#the condensed version leaves out sooo much

[sh33bsreblogging]

Response to Previous Tags: So. HI. UH. OP, I wasn’t expecting you to catch me in the tags, as that usually doesn’t happen to me.

I know you said "in the tags" but. tags would not be able to contain everything. OF WHICH, OP I DONT EXPECT YOU TO READ EVERYTHING IF THE KEEP READING THING DOESNT SHOW UP IN THE REBLOGS. OK. I dont know how this Will look in reblogs either so PRECAUTIONARY WARNING OKK, long as fuck. I'll put condensed version in tags.

But, okay, if oc’s count then… properly my favorite character is one of my own making, and she is named Night Verr’la. (Ver-rr-la) [Roll your r's] Who is a Tavern keeper, and was previously a Paladin. (As mentioned in initial reblog) Which, isn’t actually her real name. It is a false one she made from her previous one. Vera Knight.

Reason for that is the whole Paladin thing wasn't a great one.

Vera Knight comes from the world Sil'vina (Sill-vin-na), specifically from the city Navatal (Nav-ah-tal). There are 7 main gods, called lordfolkes, in this world and Navatal has a big religious following under one of these. The Lordfolke Nature.

Vera's parents were alright for what they could be in Navatal's environment. Both of them were Paladins themselves, and did push for Vera to become one as well, but others from outside of the family were pushing for this as well. They were both religious under Nature.

Starting at 7 training for being a Knight began- something that was just common practice for this Medieval time-period set world- and would continue on for several years until she was 19. Sometime during this period, Vera would have interest taken in on her by a subsection of worshipers of Nature that were more fanatical in nature than others. This cult would have her be changed from who she was normally trained under to a more secretive section. Training already was hard, but the new one was considerably more brutal.

Despite this, Vera did excel at it, but with this change she began to notice and realize that she didn't want to be doing what she was doing. Before this point, she was fully believing in the ideals of those around her and doing what others wanted her to do, or to become. This did not change very quickly, but over the course of a few years it would lead to her running off from all of that.

Now, I've not mentioned anything of what the training has apart of it, only that it was difficult. Navatal's religious side has a thing for wanting Paladins and Clerics to become something known as a Messenger. - A Messenger is the equivalent of an "angel" or even a "champion" for the lordfolke they serve under. They are blessed with markings after making an oath to serve the god once training was complete, unsurprisingly called "Messenger Markings" currently, and these gift the individual with access to the ability to have stronger magic at base than normal. These markings take on different shapes depending on which god it is from. Nature is that of vines, leaves, and eyes.

Vera was going to become a Paladin with the end goal of becoming a Messenger. This path of training is unusually brutal, designed more in mind of making these individuals more like into a weapon than a solider. Putting them at odds with their peers, living in a situation of fear of breaking any rule due to threat of harsh punishment. Often this was physical harm of death.

Some of their training had them following commands to kill those who had broken religious rules without any question.

Vera would at first be fully within this mindset, but the 4 years spent training she would discover things that would slowly make her question more and more of what she was doing. Though, this questioning started after the final trial to earn her markings. A misinterpreted phrase, "survival of the fittest", lead the fanatical group to have those they pulled aside into this separate training to fight to become a Messenger. Last one standing was the "fittest" and thus fit to become one. I do not think it needs to be said who won that.

Which, as mentioned previously, caused her to run off during what would of been the 5th year of training. She realized that she didn't want to be a Paladin, or a Messenger, or following under her god. None of this was something she ever wanted, and instead being things that Someone Else wanted her to do.

Running off meant leaving everything she knew for the unknown, and breaking her oath. The oath being broken means a rather painful moment of the markings changing, no longer a blessing and more of a curse at this point. Angular, thorny, vines with open, eyes with cat-like slits are now what they look like, in contrast to the smooth curls and leaves of what it was previously. These cover her upper arms, shoulders, and back.

When she now uses plant magic it will feel like these vines constrict around her, digging their thorns in to her skin. Her magic supply has been reduced back to what it was, an issue when you've been trained to use spells that drain more than you naturally have, and it is further an issue because the strength of the magic she has didn't reduce. This doesn't sound like an issue, but it is for similar reason to that of the spells she knows, it takes more concentration to control stronger magic, and her concentration is contested against by the markings causing her pain.

It is a recipe for easy Magic scarring.

Magic scarring is when magic is mishandled by the caster, or significantly damaged by another caster.

Despite this, she learns more Mind magic from a fellow run away, another under a different lordfolke [Prophecy] who no longer wanted what they originally set out to do. She already knew some mind magic, things of illusion and trickery to make the environment harder to navigate, so you couldn't escape from her.

But this individual taught her how to mess with memories. To take them out of someone's head and into a stone.

Vera, at this point, has changed from using her name to using an alias. Night Verr'la, and on top of that one, she would become known as "Burden Bearer" by those she used this new spell on.

See, she still wanted to help people, she always had wanted to help others. She thought she was doing this while as a Paladin, but that wasn't so as she learned. Now she was trying to help people again, though again it wouldn't go well.

12 years she spends as Burden Bearer, going around and "helping" others by removing the memories they didn't want to remember. Anything they didn't want to remember, and keep them safe. The hope was that they would come back and deal with it, and some did, but most simply left the memories there with her.

This becomes an issue after a certain Sillia Fiear. Her final client.

Sillia sought out Burden Bearer in not the erasure of a memory, but in the management of emotions. She had been afflicted with the Golden Curse, after having stolen from The Golden Dragon. A curse that would make her transform into a dragon herself during outbursts of emotions, commonly stress or anger. This draconic form was functional solely off of fight or flight responses, there was no higher thought other than that. Sillia was commonly the Fight response, and so you can see how this leads into trouble for her when this hot-head gets too worked up and now there is a large dragon killing everything in the vicinity to Make the area safe for it.

Night was not as experienced in assisting in such a request, but attempted to anyways. But the extraction of memory or emotion alike is a tricky process, and after a while something was bound to go wrong.

A patient too worked up, a mistake made, magic strained beyond what she had, and a fight broke out, resulting in Sillia's death, and Night's close call with it.

In this fight, the memory stones that Night had got shattered. This returns those memories to those people, and in a way makes them relive it partially. ... Some memories are too harsh to relive again, especially after experiencing a life with them gone, to learn what these experiences stole from you is a bit too much for some.

Night stopped being Burden Bearer after that. Scared from the fight, horrified at what happened in result of it with the memory stones, and yet feeling nothing about it, which scared her further. If only for it to drain away, causing a slight loop of horror.

See, the spell Night over extended her abilities on, was a Calm Emotions spell. It scarred her, she used too much of magic she didn't have to try and vainly calm Sillia down. Magic scarring effects are influenced by the spell that caused it. In this case, Night was now afflicted with a permanent state of neutrality. If emotions were contained in a bucket, then hers had a big hole in the bottom of it, and only the strongest ones could stay around for a little while.

It caused conflict within her, she wanted to feel bad for what had happened, but found that she couldn't, not for long. She already was a bundle of issues but this only made it worse. She hated it, and in turn herself.

Night would end up traveling to a town called Eventide, and set up a Tavern a short distance away from it. No longer trying to help people as directly as she did before, taking up a more passive version of it. A simple rest stop, nothing more than that.

She would come off as closed off and cold to most, nice but only within reason of not being outright rude to customers. She kept to herself, and did not talk much of herself. She would lie of her past, or skip around talking about it.

Eventually a Forestfolke (fae) would come by, and Night would end up setting up a garden in the back for them. M was their name, and M only hung around due to Night's scarring, them having scarring of their own that was the inverse of Night's, but Night didn't want them bothering her customers so she made an area for them to stay.

A pair of individuals would come by that were also runaways, a twins who ran off from their home, due to parents that were not so kind to them. She gave them shelter, and food, and let them stay. After a while, it would be that they formed a found family kind of connection, an adoptive mom, of which the Forestfolke did similar with Night as a sibling dynamic.

a few others would come by, and similar situations of Night growing to care about them would occur, despite the initial distancing she would do to them all.

10 years of being a tavernkeeper. 10 years of the only part of her life that she would consider good, if only for it to end with the town being attacked by a group known as Phobos. With Night and M dying to protect the others, so that they could get to safety.

It was a successful endeavor.

I left out some details here and there, too much to explain everything in one post, I'd go on for even longerrrr. But, here An Image of her, if you wish to see. She weilds a big hammer :]

favorite character from any media BUT it has to be a woman. in the tags now go (pls talk to me about your favorite fictional women pls pls pls pls)

[bonesandthebees]

hi !! i hope you’re doing well ~ i want to say a few things:

one: i’m no longer a mcyt stan and thus i’ve drifted a lot from writings of the community but somehow i always find myself drawn back to tommy’s clinic !! it was maybe ? the first fic i read about mcyt and i started it when it had like say three chapters 😭 seeing the growth since then makes me incredibly happy as a writer myself it’s just… you’re incredible and despite not enjoying the content anymore i will always enjoy your writing

which brings me.. two! i recently ( this morning ) discovered you have a new fic which i believe you call stars? 😭 and !!!!! oh my gosh. everything about it is mindblowing. the world building is incredible like i cannot begin to explain how much i admire it. i feel like i’m reading original work when i read your stories and it’s amazing how you’re able to create something out of a simple liking towards streamers and youtubers and their characters on a roleplay smp 😞🥺 i looooove love love your mind. seriously.

if you have any worldbuilding ( and ch. building too ) tips would you mind leaving them somewhere? 😅 your worldbuilding just itches something in my little author brain and i want to know your main process sooo badly !!

sending love love love !!! i might drop by again so i’ll drop this emoji so you know it’s me 🧸

awww oh my god this is so sweet!! I'm so happy to hear that even if you're not super into mcyt anymore, you still enjoy my writing :D seriously that's so cool to me that people will read my stuff just because of the stories themselves and not bc of the fandom it's for. like, that's one of the highest compliments i think you can give to a fic writer so thank you <33

also ty for the compliments on my worldbuilding i am SO proud of the worlbuilding i've done for stars. while I definitely do make a very strong effort to keep dynamics and relationships in character and to use the canon characteristics of my characters to influence plot, a lot of my fics are just vehicles for original concepts that i plop my blorbos into like i'm playing dollhouse games lol. I'd love to turn stars into an original novel one day with completely new characters, but we'll have to see how that goes

worldbuilding tips!! on the passerine podcast's channel on youtube I recently did a live interview where I was asked about that, so I'll try to give a condensed version of what I said there. when it comes to worldbuilding for me, I try to imagine it like a tree. there's the main trunk that your story is centered around. these are the world concepts that are going to be directly related to your story so you have to flesh them out to make the base of the trunk as thick as possible. examples of the 'trunk' of my stories would be: the way the system of heroes vs villains in clinic, the setup for the vampire hunting academy in notcturnal animals, and the general government structures of both eldingvegr and zephys iv in stars. these are concepts that are integral to the function of the plot, so they have to be very fleshed out and this is what you're going to want to focus on the most.

a lot of worldbuilding tips i see online say to HEAVILY worldbuild everything about your world so it makes everything feel more alive even if you don't end up using it in the story. personally, I disagree with this, at least for my style of writing. if I told myself I had to know the current economic state of the city in clinic just to 'flesh out the world' more I would never get anything done. instead, when it comes to details like that, I try to think of them as branches on the tree. when certain new elements become relevant to the story, you can add a branch onto the base of the trunk and flesh that detail out albeit in a smaller way. examples of branches would be: the entire function of sigil tattoos on humans vs vampires in nocturnal animals, or the details of different side planets in stars like Floslium, Kinoko, Badlands, etc. these are things that you don't have to start fleshing out until you need them to be talked about in the story. don't bog yourself down with worldbuilding trying to write out every detail of every possible character or organization or government that might sow up before you get anything down on a page. get your trunk determined, then start writing and figure out where you need to branch off from there

I don't know if that makes sense but that's how I think of worldbuilding in my head. as far as chapter building goes I don't have as much in depth advice because I don't really have a solid strategy for how i build chapters. it's kind of just based off what plot points I know I need to hit, and how many I can hit in a single chapter.

anyway ty so much anon!! i'll tag your asks as teddy anon bc of the teddy bear emoji, hope this helped!

[supertam87]

Real Talk With SuperTam

Several people have asked me to share the full text of the talk I gave at Harrison’s (SuperSon1) funeral. Dale shared an excerpt earlier today. I am happy that it has touched people and hopefully will open up some much needed dialog. Please remember that these are the words I spoke over my son’s coffin. They are sacred to me. We are a religious family. If there is something you don’t understand, I will explain without preaching to you or trying to convert you! I talk about mental illness and suicide. If that is a trigger for you, please beware.

Real Talk With SuperTam

My dear brothers and sisters – never before in my life have I understood so fully that we are all truly brothers and sisters. Your outpouring of love and support has overwhelmed us in the best way. Saying thank you and we love you and we are grateful seems too simple for all that has been done on our behalf this past 10 or so days. And yet truth is simple. The gospel is simple. What we have experienced is the gospel in its purest form. Thank you all for being here. I’d also like to thank our interpreters, Chip Royce and Jeff Born, who are friends of Dale as well as colleagues.

Harrison made it very clear that I needed to talk today and he was a little bit bossy about it. I’m one of the mouthy ones in Relief Society. You can pretty much count on the fact that either Janet Williams or I are going to say something – Janet’s comments are usually more profound, but we both usually say it like it is. Harrison asked me to say it like it is today. So, we are going to have what I’m calling Real Talk with SuperTam, (because that’s my nickname).

Harrison killed himself. Very few people want to say that. People don’t want to talk about it. People do want to talk about it but they don’t know how. It’s an unbearably painful topic. People keep telling Dale and myself that we are so brave to talk openly about what Harrison did. We never considered any other option. It didn’t feel brave to either one of us, just truthful. When a person dies of heart disease or cancer or pneumonia, we all grieve, but we don’t fear talking about why they died. Mental illness carries a heavy stigma in our society and I believe we share an obligation to have more productive and proactive conversations about a really scary and difficult topic. Mental illness is physical illness. It happens in the brain. Just like MS or Parkinson’s disease; it can be a chemical imbalance, a failure of synapses to connect properly, or an underdeveloped portion of the brain that limits its proper function. It is not different than any other illness. But it is sooo taboo. When the term ‘Mental Illness’ is mentioned, people think in extremes; severe debilitation, psychosis, the inability to work or leave the house, erratic behavior, frightening delusions – scary, scary words, yet mental illness usually doesn’t look like that. Its depression – from mild to severe, anxiety, ADHD, OCD, Anorexia, Post Partum Depression, Autism Spectrum – it can be an illness or a disorder or a dysfunction. Everyone in this room knows someone who deals with a mental illness every single day. It is often silent and very subversive, and people can feel isolated or hopeless.

Nearly every single person that I talked to, or Dale, or my parents or in-laws or our friends knows someone who has had suicide effect their family. The heartbreaking thing is that suicide is on the rise amongst our youth. Our children are dying and we are afraid to talk about it because it is uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable for me to stand here today and talk about it. But I am willing to open the conversation. I am willing to answer questions. I will listen to fears and pains, and I will try to offer comfort. I know I’m not the only one willing to do this, but I think one of the problems we collectively suffer from is fear.

Dale and I always try to teach our kids that the devil dwells in darkness and the gospel spreads light. So they should base their decisions on whether or not they have to hide what they do in darkness or if they can do it openly in the light. This is a good foundation for teaching decision-making. However, people often hide in darkness. Not because they are dark themselves, but because they are afraid. We need to learn how to recognize people who are hiding. We must practice seeing what people in pain look like. We need to commit to ourselves that we will be the person. The one who offers succor, in whatever form that takes. We need to ask questions and develop relationships that allow people to open up and be unafraid. The prophet has given us this opportunity by renaming and revamping our visiting and teaching systems to a system of Ministering. It is not just a name change. The prophet is asking us to reevaluate how we see people. He is asking us to change how we interact with people. He is asking us to make people our priority. My very first visiting teacher is here today. She was there when Harrison was born and she is still ministering to me today. It is not a coincidence that this program was reworked at a time when mental illness is on an extreme rise and suicide rates are skyrocketing. The Lord is asking us to be is hands and help his children. We need to seek the one, and we also need to be the one. Be the one who looks. Be the one who asks. Be the one who sees. We have the power to heal.

 Our family has been terribly, irrevocably wounded and changed. We are in agony. But we are being ministered to, every second of every day. Because of that, we are already beginning to heal. We have a long road ahead and we accept that, because we do not walk that road alone. The Savior walks that road with us. And so do every single one of you every time you do something that is motivated by love. The road that we walk, the same road you walk, is the path of the gospel. It guides us towards our Father in Heaven.

Harrison walked that road. He learned many, many lessons along the way. Harrison taught me about this road we walk, this path towards our Father, and our ability to partake of our Savior’s sacred atonement in his homecoming talk from August of 2016. I’m going to read part of that talk to you, because I love Harrison’s words, and this is a lesson he learned, internalized and taught to the people he was asked to minister to. And then he came home and taught it to us.

In this talk he taught the Parable Of The Laundry. This is a significantly condensed version of his talk, but I will post it in full later. He explained that before his mission, mom pretty much took care of his laundry. I gave him serious side eye on that one. He said that in the MTC, he was fully responsible for his own laundry, but he could throw his clothes in the washer and then move on to something else. When he arrive in the Philippines, he said, “In the Philippines we wash clothes by hand, and that is a little bit more of an involved process than ‘toss it in the washer with some detergent and move on to something else. I would like to describe the art of hand washing in five easy steps. They sound easy, at least. 1) Initial Rinse 2) Detergent Soak 3) the scrub 4) Final Rinse 5) Hang dry”

He described specifically the process of washing white shirts. He said of the Initial Rinse, “Slosh the clothes around in the water until all the loose dirt is out. The water will change colors as you do this, from the pale yellow of sweaty garments, to the grey cement color of over-worn socks.” Ew. Sorry for that mental image. Of the Detergent Rinse he said, “Mix until the soapy water is frothy and then re-add your rinsed clothing. Stir lightly and leave to soak for thirty minutes. Of The Scrub he said, “After the 30 minute rinse, select your scrub weapon. These range from the novice brush to the professional bare hand. Each shirt should take 5 to 10 minutes. Of the Final Rinse he said, “This is a little bit of a misnomer as it actually takes a series of 3-5 rinses…until the clothing no longer produces soap bubbles. The more soap you leave in your clothes, the itchier it will be to wear them and the dirtier they will get in the coming week, as soap attracts dirt.” Finally, “The Hang Dry. As you place each item of clothing on a hanger, smooth out any visible wrinkles. Hang in a place that A) has good air flow, B) has good sun but not direct sunlight, and C) is sheltered from the rain. In perfect conditions described above, it only takes three hours to dry your clothes. Conditions in the Philippines are never perfect and rain (a constant threat) was the worst, bringing dirt and pollution out of the air and onto your freshly cleaned clothes. White shirts will proclaim those spots, and it is time to wash again. If, due to weather, your clothes took too long to dry, they would sour, and it would be time to wash them again.” Harrison goes on to call this an “involved and grueling process that takes several hours to complete.”

He then makes the obvious analogy to the atonement, and read several important scriptures. He said, “The Atonement is the process we each must individually follow to wash ourselves of all iniquity and sin, prerequisite to entering the Kingdom of God and His Glory. Before my mission I thought in washing machine terms. Toss the garments that need to be cleansed of sin, add an appropriate amount of repentance, kick on the Atonement Machine and go do something else until you find yourself cleansed from sin. I learned that the Atonement requires much more effort than a washing machine, and the process has more in common with hand washing. Let me explain in this way: Our faith in Jesus Christ is the first step on our path of becoming eternally clean…Repentance is our detergent soak of the soul…Baptism is the opportunity we have to clean up the stains we have soaked, scrubbing them away in a symbol of the death of the old life of sin and the rebirth of a life in Christ…Receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost is the counterpart rinse to the cleansing of Baptism…Enduring to the end is the final step in the process, akin to hanging clothes out to dry. In perfect conditions, enduring to the end would be a lovely three-hour sunbath to clean, dry perfection. However, this life is a test, and conditions will never be perfect. Satan has the power to tempt us, and his temptation, like polluted rain, will stain our freshly washed souls. Even the day-to-day wear will bring more stains upon us. Hence, enduring to the end is not a static process, where we hang our garments in a hermetically sealed closet, never to be worn again. Rather, enduring to the end is the active process of keeping our garments clean as long as possible in Satan’s imperfect conditions, and washing them as they become stained and soiled. The repentance process is not the back-up plan for when our garments become unclean. Repentance IS the plan. If, at the end of our mortal lives, we have strived to keep our garments clean in the fallen world, through the process of the Atonement, then will we return to the Kingdom of our Father.”

Harrison understood, accepted and lived within the Atonement of Christ. He taught me in this one talk things about the Atonement I hadn’t really understood before – maybe because he was speaking my language because what mom doesn’t know the language of laundry? He was walking the road with us, doing his best, washing and rewashing his shirts when they got dirty. He did kill himself, but he also died because he suffered from an illness. We do not need to be ashamed of that or hide that fact. Harrison made a choice I wish he had not. He took an action he can’t take back. I know he would if he could. I know he didn’t mean to do this. But we are the ones who are left with the results of his actions. What do we do with that? Do we live within the atonement of Christ? Do we refuse to let fear keep us from speaking when speaking is necessary? Do we reach out, see a person, offer love and provide acceptance? Do we hide in the darkness, or do we shine in the light? I know what Harrison would have us do, and I know what the Lord would have us do.

 Harrison, I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, As long as I’m living my baby you’ll be.

[fairyroses]

please share the thoughts!

(For those not in the know, this is referring to my Thoughts about the way Nura’s name was dropped in the most recent SG episode.)

Okay, so I wrote out a ridiculously long and kinda confusing explanation the first time I tried to answer this, so I’m gonna try to Condense it this time. (Edit from future me, who just finished writing this whole long-ass meta: Sooo, condensing it Didn’t Really Work, and it’s obnoxiously long anyway. Oops. Oh well. At least it’s more coherent this time.) 

(general warning for people reading this post who aren’t rachel: uhhh, maybe don’t look below the cut if you’re a big Brainy/Nia shipper? there’s no Hate, but there is a lot of theorizing about why I don’t think the ship’s actually gonna sail the way most ppl are thinking it will, sooo if you don’t want to feel bummed out, then maybe don’t read this. cool? cool.) 

(also I fully acknowledge that all of this is Pure Speculation, aided by some ridiculously intense scrutiny of a tv show, and thus not an exact science, and completely likely to be wrong. but man, would I love to be right.)

So first, I’m just gonna talk about the existence of the namedrop in general. So, before that moment, we had no idea how important Nura would actually be to Nia’s story. The writers could’ve chosen to not even name her at all, and could’ve just left the reveal as something more general, like “Brainy knows something about Nia in the 31st century, but can’t say what because of Space-Time Continuum stuff.” But they didn’t - instead, they created a Very Specific secret that Brainy is now keeping from everyone. 

This is absolutely a deliberate choice made by the writers. They already have Nia as a Nura-like character. They didn’t have to namedrop the actual Nura if they didn’t want to. They didn’t have to create that specific problem (the problem being that Brainy apparently knows Nia’s descendent really well). But they did anyway.

Additionally, the fact that they didn’t have a follow-up scene later in the episode where Brainy explains who Nura is means that all of this WILL come back up eventually. They won’t just leave that thread hanging. So, an important question to ask now is: What Big Thing is gonna happen between Brainy and Nia that forces Brainy to finally spill the beans about who Nura is? 

My personal guess? Nia gets the wrong idea about their relationship, and either kisses Brainy or tries to kiss him, and he panics and blurts out that they can’t do that because he knows her descendent, so being with Nia either feels weird to him, or he’s worried about screwing up the timeline and potentially Marty McFly-ing Nura out of existence. Of course, in telling this to Nia, he’d have to explain who Nura is to both her and the audience.

(Wishful thinking? Maybe. Kind of a cruel bait-and-switch for the writers to pull on shippers? Yeah, I’d say so. But it’s not that different from what they did with Kara and Mon-El last season, and I actually think it’s a VERY plausible ending for Brainy/Nia, sooo…) 

The Reveal™ could happen any number of ways, though, and I realize that. This one just seems like the most CW-style one lmao.

Okay, now I’m gonna analyze the Actual Namedrop Scene, because I can’t stop myself from theorizing and Tinfoil-Hatting™ about Brainy and Nura’s potential relationship in the 31st century.

First, I wanna talk about how intimately familiar Brainy is with Nia’s powers, and how they work. 

He obviously knows these things because of how often he’s worked with Nura in the past - tbh, he and Nura probably discovered these techniques while working together to help her figure her powers out. So, Brainy doesn’t have to do any kind of trial-and-error process with Nia here, because he’s already gone through all that with Nura. This is his second go-around with all of this. 

The concept of Brainy and Nura as a Dream Interpreting Duo is further solidified by this line:

Without Nia even really asking him to, Brainy automatically assigns himself the role of her Personal Dream Interpreter, which again tells me that this is probably the exact kind of relationship that he has/had with Nura. He’s recreating his interactions with Nura without really realizing it (yet). 

Note his body language throughout this scene. It’s not clinical or distant, which would imply that his dynamic with Nura was an impersonal one driven by duty or scientific curiosity - rather, it’s very personal, and intimate, and even Soft in a way that we’ve never really seen Brainy behave with anyone before. 

(Brainy/Nia shippers are, of course, going to interpret this behavior as evidence for their own ship, but IMO it’s actually much stronger evidence towards a (former) Brainy/Nura romance, more than anything else.)

Whether or not there’s a romantic angle, though, Brainy and Nura are still clearly very close. I’d say that’s pretty undeniable at this point.

This is Brainy’s face right as he calls Nia by Nura’s name, btw:

(So frickin’ cute, oh my gooood. This is one of the biggest things that makes me question if his relationship with Nura might’ve been romantic at some point, because LOOK at this! Look at his FACE!) 

Aaaand this is his face once he realizes that he Fucked Up™:

It isn’t even an ‘oh shit!’ reaction. He doesn’t blink or look startled. He just immediately and completely walls himself off. Because that Softness that he accidentally showed here? That smile, the Sparkly Eyes? Those were his feelings about Nura, getting tangled up in his conversation with Nia. Those words that he said to Nia? Are ones that he’s undoubtably said to Nura before. 

That’s why the slip-up happened in the first place. He was talking to Nia, but due to the familiarity and intimacy of the moment, he was thinking about Nura. 

Now I’m gonna talk about Tropes. Because I LOVE tropes. And as soon as the namedrop happened the way it did - in the middle of an emotionally vulnerable moment - my mind instantly went to the Wrong Name Outburst trope:

(these screenshots are courtesy of TVTropes, obvs. highlights are courtesy of me.) 

So like, Brainy saying Nura’s name when he did isn’t as bad as, say, him blurting it out in the middle of sex (lmao can you imagine), but it’s still not a good sign for Brainy/Nia, as far as I’m concerned. It’s never a good sign when a dude calls his supposed Love Interest by the wrong name after knowing her for a while. It just isn’t. 

(It’s different if the Wrong Name Outburst had been a mistake from the first time they met - that’s a different version of the trope. Like, if Brainy had called Nia “Nura” outside of the pizzeria, then that’s an understandable case of Mistaken Identity. But to call her that when he already knows full-well who she is? Yikes lol, that’s a BIG romance no-no.)  

Anyway, speaking of the pizzeria, if you click on the “You Remind Me of X” trope link, you can then scroll down to find this section: 

The Flashback Echo mentioned here definitely applies to the pizzeria scene, right down to Brainy’s “Do I know you?” moment of startled recognition. If we’re following the logic of the trope, then it’s not a far stretch to assume that Brainy’s connection to Nura might’ve been romantic, most likely a “failed romance” (since I doubt Nura is dead). 

Of course, Nura could also just be a really good friend, and maybe that would be enough to trigger the same reaction from Brainy…but there’s no way of knowing for sure until he lets the audience in on his secret. I’m really, really curious about what explanation they’ll go with, though. Personally, I hope it’s romance. But maybe that’s just me.

And now, finally, an add-on (because I can’t figure out where else to put it). Why do I think that Nura would specifically be a former love interest for Brainy, if she’s going to be one at all? Well, for two reasons:

1) They already pulled a Surprise Wife/Girlfriend trope with Mon-El and Imra last season, and IMO that’s a unique enough story beat that they wouldn’t want to use it again with Brainy and Nura, lest they risk the show becoming weirdly repetitive. 

2) Revealing that Nura is Brainy’s Amicable Ex (meaning: they’re still good friends even though they’re not Together anymore) would be a good way to pay homage to the Brainy/Dream Girl relationship from the comics and give a definitive reason why Brainy/Nia can’t happen, while still leaving the door open for the writers to potentially explore…uhh, certain other ships next season. *COUGH* You know…potentially. 

Thus my assumption that, on the off chance that they DO make Brainy/Nura romantic, it’ll be something in the past, that’s now over and done with. 

(NOTE: The Brainy/Nura romance angle is really just a Pet Theory that I’ve grown particularly fond of over the past few days. Like…if I’m being Realistic, I think it’s much more likely that Brainy’s never been in a romantic relationship before in canon, given how little he seems to know about relationships and social cues in general. So, Nura will probably just be a close friend. But I think most of the stuff I talked about can still totally apply even with them just being close friends.)

Aaand…that’s it. That’s all I’ve got. 

P.S. Like I said at the beginning of this post, this is all just Pure Speculation and Tinfoil-Hatting and I’m aware of that. I mean really, who tf knows what’s actually going to happen on this show? Def not me lol. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

So please don’t come for me if you have a different opinion lakjsdfkjd 

[takaraphoenix]

Can you do "Once upon a time " for the show rant?

First of all, I’m sorry for making you wait so long?

And then, before we get into this: If you think fucking Frozen is a good Disney movie, then maybe don’t read this (and maybe, let’s be real, unfollow me because I will never miss an opportunity to put that burning garbage fire into its place when it comes up in conversation. It is literally the only thing I hate to such a petty degree that I can not go without insulting it for sucking so hard and making me lose my faith in Disney for literal years). Since that fucking movie made its way into this show, I will have to adress it and I will not be holding back about what a giant dump on the show that was. So, fair warning there.

I’ll try to keep this chronological. I’ll try to go through rough plotlines first and then dive into the characters.

So, let’s start at the beginning.

A young Phoe, growing up on Disney movies and loving them. So when an older Phoe discovers a TV show about the Disney princesses living in the Enchanted Forest together, well, I was over the moon.

The first two seasons were… a bit of a slow start. I enjoyed the concept behind it, I enjoyed the characters, but it was still pretty much a set-up and I only got really invested when the plot moved on from the first curse. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was a really great intro and all, but it felt less…impactful. With the others, I can very clearly recall the impact they had on the story and also the things that happened but with the first two it’s all a bit vague, like “Yeah, yeah, that curse and Regina first turning good. Uhu. Wait. How did this last two fucking seasons? I feel like I’m completely blanking on what season 2 is about. Am I?”.

Ironically, the third season was also the one I consider both weak and good at the same time. But the scale became broader. It wasn’t just Storybrook anymore. It just became so much… more. They enriched the world they built.

I hate that they turned Peter Pan into a villain. What the fuck. I mean, seriously, what the fuck? That they played with the dynamics of characters, sure. But that they completely flip the tale is something that agitates me. Not to mention that the Peter Pan plotline was stretched out for far too long. It was not justified to last half a season. They were just wandering around Neverland aimlessly half the time and it could have really been condensed into a quarter season.

I have very conflicted feelings for the Wicked Witch plotline. I feel like they completely half-assed the Wizard of Oz storyline, cramming it together like that and just jumping ahead. Out of all the storylines, this one felt the most like they were… unsure how to handle the tale itself and like none of them had actually read the damn book? Was watching Disney movies as homework for your job okay, but reading a book was too much?

Season 4.

I have never been as drunk in my entire 26 years of life as I was when watching season 4A. My best friend and I got a lot of alcohol and frozen pizza, we started drinking and watching at 10 AM and through the entire day to binge this shit so we’d be done with it because our hatred for fucking Frozen is too strong to endure one episode at a time sober.

Thanks to the alcohol, I have barely any recollections about details of this half-season. The first half of the first episode and then it starts getting fuzzy because by the 20 minute mark, I was drunk as shit.

(Our drinking game for Once Upon a Time - yes, we established this to become A Thing for us after that plotline - is to take one shot at every Disney referrence. Each referrence only counted once. So not every single time Snow White enters the screen, we drink, but only when a new character is introduced for the first time, or when an item is very clearly out of the movies and such. Also every time Rumpel fucks Belle over. Every time Belle breaks up with Rumpel. Every time Emma does something that annoys us. And, in this half-season’s case, every time it does something very Frozen.)

So yes, I was shit-faced drunk within 20 minutes because of what fucks me over the most about Once Upon a Time.

They completely screwed the tales of The Wizard of Oz and Peter Pan over just last season, but with Frozen, they stuck sooo much with the source material that even the fucking embroidery on their dresses and the way they wore their hair was identical to the movie. Even the parents looked down to their clothes exactly like they did in their fucking movie. They included every last stupid, unnecessary character - even the dumb trolls that were completely unnecessary and out of place for Once Upon a Time and would have done better by adapting Frozen to fit into Once by having them consult the Blue Fairy. Something to tie Frozen into Once instead of adapting the movie one to one.

You never adapted a single Disney movie one to one. The closest you got was later on Brave, but other than that, you changed a shit-ton of things about all the movies. How did this garbage pile of a movie deserve such special treatment that it got not only an entire half-season to focus on it but also that it got to keep every last single little detail about its movie?

As a die-hard Disney fan, that infuriates me because it’s not fair. It’s not fair that the true masterpieces did not get the same respectful treatment when being adapted. It’s not fair that Cinderella was a COMPLETE throw-away character in the show that had only one episode to that point (and only got two more episodes down the road), that Ariel and Aurora were cut short too. That Snow White not once in the six season run of this show wore her iconic dress - not even in the flashbacks as a kid, where such a simple dress would have fit - but Elsa and Anna get to wear dresses that are perfect replicas of their movie dresses? It’s not fair. And that they chose the worst animated movie Disney ever made to get this special treatment just makes me even more upset.

It’d have upset me if it were any other movie too - to get a half-season super-true-to-original treatment - but that they chose this shitty movie for it just makes it infinitely worse.

Now. I do have to praise one thing about the fucking Frozen plotline though. The show tried really hard to fix this fucking mess of a movie. They actually tried to tie the real Snow Queen into this, they tried to make sense of Elsa’s “ooopsie daisy she got powers but we will never-ever explain why and how and oh well who cares we’ll make a fuck-ton of money out of this shit even if we totally half-ass any kind of logic on it”-powers. They did really-really good at trying to fix this mess, as far as I remember (like I said, all very fuzzy. Remember pretty white-dressed Snow Queen who was… uhm… Emma’s foster mom at some point but also the… aunt/grandma/unsure of Elsa and Anna? Really very drunk, sorry).

The second half of season 4 - before I slip into a total hate-fest on fucking Frozen, let’s move on and leave it at that - was better, but still kind of…

Ursula doesn’t make fucking sense.

I just… I mean. This universe literally has three Ursulas now. The great magical and way too underweight Goddess that Ariel tried praying to. Regina pretending to be said Goddess. And… there’s actually… Ariel’s aunt the “real” Ursula from the Disney movie (who by that logic ought to be the Goddess because she’s the daughter of Poseidon and thus a Goddesss)? Only that she is actually kind of not the real Ursula since she got nothing to do with Ariel’s plotline - aside from very obviously being her aunt - and she kind of gets a rehashed version of Ariel’s story.

She’s also clearly not a villain. Like. She didn’t even do the thing that made her a villain in the movie? So? How exactly did she ever end up with Cruella and Maleficent to become this feared trio of evil bad villains? That part just… really didn’t add up to me and feels like they retconned her in hard after they already used Ariel. I would have wished for more consistency and for more explaining on how exactly she fits into her own movie’s world and what exactly made her such an evil villain.

Cruella was handled really cool though. I like the idea of her actually having magic. It was interesting. I don’t understand why she got such a cheap and obvious wig, because that thing looks awful. Like, sure you don’t want to dye half your hair white, but can’t they at least try to make it look natural?

But I’m still pissed that they never pulled through with the 101 Dalmatian story. Pongo is owned by Archie. I had expected him to meet a love interest through Pongo. How did that never happen?

I also have to mention the Lilith plot that just… it felt like it was supposed to be heavy and impactful and I waited the entire final season for a pay-off - especially after we meet her dad Mushu the Dragon - but somehow it felt as though she was just… forgotten? I mean, that character is named after a pretty strong and important character from an entirely different mythology/religion. I was expecting a giant-ass pay-off for her storyline, but she just disappeared and was never heard of again.

Now, season 5 was actually my favorite season.

I hate that they fucked King Arthur over hard. It’s like… “If it’s based off a non-fairy tale, we can really fuck it hard, right? Yes? Good.”. Because Peter Pan and Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland (I am so getting into that mess of a spin-off that they half-completely retconned out when I get to season 6) and even Mulan - I mean, uhm, what exactly did she DO in the Enchanted Forest? She saved freaking China in the movie. So she should be like… from our world? Just like Dorothy and Alice and Wendy. So… uhm, how was that never explained? At all? She was nearly as much a throw-away character as Cinderella because they just didn’t care about her story at all and just used her as a prop.

So yeah, totally hate how Arthur was a bad guy, but totally loved Merida and her plotline. Even though the scenes of Merida and Rumpel talking to Emma were so hard for me to understand because of accents.

Now, main reason why I loved that season. The return of Ruby. I love Ruby. I literally need and want Ruby, Merida, Mulan and Dorothy to have their own spin-off. Like. That is what they should have gone with to keep this show going instead of whatever garbage fire season 7 is going to be (I’ll get into that later. One thing at a time).

Ruby had been gone and it had annoyed me to no end because she is Snow’s best friend. But they retconned that real well. I also liked how the Dwarves came back with a piece of their minds on being props and forgotten because that was what they had indeed felt like.

But I still think that Ruby turning lesbian was so because they had gotten heat from Disney. Because I do not believe for half a second that Disney approved of them making Mulan a lesbian. So instead Once turned toward their “own” characters - Ruby and Dorothy, aka the two not based on Disney movies. Still. I actually ended up shipping it.

Anyways.

The most ridiculous part about that half-season however was how Hook literally flipped a switch as soon as he realized he was the Dark One. Like. Woah. He didn’t even try to contain the darkness, he instantly let it embrace him when he realized like he gave himself up.

Moving on.

Hades. I mean, holy Hades, Hades was awesome. I just… If you’ve been around my tumblr for a bit, you know how much I fangirl about Dominic Sherwood literally doing anything? Yeah, I had the same level of fangirling about Greg Germann doing Hades. He was just so perfect and on point. He was literally the best cast ever. And that they kept the blue flame-hair just made me happy so much. Just… he was so amazing.

The thing that did bother me about this half-season was that Snow and Charming were down there. I mean. They had literally nothing to do in the underworld and for that quest to retrieve one soul - Emma, Henry and Regina would have been more than enough, especially considering that Snow White, Charming and Robin all had babies upstairs. They should have stayed upstairs with the babies. It was ridiculous to cram all those characters into this normally rather simple quest. They just didn’t have anything to do for so much of this season.

It was also the half-season where the “villain has a good core and can be turned good” trope became way overused.

Regina. Yes. The original for this.

Rumpel. Also yes, of course.

Maleficent, who just wanted her baby… okay.

Now Zelena.

And Cora.

And just… why would you try redeeming Cora? Cora is your one strong, pure villain. You keep giving every single villain a redemption arc, but if you literally track two of those directly down to Cora - Regina and Zelena - then don’t attempt to give the source of all evil a redemption story. It was so unnecessary and too much.

That Hercules and Megara were such throw-away characters in this also pissed me off. They really should have gone with leaving Snow and David upstairs and instead bring Herc in sooner and have him bond with Emma and help her and be a hero. Instead of retconning him into Snow’s past to be convenient. Why not let Emma make… a friend? Crazy thought, I know.

And then came the Jekyll/Hyde plotline. I think they brought too much of that in this season already. If you tease a new season with the last scene of the season finale, that’s fine, but if you focus like an entire episode of such a thing… that’s just too much.

Aladdin was cool. I think the whole “savior” arc was… very retconned in here though, considering that both Hercules and Mulan had more than just the potential to having been Saviors in their own rights. But this show established that Emma is the Savior. Now, all of a sudden, Aladdin is another previous Savior. As I just said; retconned in.

I also still think that instead of turning Arthur into a fucking villain, he should have been a great Savior. Because he is the once and future king, for heaven’s sake.

Now let me get into why this arc pisses me off.

What was the fucking point of Once Upon a Time in Wonderland?

I love spin-offs. I love elaborate universes. But why would you make a spin-off if it doesn’t fucking matter to you at all?

But they kept Will Scarlet. If they had at least not included him, then ignoring the spin-off would be simple. But him being in Once - and don’t get me wrong, I fucking adore Michael Socha and he was literally the reason I watched Wonderland. It just messed shit up even worse.

I mean. Not just did they recast Jafar, but they also completely disregarded Jafar’s canon from Wonderland, where he ought to be Jasmine’s half-brother because he was the sultan’s son. But the sultan was completely different, Jafar’s relations weren’t mentioned. It was a completely different story that had not an ounce of regard for the spin-off.

Not to mention how the Red Queen was Anastasia, aka Cinderella’s step-sister. But instead they elaborate Cinderella’s backstory with step-sisters that have completely different names than they do in the movies - why would you do that? Why? You did such a great job at keeping Cinderella looking like in the movie. She was so gorgeous. Why would you retcon her story into something non-movie related? This had been such a great way of tying Wonderland in but instead, it was disregarded.

Just how it was disregarded with Aladdin and Jasmine.

And that just pisses me off. A lot.

Now. Let me move on to the final season.

I consider the final season to be really very weak. Like. Seriously. If you know my stories, you know I love angst, but that season was even too angsty for me. Holy shit. Emma was just so angsty. It was hard to bear.

Then the rift between Rumpel and Belle again. The really not very likable character of their son and how they just aged him up via magic (a trope that I hate nearly more than the “added baby for the sake of adding a baby because we ran out of plot” at this point because it’s just… getting tired).

So yeah. Gideon had literally no character. He just… existed. And was so bland.

And the Black Fairy?

I know I’ve been using the term a lot in this, but she was so retconned in. And a disappointment.

Maleficent is the Black Fairy. That is literally who Maleficent is.

How do you bundle Pinocchio’s Blue Fairy, Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother and Aurora’s Merryweather all up into one Fairy, but you create two separate Black Fairies? That just pisses me off a lot.

They could have come up with something better. I wish they would have brought Maleficent and Lilith back for this final act. Heck, if you have to retcon Rumpel’s mom the Black Fairy into being Maleficent’s sister to justify this. Or just… ysomething. Anything. But what they did was… not enough.

And just one more thing that pissed me off.

That waste-of-space musical episode.

If you know me, you know I love musicals. I love musical episodes nearly more than actual musicals because it excites me to see how they fit it into the world. And nothing screams musical episode as muchas a TV show based on Disney movies.

But they completely wasted it.

I loved that they wanted to make the Hook/Emma wedding that musical episode.

But instead, it was all in the stupid so fucking retconned in flashbacks. In the most omnious shit-stunt they had ever pulled before. Holy shit.

I thought maybe Henry accidentally would get Storybrook cursed into singing because he wants the wedding to be perfect for his mom with all the shit going on, and it would be a truly in the now focused episode focusing about the wedding. The wedding was a total side-note in this episode and such a let-down. You know, just a fun musical episode about the wedding.

Not one where all the songs are between Snow and David and Regina and completely retconned in.

It was just… a giant-ass disappointment.

But I did however really like the grand finale with the picture-esque Last Supper imagery and the fact that Rumpbelle got to dance together and got their happy ending were just perfect.

Season 7 does not exist.

I just… really can’t. I really-really can’t.

I just this show so very much, I can’t watch them ruin it, I can’t allow them to make me hate this show. I love it too much to be able to endure that.

And I know they’ll make me hate it.

That they’re doing a “soft reboot” is in itself already bullshit. You do not reboot a show literally the second it ends. If you’d have ended it there and brought it back in ten years - five years, if you have to rush it and be greedy - or so, when Henry is older. Okay. Yeah.

But to do this now?

I’m sure they’ll pull explanations out of their asses. About why Snow and David won’t return as regulars. Why Emma the fucking main character and mom of the ‘new’ lead won’t return to the show. Why no one but Henry actually aged. Why they’ll now include multiple incarnations of the same fucking story. But I am too tired of them retconning things in to listen to them completely breaking the lore of this show just to make more money.

Because that’s what it’s about at that point. “Half the cast won’t be in it anymore? But we still wanna keep going? Let’s call it a soft reboot”.

And no. Just no.

Not to mention, it literally does break the lore of this show. The very foundation this world operates on.

The Author documents the stories. The very same stories get documented by different authors. That is why fairy tales had fdifferent authors and variations, why Walt Disney wrote them down differently. That was what the whole fucking point of this universe was.

And now they suddenly say “Heeey, there’s a Cinderella now married to Henry. but it’s a different Cinderella than the Cinderella you met in the original story. Because out of fucking reasons we now suddenly have multiple incarnations of the very same character just because we fucking can!” is just so weak. So very, very pathetic.

For years, that was not a thing that existed. There is one Snow White. One Cinderella. One of every single one and they all interacted and knew each other. How did they not know of other versions of themselves? How does the Author plot still make sense with that? It doesn’t. That’s just it.

And that they plan on bringing the freaking Princess and the Frog into this is even more ridiculous. Yes, she is the only black princess and I can understand the need to include her, but her story doesn’t resonate with how the world of Once Upon a Time works, because her tale was never the Frog Princess or the Frog King, it never even tried to be either of those fairy tales. It cleary had the actual fairy tale displayed in the movie and was referrencing “Oh, so it works like that, yeah?”, meaning this was never trying to be an adaptation of the fairy tale, it was just an original Disney movie essentially. Does that mean Once doesn’t just include idconic books and fairy tales… but also random, unrelated movies now? By that logic, what’s next? Star Wars, because it’s Disney too?

So how does that even remotely fit in? How much retconning do you hve to do to make that movie work in this universe? Definitely more than with fucking Frozen. (Even though Princess and the Frog is a wonderful movie and definitely better than fucking Frozen. But that has nothing to do with how little this fits together with the show.)

I just…

They obviously stopped giving a fuck. So I will stop watching, for the sake of my own sanity. It’ll be better for me.

Now. To wrap this up, I want to focus on the characters.

The weird thing is that… I don’t really care for Emma.

Normally, I either love a protagonist or hate them. But that I’m completely indifferent about them… that’s a first. She’s just very bland and neutral. It’s the rest of the cast that get me.

Like. All of them.

Hook is amazing and I love Regina and Rumpel is such a great complex character and just… all of them.

And the ships.

This show totally does the Disney thing by making me ship a lot of straights. A lot of canon ships. I normally rarely get on board of canon ships. The highest of my feelins is “Hey, this one doesn’t make me constantly roll my eyes or want to claw said eyes out. Yay.”. But with Once?

Charming/Snow

Hook/Emma

Rumpel/Belle above all else

Robin/Regina

Hades/Zelena

And just… all those regular Disney pairings too. It’s so easy to ship them. To love them.

I mean, OTP is totally Regina/Emma, which confuses me because I do love their canon matches.

Ruby though, I have special love for Ruby, because Red Riding Hood is literally my favorite fairy tale. And that she’s a werewolf and that she’s best friend with Snow - I did not understand what they pulled there until like season 5. That the English treats Schneewittchen and and Schneeweißchen as one and the same character and translate the RED Riding Hood and Rose RED as one and the same too…. Really weird. But sure. It works. (I don’t get why they gave Ruby the civil identirty of ‘Ruby’ and not of ‘Rose’  though considering they use her as both Red Riding Hood and Rose Red.)

So, yeah.

Overall, I really fucking love this show, but it sure as fuck ain’t flawless and I will not allow new flaws to drag it down for me.

[lupienne]

#169 Ramblings

As usual, these ramblings might be all over the place and stupid as hell! I’ll put any speculations/what ifs/and shit in italics.

This was one of those 'seeding the crops' issues we often get at the start of a new volume. Not a lot really happens, but a shit-ton of seeds are planted in a very unruly garden and who knows what's gonna pop out of the ground in the coming months.

Ok, the cover is Dwight holding a gun to Rick's head, which ties in to issue at least word-wise.

Carl kneels at Andrea's grave. Lydia comes up, and Carl confesses how he killed Ben because no one else would, and he obviously still feels guilty about it because he cries. Although, the story ties in to Andrea; turns out Carl did confess to her after all, and when she still loved and accepted him... as a parent would... he started to call her mom. I can't remember if he called her mom before AOW, so maybe he fessed up after? Lydia says nothing, just lets him get his feelings out.

I still adore Lydia, there's something sweet and pure about her even though fucking assholes in her life traumatized and defiled her.

I do think this scene could have been condensed just a tad, because honestly, I'm kind of annoyed we still haven't seen Carl talk to Negan!! Not even a fucking glance or acknowledgment! Shit, he didn't even say anything to Rick about it! I mean, for three years, Carl snuck down on some kind of semi-regular basis to chat with Negan, so this totally blowing off of his thoughts on Negan's freedom/part in the war/etc... it's aggravating!

Ok, Rick struts his shit around Alexandria. Not really. I noticed he hasn't gotten a new cane yet. I thought he needed that thing to walk but maybe he's just doing some limpy-shuffle thing. Anyhoo, Maggie approaches him and she just can't stay quiet about that big leather-clad lug that's wandering the streets. Keeping her up at night! Thinking about how fine he is – er... or not.

Blah, blah, Maggie demands to know why Negan is free. Rick is like... I killed husbands and wives too... Maggie gets pissed.

Now this kind of makes me mad. Unless this is just a condensed version of the conversation, Rick doesn't mention Negan saved him. Doesn't mention how Negan fought on the front lines, or worked with him to thin the herd... I don't even think Maggie knows Negan killed Alpha. Like, so does Maggie just think Rick let out Negan and was like 'sic' em!' and pointed towards the walkers? Or let him out when the Saviors were at the door?

Look, I'm very over-protective of my Negan. But I know this situation is so sticky. Maggie can't just get over watching her husband get murdered or hate the one who did it. I get it. But at the same time, TWD is like some wild West world where you gotta sometimes kill, gotta be brutal, where nobody really is 'innocent' or can show bloodless hands. Even fucking Carl killed a kid, when he was only like nine years old. Rick and his group carved up and tortured the cannibals. They killed the Saviors on the road when they didn't have to. Just like Rick said 'I'm not excusing what he (Negan) did.) 'But I don't really see what makes me so different.'

I know anti-Negan people won't agree, but Negan didn't kill Glenn just for some sick thrill (the TV version...well don't get me started on that POS. LOL!) He was in charge of two major communities who helped supply and keep his people alive, and if those groups lost respect (aka fear) of him and saw he was letting some other group kill his men and steamroll over him... well... Negan's group might suffer then. Maybe the other groups would roll in and slaughter his people, fight back viciously or refuse to supply. To him maintaining a presence and status quo (aka killing Glenn (or anyone)) from the uppity new group was a MUST. It HAD to happen in his mind... for the survival of HIS people.

I don't think for a second Rick wouldn't take out some enemy and maybe even in a very brutal fashion, if he thought doing that kept his group from starving/being overrun/etc.

Anyhoo, of course, none of that matters to Maggie. XD She just wants to bathe herself in some sweet Savior blood. Or should I say ex-Savior. (Does that make him an antichrist? LOL!)

Rick says he can't kill Negan and locking him up seems unfair. Like once again, does Maggie know all the stuff Negan did to help the community? Rick says he has a deal and Negan will be leaving soon.

'That's really... kind... of you.' Maggie says with a pissy frown. And I know what's she thinking: you can't kill him... but I can.

Ok, the Euge and his secret phone sex line. Stephanie who didn't turn out to be Sherry like I thought. Hahahha. Just as Euge is about to blow his load to Steph's sultry moans, there is a knock on the door. Rick and Siddiq have come to cock-block.

Or rather, Rick claims the phone sex line as his own as he grabs the mic (?) and talks to Steph. They arrange to meet somewhere close to Steph's place. Eugene insists on going. The poor guy probably wants to get away after Andrea and Rosita's deaths :(

Rick does his limp-shuffle around looking for some scouts, specifically Jesus. He sees Dwight (aka little bitchy mcbitch) toiling away. “You just keep buzzing, busy bee. Make everyone think you're holding the place together..when really you're just making sure you get credit.' Like really, Dwight? Like you held the Saviors together, you fucking little runaway crybaby?

Rick: Bitch, I'll see you later, make sure you bring your fucking binkie.

Ok, a scene where Carl says he wants to go with Maggie. This is another scene that could have been cut... because Carl later tells Rick he wants to leave. I would've preferred this scene get cut and add one in of Carl talking to/mentioning... anything... about Negan!

Rick tries to recruit Jesus. Jesus doesn't want to leave, because he's got someone special worth staying for. Awwwww Aaron and Jesus have finally gone a step further than shy little smiles hahaha. :D Damn, I hope Kirkman doesn't break these two up (ie: kill one) because Jesus sure could use someone to relate to other than Maggie, and poor Aaron needs someone too.

Heh, Jesus's bashful little rub to the back of his neck was adorable.

BAM suddenly it’s the dark of night. Dwight is waiting on a porch for his Ricky-poo.

Rick is like 'dude, go on a mission for me.'

Dwight's like' Fuck no, motherfucker, I'm the Queen Bee around here.'

Dwight pulls some serious shit. 'Your time is DONE, Rick.'

Rick: 'ummm dude, you didn't even want to lead the Saviors but you want to take over here? Why, because my town is prettier than yours?' Lol

Dwight (in what is probably a whiny tone): Well the Saviors were a boiling pot of RAGE and I didn't want to be around that! WAH!' Guess what, Dwight, as their leader maybe you should have done something to diffuse that fucking rage! Not just walked away! Honestly, as this point I think Dwight is an insecure twat who likes to play victim. Time after time he makes up fucking woe-is-me bullshit.(I might have to write a detailed article on this... LOL)

I'll give him this – he does have some right to be angry over Sherry. I mean, he did love her, she was alone with Rick, then she died. LOL (She sure didn't' seem to return his love when she had John beating his ass. Hahaha. )

So Dwight says Rick does stuff impulsive and thinks everything he does is right because well... he's Rick. And of course if Rick does something, then it MUST be the right thing to do. He accuses Rick of escalating the situation with the Saviors (which Rick didn't do. I mean, yeah, killing Sherry wasn't exactly planned. But what was he gonna do about it? Lie and say she stepped out of town for a few decades?)

He whines about how Rick let Negan talk the Saviors down when Negan is sooo untrustworthy. Bitch, Negan is more trustworthy than your punk ass. Rick takes offense to Dwight talking trash about his Neegsy-poo. As Dwight (in a Negan-esque manner) talks about how 'reasonable' he is to talk in private instead of with his militia and their guns, Rick basically says 'stuff it up your hole' and turns to leave.

Dwight can't believe it! Rick has a lot on his place and doesn't have time to change Dwight's dirty diapers. He leaves but not without delivering some epic shit:

FUCK YESSSSS

Dwight is left sitting on the chair with his fists clenched like an angry toddler.

I had a thought that maybe Dwight lied about the Iron. Like, maybe he didn't get it just because he 'cheated' with Sherry on Negan. Maybe back then, Negan wasn't so egomanical and Dwight did something shitty, like threatening or beating Sherry, or trying to lead a mutiny, or stealing... or anything. Like, by the time Negan Ironed Mark, he was clearly on top of the world's tallest horse.

A little Michonne and Rick scene. She's going on the mission along with Yumiko, Magna, Siddiq and Eugene. (I wonder if Negan will join them on the road. LOL I bet Michonne would just LOVE his humor. Hahaha.) Magna could def use some more development, hell, I guess all of them can.

Michonne goes, Carl comes and reiterates what he told Maggie about moving to the Hilltop, but this scene is much better. :) I wonder if this will be the last time they see each other. :( It seemed like there was a lot of Rick death foreshadowing! Maybe a little too heavy handed. After all, Michonne is out on the road now... and she mentioned William is leading the Kingdom. So she’s just a rogue character floating around out there...

YAY finally some Negan. WOOOHOO.

The first time in the issue I laughed. Negan goes on about how much he loves pork and beans. Loves them so much he wants to die in puddles of his own pork-and-bean vomit and shit apparently, with beans oozing out of his ears and stuff. What a strange person.

I like this pic of Negan but upon second glance I noticed his eyes are kind of wonky hahaha. Must be sloppy inking. Or maybe Negan is just going fucking cross-eyed from all the canned meat goodness. Like he can't even see straight anymore, his dick is so fucking hard.

I honestly think Negan is trying to get a laugh, a smile, any kind of positive reaction out of Dwight. SourPuss ain't having any of this. Even when Negan thanks him, there's no reaction other than GTFO.

Negan says he might head towards the neighborhood he buried Lucille (my girl). 'Want to be close to her.' Awwwww.

Dwight just shuts that sentimental shit down and tells Negan to leave.

I think it would be cool if Negan went to the hospital where he left the real Lucille and gave her a real burial. He could find her bones, bring her to some place they really liked (like the park where she fed the pigeons) and bury her.

So, Neegs, armed with a rifle and a knife, and with a backpack of food and his trusty coat, leaves the gates of Alexandria. The ungrateful fucks of the town give no notice. Like I can see why Negan is sour. This fucker risked his life multiple times and gets no credit, and now he's exiled. I guess he got what he fought for – his own freedom.

Maggie's caravan comes through next. 'Take care of Rick for me,' she tells Dwight. Dwight has this weird look on his face. Like a guilty look.

I'm wondering if Maggie's 'take care of him' has like a double meaning. Like... 'take care of my cheating husband with some arsenic in his coffee' kind of double meaning)

Something that grinds my gears is this: Maggie talking so friendly to Dwight. Dwight KILLED Abraham. I don't remember how close Maggie was to him but he was a member of her group, and now she's smiling and talking friendly to the dude who fucking shot a bolt through his face? This just irritates me, because if Rosita and Holly were still alive, they wouldn't be so cool with Dwight. They would hate him, hate him the same way Maggie hates Negan – because he took away their loved one.

Why does Dwight get a free pass? I don't buy this BS that Negan told him to kill Abe. Negan wasn't there. Negan sent Dwight out as a team leader. Which means Dwight made the decisions, and he CHOSE to kill Abe. He could have just captured Abe and Eugene and held them hostage. Instead of killing one. Even just injuring Abe.

‘THEY’RE CALLED BOLTS...’

Michonne tempts fate by saying the radio group can't be any worse than other shit they faced. Maggie is aghast at that. Heh. From the looks of that crazy 'Princess' chick they’re gonna meet... who knows...

The radio group gallops off. Last two panels. Maggie looks over at Dante.

'If you hurry, you can catch up to Negan. I want you to follow him,  see where he settles down. I won't lose track of that monster.'

DUN DUN DUNnnnnn.

(I can see lots of stuff:

Maggie captures Negan, puts him somewhere private, and tortures him. Nobody knows....(NOOO)

Maggie has him captured and executes him. Probably Gregory style. (NOOOO)

Negan charms Dante and they become best buddies. (YES)

Maggie goes out to confront Negan and it turns into angry hate sex. (AHHAAAAA)

Dante must have to report back to her. They dont' have cell phones. LOL So when he does, maybe Carl will overhear. Or Carl will see them bringing Negan in (if that happens) I can't believe there isn't going to be ANY Carl/Negan interaction. Like, why even show they had a 'friendship' if it doesn't account for anything? Or perhaps Lydia will hear and tell Carl... like maybe he mentioned Negan once, or she just tells him in general: 'I heard Maggie talking about how she was going to kill some guy named Negan? Do you know who that is?”

Honestly, Dante should just be like 'No.' Like... 'you never put out, Maggie. Why should I risk my life tracking down some fucking con who was in prison for killing people?' LOL

Anyway, I'll skip Letter Hacks except for a little worrisome tidbit where Kirkman said 'I'm quite fond of Negan myself....'

Like shiiit. He was also 'fond' of Andrea....

Ok, that's it... I feel like I'm missing something but whatever. SHUT THE FUCK UP LUP