#particularly when one of the main characters is a mythological creature

[dareduffie]

the actual casting issue for the live action how to train your dragon is toothless. they couldn't even get a real dragon 😭 he's cgi 😭

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Hello, I came to say that dragons are mythical creatures often depicted to be possessive in mythology and literature, sometimes known for their immense power, territorial instincts, and the symbolic association with hoarding wealth and treasures...

Twisted Wonderland in context, Malleus Draconia was confirmed to be a dragon fairy (essentially a dragon who can take a shape of a man), and I was curious if Malleus may have exhibited possessive traits in canon, whether through main story or vignette...?

The reason I ask that is because mischaracterizing characters or making them OOC is the last thing I want to do when it comes to writing or analyzing...

**Sorry if I was not able to word it in a way that you can understand what I'm trying to convey because sometimes I feel inferior that my wording may come off as blunt or insensitive. I just want to leave a brief note that I don't mean to come off as rude or dismissive. I appreciate your understanding!**

In my opinion, Malleus in canon is protective but not possessive. What do I mean by that? Glad you asked. Let's start by laying down some definitions.

In this situation, when I say “protective”, it implies good intentions. It means actively looking out for others' safety and wellbeing. To be possessive, on the other hand, implies a more controlling desire to own or to restrict another's actions. It’s commanding and demanding all of a person’s attention and love. It means having a disrespect for others' autonomy and instead trying to displace it with your will. (Yes, I know that you're probably automatically thinking of The Big Exception of book 7, but I will address that later in this post so hang on for a moment!)

This gets long, so buckle up! We’ve got a lot to talk about.

First thing's first, a lot of the "possessive Malleus" interpretations originate from fandom, especially when it comes to yandere, yume, or generally romantic fan works. (And to be clear: This is NOT to shame the folks who enjoy these kinds of works; I am only listing them here as examples.) Oftentimes this occurs due to individual fans bringing in ideas from media outside the bounds of Twisted Wonderland. This is totally expected and normal; there is no such thing as someone who has an interest in ONLY a singular thing. We will naturally apply our previous knowledge to help us understand and interpret new information.

For example, in irl mythology, fae are hurt by iron--and even in Disney's own films, such as Maleficent, iron is depicted as harming fae and sapping them of their power. This led to many Twst fans headcanoning that iron does the same thing to fae in Twisted Wonderland. However, we learn in book 7 that this is NOT true. Fae, particularly nobles, do find the smell of iron nauseating, but the metal does not appear to impede their powers or hinder them in any way. Lilia and his men are still able to dispatch several Silver Owls (who are dressed in iron arm and battle with iron tanks and other machinery) without issue.

Another example that’s pretty popular is fans believing that whole “if you tell a fairy your name, it grants them power over you” thing. Some have claimed this will come into play in book 7’s final battle. Others claim this is the deeper or secondary reason as to why Malleus doesn’t reveal his own name to Yuu until book 5, as giving his name would grant Yuu power over him. However, there’s nothing in-universe to suggest that names have cultural significance to fae or that any sort of power or status is granted by relinquishing one’s name. Yuu (or Malleus’s hundreds of other classmates) have also demonstrated no such control over him.

Remember: what is true outside of Twst, including in Disney's own works, is NOT necessarily true inside of Twst.

Going back to the initial question, I believe that "Malleus is possessive" is also a headcanon of a similar vein; fans are coming into Twst familiar with other mythos which state that dragons are possessive, territorial, and greedy on top of being powerful. Because Malleus is a dragon fae and is known to possess great power, it's very easy for fans to see the parallels between him and the dragons they already know of. This then leads to them filling in the gaps of his personality and projecting other stereotypical draconic traits onto him. In Malleus's case, this was extremely easy to do because it took a few years for him to see any significant spotlight in both event stories (Glorious Masquerade) and in the main story (book 7).

I think the easiest way for us to analyze whether Malleus is protective or possessive is to examine his closest relationships in the narrative of Twst. I will not be counting Sebek and Silver individually here, as they are both his bodyguards and Malleus maintains a mostly professional relationship with them. Instead, we shall look at Malleus's attitude by looking at his relationships with Lilia and Yuu, then proceed into discussing related behaviors.

I believe it's indisputable that Lilia is one of the most important people to Malleus. Lilia trained him, taught him, and trained him. He is basically Malleus's father figure. The fear of losing Lilia is what causes Malleus to emotionally spiral and take drastic measures in a desperate attempt to avoid that unhappy ending. His entire motivation for unleashing his UM is "not losing [Lilia]!" You would think that if Malleus was going to be possessive of anyone, it would be with Lilia. But the truth of the matter is... he's mostly just... not? Lilia is a very sociable person in the student body. He's frequently gaming with Idia, taking care of or lending wisdom to others (Silver, Sebek, etc.), hanging out with Cater and Kalim in their club, interacting with dorm leaders and freshmen when Malleus is absent for ceremonies, and more--yet Malleus doesn't seem to express any jealousy over sharing Lilia. I'd also like to add that although Malleus lacks parents, he doesn't really show envy over Lilia treating and calling Silver his own son instead of himself. Oh, Malleus certainly does express jealousy to some extent. Who would forget the time in his Dorm Uniform vignettes when he crushed Lilia's phone? The thing is though, the times when Malleus is upset are not fueled by not wanting to share Lilia or wanting to monopolize his time. In the previous example I cited, Malleus broke Lilia's phone because Lilia had received a picture Kalim and the other dorm leaders took after a meeting. Even the dialogue exchanged implies this; Malleus did not automatically get mad when he noticed that Lilia had a notification, he only got mad after realizing he was excluded from something the other dorm leaders were all involved in. Malleus was upset that he was not invited, not that Kalim was texting Lilia. Additionally, it is stated that the dorm leader must grant permission for others to use the lounge. If he wanted to, he could withhold the permission for Lilia, who wants the lounge for his farewell party (which everyone is invited to), or stipulate that he wants a more formal affair with just Diasomnia members present. Malleus doesn’t act in this possessive way though. He grants Lilia what he desires without issue.

Next up for scrutiny is Yuu! Now, there's some gray area here because part of Yuu's relationship with Malleus is defined by how much the player projects onto the self-insert/blank slate character. Please note that, when I discuss Yuu, I am leaving out individual interpretations and going STRICTLY by the information presenting in canon.

It can be said that Malleus slowly develops a fondness for Yuu's company over the course of the main story. At first, he is surprised and maybe even a little disappointed that someone has taken residence in Ramshackle--it used to be desolate, which makes it a perfect spot to visit on his nightly strolls. However, Malleus soon finds amusement in the fact that Yuu, not being of this world, has no clue who he is or what his status is. This grants him the freedom to speak at ease with this human and to "be himself" in a way that he cannot be with others, who typically cower at his name. You could also argue that Yuu telling Malleus they may have found a way home expedited the despair he felt in book 7, as he learned so quickly that two of his friends would be exiting his life soon. This, however, is not possessiveness. It's normal to have fear and anxiety about losing the people you love.

Malleus's voice lines also do not indicate possessiveness. Yes, there's the usual and expected fanservice-y lines where he invites Yuu to come and engage in various activities with him, but nothing in those suggests he would exclude others or become upset if they also wanted to join. (Are you telling me that Malleus wouldn't want to talk for hours on end about the glory of gargoyles to TWO people instead of just one?????) Additionally, all the characters get similar fanservice-y lines, so it's not something exclusive to Malleus. There was one line that gave me pause: "You always seem to attract a crowd... More so than I'd like, really." Buuut I think this could be read a number of ways, not solely in an ‘I want you all to myself’ way. Malleus actually does like to be alone, hence his nightly strolls. The line can therefore also be read as Malleus enjoying solitude or one-on-one conversations as opposed to addressing a group. In that case, it's a personal preference and not necessarily a sign of possessiveness. He’s definitely not completely averse to group activities though; there are lines where Malleus invites Yuu to do things with him and other characters. For example, from his PE Uniform: “Sebek has been badgering me to help train him. I'll permit you to join us. ... You're coming, I trust?”

The guy generally doesn't get angry or annoyed if Yuu mentions having other friends or managing the 7 member VDC/SDC group. In fact, he sometimes encourages Yuu to interact with others. One of his birthday lines is, "You needn't linger and focus on me to the exclusion of others. I want everyone to enjoy the party, yourself included." Malleus doesn’t so much as flinch or react when a complete stranger kisses the back of Yuu’s hand either. If he was truly possessive, wouldn’t he have gotten angry or—at the very least—have frowned or tried to put some distance between Yuu and said stranger? Yet Malleus doesn’t really react or comment on it despite being present.

Malleus seems to understand that it's not very polite to demand all of someone's time or attention--and this makes perfect sense of his character. He is a royal, and that means he was taught proper manners. Malleus has even indicated before that his grandmother stressed the importance of observing etiquette, particularly around invitations. You don't just invite yourself to functions or insert yourself into others' lives if not extended said invites... and Malleus, for the most part, adheres to those rules. In various voice lines, he even frets over committing social faux pas, wondering if he has offended his peers with certain behaviors. For example, from his Masquerade Dress: "Flamme shoots me stern looks on occasion. Have I behaved improperly in some way...?"

Malleus is also not generally possessive when it comes to his items or territory. He wants to share cake with others; eating a whole one gave him heartburn and now whole cakes are his least favorite food. Additionally, he tends to welcome people to Diasomnia rather than chase them out or expel them. (After all, they so rarely get visitors in the first place.) Malleus will at least hear out the reasoning for seeking him out. As an example, Leona (someone who has had a rocky history with Malleus) goes to Diasomnia in his Ceremonial Robes vignettes to exchange robes after a laundry mix-up. This is a stark contrast to the highly territorial Leona, who attacks a magicless human in thd Botanical Garden and also allows his own students to wail on Yuu and co. for simply walking being in Savanaclaw. Leona joins in on this bullying too. I think it's pretty clear that Malleus handles guests with far more tact, grace, and patience than his fellow prince.

I want to point out that though Malleus is usually amicable with guests, there are exceptions. Ramshackle, as I mentioned earlier, is a place he enjoys a lot. He indicates in his Halloween Dress card that “If anyone dares to damage [this] dorm, I will be as a lóng and reduce them to cinders. I have become rather fond of that place, after all.” Indeed, he does act on this promise in Terror is Trending and comes close to striking down Magicam Monsters for disrespecting a place he holds so dear. Is this possessive though? Yes, it’s a place he loves—but it’s also a place where his friend Yuu lives.

There are many other examples of Malleus going to extreme lengths to protect the things he loves. He vows to destroy Rollo Flamme, who poses a threat to his people, the fae (who depend on magic as their way of life, and the sentient gargoyles, whom he has recently befriended. He unleashes his mighty magic to attack those who wound his pride. He stops time and kidnaps the entire student body all for the sake of including ghosts in a Halloween celebration. And, of course, he sends Sage’s Island to sleep in a desperate bid to stop losing everyone. The majority of these behaviors involve him lashing out at those who pose legitimate threats to things he cares about. It’s not as though be is acting for no discernible reason or because he is doesn’t want his loved ones being with people other than him. Does that make these actions right? No, absolutely not. But I would say they are definitely more protective than possessive.

Very rarely is Malleus actively preventing his peers from spending time away from him. Sure, he gets upset that he’s not invited to join them and sure, he wishes people would invite him too—but there’s a difference between longing and being mopey about this and acting so domineering he’s breathing down the necks of others to only be with him. He is not stopping people from being with their friends and family. He is not stopping people from using his things or entering his territory. Even when he makes everyone sleep, he grants them the space to craft their own dreams and doesn’t even make the dreams center around him and his own involvement on their lives. Oftentimes the dreams involve several other characters that are important to the individual dreamer and Malleus does not appear at all. (Again, this doesn’t mean using his UM was the best move to resolve his issues; I’m just saying his actions were not necessarily possessive.)

So, in conclusion, I stand by the thesis at I proposed at the start of this post: Malleus is largely protective, not possessive, despite what many fandom interpretations would have you believe.

[deadboyween]

DEADBOYWEEN PROMPTS!!

Text-version Prompt List and inspiration below the cut!

Oct 21st: Day 1 - Colours

We made sure to include a few vaguer prompts for a wider range of creative ideas!! Colours could really be anything: Niko while she's possessed by the sprites, a different character having a run-in with a similarly colourful creature, or even something that just uses colour connotations or symbolism!! Get creative!

Oct 22nd: Day 2 - Comfort

One of the non-spooky prompts for day 2. It could be the boys comforting each other after a particularly difficult case, or a character study about something they find comfort in, or even just characters having a well-deserved day off from the Horrors

Oct 23rd: Day 3 - Disguise

The obvious one here would be Charles and Edwin's human disguises, but there's so much to play with. Works could perhaps feature the group going undercover on a case, or maybe the Cat King causing mischief again with his shapeshifting

Oct 24th: Day 4 - Orbs

Okay, you just know we had to put this one in there, everyone needs more Orbwin and Chorb content in their life right? What are our favourite glowing balls of light up to now? Why are they orb-ed? Is it a willing transformation or a result of exhaustion?

Oct 25th: Day 5 - Family

Family can mean a lot of things. Blood family? Could be an introspection into Charles's family back when he was alive, or Crystal trying to reconcile with her parents, Niko's grief, Monty's relationship with Esther... Or could be found family: the group choosing one another over everyone else, forming their own bonds more important than blood. Works can encompass many different character dynamics so go crazy!

Oct 26th: Day 6 - Casefic

The group are on a case!! Works could be a retelling of one of the show cases, or maybe one from the comics, or an entirely original one. It could be a simple run-of the-mill haunting or perhaps one that runs deeper, one that affects one or more members of the agency in some way

Oct 27th: Day 7 - The Endless

In the show we meet Death and Despair, but this prompt could feature one of the Dead Boy Detectives characters meeting one or more of the Siblings. Maybe they visit the Dreaming, or have a run in with Desire

Oct 28th: Day 8 - Free Day

No prompt for this day!! Works can be anything you like, unconnected to any of the suggested themes!!

Oct 29th: Day 9 - Myths / Legends

Charles referenced Orpheus and Eurydice in episode 7 but there's so much to work with with mythology from all over the world. These works could be a retelling of a story from an ancient mythology, or imagining the characters meeting a creature from a legend

Oct 30th: Day 10 - Hell

Really getting into the Horrors of the event now. Hell is such an important part of the series, especially for Edwin. These works must simply incorporate Hell in some way. Perhaps it's set during Edwin's 73 years in Hell, or maybe another character has an experience in the place, or with one of its many creatures. Really looking forward to seeing the potential body horror with this one

Oct 31st: Day 11 - Halloween

Day 11 is the main event. For such a spooky show, there's got to be a lot of Halloween inspiration. What do ghosts even do on Halloween? Do they dress up? Party? Haunt the living? It's entirely up to you!

Nov 1st: Day 12 - Psychic

These works must involve something psychic. Whether it be Crystal and her powers, another person with similar abilities, or any other creature that really gets in the head of the characters

Nov 2nd: Day 13 - Pre-Canon

There's so much to work with before the 2023 setting of the show. Over 30 years of the Dead Boy Detective Agency, the ghosts' lives, Edwin's Hell. Even for other characters: what happened during the Cat King's first two lives? What has Esther been up to for the last several hundred years? What's the Night Nurse's job like when she hasn't got two tricky ghost detectives to deal with?

Nov 3rd: Day 14 - AU

The only rule is: put those characters somewhere else. It could be a different time period, or characters could be different in some way. What if the Alive Girls were the Dead Girls? Or Charles and Edwin were Charlie and Edith? So excited to see everyone's ideas for every prompt, but especially this one, this fandom is so creative when it comes to AUs!!

Happy creating!!

[rose-morose]

alright everyone it's jiangshi time

that's right I'm back for more Chinese mythology in Jentry Chau vs the Underworld and we're talking about possibly my favourite creature from Chinese mythology, the 僵尸 (jiangshi)

(LONG spoilers under cut as per usual)

our resident JCVTU jiangshi is Ed, named for Edward Cullen the most commercially successful dead guy (except like Dracula probably)

(it's a Twilight reference btw) (I'm guessing only gen alpha missed that one)

when gugu's bestiary claimed that jiangshi are among the least threatening residents of Diyu, it wasn't kidding (not even joking or exaggerating its list of weaknesses is the longest section of its Wikipedia page)

jiangshi aren't known to be particularly intelligent and are in fact often portrayed as mindless much like zombies, so I'm guessing the reason it was chosen to be the supernatural sidekick character was because of how little a threat a jiangshi poses to the main character

it is worth noting that traditional jiangshi of ancient depiction are known to be substantially more dangerous than their pop culture counterparts, but that's not Ed

anyways, jiangshi are often likened to the western vampire, they don't drink blood, but they do drain the qi of their victims (like Kit), they are undead creatures, they are often depicted as resting in a coffin or other dark place during the day, and they are sometimes known to be capable of flight (however I've never heard of them being able to "shape shift" in any capacity)

I did look into Ed's shape shifted form, and found that the most likely reason for this form is tied to the jiangshi origin, jiangshi myths are often attributed to the practice of "corpse driving" which was the transportation of the corpses of workers that died far from home back to their village to be buried with their families, the way that the corpses were transported made them appear to be hopping upright, but their is one specific technique that I believe inspired Ed's other form

I found this technique on Wikipedia, and it comes from an oral account of a two man team of corpse drivers, one man would carry the corpse on his back, both the corpse and the man would be draped in a long cloak, decorated with a Chinese mourning or funeral mask on top (though I've never seen a funeral mask as expressive or ornate as Ed's), the second man would travel ahead with a lantern to warn his companion of obstacles, but this doesn't seem relevant to Ed's design

I think this explains the extra tall incredibly flimsy inflatable arm tube man form being due to the design being based off of a corpse on top of another person with a cloak over them (like 3 kids in a trench coat) as well as the mask on top, I'm not sure what else could have inspired this design

moving on from that little side tangent, the common modern appearance of jiangshi (including Ed) is attributed to Hong Kong's jiangshi film and literature phase where they just went crazy over them for awhile and put them everywhere

jiangshi appear to be adult men dressed in the clothing of an official of some kind from the Qing dynasty (though I'm not sure if Ed was created from the body of an adult), with pale greyish or sometimes greenish flesh

I mentioned earlier that the jiangshi are one of my favourite creatures in Chinese mythology, and it is purely because I love this design for their appearance, I just think it looks neat

there is another relevant little detail I found online about jiangshi, and that is that in modern media jiangshi are often combined with the idea of the 饿鬼 (egui), kind of pronounced like uh-gooay (that's not a very good pronunciation guide but it was the best I could think of), which literally translates to "hungry ghost"

in the show Ed is often very hungry and is always trying to get food to eat, and I'm guessing this is a reference to the egui part of modern jiangshi depictions, as I've never known them to consume anything other than qi

something I would also like to touch on is a very well known part of the jiangshi identity that is mostly missing from JCVTU, and that is the fact that jiangshi are often referred to as "Chinese hopping vampires/zombies" and that 僵尸 (jiangshi) literally translates to "stiff corpse"

there are two primary reasons a jiangshi would be stiff, and that is either rigor mortis or a fulu Taoist talisman placed on a jiangshi's head like the one shown above on Ed's forehead

due to their stiffness, jiangshi have been known to only be able to move by hopping around since they are unable to move their legs enough to walk or run

going back to the practice of corpse driving, one way that jiangshi are said to be created is by Taoist priests that reanimate the corpses, and use a bell to control the corpses and have them hop their way home, this was supposedly a way for poorer families, that could not afford standard corpse driving rates, to get their loved ones home for burial at a price they could afford

I am not at all disappointed by the exclusion of this design element which, while not being inherent to the traditional jiangshi design, is very often associated with its identity, I actually think it works better for Ed to be able to move around at will, but at least the first episode references this with the fulu paper talisman that traps Ed

another way jiangshi are believed to be created is by leaving a corpse unburied for too long, Ed says his body was thrown in a river, meaning it was never buried, but a jiangshi created by throwing a body in a river specifically does sound familiar to me, I just can't quite say where from, either way if Jentry had waited any longer, gugu's body was very much at risk of becoming another jiangshi which honestly would have been hilarious

the last thing I want to touch on are the jiangshi's many many weaknesses

one mentioned in the show is dropping rice in front of them, coins also work, but in either case the jiangshi would be forced to take a break for a moment to count the coins or rice on the ground

Ed mentions in the Alamo episode that jiangshi can't see you if you hold your breath, and this is true and very silly to me

there are plenty of strategies in Chinese mythology specifically meant for combating any form of undead like roosters and peach tree wood, and these all apply to the jiangshi as well since they are also undead

while there are plenty of other ways to fight a jiangshi, I'm gonna end here for now because this post is getting really long

I love taking any opportunity I can to talk about Chinese mythology because I love it so much, and Jentry Chau has given me an excuse to gush about pretty much all of it

I'd be surprised if anyone made it this far though, these posts get even longer every time, but I enjoy them regardless

anyways, moral of the story is go watch Jentry Chau vs the Underworld if you haven't already, and don't read the Twilight books or watch the films you have been warned

[thegayhimbo]

Stranger Things (3x03): “The Case of the Missing Lifeguard” Review

If you haven't yet, be sure to check out my other Stranger Things Reviews:

Stranger Things Episode Reviews:

Season 1:

The Vanishing of Will Byers

The Weirdo on Maple Street

Holly Jolly

The Body

The Flea and the Acrobat

The Monster

The Bathtub

The Upside Down

Season 2:

MADMAX

Trick or Treat, Freak

The Pollywog

Will the Wise

Dig Dug

The Spy

The Lost Sister

The Mind Flayer

The Gate

Season 3:

Suzie, Do You Copy?

The Mall Rats

Stranger Things Play:

Stranger Things The First Shadow

NOTE: If you’d like to listen to the Behind The Scenes: Stranger Things 3 Podcast, this link here will take you to all three videos.

Back in 2022, when I was rewatching Stranger Things in preparation for season 4, I remember talking with @pusheen1802 frequently about the show, speculating what direction they would take the characters and arcs in future seasons, as well as commenting on previous ones. At the time, neither of us were particularly big fans of season 3 (a sentiment I witnessed for quite a while on both Reddit, Tumblr, TV Tropes, and other social media platforms). However, I didn’t hate season 3 with the same intensity as other fans did. There were good moments sprinkled in, some nice 80s songs, and I didn’t mind the change in aesthetic where everything was more colorful and bright compared to seasons 1-2. Regardless, I could never put into words what felt off to me about season 3, despite knowing which aspects of that season I didn’t like. It wasn’t until I saw this episode again during that specific rewatch years ago that I finally came to this conclusion:

It's not that season 3 itself was bad. It’s that it came off as FILLER.

To explain what I’m referring to: In both seasons 1-2 and 4, there were different aspects of the mythology introduced to the show that expanded on both Hawkins Lab and the Upside Down.

Season 1 was our first commencement to those characters and elements: El, Brenner, the Demogorgon, and so on.

Season 2 added on to this with the Mind Flayer, the concept of the hive mind, demodogs, and Kali, while also giving a little more information about the Upside Down and Hawkins Lab without revealing all the details.

Season 4 is where the show finally started giving answers about what happened at Hawkins Lab and how the Upside Down is structured. They also presented new aspects of the mythology, including demobats, the Creel House, the NINA Project, and the character who was central to the mythology: Vecna.

Season 3, on the other hand, pushed Hawkins Lab and El’s past into the background (notwithstanding Joyce and Hopper’s visit to the Lab in this episode), with this being the first season where Brenner was completely absent from the narration. Meanwhile, aside from Billy’s vision in “The Mall Rats,” the Upside Down itself gets little to no focus, with no new elements or creatures introduced. The Duffer Brothers admitted the way they wrote season 3 didn’t leave them a lot of room to explore that dimension in more detail, and it shows. There isn’t a lot of expansion into Hawkins Lab or the Upside Down in season 3, and some of the story beats (i.e. the Mind Flayer wrecking havoc, the Gate needing to be closed again, etc) are recycled from season 2.

Yes, I know there’s the Flayed and the Russians, but I don’t consider the Flayed to be a new creature introduced to the show since they are essentially humans possessed by the Mind Flayer (which they already explored with Will’s possession in season 2). Meanwhile, the Russian’s connection to the Upside Down and the main characters has always been tenuous at best. I’m still waiting to see how season 5 pans out before I make a full judgment on the Russian arc, but I do understand the current fan complaints that they didn’t need to be on the show, and that they’re more of a forced plot device to open the Gate again and cause problems in Hawkins.

On top of that, this is arguably the first season where the show deviates heavily from the “mystery” aspect. By this, I’m referring to how other seasons (1, 2, and 4) usually unfolded in a way where characters were piecing together information and coming to conclusions at the same time as the audience.

In season 1, when Will was kidnapped and El was introduced to the Party, we only knew as much as the characters did about what was going on. We knew something had taken Will and was stalking other characters, but we didn’t know what it was or what it wanted. Same goes for Brenner and his connection with El and the Upside Down. We knew they were involved, but it was a question of why and how. When it finally was revealed to the audience, it happened the same time the main characters got that information.

Same goes for season 2 with Kali and the Mind Flayer: When Kali was first introduced in the season 2 premiere, we didn’t know what kind of person she would be. Would be she be an ally? An enemy? Somewhere in-between? What were her goals and motivations? It was only when El undertook the journey to meet Kali that we found out in the same moment El did. As for the Mind Flayer, while it was obvious that this was a malevolent entity, the tension in the story came from figuring out how it was operating through Will, what kind of effect it was having on him, and how dangerous of a monster it was in the overall hierarchy of the Upside Down.

As for season 4, the mysteries surrounding Vecna, the Creel House, and the Massacre at Hawkins Lab were at the center of the story. Just like the characters in-universe, we were discovering how all these elements connected with one another in sync with them.

Season 3 is the anomaly: At this point in the show, we already know what’s going on and it becomes an exercise in frustration to wait for the other characters to get on the same page as the audience. This isn’t a case of tension in the story over the audience knowing something the characters don’t. It’s the characters meandering for several episodes (not helped by them engaging in petty arguments and contrived drama) with no new information given that the audience didn’t already know about beforehand. As a result, it’s not as exciting or engaging to watch.

What’s happening in Hawkins? The Russians have arrived and opened a Gate with their key. Why has the Mind Flayer returned? Because a piece of itself left stranded in this world has reawakened thanks to the Russian Gate. What’s wrong with the rats? They’ve become possessed by the Mind Flayer, and exploded into blood and guts so it can form a body. What happened to Billy and Heather? They’re possessed by the Mind Flayer, and they’re looking for more victims. How come possessed rats and humans can be molded this way by the Mind Flayer? Because they are either drinking chemicals (as we saw in the storage closet with Billy in the last episode) or eating fertilizer that turns their insides into mush. What is the Mind Flayer’s end goal? Revenge (which we could already infer from the ending of season 2).

All of this is information conveyed in the first two episodes. We’re now on episode 3, and we’re still waiting for most of the main characters to catch on. The result is the pacing slows, and it has the unintended effect of making the show look like it’s just spinning its wheels.

I wonder if that’s the same frustration fans experienced at the time when season 3 came out: That the show wasn’t really progressing the overall narrative so much as rehashing the same story beats from previous seasons in a less interesting way. It doesn’t help that there was a three-year gap between seasons 3 and 4 (caused largely in part by the Covid-19 pandemic), which probably made a lot of fans nervous over whether there was an end goal, or if the Duffer Brothers were struggling to come up with a satisfying conclusion.  

In hindsight, now that season 4 has come and gone, do I still feel the same way about season 3 being filler? Not Really. What’s nice about doing retrospective analysis is getting to see how plot-points that might have seemed inconsequential at the time become enlightening later on. Given the direction season 4 went, I would argue a lot of story developments in this season (i.e. El and Max’s friendship, the Mind Flayer arc, etc.) not only were important for how season 4 played out, but also make season 3 look a lot better. There are still flaws in its structure, but at least the same cynical outlook of believing the Duffer Brothers are just making stuff up as they go along isn’t there anymore. There is an endgame.

Nevertheless, if I were to pick one episode (not just from this season, but from the show as a whole) that came off as filler, it would have to be this one. It’s not that it’s bad. It’s just that it didn’t develop anything new that we didn’t already know, and featured most of the characters in unsatisfying arcs while the plot caught up to them.

Part 1: Max, El, Billy, and Heather

I wanted to like the Max/El story in this episode. To be fair, I did enjoy the beginning where Max was introducing El to different music and a young Ralph Macchio. I also appreciated Max’s reassurance that El’s relationship with Mike will work out. It demonstrates that even though both girls aren’t impressed with the boys right now, the break-up isn’t permanent, and the ball is in Mike and Lucas's court to reach out. I could have done without their trip into the Void to spy on Mike, Lucas, and Will (for reasons I’ll cover later in the review), but at least Hopper’s reaction to seeing Max with El was hilarious. Judging by his surprised look, this is probably the first time Max has been to the cabin to visit El, and he’s grateful it isn’t Mike this time. It makes me wonder what would’ve happened if Mike was there. Since Hopper didn’t get his date with Joyce, I’m willing to bet Hopper would’ve furiously frog-marched Mike out of the house (assuming El didn’t try to stop him).

Despite those few positive, this was the least interesting arc in this episode. For something titled “The Case of the Missing Lifeguard,” there wasn’t much of a mystery here since we, the audience, already know what’s happened to Heather, which only makes the characters discovering the clues here redundant. Doesn’t help that, by the end of the episode, Max and El still don’t know what’s going on, and no new information (that the audience wasn’t aware of) has been given to advance the plot.

The way this search kicks off is also something I had an issue with. While I buy into the idea of Max and El playing “Spin the Bottle” to see who they’d spy on (I would have loved to witness them reacting to Dustin, Steve, and Robin at Starcourt Mall talking about Russians infiltrating Hawkins), the one aspect that had me calling bullshit was putting Billy’s name on there. Everything about the past season (including the tie-in novel Runaway Max) established Max wanted as little to do with Billy as possible. This is someone who was abusive to her, to the point she actively went out of her way to avoid him whenever possible, and only put up with Billy at her house because they were living together and she had no other choice. She is also aware of his less-than-stellar treatment of women he’s dated (whom he views as sexual conquests to satisfy his ego), to the point she’s disgusted by it. I’m not talking about gross in the “boys will be boys” way, but more in the “he’s a repulsive misogynist” sentiment. While it’s likely Billy has left Max alone since the end of season 2, especially after Max made it VERY CLEAR to him that she wasn’t going to tolerate his abuse anymore, that doesn’t mean their relationship has improved for the better (If the idea was supposed to be it had, the show didn’t do a good job demonstrating that in a believable manner), or that she suddenly has any interest in his personal life given she already knows what he’s up to and how he acts. For Max to be okay with putting Billy’s name on the board so that El can see what skeevy stuff he’s doing not only feels out-of-character for her, but it’s also a contrived way for both El and Max to conveniently stumble upon what Flayed Billy is doing with Heather so the plot can begin.

The only part of this I found believable was how creeped out Max was at the idea of going into Billy’s room (“Why do I get the feeling we’re gonna find all kinds of wrong in here?”) and how icked she was at seeing his dirty laundry, cigarette butts, and porno magazines. All of which makes her earlier encouragement towards El to spy on Billy look baffling. If she was that unnerved to think about what Billy does in his room during his spare time, why on earth would she want El to view that through the Void in the first place?

Additionally, the scene when El remote-views and finds Heather in an ice bath begging for help was unsettling.

I was reminded of the moments from Under the Skin (the movie that inspired the concept of the Void on this show) when Scarlett Johannsen’s character would lead men into a black void where she would trap them, and then this would happen:

There is a similar theme of otherworldly beings harvesting humans in both Stranger Things and Under the Skin. The purposes are both self-serving and without much empathy towards the victims. I’ve talked about this movie before in my review of “The Monster,” but while the aliens’ motivations for what they do is left ambiguous and open to interpretation, as well as the idea they may operate on a different morality scale from humans, that is NOT the case with the Mind Flayer. What it is doing is entirely personal and filled with malicious intent. Even its emotions, which are rooted in anger, pettiness, and vindictiveness, are qualities that are human-like despite its apparent hatred of humans. It knows what it’s doing is evil; it just doesn’t care.

In any case, the scene with Heather in the ice bath begging El for help leads to some horrifying implications: Not just that Heather is perfectly aware of what’s going on while she’s become the Mind Flayer’s newest slave, but also the idea that her consciousness is being assimilated into the hive mind and there’s nothing she can do about it. Best way I can describe this is to compare it to how the philosopher’s stones worked in Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood: They were powered by the souls of those trapped within the stones via human transmutation. They acted as an energy source that could elevate an alchemist’s power, or even prolong someone’s life span (as we see with the main antagonist, Father). They were, in many ways, a battery. A battery that could be composed of hundreds or thousands or even millions of souls. The more souls there were, the more potent and long-lasting the stone was. The worst part of this was that, not only were the souls inside those stones alive, they were at risk of losing their identities and individuality the longer they were trapped. A sentiment I think can be seen in how the Mind Flayer operates and how the hive mind works. Ever since the revelation in season 4 that Vecna doesn’t just kill his victims, but also consumes them to the point they become a part of him, it has led me to the belief that many of the human casualties under Vecna and/or the Mind Flayer have resulted in those people's consciousnesses being assimilated into the hive mind. They’re still technically alive and aware of what’s happened to them, but they have now become a power source for either the hive mind, Vecna, or the Mind Flayer, all while they lose their memories and identities bit-by-bit.

On top of that, there’s also the question of how much Vecna and/or the Mind Flayer is allowing El to see in the Void. They establish that it picked up on El’s presence when Flayed Billy was giving Heather to the Meat Flayer (which is why the vision dissolved). However, I’m curious about the ice bath scene with Heather: Did they allow El to see that as well? If so, why? To torment Heather by giving her false hope? To rattle El without giving away their entire plan? The ending of the episode implied they were getting a kick out of gaslighting El into thinking she was seeing things, but was that just about spiting El? Or was it trying to throw El off her game so she’d leave and they’d be able to kidnap Tom and Janet once they were alone?

Speaking of the ending scene, let’s talk about two inspirations for the Mind Flayer’s arc this season: Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and John Carpenter’s The Thing.

I’ve already covered The Thing in my reviews during season 1 (specifically with how MacReady and Childs’s fights in the movie paralleled Mike and Lucas’s confrontations in that season), but the main heart of the story, combined with all its gory special effects, is on full display here in season 3. The Thing centers around a group of scientists in Antarctica (from U.S. Outpost 31) who stumble across an extra-terrestrial being that can absorb and shape its cells to imitate a life form. The movie opens with it disguised as a dog, running from a group of Norwegians in a helicopter (who die in their failed attempt to kill it), and managing to infiltrate the base. After showing its true from in a disturbingly gory scene in the dog kettle (and following MacReady finding and transporting the corpse of a frozen malformed humanoid figure from the Norwegian base back to Outpost 31 for research purposes), the group eventually realizes what they’re dealing with and are forced to take extreme measures to figure out which one of them is “The Thing” and who isn’t, all while keeping themselves isolated to prevent it from escaping to the mainland and infecting the human population. Think of the plot from Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None if it was set in Antarctica, if the murderer was an alien, and if the kills were more gruesome and gorier than the ones dished out in that book.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers also ties into the heart of season 3’s plot. I haven’t read the book the movies are based on, but I have seen the 1956 and 1978 versions, and the story is the same: A group of parasitical aliens leave their dying world and arrive on Earth from the skies to colonize it. To this end, they plant pods near humans, which can create an exact clone of a human being while assimilating their memories and physical aspects. Once the clone is complete (usually when the human is sleeping), the original person dies and disintegrates. The difference between the clone and the original is that the clones have no emotion, and concepts like love, empathy, and hate are meaningless to them. There’s a chilling scene in the 1978 version where David (Leonard Nimoy’s character), who acts as the unofficial leader of the Pod People, tells Elisabeth Driscoll (one of the main characters) that they don’t hate humans, and he means it. This entire process is just a means of doing what they’ve always done: Try to survive. From their perspective, this isn’t personal. Humans just happened to be the ones unlucky enough to cross their path.

Out of the two, I prefer the 1978 movie to the 1956 version, primarily because it does a better job capturing the horror of realizing something is off about everyone around you, and how alienating that is. There’s a bleakness to the movie that’s disturbing, and the third act reminds me of the nightmares I used to have as a kid where I’d be chased by a group of people in the dead of night. I didn’t know what would happen if they caught me, but I knew it would be horrific. Additionally, the 1978 movie is also grisly (to the point I’m surprised it got away with a PG rating instead of an R). The elaborate process of how the pod people form from the flowers and take shape is gross, and the scene were Donald Sutherland’s character destroys the replica of himself while the other pod people shriek (as if they can sense its pain) reminds me of what happens in the next episode when the Party tries to force the Mind Flayer out of Billy and the impact extends towards the other victims the Mind Flayer has possessed, including Mrs. Driscoll at the hospital.

I know there’s been interpretations about the themes from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, ranging from a metaphor of communism taking over the United States in the 50s, to a critique of consumerism in the 70s, to even a scathing rebuke about going along with what the masses want. In the case of the Duffer Brothers with how they write this show, I would argue the latter is likely what they were going for. It’s Eddie’s “Conformity is killing the kids” speech from season 4, as well as the “Normal is a raging psychopath” rebuke from Lucas. It’s also seen in The First Shadow (which is set in the 50s) where the characters around Henry/One/Vecna (save for Patty Newby) try to force him to be normal despite having a power that’s abnormal. Or how Patty gets treated as a black girl in an adoptive white family, as well as her interracial relationship with Henry/One/Vecna and how the other characters react to it. It’s the idea that just because certain behaviors may be considered “acceptable” by a majority of people (i.e. racism, bigotry, self-serving ideologies, etc) doesn’t make them right.

If I were to talk about where I’ve witnessed a “hive mind” mentality in real-life, it would be the internet. Notably, social media outlets like Reddit, Twitter/X, TikTok, Tumblr, and so on. The regurgitation of popular takes (no matter how stupid or asinine they are), as well as hostility towards anyone who voices an opposing opinion. Dehumanization in both political circles over “acceptable targets” or those considered to be “unworthy” of empathy (Antisemitism has made a vicious comeback, specifically in Leftist circles, over the past year and a half), radicalization towards certain destructive ideologies, regurgitating certain talking points and misinformation/disinformation with no critical thought put into them, and people going out of their way to be smug condescending assholes towards anyone who disagrees with them. There’s a reason I quit Reddit years ago, and why my go-to method for people who behave like that on Tumblr is to block them: I don’t need to put up with that shit. Sadly, it seems to have gotten worse over the years, to the point people are openly comfortable suicide-baiting, spewing the most hateful, bigoted, ignorant takes imaginable, or being cruel for the sake of it. We are living in a culture of Angelas, and that is both scary and depressing.

Getting back to the show, if the Duffer Brothers were intending to use the Flayed from season 3 as a metaphor for conformity………..it was with mixed results. I personally believe they did a better job with the “hive mind” mentality in season 4 when it came to certain groups of people who were NOT possessed by the Mind Flayer and yet still went out of their way to be vicious because they could. Like Angela, her friends, and the Rink-O-Mania crowd bullying El for sport (much like how a lot of internet users purposefully dogpile on individuals they believe has said or done something wrong). Or the special kids at Hawkins Lab tormenting El during her childhood because they saw her as weak (and because Brenner enabled them). Or Jason and his basketball team whipping up the Hawkins residents into a witch hunt against the Hellfire Club under the belief it would purge the town of “evil” when it only made the situation worse than it needed to be. It’s going along with the masses, and no critical thinking is required. What makes it insidious is there is a choice involved here, but because people have been so calcified in their beliefs that they’re in the right to behave this way, they will make the choices to hurt others and justify their actions later. Empathy and Compassion be damned.

In this arc though? There really isn’t any agency for the Flayed. The Mind Flayer has stripped them of that, and turned them into its personal drones. Whatever they do is under its command, regardless of how they feel about it. I could see an argument that this is a commentary on the idea of whether humans deserve to have agency or not, especially when they’re prone to making bad choices (similar to the story and themes they explored with Viktor’s character arc in Arcane Season 2), but that kind of metaphor doesn’t work with how the Mind Flayer operates: It wants control for the sake of having it. In the long term, it doesn’t give a damn about killing off every human on the planet if that’s what it takes. While there’s a possibility that maybe the Mind Flayer was attracted to the demons within people (Billy’s rage, Bruce’s misogyny, Tom’s sexism and how that impacted his wife and daughter, Mrs. Driscoll losing her husband, etc.), that’s mostly speculation. It’s ambiguous if the Mind Flayer targeted specific individuals because they’d be easier to control, or if it just went after whatever random person it could get its hands on. The result is the metaphor falls flat and takes away any philosophizing that could be done over the state of humanity and society. The “hive mind” concept in the Upside Down is interesting from a science-fiction perspective, but when you start analyzing the Flayed in season 3 through the lens of social commentary and real-world themes, it starts to show holes in its presentation. I’m NOT saying the theme of “hive mind” mentality isn’t applicable (I’ve just listed several examples from season 4 where it was) or that the Upside Down isn’t a perfect metaphor for the rot existing within Hawkins’s community, culture, and social structures (something I’ve been arguing was the case for years). In this instance with the Flayed, however? It comes off like they took the concept of “pod people” and “The Thing” without considering what kind of social commentary they were trying to make this season.

On top that, another aspect that’s missing is the sense of paranoia which was a key component in both Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Thing. Don’t get me wrong: Shawn Levy does a great job filming some creepy scenes (the picture of Billy and the Holloway’s above being one such example), but the overwhelming sense of dread, mistrust, and isolation that made those movies work isn’t present in this episode (or the rest of season 3 for that matter).

One of the best qualities about The Thing is, even after so many rewatches, it’s still hard to tell which characters have been assimilated by the titular Thing, and which haven’t. Even the ending with MacReady and Childs leaves it deliberately ambiguous if one of them, or both, are the Thing. Or if the Thing is even still alive at this point. There’s also the debate about whether a person who becomes a Thing even knows about it until they’re exposed, or if the Thing is THAT GOOD at mimicking humans. It’s a mind screw, and it’s far more disturbing than the gory effects.

Likewise, Invasion of the Body Snatchers enforces paranoia, but on a much grander scale. Except for the main characters (three of whom eventually fall prey to the Pod People while the fourth is left to an ambiguous fate), everyone is suspect. It’s a question of how far they’ve spread. One of the most insidious scenes comes from the phone calls Donald Sutherland’s character makes to different agencies to warn them about what’s going on, only to get dismissed as a nutcase who’s trying to cause mass panic. The scary part is we don’t know if the people over the phone simply see this as a crackpot conspiracy theory with no proof, or if they’re the Pod People in disguise who’ve managed to infiltrate those agencies already. The claustrophobic camerawork in the scene also conveys the sense that it’s too late to contain this situation.

In season 3, that paranoia element is absent because we already know how the Mind Flayer functions. We also saw the process through which Heather and Billy got infected (via its fleshy Meat Flayer body), meaning that people would have to be brought to the abandoned steel mill where it resided for that to happen. By that logic, it couldn't have possessed that many residents in Hawkins (at least not to the scale seen in Invasion of the Body Snatchers), even if the Mind Flayer ultimately got a significant amount of people by the end. This also factors in how the Flayed would be trying to keep below the radar from El or anyone else who’d notice their friends and loved ones missing. When I saw the scene at the Holloway’s house for the first time, I knew the only reason Billy and Heather would be there at all was if they were going to add Tom and Janet to their collection of Flayed. If the goal was about attacking El in that moment, they would have just done it. The result is the scene is creepy, but not suspenseful like it could have been.

Even the twist about what the Mind Flayer was planning is pretty much spoiled from the poster:

The only thing I would argue was a legitimate twist from this arc is the revelation that the Meat Flayer was formed as a means for Vecna to assimilate El’s powers so he could open a bigger Gate in Hawkins. It’s a twist that comes a season later, but it changes the context of the Mind Flayer’s motivations: Instead of the Meat Flayer looking like a desperate (and apparently sloppy) attempt to kill El and everyone else (and inadvertently taking away her powers in the process), it now establishes this was a calculated, coordinated plan both Vecna and the Mind Flayer knew could only be executed in a certain time frame (especially since they knew the Russians opened the Gate and it was only a matter of time before their operation was discovered) to rob El of her abilities and render her obsolete as a threat. They still intended to kill her and everyone else, but that was secondary at the time. Even with the Russian Gate closing, they still achieved their primary goal.

Aside from that, and the lack of paranoia, it didn’t help that the people who were possessed by the Mind Flayer were minor characters that either were asshole victims (Tom and Bruce) or ones who barely had any connection to the main characters and didn’t get a lot of screen time to flesh them out properly (Heather, Janet, Mrs. Driscoll, etc). The only exception to this is Billy, and he was a character who was deeply divisive with the fandom from the beginning.

I discussed this in my review of “The Mind Flayer,” but a big reason I had a hard time investing in Billy is because his arc was predictable. When I first saw season 2 back in 2017, around the same time Stephen King’s IT had been in theaters for a number of weeks, I was already drawing comparisons between Billy and the character of Henry Bowers. Abusive, bigoted bullies with abusive, bigoted fathers who take their rage out on the world and make the main characters’ lives a living hell. Anyone who has read the book or seen the movies or miniseries knows Henry Bowers falls under the influence of the entity IT/Pennywise, to the point he tries to kill the Losers on IT’s direction. Since the Duffer Brothers cited Stephen King as a major inspiration for the show, as well as how blatantly obvious the comparisons between Henry Bowers and Billy Hargrove were at the time…………I immediately realized where Billy’s arc was going to go from there: Getting possessed by the Mind Flayer in the next season, and used as a tool to try and kill the Party. The season 3 trailer sealed the deal for me. It wasn’t ever a question of whether Billy was going to die by the end of this season. It was a question of HOW that would happen.

It doesn’t help that there wasn’t any mystery surrounding how the Mind Flayer was influencing Billy. We already saw this unfold with Will in season 2, and it stands to reason that the effects of the Mind Flayer on its host would be the same, even if they introduced the idea of them guzzling down toxic chemicals and fertilizer this time (with the logical conclusion being the only reason they hadn't died yet from doing that was because the Mind Flayer was keeping them alive for the time being).

Finally, there’s the factor of whether you cared enough about Billy’s character to want to see him survive. Some fans did. Some fans didn’t. I’m in the latter category. I don’t have the same passionate hatred for Billy as I did years ago (that has since shifted to Angela’s character), but at the same time, I was indifferent to his fate. Putting aside how I saw it coming from a mile away, they wrote him to be such a deeply hateful creep with barely any redeeming qualities that I just didn’t care. Doesn’t help that all the Billy stans who bullied/harassed people for saying anything negative about his character permanently soured my outlook on him. For what it’s worth, I felt the same indifference for what happens to Tom in this episode and Bruce later on. It sucks, but considering they were already terrible people, I’m not shedding any tears over their demise.

If anything, I mostly feel bad for Heather. Imagine having a crush on someone, and then one day you witness them acting unwell. When you go to check on them alone to see if they need help, they attack you, bind you, kidnap you, and take you to an abandoned building in the middle of nowhere. They then say something that makes it sound like they’re going to rape you……………only for an abomination to step out of the shadows and force itself on you. You then become a part of this thing as you target your parents next. All the while, you’re conscious of what’s happening (as we see from El’s vision of Heather in the Void) but there’s nothing you can do about it.

Same goes for Janet and Mrs. Driscoll. The latter was trying to warn people through Nancy and Jonathan that something was amiss in Hawkins (only for her warnings to go unheeded by the chauvinistic pigs at The Hawkins Post) and the former seemed like a nice lady who was under the thrall of what appeared to be an unequal relationship with her sexist husband.

As for Billy, there’s a dark irony in how his arc in season 2 was about pushing Steve out of the role of King of Hawkins High School to become the Alpha Male who could dominate everyone else and act however he pleased. Now he’s under the servitude of the Mind Flayer, the ultimate Apex Predator, who is far more dangerous, vicious, and unstable than Billy could ever dream of being. It reminds me of what happened to the characters of Leo Johnson and Windom Earle from the show Twin Peaks. The former was a vicious drug dealer, a wife beater, and a real piece of work. Through a series of misfortunes (mostly from his own doing) he ends up as a reluctant pawn for Windom Earle, who not only was a dangerous psychopath, but also a serial killer who took sadistic delight in torturing Leo and reducing him to a slave forced to wear a shock collar to inspire obedience. In a twist of fate, Windom Earle himself ended up on the receiving end of horror when he invoked the wrath of the main antagonist from that series: BOB. Anyone who’s seen Twin Peaks knows just how dangerous BOB was.

Regardless, there is a hard-truth message from both Stranger Things and Twin Peaks that’s applicable not just to characters like Billy, Leo, and Windom, but also for people in real-life who act vicious towards others: No matter how awful you think you can be, there will always be a far worse monster out there who will either chew you up and spit you out, or devour you whole.

Part 2: The Scoops Troop (Steve, Dustin, Robin, and Erica)

Similar to the other arcs in this episode, this one had a lot of filler moments as well. The biggest plot development was Robin cracking the code, and the ending on the roof which confirmed for certain there were Russians operating at Starcourt Mall. Unlike other arcs though, I didn’t mind because there were at least fun moments here. Compared to romantic relationship drama, I’ll take Steve and Dustin’s antics any day.

I haven’t talked much about Erica in these reviews since she hasn’t become a part of the main story yet, but the argument she gets into with Robin over sampling ice cream was amusing. Erica reminds me of those people at Costco who make multiple rounds with the sampling booths even though you’re only supposed to take one food sample per booth, and even though that’s something frowned upon, I can’t help but grin. Doubly-so for being a 10-year-old kid who doesn’t have any money and sees this as an opportunity to try new foods and make a meal out of it. I get why Robin was annoyed though, and why she initially pretended not to hear Erica and her friends. Too bad for Erica that Steve wasn’t there.

Come to think of it, aside from the free ice cream, I wonder how much Erica knows about Steve sneaking Lucas and his friends through the backdoor to see R-Rated movies at the theater? Has she ever asked Steve to do that for her, or are the favors just unlimited ice cream samples?

Speaking of Steve, I think most people figured out quickly that the guy he and Dustin were tailing wasn’t a Russian spy, especially considering Dustin’s stereotypical description to Steve beforehand about what a Russian looked like. The one positive thing I’ll say is that I find humorous that those workout outfits really were a thing, and that the 80s jazzercise videos are as cheesy as they’re said to be:

Getting back to the Russians, I get Steve and Dustin are likely basing their ideas of what they look like from the movies they’ve seen. At the same time though, it highlights what I was criticizing back in my review of “Suzie, Do You Copy?” regarding this arc: Aside from how the Duffer Brothers based their idea of Russians from the movies they grew up watching rather than how they were historically portrayed (something they admitted to in the Season 3 Podcast), there really isn’t a sense of fear or anxiety about the idea that neighbors, friends, or even family could secretly be in league with the Russians. They play this for a joke with the Jazzercise instructor as opposed to the true horror of realizing there are certain people that can’t be trusted. It’s ironic how Invasion of the Body Snatchers was cited as inspiration for this season since the first movie came out in 1956 (around the decade McCarthyism took off), with the Pod People being a not-so-subtle metaphor for the idea of communists infiltrating a town. And despite the 1978 remake doing a better job with the psychological horror (mainly because they weren’t tied down by the Hays Code), the original 1956 movie was still creepy in its own right, and conveyed a sense that the main characters were truly on their own.

That is not present here with Dustin, Steve, and Robin at Starcourt Mall. Robin lampshades this in the previous episode with how loud Dustin and Steve are, but despite all three of them suspecting there might be Russians at Starcourt Mall, they still talk in the open about it like it’s no big deal. As if they haven’t considered the possibility there could be Russians secretly disguised as ordinary citizens at Starcourt Mall listening in on what they’re saying, or how that could get them in serious trouble. Jazzercise instructor aside, I’m talking about the various people at the food court, the customers at Scoops Ahoy, or just anyone in the mall to begin with who could plainly see Steve and Dustin spying on people with binoculars behind the foliage. It’s a jarring tonal dissonance compared to previous seasons when the characters considered the possibility of being under surveillance when Hawkins Lab was still active, and took the best precautions they knew to minimize that. Remember the argument Steve and Nancy had over telling the truth about Barbara’s death in “Trick or Treat, Freak,” and how Steve was so freaked out by the idea of Government agents listening in on their conversation that they went to a quiet room in the library, with Steve even shutting the blinds? Or “Will the Wise” when Jonathan and Nancy were at the park supposedly waiting for Barbara’s parents when they were actually planning to get caught, all while slowly noticing something was off about how people were acting around them before it was revealed most of them were Hawkins Lab employees disguised as ordinary civilians?

This is one of the issues I had with season 3 (and I suspect other fans had as well): They put an emphasis on comedy at the expense of the story and characters acting in a way that made sense. Doesn’t help that Steve and Dustin tailing the Jazzercise instructor (no matter how funny the reveal was) doesn’t do much to advance the plot. It’s only when Robin encounters the Lynx employee, realizes that the shell company is the “Silver Cat,” and pieces together the remaining message that things start to advance.

This isn’t to say I consider Dustin and Steve spying on people to be a complete waste of time. I appreciated the conversation Dustin had with Steve pointing out that he needs to move on from caring about high school social status. Steve falling back on what he’s familiar with doesn’t surprise me because I remember having that kind of experience post high school. Not in a “who’s dating who” or a “popularity ranking” way (I didn’t date in high school, and the cliques they like to depict in movies weren’t much of a thing at the school I went to), but more in a “high school was familiar to me, and having to be an adult holding down a job is intimidating” kind of way. Contrary to what Dustin might say, I don’t think Steve cares as much about popularity as Dustin thinks he does. His encounter with the Demogorgon in season 1 (or even when he started dating Nancy) was the beginning of the end for his emotional investment in that. Even with the ending of season 2 inferring that Billy took Steve’s spot as King of Hawkins High School, Steve’s general attitude during that season conveyed how disillusioned he’d become with popularity. It’s not like he was making much of an effort to hold onto that title to begin with.

By the way, I find it telling that Steve hasn’t mentioned Billy since season 2. It was clear to me that Steve never cared about the one-sided rivalry Billy tried to instigate with him at school, and I get the feeling he’s just glad he doesn’t have to associate with Billy anymore. Like I said, it’s significant that, despite Steve’s prior experience as a lifeguard, he decided he’d rather work at Scoops Ahoy (even if finding a job was mandated by his father).

Adding on to Dustin and Steve’s conversation, Dustin pushing for Steve to date Robin implies that he’s been privy to the girls Steve’s dated since breaking up with Nancy and was not impressed with any of them. There’s the sense both parties were just dating each other for superficial reasons (looks, attractiveness, etc), but there’s also how Steve hasn’t really moved on from the breakup with Nancy (something season 4 highlights). His attempts at dating are less about getting notches under his belt and more about finding a girl similar to Nancy who likes him beyond the surface, and visa versa. For all his protests to Dustin about how he’s not interested in Robin, he sure seems to know a lot about her personal life (i.e. being hyper, participating in drama class, being in band, etc), indicating he’s been paying attention to her. I wonder if he also knows about “Operation Croissant” from Rebel Robin, which was Robin’s dream of traveling to Europe, visiting the different countries, and being able to order breakfast from coffee shops on her detour. The whole reason she’s working at Scoops Ahoy is because she’s trying to get the money for that dream trip after having lost her savings paying for the damage she caused on Prom Night the year before (long story). Robin’s the first girl since Nancy who has caught Steve’s attention precisely because she isn’t superficial, is intelligent, isn’t above calling out Steve when he acts badly, and (snarky attitude aside) is good company. Who knows? If Robin survives the events of season 5, it’s possible she may want Steve (along with Vickie) to come with her to Europe.

In any case, I see Steve wanting to be around Robin having more to do with who she is as a person than it does with physical looks. The fact he loses interest in her quickly when he discovers she’s a lesbian indicates he didn’t have much of a sexual attraction to her to begin with. He genuinely cared about her as a friend.

Additionally, the two of them holding hands on the roof for comfort was a nice moment:

Finally, there’s the ending where they’re spying on the arriving shipments and almost get caught. Like I said before, from the way they cast the Russian characters this season, it’s so blatantly obvious who they are that the show doesn’t even try to pretend this is a surprise:

I did appreciate the nods to Close Encounters of the Third Kind with the truck scene. In the movie, when the U.S. Government is attempting to contact the aliens at Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, they make plans to clear out the nearby towns by spreading a false story about a train wreck spilling toxic GM nerve gas. To facilitate the deception, they send out trucks disguised as fleet vehicles (i.e. Baskin Robins, Piggly Wiggly, Coca Cola, etc) to smuggle supplies through undetected. Much like how the Russians are using shell companies like Lynx Transportation to bring essential equipment for the underground base disguised as merchandise for the mall.

Part 3: Nancy and Jonathan

If the show’s intention was to make Bruce and Tom as loathsome as possible so we wouldn’t feel bad when they got possessed by the Mind Flayer, well congratulations: They succeeded. I was deeply sick of the creeps at Nancy’s work, and wish Nancy had thrown a pitcher of scalding-hot coffee on all of them. Yes, it would have gotten her fired, but she was going to lose her job anyways by the next episode. Given how humiliating and degrading her employment was, she might as well have cut her loses then and there. They were never going to let her advance at the newspaper (no matter what she did to try and prove herself), and would have just kept her as their personal caterer while making nasty cracks at her expense.

Can I just say how gross it is to see grown-ass men twice Nancy’s age belittling her despite the fact she’s a teenager? Doubly-so for Tom who has a daughter (Heather) around the same age as Nancy. If he’s willing to be that vicious to Nancy (while smirking at the sexist jokes directed at her), it makes me seriously question what kind of relationship he has with Heather and his wife. I would not be surprised if there was an abusive situation going on in the Holloway’s household. All of which makes me indifferent when Heather clocks Tom over the head with a wine bottle before drugging him.

On a related note, it's time to talk about an 80s movie that factors into this arc in multiple ways: 9 to 5.

9 to 5 is a 1980 film centered around three women named Judy, Violet, and Doralee who work at Consolidated Companies under the employment of their sexist boss, Franklin M. Hart Jr. Initially cold with one another due to the soul-crushing work environment (as well as the mistaken belief Doralee is having sex with Franklin despite her repeatedly turning down his inappropriate advances), the three women bond over their mistreatment under Franklin (especially after Violet gets passed over for a promotion despite working 12 years at the company, as well as Franklin claiming credit to his superiors for an idea Violet designed). The movie is part social commentary about sexism in the workplace, and part wish-fulfillment regarding women who’ve had to put up with misogynistic bosses and would love to give them a piece of their minds.

Jake Busey (who plays Bruce on the show) cited this movie as inspiration not only for Nancy’s arc this season, but also for how Bruce’s character was modeled. The last tidbit I find interesting because while Franklin is an awful person, the movie depicts him as an incompetent buffoon, so much that the main characters are able to get one over him. He’s a lot like Captain Hook from Disney’s Peter Pan where his misfortunes are played for comedy, to the point you sometimes forget that they’re supposed to be a threat. Bruce, on the other hand, reminds me of Angela: A character who’s played seriously and is so deeply vile and unpleasant that they overstay their welcome and you wish they’d get off the screen. Jake Busey mentioned that Bruce’s character was also based on adult men he knew as a teenager who acted in that chauvinistic manner, and I believe him: You can’t write a character to be this believably hateful unless it’s based on people in real-life who behave like that.

Another theme the movie explores in a subtler way, similar to Stranger Things, is internalized misogyny. In 9 to 5, Doralee is initially treated with contempt because it’s believed she’s sleeping her way to the top (which isn’t true), to the point other women at the company give Doralee the cold-shoulder despite her being a friendly person. Violet is scornful of Judy when she first meets her, right down to her wardrobe choices (“We’re gonna need a special locker for the hat”). There’s also the character of Roz, who is a bootlicker to Franklin and gleefully throws other female employees under the bus if it means she can suck up to him. For all the criticisms thrown at Nancy’s arc this season about how the depictions of sexism and misogyny when it comes to men is “stereotypical” and “cliché” (never mind the fact men in real-life have acted this way with women, and in some cases have taken it further than that), some fans seem to forget the show’s also done subtle criticisms of internalized misogyny. Case in point: The way the housewives at the pool judge Billy vs Heather. Because Billy is a guy and conventionally attractive, he gets away with publicly fat-shaming a kid in front of everyone, and it gets treated as no big deal. Heather, meanwhile, scolds a different kid for dunking in the pool, but because they believe her voice is “nails on a chalkboard,” Heather gets criticized for her actions even though she’s doing her job and acting more professional than Billy. Same thing goes for Carol Perkins in the first two seasons: Remember when she gleefully slut-shamed Nancy when it was believed she cheated on Steve? Then one season later, she’s thirsting over Billy despite supposedly being in a relationship with Tommy? In any case, my point is there’s a lot more thought put into the themes explored on this show than the Duffer Brothers are given credit for.

Given Tom and Bruce’s eventual fate, I’m curious what happened to The Hawkins Post in the aftermath of the Meat Flayer’s demise, or if other employees were abducted and became the Flayed. Nancy’s comments in “Vecna’s Curse” indicate the newspaper is still ongoing with some of the same people (Chuck Bailey), and her scathing remarks imply nothing about the work culture has changed since she left. I’d question if anyone still employed there did any investigative work into the Starcourt Mall Fire (which was the Government cover-up story for all the people who died at the hands of the Mind Flayer), but given how quick they were to dismiss Nancy’s evidence about the rats, I seriously doubt it. I just wonder how many scandals and dead bodies will slip through their fingers before the newspaper loses all credibility and they either get shut down or replaced with competent reporters.

One thing I’m curious about: Why didn’t Nancy and Jonathan bring the rat with them from the previous episode as evidence to show Tom and the others? I’m talking about BEFORE the rat exploded into a pile of blood and guts (which they didn’t witness since they left at the time to investigate another lead). Nancy tells Jonathan in this episode they should get the rat from Mrs. Driscoll’s for further proof, but you’d think they’d have considered that option before they started developing the photos and Nancy had that degrading meeting with Tom and her asshole male co-workers. Not that it remotely excuses their vile behavior towards her.

Jonathan didn’t have a lot to do in this episode aside from trying to support Nancy as best he could (and reassure her when she got humiliated by the other men), so I don’t have much to say about him here. I’ll go more in-depth about his argument with Nancy in the next episode, but it is worth noting he made the choice to go with her to Mrs. Driscoll’s for the rat despite knowing they could possibly get fired for it. I mean that in both a positive and negative way. That’s also including how Nancy gave Jonathan an out by insisting on going alone if he was that worried about losing his job. This is important because it factors into how I view their upcoming fight with one another.

Part 4: Mike, Lucas, and Will

The first half of this arc was rough to get through, but it did pick up around when Mike and Will got into their argument, which is when things turned interesting.

To say I wasn’t impressed with Mike and Lucas in this episode is an understatement. Juvenile toilet humor aside, them whining about not doing anything wrong (despite having lied to El and Max) didn’t inspire much sympathy. Nor did their comments about women acting on emotion and not logic. I found myself siding with Will when he insisted on all of them playing D&D. Unfortunately, that didn’t go well either.

When I first saw this episode prior to season 4, I was under the impression that one of the reasons this arc existed was to show how Lucas and Mike had started to outgrow D&D and were no longer interested in playing it (which is why they were half-assing Will’s campaign). It still doesn’t make their behavior okay, but I could at least accept the idea D&D no longer appealed to them the same way it did for Will, and that they had moved on to other hobbies and interests. Given the Hellfire Club storyline though, that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. It has the unintended effect of making Mike and Lucas look like bigger jerks here than the narration intended to portray them as. It’s especially egregious they’re only thinking now of calling El and Max in the middle of Will’s D&D campaign, as opposed to doing it the night before when they were moping. I give credit that they apologized to Will later, but still.

Not helping matters is that, compared to Mike and Lucas, Will is the one who seems to get the most flak regarding his comments about girls in this episode (at least from what I’ve witnessed from this fandom). I’ve seen people take the “stupid girl” comment about El and run with it to portray Will as a misogynist, which…………. REALLY? 😒 I’m not going to argue that was Will’s best moment, but neither Mike nor Lucas come out looking any better with their comments about women, yet they seem to get let off the hook easier compared to Will. And before anyone puts words in my mouth, I am NOT saying that Mike, Lucas, and Will are misogynists. I am simply pointing out that fans have a bad tendency of running with the most extreme interpretations of characters, no matter how biased those interpretations are.

This even extends into season 4: I recall during my time on TV Tropes there was an infuriating entry made into the “Unintentionally Unsympathetic” category that accused Will of standing by and allowing Angela to bully El when they were living in Lenora because he was secretly jealous of Mike’s crush on El. I was so put-off by this braindead take that I immediately edited the page to remove it. I’ve also seen one or two similar takes circulating on Tumblr, which is one more reason I’ve distanced myself from this fandom. And I thought it was bad when there were actual Angela apologists who demonized El and downplayed Angela’s sadism to infantilize her. Sometimes, I wonder when people are intentionally trolling or ragebaiting because I have a hard time accepting they can come up with opinions this asinine and truly believe them. I get this is the internet, and disingenuous idiots exist, but Good Lord. 😒

Is Will hurt by the lack of interest from his friends in playing D&D despite the work he’s put into this campaign? Yes. Do I believe that Will is upset because he has a crush on Mike and doesn’t know how to deal with it? Also, yes. Do I view Will as having a hard time relating to his friends getting into relationships with girls since he’s gay? Ditto. I say that as a gay man who watched his friends and colleagues in high school prioritize romantic relationships with the opposite sex while I felt alienated because I could never open up about my orientation in a community that was deeply conservative. It sucks, and I don’t begrudge Will’s frustration over not knowing how to cope with that, especially at his age.

However, the idea that Will has a personal grudge against El, or harbors a deep hatred of women and girls stemming from misogyny, is complete bullshit. Will is many things, but he isn’t petty, and he doesn’t hate El. I’ve always taken the “stupid girl” comment to be less about El herself, and more about Will’s unhappiness that Mike is more interested in romantic relationships with girls over him. Mike could have been dating any other girl besides El in this moment, and Will would still have an issue with it because it’s not really about the girls. It’s about his own internal dilemma: He’s a gay teenager trying to wrestle with conflicting feelings, the reality of his orientation in a time period that was deeply homophobic, and also dealing with unresolved trauma over everything that’s happened since the Demogorgon took him into the Upside Down. The show emphasizes this via flashbacks to previous seasons, but Will’s desire to continue playing D&D is just as much about nostalgia and wanting things to go back to the way they were, as it is about finding some way he can continue to relate to Mike and Lucas via shared hobbies without feeling like he’s losing them.

On a related note, the comic Stranger Things and Dungeons & Dragons depicts Will as the Dungeon Master inviting El and Max several times to play D&D with them. So yeah, I maintain Will has never had a problem with El and Max in the Party, and that his “free of girls” comment at the beginning of this episode was more about wanting Mike and Lucas to be free of relationship drama for a day.

I remember when I watched this scene with my sister that she suggested a theory that’s stuck with me: That Mike IS AWARE Will is gay, and the “It’s not my fault you don’t like girls” comment was an acknowledgment of that instead of Mike being dismissive about Will’s feelings. It’s still unclear to me if Mike knows Will has a crush specifically on him, but I can buy the idea Mike’s known about Will’s sexual orientation for a while, and kept quiet about it because he didn’t know how to approach this topic with Will. It could also provide context in “Vecna’s Curse” for why Mike acted distant with Will compared to the frequent letters he sent El when both her and Will were living in Lenora. I don’t believe Mike is homophobic, same as I don’t believe Will is misogynistic, but I also don’t think he knows how to handle this situation between him and Will. The result is it has put a strain on both of them. It’s tragic, but it’s also a more sympathetic context compared to Mike just being completely oblivious and insensitive. A lot is going to depend on how they handle Will coming out to Mike in season 5, and where it goes from there.

Finally, there’s Will destroying Castle Byers and him realizing the Mind Flayer has returned. I remember a particular take from someone (whom I’ve since cut contact with, and have zero interest in ever speaking to again) about how this moment was supposed to be about Will finally taking action and no longer being a victim who lets things happen to him. I was put off by that opinion at the time, and it’s only years later that I understand why: It’s belittling of the trauma Will has gone through, and dismissive of how he’s fought for his life (and the people he loves) prior to this moment. Will was dealing with otherworldly threats who had the upper hand, but he wasn’t passive about it, and he certainly wasn’t someone who refused to act. One of the first things he did on the show when he was being chased by the Demogorgon was grabbing a gun and loading it with bullets to fend off the monster. When he got taken into the Upside Down, he spent a week evading danger, and even went as far as to warn Joyce when the Demogorgon was coming for her. Likewise in season 2, he attempted to force the Mind Flayer to go away when it came it for him. While that didn’t work, it was an example of Will standing his ground despite the Mind Flayer's overwhelming presence. On top of that, even though he was possessed by the Mind Flayer, he used the connection to help the others locate Hopper in the tunnels, warn them about the Mind Flayer’s demodogs coming to slaughter everyone at Hawkins Lab, and even gave them information about closing the Gate. These may not seem like big actions on the surface, but they’re significant in that Will was always a fighter, even with the odds against him. Is it true he needed aid in being rescued from the Upside Down, or exorcising the Mind Flayer from him? Yes. But that wasn’t due to a character flaw on Will’s part.

There’s also the unresolved trauma he’s still dealing with: I surmised Will initially brushing off sensing the Mind Flayer was him assuming it was PTSD-related at the time, as well as not wanting to believe the monster which tormented him for so long had come back into his life (which is understandable). Once it became clear to him that wasn’t the case, he didn’t hesitate to tell Mike and Lucas about it. Character development didn’t need to happen for Will to be able to do that.

I see the destruction of Castle Byers as more symbolic of a bigger issue with Will: That he’s still stuck emotionally in the past, frozen like the Upside Down. He’s desperately trying to cling to the moments in his life that made him happy (like dressing up as the Ghostbusters from last Halloween, or the D&D campaigns from season 1) as he’s coping with changes going on in his life, as well as the horrors of what happened to him. This is something that gets put on hold due to the current situation with the Mind Flayer's return, but it is one of those arcs the Duffer Brothers will likely revisit again in season 5. The BTS photos heavily imply there’s a reckoning in Will’s future where he can finally face his trauma, make peace with what happened, and come to terms with who he is and where he goes from here.

Part 5: Hopper and Joyce

Compared to the previous two episodes featuring Hopper, this one was an improvement. There are still some aspects regarding his character I wasn’t happy about, but he at least mellowed out enough towards the end to laugh at Joyce’s joke about Scott Clarke.

This is more of a nitpick regarding personal hygiene, but if I was Hopper and I was recovering from a hangover, I would not be drinking shower water or even chugging milk straight from the fridge. Blergh! 🤢

I have mixed feelings about the argument Joyce and Hopper get into at his cabin. On the one hand, Joyce turns out to be correct in her assumption that another Gate has opened, and her concern over the magnets not working (and investigating why it was happening) helped them in the long-term. As she points out to Hopper, after everything that’s happened in the past 2 seasons, it would have been stupid to ignore any potential warning signs of something being off in Hawkins. I don’t think Joyce intentionally skipped out on her date with Hopper, but just simply forgot about it. She’s always had that quirk of myopic fixation on something she deems important, to the point of filtering other stuff out. It’s how Joyce was able to believe Will was alive in season 1 (despite everyone else telling her otherwise and the fake corpse presented to her) and eventually rescue him. It’s also how she was able to get the Mind Flayer out of Will because she’d been paying attention to how it was affecting him. In this instance, it’s going to lead them to the Russians.

On the other hand, despite not being impressed with Hopper’s initial dismissal of Joyce, I get his irritation over being stood up. I also slightly understand why he’d be pissed about Joyce standing him up AND going to see another man, even if nothing romantic happened between her and Mr. Clarke and the visit was about getting scientific information. I said this in the previous review but, if the genders were reversed and it had been a male character who stood up a female character, not only would the narration never let them live it down, but the show (and to a certain extent, the fanbase) would have a field-day raking that male character over the coals. I’m still sympathetic towards Joyce, and she made the right call in following through with her gut instinct, but I also get where fans are coming from when they complain about that double-standard.

Regardless, Hopper lost me with his belittlement of Joyce’s claim, as well as the accusation that Joyce was scared of dating him and was inventing this to push him away. Putting aside how much of that is projection on Hopper’s part (How many women do you think Hopper has pushed away from a long-term relationship because he’s still grieving over Sara’s death?), it comes off as wildly out-of-character. Remember how he handled Joyce back in season 1 when she still believed Will was alive despite his apparent corpse showing up at the Quarry? How he didn’t dismiss or belittle her claims, and even kept an open mind, which is what led him to uncovering the conspiracy at Hawkins Lab? Where is that Jim Hopper? I miss him.

It's also just a low blow. This isn’t like Hopper is ignorant of the fact Joyce is still grieving over Bob’s death. Or that her past trauma, combined with the desire to move out of Hawkins, are a big reason for her acting the way she does. It makes him look insensitive to her feelings with how he pushes so hard to get into a relationship with her. It also presents an ulterior motive to Hopper’s reasons for wanting a date: He’s trying to keep Joyce in Hawkins.

I can’t really blame Hopper for wanting Joyce to stay. Moving to Lenora was a big mistake for a multitude of reasons (To this day, I still consider Lenora to be one of the worst arcs the show ever did). But the way he initially went about handing the situation didn’t help, and it made him look callous. His sarcastic attitude at Hawkins Lab (i.e. mockingly calling out in the darkness, knocking on the concrete-filled Gate) also wasn’t impressive. You’d think that if Joyce was willing to come back here, to a place where she saw her previous boyfriend die gruesomely, that Hopper would pick up pretty quickly that Joyce wasn’t messing around.

To his credit though, he eventually starts sympathizing with Joyce over her trauma, and even shares his experience almost shooting Betsy Payne’s dog because he believed it was one of the demodogs. He also talks directly with Joyce about her desire to move out of Hawkins, and empathizes with why she’s doing it: To escape the bad memories of the past. He of all people knows that’s not something you can easily walk away from, and it does follow you regardless of where you move on the map. In hindsight, I wish Joyce had taken up Hopper’s words of encouragement to stay, even with Hopper’s apparent death at the end of this season. It would have saved Joyce, her sons, and El a whole bunch of unnecessary grief. Hopper was right in that she had a better support system in Hawkins than she would have anywhere else.

On a related note, the scene where Hopper and Joyce have their conversation inside Hawkins Lab while it’s raining outside reminds me of the moment from Romancing the Stone when the characters of Joan Wilder and Jack T. Colton take refuge inside an airplane during a downpour.

Aside from both locations being an area where people died, the scene parallels Stranger Things in that it features two individuals who’ve been at odds with one another having a moment to bond. In Romancing the Stone, it’s Joan finally revealing to Jack why she hired him to help her get to Cartagena in Columbia (after initially being misled and isolated by the main villain): She’s trying to exchange a treasure map with dangerous people to save her sister’s life. While Jack initially seems callous about her situation, he eventually shares details about what he does for a living, and saves Joan from a poisonous snake. He also reveals his dream of purchasing a sailboat to travel around the ocean. In Stranger Things, it’s Hopper appealing for Joyce to remain in Hawkins and insisting he’s doing everything he can to keep her family safe. His dream (which becomes a recurring gag starting this season) is wanting a date with Joyce at Enzo’s. There’s also how both couples are chased by foreign adversaries: Grigori and the Russians in Stranger Things vs Colonel Zolo and his corrupt police force in Colombia. Given Romancing the Stone was cited as inspiration for season 3, it’s worthwhile to discuss it.

Speaking of Grigori, while it’s obvious the activated security camera Joyce and Hopper missed while exploring the Lab alerted him to their presence there, what’s less clear to me is why he only attacked Hopper without killing him and didn’t try to go after Joyce. We know Grigori wasn’t above targeting them for murder, as we see from later episodes, and we also know he was working to keep the Russian operation a secret from outsiders (This is assuming the reason Grigori thought Joyce and Hopper were at Hawkins Lab in the first place is because they already knew about the Gate). Why not take the opportunity to eliminate them here? He had Hopper on the ground. He could have finished Hopper then and there, waited in the dark for Joyce to come into the room to off her, and then gotten rid of the bodies while blackmailing Mayor Kline into putting out some cover-story about how they died. Why leave them alive and risk getting caught or recognized from his face and motorcycle license plate (which is exactly what happens in the next episode)?

On top of that, the security camera at the Lab raises questions about how much the Russians knew regarding the inner workings of Hawkins Lab and who was associated with it. They obviously knew about the Gate, but did they know about the special kids like El? Did they know about Vecna? The two different massacres that happened in 1979 and 1984? We know Grigori saw Hopper at Mayor Kline’s office, and was later at Enzo’s when Hopper got drunk, which implies Grigori had been tailing Hopper. Did Grigori know beforehand about Hopper's past connections to Hawkins Lab and the previous Gate? If so, how did he get that information?

Like I’ve said before, there’s a bunch of unanswered questions with the Russian arc. It’s why I’m pushing for season 5 to bring it back to give proper closure.

Finally, while the idea of exploring a deserted Hawkins Lab in a thunderstorm was ripe for scary possibilities, I was disappointed in how underwhelming the creepiness factor was. Maybe I was hoping for something along the Mr. Nightmare true horror stories about abandoned buildings and urban exploration, but Joyce and Hopper’s encounter with Grigori wasn’t as intense as it could have been (not helped by the fact I could see the jump-scare involving Grigori attacking Hopper coming several scenes beforehand), and I didn’t feel a sense of fear on behalf of the main characters. For comparison, Hopper’s first foray into Hawkins Lab when he evades security and encounters the Gate for the first time was one of the most thrilling scenes in the show because it was unknown at the time what Hopper was going to encounter, or if he’d make it out alive. In this scene from season 3? The sense of danger is absent, not helped by the lack of logic in Grigori’s action.

Part 6: Song Choices

This episodes feature plenty of songs. Because of the Tumblr restrictions of 10 videos per post, I'll only post videos for a few of them, but I highly recommend listening to all of the songs on Youtube.

First one in the episode is “Angel” by Madonna. Max is shown singing to it in El's room while El looks through magazines.

Similar to “Like a Prayer,” the song was inspired by Madonna’s Catholic upbringing, and the idea of angels watching over people in the mortal world and protecting them from danger. While the song in the context of this scene is about El and Max bonding, it holds more significance in hindsight with the fight El and Max have against Vecna in “The Piggyback.” I’ve analyzed before about how Vecna holds parallels to Lucifer residing over Hell (which is represented by the Upside Down). In season 4, he is the Devil coming to collect Max’s soul. The only thing holding Vecna at bay (while Max’s friends are dealing with other struggles) is El, the “Angel” attempting to protect Max (“Cause you came when I wished for you. This just can't be coincidence. The only way that this makes sense is that. Ooh, you're an angel”).

Next song that's heard is “Phone to Phone” by Life at Night. This plays when Hopper angrily storms into El’s room, believing Mike is there, only to find Max hanging out with El.

The song has a soothing melody, and is probably going to be another 80s favorite of mine. I’m glad this show introduced me to it. While it’s likely another song Max has El listen to as a means of building up her musical library, the lyrics talk about a long-term relationship between two people and how rough it is (“You’ll never know this life out in the streets. Some empty room, I crawl into sleep. I don’t know why I keep thinking that we’ll see each other again.”) The way they’re able to maintain this connection is via phone calls while the singer waits for his lover (“Phone to phone, I’m calling. Phone to phone I’m falling in love again.”). In the context of this moment, it’s a not-so-subtle indication that Max and El want the boys to call them to explain themselves and apologize. In the context of the show, I see it applicable to the long-distance relationship Jonathan and Nancy have in season 4, which puts a strain on them that has yet to be resolved.

Following that, we have “Lovegirl” by Teena Marie. This plays during the “Spin the Bottle” segment with Max and El while Hopper is watching TV outside. The lyrics center on someone who wants to be the lover for another person they’re attracted to, as well as the belief that other person feels the same way about them (“Cause I got a vibe on you. The first time that I saw you, saw you. I need your love and I won't bring no pain. A little birdie told me that you feel the same.”). I’m assuming this is how El feels about Mike despite the recent breakup, which is why Max is quick to reassure her they will get back together eventually. In the meantime, they’re going to have fun together until that time. Too bad that doesn't last long, given what they see Flayed Billy do.

The next musical segment is instrumental, but it comes from the movie The Dark Crystal (which I briefly discussed in my review of “The Weirdo on Maple Street”): “The Pod Dance” by Trevor Jones. It plays when Will wakes up Mike and Lucas for the D&D campaign he’s put together.

Ironically, I talked about that movie in relation to Will, his connection to the Upside Down, and how Will’s arc in season 5 might involve fixing something broken in the Upside Down to restore balance, similar to the Gelfling Jen’s quest to restore the missing shard of the Dark Crystal to end the Skeksis’s tyranny and restore stability to his world.

Then we have “Electric Knights” by Head On. This plays in the background when Max and El investigate Billy’s room to find evidence of Heather’s disappearance. The main chorus (“Come on. We’re waiting for you”) is a warning in the song, and one that ties ominously well with Flayed Billy: He’s waiting for El to find him.

Following that is a song heard when Nancy and Jonathan are developing photos in the darkroom: “All Your Reasons Why” by Smart Remarks. This is one of those songs where the beat is nice, but it’s difficult to make out the lyrics beyond “For all your reasons why.” Doesn’t help the lyrics aren’t available in the subtitles on Youtube, or online for that matter. There were a few I was able to pick up on: (“You hurt me and you cry.”) (“So you stay sober.”) (“You’re standing at the window, so surprised. It must be night.”). From what little I can understand, it conveys the idea this is a relationship in trouble, and while reasons are given, they aren’t really fixing the problem. Considering this is heard in the background during a positive moment right before Nancy goes outside to get ripped to shreds by her male coworkers, I’m guessing this is supposed to be reflective of the growing issues between Nancy and Jonathan over how they’re dealing with their jobs. Nancy’s reasons for wanting to prove she’s good as a reporter instead of being dismissed because of her sex vs Jonathan’s reasons about not wanting to step on toes and keeping his head down so he can keep his job.

The next song plays when Dustin and Steve are spying on people in Starcourt Mall: “Things Can Only Get Better” by Howard Jones. The song deals with taking a risk despite the fear associated with that (“Do you feel scared? I do. But I won't stop and falter. And if we threw it all away. Things can only get better.”), and living life to the fullest without regrets (“Future dreams we have to realize. A thousand skeptic hands won't keep us from the things we plan. Unless we're clinging to the things we prize.”). This is reflective of Steve’s dilemma right now, which Dustin spells out for him: He’s out of high school, and he can either continue to be held down by meaningless dates and social constructs like popularity, or he can take a chance to try something new and make the most of his life. While we know that Steve won’t get together with Robin due to her orientation, his developing friendship with her is a big reason he's able to move past those constructs by the end of the season and start thinking about what he wants to do with his future. Things can only get better, indeed.

Next song is “Place in My Heart” by Brian Page. This plays when El and Max go to the pool to talk with the lifeguards and find out where Heather is. In the context of the scene, it’s mostly background music. In the context of the show, where the song is about love and making room in someone’s heart for another person, the lyrics could apply to any popular relationships on the show (“There's a place in my heart. Don't you see my baby? I just wanna tell you, there's room inside this heart of mine.”). In a broader sense, now that Stranger Things is coming to an end, and season 5 will be the last time we see all these characters together, these particular lyrics hit home: “Hold onto the times, you really better. 'Cause the times we have together are so few. Always know what we have will last forever.”

Following that is a classic everyone should recognize: “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” by Wham! This plays when Dustin and Steve are staring at the Jazzercise instructor and all the ladies taking his class. The song’s lyrics are about being crazy in love when someone brightens your life (“You get the grey skies outta my way (whoo-hoo). You make the sun shine brighter than Doris Day”). Additionally, a “go-go” is a dance club, and the song refers to a guy who’s upset that the girl he’s in love with didn’t wake him to go dancing with her. (“But something's bugging me, something ain't right. My best friend told me what you did last night. You left me sleeping in my bed. I was dreaming, but I should've been with you instead.”). As a result, he asks the girl to wake him up so that he doesn’t miss that again with her (“Wake me up before you go-go. I don't wanna miss it when you hit that high.”). In the context of the scene, it’s mostly Steve and Dustin looking bemused when the Jazzercise class starts, and probably wondering how they pegged the wrong guy.

Next song comes when El and Max enter the Holloway's house and find the creepy sight of Billy having dinner with Heather’s parents: “Is It A Sin?” by Al Hazan. This show has a thing for taking old songs and playing them for eerie effect. The lyrics convey the question of whether it’s a sin to fall in love with someone who doesn’t love them (“I believe it's wrong. Wrong to love. When the one you love won't love you. But it could be so heavenly. If you'd only say that you love me too.”). In a very twisted, macabre sense, I see the lyrics applying to the Mind Flayer’s desire for control and its possessive intentions (“So tell me that you’ll be mine forever, and I will never, ever have to ask you again”) The difference is the Mind Flayer isn’t asking. It’s taking without consent.

Finally, we have “American Pie” by Don McLean which is played for morbid effect during the scene when Flayed Billy and Flayed Heather drug and attack Tom and Janet Holloway.

This was one of my favorite songs growing up, and it’s an interesting choice that they used it for this scene. The song refers to the infamous plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Booper (J.P. Richardson), which was termed “The Day The Music Died.” The song itself is lengthy, going on for over 8 minutes, and has been subjected to multiple interpretations. Personally, I’ve always viewed the song as one about nostalgia, loss, and accepting the reality that life changes and things can’t go back to the way they were before. It’s one that perfectly encapsulates the theme of season 3, which is about the characters wrestling with change and coming to terms with that. The Mind Flayer is the antithesis of that change: While it certainly has no qualms about destroying the world to fit its image, it likes things the way they are in the Upside Down: On top with all the power, and everyone and everything enslaved to its will. There is no ability to change, or even the agency to do so, under the Mind Flayer. It’s a fate worse than death since everything is stuck and unable to progress. Just like what happened to Billy, Heather, and everyone else that’s become the Flayed.

[scrapplescribbles]

Intro to Fairfable

second (prettier) edition :D (i took way too long to finally post this cause i did a lot of overthinking 😭)

You've heard the myths. Most of you just think they're made up.

Humans tend to neglect the wisdom that all legends are based in truth, that some things are beyond science. That maybe fairy tales aren't fantasy.

There is another world that exists alongside your own. Its name matters little. Its people are familiar. All that is required of you is to look into Those Places—you know the ones I mean—and let them take you there. However, since the Other Folk are not particularly fond of intruders, let this story suffice as your window into their lives. Things are changing in their world. In a realm of myth and magic, what better place to begin than the most ordinary?

If you've made it this far, I'm gonna hope you're at least a little interested. And prepared for a long ass yap. If things go the way I want them to and we get Fairfable off the ground, it will grow into a full-fledged indie animated series. Unfortunately, I can't animate, and even if I were to start learning several years ago, I can't animate a whole multi-season show by myself. The closest thing I have to a production team is my self-recruited friend to help write some episodes and my cousin who knows that at some point within the next couple years he's gonna get a text saying he's gonna help me make music for Not Hazbin Hotel. I would start getting more people together to work on it, but I just graduated high school and am using pretty much every cent I have access to to pay for college. Not optimal conditions for creating an entirely new show from scratch. But it has pages and pages worth of ideas in Google Docs, so we're getting somewhere, at least (I say, knowing full well that I spend most of my "writing" time watching youtube video essays and blasting music into my ears.)

I have a lot of goals for this. It's pretty character-driven, but it does have a bigger overarching plot tied to deeper lore (duh, I have a ton of mythology and magic stuff to work with.) This show is supposed to be fun but serious when it needs to be. It's also proudly queer (take one look at its creator 💀) and full of neurodivergent representation. Also, I want it to be a musical because I'm a music-loving theater kid. Fight me. (Actually don't I have the strength of an angry toothpick)

There's comedy. There's symbolism. Ironically, there's humanity, but art is supposed to reflect the world it's created in. There's love in every bit of this project, and if that ever fails to show through, I've failed as a writer. The cast is diverse in its stories and in its characters' flaws, and I'm doing my best to make them feel like real people in spite of the fact that they're fantasy creatures. Let it be known that I am a sucker for found family and any story about characters helping each other heal wounds from their past and grow into better people. I LOVE me some good wholesome healing. That's what this is. It gets serious because some characters deal with real serious trauma, and I do not plan on making light of people's trauma. But they find time to laugh, y'know?

There are still a lot of things I need to figure out. Any part of the story or the characters or anything could change at any time. I'm also always learning, whether it be through experience (after all, as of this summer I'll only have 18 years of it) or research. But, as I do with anything I write, I love to have fun with it. Jokes and shitposts always have a home on this blog and in my heart (as long as they're not offensive or maliciously ignorant, of course.) Anyway, I think I'm getting dangerously close to reaching a point where I don't make sense anymore, so let's move on.

Characters

the main focus of this project. for the people who have seen a million of these intros already im sorry lmao its for the new people. also i will add pictures when i get the motivation and im happy with the results (i do have some half-finished thumbnails so yippee!! let's see if i get any further with that!)

Nema (she/her)

Nema's always been different.

Over the years, her "gift" has earned her a reputation. Not that she ever went around telling everyone about it, but, when you occasionally mutter vague prophecies and randomly zone out in the middle of sentences, it's kind of hard to hide. No one has a clue why she's plagued by these visions. All she knows is that too many of them have come true, and people always focus on that instead of just plain old Nema.

But then again, sometimes she gets a feeling. Just like she did the day she popped her head out of the water and really took a look at the old abandoned treehouse. Just like she did the day she met Lynx, Sal, Zing, and Shailyn. And, for once, it didn't feel ominous and foreboding. She doesn't know where fate will take her. But maybe, for once, it's going somewhere good.

Lynx (she/her)

A cat with a mission and a patience that wears thinner by the day.

It's been months since Lynx began her search for somewhere to move out. Sure, of course she loves her family, but love doesn't give you Lynx's parents' seemingly magical tolerance for screaming children scurrying around an absolutely cramped den. She's glad she had the experience of living there, but it's high time for a less overstimulating change of pace.

The only problem is that the places with neon mold creatures stuck in the drywall and mandrake infestations are the only ones Lynx can afford on her own, and she'd feel bad asking her parents for money. She's gonna need a roommate or two to share the financial burden. Or three. Or four, if you want to count the fairy. But for the four of them who do know how money works, this tree seems weirdly perfect (aside from the overgrown-ness.) Only one question is on Lynx's mind: is this too good to be true, or has the bull finally stopped shitting?

Zing (pronouns? yeah those are cool)

Zing, shapeshifter, at your service.

Zing has always prided themself on their ability to make friends. It's easy when you're a walking party trick with the charm and impeccable sense of style to match. But even a free spirit has to settle down sometime. This ragtag band of individuals too broke to afford housing on their own seems like the perfect opportunity to set up a home base. And, of course, the individuals themselves are intriguing, to say the least.

Nema's quiet. Shy. But nice once you get her talking. Makes you wonder what she's hiding. Shailyn's friendly. She just seems curious. You have to be careful with your words around her, but that's nothing Zing isn't already on top of. Lynx and Sal will be tougher to crack—Sal especially. But nothing like a challenge! At least that's what Zing is telling themself.

Shailyn (she/her)

New people. Interesting.

The tree hasn't been inhabited for years—a long time when it comes to the shorter-lived creatures of this world. So one can imagine the fairy's surprise when she popped in one day to check on her plants, only to discover people there.

Typically, the fairy likes to keep to herself. She likes this tree—the old, abandoned, living building fascinates her, and she finds it a delightful place to spend her time. But she did always suppose it was only a matter of time before others came. They're curious little beings. And, while they're here, this seems to be as good a time as any to socialize.

Sal (he/him)

Finally.

For what seems like far too long, Sal has been looking for somewhere to go. He doesn't care where, how, or who with, as long as he doesn't have to deal with his mother constantly breathing down his neck anymore. All he wants is real independence, and now he finally has a chance to have it.

Of course, he'd rather not have to live with fairy tricks in his own home. She seems odd, even for a fairy. But, it's still a house, and at least the other people don't seem too bad. Lynx and Nema are cool. Zing seems like a bit of a wild card, but whatever. Things are different now. Sal can deal with it. Whatever may happen.

Content Warnings

these are here because they're important to the stories and development of the characters. even though i personally have not experienced many of these things, i still want to raise awareness and fight stigma around mental health issues and trauma. you'll see a lot of "non-graphic mentions of/allusions to" in this list. that's exactly what i mean—no more, no less. i will update this as i learn more and as the show itself changes. if there are problems with the way fairfable approaches any of these topics, i would appreciate constructive criticism in order to keep these depictions as respectful and realistic as possible. lots of love to anyone affected by these issues <3

cursing/strong language

a bit of non-gory violence

homophobia from society and from family

non-graphic mentions of the past death of a parent that happened when the character was young

emotional abuse/manipulation from a parent/family member

mentions of/allusions to past suicidal thoughts

non-graphic mentions of/allusions to past SH

past and current non-physical self-destructive behavior

non-graphic mentions of/allusions to SA

mentions of/allusions to past toxic relationships ranging from familial to platonic to romantic/sexual

Conclusion

So that's the gist of it, I think. Thanks for being here; it means a lot :)

Asks and comments are always welcome if there's anything you want to say or know more about. (🙏🙏 Please guys I really like talking and the more specific the question the better cause I feel like every time I get a generalized question like "what are you working on?" or "free token to talk about your wips!" I just say the same things over and over again. Not that I don't appreciate the asks; I just don't wanna bore y'all and myself 😭)

Fairfable Taglist!

these are the real ones 🔥🔥 lmk if you want to be added/removed

@foxgloves-garden @novaluna7189 @generation-of-vipers @woodlandstarz13 @peculiardragon22

dividers from here :)

[liilyhearts]

I hope so Critic

Honestly, this review took me some time because I didn't know what to say. I read this comic several times, and while it is quite entertaining at first, much of the story would slip my mind by the time I finished it. Moreover, the plot starts to become awkward and tedious when the lionesses embark on their journey outside the pride.

The ironic part is that this is precisely the central theme of the story.

One aspect that particularly annoys me is the way the lions name other creatures with terms like “Pickers,” “Stripecoats,” “Cackler,” and “Thunderfoot.” These names, in addition to sounding excessively literal, break the immersion and hinder the reading. If it weren’t a visual medium, following the story would be even more difficult. Supposedly, they were inspired by Watership Down to create this kind of nomenclature, but the influence seems superficial. In Watership Down, rabbits would name unfamiliar things differently, and those terms were quite limited. They also used their own words for specific actions, like Silflay or Hrair.

In this case, the device makes no sense because in Watership Down, the rabbits called plants by their real names, as they depended on them for survival and therefore knew them well. Here, on the other hand, the lions use these absurd names to refer to prey that is a fundamental part of their diet and that they should recognize without any issue.

Only The Land Before Time is allowed to use such obvious names.

Additionally, as I mentioned before, these terms are extremely self-descriptive. At least Watership Down created its own language, while these lions simply speak English with forced, distinct names.

As for the characters, they are acceptable. They aren’t terrible, but they fall into overly basic stereotypes, which makes them indistinguishable within the xenofiction genre. Jasper is the most generic villain I’ve seen in this kind of story, and the same goes for Edge. They’re so flat that they don’t even inspire disdain.

Visually, I must say the art is fine; I like it, but I feel the artists lack experience in comic composition. Some panels are excessively large for insignificant scenes, which causes the story to drag unnecessarily. With better planning, certain moments could be resolved in two pages instead of wasting several more.

I also don’t know if the authors are unaware that hyenas aren’t canines, as they draw them like dogs with manes. I understand the stylization, but for heaven’s sake, they look like hunchbacked wild dogs.

This compositional issue contributes to the frustratingly slow pace of the story. I know that drawing a comic takes time and effort, and the authors probably can’t work on it full-time. However, after three years since its release, the progress is practically nonexistent.

Moving on to another point: the narrative is clumsy.

At one point, there’s a kingdom lions surrounded by a green, lush environment, which completely contrasts with the naturalistic setting the work seemed to present at the beginning. In reality, this lion, Diamond, adds nothing to the main plot and just steals time that could have been spent, I don’t know, on our protagonists finally reaching him, where we could actually get to know him. As the story progresses, by the time he joins the group, we’ll probably not even remember who he was unless there are chapters dedicated to him and his predictable “I want to see the world” story.

Exploring more about Edge would actually be more useful for the narrative.

As for the cosmology/mythology/religion—which, in theory, isn’t religion—I must say I neither remember nor paid much attention to the brief stories at the beginning of each chapter. They’re bland and hardly add anything, except perhaps the one about the hyenas. If they truly wanted to emulate Watership Down, they should have taken inspiration from Richard Adams’ prose, which succeeded in immersing the reader in his world with stories full of charisma and personality. It’s a shame that this aspect is overlooked in the adaptations.

It’s also confusing who they are referring to as the Great King. They speak of him as if he were a deity, but according to their posts on Tumblr, he’s not. And the Traveler is basically the Black Rabbit of Inlé, but without grace. Honestly, I forgot that this story aims to develop its own culture.

Other than that, the story is okay, but nothing special.

[icannotreadcursive]

Please tell us your cryptid takes

Okay, so

My main thing I'm super fuckin' pedantic about is that the word "cryptid" has a specific meaning, and it drives me a little nuts that people in general, and very much people on tumblr, use it wrong all the goddamn time.

A cryptid is just an animal. An animal that is attested to exist in a particular environment, which is either not formally documented and recognized to exist by mainstream zoology at all, or is not recognized to exist in that particular time or place.

Something that is definitively known to not exist is not a cryptid, so a known hoax is just a hoax, even if it was considered a cryptid before the hoax was found out. Something that has been formally recognized to exist is not a cryptid, even if it used to be.

Not all cryptids are real, that's just fact, but the important thing to bear in mind, is any genuine cryptid potentially could be.

Folklore and mythology can be a source of evidence attesting to the existence of cryptids, so there is naturally overlap between folkloric creatures and cryptids, but not all folkloric creatures are cryptids.

Jackalopes are not fucking cryptids.

They're folkloric creatures we know for a fucking fact do not really exist. Specifically, it's a "fearsome critter"—a kind of folkloric creature intentionally made up to entertain and to kinda pull the legs of credulous outsiders to a group or area. Australian drop bears exist in the same sort of category.

Mothman is a cryptid that has become a folkoric creature since the initial sighting accounts captured the public imagination. The version of mothman tumblr is fond of is the folkloric one, and bears little to no resemblance to the actual cryptid.

Figures from Native belief systems are generally not cryptids because cryptids are just animals, even if they're weird animals, and things like spirits are, well, spirits, and religious belief is a different conversation. These mythologies can, however, help attest to the existence of some cryptids, and certain cryptids share their names with figures from them. For instance, there's the thunderbird figure found in many Native North American traditions, and there's a large bird of prey cryptid attested particularly in the Western US usually known as thunderbirds.

Fictional characters like slenderman are not cryptids, and never will be because they are fictional. Future cryptids may, however, borrow names from fictional characters or creatures they happen to resemble.

The weird goth kid in your neighborhood who likes to walk around at night is not a cryptid, but may be mistaken for one.

Cryptozoology is a science, and barely a hundred years ago was just part of zoology. It's really only been separated out as its own thing as mainstream zoology got to a point of knowing and understanding enough about the animals in our world that most people both in and out of the scientific community generally feel like We Know What Animals There Are.

There's a certain amount of human arrogance reflected in that, and the fact that new species are discovered every year is proof that it's not really true.

The nature of cryptozoology is that it exists at the crossroads of zoology, sociology, and the study of oral tradition, because so much of it boils down to "hey, the locals say there's a animal around here." But that doesn't mean it should not be treated like a real science, held to standards of scientific rigor, and respected as a field of research.

When tumblr spoopy aesthetic types take to calling every creepy critter they hear of or invent "cryptids", it contributes to the damaging image of cryptozoology as woo-woo bullshit that only gullible nutcases believe in, and it pisses me off.

I am someone who loves the parasciences as sciences. I'm fascinated by the edges of our understanding of the the world around us and am excited by our attempts to reach past those edges and learn a little more, but I believe that must be gone about in a way that builds on the foundations of understanding we already have, rather than treating serious scientific inquiry like a roadblock getting in the way of our fun. So I fucking hate the woo-woo shit and the people who push the woo-woo shit. There is so much room to be excited and interested and to explore in the realm of the unexplained and little-understood without acting like gullible moron, and lord knows we've got too many gullible morons around anyway. Just look at the state of politics.

I genuinely believe it is vital to humanity's future and our health as a society for us all to approach the world with both an open mind and a healthy degree of skepticism. To be curious about how things work, and to question, to dig into things that don't quite make sense or that seem too good to be true. To think critiaclly.

Every fucking time people call goodamn jackalopes cryptids, they are directly working in opposition to that.

I will never be fucking chill about this.

[pedrocomicreviews]

The Immortal Thor Full Book Review

“And I am just a man.“

The most blatant case of fraudulent advertising since The Neverending Story! Spoilers.

Jokes aside, Al Ewing delivers yet another excellent book in Marvel canon, which was unfortunately shot in the knee a couple times by rocky execution of some ideas, meandering plot lines and at least one attempt at being funny that didn’t quite go anywhere. 

Just so I say it and we’re on the same page, I really liked The Immortal Thor. It’s obviously not over; Mortal Thor has already been announced and will be maintaining the same team and story moving forward. This is the halfway point of the story and it was always meant to be like this. Whether or not it would have generated another #1 issue in times past is anyone’s guess, but either way. We’re talking about a story half-told.

And I think most of that story was pretty good. I particularly really enjoyed the idea of “Gods above Gods” Ewing weaved with the Utgard gang– Utgard-Thor and Utgard-Loki were extremely compelling antagonists for as little as they were in the story, and I hope to see something on that level again in the next book. 

Specifically, I really appreciate this book taking Thor as a mythological character again. I mentioned it in other reviews, but I think the downfall of a Thor book is when you copy and paste a wikipedia article about some named character in the Eddas and say they’re a new Thor villain, while completely ignoring what they represented or even did to accrue notoriety in the first place. Thor as a comic book character is, to me, a lot less interesting than Thor as a creature who has been the subject of stories so old, he doesn’t expect anyone alive to know of them. I think Ewing writes that aspect of the character extremely well, in a way I’ve always wanted to see.

This was in many ways a return to form for a lot of characters. Thor is wearing his classic costume and interacting with his classic friends and foes. Loki, who became one of my favorite characters due to Ewing’s Agent of Asgard, is back in a somewhat antagonistic role after basically becoming the main character of the Asgardians for a while. And they’re incredible at it– the new design as the Skald and the things they do in this are so up my alley, I really think this is as good as Loki has been in a Thor book in decades.

The first few issues of this are really compelling, and set up some very interesting things that the book consistently rewards you for remembering, or just paying attention to. Promises are kept, characters do exactly what they say they will do, and everything is told in a way that you can only do when you plan your stories ahead. Not the masterclass of novelty that Immortal Hulk was, but an incredible time either way.

Which is what we can say about the ten or so first issues, but then we run into where things take a bit of a turn. Let’s talk about Roxxon and humor as social commentary. 

Around issue #9 or #10 of The Immortal Thor, we’re introduced to the idea that Dario Agger, the minotaur CEO of local evil company Roxxon, alongside the Enchantress, has tainted Thor’s reputation on a meta level. He’s made people believe that Thor is a dumb, violent little man by publishing a magic comic book that convinces everyone Thor is basically a corporate mascot for Roxxon, which comes off as his story being one where he’s a techbro obsessed with gadgets who’s fighting Loki, the god of lies who controls the woke mob through fake news.

And, like, look, listen, it’s, it’s fine. It’s a fine joke. The book is drawn by Greg Land, which I must assume is on purpose, as a commentary on the exact kind of art that man produces on the regular. And it has some funny jokes– 

I’ve been laughing at this page for about a year. Sometimes I still go YAAAAY 10 HOUR VIDEO ESSAY to myself in a dark room, as my life falls apart and my friends give up on reaching out. But, the point I’m trying to make here is that this is the singular most important fucking thing that happens in this entire book until the last issue. This is the reason why Thor leaves Earth almost for the entire rest of the book, and only really returns for single appearances in other books or for specific story beats. This is the introduction of Thor as a “story”-- a thing you can alter to your will if you simply tell it a different way, which is Loki’s purview. 

And it’s simply not… good enough a story, I feel. Not THE ROXXIN’ THOR! in general, obviously that 900-issue strong run is classic for a reason, the NFThor event is still a gem; but the way this arc is told in the story really leaves a lot to be desired. It doesn’t have a conclusion and it basically acts as an excuse for Thor to stop focusing on human affairs, which the plot does need. We’re going to get more about it in Mortal Thor, but if you take Immortal Thor as a full book– which it is, Marvel will sell it as one, issue #25 is the last issue of The Immortal Thor volume 1,– then you’ll be left thoroughly disappointed.

It’s particularly egregious because it’s not like a loose thread; we have constant updates about how the Roxxon storyline is still ongoing and will continue at some point, we just never… go there again. Instead we’re left with a book that will then go on to have more setup, and weave more threads for the future of the story. Thor has a son now and we barely spend time with him. Thor and Sif reconnect and it’s basically a call for emotion after the end. Hell, Heimdall comes back! He’s just back! And then we move on!

And the setup is fun, it’s not uninteresting. Thor spends a long time acquiring three different weapons to confront Utgard, and those are nice little labors– even featuring Hercules, at some point. His relationship with Loki falls apart once more, and while that story’s been told a lot of times, it’s always fun to see Ewing writing it.

Which can’t always be said about the art. The beginning of the book counted with the immeasurably talented Martin Cóccolo, with colors by Matthew Wilson. A genuine dream team, which made the book have an incredible look that really added to the experience. But after that original first few issues and around when the Roxxon arc began, Cóccolo goes on to draw Ahmed’s Wolverine, and the main art is taken over by Jan Balzadua, with colors by Matt Hollingsworth. The book never looks bad, but it does go from looking like this…

To looking like this.

And just so we’re clear, this isn't bad art at all. This is obviously competent at worst and pretty good at best. It’s just a massive shame that it doesn’t seem to have the page-by-page gravitas and synergy that the original duo had going on for almost 10 full issues. And I do feel like the end suffers from it, too– the final few designs of enemies we had been teased before are very simplistic and don’t quite have the same sense of scale and menace that the original issues had. The run really depended on Thor looking like a thing out of myth, and while I believe Cóppolo and Wilson managed that more often than not, I kinda feel like Balzadua and Hollingsworth draw him “normal”. Like just another superhero doing his thing. Which is obviously fine, but, ah, man, god damn, we had something here.

Unevenly slow pacing and inconsistent art culminates into a pretty good finale that I believe lands, and introduces us to our new status quo very succinctly: Thor wakes up on Earth, not a god but a man named Sigurd Jarlson, a name five Thor fans may remember as one he held in the 80s. Loki’s prophetic killing of Thor shattered the metaphysical connection between Midgard and the rest of the realms; Thor and the Gods have simply never existed aside from stories. It’s an in-universe retcon that will be the focus of the next part of the story. The world remembers Beta Ray Bill as the Avenger with a hammer, not the Odinson.

And I’m very excited to see how books that weren’t in on the bit deal with this. Surely we’re going to keep having Thor stories parallel to this, but I am curious if they’ll have Beta Ray Bill showing up in Avengers every once in a while. I’m also very keen to see what Sigurd will be like in this new era, especially as Roxxon will probably use Thor as… well, as Marvel uses Thor. A character that can be anything, and say anything corporate wants him to.

There’s a lot that can go right and a lot that can go wrong with where we go from here. I’m very optimistic, because it’s one of my favorite writers doing a story I’m already invested in, but it took a while to get here. A while that I think could have been shorter and sweeter, instead of somewhat stretched out into a nice number for volume collection. 

The sordid affairs of comic book-making aside, this is a great Thor run, but not for everyone. I’m looking forward to the continuation, and am very curious where Marvel will allow the team to take this character next.

[threeeyesslitthroat]

Critiques on PJO Show, Summarized as succinctly as possible.

Disclaimer: feel free to come at me if you disagree.

EPISODE ONE... was mostly fine, did a good job making me realize how fucking scary the concept of the Mist actually is, dulled down Gabe Ugliano way down, did something cute with Mythomagic, made a benign and weird decision to insinuate that Percy was considered to be schizophrenic alongside diagnosed ADHD and Dyslexia, skipped out on his previous wacky and unsettling adventures (destroyed a school bus, almost drowned his classmates in a shark tank in the aquarium, accidently) and had a great fight with the Minotaur(the tighty whitey's were stupid tho.) Unfortunately, Episode one foreshadowed that the show was way to into killing tension and not letting it build.

EPISODE TWO...was also fine. Was personally disappointed that Dionysus did not threaten Percy by making him see visions of men going mad and being strangled with vines, but that is 2000% my disappointment, not on the show, (tho I could make the argument why its on the show as a n adaptation.) the introduction of Luke and Annabeth and Clarisse was great. the Camp Half blood set could've been cooler but they'll build on it, (I hope) I'm not particularly disappointed by the removing the tension in the camp while he was staying there or that no one took a knee when he was claimed. Tho I would have appreciated it greatly if the show had nailed the "Oh Fuck" reaction when Percy did get claimed. unfortunately, we spend only one episode that gives a rough summary of what it was like to actually be there.

*unfortunately we really only get The Lightning Thief and The Sea of Monsters to really introduce and get the reader to settle into Camp Halfblood, which means that one season got bungled already

EPISODE THREE...Started to show a few more cracks but was mostly fine. we didnt get to see the bus blow up properly, but okay, they're off the bus now. its cool. Thalia got name dropped. The Show destroyed any and all tension with the team having encountered Medusa's lair by not even letting them slowly figure out just what they walked into. Frankly, this is where I get a little angry, because Riordan wrote one fucking factor built in that wouldn't have allowed our main trio from discovering Medusa immediately. The FUCKING MIST. IT works on Demigods. Our main characters could have been tricked, but apparently Annabeth is too smart. Motherfucker anyone who has read a fucking picture book of greek mythology would know who Medusa is and what her modus operandi is OH I wonder What all these realistic concrete statues of people and MONsters AND NYmphs SIGNIFY YOU FUCKER-

but yeah whatever. Other than that one legitimate critique that I would defend in court this episode was fine, wasn't that impressed with the depiction of Medusa but whatever, great job everyone, I got One reason to fist fight Riordan now.

EPISODE FOUR.....…. Made Me So FUCKING ANGRY LIKE TYOU WOULDNT BELIEVE-

Did it do anything good? St Louis Arch being a modern day Temple was cool. AS an IDEA. Execution was piss bad. ill explain in two seconds. Annabeth and Grover trying to cure Percy with the splish splash was cute. Percy tricking Annabeth was great. Teaching younger viewers that all cops are cunts was awesome. Scobell's underwater acting was cool

Episode Four's list of Crimes are: Disrespecting Thalia Grace before she even has been properly introduced to the audience. Was insulting. don't do it again. Annabeth's understanding of her own mom was sketchy when I first watched it but I was going to let it slide and move on if it wasn't for the bullshit after. The whole conversation with Echidna was a big waste of my fucking time. Fuck all of you. The grand escape from Echidna and her unrevealed creature withering down to our trio WALKING FUCKING WALKING- I hate all of you. The Design of the Chimera. Fuck everyone and everything that is not the fucking Chimera.

Athena being depicted as someone who would punish her own daughter for shit she didn't even do^3 (Percy signed the fucking box, Annabeth isn't the fucking leader of the quest, Athena is the goddess of wisdom, this trio is the best chance of preventing war, its outright stupid to make them die) and withdrawing her protection to let her demigod daughter die...Riordan I'm beating your ass for three rounds. I will drag your ass out of your bed and beat your ass in your own drive way.

Why does this shit make me so mad, You Aren't Asking? I'm glad your not. Not even in Greek Mythology itself is it even the gods MO to make an effort for their Kids to die. if they got killed fair game but to withdraw protection, they didn't fucking do that. Also, if Riordan had wrote this out in any of his novels the story would have been wrenched hard at the really intense repercussions of a god engineering for their child TO DIE.

oh yeah the whole just breathe thing...yeah its fine. not that cool but it was fine.

EPISODE FIVE...yeah it was fine. I wasn't looking forward to the whole Tunnel o' love thing because I didn't particularly enjoy it in the novel but I was pleasantly surprised. the lack of Spiders was okay. the depiction of Ares was okay. I enjoyed the actor. but I do like how Grover faced Ares off cause that shit was really great. Annabeth's rant to Hephaestus doesn't really check out and I'm expecting Hephaestus to call in that favor later. The whole golden chair thing was pretty good, felt like something out of the Heroes of Olympus tbh, except the constant sacrificing is starting to get a little grating. yeah, we know. Its Percabeth. Have some class.

oh yeah, the whole Annabeth's seeing the fates thing …fuck off, its not supposed to be her moment if they did that they better go through with it too because if their going to take Percy and Luke's thing and giving it to Annabeth then these writers better do something with it.

EPISODE SIX...it was okay but kinda boring. I honestly figured that there wasn't going to be a substantial Nico Di Angelo cameo anyway. Annabeth using a prism instead of water was cool. Luke's "old married couple" comment was idiotic. them knowing how the Lotus Casino works is another prime example of the show not letting tension or discovery happen. everybody has to be too smart for simple tricks despite the fact that the simplest tricks are the most effective sometimes. Meeting with Hermes is fine but my main critique here is that they're introducing Luke's shit way too fucking early. Like, if they do this they better go through with this shit i swear to fuck-

The driving was funny.

The Deadline having already passed was a big fucking waste of everyone's fucking time How is that Riordan wrote at Least TEN FUCKING BOOKS USING THE DEADLINE AS AN ESSENTIAL NARRATIVE DEVICE AND SOMEHOW DECIDED TO JUST PISS ALL OVER THIS SIMPLE ASS CONCEPT OVER MY FUCKING LAPTOP SCREEN ARE YOU SHITTING ME. Oh yeah and there were no consequences either. Like remember How it was strongly fucking implied that if Percy failed to return the lightning bolt Zeus was going to fucking kill Percy where he stood? No? like there were consequences to missing that fucking deadline. assholes.

EPISODE SEVEN almost made start swearing out loud in a library.

yeah the groves of Asphodel was an interesting concept for twenty seconds and then shat itself. the design of Cerberus was cute. loved it. The pit to Tartarus was cool. I am not angry that the Underworld did not fit the one I saw in my head because I understand that modern filmmaking is severely allergic to showing any sense of grand mass scale. okay, I'm capable of being gracious. Hades was charming and also a little funny. Poseidon and Sally's flashback scene I'm neutral about. it was done well. I sort of felt something. the actual discussion I have a bone to pick with.

I'm done being gracious. on to the crimes.

I'm in the camp that the Sally-Percy flashback intro was not great for Sally's character. adaptation wise. none adaptation wise? yeah sure the pursuit of parental realism was mediocre but fine. I said earlier that going the route of implying that people thought Percy had schizophrenia wasn't really the best and this is where the show bites itself in the ass. walking into Procrustes's trap already knowing Procrustes's trap was insulting and they didn't have the decency to let Percy do any decapitation. (honestly dude if they had let Percy get out the sword and cut that fucker's head off I would have forgiven this entire episode cause I was starving for action scenes at this point) Kicking Annabeth out for the rest of the episode is a crime but I cant decide if its because its boring or insulting or something else. wasting everyone's fucking time with the fourth pearl is a crime. whoever thought that Riordan was going to "gives a little shred of hope and then snatch it away" are you new here? like, did you just get here? because anyone who has Riordan's number at least subconsciously suspected this was going to be a waste of time.

Hades introduction was a massive fucking crime Adaptation wise. that's not my fucking Hades, I hate this adaptation.

none adaptation wise? a fucking let down for anyone that knows jack shit about mythology and an okay subversion of expectations for anybody that is completely ignorant.

the back and forth dialogue between the Two and Hades was cool tho.

EPSIODE EIGHT. yeah so I didn't know that we were only getting eight episodes total so I actually did have hope until i saw the up next on episode seven and then realized oh we were fucked all the way down. I'm not saying the lightning thief was like the Return of the King but it did have a quite have to wrap up a lot of shit one by one as one reads it.

Percy vs Ares was fine. by this point I didn't really hope for like, a great fight scene, so I'm happy with what we had. Oh yeah by this point I think I made peace with the fact that we weren't going to acknowledge the Nation Wide Man Hunt of Percy Jackson Plotline from the novel because apparently we weren't going to have fun on this show. that shot of Percy going for the deadly slice was great.

oh yeah this episode also confirmed that we weren't going to see any real consequences of missing the deadline anyway. oh sure, you hear about it but that not real effort on the shows part anyway.

Olympus looked nice. the aesthetic of the "throne Room" was kinda nice. rest in peace ceiling of stars you will be missed. ancient thrones was a decent touch. Poseidon and Zeus speaking greek brought joy to my heart. Luke and Percy's training being included at all brought a shred of hope to my asshole heart at this point. Luke's betrayal scene...okay at that point it just felt like we were wrapping all the important shit up. Percy calling Kronos Grandpa was funny. the goodbye between the trio was nice. the final monologue pumped me up a little bit.

Honestly I wanted Zeus to just kill Percy. kid. shut. the. fuck. up. shutupshut up shot the fuck up just kill him. I want you to do it. I want you to fucking kill this kid I'm serious. (live reaction) oh wow you wanted to set up Poseidon taking one for Percy how clever and not a cheap bit for the audience to instantly like Poseidon as the good godly dad instead of the affectionate ambiguity of pride shown in the novel that is maintained through out the novels (on e of the few fucking things that were maintained in those novels honestly). Having the reunion between Sally and Percy be interrupted was bad taste.

I miss the "Luke trying to fucking murder Percy" scene a little bit. Also Percy's line in defense of the gods was so asinine after the second, third, fourth, and fifth, and eight episodes going on and on about how much the gods suck. Annabeth being there is fine but its just one those things that could build towards something new and interesting in following seasons but I wouldn't be surprised if the showrunners don't do anything with that. "the gods

oh yeah, thank you for letting me watch Gabe kill himself instead of watching Sally murder the fucker. not like that was fucking important or anything.

honestly I don't think it would have saved the show that much but I think it would have helped the show a LOT if they had two more episodes, or at least two more episodes worth of time. personally I would put one extra episode for camp halfblood and one extra episode for the ending. at least so we can some immediate backstory of Luke failing his quest if we cant also have the Fucking FBI On Percy's Ass Plotline. (I miss you so much)

the nicest thing I can say about this show is that It makes me want to read the books more and that I need to go read some PJO fanfiction. maybe then I'll calm down. Maybe not.

anyway if any of ya'll wanna fight me on this rundown of succinct critiques I got plenty of free time. you know where the comment section is.

[ultrahpfan5blog]

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is a Dumb Fun movie....

with a capital D and a capital F. There is absolutely no doubt that this is a very dumb movie. As always, the human characters are essentially exposition machines with ridiculous dialogue and the whole native human mythology doesn't even really make any sense, but damn if it isn't fun. When the monsters start fighting each other, its just glorious to watch. Watching Kong essentially ride Godzilla on the big screen, is something that is always worth watching. The film also gives us a fair share of monsters. Some for short scenes only, like Scylla and Tiamat, but there is also the welcome return of Mothra, not to mention many other random creatures in Hollow Earth. But the main monsters hold center stage. Like with GvK, Kong is the primary character, but Godzilla does get to kick ass. Skar King was primarily a Kong villain, with Shimo acting as his enslaved pet, forced to do his bidding. Shimo ended up being oddly cute and innocent. There is a bit of issue of scale. Because about 70% of the movie takes place in hollow earth, Kong looks oddly small, because of the size of the environment. Its only in the climax you realize how big he is and all these other creatures are.

With regards to the human characters, poor Rebecca Hall is basically a mouthpiece for exposition as the central MONARCH character for this film. I do have a bit of a frustration with these Monsterverse movies due to the lack of continuity between characters. Yes, Brian and Rebecca return, but Alexander Skarsgard, who was established as the head of the hollow earth monitoring at the end of the last movie, is gone without a trace. Kyle Chandler, who was a MONARCH head honcho, is also not even mentioned. Kaylee Hottle as Jia has a expanded role and there is some attempt at drama between Jia and Ilene, but its not something that makes an impression. Dan Stevens and Brian Tyree Henry end up making more of an impression with some fun humor and good banter and chemistry. Outside of these 4, no other major human characters. It was nice to not have to deal with human villains, like in GvK and KOTM.

I would say that WIngard manages to achieve what he set out to do. Which is to make a movie that is fun. I think its safe to say that Monsterverse is never going to have particularly deep characters. This is not going to be, nor is it attempting to be, Godzilla Minus One. I will commend the movie for giving some pretty long stretches of scenes with essentially no humans, and hence, no dialogue, with the creatures just expressing emotion through facial expression. I will give credit to the CGI artists for doing a very commendable job. If I had to compare to previous films, I would say GvK is slightly better made. There is less going on in GvK, while GxK throws a lot at the screen. The initial portions feel a little sluggish because the amount of exposition thrown at the screen, but when it gets down to monsters fighting, Wingard knows what he is doing, and there is a fair bit of it.

Overall, this was like a 7-7.5/10. Obviously, this is a film that some people will hate. You need to be able to embrace the dumbness to really have fun with this film.

[foggypainterstudentfmp]

Idea Generation #2

One of my ideas is a medieval themed game from the theme of Fools Gold. I had a few ideas at the time when I was researching the theme of fools gold.

These were:

castle crashers cross wormz

a close combat brawler

I don't think the first idea is a particularly viable option I don't think the wormz cross castle crashers would work as if you are using a side view game for a close up brawler it wouldn't be too detailed and would be too difficult to see what's going on. The second one is okay but needs to be worked or built on so I am going to do some research to see if I can come up with any ideas and expand the idea I already have.

Here is a mindmap I made with medieval as the main theme:

This has allowed me to expand into the areas of mythological creatures and different varieties of people for the time e.g. rich and poor. This is helpful as it has allowed me further expansion of ideas and allows me to have ideas of what to piece together for my mood board and has given me ideas for enemies for example you cold have king vs peasants or knights vs dragons etc.

Here is a mood board to do with my idea:

This gives me a good idea in what I have open to me for example settings, weapons, characters and enemies. This also gives me a good idea into different looks for characters for example for the dragon it could be more of the generic, sharp dragon look or it could be more ethnic themed for example the blue one is the Chinese art design for a dragon so I have numerous art styles if I choose to use it.

My idea is to build on the brawler idea that I had at the beginning as I feel it could work well with numerous characters also I haven't came up with any other ideas that can compete with this idea.

My idea is to make a close combat brawler where you have many different medieval weapons all dealing different amounts of damage. The idea is that you will play as a king and you will have a level against a dragon, peasants and fairies. These will all have different powers for example dragons have the ability to shoot fire streaks at you, peasants can use the power of togetherness and fairies can make the player float using magic when hit. My specialist practice will be gameplay as it is going to be focused around the usage of different characters and enemy types and the abilities these characters can use.

This is a story I created in the form of a moodboard:

It is just a simple little backstory but it is a good short bit of backstory context for a brawler game so it doesn't need to be particularly long winded just why the 2 sides are at conflict.

[readnburied]

5 Fantasy Book Recommendations for You

We all need book recommendations from time to time because at times we run out of reading material or can’t decide what to read next. So this post contains five fantasy book recommendations for you guys. See, if your favorite pick is on here and if so, do you agree with my opinion? 

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

This book should be your go-to if you’re looking to read some high fantasy. This is a big book, no doubt about it, but the story inside really takes you on a ride. The author seamlessly weaves two different stories of two different characters coming from separate worlds and brings them together at the end, which really goes with the flow. You do not feel as if you’re jumping from one point to another, rather it’s a smooth sailing with a lot of emotions thrown in.

Yes, this book is not for everyone due to the sheer length of it, but once you read it, you’ll find it worth it. Plus who doesn’t love reading about dragons and magic? 

Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust

When a mere touch has a power to kill you, would you really hang out with that person? This is the case with our main character and because of this curse she’s forced to stay in isolation with no friends whatsoever. But when a handsome man shows interest in her, she can’t help but lower her guard, which is something I understand. We’re social creatures and nobody likes to live a life of isolation and rejection. 

However, all is not what it seems as Soraya is plunged into a sea of darkness and deception all the while trying to protect those she loves from herself. But at times you don’t realize that the one thing you’re trying to run from or the one thing you fear has the power to set you free. 

If you’re a fan of fairytales then this book is for you. The author expertly takes elements from a childhood fairytale and entwines it with pieces of fantasy in order to create this masterpiece. I really enjoyed reading this book last year and will highly recommend it. And though Soraya thought her abilities to be a curse, I thought she had the coolest power and would’ve loved to trade places with her. Yes, my life is that boring! 

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

This is the first book I read by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and I really enjoyed the fact that the author wrote about Mayan Gods in this book. On top of that, we go on a journey with the main character in order to help the God reclaim his throne.

I love books which take you on a journey to different countries. If I could, I would travel to every country in the world, but since I can’t do that yet, I enjoy visiting different places through books and this book really satisfied my craving for adventure and travel. 

If you’re looking to read about something other than Greek or Roman mythology, then give this book a try and hopefully you’ll enjoy it. 

Piranesi by Susanna Clark

This book is a strange one. I have to be honest, I didn’t particularly like this book when I first read it, however, upon further reflection I realized that this book is an interesting gem. Yes, it has a slow start and it might even confuse you, but as you read further along everything will start to make sense and it does get fairly interesting towards the end. 

The author has incorporated various elements that most writers don’t really consider putting in their works for one reason or the other, so even though this book appears to be a little dull initially, it has some unique elements which makes this book a must read. 

Yes, it’s not my most favorite but I’m adding it to this list because it might just be your cup of tea and this book is different from all the fantasy books I’ve read. 

The Once and Future Witches by Alix E Harrow

First off, let me start by saying that I love witches and magic and everything related to them and this book had me falling face first in love with it. 

If you’re a fan of the TV series Charmed then you’ll love this book. The book follows three sisters who’ve been estranged due to reasons you’ll know about if you read the book, who try to navigate their lives all the while keeping in mind the conservative society which they belong to. 

Magic runs through their veins but the people around them want them dead which forces the sisters to work together in order to protect others like them as well as those they hold most dear to them. 

My, oh my, I absolutely loved this book. I don’t think there was anything which I didn’t enjoy. I was just sad that I didn’t read this book sooner because it’s amazing and I highly recommend everyone to give this book a try. There are so many things I love about this book, I can go on forever, but for this post, let’s keep it short and sweet by saying the writing style, the characterization, the plot, and those small snippets at the beginning of every chapter—my favorite—everything was spot on and I think this is a book I wouldn’t mind reading again. 

So there we have it, five fantasy book recommendations for you guys, I hope this gave you some idea on what to read next. Do let me know if you’ve read any of these and what are your thoughts on it, or even if you’re planning on reading any of these. And if you have any recommendations for me, feel free to comment down below as I’m always looking for new books to read. 

[susiron]

I love Webtoons and its ability to help my ADHD ass keep up with comics. The artists that post their comics there deserve a lot of love and support, and I wanna share my favorites (in no particular order)! Some of them are more popular than others, while some are newer or I had to dig for them.

1. Castle Swimmer

This Webtoon got me to download the app in the first place. It’s a very cute comic about gay merpeople and prophecies and I love it dearly. It has lovely representation (trans, gay, bi, and even ace characters!), an adorable art style, and I love the unfolding story of it. Seeing a merpeople comic that’s entirely underwater and without humans is really cool too. It has some pretty rad fish and monster designs also, including the cutest little axolotl-puppy.

2. Lumine

Another super cute one. It involves werewolf (and weredog) people and witches. I love the art and the dynamic between the two main characters. The character designs are all so simple but so lovely. I’m obsessed with how they draw paws.

3. Suitor Armor

I love literally everything about this comic. The characters, the art, the story. It’s on hiatus right now and I’ll be racing to read it once it returns. It’s about fairies, magic, and the most precious suit of armor since Alphonse Elric. It also has some great representation and the loveliest drawn hair.

4. The Croaking

Very gay, very good. Awesome art, really interesting world building, intriguing characters and story. The romance in it is a very slow burn with lots of twists and turns and it has had me hooked for a long while now. When I first started reading it I like got no sleep to catch up with the story. It’s about a world full of avian people (people with bird wings) with a lot of racial tension between the various types of bird species.

5. Heir’s Game

It’s about a man of noble birth falling in love with one of the men fighting to become his bodyguard in a series of duels. The world building for the country the story is based in is really cool, and it’s just as gay as you might expect.

6. Everything is Fine

I just started reading this one and damn if it aint unsettling. FAIR WARNING it’s got some graphic depictions of violence, and also an early depiction of a dead dog (there are warnings in the comic for when these occur). It involves an idealistic neighborhood of people wearing these goofy cat masks, with every page slowly revealing something more fucked up going on under the tense surface.

7. Nomads

This one is very new but I’m already loving it. It’s about a dude deciding to become a “nomad” to explore a world that restricts travel otherwise. The art for it is already lovely and I’m interested to see more of the world and story!

8. AstralSounds

This one is about funky little alien dudes exploring the universe and collecting specimens to research-- as well as the intricacies of interacting with intelligent extraterrestrial life. Space is typically not my jam, but the story is interesting and I love the creature designs.

9. Equus Siderae

Anyone that consistently draws horses as well as this artist manages to deserves a medal. Seeing the artist’s work improve over the course of the comic is particularly awesome. If you want a story with animal protags, and some crazy magic shenanigans, it’s a really interesting one. 

10. Forgotten

This is another one I just started (and am not caught up with). It’s about cats solving cat murders and the art is REALLY fucking cute. I definitely need to read more of it.

11. The Little Trashmaid

Of all the comics I’ve listed here this one is the least story-driven one. You’ve possibly seen the original Little Trashmaid drawing when it made its rounds on Tumblr years ago. This comic is very cute and wholesome and it is going somewhere with its characters between all the shenanigans. Also the artist uses the comic to support cleaning up the oceans, helping bees, and other eco-friendly pursuits!

12. Fox Fires

I only started this comic a few weeks ago and I couldn’t stop reading it until I was caught up. The characters are all animals (with the main character being a raccoon dog), and the story is heavily inspired by Finnish mythology. It has some wicked elf designs and the art style is adorable. 

[the---hermit]

Hide by Kiersten White

This novel was a ride. It got a lot of criticism, I have lots of things to say too, but weirdly enough they're completly different. Hide is an horror novel set in an abandoned theme park where fourteen people are challenge to a game of hide and seek for a week. Clearly things go wrong very quickly, or it wouldn't be an horror novel. The main complaints I have read for this book is that it's too short to be set around so many characters and you don't know enough about all of them to care about what is happening. This book is surely too short to care about fourteen people, but it made sense to me. We are mainly following Mack who clearly states that she does not plan on getting to know anyone, her plan is to stay as hidden as she possibly can even in the more emotional and social side of things. Since we follow her it makes sense for us to only get to know a little better those with who she will inevitably spend more time with, and almost not know anything about the others. What I think could have been done differently is that everyone should have been characterized a bit more, because I will admit I was very confused for almost half of the novel because I couldn't remember who was who. Overall it's not easy for me to say why I wasn't satisfied with this book. The idea could have been interesting, the book was absolutely entrataining that has to be said, but it missed something for me. When things start to go wrong there should be a bit of a mystery of what is going on but at page 60 I had almost exactly guessed what was happening and how (I'll say a bit more in a spoiler-y part under the cut). That kind of killed the thrill for me, I was intrigued to know if I was right but it was more and more obvious I got it very close. Now what probably didn't help is that those things that differenciated my idea to what actually happened felt very messy and didn't surprise me. And here comes another thing I didn't like bout this novel, the descriptions felt messy and confused. I couldn't picutre things and people as clearly as I would have and the story did not benefit from this. As for the end, I won't of course say anything to avoid spoilers, but something happened that I didn't like because it felt forced, I could kind of see that coming and at the end of the day what happened next to that fact wasn't too bad. But that one thing felt really unbelievable to be honest. I know this last thought was particularly messy but it's not easy to talk about this stuff with zero context to avoid spoilers. Overall the book was mediocre I would say, it's not bad but it's not good either. There was a lot of potential in my opinion but it felt wasted.

I read this both for the studyblr w/ knives pride challenge for the prompt fucked up queers, and for the horror challenge queer main character prompt.

As usual when you see a read more section in one of my book reviews it means that from here on I'll say stuff that contains spoilers.

In particular here I'd like to talk a bit more about the supernatural (if that's even the right word) stuff that was going on in the theme park. As I mentioned above around page 60 I realize what was probably going on and although I wasn't 100% right the thing was still a minotaur-like creature. I am not trying to play it cool like "I am super smart cause I got what the inspiration was super early in the book", the fact that I'm a mythology nerd might have helped but to be honest I felt like it was super obvious. There was too much emphasis on the clues that made me guess that this was going to be a minotaur sort of thing (which I should also say it wasn't but also I am not sure what the hell that monster was cause again, to me at least, the descriptions felt super messy). An even number of players half female half male that slowly disappear as they walk around what is said approximately an hundred times a labirint makes the inspiration very clear. And if you found yourself wondering whether you were right or not a quick check into the name of the city Asterion will give you the final clue to guess. (The real name of the minotaur is litteraly Asterion or Asterius depending on who's writing). I didn't realize it at first but once I had all three informations it was too quick and obvious to realize everything, and that killed the mood pretty badly. As I said there was a lot of potential, the idea of a sort of minotaur figure and the maze is so cool especially in a more modern setting, but I feel like things were too messy to actually work and be satisfying.

[magicalhideoutengineer]

b&a: When you are reading the script, when you are breaking something like that down, what are the first things you’re thinking about, when you have a character like the Manticores to achieve?

Christian Manz: When we were looking at something like the Manticores as creatures to design, the first thing were were thinking of, in the spirit of the rest of the creatures that we’ve done in the Beasts franchise was, how were we going to make something that is like a Greek mythological creature but also an authentic creature. Part of the remit we’ve been given on all the Beasts films is to make audiences believe that they’re witnessing a living, breathing animal. A lot of those mythological beasts, particularly Greek ones, tend to be half-horse, half-human, half-whatever, and a Manticore is part-lion with a human face, and part scorpion.

Our approach really was to think about it like this: maybe when a human first saw a giraffe, they said, ‘Hey that’s a horse and something else I don’t recognize,’ and they came back and drew it and actually it turned into something else. We went down that route with the Manticore of, how could we change the behaviour of something that is, effectively, a giant, horrible insect?

One of the briefs David gave us from the very beginning of the sequence was for it to be sort of German expressionist: absurd, but, at the same time, horrible. We’d never really done a horrible creature that Newt knows about yet. Here, it’s going to kill him. It was also to have something massive, which we’d never really done before.

b&a: But that’s interesting, because it is massive, but you don’t really see it.

Christian Manz: Yes, we had to design the massive one to imagine the story. Because you have to go into its full anatomy and everything to work out what it looks like. And also, different versions of the script have you seeing it maybe more than you ended up doing eventually. We also fall into that thing that, actually, if you want it to be scary, you want to see less of it. Then, in keeping with a lot of the other creature stuff, we thought, well, if it’s massive, you’re not going to see all of it, because it’s massive. The more impossibly wide you frame the creature so that you can see it in its entirety, the more CG it would appear. So, you really want to put yourself with the characters, and the audience with them. And therefore, it’s a bit more scary, because you think you are going to be killed as well.

Alongside designing the creature, I worked with Giles Asbury, who was the storyboard artist, and David, where we’d sit in a room for two or three hours, and just chat the script over, and then begin beat-sheeting out ideas, and growing the action. It had to hit David’s beats of being funny, but scary, and just weird. Stuff like, ‘Oh, maybe the lamps that they’ve got are actually bugs, and even though this creature’s massive, maybe it’s scared of those bugs. So when they’re smashed, that’s the moment when people are killed.’ And then, the babies eat what’s thrown back at them. David loved the idea of this regurgitating something. We had a logic to its system of how it’s living down there. And of course, David always wanted the cut after the sequence, where you cut to a lobster on a plate in the Great Hall. It’s really nice watching in a cinema and hearing everyone always chuckle at that.

The main driver was scorpions, for the look. When we looked at the insectoid thing, because we were looking at a lot of microscopic images of insects as well, because they tend to be quite horrible. We started posing it more like it was a multi-limb scorpion, that when it’s sat, when you come across it, it’s sat and it’s almost like a lion, because it’s got lots of spines that look like a mane. When’t it’s posed and sat there, and you think, ‘Oh, it’s a lion.’

And it’s kind of got this weird face. We looked at African masks, and beetles. We were like, ‘What if somebody had seen this thing, and then drawn that as a face, and then that had got changed as they drew it.

b&a: What was the animation testing process like?

Christian Manz: Well, firstly, Dan Baker in the Framestore art department came up with a design that David really liked. He’d get it into a sculpt and then we could then pass that to Nathan McConnell, who was our animation supervisor, who was working with us at the studio. Ben Loch and Stéphane Nazé were Framestore’s visual effects supervisors in London and Montreal respectively.

Then with the help from The Third Floor previs team, we built an asset that they could begin playing with. The concept had so many limbs and we had to say, ‘How’s that actually going to work?’ So, that honed down the design into having six arms and three tails. And we always put things into vignettes rather than just a normal run cycle.

There were some really great references that Nathan found of scorpions, but then obviously the biggest thing from the script was the limbic mimicry. That is, Newt’s posed walk, which would make the creatures benign. For that, we’d come up with some walks, and then show those to Eddie Redmayne in pre-production and he was like, ‘Oh yeah, they’re cool.’

Then he went away, worked with his movement coach, Alex Reynolds, looking at what we had done. And then I got back lots of little videos of things. He’d say, ‘What do you think of these?’ And then we were like, ‘Oh, well maybe this one works,’ and then we’d animate. And then he went back and did some more and then brought Callum Turner as Theseus in, too.

b&a: That’s fascinating because I reckon most people would’ve thought Eddie just performed something on set and you then animated to match.

Christian Manz: It was a process, there were some very ‘Ministry of Silly Walks’ moments. Some were like, ‘Is it too bonkers?’ In the end, the characters had to work together and we wanted it to be funny. You could always hear David chuckling in the tent when Eddie suddenly throws a pose and holds it. The reason why it works as well is Eddie is incredibly committed to making that work. He cares about the character, cares about what we are doing and making it work together. And that makes it all believable. The final animation, led by Animation Supervisor Aulo Licinio in Framestore’s Montreal studio, was incredibly intricate and nuanced, which was the real icing on the cake.

b&a: What set did the actors perform on?

Christian Manz: We had a massive set. The actual prison, the main tunnel of the prison, and the rotunda, was a massive five-storey set within a sound stage. Stephane Naze and the Framestore Montreal team still needed to extend this – but once we got into the climactic chase there was much less physical set and therefore a vast amount of digital environment that could then be smashed and melted by the Manticore.

b&a: How did you plan out the sequence?

Christian Manz: I was working with The Third Floor, doing the previs and we previs’d that whole chase. We were trying to think of how to make it scary, funny and different. Immediately, I was like, ‘What if we melt the rock, they can be molten, when it spits venom?’ And that way, too, we could see, in terms of lighting, since we were suddenly in these black tunnels. George Richmond, the DP, had very much gone for the bold move of just lighting mainly from those bug lanterns. So, of course, as soon as the lanterns were gone, we needed some other lighting.

Actually, for those bug lanterns, we did some camera tests to get the right brightness out of them. It was all battery operated in the end, which is great now with what you could do with LEDs. It was battery operated but still controlled from the lighting desk. We agreed to a rhythm that we’d come up with the light, but then all of the lit sections of the lanterns were completely replaced by Framestore’s Montreal team to add the animated bugs and enhance the interactive light – a huge amount of detailed comp work.

b&a: For on-set shooting, were any kind of stand-ins used for the Manticores?

Christian Manz: We had a stinger tail made by Stitches and Glue and we had four puppeteers on set. It wasn’t necessarily in all the takes, but it certainly gave the size and scale of the thing. And we also had a crazy ‘tube’ thing as an antenna that initially comes up to Newt and sniffs him out.

For the baby Manticores we had trusty old foamcore with cut-outs at the right scale dotted around. We only had five or six of them, but Rob Duncan, our on-set supe, put out a ton of tracking markers, too. We knew that they weren’t necessarily interacting with them directly, but it was really important that the actors were looking at the right place.