#it’s almost holdovers season though!

[snoopysessa]

with my family while they watch football and dom’s hotels.com commercial played and i literally activated like a sleeper agent when i heard his voice

[digoload]

More Voltron AU!

Alien fugitive Fit who frequently steals/scavenges from Galra ships and settlements (and usually causes some mayhem too) frees human Pac from a work camp and takes him under his wing. Fitpac ensues, followed by relentless teasing from Tubbo, who went into space searching for Pac.

Fit used to be a gladiator for blood sport on a Galra cruiser before he found Ramon and they broke free together. Turns out Ramon's pretty handy with a fighter jet!

Ramon also engineered his arm and trident with the use of a balmera crystal shard they stole off a Galra encampment. He only wears it when necessary.

(version without notes, and extras on Fit's species below the cut)

Fit's species come in many different colours. They are vaguely humanoid, and are known for their height and bulk, much like the Galra. Unlike the Galra, they have much less fur, usually only some hair at the very back of the head (Fit is fully bald though lmfao). Their skin is fairly smooth, but rubbery and thick like a whale's.

His species is a fairly new one, all things considered. Most have very short tails at the base of their spines as a holdover from when they lived in their planet's oceans, but they are usually almost unnoticeable.

They have several antler-like growths on the tops of their heads that drop off seasonally, which are often used for making tools or weapons. In the past, they were made into arrowheads, used to carve clay tablets, or embedded into clubs or other blunt weapons. They are also used as reminders of the fallen.

Their planet had no prior knowledge of aliens before they were invaded by the Galra. Following their planet's capture, they became a popular species for gladiators due to their size and build.

[fibula-rasa]

Cosplay the Classics: Elizabeth Montgomery in “Two”

“Two” first aired on 15 September 1961 and is the first episode of the third season of The Twilight Zone. Sadly, “Two” is the only episode that features Elizabeth Montgomery.

Montgomery was nearly ten years into her professional career in 1961. She had already carved out a solid resume in television, appearing prolifically on anthology and episodic shows and occasionally stretched her legs on the New York stage. Samantha Stephens was still three years away when Montgomery took her voyage through The Twilight Zone.

In its five seasons, The Twilight Zone was a crossroads of up-and-coming and well-established performers. “Two” paired the rising star Montgomery with Charles Bronson, who had a decade more acting experience in TV and film than Montgomery. Though Bronson was the more established star, “Two” is Montgomery’s showcase.

Read on below the jump!

“Two” relies on minimal dialogue throughout and notably Montgomery only has a single line spoken. The role relies almost entirely on Montgomery’s action/reaction, expression, and styling. The episode begins on Montgomery as The Woman wandering an abandoned city. The first nine minutes of the episode pass with no dialogue, with context given by visual elements and Serling’s opening narration. The entire episode takes place on a small section of city street (at the old Hal Roach studios, conveniently already in disrepair). 

We learn through newspapers and magazines that this city is in The Man’s homeland, invaded by The Woman’s nation’s army. Signs of the city’s long five-year abandonment are everywhere, including full skeletons left where they fell. (The macabre element of skeletons is used sparingly across the Twilight Zone and usually in circumstances less grounded in reality than “Two,” such as “Long Live Walter Jameson” and “Queen of the Nile.”) As The Man mulls over his first encounter with The Woman a dove flies up behind him as a symbol of his genuine desire for peace. Through a variety of posters and advertisements, we learn that The Man’s homeland had a culture heavily invested in war.

Collage of the war-related paraphernalia in “Two”

All of that is solid storytelling, but Montgomery’s acting adds an extra something. When The Woman first encounters The Man, Montgomery performs hair-trigger reactivity. Despite The Woman’s dire situation—a stranded foreigner in a decimated country with seemingly no chance to ever return home—her reluctance to trust The Man is significant. Pairing Montgomery’s wordless portrayal of these responses with the jingoistic quality of The Man’s homeland and the notable length of time that the city has been abandoned makes me feel that her feelings might not be a simple holdover of wartime hostility on her part but potentially extended trauma. Perhaps The Woman had previous awful experiences with other straggling remnants of The Man’s military, who may not have been as ready as The Man to give up wartime attitudes in spite of the war clearly being over.

The Woman is understandably acting like a cornered animal. As the episode progresses, The Man tries to be as calculated as possible in communicating to The Woman that he doesn’t want a fight through his actions, turning his back to her, and not retaliating the third time she launches an attack on him. Montgomery, in turn, does a great job of drawing out the cornered animal characterization—alternating between curiosity, hope, mistrust, and open hostility. Montgomery’s characterization gives the role the added dimension that saves the episode from feeling too much like an overly simple fable.

Unfortunately, it’s in executing the fabular aspect of the story where “Two” falters. The opening narration by Serling specifies: 

“It’s been five years since a human being walked these streets. This is the first day of the sixth year as man used to measure time.  “The time: perhaps a hundred years from now, or sooner, or perhaps it’s already happened two-million years ago. The place: The signposts are in English so that we may read them more easily, but the place is The Twilight Zone.”

It’s established here that the location is meant to be a stand-in for any city in any country, and that the use of English is merely a storytelling convenience. So, even though “Two” is intended as a Cold-War era anti-war statement, they are intentionally distancing the fiction from the contemporary real-world conflict. To create further distance from a contemporary place/time, they establish that the rifles are laser guns.

But, then, that one line that Montgomery speaks in “Two,” seventeen minutes in, is “Prekrasny” or “прекрасны,” a Russian word for beautiful or pretty. This pretty much grinds to a halt the concept that this is a cautionary fable and not a vision of a dark future where the Soviet Union and the United States moved to open warfare. While I’ll admit that the conventions used to establish “Two” as a fable are cheeky and a little on the corny side, the episode itself would have been stronger without the suggestion that The Woman is Russian.

I’m not sure who made the call to use a Russian word. I wonder if perhaps Serling wrote his introduction and he had a different read on the story than its writer, Montgomery Pittman. Maybe Pittman intended “Two” to be more of a dark premonition with a twist of optimism and Serling thought of it more as a fable and the two approaches hampered each other in the final product? This is pure speculation on my part of course, but it’s a black mark on what I think could have been an even better episode than it is.

Regardless, I think “Two” is a strong episode and a fine example of a Serling-esque story written by someone brought on to lighten the load of Serling, who worked himself to the bone on Twilight Zone. I also appreciate Pittman’s confidence to rely so heavily on visual storytelling techniques, taking into account that the high quality at which we watch the show now does not reflect the quality home viewers would have had in 1961. It reflects both Serling and the producers belief that viewers would be fully engaged in watching the show as it aired rather than just passively having it on in the family room while unwinding after dinner. 

Elizabeth Montgomery’s performance heightens the whole affair considerably. That’s no shade on Charles Bronson, in fact I think the monologuing he’s given could have come off as unbearably hokey if delivered by a lesser actor.

If you can believe it, this is my very first time cosplaying The Twilight Zone! (Though I did play Rod Serling in a set of sketches in high school. I was as weird as a teenager as I am an adult, okay?) If you didn’t already know, I run another blog called Twilight Zone in Close-ups, examining the powerful use of close-up shots on the show by testing out how much of each episode’s story can be communicated solely by its close-up shots.

☕ Buy me a coffee! ☕

[animebw]

Seasonal Reflection: Winter 2024 Anime

My feelings on the first anime season of 2024 can be summed up thusly: Most of my favorite shows from winter 2024 were continuations of shows that were already great from last season, not new entries. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and there were plenty of new anime I at least enjoyed watching. But it became clear about halfway through the season that aside from a couple fall 2023 holdovers, there was barely anything truly exciting going on here. Most of the adaptations I watched didn't do much to truly elevate their source material, and most of the few original series we got ended up the worst of the bunch. I can't say nothing good came out of winter 2024, but if this is any sign of how the rest of the year is gonna go, we may be in for a slog. For now, though, let's take stock of the anime I watched this season, and which ones are worth your time.

Metallic Rouge: 3/10

If you asked me what the worst show I finished this season would be at the start, I never would've guessed Metallic Rouge. I mean, it's a cool-ass original sci-fi anime from Bones with slick 2D mecha animation, surely that's gotta be at least a little cool, right? Sadly, no. Because this is, without question, one of the most baffling scripts I've ever seen in anime. Almost every single detail of its world and plot are barely explained, if at all, and the mechanics of what's even supposed to be going on are so nebulous that every attempt at a plot twist feels like a twist on something that never actually existed. Characters are plopped into the story without even an introduction. At times it feels like whole scenes have been cut out entirely. The only thing I can compare it to is the original Suicide Squad movie from 2016: a story so cut to the bone in the editing room that you can barely tell what's supposed to be happening half the time, and yet enough of the original story remains to suggest it was never any good in the first place. The one thing it gets right is the prickly chemistry between its two leads, and then it fucking keeps them separated for like half the damn runtime! How do you even unforced error that badly?

Bucchigiri: 3.5/10

Man, this was not a good season for original anime. Bucchigiri might not have been as staggering a writing trainwreck as Metallic Rouge, but its sin is arguably even worse; it's boring. It's a wacky, colorful high school delinquent romp with rainbow-haired Jojo's punks beating the snot out of each other with genie powers, it's sort of a re-imagining of Aladdin, it's got freaking Hiroko Utsumi at the helm, and it's boring. Why? Because this show gets absolutely stuck in the quicksand of its own status quo and refuses to budge an inch. Character growth is nonexistent, the protagonist is an aggravating loser wimp who never learns his lesson, and nothing of actual meaning happens from the first episode to the end. Literally everything you think is setting up a character arc where someone learns a lesson or grows as a person, all of it amounts to nothing. It's a limp, inert world that perpetuates the same overdone jokes and contrived, misunderstanding-based drama over and over again until all the outsized Utsumi visual personality feels like a tacky coat thrown on top of a lifeless corpse. What an utter waste.

Urusei Yatsura Season 2 (1st Cours): 5/10

I'm still not quite sure what to make of the Urusei Yatsura remake. is it charmingly dated? Annoyingly dated? A welcome throwback or a sign that some things should stay in the past? If nothing else, it never fails to get at least a couple chuckles out of me every episode. But the more it tries to lean into being actually sincere, the more its inherent cheesiness and lack of depth starts becoming a problem. I'm sorry, this cast of characters is just too abrasive and purposefully insane to take seriously, and none of their relationships are healthy enough to unironically root for. Lum and Ataru are not a couple I want to see actually get together, at least not unless Ataru stops being such a fucking shithead. And if him being a jackass could be charming in season 1, then this season is really starting to test my patience with him. It's one thing to be a serial skirt chaser, but his actions this season regularly cross a line from womanizing to unambiguous sex pest, and there's only so many wooden mallets he can get knocked over the head with before it stops feeling like like he's getting punished as much as he deserves to be.

Undead Unluck (2nd Cours): 5/10

Good news, everyone: Undead Unluck finally gave up on those awful groping gags that were ruining its central romance! Bad news: at the same time, it spontaneously developed one of the worst cases of recap padding I've ever seen! I'm not just talking overlong recap segments at the start of the episode, I'm talking constant flashbacks to events we just saw just moments before, straight up playing the same footage again just minutes apart, all climaxing in a truly unforgivable episode that spends seven goddamn minutes on recycled footage. Not even Tokyo Revengers was this bad with its time-wasting. And to add insult to injury, once it finally gets its feet unstuck and returns to a reasonable amount of recap for the final arc, it's probably the best arc of the entire show! It's some of the most bonkers high-concept emotional storytelling I've ever seen attempted, let alone pulled off so spectacularly. It's proof that there is so much brilliance to Undead Unluck, if it could just get out of its own way. But as long as it continues suffering from such massive systemic flaws, it's only ever going to be an also-ran.

Solo Leveling: 5.5/10

Okay, look; is this show dumb as a bag of rocks? Absolutely. Is it as nakedly an adolescent power fantasy as any anime has ever been? Ditto. Does it solely exist for dweeby incels to feel like swaggering douchebag chads getting revenge on all the normies who looked down on them by becoming The Bestest Strongest Chadliest Awesomest Of All Time? You know it. But god dammit, it's actually fun. I cannot pretend I'm too mature and sophisticated to enjoy a big, helping heaping of dumb edgy schlock when it's actually done well. I'm the one person on the face of the earth who still caries water for Akame ga Kill, for crying out loud. And Solo Leveling makes two really smart storytelling choices that keep it (mostly) on the entertaining side of dumb fun: building a genuinely interesting and intricate world that exists well beyond the scope of the protagonist's actions (for now, at least), and making sure that no matter how stupidly overpowered Jinwoo gets, his opponents are always just a little bit even more stupidly overpowered, so he's still pushed to his absolute breaking point and barely scraping together a win by the skin of his teeth every time. There is an art to edge that's too often taken for granted, and this show is proof that being the living embodiment of a twelve-year-old boy's wet dreams is no excuse not to be at least a decent version of that. That said, let's be real, Jinwoo was so much more attractive before his supposed glow-up. Give my boy back his scraggly rat locks, you cowards.

Bang Brave Bang Bravern: 6/10

What happens when a campy, cartoony 70s-style super robot anime crashes headfirst into a much grittier real robot anime? Well, what happens is Bang Brave Bang Bravern, the latest ten-car pileup of mismatched genres from the Cygames masterminds behind "What if horse racing but idols?" Take a desperate war story of survival against impossible odds, airdrop a skyscraper-sized superhero into the mix, and watch him completely shatter the original tone one cheekily ironic powerup and power-of-friendship speech at a time. It's a beautifully bonkers sendup of mecha tropes that has some of the funniest individual moments in this entire anime season, and the absolutely wild twist it pulls with the titular robot's identity in the back half is more than worth the price of admission on its own. Unfortunately, if it wanted to be as perfect a parody-until-it-isn't mecha series as Akiba Maid War was a parody-until-it-isn't mob flick, it probably should've tried being as long as most mecha series tend to be, i.e. more than just twelve measly episodes. There's just not enough time to develop any of the characters or world beyond the most essential parts, resulting in huge chunks of the supporting cast hanging around with nothing to do but take up space. And it leads to this show, which is trying to be so big and over the top, instead feeling so small and half-formed. Also, the secondary romance is gross. Like, really gross.

A Sign of Affection: 6/10

I think this show has helped clarify something for me: I'm really getting tired of how quickly modern romance anime get their main couple together. As much as we rag on the endless will-they-won't-they of ages past, taking so much time to build up the characters and their relationship before they finally make it official can result in some truly one-of-a-kind storytelling when done right. I might agonize over how long Sawako and Kuronoma take to get together in Kimi ni Todoke, but the payoff is so transcendent that none of those complaints matter. Whereas Yuki and Itsuomi getting together so quickly in A Sign of Affection... I mean, they're cute, I guess? His cool demeanor plays off her sincerity very well? But it feels like the show's in such a rush to get to the good stuff- and so determined to make Istuomi the dreamiest, most perfect boyfriend ever- that it skips over so much of the careful character-building that makes all the best anime romances so special. It's a sugary sweet confection, but wipe the frosting away and there's just not that much cake underneath. Honestly, I find the side characters a lot more interesting because they're allowed to have messy internal conflicts with a bit more meat on their bones. But hey, props for putting a deaf heroine at the center of your shoujo romance and taking so much time to explore how that affects the way she interacts with the world. That's a cause well worth celebrating.

Sengoku Youko: 6.5/10

Rejoice, everyone, we finally have an adaptation of a Satoshi Mizukami work that doesn't look like absolute garbage! After the flaming disaster that was Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer's barely animated hackjob production, Sengoku Youko has arrived to give the cult fave manga artist a chance for his work to actually shine on the silver screen. As someone who only knows him through Planet With, I've always wondered if Mizukami deserved the reputation his manga gets, and with White Fox delivering as tight and intense a production as they gave Re:Zero, I guess it's time to finally find out. And the answer is... mostly? Like, the biggest problems in this sci-fi/feudal fantasy mashup are the characters being a little too eager to state the themes out loud and one pretty crummy death that's about as hamfisted and over-telegraphed as I've seen in a while. But there's a shockingly gripping narrative underlying it all, a story about the scars trauma leaves on people, of characters making bad decisions and facing real consequences for them, of hatred and poisonous ideology forced to reckon with the more complex reality of the world as a whole. And it all climaxes in an absolute barn-burner final episode that knocked my score up a half point all on its own. If future seasons can make good on all the potential this first season has set up, then I may just end up a Mizukami fan myself when all is said and done.

Blue Exorcist Season 3: 6.5/10

I'm of two minds about Blue Exorcist's second return after a six-year gap between seasons. On one hand, it's clear the new staff is just nowhere near as talented as the folks who first brought this series to life at A-1 Pictures. The action is abysmal, the storyboarding is clunky, and the animation feels like it's constantly fighting for its life to maintain a passable standard. And it sucks that a series that once brought such great life to its story is now held back by such a mediocre production. But on the other hand... holy fuck, am I glad Blue Exorcist is back. I once described The Devil is a Part-Timer as the mathematical average of anime as a concept, but if you were to ask me what the best possible version of that mathematical average looks like? It would be Blue Exorcist. This is, hands down, one of the best straightforward shonen action stories in the whole medium, a reminder of why all the most generic and overused tropes were once powerful enough to become generic and overused in the first place. It's proof that even the simplest of "superpowered teens kick demon butt with the power of friendship" concepts can result in a wonderful goddamn series when handled with good old-fashioned storytelling fundamentals. And not even the rough-as-hell production is enough to keep season 3 from delivering on the thrills, tears, laughs, and cheers that make this series so magical. Just, please, give the next season more time in the oven so it doesn't feel like it's wading through molasses to hit those heights. Okay?

Delicious in Dungeon (1st Cours): 7/10

Delicious in Dungeon's biggest problem is that it takes a while to really settle into itself. The opening scene of the protagonist's sister being devoured by a dragon sets the tone for an intense and desperate rescue mission, but the actual series that follows this harrowing opening is as lackadaisical as can be. And it's jarring to be thrust into a gag-filled, character-driven fantasy cooking comedy where the harsh tone of that opening scene and the ticking clock of Falin's digestion completely disappear from the characters' heads in favor of how beast to cook and eat the various fantasy monsters they encounter in the dungeon. Yes, it makes a little more sense once the mechanics of death and resurrection are explained later on, but it's a weird note to start on. Which is a shame, because once Delicious in Dungeon gets a handle on what kind of story it's trying to be, it's really fun! Its sense of deadpan comedy coupled with Trigger's expressive animation makes for some really unexpected gags, and the way it explores its fantasy cuisine is genuinely some of the most creative stuff I've ever seen in the cooking anime genre. Plus, with the dark tone coming back in at the end of the first cours- and landing much more naturally this time- I have high hopes for how this series will marry those two sides of itself moving forward. If the manga fans' reactions are any indication, I think we're in for a damn good time.

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End (2nd Cours): 8/10

So remember in my last post how I said that it was kind of disappointing whenever Frieren turned into an action show because of how disconnected the fights were from the beating heart that makes this show so special? Well, apparently the writers heard me and decided what I meant was I wanted this peaceful, meditative tale about grief, change and the passage of time to turn into the goddamn Hunter Exams for ten episodes straight. It's one of the most shockingly ill-advised storytelling swerves I've seen in an otherwise good show, discarding all this series' strengths in favor of a half-baked tournament arc with tonally jarring grimdark elements and a bland, overstuffed cast of characters who only start becoming interesting in the rare moments they're allowed to stop slinging spells at each other and just, like, talk about life? You know, the stuff that Frieren's actually good at? Not this brainless slice of shonen envy that only avoids being a complete slog thanks to how spectacular the action is across the board? Ugh. Look, Frieren is officially the most beloved anime on the goddamn planet right now, and its best moments are so incredible that I wish I could join that chorus as well. But it's so disappointing to me that a show this singular and special has so often chosen to be the least interesting version of itself.

The Dangers in My Heart Season 2: 8.5/10

It's official: director Hiroaki Akagi is the master of middle school rom-coms. No other creator so perfectly grasps the specific blend of immaturity, awkwardness, cringe, and heart-on-sleeve sincerity that defines the love stories of early adolescence. That was already clear with his work on Teasing Master Takagi-san, but now that he's pulled it off twice, there's no room left for argument. And just like with Takagi-san, the second season of The Dangers in My Heart takes a show that was already shockingly good and catapults it into all-time greatness. This is a coming-of-age triumph, a soaring tribute to embracing your own cringeworthy self, flaws and all, and sharing that self openly with the people who matter most to you. Ichikawa's journey toward maturity, Yamada's journey toward self-love, and the way their romance sparks the best in both of them is the stuff that dreams are made of. I laughed, I cried, I squealed like a little girl, and I felt my heart grow three sizes by the time it was done. This is a new gold standard for anime rom-coms, and if you can stomach a bit of groanworthy fanservice, it more than deserves your attention.

The Apothecary Diaries (2nd Cours): 8.5/10

Most of the time when I cover a two-cours show on these seasonal reflections, I end up in a pretty different place by the end of the second cours than I did at the first. Either it sort of fell apart in the second half, or found its footing and took it to the next level, or it changed in some interesting way that affects how I view the show as a whole. But The Apothecary Diaries has stayed the course from the first episode all the way to the end. Start to finish, it's remained pretty much the same show, with the same ideas and attitude, exploring the same themes in the same ways. And you know what? When you're as good as The Apothecary Diaries ended up being, there's nothing wrong with that. This is a spectacular historical drama that builds such a rich, compelling world for its equally rich, compelling characters to inhabit. It's a powerful exploration of how old society treated the disadvantaged- women, poor people, people with all severities of disability- and how one deeply abnormal girl carves her way through this viper's den with her body and soul intact. It's the kind of mature, thoughtful series we so rarely seen done this well, and with the announcement of a season 2 already confirmed, we may well end up with close to 50 episodes when all is said and done. That, folks, is what a true shoujo/josei renaissance looks like. And I'm so happy such a deserving series is leading the way in reminding us how damn good women's stories can be when they're given a chance to shine this brightly.

DROPPED

Cherry Magic: Dropped at 2 episodes for looking like butt and the central romance feeling pretty lifeless.

High Card Season 2: Dropped at 1 episode because I realized I didn't care anymore.

Ninja Kamui: Dropped at 2 episodes for being dull tryhard edgy bullshit with overdone fight scenes that are impossible to follow.

[delta-queerdrant]

the best allies we could have (Alliances, s2 e14)

If Voyager’s Kazon arc has a peak, it’s “Alliances.” Here it is, the dramatic turning point in our understanding of Delta Quadrant politics! This episode has a kernel of something almost compelling, but like much of season two, it’s sadly undercut by storytelling failures.

We cold-open on a firefight with the Kazon. Star Trek battle scenes are so silly; why do the consoles explode? I guess the claustrophobic mayhem is a holdover from the nuclear submarine aesthetics of TOS. I will never not be amused by how Janeway’s hair explodes every time they’re in a fight. Are there no bobby pins in space?

A crewman dies in the battle, and we learn that two more have died in previous Kazon encounters, our first casualties since Durst got de-faced (lol) by the Vidiians. The tension is real - redshirt deaths hit differently when a small crew has trauma-bonded in space.

A faction of the crew wants to buy off the pursuing Kazon with Federation technology, but Janeway won’t turn her back on the Prime Directive. The Starfleet/Maquis divide, usually an afterthought, feels momentarily real. We’re treated to a three-way debate between Janeway’s lawful good authoritarianism, Chakotay’s collaborative ethos, and Tuvok’s detached realpolitik. “This isn’t a democracy, Chakotay, I can’t run this ship by consensus,” Janeway says, briefly inviting a utopian, communitarian vision of a Voyager actually run by consensus. But even she’s swayed by Tuvok’s (frankly, bullshit) suggestion that a temporary alliance with the Kazon has the potential to make the Delta Quadrant more stable as long as Voyager doesn’t actually hand over technology.

This is arguably a weak leadership moment for Janeway, who can’t adapt to the demands of her environment or crew, but maybe it’s okay to be a rules-y Taurus if you surround yourself with people who correct your worst impulses.

Janeway reaches out to Seska to try to broker a deal, which is fun because it’s genuinely unexpected and makes Chakotay so squirmy. Meanwhile Neelix makes contact with a Kazon acquaintance. They meet up in what I believe is the first “hive of scum and villainy” of the series. You know these people are up to no good because there are alien bikini girls!

Here Neelix encounters the Trabe, another local alien species who have their own story to tell. The episode both becomes interesting and loses the plot completely.

The Trabe tell Voyager that “over thirty years ago,” they enslaved the Kazon in an apartheid society. When the Kazon rose up, the Trabe lost everything. Now the Trabe are a landless people still persecuted by those they oppressed, even though decades have passed and many of the Trabe were children when the Kazon overthrew them.

Janeway is delighted - instead of allying with the Kazon, they can ally with the friendly Trabe! Chakotay agrees - the Trabe, after all, have openly acknowledged the harm their people caused.

Meanwhile, me: OMG NOOOO THEY FOUND WHITE PEOPLE IN SPACE

Previously I wrote about the Kazon as a parable for midcentury US race relations. Before I rewatched “Alliances,” I genuinely thought they were just clearance-rack racialized space baddies, but here the parallels to white Boomer experiences of the 1960s uprisings are unmistakable. It’s a resonant scene, but watching our command team fall over each other to befriend their new pals is… stressful.

The Trabe build on Janeway's proposal: together they’ll bring the Kazon together and negotiate for peace. But when the meeting begins, the viewer can’t help but notice that the Kazon seem like the most reasonable people in the room. They don’t trust the Trabe or Janeway, and they have a much better read on the power dynamics at play than Janeway does. Because the meeting is a fucking trap.

This episode is such a bummer. Maybe I'm being too charitable, but it feels like a genuine attempt at anti-white supremacist storytelling that missed the mark. Janeway, our audience surrogate, is presented with a complex political situation and immediately latches onto the group she identifies with: white-presenting people who have claimed the moral high ground after centuries as oppressors. Then the rug is pulled out from under her. White liberalism as a facade for violence is a very mid-nineties dynamic.

The full impact of this plot twist relies on the viewer sharing Janeway’s white myopia. If you don’t implicitly trust the Trabe (or the writers), you spend the whole episode screaming at the television. Why are our protagonists so clueless?

“I hope there's a lesson for all of us in this,” Janeway says in the final scene. “Although some of the species we've encountered here have been peaceful, others seem governed only by their own self-interests.” It’s not a good look when our hero has traveled 70,000 light years to learn that… politics are a thing? And why didn’t her command team didn’t save her from herself? Are you telling me that Chakotay, the Indigenous anti-authoritarian militant, is this politically naive?

If “Alliances” is at times a smart portrait of how an oppressor mindset operates, it’s undermined by an offensive caricature of resistance. Violent resistance absolutely can be fueled by an ideology of separatism and racial hatred, but the Kazon aren’t a resistance movement; they’ve won. Yet the Kazon resemble white peoples' worst fears of postcolonial "failed states." It feels like the writers genuinely believe that the political and social problems of formerly dispossessed people are of their own making, not recognizing the ways that white supremacy and economic imperialism still actively shape the lives of formerly colonized peoples. The Kazon only make sense in a universe where the Trabe are still economically and politically exploiting them, and that's not the universe we're shown.

We needed an episode with this shape, one that sets up the hard political choices of later seasons, and I can accept that requires our characters to exercise truly poor judgment. But this attempt at gritty politics doesn’t feel grounded in anything real, and the result feels disappointingly thin.

2/5 triangular tables.

[cboffshore]

Hey there - I'm Lila!

If you're seeing this, it could mean any of the following: you're already a mutual, you like Ninjago, you really like Ninjago's infamous (ha!) sixth season Skybound, or you know me from something else entirely. Or it's none of those and you've just taken a super wrong turn. No matter what - I'm glad you're here!

Join me under the cut for a more detailed look at my account, or just venture off on your own - the choice is yours.

WHO I AM & WHERE TO FIND ME

You can call me Lila! I've been around the Ninjago fandom since 2011 under a whole bunch of different names and accounts, with all the bizarre stories and memories to show for it. Now, though, you can find me under one of two handles: @cboffshore (here and on Bluesky, where I'm not all that active, but it sure beats Twitter!) or OffshoreWriter over on AO3.

My title as Skybound Analysis PhD holder was born from a joke (initially given to me when I overanalyzed Skybound's color scheme and then Flintlocke's development in a Discord server) but grew into, well, not a joke; I take Skybound about as seriously as someone can take a toy commercial cartoon. Through all of my years in the Ninjago fandom, I've never seen a season as misunderstood and contentious as Skybound. Unfortunately, I happen to like it a lot for what it is, and I'm willing to defend it very hard (but don't get me wrong, I know it's got flaws! I'm not completely nuts!). Read this ask for a detailed overview of my position on Skybound analysis.

Outside of Ninjago overanalysis, I'm into a few other things: crocheting, the occasional piece of digital art, music (special faves include I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME, Fall Out Boy, and My Chemical Romance), and Bionicle (but only on a casual "wow cool vibes and killer writing" basis because that timeline does NOT make sense to me.).

SOME STUFF I DO

The best way to get into my work is just to explore all the nooks and crannies of my blog, but for those of you in a rush, here are links to some of my favorite projects:

On Sea, Sunlight, and Sky, aka OSSAS, is what I'd consider the crown jewel of my AO3 catalog: a Nya-centric series diving into her experience during the last few episodes of Skybound. Updated every December until I decide to lay her to rest (which, by the looks of it, will be the 2024 installment), this is my longest-term project that exemplifies how I approach Skybound as a season. If you only check out one corner of my work, make it OSSAS. You can find all things OSSAS under #ossas tag here on my blog (newcomers beware of spoilers!)

Yours To Keep: Rethinking Skybound Through Fashion is an older project of mine that blends fashion design and Nadakhan character analysis. As in, I drew a trio of banger outfits and then wrote essays about what all their details meant. Trust me on this, it's a cool one! (This is a holdover from when my fandom involvement was almost exclusively Ninjago character analysis-based couture fashion art... you can thank Giles Panton for that.)

Sorrow is All The Rage: An Analysis of Sexual Assault in Jay-Centric Skybound Fanfiction is a two (technically, three) part essay detailing my attempts to come to terms with the (frankly rather concerning) trend of gratuitous SA inclusion in a surprising swath of popular Skybound fanfiction. (Spoiler alert: I still think it's weird as hell and I haven't come to terms with it... but I have gotten way better at using the block button to keep it out of my line of sight.) The link in the title will take you to part one; part two is linked at the end, and part three's mini update is lurking somewhere in those tags. Please note: this essay is not an attack, or a condemnation, although it may come across that way at times. This was written largely as a vent piece about an issue that has disturbed me deeply and affected how I go about interpreting Skybound, and that definitely impacted my tone. If you'd like to reference this for any reason, or if you have any questions, please shoot me an ask or DM.

[eolewyn1010]

Downton Abbey Fashion 3 - Edwardian outdoors fashion

We're still on coats and walking suits pre-war, but we have yet to look at the younger generation of Crawleys. And I will have to begrudgingly admit that while I can't stand Mary, I am in general an admirer of her fashion choices.

Hm. This coat would be an exception. Admittedly, it does have embroidered lapels, but I don’t see the pattern well enough anywhere that it looks other than abstractly flower-ish to me. Other than that, it doesn’t seem to fit quite right? It’s honestly one of the more unassuming Mary looks, but it was also grabbed for her in a haste and I don’t think we see this again afterward. Oh well, on to the prettier bits.

There we go. Usually, Mary’s outdoor looks are spectacular. Look at this tailored suit! So grey and yet so glamorous. I love these little toothed elements around the collar and on the cuffs. Unnecessary buttons are usually the death of me because ew, stitching on buttons. But I can’t deny that the effect is great. Also, the velvet ribbon around the hat pops nicely on the otherwise uncolored outfit.

Thanks, Mary – this is a nice coat. Beautiful color, looks clean and streamlined, nowhere near the shabby chic of the first one. And again, the velvet elements pop very finely. And I definitely need to find out the Crawleys’ milliner; the first hat is doubtlessly one of my favorites. How do you load velvet, tulle, feathers, and a brooch up there without making it look cluttered? It helps that the rest of the outfit, including Mary’s jewelry, is very understated. Also, the coat is a holdover to season 2.

The white London walking suit. Not a personal favorite of mine; I feel it’s a bit lacking in those nice contrast elements the blue coat has, but there’s no denying it looks very good. Love the stitching on the upper part of the collar; it ties in the color scheme of the hat. The hat itself – well, again, this particular asymmetrically drooping style is not my favorite, but it’s perfectly coordinated with the suit, and the ribbon adds up with gloves, shoes and umbrella to a nice framework. Slightly suspicious of the pockets in this jacket though. I hope to someone those are actual pockets and not just decorative flaps.

Another banger! I’m tempted to call this an Eton jacket because of the waist length, but I’m not secure enough in my terminology. And this one comes with contrast elements again; I love it. The collar style is new, and then there are these adorable little turnover-cuffs! And the little soutache embroidery on the front which seems like a nod to military fashions… You know, maybe it is an Eton jacket after all. Mary wears this one a couple times, with various hats as we can see – again, this asymmetrical style, and one of the big plumage spectacles I personally prefer because I’m overfed on modern fashion understatements. Go big or go home. But also, consider: pockets.

I’m not a 100% sure about this; like some of the Dowager’s dresses, it seems to be a liminal outfit. Without a hat, it looks very indoor-sy, but with the hat, it’s fine enough for a stroll in the park. Anyway. High-waisted skirt because Mary meets a potential suitor, so she’s gotta show off her figure, and fluff above the waist because pigeon chest is not quite dead yet. The long pearl necklace in the first picture is foreshadowing the upcoming overlong fashions of the 1920s. No more notes; this looks nice and appropriate for summer, and purple dresses Mary quite well.

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I don’t know what to make of this suit, tbh. I’m here for the cream-and-black contrast; this is almost a recolored version of Mary’s blue coat and as such very nice. Only, it looks like it doesn’t fit Edith quite right, wrinkling up in the chest area when she’s standing up straight. If this is another attempt in dressing her down, it doesn’t make sense; the Crawleys can afford to tailor every damn thing to the millimeter. At least with the mourning suit not quite fitting Mary, they had established before that it was an unexpected event and they didn’t know if the girls still had fitting mourning garb. Oh, well. Contrary to Mary’s opinion about Edith’s fashion sense, this one looks very nice with the dark blue blouse and hat, and it compliments her hair color. Also, the last picture is of season 2 – one more of the instances where they keep something over a season change.

This one fits better, but I’m not a fan of the brownish grey color. Of course, the situation is unflattering for Edith’s skills in intellectual conversation and flirting, so a not-very-flattering color on her makes sense. Thanks for the subtlety? On the plus side, the collar of that suit has some nice embroidery.

The orange walking suit! Hm? No, this isn’t spectacular or anything; it’s just the first instance of Edith wearing a color that’s going to become pretty iconic for her, although it doesn’t have the same character significance for her yet that it has later on. She pairs it with dark blue a lot; here, she’s going with black and white. Nice hat on the right, only I could swear I have seen it elsewhere before? Did she steal it from Mary? In any case, I like this style better than the little bowl hats Edith predominantly wears this season.

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And then there’s Sybil, who has her signature color cut out more clearly than her older sisters – she wears more light blue than anything else, outside and in evening dresses. Check out this nice walking suit! Love the embroidery and the cute little tassels and the pleating on the front. Plus the dark blue piping around the collar giving it a little extra pop.

More of the same color, although this is a little more washed-out. I’m here for pinstripes though! This coat is much longer, almost to the knees. Also way more streamlined. I like that she’s repeating the hat, but with a different ribbon on it. The suit Gwen is wearing is technically also Sybil’s, and it’s cut in a much similar fashion as the previous one, but I’m surprised that it’s such a strong color contrast with the rest of Sybil’s wardrobe. It also might have been altered slightly to fit Gwen.

[thetragicallynerdy]

for the emoji asks, if it's not too much trouble! 🙋‍♀️ ✨ ❌ 🤲 🍷 🧠 (Oluwande)

yeah yeah yeah!!! (emoji fanfic writer asks are here for anyone curious!)

🙋‍♀️ (person raising hand emoji) - Do any irl people know you write fanfic?

I have a bunch of very real online pals who I met through fanfic!! But re: brick and mortar space people, yes! Some of my family knows - my two sisters, and my parents. They don't know what fandoms I write for, or my username, and have never read my work, and basically only know I write fanfic because I kept mentioning that I had been writing but didn't ever let anyone read what I wrote XD (I write way too much smut to ever let my family find my ao3 account hahaha). My mom asks me about it sometime, and is very sweet in letting me ramble about the themes of the stories I write. I think that's it though? I am keenly aware that I come from the era of 'fanfic is super embarrassing' and have some holdovers from that, so it's not something I talk about a lot with people I know in brick and mortar space.

✨ (sparkle emoji) - Give you and your writing a compliment. Go on now. You know you deserve it. 😉(winky face emoji)

Ohhhh gosh! Well - I think I write conversations well. There's a flow to conversations, and I almost always have the conversations I write play out audibly in my head - and I think I put them to page well! Or, at the very least, I enjoy them a lot haha! I also think that for someone who really enjoys writing angst, I do a decent job at writing humour when I try XD

❌ (X emoji) - What's a trope you will never write?

Pretty much anything involving pregnancy. ABO stuff is also not really my jam writing-wise. Whump wise, captive/pet whumpee type whump stuff is something I absolutely won't touch. There's many other common whump tropes that I won't write, but they don't all need to be listed XD

🤲 (palms up together emoji) - Would you please share a snippet of a wip?

Yeah!!!!!! This comes from an old west AU in which Oluwande is a farmer, and Jim is the outlaw who stumbles onto his farm while injured.

--

"You know, this would be easier if I could just carry you," Oluwande says. There's worry threaded through his voice - but that's stupid, why would he be worried about them.

Jim closes their eyes, tries to stop the world from spinning quite so much. It just gets worse, and they can already feel their grip on his shirt beginning to slip.

"Fucking fine," they slur. "Just - fuckin' do it."

Oluwande wastes no time at all. He ducks, hooks one arm under their knees, the other under their shoulders, hefting them easily into his arms. Their head lolls against his shoulder, face nearly tucked into the softness of his neck. He's strong, and warm, and soft, and - he feels safe. God, that's so fucking stupid of them.

"Alright," Oluwande murmurs. "I've got you."

🍷 - Do you drink and write?

I do not! I actually don't really drink in general - I've got a brain injury, and brain injuries and alcohol tend not to mix well lol. I like alcohol, but only have a drink once every few months or so. That said, I think it would be very fun to write while drunk and see what I write XD (it would probably be angst or smut, lets be real. Probably both together XD)

🧠 (Oluwande) (brain emoji) - Pick a character, and I'll tell you my favorite headcanon for them.

Okay one of my absolute favourite Oluwande headcanons is that he's got a lot of siblings. He's just got such great vibes for it, y'know? Like he feels like the sort of guy who has a bunch of sisters and maybe a few brothers too, and grew up taking care of and being taken care of by siblings. He's got good 'big healthy family' energy, and I adore it. And I really really hope that we get to know more about his backstory next season!!! I wanna know all the things!!

Thanks so much for the asks!!!

[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales Della Arc Reviews: The Last Crash of the Sunchaser!

Hello all you happy people. I’ve been dreading this one.. not because it’s bad. Quite the oppisite. In fact on rewatch I was marveling at how brilliant this one was and remembering why it was on my best of list. But because the ending, as you all well know, is the most gutwrenching part of the entire series. Three seasons and lots of other heartrending moments.. and the ending of this episode from the big reveal to that final shot above tears you the fuck apart. It’s hard to watch even know it all works out in the end and that i’d be watching the conclusion the next day instead of having to wait a rather painful week like I did at first airing. It’s just that good. So join me under the cut for a review of one of the series finest half hours and some of David Tennant’s best work as we crash the Sunchaser one last time.. for this season... and i think Launchpad crashes it again in the finale so I don’t get that title. 

So our plot for the episode is that 

Yes Clan McDuck is taking their version of a vacation. It’s off to Monocrow for the E.X.C.E.S.S. Expo! Yes it’s the EXCESS Expo! With the latest in racecars lasers and many more! The EXCESS Expo! With booths from such welcome guests as Stark International, Muppet Labs, S.T.A.R. Labs, VenTech, The Franklin Sherman Memorial Fishmobabywhirlomgig Institute, TCRI, Gryzzl, Sumdac Systems, G-Heavy Industries, Tylerco, Lexcorp, Wayne Enterprises, Quickstart, The Gizmonic Institute, Alchemax,and Baintronics! But that’s not all! We also have huge paneeellls! Hank Pym’s “The ethics of dating your robot grandaughter”, Reed Richards “How to Dispatch an Evil Council made up entirely of yourself!”, Victor Von Dooms “CURSE YOU RICHARDS I’M SMARTER FOR I AM DOOM”, Stanford Pines with “How to Kill a Godlike Demon and Get your Smile Back”, Dr. Bunsen Hondedew with “How to abuse your assitant in 2020″ Dr.Light with “The Ethics of helping your robot child fight an evil albert einstein”, Profesor Henry Hidgens with “The incoming apocalypse with songs from Working Boys: A New Musical” Ray Palmer “Welcome To Pain”, and you know our friend Ass Dan will be in full effect> yeah bitch you know he’s going to live forev... what’s that? He’s dead. oh shame. Someone call rusty venture. Yes I know i’m typing this. Shut up. THE EXCESS EXPO. BE THERE OR WE’LL SEND OUR ROBOTS AFTER YOU. 

... Where.. Where was I? Oh yes, big vacation. Monocrow.. which sadly is not just a big field with just Crow T. Robot in it. Someday you’ll get MST3K/Ducktales Jake, someday. Point is our heroes are excited, and Scrooge is also there to find the Maltese MacGuffin, a mysterious artifact no one’s ever seen. And the kids and Scrooge have their own specail guest joining them: Bentina! Yeah turns out she has hundreds of vacation days built up, and simply hasn’t used them so she’s using a few to join them. It also once again shows how much less of a heartless money monster this Scrooge is as any of his employees asking for a vacation, paid or not, in the comics would result in this:

So their off on their greatest adventure.. with Louie having’ bought something mysterious along with him he’s only telling the other kids about. On with the intro!

Beakly.. is intstantly not at ease as they take off after driving their jeep into the plane. She feels launchpad is reckless, rightfully so not helped by a lack of seatbelts on the plane or his cheefully saying the closest he’s got, a floatie, will help “When” we crash. She’s also equally annoyed by Scrooge’s cavalier attitude, having intrusted the kids to him only to find out what the adventueres are really like. And this is the only part of the episode that REALLY doesn’t work. She KNOWS these two idiots too well for this to be beliviable. Launchpad wrecks part of the mansion at least once a day, and before Duckworth she had to clean that shit up. He’s there all the time.. and more damingly HE DROVE YOU AND YOUR KID, YOUR KIDS BEST FRIENDS, AND YOUR KIDS GIRLFRIEND TO THE FUCKING MOVIES. I can’t buy given how bad a driver launchapd is she didn’t wrench the wheel from him to prevent their early graves. Scrooge meanwhile is her BEST FRIEND. And until season 2 for her and 3 for him ONLY friend. Sure she works for him, but outside of one incident in this episode he treats her as his equal more than his housekeeper for the entire series. They trust each other more than anyone else at this point. And the only other two people Scrooge ends up trusting as much are Donald and Della. She’s been around him enough to know how he is. What did she THINK he was going to be like with the kids? She’s met the twins, and even mroe so is on good terms with Donald even into the pilot and they only got off on bad terms due to clashing over house rules. So she KNWOS this is what he does with children. You can’t be shocked Scrooge took children on death defying adventures in a barely secured plane after all this time. It’d be like giving Donald a turkey to carve and being suprised when it ends in this...

It just dosen’t work especially with a professional spy! Her job is reading people! And yes I know many of you are going to say “Well she misread Bradford”... but so did Scrooge and so many others. NO ONE suspected him. He’s that good. So her suddenly having a complaint about all this stuff when she could’ve come along anytime to check it out or just looked at the plain bothers me a LOT. Thankfully it’s only really present at the start as while it sets off her concern their back and forth soon has a far deeper meaning. But Scrooge insists Launchpad take her on a tour to ease her worry, seems like a contrdictary set of sentences there, while he flies. How hard could it be. Somewhere on the Moon, Della has the sudden urge to kick her uncle’s ass. 

So meanwhile in a secret base set up in a cargo box, the kids are working on the Della mystery. Turns out what Louie smuggled aboard was the documents shredded on the date the boys found on the Spear of Selene plans. Louie got them by smooth talking Quackfaster who even he found nuts. It also once again shows Dewey was only holding things back by keeping the other boys out as in jus weeks, since chronologically there were two other episodes between this and the last Della episode versus just one, their almost to the truth as one document from that day is simply torn into pieces and simply needs to be re-jiggered like a puzzle. Like most puzzles though naturally once they get it all together they find there’s one goddamn piece missing and it ends up loose int he plane flitting around... just as Scrooge majorly screws up and bumps things, leading Beakly to wonder where the kids are and them to scramble out. 

So yeah Scrooge seemingly crashed the plane.. except Launchpad notes that if they crashed.. why are they still airborne? This leads to everyone finding out their precariously perched on a VERY narrow rock that’s skewered the plane. Orignially the crew decided to strictly adhere to the concept that any movement would rock the thing.. but realized i’td make things boring visually so they allowed themselves some artistic license. 

So yeah our heroes are stuck in a hard place and Scrooge stubbornly digs in insisting he can fix this and turns on the plane.. which sends it spinning and prevents Dewey from getting the piece which ends up wedged in the jeep. Huh I think we need some appropriate music for going in circles. 

So yeah all Scrooge did was blow up one of the engines... I mean the blow up the engine button is right there, would’ve saved you some time. So Beakley berates him for not calling for help and digging in and for it’s next plan it’s time for Handyman Corner where he’s going to show you how to jumpstart a plane with a jeep’s engine. Beakly is not impressed and Scrooge’s case is not helped as Louie feigns fear , with Huey and Webby following his lead, so Dewey can get the piece. Unfortunately pointing out the very REAL dangers they face, with Huey giving the odds and Webby pointing out unlike most dangers they face there’s no easy way out and no villian to fight, sends Louie into an actual panic, jumpstarting the car  and causing the cargo bay to open, leading to one hell of a sequence: From Bentina driving a butterfly knife into the ground to hold the kid’s secret base crate (and wondering why it’s so heavy), to Launchpad desperatley platforming his way to saftey to scrooge swining in with his cane to rescue them. It’s some whopper animation that really shows off how damn good the team was and how gorgeous this show truly was at it’s best. 

The results aren’t good: the plane’s ballnce is now off so even a slight movement can move it, a holdover from the original idea simply saved for when it’d create the most tension. As a result Dewey can’t get the last piece as he can’t move and Scrooge berates the kids and has thems tay still watching the end credits of darkwing duck (It’s launchpad’s inflight movie and the tape is jammed to that section.

IT’s here the Scrooge and Beakley stuff went from poorly written to “oh shit” in one line. Scrooge is getting more and more desperate to prove he can take care of the kids on his own but Beakely’s demeanor has turned from annoying scolding.. to genuine concern and PLEADING with him not to go through with another dumb stunt that will leave them in a worse situation, int his case using the parachutes as counterweights to fix the engine. He refuses both rebuffing her as “your boss” (Which gets her rightfully pulling on the cord too tight) .. but then that one line comes in “I can protect her”. Beakley is confused.. but it instantly makes clear this is about Della and on rewatch now knowing the reveal at the end.. it makes it that much more heartbreaking. Part of his refusal to backdown is his natural nature as a stubborn ass. It’s been well displayed throughout this season and the ones after it: HIs refusal to backdown from nevverst, his jealousy of Dewey for being better at him and his refusal to accept it.. the man just does not back down and while it’s good in tight spots and against bad guys, as he finds a way out for him and his family with sheer grit and badassery... it’s a massive character flaw when dealing with people, as refusing to actually talk to them like a ratoinoal adult only makes things worse. And boy oh boy is he about to make things worse. But the other part is he can’t admit to himself there’s a risk in his lifestyle and that he can’t keep everyone safe constantly.. that theres inherent danger. He’s bought into the “because i’m scrooge mcduck” mantra here not out of his ego, entirely, but because he can’t let that not be enough again. He can’t LOOSE someone again like he lost Della and he can’t fail again. So his worst trait and his greatest trauma have mixed to make him act so rashly even Launchpad takes some shouting to agree to give him the other parachute. It’s clear he’s endangering EVERYONE to prove he can save them. 

Eventually though things reach their head as Dewey CAN’T take the wait anymore. He’s waited his whole life to find out about his momma, and the answer’s feet away... and he can’t let it sit any longer. He HAS to know what happened. So he goes for it, though the rest of the kids are against it since i’ts highly risky and they can wait Huey ends up agreeing to help using his Junior Woodchuck knowledge (Where Newton apparently got the idea), to counterbalance hsi weight and guide him via walkee talkee. It’s a really nice moment, not only showing off Huey’s skill and intellect but also how much they care for her. Dewey may of screwed up last time but their still the duck boys and if he can’t talk him out of being sucidially reckless.. Huey’s going to at least give him a fighting chance. 

Unfortunately Scrooge spots him mid argument with Beakley and naturally wants him to give it here... but once the ship buckles when Dewey tries we get the scene that makes the episode. Up till now the tension has been top notch, ratcheting up by bit, not knowing if the kids would get caught, if something would happen with the plane all building to this. Scrooge and Dewey’s final chase. Dewey uses the distraction to make a runner for it with Scrooge following.. and Launchapd using the fact he’s still attached to the airbag to stop him. It’s a small but excellent character moment, showing that as much as Launchpad loves his boss.. he loves his best friend and eveyrone else’s saftey more. SCrooge of course uses it to knock him back while Beakley and the kids counterbalance. We also get the best joke of the episode as Beakley tells them to stop running.. only for them to simply start tip toeing, with Bentina’s reaction being a perfectly resigned “That’s not what I meant and you know it”. 

It’s a tense chase, with both sides using the enviorment to their advantage from the parachute to the crate.. and it’s breaking open reveals something’s gonig on and causes Beakley to notice Webby has the blueprints in her pocket and once she unfurls them and finds out what they are.. she can only give a sad, remorseful “oh children, what have you been up to” She’s not even mad like they seem to think.. she’s just sad, knowing the wound that’s about to be reopened for her closest friend and the one that’s about to be inflicted on those poor children, and knowing that they’re ALL made it worst by hiding it. Toks deserves all the praise for her delivery here. 

Eventually the piece blows outside of the plane and Dewey refuses to give up and go after it. Things get their most tense as everyone BEGS him not to come back, it’s not worth his death to get this. It’s not worth all of this. But he simply chucks the walkee away and ignores them. We then get Scrooge going from scolding grandpa.. to dearly begging Dewey to come back... David’s delvery here is just heartbreaking “I can’t protect you. Is that what you wanted me to say. Please lad just tell me what it will take to come back inside?” And Ben Schwartz meets it with an utterly emotional “Tell me about the spear of selene”. The animation here is once again some of the series best with Dewey’s determined face and Scrooge’s heartbreak as he realizes he has to finally stop hiding this from them and he’s not ready. So he takes his uncles hand.. and if you thought all of this is painful.. oh boy.. we’re just getting started. 

So back in the plane, with Launchpad setting up a table and a proper counterbalance so they can all sit, Scrooge finally explains and the boys, webby, and us int he audience all get the answers we desperately wanted: It was 10 1/2 years ago. The Original Trio had journeyed the world, having all sorts of adventures and making themselves into legends. But eventually you hit a wall and they’d realized they’d been just about everywhere. They could still globetrot of courser and as Season 3 would bear out there were some places they didn’t know about.. but the earth was about used up. So Della, being an aerospace wunderkind, thought of the next logical place to go. The stars. The Spear of Selene was a rocket, her pet project to give her kids, who she was expecting at the time the stars. 

Thing was Donald wasn’t on board with this at all. And the clash between the two, which we see in the flashback but don’t hear since Scrooge is narrating all of this over some cool looking semi-still images, was inetiviable. As I coverd in the spear of selene review I feel Donald was burnt out at this point. That he was tired of adventures and just wanted normalcy even before Scrooge forced his hand with what was to happen next. So to him Della should just settle down, live a regular life and raise those kids. The problem is... Della WASN’T burnt out. She didn’t need a break to live a normal life like Donald badly needed. She wanted to keep going and it was her choice. While Donald ultimately was right about the risk, he was wrong to try and force her into a life she didn’t want and project on her like that. 

What happened next though was all on Scrooge and Della. Scrooge simply did the thing that’s likely part of why Donald resents him so much and it took so long to fix thing: He ignored what Donald felt and thought, sided with Della and built the ship without telling either of them. His selfishness, thinking he knows what best and treatment of donald.. all backfired horribly. Della sussed out the ship.. and I still feel she was suspicious on her own.. and that Bradford telling her was him simply handing her a lit fuse knowing it’d go off and WHATEVER happened as a result of this would break scrooge. Even if the rocket had gone off saftely and everything was fine.. he could easily claim Della threatned him,k which she probably did and he simply went with it, and either way Donald would be unable to forgive either SCrooge or Della for the deciet. It just went better, and worse than he could’ve anpiciapted: much like the fantastic four she took the ship in the dead of night and hit a cosmic storm, with Scrooge only finding out in time to try and help her.. but the storm hit the ship.. and unlike the ff instead of gaining the power to turn invisible, she simply disappeared. She was lost. He and Donald didn’t speak again after Donald found out till 6 months ago. 

If that wasn’t heartbreaking enough.. it gets worse. The kids, full of fresh pain and anger over Scrooge’s part in things, their mom abandoning them, and their uncles hiding this for decades.. take it out on the one person there. Frank and Matt recently said in an artcle detailing the best 7 episodes from one site, or at least what the site considered to be the best, that Donald was absent because  he also knew and would’ve told them sooner. I also feel it’s because he would’ve disarmed this conflict, at least admitting what scrooge did alongside beakley. As mad as he was.. his own anger had started to disapate. The wound was fresh to the boys and thus they lashed out. 

Dewey blames him for it outright, Huey tell shim he should’ve called her back, and Louie tells him he shoudl’ve sent a fleet of ships to find her. As we find out in the somehow even MORE crushing ending he did the last two and as I made clear, and the show does, this was Della’s horrible decision. She took an unfinsihed rocket, she left her kids, she did this. While she regretted it and I don’t hold it against her because she spent 10 years away from the mon the moon, she’s suffered THROUGHLY for it and I don’t feel I need to pile on, Scrooge wasn’t wholly responsible. Still partly. Dewey makes things worse by impling scrooge GAVE UP ON HER because it cost too much. 

Look the rest of it is valid, if misguided, as Beakley tries to chime in on it and correct them knowing the full story. But claming, no matter how greedy he is that Scrooge would ABANDON HER.. that’s just wrong and he knows it. It’s why Scrooge gets so upset.. and why he pushes the last two people in his corner away. Webby critisizes building the rocket and Scrooge belts out “This is a family matter, your not family”. runing his position and poisiong his one ally by lashing out at someone who DID NOT DESERVE THIS. Make no mistake, this is present day scrooge’s WORST action. The past scrooge did worse, we saw that, but this is almost worse than the goat thing. Telling a child h’ed basically adopted, ignoring the finale twist for this as it’s irrelvant and all it does is twist the knife deeper, that “she’s not family” just because he wants someone to be mad at besides his boys... that’s fowl. Everyone’s against him except launchpad and tha’ts where his stubbornesst ragically comes in: he digs in his heels refuses to explain.. and the plane crashes due to it. though safely. Their safe.. but the family is broken. 

So we get our hell of an ending scenes. Donald cheerfully announces to the boys, who earlier had no intention of leaving anyway, the boats finished.. only for Dewey to inform him “We know abotu the spear of selene” . Donald is heartbroken, not only that they know.. but that he didn’t tell them. 

But since “it gets worse” is this episodes motto, we end on Beakley, Webby and Duckworth all leaving on vacation. How a ghost does vacations I dunno, maybe he’s going to go to Amity Park. Point is Webby, despite EVERYTHING , is crestfallen he’s not even going to say goodbye and still worried. As I said in my review of the finale.. it’s her heart that makes her and while Scrooge may be a dick right now.. he’s family. So we get the final lines of the episode Beakley: Well, you've successfully pushed your family and everyone who ever cared about you away... again. I hope you're happy. Scrooge:I AM

It’s just damn heartbreaking.. once again he’s lost everything and is too bitter to admit it and try and get it back. And as we see between the lines.. the boys were wrong: He drained his bin and his buisnesses creating a fleet to get Della back, and kept going despite the expense. He did everything he could to call her back. Nothing worked.. and he only stopped because the board yanked him away, Bradford sneering with pride as his plan, which backfired HORRIBLY, had at last finally gotten him what he wanted: a broken scrooge tired of adventure. And as Scrooge sits in his chair seething.. he’s broken again, angry, with tears in his eyes, loving nobody.. and nobody loving him, eerily mimickcking his first appearance in comics. 

Final Thoughts: 

This episode is a masterpice. It’s perfectly paced, with only a minor flaw tha’ts qwuickly snuffed out for a gripping drama. This was a gamble, taking 9 minutes where ther’es almost no jokes and just pure tensino and heartbreak.. but it paid off. This episode is one of the series finest and leads to one hell of a finale but on it’s own.. it’s nigh untouchable. This is the series at it’s best, and the finale and later information (More about Della and the spear, WEbby’s true origin, bradford’s role in all this and role as head of fowl), only make it better, with all those things being aware to the creators but not us. They really made us wait for this reveal but damn if it wasn’t perfect. 

Next Time: Webby, Bentina and Launchpad try to desperatley piece the family back together before the boys and donald leave forever.. and Scrooge’s darkest hour leaves him vunerable for his greatest foe. It’s finally time to get back to Lena as the Shadow War descends over our heroes.

If you liked this review, follow for more and you can comission your own reviews by paying me 5 bucks to review any episode you like. Message me to talk it over. And if you’d rather get a gaurantted review every month, hit up my patreon at patreon.com/popculturebuffet. For 5 bucks a month you get a review every month and as of now special thanks in each review. Even a buck a month gets the thanks and helps and my next stretch goal, which is 5 bucks away nets everyone a review of darkwing duck everymonth for my lovely patreons to vote on. Special thanks to my patreons Emma and Kev, and I will see you at the next rainbow. 

[peanuts-fan]

'A Charlie Brown Christmas' at 50: The Making of a Classic Soundtrack

Producer Lee Mendelson, drummer Jerry Granelli reflect on enduring seasonal favorite

By Liz Pelly December 9, 2015

“The fact that it's become such a permanent part of the holiday season is surreal," says original 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' producer Lee Mendelson. United Feature Syndicate Inc./ABC

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The legend goes like this: In 1963, producer Lee Mendelson made a documentary about Peanuts cartoonist Charles M. Schulz, for which he needed music. One night, Mendelson was driving over the Golden Gate Bridge, tuned into a San Francisco jazz station. "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" came on the air, a drifting cut where melodies appear and then disappear, and bouncing elation is matched by tiny moments of despair. The track was pianist Vince Guaraldi's mini-hit that year, and Mendelson was struck by how it sounded simultaneously adult and childlike. The next day, he called up the San Francisco Chronicle's jazz critic, Ralph J. Gleason. "Do you have any idea in the world who Vince Guaraldi is?" Mendelson asked. "Yes, as a matter of fact, I'm having lunch with him tomorrow," Gleason said. Mendelson met Guaraldi a few days later, and they agreed to work together.

The documentary ultimately didn't sell. But two years later, Coca-Cola, who had seen the doc, called up Mendelson, and asked if he'd ever thought of making a Christmas special. Mendelson said, "Absolutely!" and hung up the phone, then called Mr. Schulz. As Mendelson remembers it: "I said, 'I think I just sold A Charlie Brown Christmas.' And Schulz said, 'What in the world is that?' And I said, 'It's something you're going to write tomorrow.' There was a long pause, and he said, 'Alright. Come on up.'"

The rest, of course, is history. A Charlie Brown Christmas aired 50 years ago today, on December 9th, 1965. Over the years, the special has become a perennial classic: the 25-minute story of wistful Charlie Brown and his struggle to find the true meaning of Christmas in the face of holiday-season commercialism. "I almost wish there weren't a holiday season," he sighs, at the story's beginning. "I know nobody likes me. Why do we have to have a holiday season to emphasize it?" The genius of A Charlie Brown Christmas was the way it channeled the looming sadness and anxiety that come with the holidays — and the way its timeless, best-selling soundtrack by the Vince Guaraldi Trio tapped into that narrative seamlessly, with muted, melancholic jazz.

Indeed, to create such an unabashedly anti-consumerist story with the backing of both Coca-Cola and CBS was a subtly radical accomplishment in 1965, as it would be now.  The executives at CBS were displeased with the finished product: its slow-moving animation, its religious undertone, its jazz soundtrack. They had no choice but to air it, though — they had already advertised it in TV Guide.

"They wanted something corporate, something rousing," says drummer Jerry Granelli, the lone surviving member of the Guaraldi combo. "They thought the animation was too slow. They really didn’t like that a little kid was going to come out and say what Christmas was all about, which wasn’t about shopping. And then the jazz music, which was improvised — you know, the melodies only take up maybe 30 seconds." Yet A Charlie Brown Christmas was an immediate, massive success.

The first of many specials that Schulz and Guaraldi would collaborate on with Mendelson and animator Bill Melendez, A Charlie Brown Christmas came together in just six months. "We brought Vince Guaraldi in to reprise the music he had done for the documentary, plus some Beethoven and some traditional music," Mendelson says. 

Employing his background in easygoing, West Coast jazz, and working with a local children's choir that sounded perfectly off-key at times, Guaraldi crafted future classics through original compositions and re-arrangements of holiday standards. Like the characters themselves, the songs merge bits of Schroeder's bookish sophistication, Charlie Brown's heavy heart, and Snoopy's unpredictable mischief. The songs are both smooth and snappy, with Granelli's brush and stick sounds pushing them steadily along.

"Guaraldi never wasted a note," says author Derrick Bang of the pianist. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty

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"We went in and did it in three hours," recalls Granelli, who was only 24 at the time. "That's just the way jazz records were recorded. I think we even went to work in a club that night." Some of the songs were already part of the group's repertoire. "We were improvising all the time, so each night, the song kind of evolved."

The trio's version of the 1824 German carol "O Tannenbaum" exemplifies this process. Guaraldi, Granelli and bassist Fred Marshall took the song's harmonic foundation and ran, moving the composition into more explosive, bluesy territory. In the special, the song plays as Charlie Brown and Linus look around for a Christmas tree. "This doesn't seem to fit the modern spirit," says Linus, when Charlie Brown picks out the smallest, most dilapidated one he can find. The funny sound of flat piano keys chirp as the tree's twigs fall to the ground.

"Linus and Lucy" was one of the holdovers from the Schulz-documentary days; in A Charlie Brown Christmas, it is the centerpiece of the soundtrack, capturing a moment when inner anxieties subside and the season feels fleetingly fine. "My playing is really very simple on that record, but it's exactly what captures the story," says Granelli. "It moves the music forward doing very little. Just the way the brush starts on 'Linus and Lucy,' so it doesn't conflict with the bass line, and then it goes to the Latin part, and then it goes back to the left hand, the conga drum part."

"Christmas Time Is Here" was originally an all-instrumental piece. "Guaraldi had written a very beautiful melody for the opening skating scene, but about two weeks before it was about to run on the air, I thought, 'Maybe we could get a lyricist to put some words to this,'" remembers Mendelson. "I called a few lyricist friends of mine, and everyone was busy. So I sat down at my kitchen table and I wrote out a few words, and we rushed it to the choir that Vince Guaraldi had been working with in San Francisco. And he recorded it, and we got it into the show about a week before it went on the air."

"They really didn’t like that a little kid was going to come out and say what Christmas was all about, which wasn’t about shopping." —Jerry Granelli

"It's deceptively simple, but at the same time, impressively complex, kind of the way Charles Schulz approached his newspaper strip," says Derrick Bang, author of Vince Guaraldi at the Piano and multiple books on Peanuts, of Guaraldi's soundtrack. "He never wasted a line; Guaraldi never wasted a note. Every note was important."

"We’re living in times where so much is done to manipulate us," reflects Granelli. "And things last for, what, a news cycle? A few minutes? This [album] is something that’s lasted 50 years. And not only lasted, but grown ... I think there’s just a humanness."

"The whole thing from beginning to end has been surreal," Mendelson says. "The fact that it's become such a permanent part of the holiday season is surreal. And every time I hear it on the radio, or I hear it in a store, or someone says, 'wah, wah, wah,' I realize we're very lucky to have been associated with Mr. Schulz and his characters. It all comes back to his characters, and his philosophy, and his humor."

© 2015 Rolling Stone

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http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/a-charlie-brown-christmas-at-50-the-making-of-a-classic-soundtrack-20151209?page=3

*Note: The picture at the top of the article is NOT from “A Charlie Brown Christmas”, it is from another cartoon, probably “It’s christmastime again, charlie brown”.

[tribbetherium]

While most extant pseudosnakes belong in the three dominant clades: the Breviophidians (snogs and ophiotauri), the Theriognathiformes (quetzals, theriodontophidians and bahamuts) and the Arboriformes (windribbons, trunksnakes and twintrunks), a number of primitive lineages similar to the earliest terrestrial forms still persist to the present.

Not truly closely related to each other, these "basal pseudosnakes" are merely a grab bag for all pseudosnakes that are not included in the three major clades. Some are akin to amphibians, able to breathe air and live on land but have moist permeable skin, while other more-specialized lineages are closer to reptiles with their impermeable skins and relative independence from water.

Notable species include:

▪The mudflat eelmander is a three-inch long amphibious pseudosnake found in wetlands and other damp environments. Somewhat similar to the very first eel-like fish that first came to spend time on land, the rather primitive eelmanders still thrive in great success in watery environments and occur in relative abundance, with some species being adapted for freshwater and living near ponds, lakes and streams, while others are saltwater-dwelling species found in coastal beaches and estuaries. The mudflat eelmander in particular is adapted for burrowing into wet soil to feed on the invertebrates that dwell in the mud, and in turn makes up a significant part of the diet of wetland predators, such as snogs and aquatic quetzals such as the snagret.

▪The goggled flogpole is another amphibian-like pseudosnake that is only a distant relation to the eelmanders. A rotund creature up to six inches long, its bulging eyes and long tail make it resemble an oversized tadpole, and has a similar lifestyle as well being an algae-eater in ponds, though unlike the tadpoles of our timeline, it matures and breeds in this form and never ventures onto land. However, as it lives in flooded ponds and streams that seasonally dry out, the flogpole has evolved an extreme adaptation to survive these harsh conditions: as the hot summer draws near, the flogpole buries itself in the mud, secretes a protective cocoon around itself, and remains dormant for the entire dry season, for up to months at a time buried in the soil until the rains return and the flogpole returns to life to feed and reproduce.

▪The cavern ghastworm is an amphibian-like pseudosnake that dwells in underground pools in subterranean caves. Living its entire life in total darkness, the ghastworm has no need for either pigmentation or eyesight, and thus have lost both entirely. The ghastworm, despite only measuring 8-10 inches at most, is the top predator of these secluded, isolated ecosystems, where it preys upon fish, crustaceans and insects that, too, are blind and albinistic as well. Not hampered by its lack of sight, the ghastworm instead locates prey with sensitive barbels and a keen sense of smell, and while mostly aquatic, is able to slither across land from one pool to the next in search of a meal.

▪The arboreal snoodle is one of the many species of reptile-like pseudosnakes that have thrived on land since they first conquered it in the late Carboniferous period. While nowehere near as diverse as they used to be in their glory days, these primitive pseudosnakes have continued to eke out an existence by specializing into peculiar niches, feeding on highly inaccessible food sources, or simply thriving in isolated island ecosystems untouched by the more advanced lineages. The snoodle is no exception, being a highly-specialized insectivore that is adapted to feed on colonial insects: its spade-like head and snout are well-suited for breaking open their nests, while hard plated scales protect its face from bites and stings while it licks up the bugs with its long sticky tongue. Its long, vine-like body, measuring up to seven feet in length, camouflages nicely in the canopy, appearing as just another piece of vegetation to predators when staying completely motionless.

▪The golden crowndrake is an ancient relic of a formerly-diverse clade, the Dracophidia. Distinguished by their toothless beaks, scales arranged in segment-like rings and a series of gripping sucker-like pads on their underbellies that aided in locomotion, the Dracophidia arose in the Early Triassic and went on to become the dominant clade throughout the Mesozoic Period: evolving into a wide variety of sizes and shapes and including a tremendous diversity in their ranks ranging from enormous herbivores to active predators to aquatic and arboreal forms. However, their heyday came to an end at the final days of the Cretaceous period, as, just like in our timeline, an asteroid impact 65 million years ago ended up causing the extinction of nearly all life. As new lineages emerged to fill the ecological gaps of the bygone Dracophidia, the few smaller Dracophidia that did survive slowly found themselves being crowded out by new competitors, and today, the once-mighty lineage is survived only by a single genus containing two species: the golden crowndrake of New Zealand and the black crowndrake of Tasmania. Both slow-moving 2-3 foot long omnivores that dwell in the forest floor, these holdovers from an ancient time continue to endure in these isolated pockets in a changing world.

▪The riverine snobek, the largest species of the family Suchophidia at lengths of up to 20 feet, is a semi-aquatic ambush predator native to rivers and lakes of northeastern Africa especially in the Nile. The Suchophidia are a true case of a "living fossil": they are almost exactly identical anatomically to the very first reptile-like pseudosnakes that arose in the Late Carboniferous save for being much bigger, and have persisted through changing times and numerous mass extinctions by sheer virtue of their adaptability and design. While the riverine snobek is only found in Africa, its other suchophidian cousins thrive as large ambush hunters in rivers, swamps and lakes across the globe, such as the marshy snagator of North America and the estuarine crocsnake of Asia, where they all share the common tactic of pouncing upon medium-sized terrestrial prey when they come to the water to drink.

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #12- Gay Rights: the Movie

Finally finished with our franchise obligations! Let’s get back to the main story.

Those are some ominous ellipses. Almost like something bad is going to happen!

Let’s take a look at Cover A for this issue.

When this was released to the general public, alongside the synopsis that stated the Lost Lighters were going to run into a group of Decepticons, a lot of people thought we’d be seeing them meet the Scavengers. This isn’t the case, and that’s not Fulcrum. It’s some other K-Con, one that has purple in his color scheme.

Our story opens up with a narrative framing device:

Welcome to “Before & After”, one of the more ambitious issues of MTMTE in terms of storytelling. Roberts really likes bouncing between scenes and POVs, and he’s really indulging that here.

Rodimus and crew have loaded up on one of the Lost Light’s scouting ships to check in on a planet called Temptoria. Whirl’s leading all the guys in the front in a war cry that wouldn’t be out of place in Hollywood’s version of the Vietnam war, while Brawn demonstrates how to not properly handle a gun. Rodimus tries to explain what exactly they’ll be doing, but no one’s listening, feeding off of the chaotic energy. The back seat isn’t quite as rowdy.

Oh, Ambulon’s here? That’s got to be awkward. And Perceptor’s looking mighty cross about having to pick up a gun again. Isn’t he supposed to be retired from being a science sniper?

Rodimus finally gets everyone to settle down long enough to explain the situation, though not without a little jargon mixup.

Basically, Ultra Magnus went down to Temptoria while the “Shadowplay” story was being told, and found out that the organic populace had been enslaved by a group of Decepticons, and, more importantly, the sovereign agreement that the planet had with Cybertron’s been violated. Also, these guys might have been the one’s who kidnapped the Circle of Light. You remember those guys, right? The guys who were supposed to be in the 2012 Annual, but they weren’t, and Drift got really mad about it.

Rodimus wraps up the briefing with a “’Til all are one!” And we cut over to see what Swerve and Tailgate are up to. Tailgate seems to be a little nervous, not the type to enjoy waiting, but Swerve seems to be doing just fine. Why is that, exactly?

Even if Rung’s still a steamed side dish of a vegetable, he’s still here, in a way. And good on Swerve for not assuming Tailgate can visualize in the same way he can. Aphantasia is more common than one might think.

Escapism is an interesting way of dealing with your problems, but I don’t know enough about wartime psychiatry to know if this is something that would actually be considered a viable solution or not.

Oh, now that I’ve said it, I’ve got the research itch.

Later, later.

Anyway, Tailgate gives it a spin, and his happy place is surprisingly domestic for such a seasoned professional.

Pipes, it’s a clear glass, it’s not hiding anything from you.

Speaking of Pipes, he’s seated next to Hound, as they discuss what happened to Red Alert. Or, rather, the cover story that’s been fed to the rest of the crew by Rodimus, which is that the engine room pretty much attacked him. This is how ghost stories get started.

Trailcutter’s gotten some guns installed in his legs, because he’s a hypocrite.

Over with Chromedome and Rewind, there’s trouble in paradise, as they’re having a lovers’ spat. Chromedome’s giving Rewind the silent treatment, and Rewind’s having none of it. What exactly are they fighting about? We don’t get to know about that yet, but it’s digging up other issues, like Chromedome going back on his promise to stop injecting. The only thing keeping this from becoming a total meltdown is Whirl can-canning through the door to kidnap Rewind, so he can film Whirl getting in the zone before the fight. Whirl’s having a great time. This is probably the first time they’ve gotten to fight something since the Lost Light took off, and he’s all about it.

Rewind’s dragged away, and Chromedome just lets it happen, because he’s feeling cross. It’s good to take a moment to cool off, but I’m not quite sure this was the best time or way for it to happen.

Meanwhile, on the Temptorian surface, Blip the Decepticon, who is likely the dirtiest son of a gun we’ve run into so far, is asked to take a look at the monitor by a guy who sounds exactly like Megatron. It doesn’t particularly matter which Megatron, because comics are not an audio-based medium, so you can pick whichever one you like best. What’s on the monitor does not please Blip in the slightest.

I feel like maybe having guys who don’t turn into flying machines jump out of the bottom of the shuttlecraft isn’t the greatest tactical thinking, but I’m sure everything will be okay. Brawn’s got a gun, maybe he’ll figure out how to rocket-jump before he hits terminal velocity.

Then the narrative jumps to after the fight, as the ship flies away from the scene, and Chromedome isn’t happy. It’s for a different reason than earlier, though.

Man, Pipes just can’t win, can he?

Ambulon remembers that he is, in fact, a medical professional, and starts working on Rewind, while Chromedome tries to ask Swerve just what the hell happened. Swerve’s having his own issues, however.

I’d nearly forgotten they had skeletons.

On the production side of this issue, we’ve got two artists: there’s our usual guy, Alex Milne on the “Before” sections, and Brandon Cahill on the “After”. Cahill’s other Transformers work includes The Transformers (2009) and the sister series to MTMTE, Robots in Disguise. Outside of the franchise, he’s worked on several Marvel pieces, including writing Sable & Fortune and Legion of Monsters. Unlike a lot of the alternate artists we’ve seen for the series, Cahill won’t be a one-and-done; we’ll see his art again in Dark Cybertron, Season 2 of MTMTE, and even Lost Light.

Getting back to the story, we’ve jumped back to the point in the battle where everyone’s hit the ground and are just wailing on each other. Tailgate and Swerve watch the chaos unfold, as Ultra Magnus more or less takes on a platoon of Decepticons.

Drift’s having a great time, as he Naruto runs through the enemy, slashing as he goes with a big ol’ smile on his face. He stabs a guy in the back of the head who was trying to grapple with Rodimus, thus interrupting the little dialogue they had going on. Rodimus is vaguely upset that his moment was cut short.

In the “After”, the shuttle’s landed back on the Lost Light, and Chromedome rushes out with Rewind in his arms to find First Aid with a motorized stretcher. He was hoping for Ratchet- he wants only the best for his shnookums. As they run Rewind down to the medibay, Chromedome starts listing off his allergies- which include ultraviolet light, something we know reveals mnemosurgery scars. This is a holdover from a dropped plot point I’ll cover at a later time; as it stands in the canon narrative, Rewind’s just got an allergy to the friggin’ sun.

Back at the shuttle, Tailgate starts dragging Cyclonus down the gangplank. Oh, hell. You know it’s a bad situation when the guy who literally couldn’t die for six million years is out of commission.

Spoke and Lockstock are a bit of a gag- they always manage to get their asses kicked, but everyone on the ship really likes them. They will never be seen on-panel, and have no character designs.

Over in the medibay, history is being made.

Esteemed members of the jury, I present to you: canon gay robots. The first in a long line of them. This is the starting point of the queer community being handed the Transformers franchise on a silver platter.

Up to this point, Roberts hadn’t gotten any further than implied attraction and affection between robots, in either his fanworks or professional credits. Pretty heavy-handed implication in some cases-

-but implication nonetheless. Here is the first, honest-to-god direct confirmation of two male-coded robots in love.

In love and space-married and recognized by the authority in power, in a comic written in 2012, as a part of a major franchise owned by a massive American company, three years before same-sex marriage would be legalized on a federal level.

As part of the story, it’s great. Within the context of the time during which it was published, it’s a whole other level. This wasn’t just good writing, it was important.

Let me part the kimono a little here, with some personal backstory- I grew up in Buttfuck Nowhere, NC, and went to a high school that was so homogeneous, they were threatening to bus students in after I graduated. I didn’t know what a gay person even was until I was 12. “Lesbian” was used as an insult, and it was one I was subjected to because I had cut my hair short in middle school and wore cargo shorts on occasion. It was something I really pushed against, because that’s how a lot of people react to being forcibly given a label.

Not the best environment for a little queer kid, clearly.

It wasn’t until well after I’d gone to college that I really started understanding who I was. Hell, I’m still figuring some things out, but at least I’m getting somewhere.

I remember reading this for the first time in 2015- yes, I got into the comics sort of late- and then having to reread it. I needed a moment just to process what had happened. As a person who had only recently come to terms with their sexuality at the time, it was kind of mind-blowing to have that sort of representation, especially since I was also watching Transformers Prime at around the same time. Talk about the duality of man, am I right?

These days, there’s a lot more representation in many different forms of media. Things are getting better. Which, y’know, yay! I’m glad. I just can’t help but wonder if things would have been a little different if this sort of representation had been available earlier on.

Anyway, so yes, Chromedome’s got a difficult choice to make for Rewind- either let his body try to sort itself out, or let First Aid break out the clamps and try to jumpstart him. Rewind’s got a relatively rare spark type, but luckily Chromedome’s the same type. Looks like everything’s coming up roses for our boys!

Tailgate and Cyclonus aren’t getting nearly as good a break.

My god, he’s filled with grape soda!

Back in the “Before”, things are getting a little silly.

Chromedome, what POSSIBLE tactical advantage could you be gaining from riding the giant, fire-breathing robot dinosaur? This is why they threw you in Kimia, isn’t it? Because you’re a dumbass.

While this bullshit is happening, Rewind and Tailgate are stacked on top of each other to look through a window, because I guess that’s just how things turn out when the resident couple on the ship is upset with one another. Rewind’s found something, but it isn’t the Circle of Light. Rather, it seems the Decepticons are dabbling in Pink Alchemy- a rather inefficient process that allows organic creatures to be turned into energon for consumption.

The good guy thing to do would be to save all the organics, but there’s a bit of a problem- the door is wired to a massive bomb. Good thing Tailgate was in Bomb Disposal, and is just generally an impressive and well-established dude. He gets to work.

Getting back to a point I made during Chaos Theory, Whirl can’t make a fist. Punching himself in the face is probably more akin to slashing it.

Tailgate’s got a weird approach to bombs, taking the time to teach Rewind how to do it, by way of student-led learning. They decide to poke a hole in the bottom of the bomb to drain all the explosive fluid out, which Tailgate does with little robot tears streaming down his face. Fear is a great motivator.

Oof, not a “Domey” in sight. That’s how you know things are rough.

Outside of this little scene, Whirl and Cyclonus are handling Decepticons. Whirl’s got a hold on that guy who’s voiced by Frank Welker, and we get a nice shot of his sad cat face before Whirl turns his head into a memory.

Swerve- who is also here- asks Whirl to loan him a gun.

GODDAMMIT SWERVE.

Not a single one of you bastards know proper gun safety! Between all the severe depression and reckless weapon-handling, I genuinely have no idea how the hell are any of you are still alive.

In the “After”, Chromedome’s just finished jumpstarting Rewind, and it’ll take a bit to see if it worked, so he’s left alone with his thoughts.

Just kidding, Tailgate’s come over to check in. Seems like Cyclonus is gonna pull through, something Chromedome’s not terribly thrilled about. Chromedome’s still miffed about the whole Kimia thing.

We finally learn why Chromedome and Rewind were fighting; it was because Rewind, as a walking historical database, has been deemed too important to die, and can opt out of any fight he choose to, but he doesn’t, thereby putting himself in harm’s way unnecessarily. Maybe he just worries about you when you go out there on the battlefield alone, Chromedome, you ever think of that? Maybe he doesn’t want to wonder when his husband will return home from the war.

Tailgate asks about all the little vials that are scattered around Rewind’s hospital bed, and we get a little Cybertronian tradition thrown at us.

The vials are filled with innermost energon, the stuff that surrounds the spark casing and never changes, no matter how much you modify or upgrade your body. Leaving a little of the stuff for someone in an offering signifies that you care very much for that person. Chromedome can’t give Rewind any, because he was “born dry”, but I think being space-married to the guy more than makes up for it.

Tailgate asks how the two of them met, and unlike in issue #6, Chromedome is feeling vulnerable enough to indulge the question this time.

But first we need to establish that Chromedome is insanely insecure.

So, Rewind is fucking old. He’s older than the Cybertronian civil war, he’s older than the calendar system, and he’s old enough to have been affected by Functionist society’s categorization system. Due to being a memory stick- something that there were millions of back in the day- Ratioism dictated that Rewind as an individual was worth very little, and made him and his like into slaves. Because he was a slave, he needed a master, and that master was none other than Dominus Ambus, also known as Cybertron’s Mech of the Year for 40,000 consecutive years.

Even on Cybertron, there’s a weird stigma about breastfeeding.

Rewind and Dominus quickly became friends, because that’s just the sort of guy Rewind is, and it made Dominus realize that maybe these slaves Cybertron had been working to death were sentient creatures worthy of respect too. He even developed a test to prove that all the slave classes were on the same level of functionality as everyone else.

On their quest to find a cure for the horrible disease Cybercrosis, Rewind and Dominus fucked off into space, on a wild goose chase to try and find Luna 1, the Cybertronian moon that just disappeared one day. Weird, that. They didn’t find it, and by the time they’d come back home, the war was well underway. They immediately became Autobots, and that was it for a while.

Then we move on to how Chromedome and Rewind met, and boy is it a doozy.

Chromedome had decided he wanted to kill himself, so he moseyed on over to the nearest relinquishment clinic- they did assisted suicides instead of body-swaps at this point- to do the deed. He was sitting in the waiting room, when he heard someone screaming. He wandered into the back to find Rewind weeping over a coffin, and he thought to himself “Maybe I don’t need to die after all” as he offered his future conjunx a shoulder to cry on.

What a fucking dark start to a relationship.

Rewind wasn’t upset about anyone who was dead though, but rather missing- Dominus had disappeared into thin air months ago, and Rewind was getting desperate to find him, looking in more and more awful places in the hope of recovering what he’d lost.

As it turns out, he’s still doing that. The reason the two of them are on the Lost Light is because Rewind needs to find Dominus- alive or dead, it doesn’t seem to particularly matter at this point. That’s why he buys snuff films in dark alleys.

See, Tailgate gets it.

Guys, bad news.

Chromedome’s spark is too weak to jumpstart Rewind. Unless they find another compatible donor, Rewind’s gonna be in big trouble. There’s nothing to do but wait.

Later, in their room, Chromedome is sitting on the floor and very much not following doctor’s orders to get some sleep. Someone on the opposite side of the door he’s leaning up against starts talking to him. Chromedome doesn’t seem to want to hear any of it, until he does.

Given who the basement dweller is, this probably won’t turn out so hot.

Chromedome gets a call from the medibay, and fortunately the universe has decided to play nice this go around, because someone came forward as a match.

But it’s not like Whirl cares about anyone, right? Not in the slightest, nuh-uh, not him!

While Chromedome gives Whirl what is probably an uncomfortably long hug, and they both most likely ignore the fact that Chromedome would be actively suicidal without Rewind, Tailgate’s off in the corner, having taken his hand off and begun pouring cartoon toxic waste into a vial. It’s actually his innermost energon. Boy’s making an offering, but it isn’t to Rewind.

It’s to this ungrateful fuck.

Cyclonus stalks away from Tailgate’s kindness, until he’s stopped by witnessing the power of love.

Everyone likes Rewind, and these displays of affection seems to have reminded Cyclonus that he’s horrifically lonely. Feeling some remorse over his actions- not that he’ll ever admit it out loud- he goes back to help Tailgate pick up the pieces of the vial he broke.

Wrapping up our story, we go back to the “Before”, right before the bomb is set to go off. Whirl and Cyclonus have more or less taken care of the Decepticons, Whirl suggests they set aside their differences and agree to stop trying to murder each other, in a surprising show of reason and, perhaps, self-preservation. Cyclonus doesn’t seem to agree with the idea.

I genuinely think that’s the most he’s said all series up to this point.

Rewind calls the two idiots over for help, because Tailgate’s about to pull a self-sacrifice to get this bomb emptied, and he just isn’t listening to reason. Cyclonus assists.

Once Tailgate’s been fastball-specialed out of the room, Whirl decides to get back to being a bastard, and locks Cyclonus and Rewind in with the bomb with 10 seconds left on the clock. Ah, so the donation was out of guilt, I see. Still a form of caring, in its own way.

With no way to escape, all Cyclonus can do is attempt to shield Rewind with his body as the bomb goes off.

That’s the end of the issue but it’s the middle of the story, and despite what Cyclonus says, dynamics are changing. Slowly, but surely, things are shifting. He’s headed for a lot of character development, and he’ll be kicking and screaming the whole way.

[snowbellewells]

Savior’s Haven {Part One of Two}

Hello there!  I realize I am slipping this in right under the wire for my September 14th posting date, but here is my contribution for the @csseptembersunshine event. I hope it will still be enjoyable despite its tardiness; some real life things caused me to both struggle with my focus and switch from the original idea I had planned to write. I needed some adorable puppy fluff in my life, and it all changed from there. This actually grew a fair bit as I wrote it too, so I have divided it into two parts with the second to follow within the week (hopefully). Thanks so much to @captainsjedi for being so gracious and understanding when I messaged to let her know I was working on my fic and truly hadn’t forgotten it, and to all the lovely ladies on the @CSSNS Discord chat who offered a wealth of name suggestions to me this afternoon - particularly @shireness-says @profdanglaisstuff @snidgetsafan @darkcolinodonorgasm and @kmomof4.  I used one here, but more of them very well might follow in the conclusion!

This is what I call “missing moment fluff”, meant to be taking place sometime post season six in Storybrooke, but before Henry leaves and prior to Hope’s birth.

So without further delay, enjoy this opening!

“Savior’s Haven”

Part One

It began one cool September evening on the way home from weekly dinner at her parents’, Killian offering Emma his arm to wind hers through as they began their leisurely walk back through the darkening streets of Storybrooke. They had nearly reached the street their own two story house by the sea was on, gently arguing back and forth with cheeks flushed by the chill night air about who would have to take the early shift at the station the next morning, when they heard the soft, almost overlooked, whimpers just off the sidewalk.

Coming to a concerned stop at the sound, both sheriff and pirate deputy were alertly trying to locate its source within moments. It didn’t take long, even with the gathering shadows. Peeping around the corner of the lattice gate enclosing the front walk along Mrs. Sprat’s Bakery, it was Killian who located the pitiable, shivering culprit responsible for the troubling noises drawing their attention.

“Swan,” he breathed, barely audible in an effort not to startle the small creature he had already knelt and reached out towards. “Over here, Love.”

Having moved a few feet ahead in her search, Emma stood and came back toward her husband carefully, already aware from the tone of his voice - low and soothing - that he was trying not to frighten a terrified critter of some sort. “I’m here,” she answered quietly, crouching beside him to see into the flowering bush Killian had knelt beside. “What is it?”

Her sailor straightened slowly, pulling his hand and hooked arm back from where he’d reached into the bush, carefully cradling them against his chest with the small animal he had retrieved. In his care and gentility, the way he looked down at the terrified and shivering black puppy Emma could then see in his arms, she was reminded once more of one of the most compelling things she loved about this man who survived a life of harsh trial, challenge and pain. Though once lost and angry, seeking nothing more than his revenge followed by long-awaited death, the darkness her husband weathered alone for so long still had not darkened him permanently. The heart beneath was still tender and open to hope the moment he was offered a way to regain it, and it had made him into the very man who could love her with enough understanding, patience, depth and determination to indeed win her heart, just as he had once vowed.

He showed the same calm restraint in that moment as Emma watched his large, calloused hand stroke along the back of a trembling, undersized and scrawny little dog, and her heart swelled, loving him all the more for it.

“And just what has happened to you here, pup?” Killian murmured, rubbing the soft, silky ears soothingly as Emma leaned in closer to examine the young dog’s protruding ribs and dirt-caked legs and paws. The puppy’s large, soulful brown eyes turned on her as if already begging a piece of her own heart. She wasn’t any more anxious than Killian to turn the little guy loose in the night now that he was untangled from his thorny prison. Both of them could all too easily recall what it felt like to be hungry, cold, and abandoned in a world that felt much too large and uncaring to face.

Her husband’s clear blue eyes met hers over the small canine head between them, and Emma could only smile reassuringly at him, already certain the little guy was as good as theirs as soon as they could get him fed and back to health. “Come on, let’s get him home and cleaned up,” she urged, shivering a little the longer they stood out in the night air, a wistful smile on her face at the thought that maybe they had found an orphan of a different sort to give a home like both she and Killian longed for in their youth. “We’ll make sure he isn’t hurt beneath all that dirt and grime and see what a warm bed and good night’s sleep do for him.”

Killian nodded his assent; the two of them clearly of one mind, as they were quite startlingly often. True, they might find out tomorrow that someone was looking for the sweet little guy, but she still sensed they were bringing home a new member of the family.

*****~~~*****~~~*****

Such events began to repeat themselves rather quickly after that, though their next addition was of the human variety - a young man in the class below Henry, yet clever enough to be in his senior Calculus class - and took much more careful finesse on both of their parts to win over and make feel at ease.

Rolly (a name chosen much more from Emma and Henry’s teasing affection for his tipsy past self in their Back to the Future adventure than by Killian’s choice, though he had good naturedly accepted being outvoted) had only been an exuberant and adored member of their household for about a month in fact when Henry brought the new kid at his school home for dinner. As it turned out, Oliver was a holdover refuge from the Land of Untold Stories, and though he had found lodging with the fairy nuns in a spare room at the convent and took communal breakfasts and dinners with them before heading off to, and after returning from, school each day, many of his hours were spent either studying or roaming the park and woods of the town alone. 

Henry had run into Oliver one day down by the docks, and noticing the way the slightly younger guy watched the weekend sailors with the eye of a skilled pickpocket, and without too much effort in going through his storybook figured out whom the other teen might have been, Henry realized that he’d had a fair bit of experience at it in his former life. Introducing himself and offering the seat next to him on the bench and a share of his cheese fries from Granny’s with the pretext of asking Oliver what he thought of their teacher and the calculus class in general, had brought forth a genuine burst of conversation from the other boy and - Henry had hoped - forestalled the trouble the other young man might have gotten up to.

It seemed that once Henry had witnessed his parents’ incredibly soft hearts for outcasts in person (and having gained a pet out of it, was hardly going to complain) the Truest Believer had felt that they were the perfect people to lend a hand in the situation he had discovered as well, hence the dinner invitation. He came by his charitable outreach honestly - not just from Emma and Killian, but his whole family after all. When Oliver sat down to their table with them that first evening, they learned that while the boy was grateful for the Storybrooke convent’s willingness to feed and clothe him, to give him a room and bed to sleep in, it was a far cry from having a family of his own - something he never even remembered possessing - and a place where he could truly belong.

They learned little more from Sister Astrid when Emma approached her booth at the Miner’s Day festivities that weekend.  Not that the friendly young woman didn’t want to help, but none of them knew more than Oliver himself did, not even his last name. The secretary at the school had merely noticed at the end of the previous school year that he seemed to repeatedly be the first student to arrive at the high school building in the morning and one of the last to leave each afternoon - until it finally became clear he didn’t have anywhere else to go. This had lead to the sisters sponsoring his schooling and offering him a place to stay until he finished.

After that supper, which Oliver thanked them for inviting him to profusely, Emma could tell the young man was reluctant to leave. And yet she could also see he had pride enough not to want to seem needy; a mortifying motivator that she remembered all to well. She and Killian mulled their options for a bit, until one sunny Saturday Killian offered the teen a day’s work helping batten down his ship for the winter months. When he convinced Oliver to return to their house for supper that night, Emma could see long-dried tear tracks on the boy’s face and sensed in Killian’s bearing that his own soul had been bared as well. It was clear the two of them understood each other in a deeper way from their day spent together on the Jolly. When they broached the topic of his living with them for the rest of his senior year and until he decided what he wished to do after, it was clear her husband’s way with words and the heart had allowed this young man who had already charmed them both to accept without feeling shamed or beholden. 

Henry had been thrilled, as had Rolly, since the prospect of someone else to throw sticks and take him for walks pleased the lab mix as little else could. Though Oliver only stayed with them for a little over a year, it allowed their son to feel as if he had gotten to experience having a sibling as he had always wanted, and he enjoyed every moment he got with his foster brother. When Oliver wrote them from his dorm room at the college of his choice, he closed with the best words he could possibly have given Emma and Killian. “...You both provided me the haven I had been missing - the first place I ever felt I belonged until now, settled in at the second. I’ve found where I’m meant to be, and I never would have if not for the two of you.”

They missed their temporary second son, even if he did occasionally come back to visit, but as the weeks and months and years went by, Rolly and Oliver proved to be only the beginning.

Tagging a few who may enjoy, besides the above folks who helped:  @jennjenn615 @searchingwardrobes @whimsicallyenchantedrose @hollyethecurious @thisonesatellite @drowned-dreamer @ilovemesomekillianjones @thislassishooked @resident-of-storybrooke @winterbaby89 @therooksshiningknight @spartanguard @laschatzi

[zen3to5]

I’ve mentioned a few times that Season 6 is the last season I’ve seen all the way through. Back when I was first watching the show, I stopped at 6 mostly due to getting distracted with other things. But I also felt at the time that Season 6 just wasn’t as good as the first five. That’s about as much as I thought about it at the time; there were a handful of episodes I really liked from that season, so I’d watch those now and again, but for the most part, I avoided Season 6 and didn’t think much about it until this rewatch.

...Oh, God.

Season 6 is bad. “If Season 8′s the breaking point for most hardcore fans of this show, how much worse does it have to be?” bad.

I don’t even know where to start with this. How about with some holdovers from Season 5 that have lost all context - Kitty and Red’s personalities and dynamic. Kitty was more emotional in Season 5 and started hitting the bottle? It was motivated there - she started menopause, lost her father, felt empty-nest syndrome full force, and struggled to cope. Now, that erratic behavior’s divorced from nearly any motive (menopause gets mentioned once) and cranked up to eleven, and she becomes an alcoholic with wild mood swings. Red was crankier in Season 5? Motivated - he struggled to help his wife through a difficult time in her life and felt treating Eric harshly was for his own good, something he came around on by the end of the season. Now, though his heart attack could (and does, at times) motivate some of his behavior, he’s just generally more unpleasant and detached from everyone, and much less supportive of his family. Their marriage was complicated in Season 5? Motivated here by their respective issues and the stress of Eric’s engagement. Now, Kitty’s always high-strung and on Red’s case, and he’s always resigned to a strained marriage that he barely puts any work into.

But they don’t come off so bad - so bad - compared to Eric and Donna. I know some fans of the show don’t love that the engagement happened when it did in Season 5, or at all, but I like it. I’ll admit I may have a soft spot for the idea, having two best friends who got engaged in high school, married early in college, and are still going strong a decade later. But I also think, excepting one or two episodes that retread earlier conflicts (something almost impossible to avoid in this kind of sitcom), Eric and Donna come across in Season 5 as a couple ready to step into the future, live their lives, and prepare for married life together, and they put up a united front defending their decisions to their parents.

That resolve and maturity is still there at the very beginning of Season 6, but it slips away quickly, and by the end, their whole dynamic is just awful. The established relationship is swapped out for a lazy comedy cliche - the woman is a stiff nag who withholds sex and is always pushing over menial domestic crap but is always right because...well, because, and the man is a henpecked, horny moron who’s always doing stupid wacky crap and making a mess of everything but gets forgiven all the time because...well, because. And then to have a couple who are well-established - and even say so, in the show, as talking about everything - end up at a place where one buys a mobile home without asking the other, one walks out on their wedding without telling the other why until it’s too late, and the catalyst for breaking off their marriage - Donna suddenly wanting to stay in Point Place, which is justified by her claiming that seeing the world was her plan “when she was single” when she and Eric were still planning just this season to move, and Eric making a decision to “save” Donna from “ruining” her life - makes absolutely no sense.

As an individual character, Eric is completely derailed this season. Season 5 may have started emphasizing his nerdiness compared to earlier seasons, but only so much; Season 4 had started down that path, after all, and Eric’s still Eric in Season 5, with a good range of stories all tied in to his relationships with Donna and his family. But after his decision to stay at home and care for his family - something very much in line with his established character - he starts sliding more than any other individual character. The exaggerated nerdiness, the exaggerated horniness, the exaggerated idiocy and cowardice - all that would be bad enough, but this season also decides in the back half to push the idea that Eric is the loser of his friends group. Never mind all the established history, all the established character dynamics and comedy set-ups, never mind that his house is where they all gather - he’s such a pathetic dork at this point that Donna can’t name a reason she’s excited for their marriage, and Hyde openly remarks how hard it’s getting to be friends with his de facto stepbrother.  Donna is comparatively better off, but only because her personality is more ignored than replaced; she just becomes “the woman,” a lazy sitcom cliche. (To be fair, her individual goals and quirks were largely ignored in Season 5 too, but in a much better season, that becomes more of a mild disappointment than another on a list of grievances.)

Fez’s voyeurism and “needs” were both longstanding aspects of his character by this point, but he just becomes gross in this season. If he’s not a skeevy perv who seems to genuinely believe that his friends are in open relationships that would someday see him doing it with Donna and Jackie, he’s a high-maintenance brat with no self-awareness of how much he’s pissing people off. He isn’t like this all the time, mind you, but it comes up often enough - usually in episodes that feature him in a storyline - to really damage his character. If I’m even tempted to side with Red and the INS, something’s wrong with the writing. His and Laurie’s wedding being forgotten about is annoying, but the show has such a bad track record with resolving Laurie’s material that I don’t care anymore. The new actress for Laurie does well enough, and I don’t mind that there was no romance between her and Fez, but it’s just a dud of a subplot.

Kelso comes off fairly well, all things considered. His idiocy and antics are toned down a little, and his impending fatherhood does bring out some maturity in his relationship with Brooke. I can’t say I’m sorry that Brooke didn’t get more to do, as I don’t find her terribly interesting, but as a straight woman to Kelso, she’s fine. Kelso’s relationship with Fez going full bromance is the more entertaining development for me. That’s a cliche too, but one that actually uses the characters’ personalities in this case, and the performers have great chemistry. Kelso and Fez had been paired in a few different contexts throughout the series, but this is one of the funniest. (The episodes devoted to that also have Suzy Simpson, the only recurring guest role I actually like this season.)

Then there’s Jackie and Hyde. Their reconciliation at the beginning of the season is sloppy and hard to square with what broke them up in the first place, but once they are back together, they’re the solid, stable couple of the show’s romances, and they get a few nice B-plots as a couple. They don’t really get anything as individuals (not even Jackie - more on that in a second.) So, no harm, but no growth.

This season has a few recurring guest stars, and as I already said, I only like one of them. Casey Kelso returning, and being accepted as a source of worldly wisdom by Donna of all people, makes no sense. Mitch made for a decent antagonist duo with his dad for Eric and Red in one episode in Season 5, and his brief return as a foil for Fez was all right. Here, he’s just a chore to watch. He’s a total creep, that Donna can’t see he’s a creep is ridiculous, and the episodes with him somehow seem more interested in making Eric out to be a loser than in Mitch’s rotten behavior.

And then...there’s Pam.

Pam Burkhart is barely a character. She’s most of Jackie’s more superficial traits as remembered by someone whose roommate watched T7S in college. And that means I really don’t have much to say about her, good or bad, on her own. The fact that she’s so thinly drawn isn’t an automatic flaw - as a short-lived supporting cast member, all she needs is enough of a dynamic with the main cast to give them interesting and fun material and development.

But she doesn’t do that. In the very first episode where she appears, what looks to be an ongoing story about Jackie confronting her mother derails into Bob dating Pam and the girls not liking it. A few lackluster attempts to break them up fail in the next episode, and then the relationship is just kind of...there. The girls don’t like it (not always for consistent reasons), but they’re ineffectual at doing anything about it. We don’t learn anything new about Jackie or get any new development for her. We don’t learn anything new or get any development for Bob, who’s in the relationship. All we get is one “joke,” used over and over again, that every man in the cast finds Pam hot. Something I’ve never understood about this show, even when they used the same bit with Midge, but at least it was much less prominent then. Here, it’s in every episode where Pam shows up, eats up so much damn screentime, and turns up in characters like Red and Hyde, who it doesn’t make any sense for.

Pam’s entrance is where the season goes completely off the rails, though not just because of her - other things start to go very wrong about that time. Top it off with a stupid way to end the marriage storyline, a ridiculous next-season-bait reveal about Hyde (more on that once I see what became of it in Season 7), and Midge turning up without the business about Bob and Pam getting any kind of finish, and it’s a miracle that Eric and Donna’s reconciling has any impact at all.

I don’t want to make it sound as if I took nothing from this season. It has great scenes, good episodes, and decent concepts, most of them in the front half. But it is just a train wreck at the end. I’m still planning to press ahead and finally go through Season 7, but...wow.

[hellyeahomeland]

“False Friends” | Directed by Keith Gordon, Cinematography by Peter Levy

In case you hadn’t heard, Carrie smoked a few cigarettes this week. The opening of the episode is actually pretty interesting, the conversation with Yevgeny the previous night in the bar ringing in Carrie’s ears. (Carrie isn’t sleeping--again--and we all know that spells trouble for her.)

Carrie is, for the most part, a loner smoker. And a stress smoker. And a rooftop smoker, apparently! Here more than in previous instances where we’ve seen her smoke, the setting--all alone on the roof--visually represents her own headspace. 

She flashes back to the scene we’ve seen several times already this season. This time, however, we finally see Carrie clearly. She speaks, she’s lucid. There is real fear in her expression, but also longing. The reveal of course is that Carrie is on her meds and in her right mind, and she doesn’t want Yevgeny to leave. 

The camera turns to Yevgeny as Carrie’s dragged away. This is a shot we’ve seen already this season but, by the end of the episode, his expression takes on a different meaning. It’s not cold or detached. He doesn’t want to leave her either. 

The repetition of this specific memory and the way it’s morphed over the episodes is remarkably similar to early season one Brody. We all knew the Carrie/Brody parallels this season would be heavy; the show is not only retelling that story with roles reversed but also using many of the storytelling devices they used in season one. 

Then as now, the audience learns along with the characters what actually took place. First we learn that Brody actually did know Nazir; Nazir held him. Then we learn that Brody watched Tom Walker die. Then we learn that Brody is the one who beat Tom Walker to death (or at least he thought he did). The key difference obviously is that Brody was deceiving Carrie. Carrie is deceiving herself (or is she?).

IJLTP. (Any time this show does something with bokeh IJLTP.) (Bokeh is the way a camera lens renders out-of-focus points of light.)

We thought the framing of this particular shot was interesting. There are two blocks of color behind Carrie, orange and white, and her body lies squarely in the center of either, one half on either side. Maybe this was completely accidental, or maybe it’s symbolic and indicative of the way she’s being pulled in different directions. She also remains in the dark--figuratively and literally. In the first episode of the season, Carrie was often framed inside rectangular boundaries, now she’s half-in, half-out. Before, she felt trapped in the car, in her bedroom, in the fenced-in basketball court. Now, she finally gets some freedom (and maybe a dollop of “fresh” air, natch). 

(There is a similar Mad Men shot that Sara thinks about at least weekly that conveyed something similar about Don.) 

Linus Roache’s performance as David Wellington is fairly underrated. It’ll be interesting to see him in a context other than “Elizabeth Keane’s mouthpiece/bodyguard/sounding board/good cop/bad cop.” For example, this passive aggressive grin at new VP Ben Hayes when he makes a similarly passive aggressive comment about Princeton. 

...or this side eye when Ben Hayes suggests firing Saul, a “Keane holdover.” 

Carrie’s comment in the premiere that Mike was not an “alpha” looms large in this scene and throughout the episode. Carrie makes several comments about him finally doing the job the right way or her way. Their differing personalities and management styles are on full display visually here. Carrie towers over him, while Mike sits back, hands folded in his lap. 

Also, as a logistics person, it bothers Gail that Mike has set up his desk so his back is facing the window. With all of that top secret intel on his computer, isn’t having the windows right there a problem? Is this an intentional nod to his incompetence or did the better lighting of his office for the crew win out? (Sara thinks it can be both.)

The Saul/Haqqani scenes this episode were uniformly visually stunning. First, the show continues its use of light to reinforce who knows what. Here Haqqani’s face is cloaked in darkness while light falls across Saul’s face. 

Overall, Saul’s captivity plays out plot-wise obviously much differently this time than in season four. We’re struck as well by how different the mood is. Both men lean or hunch here. They’re tired, they’re old, they’ve done this before.

The slow pan around Jalal while he’s praying to reveal Tasneem is … *chef’s kiss* (and suggests so much her persona of being the ultimate puppet master, waiting around any corner).

More bokeh, more smoking. Smokehing. 

There’s more mirroring between Carrie and Jenna this week, which is probably how Jenna intends to befriend Carrie (“Carrie smokes? I should too!”), but it actually just feeds into Sara’s theory that Jenna is going to “single white female” Carrie. We love the framing here of Carrie, back to camera (and to Jenna), and Jenna lurking behind her. 

And some visual symmetry here. The camera shots of the two of them are often at a distance, speaking to the depth (or lack thereof) of their relationship. Throughout this episode we see a variety of different pairings between characters. The camera choices in these scenes illustrate closeness and proximity, or distance and mistrust.

In season four there were so many references to Saul losing his eyeglasses during the prisoner exchange. If you recall, he takes them off on the tarmac and Carrie picks them up after she convinces him to get up. Later, she returns his glasses to him just as their car is hit by an RPG. So, given that, two things: 

Saul losing his glasses and then getting them back is almost certainly a harbinger of shit to come! 

We absolutely loved the framing of this scene: Haqqani’s hands slowly coming into frame and gingerly placing the glasses back on Saul’s face. We mentioned above how different the mood was this time around with Saul and Haqqani and this gentle act seemed to encompass all of that.

Two old men, some (we, Jalal) would say past their prime, standing alone in the dark. 

And the dark gives way to a new dawn, a new day. We’re about to break out into song! 

But seriously, this was a gorgeously filmed scene. We do wonder how long they were waiting out in the mountains of Morocco for the sun to rise.

The scene between Haqqani and his son Jalal was the standout of the episode. It is such an eerie reflection of the end of “From A to B and Back Again” when Haqqani kills Aayan. That episode and its ending are at this point Homeland lore, which has the added benefit of making what was already a tense scene fucking unbearable. 

We love the use of perspective and shot/reverse shot here.

The parallels with “From A to B…” continue. Then as now, Saul looks on, helpless, wearing a similar outfit but this time with his hands unbound. Then as now, Haqqani makes a spectacle of it all, when he knows others are watching (the Americans via drone in season four, his entire crew in the courtyard now).

The kiss to the forehead. At this point we were about 650% sure Haqqani was about to shoot his son in the head.

And he does pull out the gun. Jalal literally stares down the barrel. 

Instead of killing him, Haqqani just throws him onto the street, which is maybe just as bad if you’re Jalal. The framing here is remarkable. Jalal stands in the center of the frame, back to the camera, ensconced in sunlight. He’s not awash in some heavenly light. On the contrary, it’s almost as if he’s just been spit out of it, cast out of the kingdom. It all seemed vaguely biblical, like a reverse Prodigal Son, though we’re not sure if that fits exactly. If you know, drop us a line!

We’re three episodes into the season, and we’ve gotten an “over Saul’s shoulder” shot in each one. This is now a theme!

Homeland is not a show that uses flashbacks that heavily (other than the aforementioned Brody/Nazir series from season one and when they de-aged Claire Danes by putting her hair in a half ponytail). They’ve been effective thus far, slowly peeling the layer on the onion that is Carrie’s Russian captivity. 

As Yevgeny recounts Carrie’s suicide attempt, we see split-second flashes in her head. At first, the images are blurry.

And just a few seconds later, they come into focus for us as Carrie remembers. All this is obvious enough, but we also think the way that the focus on the images shifts so suddenly and the way the sequences are edited serve to disorient the viewer in the same way Carrie remains disoriented and confused about just what happened during the seven lost months. 

This scene is notable for a few reasons. First, Carrie and Yevgeny remain so physically close. He leans into her. We also love that it’s more than just Carrie’s reaction to what he’s saying. We see Yevgeny’s reaction to her reaction, as well as his emotions in recounting it. He is remarkably free of judgment and shows legitimate, deep caring, possibly love, as he reveals one of Carrie’s darkest moments. 

And while Carrie makes an offhand remark about her relationship with Brody being accessible information in her “file,” the fact is she never talks about him. Like, ever. (Sara maintains Carrie has a mental and possibly physical “Brody box” that remains sealed.) The significance of Carrie opening up to Yevgeny about what is--sorry, folks--the love of her life really can’t be overstated.

All we have to say about this is “ughhhhhhhhhh.” 

We’re three episodes into the season, and we’ve gotten a “Carrie watches Yevgeny walk away” shot in each one. This is now a theme!

We really hope that the blaring red “ABSOLUTELY NO CELL PHONES” sign is a callback to when Brody infamously and inexplicably snuck his cell phone into the situation room in “Beirut Is Back,” allowing him to send a “DANGER! DANGER! DANGER!” text to Nazir just in the nick of time.

IJLTP.

Here is our Reverse Prodigal Son: lost and wondering, his face bloodied, bordering on delirious. 

And here is Tasneem, her beautiful aubergine scarf blowing perfectly in the wind (sorry, Sara forgot to do Things Tasneem Wore This Week, but she thinks this aubergine scarf is beautiful), looking like a goddamn puppet master goddess, coming to save him. And by “save” we mean “control and manipulate.” Saviors really do come in all different flavors on this show. 

[alabasterswriting]

In the Shadow of the Beast

Summary: Will Byers is used to nightmares. He isn’t used to having company in them. Unfortunately, Billy Hargrove isn’t going anywhere.

Follows the events of seasons 3

At first, he doesn’t realize it’s not a dream.

It starts, as it always does, in Hawkins. There’s a street – Main Street – with the woods at his back and the library at his front, and all around him are houses he can traverse by memory. Biting cold air shifts into searing heat with every turn of a second, and white spores dance across his eyelids, stinging like salt on an open wound. It hurts to breathe so he’s learned not to, and he’s trained himself not to jump at every chitter. The world echoes – hollow like an empty grave and just as lonely.

He’s used to it. Expects it even. The heart-stopping, bone-chilling fear that accompanies every fluttering eye is as much a staple of his life as his own heartbeat. Sometimes, he can almost pretend it’s a comfort. The world of Before is such a bygone memory as to be complete fantasy, and there’s an ease to be found in repetition. Expectation is a bright light at the end of a tunnel, even if that light is as pale and blue as a corpse. 

The problem, Will finds, with expectation is the inevitable realization that it cannot shield you from reality.

He expects the other shoe to drop; that doesn’t mean he’s ready for when it does.

The Mind Flayer is back. Whispers echo through his head as cold burrows under his skin and prickles his neck. He’s not surprised, but he isn’t ready either.

He’s resigned, as something too close to relief curdles inside his belly. The wait is over. The anticipation hanging over his head swings in a graceful arc downwards, detaching emotions from feeling as cleanly and quickly as any executioner. He’s numb – feeling too much to feel anything at all.

When he opens his eyes to the familiar hellscape, he thinks he knows what to expect. Emptiness – that crushing sensation of being alone, just waiting for the monsters to show themselves. It’s a brief respite, but one Will has learned to appreciate. If he hadn’t already spent an inordinate amount of time living inside their minds, he would have thought they did it on purpose. But no, the Mind Flayer is the only one who thinks in this world; everything else is just a beast hunting for food. Will is experienced enough by now to know the drill.

Go to sleep, open his eyes, wait for the monsters, repeat.

He doesn’t expect the Other.

The Other is new, and Will would be happy if he hasn’t already learned that nothing good ever comes from New.

He’s tall, this new person, and as human as human can be. Summer-kissed hair curls across his forehead in the latest style while muscles bulge beneath his shirt. He’s gorgeous, and different, and stands out like a bleach white stain on a black shirt.

There’s a ringing in Will’s ears like the chitter, chitter, chitter of a pollywog. The two are standing outside the carcass of a house on Loch Nora, new and different, and it would have been pretty if the Upside Down were capable of such things. Instead, all Will can see is the netted membrane and broken carnage of a world not fit for life.

And the Other. He cannot ignore the Other.

He doesn’t look at Will, and his face is only half visible beneath the flickering streetlamps. It looks like he’s listening to something, silken whispers that brush against Will’s subconscious and lure him in like a particularly addictive drug. He knows those whispers. They froze his insides and ripped him to pieces until all that was left was flayed flesh fit only for monsters.

That was the point, of course, but Will doesn’t care. Facts matter little when you’re the one on the arse end of the proverbial stick.

Will doesn’t notice as his feet usher him forward. He doesn’t notice as the world shrinks around them, constructing a bubble of tension three feet thick. He thinks he feels water under his feet, cold and wet and murky, and his skin prickles with dread.

The Other turns. Familiarity strikes.

And Will Byers wakes with a name on his tongue, lost and forgotten in the bright morning light of a new day.

~*~*~*~*~

Billy Hargrove.

His name is Billy Hargrove and Will knows him only from the distant glimpses made around Hawkins and his friends’ stories.

They’re few and far between, but always highlighted by Max’s bruises and Lucas’ fear and the protective glares of Mike and Dustin. They appear as snapshots of suspicion in his head, piling on top of each other like pieces of a particularly unpleasant puzzle. In his mind, Will hears the revved engine of a black Camaro as it shrieks into the school parking lot, and the cruel insults spewed across a busy pool. They’re normal insults, typical of every bully Will has ever known, and Billy Hargrove is nothing if not a bully.

But they’re past that now. Human cruelty has given way to monstrous evil.

He hears screaming. He hears a teenager begging his sister for help. He sees a hand smash through a window to kill that same sister, and a body given the inhuman strength to break chains. Will remembers that strength and he knows how easily it can kill the unsuspecting. He’s numb, so numb, as if he’s been encased in ice and yanked from his body. He can’t do anything. He can’t say anything. It’s all he can do to keep the memories at bay.

Again, the Monster has trapped him, and He won’t even give him the decency of acknowledgement.

It’s for the best, he tells himself. It’s even a relief, except not really. Is he really so disposable? His life ruined, and for what? For a Beast who won’t even look his way? Not even to gloat?

And the Monster does gloat. Will recalls His pleasure-filled mocking in every dip of his stomach. He sounds like Lonnie and echoes with the undertones of Troy and James. The Monster raped his mind with ice-clawed fingers, and suddenly it’s as if he doesn’t exist. He’s been replaced. Discarded by a human with muscle and charm and a name that reads like the old.

Silver lining: the Beast has a type.

Williams.

It’s a small consolation that isn’t a consolation at all. The identicality of their names is meaningless to Him. Will is the only one who will notice or care. He’s the one placing meaning on what is no doubt a coincidence. But the thoughts linger because, what if? What if the Monster chose Billy because they share a name? What if He chose Billy because He was looking for Will? What if it’s not a coincidence? What if Will meant something?

He almost laughs at the inanity of it. Pining after a Monster the way Mike pines after El. He knows it won’t happen. He knows it’s foolish. He knows he can no more get an apology out of the Devil than he can normality out of his life. But it eats at him. He wants to scream. He wants the Monster to know every little thing He ruined, even though Will knows He won’t care. If anything, He might be amused. It would just be a waste of precious air from Will’s lungs, and he can’t even pretend that helps because he still wants to do it.

He wants to scream at Him to go away, all the while still screaming to be taken back.

He’s like a junkie who’s lost his fix. He craves the nothingness that comes from being a part of something so incomprehensible. That sensation of power he felt as the demodogs ripped and teared and barreled their way through the bodies of those who’d hurt him. There was no concern. No pity. No prying questions and gawking acquaintances. The bullies couldn’t hurt him. Neither could the soldiers. Nothing could because he was nothing and it’s enough to make him resent the fire and the burning and the fact that he is still breathing. Maybe they wouldn’t be in this mess if his friends had just listened to him in the first place. Certainly, it would no longer be his problem. 

But it is his problem. Somehow it always is, and Will can’t decide if it’s because the Upside Down won’t let go of him, or because he won’t let go of it.

Maybe it’s the lack of resolution. Maybe it’s the anger.

Maybe it’s the fact that no matter how the Beast seems fit to ignore him, Will can still hear Him whispering in the back of his head. He echoes, like loud music coming from a neighboring house, and Will can hear everything, but lacks any power to act.

He’s become nothing more than a shadow of Billy Hargrove. 

They’re not alone. There are others that stand behind them in the mist, but they are as faceless and inconsequential as the demodogs; only good for the numbers they provide. Billy is different. He stands at the forefront, eyes wild with a primal fear Will knows down to his bones.

It brings him no comfort, but also no surprise.

They’re surrounded on all sides by the crumbling houses of Hawkins, Indiana. Spores dot the sky, falling like snow atop their heads. It’s dark and quiet, lacking even the familiar chittering of the pollywogs, and the cold encases him in as if welcoming him home. Will cannot feel it. Not like normal people. Dr. Owens warned it might be a holdover he may never be rid of. He’s become as much a part of this world as any monster now – as much as any of the dead.

This should trouble him. It doesn’t. Death is an old friend, and death by frozen hell even more so.

“I know you,” the piece of Billy left to drown in this world says. His face is twisted in an expression of confusion and that particular brand of wariness only the Upside Down can incur.

“Yeah,” Will acknowledges with a shrug. He’s unused to others in his nightmares, but then this is less a nightmare and more something else. A vision? A link? True Sight? It’s abnormal, whatever it is, but Will is used to that, too. The air sours as he elaborates, “Will Byers.”

Billy nods. “The freak.” He looks like he wants to hate that – hate that the freakiest kid in Hawkins is somehow here but can’t because the relief at the obviously human company is too great.

Will gets it. He does. But he also knows just how horrible of a person Billy is even without the Mind Flayer inhabiting his body to be happy about it. As far as he’s concerned, Billy belongs here; if not in the Upside Down then in Will’s nightmares. Bullies were staples of his dreams Before. It stands to reason they should make an appropriately twisted return After.

“I didn’t get you,” Billy says again. His voice echoes strangely, and there’s a question in there, one he’s too proud – or too afraid – to ask.

Will shakes his head. “No.”

“So, what, is this just some freak thing you do?” Billy spits. A scowl has grown on his face, as if another human has made him comfortable enough to be cruel.

Typical.

Will gives another shrug because this is his life and it’s just weird enough to be the truth. “Sometimes.”

“Sometimes,” Billy scoffs. A streetlamp flickers blue over their heads. “And how is it then, Will Byers, that I’m stuck here and you’re not?”

For no reason Will can discern, Billy’s question strikes him as absurdly funny. He wants to laugh at that – at the pure ignorance of Billy Hargrove – but he doesn’t. Billy’s new and the Upside Down doesn’t allow much for laughter. Instead, Will tilts his head, and says, “I guess you just have more in common.”

There are bruises on Max’s arms and she jumps at loud noises, and Lucas always has an excuse not to walk her home even though she very pointedly never asks him to.

As far as Will’s concerned, the Mind Flayer couldn’t have picked a better host. 

Evidently, Billy does not agree.

His hand whips out, lightning quick, to wrap around the collar of Will’s shirt, and he yanks the boy forward so that they are nose-to-snarling-nose. If this were the real world, Will would be frightened, but there’s something about Billy, about being in this dying dimension, that’s reassuring. Human evil is for the Rightside Up, not the Upside Down. The only evil here belongs to the monsters.

And Billy, for all his posturing and cruelty, is no monster.

“What did you say?” Billy questions, calmly, with the control of a predator about to pounce.

Will doesn’t bat an eye. “The Mind Flayer thought you would be a better host. He and I didn’t really get along.”

They didn’t. Not really. Only sometimes, in the way a victim might come to get along their kidnapper, or two enemies might band together against a greater foe; Will hadn’t liked the fire any more than the He had.

“The Mind Flayer, huh?” Billy leans back but keeps a fist around Will’s collar. The air is stale around them. “Is that what He calls Himself?”

“He didn’t say no to it.”

“‘He didn’t say no to it,’” the teen mocks. “How cute. Making up little names for Him.”

“Better than nothing.”

Billy glares. “No wonder I’m in this mess if you’re all He had. Your little friends, too, I’m assuming, if what He’s said is true. Couldn’t even finish Him off.”

“We tried,” Will defends, though doubts whisper in the back of his head. They shouldn’t have burned you. They should have just shut the gate. “We thought–”

“You thought. You thought,” Billy echoes, and Will ignores the sudden static in the air. “Well guess what, freak, you thought wrong.”

Close gate. “We did what we could.”

“And it wasn’t enough.”

The accusation lands heavily between them, more suffocating than the air they’re breathing. Fury courses through his veins as Will shakes. He wants to scream. He wants to rage and shake his fists and stomp his feet and the only thing that holds him back is the knowledge that he’s not sure what he’d be screaming at. The fact that Billy is so wrong, or that he is so terribly right? 

Billy’s grip intensifies. It’s tight, but intangible, as if the teen had taken lessons from Darth Vader. Static buzzes between them, red gathering on the horizon as the temperature plummets. “You can’t even deny it, can you?”

Will stubbornly keeps his mouth shut.

“Useless.” Billy grits his teeth, and shoves Will back into a stumble. “Go home, freak. I’m sick of looking at you.” 

Will needs no more encouragement. He spins on his heel and makes a beeline for the road. He’s familiar with this area – Maple Street is only two blocks away – and he can easily hide out the rest of this nightmare in Mike’s basement. He’s ready. His feet are carrying him forward.

He slows. He stops. His heart is heavy and he hates Billy, but Max was crying and no one deserves the Upside Down.

Not even bullies.

Will turns and squares his shoulders, forcing himself to look Billy in the eye with as much conviction as he can muster. “We can help you, you know. If you let us.”

“What makes you think I want your help?”

“Max.” Those desperate pleas had to come from somewhere. A trap? Yes; that doesn’t mean they weren’t true.

But it’s a mistake. Billy’s face, already closed off, turns to stone, his blue eyes glowing like ice under the streetlamps.

“Max,” he growls. “Max, Max, Maxie Maxine. Of course. Well, how ‘bout you take your help, Will Byers, and shove it up your ass. Whatever your friends did with you obviously didn’t take. You’re still here. No, I’m better off figuring this out on my own.”

He’s not, but already Will can feel himself fading, slipping out of the Upside Down as easily as he fell in. There is no time to argue. He grits his teeth. “Suit yourself.” No one can say he didn’t try.

Billy fades. The Upside Down flickers away. Will awakens to the bright morning light of Mike’s basement with his friends snoring in his ear.

~*~*~*~*~

He doesn’t know why he stays silent. Maybe it’s that the timing is never right. Maybe it’s that he doesn’t fully believe it. Maybe he just doesn’t think it matters. For whatever reason, Will keeps his nighttime conversations to himself.

Billy is a hateful, shivering shell of a man the next time Will sees him. His hair is greasy and unkempt, there’s a cut on his cheek, and he bathes in the grime of the Upside Down as if he were born to it. Blue eyes glare behind a red sheen, and the bone white of his teeth stands out unnaturally against the dark landscape that surrounds them.

It’s new, this place. Not that Will spends much time exploring this world, but it’s impossible to visit so often and not learn every nook and cranny. It’s a bedroom – Billy’s if Will has to guess – and he has the sudden inane thought to turn around and see if he can find Max’s. He wonders, briefly, what that would look like before deciding he really doesn’t want to know. With few exceptions, he tries to avoid places he’s liable to go to in the real world. 

“Well, look who decided to drop by.”

Will says nothing and Billy’s lips curl like a particularly rabid dog. “What? No hello?” He stands up, the bed creaking in his wake. “No, ‘how’ve you been?’” He stalks forward. “No questions?” Billy’s arm shoots out, his fist punching the wall with alarming speed and force, enough to chip the paint and break the fingers of a normal person, though no damage is actually done. Will still flinches.

“You,” Billy sneers, “and your little band of freaks have been making quite the mess. Do you know that? Do you have any idea what you’ve gotten into?”

“More than you,” Will states, and the older teen lets out a disdainful laugh.

“Oh, that’s right. You’ve been doing this a lot. You and that girl. What’s her name again? El?”

Will stiffens. His eyes narrow as Billy’s grin turns razor sharp. “How do you know her name?”

“We met,” Billy says indolently. He flicks a spore off the table. “She was very rude – barging into someone else’s house like she owned it.”

“Heather’s.” The girls had told them briefly about their encounter at the Holloway house, and the state of the house itself had filled in the rest of the story.

“Yes, Heather’s. Nice people, her family. Make a good roast.” His features settle into one of idle curiosity, but there’s a gleam to it that reminds Will of his father. “So what brings little Will Byers back here? It can’t be the scenery. And the company doesn’t want you. You have to be after something.”

Will purses his lips. “Something happened. At the hospital. We need to know what.”

“And you think I know? I wasn’t there.”

“No, but you’re the host. You’re…connected.” He thinks of the demodogs, of the eyes they don’t have and how that heightens everything else – hearing, smell, taste. Will’s mouth waters involuntarily. He doesn’t like to think about it – can’t most of the time – but it lingers; the sounds of the dying as flesh is torn from bones, warm viscous syrup covering them like a glaze. 

Blood is sweet, but distinct, like the notes between chocolates.

“Connected,” Billy huffs from the bed. “I don’t know what He told you, kid, but He doesn’t tell me shit. I’m stuck here, remember?” 

“Well, yeah, but…” He shouldn’t have to tell you for you to know.

It’s odd. Contrary to popular belief, Will’s memory of that week is picture perfect, and he knows he was never trapped in the Upside Down like Billy is. No, his prison was a void – an empty black expanse with only the Monster for company. And as much as He liked to gloat, the Monster wasn’t there all the time. Sometimes it was just Will, and he always knew what was going on.

He could see everything, feel everything, taste everything.

Billy is different. He is different. Will remembers whispered manipulations and echoed taunts, the Beast hiding within the darkness He Himself created – an Emperor Palpatine to Billy’s Darth Vader. This, now, is a short con compared to the long end, and Will is fearful of what it means. What changed? Why did it change?

Will knows the Monster. He was the Monster. They shared everything. Billy…Will doesn’t know what Billy is. He’s not like Will, not in the way he’s assumed. And if Billy can’t see beyond his own body, then what does this mean for them? What does this mean for Hawkins?

Who have they been chasing, if not Billy Hargrove?

“But, but,” Billy draws Will from his thoughts. “If you’re gonna speak then do it clearly. I don’t have time to listen to your mutterings.”

Will purses his lips and, before his common sense can catch up to his tongue, says, “Really? You don’t have any time?”

Billy glares balefully. “I,” he jabs at Will’s chest, “am trying to get out. I have a life, and it doesn’t involve being stuck in this shithole.”

“So, you’re – what? – walking around here looking for the exit sign?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but no.” Billy leans his hip against the bedside table and leers down at him. “And you seem to be able to come and go as you please.”

“Well, yeah, but I’m…” a freak, a zombie, a dead boy walking. Will Byers should not be alive, and it is only the fact that he is that separates him from Billy.

Oh.

It’s like an alarm going off inside his brain – blaring and painful and whistling at a frequency too high for humans but just perfect for monsters, and Will is inextricably struck by a profound sense of guilt as the realization settles.

Oh, he thinks, oh. Because the Mind Flayer never makes the same mistake twice. He learns and He adapts and while His fury has made Him rash, He’s also made sure that this host will not have the weaknesses of the first.

Weaknesses like living.

“You’re what?” Billy questions, and it’s all Will can do not to look at him with horror. There’s a lack of pain where Billy hit him. “A freak? Gotta say, that’s not much of a secret.”

It’s not, and Will would probably be the first to acknowledge it, too, but he’s too busy staring to speak. It all suddenly makes a terrible sort of sense and he’s not sure whether to vomit or run. Possibly – probably – both.

“Hey!” Billy snaps his fingers. “Byers. Either get your head out of the clouds or get out. I don’t have time to be babysitting your useless ass.”

“Sorry. I–sorry.” Will shakes his head, but cannot look away.

“Tch. Of all the people to be stuck here with, it had to be you.”

“Would you rather someone else?”

A scoff. “I can think of at least a dozen other people I’d rather be in hell with, each one sexier than the last. None of them are you.”

“Good to know,” Will mutters, pushing aside the horror with a great deal of effort. “But I’m still the one you’re stuck with.”

“Lucky me. Here’s a thought: you let me go back to figuring out how to get out of this hellhole and I won’t kill you the moment I do.”

“You can’t kill me.” He knows this. The truth settles old and heavy in his bones. Whispers hiss in the back of Will’s mind; there’s a part of him that calls to the Upside Down with the fervor of a dying man wishing for home. This is his world. He loathes it, despises it, wishes it did not exist, but it is his. His in the way the demogorgons do not chase him and the demodogs follow in his wake. His in a way it is not Billy’s.

Billy, who stands in this room that used to be his as if it is the only thing keeping him here. An echo of what could have been.

“Oh really? Who’s going to stop me? Your mom, who everyone knows is insane? Your brother, the creep? Your little friends? Face it, kid, I can do whatever I want to you. And when I get out, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

“You’re not getting out.”

“Says who?”

“The Mind Flayer.”

Billy snorts. He chuckles, honestly amused, still clinging to the foolish notion that Will has long since abandoned; the belief that death only comes for other people.

“The Mind Flayer,” Billy echoes with contempt. He pushes away from the nightstand and ambles forward, stopping until he’s barely an inch from Will. At home, there would have been a rush of displaced air. Here, Will feels nothing. “In case you haven’t noticed, Byers, your ‘Mind Flayer’ isn’t here. He’s too busy traipsing about with my face to care about what I do.”

“Traip–He’s murdering people!”

“Yeah? And what am I supposed to do about it? I’m stuck, remember?”

Stuck yes, but, “Not always,” Will mutters, memory striking. The knot in his chest suddenly begins to unfurl, as if the realization is enough to spark a small measure of hope. “You were at the pool and the sauna and…” was he wrong? Could Billy get out? Had he just been jumping to conclusions? Maybe the Mind Flayer is just trying something new, but Billy’s sudden bark of laughter brings his thoughts to a screeching halt.

“Oh sure, the pool. Yeah, I was there for all of a few seconds before He pushed me back down here. I want to get out, not be kept on His fucked up little leash.”

“But you were there?”

“What, are you deaf? I just said I was.” 

“But you remember it,” Will exclaims, mind running a mile a minute. He was wrong. Oh, thank God he was wrong. Billy isn’t…he isn’t…“You were there. You felt it.”

“Yes,” Billy drawls, part derisive, part questioning.

“Do you feel Him now? Can you find Him?”

“Are you nuts? No, I cannot feel Him. He’s there. I’m here. What about this aren’t you understanding?”

Will stops. He was never unaware of the Monster. Never. Even when trapped in the void. There was no separation between him and the Beast.

A face appears in the window of Billy’s room, blank and covered in grime. For a moment Will thinks it’s going to do something, but it merely walks by as if it doesn’t notice them. A lost soul wandering through hell.

Slowly, so slowly it’s almost painful, Will turns back to Billy, who doesn’t seem to have noticed the face. Billy’s feet are almost melded to the floor, but he moves unhindered as if intangible. The blue glow of the lamps strikes him into shadow and for a second Will swears they’re outside, a flash of lightning engulfing the world in red, the landscape replaced by fields and hills and mountains. It’s familiar, this sight. He knows it. He died in it. Fields of corpses, hills of flesh, and mountains of bone.

And there, right in the middle…

No, Will trembles. No.

The world flashes back – blue and dark and eerie. Billy peers down at him, like a man about to squash a bug. “How the fuck did you survive anything? It can’t have been any skill on your part.”

Will can’t even muster the energy to be angry at the insult. He wasn’t wrong. He just wasn’t completely right.

The Upside Down is hell, and they’re all at the mercy of the Devil.

He feels his heart thunder in his chest, the acrid taste of bile tingling his tongue as sweat gathers along his brow. His skin prickles – not with cold, never with cold – but something he can almost remember as such. The air is cloying with the sweet scent of decay and it wafts off Billy like a child in his father’s cologne.

A child. He’s not even nineteen.

What is he going to tell Max?

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Billy grumbles from above, but there’s cotton in Will’s throat and his tongue is too big for his mouth.

I’m sorry, he wants to say. I’m sorry this happened to you. I’m sorry I can’t help you. I’m sorry I almost think you deserve it. 

“Byers!” The yell jolts Will from his mantra and he jumps under Billy’s towering form. “Tch. All that yelling and now you decide to be quiet.”

“I–I–”

“You? You, what?”

“I…um…” Where had he left off, again? He was asking questions. He was…”You, uh…you’ve taken control before.”

“Yeah,” Billy drawls.

“He’s given you control, so you, um…you can get out.” He can’t. He can’t get out. But the truth won’t travel past his lips and he tries to tell himself it’s fine. Billy isn’t a friend.

There’s a glint of intrigue in those volatile eyes, and Will pushes down the nausea it incites. Billy raises a brow. “You want me to try and overpower the Monster? What, you don’t think I’ve tried that?”

“Never hurts to try again.”

Billy huffs. He rolls his eyes. “Fuckin’…”

“Do you have a better plan?”

Silence. Billy shifts, body twisting towards the window. He twitters his fingers along the sill.

“And if I overpower him, I’ll get out? For good?”    

There is no way out except the one the Monster creates. Will draws in a breath, as much because he can’t remember when he stopped, as because it feels like he can’t. The words are spoken before he can think.

“You’ll get out.”

Billy nods, a grin of unnatural white shining through the gloom, and Will comes to the conclusion that he will never be able to look Max in the eye ever again.

I’m sorry, he thinks. I’m sorry I can’t help you. I’m sorry I won’t even try. I’m sorry, but I need to help my friends.

Mike is right. El is expending too much energy. She won’t be able to beat the Mind Flayer if she keeps this up. Will knows this. He knows the Monster. But Billy is human, and human monsters are for the Rightside Up. If Billy can overpower the Shadow, even for a second, they might stand a chance.

Humans can be killed, and Billy is dead anyway.

There’s a shift in the air. It’s suddenly too heavy, too cold. Will shakes as his breath mists in front of his face. The spores stop in midair and Will knows what’s happening before Billy even opens his mouth.

“She found Him.”

El.

Will can feel her. She’s here, but not – in that In Between place Will only has vague recollections of – and it makes him uncomfortable to feel that pressure of occupied, but unseen space. For a second, he wonders if he might have been able to do something to help. If he told his friends about his dreams would El be struggling now? Not that it matters. Billy and the Mind Flayer are not mutually inclusive entities. No, Will shakes his head. Had he told, he would only have gotten in the way.

Billy lowers himself to the bed. His lips quirk, teeth catching on a lightning strike. There’s an unnatural sheen in his eyes, like a junkie about to get a fix. “You’d best be going, Byers. I’m about to have company.”

The Mind Flayer is close. There’s a tangible change in Billy’s posture as red begins to dot the sky. Something like brine fills the air and Will can feel himself slipping. He’s waking up. Already, his vision is starting to blur.

“Wish me luck, freak.”

But Will is gone before he can wish for anything.

~*~*~*~*~

He’s standing on a mountain.

It’s crafted from melted flesh and broken bones, and his feet sink into the sludge so that he’s ankle deep in decomposition. Rot burns his nose and a chill prickles his spine. The sky above is bleeding and crackling, and there are bodies as far as the eye can see. They create hills and mountains and valleys, their skin stretched and faces eternally frozen in terror, and Will is quite sure there are more people here than there have ever been on Earth.

Maybe this is Earth. Maybe the Mind Flayer won. It’s too vivid to be a nightmare, and too familiar to be anything else. He’s been here before. He’s seen this before. The dead stare at him with sightless eyes and he knows exactly what they’re asking.

“Are you here to stay?”

A corpse stands beside him. His clothes are torn and his eyes are red, but the anger has settled into a mellow sort of surrender Will is familiar with. It’s the same look he’s seen in the mirror after one too many nightmares; the type that says he knows nothing will ever be the same again so why pretend.

Will faces his companion. Above them, thunder rumbles. “No. Just visiting.”

The corpse snorts. “You are a strange one, Byers.”

“Thought I was a freak?”

“You are. Didn’t think you’d come here, though.”

“I don’t. Not normally.” It was only once, really. Once, after his mind had grown fuzzy and the dark had settled in, and there was no more breath left in his lungs. Dead, a voice says in the back of his head. You were dead. “Never really saw the point.”

Darling. You stayed.

“Not much to look at.”

“No, not much.”

Billy hums. For a moment, they stand in silence, looking out into the great expanse of bodies that surrounds them. Will isn’t wearing any shoes and even if he were they wouldn’t have protected him from the sludge. Something – he thinks it’s a rib – is digging into his ankle and he shifts awkwardly to escape it.

“You knew, didn’t you?” Billy asks and Will can’t muster up the grace to pretend ignorance.  

“I…guessed.”

“You guessed. You bet my life on a guess.”

Will winces, but says, “If I was wrong you would have been out.”

“If you were wrong, I would have been stuck in a body that had just spent days guzzling bleach. You think I would have lasted like that?”

“…No.”

“No. You didn’t even try to find another option.”

Will’s tongue feels thick as he says, “There was no other option.”

“Well,” Billy shrugs with faux nonchalance, “I guess we’ll never know. Now that I’m dead and all.”

And that right there is the crux of the matter, because no matter what Will chose, Billy was never going to walk away with his life. Getting him out any other way would have left the teen an incorporeal ghost with no body to live in.

“For what it’s worth, I am sorry.”

Billy snorts. “No you’re not. If you were really sorry, you would have tried harder.”

“That’s not–”

“Oh no? You wouldn’t have tried more if I were Max? Or El? Or your brother?” Billy’s eyes bore knowingly into his. “I don’t need your apologies, freak. I don’t want them either. Just quit lying to me and admit you didn’t give a damn.”

Will swallows harshly and bites the inside of his lip. The problem is, Billy isn’t entirely wrong. If it were anyone else, Will would have told. He would have jumped through every hoop and every idea in order to save them. He would have spoken up. But with Billy…

“You’re right,” he says after a minute. “I didn’t give a damn. Not about you, at least.”

“Well, thanks for the honesty I guess.” 

“That doesn’t mean I’m not sorry. I’m sorry Max lost her brother. I’m sorry you’re one more death I have to think about. I’m sorry you died before you could be worth something.”

“Worth something, huh? Well, I’ve got to say as apologies go, yours need some work.”

Lips thin, Will swivels, hard hazel looking into dispassionate blue. “Your sister lived in fear of you. My friends were terrified of you. You were cruel and selfish and possessive, and you don’t get a pass just because your dad is a bastard. My dad is too, but I still know my brother would sooner cut off his own hand than ever raise it towards me.”

Billy glares, the ravaging of his body only serving to highlight the monstrosity inside him. “You know nothing, Byers. You think you can stand there and judge me? No. You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to judge me just because you think you understand.”

“You tormented your sister.”

“I protected my sister!”

“You almost killed my friend.”

“What, the nig–”

“You insulted every person you came across. I’m sorry you died, Billy, but if it had to be anyone, I’m not sorry it was you.”

They dissolve into silence. The only sounds are the rumbling of thunder in the distance and their own heavy breathing. Billy’s eyes have turned to flint and it’s a wonder Will hasn’t started bleeding with how tightly he’s clenching his fists.

It takes minute before Billy grins, nose and lips twisting viciously. Bloody teeth stretch from under torn skin. “And you said you and the Monster didn’t have anything in common.”

Will flinches before mumbling, “No. I just said you had more.”

“More? Oh no. I think you just hide it better. You traded me. Make excuses all you want, but that’s what you did. Me for your friends. The good of the many, right? Gotta say, that’s cold, Byers.”

“That wasn’t–ugh, forget it.”

“No, no. Go on. Tell me. You made me think I could escape. You made me fight so that the Monster would have to hold me back. Whether I succeeded or not didn’t matter. I didn’t matter. And, hey. You were right in the end. It all worked out just fine for you.”

“We almost died!”

“But you didn’t. The only sacrifice you had to make was me.”

Will thinks of Hopper and dares not correct him. He doesn’t want to know what he would say. “You were already dead Billy,” he says instead, as if the information were new. “What was I supposed to do?”

“Be honest. I hear that’s your group’s whole thing.”

“Maybe. I’m…not the best at it. Not anymore.”

“I’ve learned.”

“And would you have fought, if you knew it wouldn’t matter?”

There’s a beat of silence where Will thinks he has his answer, but then, “I don’t know. Probably not. I just…that girl – El – she…did something. Some nonsense.”

Will shifts. He eyes Billy who pointedly ignores him. “Must have been some pretty big nonsense.”

“Tch. Don’t test your luck, freak.”

“I’m just saying. You protected her. Not your usual style.”

“Of course, I did. It’s what I do. I protect. What, did you think I’d just take off and run? Isn’t that more your thing?”

“I don’t–”

“You do. Oh don’t look at me like that; it’s not a bad thing. You’re alive, aren’t you?” He digs a foot into the sludge. “I’d’ve run, too.”

“Really?”

“‘Course. And seeing as I’m clearly more athletic than you, I probably would have had more success, too.”

Will snorts. “No you wouldn’t. Once He has you in his sights, He doesn’t let you go.”

“Learn that the hard way, huh?”

“Yeah. Running doesn’t get you anywhere. Fighting doesn’t, either. And I have tried, just so you know. The only thing that seems to work is fire – and telekinesis.”

“Lot of that going around then?”

“No more than usual.”

Billy laughs. It’s harsh and grating and full of disbelief. “Well, thanks for not setting me on fire, at least. I figure that was the next idea.”

“You got lucky. We were a little busy with the flesh monster.”

“Well, at least I can take comfort in not burning to death.”

“It’s not pleasant. Takes a while, too.”  

“I thought it might. Got enough of that shit in the fucking sauna.”

“It didn’t look comfortable.”

“It wasn’t.”  

Will has no reply to that. He can still feel the burn of radiators along his skin and has no wish to tread further down memory lane. So he stays quiet, and Billy doesn’t speak. Thunder rumbles in the distance. Will pulls himself up from the sludge he’s begun to sink into, pajama pants covered in filth, but Billy is not so inclined. The muck reaches his shins, and if they were to measure they would find themselves standing at the same height.

Something, somewhere, screeches and it melds into the air of this world as nothing more than white noise. Billy twitches.

“Did–was there a funeral?” His face is half shadowed in red, and the torn flesh makes it hard to discern, but Will thinks he almost looks hesitant. Scared even, making his attempt at nonchalance all the more obvious.

Will nods. “Yeah. People think Hawkins is cursed now.”

“Well, they’re not wrong.”

“No. They had a big memorial for everyone, though. A lot of kids from school were there. You had most of the girls crying.”

“Crying over the fact that the hottest guy in Hawkins was dead?”

“Billy.”

“You can’t deny it. Hawkins just doesn’t make ‘em like me.”

“Oh yeah, it’s such a shame.”

“Tsk tsk, Byers. No need for sarcasm.”

Will rolls his eyes, but lets it rest. Instead, he says, “Your mom was crying.”

“Who? Susan? That woman cries over swatting flies. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Not Susan. The other one. The blonde. She wasn’t there long, but I saw her. Max pointed her out. Said that–Billy?” But Billy doesn’t respond. He’s too busy staring, bloodshot eyes wide with shock and a curious mix of fury and longing.

“Blonde? She–she was there? She came?”

Will’s brow furrows. The shaken quality of Billy’s voice is confusing and there’s a story somewhere in there that he’s missing. “Of course,” he says after a second. “Max recognized her from some of your old pictures. Said she just appeared out of the blue the night before.”

“And did she…did she say anything? Do anything?”

“No,” Will draws out, curious and trying not to be. “Not that I saw, at least. She just…cried. Next thing I knew, she was gone and everything was over.”

“Huh.” There’s a pause. A sniff. Will pretends not to hear it. “Huh. Well, how nice of her to show up, then.” But his eyelids are flickering and Will turns his head in an attempt at privacy. It’s not his business no matter how much he wants to ask.

“So,” Billy says after a minute. “You’ve talked to Max.” It’s not a question so much as a very awkward attempt at distraction, and Will isn’t so cruel yet as to call him out on it.

“I mean, we are friends,” he states. “She misses you.”

“Tch. I doubt it.” 

“Well, she misses the idea of you. You were still an abusive asshole.”

There’s a bark of laughter to Will’s left and he finds his own lips twitching with the shadow of a smile. “You really don’t pull any punches do you, Byers?” 

Will shrugs. “Why would I? You’re dead. Who are you going to tell?”

Billy chuffs and runs a mangled hand down his face. “The fact that you are the last person I’ll probably ever talk to has to be enough punishment for anything wrong I ever did on Earth.”

“I’d say the fact you have to spend eternity here is your punishment, but I know of plenty of people who ended up here that were kinder than you so what do I know.”

“Does that mean you admit to being a punishment?”

“I’m not discounting the possibility. My dad certainly thought I was punishment for something.”

“Mine too. Word of advice, kid: never become a father. They’re all good for nothing pieces of shit.”

“Not all of them.” Will thinks of Mr. Sinclair who always has time for them, of Bob and Hopper, and even Mr. Wheeler. They may not win World’s Best Dad, but at least they care. Still, the image of Neil, stone-faced and cold, as they lowered Billy’s casket into the ground stops him from voicing any more. There was no caring in Neil Hargrove.

Billy shrugs, old hurt settling over him like all the other wounds. “The ones that matter are.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s true.” It’s always the ones that matter in the end. Who cares if other dads are good if yours is shit? 

“And I wasn’t abusing Max, okay? Let’s get that straight. I was protecting her. Neil would have torn her to shreds. He still might now that I’m not there to be his punching bag.”

“If the person you’re protecting is afraid of you then you’re not doing a very good job.”

“She just didn’t know what was best for her.”

“Sure she did. She knew to stay away from you, just like you knew to stay away from your dad. You weren’t doing it to protect her. You were doing it because you were angry and she was an easy target.”

“It kept her safe.”

“Maybe from Neil. But you weren’t any better.”

“She just…she just kept doing stupid shit. Getting into my stuff, being disrespectful, talking to that nigge–”

“Billy.” The word is stern and Billy sneers. Will doesn’t particularly care. Lucas is his friend and he gets enough of that shit in Hawkins. “Max will miss the idea of you, but you were nothing but a bully. And even if you’re right – even if Neil turns to her, we’ll be there. We’ll keep her safe.”

“That’s some high idealism, Byers. You can’t keep her safe. Not from Neil. She’ll have to go home sometime.”

“At least we’ll do better than you.”

“A high bar.”

“Not really.”

Billy laughs. It’s not pretty, as if his vocal cords are decaying as they speak. “I’ll hold you to that then. She’s a pain in my ass, but I’ll hold you to that.”

“You can.”

“Good…good.” He clears his throat and spits out a chunk of bloody tissue. It’s ignored. Billy sinks further into the squalor. Will does not.

“Think we’ll be seeing each other again?”

“In hell? Maybe someday.” Will is fairly sure this is where he’ll end up when all is said and done. Why else would he be drawn to it so often?

“Heh. Well, I’d save you a seat, but I can’t stand you.”

“Feeling’s mutual.”

“Then I hope to never see you again, Byers.”

“Leaving already?” But Will can feel the pull. He’s warmer – the rotting earth disappearing and the thunder more a distant rumble than a roar.

“Sad to see me go?”

Yes. No. “Not really.”

“Yeah, you wouldn’t be the first.” Billy’s skin is stretched taut over his face giving the impression of a grin despite it not being funny. “Just – tell Max…” he trails off, gaze distant.

Will allows him this time even though he has the feeling there is no time left to allow. He’s fading. Still, he resists if only because he feels he owes Billy this.

There’s another long second and then Billy is shaking his head. His eyes crinkle around the edges and the familiar anger is back. “Jesus fuckin’ shit,” he mutters to himself before squaring his jaw and facing Will. “When you get back, tell Max to send Neil down to me. Shouldn’t take much convincing.”

Will can’t help but shiver. “Saving him a seat?”

“I’m saving him a whole fucking world. She can send Susan too, if she wants.”

“I don’t think so.”

Billy shrugs. He’s sunk so far into the rot that his shoulders only reach Will’s knees. “Suit yourself. She’d do fine without her. Most kids do.” Billy didn’t, but Will doesn’t say that. Almost wistful, Billy continues, “She’d do fine without any of us. She’s strong like that.”

It’s as close to an apology as Max is ever going to get and she isn’t even here to hear it. Not that it means much. The damage is done. If Billy is looking for absolution he won’t get it from Will.

He isn’t Max, who Billy abused.

He isn’t Lucas, who Billy attacked.

He isn’t any number of the people Billy hurt.

Will is just the only one here, and his forgiveness is as meaningless as the dead.

But there is a note of desperation in Billy’s voice as he says, “You’ll let her know, right? You’ll tell her to send him straight to hell?”

No. Probably not, but, ”I’ll tell her.”

Billy’s lip quivers. Decomposition has reached his chest. He’s scared. He’d be a fool not to be. Will wants to reach out and place a hand on his shoulder, but the world is fading quickly, and the valley of bodies is slowly being replaced by bed sheets and sunlight. They’re running out of time.

Through a desecrated mouth, Billy tries to speak. “I gue-guess this is it. Do me a fav’r, f-freak. Don’t c’me back.”

“No promises.”

A puff of air that might have been a laugh. The muck has reached his neck. “Fig’res. G’ess I-I’ll be h’re ‘f you do.”

We’re always here.

“S-see ya, frea–” Billy’s face is wrenched apart. His bones and musculature are stretched over the landscape, a grotesque figure of skin melding to skin. One more body added to the Monster’s collection.

Will does not look away. He can’t even bring himself to flinch. The ground moves, bodies undulating as if the world is laughing. There is no wind in this place, but the voices of the dead carry, silent as they are to his ears. Lightning strikes. A chill crawls up his neck; it’s time to leave. He flickers.  

See ya, Billy.

Will opens his eyes. He breathes in the scent of decay and exhales into clean cotton. Sunlight forms bands across his face, too bright and warm though he revels in the sensation. His blankets are soft and his feet are clean, and the only sound to be heard is that of Jonathan snoring beside him.

He’s a good brother. The best. And Will can’t help but thank the universe for the fact that his brother never turned into Lonnie the way Billy turned into Neil. He’s safe with a brother that will keep him that way, a mother who will fight for him, and a new sister with the bravery of a superhero.

El’s powerless now. She can no more help anyone than she can herself and the Monster isn’t gone. That doesn’t mean she won’t fight. It’s what she does, and Will resolves that no matter the odds she won’t be alone. He’ll fight with her. Because she’s his sister. Because this is as much his fight as it is her’s. Because the Beast isn’t done with him.

Will will do better than Billy.

He’ll protect his sister.

He’ll protect his brother.

He’ll protect his friends.

Will curls up against Jonathan and goes back to sleep.