#seven pages baybee

[klysanderelias]

Okay so I finished watching the Ring, let's get this fucker started

So the beats of the movie are pretty similar, so if you read my play-by-play of Ringu, you more or less know the idea, and I'll be working more on the parts that the American version changes.

Awright.

First thing I noticed was the blue-greenish twilight filter. I swear to god, it looks so much like twilight especially right out of the gate. The whole film is washed out and the brightness of Ringu really doesn't echo here. I kind of don't like it partially because the darker atmosphere is a stereotypical horror movie thing, and to be honest, that's kind of my problem with a lot of The Ring. It's such a horror movie. I feel like they kept having to stop and go 'wait, this is a horror movie' during the script. It's shoehorned in, in a lot of places, and a lot of the shots are technically good but just don't... fit. Or at least, they feel like they had a quota to hit, instead of actually deciding that this was the best way to shoot the movie.

Anyway, the opening isn't quite shot for shot, but it's close. One note - no one in this movie seems to like each other. Especially at the beginning, it was jarring because all the characters in Ringu feel alive and connected to each other. In The Ring, everyone feels like self-centered douchebags.

The two girls from the beginning didn't feel like friends, they felt like Mean Girls extras. Rachel (Ringu's Reiko), the main character, is introduced yelling at her boss and coming late to pick up her kid Aidan after school, AND ignores the concerns her kid's teacher voices. Noah, Rachel's ex (I think boyfriend, not husband) and Aidan's father, treats Rachel like shit for the opening, clearly doesn't believe her about the tape, and acts like it's all no big deal and she's being an anxious bitch. Rachel's sister, the mother of the victim from the opening, doesn't even seem to really grieve her daughter's death - it feels like she skips the grief and goes straight to suspicion and anger. It's subtle, especially in some places, but the whole tenor of the movie shifts because of this characterization. It's such an American horror movie experience. They just don't like each other. It feels like everyone is in the line at the bank, tapping their foot impatiently for their turn at the counter.

There's still the same 'kid wanders the house alone' scene, and here, it's much more explicit that he's on some level following the girl's footsteps. The problem is, I don't think he's supposed to be psychic in this. I never got the feeling that Aidan had anything like that going on. It just felt like he was a weird kid, and all the strange occurences around him were Samara's (Sadako's) doing. And there's the same smash cut to the face of the victim, but it comes earlier, and it's just not the same because again the mother doesn't have the grief. It's not unsettling, it's just a jumpscare, and I think partially it doesn't hit as well because I just watched it this morning, but also the victims in The Ring have this pallid, distorted, bloated look to their bodies that just doesn't hold up. There's more CG, there's more effects, and it doesn't look as good because it's twenty years old. Ringu looks better again because it's makeup and practical effects, not filters or processing overlaid on the actor.

There's a recurring bit in The Ring where people who've seen the video start unconsciously drawing long hair over women's faces, and there's a lot of foreshadowing put into the movie. I know I asked for a little more in Ringu, but I felt that The Ring did too much here. Again, I'm sure if I hadn't just watched Ringu it would hit better, but it's also so on the nose. The cursed video, for example, is much more just straight evocative shots of weird things, like a box of fingers or a centipede crawling around, or a bunch of wriggling maggots, and also again just super on the nose shots of like, Samara's mother jumping off a cliff. I don't think it's bad, but especially at the beginning I kept going 'holy fuck we're 40 minutes into this 2 hour movie and they're already on day 5.' It just felt like they were speedrunning so much of the plot so that they could, again, fill the horror quota.

Rachel goes to the cabin, watches the tape. There's a super long scene in the office with a guy who I at first thought was Stephen King trying to do a magic trick at her. I will say, the cinematography when she's sitting down to watch the video is great, with the sunset creating a red patina over half the cabin.

She calls the ex over to look at the tape, he acts like she's worried over nothing and tells her not to worry. Oh yeah, he's a video analyst in this one, not a researcher/professor. The phone rings, and she doesn't answer it, and deletes the voicemail. He asks her to make him a copy and leaves.

She brings him the copy, they watch it together again, they're scrubbing through the video, and a woman shows up who's clearly dating Noah, and it gets real weird real fast, because Rachel's obviously jealous about it. This woman comes back in like one other scene, that doesn't feel important at all, and I'm left wondering why they had to include this beat.

Rachel goes to the hospital (read: asylum) that the other girl from the beginning was put in, and asks her about what happened to the victim. It's not great partially because I think the way mental health patients are used in horror movies is gross and exploitative, but also it's just kind of flat. The girl basically goes 'you're gonna die, and it's four days now,' and I go 'why the fuck do you know that'

There's a good scene where Rachel is scrubbing through the video again and pauses on a scene with a fly in it, and she notices that despite the video being paused, the fly is moving. She pinches her fingers on the screen and pulls the fly through by the wing. It's a good shot, it's a good touch, I'm very positive on the fly.

Rachel researches some of the things she's found in the video and tracks down the woman brushing her hair as Anna Morgan, a horse breeder on a small island. Her storyline is that she really wanted a kid but kept having miscarriages, she and her husband went off somewhere and just kinda came back with a kid, and then everything went to shit. All the horses kept drowning themselves, she jumped into the sea, etc.

Rachel asks her sister to watch Aidan for a few days, and while she's on the phone she starts gagging and pulls what I originally thought was black hair but is actually a sensor electrode thing out of her mouth. It's a scene that again feels like they went 'wait fuck this is a horror movie' and jammed in quick to get the gross-out.

Rachel travels to the island while her ex goes to the asylum where Anna was treated before she killed herself. On the ferry to the island, Rachel fucks around with a horse in a trailer and it panics and breaks loose, eventually jumping off the ferry and into the water. It's not a clean jump, either - the horse catches a foot on the railing and tumbles hard. It's either great prop work or effective CG because it looks good, and it also looks organic and nasty because it's such a clumsy fall.

Rachel finds Anna's husband while Noah breaks and enters into the records room. Anna's husband is a piece of shit, he's far less interesting than the old man in Ringu, but he does get a good line. He says "What is it with reporters? You take one person's tragedy and force the world to experience it, spread it like sickness" which y'know, themes, but also it kind of falls flat because he's just not worth the screen time. He rebuffs Rachel's questions and sends her away after she admits to having seen the video.

Rachel goes to the island's doctor to ask about Samara, and mostly it really is just 'why do we bash deadbeat dads when maybe the kid just sucks?' The doctor basically says 'the kid sucked, and we're all happy she's dead', and I felt like this whole character and scene was wasted.

Except, there's a really good exchange here that really doesn't hold water in the context of the scene, but it was such a good moment I have to praise it -

Rachel: "Was there anything wrong with [Samara]?"

Doctor: "You mean medically?"

Rachel: "I mean whatever you mean."

Rachel goes back to Samara's family house and snoops around. She finds a video of the 'treatment' Samara was getting that was like, prison solitary confinement vibes. They really put that little girl in an empty all white room with nothing to do for 14 hours straight. I found it much harder to sympathize with Samara in this one, but still, I was like 'man this poor fuckin' kid.'

As Rachel is watching the film of Samara in the psych ward, the father comes up behind her and hits her, before going upstairs and electrocuting himself in the bath. Again, it's a dumb scene, it feels forced, I don't get why he's trying to kill himself, and honestly I don't know why he's still alive! Out of anyone in the fuckin' world, why did Samara not kill this fucker as fast as she possibly could?

Noah shows up and he and Rachel go into the barn to find a little attic area with a bed and a shitty TV that apparently Samara's parents made her stay, instead of like, letting her sleep in the fuckin house???? They see a burned depiction of a tree on the wall and realize that they need to go to the cabin instead of being here. I think in both versions it's not really clear why the well Samara/Sadako is in is so far away from her family home.

I will say, at this point in the movie, there's like 30 more minutes to the movie and I've completely lost track of time. I'm not sure what day it is, I'm not sure how much time Rachel has left before her seven-day-deadline, and I don't think the characters know or care either! Her looming death seems completely sidelined in favor of the rapid-fire reveals, and I think it's a pacing issue because they really shoved all the important information into the last few days. In Ringu, there's a pretty steady feed of information over the days, and by the time they reach day seven, there's not much to do except go to the well and start searching.

Anyway, they get to the cabin, which is a full ferry ride away and who knows how much longer of an overland journey, it was night in the last major scene, and now the movie is reminding us how Rachel watched the movie at sunset. Again, I've lost the time frame, and I'm not worried that they're going to run out the clock because no one has been watching the clock for like the last half hour of the movie.

They break through the floor to find the well, open it up, and all this time, the nails in the floor are starting to rise up, there's water pooling, and the TV comes on. I'm sitting here thinking to myself, uh, Samara, you DO remember that Rachel's safe, right? What's going on here?

And then the whole fucking thing comes apart and I get so mad.

The floor drops and the TV rolls down into Rachel's back and knocks her down into the well. She doesn't choose to climb down, she's effectively pulled in. She opens her eyes and struggles to the surface and I'm struck by how fuckin' clean the water looks. Like, when she's above the surface, it looks grimy, but there's a number of shots where things in the water are crystal clear as soon as they're anywhere close to the surface.

Once again, Samara's fingernails are stuck in the wall, it looks good.

Rachel messes around in the water for a second and comes up with a handful of black hair. Samara's hand comes up and grabs her arm, and throws her into a flashback.

A flashback of Samara, standing in front of the well, singing, and Anna (which I was like, huh, not who I expected) comes up behind her and says 'isn't it beautiful. All I ever wanted was you' and THEN takes a piece of plastic and smothers Samara. She drops the girl into the well, and as Samara hits the water and eventually opens her eyes, she sees the lid of the well covering it up and blocking out the sunlight, showing us the titular ring.

Samara's body floats to the surface and Rachel scoops it up as the mark on her arm fades. Samara's body looks like a normal human, until Rachel strokes her forehead and says 'it's okay,' at which point the girl's body dissolves in a pretty bad CG effect. Looked not great.

At this point, Rachel's holding the skeleton, and she lets it fall back into the water.

I'll get mad about this later.

She stands there shivering in the water as Noah shouts down at her.

The cops show up, they're outside in blankets, and the worst fucking dialogue of the movie starts.

Rachel says [Anna] wanted that child more than anything else in the world, and says [Samara} just wanted to be heard, and then says "sometimes children yell or cry or draw pictures." And then she says "I want to go home."

And I'm like.

Damn.

Sometimes children DO be yelling or crying or drawing pictures. Not sure what the fuck that has to do with anything that you just experienced, but y'know.

They also explicitly say shit like 'I wonder how long you could survive down there,' beat, 'seven days.'

Again, too on the fucking nose for me.

And then they go home, and it keeps getting worse, because Aidan and Rachel are in bed and wake up and Aidan asks 'what happened to [Samara], is she still in the dark place' and Rachel says 'no we set her free' and Aidan sits up all freaked out and goes 'you helped her?' and Rachel says yeah and he says 'you weren't supposed to help her' and she says 'don't worry she's not going to hurt you'

And she pulls up his sleeve to see the hand mark on his arm and he says 'don't you understand Rachel she never sleeps'

And I'm like... I don't understand. The whole thing is that it doesn't matter if they went down into the well or not, because the video's still cursed. It's not like they reactivated the curse by setting her free or some shit. It's a beat that feels like they forgot? what the movie was about? Or at least, that they put in because they were worried you might have otherwise gotten up and left thinking the movie was over?

Anyway, Noah dies, it's a scene that again just doesn't hit because it's twenty years old, man. They have this overlay on Samara's actor, there's this glitch-teleport-jump she does that doesn't look good any more, and she just kind shrugs her shoulders as she walks? They should have put makeup on her, and they DON'T SHOW HER HANDS

Rachel shows up, finds Noah's dead body, cries and asks what she did that he didn't, and realizes that it's the copying and showing the tape to someone else.

She takes Aidan to make a copy of the tape, he says 'it's going to keep killing isn't it' and Rachel says 'it's okay you're going to be okay' and Aiden asks 'what about the person we show it to? what happens to them?'

And she just kinda... looks? at him? And then the movie ends?

Which to be honest, is better than what was supposedly in the original script, which was that Rachel sent the copy of the video to a convict on death row? But also apparently the DVD release ends with her taking the copy of the video and putting it in a video store, which at least is something real to end on. This ambiguity just doesn't feel good, and that's without even making the comparison to Ringu's ending!

I think overall, The Ring is a solid 6.5/10 horror movie. It's technically sound, it's gross and consistent, and every time I was like 'oh damn this is cool' it was always tempered with the feeling like, well, i watched the good one already.

I think it's fine? It's one more American remake that strips a lot of the soul and passion away for effects and thrills, and I think fundamentally fails to understand a lot of what I enjoyed about Ringu. It's the bones of the same story but Rachel drops the skeleton, and Reiko cradles it and lays her cheek against the skull.

None of these people care about each other.

[droptoeholdyourhorses]

The Best Friends Deserve Bester

Chuck Taylor and Trent Beretta have been teaming together as The Best Friends since August 2013. In January 2014, they won PWG's Dynamite Duumvirate Tag Team Title Tournament, becoming number one contenders to the PWG World Tag Team Championship. They lost their subsequent challenge against The Young Bucks at Mystery Vortex II. The only other time Chuck and Trent have competed for those titles was at 2019's Hand of Doom where they lost to The Rascalz. What that means is that out of seven teams who won the PWG DDT4 between 2007 and 2015, The Best Friends are the only ones to have never held the PWG World Tag Team Championship.

Alright, well maybe they had better luck in NJPW. Trent's a four-time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champion with Rocky Romero. If Roppongi Vice can succeed, then I'm sure The Best Friends can... come fourth in the B Block in the 2017 World Tag League and finish eighth overall in the 2018 League.

No, that make sense. Best Friends as a team have always been predominantly American based. What about their ROH run in 2017? I know they had a few title matches there.

Loss vs. The Young Bucks in ROH World Tag Team Championship tornado three way match at Best in the World 2017 (also featured War Machine)

Loss vs. Kenny Omega & The Young Bucks in ROH Six Man Tag Team Championship match at Global Wars 2017 Day 3 (teamed with Flip Gordon)

Loss vs. Kenny Omega & The Young Bucks in ROH Six Man Tag Team Championship match on ROH Wrestling Episode #326 (teamed with Rocky Romero)

Loss vs. Motor City Machine Guns in ROH World Tag Team Championship match at Final Battle 2017

Ok, enough messing around. Let's get into the AEW run. Orange Cassidy has done a great job as International Champion. Kris Statlander is enjoying a good reign as TBS Champion. How have Chuck and Trent done?

Win vs. SCU and Private Party at Fyter Fest 2019 to advance to All Out for an opportunity at a first round bye in the AEW World Tag Team Championship tournament (good start)

Loss vs. Dark Order at All Out 2019 (who needs a first round bye anyway?)

Loss vs. SCU in first round of AEW World Tag Team Championship tournament (ah, that bye would have been handy)

Loss vs. Kenny Omega & Adam Page in a Number One Contender's Fatal Four Way (also featured The Young Bucks and Proud & Powerful) (got four-and-a-half stars from Dave Meltzer)

Loss to The Young Bucks in a Number One Contender's Battle Royal (not gonna list all the other teams)

Win vs. Private Party in a Number One Contender's match at Double Or Nothing 2020 (that's more like it)

Win vs. Chris Jericho & Sammy Guevara to remain number one contenders (yes, go on lads!)

Loss vs. Kenny Omega & Adam Page in AEW World Tag Team Championship match on Dynamite: Fyter Fest 2020 Day 1 (ah, damn it)

Loss to FTR in Number One Contender's Gauntlet match (again, not gonna list all the other teams)

Win vs. Proud & Powerful in a Parking Lot Fight (FIVE STARS BAYBEE!)

Loss to reDRagon in a Number One Contender's Battle Royal (AEW love them some battle royals)

Loss to The Young Bucks in a Number One Contender's Casino Tag Team Royale (this was literally the week after the previous battle royal)

Win w/Orange Cassidy vs. The Trustbusters in first round of AEW Trios Championship tournament (ooo, promising)

Loss w/Orange Cassidy vs. Adam Page & Dark Order in semi-final of AEW Trios Championship tournament (never mind, I guess)

Loss w/Orange Cassidy vs. Death Triangle for vacant AEW Trios Championship (can't tell me they shouldn't have won this one given PAC was already All-Atlantic Champion at the time)

Loss w/Orange Cassidy vs. Death Triangle in AEW Trios Championship match (one day lads, one day)

Loss w/Orange Cassidy to AR Fox & Top Flight in $300,000 Three Kings Christmas Casino Trios Battle Royal (we're really taking the piss now with these battle royals)

Loss to Jay Lethal & Jeff Jarrett in Revolution Tag Team Battle Royal (they were literally the runners up in this one, come on)

Loss w/Orange Cassidy vs. House of Black in AEW Trios Championship match (stop teasing me)

Loss vs. Aussie Open in IWGP Tag Team Championship match (they could have had a Japan run after all)

Loss w/Bandido vs. House of Black in AEW Trios Championship match (Bandido's cool but surely it's gotta be Orange for the eventual trios run)

Loss vs. Aussie Open in ROH World Tag Team Championship Fatal Four Way at ROH Death Before Dishonor 2023 (also featured Lucha Bros and The Kingdom) (another big win coming any day now)

Loss vs. Jon Moxley & Claudio Castagnoli in Parking Lot Brawl (four-and-a-half stars for the Parking Lot sequel)

Win w/Orange Cassidy, Eddie Kingston & Penta vs. Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli, Wheeler Yuta, and Proud & Powerful in Stadium Stampede at All In 2023 (the biggest of big wins, another four-and-a-half stars)

Loss to Dark Order in ROH Number One Contender's Battle Royal (great way to follow up that momentum after All In)

Loss to The Righteous in ROH Number One Contender's Fatal Four Way (also featured The Hardys and The Kingdom) (again, great follow up)

Obviously there's been more matches in between the ones I highlighted. The Best Friends have had some good moments here and there but overall, it feels like there's been missed opportunities. No follow up after the initial Parking Lot Brawl. No Trios Championship run. Lost in the shuffle again following All In.

The Best Friends deserve bester.

[allthecastlesonclouds]

10, 17 & 32 for writer questions?

oooo thanks for the ask!! link to ask game

10. Has a piece of writing ever “haunted” you? Has your own writing haunted you? What does that mean to you?

When I was. like. 8. i wrote this original story about five girls and a boy. it was, in short, very bad: none of the character traits were consistent, the plot moved along terribly, and scenes were messy. every chapter was in a different font and Oh Dear God was it unreadable.

and i fucking loved it. i was so proud of it. i still kind of am? 35 pages for an eight year old isn’t bad. but there are printed copies i still find around my house, and my mom still talks about it to this day, and every time i read it i wince.

i’m not sure if this is the definition of haunted, but it follows me around to this day. you maybe thought this was gonna be a fanfic, but this story. Oh God.

17. Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won’t make it in the text.

Gotta talk about fight or flight baybee!! okay so when i started this it was basically because i had many thoughts on the fact it was kristen’s siblings who convinced her to go during family in flames and not. her parents. and also the fact her parents names combined were McDonalds. that cracked me up. also actually i was talking to a lovely irl about this and they said “wait a character is Christian Applebees??” and i went ally beardsley how dare you. the google doc is titled ‘the mfing MacDonna Applebees’

i brainstormed a rudimentary layout for Mordred for this fic, as in i thought about the first floor and went ‘everything else doesn’t matter’. the chapel is canonically disconnected from the house but kristen also canonically has a secret passageway to tracker’s room, so i decided all the secret passageways link up and let people just. into the walls. kristen and riz are the only ones who have any semblance of confidence in there bc they sneak around so much. kristen uses the passageways mostly for tracker’s and bee’s rooms, but she knows how to get to the kitchen and about midway up the tower staircase.

bee is trans. i debated for a while whether her name was spelled Bee or Bea, but i decided on Bee bc i know a Bea and the vibes are. Different. kristen’s nickname for bricker is bricks, and bee calls him rick or ricks, and when they’re a bit older on their Fantasy Discord she Nicknames him Dick and kris doesn’t let Bricker change it back. bricker is bi; he kissed one of the luckstones under the bleachers and that’s what McDonalds was angry about. he’s also religious (bee goes i know the gods are real but i think i’m taking a step back please); he probably becomes a cleric of helio and does something similar to tracker in the sense he worships his own version of helio, not the widely accepted version.

they’re all two years apart: if kristen’s going into jr year, bee’s going into freshman, bricker’s going into seventh, and cork’s going into fifth. this means cork was seven or eight when kristen left, and you know, third graders are Little and have the object permanence of baboons, so. he’s fine. he’s not really in this fic sorry. when i listen to songs, i like to imagine animatics, and so fics are based around them often, and this one is no acception; the first line of the song is ‘i think it might rain today’ and a separate 3+1 line i was debating was ‘3 times kristen found her siblings in a storm and the one time she had them’.

also kristen needs therapy. she Will Not Get It.

32. What is a line from a poem/novel/fanfic etc that you return to from time and time again? How did you find it? What does it mean to you?

really any line from ‘For Everyone’ by Jason Reynolds. it’s such a good book. my boss at a camp i worked at gave it to me a couple years ago, and i cried reading it. if i had to pick a section: (id in alt text) (it hits different when formatted like it’s read aloud)

[yellingaboutcomics]

Thor (2020) #24

We back baybee, if only to review the “Next” segment of this Ode to an Odin(son?).

All I’ve wanted in the years since Agent of Asgard’s conclusion was for Loki to be treated with kindness. Not by other characters, Loki has fucked too many people over for that to be possible, but by the writer. For all the epic sagas, the character studies, the bold choices of Jason Aaron’s Thor run, kindness to my favorite Odin-child...was not a story he was interested in but is something that Donny Cates has corrected, gently folding Loki into the narrative with a compassion he almost doesn’t deserve (but does need).

I’ve wondered, in the seven (lord) years since AoA’s ending if anyone but Ryan North and Daniel Kibblesmith actually read it. With this little segment, it in some way proves that it doesn’t matter. Like Kieron Gillen and kid!Loki before him, Al Ewing has saved AoA!Loki from the Marvel universe by simply...removing them from it. All of my “does Loki remember any of this?” doesn’t matter, because the Loki Donny Cates is writing is not the Loki who stepped through the door at the end of issue #17. Throughout his run, Ewing lent a Doctor Who flavor to the character that works beautifully: simultaneously silly and tortured, always changing, growing, but still at the core the one we love. He gently guided Loki through hell, emerging on the other side as someone who loved themself. From the moment I saw Lee Garbett’s gorgeous character design on the page in all their swaggering rapscallion glory, I was undone. To see AoA!Loki kiss Cates’ grieving Loki on the head was...emotional, to say the least (though I wonder how he would feel about this Loki’s relationship with Freyja).

This was the catharsis I’ve unknowingly been waiting almost a decade for, a sweet goodbye to my favorite comic series and my favorite version of Loki.

Or...is it? Y’all I am VIBRATING for Defenders.

[swarmkeepers]

some adaine multiclass options for your consideration:

fighter/wizard adaine

a more practical build, which does feel in-character for adaine “jacket of useful things” abernant.

okay look the oracle & greatest diviner of her age probably can’t/won’t just change her subclass BUT she can definitely backdoor her way into what are effectively bladesinger abilities. bonus of not having to do the more charisma-heavy and anxiety-inducing performance parts of bladesinging which don’t feel very adaine. 

(tangent: okay okay wait though. au where adaine voluntarily switches her subclass to become a bladesinger and the powers of the oracle switch to the next greatest diviner of the age and it’s ayda aguefort, oracle of everybody, and her bodyguard and best friend adaine abernant serving her with word and sword.)

her new arcane focus is the sword of sight okay that thing absolutely deserves to be wielded in combat! 

cast bigby’s hand to attack on a bonus action + adaine’s furious fist spells + adaine’s literal fist? forget the diviner’s eye imagery, adaine’s new motif is literally throwing hands. 

part of the reason why i think both the fighter and barbarian classes are interesting multiclasses is that both of them would surround adaine with (even more) friends who share her class! if adaine took fighter levels there would be five (5) fighters within the bad kids + seven maidens; they could fully form an only-fighter party for a field trip or extra credit or something (with the benefit of multiclass levels in bard, ranger, wizard, and barbarian, which is a surprisingly balanced party actually).

adaine and fabian’s relationship feels very contentious in canon and i think adaine could stand to learn abt smth fabian has spent a lot of time getting very good at! a true wizard never shirks an opportunity to learn! 

you’ve heard about the inherent homoeroticism of dueling but in this case it’d be more about the inherent tension/trust of platonic dueling. For Friendship! 

fabian and katja and adaine become the absolutely insufferable rich kid fighter club. they probably fence while holding their pinkies out or something. kippers are served. 

barbarian/wizard adaine

can’t cast spells or hold concentration while raging, making this a beautifully deoptimized build. it makes the decision much more obvious that every combat she will have to choose whether to hit ppl with magic or hit people with... hits. 

an adaine who gets a chance to not see anger and emotion and being upset not as a weakness but as something she can shape into a strength

adaine “you better hold me back” abernant.

remember that time in the fhsy finale where ayda, flying, picked up gorgug and just dropped him on the sprite he was fighting so he wouldn’t have to spend times dashing to get there? that, but with ayda&adaine ultimate double diviner team-up.

there won’t be a single biz glitterdew wannabe around elmville left. she will raze their homes and salt the earth.

iirc the sword of sight is a two-handed weapon? no finesse here baybee, adaine’s gonna SMACK YOU.

having furious fist and using it one (1) time in sophomore year made adaine go mad with power and she wants Even More Of That Please And Thank You. 

gives the party two (2) people with some barbarian abilities on top of their actual barbarian. adaine would absolutely go to porter’s class even though fig still doesn’t even after getting reckless shred back. 

adaine&gorgug bonding over barbarian things. adaine’s new post-fhsy strength still not allowing her to lift gorgug’s axe but her trying anyway when they train together. i think they’d be the kind of people to do small fiddly artificer/wizard homework very loudly (adaine flips pages noisily and mutters to herself and groans loudly when she doesn’t get something; gorgug’s chair creaks just so loudly as he constantly adjusts and he probably uses power tools and hammers more than your average artificer would because that’s his literal strength) and on the other hand do barbarian practice extremely quietly (just. silently lifting weights together without needing to talk. fabian finds them and thinks they’re extremely creepy and confusing)

truly just the biggest possible fuck-you to elven traditions. 

adaine gets to be loud and angry and messy, hair flying in the wind, hands sword-callused and bruised-knuckled, and all of it only makes her more powerful

[ayankun]

Ok, if you haven’t already (I say this to be polite, I know you haven’t) go put your eyes on this episode synopsis first.  Why?  Because it’s a good time.  But mostly because I want you to be tangentially familiar with certain topics so I can better explain what happened to my brain while watching this one.

oh, right, this post is a synopsis of the VR Troopers episode 2x13 “Kaitlin Through the Looking Glass” btw

4

3

2

1

WE

ARE

V

R

Now that you’ve got this far, here’s some housekeeping before we start:

I watched this show sporadically as a kid and have very fond memories of it “being better than Power Rangers” but really didn’t know anything about it at the time.  I am watching it as an adult partly due to nostalgia but mostly because I genuinely enjoy it.  Not necessarily because of the reasons they intended, but, you know.

As an adult, with a different understanding of the world than when I was seven, I willfully misconstrue the main characters as being in a polyamorous relationship.  OT3 baybee

On a similar tangent, Ryan “Trooper TRANSform” Steele is obviously trans.  (transgent??)

Hell, maybe they all are.  The more the merrier amirite.

They all call the Professor “Puhfessor,” so I will, too.

Still with me?  Let’s begin.

(first up, though, the title sequence is over a minute long, when really they only needed like, maybe 15 seconds to get the point across.  there is also a ton of footage used that portrays events that never occur and also the song is not catchy enough to warrant any of this and I love it)

So in Ryan’s flashback intro, he muses about how, as a kid, he felt the need to prove himself.  He expresses this to his dad by asking when he’ll get a black belt, and his dad is a good supportive dad who tells him:

“It’s not the belt that’s important, son,”

Ryan’s dad says trans rights.

Ryan’s VO goes on to say "My dad taught me that it’s not outward appearances that really count, and that was an important lesson that would come in handy time and time again.”

Ryan really loves memories of his dad.

Which I think is a sweet lesson to learn when you’re young and other youngs (and olds) are going to give you crap about how you look, but it’s also hilariously phrased considering how superficial the concept of “outward appearances” is to this episode.

So we jump into things down at the ... Voice Underground Daily idk what the newspaper is called, I’m just trying to read the sign on the wall tbh.  We’re at Kaitlin’s place of business, and Woody (I think his name is Woody LOLOL how many episodes have I seen) shows Kaitlin this front page article which appears to have the headline:

ZIKTOR DEFEATED AT CITY HALL -- NO TOXIC WASTE DUMPING AT CROSS WORLD PARK

Ok, a couple of things.

Kaitlin and Percy are just ... chilling out at the copy machine like they’re friends and this is where the cool kids hang out.

Which can’t possibly be true because the actual cool kids are there in the back, just reading newspapers like Actual Cool Kids do.

They’re an indie paper, right?  How can they afford to print headlines that verbose?  ... Or full color glossy, for that matter

THEY ACCIDENTALLY PLAYED THIS LIKE THEY WERE EXCITED ABOUT THE NEWS ITSELF AND NOT ABOUT KAITLIN DOING A GOOD JOB ON AN IMPORTANT FRONT PAGE PIECE

Environmentalism was No Joke in kids’ media in the 90s.  I specifically remember learning the word “toxic” from a Power Rangers episode where Billy tested the lake water.  I literally had to look it up.

and they say you can’t learn nuffink from tv

Anyway, part of the excitement is that this article is the follow up to an expose of Ziktor, also authored by Kaitlin, which inspired the city officials to veto his waste-dumping proposal.  So we’re proud of Kaitlin for doing a good job at journalism and for protecting the world!

JB does what JB does best and attempts to arrange a date.

The line is, “Hey, let’s celebrate!  With lunch!  At Hamburger Hutch” but I guess someone at Netflix got lazy for a second.

I forgot to mention, in my HC he’s our token ace (as my favorites often are), so he tends to go overboard with the romance.  You don’t have to compensate for anything, JB!

Kaitlin appreciates the gesture.

But then Woody interjects and I let my adult sense of humor get the better of me...

come on, the man’s name is Woody I can’t be the only one with my mind in the gutter can I

Also the line is “I don’t want you boys filling up my star reporter” so what am I supposed to thINK

--WITH JUNK FOOD.  Dodged an FCC bullet there.

So I just now gave it 2 seconds thought and the discrepancies with the subtitles probably have something to do with the expectation that children would be watching this show and can’t read that fast.  BOY DO I NOT FIT THE DEMOGRAPHIC

Ok well.

Where Woody’s going with this is that he wants to impose a health shake on Kaitlin for godknowswhy.  But it’s all good because as he todders off to get started on what will surely be a monstrosity, we get this ADORABLE moment where Kaitlin tries to get JB to come to her rescue.

She just runs up and grabs him.  I’m all a-flutter.

But JB is of no help.  Instead, he calls dibs on her fries.

There’s a weird, under-baked joke going on here that seems to be rooted in the idea that if one is dieting then others benefit from this self-sacrifice by gleefully picking up the slack?  Anyway Kaitlin’s not on a diet?  This vitamin shake angle literally came out of nowhere?  Is against her will???

Just one burger, please.  Protein style :<

et tu, Jeb??

Anyway, this weird exchange just passes the time to get Woody all set up.  He turns on the blender and THE WHOLE WORLD STARTS SHAKING. 

Percy runs over to be the hero, demanding Woody turn the blender off, while everyone else just rumbles around looking distraught and not practicing anything resembling safe earthquake response.  Percy manages to get a hold of the blender, lifting it off the counter, and -- you guessed it -- the lid comes off and purreed-carrot-baby-food-looking goop gets all over his nerdy white button up.

The shaking stops.  Percy’s very proud of himself (and disdainful of the others who didn’t come to his heroic conclusion).  End scene.

I’ll be real.  At this juncture, literally thought that the blender HAD caused a natural disaster, and it was just a wacky 90s gag that went on for far too long.

More on this story as it develops.  We’re moving on.

How many cities in the world do you think have ominous buildings in them that aren’t secret headquarters for supervillains?

Our good buddy Karl Ziktor is reading -- wait for it -- Kaitlin’s article.  It has a headline so long they had to dedicate the full front page for it.  I’m pretty sure that’s not how newspapers are commonly formatted.

That is literally just a couple of newspaper clippings taped to a big piece of paper.

Oh he’s mad.  He tells Juliet all about his evil plan for revenge, which is to “steal her virtual image and create a second Kaitlin Starr [that serves him]”.

Same, Juliet.

Off that yikes, a henchwoman comes in to appraise Ziktor of the status of phase one, which is underway.  A so-called Stingbot is “in the basement of the Underground Voice” so that’s what the paper’s name is, anyway.

Anyway so Stingbot was the one responsible for the earlier tremors.  And, yeah, I mean I know they were new cobbling stories together from old footage, but What The Hell do “sting” and “earthquake” and “outward appearances” have in common?

And that is how a Stingbot do.

My question is partially answered, in that Stingbot’s earthquakes are a distraction so that some skugs can plant the “Virtual Mirror Transmitter” on Kaitlin, which is the nefarious device that will create the aforementioned Kaitlin-2.  Bold of him to assume that just because Kaitlin’s a woman that she 1) carries a purse 2) stores a mini pink mirror in the purse 3) will look at herself in the mirror unprovoked.

It’s such a wildly twentieth-century concept.  Here in good ol’ 2020, I, for one, have not looked in a mirror in months.

Ugh more gross than this use of outdated stereotypes is this weird tongue thing Ziktor does while almost literally salivating after his upcoming revenge.  You’ll have to go see it for yourself, I’m not going to watch it again to cap it.

(This guy gives his 200% to this role, though.  What a legend. RIP Gardner Baldwin)

So Ziktor blue-skadoos into his virtual stronghold and gets an update from his generals.  There’s this new guy that I’ve already also forgotten the name, and since he has a human face, there’s a lot of awkward cuts between him and his Japanese counterpart in the footage that’s already ten years old at the time.  It probably looked great.  I was an adult before I found out that Rita Repulsa was the original Japanese actress in the original dubbed Japanese footage.

Anyway, he looks great.

I think I read that for season 2 they had access to and/or recreated the costumes used in/matching the source material, so there’s a noticeable uptick in cool-looking sets with American actors wearing cool-looking costumes, like this one.

You said it.

That’s about it for this scene, but before we go to commercials, Grimlord says this nonsense:  “I will destroy Kaitlin Starr with the one weapon she cannot defend against -- herself.”

Confirmed: Kaitlin is a deadlier weapon than, say, a homing missile.  (she can defend herself from those)

Ok we’re back at the Underground Voice and there’s still an earthquake going on.  Also, and let me tell you this with a large amount of regret of my life-choices, I’ve been sitting here for just about two hours and we are only five minutes into the episode (and that includes the minute long opening credits.)

Let’s roll!

JB gets off the phone with who knows who, having learned that there’s no earthquake registering anywhere, it’s a localized mysterious incident.  Ryan recommends they clear the building “just to be safe.”  My boy, why wasn’t that everyone’s first thought?  Are they really just standing around waiting to be told?  We had drills for this for a reason!

(Actually, I’m not sure where Cross World City is located.  Maybe they’re not on a fault line and do not actually do drills)

In any case, there’s a brief PSA where Woody wants to collect his valuables to take with him, and everyone has to inform him that that’s ill-advised behavior in an evacuation scenario.

He responds in classic Woody nonsense, by putting on a captain’s hat and insisting he’ll go down with his ship.  AND OUR BOY JB SAYS

He’s still thinking about that date.

LOOK.  There’s no rule that says asexuals can’t make dirty jokes.  Because we can and do.  Let me have this.

So our heroes herd everyone out of the building and then stay behind to call the Puhfessor.  Just as they get him on the computer, the earthquake stops. 

It’s not all good news, though.  The Puhfessor taps into some kind of impossible CC feed and they watch Stingbot undermining the structural integrity of the building.  Stingbot, by the way, has one of those creepy child laughs that is insane.  It’s so good.

Ryan decides to check out the basement himself while Kaitlin and JB keep everyone else outside.  He finds some creepy janitors down there, and they head on up like creeps normal janitors.

Maybe they were just hotboxing down there.

Stingbot’s also in the basement!  Who knows what he was doing down there, because

Murder hornet, colorized, 2020

Which is a weird thing to say until you remember the slight, throwaway “yummy!” he says earlier while drilling into the building.  I had forgotten it in the 40 seconds it took for me to get from that moment to here.

Ryan insults Stingbot’s outward appearance, which is odd because I thought he learned that lesson as a kid.  Either way, it’s time to

WE ARE V R

Only to spend about half a second on recycled footage just to have Stingbot go “lol, later loser.”  Because those perfectly normal janitors are upstairs swapping Kaitlin’s purse mirror with the evil thing.

Can you imagine trying to pull a stunt like this today?

Outside, things have calmed down enough that JB thinks Ryan’s got it under control.  He’s gonna go back in “to see if the building’s safe enough to reenter.”  I know he knows it’s not a real earthquake, but also I don’t think I’d trust a non-professional to assess my office’s structural integrity.

Kaitlin’s going to join him, which causes Percy to pipe up, Pavlovianly ... just to chicken out and stay put.  GOOD JOB PERCY.  USING YOUR HEAD FOR ONCE I SEE.

(kids, don’t volunteer to check that a building is safe after an incident where its safety may be in question.  it is not cowardly to leave it to Someone Who Knows What They’re Doing)

So JB and Kaitlin come back in to find the Normal Janitors shadily stealing a floppy disk from Kaitlin’s desk.  (kids, a floppy disk is a real object that looks a lot like the “save” icon)   BUT OF COURSE THEY’RE SKUGS SO JB AND KAITLIN HAVE TO THROW DOWN.

Let’s just say there’s a good thing they have an earthquake to blame all this property damage on.

JB’s a little snippy.

All he wanted was to go to lunch with his girlfriend and boyfriend.

The gold skugs do their fusion dance thing and turn into the oni-mask skug variant, which I’m assuming is a constraint of these later episodes where they used footage from a show that did not have the gold ones in.

FLIRTY BATTLEFIELD BANTER UGH I SHIP IT

Once that’s handled, we find out what Ryan’s been up to in the basement by himself this whole time.

Um.  I’m not touching that one with a 10-foot ... wait.

Ohhhh

Ryan heads back up and swaps notes with JB and Kaitlin.  Stingbot said that its work was done, so what exactly was it trying to accomplish?  Ryan then runs from there outside to check on everyone else.

Kaitlin then decides she needs to freshen up, which is something I don’t recall her ever needing or wanting to do after any other natural disaster/fight portrayed on this show.

But look how cute they are with their mutual post-fight shoulder-pat.  JB even gives her this cute little look as she darts off.  He is smitten.

He is smote.

Kaitlin gets her mirror out of her purse, as planned, and checks herself out.  You know.  Like how woman do.

She gets it.

This is it!  Grimlord’s chance to strike!  He will have his revenge, Juliet, just you wait!

for great justice

We are treated to a brief bit of delightful 80s Japanese sci-fi, all flashing lights and chonky beep boop buttons.  It works!  A tastefully gendered laser light shoots out of Kaitlin’s mirror and STEALS HER FACE OFF HER FACE

FACE/OFF

The experience seems highly unpleasant, but she’s mostly ok...

But wait, who’s this ...

It’s not really the Mirror Universe unless someone gets a goatee.

Kaitlin’s freaked out, but we don’t have time to see her process what it was that just happened.  More beep boop 80s lights (seizure warning much), and the virtual replica Kaitlin is 3D printed in Grimlord’s lair.

lol he’s got a play date

So this Kaitlin is the same exact person as real Kaitlin, with one major difference.

So this got dark, right?  This is different from that time they cloned Ryan, because that was just a DNA clone man baby with evil sunglasses; this is actually Kaitlin, the person, just with some programming differences, who’s gonna go back out there and hurt her boys herself.

Needless to say, Grimlord is delighted.

Check out that disgruntled wall snake, tho.  “I thought I was your lovely child”

Now Grimlord’s plan is to send Kaitlin into the wild with a device called the “fissicator” which is a “sTUn ray!!” (you have to hear him say it, it’s so good) as well as a thing that will reprogram the Trooper’s “contact disk.”

I didn’t mention it earlier, but that’s the disk that the janitors skugs were trying to steal, and it was also how Kaitlin called up the Puhfessor on her work computer.  I’m pretty sure we’ve never seen it before and we never see it again.  It’s Not A Thing.

So Kaitlin goes to Tao’s, where Ryan’s just chilling there by himself.  I guess everyone was okay after the earthquake, then.  (It is unclear how much time has passed)  Maybe it’s been hundreds of years, because Ryan acts like he’s not sure who she is.

Wait, hold on.  I did NOT pay close enough attention the first time, but -- either it’s much later the same day and/or they missed a scene.  They’re still wearing the same clothes ... and Ryan says he thought she was heading (back?) to the paper ... and then she says ....

Ryan.exe has stopped executing

Wait so WHAT.  What workout.  We have not been to Tao’s yet this episode.  ???

It’s really just a ruse to get Ryan to fight her, though.  But also.  Why need ruse?  Evil clone?  Just attack tho, right?

But also no NO.  DONT attack.  We’ve already seen JB be beat up by his evil clone boyfriend.  It’s rough.  (spoiler alert, this one’s gonna be rough, too)

So Ryan tries to let her down easy by saying he doesn’t have time -- and I can’t tell with this video quality, but I don’t think he’s wearing a watch but he does the “look at wrist” technique and it’s p good.

Kaitlin-2 refuses to be let down easy.

Them’s fightin words

Ryan ends up splayed out on the desk but seriously, now is not the time.

He rightfully wants to know what’s up, but she keeps taunting him to fight her.  She takes the first shot, which he dodges and blocks before disengaging.  Remember, kids, just because somebody picks a fight with you doesn’t mean you don’t have any other options!

She won’t stop coming for him, though, so he gets her arms pinned so he can try talking her down again. 

This technique backfires.

no more mr nice kaitlin

So in the other clone episode, this scene was staged in a room full of people, and even though JB was blindsided, he and Ryan are ostensibly evenly matched.  It wasn’t nice for JB, but at least someone was there to break up the fight.

This time though, Ryan’s been gently if firmly trying to diffuse a confusing situation where someone without his training is behaving irrationally and is going to get both of them hurt.  So far his attempts to de-escalate have failed, and there is no deus ex intervention incoming.

AND THEN she goes and plays the superpowers card on him.  Black belt or no, the whole point of having the Trooper alter ego is that they come with amazingly OP combat powers capable of defeating all manner of monsters.

And Kaitlin, a very very very dear close friend has just walked up out of nowhere and dropped a nuke on him.

Okay, so she throws him over a table, it’s the principle of the thing.

This overkill maneuver knocks him out cold.  She lifts Ryan’s Trooper communicator (so he can’t call for help when he comes to -- omg this is so chilling) and then uses the fissicator to call Grimlord for further instructions.

Gotta catch ‘em all

New Kaitlin, who dis?

So he now wants her to steal the disk, reprogram the disk, and use the reprogrammed disk to break all the Trooper computer stuff.  She reads his order back like

Close enough, I guess.

She gleefully moves on to her next task, leaving a helpless Ryan struggling and failing to regain consciousness.  :<<<<<<<

At the paper, real Kaitlin gets a message from JB on her little Trooper video phone and secretly Trooper TRANSforms out of there from inside the darkroom.  This was the point where I realized they had different ones!  Hers and JB’s are red and white, while Ryan’s (that just got stole) is red/blue.

Also, you can just see under all those crayons, but that’s the “contact disk” that Kaitlin-2 is coming for.  (how many crayons does a professional journalist need, anyhow?)

So there’s a joke in there were Percy sees Kaitlin go into the darkroom and then Kaitlin-2 walks in, and then also when he checks the darkroom, it’s empty.

Oh, so that means Kaitlin-2 successfully steals the contact disk, btw.

Back at Tao’s, Ryan has woken up and some how his backpack has, like, crawled down to see if he’s okay?  Which is helpful because that’s how he is able to quickly identify that on top of assault, there’s been a robbery.

I hope she doesn’t delete my save files

And this was the moment (right now, doing the caps) that I realized the little phones are called VRVTs!

But seriously, imagine being knocked out cold by a loved one, with no reason, no hint at an explanation, and not only has she left you for dead, she’s taken your phone so you can’t call for help.  He has no idea that she’s an evil clone!!!!  This is a real tragedy of a thing.  A gutting betrayal.

It looks like Ryan has his own contact disk, tho?  And he uses this on Tao’s PC to call up the Puhfessor.

spelled it rong

Just as a note, this subtitle comes up WAY too soon, so for a couple of frames it just looks like some kind of meme.  A++

 Ryan starts to relate his traumatic experience to the Puhfessor, but luckily he’s cut off with the good news that his “sensors” somehow correctly identify Ryan’s assailant as Kaitlin’s virtual double.

geez, you guys, look at how Ryan deflates hearing this.  I mean, it’s not great that he was probably concussed, but it’s a relief that his world still makes some kind of sense.

poor bb

Also, you can’t tell as much here, but there’s a really subtle punch in as the moment progresses, bringing us closer and making the moment more intimate as he grapples with this new information.  There’s a lot of dumb half-assed stuff in this show, but I gotta call attention to the stuff that is excellent for any era.

Also it’s so efficient from a time-management perspective.  Just look at the opening shot, which was a medium type establishing shot so you can picture Ryan in the space, but the PC’s right there for both the viewer and Ryan to reach.  Then we slowly zoom in, which serves double duty in that it provides the appropriate emotional impact, and at the end we’re on a nice close up of Ryan as he jumps into action.  Three shots with just one set up (and probably done in one take, with room to splice the PC shots in)!  I’m very pleased with this.

Down to brass tacks

The Puhfessor ominously tells him that they have their own troubles and we go straight from there into some source footage of them fighting some skugs and what I think is General Ivar.

After about three seconds of that, we cut back to the lab, where Ryan busts in on Kaitlin-2 just as she’s hacking up a storm.

im in ur base, haxxoring ur mainframez

Kaitlin-2 shows him the contact disk, which is now “encoded with a self-destruct program” that she’s going to use to overheat the lab’s power core and destroy like all the things.  Ryan is noticeably concerned, but Kaitlin-2 points the fissicator at him to get him to stay in line.

Ok ok ok ok so here’s where we get to the point where, when I watched this today, I fully turned away from whatever it was I was doing to go wwwwwwwwwwwwtf

Kaitlin-2 has a disk that will blow up the lab -- and there’s nothing Ryan can do to stop her--

huh

bruh what are you

bro srsly what

is happening

You’re trying to tell me that Ryan “killed his own clone with no ragrets” Steele is trying to make an emotional appeal to this clone in order to undermine her sense of purpose?

...did she ever think that Grimlord cared about her?  As a person?  I feel like that wasn’t in the contract when she was 3D printed with the sole purpose of serving her dark master, and she shouldn’t have any emotional reaction to this assumed expectation being challenged.

And .... did they ... did they read my other post?  The one about wanting to keep the clone around ..... ??????

what is happening right now

Ryan leans hard into this “embrace your humanity” tactic and has the Puhfessor show them a live feed of JB and Kaitlin’s fight.

“...She sure could use our help...”

wait for it

When she balks, he gives her one last over the top inspirational blurb that despite of whatever it was Grimlord did to her, she’s still the same (good) person as Kaitlin.

It starts to sink it.

(also just check out these sweet eyelines, you can tell that the screen they’re watching is slightly to his left,  sort of behind her to her right, which makes sense!)

He keeps at it.

Looks like it’s working?  She starts to reconsider her whole existence ...

...considers Kaitlin’s ...

... moment of truth ...

And it works!

BUT IT DOESN’T STOP THERE YOU GUYS

“NOW GO HELP HER” RYAN COMMANDS

AND

OMG

CLONE KAITLIN-2 IS ALL

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I guess, I mean, obviously Ryan’s evil clone did that whole thing where he stole Ryan’s virtualizer and started flying the Skybase, so if this Kaitlin is the same as the other Kaitlin then obviously she’d be able to do this, too.

But like!  She was the main villain until like four seconds ago, somebody who did Ryan dirty.  Just another of Grimlord’s nefarious tools of warfare.  And Ryan, a man who’s killed his own clone before, who took a beating from her only hours prior, is suddenly the bigger man who is capable of seeing past all that in order to turn an agent of his enemy.  And to go do his job, no less!

This has never happened before.  This show’s always been kill or be killed.  There’s a good reason for this, and we’ll get to that in one moment.

But I like to think Ryan learned from his mistake.  He didn’t even try to to connect to his evil clone.  He just got beat up and went back for revenge.  (I’m looking back at my caps for that episode, and it seems it was the Puhfessor’s idea to kill the evil clone, and maybe there was a MacGuffin reason why it was The Only Way, I forget.)  Maybe he thought long and hard about the repercussions of his actions -- maybe he thought that, had he been able to better understand his evil self, that maybe that shadow version of him would have liked to have been given the benefit of the doubt?

At the end of the day, I can think whatever I want.  But why we never get any other reformed villains until now is only because

It’s almost like they recycled footage from a different show(s) and just had to roll with the punches.

So then JB and the Kaitlins fight some skugs and there’s a big explosion and a lot of jumping.  JB and Kaitlin get caught up with the SparkNotes version of who tf extra Kaitlin is and then they fight Stingbot, teleport to a quarry, you know, all the everyday stuff.

Back at the lab, Ryan’s feverishly trying to undo Kaitlin-2′s handiwork and keep the core from melting down.  Can he do i-- well yes.  He can and he does do it.  Then he TROOPER TRANSFORMs away and ... flies off to fight ... some jets ... I guess? 

pew pew pew

In the quarry, JB is going toe to toe with Stingbot.  Stingbot has some cute little wasp drones that electrocute everyone.  They’re having a good time out there.

it’s super effective

Ryan shoots some more jets ... JB dislodges his wasp and slices one off a Kaitlin with a sword ... the third one just .. pops off on its own *shrug*

Stingbot shoots some acid (oh he did that before, too, in the basement, but it was irrelevant) which evaporates a boulder ... Kaitlin goes back to her battlefield quips but they’re not nearly as flirty as the last time ...

JB gets out his lightsaber and GOES TO TOWN on the remaining bad guys.  That thing makes the BEST wvungwvungwvung sounds, just btw.

And that’s it!

Almost.

Grimlord spends his obligatory seven seconds ruing the day he ever met a VR Trooper and swearing revenge.

ya it’s called being a parent

Turns out he still hopes that the two Kaitlins will destroy each other!  Very optimistic guy, our Grimlord.

Back at ol’ HQ, JB and the Kaitlins stroll in and explain the sitch to Jeb.  Kaitlin-2 seems fully reformed!

yee gurrl

But oh-hoho, does the Puhfessor HATE clones.

buzzkill, emphasis on kill

So it turns out, and I quote, “two Kaitlins cannot exist in the same reality.”  I guess technically she’s not a clone, but a virtual double from the mirrorverse/VR land, so that kind of makes some sort of sense.  This dimension is too small for the both of you!

The stakes are that if the two Kaitlins are not rejoined within 24 hours, both Kaitlins will byte the dust. 

Oh no!!

This was the point where, having a pretty good internal clock as well as a refined sense of story structure, I literally smirked at the screen thinking “soooooooo what.  you have like two minutes left and you’re gonna fix it in time for the credits.  overdramatic stakes are overdramatic.”

AND

THEN

THE

KICKER

OH-HOHO

I WAS

SO WRONG

SAME THO?1

:D