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givehimthemedicine · 7 months

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El traded herself for Max in the void: a timeline switch crack concept

I'm not saying "theory" because I'm not 100% serious but hear me out anyway because there is something here, I'm just not sure what. if nothing else I get to inflict an angsty scenario on you

so you know how Two Days Later El's behavior irt Max is just so weird?

after everything that happened, you'd expect El to already be screaming "IS MAX OKAY?" as the van door is sliding open. instead, she doesn't ask about her at all.

even when Dustin says Lucas is at the hospital, El goes "is he hurt?" as if Max isn't crossing her mind at all as a reason for him to be at the hospital.

Will's casual inquiry of "where's Lucas" is weird in of itself. Will was there when El hatched the whole "Protect Max" plot and literally spoke to El while she was in Max's memories/the void. he knew Max being in danger was the whole thing. he definitely would've asked about Max before he asked about Lucas.

then Lucas says how it was a miracle that Max's heart started beating again, and Mike and Will give El this look. the obvious interpretation being that they assume El is somehow responsible but didn't say a word about it. (classic El behavior)

call me crazy, but doesn't it kinda fit to say that Two Days Later El does not have Void El's memories?

the El who arrives in Hawkins is NOT acting AT ALL like someone who watched her best friend die, brought her back, and ended the interaction with her in a dubiously-alive-critically-injured state.

this El is behaving like one who succeeded in rescuing Max and therefore isn't especially worried about her current status. maybe even a version where Lucas never got beaten up, the tape never got broken, the plan worked. who never told the boys she revived Max, because she didn't.

there's just something about El being all dirty and bloody during Max's death scene and then visiting Max two days later still wearing the same outfit except a still-clean version of it. like none of that happened to this El.

there's just something about Dustin's "oh God, you don't know." maybe this El doesn't! she looks lost af.

there's just something about Mike's "we came as soon as we heard." El was there and saw it all, but you just now heard it from Dustin? I know El is tight lipped but you're really saying she got out of the pizza freezer and into a TWO DAY LONG van ride and the conversation never got around to, like... how the mission went?

yet as of the cabin end scene, suddenly Mike and Will both know stuff that only El could've told them. so.. she did talk in the van? but didn't mention the Max stuff? that's even weirder.

let's talk about Vecna's 4th gate

so gates open on the exact spot of Vecna's victims' bodies, right?

here's where the Max gate starts to open in the UD attic, corresponding to exactly where Max is lying dead in the RU attic.

except that absolutely cannot be.

because they showed us what instantly happens if even a small part of the gate crack passes beneath a person. it looks like this:

so if that gate originated exactly under Max's body, Lucas would not have any warning. the only way he would've found out about it is by seeing at least a section of Max's corpse suddenly get vaporized Jason-style. (if not also his own body!)

instead, Lucas has time to see it starting to form and pull Max to safety. which means it couldn't have started forming exactly under Max.

the forming gate that Lucas is looking at as he drags Max away is actually sorta between Max and the spider shrine.

now look where El was sitting.

what if the 4th sacrifice was El, not Max?

we never actually saw the results of whatever El did when she put her hand over Max's heart. the easiest assumption is she just did magic cpr and started Max's heart again. but what if she was doing something to trade places with Max?

"but wtf are you talking about, because El continues being alive for the rest of the episode?"

for this concept I'm borrowing an idea from @heroesbyler that's had me clawing the walls of my cell lately - in case you missed her recent big brain posts, she pointed out some weird discrepancies in actual vs void versions of scenes throughout the show, suggesting that when El visits the void, she could actually be looking into different timelines. I'd definitely submit the Creel attic as another example.

so when I say what if El traded herself for Max, I'm talking Void El and Void Max.

I'm talking something about Max's death, or revival, or the opening of the gates, throwing some kind of trolley dilemma train tracks switch between timelines. idk there are too many details to iron out before I pitch this in seriousness but idk I just. I swear to you Two Days Later El and Void El aren't lining up.

some discrepancies in the real vs void Creel attic (not all. this could be a whole post itself)

void vs UD:

according to the UD shot, the origin point of the death gate is perfectly centered relative to the rug, and, say, a foot away. here's my hasty approximation of where I'd expect it:

this is why I'm not taking the L about how honestly El's location doesn't perfectly align with the UD origin point - because neither does Max's.

void vs RU:

IRL, Lucas is cradling Max across his lap. his legs are more or less parallel to the spider shrine while Max is angled at, very roughly, 45 degrees to it. the bug lamp is centered on it.

in the void version, the bug light is far towards one end of the table. while Lucas and Max's positions feel fairly consistent, their placement relative to the SS is not.

if you follow the lines of the floorboards in the IRL shot, his butt is aligned nearly with the far right edge of the SS. but here, don't they all seem decidedly further towards the left of it?:

as soon as Max dies, things get differenter. now they're further right again, only Lucas and Max's positions are more spoony, pointed the same direction. she's nearly parallel with the SS now. her feet also seem jacked up at more severe angles.

overhead shot also makes that bug light's off-centeredness very clear.

also you notice how we don't see El hearing Max in the void? I mean, she must have, otherwise she wouldn't reply "No, you're not going", but it's just odd how WE don't see that.

I've talked before about how Max says both "I don't want to die" and "I don't want to go," which are two different concepts in ST universe, and that Lucas and El each get to respond to one of them. so why not show us El hearing the one that's hers?

IRL Max is begging for her life, but when we switch to the void, she's abruptly silent and much more still. El only hears Lucas. back to IRL, Max is still more actively struggling and vocalizing a little before she dies. the energy doesn't match super well.

other bits

on the subject of El's "No. You're not going." if you really wanted to, you could interpret that in a "- because I'm going instead" way. I know, she didn't especially say it with that inflection. but it does have me thinking about how incredibly in character it is for El to be willing to trade herself like that.

it made me think of this moment:

yeah we've all demanded to know what was the reason for having Owens assume Max was a boy. but has anyone talked about how El, in her reply to that very line ("no, do not send your men. send me.") does the same thing? Owens just said "people". El assumes they are men.

there's just something about El saying "do not send your men[?], send me" immediately after Owens referring to Max as a him[?]. it gives kind of a "don't take Max, take me" flavor.

there's also something about how Max wasn't supposed to be the 4th sacrifice anyway.

and by this point El has heard the monologue about how all this time, it's all been about getting to her. so she's definitely feeling that Max is dead in the crossfire because of her. you don't think that if she only could, she would take Max's place and face Vecna directly, whatever that entails? whether it's death or some ambiguous awful fate?

can you tell me this kid

wouldn't trade herself for Max?

also just curious that the very first time they played Running Up That Hill, it actually began on a shot of a distraught El walking down her school hallway before it transitioned to Max walking the opposite way down her school hallway. with the song edited to skip straight from the opening to the chorus about swapping places.

don't worry I'm sure there's no way that means anything 👍

finally, El is distraught not to be able to find Max in the void when she goes looking for her. but it's weird because El has located corpses, flayed people, and inanimate objects in the void before. there's no reason she shouldn't be able to locate Max due to her being in a coma/"trapped".

what if it's not Max who's offline? what if El can't see into that timeline anymore because she's dead in it?

#this is crackpot but also there's something here #elmax #<- kinda #givehimthemedicine analysis #mine #and yes there are issues about how an El-gate should form where El was sitting when she revived Max which is a different spot #but if I'm entertaining alternate timelines I can also entertain time backing up a minute

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kamiko1234 · 3 months

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*Yapping Ahead*

(Listen I know I'm putting too much thought and getting way too invested in a book series for kids. Just bare with me for a second)

Okay I am done with BOTL and WOW, the gods and camp are really begging Luke/Kronos on their knees to just- obliterate them all. Because like were they REALLY just doing NOTHING !? Okay to be fair with them, I AM a big agitated because I'm still sort of reeling from Luke but STILL.

Those people JUST had their camp invaded. They KNOW that stuff's getting serious. I mean people DIED there just now. AND IN RESPONSE TO THAT THEY DO BLOODY NOTHING. Like did I miss something? Are they for real? I understand the concept of licking your wounds after a battle like that- BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN JUST GOING ON LIKE NOTHING HAPPENED. Maybe, oh idk- START TO FORM A COUNTER ARMY!? ATTEMPT TO DO COUNTERSTRIKES!? TRY TO STRENGHTEN YOUR POSITION WHO HAS ALREADY BEEN INVADED ONCE!? Let me remind you that Luke/Kronos is out there with a fully formed army including a viable command structure, good training and allies in form of actual minor GODS. ALL THE WHILE ALSO HAVING ALREADY STARTED LAUNCHING ATTACKS. All this and the camp does NOTHING of value! Sure I mean they are sort of training demigods, and even if we say they can't launch attacks themselves for some reason- them doing nothing is just stupid. Atleast start to get these kids used to army strategy and genuinely monster fighting OUTSIDE off capture-the-flag or whatever else they are playing. Maybe also, ikd- INTERROGATE CHRIS!? Like maybe they did and is just wasn't mentioned but- that man was in the army. He should know valuable info and you don't even so much as CHECK of he knows anything!

LAND ALSO WHY IS HE FREELY MOVING AROUND THE CAMP ANYWAY!?

Listen I do NOT care if he had a "change of heart" or "deserves a second chance". This is a purley objective statement here but that guy was an ENEMY. He already switched sides ONCE. THERE IS NO REASON FOR YOU GUYS TO TRUST HIM AT THIS POINT OF TIME, AND EVERY REASON TO HAVE HIM LOCKED UP AND INTERROGATED SOMEWHERE.

I know this is a kid's series but please, Rick. Atleast mention Chris getting question. Don't make your main good guys look like morons compared to the baddies.

Or someone please tell me I missed something of the books because so far it looks like any semblance of battle smarts left CHB with Luke 💀 Also am I the only one a bit irked between the few months timeskip at the end between the Battle and Percy talking with Annabeth? 'cause like, I feel this is a conversation they (logically speaking) should have had a few weeks at MOST after the whole thing going down in the story, NOT a few months after. This too is just a personal ick but, I do not like what they did with Chris. With him joining up with camp just like that? Yeah, no. He betrayed them before. That means he must have had atleast SOME grievances with how things were run. And now he's just back again a "redemtion arc" (that isn't even really an arc if we are honest, it's just there) and no further focus!? It's not like anything got BETTER. I mean sure it was cool to see Dionysus acctualy grieve his kids and be a bit nicer to Percy.

DOESN'T MEAN HE WASN'T ANY LESS OF A DICK BEFOREHAND.

DOESN'T MEAN THAT LUKE DIDN'T HAVE A FUCKING POINT EITHER. Like, idk. I'm just disappointed, as of now I'm just hoping we'll see more of Chris and see the demigods and Luke delved more into with the last book.

The only thing I genuinely pray doesn't happen is that they'll start to demonize the demigods who joined Luke and Luke himself. I'm really nervous since Chris seems to be treated like a "redeemed" villain, ignoring the fact that they all had valid point and valid reasons to go against Olympus. The gods and Camp Halfblood are both objectively horrible as a whole. The system in itself is flawed and I'm pretty sure even stacked against the demigods. I'm gonna be real I see no real reason to expect any real loyalty from Demigods nor do I see any reason why they should keep dying for what's basically a blood mill that couldn't care less. The Demigods who joined Luke are not evil. Luke is not evil. The gods are not good people. If these books start to pretend that Luke and his allies are wholly evil I WILL flip a table. Ngl I have little mind for much else of the bunch of things that happened in the story. Maybe I'll make a second post where I'm talking about other stuff, maybe I won't. I'll see, if I don't feel free to ask. As always I ask to mark spoilers in any replies or reblogs you may make so I can avoid them, thank you ^^

#percy jackson #luke castellan #percy jackson books #battle of the labyrinth #pjo gods #pjo #camp halfblood

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bugsbenefit · 1 year

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to this day i'm stuck on the s1 scene where the party is in the woods looking for Will and we get a fake out finding-El moment that's the most bizarre thing they could have gone for

they're walking, Dustin is complaining, then leaf rustling starts and Mike keeps telling the others to shut up and asking if they heard that. then he whips around and almost shoves Dustin over (lmao)

and then we get the shot to show us what made the sound Mike and we heard which is... (drumroll please)

NOTHING !

great. the boys aren't impressed either

maybe Mike's craziness just set in earlier than we thought- but no wait there's the sound again

and it's Mike again who turns to it first, doing a full 180 and now almost knocking Lucas over this time (lmao again, poor guy), who even puts his hands up when he stumbles back

but we get another reaction shot and this time it is... EL!

just. this whole scene. it's never explained but has some weird implications. it's not like this was an easy mix up. the original noise didn't come from somewhere *near* El it was in the completely opposite direction

the leaves rustle once. it stops when we're looking in the general area. and then we hear leaves rustling for a second time it's now coming from behind them

not only would it obviously be ridiculous for El to run circles around them or use her powers to make some leaves rustle somewhere else since she's clearly not trying to hide from the party, she also wouldn't have time to change the direction she came at them from since they're whipping around so fast. so that's for sure not what's going on here

and it's also not like this is just establishing that Mike has incredibly poor directional hearing since he's the one to respond to both the rustlings. very surely turning in the first direction before then switching it around and turning in the other one to see El. neither are hesitant. and both turns are also shot in a way where we the viewer expects something to be shown. the fact that there's empty forest the first time is WEIRD

so to me there's two possible things that could be going on here:

1.) it's somehow Will in the UD causing this. Joyce waking up having a vision of Will still has the possible implication that it could really have been Will reaching out to her, and Mike is able to pick up on El's presence in the void in s2 without her touching him or speaking a word. so some overlap between the different "dimensions"? "worlds"? whatever seems to be possible for sure

or 2.) it somehow relates to the time theme ST has going on that we still haven't gotten insight into. be it some alternate timeline, timeloop, etc concept. but i find it hard to theorize about the actual execution of the time theme since there really isn't much to tell us how it could eventually play into the story besides having Henry's ongoing plotline with the grandfather clock and various references to time and clocks

the overall implication of that shot sequence is that there is or should have been something there, it's not at all shot like a normal character reveal fake out. it doesn't build El's arrival, even the boys seem confused when they're checking out the empty forest. but there's also no way an actual person was there since the boys would have seen them

i just wanna know what they're implying here so bad

#scenes that still make me think years later #like. what was going on here #stranger things #stranger things analysis

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secretgamergirl · 5 months

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"They Don't Teach Kids About Computers These Days!"

I see variations on this a LOT these days. Sometimes it's people in their teens/early 20s being frustrated at how they're expected to know everything about computers, sometimes it's college professors straight up HORRIFIED when they realize they have students who don't have any understanding that their hard drive, a school's internal network, and on a public website are completely distinct places for a file to be located, and I kinda figure the weird stress a lot of people seem to have about the concept of getting a game and not having it just go into their Steam library specifically is a related issue.

Now on the one hand, obviously, I sympathize with this. I have a series of posts on this blog called How A Computer Works, because... I want to teach people about this stuff. (That's still ongoing by the way, I've just got a lot else going on and need to settle on the scope of the next lesson.) On the other hand, uh... I'm from the generation before the one that apparently has all the computer literacy problems, and nobody taught us this stuff in school... and the next generation up wouldn't possibly have had access. So was anyone taught how to use them?

Now I say "they didn't teach my generation how to use computers in school" but that isn't technically true. I see a lot of people call people my age "the Oregon Trail generation" when this topic comes up. Sort of on the edge of Gen X and Millennials, going through school in that window where Apple had really really pushed the Apple ][ on schools with big discounts. And they did have "computer classes" to learn how to do some things on those, but... that isn't really a transferable or relevant skill set.

Like, yeah, if you're below the age of let's say 30 or so as of when I'm writing this, the idea of what "a computer" is has been pretty stable for your whole life. You've got some sort of tower case, a monitor, a keyboard, a mouse, and in that tower there's a bunch of RAM, a processor, video and sound cards of some sort, and a big ol' hard drive, and it's running Windows, MacOS, or some flavor of Unix going for the same basic look and functionality of those. It's generally assumed (more than it should be, some of us our poor) that a given person is going to have one in their home, any school is going to have a whole room full of them, libraries will have some too, and they are generally a part of your life. We can probably make the same sort of general assumption about IPhone/Android cellphones for the past what, 15 years or so too, while we're at it. They're ubiquitous enough that, especially in academic circles where they're kind of required professionally, people are going to assume you know them inside and out.

Prior to the mid-90s though? It was kind of a lawless frontier. Let's say you have a real young cool teacher who got way into computers at like 5 years old, and now they're 25 and they're your computer class teacher in the mid-90s. The computer they got way into as a kid? It would have been this.

That's not a component of it, that's the whole thing. A bank of switches for directly inputting binary values into memory addresses and some more switches for opcodes basically, and then some LEDs as your only output. Nothing about this is other than the benefits of fundamentally understanding some low level stuff is going to be useful at all in any sort of practical sense if you sit down a decade later with one of these.

This at least looks a bit more like a computer you'd see today, but to be clear, this has no mouse, no way to connect to the internet, which wasn't really a thing yet to begin with, and no hard drive, even. You did not install things on an Apple ][. You had every program on a big ol' floppy disk (the sort that were just a circle of magnetic film in a thick paper envelope basically and were, in fact, floppy), you would shove that in the disk drive before turning the machine on, it'd make a horrible stuttering knocking sound resetting the drive head, and just read whatever was on that right into memory and jump right on in to running Oregon Trail or a non-wysiwyg text editor (i.e. there's no making bold text appear on screen, you'd just have a big ugly tag on either side of your [BOLD>bold text<BOLD] like that). It was not unlike popping a cartridge or disc into an older video game console, except for the bit where if you wanted to save something you'd have to take the disk out while it was running and pop a blank one into the drive to save to.

So when I was a kid and I'd have my "computer class" it'd be walking into a room, sitting down with one of these, and having a teacher just as new to it as I was just reading out a list of instructions off a sheet like, "flip open the lock on the disk drive, take the disk out of the sleeve, make sure it says Logo Writer on it, slide it in with the label up and facing you, flip the lock back down, hit the power switch in the back of the machine..." We didn't learn anything about file management beyond "don't touch anything until the screen says it's done saving to the disk" because again, no hard drives. I guess there was a typing class? That's something, but really there's nothing to learn about typing that isn't where every key is and you only (but inevitably) learn that through practice.

Now, overlapping with this, I eventually got myself a used computer in the early 90s, very old at the time, but not as old as the ones at school. I had a proper black and white OG Mac. With a hard drive and a window-based operating system and everything. And... nobody taught me a damn thing about how that one worked. My mother just straight up did not touch a computer until something like 2001. I didn't really have any techie mentors. I just plugged it in and messed around and worked everything out. Same way I worked out what I was doing with older computers, mostly on my own at the local library, because that computer class wasn't much, and how I was totally left on my own to work out how to hook up every console I ever owned, which was slightly more involved at the time.

That forky bit in the middle was held in place with a pair of phillips headscrews. Had to keep the VCR and cable box in the right daisy chain order too.

Enough rambling about how old I am though. What's the actual disconnect here? How did my generation work out everything about computers without help but the next one down allegedly goes dear in the headlights if someone asks them to send them a file?

Well first off I'm not at all willing to believe this isn't at least largely a sampling bias issue. Teachers see all the clueless kids, people asking online for help with things is more common than people spontaneously mentioning how everything is second-nature to them, etc. Two things stick out to me though as potential sources of the issue though:

First, holy crap are modern computers ever frail, sickly little things! I'm not even talking about unreliable hardware, but yeah, there's some shoddy builds out there. I mean there's so many software dependencies and auto-updating system files and stuff that looks for specific files in one and only one location, just crashing if they aren't there. Right now on this Windows 10 machine I've got this little outdoor temperature tracker down in the task bar which will frequently start rapidly fluttering between normal and a 50% offset every frame, and the whole bar becomes unresponsive, until I open the task manager (don't even have to do anything, just open it). No clue what's up with that. It was some system update. It also tries to serve me ads. Don't know if it's load-bearing. Roughly every other day I have to force-quit Steam webhelper. Not really sure what that's even for. Loading user reviews? Part of me wants to dig in and yank out all this buggy bloatware, but I genuinely don't know what files are loadbearing. This wasn't an issue on older computers. Again, screwing around with an old Apple ][, and old consoles and such, there wasn't anything I could really break experimenting around. It was all firmware ROM chips, RAM that cleared on power cycling, and disks which were mostly copy-protected or contained my own stuff. No way to cause any problem not fixed by power cycling.

Next, everything runs pretty smoothly and seemlessly these days (when working properly anyway). Files autosave every few seconds, never asking you where you actually want to save them to, things quietly connect to the internet in the background, accessing servers, harvesting your info. Resolutions change on their own. Hell emulators of older systems load themselves up when needed without asking. There's a bunch of stuff that used to be really involved that's basically invisible today. The joke about this being "a 3D print of the save icon" already doesn't work because how often do you even see a UI element for saving? When we still used disks regularly, they held next to nothing and would take like half a minute to read and write.

And don't even get me started on launchers and start menus and all that.

So... basically what I'm getting at here is if you feel like you never learned how to properly use a computer, go get your hands on an old computer and mess around. There's yard sales, there's nice safe runs in a browser emulators, hell there's kits to build your own. That or just look for someone wearing like a Mega Man T-shirt or playing a Madonna CD (hell maybe just any CD these days) and start politely asking questions, because again just because everyone who knows this stuff just had to work it out on our own doesn't mean you should have to.

#computers #education #technology used to move fast #yes i used to have a tv like that and it took two people to move if you ever needed to get back behind it or you'd just climb over the top

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popculturebuffet · 3 months

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Pride Month: Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (Commission for WeirdKev27)

Hello all my children now and welcome back to pride month which once again was way shorter than planned for this blog. I might do some extra queer reviews. It was still a good pride month: I finally got a bi pride shirt

My sister came out as trans, and in general it was a pretty good month. And whlie I've only gotten the previous review and another out, there's always time for queer content. But what I have gotten to this month thanks to kev's been great and today we cap off pride month with a spot of horror, something I honestly don't expect from Kevin. While he did have me do all of Evil Dead, it's the only horror franchise he expected and the blackening was my pitch. So with a busy schedule I haven't really gotten to dip into the big franchises i've wanted to cover. So when Kev asked me to do so, I took the sudden blessing to review a film from one of my franchises and a film this queer whose lead's role in this both ended his career but ultimately brought him peace later on.

Now I get most of you going to this are nightmare fans: you followed the tag etc. But since some readers may be less familiar like Kevin or my good friend @jess-the-vampire who watched the film with me, a brief primer: Nightmare on Elm Street was a 1984 film from horror legend Wes Craven, the film that made his career, put New Line Cinema on the map, and created one of the greatest horror icons of all time in Freddy Kruger, while injecting much needed new life into the slasher genre.

So naturally New Line wanted a sequel. Craven hadn't, already not liking the twist ended forcefully slapped onto the original nightmare where "Oops nancy didn't win after all", was still offered the chair which he turned down as he didn't like the scripts concept of Freddy going into the real world, feeling it'd dilute the character or the exploding bird that has nothing to do with the plot we'll circle back to later, from a script written by two faced motherfucker Howard Chaskin. We'll circle back to why he is later, but you should know up front he's a two faced mother fucker

So directing duties fell to Jack Shoulder of Alone in The Dark (The other one) and The Hidden Fame. Jack Shoulder.nt. For now he was a good director, and new line needed one. He also had no idea what the fuck he was doing, having to do a ton of effects shots he had no idea how to pull off. Thankfully riding shot gun was Kevin Yeager, creator of my favorite killer in all of horror.

Yes it's him who brought my baby way older than me boy to life, with the help of don mancini and brad dourif of course, but he created the real life doll and deserves as much credit as his fellow legends.

So Nightmare 2 came out and it did MONSTEROUS numbers. On a 3 million dollar budget , it made 30 MILLION. Ten time sit's budget. So New Line was still doing good but the mixed reception both for legit reasons (A switch up from the original, having nothing to do with the original per wes craven's wishes to not use any of the characters from the first, and Freddy in the real world) and the gay panic around the film. Nightmare on Elm Street 2 is one of the gayest slasher movies sisnce gay came to gay town, so let's get into WHY it's so gay, why it adds a lot to the film, the impact it had on it' star, and how the film itself is as a whole under the cut. All night long.

You've Got the Body, But I've Got the Brains

Before we can get into this movie's queerness, let's look at the film itself. If you haven't seen nightmare on elm street, please do it's excellent. One of horror's best despite a goofy bit here or there that clashes with the tone and some truly mind numblingly dumb parenting, which as you'll soon see is standard for the franchise and the one thing this sequel decided to esclate.

For those who haven't, the film followed Nancy Thompson, an average teen who is soon stalked in her sleep along with her friends by Freddy Kruger. As the film gradually reveals Freddy was a child murderer who got off on a technicality, so the local parents all burned him alive. He came back from the dead as a vengeful ghost demon man, brought back by dream demons that look like sperm who we as a fandom like to pretend don't exist. I won't go deep into his stalking of Nancy and her friends as like I said this sequel wasn't allowed to use them and i'd like to cover the original at some point. For now the bottom line is freddy was seemingly defeated, came back to strike nancy, but she somehow surivived as confirmed by this film, having been told by urban legend to have "gone crazy" after he boyfriend was hacked up to bhits.. which is a.. less than accurate version of what happened to glenn.

So the film opens up 5 years later: Nancy is a sequel non entity who left a diary we never saw her writing behind, and her house has been moved into by the walsh family. Our lead is Jesse, played by the incomprable mark patton, an average teen who opens the film as that awkward kid in the back of the bus, can relate

This is naturally a nightmare as Freddy's back for his revenge.... by possesing a teen who has nothing to do with nancy or his murder to get a body to. .become a living god with all his dream powers? Then take his revenge. The title makes only marginally more sense than why do this overcomplicated plan and "why didn't he do it last time", but Englund's still at the top of his game and the film really likes to do terrifying closeupfs of freddy's eyes, just both just starring at you. The makeup here is REALLY good and really horrifying.

So Jesse's stuck on the bus when it locks him and two giggling girls inside, who shriek when they get parked atop a cliff. The horror for this one uses more abstract art for i'ts inspriation, this using a very narrow cliff and a later one using salvador dahli's "Persitance of Memory" as it's base , swapping clocks for "everything jesse owns".

Jesse's been having nightmares since they moved and woke up scremaing each time. But this is `1985 so his family just ignores it and hopes it'll go away. His family consits of his hard ass dad, his mom and his sister, none of whoms names I care to remember. Played by Clu Galagher, Hope Lange and Christie Clarke respectively. All do a decent job but their mostly here as props: his mom worries about him, his hard ass dad is a grumpy dick constantly, and his sister is there to almost die later and get scared.

At School things are a mixed bag for Jesse: ON the one hand he has a sort of girlfriend in Lisa Webber, played by ken meyers, a rich girl who drives him to school every day and hangs out with him a lot and he soon gets a friend/possible partner? in Grady, a rough and tumble jock played to douchey but loveable perfection by Ron Rusler. Grady dosen't like Jesse at first for reasons and the two get into a wrestling match where Grady pulls Jesse's pants down exposing mark patton's ass for all to savor (Patton was 26 at the time, though it's still VERY werid to have this scene with a teenager and in general). On the bad end is Coach Schinder, your standard coach played by Marshall Bell who may or may not be a sexual predator but probably is, woh makes him do pushups, run laps and generally is just the worst.

The pushups do bond our new brochachos and honestly had Freddy not got involved i'm pretty sure he , Lisa and Jesse would be a throuple. Or he and jesse would be a couple at least. I mean they did pull each other's pants down. That has to be some form of second base. I'm only 5 years in to being a Man loving men and I still don't get all the mechanics. Don't get them all with women either. I'm a bi mess.

Jesse's dreams only intesify though, and we get some cool bits like the dali refrence, freddy opening his brains to show jesse , and the boiler room appearing in the walsh basement, Freddy's layer in life and in death. I also love the use of heat as a common denominator in freddy's possessions and dreams here: Given fire ended him, it works VERY nicely as a theme for the guy, from a furnace to jesse's stuff melting to an exploding bird.

Okay time to finally circle back to the exploding bird which dosen't work in any way shape or form but is still funny. First off as PushingUpRoses pointed out and Jess helpfully reminded me, birds tend to get a raw deal in horror with thier deaths not mattering as much or tommy wiseau becoming one

The recent film The Watchers at least corrected this as the bird Dakota Fannig was escorting before the woods kidnapped her is kept with her the whole film, survivies the film (Not saying if Dakota and co do or not, watch it it's pretty good if with a wobbly third act), and while not a major presence is still a nice visual calling card for the film.

Bird Ethics aside, the point is one of the walsh birds murders the other, attacks Grumpy Ass Dad Man, and then explodes

So Grumpy Ass Dad man naturally assumes.. Jesse did it. Despite a cherry bomb not working that way and Jesse being as shocked as anyone. Your son did not shove a payload of explosives up a bird's ass good sir. What are you on. Jesse storms away and Grumpy Ass Dad Man wants to fight him. He also got defensive earlier about not telling Jesse they live in a murder house after grady spills the beans.

Things progress and Patton.. is a fucking marvel in this film. Seroiusly his facial acting is top notch and the guy can scream like no one else, making me sad what happened after the film, circling back to THAT in a bit, all teh sadder. There's a deep sadness to jesse, an awkard teen struggling with his possible sexuality (Subtext Patton portrays greatly), a monster trying to literally tear his way out of him, and confusoin about what' sin him, all while no one really helps him: Lisa continuly assures him it was "just a dream", which it is not as Freddy's glove ends up outside at one point and things soon escalate to the point it couldn't possibly be, his dad thinks he's on drugs, and his mom just.. worreis a bit. Grady isn't super helpful, partly because he's a macho weirdo who asks if he's mounted Lisa yet and .. well i'll let him tell us why he's grounded.

We get no context for this and that just makes it all the more hilaroiusly batshit. Rob Russler is fantastic.

We feel that same powerlesness nancy felt: just as the first film was a metaphor for how adults often let teens down by not listening to them as threats claw at them, here it's how Adults and one's peers can often be unhelpful against internal struggle: Jesse is slowly loosing control of himself, possibly loosing his mind as far as he knows, and has this .. thing stalking him in his dreams.. but like Nancy no one can accept the truth. The subtext jesse is closested, either gay or bisexual (possibly pan) onlly adds to it: in a time as homophobic as the 80's staying in the closet isn't a choice: it's the only way for someone Jesse's age without the money to live on his own to survive. His dad is already an asshole man, he'd be even worse if he find out Jesse liked going inside literal assholes. Patton spends the film with a dour look, on the verge of cracking and only getting worse as Freddy takes more than more control.

The possesion element.. is great. It is mildly troubling iwth the gay subtext: having Jesse's fear of his queerness be repreesnted by a serial killer wasn't a good idea.. but the film still works regardless of that, in part because Freddy could represent Jesse's fears of being gay: all the sterotypes, horrible things said about gay people manfested into a gross abomination with a blood lust. All of poor jessee's shame over who he is, shame he never should've had but society forced on him, making him into this beast. Granted it's hurt a bit by his sorta girlfriend later getting jesse to expel him with the power of love, but given the film end son a nother cliffhanger, with freddy not defeated if seperated from Jesse, more on that later, it says to me at least that you can't defeat wh oyou are.. only oyu can fight your own self doubt and accept it.

Eventually Freddy gets to the murdering: Jesse wonders out in a fuege state and an underated aspect of nightmare 2 is it's dreamlike quality: like the original, the film has this dreamlike atmosphere, but goes farther with it: things lke a snake suddenly appearing on jesse, the bird exploding or jesse going to a gay bar gay bar are all left vauge: was he dreaming? is he sleepwalking? how much happened and how much was a dream? With the film not relying on the series iconic dream kills, it allows it to really play with things. Did ANY of this happen by the end? For a slasher. it's ambitious, brilliant and a joy to watch.

So he winds up at a gay bar gay bar gay bar. Or a leather bar. Either way i'd want to go. His coach finds him there then.. makes him run laps. Beofre he can get to child predator stuff though, Freddy does what jess called "pulling a matilda on him" as he suddenly has telekensisis kyle and whips the coache's bear ass before whipping him to death.

This dosen't help as next night after some more stuff we can gloss over, Jesse overs over his sister.. wtih glove in hand. Freddy nearly killed her and jesse is left a begging wreck. He tries to get Kim to undrestand at her dope pool party, but she only wants to fuck it out of him and freddy's tounge showing up tells Jesse that's not an option. He goes to grady who in the bluntest line tells jesse when he says something wants my body "Yeah she's female and waiting at the cabana and you want to sleep with me"> Which yes, yes he does but that's not the point.

Tragically.. Grady dies after Freddy claws his way out of Jesse in the film' sbest sequence and best kill. Rusler nails it with Grady's sheer fear nad begging being horrifying as nothing can save him and the sleeper awakens and slashes Grady to death. The horror in this flim is underated: even I underated it first time I watched it but on second watch while the film dosen't have as many jaw dropping set pieces as the first

Jesse goes to lisa.. but freddy kills her fish, sets a lamp on fire and emerges. This leads to the infamous pool party scene after a really tense underated scene of Freddy stalking Lisa in the cabana.

This scene was one of the main reasons Craven didn't want to do the film, feeling this exposed how short englund was. And first watch I found it goofy as hell... but on second.. it sinks in what freddy's really doing chasing the teens: he's playing with them. The same way he does in his dreams. I do admit, Freddy in the real world isn't AS terrifying on concept.. but the film finds a way to make it so with something I missed the first time: FREDDY IS STILL A GOD HERE. By coming to our world the way he did, he apparently kept his powers. He can still teleport to a degreee, makes the pool boil over, the gates too hot to touch. He may not be able to shapeshift, though in fairness he only shifted his arms in the first one so he may not have been able to period yet, but his fire powers more than make up for it, a jet of flame interuppting as he iconicaly declares

Yes the setting itself is a bit cheeesy.. but ti works. Freddy isn't chasing them because he's devolved or has less methods, he could probably burn them all. .h'es chasing them.. because he's a sadistic bastard. Always has been, always will be. He didn't HAVE to puree Glen

But he likes making a sport of it. His kills in the first.. are all horrifically ironic, if more subtle than he would be from 3 onward. I hate to spoil them for those new to the franchise, hi kevin, but it's needed for comparisons sake: he dragged tina's corpse across the celing, hung up rod in his prison cell with his own bedsheets and ... whatever it is your looking at right now. While this was all revenge there's no illusions that freddy isn't a sadistic bastard who makes a spectacle of his victims. He's smart enough in cases that aren't blood fountain to make it look plausable to the folks who find the corpses, as being widely known would make it harder to do this (as shown by Freddy Vs Jason), even with the wilfull ignorance of Elm Street's parents already helping a ton.. but he likes to drag it out. He likes to make it as horrific as possible. The films after this emphasise this with him finding some way to twist both their fondest dreams and greatest nightmares into something, from slamming someone who badly wants to be famous into a tv while welcoming her to prime time, bitch, using a pupeteers veins for strings, making an aneroxic eat herself to death or having an invisible karate fight with a karate man because they ran out of budget, this shit is his art.

So while him slashing people with his glove isn't super artful as these. .it fits as the "piece" he's doing here while tearing these teens to pieces.. is getting to kill SO many at once, using his powers to herd them like cattle while he gets to be the butcher. And he hasn't lost his touch as an idiot trying to reason with him like this was a monster movie and no ta guy slashing people with a glove, gets slashed and thrown into a fucking grill. While it clearly took TIME to posses jesse, he didn't HAVE to announce himself during it (That we're aware of) or try and kill his sister. He loved making this poor kid painfully aware that he's taking control and everything Jesse knows and loves will be dead when that happens. He gave him his body back after Grady ONLY to let the poor boy cry and scream in anguish at what Freddy had done with his body and wonder right where Freddy wanted. Freddy.. is a monster, literally and figuratively and this film captures that beautifully. I will say his dream powers are better than "whatever heat related powers the writers want", no question, but given the series later decline to thinks like super freddy and the power glove, it's easy to go back to this one and see the craft putting into making freddy terrifying.

The body possesion thing works too: like I said Jesse is a prisoner in his own body, either trapped deep in his subconcious or again, given Freddy sucks, probably forced to watch. The idea of not being in control of your body is terrifying and Jesse covered in Grady's blood is just horrifying. It's not the same as the original, true.. but it's fantastic all the same.

That said the ending.. is a bit of a disapointment. We get all this build up, even Lisa's Dad shooting him dosen't stop freddy.. and the climax. .is lisa confronting freddy alone at the old steel mill he used, telling Jesse "it's all in his head, he can control it power of love blah blah blah" and Freddy's just .. defeated. Now i'll give the film some slack: while it gets shit for this ending and deserves it, deflating a well crafted terrifying build up with "I love you so you can escape him", this series... seems to suck at endings. I've only seen the first three, so I can't fully say, but i've seen enough reviews of the later ones and heard enough to a least get the sense none of them know how to defeat freddy in a way that's both convincing and sets it up for sequel. Even the first one, as much as I love it, has Nancy luring freddy out and using home alone traps, which is a WAY bigger blow to his dignity than hardrock rooftop poolside vilas ever were. There are exceptoins: 3, New Nightmare and Freddy Vs Jason have and seem to have banger endings. But for the most part it's some convient deus ex machina to beat freddy that either never came up before or is vaugely hinted at. It's why I do lean toward the chucky franchise a bit: while Chucky's never truly beaten for good, the final battles with him always feel climactic and big. Even 3 , the worst of the films i've seen, has chucky get ripped to shreds by an unreaslitic carnival ride. With Freddy.. the scale on him's so big it's hard to find a way to convincingly put his ass down, even temporarily but they never seemed to try that hard either.

It dosen't help they just.. repeat the same "Is it really over HA HA BITCH IT ISN'T IT REALLY ISN'T EXPECT TO NEVER GET CLOSURE ON THIS SCENE" ending as the last one. It does at least have a bit more style as it's Jesse once again getting on a buss, with Tina assuring him thigns are okay and her friend talking about "what a wild party that was" and brushing off people died horribly from a weird claw man which...

Tracks. Then it turns out OH NO FREDDY'S DRIVING THE BUS AGAIN.

THE END

JESSE FUCKING DIED I GUESS

It's the same ending as the last one minus the implication everything was a dream and the horribly fake freddy hand. Now Jesse COULD'VE survivied and just skipped town which given his dad... probably a smart move long term. Nancy was trapped in a speeding car made of freddy Kruger and lived somehow. Like Jesse's ultimate fate, they never really explained how Nancy survived. This film confirms she did as Grady, master of sympathy he is, probably would've mentiond her death too, and the next film has her come back in full, but they never explain HOW, and never touch on Jesse again as the franchise tends to pretend like this flim dosen't exist.

And that's a sad fact of the film: It was an evolutionary dead end. Rewatching it.. it's fantastic. It's not as good as 2 and 3 which have more realistic adult characters who are still useless, but feel like actual people with Nancy's mom being an alcholic, her dad being a hardass if not an asshole man like Jesses, and the jerkass nurse at the mental institute having at least reasons for her distrust of nancy as to defeat a dream man, nancy had to do some sketchy shit. Their not good people, but they come off more as people and not a cardboard cutout, his wife and a bad sterotype of queer people being accused of being pedophiles. The film also has weird shit like the birdsplosion, the snake and drags at times, while Lisa feels VERY underwritten and the ending half assed and lazy. It's not perfect.. but rewatching it let me see the films good sides: it's queer subtext, which we're almost to, is well done for the most part, Mark Patton is fucking amazing as are Robert Englund and Robert Rusler, the effects are fantastic especially on a low budget and the concept is well thought out and creepy. The film is an oddball in the series.. but it's one that tried new things and gave us an atmospheric, creepy and throughly gay horror film. So on that last part

Scream, Queen!

Sooo there's no easy way to do this so i'm just going to come out and say it: This is one of the gayest films I have ever seen

It's why we're here, it's why it's my finale for pride month, it's why Kev had me review it, and it's why for better or worse this film is remembered. It has other layers I mentiond: Mark Patton's performance is, after this rewatch, one of my all time faviorite's in horror, great effects, a trippy atmosphere, and Freddy at some of his most terrifying. But let's be frank: if this film is remembered, it's not because of any of those valid reasons.. but for the simple reason of

Before we even get into metaphor the film has TONS of shirtless scenes of Mark Patton, with most dream scenes having him shirtless or in his underwear. His first meeting with Grady ends with Grady pulling down his pants while they wrestle , exposing his butt to one and all. He goes to a leather bar in his dream. His coach is a pedophile, which is a very harmful sterotype and a very harmful thing to conflate. Grady outright lampshades that Jesse wants to spend the night with him instead of an eager to bone lisa. He says "somethin'gs inside of me". The film is not subtle.

And yet.. it also is? Jesse's metaphor of feeling uncomfortable contsnatly, trying to be who people want by having sex or dating but not being able to, being afraid of what he is and as I mentioned the metaphor of freddy as everything he fears about being an out queer person in a time when they were often blamed for hate crimes against them, to the point For Better or Worse writer Lynn Johnston wrote a whole arc in the strip about a longtime character coming out because a close gay friend of hers died and the police SYMPATHIZED WITH THE MURDERER. Jesse is in a constant gay panic: Is he bi,? is he gay? it's hard to tell because he can't accept himself or what he feels, and like Freddy tends to do, he gloms onto that fear to feed himself.

The film is gay as hell and for 1985 it's a bold statment: looking back it's impossible to not see HOW gay it is and that's a good thing. However HOW the queerness was implimented.. was a very bad thing. And i'm not just talking about the pedophile teacher which is bad and maybe having freddy whip him to death was a bit... much. Then again...

Maybe that ship had sailed for this franchise.

No i'm talking about the fact writer David Chaskin is a two face mother fucker. Told ya we'd circle back. See Shoulder.. had no idea the film was gay.. or claims he dosen't. Given how well directed the film is and how we get a full shot of Mark Patton's glorious ass I will never let you forget about, I have doubts he REALLY didn't know. But given NO ONE at new line caught the subtext till it was out except maybe Robert Englund, it's just as likely he was THAT oblivous and included the random ass shot without question. Also to clarify i'm not sayin ga shot of a man's ass is inherently gay.. but i'm saying it is when he's wrestling anothe rman while trying to also remove HIS pants. Context is king.

See making the film gay.. wasn't a bad idea. Chaskin wanting the mostly hetero teens wawtching to get being gay wasn't bad and the gay teens to feel accepted..was noble. It was how Chaskin handeled the backlash over the film being gay that makes him a monster.

A film this queer naturally got gay panic, not helped with the open homophobia brought about by the AIDS crisis shortly after. So Rather than... admit this was his idea, Chaskin instead blamed Patton.

This.. Was a dick move on so many levels but the biggest was.. patton's sexuality was an open secret. As the only openly queer person in the room, he was an easy target and Chaskin knew it. It saved Chaskin's career but only made what was already a hard time in LA for Patton worse. As I found out via an interview with Plus magazine, Patton already wasn't super happy in LA, having his agents dictate what he wore and unlike his time in new york, not being able to be openly queer as agents were, and I shit you not he really said this and I can sadly fully belivie it, scoping out clubs in west hollywood to tank the careers of people up for parts against their clients. They didn't let him interview with a queer magazine.

So Nightmare had come at an already stressful time for the man, as patton said in the article, which you can find here

“By that point, AIDS was all around me. Everyone I knew was getting sick"

And when it caame to Chaskin's bullshit Mark said

“David would just blame me any time it came up alluding to something along the lines of, ‘Well, he’s a big old fag and he chose to play the part in a big old fag way.’”

This all came to a head with an audition for an abc sitcom, the whole horrifying situation here, which I found about on Patton's wikipedia entry (and might of come up in the film, it has been a bit), is what lead me to the article.

“It was what I would consider my last true hardcore audition,” Patton remembers of nearly getting a part as a gay character on CBS. He was sitting a table with nearly a dozen other men. “They began to ask me if I would be comfortable playing a gay character and telling people I was straight if they began to question my sexuality? I remember looking around that table and I knew every one of those men were gay. All I could think about was how everyone I knew was dying from AIDS and we were having this bullshit conversation. My heart just broke and that was the line for me. I knew I would never be able to do what they were asking, so I walked away from Hollywood and decided to move on to a place where it was totally acceptable to be gay.”

So Mark became an interior decorator and while he was happy life wasn't finished beating the poor man upside the head as he then got diagnosed with AIDS

“I found out on my 40th birthday and three days later I was in the hospital,” Patton says. “But because of the infections I had, they made me take tuberculosis medicine and that didn’t mix with those older HIV meds. There were so many side effects. It was like I was poisoned. ” He pauses for a long moment before he continues. “I almost died there, but thankfully my friends took me to an AIDS health clinic, which saved my life.”

Seriously I can't thank the Plus article enough. So Mark survivied, found love with his husband Hector Morales Moondragon, and now sells art in mexico.

It was in this calm, happy phase of his life, after all this bullshit.. that he FINALLY made piece with the film that had caused him so much strife. He was approached to be interviewed for Never Sleep Again, an exaustive documentary on the Nightmare franchise I highly recommend, and in doing so finally told his side... and as a result with many now knowing he was still alive and still out there, it got him on the convention circuit. Somethign the documentary emphasises, as well as the plus article.. is how cathartic that was for Mark: after years of his film being mocked "The Gay One"... it got embraced as the gay one. The gay community had embraced the film, many being awakened by patton in it, and warmly embraced their scream queen.

Patton is still hanging in there: last year he had to GoFundMe for a liver operation and his health is rough.. but he's alive, in good spirits and well loved: By his husband and his fans. And as one of his fans... I wanted to spotlight Mark's story because i'ts a tragedy.. but it ends in triumph. Mark left a place he wasn't accepted to find love , acceptance and ultimately peace. Chaskin.. never actually apologized, still hasn't and didn't show up in Scream Queen despite mark's best efforts, but fuck him: Patton found peace, people found themselves in this movie, and I personally enjoyed it. The writer sucks but it can't take away from the deft direction or patton's performance. I hope Mark does better and gets to act at least one more time, and I may review his other film swallow next pride. For now stay proud, thanks for reading and to mr patton personally.. thank you.

#nightmare on elm street #freddy's revenge #mark patton #freddy krueger #robert englund #jesse walsh #a nightmare on elm street #lbgtqia #pride month #queer horror #queer #film

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crystalelemental · 2 months

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Generation 6 has held an awkward spot in the series for me. Since around Gen 7, I started calling this game the beginning of Pokemon's decline in quality, or at the very least, the point at which the strains we all now understand began to show. Cut content, delayed feature rollout, save-annihilating bugs; Gen 6 was the first time this felt prominent and noticeable. But it was also the last time I truly felt whimsy and excitement picking up a game. Maybe I was still young enough, or maybe fan response was still positive enough, but the introduction of Fairy type and the presentation of mega evolution as a concept got me really into it, and I went through that first run wildly excited. While my eventual opinion would turn a little sour, recent years have also resulted in my mellowing out, and holding opinions on what I like a little more earnestly. So now that it's finally time to revisit Kalos, let's see if I'm finally ready to love again.

My team used was Braixen, Spritzee, Emolga, Carbink, Gourgeist, and Cryogonal. We had additional rotating cast members of Fletchling, Butterfree, Wartortle, Furret (if you count the HM user), Krookodile, Meowstic-F, and Sliggoo, with a ton of options that were brought in early but didn't stick around longer term.

Right out of the gate, this is an extreme departure from previous games, where I had a dedicated team of six and very little deviation. XY's biggest change, and the biggest hangup for many in my demographic, was the EXP All. This tool allowed the whole team to gain EXP per battle, and now also with each capture. Many who were used to previous systems complained this made the game too easy, myself included. I did soften out fairly quickly into "I'm not opposed to EXP All, but I don't think it's integrated well," and I'll get to that, but I'd like to start out with what works about this system.

EXP All allows you to rotate your team around in a way that the series never had before. EXP always felt extremely finite, and grinding was a long, drawn-out process you did one by one. You could catch something up with the old EXP Share hold item, but it took a while, and you certainly couldn't swap an entire team. The EXP All allowed this to happen. It's a pretty obvious feature, but it's inherently at odds with how people played the older games.

When you're used to the system of picking a core of six and going with only that, this expansion feels unnecessary. You already know how to manage your party's EXP, and sharing it around just means you're overloaded with the stuff. You're wildly over-leveled, and nothing can stand against you. The expectation was that players would switch up their team more often to counterpick opponents, but the reality was that many players from the olden times were already set in their ways and wouldn't rotate the team at all. The merciful thing was that XY left EXP All as optional. You could turn it off. But its mere presence sparked complaints, because...I mean, let's call it what it is: players have trouble not optimizing their own fun out of the game.

"But it's optional" is not a compelling argument when presented with a system that is purely beneficial. Players who are used to attempting optimizations are going to look at EXP All as mandatory in many situations, because why would I not want to optimize? If you play normally, you're still going to hit points of grinding, why not turn it on for that at least and save the trouble? But now it feels like a cheat. When you insist it shouldn't be there, but its presence is a pure benefit, there's no winning for you. You have to meet the system where it's at.

This happened for the other features introduced as well. Pokemon Amie was a cute little minigame hub to play with your Pokemon more directly, feeding and petting them, which increased an affection score that granted in-combat bonuses, such as boosted EXP, and the ability to randomly dodge or endure through attacks. Again, all upside, but feels wildly overpowering. Then there was Super Training. Pokemon finally acknowledged the presence of EVs without calling them what they are, and allowed players to train in perfect increments of 4, allowing players to actually maximize stats without knowing the whole system. Again, both features are optional. You can ignore both. But like. Come on.

Unlike EXP All, however, the intention here is harder to see beyond "make game easier." EXP All rotating the team keeps some teeth in the game while giving the player more time with a wider variety of Pokemon, but Amie and Super Training don't. They're just embellishments to make everything easier, so...why are they there? What benefit to they confer?

At this point, it's best to talk about statistics in a way I haven't before. Not because they're important, no one runs these numbers in main game, but it illustrates the point.

In prior games, at best your Pokemon was fed stat boosting medicine to cap out around 100 in speed, relevant offensive stat, both defenses, and HP. This equates to 25 points at level 100, or 15 around the level 60 you typically finish a game at. XY's introduction of Super Training allows players to fully invest two EVs to maximum, for a total of 63 points at level 100, or around 37 at level 60. This is a wild jump in power, speed, bulk, whatever the player wanted, compared to what used to be possible. But if we assume this was intentional, and designed to accomplish something, then we can start to pick apart where the benefits are and what you can do.

The first obvious one to me, person who is used to optimizing natures, was to consider offsetting a bad nature. If you pick up...let's say Chespin, and roll an unfortunate Modest nature, in previous games you would suffer. My Platinum run involved a Gardevoir who had Sassy, and let me tell you, that speed drop hurt. Detrimental natures can be difficult to work around in ways that don't involve grinding levels for the missing stat points. Super Training allows you instead to maximally invest in the stat, providing an extra 22 points at a comparable level. Which is more than the 10% drop of a bad nature at the level you're finishing up the game. But this was a fairly superficial one. That never stopped you from being able to work around it before, so what's truly new with this system? What can you do now that used to feel impossible?

Suppose you picked up Fennekin as your starter. You really like the cute fox, and when it evolves into a little fox magical girl, you are delighted. But you've seen Delphox and...yeah, it's just not as cute. but you know, you're used to the older games, and evolution is really almost required. You can beat things with pre-evolutions, but the grind is intolerable. But hey, new generation, new mechanics, you decide to stick to your guns and not evolve Braixen, using everything at your disposal to make it as strong as possible.

Statistically, at around level 60, here's what their stats look like, considering a neutral nature, max IVs (because the calculator defaults to it) and no EVs:

Delphox: HP: 178 (75) Atk: 106 (69) Def: 110 (72) Sp Atk: 160 (114) Sp Def: 143 (100) Spd: 148 (104)

Braixen: HP: 159 (59) Atk: 94 (59) Def: 93 (58) Sp Atk: 131 (90) Sp Def: 107 (70) Spd: 111 (148)

In every category, Braixen lags behind pretty severely. The smallest gaps, in Atk/Def, are still 12-17 points of difference, while the important ones, Sp Atk/Spd, are off by 29 and 37 respectively. That is a massive discrepancy, and the kind of statistical drawback that will keep most players from even considering Braixen. So historically, you would evolve to Delphox, and taking the best possible outcome you probably don't have with medicine, you get this at level 60:

Delphox (100 EVs HP/Def/Sp Atk/Sp Def/Spd) HP: 193 Atk: 106 Def: 125 Sp Atk: 175 Sp Def: 158 Spd: 163

But you've decided you're sticking with Braixen. And maybe you don't even know how EVs work as a system, but you do understand number go up in Super Training, and also that speed determines turn order while Sp Atk governs damage, so you max out both. You slap that Eviolite item on for a pre-evolution, and you get:

Braixen (252 Sp Atk/Spd, 4 Def EVs + Eviolite) HP: 159 Atk: 94 Def: 94 -> 141 Sp Atk: 169 Sp Def: 107 -> 160 Spd: 149

Braixen is now comparable. You're still slower by a good margin, but offensively and in bulk, you average out compared to what a final stage used to get.

Now, this wasn't a perfect solution. A second stage like Braixen can roughly keep up, but a first stage is far more behind than its final form. So let's say you're still scarred by SmogBird, and can't use Talonflame. You also have Braixen, and don't want the type overlap of Fletchinder, but you do want a Flying type. So you pick up Fletchling, and run a comparable approach. To compare stats with Talonflame:

Fletchling (252 Atk/Spd, 4 Sp Def + Eviolite) HP: 142 (45) Atk: 121 (50) Def: 75 (43) -> 112 Sp Atk: 71 (40) Sp Def: 69 (38) -> 103 Spd: 135 (62)

Talonflame (100 HP/Atk/Def/Sp Def/Spd) HP: 197 (78) Atk: 135 (81) Def: 123 (71) Sp Atk: 112 (74) Sp Def: 121 (69) Spd: 189 (126)

Fletchling doesn't just lag across stats, its speed is wildly behind. Attack gets closer than I anticipated, but you definitely feel this discrepancy more strongly, and the Super Training can't salvage it.

But EXP All can. Keep Fletchling in your party long-term, to soak up all that experience and over-level a bit, and now you get:

Fletchling (same parameters, level 70) HP: 164 Atk: 140 Def: 86 -> 129 Sp Atk: 82 Sp Def: 79 -> 118 Spd: 157

A comparable spread. Speed is still lower, though, and your bulk isn't great, so maybe you're worried about your little bird managing through a hit. We've exhausted EVs, and even EXP All only goes so far without serious grinding, so what do we do?

Amie can grant sudden surprises, like bonus crits, dodges, and endure effects, that let your little baby stick it out. Even if stats aren't on par, you can get some surprise outcomes that can make it work.

I think this was the intent. The three new features work in step with each other, providing means of keeping pre-evolutions and generally weaker Pokemon up with their fully evolved competition. It's more of an investment, but it's now a reasonable one (45 minutes for Super Training, 15 minutes for Amie) compared to trying to force level grinding well beyond what's typical (several hours and likely a lot of frustration regarding damage).

Now, for all that good, I do think the system struggles against itself in two major ways.

First, nothing is done on the opponent's end to combat these tools. Opposing teams remain small like Gen 5, but without the same teeth. All of the E4 felt surprisingly easy, except for Wikstrom who kinda got the drop on me from a misclick and remembering too late that three of my Pokemon were weak to Steel. But like...Malva literally could not hurt Carbink. She had nothing against it. And that's rather staggering after Unova, where each of the E4 felt so supremely capable of countering their expected weaknesses that Hydreigon felt difficult to use. Combined with the sense from many that EXP All and the other features simplified things, it's easy to understand the belief that the game is too easy. After all, the system works great for pre-evolutions, but it's a universal buff and you get more benefit from full evolutions, so why not stomp it all? The answer is fun, but again, people optimize away fun. I'm getting off topic...

Second is structure. In older games, you would pick up Pokemon as you went. You get your starter, maybe an early option, then not get you third until about Gym 3, staggering out a new Pokemon every gym or two until you have a team of six going into the League. With smaller regional dex sizes, this wasn't too difficult, because you only had so many things to choose from. Gen 6 is flush with options across a ton of types. By the end of Viola's gym, you have something in nearly every single type available for your party, and several with multiple options. Choice paralysis starts here. I have a tough time playing games from this point on past the opening, because I'll start, get wishy-washy about the team, and then just...stop. I think it's also bad for the new Pokemon when you have a huge roster, and a ton of the early acquisitions are powerhouse favorites like Bagon and Ralts. It feels hard to justify picking up Goomy, who turns out okay but not great, when you can pick up Bagon, Axew, and Gible by that point. I prefer Gen 5's requirement to use the new stuff.

There are plenty of other issues with the gameplay. I didn't even talk about the myriad issues with Mega Evolution and how it may as well not exist given its access point. But these are aspects that are more understood and agreed upon, so I think it's time to move on.

I have talked about this already several times on this blog, but it's been a while and it's fresh so I'm doing it again. When the game came out, I was fully on board with the story complaints. It makes no sense, it's stupid, Lysandre's stupid, etc. All of it is obvious and dumb. But in recent years, I have softened to the point that I think I'm something of a Gen 6 story fan.

The major complaints against it tend to focus on the antagonist, because...let's be honest, Pokemon never has a robust story, all of it centers on what the antagonist is doing and your player is interpreted based on being the foil. Complaint 1: Lysandre's motivation makes no sense and is stupid. Complaint 2: Lysandre is so obviously the villain, why doesn't anyone stop him or question him?

I'm tossing complaint 2 out the window immediately. I have no interest in this point, it's a boring line of thought that ignores the concept of dramatic tension and what the characters are experiencing for whether they fit into our perceived logic boxes as omniscient viewers. It's as vacuous as complaining about why Eirika would trust Lyon with the Sacred Stone: because she cares about him and wants to trust he can overcome this. Done. Easy. Almost like you didn't think about the story at all if this is your complaint.

The first complaint is more salient, though, because it feels like bad writing is at fault. Why is Lysandre so contradictory? He claims to care so much about people and the region, but he's actively genocidal. He claims he wants to be someone who gives to others, to be a good person, yet is given ample opportunity to change when confronted with how wrong he is and never does. He goes on and on about people who take, but runs a Scientology cult you pay a small fortune to get in on, and runs a tech company that spies on people and collects personal data for profit. What is his deal?

But with age, I feel like...I've seen a Lysandre before. He runs a tech company and is likely worth billions, but he also runs this little cafe and is apparently a pretty good boss who cares about his workers taking breaks. He cares deeply about the country and its future, and is extremely philanthropic to things he believes are important. But at the same time, he views some subset of the population as parasitic, taking beyond what's theirs and dragging the whole country down with them. His only perceived solution is one of violent removal of these people, and is overtly willing to let others be harmed in the crossfire of removing what he has identified as the problem. I hope you can see where this is going.

Lysandre is an extremist and a nationalist, who is on the one hand someone who wants to help others, but on the other so deluded by his belief that he's perfectly identified a specific group that is The Problem. It's just that said group is a wide shot. At times it's the "unproductive fools" that makes it sound like he's on about welfare. At times it's stuff about ongoing war. His specific target shifts constantly, but his end goal is clear: everyone has to die, unless they think exactly like him. Only the in-group that he's created is worth saving. While his specific complaint feels inconsistent, his big picture is. This is the end result of that kind of in-group/out-group thinking.

This is the same for Sycamore, a highly regarded professor who, while likely not as wealthy as Lysandre, fits in the same general social spheres. Sycamore has not radicalized like Lysandre has, but Lysandre is also his friend. Yes, he goes off about things and can be uncomfortable at times, but this is a man you've known for years as someone who is compassionate and driven and does good things for the world. It's hard to confront that he may be going down a dark path.

"Okay, but Lysandre literally goes off about the positive spin on genocide and he doesn't do anything." Of course he doesn't. Aside from just believing it can't be his real feelings, it's outlandish enough to read as apolitical. The reason you get gamer dudes talking about games like FF7 as if they're completely apolitical is because, when you have a political statement that meets group consensus, there's no debate to be had, thus it is apolitical. It is bad to harm the planet to the point of killing it. No politics enter here because duh. The flip side of this coin is that anything that is so wildly against group consensus must not be serious, and is thus also apolitical. It's only when there's debate that it becomes a serious question, and serious extreme views fly under the radar because of that disbelief. And thus, Lysandre saying "What the ancient king did was terrible, but you can't deny it cleaned up the problem" is treated as just an impassioned statement said in anger, rather than a serious concern. He says it in a rough way that stings the ears, but it's because he's passionate and justifiably angry at the state of things, don't think ill of him. He doesn't mean it. Until he does. And then the warning signs make sense.

This also ties into why I think Serena (or Calem, but it...it's Serena) is the most developed protagonist, despite being silent. Protagonists get some mild character solely through their stance against the antagonist. Dawn can be assumed as a sort of champion of emotion - the importance of feeling and empathizing with others - solely because Cyrus is the complete opposite. In the case of many protagonists, this does little. Gens 1-3 don't add anything, and Gen 5 has Ghetsis who is so laughably cartoon evil that it doesn't say anything about the protagonists that they oppose him. Even in contrast to N, their presentation as "Caring about bonds with Pokemon via Pokeballs" is so in line with the status quo narrative of literally every game that it adds nothing.

Serena has flavor, though, because of the scene in the labs. You are presented a choice of two buttons. Press one, and the weapon will be damaged in a way that renders it inoperable, and the day is saved without any conflict. Press the other, and it will fire instantly. Serena is given that choice. What makes this scene tick is two elements. First, that Xerosic will fire the weapon anyway if you guess right, and Lysandre will call him out for it. The gamble was legitimate, and Lysandre was willing to let his entire plan fail before it even took off if you guessed right. Which brings into question, what's his motivation? If the genocide could be stopped so easily and he'd be fine with it, then there's another, possibly more important goal, he's after, right? Which leads to the second interesting point: there's a third option, but you cannot take it.

Look at the situation from outside. The weapon is inert, and as far as you know, the only way to currently turn it on is one of two buttons in front of you. If your end goal is "don't let the weapon fire," you can just...not push a button. That's a viable option. Stop Xerosic but don't make a choice. Except you can't just leave. The game makes you choose, which reflects the notion that the character would not think to, or would not accept, rejecting a choice. Which, I think, was Lysandre's goal.

Consider Serena as a character. When you start this journey, you are with four friends, who (notoriously) suck. They're all kinda bad at what they do. Calem is no threat as a rival, Tierno and Shauna just kinda fart around without accomplishing anything, and Trevor is so bad at being the guy filling out the dex that I have never lost our competitions no matter how much content I skip. Serena breezes through the toughest trials the region has to offer, and excels far beyond her friends, even acquiring and mastering the art of Mega Evolution that Professor Sycamore couldn't achieve. Serena is, by definition, gifted. She is exceptional. And because she is exceptional, she has never really known failure. When Lysandre makes his announcement that the weapon will be fired, there is no ultimatum issued to you. There is no reason for you, specifically, to show up. And yet he counted on it, so thoroughly that he had this decision set up just for you. A decision you didn't have to make, but cannot back away from. Why?

Because in that moment, you're thinking like him. Who else is going to stop him? Professor Sycamore can't even talk back to this guy about his extremism, he's all but useless. Your friends certainly can't contribute much in a fight. Diantha hasn't done a thing since she showed up. If you don't, who will? It has to be you. You're the only one qualified, because you've proven, time and again, how exceptional you are. You have the inflated ego, the sense of self, to see this problem the way Lysandre would. To see it as your responsibility. He openly shows it, but the character really could be part of his in-group. You have the outline for that path, you just need pushed down it. And imagine what it would do to someone like that to have made the wrong choice. God I need to write that fic some day...

Now, this isn't to suggest that XY story is peak...although I am inching ever closer to that statement to be inflammatory. A lot of its problems are really in presentation rather than substance, though. Lysandre doesn't get much play, despite how much Ghetsis got to ramble on about literally nothing interesting. Diantha does nothing but mumble about bonds one time, despite how many previous champions became deeply ingrained in their regions. Even Sycamore doesn't really get much play. But your friend group does, and a lot of that play feels extraneous and slows down progress a bit. It's just a bit too much of them, and at times they can feel rather annoying, which...I guess is ludonarrative, in some sense.

It's really just...cutscene spam. Gen 5 could go for a while, but Gen 6 feels like you get a lot more stop and go. Here's a scene. Okay now go downstairs for another scene. Okay now leave the lab for another scene. Okay try to move on to be told to visit the cafe for another scene. Okay now leave but oops another scene! It's constant interruptions where you think okay, this time for sure we're going forward, but then it screeches to a halt again. The strict gameplay sections are still fun, but I found it harder to deal with a lot of the unnecessary interruptions. I will, however, applaud the Santaulune Forest. I think having Shauna follow you and heal your party as needed was a divine way to offset the usual need to run back to the center like a dozen times while catching and training your early party. It really smoothed things out.

Overall...I had a ton of fun with this run. I'll be honest, this is above Gen 5 now. I'm kinda staggered by it too, but it checks out. It's just fun, and fast, and lets me get away with absolute nonsense. This definitely isn't my favorite, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

As for the next game up...long story short, my wife's playing Digimon but also works over the summer while I don't. While she has the switch, I think my handheld is going to be ORAS or White 2 (I'm avoiding Gen 7 as long as possible), but I'm going to start picking up Galar. Haven't decided between Sword or Shield, but...there's going to be a lot to say there, too.

#pokemon gen 6 #pokemon xy #pokemon replays

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silverchronicler · 2 months

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Prime Report for TennoCon (July) 2024 - SPECIAL EDITION

hey what the fuck

Prime Access

SO some stuff happened at TennoCon. Let's talk about what it might mean for the future.

Currently in Prime Access is Protea Prime, along with Velox Prime and Okina Prime. As was revealed at TennoCon, she's slated to be replaced by Sevagoth Prime, alongside Epitaph Prime and Nautilus Prime in August, when they release with The Lotus Eaters, a planned August 2024 update coming to Warframe.

Protea Prime was released on May 1, 2024, making her guaranteed 90 day reign end just about August 1. They've almost all been slated to go a little longer than that though, so it's likely that the update will come out mid August. I'd bet it comes either August 14th or August 21st, but that's just throwing darts at a dart board. Maybe if they have all their ducks in a row we'll get it on the 7th. Most of these dates are less than a month away, so it's best to keep this in mind if you wanted to get her.

This is great. He looks great. But it does raise one question:

Where's Xaku Prime?

Speculation under the cut.

Sevagoth Prime being announced as the next one was a surprise. Mainly because, any way you slice it, he's way out of the order of expectation. Usually they follow a pattern that organizes the Prime warframes by gender, but then goes loosely in release order. Male-Male-Female-Female-Male-Male-etc, with frames being slotted into those slots according to the pattern they were released in loosely, with maybe two being switched around here or there.

Now, Xaku was always going to be an interesting case and exception (sort of) to this, because Xaku is pluriform as they are made up of the remnants of multiple warframes implied to be of multiple genders. But to me this means that they could fit into whatever slot they happen to match to, since they are, in a way, of both/all genders. Xaku was the first frame to come out after Protea, so it'd make sense that they'd be slotted right after her, which is what I've been expecting this whole time since I wrote about it in January.

Instead, Sevagoth is jumping two slots to take the slot after Protea, also jumping over Lavos, who is the next male warframe in line. I'd expect there'd need to be a pretty decent reason for this big of an upset in their pattern. They didn't give much of one, and in fact Xaku wasn't mentioned at all during TennoCon as far as I could tell. I had sort of hoped they'd at least say they were coming back to Xaku but DE made no mention of any other future primes or the frames around Sevagoth in any notable way.

Now, that's not a bad thing necessarily. These patterns have never been officially announced as far as I can tell, but they've been pretty closely followed for the general fairness of the prime process. Following close to a pattern means they aren't playing favorites choosing warframes to prime, and that no frame gets forgotten for getting a Prime. But there could be plenty of reasons for them deciding to or wanting to change it up. Maybe they wound up having a few in process at once and Sevagoth wound up being the one that was far enough in the process to do next, with Xaku and Lavos still needing their concepts refined, something like that.

I know there's been some anxiety in the past around Xaku getting a prime as their whole concept doesn't lend itself easily to the concept of a prime warframe in the same way that almost every other warframe does, but I definitely think if Xaku weren't going to get a prime at all, they would have already told us. They know people are looking forward to Xaku Prime, and with more and more weird and unique warframe concepts being introduced these days, there's no good reason why having a unique concept should keep Xaku from getting a prime. More likely something came up in the development process that caused some hiccups, and I could think of plenty of reasons for this, especially around TennoCon being the reveal of the next prime. We have no reason to think anything other than that Xaku is being pushed back a slot or two, and Lavos as well.

But either way, we have no current info from DE as far as I know, but if that changes then I'll update this somehow.

As for if they'll do something to rectify the gendered slot pattern, it's impossible to say.

Predictions for Future Prime Order: (Bold is already exists)

Grendel Gauss Protea (We are here) Sevagoth (Announced) Xaku Lavos Yareli Gyre Caliban Styanax

Or, if they have decided to eschew double gender order from now on:

Protea Sevagoth Xaku Lavos Yareli Caliban Gyre Styanax

I could also see them switching Xaku and Lavos on either of these lists if for some reason Xaku continues to be a problem. I personally wouldn't get worried about anything unless we get both Lavos and Yareli prime without hearing any news about Xaku prime. At that point I'd be asking some serious questions, but for now this is unexpected but fine. Sevagoth Prime is gonna be cool as hell, and we already know that.

Prime Resurgence

Currently available from Varzia are Nekros Prime with Tigris Prime and Galantine Prime and Harrow Prime with Scourge Prime and Knell Prime, along with relics for their component parts and such. They are slated to stay there until August 1st, at which point they'll be replaced by Mesa Prime and Limbo Prime.

Also available from Varzia until October 24th are Ember Prime with Sicarus Prime and Glaive Prime, and Rhino Prime with Boltor Prime and Ankyros Prime. They and their relics are available to celebrate the Ember Heirloom Collection that launched the morning of TennoCon with DE's new system for Heirloom Collections. If you don't know about the new system, I suggest you look at the Heirloom Collection page on the warframe website to familiarize yourself with it. At TennoCon, they announced that Rhino Prime would be the next Heirloom Collection after Ember, thus why they get to share the space in Varzia's for now. Get them while the getting's good!

Ok I think that's everything! Gonna try to do shorter versions of these more often but when there's more to talk about I feel more motivated to write them so we'll see! Happy Prime Hunting!

#warframe prime report #warframe #tennocon 2024 #sevagoth prime #ember prime #protip: if you only make one of a series every six months or so that basically makes all of them special!#however it does not make it consistent lol #something I gotta work on :)#but it was fun to write it up because I spent like an hour today going 'but what about xaku??' so I had to vent a little #ALSO happy ember prime availability to all those who celebrate!#hoping to get the fiery girl for myself

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the-fiction-witch · 1 year

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The Girl On the Train

Media Nanny Mcphee (Age Up)

Character Simon Brown

Couple Simon X Reader

Rating Adorable AF

Concept 1870's Train Travel

I stood on the stone station platform huddled under the metal canopy to hide from the rain, I held my cases in my grip often tightening and loosening the grip as I stood. I was alone at the platform. The only other person in fact on the whole station was the station master who had to come down from the switch box to check my ticket and let me onto the platform. I glanced at the slightly rusting clock that hung on the wall, noticing as always the train was late. So I sighed luckily just then I heard the whistle. So I perked up watching the train chunter down the tracks and stop level with the platform with a few belts of its whistle. The station master rushed down from the switch box to load my things Into the carriage for me which I thanked him for and headed inside myself taking a seat on the small red chair in the well-decorated first class carriage. I set my things away and got out my book, preparing myself to get very comfortable.

I had been sitting for a good few hours even if I had been up a couple of times to use the powered room and just to actually walk around the carriage mostly due to leg cramps or just from literally having a numb ass. I had seen others but they were all in the other first class carriage travelling together so I didn't want to intrude, I had put my book a way for a while watching the rain battering the long stretching fields I noticed we were slowing and soon enough we pulled into another small station but I found myself utterly bewitched I saw her as we approached as she stood on the small stone platform, she was… mystifying.

She had tall knee high black boots, a long sky blue gingham dress with two large billowing sections and then a looped hem over them with some lilac lining, and a Lilac band around her waist, many bustles creating a sort of cage in the dress behind her with a large bow of the fabric above her posterior, two lines of four buttons on her chest with the top two on the left undone and folded over to form a collar, long sleeves down to her wrists and little lilac gloves that matched her dress, her hair pinned up with a few stands of sweet curls left to hang with a blue had on her head with some lilac lavender flowers sat on it. In her hands a blue train bag and a large brown traveling chest. She loaded them both alone and boarded the train keeping her train bag in hand as she came through and into the same carriage as me, she saw me and gave me a sweet smile as she took a seat across the other side close by the other window and she took out a book of her own. I returned my focus to the window as we pulled away but found it impossible to prevent my glances across the carriage.

Until I couldn't bare it anymore and I got up moving over to sit across from her

"Hello." I smiled getting her attention

"Oh hello" she smiled putting down her book

"Simon brown," I smile offering my hand

"Y/n y/l/n" she smiled letting me take her hand so I gave it a soft kiss

"Pleasure to meet you, if I may ask what are you reading?"

"Great expectations" she smiled "may I ask what you were reading?"

"Wuthering heights. My sister Chrisy sent it to me. I promised her I'd read it" I smiled, making her giggle a little "I finished great expectations a while ago. What do you think of it so far?"

"I like it but I'm not far yet" she smiled "I finished wuthering heights some time ago, I found it utterly divine"

"I'm not far yet but I shall press on, on your recommendation"

We spent the next two hours talking, of books we had read, those we wanted to read, and soon enough about everything and nothing I almost never wanted the train to stop.

"Where are you going?" She asks sipping the tea we had got when the cart came through

"Home, my father past last year"

"Oh I'm so sorry"

"It's alright, he had a good life I think. Twelve children to proceed him so"

"My goodness, quiet a productive man then"

"Definitely in the oldest of my seven and then my step siblings after he got remarried" I explained "but he left me the house on his will, our old house that we all grew up in. I supposed it's finally time to head up and make something of the old place"

"That's very sweet Simon"

"What about you? Where are you headed?"

"Honestly. I don't quite know"

"How so?"

"I simply bought a ticket for the end of the line not sure where I'll get off" she says "my father is insistent on me marrying his business associate, he's twice my age and mercilessly cruel."

"You're running away?"

"Indeed." She says sipping her tea "took all my things, bought a ticket and scampered. Didn't really think much further I just wanted to be away"

"I understand. Do you have anywhere to go? Any family or anything?"

"No."

"Do you have any money?"

"O have a little not much thought enough to perhaps find a small place for a while but after that I'm not too sure"

"I don't wish to impose but, your more then welcome to come with me"

"Really?"

"Of course, I can't guarantee the state of the house but I'm sure I'll find space for you somewhere"

"I can pay"

"It's no trouble really, I'd never forgive myself I let you go off without a word. Your more then welcome to stay with me as long as you need"

"Thank you very much Simon that's very kind of you"

I laughed a little as I sat on the porch in my rocking chair, my book in hand, I set the book on the table, getting up and heading down to see him "Choo Choo!" Little Charlie laughed playing with his wooden train in the grass by the front porch

"Hello little man" I smiled, picking him up and sitting him on my hip "What are you up to?"

"Playing Trains daddy" he laughed

"Charlie! Simon!" I heard from inside so I quickly turned seeing y/n in the doorway in her little blue dress and apron "there you two are" she laughed

"Mummy!" He smiled so I let him down and he bolted over to her hugging her tight

"Hello little man, come on now dinners getting cold" she says ushering him inside with his train and he ran off shouting

"Choo Choo" as he went

"Dinners ready Simon"

I smiled and headed back up the porch taking her in my arms and kissing her sweet lips "thank you my darling wife" I cooed "what delicious treat have you made for us today?" I asked taking her inside

"Roast gammon and roasted potatoes" she smiled heading to the dinning room

"Ooohh, I'm on my way" I smirked excitedly shutting the front door behind me.

#tbs #thomas brodie sangster #thomas sangster #thomasbrodiesangster #tbs smut #tbs imagines #thomas sangster imagine #tbs imagine #thomas brodie sangster imagine #thomas brodie sangster smut #simonbrown #simon #nanny mcphee

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lovecanbesostrange · 1 year

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ouattober2023 Day 3: Fav Story Arc

I have enjoyed this show for the most part, even including S7. I think the switch to half-season arcs was good to keep it all fresh and not drag out things for too long. S4 being split into Frozen and Heroes & Villains was fun. But there just is no question. The arc I care about most, that I go back to rewatching for funsies, that I have the most (positive) feelings about (and some concerns/criticism) - Season 1: The Original Curse. The intertwined storytelling of everything that led to Storybrooke springing into existence and how Emma gets to know the town, breaking the curse as she was meant to do.

Unlike other arcs this is far broader, I have to acknowledge that. The 22 episodes of S1 allow for far more sidetracking. And later some details get revealed to prop it up (for this I'm thinking about stuff like Welcome to Storybrooke, a long overdue look at what it was like for Regina before).

Personally I still go so far to say, that the first season of Once Upon a Time is simply A+ tv. I absolutely recommend this to anybody who wants to have some fantasy-romance-family-fun. Well, okay, so S1 has some very, very dark moments (Graham's death for example).

They won me over with a thing I didn't expect - the Snowing romance. I'm sorry, but a lot of tv is as sophisticated as the Avril Lavigne song goes "he was a boy, she was a girl". Bang, there, that's it, that's the couple. (And I do believe even this show got super lazy with this.) But here we have Snow White and Prince Charming. Yes, of course they are a couple. They need to be. We all know that. True Love! True Love's Kiss! This is the kind of given couple I do not expect to be shown any type of friendship formed. Or an explanation why they think of the other. It just is. But they give us episode 3 Snow Falls and I am so in. Because yes, okay Snow being a bandit and a badass with a bow, totally capable of fighting and taking no nonsense - definitely checks some boxes for me. But Charming is also fun and smitten with her and I can see why they care. She uses the powder to save him. And they both have other things in their life, they can't spend time with this random person - and then they live rent free in each other's head. I believe in the stupid "I will always find you" concept. It is used again and again and still it's always sweet, throughout the show.

If you watch only the Storybrooke parts it seems so old and tired how the nice mousy lady fell in love with a coma patient, making things up about him in her head probably. And then he's married, she gets called a tramp and omg this cheating storyline. But with the fairytale underneath? Knowing they are in fact very actually cursed? This is their punishment and it is supposed to be terrible and hurt? WONDERFUL! David can't just leave Katherine, the curse won't allow for that. There is no easy solution, this has to be painful. We get something like 7:15am and at the end of the episode Mary Margaret and David try so desperately not to see each other, they are both in the diner at 7:45am. ROMANCE!! I am just rarely sold so solid on the main couple, okay? So this was special to me and I indeed looked forward to the episodes to see how their (EF) romance played out. And omg Heart of Darkness is such a banger of an episode. Evil!Snow is the scariest person on this show. He didn'f take an arrow for her, he took an arrow from her.

Exploring Storybrooke is also fun for the viewer. Henry believes things are weird, Emma has rational explanations, we know the truth. It's a wonderful and quirky set-up. Small town filled with weirdness. With so many episodes there was time to put in Hänsel & Gretel for the non-Disney fairytale feel. Great. We had time to get to know Leroy aka Grumpy aka Dreamy (I always laugh when he and Mary Margaret go door to door with the candles) with his own ep (still think as a whole the seven dwarves didn't get enough recognition). You can look left and right and wonder what's everybody's deal is. The town feeling is so important. People with jobs doing stuff. It's something that is a bit lost in later seasons with the focus on the core group, who are all related to each other. I'm sure Archie was a very busy man in the background dealing with everybody else...

It's also amazing to rewatch those first episodes and be reminded that it takes a long, long while until the Evil Queen's motivation is explained. Daniel who? To see Snow as a girl blabber out Regina's secret to Cora - SHOCKING! To understand that these two could have been friends, ohohohoho. It's clear that Rumple plays a huge part in the whole Dark Curse thing, but I think S2 gets more meaty with him. Yet his presence alone and all the deals he keeps making add a lot of flavor.

The worldbuilding is slow, but in this the out-of-order presentation does work, because S1 is actually well planned. (Yes, OUaT is a show that suffers a bit from later additions and expanding lore, but the original promise doesn't collapse under the weight.) The nice parallel structure makes the episodes interesting and moves everything forward at a comfortable pace. They also know how to throw a curveball. Oh, this town is hidden and no stranger ever walks up? Well, yes, hallo here is this guy on a motorcycle nobody has ever met before and he knows things. And for quite a few episodes August is just there, a well planted mystery box.

In the midst of everything magical suddenly we have the episodes Red-Handed, Heart of Darkness and Hat Trick following each other. A werewolf tearing bodies into pieces (yes, thanks, spilled blood looks best on fresh white snow), a whole murder investigation and aforementioned gonna-kill-Regina-now-Snow, and oh yeah that moment where you start wondering if Emma and Mary Margaret will be killed by a psycho axe murderer and the Mad Hatter might be a slasher now... yep. this show can be a bit dark and S1 knew how to walk that line.

And one last round of applause for the fact that the Storybrooke side of the story works with almost no magic at all. Yes, Regina has a bit in her backpocket, but she's scary enough without it. Her scenes with Gold are so worth a watch. He still knows how to scheme.

Oh, and let me mention something I appreciate a lot. The show starts with Prince Charming waking up Snow White with a kiss. Fairytale! We see the happy ending first. Thrown right into it (without knowing the whole ordeal they went through to get to this point). And then we near the end of the season, ep 21 An Apple Red as Blood. Which is a great episode to me, because I love seeing Snow and her band of misfits storming the castle (group effort, we deserved more of that). This is where we finally see Snow biting that apple, fateful. Hey, it's a Sleeping Curse, cool. She did so willingly though. It was her sacrifice for the promise Charming would be save. Not even trickery (okay, maybe we need to talk about this thing with "it need to be taken willingly to work"). This is such a great bowtie to the whole thing.

This here is what it is all about:

#ouattober2023 #OUaT #hi yes I made it it's day 3 and now I'm on time

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quietbluejay · 5 months

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Know No Fear 3

rob. bro. YOU KEEP DOING THIS and you get bodied EVERY SINGLE TIME. he seems like he's the calm rational one but he's…really not

vs fulgrim he did the exact same thing even going "i know it's a trap" and he would have died except the ultramarines ended up sacrificing themselves to get him out vs mortarion he did it like TWICE and only dad intervening got him out of that i don't actually remember what happens to him here but he does get stabbed

oh here's the part that made me like Lorgar

"it's called treachery, Roboute. It works very well." it sure does lol

lorgar talks a bit about Horus rising (heh) and Guilliman asks if he's on drugs

brother, singular the only one down so far is Ferrus, rip Lorgar once again, really wishing the only people who thought "hey the emperor is wrong and awful, maybe" didn't drink the chaos kool aid

Hot take : the imperium and chaos represent the false dichotomy presented by the modern right left political divide

and then things get…fun

it's also, incidentally, really interesting that Lorgar is like "we're here to kill you and take the Ultramarines out of the game" and meanwhile Kor Phaeron tries to corrupt him to chaos i do wonder what would have happened if they'd ended up on the same side well i mean, wouldn't be the first time two people with grudges ended up on same side (Magnus and Mortarion) but it's gotten reallllly personal here

actually wait no i forgot about how he got sent into the vacuum of space and then just managed to survive because he was so angry so like, that really should have worked but no one expected the plot armour guillirage

you know i think he might be the most plot armoured of all local accountant who evades taxes somehow the main character of the universe (yes he does canonically evade taxes) (i found out) (so my record of tax evading blorbos holds steady) (i think the only one who doesn't is maybe Windblade) okay spooky time and i really loved this bit for fully bringing the story out of the regular war/disaster and right into the twilight zone as well

oh THATS how he ends up in space

my original hc (re Lorgar and daemon) was that they switched out at the end and the daemon climbing out of lorgar's skin was a metaphysical metaphor made literal over the comm link idk if that's actually possible though

and now back to our Catholic representation, Old Person Oll Persson he's having a nice morning but some dude just showed up i remember when i read this i was like ???????? didn't he just die or something??

honestly i found this whole thing very confusing but apparently it's a meta plot in the Horus Heresy wrong word myth arc? also wrong plot thread that shows up across multiple books

ohhh time to get a look at the future

there's like 50 books or more that were written between this one and this actual scene happening and somehow i have zero memory of reading this??? i think i was still going ??? at the secret group of immortals eyy time to put together a team that's just made up of random people who happened to survive

including a catatonic teenage girl and another unskilled labourer honestly this would work better in another series or if this were about them

man you know it's funny how in every way the word bearers are the precursor to the imperium aw lorgar is making special copies of his book for all his brothers

star wars: we blew up one planet to smithereens kor phaeron: you are like little baby, watch this

oh yeah here we goooo the bit that made me lol (for context, he's talking about seeing corpses with bits eaten)

i was like "i didn't think you people HAD the concept of a war crime" okay, mr ventanus, how do you justify monarchia, by any of these codes and precepts by any legality by the moral code of mankind in the end it was just "the emperor ordered you to do it, and he is the highest authority, so, you did it" like i do realize the two aren't equivalent and the sheer level of destruction that was done to Calth isn't anywhere in the same league not to mention the corpse desecration and offscreen torture etc but regardless Monarchia is also not justified by these things also, this is a very fun chase scene aw yeah Tawren and Arook meet up with Ventanus and Selachon

oh hello stab me in the heart again why don't you

ooooh horror movie on Maccrage's Honour ultramarine feels fear rip Gage, his hand gets bit off by daemon AND NOW FOR MY FAVOURITE SCENE IN THIS BOOK (well tied for favourite with the lorgar one)

I LOVE THIEL SO MUCH

"today started in a different place" UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE YEAR today started in an entirely different genre

i am platonically kissing thiel on the mouth hahaha and now we find out WHY thiel was censured

lmaooo incredible

this whole bit still cracks me up the first time i read this i thought for sure he was getting lured by a lorelei to his death

well actually i hit another bit that cracks me up the two army dudes, in all the chaos met the young dudes wife by the river except well

and then they get caught by word bearer auxiliaries sacrificing people and i thought for sure they were going to die there and then Old Person saves the day and the ritual knife on this rando cultist turns out to apparently be a big deal like universe altering e_e okay maybe im misremembering maybe it's a different knife okay i am misremembering

okay we got a date for Monarchia! 44 years ago

#warhammer 40k #bluejay reads warhammer

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taiblogcomics · 6 months

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Pilots in the US Air Farce

Hey there, electrokinesis. Well, like I said at both the beginning and end of our look at Slapstick, we're doing a look at two different six-issue series focusing on toon physics. I was way into the concept, like, half a year back when I decided to review these. And this might be the darker of the two, fair warning! It is a Garth Ennis comic, after all. Yeah, that Garth Ennis. I normally do not like his work, but given that this isn't actually about superheroes, it's a lot easier to stomach. This is a good comic, I promise! But if it's not about superheroes, what is it, then?

Well, here's the cover:

Yeah~ This is about Hanna-Barbera characters. We're reinterpreting these beloved cartoon characters into modern, more realistic times, with a realistic art style! This seems ripe for disaster, but I promise you this goes somewhere very interesting and not as straightforward as I'm pretending with this description. So, rather than further coyness, let's get you familiar with these characters, if you've somehow avoided contact with two of the most iconic cartoon villains in, like, the last half a century or so~

The titular duo, Dick Dastardly and his sidekick doggo Muttley, got their start in Wacky Races, where their typical role was to get an early lead and then attempt to cheat and set traps to maintain that advantage. They can't simply continue and win, they're the villains, so they have to cheat. Dick really loved being a transparently evil villain. Not that he was a world-conquering monster or torturer or anything, the man just wanted to win some races. And he was really committed to his bit at doing everything in the most underhanded way he could think of.

Muttley, meanwhile, was his dog sidekick. Known best for his signature raspy giggle, Muttley didn't otherwise speak too clearly. Not that he couldn't speak at all, but usually it was some vaguely understandable muttering. And if it wasn't Dick's own overconfidence in his plans doing them in, it'd probably be because he pushed his abuse of Muttley too far or just Muttley messing with him for his own amusement. Kind of a disfunctional relationship, honestly, but what do you expect? They're the villains!

After Wacky Races, they went on to menace other Hanna-Barbera characters, particularly the likes of Yogi Bear and Scooby-Doo. They also got their own spinoff, which is pretty good for a pair of villains who lost continuously! And that spinoff, Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines, is essentially the basis of this comic, which I promise we're gonna get to by the next paragraph. In fact, this one's almost used up, so let's dip in and see how you take that whole concept and bring it into modern realism~

So we start in the Middle Eastern country of Unliklistan, which we only see from a distance. Instead, we're hearing a radio broadcast where they're about to switch on their first atomic reactor. You can see the huge cooling tower and everything, it's the biggest building on the map. Before it starts, one reporter questions the active scientist (one Professor Dubious by name) whether the use of Unstablium-239 is a good idea. He will hear no protest, and activates the reactor. We are then treated to a massive explosion for page 2~

Four days later, we're joined in a United States Air Force jet piloted by Lt. Col. Richard Atcherly and his co-pilot Captain Dudley Muller, better known by their callsigns "Dick" and "Mutt", which I will also be using. Dick is annoyed for several reasons, not the least of which is that Mutt has brought his dog in the jet with them. Mutt reasons that low-level recon won't require the oxygen, and Dick tells him to expect the unexpected. Especially since a lot of these nations are unfriendly to begin with, and Unliklistan even more so, since the entire nation is currently irratiated following that explosion.

To that end, Mutt suddenly has a bogey on his radar. It's exactly what they've been sent to find: a surveillance drone that lost contact after investigating the explosion. And suddenly it's behind them. The pair catch a glimpse of it as it passes. It's a standard unmanned aircraft, labelled "War Pig One" on its side, and spewing a huge cloud behind it. But not a black cloud of potential engine failure. No, it's weird rainbow cloud filled with cartoon symbol swearing and other such iconography. The drone passes over them, bathing their jet in its cartoon discharge.

Dick tries to swing the jet around to follow it, but as he does so, the throttle turns into a cartoon steering wheel with an old-timey horn attached and detatches in his hands. Much like the Slapstick series before it, the cartoon objects are in a different artstyle to contrast them from the real world around them. Coloured outlines, a different kind of shading, the works. Anyway, with the steering wheel now disconnected from the aircraft, they start plunging to the ground. Mutt's eyes bug out of his head in shock, and I mean horrifically, hanging from the optic nerves and everything.

Dick yells at him to eject, and Mutt hits a button on his console, which has changed into just a single big red button. This launches them out of the jet--through the glass of their cockpit, at the end of enormous cartoon springs. They parachute to safety, and since I can see their parachutes, they're okay. Indeed, what we see next is Dick waking up in a hospital bed, covered in bandages. There's a few doctors surrounding him, letting him know that he's in a German air force base and that he's fine. Like, no trace of even any radiation sickness fine. Dick passes out again, asking vaguely where Mutt is.

Next time Dick comes to, he's being interrogated by a couple of secret agent types. They never say what organisation they work for, but they've got sunglasses, brown trenchcoats, and badges clipped to said trenchcoats. You know the type. Given they're in Germany, I'm gonna guess CIA? Anyway, while they're argumentative with Dick, they do tell him Mutt is being held in a different facility, which the wording "held" raises alarm bells for Dick. He demands more information, but they're leading the investigation, and show him a picture of the drone War Pig One.

He recognises it, stating his mission was to destroy it, which raises the suspicions of the first agent (we'll learn his name is Perkins in a few pages, let's go with that). Perkins states that the drone has been spotted in numerous locations over the Middle East and Europe since, and Dick remarks that it should've run out of fuel days ago. Perkins' partner, Nixon, tells him that it passed over their car that afternoon, and Perkins suddenly begins getting more erratic, shouting "you fool" and similar jargon, even accusing Dick of getting "wascally". Hey, is Hanna-Barbera allowed to reference Looney Tunes? Is that okay??

Dick asks if the drone was still spraying its bizarre cloud of stuff, and despite Perkins protesting not to give Dick information, Nixon confirms that they got a huge bath of the grawlix-filled mist. Dick notes to Nixon that this is when their aircraft started going out of control, then demands more information, such as where Mutt is and what exactly was being discharged from War Pig One. Perkins dives off the deep end, spewing almost as much gibberish as the drone was, until Nixon basically has to haul him away as he begins spouting cartoon cliche phrases.

Our comic ends with time having continued to pass since then. It's night and Dick's either asleep or just fading into it, when suddenly a voice calls out to him from the darkness--a voice he recognises. It's Mutt, and he's come to see him. He's escaped the other facility and is planning to have them both sneak out, but first he needs Dick to promise him to not over-react or panic when he turns on the light and shows him what happened. Dick does so, but immediately begins screaming when he catches sight of Mutt: he's fused with his dog, transforming him into a realistic anthro dog-man. As seen on the cover, so maybe this isn't as shocking to the readers as it is for Dick~

An intriguing premise to start with, eh? Of particular note, note how our titular protagonists aren't villains to start out with. (I mean, within the context of the comic; there's a lot we could argue about the US military, but this is neither the time nor place~) The clever among you can probably see where this is leading, but it's definitely the ride there that's the interesting part. As such, that's where we're headed the next few weeks~

#comics #reviews #Dastardly & Muttley #Taiblog

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eiy-lei · 8 months

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Royal Rumble 2024:A review (1/2)

Overview

The 2024 Royal Rumble has just wrapped up and I'd like to state that firstly, I believe that social media really affected people's perception on the event as a result of the rumours flying around during this rumble season.

They really gave people unrealistic expectations of what was to come in the rumble, preventing most of the IWC (internet wrestling community) from actually enjoying the event as a whole, which was unfortunate, and I'll further elaborate on this in my discussion about the respective rumble matches.

I did enjoy the enjoy the show quite a lot though, as it was my first time watching a rumble PLE/PPV live.

Women's Royal Rumble

This match was absolutely incredible and was the most fun I've ever had watching a women's royal rumble as, bias aside (since this was my first live rumble experience after all), the match was a good showcase of WWEs women's roster.

On that note a big complaint of this match was the fact that they used mainly mid-card/tag team talent in the rumble which, to counterpoint, is how you showcase your women's division, as in most of the previous women's rumbles, they were over reliant on old talent, with them taking a majority of the slots which, had people complain about WWE not showcasing their women's division, and now that they did that the IWC switched up.

This is unfortunate but goes to show how fickle wrestling fans are, which is unavoidable, however this shouldn't result in this great rumble getting a bad rep, as the surprises were genuinely great choices and all played a significant role in the rumble.

One thing I will agree with though is that a majority of the newer wrestling themes aren't that recognizable at a glance to most wrestling fans as either they aren't on TV enough or are just genuinely unmemorable (Tegan Nox, Indi Hartwell, Candince LeRae and a few others unfortunately) and as a result, to the average viewer (which is the majority of the Royal Rumble watchers each year) won't recognize these wrestlers by the initial note of the song.

However, this has always been an issue in every royal rumble since it's conception and I don't think it's advisable to ignore that every generation of royal rumbles have had unrecognizable participants to most viewers.

I don't like using the New Generation as an example as I usually consider it an anomaly, but in this case it's warranted as in the 1994, 1995 and 1996 rumbles, the majority of it's entrants were jobbers or house show regulars, and to provide further evidence, the 2004, 2005, 2006, 2011, 2015, 2016 and 2022 men and women's rumbles all suffer from this same problem but to an even greater extent, and the fact that people trust dirt sheets to determine their expectations and enjoyment of a rumble really is something I find questionable.

Excuse me for the rant, however I felt as though those issues must be discussed before we proceed any further, now onto the actual content within the rumble.

A returning Naomi brings the glow from no. 2

Naomi's return was electric. I figured she'd be returning after she lost at TNA Hard To Kill, however I didn't expect her to return so early into the match, let alone at no. 2. I'm so glad she did though as we got to witness her full length entrance, which admittedly, really set the tone for the match and provided the crowd in attendance with a high energy start to the event.

Natalya was a weird choice for no. 1 but I take no issue with it as thanks to this, it gave the crowd an opportunity to really appreciate and welcome Naomi back to the company, so in retrospect I think it was a smart choice to have someone neutral to the crowd like Natalya to enter alongside Naomi.

Naomi didn't just return, but she put on a record breaking performance (only to be broken on the same night by the eventual winner Bayley) and was showcased very well throughout the match, with the biggest highlight being her elimination of Becky Lynch, which shows that Triple H has big plans for her, and I'm excited to see where she goes from here.

Jordynne Grace knocks out the forbidden door

I'm so glad I didn't read the dirt sheets as Jordynne Grace coming in was quite possibly the biggest surprise out of any possible entrant, more so than a returning AJ Lee or Mercedes Mone/Sasha Banks.

Unlike Mickie James who previously did this same feat, Jordynne Grace has no prior relation the WWE and furthermore, is signed full-time to TNA while Mickie James wasn't, making her entrance even more ground breaking as this wasn't a deal between the WWE and the individual superstar, but a deal between WWE and TNA.

The landscape of wrestling has changed quickly after Vince's resignation and I'm eagerly awaiting what this WWE x TNA relationship is going to bring to the table.

Now, about Jordynne Grace, she may have had no eliminations but man did she look phenomenal out there. They made her look really strong, as a champion from a rival promotion should, however they didn't have her overshadow the top women in the company, preventing the women of WWE from looking too weak, and instead, allowed Jordynne to go toe-to-toe with the top stars, most notably Bianca Belair, leading to an absolutely gnarly apron KOD elimination.

Overall, A+ performance from Jordynne Grace and I'm happy that they gave her a strong showing.

AURA

Jade Cargill's debut has been anticipated for months, as time went on the more concern grew about her star power waning once she actually arrived, with many questioning why she was M.I.A after the initial widespread promotion of her signing.

Thankfully, it didn't take long for those worries to be washed away as the moment Jade's music hit, she received a thunderous reaction from the crowd, the loudest of the night.

The moment Jade walked out onto the ramp, the whole complexion of the match changed; her poses, her music, her attire, they all contributed into making her presence felt throughout the arena, a storm had truly swept across Tropicana Field that night.

When mentioning Jade Cargill in this rumble you've got to mention how Nia Jax was built throughout the rumble and how without this narrative built around Nia, Jade's debut wouldn't have been as spectacular as it was.

Nia was an absolute wrecking ball in this rumble, the moment she came out every woman stopped in their tracks and had set their sights on getting her out. I loved how they tried to recreate last year's spot where they had everyone in the ring gather round to eliminate Nia, but rather than it succeeding like last time, Nia powers out and punishes everyone in the ring, which emphasizes just how much more of a threat Nia had become in the past year to the entire women's division.

So by having Jade not just throw around Nia like she's nothing, but eliminate her singlehandedly when the entire ring couldn't do it together was a star making moment for Jade and solidified her as the baddest woman on the entire roster, and a legitimate threat to every top star in the company.

The little detail of her flexing as she holds Nia in the fireman's carry is immaculate and an amazing way for her to show off just how powerful she is, and Becky Lynch's reaction the Nia's elimination really adds to the moment, with her standing in awe of Jade's power.

They also managed to set up a mania match between her and Belair by having the two face off while both carrying Liv and Becky respectively, which again, helped elevate Jade to a main event star in just her debut appearance,

With Jade lasting till the rumble's final 3 and playing a part in the ending sequence in her debut alone, really solidified her as a main event player going forward and is the best possible way they could've debuted her without her actually winning the rumble.

Jade Cargill get's an A+ for her performance in the royal rumble.

Liv Morgan returns from injury at no. 30

Liv was not a bad choice for no. 30, personally it would've been more fitting for Jade to have this spot but I'm not upset about how it turned out.

The backlash behind Liv's return is a result of the aforementioned expectations fans had going into this rumble in regards to returns, and it's unfortunate that a major return was hindered as a result, and it's not like Liv didn't do much either, she was in the final 3 of the rumble and eliminated Jade Cargill, setting up a potential program between the two, most likely at the elimination chamber.

The Role Model triumphs

Saving the best for last; leading up this rumble I only had one wish, for Bayley to finally get her moment. Bayley has always felt like the odd duckling of the four horsewomen.

She carried the women's division in the pandemic era, a part of the first ever women's PPV main event and Iron Woman match at NXT Takeover Respect against Sasha Banks in an all time classic, an amazing worker both on the mic and in the ring, and so much more.

Despite all of her achievements Bayley has always felt underappreciated, with her body of work often being overshadowed by her peers, even now she's carrying the Damage CTRL storyline and elevated the group to new heights.

So seeing her finally win the rumble, punching her ticket to mania and potentially (now that CM Punk is injured) main eventing Night 1 against IYO, I couldn't be happier for Bayley (and IYO of course but that's just personal bias)

When Damage CTRL was eliminated early on in the rumble, it set the stage for the ultimate underdog story for Bayley, leading to her eventually breaking Rhea Ripley's iron woman record from the year prior.

With all these factors in mind, Bayley's win ticked all the right boxes, with it feeling well deserved, hard fought and most importantly, continuing the long term story that's been established over the past few months, all of which point towards an eventual Bayley face turn.

This little snippet of uncertainty from IYO after Bayley's win further adds to the moment, as without a single word being said it speaks volumes of what is to come.

Overall, I believe that this rumble is the greatest women's royal rumble of all time, with it having the ideal amount of surprises, action and story telling befitting of an amazing royal rumble.

I proudly give this match a 5/5 *****

Thanks for reading gang, I'll be reviewing the rest of the matches in a subsequent post coming soon, til then, have a good eve-after-morning :)

(author's note:- one issue I did have with this rumble was the whole tilt-a-whirl head scissors spot with Maxinne, I like to be fair when evaluating her as she is really green in the ring and only really began training last year but unfortunately that whole spot was painful to watch. I hope she improves from that going forward).

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bellshazes · 1 year

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do it again directors commentary part 2

He and Etho had shown up at her favorite diner for takeout midnight breakfast while she had been hanging out at the bar, chatting with Scott, and without even thinking about it she’d joined their argument, switching sides periodically to keep it going. Years enough have passed that she can’t remember now what it had even been about, but she remembers Bdubs’ instant adoption of her as an ally and the wounded look he gave her when she conceded Etho had some good points, too. Etho had smiled brightly with his eyes and given her the faintest nod of approval, opening up the takeout boxes and settling down on the seat next to her.

this is very explicitly inspired by all the times i've gone to waffle house and the encounters i've had meeting old friends there who i never expected to see again. it's about the familiarity but also the capacity to shift and surprise and change the dynamic if it's funny. so it goes

Bdubs smiles knowingly at her. He heard all the goings-on of her tabletop campaigns and knows exactly what happened to her old D&D group. He’d been an exceptionally good sport about it, showing up for many late-night dinners to let her vent, as if it were a recap of his favorite TV show.

this and other things allude to the cleo-big b breakup that i never found a good place to make more explicit. i like the idea of it being some nebulous D&D situation partially because i despise D&D and because i think it's fun that since cleo continues to care that big b betrayed them, it should show up in silly ways, because it's fundamentally a betrayal in the specific context of a game. but it matters, what we did or didn't do, etc.

Cleo pauses and holds eye contact. For half a second she imagines a red bandana around Bdubs’ head, but it’s only the force of Bdubs’ belief that snares her.

another thing i never quite made explicit but is true: cleo received an unusually high number of lives, as did bdubs, and it's that fact that makes her more susceptible to remembering. if i had got to make it more explicit, i could've got into the exchange of lives as memory and as permanency, as debts and owing and relationships built across lifetimes... but I didn't. so this is what you get.

“That is a lot to ask of a guy, Cleo,” he says, but he stands up when she does. “If I for some reason am prevented from talking to Etho by such things as him being asleep all day, or un-overcomeable anxiety -”

i hate this line? i think i nailed bdubs' voice in the first half but i've spent so long trying to come up with something better than "un-overcomeable anxiety" and never did. i think he says things in super fucking weird ways but that's not right. it was worth leaving because i do believe in the dynamic of cleo playing mediator insofar as it's funny to them, and in cleo chastising bdubs, and their back and forth.

“Bdubs,” he says. “Hey, Bdubs.” He squeezes his hand again. “I wanted you to know. I’m so glad you were my partner.”

this whole Death Coffee Incident is borrowed wholesale from opera25's mll au, but it was fun making something kind of fantastical work. etho never was given any lives, and only gave one up to tango for the you bet your life game; he remembers here solely due to the life-threatening duress of consuming wayyyyyy too much caffeine. it was fun to write but also the pivotal moment in bdubs becoming convinced etho always had remembered and thinking then that the only reason he'd behave the way he did if he remembered was out of bloodlust... not that bdubs had yet unlocked memories of enjoying that murderousness and play back and forth.

there's a level to which this misunderstanding is a satirization/playing with fandom conceptions of if you view LL in a vacuum you get some crazy interpretations. but as they both learn, the threats were fun BECAUSE they had history and both enjoyed it. four more chapters for that to sink in though.

The process of checking into the ER is as onerous as he expected – trying to fill out the paperwork for Etho, who is still more out of it than Bdubs was when he had a head injury, having to put his foot down that he’d like to stay with his partner as much as possible and yes he had the paperwork to back him up, because Etho had made him keep a copy of important things in his wallet after he fell of the roof in case of something like this.

this part is in spite of my severe medical phobia, but also because of me working in insurance-related fields for the last 4 years. this document is called an advance directive or living will and if you live in the USA you should complete one by searching "advance directive [your state]" and filling it out and filing it according to the directions on your attorney general's website or whatever. it's genuinely imporant esp if you're not married and queer in any way. this is my one genuine PSA of the fic. but also they would. etho requesting to dot Is and cross Ts bc he thinks bdubs will be the one who needs and and then needing it himself... well. anyway.

He remembers fragments from his last death: that he had made some promise that didn’t save him, that cost him his last life. That he died calling Etho’s name, calling out to an Etho who took great joy in menacing him and making him paranoid, who had attacked him in that long dark stairway. It does not comfort him to know Etho thinks he’s responsible for whatever happened.

this chapter ends with bdubs trying and sort of succeeeding in believing in etho, but that last sentence is the lynchpin of what comes after: etho feeling even a little responsible for bdubs permadying - esp when bdubs remembers being a ghost for session 7 but was not present for etho's permadeath in session 8 - makes him think etho knows more than he does, and holds him accordingly responsible. the metacommentary is there but it wasn't the point; it's true, but incidental. the reveal eventually is that the trust was there, and that bdubs' permadeath was stupid and willing because it's about the novelty and the endless beginnings. spoilers but whatever if you're reading this you must not care by now.

chapter 4

He can feel his heart beating in his chest, and he has a sense-memory of falling down with all the vivid, terrifying sensation of jumping from the height of a swing in the park as a child, down to the faint awareness that the intervening years meant it was no longer quite the same body, that something had been knocked out of alignment by time.

it's a little tonally dissonant, but i'm still proud of this. you can tell later on i floundered for plot in this chapter, but the image of being both in the past and in the present and the overlay is important to me. it's very poetic.

Etho snagged a nametag off the apron that had been draped over the drinks counter, presumably in a now-ruined hope of ending the shift quickly, and slipped it into his pocket before turning back to smile placidly over Bdubs’ shoulder.

etho stealing the nametags is another MLL AU concept i stole and can't take credit for, but again trying to find a plausible concrete explanation for it was really fun and was the impetus for this whole chapter. grateful for it, and he's an ass and also nosy like that. he would.

Etho punched the crosswalk button and tried to remember that conversation but couldn’t. He remembered getting coffee, and that he’d almost finished it off by the time he’d gotten home. [...] “No,” he said, sounding strangled. “That hadn’t come up, actually.”

the limited alternating third person POV is restricting at times, but i really enjoy the contrast between what we already know of bdubs' perception of the Death Coffee Incident re: etho's knowledge and etho's POV making clear he doesn't know jack shit, but he cares. bdubs is reacting this way because etho saying he took the crazy coffee to stay up to see bdubs sounds like a threat, but it's also an expression of caring and not knowing how to bridge a distance.

if theres anything i believe it's that these two motherfuckers don't capital-T talk. they exclusively communicate through threats and shenanigans and team-ups and every time they mention talking outside of Events it shocks me. and yet their friendship persists over more than a decade! what miracles.

“You can’t take dreams too seriously,” Etho said, cat purring loudly under his hands, a soothing anchor. “It’s just your brain picking up on whatever’s going in your life and making up stories about it. No good worrying too much about them.”

this is mine own opinion on dreams, despite my sincere involuntary belief in signs and omens, but more importantly it is another point at which bdubs is implicitly in his own POV goign oh my god this son of a bitch is manipulating me. miscommunication for ages.

He spends a few nights on the couch, methodically trying to rule the variables out: the quality of moonlight through his bedroom window, some oppressive sense of confinement, embracing the possibility his roommate is testing him and trying to prove to his subconscious that fishing rods are nothing to be worried about.

etho being experimental and scientific about this all is important to me. almost as much as half-remembering bdubs misinterprets this exacting need to know as being meaningful and knowing when it's not, especially when he was trying to elicit some response. guy gets a response and thinks the worst even though he's causing his own problems? there's a thesis in that

Etho bites back a comment about Bdubs’ dedication to sleep schedules and waves the criticism off instead. “I’m trying to sleep right now,” he lies. “Not my problem if you want to haunt me.”

if i ever let myself revise this chapter (and this chapter is the one i want to revise most) i want to include the detail from beau's comic of this passage of etho having his glasses on when he says this. my dude was definitely not tryign to sleep AT ALL and i forever wish i'd thought of that indicator myself.

When he sits down to start his own work for the day, he thinks about the drawing and decides then and there what his plan is to fix all this.

i wrote this line bc i have such a sense that chapter endings, like the endings of short stories, should have a paritcular cadence and effect - but neither etho nor i knew how "to fix all this" and in fact the subsequent chapters indicate he definitely was not laying his final plans yet. i've let it stay because putting this line in let me move on to write the rest of the fic... but it's untrue and a red herring and i hate it. i will fix you eventually. but not yet because i still dont' know how to satisfyingly transition.

etho doesn't get his next POV chapter until the second half of chapter 6 at the diner with cleo, where he finally confronts that his dreams might be real enough to have to deal with, and even then he goes through great lengths to validate cleo's theories by messing with tango... so who knows. but it's fine. it's fine. i hate it. it's fine

#peter writes #do it again au #for whatever it's worth i'm still always thinking abt them #even my anon fic was in my braims about DIA!ethubs.#but also these 2 chapters have several lines i hate but won't revise until/if i ever do a real revision

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eggluttony · 2 years

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how about,, on the flipside,, eggman stuffing YOU to see your limit and how much you can take? 🤔

Oh my 😳😳😳😳 I'm very shy to admit but I actually can enjoy it on the flip side on occasion and have thought about it reversed quite a bit. Didn't expect anyone would be interested so I've literally never told anyone until now... 👉👈

I can see him eventually wanting to switch the roles and have a go at feeding me to see how I'd like it, just like how he has enjoyed feeding his fellow fatty counterparts in my concepts. I'd be very shy doing it with him as my first time but he'd find it cute and be happy that he gets to be the one that I try it with. He would enjoy easing me into being fed by him and I'd be in good hands as there'd be no better than to learn from the expert that does this all the time! He'd sit me against his own big full tummy that I fed and say it's my turn now.

He'd definitely like having control over me by deciding how much I eat and when I get to stop. The closeness and intimacy of us being so close, with him holding me there and feeding me forkful/spoonful/by hand would be nice. Him smirking and cooing at how cute he finds the sight of me with my mouth full, praising me and kissing my cheek and softly whispering encouragement to keep going that would make me shiver hehe. And despite how embarrassed and blushy I am, I'd try harder to please him and he'd promise more kisses as a reward.

Feeling my tummy get firmer and fuller while I'm pressed against his much bigger, fatter, softer one the more he fills it up would be wonderful. He could tease me by saying that I'm greedier than he thought as I swallow it all down for him obediently. He'd start to understand why I'm a little bit chubby and he'd say "You like being stuffed don't you?" I've never been confronted so I'd be so shy but excited. And I'd be the most enthusiastic I've ever been if he was there to help me so I'd try harder than usual ///^^///

He'd like to persuade, more like urge, me to keep going just like I would with him. If I said I was too full and unsure if I should eat more, he'd say things like "don't you want to make me happy?" and would get more assertive as he says "only I get to say when you stop, now keep eating." He still goes easy on me but enjoys the dominance of ordering me. It would be impossible to resist because I always want to please him! And him giving me a whole new plate/bowl with hopes of getting it all in my already full tummy would be exciting.

If I wasn't hard already I would be with that as he keeps making me open my mouth to eat even more and pushes more in with one hand while he starts to rub my tummy with the other to support me and coax me into it. 😳 He'd tease me some more and say that he can certainly tell I'm enjoying it when he feels something poke him and that means I need to eat more. I'd keep eating for him, especially if he called me a good boy as he really starts to force it down. We both enjoy the feeling of our full tummies pushed against each others. 💕

And when I'm finally done with the big meal and feel really stuffed, I'd be thrilled if he suddenly surprised me even further by bringing out a rather hefty dessert and saying that I still have to eat all of it up before I'm done, despite how firm and full I feel. I can never turn down a good dessert, I especially couldn't when it's at his command. He'd feed me every bite and excitedly urge me to keep going and I'd always want to do my best to be good for him and make him happy and being pushed to my limits for him would feel really good.

I think if he really pushed me and encouraged me well, which I know he could as the temptation is already there and he also has me wrapped around his finger, I feel that he could succeed in feeding me at least about two meals worth of food in one sitting, a pretty big dessert, and make me gulp down plenty of drink to try to push me that little bit extra and make sure there's no extra room left in my tummy, so it's nice and rounded out and firm as much as it possibly can be when he pats it, feeling proud of himself for feeding it well.

I'd also love if he kept making me drink more milk or something when I'm already so full, so he can make sure I'm nicely bloated too. And during it he could bring out small cheeky extras like cakes or pastries or chocolates or ice cream and feed it between gulps as he says it pairs with it nicely and I'd consider asking him to stop as it gets pretty intense but I wouldn't be able stop accepting it for how pleasurable it is and he'd just keep shoving it in anyway and get carried away with the excitement of something new.

I'd definitely get a tummy ache when it's all expanded and tight as much as it can for him to be satisfied but it's very hard to make me feel sick and unable to keep going, so he could test my capacity limit until I'm moaning and whining about how full I am and feel like I'll burst if I eat more. Then he'd coo teasingly and ask if I ate too much and blame me because I think I could be quite greedy, especially when motivated by being so eager to please him. He'd be very pleased with it being yet another example of my devotion to him. 💕

He'd also definitely tease me for how much less I can handle compared to him, even though it would obviously be no surprise and I'd be like "hey I'm not the one with the big bottomless bear belly!" And he'd chuckle and take the opportunity to boast about how much his big fat belly can hold. But he'd find my efforts in it cute and he'd still be quite impressed with what I could manage for the first ever feeding from him. He always finds it attractive when a man has a very full tummy, I'd love to get him excited through that too.

I need my tummy to be held in support and rubbed when I'm too full and I bet his big warm bear paw hands would feel absolutely amazing on it. 🥰 Also cuddling and pushing my full tummy up to his way bigger and fuller tummy would be heavenly, we could help comfort and love up each other's! 💜 I can quickly get very sleepy when I eat too much and I'd be very cozy with him as he'd kiss me and tell me that I did a good job and keep giving my tummy gentle rubs to lull me to sleep, saying that we should do this again some time.

I don't get to eat a lot very often and I often think about how there'd be an endless food supply when living with Eggman. While I'd put all the focus on pampering him and helping him gain, I think I'd get a bit chubbier too and he'd seem to "accidentally" have meals made a bit too big for me, pretend he overestimated based on his own portions, and I'd be eating more food more often as it'd be a great way to spend time with him and he'd always suggests that I join and eat with him too. I'd realize that he was encouraging it for a reason hehe 💘

#modern #stuffing #imagines #asks #self ship #tl

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surely-galena · 2 years

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Through the Looking Glass, and What Vyn Found There -- Writer's Commentary and Reflection

[WC: 1.6K]

I heavily underestimated how long TtLG was going to turn out.

It was meant to follow In the end, all I long for is to be a bit of warmth for you and Despite All Odds, It Seems I've Met My Match in the sense that it's a wacky adventure centering around one NXX member and following a mini character arc.

And yeah, Through the Looking Glass still fits that. But with a tentative estimate of 20K at the beginning (like Despite All Odds), I definitely did not expect to end up writing an additional 30K.

There are certain ideas that didn't make it into the final draft, branching points and other things I had to cut or switch into something else. But with no other place to put those ideas, I figured I might as well chat about them for those who might be interested! Or in case you wanted to know all the other ways Through the Looking Glass might have turned out.

Spoilers galore!

Oh no I forgot about that

Since I wrote TtLG over a year and wrote other fics in between, it was tricky keeping track of all the tiny details.

A main example of this is Vyn's crown. He gets the crown around ch11/12, and then I completely forgot about it for the rest of the chapters. I only realized when I was writing ch19 and hurriedly went back to ch13 just to sneak in one line of "OH AND ALSO HE DOES NOT HAVE THE CROWN ANY LONGER." For continuity purposes.

Foreshadowing is a thing

The Snow White twist didn't come to me until later in the story. I decided I liked the idea, and then had to go back and grab details I could twist into something relevant and present it all as HA, FORESHADOWING!!

It just worked out really well, especially when you realize that the queen and the huntsman are both vaguely alluded to in the first couple of paragraphs.

I'm quite happy with the way I tied things together considering I was writing and posting the fic chapter by chapter, but it's definitely made me consider planning a fic better or at least writing a little more ahead before I post a chapter XD

In a similar way, the climax was really hard for me to figure out. That was actually the main reason I ran into a roadblock around March-Sept, when I stopped writing the fic for a bit. I didn't really want to lead the characters around in circles when I had no clue where the story was gonna go.

And then I read back, landed in Luke's chapter, and saw his "home is where the heart is" line.

And I was like, oh. Because that's it, that's the answer! It was RIGHT THERE for the taking, and then I snatched it and ran with it for the second half of the fic.

Stuff I wanted to implement but couldn't for pacing / thematic / other reasons, and other cut lines

I thought a lot about how I wanted the climax to go. Some of these ideas I still find pretty fun, they just didn't really fit in the way I wanted them to.

So one thing I thought about was leaning into the whole sleight of hand thing we get in SR Lingering Warmth, like:

Wonderland character: “You’re mad.”

Vyn: “Ah, but there is a method to my madness, is there not?”

So instead of following fairy tale magic logic, maybe Vyn takes some inspiration from Carl and goes screw it, I’m making my own magic with Trickery and Deceit

Another thing I thought about was having the looking glass in the throne room be more of an overt threat when we first see it?

“It’s a looking glass,” the queen says. “It tells me I’m pretty.”

“It’s a looking glass,” the beast says. “It tells me I’m human.”

(Oh yeah, and the huntsman was first just outright referred to as the Beast! I still kept that idea, just changed him to the huntsman to better reflect the Snow White story)

I also played around with the concept of checkmate for the longest time. I thought about Vyn saying "checkmate" mistakenly, Vyn saying "checkmate" not mistakenly, and someone else saying "checkmate" to Vyn when he makes a bad judgement.

In the end, no one says "checkmate" HAHA

I was going to make Marius have more song references. That's it, that's the cut concept (and single line)

“You know the rules, and so do I.” Marius grunts as he ducks to avoid the incoming barrage of cards.

Zangr was originally planned to make some meta comments about fanfic, just because it's Zangr. I decided to make him marginally more helpful instead. Cryptic, but still helpful!

And oh, remember this bit?

Zangr shrugs, and his cloak shifts with the movement. He closes his eyes, as if trying to recall something. “One for knowledge, two for understanding. Three for answers, four for more. Five for strife. Shadows unfold.”

Zangr is actually referring to the squares Vyn had previously traveled! First Square for getting a hold on what's actually happening (knowledge), Second Square for Carl and understanding the cards and the end goal, Third Square for MC to break through some of Vyn's walls (internal answers), Fourth Square for more answers (as in "home is where the heart is"), and the Fifth Square is in reference to Marius and Vyn's tense relationship (strife).

More climax ideas!

I briefly played around with Vyn actually having to go to Svart, but discarded it pretty quickly. I didn't wanna delve too much into canon Svart, haha

Chapter 12 (where we meet the Queen of Hearts for the first time) was originally going to be the climax chapter, but as I got closer to that point, I realized that was not the right stopping point. Vyn hadn't had his whole arc yet, hadn't properly resolved things with Artem, and also the rest of the NXX hadn't really had the chance to do much as a team. Which meant it became a halfway point instead, and we got to go to the Underland, huzzah

Lastly, I think the climax idea I was saddest about dropping had to do with the calling cards, mostly because it meant I couldn't write in this line:

Vyn spreads his arms. "I have achieved subdivision."

I managed to sneak in the fact that the calling cards still worked in the final chapter as a small nod to this, but essentially I had thought about having Vyn's dark moment be by himself (instead of in the lift thing with Artem). After a while, he would draw something on the cards -- either the original symbols to recall MC, Marius, Luke, and Marius again, OR:

He'd draw a psi symbol. And the idea was to have that drawing result in a sort of clone Vyn (where original Vyn is the hivemind and the card Vyns are decoys). And then have Vyn repeat the process until he had five different Vyns to take on the Queen of Hearts.

It's pretty easy to see why I ended up going a different route, but I still find the subdivision quote to be pretty fun.

Finally, this is a section I cut out of the last chapter. It's a little rough, but I thought I would include it here, anyway. As much as I liked the circular writing, it didn't really fit into the chapter as well as I wanted it to.

They say Stellis is a place where dreams are made real.

A young woman studies furiously so she can uphold justice where there is none.

A man enters the city in search of a place to call home.

These tales all have one thing in common: they have had to work for their dreams. For Stellis has areas that are both dark and light.

There are people in Stellis who never fulfill their dreams nor achieve their happily-ever-afters. After all, it is a place like any other.

So who is it who fights for these happy ever afters? Who are the people who stand up for the common folk and swear to defend justice and hope and dreams?

A determined maiden, a rising attorney, a star detective, a young heir, and a psychiatrist with a hidden past.

There are other unsung heroes, of course. There always are.

But it is because of these five that Stellis continues to be a place where dreams can be upheld.

They do not have magic spells or looking glasses to draw from, but they have boldness and courage and resilience. And they have each other.

Unacknowledged by the majority of the people around them, they continue to work for the good of their home.

Final Thoughts

I quite like the way Through the Looking Glass turned out! It may not be my favorite fic I've ever written, but for all the problems I ran into along the way, I'm fairly satisfied with it. There are things I could have done better, sure, but all things considered, I completed it and that's cool! It'll be a little sad to say goodbye, but it'll also be very exciting to open up a blank document and draft something new :D

What's next?

Okay, so we had the monster plant fic for Luke, a genderbent/parallel universes AU for Artem, and a Wonderland excursion for Vyn. It's kinda obvious who's next in the lineup XD

I do have some Marius fic concepts in mind, but before I really go down the road of "what multichapter to write next", I'm gonna take a nice break haha. But maybe someday Marius is going to finally, finally have a fic that's centered on just him :')

#okay_galena #would recommend not reading until you've finished the final chapter!

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