#and i figured that 'other' would make as much sense out of context (AKA if the searcher hasn't seen my Tag List that explains it)

[crowdsourcedgender]

My zine, 'Label Coining as an Artform', is finally done! Transcript/Image ID underneath (warning: it's long). Printed version in a reblog.

[Image ID: A series of pages in a zine. The text is handwritten, and all figures described are simplified stick figures.

Page 1: ‘LABEL COINING as an ARTFORM in large text. Below is the multicolored MOGAI wheel, with three figures taking pieces of the colors and using them for art: sculpting, cutting a piece of paper, and painting. Below is ‘a MOGAI (& LIOM!) zine by Elliot/Hesper aka @ crowdsourcedgender on tumblr. Under the text are five pride flags: aro-spec, veldian, alterhuman, xenoman, and schooldoodlic.

Page 2: ‘Label Coining’ in large pink text. ‘(in this context) is the act of creating a word (and usually flag) for a certain experience!’. Next to this text is a figure filled in with pink with a speech bubble full of pink shapes, talking to someone using a cane holding out a hand and expressing a question mark. Below reads ‘generally a queer experience, but does often include or incorporate disability, neurodivergence etc.’ A figure asks ‘Why?’ and the text reads ‘I would say these are the ‘core tenets’:’. In a cloud next to this text is a blue and purple pride flag with purple text reading: ‘like this cool prosopagnosia flag I made!’.

The bottom half of the page is split into two columns: ‘Understanding’ and ‘Community’. The first column has a purple arm amputee explaining a purple rectangle to another purple person who is thinking ‘that’s me!!’. Next to them another purple person is explaining the same rectangle to a blank person, who has a purple-filled thought bubble with a white exclamation mark. Underneath the drawing is text surrounded by question marks: ‘Labels help people understand what they are experiencing, and communicate this to others. It’s easier to explain something when it’s already been written down!” The second column has a purple person holding a purple umbrella. They are waving to a purple person in a wheelchair. A purple person is leading another one to the group. Underneath the drawing is text surrounded by connected dots: ‘People can unite under a shared label whether this group is big or small! Whether for practical purposes (like advice) or just for fun, having people like you is nice.

Page 3: ‘And these are just as important as ever! But I’ve noticed what I like to call COINING for the sake of CREATION’. This last phrase is in large, dark and light blue text. Two sun symbols are on either side. Below is the text: ‘Vexillology is very clearly an artform, but label coining has become something more (not to mention that not all new labels have flags!). It’s composed of multiple skills has become more than the sum of its parts. Any art captures an experience, but label coining is much more explicit about it. And not just people’s experience of their identity! Part of the art of label coining is incorporating other concepts too, e.g. Schooldoodlic A gender related to doodling on school work papers and/or your homework. By spirits-gender-coining on Tumblr.’ The text about Schooldoodlic is small and light teal. Next to the text is its flag.

Page 4: ‘Elements of Label Coining’. The text on this page is separated into four green boxes.

‘Naming: Coming up with the actual word can be tricky. Generally, labels with lots of elements get more leeway with length. It’s important to check that a label isn’t already a word as well.’ Next to this text is more rough, dark green text reading ‘Premade suffixes + prefixes help! And latin (for some languages) as it’s possible to intuit meaning!’ Around the text is a few examples: ‘-vesil’ ‘-musica’ ‘an-’ ‘quoi-’

‘Flag making: Also known as vexillology, this is a pretty big deal. It’s also the most fun for me! You develop a really good sense of color from spending so much recoloring the same three stripes.’ Next to the text is 6 versions of the same pride flag, each with slightly different colors, with a 7th final version with a symbol.

‘Symbol making: Most flags don’t have symbols, but they’re good for groups of labels under a certain umbrella, or just if you have a really good idea.’ Next to this is rough, dark green text reading: ‘I drew three semirealistic flowers for a flag and ended up only using one’ with sad face. Under it is a drawing of a daisy, a pink coneflower, and lavender, which is circled.

‘Descriptions/formatting: Explanations can be artistic in their own right, and formatting is fun to mess with: many people have their own style. Make sure it’s accessible: add image IDs and plain text where applicable. There are a lot of good resources online!’ In dark green text is the phrase ‘Accessibility over Aesthetics’ with an image of a key on top and sparkles below.

Underneath the boxes in light green text is ‘Note: in the right context, any of these can be optional!’

Page 5: ‘If it wasn’t clear, I think this is AWESOME’. Awesome is in large text with yellow radiating lines. Underneath is ‘I’m a MOGAI coiner myself (generally) with about 65 coins at time of drawing. Using something I made, I wanted to demonstrate what a label coining might look like!’ Underneath is four versions of the same pride flag as well as a description, with ‘flag!’ ‘stripe meanings (I don’t normally do these)’ ‘symbol’ ‘name’ ‘pre-existing format’ and ‘experience’ labelled. The description reads ‘[Image ID was here] Human non-conforming (HNC). Human non-conforming (HNC, similar to gender non-conforming) is an umbrella label encompassing all identities and subcultures that somehow incorporate nonhuman elements in any way.’

Page 6: ‘The thing I love most about the label coining community is just that- the community! The way coiners and users interact, as well as how coiners can work together, is wonderful. There are 5 large words each with an associated doodle.

‘Requesting’: A figure leaning on forearm crutches has a speech bubble with yellow shapes exploding out of it. Another figure is taking shapes down from the bubble and forming it into a ball.

‘Collecting’: A figure is pulling a yellow cart with a large cloth bag labelled ‘LABELS’. They have stars in their eyes, and are looking at another person who is gesturing to a yellow rectangle.

‘Collaborating’: Two figures, one with orange speech and one with yellow speech and an AAC tablet are discussing, with many shapes and lines intermingling to make a fragmented rectangle.

‘Combining’: A figure in a grey hijab pulls down a lever. They are standing next to a large blender mixing orange and yellow liquids. On either side is bright yellow lightning.

‘Redesiging’: A small star with four radial lines coming out of it becomes more and more complex, indicated by black arrows.

Under the words is the text: ‘I’ve never participated, but there’s this amazing event called: COINFIGHT. Hosted by @ kiruliom on Tumblr. It’s inspired by artfight, and it involves coining labels for other people- but competitive-ish!’ Coinfight is in large, text with a crescent moon with stars at the top right corner, and a star at the bottom left.

Page 7: ‘I don’t think there’s anything like finding a label that finally fits you, or hearing that something you made did that for someone else.’ Under is a figure looking at an orange flower with light lines, then forming elements of the flower into a bubble, then showing an orange rectangle to another figure, with orange tendrils reaching towards them, forming the shape of a heart. Below is the text ‘There are a lot of things like pouring out your heart- or just having fun- while making or collecting label. I coin in the same mind I sketch and color and shade.’ On each side is a pen drawing an orange figure with a red shirt, and a tablet with an orange and red flag. Under this is ‘Label coining is an artform both like and unlike any other, and I’m proud to participate in it. I hope that if you want to, you can join me. And if that’s not your thing- thanks for reading!’ There is a drawing of a figure with dark grey wings holding up two fingers. Next is a ‘<2’ heart and ‘elliot’ as a signature. In smaller text next to these is ‘Thank you to the creators whose work is featured in this zine! Credit on the next page. Remember to keep this wonderful community and artform accessible to all!’

Page 8: ‘Credit’: This section has a pride flag next to each label. ‘Aromantic-spectum, @ theflagarchive on Tumblr. Turian, @ kenochoric on Tumblr. Schooldoodlic, @ spirits-gender-coining on Tumblr. Xenoman, @ ryanyflags on Tumblr. MOGAI symbol, Kautr Wikimedia Commons. Alterhuman, @ vaestra on Tumblr. (the flag on pg. 4 is Wildflowergender). ‘About making this zine’: ‘I really, really regret handwriting this. Drawing over Helvetica Neue for so long might change my actual handwriting, [more rough:] which looks like this! According to Artstudio Pro, I took 14 hours! I barely planned this before starting, the color wheel theme and the people doodles. /End ID]

[chaos0pikachu]

Film Making? In My BL? - The Sign ep01 Edition

So, if we're doing this we're doing this, so buckle in baby.

I'm gonna focus how the opening scene below, uses two narrative devices and one film technique to build out the scene as a whole: in media res, misdirection, and the long take.

Okay so to begin, we have to start at the beginning, or well, the middle lmao

In Media Res

I saw a post in the tag that said something to the effect of how The Sign starting with no context and providing no information at the beginning was strange, with the implication it was bad writing. I disagree, fundamentally, because The Sign is using a very common literary device called 'In Media Res'. And in my opinion, uses this device very well.

If you're familiar with basic storytelling terms I ain't telling you anything new, but for folks who may not know, in media res is a latin term that means "in the midst of things" and lots of stories - both prose, comics, and film - use this device.

The most famous is The Iliad by Homer, which if you've ever read - and you should it's glorious also it'll give some context to Song of Achilles - you know it drops you full-on no context into the middle of things. The beginning will differ in verbiage depending on the translation you pick up, this free version starts with:

THE CONTENTION OF ACHILLES AND AGAMEMNON. In the war of Troy, the Greeks having sacked some of the neighboring towns, and taken from thence two beautiful captives, Chryseis and Briseis, allotted the first to Agamemnon, and the last to Achilles.

Right off the bat the story drops four character names and the setting with no real context. Who are all these people? Why is there a war? Well, keep reading to find out! It also starts the story with an action aka an argument - nay A CONTENTION!! Achilles and Agamemnon are such bratty bitches lol

Other (more mainstream) examples include:

The Dark Knight

Lost

28 Days Later

Mission Impossible (pick one)

Fight Club

Full Metal Alchemist (both)

MDZS

Inception

And, The Sign.

"In contrast to linear storytelling, which starts at the beginning and moves sequentially, in medias res is a nonlinear approach that can make stories more dynamic and immersive.

It's a technique that challenges the audience to make sense of the narrative puzzle, often revealing essential information about the characters and their motivations gradually." (source)

What's described above is exactly how The Sign, starts it's story, in the middle of things, specifically to create a puzzle for the audience to figure out gradually. If you watch the above scene, what's happening?

We get a (well done) overshot of an island (establishing setting), we see a group of soldiers (establishing the characters we'll be following) we see them doing military things (okay these are their skills, and they're on some sort of mission), their drone spots a group of people inside and a character says the dialogue "Listen up, you only have 15 minutes" (this establishes stakes, okay there's a time limit to this mission) "Team A will rescue the hostage" (okay now we know what the mission is and informs these characters are on a rescue mission).

Who is speaking here? We don't know yet, but a safe assertion would be this character, since they are the first character who speaks on screen, will be important.

And we'd be right because it's Phaya speaking, one of our main protagonists as well soon find out.

All this happens within the first minute; the show provides an interesting set-up. It deals out information in tidbits - setting, characters we'll be following, situation set-up, stakes - but not enough information for the audience not to ask questions.

I want to iterate that at this point, the goal isn't to "care" about the characters yet, so much as create an intriguing set-up based in action that will showcase various information about the tone, setting, and skills of the piece that will engage the audience. To make the audience ask questions, to engage with them.

When you open up on MDZS the protagonist, Wei Wuxian is dead and we have no context for this. Everyone is just in the middle of celebrating his death and we, the readers, do not care that he's dead or why he died. The story could have started in a more linear way, with him arriving at Cloud Recesses arguably the beginning of his journey, but would that have been as interesting? As engaging?

I like how this article breaks down the why of starting your story in media res is a powerful and often used device:

This is what The Sign is doing in this opening part. Starting the action of the series off with action and creating that immediate engagement. The scene also ends with a plot twist which connects to that final point about information control.

This isn't a technique I've seen often used in BL because BL is a sub-genre of romance and most romances are told in chronological order, rather than non-linearly - there are, of course non-linear romances, but most mainstream romances, and by extension most BL aren't told in this way - BL shows don't often have actual physical action. A majority, especially in Thailand, are grounded, closer to slice-of-life, coming-of-age, and comedy dramas - though we are starting to see a change in that trend.

So starting in the middle of things, like chepa the middle of what? Two dudes walking~ to Engineering class?

The goal of this opening scene is to pull in the audience, make them wonder and ask questions: "who are these characters? will they rescue the hostages? who are the bad guys? who is this character who's having visions?" and so on and so forth. It's a way to engage in the audience without having to slow down the narrative with a ton of exposition, or build up stakes slowly, rather it grabs the audience immediately and sets them in the middle of the tension asking them to engage with what's happening.

The Long Take

You've probably heard about "the long take" but to break it down, a long take is one continuous take without any edits/cuts. The film 1917 was famously filmed to "look" like one long take. One of the most cited and well known long takes is from Children of Men by Alfonso Cuarón:

Now if you watch this movie you can tell why there isn't a lot of BL long takes because, god damn, they built a new type of car just to get that one scene. [read here for more on long takes]

So, The Sign. It's long take starts at about 2:08, following Phaya - again, we the audience don't know this is Phaya BUT since the camera is spending specific time with him we assume he is An Important Character and he is! Set up and payoff! Funny how that works - and ends at around 4:27.

[Sidenote I love that the take ends, not with a cut but a transition. Which I'll cover in another post but in the land of Thai BLs which favor cuts so damn much transitions were so refreshing to see]

During this long take, we establish that these characters are competent at what they do. We understand that they're military trained, in both hand-to-hand combat and firearms. We also get these two mid-close ups, which signifies these will be Important Characters:

And they are, the first shot is of Phaya, Khem and Thongthai and the second is Tharn and Yai.

This also sets-up the character dynamics; Yai and Tharn are already close and know each other so they are drawn to each other while on the mission, while Khem and Thongthai have a pre-established relationship but are still supporting behind Phaya.

This type of shot also allows for the audience to better see and follow the fighting that's happening on screen. Filming fight scenes are their own beast, and while there's no one school of thought on how a film scene "should" be filmed, there are techniques that that place some fight scenes above others.

The first video showcases some techniques on how to film a fight scene, while the second one at the 8min mark talks about the long take in John Woo's classic action film Hard Boiled.

This long take in Hard Boiled really showcases why long takes are so powerful in filming a fight scene specifically. They pull the audience further into the action and create a palpable energy that just works better than a scene with lots of quick cuts.

There's a reason one of the biggest criticisms of Mortal Kombat (2021) was that all the fights were edited to pieces while John Wick (2014) was a refreshing jolt to the industry.

The Sign takes a page out of John Woo's book, and places the characters, and the physicality of the scene front and center, pulling the audience along with the camera in one long shot.

Long takes are hard, I can't really emphasize this enough, if you watched that video on Children of Men you can see all the intricate work that went into scenes that amounted to maybe 5mins of actual film time. Likewise this long take in The Sign is only about 2mins of actual time in the show BUT it's effective, it's engaging, its ambitious.

Which is why, I gotta give The Sign it's roses because of that ambition. Long takes are a lot of hard work, time, effort, blocking, rehearsals, on top of incorporating the fight chorography that's a lot and it looks good.

Now is this the best~~~ long take I've ever seen? lol no god but it's well done and ambitious especially for the sub-genre of BL.

Misdirection

Misdirection has more in common with in media res than the long take as it's a literary device and not a filming technique.

From Gotham Writers:

"In fiction misdirection can be either external or internal. That is, the author can be using the story as a frame to misdirect the reader, or a character in the story may be misdirecting one or more of the other characters. Or, of course, both." (source)

Misdirection is often used in thrillers or mystery narratives, Hitchcock used misdirection a lot in his films.

In Psycho the audience is lured to believe that Marion, the character the film opens with, builds up, and essentially sets up as our protagonist, is in fact our protagonist. She's not, she's murdered and her sister, Lila, is the actual protagonist of the movie. Sorry if this is a spoiler for an almost 70 year old film lmao

Misdirection is often used to set-up plot twists down the line. A good misdirection will leave clues for the audience when they watch back and go, "oh! I can't believe I missed that!"

In film The Sixth Sense is a good example of this, where the plot twist at the end doesn't weaken the film once you know it but rather, it enhances the film itself on a rewatch. Another good example of misdirection in film are both Knives Out and Glass Onion, where Rian Johnson will set up a non-linear story and then slowly unravel the information for the audience.

Take the scene where Marta, in Knives Out, finds Fran's body and hears Fran say "it was you" at least to audience ears. Then stands up looming above Fran's body. The scene cuts, and the audience is led to believe Marta has let Fran die to protect herself (since we the audience also have been led to believe Fran is dead) only to find out later that Marta didn't let Fran die, she is alive, and she knew Ransom was the killer.

The Sign uses misdirection in a much more simple way. It sets up an expectation: Phaya is going to die, upping the stakes from "must save hostages" to "must save a comrade" aka the character we, the audience, have been following for the last 11 minutes. It sets two characters, Chart and Phaya, as opposing against each other, for reasons we don't know - is Chart one of the villains? Why is he trying to kill Phaya? etc - and the audience is led to believe this is a life or death situation.

Then, plot twist. The reveal happens that this was all a training exercise, and there was never any "real" danger whilst also keeping the audience on their toes. And like in The Iliad, now we have context for the mission, and then the story is able to step back and explain.

It's not like, the best~~~ use of misdirection but there was a purpose to it. It sets up an expectation, and subverts that expectation of the audience - but in a good way not a Game of Thrones way. While also pulling the audience into the show by starting in the middle of the action rather than slowing down the story with exposition or giving their hand away to much that this was a training exercise.

If you knew it was a training exercise, suddenly the stakes feel less intense because none of the characters are in any real danger, but not knowing that, withholding that information until it's relevant, ups the stakes of the scene.

The opening scene of The Sign imparts a lot of information without using a lot of dialogue and I find that impressive. We learn which characters will be relevant to the story - Phaya, Tharn, Yai, Khem, Thongthai and now we know, Chart is also important - that they are skilled combat fighters, knowledgeable in firearms, there's a fantasy element to the story via Tharn's visions, they're on an island which the setting for right now, and the tone and aesthetic of the show itself.

It's actually a fun scene to rewatch again with more context because I appreciated it even more. Which is just good film making.

I didn't talk much about the camera work - needless to say it's notable and fun - but maybe I'll save that for the next post. What other shows or scenes would be fun to breakdown? Drop me a line but heads up I don't actually watch a ton of shows so idk if I've seen xyz show lmao

Later chepies ✌️✌️

Other posts in the series:

Aspect Ratio in Love for Love's Sake | Cinematography in My BL - Our Skyy2 vs kinnporsche, 2gether vs semantic error, 1000 Stars vs The Sign | How The Sign Uses CGI

[like these posts? drop me a couple pennies on ko-fi]

[puhpandas]

i saw some of your posts about being anti-cassie's dad protag for HW2, which valid, but the theory's become so popular most people seem to accept it. HW2 is kind of a mess to theorize about what the string of events was considering both endings could easily be canon, but I guess I'll get to the point. I'm sure most people have heard plenty of theories about what happens in the game if it's Cassie's Dad as the protagonist, so I'm curious. If you don't think it's him, who do you think is most likely? And (while this is difficult to figure out with any protag..) what do you think is supposed to be happening throughout the game, like, timeline-wise/plot-wise? Personally I feel like Cassie's Dad protag is possible, but I don't think it's set in stone or that he would be a reoccuring character. Imo Cassie's Dad protag works best if he stays a one-off character, building onto Cassie's backstory. I kinda wonder if the "what makes you so special?" lines aren't actually saying he's special, but asking what he thinks makes him special enough to go through all this and survive. Still I'm really curious to hear alternatives! I'm definitely not attatched to that theory lol. I just haven't really heard anything else tbh since the theory's so big in the fandom..

theres tons of evidence (a lot of it already used for cassie dad protag evidence) that apply to Cassie protag. for starters hw2 is obviously incredibly reminiscent of hw1 with its ending. vanny traps you somewhere and waves, the same way glitchtrap trapped you somewhere and waved in hw1s canon ending.

it's been widely accepted that vanny cassie is very possible and the direction the story is going in so playing as cassie in the lobby and going through princess quest and helping vanny and it being implied Vannys using the player as a vessel now the same way glitchtrap used vanessa to create vanny makes it very plausible we play as cassie

theres also the 'unused' line (but they all perfectly apply to the game as it is right now and add much needed context that make the game actually make sense) that's from presumably vanny, saying: "it kept you for a reason"

not only does the it pronoun 100% mean the mimic (and cassie is still down there in the same place where the mimic is literally free rn but alive) but it means that the mimic purposefully didnt kill cassie and also probably was the one to drop the evelator because it has a plan for her. aka the plan is getting vanny a new vessel so mimic can resume operations

the lobby itself also perfectly matches post ruin. you have the vanni mask on first of all, but second of all theres little items around the lobby that hint that you're cassie. like the robot parts strewn around that could imply cassie is trying to repair roxy (theres also the helpy screen)

as for "what makes you so special" I think people are misinterpreting the cassie ending as it being Cassies dad and not a staffbot. it literally shows you straight up that you get attacked by other staffbots and made into maskbot and give cassie the mask. if anything it shows us that Cassies arrival was planned and it's more evidence that we play as her becoming vanny. but its ALSO a perfect explanation for how confusing the minigames are in telling us who we play as

we literally play as a staffbot/mapbot. the minigames go from clean and fixed animatronics to gradually getting worse. even when the pizzaplex is clean and the animatronics are just a bit dirty, we've only seen that in sb. we play as a staffbot from pre sb, during sb, and post sb. "what makes you so special" what makes you so special compared to the other staffbots

it also explains why the animatronics are mean to you. staffbots are seen as useless hunks of junk and its shown all across the pizzaplex and in ruin as well when they're constantly shown discarded and destroyed.

freddy also says the line "you ARE a Fazbear technician, arent you? idk bc I can't see you". it means we literally arent a Fazbear technician. were a staffbot. and the same applies for carnies line about kids. its prerecorded and we're just a robot anyway

I have more posts about all this stuff individually but more in depth in my hw2 theory tag. this is what I genuinely think and I believe cassie is the protag for sure. it just feels so clear with how reminiscent hw2 is of hw1s ending tied with the clear plot of vanny cassie it's just like. why would we play as her dad when we watch ourselves get trapped by vanny the same way vanessa did right in front of our eyes.

we have the cassie ending because it shows us how maskbot got the mask and where it came from. it came from glitchtrap + by extension the mimic and vanny. vanny betrays glitchtrap at the end but also traps cassie in the process. the elevator dropped on cassie in ruin because the mimic did it on purpose to enact this plan. I think hw2 is more straightforward than ppl realize if you put everything together from what we have and dont try your hardest to put other characters in when the game is definitely about vanny cassie

like hw2 and ruin were made at the same time. they go hand in hand and reference eachother in the game, even before one of them was even out. the story is about cassie becoming vanny, the whole thing. this game is an intermission (the song scorched cranberries (the end credits song) is elevator music) showing us how the new villain/character thatll be big in the next plot was created. this is about cassie

maybe her dad will have the spotlight in hw2s dlc. idk. he has something going on but nothing in hw2 I dont think.

[meeeeeeri]

Things that really ANNOYED THE FUCK OUTTA ME while watching OUTER BANKS SEASON 3:

First things first: Big John AKA big old crazy dude

Let's just say that besides being a shitty father figure he also is selfish as fuck. He only decides to appear in John B's life whenever he needs him to do something treasure related, like ok big John, you love your son so much *cough cough*

In other hand, he also is willing to do ANTHING to find el Dorado, and by ANYTHING I mean killing people, tell me that's not what a psychopath would do.

And all the fricking screen time dedicated to the relationship between John B and his father???? Like we get that they need to bond again but DO WE HAVE TO WATCH ALL THE PROCESS?

No thank you Netflix, do better next time

I saw a tik tok that went something like this: Who said Ward is a bad person? Big John? cause if we wanna talk about someone BAD let's talk about Big John...

And yeah, that tik tok literally summes up my opinion about this individual.

Me roasting Big John with this post:

2: Rafe and the girl named Sofia who came out of nowhere

Ok. Don't misunderstand me; the idea of introducing a new character who's gonna play the girlfriend or fuckbuddy of Rafe is super super interesting to me BUT

Can you elaborate more their relationship????? Give more CONTEXT????

They could even use her apparition and do a BOMB ASS side story like idk maybe her being more cruel than Rafe or her having some kind of business relationship with Singh and betraying him in the process... WHATEVER

But I'm just saying that that would have been more interesting than the parental issues between Big Dumbass John and John B

A video of me crying while scenes of John B and his dad appeared on my tv non stop:

LOOK AT HIM HE'S SO CUTE LOVE HIM

3: Sarah and Topper

Don't even get me started on this shit.

When I saw that Sarah went back to flirting with Topper I was like WHA- WHE- WHO

But I'm not gonna question her that much because they are supposed to be playing teenagers, and that's what teenagers and (also) some adults do:

STUPID SHIT

And Topper... I really don't know how to feel about him.

He's like a shark who's ready to attack if he sniffs some blood (Sarah and John B breaking up or having relationship turbulences), but I can't even blame him that much because I feel like he really loves Sarah besides everything, and he really demonstrated it this season by helping the pogues out.

What Topper was replaying in his head when Sarah promised him that she would stay:

4: Sarah's thoughts when she was left with no family, no money and nowhere to go (she was homeless for like a day and decided to cope with it by drinking beer from an abandoned beer tap, ok)

Um... When I say I was expecting her to say something philosophical and life changing and SHE DECIDED TO CONCLUDE HER SPEECH WITH: I really don't know if I'm a pogue or a kook...

SIDE EYE

Girl I KNOW you are 17 but GROW THE FUCK UP.

You've been betrayed by your OWN FATHER and SHOT and nearly KILLED by your BROTHER and that's what you're thinking about???

Jesus Christ have mercy on me

All the build up story around pogues and kooks is really interesting (even tho it's like another form of saying rich and poor people) but when characters say shit like that it really makes no sense.

You have no home, no family, you argued with your bf and he left, and your friends are not there at the moment and YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT THAT IRRELEVANT SHIT? Damn

Ok, I think I am done with most of the things I wanted to say. There are MORE for sure, but these are the most important ones.

I have to be honest with you, I still haven't watched the last episode bc I really got tired of their bullshit. I love the show and I really love the characters, but this season just wasn't it. I am gonna try and finish it today with hopes that they will end it in a decent way (I don't think so but whatever).

It's not a secret by the end of this post that I'm a spanish native speaker so, yeah, I tried my best to write down correctly the ideas that I had about the show, so PLEASE don't come at me.

I'm also writing a fanfiction about Rafe, but I'm doing it in spanish because I feel like if I wrote it in english I would fuck it up.

Maybe I will try and start uploading Rafe imagines or smth like that, bc they would be shorter and easier to write for me.

PLEASE if you have any thoughts or a comment that you wanna add after reading my rant, just do it, I'm for sure gonna be answering y'all because I love to talk about the show and the characters.

BYE P4L

[hrodvitnon]

Some Ideas/Headcanons for Abraxasverse GxK!

So, after having seen The New Empire, I already already have quite a few ideas for how it could fit into the Abraxasverse! I’ll write up a more thorough breakdown of how I’d do it sometime soon, but I figured I might as well start with some of the basic ideas. So, here goes!

- Just for a bit of context, I’m going by @zerm2v0hg’s awesome “Clash of Silver” fic as how the Abraxasverse’s version of GvK would’ve played out.

- Since GxK takes place in 2027, I’d have Ladon be officially introduced in 2025 and Shin in 2026 (both as Godzilla clones created by Apex), so they would both play a role in this version. Kiryu’s new body might still be under construction (since it took 5-10 years to build Mechagodzilla in canon, so I don’t know if 3 years would be enough time to finish building his second body after the first one sadly got destroyed in Clash of Silver), so I don’t know if I’d have him play a major role here, but either way his new body’s construction would be overseen by Project Powerhouse, the same division of Monarch that creates Kong’s new gauntlet in the movie. Maybe Ren Serizawa would be in charge of that project in this timeline, now that he’s not working for Apex anymore?

- For the events of The Hunted, I’d probably have it go pretty much the same way as canon, but I do love the idea of having Monster X be the one to go up against the Hunter mech rather than Kong, just because that way they’d be able to give Raymond Martin (aka Dickhead Tech-Bro) a Reasons You Suck speech while beating the crap out of his second-rate Jaeger ripoff.

- Scylla & Tiamat would probably still end up getting into fights with Godzilla or one of his sons, but while Scylla might still end up dying if the events of The Hunted play out similarly here, Tiamat probably wouldn’t, assuming that the potential backstory of her having a connection to Ozymandias is actually Abraxasverse canon.

- To give Godzilla & his allies more to do in the Abraxasverse version of GxK, I feel like it would make sense to incorporate the Xenilla arc into this portion of the timeline. So I’d have him land on the surface and start causing trouble for Team Godzilla at around the same time that Kong discovers Skar King’s hidden empire in the Hollow Earth, which would eventually lead to the final battle being a three-way battle royale between the Scarred Apes’ army (led by Skar King & Shimo), the heroic Titans (particularly Godzilla’s family, Monster X & Kong), and Xenilla.

- In this timeline, instead of Mothra being the guardian Titan of the Hollow-Earth Iwi civilization, it would be Leo. To me, that seems like a perfect way for him to be introduced into the Abraxasverse: as Godzilla & Mothra’s offspring who was born thousands of years ago, took up residence in the Hollow Earth during the Ice Age, and essentially “adopted” the surviving Iwi tribe after Skar King presumably abandoned them at some point. I’d also ditch the “prophecy” angle from the canon movie for Jia and just focus on her other connections with Kong & the Iwi, as Mothra already has a human link in the form of the Chen family.

- Godzilla’s transformation wouldn’t just be a random evolution/powerup; instead, it would be a side effect of his being badly wounded & infected by Xenilla during their first fight. Mothra would narrowly manage to cure & heal him (after taking him to Tiamat’s Arctic lair so he could absorb a bunch of extra radiation to fuel the healing process), but his appearance would still be permanently altered as a result. That’s where the elbow & tail spikes and the new color of his energy would come from, as he’d end up assimilating some of the crystal’s power for himself. As a beneficial side effect, his new form would also be immune to any further infection attempts by the Crystal Cordyceps.

- In keeping with that idea, Abraxasverse Xenilla would basically look like a fusion of the classic SpaceGodzilla and a more advanced version of Godzilla’s Evolved form, with white crystal spikes & plates, longer spikes on his elbows & tail, and red bioluminescence (to fit with the idea that the pink color of Goji’s Evolved form is a side effect of his partially undergoing that process but stopping it halfway through). I think it could also look really cool if he has crystal wings that unfold from his body when he needs to fly, and reform into a layer of extra armor around his torso when he’s on the ground. For how they’d look, I’m thinking maybe something like an all-white version of Tabuu’s crystal wings from the Super Smash Bros video games.

- Shimo would actually be the key to taking down Xenilla once she’s freed from Skar King’s control, as the heroes eventually discover that while Xenilla’s crystal armor has adapted to resist Godzilla’s atomic breath, it’s highly vulnerable to Shimo’s ice-breath. As a result, it ends up being a tag-team effort from her, Godzilla & Mothra (plus Ozzy managing to fight back from within) that ultimately brings the parasite down for good. It’s tragic, of course, given their past relationships with him, but they’re able to take some comfort in the fact that their victory also allows Ozzy’s spirit to finally rest in peace.

A longer, more in-depth breakdown of what I’ve got in mind will be coming soon, but I figured I’d see what you thought of the main bullet-points first. 😄

Oooh, here we go!

I've actually reached a point where I'm willing to call The Clash of Silver a part of AbraxasVerse canon. Hey, @zerm2v0hg! Have some canonization, as a treat!

Yeah, Kiryu being out of commission for a while makes sense, and it feels fitting that he'd be handled by Project Powerhouse. Ren could definitely use a job at Powerhouse after how his gig at Apex ended... and hopefully a therapist, depending on how he's been handling the whole "nearly got electrocuted to death and something happened to his brain but he doesn't know what".

AbraxasVerse Raymond Martin I feel can definitely stand to be less cartoonishly evil than his comic counterpart; maybe instead of gleefully trying to kill a pair of cubs after slaughtering their mother, his trauma from 2014 has reached the point where he simply can't stand seeing a happy family, human or monster, because it gets into his head that that ought to be him and his family. He's still a douchebag tech-bro who hates the Titans and would probably consider Monster X a traitor of sorts for embracing their new monster existence, he's just more clearly a broken man futilely raging against forces of nature because that's all he knows what to do now.

Scylla in MonsterVerse canon is a real nasty piece of work and while AbraxasVerse Scylla is comparatively better, I won't feel bad if she still ends up dying as a result of Martin's nonsense causing her nuclear feeding frenzy; this would be a good way for Ladon and Shin to make an impression on the world, that they're willing to fight to maintain the worldly balance just like their dad. Tiamat however has potential thanks to the Ozymandias backstory and I feel she can be better utilized in AbraxasVerse, especially in light of @tosho89's ritual idea...

Xenilla showing up here would be cool... maybe he was sent out to scout the planet in case a Titan of comparable power to Ozymandias has shown up in the time since that abduction? Leo being the Hollow Earth Iwi guardian could be a neat way to tie in MV!Mothra's reworking Phosphora/Phosphera's (how is that supposed to be spelled?) placeholder role without being too jarring.

Huh, Goji nearly getting infected is a GREAT idea for the sake of tension and sheer "oh SHIT" factor! He goes out of commission for a bit while Mothra heals him and Tiamat does her ritual, and he returns to the fore more powerful than ever... at the cost of becoming a beacon for the nefarious forces behind Xenilla's existence to home in on. And I am ALL FOR Shimo having more to do!

Cool ideas all around! I'm looking forward to seeing what else you've got!

[lunanoc]

PART II: KING MU OF ZHOU AND THE QUEEN MOTHER OF THE WEST

(to see previous disclaimers and context here’s part I of this madness)

blanket spoiler warning for the books once again

fair warning, some of the bold connect-the-dots crack theories are going to start creeping in here, but more meta here we gooo

continuing where we left off with the various versions of the story of king shang of lu dmbj gives us, the wang family powerpoint lesson, besides giving us the third account of those, also introduces new key players, both one we know but did not know of their potential connection to king shang of lu, and a new one that offers an entirely new perspective on this subplot of dmbj lore: king mu of zhou and the queen mother of the west

what the wang powerpoint and the subsequent discussions between li cu and members of the wang family tell us about king mu of zhou and the queen mother of the west is not only interesting in itself, but also ties closely into both king shang’s and iron mask’s story, as well as the overall dmbj lore. i try not to go too far in trying to see possible connections with later books, notably here queen mother’s ghost banquet, because i don’t have the full context for those, so i won’t go into too much detail on what’s essentially a tenuous crack theory. however, for the record, the queen mother of the west as she’s described in sand sea part III could potentially tie into what we learn about the zhang family’s origins at the tail end of queen mother’s ghost banquet, namely that the zhang family are descended from a group of people millennia old (think xia dynasty or older, which makes sense given they were likely also the ones who built the original heavenly palace and the bronze gate in the shang dynasty c. 1600 BC, but that’s a tangent for another time) who ventured beneath the kunlun mountains, ate from the qilin fruit tree (aka the equivalent of the queen mother of the west of chinese myth’s peach tree), and rather than immediately turning into monsters like many who tried did, were special enough for some reason that they gained longevity instead at the cost of eventually, after maybe initially millenia, then progressively centuries, turning into monsters. some of those people then eventually ventured out from beneath the mountains into the vast world, later to form what would be known as the zhang family. but that’s all i’ll say on that

but back to king mu and the queen of the west

to start off, i feel it’s important to be aware that king mu of zhou isn’t a fictional character created by npss, rather he’s a real historical figure who actually existed and was an emperor of the western zhou dynasty (1046-770 BC) while it was at its peak (he himself probably reigned somewhere between 976 and 918 BC). as it happens, his connection to the queen mother of the west also isn’t something created by npss. references to the queen mother of the west go very far back (think shang dynasty mentioned earlier) and she’s one of the more prominent mythological figures in chinese tradition, who among other descriptors, is said to possess the secret of immortality in her garden of magical peaches that grant longevity in the kunlun mountains. either the queen of the west herself or her peaches make several appearances in chinese literature, maybe more famously for a western audience in journey to the west where sun wukong eats some of them and is punished for it

even the story of king mu of zhou and the queen mother of the west meeting is a retelling of another piece of fiction called the tale of king mu, son of heaven, dating back to at earliest the warring states period (since the original copy of it was found in a tomb dating back to the tail end of it). like in sand sea’s rendition of his story, historically king mu of zhou did travel a lot because he enjoyed making territorial conquests, to the extent that king mu of zhou is the one who ultimately expanded china’s territory both east and west beyond the central plains. in the fictional story of the tale of king mu, son of heaven however, king mu of zhou specifically seeks out the queen mother of the west in the kunlun mountains to gain her secret of immortality, and while she ultimately invites him to her jade pool for a banquet where they exchange gifts, she doesn’t give him one of her peaches

in the wang family’s version of this story, it’s explained to li cu that king mu of zhou didn’t care much for politics and preferred running around china as he pleased, ultimately seeking out the queen mother of the west for her famed elixir of immortality. where this version of the story diverges from the myth is that they supposedly ended up falling in love (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 133, King Mu of Zhou)

king mu of zhou sought out the queen mother of the west because there had been legends even during king mu’s time of her having had this elixir of immortality for a very long time, which tells us at the very least that according to this story, the queen mother he met with was likely the queen mother of legend, or the one chinese mythology equates with a deity to some extent. she’s even further described as having dominion over all the kingdoms of the west, and that her great kingdom spanned from the kunlun mountains to even the qaidam basin, which is where tamutuo is located. i feel this tells us that the queen of the west of tamutuo and the queen mother of the west from king mu’s legend are one and the same. the fact she’s even referred to as “young” despite the breadth of her legacy reinforces the idea that there might be something unnatural about her

you could argue that maybe “queen mother of the west” was an inherited title, and that her kingdom of tamutuo was a matriarchal society that had had many queen mothers, but the fact is there’s no real supporting evidence of that any more than there is of the opposite despite the arguments put forward, so really, you could argue in favor of both. i like to think she was the queen mother of legend, if only because it creates, thanks to the inclusion of the kunlun mountains in her territory, a strong connection in some capacity with the first people cursed with intolerable longevity mentioned in queen mother’s banquet, but once again, take with a grain of salt

slight tangent, i will say however while i’m on this topic that i strongly feel that the zhang family are meant to be depicted as one more of many human corruption motifs that are rampant in dmbj. this is something for another meta, but i would argue that beneath the tomb raiding and the conspiracies, the core theme of dmbj is that “humans are more terrible than monsters”, and so the narrative provides ample examples of human corruption causing others far more misery than any tomb creature ever could. as per their origins talked about in queen mother’s ghost banquet, it’s possible that alongside their knowledge of whatever secrets of the universe they’re privy to, and their subsequent need for control over china’s destiny through the ages, the ancestors of the zhang family had initially ventured out from under the mountains to seek a cure for the side effects of their terrible curse, and gradually discovered that the bronze and jade of the meteorites could potentially provide that. maybe the queen mother of the west was one of their descendants, and perhaps one of the rare people who stand to succeed in that quest (that we know of at least considering she’s presumably still alive in some capacity down there along with chen wenjin and other members of the xisha expedition). just food for thought, but anyone who’s read that far feel free to give your thoughts on queen’s banquet related ideas!

the wang in charge of instructing li cu admits in the course of his tale that they had to make some assumptions (so this means you have to consider this bit to be a little handwavy admittedly) about what exactly the nature of the relationship between king mu of zhou and the queen mother of the west was, and settles on them having fallen in love despite king mu having “invaded” her kingdom and he did  invade it, because we conveniently have a single reference to this man outside of sand sea in book 5, when wu xie and xiaoge find murals in the ruins around wu sanxing’s abandoned camp that depict king mu’s invasion of tamutuo that was clearly hostile and was met with responding hostility (Book 5, Ch. 25-26, The Third Night: Relief / The Third Night: Déjà-vu)

it doesn’t mean that these narratives are mutually exclusive and can’t both be true, and that after having been defeated, either party asked for a truce that led to something else, but it does already suggest there might be more to this story than what we’re told of it. this idea somewhat confirms itself, again hinging on believing that the wang’s narrative is one close enough to the truth to be reliable, when li cu calls the romance spin on king mu’s and the queen mother’s story into question (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 145, The Truth of the World). li cu suggests that the poem she supposedly gifted king mu (which i’ll get into in a little bit), as well as maybe the queen mother of the west herself and her secret of immortality, are all concepts fashioned and embellished by king mu of zhou to facilitate his grand plan which i’ll touch on later, all because he saw “the truth of this world” in the queen mother of the west’s kingdom, and sought not to reveal it to the world, but to conceal it, and build an entire nebulous plan with it at its core

i don’t feel like the queen of the west herself is a fabrication considering both the multiple references to her interspersed throughout various dmbj books, as well as tangible proof of her existence re: tamutuo, but the idea that king mu of zhou might have been the author of the tale of king mu, son of heaven and the subsequent romance plot derived from it in dmbj universe is something i can believe so long as you assume he believed it was one more component in his masterplan. i’m hesitant to call dmbj magical realism because magical realism is very much a western genre of literature and people would do well to remember that western constructs aren’t universally applicable, but dmbj does use a number of structural and thematic elements that magical realism also uses, and this subplot is no exception. contrary to what some might think, npss actually does a significant amount of research when he writes these books, and a lot of the supernatural or fictional tomb elements aren’t so much explained through handwavy science as they are derived from well-documented real historical events or figures, much like magical realism is heavily grounded in reality despite slightly deviating from it in believable ways. dmbj is deeply informed by chinese culture and history, more so than just using it as the backdrop to a fantasy adventure story: they’re integral parts of the plot, which i think is part of what makes dmbj so difficult to navigate without extensive knowledge of that backdrop (which i by the way don’t pretend to have either, my own knowledge is very much surface level all things considered)

in light of this, as far as the queen mother of the west goes, considering the relatively reliable outside account of a hostile invasion we get from the ruins of tamutuo itself, and then li cu’s own take on king mu’s and the queen mother’s relationship, while the romance spin isn’t necessarily entirely false, it does leave a lot of question marks as to what exactly king mu saw in the queen of the west’s kingdom. that he was given the gift of longevity is highly likely given he’s still alive centuries later, along with other key elements of the wang family’s story i’ll get to in a bit. however, the uncertainty in the nature of their relationship does potentially make the queen of the west’s motivations for offering king mu longevity if not just as uncertain, then potentially a little more sinister, since while she might have offered out of love, if we assume all her experimentations weren’t geared at gaining immortality for herself, but rather curbing the side effects of it, then her gift was very much a poisoned one as she knew full well what would happen to him if he used it. for all we know, king mu might have, on defeating the queen mother’s kingdom, inflicted the “truth of the world” and the curse of longevity on himself, and none of it was never a gift at all, but the consequences of his own actions. but all of this is just speculation in the end as there’s no solid evidence pointing in any one direction. in any case, the only potential insight we get into the queen mother of the west’s thoughts come from maybe the vaguest source yet, a poem she supposedly composed for king mu that she gifted him when they parted, and that merebear translates as follows:

White clouds in the sky, the hills emerge. The road is far away, between mountains and rivers. The child who is not dead, can still come back.

knowing how many layers of meaning can be crammed into classical chinese poetry, i had to go find the original text and investigate further, so let me also provide that:

白云在天，山陵自出。 道里悠远，山川间之。 将子无死，尚能复来。

full disclaimer before i continue, poetry and its nuances are notoriously difficult to translate in any language, and i’m not at all claiming to be proficient enough at the chinese language without outside resources to help me to ever claim to be an expert, but while merebear’s translation isn’t technically incorrect, it has a few possible double meanings missing and some word choices i’m not quite sure i understand, but this is only my own humble contribution (with some creative license in the english rendition) that anyone with better knowledge than mine is welcome to correct or add on to as this isn’t so much an attempt at retranslating as it is pointing out a few possible added implications:

白云在天，山陵自出。

the white clouds are in the sky/the heavens, the lofty mountains/the great tombs emerge of their own accord. 山陵 can also be used, and has been in chinese literature, to refer to tombs of people of significant importance as usually big tombs tend to form burial mounds, hence why it can also refer to ‘hills’

道里悠远，山川间之。

the way forth is distant, it winds amid the mountains and rivers ‘mountains and rivers’, mountains especially, are commonly associated with the chinese concept of immortals called 仙 xian that even has the radical for mountain in it, in part due to their reclusive nature. i would link the interesting study i have on that but it’s unfortunately not in english, though feel free to ask for it anyway if anyone is interested

将子无死，尚能复来。

one who leads does not die, he may yet return 将子 in this context technically means ‘general’ and 将 can even refer to the chief piece in chinese chess which you know. keeping that in my book of crazy convenient zhang parallels re: the qipan zhang

make of this what you will, but if nothing else, it does suggest a bit more explicitly that the double meanings are indeed referring to immortality and potentially tombs, though what nature of tomb is the real question in that case

we then go on to learn from the wang powerpoint presentation that king mu never returned to visit the queen of the west once he returned home, but that contrary to how things may seem, despite having being recorded as having died at the age of 105, king mu in fact did not died, meaning at some point after he’d taken the queen of the west’s immortality elixir, he faked his own death and disappeared somewhere. both the wang instructor and wang xiaoyuan (the girl who peeks at li cu out the window) confirm that according to the third and  final account of king shang of lu’s story, king mu wasn’t dead at the time of those events, as he worked together with king shang and iron mask to find the jade burial armor (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 134, Deception)

this means he was spectacularly old by this point considering the warring states period starts at earliest in 476 BC. and king mu supposedly died around 918 BC. you do the math, but he was very very old. and to be honest this also somewhat feeds into the idea that the longevity curse (because it very much is a curse) used to last much longer before the side effects started to pop up, because if we’re to believe the wang family’s version of these events, then king mu was clearly still sane and not (or at least not entirely) a monster if he was still actively enacting the things he had planned

and so king mu, now long-lived because he took whatever immortality elixir the queen mother of the west gave him, had to face the consequences of that choice, yet rather than seek her out to find a way to quell the side effects of longevity (which he could have done and would have just ended up in the meteorite with her, although if he didn’t go to her, it gives a bit more weight to the idea that their story wasn’t necessarily a romance and/or that ulterior motives were involved), he went his own way to find something to save himself from turning into a monster, and eventually settled on finding a jade burial armor, which according to the wang family also came from the queen mother of the west’s kingdom. besides implying it’s likely that the jade armor is in fact made from the meteorite jade, it’s just one more thing to add to the long list of things tied to the heart of dmbj’s lore that end up having some form of association with the queen mother of the west. fun tidbit regarding this that’s not entirely relevant to anything (but it just adds more fuel to the crack theory), there’s an inscription on the belt of the green-eyed fox corpse where the qilin blood clot that wu xie accidentally swallows in book 1, and that merebear translates as “ruler of yinxi”, that reads as follows (Book 1, Ch. 21, Green-Eyed Fox Corpse):

阴西宝帝 or yinxi baodi

once again, take this with a grain of salt because this is an inscription that wu xie sees while he’s presumably under the influence of the green-eyed fox’s illusion, and instantly recognizes it as “a spell to ward off evil spirits”, so it might not mean anything, but if you had to find some kind of sense in it, while the characters together don’t really mean much of anything, separately they can mean:

阴 yin

opposite of 阳 yang, one of the two opposing energies in taoism and representative of many things, but namely of the feminine

西 xi

the west as cardinal direction

宝 bao

treasure, precious

帝 di

supreme being, often used in the titles and names of emperors such as huangdi (the yellow emperor) or qin shi huangdi (the first emperor of china). fun fact, wu xie during sand sea is often referred to as 邪帝 or emperor xie by the chinese fanbase in reference to how powerful he was during that time

i’m not saying this is meant to translate into a reference to the queen mother of the west because the association of characters is a bit strange, but again. food for thought (and a lot of creative license)

the wang powerpoint then goes on to explain that king mu’s objective, once he’d secured the jade armor, was to ensure both that he would be able to come back to the world fully rid of the side effects of immortality, and be able to do so safely, secure in the knowledge that the legacy of his findings would remain intact for him to find again. and so to do that, he essentially makes certain that chinese tradition incorporates the necessity of entombing people with a number of valuable things, and supposedly instigates this during the spring and autumn period (which is the period that precedes the warring states period and is generally considered to be one of extensive intellectual prosperity, confucius was a contemporary of that time for example) by, as the wang instructor implies, at least partially pushing to prominence things like the classic of rites (or lijing) that among other things promotes rich burials. while li cu calls into question the idea that king mu’s plan solely aimed at disseminating information for the sake of keeping his own acquired knowledge in circulation, since king mu’s further objective was also to use grave robbing to spread whatever information best served concealing “the truth of the world”, it’s clear that his plan was meticulously thought-out

the wang instructor himself admits this, though he quickly adds that king mu’s plan, crafty as it was if desperate, failed to take into account the possibility that he’d one day meet his match in the person of wang zanghai, who essentially hijacked his plan for his own purposes. i feel this seems to imply that things were going pretty smoothly for king mu of zhou until then, which would then call into question the first two versions of king shang of lu’s story if we assume king mu was the original wearer of the jade armor, albeit more recently than those stories presented it, but this is also where i start veering into big wild assumptions and crack theory territory. i won’t be get into the box with the baby or the particulars of the feud between the zhang family and wang zanghai/the wang family because while it’s tied to this, it also branches off into something else that’s probably a whole other meta and this is long enough as it is

it’s also worth noting that king mu of zhou, as well as instigating his masterplan, not only hid an elaborate map leading to the queen mother of the west’s kingdom only perceivable if you soak the stone slab it’s on “with a certain liquid” (which if you remember what happens in both book 8 in siguniang when wu xie and xiao hua gut a pig, and in tibetan sea flower where it’s wu xie who bleeds his special blood to reveal the secrets inside the bronze gate in tibet, gives you a hint at what the nature of that liquid might be), but wrote the details of his plan down on what’s called the yellow lu silkbook, not to be confused with the silkbook that wu xie pulls from “king shang of lu”’s coffin in book 1. merebear speculates it might be the silkbook that the photocopy jin wantang brings to him to kickstart the entire plot belongs to, and in my opinion that’s a good guess. it might also be one of the many silkbooks the lao jiumen pulled out of siguniang during the greatest joint tomb robbery in the 1960s. who knows really

all i can say about this particular part of the wang’s powerpoint lesson and the connection it shares with the multiple versions of the story of king shang of lu is that assuming the wang family’s version is both the most complete and the most accurate, then “king shang of lu” has a direct connection not only to king mu of zhou, but to the entirety of dmbj’s overarching plot. and while knowing who’s who at the end of the day doesn’t amount to much when much of dmbj’s story deals with the present day cast bearing the brunt of the consequences of their elders’ and older generations’ choices, i want to go further and say that this story potentially further cements connections and solidifies dmbj lore rather than complicate it

(wild conclusions tbc in part III of this madness)

[kisilinramblings]

A question I would love the writers explore with Adrien's character for S6-S7 - in the context Adrien never finds out the true about his father being Hawkmoth during those seasons - is can someone's death really amends for all their wrongs?

It is a common trope in stories in which a villain does one good action to help the heroes before dying as a way to "redeem" themselves. But often times, since it occurs toward the end of the story, it is not much explored narratively how it affects the heroes' judgment of the person. And here, the villain did make a Wish - which isn't viewed as a good thing by the heroes - but he used the power for something else, dying as part of the balance.

Like, the parisians believe Gabriel died as an hero and they raise a statue to honor his contribution and sacrifice. Even Adrien thinks that his father died doing everything in his power to stop Monarch (which is half true as Gabriel dying did stop Monarch in a way). For them all, it is a sacrifice and that would make Gabriel an hero, right? But does being "heroic" one time truly correct / erase the mistakes and wrongs Gabriel did?

IRL, we see statues being vandalized, beheaded and toppled to the ground and even thrown in the nearest river because people who are aware of the atrocities committed by said "hero" cannot let that figure continue to have a statue in their honor and take action despite the autorities and rest of population's judgment.

Gabriel - as a civil - isn't all white or black. Some of his old employees could remember how terrified they were of the persona. Other would praise his accomplishments as a fashion designer. Some people of his past as Gabi could come back and offer an entire different perspective of who the man was. After all, Gabriel isn't there anymore to stop them.

With Adrien, we can suppose he will be conflicted about the image his father left in their mind and the memories he has of his father, especially the last one (AKA sending Adrien against his will to London and imprison him in a white isolated cell, ignoring his plea to let him out and instead send a robot to give him an Alliance). Will Adrien learn more about his father's past?

Something Adrien said every once in a while during the first five seasons is that he didn't know his father, unsure of who he was nor how he could understand him. His father was a mystery to him, even at the end. His father's actions at the end were non-sensical to him.

What if Adrien - who is usually forgiving - has a really hard time forgiving his father and doesn't understand himself why? Can he truly just focus on the good moments he had with his father and ignore the bad? Will Adrien start to speak ill of the dead? Will he confuse and be judged for not thinking like the rest of the Parisians if he ever do so? Will his father's ghost (in a narrative sense of speaking) haunt him because they never got a real understanding / resolution?

As Chat Noir, will he or would he want at one point use Cataclysm on his father's statue, tired of bottling up his emotions?

Like, yes, of course, Maribug is in the wrong to hide the truth to Adrien about his father, but her mistake also allow the possibility to explore several actual-rooted topics through Adrien that wouldn't have been as complex otherwise.

Ladybug "stopped" Monarch because he needed to be stopped. He was terrorizing the city and exploited the Kwamis' power. But now that Adrien has been freed, he can judge for himself who Gabriel the father, the designer, the civil was.

[wheelercore]

Rosegate Masterpost

I talk way too much about this theory so I figured I might as well make a list of all the posts that I consider relevant and important so nobody has to slave through my blog for context. Turned out to be way too fucking LONG though. RIP to you I guess (please read about this theory please please please *gives you the biggest wettest saddest eyes*).

Really the only purpose of this post is to pin it.

Anyways. All the information is under cut:

Basic Summary: The basic premise is that the Wheelers are connected to the Creel home somehow. However since the similarities (as you will see in the post links that I am sharing below) seem to be with the objects that were in the Creel home before the Creels even moved into Hawkins in 1959 (eg. the grandfather clock, the wheelchair, the wedding dress, the rose wallpaper, etc etc) it seems that the Wheelers actually may be connected to the home in a way that may not be related to the Creels themselves at all. Now, every guy and their mother knows all the Karen theories out there so hey why not throw out a Ted theory ya know spice it up a bit.

This theory? The Creel home is Ted's childhood home- *gets boo-ed off the stage*.

This show is for Freaks and Weirdos so I'm 100% in the right for being a Freak and Weirdo who hyperfixates on this lol.

Now more seriously, not only are there the parallels to the Creel home, but also this theory surrounds an urn that has been sitting on the Wheeler mantle place since s1. This urn is decorated with pink flowers (could possibly be roses), which is not only a repeated design in the Creel home itself (the rose door being particularly important), but it also in the Wheeler home: the upstairs/ dining room wallpaper and the variety of other fake urns-vases around the Wheeler dining room that have rose designs on them. And yeah this could all be a coincidence, but the show all but confirms the urns significance when they intentionally switched it out with a different urn in the ST4 climax.

Other usage of rose symbolism can be found particularly surrounding female characters- and even more smaller in scope is the reoccurring motif of the Blonde Mother (tm) whom are also associated with roses *eyes The Urn again*. When looking at the similarities at how these female characters are dressed you start to notice that there are certain trends- pink/white/blue color scheme, certain hair styles, and jewelry. Which is why I believe that Rosemary's Baby may be a huge inspiration for this ("Rose" Robin aka her fake identity in Penthurst being my favorite because literally- Rose Wheeler Weaver). Given that Holly is a blonde to two brunette parents its not a stretch to believe that Ted had a blonde mother who's urn sits on that mantle place. There are multiple gags in s3 made about a "nana" who has cancer and I just think its veryyy interesting that one of the things that Victor pays particular close attention to in the attic is an old wheelchair. Anyways, think of this as a "haunting the narrative" sort of thing.

Also Rosemary's Baby is a classic horror movie literally about forced female conformity in the 20th century, so I find it really hard to believe that it would be left out of the show that is literally a period piece about conformity. So if you see me referring to "rosemary" or "rosemary wheeler" I'm talking about dead blonde nana in that urn.

Also The Shining is on the ST4 inspo board and I wrote a bit about how the Creel & Wheeler homes may have been inspired by the Overlook hotel. Not only that but The Shining possibly being a huge influence since S1 and all the stuff that comes with that including themes of abusive cycles in families and supernatural manipulation (detailed in the posts below).

This could also be related to by Mike seems to be able to sense El in the void despite not being supernatural as far as we know- especially since Nancy and Holly (I mean Holly is a bit weird too but imo not like Mike) are not shown to have a sense for the void like Mike. Mike and Ted are repeatedly paralleled throughout the show via clothing and scenes.

The crux of this theory is very metaphorical as a lot of it is about using visuals to portray generational cycles (hence Mike-Ted parallels which I don't really get into on here but its all over my blog just search up either character or mike-ted or whatever key word).

This summary is a bit of a mess and I'm pretty sure I've missed a lot but whatever. Please feel free to drop any questions in my inbox I'll be so happy to answer them.

It would not be fair if I don't give credit to @boysdontcryboycry as the co-founder of this theory because they do So Much and they're Great!!

Anyways here are the links:

Basically....

A humorous brief overview

Also Something Longer I Wrote

Rosegate General

The Urn Watch Post (TM) aka the Rosegate Bible (Post Credit Goes to User boysdontcryboycry)

More Wheeler Home-Creel Home Similarities 

Fake Urns with Roses on Them All Over the Wheeler Home

More Urn Shenanigans (aka T(urns) Outs the Mantle Urn Has Pink Flowers (Roses?)) on it! (Post Credit Goes to User boysdontcryboycry)

Mantle Urn Changing/Holly and Her lite brite/”Mothergate”

The Urn Intentionally Changed for the ST4 Climax 

Blonde Mothers Association With Roses

S4 thoughts surrounding female conformity (pink/white/blue color symbolism+roses etc): Part 1 

S4 thoughts surrounding female conformity (pink/white/blue color symbolism+roses etc): Part 2

Dustin Ringing The Wheeler Doorbell Scene in ST2 Possibly Referenced Three Times in ST4 (Steve + Jonathan + Victor- The Duffers confirmed they're returning to things left out of ST2 in ST5 so I just think this is very interesting plus Shaun Levy has said every scene has a purpose- read "PTSD" Pt.1 & 2 under Long Misc if interested)

Billy’s Mom/El Rose Symbolism

Possible Oedipus Reference

Virginia Reflections + Grandfather Clock in Creel Attic (Trailer)

Short Thoughts on Rose Symbolism in Creel Home Pt.1

Short Thoughts on Rose Symbolism in Creel Home Pt.2

El’s S1 Blonde Wig Confirmed to Have Belonged to Nana Wheeler? Lol Pt.1 (Post Credit Goes to User coldninjaruins-blog) Pt.1 

El’s S1 Blonde Wig Confirmed to Have Belonged to Nana Wheeler? Lol Pt.2

Shared Characteristics Amongst Some Female Characters (Clothing, Jewelry, Hairstyles) Pt.1

Shared Characteristics Amongst Some Female Characters (Clothing, Jewelry, Hairstyles) Pt.2 

Shared Characteristics Amongst Some Female Characters (Clothing, Jewelry, Hairstyles) Pt.3- Nancy/Karen Edition

Shared Characteristics Amongst Some Female Characters (Clothing, Jewelry, Hairstyles) Pt.4- Nancy/Karen Edition

Karen/Angela Clothing Parallels 

Victor = Spiders??

Rosemary’s Baby

Initial Rosemary’s Baby x ST Thoughts 

Karen/Nancy/Terry/Rosemary All in Blue Nightgowns

Possible Steve/Guy Woodhouse Parallel

Rosemary’s Baby Pink+White Outfits 

Grid Symbolism in Rosemary’s Baby

Long post on Rose Symbolism (plus others) in Rosemary’s Baby and ST

Thoughts on Nuclear Family Dynamics in ST and Parallels to Rosemary’s Baby 

Pendulum Clock and Other Time Symbolism in Rosemary’s Baby

Rosemary’s Baby and Stranger Things Clock Symbolism

“Aren’t You His Mother?”

Gingham/Roses imagery?

Mr Castevet’s Speech

The Shining

Holly- Henry “Explorers” Parallel Possibly Being a Reference to The Shining

The Shining Visual Parallels (Karen = The Woman in the Bathtub? Jack Torrance = Victor?)

Will Byers/Danny Torrance Parallel?

The Shining and KarenTed

More Karen/The Woman in the Bathtub 

If you are also interested I suggest you read Rob Agers analysis of The Shining because its very fascinating and goes into mirror symbolism, bathroom symbolism, and intentional production "errors" and how this all intersects with denial that is also utilized in ST. Warning for discussion of CSA, sexual abuse, and physical abuse. You will find that it is pretty enlightening, even if you don't subscribe to a lot of it.

Long Misc (rosegate related thoughts pre rosegate itself)

“Bad” Blonde Mothers Reoccuring in The Show

TODFTHR (Post Credit Goes to User stranger-chichka)

PTSD Parallels Pt.1

PTSD Parallels Pt. 2

Updates

*Some of this stuff may be repetitive, I'm just collecting posts*

The Curious Case of The Dead Wheeler Granny

Are the ages in TFS weird age fuckery or just canon inconsistencies/retcons? (link to @/aemiron-main's blog because for some reason this iteration of the post wont link to mine -.-)

Alice Creel Haunting Funerals

Oedipus the King in ST

Henry and Jason's Monologues: Are They Mirrors of One Another?

Some S4 Rosemary Coding Thoughts

The Talisman

Wheeler Family and "normalcy"

Rose Connie

Mike, Victor, Fred, and Ted: weird murder/killing & PTSD subtext

The Changeling/Rosemary's Baby/The Devils Advocate/The Omen: Anti-christ media

Short Misc (random small thoughts/shitposts etc etc, may not have context to them but I think they're neat)

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In short:

[minalblood]

Ok so my brain decided to deepen its own damage last night as I was rewatching The Winchesters (season 1) finale so buckle up it’s a long one fellas.

So I was listening and when I heard Keep on Rambling come on during the bar scene with Joan, my mind went huh, I wonder where this is placed in the album. So I went and checked. Mainly I was curious cuz usually an album tells a story and Jensen made it pretty clear that unlike the previous two albums where they were just trying shit out, this one was meant to be more consistent and have a clear throughline. So as I said, I checked.

It’s the 6th song btw, the 1st of the 2nd half of the album. I kind lost it after that tbh. Let me explain why ok:

So if we go by the logic that the album tells a story and we tie it to Dean (and destiel cuz duh tbh) we have this shit happening: Right Kind of Trouble - you can tie this to SPN directly, this is Dean realizing that Cas is basically it for him despite the constant fights they’ve been having and more so allowing himself to acknowledge that. Basically this is the Purgatory apology. Like legit this song is to me what Dean really wanted to tell Cas, that Cas didn’t allow him to. This is a love confession itself, one that says I know I fucked up, but If you give me a chance again I will do so much better cuz you’re it for me, we match. Like look at this shit guys:

Like this is pure divorce era Deancas and you can’t tell me otherwise, but more specifically, Dean thoughts as he eventually apologized in 15x09 The Trap.

Then we got Forever ain’t Long. This for me can of course still be about the divorce era, sure, but more so it feels like 15x18 Despair and regretting having gotten to this point and now it being too late to change anything cuz Cas is dead. Like how much clearer can it be? Like it’s literally a plea for time to turn back and for the relationship to go back to being as it was before all the mess Chuck and just the divorce era caused, but cannot since Cas is dead (Take me forever/forever ain’t long). And also, just this song screams Despair to me, it’s one of the saddest ones on the whole album, it reeks of grief. And it’s a direct call for Cas with the heaven line off the bat:

Also this part? This is mindspace for sobbing on the floor and 15x19 vibes for me.

Next is Every Light, the ultimate Dean song right? Well specifically this ties into 15x19 - telling Chuck he can just have his ending, just bring Cas back - and more importantly, and it’s also something I think we all heard, it’s about what shall not be named, the fucking 15x20 finale. I don’t need to bang on too much here but like, it’s even more than that. Because with TW 1x13 we find out he decided to stray from heaven while we were still mid ep 15x20 which means these are him going, hey I need to do sth about this, I need to figure out what’s wrong here, make sense of it and make it right cuz fuck this, I ain’t just taking this shit hand I’ve been given. Like I could literally put the whole song here but like imma put just some:

This is pure intergenerational trauma banging around in his head.

Ain’t no telling is next on the list and this is now heading into Winchester territory a bit, but not quite fully there. I see it as a continuation of the above aka I don’t want to go, but now that I’m gone and it’s not good, why is it not good, who am I after all, does anyone really know and does it really matter? And by anyone I do mean Cas tbh cuz like yea, it would make sense. The song literally says hey, you love me through all of it, despite me not always being sure who tf I am or how far away from each other we are, but we are still going to take advantage of every second we have. Basically this to me feels like a retrospective of the divorce arc put into context by the confession and this restlessness and need to find something Dean gets while in heaven. Like the 1st verse if soooo Dean I just can’t.

Ok now we get into shady waters a bit because You make me Blue is a bit of an outlier tbh, which considering I think this was written just by Steve, it makes sense, buuut I can still fit it in here seamlessly like this: this is sung to Chuck. This is the realization or resolution to the question posed by Ain’t no telling essentially. This unsureness of self isn’t lying with Dean alone, this was brought on by Chuck and his machinations so the anger in the song matches perfectly. Again, all of this til now has been gearing up to leave heaven but still on the road so to speak, still matching the 15x20 set of events, but his mind is running and trying to make sense of things. And what do we get with this song? We get “I’m finally happy being free/me”. We get a concretised sense of self once it’s been made clear in Dean’s mind just how much Chuck fucked with him (and if you’re a Chuck Won truther like me, how much Chuck is still doing, has the realisation that maybe Jack isn’t quite Jack here cuz sth is clearly wrong, but it doesn’t matter anymore, he knows who he is so Chuck/Jack’s influence can’t affect him anymore). And again this is the one song that matches least, but if we take it to be Dean having trusted Chuck to not be the villain (see him going to shoot Jack for that and promising to bring Mary back), then this still fits for me.

And now that we close this chapter we get to our 1st offender again: Keen on Rambling and the 1st one that is without any doubt taking place during The Winchesters. Like the whole song states everything that we’ve just been told happened throughout season 1. Like ok, verse 1 is deciding to leave heaven even though heaven is meant to be a place to rest (find peace whatever). Then verse 2 is giving the AU he finds himself in with the Akrida a nudge in the right direction (I’m sorry with the calvary in tow??, headed southbound for the season???)  And finally we get to the last one which to me is meeting the Core 4 but especially Mary and John and giving them the journal (I have a story to tell — do tell). So yea, but he’s not done tho. The song is constantly saying to keep on rambling so there’s more to do to get to where he needs to be, he’s still restless. But it is the beginning of this next chapter and the beginning of the second half of the album like I said. It matches soo fuckign well tbh and I’m going a bit insane here so take all this with a grain of salt tbh.

Ok so now that we’ve reached the current point in the Dean story we have 4 more songs. Which to me is basically where Dean needs to get to. 

And honestly a bit of Sweet Escape still fits into the finale for season 1 of TW so let’s get to it. This one is very much saying I’ve been caught red handed and people are trying to keep me contained but I refuse to stay put cuz there’s still shit I need to do/find. Like this is where my Chuck Won truthing hits worst tbh, but it could just be the Jack’s non interference thing too as well tbh, but the other voices that need to be drowned out are def Jack here, who took him back to heaven at the end of 1x13 of TW so this is basically saying you may have gotten me back here, but I’ll break outta the inclosure anyways, you can’t stop me, I’m not done. And with the 1st verse’ ending it feels like not only is he not done, but there’s a plan in motion here. Also I CANNOT overstate how much the 2nd verse makes me think of the Empty.

Return to Me is self explanatory tbh, but I’ll ramble a bit here too. This one answers the question of what he’s searching for, why he can’t stop moving, what’s missing for him to be happy. And what’s missing is a person that he lost aka Cas. Like I really don’t even need to say much here, this song is literally Dean going hey this is what I need to be happy, this is how that can happen. It fucking has the lakeside and raincoat mentions, it’s blatant tbh. And moreso, the last verse is just a reiteration of what we all lost our shit about with Watching over Me aka how did I not know you loved me back, how did I miss that until it was literally too late. 

Restless Man is a prayer to me basically and also the song I relate to the most tbh. So I’ll try not to get lost in the meanings here. But basically it’s Dean asking Cas to give him the space and reason to slow down. Not stop, because it’s still Dean and he can’t do that, but to give him a place or person where he can feel safe to take a break, where he can just be, where he can learn how to just be instead of constantly needing to do everything for everyone else. To have a place where he can just focus on himself a bit and what he needs and wants and how to embrace being happy. And more than just that, it’s saying that he’s finally ready to allow someone to take care of him for a bit, to have a place where he doesn’t need to be constantly on guard.

And it wraps up with Velvet Sky which in this case is the happy ending. Happy not because there’s “peace when you are done” like Jack says, but because now they have a place of their own to go to whenever they are weary of the road. The 1st verse to me is referring to Dean travels through the multiverse - literally seen all the land, every beach and grain of sand  because he literally went and saw all the possibilities for things, saw the wide expanse of the multiverse in search for this place and this person that he can now be with. And it’s not peace here, the sea is angry still, but it’s what works for them. It’ll never be perfect and it doesn’t need to be, Dean just needs this place and person to be free to just be himself and that no one else can reach or affect again, have his story be his own. 

So yea, this is the insanity my brain concocted last night after rewatching The Winchesters season 1 finale and having a random thought about Radio Company. And like I could’ve left it be and not traced any connections, but they fucking used the song in the show and then used Ramble On as the song to send the episode off. I couldn’t just ignore the relevance of that. 

But anyway, none of this could be accurate at the end of the day, but I had to get it out cuz it was stuck on repeat all night. Let me know what you guys think.

[pizzaapplecheese]

Wouldn’t it make sense if Sonic and Shadow were reversed?

for context: I have decided to read the first few chapters of the idw comics, I stopped at the point with Mr. Tinker’s appearance. I have heard beforehand that many people hated how Sonic spared Mr. Tinker aka Eggman.

When I was reading this specific scene, I understand the complaints as it is uncharacteristic of Sonic from most media to take second guesses especially to Eggman who out of all the characters he knows the longest and understands how dangerous Eggman is the second he gets his memories back he will cause problems.

However, I ended up realizing something during Sonic and Shadow’s argument and that is that it would make more sense if Shadow was the one who wanted to spare Eggman, not Sonic. At first you may be thinking “that is nonsense” and I understand but let me explain. 

Eggman during all of this have amnesia, he is thoughtful and caring, if not a little goofy from what I can tell so far. It is easy to make parallels to Gerald, it doesn’t help that Gerald is Eggman’s grandfather. Plus, these parallels can be a good way to explore an unspoken part of Shadow’s character which is his complicated relationship with Gerald as well as trust. 

Although Gerald was like a father figure for both Shadow and Maria, it is undeniable that he later betrayed that trust by manipulating Shadow’s memories to destroy what Shadow promised to protect, the earth. Not only would it be fun to explore Gerald’s relationship with Shadow through Mr. Tinker, it would also be fun to explore Shadow’s complicated relationship with trust.

Granted I haven’t read past the first few chapters (and I haven’t seen Sonic 06), but by having Shadow struggle with trust would make such an interesting story point because of it. He cares so much for Gerald, but he cannot deny that Gerald is also the reason he is as messed up as he is when it comes to believing in others.

Either way, this is just my thoughts so far on the IDW, it seems like a fun story so far and I can’t wait to continue reading to see the infamous Metal Virus arc.

[jalshristovski]

List of Hetalia ships I cannot fucking stand and why, in no particular order ✨

UsUk: I don’t even think I need to explain this one but I will. They call each other brothers, England raised him, they call each other brothers, ENGLAND RAISED HIM, THEY ARE BROTHERS, ENGLAND RAISED HIM, THEY A-

DenNor: This one I don’t see as problematic, more just my personal views. I see the Germanic Nordics as brothers. All 4 of them. And to add onto that, they have referred to each other as brothers, and I just think it makes more sense for them to be brothers, and not lovers. So this includes DenNor, SuDen, SuNor, and ESPECIALLY ships with Iceland. He is too young. He is a child. Anyway

PruAus: They’re… canonically… cousins… no… just no… they don’t even get along…

TurkGre: No. Absolutely the fuck not. 1. Turkey killed Ancient Greece, aka Greece’s mother, would you date your mother’s murderer? I thought the fuck not. 2. Greece is SO much younger than Turkey is. 3. I am Turkish and we and Greeks do not get along in the fucking slightest so even if the first two weren’t relevant, we literally just don’t like each other

RusPol: If you ship this I will actually avoid you like the plague. Russia has done so much bullshit to us, so the toxicity level in this ship is unreal. It’s toxic AND abusive. Historical context makes this a HUGE no no.

Spamano: No. No. No. NO. Romano was a CHILD. Spain made a child do hOUSEWORK. He was a CHILD. A TODDLER. A TEENY GUY. HE WAS LIVING WITH SPAIN WHEN HE WAS STILL WETTING THE BED. WHY. WHY.

TurkIce: I don’t think this one needs much explaining but here we go: Iceland is a child. He is a minor. His country may be old but he is physically 17. Which means developmentally he is 17. He has the mind of a 17 year old. He is 17. He is 17. He is 17. Turkey is OLD. EW. WHAT IS WRONG WITH Y’ALL???

RusLiet: Have y’all ever read about what Russia has done to Lithuania??? This is abusive as fuck. Period.

RusAme: I just can’t see it. On a world stage, America and Russia are enemies, and have been enemies for a long time. I cannot see an “enemies to lovers” type deal either. I just can’t

LietBel: This one I used to not hate until I figured out what kinda relationship Lithuania and Belarus actually have. I’ve yet to see one Lithuanian person who doesn’t claim Belarus rightfully belongs to Lithuania. Not only that but most of them refuse to call it “Belarus” and will usually call it “Belarussia”, or even more often, “White Russia”. This would be abusive, not from Belarus to Lithuania, but from Lithuania to Belarus.

PruLiet/PrusPol/PrusPoLiet: The only reason I categorise these as one is because I usually see them all lumped together anyway. But anyway, abusive. Abusive. Abusive. Abusive. Prussia had a TERRIBLE history with both Poland and Lithuania, especially when they were one country. The commonwealth and the Teutonic Order were constantly fighting each other, not to mention when you read up on how the Knights would talk about Lithuanians especially, it would be highly abusive. Read any part of the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle. The Teutonic Knights were literally read pro-Teutonic, anti-Lithuanian propaganda poetry to increase morale.

Germano: This is just eh to me. Could not care less. These two haven’t had near enough screen time (both in the show and manga) for this connection, and when they have communicated it wasn’t super pleasant. I wouldn’t call this ship abusive or toxic, not that far, I just don’t believe they’re close enough for this relationship.

BelaLiech: I am BAFFLED at how popular this ship is. Definitely not as popular as UsUk for example, but still concerningly popular. Belarus is 19 in canon, and Liechtenstein doesn’t have a canon age, but the fandom site says 12. I’ve seen people say 15, so she’s 12-15 years old. Aka: A MINOR. A CHILD. A C H I L D. NO.

EstLiet: Not much of the fandom knows this I think just because of his appearance and his mannerisms, but Estonia is 17. His physical age is 17. He is the same age as Iceland. While Lithuania’s canon age is 19, he is still an adult. Estonia I don’t think should be shipped with anyone older than 17, or younger than 16. My personal opinion.

Here are the ones from Balkantalia, aka not canon (mostly) but still relevant enough to include here

BulMace: This shit makes my blood fucking boil. It makes me want to commit a crime (for legal reasons that is an exaggeration). Bulgarians are so fucking terrible to us. Not even as a joke, Bulgarians hate us. They want to claim our country, they want to eliminate Macedonians as an ethnicity and a culture, they recognise Macedonian as a dialect of Bulgarian (we don’t even use the same letters???), and there is laws that prohibit us from identifying as Macedonian.

GreMace: I don’t know if that’s the correct ship name but regardless, this one is CONSIDERABLY worse. I haven’t seen it too much, but the fact I’ve seen it at all disgusts me. Did y’all ever hear about the Macedonian genocide? Did you know Greek neo-Nazis just tried to march in Lerin (the city my Macedonian family is from) to protest our existence? Did you know Macedonians are regularly attacked for being Macedonian on our own ancestral land? That we are not legally recognised as people in Greece? That Macedonians face police brutality in Greece? They want us fucking dead. My family did not flee genocide in Macedonia for you to make cute art of them kissing. Fuck you. Personally, and with full disrespect.

SerbCro: I am appalled at the amount of Serbs and Croats who actually ship this. Serbian and Croatian history is FULL of violence and bad blood, and the things they’ve done to each other historically is disgusting. Not only with the Ustaša and Yugoslav massacres. Not only do I HC the Serbo-Croats as brothers, but brothers who cannot go 5 seconds without fighting. Why? Because that’s how they are in real life. They cannot get along. If I had a dollar for every time I saw a Serb and Croat not fighting, I’d maybe have 50¢.

SerbMonte: No. No ❤️. Absolutely not. At least from the POV of one of my Montenegrin friends who used to live in Belgrade, Serbs do not like Montenegrins. They get bullied, harassed, and they’re considered to be second class Serbs. So no. Absolutely not.

I’m here to remind you guys this isn’t a show like most others, where the characters are fully made up and have no actual context. Hetalia, while a comedy show, is still based on history and culture of actually countries personified to be people. You cannot erase historical, cultural, or social context.

When I see my countries being shipped with their aggressors, or being shipped with people they aggressed, it doesn’t make me feel good. I don’t just “Ope well they’re characters oh well” those are representations meant to show you a little bit of the history.

They’re not always accurate, because one man from Japan who writes manga about countries he isn’t from will not always be right, but these are still representations.

Historical context in Hetalia is crucial. ESPECIALLY when it comes to shipping.

[brandwhorestarscream]

Oooh, just go for any and all timelines you'd find interesting for the son-in-law ask? I'd love to hear any of them!

I'll just go down the line then!! :D

So, timeline 1 is canon: Galvatron and Terminus are dead long, long before Megatronus ever even meets Orion Pax. Terminus dies from infection after losing his legs in a mining accident, and Galvatron dies in the gladiator pits after a rigged match.

Timeline 2, the Destructicon timeline, Megatron dies when he's the equivalent of like. 2 months old. So that's out

Timeline 3, the self imposed exodus. Because the warframes abandoned cybertron about a 100 million years ago, Sentinel Prime was never assassin mated: i.e. he's still alive and kicking so Orion isn't ever selected for Primehood. In this one, he and Megatron don't meet until they're both far, far into adulthood--roughly where the first season of Transformers Prime starts--and ol Megs is actually in a committed relationship with someone else. Any guesses as to whom? (It's not Soundwave, though they did date for quite awhile)

Timeline 4 is where we actually get our first look at Megop! Big bad is still the corrupt Primacy and the Senate, so while Orion may never become the Prime in name, he's still a beloved leader of the resistance. Except this time 🤭 he and Megatron are on the same side, leading together as one. In this timeline, Galvatron and Terminus fled from Kaon with their sparkling after being warned of the horrible future by Galvatron-2: Megatronus and Orion met when they were children, and were close friends all while growing up. To be honest, those two were the absolute last ones to figure out they were in love: everyone and their carrier and also their turbohound knew they were going to end up together. In TL4, Galvatron and Terminus have watched Orion grow up alongside their son and are very fond of him: they're perfectly supportive of their relationship and probably also had a bet going on about how long it would take for them to realize their feelings.

Now, timeline 5... here's where we get into the really complicated stuff. In this one, the Senatorial system is abolished before war can ever break out, and that includes the Prime as a figurehead. This is a timeline where all of the civil rights issues are solved peacefully: the Matrix is returned to the gods' Acolytes for safe keeping as a holy relic, and as there's no war nor anymore Primal figurehead, the Matrix isn't called upon to take a new host.

Orion and Megatron meet when they're teenagers-to-young adults, and this is the one with the rapunzel-esque situation for Megatron. Except instead of a tower, he's kept secluded within the walls of Iacon's main Temple of Primus (it makes sense it context I swear, but that's a whole other post of its own). Galvatron keeps him confined out of fear for his life: he's lived through so many lives and has been visited by his previous selves so often it's made him incredibly paranoid and obsessive. Isolation is his greatest love: keep Megatronus away from anything and anyone that could hurt him, sequestered in one of the safest buildings on the planet. As a holy place of worship and frequented by the Chosen Ones of the gods (aka the Acolytes) the Temple is under constant watch from the Primal Vanguard. No one gets in if they're not supposed to be there. It's safe. Megatronus has never set foot outside since being brought in as a sparkling and is extremely sheltered: cue Orion getting dragged there against his will for a research project and falling helm over pedes for this pretty holy virgin type.

...Again. I promise you it makes sense in context. I'll sexualize my religious trauma as much as I want tyvm lmfao 😂

ANYWAY. The first time Galvatron meets Orion it's hate at first sight: via several little misunderstandings he thinks Orion is an invader in the Temple trying to hurt his only child and kinda goes ballistic. Even after everything has settled down and he's knows Megatron is safe, he still despises him. He wants the little upstart to stay far, far away from his baby. Wants everyone to stay away from his baby, really. No one is safe. No one can be trusted. It takes a long, long time for him to be even slightly ok with Orion's presence, and even longer for him to accept it when a relationship does bloom between them.

Terminus, on the other servo, quietly adores Orion. Megatronus really only has one friend growing up in the Temple: the only son of a rather religious Senator, little Shockwave. But he can't visit often so their boy rarely gets to speak with peers his age, and it makes him happy to see Megatronus interacting with another youngling. Orion is polite and sweet and genuinely a good kid, seeing them spend time together warms his old spark. He's really not at all surprised when Orion presents his first courting gift, and gives the young mech his blessing to pursue his only child.

Timeline 6 diverges pretty late and much of TL5's canon carries over. This timeline split comes when they're already married adults, so there's no change there

Timeline 7 is just. Universal oblivion: there is no more universe. So uh... moot point

I hope you enjoyed this! I hope I answered your question ok. I know I didn't exactly touch on High Lord Protector stuff, but honestly it doesn't ever really crop up in Hindsight. I can say, independent of timelines and individual canons, they'd be very proud to see their son ascend to such a position, but would also be scared to death. That's such a big change, after all! And a dangerous position to take on 🥺 they worry about their baby

[eat-pray-cry]

All the Light We Cannot See: In Defense of the Netflix Adaptation (Part 3)

PART 3: CHANGES - THE BAD

WARNING: SPOILER ALERTS

Okay, let’s talk changes. First, let me clarify that all the changes were, in my opinion, justifiable. Did I like all of them? No. Can I see why they were made? Yes.

That said, behold my list of the bad (but not quite ugly) changes, and why I didn't mind them.

In the book, Verner destroys the radio, much to Jutta’s dismay. In the show, Verner continues listening to the radio, against Jutta’s wishes. I actually thought this change was delicately executed. The only difference I see here is that in the show, Jutta cautions against the dangers of listening to the radio, whereas in the book, she cautions against becoming misinformed. In the end, she is still established as a voice of reason, while simultaneously reinforcing that Verner was deeply attached to the Professor’s lessons.

The journey to Saint-Mailo, where Marie and Papa steal a car instead of enduring the grueling journey by foot. Two reasons why I think this is justified, both of which are technical. (1) Time. Keep in mind that a visual platform has limited time, so context had to be condensed as much as possible. To me, this scene was meant to convey that Daniel LeBlanc had a way of creating the charm and humor out of a bad situation. We saw this throughout the book, the show conveyed it in this scene. (2) Tone. Bear in mind that the show was aiming for a more hopeful tone, so the tragedy needed to be concentrated in certain scenes. This was not one of them. Showing a long and grueling journey would have made the show lean more towards the likes of All Quiet on the Western Front.

Verner’s time in Schulpforta is condensed. This makes sense to me. Again, the show had to condense a lot of context, so it had to be done here. Nevertheless, I thought they condensed it beautifully. The scene with Verner running from his ‘traditional welcome’ was heartbreaking.

Random details - omission of the model as a puzzle, addition of von Rumpel’s lady friend and Captain Schmidt. These, to me, were just tools for condensing the story. Am I sad that the house as a model wasn’t featured? Yes. The model, to me, was a very important indicator of Marie’s cleverness. Not to mention her connection with Verner, as Verner was the only other character in the book who was able to open it. But, simply put, the show did not have space for this detail. As for von Rumpel’s lady friend and Captain Schmidt, they were just mere tools for condensing the story. The lady friend was used to explain von Rumpel’s motivations, just as Captain Schmidt was used to show how badly Verner wanted to protect Marie.

Extra nazis, and all of them were “comically evil”. I’m only mentioning this because I’ve heard this comment several times. Let me start by giving credit where credit is due. Yes, the book was masterful in portraying nuance, and that included the nazi figures in Verner’s life. The thing is, subtlety doesn’t play out as well in a visual platform. It’s a show. Condensed, visual tension was necessary. As a result, the nazi figures had to be greatly dramatized compared to the figures in the book. 

Etienne is a badass. Okay, okay, I admit that even I felt iffy about this one, but I managed to make it make sense. First, keep in mind that the Etienne we met at the beginning of the show is PRESENT Etienne. He had already evolved. He’s had time to become brave. This is further reinforced by the flashback where we do see the Etienne that we knew from the book - the hermit suffering from PTSD - and we see the precise moment he grows out of it (aka “a tiger you will be again”). If anything, my only complaint is that he was already quietly involved in the Resistance by the time we meet him.

[wuxiaphoenix]

Colors of Another Sky: In Vino... Sequel-Is?

AKA the perils and plotholes of needing a wine-based cure in 1600s Korea.

Oh, this is going to be fun to explain.

Ahem. I will try to sum up.

So I invented a nasty infectious curse, like the Evil Writer I am, based on folklore.

And then a cure, also based on folklore. Both of these, however, are something the locals have to take a lot of swings and misses at, because it’s not Asian folklore. The dratted black dragon is a literal Out of Context Problem for our heroes, because it’s a European dragon.

Probably Germanic. I’m still figuring out how it got to Japan in the first place, but it was running from some very determined dragonslayers. So, like any smart predator, it lit out for territory with more unwary prey.

The Japanese, and then Korean and Chinese “locals” weren’t unwary long. Unfortunately things quite deadly to an Eastern dragon (if you want to know why samurai sometimes lick their swords, well....) do pretty much zip to a Western wyrm. Meaning the only way to go after it was massed artillery and cultivators using brute magical force. It was declared dead. The Chinese generals involved swore they’d blown it to pieces and burned the body, as was appropriate for foreign monsters.

(Namhansanseong’s Demon-Callers, having fought the beast more than once, were not so sanguine. Chae, who had way too much experience with Chinese generals, didn’t buy it for a minute. The prince newly crowned king of the Korean Peninsula... well, suggesting the noble allies from the glorious Middle Kingdom might have, perhaps, been mistaken, would have been extremely undiplomatic. Why, the generals might have felt forced to stay longer to prove it! With all those troops to feed and incidents of rape and pillage rising....

The King did order the Callers to track all the places the beast had been, and watch for any signs of another winged foreign monster. That’s just common sense, right? Right.)

So think of an out of context dragon-curse as like an out of context disease. Smallpox and measles in the Americas, or cholera showing up around the world by ship traffic in the 1800s. Local healers have no idea what they’re looking at. They try what they know. It fails. They try something else. And hope not to get killed in the process.

In this story they find a cure. But it takes ingredients they don’t have, locally. Specifically, wine.

This is why I try to double-check any story-important details with research. Korea, after all, has had a drinking culture for centuries if not thousands of years... with grain alcohols. As best I can find, winemaking only got started in the late 1800s with Christian missionaries, and later the Japanese Occupation, and - it’s a mess.

Back to the safer history of the 1600s. Their best chance to import wine fast would be the Ming Dynasty. I’m sure our heroes will; they have access to trade networks, cultivators who can travel distances, and they don’t need a lot to start. Though they will need enough so every coastal town eventually has some to make emergency treatments until more help can arrive.

The problem is going to be what they find out in the process of creating the cure. Which implies certain trade sources (yes, Ming China) may no longer be safe.

Politics. Ugh. If imports are problematic you see if you can produce a local substitute. And in fact there is a local grape in Northeast Asia. The Amur grape.

A relict species, from when Manchuria was warmer and wetter. It can’t take the drought other grapes can, but it is extremely cold tolerant. It’s also very sour, unless dead-ripe. But you can make wine with it. If you have a winemaker.

...If you know where to find it.

Very sour vine fruit is not what people think of when making alcohol. And if you look at the wiki page, it has a knack for looking like other vines, and who knows how local magic might have pushed that to extremes.

Our Korean heroes might not know an Amur grape if it bit ‘em. Chae’s heritage and travels mean she’s familiar with a different species, Vitus vinifera. And all Jason knows is a name - the Amur grape. He’s lucky enough to know that specifically because “things that survive Ice Ages” is a hobby of his. But the river isn’t called the Amur on local maps....

I’m thinking this will be an excellent problem for the next book, along with trying to get camelpox for variolation. And both of those will mean Manchuria, and Jurchens, and my bunnies have their heart set on demon tigers. And maybe Ansiseong.

[alolanroy]

2024 Watch Thread-Part 3

Part 2: https://www.tumblr.com/alolanroy/743462089395470336/2024-watch-thread-part-2?source=share

Lensman (anime): Sometimes lost media is bad. I'm glad it was found, but it still wasn't good 3/10

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: It got a few sensible chuckles out of us, but I'm glad they figured out how to make comedies funny after this. 5/10

Zombie vs Ninja (aka The Undertaker of Sohwa Provence). A South Korean parody of Chinese Kung-fu movies billed as ninjas for the US market. Imagine a turducken if every layer was racism. -5/10

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor: While my PC and Unreal were fighting for their lives, this janky game blew me away. Rarely do we get sequels that truly feel iterative, let alone head and shoulders better than their predecessors. It continually fed me new toys and mechanical twists. I think I'll remember this as both a fun action game and as an outstanding metroidvania. It made me remember that I liked Star Wars, and for that I am thankful. 9/10

Protodoid Delta: I see what they are trying to do here, but it just wasn't fun. just a lot of generic platforming and combat that didn't feel right. Weak buster shots and a three-hit melee I didn't find reliable do not a combat system make. 3/10

Blades: Not quite funny enough for the comedic premise, but for my friends who hadn't seen jaws, it still was enough of a thriller to hold their interests -5/10

Monster Squad: I feel like if this came out when I was a kid, this would have been my favorite movie of all time. The fun monster madness and tone was almost enough to distract me from how the horrible pan'n'scan always found a way to crop out the black buddy-cop, even when he was the one speaking. 7/10

Star Wars The Bad Batch: In all fairness, I stopped only a few episodes in, but this just felt like Dave Filloni playing with his action figures. No real tension, just a parade of his OCs talking to each other, mostly with the same voice. I don't really care to find out if it gets better, because all I've seen is people get excited that more characters from Clone Wars show up. I want a good show, not reminders of a good show. 4/10

Goldeneye: I'm glad Bond isn't quite as brutish with women as the franchise was historically, but while watching it with someone who had never seen a Bond movie before, it occurred to me how strange this movie is without the context it is trying to respond to. 6/10

Battle Star Wars: There wasn't much battle or wars in this one. The stars were allright, but I would've preferred maybe some different hallways or a second hill in the California desert. Hell, I think a second jpeg of the Earth might've gone along way. Besides one of the most funny-bad costumes I've ever seen, this was utterly forgettable. -2/10

Gundam Seed Freedom: This might actually be the most frustrating movie I have ever seen. It made me so mad that I, no joke, walked out to the lobby and stared at an arcade machine to cool off. The writing on display is insanely bad. The first half hour is a sequence of scenes where characters state their thoughts and exposit about a fanfiction-tier plot that barely makes sense. If you liked the cuck arc from Seed Destiny, you will love this movie. It doubles down on the concentric melodrama to a point where everyone has to just be cartoonishly mean-spirited and has the same ending as Destiny, down to the macguffin. 0/10

The Intruder (1962): The day of Roger Corman's passing, this film came up a few times. I took a chance and within a minute and a half I knew this would be a winner. I've never seen a film more quickly and elegantly set up that a character might as well be the devil. Shatner is absolutely fucking evil in this role and it is GREAT. The more I read about this film the more ballsy I realize it was. allegedly this was filmed using mostly actual locals given a watered-down script. All those teens actually went through integration the year before. absolutely wild. 10/10

The Last Man on Earth (1964): Wow, I can't belive that Will Smith Movie 'I am Legend' ripped this off. *Checks Wikipedia* Oh. 7/10

Vikingdom: When people say that a movie feels like a videogame, Ithink this is what they should mean. I would describe it as Jason and the Argonauts by way of a ps3 action game. Cheap as hell, but willing to go hard at random intervals. Shoutout to the sequence in the land of the dead. 6/10

The Cat Who Wore Sunglasses: I'm no expert on Czec new wave cinema, but I think that this was pretty neat. However, I'm not sure that it really fit the mood of a Costco Pizza movie night. 7/10

Dragonball: The Magic Begins: This movie is a laugh-riot mix of good wuxia action and bursts of some laughable CG...until it slows to a crawl at Kame House for like and hour and kills all its energy. The remaster they had on Amazon was gorgeous, but uncanny since these movies aren't usually accessible in any quality. The funniest takeaway was that the production interpreted anime hair as an 80s hong kong action lady perm, so Goku ended up looking a little they/them. -7/10

Blood of Zeus Season 2: I feel as though I can't speak for it much since this is clearly part 1 of a two part story, but it certainly is cut from the Castlevania mold. It does have better forward momentum than its predecessors, but the main party feels almost auxiliary to the other plotlines. I kinda forgot what they were supposed to be doing. 6/10

Everyone is in LA: I don't think the first batch of guests really grabbed me. If this ever got the chance to 'get good' they might be on to something. 4/10

Teldryn Serious: I get what they were going for, but it didn't really work for me. On the literal side, the quest objectives for the last third broke for me. Otherwise, I felt kind of confused because I guessed what was going on before I was supposed to, so I wasn't sure why the story hadn't caught up. 4/10

The Fall of the House of Usher: I think a lot of Japanese RPGMaker and VNs owe Poe and Corman money. Entertaining, but not mind-blowing 7/10

A.D. Police: It had some real cool energy and episodes, but its sure...uh... ended. 7/10

Gundam Twilight Axis: This is a prime example of the cutoff point between a series of scenes and a story 3/10

Skyrim-Mirai: I won't judge this too harshly since I really do feel teenage wish-fulfilment radiating off of this mod. When it clicked for me that Mirai has essentially the same narrative as Serana, and the romance post-game is longer than her main quest...I knew I had to meet it it's level. Not sure I like her ambiguous age, but I chalk it up to harmless fanfiction cringe. 6/10

Jiu Jitsu: With a little editing, this could have been an all-timer martial arts vs. predator mashup movie with a cool alien costume. Nick Cage is in it for a surprising amount and the martial arts is shot pretty fun. Sadly the movie as it exists starts off poorly and gives the impression that the movie is less ambitious than it might actually be. As a result I tuned out for the first half. 4/10

Dick Tracey: The funny makeup and production design does its best, but the awful pacing kneecaps the flow it has at the start. 4/10

Year One: uuugh -3/10

Wizards of the Lost Kingdom: We really had to make our own fun on this one. Except that gnomes, those were great -4/10

Jack-Of-All-Trades!? A Day in the Life of Master Micchi: The geats cast really is at its best once the series is over. These characters are just funny to follow around without the end of the world looming. 5/10

Kamen Rider Geats: 4 Aces and the Black Fox: This would have scored a full point higher if the main villains weren't a greasy discord mod/discord kitten pair that just did not fit the sick recolor of Geats 9. The brief pre-production view of Gotchard made me sad about what we ended up getting. 5.5/10

Kamen Rider The Winter Movie: Gotchard & Geats Strongest Chemy★Great Gotcha Operation: I know getting turned into a marketable plushie is a meme and all, but this was hilarious. Until it turns into a generic Rider movie in the last third, the puppets are funny as hell and the Geats cast shines so well against the mildness of the chemies. 6/10

[measuringbliss]

Spider-Man Read-Through 031: Tarantula and Kraven (SSM 1-3, plus -1)

MASTERPOST

In this batch, I make a mistake, someone gets to have creamed filling and big cats show their teeth!

That's heavily relatable to me. My grandparents would force us to go outside instead of letting us read or play inside. Some things never change?

HE'S GAY. HE'S BISEXUAL. HE'S QUEER. MAY SENSED IT. Like it's RIGHT THERE. COME ON. WE ALL KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS. "He's a bit fragile." We all knooooooooow!!!!

And Ben really wants Peter to be straight.

Oh. That explains things...

Not only do we get backstory for Peter, but we also get it for Flash! He's an asshole as a kid, but when you see his dad, things make more sense.

I'm putting this without context because it's funny. The facial expressions are on point, though, I'm very impressed.

Wow, Uncle Ben sucks. I get he has good intentions, but no no no, argh.

He gets better.

I don't have much to say, because the issue is very unlike the rest that has come before. It's dramatic, ironic, well-written, dark...

Not what I expected. Hm!

And... that's partly because I just read issue #-1, not #1. That was an issue published in the 90s.

WHICH MAKES MUCH MORE SENSE. Turns out my site redirected me to -1 instead of 1... but I'm still gonna read what I'm here for!

That's more like it! Oh, hey, Flash! That's, uh, awkward.

Classic situation: Spidey's taking pics of an event on the campus, a big bad (The Tarantula, my beloved) attacks, Flash tries to fight his goons off and fails, and the Tarantula escapes with a nice guy.

IN OTHER NEWS...

So Gloria's gonna throw a surprise party for Peter, nice! I'm getting spoiled, but oh well, I prefer to read several issues of the same series at a time.

I think Peter, MJ and Flash should hang out together. They should date and snuggle. And maybe I should write that. I just posted on AO3 today for the Threesome prompt of Kinktober, but nothing stops me from posting more stuff!!!!!

I feel like there's a decent chance MJ would be polyamorous, especially those years. Nowadays, she's busy adopting fake children and getting with guys from another dimension.

Turns out the Tarantula's obeying someone's orders, as usual! I wonder who that is. It feels so great to be lost like that!

The ads are bonkers too.

Spidey saves the mayor, but the Tarantula gets away. It's a fun issue, I don't know why, but I'm very attached to the Tarantula.

That makes sense!!!!!! So we still have Conway, nice <3 Sal Buscema and Mike Esposito did a great job with the visuals, too.

SSM #2 starts... Well.

I have no idea what the first yellow text in the middle panel means, but I'm here for it. At least we're not forgetting the Kinkpin's son, and it makes the concurrent ASM storyline quite intriguing!

Somewhere else, the Tarantula surprises Kraven and they fight. I hope we get to see Kraven's nipple lasers!

Someone interrupts them, sadly.

Hmm! So mysterious!

While both evil guys get to know each other and kidnap a guy, Peter has an idea. Gloria is looking for a job, and he knows just where they can try.

"Peter, you're my friend, why are you doing this to me?"

Great comedy.

Turns out Gloria and Jameson hit it off spectacularly. Gloria might have used some of her charm... Good for her!

Spider-Man has a job of his own, of course.

Kitty kitty!

The Tarantula is a smart one. I'm glad that Conway gets to play with his characters a bit more <3

...That said, considering our mysterious figure assaults the Tarantula precisely for knowing too much, I'm not sure he's gonna stay alive much longer.

Oh, they want the money. Good for them! I'm not gonna read Jessica Drew's adventures, though.

Lasers!!!!! Kind of. Better than nothing.

#SSM 3 time!

I love that Peter's unmasked on his picture <3

Imprisonned with the mayor, the Tarantula frees himself... but the Lightmaster, aka his boss, was expecting this!

Peter has more important business, though, namely: getting back home in his costume and avoiding being seen by Gloria and Flash, who're playing music in his flat.

He succeeds. Flash invites him to eat with Gloria, but he has a surprise when they get at the restaurant...

Remember her?

She runs away, and Flash decides he needs to be alone for a while. I never expected to see her again!

Peter decides to investigate a flashing light and finds he's not welcome there.

I snorted. The Lightmaster knows what he wants! And he hurts Peter pretty bad.

A good excuse for a new fit.

He eventually unmasks the Lightmaster as a physics teacher at university! Alright, sure. The bad guy ends up fried similarly to Kraven, nicely closing our batch.

Next time: The Vulture!