be in.

Besides, this world was weird. Seeing Wu would really help. It wasn’t as good as talking to his own Wu, but it was something. Cole already missed him… and the rest of the team too, even though he’d barely been separated from them.

These days, any time apart was like a wound.

—

On the walk to the Secret Ninja Force’s base, Cole learned several important details.

One: The other Cole wasn’t quite the same as him. For one, his last name was Hence, not Brookstone. Cole wasn’t used to hearing his mother’s maiden name so much, but it helped to just call the other him ‘Hence’ instead of his own name. Hence didn’t seem to mind it too much, besides the odd eye-roll.

Two: Dragons didn’t exist in this world. At all. The only dragon either Lloyd or Hence knew about was Lloyd’s dragon mech, which obviously didn’t count.

Three: The Ninja kept their identities secret here. Why? Because Lord Garmadon didn’t seem to know who his son really was, and apparently, no one wanted him to know. There wasn’t a prophecy, so they could keep this going indefinitely. 

Cole remembered Garmadon being a pretty good dad when it counted, always showing up when he was needed most. Apparently in this world, he was a warlord and a deadbeat. Already, Cole’s opinion of him was in the dumps.

It was a crazy hour or so, all told, but Cole felt like he was pretty caught up on the differences… until they arrived at the Secret Ninja Force’s warehouse base.

Hence and Lloyd brought him in through the back door, expertly disguised by a neon yellow sign.

WARNING: RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS!

In Cole’s opinion, it was not the best hiding place.

Lloyd pushed open the door, the two gestured for Cole to enter, and Hence flanked him from behind. They came out next to a bank of bright red lockers, of the type Cole remembered from Marty Oppenheimer’s School for Performing Arts. The back was messy, filled with video game consoles and mis-matched furniture, with a clunky old refrigerator in one corner.

The rest of the warehouse was an enormous garage with a retractable ceiling, filled with six incredible mechs.

Cole was grinning at the thought of driving one when four teenagers suddenly showed up in front of him, the first skidding to a stop in front of the other three.

“Lloyd!” A brown-haired boy dressed all in red with a bandaged temple reached out and hugged him. “Hey, Green!”

Lloyd laughed softly, hugging back for a moment. “Kai, hey, what’s up.”

“Dude, we’ve been waiting for you!” Kai was about to say more when a girl stepped up, pulling out a knife from somewhere Cole couldn’t see. 

“Who are you?!” 

The rest of the teenagers gasped, but Cole snickered. “Hi. Nya, right?”

“How do you know my name?!”

“Because I know you!” Cole snickered more, glancing at Hence. “C’mon Hence, help a doppelgänger out here.”

Hence rolled his eyes, but he stepped forward and leaned one arm on Cole’s shoulder. “Guys, this is me from another dimension.” 

Four pairs of wide eyes watched them in disbelief. “What?!”

Cole snickered, even as the team crowded around and gaped at him. Their versions of Kai and Jay were curious, though Jay seemed oddly shy, and Kai had no problem with touching him and messing with his hair and gi. Cole let him, feeling oddly nostalgic. It felt like when Wu had been going through his ‘fussy toddler’ stage.

Their version of Zane– oddly robotic and with a stiff smile on his face, but with the same piercing blue eyes– trundled over and looked him up and down. “You are not a cool teenager like us!”

“Nope. Sorry, buddy, I’m almost twenty-seven years old.”

“How does it feel to be a geriatric ninja?”

Cole laughed. “Geriatric? Who are you calling geriatric, tin can?”

Other Zane turned his head in confusion. “I am not a tin can. I am a regular, teenage ninja.”

Before Cole could push it any further, he was interrupted by the quiet voice of Jay. “Why are you carrying so many weapons? What if someone sees you and figures out you’re a ninja?”

“Because it’s not an issue?”

“But ninja are supposed to keep their identities secret,” Jay insisted, slowly seeming to become more confident as he realized Cole wasn’t about to snap and eat him… or whatever weirdness this Jay expected. He couldn’t be too different, even if he was quiet, and Cole knew Jay well enough to know he never had a quiet moment inside his mind.

So Cole launched into his explanation, telling the story of how he’d arrived. The rift, landing on the football field, meeting Hence and Lloyd. It felt like telling a story to a bunch of school kids who sat on the floor with rapt attention, listened closely, and asked all their burning questions.

He didn’t mind it. Not really.

Even if Lloyd was fidgeting and pulling on his hoodie strings like he did when he was nervous. Jay buried his face in his bright orange scarf so he could barely be seen. Kai had scratches all over, most of them without bandages. Nya toyed with a knife. Zane sat too still and smiled too widely. Hence, most normal of them all, didn’t seem to be able to sit still at all. 

The whole world was knobbly and scratchy and bumpy and wrong. 

When he got to the end of the story, Cole took a deep breath and delivered his summary. “So, I’m stranded in your version of Ninjago. I think you guys are probably my only ticket back, so I need your help.”

The teenagers looked amongst themselves as Lloyd spoke for the group. “We don’t really know anything that could help.”

Before Cole could speak, he was cut off.

“Then it is a good thing I do.”

A chorus responded to the interrupting voice. “Master Wu!”

Cole looked around for the source of the voice. He found it above him, the ninja master sitting on a railing near the ceiling. Upon eye contact, he leaped from his perch, sprung off a wall, and landed as nimbly as a cat on the cement floor.

Master Wu looked at Cole with calculating eyes, shrewdness hidden under a faint layer of secrets. It was at that moment Cole knew he was truly Sensei Wu, no matter what he did or said. Only Wu could look like that. 

Wu folded his hands behind his back, his shoulders seeming a little strange as he did so. “Students, who have you brought to your secret base?”

The whole team began to protest at once, giving excuses.

“We didn’t bring him here!”

“It was Lloyd’s idea!”

“He just showed up!”

“Master, he said he’s me–”

“We are just clueless teens, Master.”

At last, Lloyd spoke over the cacophony. “Master, he says he’s another version of Cole! Cole and I didn’t know what to do.”

“Cole?” Wu raised an eyebrow, glancing at Lloyd and Hence. “So that is why you brought him here.”

“I didn’t know what else to do. He’s a ninja too, and he knows all of our names. He’s not a real stranger.”

Wu scrutinized Cole with the watchfulness Cole remembered from his first few weeks of ninja training. Seeing weak points, exploiting them for students’ benefits and drinking far too much tea… it was all present in this wizened man’s face, staring him down from where he stood. “You’re right, he is not a real stranger. Who did you train under, young man?”

“Uh… under you, Master. My version of you. It was a long time ago, I’ve been a master ninja for years.”

Wu hummed, then nodded several times. “How did you arrive here?”

Deep down, Cole suppressed a sigh. Would he have to explain the story again in full? “I just fell through a rift in spacetime. It was magenta, it looked like this place. Then I arrived, and I want to go home already.”

Wu brushed off his homesickness. Instead of sympathizing, he pulled a wooden staff out from behind him. He put it to his lips, and as Cole watched in amazement, began beatboxing and playing it like a flute. A short rendition of The Score’s “Going Home” came through, somehow sounding right despite lacking every background instrument.

Cole glanced at the rest of the team, who seemed frustrated as they rolled their eyes and shook their heads. Secretly, he wished for a camera. If only his brothers could see this Master Wu!

“Master,” Lloyd complained as Wu was coming to the end of the tune, “What do we do? We don’t know how to get Co– him home!”

Wu, finishing his ditty, brought the flute down on Lloyd’s head with a quiet thwack. “You interrupted my music. Not very ninja of you.”

“This isn’t a very ninja situation!”

“Not important. Not my problem.” Wu turned to Cole with a grave expression. “Yes, we must send you home. I know of a magical device which will return you to your own realm.”

“Really?” Cole laughed in delight. “Talk about fast.”

“Not so fast, young ninja.”

“Young?” Kai sputtered. “He’s older than all of us!”

“Hush. We must travel a long, long way… to the Wanderlust Woods.” Wu pointed toward the back wall of the warehouse with his staff. “That way, on the other side of the island.”

“We’re on an island?” Cole frowned, glancing around as if the unseen scenery could help him verify the claim. “I guess we can take the Bounty, or maybe mechs…?”

“No!” Wu now brought the flute down on Cole’s head, a thwack making his scalp sting for just a minute. “‘Cool mechs are weapons first, not vehicles. We will walk. It is not far.”

The teenage ninja all groaned. “Come on, Master, we can’t be gone that long!”

“Today is Thursday. We will go after your classes end tomorrow.”

“Master,” Zane commented, with little emotion, “we have homework.”

“And what will our parents think?” Jay added. “My mom said we’re going to the flea market this weekend…”

“You will figure out something to tell them.” Wu shook his head, clearly not amused by his students’ excuses. “Not my problem. You are ninja, you will need to find a way for yourselves to remain secret. You do not need my help.”

The six teenagers groaned, but they didn’t argue any more. Instead, they turned to talk amongst themselves. Cole heard snippets of whispered conversation, mentioning clones and call it a sleepover at my place and are we sure this is a good idea?

He tuned them out, deciding to talk to Master Wu instead. He opened his mouth to speak, only for Wu to cut him off.

“You have no place to stay here.”

Cole blinked twice. “Uh… yeah. That’s what I was going to ask you about– one of a few things.”

“Come to my ship, the Destiny’s Bounty. You will stay with me.” Wu turned and gestured with his staff, walking to the other side of the warehouse and its great bay doors. “Come. Let them decide for themselves.”

After a moment of hesitation, Cole followed him. “Yes, Master.” 

[gumjester]

Where do you think Alice is in EAH? What's up with her? What do you think of her? Basically do you have any headcanons about her? ;)

oh alice!!!!!! yes, i have thoughts about her, which i think are quite unconventional, as i have a highly specific (and maybe convoluted) imagining of what exactly she has gotten up to in her life.. i think this is going to take some explaining.

ultimately i have had alice serve as a developed, largely tragic reason 4 alistair to be involved with wonderland the way he is. i remember watching spring unsprung all those Years ago and asking myself: why is alistair the same age as the other wonderlandians? shouldn't he b an entire generation younger than them to fit the story? why is he still there, anyway, now being very obviously not a little child?? and we've seen every other wonderlandian parent, so yes, where on earth IS alice???

so, i started there, and worked backwards!

most of this is clarified (or at least said slightly better) in my work 'alistair's fall', but i didn't think alice would end up remaining in wonderland and i never thought of her living in ever after, mostly because i couldnt think of another reason she would not be seen nor mentioned in the show at all! i always considered her an inhabitant of the 'mortal world' [working title], which is different 2 both ever after and wonderland in that it is.. our world i suppose? but fictionalised. normal human dimension, regardless..

this always made the most sense to me, as the separation of the fantastical and the regular is such a fundamental aspect of the original alice story, and if alice hailed from ever after, a place where dragons wandered around and wolves could speak, i dont think it would end up meaning quite the same thing... theme-wise.

so, she is from common old london, and it is there that she returned after her story! unfortunately things get more depressing from here.

alice is quite a sad character in my headcanons.. she loved wonderland very much as her accidental visit provided a refuge from her exceedingly troubled home life, and actually didn't want to leave at all. when it happened anyway (wonderland's stories work more like patterns in nature. a child comes, a child goes. its just what seems to happen) she refused to let her experience go, maintaining that wonderland was not a dream, like most alices decide, but instead a real place that she could return to one day. her life continued as a series of misfortunes, and she grew obsessive, detatched, and quite ill. most of her worldly thoughts and efforts were directed towards getting back to the rabbit-hole and returning to wonderland where she would be safe and happy again. she was never successful.

in her early twenties she ended up alone, still ill, with a child, who she named alistair. giving him a version of her name felt like ensuring his luck that he, too, would get to go to wonderland someday (and she was right).

to make ends meet, she took several odd jobs for several unsavoury people, and ended up on the bad side of someone who believed in extreme measures. she ran from them, with alistair, to the now-derelict house she grew up in, and when inevitably she was found she knew what she had to do.

alice sent alistair out quickly and secretly from the house, and down to the stream where she knew the rabbit-hole must be (if not for her, then surely for him. wonderland is kind like that; if a child is in need, it will open itself to them). alistair found the rabbit-hole. alice stayed behind and met her consequence.

of course, this is a pretty gratuitously miserable thing to put her through, but i was about 17 when i thought of all this and my taste has remained edgy enough to think it effective!!! to this day i have no idea if she ought to be alive in the mortal world, or dead.. maybe one day, if i write a sequel to alistair's fall, i will actually have to make this decision!.... but not yet

[mickeys-malarkey]

BATDR Analysis/Post-Playthrough Theory Revision Pt. 3/4: All this brings me back to Henry and Allison’s apparently-retconned stories.

Funny how the Memory of Joey tells us this story like a fairytale told to a child, isn’t it?

The Memory of Joey: Once upon a time, Audrey, there was a bitter old man. Who had lost just about everything. Audrey: Joey. The Memory of Joey: Right. The real Joey Drew. He blamed everyone but himself for his mistakes, but mostly he blamed his old business partner for abandoning their work, years and years ago. A man by the name of Henry Stein. A great artist and a good friend. In his anger, Joey used an evil machine to create another world. A world made of paper and ink, where he'd torment his own version of Henry forevermore. But one day, a miracle happened. An angel came into Joey's life. A young woman by the name of Allison Pendle. She didn't visit often, but when she did, she saw something good in Joey that no one else could. Including himself. Through their friendship, he began to see the world with better eyes. So one day, in his cartoon cycle of hatred, he gave Henry an angel of his own. To guide him when things were most dark. To always provide hope…

I’m certain that (aside from the green part) this is a fabrication created by Nathan Sr. and his modification of both the Ink Dimension and the memories of the real world contained in the loop in order to keep Bendy/Real Joey trapped and at odds with not just Henry (as I'd originally theorized), but also Allison beyond the grave (while also allowing them to stay friends although they're both trapped as well just to further taunt Joey). First of all, Allison’s surname was already Connor in her BATIM letter, remember? Doesn’t that mean she can’t have been called “Allison Pendle” when she met Joey, if the Memory of Joey’s story were true?! He’s claiming Allison and Joey met after Henry started going through his loops in 1963, remember (he’s literally saying that every scrap of information we have on her is imaginary just with this one claim, because this would mean that the invitation to her and Tom’s wedding in 1952 in The Employee Handbook [BATIM guidebook], where Allison herself wrote that Joey was the reason they met, was fake… Need I remind everyone that theMeatly, himself, literally told us multiple times, including the day after the trailer dropped, that all of BATIM’s established lore is still 100% canon in BATDR)?!?!

Second of all, I noticed long ago that there looked to be about 12-23 hatch marks (depending on if some of those are actually hatch marks or just meaningless scribbles) in Henry’s prison cell in Allison and Tom’s hideout, like the ones in the beginning hallway, and theorized that this meant Henry had been counting not just how many times he’d gone through the whole cycle, but also how many times specific endings had happened. If I’m right, that would mean that about 12-23 of those 414 loops Henry went through before BATIM ended with him in Allison and Tom’s hideout…

…which means that, even if all the other messages on this particular wall were written by Joey, Audrey, and Wilson, Allison’s addition was most definitely not what made Loop 414 different, as the Memory of Joey seems to be implying. I’ll talk about my new theory on what did make Loop 414 different in a bit.

Now, if that part of the Memory of Joey’s story is untrue, then what if the Henry we meet in Wilson’s prison for Cyclebreakers is not a copy created to be tortured, he’s just been gaslit into believing he must be by the fact he’s survived for years without eating in his new ink body? So much so that he believes that maybe he should just give up on holding onto his human life and memories (translation: he's leaning on Joey's Illusion of Living coping mechanism, trying to create a reality that hurts less. Which, as I've said before, Nathan Sr. loves because it makes him easier to control)?

Henry: What's your name? Audrey: Audrey. What's yours? Henry: Honestly, I've almost forgotten. My name is Henry. Audrey: Have you been a prisoner long? Henry: When the Keepers think you're a threat to their plans, they lock you away, forever. Still, it's given me time to think. Things like: if you haven't eaten in years, you might not be human.

The Memory of Joey literally confessed that he doesn’t actually know if the Ink Dimension was created for revenge or regret, remember? So, why is he now suddenly claiming that he knows for sure that it was specifically created for this particular brand of substitutionary revenge?? Sure sounds like Nathan Sr.'s manipulative self-contradiction, again, doesn't it? I also find it extremely suspicious how this headline that seems to be confirming the retcon of Henry’s death…

…not only sounds nothing like a headline you would read in real life (except maybe in a trash tabloid or something, which this might be judging by some of the other headlines and would mean we shouldn't be trusting it to have done any fact checking rofl) – it sounds like something that a player (maybe one of JDS’s real-life beta testers, even) said during their playthrough, after hearing the Memory of Joey’s “retconning” story – but also… isn’t even properly capitalized or in any of the same fonts as the other headlines on this paper nor on the other we have! Especially considering the fact that one of these headlines is talking about the angry moon Easter egg you can spot in Lost Harbor, I don’t think this is actually a headline confirming that Henry’s not dead in the real world; I think it’s the observer’s (be that Audrey's or those of any other random ink creature who’s run into the Memory of Joey and/or “Fake Henry”) thoughts leaking into the wider reality of the Ink Dimension.

Oh, by the way, we do have evidence that either Henry or at least one of the other potential message writers, at one point, seemed to know our dear Mr. Animator was dead in the real world, also found in his cell in Allison and Tom’s hideout, if anyone who knew forgot.

I highly doubt it was referring to the message about Allison leaving him for dead, considering how he was awakened by her sounds of panic and would have no reason to still be in bed when Bendy arrived, even if not knowing about the secret toilet meant he didn’t escape Bendy the first time he experienced an Allison and Tom Loop. Funny that this is also where we see the evidence of Audrey existing in BATIM, by the way; hand with a swirl saying “follow me” and another swirl labelled “trust her,” as SuperHorrorBro on YouTube pointed out? Hm…

Let’s go back to her. It does seem we can trust parts of what the Memory of Joey says, like how we were able to glean clues as to what was going on behind the curtain through TIOL despite both the hoops that Joey had to jump through to get Nathan Sr.'s permission to publish in the first place and Nathan Sr.'s postmortem edits; you just gotta pay attention to the patterns in the broader picture. We do know, for example, from clues in BATIM, TIOL, and TLO, that whether or not he wanted anything to do with romance and having kids was a huge internal struggle for Joey that culminated in regret at missing the chance; which tells me that, yes, Joey created Audrey to be the daughter he could never have (speaking of which… based on the Keepers' “surgical invasions” comment, I wonder if Nathan Sr. might've… *clears throat* had someone forcibly sterilize Joey… ☹️). However, unlike many fans (including MatPat of Game Theory on YouTube, I saw this morning), I think Audrey has a completely new soul; Joey didn't sacrifice Henry's daughter or Tessa Arch or anything like that. Lemme explain.

Y’know how Audrey talks and behaves a lot like Henry (planning on drawing her animations all night long and actually doing so in the secret ending you unlock if you don’t make her move at the very beginning of the game, saying a lot of the same lines as him, etc.) and there’s an Easter egg where you can spot a ghost train on Platform 77 at 4:14am or 4:14pm (the same number as the loop that was different, Henry’s identifier in the Cyclebreaker prison, in the corner of the so-called “death of Henry retconning newspaper,” and the dates marked on so many lore drops… Anyone remember Nathan Sr. saying the last he heard from Joey, when he sounded so happy, was during April? I wonder if Audrey’s “birthday,” when Joey tried to cut ties with Nathan Sr. and disappear off his radar for good, was April 14… and mayhaps Nathan Sr. had the announcement of his buying the Bendy IP published and caused Wilson to discover the Ink Machine on April 14th as a way to poetically rub it all in Joey's face and dance on his grave)? There’s also another place that we can spot a ghost: when you make Audrey strike a pose in front of the mirror in her office too many times, like the goshdarned peacock that Joey was.

There are Lost One memos that say not only that ghosts are what happen when souls randomly, accidentally slip out of the Inkwell, but also that new souls can be created by combining old ones inside the Ink Machine…

“We don’t live forever. When we’re killed or finally pulled apart, our diseased souls return to the ink to be reborn. An unending cycle of torment. But sometimes, something even worse can happen. A soul can slip from the ink completely. It gets caught between worlds, unable to die or return. They wail in the night. Drifting in shadow. The Phantoms of the Machine. The ghosts.” ~ Unknown, Bendy and the Dark Revival, “The Ghosts” memo (emphasis added)

“We live in the ruins of the past. Forever lost in the shadows of those who came before us. Blended souls to make something new. Birthed from a machine into a world we cannot own. But the Ink Demon lives in all of us. A voice that calls us to a purpose. We know it’s a lie, but his intoxicating pull is strong. He is calling. Always calling. Can you not hear him?” ~ Unknown, Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Who We Are” memo (emphasis added)

What if Audrey’s soul is a combination of pieces of Henry and Joey’s souls, so she’s Henry and Joey’s daughter, but none of the three of them realize it?? As far as Joey knows, she's only his own kid (because he knows with 100% certainty that he put a piece of his own soul inside of her), but the Arch family figured out what changed for Joey to finally succeed at creating life (by the way, I saw someone in some YouTube comment section point out a long time ago that, if you translate “414” to the alphabet, it spells “dad…” Wowzah, the symbolism)???

“I believe there’s something special in all of us. With true inner strength, you can conquer even your biggest challenges. You just have to believe in yourself and remain honest, motivated, and above all, who you really are. Okay, let’s stop it right there. I can only do so many takes of this trash a day. And tell the guys in writing I want more use of the word ‘dreaming’ in every message. Keep railing on that, get it? Dreaming! Dreaming! Dreaming! People just eat up that kind of slop. Hmm, what? It’s still on? Well, turn it off, damn it!” ~ Joey Drew, Bendy and the Ink Machine, ch. 4 (emphasis added)

The Memory of Joey: Well, geez! You haven't gotten far! Audrey: Don't do that! Wait… how… how did you get in here? The Memory of Joey: Oh, I have my ways. So, tell me. How goes the journey? Audrey: Slow, but I'll get through. The Memory of Joey: Ah! I see you have your father's never quit, go-getter spirit. Audrey: Oh, now you knew my father. Well, news flash! I didn't even know my father… or my mother. Or anyone else in my family. The Memory of Joey: I see then. You've chosen to forget the past. I can understand that. Audrey: What are you talking about? The Memory of Joey: Look, I don't think you're ready for this, *pats her hand* but hang on to your lunch money. There's something I want to show you. *Starts using his teleportation powers* Audrey: Wait. What are you doing? The Memory of Joey: *Teleports her and himself to BATIM Chapter 1* Henry's Voice (echoing like it's supposed to be a memory): Alright, Joey. I'm here. Let's see if we can find what you wanted me to see. . . . The Memory of Joey: …It was then, Joey decided to make something new. Something he had always wanted, but he could never have: a family. But not a cartoon one. Something real. And after many, many tries, he created something that made him happier than he ever could have imagined: a wonderful, loving daughter. Bright and kind. Almost human. He created you, Audrey. Audrey: What? Are you crazy? The Memory of Joey: Listen, I know it's a lot— Audrey: —Who do you think you are? I wasn't born from some… machine! I'm flesh and blood. I'm not some kind of ink monster. The Memory of Joey: Just because we're born of darkness, doesn't mean we belong to it. We're always free to choose. To believe what we want to believe. Audrey: Take me back! Right now! I'm not listening to any more of your lies! The Memory of Joey: Remember who you are, Audrey. *Tries to take her hand again* Audrey: *Yanks her hand away* Leave me alone! The Memory of Joey: *Sighs and sends her back to the Downside Hotel*

“This may be my last chance to record a message, I’m pretty sure he saw me talking into this thing, He probably won’t let me keep it. Not much left to say except… Linda, I miss you and I love you so much. Coming back to this old place well… it kind of reminds me of how much I’ve gained. I feel like there are so many questions that need answering, so many things that don’t make any sense. If anyone hears this, if you make it out, don’t ever return, because the Ink Demon will find you.” ~ Henry Stein, Bendy and the Ink Machine, ch. 5 teaser audio log #3 (emphasis added)

Audrey: Why would you be a threat to them? Henry: I'm what they call a “Cyclebreaker.” Once upon a time, I knew how to start the cycle over. And when that happens, everything begins again. Completely new. Obviously, Wilson and the Keepers don't want that to happen. Audrey: How did you do it? Henry: Reset the cycle? It turns out the Ink Demon himself is the key. This world is his, but even he must obey its rules. For now at least. If you can get him to look at something very specific, it will reset everything. Audrey: What is it? Henry: It's just a reel of film, labeled with the words “The End.” I can see it in my mind, every day. They keep it upstairs in the Pit [where Heidi says the ghosts live and nobody ever comes out of. At least, never quite the same]. Audrey: I'll see if I can break in and steal it. Maybe, if I reset the cycle, we can make things better for everyone here. Henry: And what about you? Audrey: I just wanna go home. Henry: So did I.

(*Side-eyes that “even Bendy must obey the rules” comment hard*)

Was Audrey created from Joey’s hatred of being what Nathan Sr. forced him to be, his coping mechanisms, and his desires for a family and to be his true self (which comes out in her as wanting to be a real human being of flesh and blood with a normal family, even if that means she has to forget her real family), and Henry’s kindness, curiosity, compassion, perseverance, passion and talent for drawing, and desire to go back home to his family? Joey says in TIOL that he admired Henry’s smile, and I noted in my original analysis/theory that Joey’s smiles that people find unsettling don’t seem to be a sign of malice but instead that he’s going through some sort of suffering, usually related to Nathan Sr., that’s causing him to dissociate just like Bill from TLO does, so of course the newest Audrey’s smile – Henry’s genuine, kind, confident smile – would fill Joey’s heart with joy!!

“Who would have ever dreamed? In the declining years of my life, I have someone more precious to me than any piece of art I could make. When she laughs and smiles, it fills my heart so much it overflows. For all the evil that’s come from me, this is something finally good. We play and talk as we both learn from each other. There’s not much time so every moment has to count. Unlike my versions that came before her, the ones who called me their ‘uncle,’ I’m proud to have her call me ‘Dad.’ Because she is truly my daughter.” ~ Joey Drew, Bendy and the Dark Revival, “True Daughter” memo (emphasis added)

Before anyone says anything, it's for the very same aforementioned “broader pattern” reasons that I'm unconvinced Joey's motivations behind having the previous (implied “imperfect,” which I agree with others could mean “unable to live very long in the real world,” explaining in addition to Joey being very old and sickly the extreme focus on not having much time 😢💔) versions of her call him “Uncle Joey” were as selfish and cruel as they seemed. I feel like it was simply, once again, a way to cope with grief, as he does so often (and Audrey seems to have done generational trauma-style, once again, “choosing to forget” rather than mourning)… I think, in reality, he didn't mean that the other Audreys weren't good enough to call him “Dad,” but that he couldn't bear to have them call him “Dad” because he could tell they'd be gone soon and he needed that fact to hurt less, his thought process something like “of course I still care about my nieces, but losing them is less utterly devastating.”

Speaking of the memories, was anyone else weirded out by the way Wilson said that Nathan Sr. “only ever had time for the grand creatives of the world. The ‘doers,’ as he called them. How could his lowly son ever compete,” after that conspicuous comment from Nathan Sr. that he dislikes creative people, back in TIOL (I specifically noted this comment in my original analysis/theory because it sounded like he was indirectly ending his relationships with every other creative he's ever met specifically so that nobody would believe anyone who claims he looked down upon Joey)? And was anyone else disturbed by the fact that, in the very same room where Wilson went on his rant about how Nathan Sr. was beyond saving (definitely didn't sound like he meant physically 😬👿) before he got freaking shredded (still not over it 😵‍), we find a hotdog connected to Audrey's pleasant childhood with Joey and a final Nathan Sr. audio log where he talks about going on a lovely walk and eating a hotdog for the first time in a long time (no, this isn't implying that the memories are actually Wilson's; the achievement for getting them all is called “Self Discovery.” And, sorry MattyPatty, but I'm not buying “they're Tessa's because the Fashionable Men's Hat was in fashion in the 1930s but not the 1960s;” I didn't know or care what was actually considered fashionable as a little girl – I mean, I still don't, but I'm autistic and that's beside the point – I even called old clothes of my grandmothers' that they gave me to play dress-up with “fashionable/chic/etc.” If I was pretending to be fashionable, I could tell it was expensive, and/or I thought someone – especially my parents – looked good in something, I called it such things without question. Multiple memories make a point of saying how old and/or cheap they are, the Rubber Duck straight-up saying that it was “still dusted with the decay of old soap;” it sounds to me like Joey kept a lot of old/broken things in order to save money and possibly also go out in public as little as possible in order to stay off Nathan Sr.'s radar, his biggest exceptions being making memories with his baby girl)?

“I decided to go for a walk this morning. Took a little stroll down to the park. Enjoyed the warm sun for a while, found a quiet bench, even grabbed a hot dog. It's been ages since I've done that. Tessa would kill me if she knew I've been off my diet. When I got back to the office, I stopped by the animation department and said hello to the troops. My gosh, they're getting younger every day. Either that or I'm just getting older. It all made me realize time is moving on. The hard struggles don't seem as dire as they used to. Life has other value. I think, I'll go home early today. Maybe I'll even pick up a hot dog for Tessa.” ~ Nathan Arch Sr., Bendy and the Dark Revival, “The Bigger Things” audio log

Just this one scene in this one room felt like a big, flashing neon sign highlighting the stark contrast between Nathan Sr. and Joey's parenting. So much here is screaming to me that:

Nathan Sr. – who seems to have just chosen to be a monster of his own, perfectly sane and untraumatized free will – had been working hard to make observers believe he was a good father while neglecting The Favorite Son™ (Nathan Jr.) and abusing The Hated Bastard Son™ (Wilson) so horribly both emotionally and physically that not only was Wilson jealous of how much his dad liked people he just disliked and/or of anyone who got his dad's attention and approval by being used in his machinations, but he was also made into a social pariah (just like Walter and Joey) by the horrific injuries his father inflicted on him, making him look and sound so creepy. I think Nathan Sr. was relieved that day in 1973 when his intricate plans finally came to the fruition he was actually planning on and they found his least favorite son's dead body on the floor of his JDS museum; the hotdogs were a way to celebrate finally ridding himself and Tessa of Wilson for good (seriously, frick you, Nathan Sr. I'mma slug you and then hug and adopt both your sons; nobody deserves a dad as pure evil as you).

Joey – who was clearly forced to be the way he was for survival reasons – really, genuinely was trying to be a good uncle/dad to the Audreys, despite the mistakes he definitely made with them due to decades of being trapped in survival mode (and Audrey definitely loved him despite his flaws, which is probably why she's so willing to give Wilson a chance! Anyone notice the description of the Cracked Mug childhood memory? I… why are you making me tear up over a broken cup with a frowny face drawn on it?? Stop making me cry… 😭😭😭 Not only was Wilson trying to communicate what happened to him to her, but he was successful and she sees her dad in him and wants to help… Unfortunately, he ain't in the same place Joey was, anymore. His dad's Murder Puppet process worked, just as he feared; he's not the same person now as when he wrote The Mug and the Maiden, so she gets hurt for her kindness). He didn't want her to become like him, he wanted her to be safer and better able to move forward than he was, as seen in the memos signed “your best pal;” he fought for his daughter to not just survive, but joyfully thrive, taking her out for hotdogs just so that they could relax together on a Saturday.

“Every great story begins in mystery. Although things may be dark at the start, the truth will illuminate your way. Don’t be afraid of who you are. Fear only what you may become, and banish it away.” ~ “Your Best Pal” (heavily implied Bendy/Real Joey), Bendy and the Dark Revival, “The Beginning” and “Something Familiar” memos (emphasis added)

(The “Something Familiar” copy is literally found on the Memory of Joey’s bed which, as I said in Part Two, I think was actually Dapper Bendy’s.)

“Around here, it's just best to stay out of sight. Don't ever go running into some place if you don't know what's in there! If you attack a problem head on, you're going to find yourself in trouble. And that's just foolish! You gotta watch, listen, and when the time is right, push forward.” ~ “Your Best Pal” (heavily implied Bendy/Real Joey), Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Be Careful” memo

“Don't ever lose hope. When in doubt, the answer you seek is usually nearby. We all have dreams, ghosts in our past. But those ghosts can give us the path forward.” ~ “Your Best Pal” (heavily implied Bendy/Real Joey), Bendy and the Dark Revival, “White Rabbit” memo (emphasis added)

Back to the whole soul blending idea. If I'm right, this would all explain:

Why our Audrey could survive in the real world while the others couldn’t: they needed complete souls, but they only had part of Joey’s soul until part of Henry's escaped!!

What made Loop 414 different: Henry’s memories of the previous loops were erased because part of his soul had (genuinely, cause Joey seemed awfully surprised that something changed) accidentally slipped into the newest Audrey!!

The Memory of Joey saying A: that Audrey doesn’t have to be the Ink Demon anymore, making a big deal about how Audrey’s real and loved – the Ink Demon has the rest of Joey’s soul, he’s saying that she’s her own person and not either of her dads (while also making Joey sound like a selfish creep by passive-aggressively rubbing the fact that he was forced to be the monster he became in Real Joey’s face and also telling him that he’s unlovable trash unlike Audrey *stares at my notes on how Susie Campbell/Twisted Alice’s story parallels Joseph Dempsey/Joey Drew’s, again* but seeming like he's being a jerkwad to another one of his children, as @inkdemonapologist pointed out. So many reasons for Bendy to have crushed the life out of him, there) – and B: “just a pencil and a dream isn’t enough, you have to have heart” – not only does she need to keep choosing compassion to avoid going down the road Joey did, but Joey was The Dreamer, Henry was The Heart, and together they made a separate life!!

Why Wilson would A: describe Audrey's powers as “devilish” (they came partly from Joey, who is now the Ink Demon) and make a big deal about how the Ink Demon can't get into his lab (he knew that Bendy/Real Joey would 100% come to rescue his baby girl, if they were somewhere he was capable of entering. As he did at the end of the Shipahoy Wilson fight), and B: think that her soul would be powerful enough to create a deity that could defeat Bendy (she's also a descendant of the Third King of JDS, who left the kingdom) while also, apparently, not realizing that his own soul might be powerful enough, as well, and therefore never actually trying to kill Bendy himself (he tried to have his Keepers do it, remember? That's literally what those audio logs were all about); maybe this is how souls always work in the Bendyverse – everyone's souls are a combination of pieces of their parents', so Wilson's soul is partly Nathan Sr.'s, another one of the Three Kings of JDS (this might also explain why Henry, the Memory of Joey, Audrey, and Wilson are the only ink creatures we see who resemble humans; if the Memory of Joey is actually Nathan Sr., that means they all have Royal Souls, making them the most powerful beings in the Ink Dimension. Bendy/Real Joey is probably the way he is because A: he chose to be, B: Nathan Sr. forced him to be, or C: nobody had any choice in the matter because he was already bonded to the soulless Bendy body by the failed ritual performed way back in 1946) – but, as far as he knows, it only works that way for ink creatures…?

“Now I’m not lookin’ for trouble. It’s just the nature of us projectionists to seek out the dark places. You see, I’ve learned the ins and outs of this here studio. I know how to avoid being bothered by the likes of this… company. ‘That projectionist,’ they always say, ‘creeping around, he’s just lookin’ for trouble.’ Well trouble or not, I sees everything. They don’t even know when I’m watchin’. Even when I’m right behind ‘em.” ~ Norman Polk, Bendy and the Ink Machine, ch. 3 (emphasis added)

“‘Of course,’ Norman said to himself. He took another sip [of what was almost definitely ink]. ‘He says it like that, knowing that he's the one who brought this creature upon us. Of course. Of course.’ I felt cold then, like the temperature had dropped and it was winter. Like if I talked my breath would freeze. ‘What do you mean?’ But I knew what he meant. He meant the infirmary. The thing in the room with the locked door. The door I'd opened. I'd let it out. Me. It was all my fault. ‘What do you two know about the ink?’ Norman asked instead. ‘We know Sammy is obsessed with it,’ said Dot. ‘So not much then,’ said Norman. ‘How much do you know?’ I asked, trying to hold it together. ‘Everything.’” ~ Daniel “Buddy” Lewek, Dreams Come to Life, pg. 210-211 (emphasis added)

“I'm a fan of darkness. It just appeals to me. As old Norman would often say: people really become themselves when they're hidden in shadow. That creepy guy always had a story to tell about this place. But I think I've found a few narrow passages even he didn't know about. I can watch. I can listen. I can even steal. And no one ever sees me. I'm just a ghost, *giggles giddily* living in the walls, peering from the darkness. *Chuckles ominously*” ~ Grace Conway, Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Dark Places” audio log (emphasis added)

Is Grace a combination of Norman and somebody else's souls (someone who's not at all in denial that they enjoy getting into mischief and ruffling people's feathers, clearly… roflolol what if it's Shawn?? What if him leaving JDS was also one of Nathan Sr.'s lies, so he really was the Top Hat Searcher Boss in BATIM??? Omigosh, I wanna meet Grace, she sounds fun 🤣 but also, poor Shawn 🥺), so just as much his daughter as Audrey is Henry and Joey's? Was she created from his desire to find secrets? She has a very similar voice to him and everything, goodness. And while we're back on the subject of dear old Norman, could he have become a personification of part of Wilson's psyche when he got addicted to that same ink that Sammy did (which would also support my “Wilson's not actually the ‘new evil’ in the Ink Dimension, it's Nathan Sr.'s soul” theory)…? Wilson seems to have a Royal Soul, after all; maybe that gave him the ability to work himself into the hivemind that thoroughly… “Wilson's always watching. He knows your purpose…”

Speaking of which, it sure looks to me like we got a whole heckuva lotta “Joey's the center of the hivemind and anyone infected with the right kind of ink becomes a personification of part of his psyche (otherwise, they just send/receive thoughts to/from him)” confirmation, besides that second paragraph of the “Who We Are” memo (especially if Porter really is Brant; he assisted us in escaping Freaky Teeth alongside all the freed Cyclebreakers in the end, I highly doubt he betrayed us).

“A new terror has descended into our lives: This man named Wilson. Ever since, our world feels strained, like a great beast held in chains. The Ink Demon hasn't been seen in a long time. Many of us refuse to believe he's really gone. But what does it matter? Down here, we're all sinners. Children of the Machine all have the Demon in our inky blood.” ~ Unknown, Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Beast in Chains” memo (emphasis added)

“His eyes see all. His claws tear and thrash. His whispers turn your mind into dark, unspeakable trash. Listen for the heartbeat drone. Your doom is close at hand. The Ink Demon is both beast and lord. His powers, too vast for us to understand. Death is fast. Death is near. His reign will last beyond your fear.” ~ Unknown, Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Lament” memo (emphasis added)

“The Dark Puddles awaken. A voice, a soul. The ink speaks to me. It whispers your secrets. Who are you? Tell me your sweet name, that I may devour it. My ink swells and boils. It consumes. I am the Ink Demon. This realm is mine. You were born from it. You belong to it. You cannot hide forever. I will find you. (After telling Porter her name) The deep abyss remembers you, Audrey. A child of the darkness.” ~ The Ink Demon, Bendy and the Dark Revival, ch. 2 (emphasis added)

(Anyone notice the implication there that not only does the very fact that Bendy can hear Audrey’s thoughts mean she has a soul, but also that the very fact that we can hear Bendy’s thoughts must mean he also has a soul inside of him now, by the way?)

“I see your mind as the truth unfolds. You will accept your fate before the end.” ~ The Ink Demon, Bendy and the Dark Revival, ch. 4 (emphasis added)

Wilson: The Demon's evil continues to spread. This world has began to shutter… The Ink Demon (literally interrupting her conversation with Wilson telepathically): He’s lying, Audrey. Audrey (whisper-shouting): Be quiet! Wilson: What did you say? Audrey: Nothing. It was nothing. Wilson: Hm. *Opens door to security checkpoint* Just a quick stop. Won't take but a moment.

Did Susie/Alice not mean that Bendy killed her, but that she knew Joey was the center of the hivemind, back in BATIM? And if so, did she find a way to cut herself off from him or did his power just become stronger when his human body died and his soul finally merged with his ink one, I wonder? It seems like people could only fully hear others' voices in their heads in BATDR; before that, you had to actually be inside the inkwell or else people's thoughts just popped into your head as if they were your own…

“*Alice voice* …Take this little freak for instance! He crawled in here… Trailing his tainted ink to my door! It could have touched me! It could have pulled me *Susie voice* back!! Do you know what it's like? Living in the dark puddles? *Alice voice* It's a buzzing, screaming well of voices! *Susie voice* Bits of your mind, swimming… like… like fish in a bowl! *Alice voice* The first time I was born from its' inky womb, I was a wriggling, pussing, shapeless slug. The second time… well… *Susie voice* It made me an angel! I will not let the demon touch me again. I'm so close now. So… almost perfect… *Dreamy sigh*” ~ Susie Campbell/Twisted Alice, Bendy and the Ink Machine, ch. 3 (emphasis added)

Back to the soul children thing. I wonder if even Alan/Allen Gray/Grey (who can't even spell his name consistently. Yes, I'm mad about it. Jiminy Christmas, my guy) could be one of these “children of the darkness/Machine,” born of its ghosts?

“So we're looking at quite the job here! Walls come out, pipes go in… dang walls go back in again! It's like banging your head on a rock over and over and over. The first time, it hurts to heck. The hundredth time, well… you just don't think much about it. That's what it's like working for Mr. Joey Drew. At first you feel that bad pain in your gut that you're doing something very wrong. But after a time, when the dust settles, and Joey has played his cards, you just learn to go with it. Bit of your soul dies with each pipe you put in.” ~ Thomas Connor, Bendy and the Dark Revival, teaser audio log dated November 12th, 1943 (emphasis added)

“‘I'm not leaving until I get what's mine,’ Tom said as Mister Drew stared him down. . . . ‘I want my patent back,’ Tom said right to Mister Drew's face. They were practically nose-to-nose. Or more like, nose-to-chin. . . . ‘It's my machine, Drew, it's mine.’” ~ Daniel “Buddy” Lewek, Dreams Come to Life, pg. 247 and 248 (emphasis added)

“Joey, Sorry, it's been a while since my last letter. Been Busy with work at Archgate Films. The Studio ordered another sequel! So I have been spending many hours in the recording booth again! It's fun though. Tom is doing good, thanks for asking. He's always tinkering or something. Mostly he's still upset about someone stealing one of his dusty inventions from your old studio. He'll get over it. Have a good New Year, Joey. I'll send you another recipe soon. Warm Regards,” ~ Allison Connor (formerly Pendle), Bendy and the Ink Machine, ch. 5 (emphasis added)

(No, Allison, I don't believe he ever will get over it, rofl.)

“To Grant Cohen, accounting: Please inform Mr. Drew that despite his insistence that the rumors of Joey Drew Studios going bankrupt are untrue, I want to remind him that if his studio does indeed fail, all equipment and experiments produced through our partnership, by contract, belong to the Gent Corporation. We will reclaim these assets forcibly if necessary.” ~ Alan/Allen Gray/Grey (he spells his name “Alan Gray,” here), Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Gent Property” memo (emphasis added)

Could he be a combination of Tom and somebody else's souls (someone more privileged, with money, power, and a college education… Could be Allison, I guess… but also maybe Bertrum, or Nathan Sr…? Something tells me that ghosts gravitate towards ghosts who complement/complete the part of their parent that they embody to form new souls with), so actually his son, created from his desire to get his effing inventions out of JDS's hands (there's that very specific technicality I mentioned, back in Part Two), and perhaps altered by Nathan Sr. to create a new villain to distract us from himself (he's clearly not against doing that to his own sons, so… Also, this would support my “Wilson's not actually the ‘new evil’ in the Ink Dimension, it's Nathan Sr.'s soul” theory, too… The Memory of Joey was the one who retrieved the End Reel from the Pit, by the way. Remember? Audrey never gets to go inside)?

“We've hit rock bottom. No doubt about it. By all accounts, I don't even know how this studio is still going at all. If you follow the money, you just hit a big old brick wall! Well, let me tell you, blank ledgers, spare cash, Weird amounts that plain just don't add up. There's still income finding its way onto the books, but for the life of me, I can't figure out where it's all coming from. Though the obvious answer is that Gent is privately pouring in some funds. And truth be told, they really creep me out. Especially that Mister Gray. He doesn't seem to be motivated by money, and he sure as heck ain't telling us what he's REALLY after. You just can't trust someone like that.” ~ Grant Cohen, Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Strange Money” audio log (emphasis added)

Something tells me we shouldn't be looking at the obvious answer. I can think of someone else right off the bat who “sure as heck ain't telling us what he's REALLY after” and we know for a fact that Joey has audibly nervously begged for money from, before…

“It’s been quite a struggle to put this into words, Nathan. After so many years, you know I’d never ask unless it was dire. But when a man’s in a spot, he should call upon his friends. Truth is… well, the studio is… *slight tremor in voice* coming up a little short. Hit a few unexpected bumps. If you could… lend us the amount I mentioned in my last letter *inhale* it would be a big help to me… Hope this reaches you in South America. You and Tessa enjoy your vacation.” ~ Joey Drew, Boris and the Dark Survival

…and I think we just figured out what Mr. Gray/Grey's true motivations are by figuring out where they came from… Could being the second of Audrey's kind, “born of ink but living in flesh,” be why he seems to understand how to make things cross dimensions…??

“The future has arrived. I just didn't know it would get here so soon. Some of the stuff that's coming out of Gent doesn't follow any of the rules of physics that I know. Hard to believe they started out as a brick laying company once upon a time. Nowadays, we have all the modern conveniences and, worse yet, the headaches. Take that ID Card machine they've got at the door. You don't bring your ID, you ain't gettin’ to work. So I started putting my ID Card on my nightstand in my room at the Downside Hotel. It's not the safest place, but at least I know where it is.” ~ Eugene Lloyd, Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Daily Headache” memo (emphasis added)

Y'know, I find it incredibly suspicious how one of the secret endings reveals Audrey to be in an insane asylum, unlocked if you collect all the copies of TIOL (the biggest source of info on Nathan Sr.'s abusiveness towards Joey) that are scattered around the studio and then staring into the colored ink in Wilson's (the biggest source of info on Nathan Sr.'s machinations) lab. They're clearly tryna nudge us towards thinking Audrey might be a fan with an unhealthy parasocial relationship with Joey (the achievement for unlocking it is titled “The Insane Reader”)… but how many times have I said that anyone who might be an info leak or even just displeases Nathan Sr. seems to get disappeared mafia-style? What better way, if she couldn't be trapped in the Ink Dimension with everyone else, to simultaneously silence and torment Joey's only family member than by fabricating a different, more believable life story for her and getting her committed?

I wonder how many of the many more audio logs/memos/etc. there are in this version of the studio – many of which seem outlandish and surreal even in the context of the rest of the series – may have also been made up by the souls of the series' scapegoats/etc. in attempt to call our attention to the discrepancies and reveal the truths?

“Something funny's going on around here. Call me suspicious if you wanna, but I know the signs of weirdness when I see ‘em. Don't get me wrong, we've always had visitors around the studio, but lately we're getting just one kind of visitor in particular: Gent Corporation Employees. Tons of ‘em. They're working in the hallways, ripping up the floors, taking the best toilets, you can't even get near the Little Devil Lounge these days! It's starting to feel less like an animation studio around here, and more and more like some crazy scientist's laboratory. It's just plain weirdness.” ~ Lance Derby, Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Weirdness” audio log (emphasis added)

(Hm… Sounds an awful lot like Constance's comment on the potential dangers of “innocuous strangeness” I brought up in Part Two… 👀)

“This old town [Lost Harbor?] really has changed ever since that big Gent Building went up. Yesterday, I took a trip over to the Farmer's Market, and they had the whole dang street ripped up! It was like a large hole had just plain swallowed the sidewalk. Men were going in and out with strange iron tools. Kind of looked like they were installing some kind of tunnel under the road. Pipes just everywhere! Pete behind the produce counter was just shaking his head. ‘They're up to no good,’ he kept sayin’. ‘You'll see. This is how it always starts.’ I think old Pete might be right. But I don't like to dismiss people just on rumors. Only time will tell, I suppose.” ~ Kitty Thompson, Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Trouble Town” audio log (emphasis added)

“I heard some of the workers from down the hall last night talking about storming Joey Drew's office. They were using some colorful language, banging their fists on the tables and chairs. It was the same bunch who whistled at me yesterday. Things must be getting serious. That accountant, Grant Cohen, just walks from his desk down to the men's room and back all day. Over and over again, gripping his stomach. Kind of green in the gills. I can't tell if something he ate isn't agreeing with him, or if he just can't take the pressure anymore. Joey's got a plan, he keeps saying, Gent is making something special. I really hope he's right. I may just be a secretary, but this place has a magic I don't want to see end.” ~ Sally Newt, Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Getting Serious” memo (emphasis added)

Are the children of the Machine straight-up trying to tell us that A: Nathan Sr. is (genuinely) editing Mr. Gray/Grey into the story as yet another one of his many Decoy Villains for us to hate and pursue instead of him, B: in real-life, Grant was infected with ink (as the audio log in the version of his office in BATIM suggests he was) in order to disappear him for figuring out what Nathan Sr. was doing through the financial records, and C: Joey meant for the Ink Dimension to be salvation for people like Grant (like I suggested in Part Two)?? Wow…

While I'm still on the subject, I think I might know who a couple of other characters are the soul children of. I think Steve is the son of Wally and Tom, and Heidi is the daughter of Allison and Susie (sorry, SuperHorrorBro, but I don't believe Porter and Heidi are previous Audrey versions. Besides the “Who We Are” memo spelling out what “child of the darkness/Machine” actually means, the “True Daughter” memo implies that all of Joey's previous attempts at creating a child were daughters, Porter would be a son and Bendy calling Audrey “the daughter of Drew” as if there's genuinely only one – why the actual heck would he say that if he's not Real Joey and considers himself “one of the children of Drew?” Shouldn't he be giving his sister Heidi the same honor he, himself, wants but was denied, just like she was? That doesn't make sense, which Wilson explains to us is a sign that something was Nathan Sr.'s doing in some way – along with the way Audrey and Betty talk about Betty being “one in a long line of failed experiments” as if Wilson continuing to try and get her to come out the way she was supposed to is a good thing that's going to positively impact her eventually implies that all the Audreys were the same piece of Joey's soul reincarnated. Also, Porter says that he “learned” his powers, and there was a delay between the hivemind speaking to Audrey and her using her default powers for the first time, but zero delay between Porter and Heidi giving her their powers [which Porter does by taking Audrey’s hand like the Memory of Joey does when trying to get her to accept the entire so-called “retconning story” as truth, and Heidi does by touching Audrey’s face like the Memory of Joey does when using his teleportation powers on her, which suggests that this was how they were given to them…] and her using them. I think that A: the Memory of Joey gave Porter and Heidi their powers to push us towards believing that Real Joey was a cruel uncle/father who discarded the failed Audreys when he got sick of taking care of them [I wonder… could Porter's seemingly randomly dubbing Audrey “Bobby,” leading her to describe their interaction as “weird” – which can be another sign of Nathan Sr.’s interference or a sign of Wilson's warning riddles – was a message from Wilson, trying to highlight both his dad's “Fake Siblings” plan and the fact that Audrey's desire to be a normal human stems from Joey's desire to be his true self rather than the monster that Nathan Sr. forced him to be? 👀👀 And, by the way, did anyone notice that Porter, Heidi, and the Memory of Joey's powers are all travel-based?? 👀👀👀 Sounds to me like the Memory of Joey meant it when he said he has his “ways,” plural], B: Audrey just had her default powers automatically because she has a Royal Soul, but they didn't awaken until she wanted them [no, not “needed.” That Searcher outright tells us we don't need to kill them and, from my and my brother's playthrough, you can literally play your whole game without them ever leaving that spot, even if you fight Lost Ones right next to them. I think this moment is further symbolism for Audrey leaning on her dad's coping mechanisms generational trauma-style and the fact we actually do have a choice between cruelty and compassion], and C: Audrey, herself, as a benevolent ruler, is considered a gift from the two main users of the hivemind/Dark Puddles – Wilson and Bendy/Real Joey – by many inhabitants of the Ink Dimension. “And from the hallowed darkness, from the wretched abyss, a savior comes at last,” as Wilson says), created from their playful, lovey-dovey sides…

“These guys down at the warehouse get to play games all day while I'm stuck cleaning up after ‘em. They keep locking themselves out of their own back room. So I says to ‘em, ‘look guys,’ I says, ‘you're smart, right? Here's an idea! Why not rig these games to knock open the door if ya win? It'll be fun for you guys, and it saves me the trip down here every day.’ They went for it like a dog to pot roast. I tell ya! If these guys don't start realizing who the real genius is, I'm outta here.” ~ Wally Franks, Bendy and the Ink Machine, ch. 4

“So here we are! Another big day at Joey Drew Studios! Lot more people running around here these days. But for me, it's the same old dirty floors they've always been! Just more feet messing them up now! The only [new] feet I don't mind tromping around here are Miss Campbell's. She's good to me! I'll make sure I empty her garbage every day just to see how she's doing. Speaking of which, I heard her talking with Sammy the other day. If I didn't know better, I'd say there was magic there. But who am I to judge? I think they saw me looking though… So I just tipped my hat and said: ‘See you later!’ … ‘I'm outta here!’” ~ Wally Franks, Bendy and the Dark Revival teaser audio log dated March 5th, 1933 (emphasis added)

“I thought of Mr. Connor. Gruff, rough-around-the-edges Mr. Connor. Was he the manager? I thought he was, but he couldn't be, could he? Not if this elegant creature was the manager's partner.” ~ Bill Chambers, Bendy: The Lost Ones, pg. 204 (emphasis added)

“‘We aren't in your studio right now, are we?’ replied Tom. There was no way Mister Drew could physically intimidate this man. Tom wasn't burly and bear-like like Bertrum Piedmont. He was more wall-like. Still Mister Drew grabbed him by the elbow and through clenched teeth said: ‘The hallway. Now.’ ‘Come on, Tom, no need to make a scene,’ said Allison with a warm voice, gently placing a hand on his shoulder. Tom allowed them to escort him to the pink lobby…” ~ Daniel “Buddy” Lewek, Dreams Come to Life, pg. 247-248 (emphasis added)

“First week on the job at the Gent Workshop, and I can tell already this'll be interestin’. ‘Think you can lift this still girder?’ they asked me with a smug smile. I didn't even bother to answer. Just picked the whole thing up with one hand. You should have see the wee men drop their jaws. All in all, I've noticed this building just ain't built for someone my size. Every time I walk by the workshop shelves, the tools all fall to the floor. That and I gotta bend down for every doorway in the place. Still, there are some positives to workin’ here. Take that new secretary, the shy little one with the blonde locks, the one who follows around Mister Gray. I'm pretty sure she's been giving me and my muscles the eye. But I ain't no smooth talker. A work-worn man such as myself, ain't got no business with a woman that fine.” ~ Steve McGregor, Bendy and the Dark Revival, “New Job” audio log

“Allison just smiled her dazzling smile that made me melt a little, even though the scene was making me incredibly tense. ‘We'll talk about that in the morning, Joey. Come on, dear.’ She gave Tom a little push on his shoulder, and evidently she could move mountains because once again he gave in and took a step back.” ~ Daniel “Buddy” Lewek, Dreams Come to Life, pg. 248 (emphasis added)

“Who would've thought? Me having lunch with Joey Drew! Apparently times are tougher than I thought. For a moment there, I though I'd be stuck with the check. But I gotta say, he wasn't at all what I expected. Quite the charmer. He even called me Alice. I liked it.” ~ Susie Campbell, Bendy and the Ink Machine, ch. 3 (emphasis added)

“So turns out it's my lucky day! I got to cleaning some of the offices around 2 am last night. And what do ya think I find on one of the chairs? A big freaking chocolate cake. Just sitting there! Practically yelling my name! You know, I work hard! I earn my pay. Every darn dollar. But you know what this company's missing? Little, benefiting perks. And this here cake? It's a perk! Hopefully no one finds out what I done. Cause if they did, I can tell ya what would happen. I'm outta here.” ~ Wally Franks, Bendy and the Ink Machine, ch. 5 (emphasis added)

“The Keepers have taken my friend! Locked him away like some animal! Just cause he's big and strong. But they don't need to fear him! No! If they just make sure to feed him on time, Big Steve won't ever hurt a fly! He loves the food from the ‘Little Devil Lounge’ best. If only someone would take the long road back through the sewers, climb up the elevator shaft, and seek out his favorite thumping delicacy. Then they would see how harmless he really is!” ~ Unknown (heavily implied Heidi), Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Feeding Time” memo

“*Alice voice* …But for now, let's have fun. Plenty of time for a bloodbath later. Ooh! How about a game? Let's all play a game of riddles! *Susie voice* Riddles? *Gasps* Oh, what a wonderful idea!” ~ Susie Campbell/Twisted Alice, Bendy and the Dark Revival, ch. 5 (emphasis added)

“But… but first! May we play a game? Oh, I love to play games! I like hide and seek best.” ~ Heidi, Bendy and the Dark Revival, ch. 4

(…Anyone notice this ink message we see right before we hear Freaky Teeth Bendy's voice for the first time? 👀)

My gosh, no wonder Heidi and Steve are so flipping cute (I may actually have a new romantic ship, that's rare for me), roflol. Also, remember what I said about ghosts gravitating to ghosts who complement/complete the part of their parent they embody to form new souls with? *Stares at my notes on how it seems like Nathan Sr. was secretly driving a wedge between Tom and Wally the exact same way he secretly drove a wedge between Henry and Joey: through lies and sabotage* Something tells me that Nathan Sr. could tell our dear Mr. Inventor and Mr. Janitor would be a good team and too difficult to control if he allowed them to get along.

Anyways, now that I'm excitedly vibrating over all those prospects, let's return our focus to Allison's so-called “story retcon.” I really, really, really dislike how the Memory of Joey seems to be trying to convince us that one of the most critical pieces in noticing the similarities between the story of Joey, Allison, and Susie and the story of Walter, Arthur, and Isabel, and therefore in arousing suspicion that Nathan Sr. had orchestrated both situations was never involved in any of the previous stories she appears in at all except for BATIM, specifically, in a completely different way as just a character that Joey edited in decades after the fact, based on someone he'd just recently met; that's suspicious as heck and very reminiscent of Nathan Sr.'s erasure of Lottie's existence in TIOL. And, especially after my further thoughts on TLO inspired by The Mug and the Maiden, I wonder if not only was I right about Henry being murdered to punish Joey for contacting him (and him for responding like the good friend he is), but there's also another story that hadn't occurred to me despite noticing that Allison seemed to have started waking up from Nathan Sr.'s trance in between DCTL and TLO… Did Allison and Tom also get murdered, as punishment for Allison's deciding to try and be a proper friend to Joey rather than continuing to be Nathan Sr.'s pawn in the aftermath of Henry's murder (I wouldn't be surprised if it was straight-up the last straw for her… Nathan Sr. certainly could've used her as a spy in whatever other animation studio he worked at after he left JDS when he realized Joey was thinking about calling him for help, so maybe she knew Henry and liked him like everyone else – minus Nathan Sr. lol – who knew him seemed to… Now, he was gone, and she was just as devastated as Joey)?? Was she, indeed, able to see the good in Joey that even he couldn't see (because he was being eaten alive by guilt in his old age), as a fellow reformed abuse-victim-turned-abuser (when I first read DCTL and TIOL, not yet having read TLO, I thought the way she said “we’ll talk about that in the morning, Joey,” when he tried to fire her sounded like she knew full well about the true nature of her Pretend Boss and True Boss' relationship and really meant “we'll talk after Nathan Sr. puts you in your place, tonight…” Maybe I was right 😬)? She certainly tried to do that for Susie Campbell/Twisted Alice…

“Dear Alice, I don't know if you will read these notes, but I'll keep leaving them for you. I hope someday you'll understand my words and the madness will fade from your mind. In this strange and dark place, we can find light and purpose. We are not left to just wander alone, craving beauty, power, and other meaningless things. Even the heart of someone feeling incomplete, can discover joy. We're not lost. We're merely waiting to be found. We are so much alike. Formed from the same mold. We're like sisters, you and me. I wish you comfort and the wisdom to let your heart melt into happiness. I won't give up trying to reach you before it's too late.” ~ “A Friend” (heavily implied Allison Angel), Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Two of a Kind” memo

…so why not for Joseph Dempsey/Joey Drew? In fact, why not for Wilson, yet another abuse-victim-turned-abuser?

Allison: Are you crazy? Wilson's our enemy. Audrey: Do you even know him? Have you even talked to him? Allison: I've seen what he's done. That's good enough for me. Audrey: Look, it sounds like he has a plan to kill the Ink Demon. I think he can help us all! I just… I just need to go back and hear him out. Allison: Well, if it's true. You'll both need as much help as you can get. The Ink Demon won't go down without a fight. Tom and I will gather some of our friends. Anyone who's left. Good luck, Audrey. Audrey: Thank you, Allison.

This is turning out to be quite the support group, ain't it? Also, hm, sounds familiar, again…

“That big question. Why? The biggest of all the ‘W’ questions, I have found over my years, and often the hardest to answer. Especially when the why disguises itself as something else.” ~ Joey Drew, The Illusion of Living, pg. 21 (emphasis added)

“‘What?’ The most used of the ‘W’ questions, and I think the most useless…” ~ Joey Drew, The Illusion of Living, pg. 33

Speaking of which, it makes zero sense for “Cyclebreaker” to mean “someone who's capable of resetting the loop” as Henry claims when the Memory of Joey specifically said that Wilson, in preventing the resets, was “freezing the cycle.” The time loop cycle is supposed to keep resetting, that's literally the entire reason it's called a “cycle.” Why would all of these characters be potential cycle reset-ers in the way Henry says, anyways? Bertrum's ink form doesn't even have legs or hands like Henry, Sammy, Susie, and Norman's do; he can't even leave where he's supposed to be without being subjected to destructive force like he apparently was in order to remove his head from the octopus ride and put him in the Cyclebreaker prison, forget playing the End Reel. Y'know what all the Cyclebreakers do have in common, if my theories are correct? They could've broken that other cycle I mentioned in my original analysis/theory: Sammy, Susie, and Bertrum all became personifications of different parts of Joey's psyche and by extension are symbolic of how trauma often causes people to cause the same trauma in others, so they could've broken the cycle of trauma/abuse by choosing not to inflict their own trauma on others like Joey did; Norman was a habitual eavesdropper/etc., so he could've broken that cycle by hearing/seeing things he wasn't supposed to and using that knowledge to get the truth out and find Joey help, much like Wilson did in his youth; and Henry was Joey's dearest, truest friend, his Shoulder Angel, who he reached out to for help in the guilt-stricken latter years of his life, so he could've helped Joey to break the cycle himself if he hadn't been fricking murdered as punishment for trying…

…Did anyone notice that, right after telling her all about how they serve and were created by Wilson, the Keepers suddenly decided that Audrey was too dangerous and they needed to just gas her then and there when she asked them to take her to Wilson because he wanted her to find him…?? And how, when she escaped the gas chamber, they specifically sounded an alarm for access to the Cyclebreakers to be cut off…???

Something tells me that:

There's a reason that not only are these creatures referred to as “Wilson's Keepers,” but it's also only safe to be around them when Wilson is: the son may have created them, but the father Arch gave them orders to ensure that the son continues obeying and remove anyone who might genuinely help him recover from what he did to him from the picture, one way or another…

There's a reason that everyone thinks “Cyclebreaker” means what they think it means: to throw everyone off the scent of its true meaning.

The fact that the Memory of Joey wants the cycle to keep restarting and the potential Cyclebreakers think that the resets are a good thing is both A: symbolic of the fact that Nathan Sr. loves perpetuating the cycle of trauma/abuse by orchestrating situations where he can cause his old Murder Puppets to create new ones who are just as or more brutal while still thinking they're in the right, and B: another hint towards the End Reel having been created by Nathan Sr. in his twisting of the Ink Dimension from the heavenly paradise that Joey dreamed of into the hellish prison that he, himself, now relishes; mayhaps the secret Grayscale Ending, if it exists, will also involve destroying the blasted thing?

Frick. You. Nathan Sr. I. Hate. You. So. Much.

Wanna read about some more highly suspicious songs I found and my concluding thoughts on BATDR's default ending? Those are in Part Four!

To Read the Original Analysis/Theory: Part One • Part Two • Part Three • Unexpected Part Four

[hrodvitnon]

Alternative Mothra Characterization

Heya- so one of my favorite Kaiju to write in my own stuff is Mothra; however, my reasoning for why is the very unique way I choose to interpret and write her character (I’ve not seen anyone ever get close to this when writing her). It’s interesting for me, but simultaneously kinda dissonant when I see her characterized differently (To clarify: this is not a bad thing it is actually a very good thing due to both the intensity of my version and that fans having many different interpretations of characters only adds depth to fandom). Anywho- this version of the character goes very hard on the angst, and I figured it may be a cool thing to share because of Abraxas being- Abraxas. Consider this me sharing my method to hopefully inspire additional ideas involving her. 

At her very foundation, this Mothra is very similar to how Mothra is usually presented. Queen to Godzilla, his better half in many ways, infinitely caring for her friends and the planet, etc. However there are some major alterations to the mechanics of her Rebirth Cycle. Whenever she dies- she cannot die in the same way again (she ‘adapts’ to what killed her last and cannot be hurt by it again), each time she does die she loses a seemingly random part of her mind (memories, personality, sense of self, etc), and each time she does die- she becomes more in-tune with the planet and her life (can sense more, becomes more connected to each being, becomes more powerful).

I usually pick up the story in the modern day when she’s died possibly hundreds of times. The consequences of which are discussed below.

The adaptation clause (which I call 8-Fold Wings) adds a new dimension to combat, as her enemies need to figure out what she’s vulnerable to and what she’s already been killed by (fool me once, shame on you). Usually she can manage to beat them before they figure it out- but has to be much more careful when she encounters someone with a unique set of powers.

She’s usually so interconnected to all life that she can sense basically anything, and often takes it upon herself to try and help anyone she senses is in pain for some reason (So I basically do what DA:I did with Cole). I’m sure you can see the sorts of interactions this can often prompt when she launches into an unprovoked therapy session whenever she deems it appropriate. 

Now- onto the heavy stuff. At the point in which the audience meets her, she’s died so much that she’s mentally caught between the afterlife and mortal realm; and can barely remember anything from her past lives properly and often gets things wrong that others will correct her on. 

Speaking of others: it’s usually a very mentally taxing thing for people who know her to be around her (Godzilla, Rodan, Anguirus); as they remember who she used to be- and seeing her now, although she’s got this whimsical air, altruism, and degree of innocence, they can’t help but remember. 

Especially Godzilla. She’s died so many times in sacrifice to him, usually to power him up enough to kill some great threat, or to save his or someone else’s life, that she sometimes even forgets his name. He’s tried to get her to stop- begged her even, but it almost became an addiction to her. She grew so much stronger every time, gained so much knowledge; and each time she dies she does it to help, to save. Despite how much it hurts those around her, she can’t help but keep doing it because she could never bear to see any of them suffer the same fate. Death is a burden she believes only she can bear. She even believes that one day- she will become immortal- after dying in every way possible. Now I personally don’t write them being romantically involved for my own reasons (mostly because mothzilla’s kinda not my thing… Heresy, I know), but you easily could and it would probably be more tragic… Goji forced to watch his wife die countless times and slowly losing herself to the point where she needs to be reminded of who he is. This would tear him apart over the centuries- forcing him to either stay in a tragic relationship with her, unable to let go despite her condition, or him eventually gaining the strength to break it off and pursue something with someone else. You could even a heart-shattering moment when she returns after a death, Godzilla over the moon to see her again until she just tilts her head and him and goes, “Hello! I’m Mothra, don’t believe we’ve met before!”. 

So yeah, my own version of the Monster Queen. Could be another Abraxas timeline where the Rebirth works like this. Hope you got something outta this, whether it be ideas or just a fix of angst. 

(also sorry about doubling up on long submission posts lol. got that gxk on my mind.)

—

I really dig the idea that Mothra can’t die/be killed by the same means twice (perhaps there’s a life she’s lived where she died of old age and is now functionally immortal but can still die in other ways? Another kind of tragic element). I don’t gatekeep shipping tendencies around here, it’s cool. It’s like, I enjoy mint chocolate ice cream but someone else doesn’t, no problem, I’ll have more of the ice cream I like and they’ll have more of the ice cream they like! Win-win!

Oh, and… wow, yeah, the heavy stuff is fascinating and rife with potential angst and dramatic goodness especially where Godzilla is involved, but (and this is a good but), I found my mental playlist of earworms alternating between Die Toteninsel (Emptiness) and Schubert’s Ständchen (or Serenade) the more I read of that last bullet; specifically Schubert because I once watched a video where an opera singer analyzes video game music and intuited that the particular use of Ständchen isn’t really a happy love song but feels more about unrequited love, it feels frustrated, it feels like loss. And since this take on Mothra can tell when someone’s in pain, she goes from happy to introduce herself to who she sees is a complete stranger to all but slapped with a sensation of emotional agony. Oof.

[naveenkumarchandra]

A Message from a Senior.

Recently I got a chance to revisit and relive all the wonderful memories, of the years spent at easily the single most important place of my life, our beloved institution, IIT Roorkee.

This also gave me a chance to meet some wonderful juniors, very enthusiastic, very energetic and very optimistic, something which we seniors lack. It was very refreshing indeed.

Yet, amidst all the optimism, I also witnessed a line of stress and anxiety running through most conversations, it was perhaps natural for them to be, and perhaps we too used to be the same and like it so happens all the time, looking at things retrospectively brings in a bias and we tend to be more forgiving of our own times. Yet, I felt this and so this message.

All of you are very young, very energetic, very talented and indeed very responsible and thus the stress too must be coming from the reality of your times. The issue though remains this, being at IIT Roorkee, one need not focus on anything else but one thing, to become the best version of themselves and to instil leadership abilities in them, because remember, you would be expected to lead no matter where you go, public or private sector, you would be required to take the lead and guide others.

I would not lie and say that we weren’t stressed in our college days and didn’t bother about things that bother you but experience teaches us and thus I am trying to pass on my experience. One thing which served me really well was trying a variety of things first hand, things which really piqued my interest and things which were appealing to me and were not just in fashion or were being taken up by everyone else. I tried start-ups, working for seniors and then building a couple of my own, probably the best decision I ever took as they taught me more than any book. I tried coding, because it’s very empowering and makes you future ready. I tried research in my core subject as well. All of these activities, not only showed me various directions to take but also various dimensions of myself. Finally when I did decide to go for civil services, it was a sound decision taken by conscious knowledge gathering about all things which appealed to me.

Apart from this, what did bother me was how first years and second years were under a lot of stress regarding their career and jobs. While some amount of stress helps, undue stress and anxiety and that too at a stage where you are supposed to enjoy yourself the most and experiment as much as possible, makes me a little worried. You are at a place where you have in front of you the best of the best, facilities, people, environment, utilise this experience and experiment, fail as much as you can and learn.

It’s not exaggeration when I say that the guy with one of the lowest CGPAs (he had exactly 5.0) in our entire batch is more successful and yes happier than almost everyone in the entire batch, a guy who was written off by most and had his degree extended by one year is now in Foreign Service, a person who decided to skip placements and prepare for Civil services without any coaching or help, a decision for which he was mocked, is happily serving in the IAS (having cleared the exam in 1st attempt), a person who decided to go into his core in his first year itself is still working there and is now one of the foremost young stars in the field.

No one has the right or the authority to tell you that if you don’t do this or that you’ll be left behind. It’s you who decide. No need to participate in any rat race, no need to pursue programming if computers don’t appeal to you, no need to look for random internships if you don’t like the field or the sector, no need for you to leave your core subject if that’s what you wish to do and just because you’ve been told that your core subject is not the future. The only thing you need to do is learn as much as possible about different things, enjoy life & live each and every moment. Trust me, you’d do well in life, in time, career, money, comfort, will all fall in place but this time, in the institute would remain a missed opportunity and a huge regret.

Wishing all of you the best. Rock it!!

Naveen- 2015 batch

[leffee]

So once I read that question you had about where Blythe would fit I had to talk about this scenario I’ve had.

What if she didn’t fit imagine Blythe being Blythe gets herself into a situation where she and possibly one of her friends gets transported to that other dimension either with the pets as human/animal mix or full animal Arthro.

Humans could also be considered their Bigfoot or aliens or myths so no one really thinks they exist except for few that are called crazy and they are used in scary stories and scary movies ect.

So when Blythe and friend show up they’re obviously confused and scared and eventually figure out what happened where they are at and that they stick out so badly so they hide that is until they hear a familiar voice and keep in mind I switch who they meet first lol but Vinnie’s is funny because they are hiding behind some trees and keep whispering “Vinnie come here” and they try to explain that they need help and Vinnie just panicks and runs off yelling for Sunil and when Vinnie tries to tell them what he saw they don’t believe him and just tell him to stay close to them and walk off with him.

“Sunil there was something over by the trees calling my name. I don’t know what it was. I’m scared.” 

“Vinnie i’m sure whatever it was was just in your imagination. Come on let’s get you inside. I think you might need a nap.”

Something like that lol and so Blythe and friend try to make a plan B to talk to someone else one on to explain themselves and get help to go home but Blythe is at least happy that the pets exist here so she feels like it might not be to hard to convince them that she’s harmless or something like that..

So they end up finding Zoe and talking to her and she takes them to her apartment where pepper finds out and they all make a plan to tell Russell and get his help to send her back but in the mean time they just keep her and friend safe with them where they answer all their questions about this dimension and Blythe tells them about theirs and the friend is just like “this is how you hear them all the time back home?”

So they try to go to Russell’s apartment and he is so fascinated and says he can try to fix the device that got them here but he’ll need time

And after that the scenarios end up changing near the end with different outcomes and different ways that they meet the rest of the gang.

 And in another version, the pets come along with her and meet the other versions of themselves, which is when they end up, calling the little versions of themselves, baby or mini me’s sorts thing and they all hang while Blythe panics that she’ll never get home everyone else is having the time of their lives bonding and hanging out.

This was some thing that has so many different versions, but it’s one of my favorite scenarios, but I’d like to imagine that herself would be some sort of animal in a dimension like that and whoever is writing it could just make her whatever they wanted, but my favorite is when two different dimensions mix making it a super fun time. Let me know what you think of this kind of thing.

But also, I’d like to mention because I forgot above that this whole time Blythe is just in shock about what these versions look like and how they act and how different they are and that they just have whole lives here just as humans would, but the fact that their food is their way of life is different. They’re in different different things. I have more friends. It’s just the whole shock tour in when she first saw Vinnie she was like “it can’t be I mean, look at him, but that voice” you know that sort of thing and then the rest of them kind of sort of the same reaction.





Ok, so first of all, I wanted to say that their versions meeting their other versions from an alternative unvierse is one of my favourite scenarios to think about. Liiike, Blythe and the pets from the universe like in the show meeting them as humans. Or human au meeting their swap versions. Or even just human au meeting a more or less altered human au - like one where everyone went missing and was found horribly mangled, or one where Sunil is dead and Vinnie is blaming himself etc etc, there are many possbilities.

And let me tell you, Blythe meeting Vinnie first is also something I thought about before and it can be so funny cause Vinnie is not exactly the best first person to meet in such situation, is he? Logically Russell would be the best. Let's just say that I have a lot of thoughts how such scenario can go.

I too like it when two dimensions mix ^^

I think Vinnie should meet other Vinnies but like, I don't think they would like each other, know what I mean? On the bright side, where there's another Vinnie there has to be another Sunil, right? Give him :D. Aaaand if he kills all those other Vinnies he will have so many Sunils just to himself.

See, the way I see it if Vinnie met another him after a while he'd be just "Is that really what I act like? Damn, I'm annoying :///." Cause even he is annoyed by himself.

[jasbell]

Stumbles into the room at 10kmph

The disassembly drone absolute solver might be a final product of the research discovered after creating Ponder!

(Also maybe IC-0n, too d:)

So, you may be wondering what the hell I'm talking about.

"Ponder? What's that? Another word for think, maybe? What'sthat got to do with murder drones?"

Well, my probably-most-of-murder drones fans! Allow me to guide your attention to a small youtube account called 'scary story time with Liam' sstwl, for short. This was where it all began. Liam writing his first few stories, and reading them out into his mic for the group of people who cared.

Among these majority of unfinished works lie two series we'll be focusing on: PuppetGAME, and Design.

Although, do note, I haven't listened to Design yet, so take all of these things with a grain of salt.

Let's begin, shall we?

We start over in design. There's these things called left hands who possess young girls and puppet around their corpses. There's a facility who is weponising these left hands for their military or whatever.

Among these girls is Mari. Who claims to be God. After doing research, they discovered that the body she possessed wasn't actually human, but built from the ground up around her. Researchers took note of this and discovered that she wasn't actually creating matter from nothing, but stealing it bit by bit from other dimensions to do so. Does that last sentence sound familiar?

Now things get wibbly-wobbly, for a different version of Design. In PuppetGAME, in part 4.4 I think it was, Sarah admitted this all to Jon Mathews (he doesn't really matter here) but in her dimension, she was head researcher I think, and decided to use an AI simulation of whatever it was Mari was using to destroy entire dimensions to "create" objects out of thin air.

This, my friend, is where we meet ponder. The main villain of PuppetGAME. A part biological, part AI virus of sorts who runs a gameshow where people fight for the safety of their home dimension. And with each dimension destroyed, the longer he lives, and the "better" his show can become. He uses this matter to run his show, and multiply himself into a hivemind for his "contestants" to wear for extra weaponry and armour.

It's unknown how ponder gained access to the psychal plain, but long story short. There's this rabbit hand puppet the researchers use on little kiddos to cheer them up, and Ponder thought it'd be fun to take that form as the first thing he saw after gaining a conscience.

Now, putting all my ramblings on paper. Here's what absolute solver, ponder and ic-0n have in common:

All are simultaneously AI and biological.

All are in a hivemind (IC-0N may be an acception, but there are clues she once was)

All need to assimilate large amounts of matter to recreate things.

All need blood, or something else like that, to live a long time. (Abso solve, with oil. Ponder with souls(maybe) and IC-0n with heart tissue??)

They're all parasites in a way.

They can shapeshift and regenerate body parts on the fly. (Absolute solver can't exactly SHAPESHIFT, but close enough)

And last but not least, Liam made ALL of these characters. And he likes to recycle old ideas sometimes :p

Thanks for reading my ramblings I guess! lol

(Also, I said the disassembly drone absolute solver at the start because another idea of mine, is that there's different variations of absolute solver. Also, I don't think that's actually what it is that Uzi and Doll possess.)

[albertonykus]

Doraemon Movie Review: Nobita and the Steel Troops (1986) and Nobita and the New Steel Troops (2011)

What is Doraemon? The title character of the Doraemon manga and anime is a blue robotic cat from the 22nd Century who keeps an array of high-tech gadgets in a portable pocket dimension on his belly, and has traveled from the future to improve the fortunes of a hapless schoolboy named Nobita. Although relatively obscure in the English-speaking world, Doraemon is a Mickey-Mouse-level cultural icon in East Asia (and some other regions, too). The Doraemon franchise was a big part of my childhood, and there are still elements of it that I enjoy now.

Doraemon has released theatrical films almost annually since 1980, most of which involve Nobita and his friends (kind Shizuka, brash Gian, and crafty Suneo) getting swept into adventures thanks to Doraemon's gadgets. Despite being of potentially broad appeal to fans of science fiction and animated films, there are very few English reviews of the Doraemon movies, so I'm embarking on a project to write about all the films that have come out so far. Good luck to me…

Movie premise: Nobita and his friends defend the Earth from an army of alien robots.

My spoiler-free take: Although not without a few contrivances and logical inconsistencies, this is remembered as one of the most emotional Doraemon movies for good reason.

The 2011 remake tries to recapture the strong emotions of the original, but I think the addition of an annoying character and reduced tension works against it. Would not recommend over the original.

POTENTIAL SPOILERS AFTER THIS POINT

Review: Ah yes, the one where a handful of kids and their robot babysitter fight an unwinnable battle against alien war machines that want to enslave humanity. This film is known as one of the most emotionally charged Doraemon movies, and it certainly lives up to its reputation. The heroes' increasing desperation against the overwhelming numbers of the robot army, the robot spy Riruru's change in perspective and eventual decision to sacrifice herself to end the war, and Shizuka's reaction to the latter are all pretty effective emotional beats.

This is a very strong entry in the franchise, though it does have some flaws. Probably the most obvious to me is the contrived way in which Shizuka gets drawn into the main plot. About halfway through the movie, the main characters (sans Shizuka) decide they need to enter a mirror dimension. To do so, they require a sufficiently large, still reflective surface to act as a portal, so Nobita gets the brilliant idea to use... Shizuka’s bathtub for this purpose. Hold on a second—you could have used your own damn bathtub, Nobita! What’s more, he chooses not to inform Shizuka about this “for her protection”... but if there’s anything well known about Shizuka’s character, it’s that taking baths is one of her favorite hobbies. Naturally, she discovers the portal while the others are away, goes through it, and nearly meets her end at the hands of killer robots that are trapped on the other side. Well done, Nobita.

It’s a good thing for humanity though that Shizuka found her way through the portal, because it’s her caring for an injured Riruru and remembering that Doraemon has a Time Machine that prove to be critical elements in stopping the robot invasion.

Shizuka-saves-the-day count (cumulative): 4

Given that the ending involves the robot army being wiped from existence through the alteration of history, it has been pointed out that the main characters shouldn’t retain any memory of the events of this movie. This is a clear example where the emotional resonance of the story is intended to take precedence over strict logic, however, so it’s not something that damages my enjoyment of the film very much.

Star rating: ★★★★☆

You can bet that one of the oldest and most popular Doraemon movies received a remake in the reboot series!

Review: The biggest change in this version is probably that one of the characters was completely overhauled. In the original movie, the protagonists commandeered a computer from the aliens and forcibly reprogrammed it to fight on their side. Indeed, the computer barely qualified as an actual character there, despite being seemingly sentient. Here, however, it becomes a full-fledged member of the cast that undergoes his own story arc.

It’s a good idea on paper, but I had some problems with the execution. For one, during most of his screentime, the computer (which the main characters nickname “Pippo”) is... very annoying. For another, in an attempt to make him more marketable facilitate communication, the protagonists transform Pippo... into a talking chicken, without consent and by all appearances permanently, which comes across as being nearly as ethically dubious as the forced reprogramming in the original.

Furthermore, the expansion of Pippo’s role comes at the expense of another character: Suneo’s toy robot, Micros, who was granted sentience by Doraemon partway through the original story. Here, this never happens and Micros remains a regular toy. It wouldn’t surprise me if some other viewers considered Micros to be annoying in the original; however, I thought he was a generally fun character who mostly didn’t overstay his welcome and still offered genuine assistance to the heroes despite his foibles.

Additionally, the comic relief Micros provided felt necessary given the otherwise tense atmosphere in the original movie, much of which is lost in the remake. For example, in one scene where the main characters are looking for Riruru, the original showed them staying vigilant during their search and taking steps to avoid detection by the robot army. In the remake, they wander around calling for her with little apparent regard for the looming threat.

Finally, Pippo’s presence removes the emotional contrast that originally followed the climax. In the original, the boys were overjoyed when the robot army they’d been fighting mysteriously disappeared, only to become somber when Shizuka returned and informed them of Riruru’s sacrifice. Here, due to Pippo sharing a psychic link with Riruru, the boys are fully aware of what is happening. It’s a relatively minor difference in the grand scheme of things, but one that I think substantially changes the emotional impact of the scene.

(I did like this joke from the remake though. Doraemon’s “what am I, chopped liver?” reaction when Nobita begs him for a cool robot with amazing capabilities was quite funny.)

It may sound like I have many complaints about the remake, but if there were no original version to compare it to, it might have still edged into three-star territory for me. Knowing that a more compelling adaptation of the story exists, however, my personal enthusiasm for the remake probably rates no higher than two stars.

Star rating: ★★☆☆☆

Original or remake? At risk of repeating myself here, I prefer the original in this case.