#we're connected to an alternate dimension or something

[it-was-too-cold-always]

We're Not in CW Anymore - 2

Chapter 1

The reader gets blasted into another universe - one where Sam and Dean Winchester are real people, real hunters, and really fucked up. To her surprise (or horror), Dean has been getting glimpses of her life in his dreams and is completely enamored with her. It's nothing like the cable-friendly CW show that she knows and loves.

Reader x Dean Winchester

Warnings: language, violence

Chapter 2: Family Remains is a Damn Good Episode

Dean would not stop staring. It was becoming increasingly unsettling. "Dude," Sam nudged him, sensing your discomfort. Dean snapped out of it, glancing around and composing himself. Sam debated which topic he wanted to bring up first - the fact that you've watched their lives in a TV show, or the comment Gabriel made about Dean being "quite familiar" with you. He decided on the latter.

"Dean, you want to tell me why Gabriel said you'd be familiar with her?" Sam looked over at his brother with a slightly pissed off glare. Dean’s face immediately turned bright red, fidgeting in his seat. He stared at the booth table and stammered. Finally, he blurted, "I've been watching her for the past couple months." You stared at him, mouth open, in complete shock. "Listen, it's not as creepy as it sounds. It's in my dreams. It's like I'm a ghost, I can see you but you can't see me. I've been with you at work, around the house, at the gym...sleeping..." he continued, "but again! I'm not a fucking creep! Whenever I sleep, I just show up at a random time in your day."

You were mortified. What exactly has he seen? The thought of someone watching you around the house made your skin crawl. And sleeping?! Your mind ran through every potentially embarrassing moment of the past months he could've witnessed. Your sleep shirts and smutty romance books were embarrassing enough. Has he seen you masterbate? You wanted to crawl under a rock.

"Why the fuck didn't you say anything to me about this? Didn't you think it was a little important that you've been connected to this girl somehow?" Sam was clearly frustrated with Dean. You didn't want to get in the middle of it, so you stayed silent, processing everything that was happening. Before Dean could respond, the waitress came back to take the boys' order. A salad and burger, what a surprise. Dean's gaze returned to you, making eye contact as you sipped your coffee.

"Dude, you're doing it again," Sam chastised Dean. It was a little creepy, despite his claims that he wasn't. "Listen, I say we get back to the bunker and look more into this. Surely there's something we can find about soulmates from alternate dimensions. The Men of Letters have so many resources, I'm sure we'll find a lead of some kind," Sam said. You nodded in agreement. You weren't sure what to besides follow them back to the bunker. “Agreed. But first, food,” Dean responded. Pretty on brand of him.

The boys ate while you nursed your coffee. You were busy contemplating all the different questions you wanted to ask. Was Bobby still alive? Did their mom come back from the dead? Did Castiel become cool or was he still an emotionless angel dickhead? You had so much you wanted to ask. You decided to start with the Bobby question. Looking up, you met eyes with Dean. Staring again. You decided to return the favor and stared back. You lost rather quickly – his gaze was very intimidating, even though his look was more of wonder than malice. You looked towards Sam and blurted your question. “Is Bobby alive?”

“Um, yeah…does he die in your universe?” Sam asked. You explained his death, rambling that it was one of your favorite episodes, but you always skipped the ending because he gets fatally wounded and it makes you sad to watch. Sam looks a little disturbed, you’re sure it’s because you just admitted that your favorite episode is the one where Bobby dies. You try to recover that blunder. “I mean that’s not my favorite episode. I really love season 4, ‘Family Remains.’ Where you thought it was a ghost but then it was human kids living in the walls. That one gives me the heeby jeebs. OR the Ghostfacers episodes, those are too fucking funny.” Shut. UP. You were kicking yourself for rambling. Dean rolls his eyes at the mention of the Ghostfacers. Sam clenches his jaw. Totally going to stop talking now.

The food arrives just in time to save you from further embarrassment. Dean immediately digs in, taking a massive bite out of the burger. You stare in disbelief – you can’t believe this is happening. The boys eat quickly enough. You drank WAY too much coffee and your hands were shaking. Both from the situation and the caffeine. Finally, it’s time to pile into the Impala and go to the bunker. The engine turns over and music starts playing. You recognize the song immediately, it’s straight from one of your playlists. Dean quickly moves to turn the song off, clearly embarrassed. You make eye contact in the rearview mirror. “What? You have good taste in music,” he defends himself.

As you drive in the now silent car, you think about what the next steps might look like. Sam wants to look for lore on soulmates from different universes, but what good would that do? It doesn’t change the situation. You’re stuck in a different world with people you barely know. Sure, you’d trust Dean Winchester with your life. But that’s the TV version of him. You don’t know anything about this guy. You thought you read once that Kripke wanted Dean to be tatted up, but they didn’t have the budget for it. I guess when it’s real life, you don’t have to worry about a budget. You mulled over what Gabriel had said about this being the nitty-gritty, real-life version of the show. That means a shit ton of killing and violence. Lots of disposing bodies. You were torn between being terrified for your safety and feeling sad for all the crap they’ve had to deal with. Sure, this Dean had tattoos and nasty scars and watched you sleep at night, but maybe he’s still the burger-loving, dorky man you fell in love with on the show. He might kill you, but you decided you didn’t really have a choice – you either went with these men you kinda knew, or you went out on your own in a different universe with no connections or money. You were willing to gamble on the chance that they’re not deranged killers.

Chapter 3

[doriandrifting]

815 Gate: 008 is 001’s “5 star general”.

Season Two shows us Kali’s crew in the very first episode, but it isn’t until Chapter Seven: The Lost Sister, that we meet 008 and her friends. This is episode fifteen of the series.

Dustin: You're going to crack the case, Steve.

Steve-the-hair-Harrington: *cracks a literal case*

Before this interaction, Nancy says, "The answers are here. Somewhere." A few beats later, Steve drops Dustin's bag and we get a zoom in on it. We see a ghostbuster's pin that references their costumes in Season Two.

So let's go back there, shall we? We'll start on Seventh Street.

"They turn to you, remove their [masks]."

This is not to mention the visual parallels between the Mind Flayer's possession and 008's powers:

Regardless of whether Kali had anything to do with this specific instance, as it was shown to be the Mind Flayer, the parallel is sinister. Character symbolism is also already happening from the moment we see her on screen. She's wearing gloves and covering her mouth—a classic sign that a character is hiding something.

The very next shot after that is this:

One grave reads: “Ashes to Ashes / Dust to Dust / Here lies someone I wouldn't trust.”

Meanwhile in Season Four:

A graveyard with a hand.

Ashes to Ashes. Dust to Dust.

Here lies a sister I wouldn't trust...

The police standing around and not seeing anything directly parallels the abilities we see Kali display in Season 2. Not to mention, the dogs in the neighborhood are clearly seeing something that we're not! Dogs in media are commonly shown to perceive the supernatural, hence why the dogs are barking when Fred and Chrissy get cursed, and yet they're noticeably silent when Steve, Nancy, Robin, Max, and Dustin return as a group. The dogs could see past Kali's illusions.

This is more theorizing than solid evidence but, I think Season Four was Stranger Things' Freddy vs. Jason moment. We quite literally have Eddie vs. Jason, and also a character named Fred who tells us he's rooting against Jason's team winning. They've also cast the actor who played Freddy, Robert Englund, as Victor Creel, and there's a cardboard cut out of Freddy at Family Video. Vecna's hand was inspired by Freddy and a whole bunch of other things, so this isn't a major reach (maybe lol).

Anyway, in Freddy vs. Jason, the townspeople of Springwood have forgotten Freddy Krueger. The ones who do remember him are sent to a mental institution as a government coverup. (I'm not suggesting that is what has happened in Hawkins, but the inspiration is clearly there as Nancy and Robin take a trip to Pennhurst to gather information from the only person who seems to know anything about the case. Henry being taken is also covered up by the government.)

Because no one remembers Freddy Krueger, he's been trapped in Hell and unable to invade children's dreams using their fear. ("Dream a little dream of me" + "Welcome to Hawkins Hell") Freddy sets Jason Voorhees on a killing spree in order to manipulate the children of Springwood into remembering him. Essentially the murders spread a wave of panic and Freddy's name gets tossed around until Freddy's power grows strong enough that he doesn't need Jason and can lure them himself. It leads to a showdown between them, yadayada.

So what does this have to do with Stranger Things? Well, we're told that Vecna is stalking his victims. Dustin says he's trying to build a strong psychic connection with them. We see as much while Vecna's in the Upside Down. But until this season, he never shows any of these vision abilities. He obviously always had them, but it seems like maybe he’s been unable to use them because of being stuck in an alternate dimension. Before this, he’s always relied on the Mind Flayer to physically possess characters like Will and Billy, but we don't see any of that this season. Max says, "All we know is this is something different. Something new."

I think, like Jason Voorhees, Kali was helping build Vecna's psychic connection to his victims. Once it was strong enough, Vecna was able to finish the job himself, opening the gates. This would account for the fact that our victims are seeing visions for awhile before they're actually killed. "Your time is almost at an end." Why not just kill them at that point? It doesn't make a lot of sense. There are also some inconsistencies at the name that Max is called. We also see lurking shots of the characters clearly being spied on, especially Mike. A big one that a lot of people noticed is the one in the junkyard where someone is watching through a car window. Who is watching our characters? Could it be Kali and the "cult of Vecna"? Kali is able to travel through the void, just like El, afterall. And maybe it's a coincidence, but Kali takes El to a junkyard in Season Two to help her train. Again, it seems to me like the writers are leaving a clue.

[edit: Someone pointed out that Kali is surprised by El explaining how she used the void, but I think that there’s reason to believe that she’s lying about that. The purpose of the Hawkins experiment was remote listening using the void. Kali is 20 years old in Season Two, meaning she’s 7 years older than El, but she is somehow completely unaware of the existence of the void? That doesn’t make sense, but El had basically no memory of her time at Hawkins, so it was an easy lie for Kali to tell.]

Besides this, there are so many visual parallels between the opening of Freddy vs. Jason and Season Four—the Molotov cocktail being thrown and setting Freddy on fire, a human puppet on flesh strings (“Master of Puppets” + Vecna’s tentacles making him look like a puppet on strings), etc.

Okay back to connections that I swear can't just be a coincidence (To preface this, I'm not saying the characters are aware of all of these things. IMO, most are just subtle clues being left by the writers/set designs, etc.):

When El goes to visit Kali, she walks into the warehouse and passes a giant Upside Down sign that says "To Paris". Next to it is a spray painted smiley face. This season, Jonathan's wall has a Paris sign and a smiley face balloon, and his tapestry is upside down. (The balloon and smiley face motif also floats around different scenes this season—Like a smiley face balloon by the Christmas lights at Benny's when Lucas wakes up. Another link to the Upside Down.)

El also passes a giant sprayed Magic 8 Ball at the entrance hallway, just like the one 010 was playing with in the lab at the opening of Season Four.

El asks Kali, "Are you real?" just as Max does to El this season.

The sign between Kali and El is a red hand and eye with broken lights that make it read "Spiritual ISOR [eyesore]" instead of Spiritual Advisor:

Downstairs, Axel throws knives at a painted target. It's a person with a heart drawn on it. Next to him is a giant spray painted crown. This is similar imagery to Mike in Will's painting this season.

Axel says something something, "You mean the loony bin," which (offensively) connects to the Pennhurst storyline in Season Four. Kali responds with, "Mick, our eyes, our protector."

Dottie asks to play a game. "Awh, come on. Just one hand." Mick's response is, "One hand leads to two hands, two hands leads to three, and before you know it, I'm as broke as Axel." (This connects to Vecna using his hand to curse people and the motif of four. Also mimics his signature phrase: "You will break.")

Axel has the exact mask from the one they slow zoom in on at Joyce's job:

Something similar happens where we get a long zoom in on a news paper stack. Later we see a piece has been torn out and placed in Will's locker with the phrase "Zombie Boy." The eyes have been crossed out in red marker, just like Vecna's victims losing their eyes. We're never given an explanation for how it got there. We're meant to assume a random bully did it. Some have theorized it was Will's crush who asked him to dance, but that makes little sense. But we are shown that Kali and her crew have a closet where they have a collage of newspaper clippings of all the people they're targeting taped to the wall. They've drawn on clippings in red and black marker. There's Xs through the faces of the ones they've killed.

How did Kali escape before the Rainbow Room Massacre? And why does she nearly verbatim repeat Henry's lines to El while asking her to pull a train? (Also note that while El was in the Rainbow Room, Brenner tells her a story about how she needs to "leave the train station." While Kali isn't aware of the story of Nina, it's another hint from the writers about how this episode is connected.)

"He found his strength in a memory that made him sad, but also angry," Henry tells El in the Rainbow Room. Is it possible that Henry had already gotten to Kali? Where did she learn this? (Both of their speeches are longer, but line by line they parallel.)

To reiterate, we see Kali in a junkyard—the same place we're shown that the California crew is being watched from. These are the only two scenes that the writers chose to take place in a junkyard. Not shown in the screenshot, but there's actually giant "NO."s spray painted on the walls inside the warehouse, always next to Kali. They follow her into the scene at the junkyard, and in the initial shot they obscure El with a bin, so it's just Kali in the background with a big 'ole "NO." in the foreground.

There's a door with a red window spray painted behind Kali like the Creel's door. (Although it's much more prominent when El first comes to the warehouse, we can also see the magic eight ball I mentioned earlier on the right side.)

Kali questions El about what she remembers of her. On the surface this might seem sentimental, but if Kali is working with Vecna, the reason behind this is because she's trying to figure out what El knows about what happened.

One character asks, "Yeah, what about a lullaby? Did you sing her one?" Another allusion to Vecna, but also the idea of singing someone a song, when we know music is a weakness of Vecna.

One character says, "You don't kill their men and expect them to look the other way." Kali responds with, "If they find us, they will release Hell." Another allusion to Hell that we see as a continuous theme in Season Four.

Vecna's army is supposed to be undead, and we get an interesting line from Funshine, "We were dead, all of us. Kali saved us here. And here." He gestures to his heart. Whether this is actually literal is up for debate. Maybe Kali used powers similar to El's and essentially brought these people back to life, which is why they feel they owe her (and by extension, Vecna) their service in hunting down her enemies.

Kali torments El by making her hallucinate Brenner:

Does this not sound exactly like Vecna? Is this not incredibly similar to what happens to Vecna's victims? For instance, Max, when she sees her mother? Not to mention Kali's face is completely devoid of empathy, and the half of her face that we can see is lit in a purplish red glow that is eerily reminiscent of Vecna.

This line is the line. In this scene, Kali is talking about her powers, but it actually takes on a double meaning. Throughout this conversation, she earns a lot of empathy from the viewer, but look at how half of her face is obscured in darkness again. Like El, Kali is only showing us what she wants us to see.

Pt. 2

[flythesail]

OKAYY here's my official "recommending the new Goosebumps show to everyone who likes Nancy Drew" post:

TLDR: If you like watching a friend group form to take on a new supernatural mystery every week that ties into an overall plot, 10/10 would watch. It's a LOT like season 2 of Nancy Drew!

If I was going to create a venn diagram comparing the two it would pretty much just be a circle.

We've got... a group of five teens that aren't really friends yet but also some of them are. So lots of different dynamics!

Some romance! I can't speak yet as to whether any will qualify as a slowburn because one relationship didn't take long to establish. But it's enjoyable enough and there's potential.

HUMOR! Goosebumps is very funny and apart from it being more tied to modern day than Nancy Drew (think like... references), the humor styles are very similar. Lots of fantastic one-liners.

The characters are all well developed as a result of the pacing. The first chunk of episodes focuses on a character at a time. Being from each of their povs, you get a chance to know them well. They all have their own struggles too, so they all add something different to the show.

The parents are also involved, which is cool. I won't get into *why* because there are plot reasons, but they all have some amount of development too. Think like... if Carson, Victoria, and Thom were all involved with something that happened a long time ago and now their kids have to deal with it lol.

The setting!!!! If you miss Nancy Drew, the setting will feel so comforting and you may even shed a tear or two at an overhead shot of some trees and water because it could literally be Horseshoe Bay. (They filmed in Vancouver.)

Now, I will try to answer the big question of: Is it scary? I'd say it's a step up from Nancy Drew, though not in a jumpscare way - more in a creepy way. (Perfect for the Halloween season.) If Nancy Drew pushed your tolerance, you probably wouldn't like it. Yet if you're into horror as a genre, Goosebumps is going to be nothing. So not great for kids, not as *adult* as it could possibly be either. It does have that Nancy Drew feel of we're taking something and modernizing it.

Going off that, there are episodic storylines connecting into the big season-long storyline. Which is VERY fun to see!! If you like season 2 of Nancy Drew (my personal favorite), Goosebumps really is a dream come true. Just to draw some comparisons, there's aglaeca portent vibes, plus an episode with an alternate dimension. And some cool episodes Nancy Drew never got to do, like a time loop!

So... if you're missing Nancy Drew, that was my pitch to try Goosebumps lol. It has all the same elements and episodes drop weekly. (10 total, 7 out so far.) I'd love for it to get a second season, as it's the sort of show that could go on for a long time. And, there aren't many new shows like this today that just lets the characters be guys put in situations.

[reversemoon255]

Brave Gokin GaoGaiGar

I had been looking for the GaoGaiGar stuff from the Brave Gokin line for some time, but I always wanted to get most of them in a single order. Luckily, they apparently released a limited edition box set that comes with GaoGaiGar, the Goldymard and Star accessories, Dimension Pliers, GaoFightGar, GaiGo, and a gold figurine of Guy. It was also surprisingly cheap for being unopened 18-20 year old toys, with the entire set coming out to less than $50 a toy. I mean, shipping something that big wasn't cheap, but at least I saved on the products. I was super happy with the deal I got on these guys.

Too bad they suck.

The Good: It does all the things. Lion Mode, Robot Mode, Combined Mode, weird alternate combinations. It also has a bunch of accessories, like the Hell and Heaven hands, effect parts to recreate Broken Magnum and Protect Shade, the Dividing Driver, a Zondar Core, and a few other small things. On the surface, it looks like everything you'd want out of a GaoGaiGar.

The Bad: Except age has not treated this thing well. Heck, I'm not sure it was good to begin with? One of my Galeon's knees was broken out of the box, and the other broke as I was finishing up taking photos. (It was a small mushroom peg? This thing has a bunch of diecast; why didn't they make it bigger?) Its joint tolerances are also bad, often being super tight or way too loose, and very little in between. And it doesn't hold together very well. The chest additions as GaoGaiGar don't even peg in. It's the most disappointed I've been with a toy since I accidentally got a Korean Kyoryujin instead of Brave Dino King. It's such a bummer.

But we're not done yet. I said this was a box set, and I plan on getting all these disappointments out of the way, all at once. Strap in, folks.

Goldymarg and Stealth Gao II Upgrade Set + Dimension Pliers

Still hoping they eventually do these parts for the RG kit they did. I know it's been a while, so it's unlikely, but I can dream.

The Good: It looks nice.

On the note of Dimension Pliers, I was surprised to find it was a model kit, but because of that, it's the most solid of this set of releases, mostly because the tolerances are technically new. It's not perfect, but all the individual robots look good, the combined mode is both solid and huge, and it also has a wrench configuration that I show off in a later photo.

The Bad: Tolerances on Goldymarg are bad, and the hand has no tension, so it can't hold the hammer. The new parts for Stealth Gao are also weak connections and fall apart easily.

Brave Gokin GaoFighGar

I'll say this, I wasn't aware of how different the new Gao Machines were until handling them. There's actually a lot of differences between them.

The Good: All the armor parts are swappable between all the bodies, so if you want to use Stealth Gao II, Drill Gao II, Broken Gao, Protect Gao, and Galeon, you can, which is a really cool bonus to collecting the line. I mean, don't, but if you did. The drills also do this cool expand-contract thing.

The Bad: FighGar has very weak tolerances. It also has a number of parts that just pop off, and the armatures for the chest/shoulders are too tough, so I'm worried they'll bend. The vehicle mode is also kind of crap; doesn't hold together and isn't easy to transform.

The Gao Machines also feel much more rickety than FighGar, since a lot of FighGar is diecast, and none of the Gao Machines are.

Brave Gokin GaiGo/GaoGaiGo

So the reason I specifically wanted the Brave Gokin versions of the GaoGaiGar crew was specifically because of this release. To my knowledge, this is the only DX-style release of GaiGo, and I really wanted a GaiGo. I think GaiGo is really neat. And, luckily enough, it's the best release of this set, which is crazy because this came out way before the manga did, and GaiGo became prevalent. This was designed based off the few second teaser it got post Final.

The Good: The GaiGo transformation is simple, but pretty cool. My favorite part is that the cover for the heads are based on gravity, so just turning it upsidown reveals the new head. The tolerances are also better here than the other two bodies.

It's also almost entirely diecast, which is cool.

The Bad: The shoulders don't attach as well as with the others; they lay closer to straight than the v-shape the others have. The waist comes apart pretty easy. And the neck guard that I like as GaiGo gets in the way of the helmet. It just doesn't wear the armors as well as GaiGar and FighGar.

Overall, don't buy these. They have aged very poorly, and they will more than likely be a frustration for you than anything else. There are plenty of better releases for most of these machines in other lines, though I believe GaiGo only has a Super Minipla as an alternative.

[ladyfromaspookyforest]

My Unhinged Scott Clarke Theory Post

oKAyyyAYYYYYEYYEYE here we go. In Mr. Clarke's first scene, he's announcing a test to his class. He says:

This will be on the test which will cover chapters 10-12. It will be multiple choice with an essay section.

So naturally, I thought, MULTIPLE CHOICE?? LIKE.....MULTIPLE TIMELINES?? Because I'm slowly losing it. Here's my favorite thing about analyzing Scott Clarke:

The irony. "You're seeing patterns that aren't there. Coincidence." That's probably true, tbh. But I can't get over the fact that Scott is our very first introduction to the concept of an alternate reality. When he gives his flea and acrobat speech, he says:

You’ve been thinking about Hugh Everett’s Many-Worlds Interpretation, haven’t you? Basically, there are parallel universes. Just like our world, but just infinite variations of it.

And then the boys are like "nah nah nah man you misunderstand." But, let's go back to my OG Scott ramble when I talked about how he serves largely to deliver themes and information we'll need to know, often without knowing that we need to know it yet. Did we understand the significance of his brain lesson in that moment? No. So Scott telling us about infinite variations of our world feels important. Because NOTHING Scott says is throwaway knowledge.

And it wouldn't be a post by me without connecting probably unrelated things because they're the same color, so Scott moves between seasons 1 and 3, but here's his first house:

And this is Brenner's house. They both have blue doors and brick steps.

Because I was in the midst of my crazed yellow lamp hunt when I noticed this, I began also keeping an eye out for blue doors because the intro to this episode with Brenner's house has a lot of blue shutters and doors. But it turns out that hypothesis was a flop and blue doors are not a recurring motif. But SCOTT CLARKE HAD ONE. And Brenner had one.

I was writing a lengthy post on everything that seems to connect Scott to HNL, but I feel like aside from the door thing, it's all been said already. So I'll spare you and summarize as:

Scott knows just a few too many things to be natural. His knowledge is convenient as fuck and *suspicious.* I.e. there's no reason for him to know the precise ratio of salt:water to make a sensory deprivation tank off the top of his head. Why did he ask El where she was from the way he asked her ("Where are you from exactly?") with a squinty-eyed, suspicious expression? I also want to tack on this post here by @aemiron-main which is something I myself did not notice, but also links Scott to the lab. The point he makes is that there is an abnormal abundance of extras at HNL who look like Scott.

Additionally, back to Scott's first lines in the show, he says:

Answer 12.3 on the difference between an experiment and other forms of science investigation. This will be on the test.

His first line is not only about multiple choices, but about experimentation and investigation. And if Scott Clarke does one thing in this show, it's set us up for what we're about to witness.

Anyway, back to my doors. There are canonically two versions of Dr. Brenner: Martin and Richard. There are canonically two houses for Mr. Clarke: blue door and brown door. At least one version of Brenner canonically has a blue door. Scott Clarke is canonically related to alternate realities, even if solely because he is the character who introduced them.

Different colors are often used to differentiate realities. For example, the theory that the yellow UD and the blue UD are different dimensions rather than the same dimension in different times. But also in other shows or movies. Take Fringe, for example. They changed the color of their opening credit sequence from blue to red when the episode took place in the alternate dimension and then to orange when a new timeline was introduced.

What I'm getting at is that maybe there is a version of Scott who IS linked to the lab and maybe there's a version who is not. And yes, I went there because of his blue door.

Now allow me to also make you rewatch the phone call between Dustin and Mr. Clarke. I stripped the music from it and it turns out, Scott isn't telling him how to make a sensory deprivation tank at all. They pulled the audio from The Flea and the Acrobat and had it playing in the background so the audience would hear Scott's voice faintly over the phone, but not what he's saying. Listen to it. It makes no sense. It's the same vibe as when Dustin was pretending to be on the phone with someone about Mews in season 2 for his mom's sake.

What? The hell? This is likely a belated addition in the editing room because they decided it sounded odd without any voice coming from the other side and couldn't get Randy Havens to record anything for them at that point. But it's weird. Of all the audio for them to choose, they chose Scott talking about needing a massive amount of energy and opening a tear in time and space. They could have used him talking about anything else. They could have used him talking about the HAM radio, they could have used this same conversation but like a minute earlier. That would have made the most sense because he's literally talking about a sensory deprivation tank. But they chose this. IT'S. WEIRD.

And in that quote from The Flea and the Acrobat, Scott blatantly says a tear in time AND space. Throughout four seasons of the show, we've seen that these tears are possible and that people can in fact travel through them to the Upside Down. But what about time? What about other Spaces? Scott said there could be INFINITE versions of our world, and as I said before, Scott doesn't say anything without a purpose. Whether or not he himself is involved with the lab or with these other timelines, the simple fact that he talked about them feels like enough evidence that they exist for me.

[willel]

WillEl + Henry's Connections

A week or so ago I ran a poll to see how other people felt about Will's connection to all this. Here are the results:

Seems like most of you are on the same page as me. For a while the "it was planned before the gate opened" was winning and that kinda surprised me. The result is still pretty close too.

With the release of the play, it gave me more thoughts about this. I won't be going into detail about the play but if you're still avoiding any details about it, you can skip this post.

Generally, the play revealed to us that this Upside Down thing has been going on for a while. Not just that, but the Mind Flayer has been playing a long game with Henry as his main pawn.

I'm not really sure what they're intending to say about Henry's involvement in all this, but I personally view it this way: The Mind Flayer heavily influenced Henry's mind leading up to him killing his family. There was a turning point where he could've overcome the Mind Flayer, but he gave into the urges and hasn't looked back since. Right now, Henry and the Mind Flayer are of one mind and body. Maybe that will change in the future, but as Vecna, I think this is pretty obvious.

That leads me to El's place in all this. We're told in the play that he, in a round about way, is the source of the rest of the kid's powers. His blood in particular is special and by injecting pregnant women with it, they will also gain power.

I'm on the fence about this as well, as I still believe powers can exist out in the wild, just nothing as ridiculously strong as Henry, El, or the rest of the children.

Anyway, Henry saw something in El that I guess he didn't see in the rest of the children. It brings me to wonder, was it Henry that saw something in El, or was it the Mind Flayer?

My idea is that: Henry and the Mind Flayer had entirely different goals but El was key to both of them. In El, Henry saw her potential and wished for her companionship to "reshape" the world to their liking. Was it her potential power? Was it her status as an outcast like him? Was it her creativity that couldn't be stifled by the sterile environment? (we haven't seen too much of El's art but I'm convinced she's a crafty gal)

In El, the Mind Flayer could maybe detect her sleeping power to tear holes between the realms. This is key to the Mind Flayer taking over our world and killing everyone after all.

Whether El lived or died, Henry and the Mind Flayer needed her and they eventually got what they wanted. A way to open the gates. A way to destroy/reshape the world to their liking.

And so, this brings me to Will. How does Will fit in all this? There are so many questions surrounding his kidnapping and possession so let's revisit them again one by one.

Pre-gate opening 1979: So here's the thing. Leading up to El opening the gate in 1983, I feel like we're lead to believe Henry (and the Mind Flayer) were completely cut off from the real world. No scanning or peeking in or anything. Just trapped in an alternate dimension. Eternal solitude. Enough to drive a mad man even madder.

Then when El accidentally opened the mother gate in 1983, I feel as though Hawkins changed forever. Even after the gate closed, I think the Mind Flayer and Henry could now see into the real world whether a gate was open or not. The ending of season 2 with the Mind Flayer overlooking Hawkins Middle School seems to support this.

HOWEVER, the play suggests the Mind Flayer could always peer into the real world and influence people. Specifically, despite there being no open gates, "possessed" Henry did not die and could be influenced and controlled from the other side.

So, this makes both the top poll options potentially true.

Maybe before the mother gate opened in 1983, the Mind Flayer already knew about Will and was waiting for a chance to kidnap him? The question would be WHY though?

The second option is Will wasn't in the picture until after the mother gate opened and he either became a target right as he left the Wheeler's home or right when he met the demogorgon face to face in the street. The question would still be WHY though.

My guess as to why? I believe leading up to Will's kidnapping, El was still the desired target. They had one gate open sure, but that would be suboptimal for a whole army. El's power to open gates was even more critical to obtain now that they could physically reach her again.

But it's not a good idea to pull all your eggs in one basket right? Maybe like Henry way back in 1950 something, Will as a person made an excellent puppet? His personality, his disposition, his emotional history and social outcastiness made him a perfect Henry sympathizer.

By that I don't mean Will is a Henry fan, but more that due to their similarities, someone like Will would be easy for someone like Henry to project onto. Possibly literally.

But that can't be it, right? We saw in season 3 that the Mind Flayer could pretty much possess and use anyone he wanted? I mean, he killed all those people to make the Meat Flesher but he didn't HAVE to do that. Or did he? Can only some people handle being possessed by the Mind Flayer? Is there some kind of special fortitude needed to make one a viable host?

The show writers have hinted out and outright stated that Will will play a big role next season, but if Will was nothing but a host, then why would that be?

There must be something about Will that puts as big of a target on his back as El. There must be something deeper in that brain of his that has Vecna and the Mind Flayer still chasing after him all these years later.

They're on the verge of winning and have a whole army ready to go... but for some reason Will is near the center of this conflict and may play a big role in this?

So yes. Those are my thoughts on the matter. Feel free to chime in if you like.

To summarize, I think El is/was their ideal candidate to help destroy/take over the world, but El is a sweet bean despite all the hardship she went through. Henry and the Mind Flayer created their own worst enemy.

Will is like their secondary candidate or something. They've either done something to him or still need him for something and that something is the big secret of all this. If they needed El to open the gate, then they needed Will for something else and who knows that that "something else" is.

[theadventurerslog]

Discworld | Part 4

The Adventurer's Log

Accidental hiatus but I'm back. To recap I was struggling and needed one more ingredient for the spell to find the dragon's lair. I called my last post a chronicle of errors. It was even more so than I knew. I said may the search not lead me to even more agony. It did, just not in the way I expected. I started out here on the search for the still-needed magic coil.

I did some wandering, checking out places again with no luck until I thought to go back to the alley rooftops as it had been a while since I'd been there and I hadn't checked it out as thoroughly as other places. Surprise, surprise I had missed a tower in the background I could get to. I got over there to dangle off a flag pole and get a nice view of the dragon. Also a conversation with Death who happened to be passing by.

Rincewind is not willing to let go of life at this point in time, so Death headed off. Just another day in Rincewind's life.

The flagpole had a tip at the end to interact with. I was thinking through items that could hang there and the mirror had string to hang with. Of course I had to go back down to ground level since the Luggage wasn't going to be getting up here. Put Rincewind's pockets to use. I do wish he could carry two items though. Have some options.

I wasn't sure what the mirror would do if this worked at all--maybe shine light somewhere useful?

It did work and light was shone around...catching the attention of the dragon who flew over to admire itself.

Then it blew flame at the mirror breaking the string and the mirror fell all the way back down to be caught by the lovely Luggage. I went to check out what the state the mirror was in now and...

and...

Dragon Breath... a breathed-on-mirror for my dragon breath. Which, yeah, makes sense...but...argh! Certainly makes more sense than what I had thought with the hair roller.

The hair roller was the magic coil all along; the thing I'd been looking for was already found... I mean the connection--brimstone!--had felt awfully tenuous but I'd made it before realizing the magic coil was even a thing, thinking I only needed four ingredients and it just...stuck. Not one of my finer moments.

Venting through save file names.

But hey, at least I've got them all now! Now it was time for my triumphant return to the Archchancellor. For real this time.

At last all the ingredients! Forget the bumbling and mistakes!

And the Archchancellor put them all together into a dragon detecting device. Rincewind meanwhile has a whole pile of gold in his head to daydream about it, so decides he wants that detector himself. With the ye olde "look behind you something weird" trick, Rincewind distracted the Archchancellor and grabbed the device for himself. Now I know we're in an alternate universe because book Rincewind would be fleeing at top speed with the device handled and out of his hands. He gets to go back to boring? Yes please! On the other hand the call of gold and riches is strong I suppose.

Anyway, I was thrown back out into the city map and had to run around it until I got some good rapid beeping and a new location was revealed. A barn.

The dragon's lair! Gold!

Gold gold gold! But once all the gold was loaded into the Luggage, the dragon made itself known. Uh oh.

Or less uh oh as it turns out. The dragon isn't happy about being dragged here. A secret brotherhood has control of him and has been using him for their evil deeds. He just wants to go back to his own dimension of rest. So, the dragon makes a request: find the brotherhood and find each of the six gold artifacts they used to summon and control him. Bring the artifacts to him and he can sever the connection they have over him. First go find the one who stole the book of summoning from the Unseen University library. Also get moving because he can feel himself being built up for another rampage. Good times!

And it's time for Act II! Is this a 2 act game or a 3 act game (probably 3?)? Or more! I have no idea.

I missed the Act I image at the start of the game, so here's II at least.

Before I left the lair I also found and grabbed a screwdriver.

Knowing I needed to track down a book thief I headed back to the library for clues. I didn't get anything useful out of the Librarian but I did still have the sleazy man to deal with.

Something I may have forgotten to mention last time, but if not, reminders certainly don't hurt, is that this guy wasn't willing to give his golden banana for anything...except maybe all the gold in the kingdom. So I started handing him all the dragon gold and Rincewind convinced him that was indeed in all the gold in their kingdom, well democracy. Sorry, Rincewind, didn't get to stay rich for long. I was given the golden banana and showing it to the Librarian led him to opening a door into L-Space. So, I went into L-Space.

It brought me to a past night in the Library where I was able to see a thief come in, steal the book and leave through a secret passage. Leaving L-Space and coming back resets things.

I tried taking the book myself and leaving and ended up in Death's Domain. I think that's where it was meant to be anyway.

The four horsemen of the apocalypse were playing some kind of card game and after some silly conversation I was booted back out. I assume my efforts were paradox causing. So no taking the book!

What I was actually meant to do was follow the thief into the secret passage, where I was brought back out to the city but at night.

The thief ran around for a while before he finally settled at a new location to go check out.

There's a drainpipe and rain barrel. Might be relevant but I haven't found how yet. The forbidding door had a forbidding knocker I could use.

Brother Doorkeeper talked through the door slot but refused to say anything because Rincewind is clearly not part of the brotherhood. Not even dressed right. Nothing forbidding or black about him.

I assume I need something black to wear. I see a few possibilities: steal something, dye something, or I dunno, singe his clothing? Probably not that third option but who knows!

I left to explore night Ankh-Morpork some more.

I found Rincewind passed out drunk on the park bench from that counterwise wine had earlier. There was also a butterfly.

I also found a butterfly. A multiverse of ramifications. Of course I tried to catch it with the net; what could go wrong? It flew up to the lamp and stayed there out of reach.

I carried on.

I was able to go to the inn and enter the room. There was the guy who had been...will be? in the Broken Drum. I remembered his story about being scared of some eldritch being entering his room and stealing his gate pass. All the steps were told! But I seem to need some way to get him to seemingly pass out, or Rincewind won't go far because the guy is all alert. The guy had talked about the being bursting through the door, so something there? I also have no need for a gatepass right now anyway. So, something for future referennce?

I went to the Street as well, which mostly didn't have much for me, but Igneous's pottery shop was open and I was able to snag a pot off the window sill. I think he's the same troll as the one at the Psychia-trickerist's too?

I couldn't find anything else to do, so I headed back through L-Space to the current day, figuring I could maybe find something helpful to bring back. Back in the present time I didn't really know what to do or where to go so I did the rounds checking everywhere again. Lots of stuff changed.

Palace: The guards wouldn't let me pass and I couldn't get them to knock each other out to sneak by like before.

Park: The lamp now had water and a fish swimming in it. That was sure some butterfly.

Inn: The rom was now accessible. I found some bubble bath in its bathroom

Cite Gate: A crate with fireworks and a keg of gun powder. I got to take both...

Sator Square: One of the old men was collapsed with a poison dart. Or faking it? The others weren't concerned anyway.

The amazon woman was deciding to take a different approach to the men slaughtering for severity-based attacks based on severity of the lust

The UU chef was in the stockade

Unseen University: The Archchancellor was gone from the room

There was cornflour to get in the kitchen

I was able to light a match and light a lamp in the storage closet so I could actually see. I found starch on a shelf - New Jiffy-bril instant starch - stiffens anything

In the back area that leads to the kitchen I was able to take a garbage can full of garbage. Yay? Street: The fish monger had some different stuff to say that was still not helpful. Mostly punny.

There's a monk of Offler preaching on the corner. He's always been there, but I think I may have skipped mentioning him before. He has dark robes so there's promise there but beats me what to do if there's anything to that. He's also really annoying because the text and his mouthing lasts way longer than the actual voicing and actions are stalled until he shuts up. Briefly. Before the next line.

The bargain bin stock in the toy shop changed and I got a Hogfather doll.

The woman left the barber but I couldn't find anything to do with the now-empty chair.

Alley: The alchemist has made progress towards clickies but hasn't had any luck getting good actors

The tile that launches you up to the rooftops doesn't seem to work anymore.

Livery Stable: I grabbed more corn for the sake of having more corn because why not. Still don't know what to do about the donkey

Hideout: I can now access it in the present, but couldn't find anything to do there. In fact I couldn't seem to even use the knocker.

Broken Drum: Didn't see anything more I could do. That said, I probably could stand to check it out more thoroughly again.

And after all that I'm not sure what to do now. I need Secret Brotherhood-worthy clothing, somehow...

Just because I could, I used my matches with the firecrackers and lit one. So... now I have a lit firecracker hanging out in the Luggage. Not dangerous at all!

Otherwise, I've probably just missed something. That's usually the case. I am piling up a lot of inventory items though. Hopefully I'll be back with mission accomplished and getting a good start on finding those artifacts. Is bringing those golden artifacts to the dragon a good idea? I have some doubts. Dragons are tricky, but we shall see. Either way being under control of the brotherhood is bad too. Or maybe he is totally on the up and up and will go back home when released. For now? I wander! And hopefully solve problems.

[navelgazed]

I don't know if this is what you mean or if the meaning of this has just changed over the years, but the "gateway" label for systems/collectives/etc means someone believes alters can travel between theirs and someone else's, from somewhere in the universe or an alternate universe, etc, which is just not possible regardless of anything else. If you mean your inner world contains a planet alters can go to and from, that's actually a completely normal thing. If the meaning of gateway has changed, feel free to ignore this

For as long as I've known about it, which has probably been about 8-9 years, a gateway system has meant a system where members go to and from other worlds and can generally travel freely between them, and the worlds are understood to be real in some sense--either in this dimension or another. AFAIK, gateway has not meant system hopper generally speaking.

It's our understanding that our 'inner world' is connected to our headspace somehow, and that that inner world is in some sense real in some alternate universe. Some of us also travel to other worlds through an interastral void, and we occasionally form bridges with other worlds--it's why we have the term 'exotraveler'. Whether or not this is *literally* true isn't really material to how we interact with and engage with our headspace and inner world; it helps us to explain certain things about our Collective, and it helps explain certain things about our inner world. We're well aware there's no proof and nobody has to treat us like scientists. How we label ourselves is purely a way to understand ourselves, and since it is an experience shared by no one but this body it's pretty much just for our benefit and finding people with similar experiences, and it's not something we feel the need to prove.

Also--ftr, you didn't call us alters directly, but calling us alters is a hard boundary. We are in no way a diagnosed system (nor do we even use the term anymore) and we don't strictly view ourselves psychologically (obviously lmao)

[midnightmisadventures]

I had this such weird dream about Ben

It was like so scary......

I don't have the energy but, at one point we were on zoom. Me him and another separate friend who didn't know him

Amd he was being so sweet and caring about me and asking where I was

Then we were traveling and...

I've been having this recurring dream where I'm in the backrooms basically. Some scary alt universe that has a single portal in and our (or very few)

I never know why we're there but I'm often in a group navigating a hospital like/hotel like/ garage like space that's somehow connected to an alternate dimension

If anyone sees you you have to run and leave or else death??? Or something really really bad to explain yourself out of

But people are always like "you're NOT supposed to be here"

So it's usually high alert high anxiety navigating through a maze

A lot.of.times you have to find an elevator to get out and get you to the place where the portal back is

My group got caught, it was me the other girl.on zoom and Ben got separated

Luckily we found an elevator WHILE being chased. It was so scary like we were squeezing I'm the last minute the Nad guys were about to get us

We got in and I'm trying to click "1 or 2" cause I think thatll take us to a more general place closer to the portal

The main feat was getting far enough away from where we just were because other floors won't be looking for us. It'd give us a chance to catch our breaths.

But then the girl I was with was like " ohhh look you can actually put in coordinates so it'll take you exactly where you wanna go. We can go straight to the portal"

But we had never used this feature and she was messing up pressing buttons, back tracking and the elevator was starting to move like the willy Wonka one.

The elevator was like a tiny metal shoot. It was so squished so I was starting to get anxious like we JUST got out of that life or death scenario and now you might break the elevator cause you don't know what you're doing? I CAN'T get stuck in here

Swipe for pt 2

[rosebrolol]

Parallel Paths: Poppy and Branch's Interdimensional Adventure

As Poppy and Branch explored a hidden cave deep within the Troll Village, they discovered a peculiar artifact pulsating with a mysterious energy. Curiosity overwhelmed them, and against their better judgment, they touched the artifact simultaneously. In an instant, a swirling vortex materialized, forcefully pulling them into a wormhole.

As they hurtled through the wormhole, Poppy and Branch held onto each other tightly, their hearts pounding with fear and anticipation. Suddenly, they crash-landed in a strange and unfamiliar realm, surrounded by towering trees and vibrant flora. To their astonishment, they quickly realized that they were not alone.

Staring back at them were alternate versions of themselves. Poppy and Branch from different dimensions stood before them, each with their own unique traits and appearances. The air was  thick with confusion and disbelief as they took in the sight of their doppelgängers.

Poppy, ever the optimist, broke the silence. "Wow, this is... unexpected. But hey, we're all trolls here, right? Maybe we can learn something from each other!"

The alternate Branch, who exuded with confidence and charisma, chuckled. "Well, well, well. Look who decided to join the party! Don't worry, I've got this situation completely under control."

The scene unfolded with amusing and heart warming interactions as the two sets of Poppy and Branch navigated this interdimensional encounter. They shared stories and exchanged wisdom, realizing that even though they come from different worlds, they were connected by a shared essence of friendship, love, and music.

To their surprise, they discovered that each dimension possessed a unique challenge that they must overcome together. In one dimension, a menacing creature threatened to devour all music in the land. Drawing upon their collective courage, the two sets of Poppy and Branch embarked on a daring quest to rescue the stolen melodies and restore harmony to the realm.

As they journeyed through the treacherous landscape, they encountered obstacles that required a blend of their individual strengths and the spirit of cooperation. Our Poppy's unwavering determination inspired her alternate self, reminding her that joy and music are worth fighting for. The two Branches learned from one another, with our Branch discovering a newfound sense of confidence and his alternate self embracing the power of vulnerability.

Through their shared adventure, Poppy and Branch learned the importance of embracing their unique qualities and supporting one another. They realized that by joining forces and celebrating their differences, they could overcome even the most formidable challenges. The power of friendship and unity became their guiding light as they navigated the complexities of their intertwined destinies.

As the time to depart draws near, our Poppy and Branch reluctantly bidded farewell to their interdimensional counterparts. Grateful for the lessons learned and the newfound appreciation for their own identities, they stepped back into the wormhole, prepared to return to their own dimension.

Back in the Troll Village, Poppy and Branch embraced their differences with newfound confidence. They shared their extraordinary adventure with their friends, spreading the message of acceptance and limitless possibilities.

Poppy smiled at Branch, her eyes shining with gratitude. 

"Branch, no matter what dimension we find ourselves in, our friendship is unbreakable. We're different, but together, we're unstoppable."

Branch nodded, a hint of a smile on his face.

"You're right, Poppy. Our differences make us stronger. Let's continue to embrace them and spread joy throughout our world."

And as the sun sets over the Troll Village, Poppy and Branch dance and sing, their voices harmonizing, celebrating the beauty of their unique bond and the infinite possibilities that exist within each and every one of them.

[thecranewivesrpf]

a platonic love letter/poem for that thing that you reblogged! Not my best work but oh well <333 (you can probably guess who it is but anon anyway bc why not)

I sit at my desk and I write, I write, I write. The words flow like a rushing stream, my soul pouring onto the page like spilled ink. Somewhere else, you write too. Do you think of me when you do? I know I think of you.

In another time we would be writing letters to eachother. Blood and tears and words splattered across paper. Fold up your heart and mail it across the world in the hopes someone will hold it.

There is something so romantic about the written word, why did we ever let it die? It chirps and flaps like a baby bird, hoping someone will lift it out of the dark so it can fly again. The parchment is folded up in the desk drawer now. Paper cuts exchanged for headaches as we stare into the harsh light of a screen.

In another time we are baking cookies. You flick the flour at me and I laugh. Messy counters and hands covered in dough. We burn the cookies and eat them anyway. Instead my kitchen is quiet, the murmur of my headphones the only sound. I wonder if you measure out the chocolate chips or just pour them it.

Switch to a new tab and the clock ticks over to another minute. It's getting late, but just one more minute, one more message. I like to pretend I know what I'm doing.

I asked an old woman what love is and she said that it's me, that's it's everyone. I think I know what she means. I hit post and wonder what you will think, is that love? Something happens and I want to share it with someone, is that love?

Love is in writing a story and thinking of someone the whole time, making references that no one else will get, giving a hug through a screen and hoping you will get to do it for real one day. Love is saying 'I have a friend and they live far away'.

There is a person inside my phone and I like to talk to them. I am a person inside someone else's phone who they talk to. There is a string that reaches across thousands of miles and ties our fingers together. The world is a criss-cross of connections and people lost and found, yet somehow in this beautiful, tangled mess we found eachother. And is that not love in itself? In another time we would be writing letters but instead I stare out the car window and hit post on my phone. At the end of the day my words my mean nothing but for now they mean everything.

For now they mean that I have a friend who lives far away and I love them.

goose ive reread this 7 times and cried harder every single time. you didn't have to do this and write a whole thing and here i am, im not crying you are

you have such an incredible, incredible way with words in the way they flow and metaphors and

this means so much to me it feels like im not doing it justice here, im both crying about it's contents and just how much love is poured into this. thank you. im glad I met you too, maybe somewhere in an alternate dimension we're baking cookies together and remembering that baking sugar exists, i hope we can meet someday.

you help me get through a lot of stuff too, i might not have anyone in class or anywhere i go who really likes me, but i can always come home and say hi to the silly friends in my phone. even if im too tired to talk ill still be there right by you in a way, and i think that's something

[singular-yike]

I must ask about Yabusame. Anything interesting about them? What are some neat secrets they might be hiding ~ ?

Ooh, Yabusame is quite the tough one, we really just know so little about them! Anyways, I'll try my best though!

It's the Flawless Thoughtlessness — Yabusame Houlen

Name: Yabusame Houlen

Since we're talking about their name, I'll be using the Japanese order here, Houlen Yabusame (鳳聯藪雨).

The first thing you might notice is the use of an L in the romanization of their name Houlen. Japanese doesn't actually distinguish between /l/ and /r/, so either is technically fine as long as we're consistent, but JynX does actually consistently use R. So why the L here?

It's so that when combined with Tsubakura Enraku, their names can combine to give Len'En!

In Houlen, "hou" (鳳) refers to the Fenghuang (鳳凰), a bird in Chinese mythology said to be the king of all birds. It is often paired with the Yellow Dragon to represent the Emperess and Emperor and China respectively.

Although rarely used on its own, "ren" (聯) carries the meaning of "link" or "pair". Perhaps used in reference to the title of the entire series "connecting chain".

In addition, "houren" is also the reading of 鳳輦, which refers to a type of palanquin decorated with a Fenghuang on the roof, used specifically by the Emperor. Nowadays it also refers to the same type of palanquin used in Shinto shrine processions as well.

In "Yabusame" (藪雨), "yabu" (藪) means "grove while "same" (雨) means "rain". Read together it refers to the Asian stubtail, given this name as their cries are said to sound like rain pattering on a grove.

Curiously enough, while Yabusame's name is indeed a Bird's Name, they are the only character so far with multiple birds in their name that are not related in any way, literally or through wordplay.

Titles

Yabusame is one of the few characters to have two titles. First, their default title: Flawless Thoughtlessness (天衣無縫の能天気)

天衣無縫 is a phrase that literally means "a celestial's clothing has no seams", which refers to something that is naturally flawless with no trace of artifice. So this is where "flawless" comes from.

能天気 refers to an easygoing person who never thinks deeply about anything, which is where we get "thoughtlessness from".

In their chef form in BotC, they're titled Chef Unbound in Any Direction (縦横無尽な調理人).

縦横無尽 literally means "vertically and horizontally endless", and refers to someone who acts freely and as they wish, hence "unbound". 調理人 simply means "chef".

Basis: Dimensions and String Theory

Similar to fellow protagonist Tsubakura Enraku, it's difficult to identify any particular figure, historical, mythological or otherwise, in them. However, it is fairly clear that Yabusame is based on dimensions and string theory.

Dimensions

Yabusame's most obvious tie to the concept of dimensions is their ability, "something like crossing dimensions". While Yabusame is indeed shown to be able to do so, like in BPoHC's tutorial where they crossed into an alternate Mugenri, how this is achieved is unclear.

Curiously, JynX personally considers Yabusame's ability the most dangerous in the series so far, although the reason remains unexplained.

The most common application of Yabusame's ability is their "hyper-dimensional pockets", portals that connect two different dimensions. They use them to send and retrieve things to and fro between dimensions, an example being their spell Confused Origins "Screen Shuffle", as seen below:

There are a number of possible curiosities possibly related to Yabusame's abilities, such as:

Yabusame is apparently only "technically human", whatever that means

Suzumi's abilities seem to have next to no effect on Yabusame at all, and even if they rewound time after killing them it would apparently still leave them dead, according to Suzumi

While Yabusame seems to have free control over their ability, EE's bad ending would imply that they need to fall asleep to truly transport themself between dimensions

JynX said that there are "no longer" alternate Yabusames across different dimensions, the Yabusame we see always being the singular Yabusame (Which raises very curious questions about BPohC, actually)

A popular theory as to why this is, is that Yabusame exists simultaneously as one being throughout all the dimensions.

It would seemingly explain why they are so very scatterbrained, as their attention is literally scattered across various dimensions; as well as why killing them would be a permanent action even if time was rewound, as time is a dimension itself.

If this were the case, then perhaps sleeping to travel between dimensions is merely for Yabusame to shift their main focus between them; and the fact that there are "no longer" distinct, separate Yabusames in each dimension would imply a fusion/takeover of some sort.

However, we should of course keep in mind that this is all a theory, and is nowhere near confirmed.

String Theory

Disclaimer: Physics is not my strong suit, and I know next to nothing about string theory, so while this is probably the juicy part I won't be able to say much here. All I can do is point out some neat little references.

Yabusame's birthday, 26 November (26/11) may be a reference to the dimensions required in different variations of string theory: The M-theory calls for 11; while the Bosonic string theory calls for 26.

The M-theory is also referenced in Yabusame's personal themes Wings that Transcend Spacetime ~ M theory and Feathers Flying off the Beaten Path ~ Eleven-dimensional.

EmEv Holdover: Serintsu

So I sort of, kinda lied when I said that we can't identify any basis for Yabusame. We do have one from Emergency Everyday, the dropped predecessor of Len'en from which our modern Len'en is based on. We should keep in mind, however, that JynX did not work on EmEv.

It is likely that Yabusame is somewhat of a renewed Serintsu.

A human with the ability of "something like crossing dimensions", from what we can see of EmEv's trial version, their story from their game is largely identical to that of Yabusame's in EE.

However, other than this, the two share no other similarities and it is fairly safe to say that EmEv's main influence on Len'en comes from its premise and story more than anything.

So! I think that concludes our little look at Yabusame. Truly a mysterious but extremely fun character, let's hope we get to learn more in the future~! Until then, I leave you with this early concept art of Yabusame, which I think deserves to be appreciated more! :)

[safflowerseason]

How are you liking maisel s5 so far?? I love reading your takes on everything :)

Hey! thank so much for the ask! I miss getting asks!!

I enjoyed the first three eps, although admittedly Maisel isn't a show I'm deeply emotionally invested in. With ASP shows I feel like you have to make up your mind to take the good with the bad/wonky/weird/uneven/random, because for every gutting Midge/Lenny scene that feels so real and raw or gorgeously whimsical entertaining set-piece, you have to put with whatever Abe's doing at the Village Voice or Moishe and Shirley yelling at each other at Joel's nightclub for ten minutes. I liked the flash forward conceit, except for the laughable age makeup they put on Rachel B (I'm sorry, no amount of hat-wearing/face-cream could protect a woman in show business from the excesses and physical ravages of the sixties and seventies). I liked ASP finally interrogating--in a very mild way--Midge's approach (or lack thereof) to parenting and its costs. I think there's probably something to be read in Mei telling Joel she can't have it all alongside Midge's clearly tense relationship with her adult children. I'm sad to see Stephanie Hsu go, although I'm happy it's because her star is ascending, and tbh ASP is *not* the writer to address the complexities of Joel and Mei raising a bi-racial child in the sixties.

With ASP I'm always girding myself to be disappointed romance-wise, but if we don't see Susie and Midge reunite in the future I *will* be gutted, as that's the only relationship that truly matters on this show. Of course I am enjoying Reid Scott striding around as a smarmy, cocky, soulless talk-show host (instead of a smarmy, cocky, soulless political strategist) exchanging banter with Rachel Brosnahan (I loved the bit where he ripped up the pages and tossed it over the balcony like confetti). The space the two characters were given in Ep 3 to just shamelessly flirt makes me yearn for an alternate universe where Reid Scott and Anna Chlumsky got to do the same thing for more than thirty seconds at a time. I feel like probably something will happen between them but it will be more "eh we're both hot and bored/lonely and this would be fun so why not" variety (that certainly seems to be Gordon's vibe) as opposed to the star-crossed earth-shattering comedy soulmates connection that links Midge and Lenny. (this sets aside the gross power imbalance between Gordon and Midge, which ASP seems to think is fine because we know Midge eventually succeeds.) Based on how Midge mentioned the Gordon Ford show, it doesn't seem like the man himself will be a big and/or complicated *relationship* in her future life/career, so I guess we'll see what happens there!!

As for Midge and Lenny...as I said, making Til There Was You their song is just, like, such a tell on the significance of their connection from the POV of the writers. I know there's apparently some angst out there re: the show's portrayal of Lenny Bruce and whether the show has made him into too much of a romantic hero or whatever when in reality he was a very complicated man who had a complicated and violent relationship with the women in his life. It seems like he really won't be in this final season much, which I guess is one of the show's (inconsistent) nods to reality. I'm sad to see less of Luke Kirby if that's the case, and there's nothing wrong with historical fiction, but I think the show is on safer narrative ground keeping Midge primarily surrounded by other exclusively fictional characters.

As for Joel and Midge's family...they are by far the dimension of this show I have cared least about since its inception, in spite of consistently fantastic performances from Tony Shalhoub, Marin Hinkle, Kevin Pollak, and Caroline Aaron, which makes me a little sad, but that's ASP for you. I did love seeing Kelly Bishop for a bit...an ASP icon. She should be in everything.

Those are my immediate thoughts...what did you think about the first three eps??

[concoctionboy]

@smg34-shipper: Try to teach floscle English(or whatever is more comfortable for you to speak)

Sorry for going so long without replying. Like I said in another post, I've spent the last week and a half or so fighting an evil version of me from an alternate dimension (sort of), so I haven't really had a chance to get online. Well… okay, it's the me back at Lofiathan that fought the evil copy of me, not the me exploring the tower, but it's the me at Lofiathan that's posting these updates, because the me exploring the tower doesn't have internet access. (Well, I don't know; maybe this tower has wi-fi; but the me exploring the tower doesn't have a computer or a cell phone or anything so there'd be no way to post from here even if it does.) The two of us are still connected mentally, so each of us knows what the other one's doing. In fact, I'm not even sure it really makes sense to refer to us as "us", because as long as we're still mentally connected we're not really two separate people as much as we are, I guess, one person in two bodies in two different places. Or three bodies in three different places, I guess, counting the me still at @mostevilscientist's place. I don't know.

Anyway, maybe it's just as well, because I don't know that I would have had much to post about in the last while anyway, because it takes a long time to learn a language. Being in telepathic communication helps, even if it's indirect telepathic communication reluctantly mediated by a man-eating plant, because it means we can share ideas and concepts more directly, but even so learning a language is a time-consuming process. So, yeah, we've all been hanging out in this room for some time while Xil and I have been trying to teach Flocsle English. We also got the man-eating plant to keep telepathic tabs on the surroundings and warn us when someone's coming, and there have been a few times when we had to hide in the moss while some of the tower's inhabitants came by. (I haven't seen what they look like; I wanted to take a peek but Flocsle was worried if I got too close I'd be seen and give us away, so to keep her mind at ease we've been staying near the back of the moss pile and well out of sight.)

So anyway, Flocsle started to pick up some basic understanding of English, but there was a bit of an issue in that Flocsle can't really speak English because she… just doesn't have the vocal apparatus for it. She doesn't have anything resembling human vocal cords, or… a mouth, really. She can make sounds, but they're not really human vocal sounds; they're sort of squishy and screechy sounds that can't really be used to speak intelligible English words.

But then eventually I realized that if Flocsle can't speak English because with her different anatomy she can't make human vocal sounds, hey, I can change my shape; I can turn into whatever she is and learn her language. So I tried doing that, and… I think I've made some headway.

So anyway, Flocsle can understand some rudimentary English now, and I think I've got the basics down of her language, and, like, neither of us is anywhere near fluent, but at least maybe we have some basic communication ability now. I guess with more time we could get better with each other's languages, but I mean, we've already been in this room a long time, and even if we haven't been spotted yet I'm not sure how much longer our luck's going to hold. Besides, I'm not sure how long it's going to be before the man-eating plant's telepathic ability wears off.

Except I just realized that the man-eating plant ate my arm after I'd eaten the eternity moss that according to Squit makes my potion effects more powerful, and I haven't noticed it undergoing new other effects, so, uh, maybe that strengthened the existing effect and it's just permanently telepathic now? Hm. Also, I guess now the man-eating plant probably has some understanding of both English and Flocsle's language, which… seems like something that may or may not have consequences later. Huh.

[jimmymiller99]

My personalized Jeff The Killer origin story, part one. Now before I begin, I'd like to start by saying your JTK may be entirely different than mine, so expect to see some either minor or major changes to the origin story, so please, don't harass me just because of somethings are different than yours. Okay? Okay, let's begin!

The Sad Smile, part one.

[It was just a morning like any other. The sun was shining and the sky was beautiful, the clouds had set in just perfectly, and it was perfect. Only problem was that it would be the last morning the Pattinson family would ever see as they prepared to move to California. Jeff's stepfather, Bobby had finished loading up his car with the last of the Pattinson household things and slammed the trunk close.]

Bobby: Alright everyone, it's time to go.

[The rest of the Pattinson family walked out of their house, it was a beautiful little suburban house that was admittedly starting to fall apart. But hey, it was home to Jeff. Jeff dragged himself outside to his stepdad's car, but not before taking one last look at the house. He then sighed and got into the car. Jeff's mother, Elizabeth got into the passenger seat and finally, Liu got into the back with Jeff. Bobby then backed up and drove away from the house, leaving it behind. Jeff sighed and laid back, embarking on a day-and-a-half journey from Brooklyn to California. Liu got onto his phone, connected to his Bluetooth, and began listening to some poppy K-pop music, it made Jeff groan, which in turn, made Jeff plug in his earbuds and played some heavy thrash metal. The two of them were very different people, one was angry that had some hate building up within him, while the other was more cheerful and perhaps optimistic values within him. As the journey to the city of Angels continued, Jeff slowly fell asleep while on the car ride, laying his head up against the window. That's when things would slowly turn to the worse, as they drove under a tunnel, his music turned into static, aggressive static rang from his earbuds, then eventually, a voice came out on the other end. The voice was growling, low, deep, mysterious.]

The Voice: Wake up, Jeffery. Wake up and listen to my voice. Awaken and listen to my call. The need for violence shall call upon you, death shall wonder and find you.

[Jeff slowly woke up, but he wasn't in his stepdad's car anymore, he was in a forest with a shit ton of fog surrounding the area, it felt like it could go on forever, but there would be no end.]

The Voice: Hey tough guy, wake up! Wake up, you piece of shit, wake up and hear my fucking voice. You know who you are, I have selected you to be a part of this wonderland, my wonderland. Now, WAKE THE FUCK UP!

[Jeff fell to his back and crawled away as he saw darkness approaching him, he then turned and ran away from said darkness, it didn't make sense to him. Was this all a dream? Was he pulled into an alternative dimension? Or was he losing his sanity? Jeff ran for what felt like forever, and what felt like his end, he was suddenly awakened by an awful high-pitched tone. Which woke up Jeff out of the nightmare, but back into the nightmare of real life, and to his brother's awful singing.]

Liu: Uh oh! I don't know about you! But I feel this way!

[Jeff groaned and rubbed his eyes, he barely woke up and was feeling all sorts of blah. Luckily, the car was coming to a stop next to a motel. It wasn't the greatest motel of all time, but hey, a motel would have to do. Jeff got out of Bobby's car and stretched his back.]

Bobby: Ah, I see you're up, champ. Well, we're gonna stay in a motel for the night, we'll keep going at the ass crack of dawn, but we all need some sleep.

Elizabeth: C'mon honey, let's get you to bed.

[Elizabeth always talked to Jeff as if he was five years old, even though he was 18. He groaned and collected his bags and walked into the motel, staying close to his family and entering the room they bought for the night. They sat around the TV and ate some microwaved tuna casserole that Elizabeth made before embarking on this journey. Elizabeth cleaned up the plastic Tupperware containers and stuffed them back into her bag. Everyone got into their PJs, making sure the car was locked and that the room was locked and everyone got into bed. Luckily, there were three separate beds, so Jeff and Liu didn't have to share a bed. Jeff got into his bed, and his parents were fast asleep, and his brother barely drifted off to sleep, it was just him. He stared up at the ceiling, thinking back to the little nightmare he had in the car. It felt so real that he swore he'd grown goosebumps from it, he lay in bed and quietly prepped talked himself.]

Jeff: Hopefully this will be better then last time...

[With that said, Jeff drifted off to sleep as he laid back and entered into the unconscious feeling of death, known as sleep.]

The End of Part One.

[waxdream]

Okay so. Edwin Abbot often creates a level of continuity between dimensions - like how a line becomes a square, then becomes a cube. He does this all throughout the book, creating continuations between pointland, lineland, flatland and spaceland, where each seems to be 'more evolved' than the previous, but they're actually just different.

I'm going to do a modern interpretation of the text here. In our 3rd dimensional world, we use a linear number system the majority of the time. However, occasionally we also use Matrices- a two dimensional system, and even more rare we use high dimensions of matrices. Higher than our own dimension - the maths can have as many dimensions as you like. Now, assuming Flatlander mathematicians are on a level with spacelander mathematicians, we'd need something akin to a lower dimension of maths than our linear base 10. Now, I don't think this exists - after all, with the dimensions of maths, it doesn't actually matter what base you count in. You can have matrices made with binary (that's how computers work!).

So, are we stuck? I personally feel partial to the belief that flatlanders use binary. It makes sense to me. I want the flatlanders to have an 'advanced' mathematics that is literally just the way we teach children to do maths, and a 'basic' mathematics that's used every day by your average joe. And I want the basic maths to have a connection to the king of pointland, because our basic maths is connected to lineland. To continue the pattern, a 4th dimensional being would use matrices as their basic maths.

So if we're looking for a form of maths related to the pointland king, I literally can't think of anything better than binary. Mathematically, it doesn't follow my pattern, but symbolically? I think it would. The king of pointland believes he encompasses the entire world - he is the 1 in binary. And anything that isn't him is a zero.

Along with that, counting systems develop differently in many parts of the world. We count in bass 10 because we have 10 fingers, but that doesn't happen everywhere! Another alternative to my theory is the number system being based of how many sides a male has. So a line is taught base 2 or binary, a triangle base 3, a square base 4, all the way up to the class of mathematicians. If I remember right, the hexagons are normally mathematicians. Whoever the mathematician class is, I think the bases will stop there, and theirs will be the 'only accepted base of maths in scholarly songs' (because remember, flatlanders remember things through song). This would contribute to classism, essentially forcing the lower classes out of maths unless they were to learn a whole new system (which definitely fits the themes of flatland).

Though we must also remember that all mathematics in flatland must be sung to be remembered. Or recited. Personally this makes me think of a bastardised version of the oral traditions of Native Americans - I bet Native Flatlanders who are outside of this classist regime would be incredible Flatlandian mathematicians. If anyone has a story about a Native American coded Flatlander, that sounds so damn cool, that sounds like a great Idea for a story :))

I'd love to know how Native folk traditionally approach maths, not just for my silly flatland headcanons, I just would really love to know how learning through spoken rather than written means effects maths! I have a feeling it would make lateral thinking easier, making it great for engineers.

In conclusion, I think there's many different options! I personally think that isolating the lower classes by forcing them to use the base of their side number is pretty on theme for flatland. It would also make daily life ever so slightly slower for these classes - after all, asking for 1010 every time you want 30 eggs is ever so slightly more long winded. It's like if you were to only write with roman numerals - you'd get used to it of course, but it's still kinda long winded. Then again, the classes would adapt fully and be just as quick as we are at base 10, so yknow, it would just end up being a tool of division rather than a tool to potentially disadvantage lower classes by forcing them to use 'unnatural feeling number systems'.

What number system do you think they use in flatland?