#random predictions for ava 11

[starryali]

(22/11/2024)

I think it would be cool if in Animation vs animator season 3, when yellow, orange & Cho escape the rocket Corp, it just pan out to Vic standing in front of a tube where unconscious TDL is in

(5/12/2024)

My prediction is maybe a bit far fetched but eh- I think Alan would be transferred to the box. It would be cool if he turn into a stick too.

(7/12/2024)

Another prediction: Mitsi and Shepard are set in the same universe, and she is the closest person to Vic. Like siblings! Or romantic idk idc. When Dark and Cho goes to a rampage, she died to Cho

Or Mitsi work alongside Vic, idk, that possibly could happen. I think it would be good if shes the one that gain access to Alan PC and took the footages of the CG shenanigans :>

(Its more far fetched than before but imagine if Mitsi want to severe the connection between the users and the outernet, so that's why she work along side Vic, because they have almost the same goal except hers was more destructive)

[door430]

It's Theory Time (AvA 11 Edition)

We have genuinely gotten so much info about the next episode. So I'm gonna throw some of my own predictions into the ring! I will actually be so happy if literally any of this turns out to be correct

Also this is going to be a long post. just a warning

It's been all but confirmed at this point that the fandom's dreams of farmer victim are all coming true. So the big question is - why would victim suddenly drop their peaceful farming life out of nowhere? I'm sure most of you have probably seen the theory that it's because victim's village gets destroyed by Chosen and Dark when those two are on their rampage. And I totally believe that's gonna happen, because it just lines up too well. But I don't think that's what sends victim on a revenge spiral.

Look at it this way - your village just got attacked by two very distinct-looking stick figures. One of those stick figures just so happens to look IDENTICAL to the very distinct-looking outsider that moved in just a few years ago. And maybe you're not quite thinking straight, because your home, your whole life, maybe even a friend or family member, is now gone. And the outsider says they didn't do it, but it most certainly looked like they did. Wouldn't that be sufficient reason to kick out this outsider?

Of course, not everyone thinks victim definitely did it, but there's too much evidence against them, and they've never really fit in anyway, with their overly ambitious goals, and the odd way they act and speak. Nobody was going to fight to keep them around.

So victim gets kicked out. A hollowhead stick with a perfect likeness to a known terrorist, of course they have to do something about their appearance. I think this is when they'd find the paint bucket tool, and use it to recolor themself gray. It's distinct enough from their original color that they wouldn't be mistaken for The Chosen One again, and at the same time, it serves as a visual metaphor for the stark change victim exhibits here.

Because this is the second time Alan Becker has torn their life away from them - albeit, less literally, this time. I believe that is the thing that would push victim to found Rocket Corp - a tech company, to the public, but behind the tall metal doors of their most secure facility, victim experiments, and researches, and forms a plan of how to get back at the man who has taken everything from them. And it starts with capturing The Chosen One.

Of course, it wouldn't be long before a group of mercenaries would show up, each with their own personal grudge against Chosen. After all, Chosen had destroyed countless websites with Dark, so there's quite a few people who would jump at the opportunity to take revenge. Maybe victim would even recognize one of them - the tall one with the sunglasses - from the chaos back on Newgrounds. Of course, he wouldn't recognize victim; they look far too different now, not only in color, but also in their disposition - a cold, anxious fury had long since soured the ambition in their heart, to the point where they can barely remember the stick they once were.

The one with the sunglasses seemed to understand victim the most, out of the group. He longs for justice, just as victim does. And while they don't become friends, necessarily (victim is far too focused on their goal to allow such distractions), they do trust each other, maybe even with their lives.

But it stops being justified when victim sees how young Chosen looks (barely a few months younger than them, and already so scarred by the world). It stops being justified when they throw away all pretense of an interrogation, and their fight turns very one-sided. It stops being justified when they use what they've seen, the videos featuring The Chosen One that their creator has uploaded on various platforms, to fight the defenseless stick.

Not that they'd want to think about when their goal of justice turned into revenge, of course.

And now for a few random, one-off theories

victim is Freedom Guy

victim learned how to use a lasso from the farm (and it's still their weapon of choice to this day)

more of a question than a theory, but what happened to the other victim clones from AvA 1? are they just actually dead, or are they out there somewhere? Will we ever see them in the series?

if victim tries using the pencil to draw something this episode. i think they will be really, comically bad at it.

not sure if i believe it as an actual theory, but the idea of victim and Smith being friends from Newgrounds is a Concept (which i am rotating in my mind) (totally not getting attached to this idea and thinking about the implications) (< lying)

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

Punk Girl/Civil War Submission by The Wild West Pyro

Heyo, good morning/afternoon/evening/night

My friend on discord (The Wild West Pyro) had an absolutely mind-blowing theory concerning who the band ‘Punk’ Girl is, why she’s important to the story, and how she will lead to the rift in the Calypso Twins relationship. I don’t want to spoil anything for you guys, so I’m just going to dive right in.

(A majority of this will be directly from our conversation, with [some edits by me] to help with context and add in pictures.)

Here we go!

So we figured Punk Girl is in some way related to the CoV, or the cult in general, as she makes an appearance on what seems to be a cult-centric shirt on the gearboxloot instagram page (more credit to @ifalnasminiatures for providing me with this link!) 

“Well, there are [a few] ways this could go:

Punk is linked to the COV and is intended to spread their message even further with the typical subliminal brainwashing thing. So they can broadcast outside of the planets the Cult has a presence on.

It’s a sore subject between the Twins, but one they hide rather well. The girl is related to them, she’s just considered by one of them as “that disgrace who refused to reclaim the birthright and ran off to join a band instead, ugh.”

She’s a band that works for the Cult sometimes. But in fact, she’s the eyes and ears of the Alliance within the Cult. Best of all is that she’s directly related to the Twins. Secretly, she disapproves of what they’re doing, but she’s the Alliance’s best hope of what’s going on.”

[That last one is the one he goes over the most, and it’s super interesting.]

“The Twins never suspect that the spy was in fact the one closest to their hearts.”

[my response: It would explain why there are no other bosses on the MoM that we know of (excluding the twins bc those are guaranteed), because she’s never going to become a fight even tho she looks the part]

“Also, [regarding] the last bit of your post, it’s just asking for a sidequest where it’s revealed that all the Gen 3.0 VHs known how to play some sick bass.

Punk Girl: ‘Hey, my bass guy is sick, can you take over?’

Zane: ‘FECK YEAH’”

[We talk a bit here about a Scott Pilgrim-esque Battle of the Bands, with Mr. Torgue as the competition, so there’s a bit of a transition that’s missing.]

“Hey, you know how Athena encrypted her messages between Engorge commercials? Punk Girl cleverly hides her messages in her music or backmasking. That’s how she sends her info to the Vault Hunters.

The twins never suspect a thing, and when she finally reveals she’s been working for Lilith, they’re genuinely shocked- and then the rift develops. One sibling would want to protect the girl, the other would want to punish her. The twins seem extremely close, so I personally feel it’d be odd if one of them up and betrayed the other [without outside influence].

It would be a great twist, too. Jack always had something planned out to trip up the Vault Hunters. But Lilith has learned much within these seven years. It turns out, Lilith is far better at pulling the strings than we ever thought Tyreen was.

Also, when Punk Girl reveals that she’s a spy for the Alliance (likely mid-game), this happens:

Tyreen screaming “YOU BITCH” amongst other horrible things and ECHOing up Punk Girl to verbally abuse her for hours, which continues through the rest of the game.

Troy trying to gently persuade his youngest sister to “Please come back” and ��I don’t want to kill you”, attempting to smooth-talk her back into supporting the Cult. He keeps on ECHOing her gift baskets.

The twins arguing with each other over the fate of Punk Girl. Which, if done right, could potentially lead to a civil war within the Cult…

And to think it was all over a nice girl in a cool band.

Of course, both Troy and Tyreen are trying to kill the Alliance still, they’re just now divided over the fate of the girl and who’s gonna get the power of the vaults.

Which would add a human layer to it all- in the end, it’s just two selfish children squabbling over some big, universe-shattering toys. Albeit with billions of lives ended in the crossfire.

The war predicted by the Watcher was terrible. Zarpedon said so as well.

And, honestly, nothing’s more brutal and vicious than a civil war several galaxies-wide.”

[It was at this point that I absolutely lost my shit (in a good way) bc goddamn bro]

“Ideally, Tyreen goes out of her way to harass, demean and try to ruin poor Punk Girl’s life, and the [Crimson Raider] Alliance have to help her stand emotionally as Punk Girl undergoes a truly horrible campaign of cyberbullying, physical assault, very violent death threats and actual attacks on her band members. Tyreen mobilizes all her loyal followers to just try to hurt Punk Girl on whatever way they can.

Troy is a little different. He’s supposed to represent the streamer who manipulates fans into giving him what he wants, or scams folks by pretending to be disabled or whatever. Or the handsome fellow who’s a total self-centered jackass on the inside, but charms many people’s hearts nonetheless. So he tries to subtly brainwash Punk Girl into returning over to the Cult, and sweet-talking her to try and get her back on his sides. He’s like the caring, warm big brother on the surface, but really he just wants a new loyal sibling at his side, someone he can control far more easily. Troy’s promises are extremely alluring, his followers appear to be proposing an alliance with the Raiders (which Lilith refuses at all costs) and it’s going to be difficult for Punk Girl to resist his brainwashing techniques and honeyed words.

Basically, protect Lilith’s most treasured and loyal agent, including asking out Atlas and maybe other friendly corporations for favors to protect Punk Girl and her bodyguards (the new VHs). Bonus points if Punk Girl really is a latent Siren or something, and her power has to be safeguarded.”

[So, we know the unknown Sirens (there are two atm) are, if we understand Siren powers correctly: 12 and 7 at the time of bl3. 

HOWEVER. It’s been stated by Danny Homan that there are multiple ways for someone to receive Siren powers: 

The most important part of this exchange is the idea that, in universe, somehow, existing people can become Sirens. Now, I am not sure if this is solely through other Siren powers (Tyreen), or Vault bullshitery, or if they just wake up one day with the tattoos, but according to Homan, it’s definitely possible. In fact, I would go so far as to say the writers are keeping things intentionally vague for this reason.

What I’m trying to reason here is that even if Punk Girl is older than 12 or 7 (odds are she is, if she’s in a band!), she could still be a Siren, just that she got her powers at a later age, like 11 or so, meaning she’d be about 23 or 18 in BL3, respectively]

“If Angel does return, and Punk Girl is going through utter hell thanks to the twins, Angel will be the finest confidant and greatest friend she’ll ever have. Angel went through similar treatment at the hands of Jack, and she’s not going to let another girl with wings get hurt again. 

I mean, most of Punk Girl’s story arc would be heartbreaking, as it really seems like the Twins have fully turned their wrath on her rather than Lilith and the Alliance. Luckily, the Vault Hunters are there to act as her shield. Like, whenever you pass her in the ship, your character can give a random line of encouragement in the really tough times she’s going through, or something like that. 

And if Punk Girl turns out to be the final Siren after all, Lilith, Angel, and Maya would all ensure that she’d never be hurt like they were in the past. 

As the abuse Punk Girl would be receiving is from her own blood relations, [it] would be far more painful for someone to experience.

Now, for how the corporations may get involved, they’ll probably just start by trying to exploit this new galactic-wide civil war (especially as it’s hinted that the Twins do mass brainwashing or something [in the] Psycho character guide), then throwing each others’ armies at their rivals in support of one Twin or another. Although I’d imagine that Atlas and maybe Jakobs would stay out of it. [In addition], the Hyperion analyst in Moze’s ECHO from Commander Lily has dialogue that implies that all the corporations are preparing in case a Second Corporate War breaks out, since the first one essentially made the BL universe what it is now.

There we go, we have the war set up, as entire populations turn on each other, having become psychos pledging undying loyalty to one of the Twins. It’s going to be a mess.

[To end] on a comical level:

Maya: (hugging both [Ava and Punk Girl]) I love my dumpster children.

[Also:]

Tyreen, with this red background and thrash metal playing in the background and “angry war face” makeup: HEY MY WHORE OF A LITTLE SISTER, YOU ARE A [insert hate speech from evil liverstreamer gremlin here].

Troy, in a fancy suit and in a warm armchair with a fireplace roaring behind him: Hello, little sister. You remember the time we played at the beach together? Well… [insert sentimental tale of sibling love and fun here that is really a thinly veiled plea to rejoin the Cult].

That’s it, that’s both their streams from that point on.”

[I don’t have much to add, to be honest. This was great.

I love the whole thing, all the way down to his characterization of everyone involved. I can totally see Tyreen being the loud, explosive one out of the two, with Troy being quieter, but far more manipulative. I think it would contrast nicely with their designs and what people might be expecting from them, especially with how Troy is the big one with his cybernetics and always scowling, and Tyreen is shorter, always smirking and looking like she’s in control. It’d be so funny to see those two roles reversed and I really, really hope that’s the plan. Especially after the reveal that Troy is the one with the braincell lmao.

The idea that this small incident could end up causing a huge, brutal war, not just between the twins, but the corporations as well, is great. We know the Watcher claims ‘war is coming’, and this would help explain what we should expect. It would be very interesting if we needed to pick a side of aid at the start of the fight (i do imagine this will be Troy if The Wild West Pyro’s characterization of the twins is true), then turn on that side once the other is eliminated.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this as much as I do!! Massive credit to The Wild West Pyro for literally all of it. It was a really fun read.]

[devandahlcourte-work-in-progress]

Section 12. 2 chapters, ending with chapter 5

I am reposting these first eighty-two chapters (in 22 sections) plus the prologue and the preface.

These posts will be the updated versions from my DeviantArt account, and since Tumblr may not display all the text correctly (it destroys anything I had in italics or underlined) I would still recommend reading everything there, on DeviantArt. They will also include internal links that navigate between the chapters on DeviantArt and will take the reader off Tumblr if clicked.

This came about because I noticed search engines were finding random sections of my book and displaying them along with some other people’s blog posts.

Okay, so that’s why I installed those internal links in each one… so that if anyone gets to a random section by way of a search engine and would like to read the story from the beginning, they can.

Only then did I realize that it wasn’t getting it’s search results from DeviantArt, but from old Tumblr.

There’s another problem at work here besides unrefined searches…

There is a new species of virus on the internet that likes to eat ancient Tumblr posts and barf them back up infested with adware - spyware - malware etc. The virus goes by names like TumGIR, TumBIG, TumPIK, or Tum(anything else but ‘blr’). The caps were added by me for emphasis so that maybe you can double check in case you’re not looking at an actual Tumblr post right now but one of these so-called “mirror” sites.

If you’re looking at this text through one of the counterfeit Tumblrs that I mentioned, then no link you click (assuming it even copies it with my links intact) will take you out; it will redirect you and show you all of the spam ads it wants to. So read carefully what url is showing on your browser right now.

If it is one of the untrustworthy ones I would suggest closing your browser window and doing whatever else you normally would in order to reset settings.

As far as my science fiction novel entitled “If And Only If,” the safest way to find it is by going to my Instagram:

@michelle.de.vandahlcourte

From there you can click on the link in my bio. It will take you to the beginning of the story on DeviantArt… the safe one! No malware.

P.S. None of this is Tumblr’s fault! It’s the malware/adware/spyware developers who are stealing people’s tumblr posts.

The actual content of this page appears below here👇

Section 12. 2 chapters, ending with chapter 58

↩️return to previous section, section 11

↩️↩️…and if you arrived here because of a search engine and you would like to read this story from the beginning, click here.

Brenda and Renaldo

I called her from Kyle but didn’t let her know that. I just told her I was driving as fast as I could and would try and make it home shortly after sunset. To my relief she’d said to slow it down and take my time; she was running late too.

As predicted, the purpose of her visit that night was absolutely what I’d thought it would be: she knew exactly what proper answers to give to the multiple challenge questions I asked – things that only Brenda and some very close friends would know. And not even phrased in the form of questions per se.

I had to play along with it now, before I could “give her back her phone.”

“Oh, I see you found a use for that top after all,” I motioned while feigning an interest in her outfit. “That’s the one you made as a sewing project for Ava two years ago, right? But by the time you got it all done her boobies had grown more and she couldn’t comfortably button it!”

“No, you’re way off,” she said in a way that made my skin crawl, “it was Cecilia I made it for!”

A one hundred percent correct answer to a thing that wasn’t supposed to sound like a question and answer exchange... and didn’t. One of a series of five such verbal interactions to which she responded in precisely the way she was expected to. That is, if you only paid attention to word choice.

The way she spoke reminded me of how my youngest brother had sounded the other night when my mom got after him for putting out the trash can when it was supposed to be a recycling can night. Sure, he responded. Okay, I’ll get up mom, and do it now – or words roughly to that effect. But he spoke them just like you’d think a person would after being awakened from a deep sleep to the sound of someone chattering away.

That was Brenda. She sounded like she was sleepwalking. Are sleepwalkers able to speak and answer questions? I should look it up. But groggy as hell, like she was about to fall asleep on her feet. There was more to it than that; her facial expression was off. At times it was almost as if someone had inserted electrical probes into her facial muscles and was trying to work her like a puppet.

To add to the creepiness, she saw that I had Suicide Squad paused right before Harley’s line about the voices: “that’s not what they really said.” Brenda thought that line was adorable. We were always talking about binge-watching DCEU someday. She mentioned our vague plans again and that we should do it soon and then went on to chat about Margot Robbie on Instagram from last month or something.

Her voice throughout this was utterly Normal Brenda. Then after a long pause I said “well...”

She nodded and said “oh yeah,” as in let’s-get-on-with-it. When the pre-programmed conversation resumed, for the remaining 2 challenge questions that didn’t really sound like questions? She was back to sleepy-voice Brenda. It worried the fuck outta me! Who in the hell was doing this to people’s minds? To her mind??

She got the phone from me, examining it briefly, and was of course unable to tell it apart from the original. So as far as she was concerned: mission accomplished. And back to regular fully-conscious Brenda voice.

Since she’d filled me in on the Wheeler phone situation also, back when she brought this one for me to look after – and it was understood that I knew about that one too – I asked her if she wouldn’t mind me driving her up to Austin. Or if she really wanted to take her car, we could switch off and tag-team on the driving. Though I couldn’t really explain to her what my concern was, it was easy enough to explain to myself internally: if she sounded that damned tired while talking, would she be alright to drive? It was dark already, and if these mind-scrambling goons who were traipdaising through her synapses with such little regard for damages they might be inflicting, were also making her tired... that was a potentially lethal combination. All because they were hellbent on making sure some damned comic book character got erased! The fact that I saw a woman nearly get killed by a car in Austin earlier in the afternoon might have had me on edge too.

She was cool with me coming along and was kind of excited about introducing me to Wheeler; something she once again communicated to me in her normal voice.

Wheeler and I had planned for this possibility: that Brenda might one day introduce us, and that we would agree to act like it was our first time meeting. Once he understood the logic of it, he was all for it. If Brenda became aware that we had already met somehow, for some inexplicable reason, her puzzlement or curiosity over this might also alert the mind-manipulators and cause them to go nosing around more deeply into my business. And since part of my business included backing up her files in a way that protects them from the Erasers... in other words, since it helped Brenda... he was on board for this little bit of subterfuge.

As we cruised through SoCo and passed her favorite costume shop that she loved as a kid, just after 10:15 that evening, I did briefly worry that this mind signal-pulse might have turned Wheeler into some kind of driveling idiot if they’d cranked up the power enough this time in order to make sure they finally got to Brenda. And if it did do that to him, would he be able to keep up the “we’ve never met before” pretense or would he slip up and go Fredo?

No problems. Fortunately his mom and dad were away on some week-long spiritualism and crystal meditation retreat, as I’d learned earlier. He was normal as far as I knew, gauging him by what I’d observed during our first two meetings. Wheeler and I exchanged nice-to-meet-yous and heard-a-lot-about-yous and Brenda was pleased to see that we were hitting it off nicely; once she was again back to being Normal Brenda, that is.

During their witty exchanges of only-Brenda-would-know factoids, she was doing that same sleepwalking, or rather “sleeptalking” thing. I could see the look of consternation take hold of his face as he no doubt worried in the same way I had 70 miles to the south during astronomical twilight.

As much of a relief as it was to have normal-voiced Brenda back, it was also good to see they hadn’t decided to “up the voltage” as Professor Hathaway had suggested. Wheeler had been very careful during all this, to absolutely not reacquaint himself with Stalko-Taco. Once he’d grasped what Brenda was trying to say was being done, the thought terrified him; the notion that someone or some things had been stomping around through his brain cells was mortifying to someone who had already taken and aced 6 college mathematics courses while still technically in high school! Like Hans Zarkov pleading with Ming’s interrogators!

Whatever he did worked – it armored him alright. Either that or the Erasers didn’t send out a worldwide pulse this time, but simply dispatched an agent, with a good old fashioned flashy thing, who just visited Brenda.

Wheeler filed Stalko-Taco in the category of some really gross YouTube vid that he might have started to watch, but then hit the back-button instead. Something he would have no interest whatsoever in watching. His strategy had paid off, in the form of an unassailed mind. When I carefully questioned him later, he remembered Brenda going on and on about some obscure creepypasta character, but had no desire to view any copy of it – whatever materials she might have had.

If they did send out another worldwide signal, it had most decidedly left him alone. Suffice to say he never watched or attempted to even examine the backup vlog vids that Brenda had placed on the phone that resided in his room for a few weeks. So technically he didn’t know that he had any Stalko-Taco related materials in his possession, in case they would have broadcast another “destroy everything you have about the Taco” signal. The idea had been sound.

I was kinda glad to be done with this phase of the chess game with whoever these people (or aliens) were. Now that they had made their next move, I could plot mine. The next night, on some property that my dad had invested in but never got to fully develop during his lifetime, I sealed myself in a homemade SCIF below ground level in a small tornado shelter that the previous owners wisely thought to dig and construct. It was a bit away from where we parked our camping trailer, so even without the soundproof walls I wouldn’t be disturbed by my brothers carrying on. Within the shelter, and within my SCIF, I climbed into still another layer of protection: my homemade human-sized Faraday cage. With a hand-crank generator that would charge USB devices, I at last watched Brenda’s videos. And with this act I quite possibly became the only person left on Earth to know the full true story of Stalko-Taco.

His Cerebral Phosphorescence

“Extraterrestrial intelligences, or aliens, don’t exist. Period,” declared the world’s third smartest human to his reflection in the hallway mirror at home before he left. In what little private time he had, Swifty had built his own polygraph: thermometers and / or thermocouples of course, and ohmmeters sensitive to variations in skin moisture, a pulse-ox, plus blood pressure monitoring, etc. Even a voice stress analyzer along with the software he would need in order to interpret the results. All of it had to be destroyed and disposed of long ago since he had passed the point in his career wherein he could not be found with these things. We wouldn’t want it to look like we were practicing to beat polygraph tests, he thought, smiling to himself.

He had the idea ever since the Cliaandians handed diGriz the egg at Glupost. It was unimportant now, as he’d long since mastered it. But a little rehearsal in front of the mirror sometimes helped. Honest old Swifty had been beating these things routinely since the late 80s. They were a joke to him now.

What wouldn’t be a joking matter would be if it became known that he was working on an E.T. angle on anything at all. Though not treasonous or a security threat, it could cause his career to go the way of the “Stargate Project” in a heartbeat. The official party line was no psychics, no paranormal shit, no E.T.’s… Nothing otherworldly whatsoever was allowed to exist. If there was a problem, you looked to this world for an answer, or you would answer to the budget decision makers.

Evidently, a majority of the voting public did not admit to belief in these things and wanted their elected officials to be “pragmatic” even though a majority of Americans in 2019 might not have trouble accepting alien-based theories. If they asked him privately (were such a ridiculous notion as “privacy” even possible) he would tell them the truth, and most people would be disappointed or just think he was a lying, high-ranking government official who was part of the “cover-up.” But reality was unfortunately bland. Edward Snowden was quite truthful about that.

All supposed incidents involving UFOs that the public has knowledge about were in fact governments of the world fucking with each other by way of experimental technologies; when caught – that is when evidence turned up at a “crash site” or other things that could expose them – they would rather have the people think they were lying about aliens than find out what they were really lying about.

In the old days, supposedly they’d even go so far as to plant dummy “alien” corpses at a crash site and allow video or film clips to be “leaked” of things like alien autopsies or whatever. They went out on a limb – taking a chance that people would be stupid enough to buy into it. But evidently it worked; it had also paid off big for everyone from Hollywood producers to bloggers and people who sold trinkets and t-shirts at Roswell.

Just like the moon landings: many people believed it was all a hoax because of the fake photos and some film clips. They’d rather have a huge fraction of the population believe it was fraudulent, than show them the real pictures. You know, the ones that clearly show the US placing nuclear devices on the moon in flagrant violation of the 1963 nuclear test ban treaty. Whenever someone at the NSA had doubts on this, Swifty’s response was always to tell them “Complete this sentence: Our government would never put nuclear missiles on the moon, because ___________.” That wiped the smiles off skeptical faces real quick.

Back to the conundrum of the moment:

“There is a possibility that a bunch of people higher up than I am in the government are simply yanking my chain,” I thought glancing at myself in the rearview mirror now. But that would require the existence of multiple government employees who are all more intelligent than I am. I decided a while back that I’d rather believe in the aliens; it’s more plausible.

But as I always remind myself, just to make sure I’m keeping my ego in check... it’s not just ego. I’ve always made certain that I can back up assumptions about being more intelligent than someone else with evidence. Most people provide me with copious amounts of evidence all by themselves.

As far as the physical type of data? The most convincing evidence I ever encountered was the Stalko-Taco teleportations. I called them the “burrito” teleportations at first since one of the cops claimed his police car had been vandalized by a giant burrito.

Shortly after that, emails out of Berkeley, Oakland, San Jose, San Francisco, Burlingame, etc. related a story of a giant taco that was very protective of its young hungry human friends. Nothing about shanghai-ing a bunch of cops. But since “Stalko Burrito” just didn’t have the same ring to it, I’ve since codenamed them the Stalko-Taco teleportations in my mental notes to myself... where they have had to remain exclusively. Regardless of whether people were hallucinating about the taco or not, the mysterious “teleportations” did occur. Retracing what happened, the first calls to police regarding naked people in the various cities actually started coming in only three minutes after all four of them simultaneously went radio silent.

No spacecraft in the world, even now 22 years later will get a person off the ground in San Francisco and on the ground in Greece in three minutes, and do it without showing up on any radar or other detection system.

What is more disturbing is the fact that there is either a second NSA within the NSA secretly keeping blinders on us, or that the aliens are somehow not only erasing memories but also re-programming minds with false memories. A little birdie told me that surprise random polygraph screenings would be today. That’s good, it will have me nice and relaxed before our meeting with the people from Mitternacht.

They were actually a pleasure to deal with compared to other private contractors. Although it was US government we could use a local German company for our European ___________ ___________ (thoughts redacted). I knew I could expect anyone representing Mitternacht Cryptosystems to not be a novice when it came to cryptanalysis and math in general. After an uneventful day at work, the polygraph test had not occurred as (un)scheduled. I couldn’t do anything about it, since I wasn’t supposed to know it was happening.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I couldn’t see who hit me, chloroformed me, tranq-darted me from behind, etc. Whatever they used on me had completely worn off by the time I’d been transported to my destination. There was a sense of “no time” or perhaps “wink time,” like I had just blinked and then appeared here. Warehouse. In a warehouse district I surmised from the limited view I had through the tiny, filthy window in the distance. I could see the plastic ties securing my knee joints and ankles to the chair legs; guessing the same kinds of things were binding my wrists behind the back of my chair. Efficient, I suppose my captors thought, but they had carelessly neglected the chair itself.

It was metal, true. But antiquated. It reminded me of a chair in an old office where my dad worked in the early 70s. It had welds that might possibly have been produced by human welders, who might very possibly have died of old age by now. No effort was made to bolt the chair to the floor or to anything else.

I had to act fast. Something wasn’t right about all this. Whoever abducted me from Camp Picket had to be a genius plus another thirty IQ points to get past all the NSA’s measures, but then keeping me here, unattended, with this kind of restraint? It was a plan worthy of the original Mission Impossible series, but then for some reason turned over to Beavis and Butthead.

I bounced.

And repeated.

I didn’t want to fall over, yet. After about the sixth impact I think, something cracked. Either a bolt came out or a welding joint snapped.

After rolling around on the floor for a bit and getting my bearings, I found that it was enough to get my hands in front of myself and free one leg. Although still tied together, I could easily use my hands to slip the wreckage of the chair off my other leg. I was now free to walk around the warehouse with my hands tied in front of me instead of behind me. It would’ve been too much to ask to find a box cutter or some kind a blade. It came in the form of an old fifty-five gallon drum trash barrel that looked like it had been used by homeless people to burn stuff. The rim where it wasn’t rusted away, included a jagged enough edge that it might work for what I had in mind.

After an eternity of dragging the plastic tie along the sharpest edge I could find, there was only a groove in the plastic to show for my efforts... and it was too late anyway as the sound of keys rattling in the door told me they were coming. Old fashioned sodium pentothal? Sodium amytal, pentothal morphine, scopolamine… There were a thousand things these idiots might try. And I would have resistance to none of them. The frustrated voice sounded deep and stupid as it mumbled something about fucking keys. Okay, so it was Butthead who had been entrusted with the keys.

While he messed around, confounded by the mechanism of a door lock, I took advantage of whatever little time I had to hide behind a disorderly mountain of discarded cardboard boxes. They looked old enough and dusty enough to probably be a real estate development for brown recluse spiders. I had no plans to roll around inside the damned things. Just a game of cat and mouse with Butthead, when he finally located the correct key. Instead of a spider, what I did find was a box cutter. Duh. 20/20 hindsight; of course it made sense to look around boxes for a box cutter. But it had been a calculated risk; if there hadn’t been one and I’d gone traipsing around looking, I might not even have a decent groove started.

The groove was a blessing as it kept the blade straight and just where I wanted it, preventing me from cutting my wrist. Still, my grip was weird and ineffective. So when I finally got the band to snap, the ancient rusty thing bounced safely to the floor. With enough noise of course to draw Butthead’s attention over to my box pile after he finally got the right key in a second earlier.

Bad.

I had hoped for a minute or so of confused gawking at my chair’s wreckage and looking around for me. Instead, he was loping over to my exact location behind the box fortress.

I had one thing that might work: a fire extinguisher from the wall. If I tried to engage him with the box cutter then our fighting skills would be pitted against each other and he would likely win. So I went with the more dishonorable tactic of pounding the base of the fire extinguisher into his forehead as soon as he came around the corner. Since I am not renowned for my strength, he merely staggered and held his hands over his head. Not a particularly imposing fellow; maybe a tad over six feet. But stoutly built, early/thirtyish, dark hair. Fortunately the dusty antique still had an adequate charge. It wasn’t CO₂ but something suitable for electrical fires and a yellow powder was blasted into his mouth as I squeezed the lever while he was opening it to scream from the forehead impact.

It caused him to choke as he fumbled for his Beretta 93R. Since he was momentarily blinded also, it was fairly simple for me to knock it out of his hand, bouncing it onto a piece of cardboard below. He reached his other hand instinctively for something on his other side under his jacket. I could just make out the details of a second shoulder holster rig. This time I swung the extinguisher sideways and whacked him in the back of his head. It was hard enough to break the handle off and drop him to the ground. Unconscious or dead. I didn’t care at this point. To paraphrase my childhood antihero a bit: “The novelty of this little situation had entirely worn off” and “I was in a skull-fracturing humor.”

Thankfully, the body of the extinguisher bounced into a different pile of cardboard instead of clanging noisily onto the cement floor. I got his machine pistols – the second one, also a 93R – supposedly unavailable to anyone but law-enforcement, and noted he had chambered a round in each already and carried them both with the safeties off.

Moron!

I don’t care how good he thinks he is, sooner or later something will go wrong; he’s an accident looking for a place to happen. I used one to cover him while I got his keys, and went through his pockets. No ID or wallet, but a phone. By “cover him” I mean I shoved a gun barrel into his gaping mouth and kept it there during the search. If he regained consciousness I didn’t want him pulling some Krav Maga shit and getting the gun from me. It was on “three round burst“ I noticed. I left it there. But since he stayed down, I removed the gun from his mouth and chose not to “finish my kill.”

Not that I had any sympathy for this scum who was undoubtedly a true enemy of the state, but my concern was that the report would likely cause Beavis to come running in to investigate. Whoever they were, even the dumbest of them would surely be curious about the gunfire. So, safeties on, mags out, rounds ejected and caught in my hand, I reinserted them in the magazines, and re-introduced the magazines. Butthead went with brass and teflon slugs, I noted, for both pistols.

The door on the far end – the exact opposite from where Butthead had entered – was the natural choice. It was unlocked. Unbolted. Not blocked in any way. My, but they certainly had a lot of faith in a decrepit old chair and some plastic riot ties.

My new problem, as I attempted to use the stars to navigate, was that there was something wrong with the stars… And the moon.

It was a waxing gibbous about two days away from being full on the night I was abducted from Camp Pickett, Virginia outside my office. At first glance, it had appeared to be in the exact same phase tonight and I must confess, I don’t recall what constellation it was in; I was a bit preoccupied with my alien conspiracies.

So either it’s still the same night, or it’s now a waning gibbous that’s two days past full? And sorry to say I couldn’t be sure just now what its direction of curvature had been when I glimpsed it. I was too preoccupied with running. I needed my right hand free, an unobstructed view of it, and some privacy. Some place away from the warehouses where I could see the horizon and tell which ways east and west were, would also help. But at the moment, I really needed to focus on running.

So I’ve either been gone four nights, or it’s only “later tonight.” But there’s another problem: the stars are telling me my latitude change. I can only guess my longitude change less accurately because that depends on the time – another version of the same problem ancient navigators had before John Harrison’s nautical chronometer.

My latitude has changed by a little over five-hundred nautical miles to the south – about seven and a half degrees... pausing for another second to avoid being seen by a distant driver, I also found out which ways east and west were from the different brightnesses of the horizons. I got the estimate of around three quarters of ten degrees using a trick with my fingers that I learned as a kid – adjusting my positioning for my now larger fingers – once I had a north horizon view and could see some familiar stars. The time is just after sunset here and I would say on the boundary between civil and nautical twilight. I’m almost certain it’s evening; it just feels too damned hot to be pre-dawn twilight. It’s possibly a tad on the civil-twilight side; It’s earlier than it was when I was walking to my car, judging by light levels alone. Had I moved one time zone to the west, as the light levels are implying? This would make it just after I left work in Virginia.

At last, a place where I could rest for a few milliseconds. Butthead’s phone was locked but the time and date confirmed that yes, in Virginia I would’ve just left work less than 15 minutes ago... if his timezone was central. Allowing time to wrangle my way out of the chair, mess with a jagged piece of metal and a box cutter, attack Butthead, steal weapons, useless keys and a phone from him, make my way out of the warehouse, and run here? That only left about 1 to 2 minutes to transport me.

If the moon is waning and Butthead’s phone was purposely set wrong, I’ve been gone ninety-six hours and regained consciousness roughly ninety-six hours and 1.5 minutes after being abducted.

But if it’s still waxing? And if everything else that I am reading is reliable and the time on Butthead‘s phone wasn’t deliberately faked? Then I regained consciousness only 1.5 minutes after being abducted.

I entered another area between two warehouses, both presenting nothing but solid walls with no windows whatsoever. About midway down the corridor I felt safe enough to briefly store my right hand Beretta in my belt at my waist. I got my right hand ready to do the backwards C / forward D tricks (the logic could be extended to gibbous moons also) and looked around for the actual moon. I know I could have just looked at it and thought things through without physically using my hand, but this was too important; absolute certainty was required and I worried I might screw it up. Then a clear view... as a cloud that had been obstructing it moved away. The backwards-or-forwards letter rule confirmed it. It’s only “later tonight” and not four days later.

The city could be Houston or New Orleans or maybe somewhere else in the south. All I was seeing were warehouses. Texas plates on almost all of the parked vehicles clued me in. An oil change sticker on a van gave an address on Stella Link. Houston then.

If everything I estimated was right? Then no aircraft or space vehicle could transport me from Blackstone to Houston in less than two minutes. But even if some experimental spacecraft existed? A spacecraft would have had to have been prepped and ready right there in the parking lot so that my unconscious body could be shoved into it. I think I would’ve noticed a vehicle like that.

So I’ve either been teleported here – beamed, like on Star Trek – or someone messed with the time and date setting on Butthead‘s phone because they wanted me to think I’ve been “beamed.” Well, that and saturating the cars on the streets of some warehouse district with Texas plates… and placing a blimp or some kind of hovercraft over me to project a fake moon image??

No. Butthead wasn’t planning to get clubbed unconscious or killed and surrender his phone and weapons. Nor did they intend to show me the moon and the stars outside. Or parked cars. I had been beamed.

Continue on to next section…

If And Only If

Copyright 2015

by Michelle Viviénne de Vandahlcourte

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

First Edition. © December 16, 2015.

[canaryatlaw]

okay. so. today was pretty fun. I had set my alarm for 10:30 as we’d agreed Jess would pick me up at 11. Well, I woke up to said alarm at 10:30 to a series of messages from Jess telling me to get up already because she wanted nuggets before we went to the con. I told her I’d be ready in 15 minutes, because I was being good and woke up half an hour beforehand when I knew it only really took me 15 minutes to get ready when I’m not doing my make up (doing it in the car here). So I got ready, doing Peter Pan today because I gotta take advantage of my short haired red headed cosplay options because I hate wigs and will be wearing them both Saturday and Sunday. Got picked up, went to Mcdonalds, drove to con, didn’t get stuck in ridiculous traffic like we did yesterday, so that’s a win. I’m trying to remember the details of how everything went down, when you’re there all day and you’re doing different things within a small space it can be hard to remember exactly what you did when. But I think we got there and went to find some people and talked with them for a while, then found Jess’ two friends (”friends”) who were running around doing different things, after waiting for them for a little bit. And I mean, for most of the day we just did different versions of walking around and finding people and looking at things? we’d hang out with a certain group of people for a while and then they’d go off and do a photo shoot or something and we’d migrate to a different group of people. At some point during the afternoon we decided to go through the whole show floor aisle by aisle to assess options before buying anything. I knew I wanted to get a t-shirt of some sort, and sadly there were very few legends-related items out there (I think the only places we really saw them were in the sections where you have the IDs from different shows) so I figured I’d either want something Wonder Woman or Superman related, since those are my other two faves. I was also potentially looking for a cool backpack that’s somewhat bigger than the one I have now because in two weekends we’re doing HVFF New Jersey/Rose City CC in Portland over two days and are just bringing backpacks, and since I decided tonight that I am going to cosplay both days (and the NJ one I am SO excited about!!) I’m gonna need something that can fit a lot of things. What’s annoying about the t-shirt thing is pretty much all of them at cons are only in unisex sizing, not women’s sizes, and I don’t really like how they fit me so I don’t end up wearing them as much as I do the Wonder Woman or Superman shirts I have in woman’s sizes. The other thing I might potentially buy is an Elektra from Daredevil funko pop because back when I was still looking for Katniss but was getting convinced I wouldn’t be able to find her (before I found her online) I was considering making Elektra my next one, and she would fit nicely on my stack of funkos in their boxes (that are literally in a stack on my dresser right now that consists of dark haired women who totally kick ass because apparently I am predictable like that (right now it’s Wonder Woman, Jessica Jones, and Katniss) (I do have three other funkos that are out of their boxes and placed elsewhere, which are my White Canary and Captain Cold, placed in conjunction of course, and Smallville Green Arrow played by Justin Hartley love of my life and the only actor to portray Green Arrow in live action as far as I’m concerned). So we set off to do that. A number of good Wonder Woman options I took note of, a few ones that are old comics styled, a few featuring other Justice League members like Superman and such (though I’m really not a Wonder Woman/Superman shipper like, at all, so not those because Clois is the only valid ship for Clark Kent, though I am open to WonderBat possibilities). There is also a very cool Wonder Woman backpack we were looking for that I’ll probably go back and get because it had a lot of places to put stuff and looked like it could fit everything nicely, it was just 60 bucks so I wanted to make sure it was definitely the best one before actually buying it. The Elektra pop has shown up a few places, cheapest so far for $10, so I’ll keep looking at those since there are of course a ton of places with pops. We kept getting stopped by random men that wanted to talk to us because Jess was being a fucking furry (she got asked to take a picture with two people in full on fur suits and I was dying laughing while also taking a picture of it). By the time it was like 5:30 or so we were pretty much done with everything, so we ended up meeting up with some people and heading to one of the restaurants over by the parking garage, because if you eat at one of the restaurants there they’ll validate your parking so you don’t have to fork over like $15 just for parking. So we ended up going to the German restaurant, which is always a bit of an adventure lol. The first time my family went to DisneyWorld when I was like 12 our restaurant reservations got messed up for one of the days and the only other place we could get in was the German restaurant in Epcot, and all I remember is there menu being like, essentially like three different types of hot dogs, so whenever I think of German food now that’s what I think of, and how I somehow managed to not barf it all up when my brothers and I ran (literally) from Epcot over to Animal Kingdom to get to our fast pass for Expedition Everest, which we made with like 4 minutes left on it and then went on the crazy roller coaster where I was sure I was gonna puke it all up (our restaurant reservation was for like, 4:40, and the fast pass was between 6 and 7, so we thought we’d be fine, but the restaurant got super backed up and didn’t seat us till like 6:15, so we basically ate like half a meal and then ran from the middle of the Epcot circle of nations through the rest of the park, onto the tram and then all the way through Animal Kingdom to Expedition Everest, making it at 6:56). But we got some super cute pictures of my darling baby sister who was 3 at the time and like at peak cuteness dancing to the polka in the German restaurant so that was definitely worth it. ANYWAY. this restaurant seemed somewhat similar in that there was a polka band and everything but thankfully had a larger menu selection. Jess and I ended up splitting some potato pancakes (sorry Germans, they weren’t as good as latkes) and a jumbo pretzel because she doesn’t eat red meat and I’ve been getting Meat Fatigue™ (which we’re still pretending is a real thing okay). We had an interesting conversation going on around us as the guy sitting next to me was trying to say it was bs that people were making excuses for James Gunn in that situation when strongly condemning Trump for making obscene comments, except he was not explaining it well at all and it was totally being lost in translation for everybody else until I was like okay, this is what you mean and explained it and he was like “yes, exactly! I like her” to which I was like 😂😂😂 understanding what people are saying pretty much all the time and explaining things happen to be two random talents of mine that come in handy a lot. So the meal was pretty good, one of the ladies we were with graciously picked up the tab so we were very thankful to her for that. At that point we were pretty beat so we walked back to the parking garage (after getting our parking validated) and drove home. I got dropped off and we planned to pick me up at 10 am tomorrow. I fumbled in the dark with my keys for a few minutes because somehow all the outdoor lights and the lights in the hallway of my building have gone out and not been replaced (yes I could’ve turned my flashlight on on my phone but I was being stubborn and wanted to do it myself) but eventually got it figured out. NICKZANO was very happy to see me, though I told her she’s gonna have to get used to being alone more once I get a job (at some point, anyway). I think I may actually be allergic to cats though, because my legs where I’d been letting her sit on are like hella itchy, but it’s obviously not a major issue at all and I’ll just like, put pants or longer shorts on from now on and that won't be a problem. I showered and changed into my pajamas, then watched a few episodes of 30 Rock, keeping it nice and light. I’m in their 5th season now out of 7 (which is kinda funny because I’m also on the 5th season out of 7 on GoT right now) so sooner or later I’m gonna have to find something else for funny filler episodes when I just want funny tv. And yeah, I did that for a while and then finished getting ready for bed and here we be now. So yeah, lots of fun, hopefully tomorrow will as well, I will be debuting my Ava Sharpe cosplay (who I was never really planning to cosplay but ended up needing to do so for our photo op with Matt Ryan which is gonna be fucking hilarious, just wait) and seeing Matt Ryan so that will be fun. I’ll probably wait till Sunday when I’m doing my also new (and pulled together exclusively of stuff I already owned because business wear) Lois Lane cosplay to see Tom Welling and Michael Rosenbaum. I was considering doing a photo op with them, but their joint one was $150 which is a tad excessive, and like, Tom alone was still $90 and I wouldn't even know what to do in a single one with him because I’d rather like, have one with both of them so Tom and I could look like we were fighting Michael, but also Michael has hair now so he doesn't even really look like Lex Luthor anymore, so given all of those factors I decided meeting them and getting selfies with them in my cosplay would be good enough. Okay, that’s all I got, it’s 1 am and I’m waking up at 9:30 and I like sleeping so I’m going to go to bed now. Goodnight peeps. Have a lovely weekend.

[thefandomcritique]

Legends of Tomorrow Season Finale: 3x 18 The Good, The Bad and The Cuddly

I’m going to list all the things that were stupid about that episode in reverse order because it seems more efficient. Also because I’m so fucking angry and upset breaking it up into the teeny pieces of awful may allow me to handle it better.

1)    Terrible CGI greenscreen at the end. Wtf guys. Unnecessary.

2)    Constantine’s hair. It’s like they’re not even making an effort. I know it’s dyed, obviously, we all know. But I watched the actual Constantine show and at least in that it generally looks like hair.

3)    Why are they in Aruba 2018? I know for whatever stupid godawful reason they don’t recognize/respect the very time-travelling nature on their own show 90% of the time (the reference to Jax’s family was a very welcome exception) but we’d had Rip and Wally go to Tokyo in the 90s could they not be in Aruba 2016? Like Rory originally requested? Not to mention why is the Aruba thing coming back again? We’ve done that. C’mon.

4)    Gary. I disliked his addition this season because it’s symptomatic of so much wrong with season 3. He’s too ridiculous to feel real. The character almost never feels like a person. He doesn’t just feel like comic relief. He feels like comic relief from a low-budget 90s sitcom, canned laughter and all. The wig was moronic. So stupid it was dull and even the “presidential” line couldn’t save it.

5)    Amaya leaving was fine. Nicely done. Had to happen. Nothing wrong with it. I don’t like that they had to finish with Nate repeating “don’t turn around” because it came off as another lame attempt at humour. Just let the moment of emotional sincerity sit there for once. Let it exist.

6)    Oh god I’m starting to forget the moment by moment play and all the awfulness is just rising like vomit in my throat… Fine. I’ll just have to list what I think of.

7)    Bebo. Why. When they had the dumb viking episode it was terrible but fine in a stupid sort of way. There were even moments of emotional sincerity in that. Sara’s awful plan, not wanting to sacrifice anyone else. Her interactions with Ava. Ray going back to save Nora. It was a trash fire of an episode but fine as a random holiday blip. Why did they think this would be funny here? What is the audience they think they’re appealing to? Why, as the finale of a season, would this be considered satisfying?

8)    Fighting costumed armies in broad daylight would always run the risk of looking cheesy and dumb. It looked cheesy and dumb. There was no strategy in what they were doing or how they were fighting. The actors, especially Blackbeard, were poor (as he was the first time so it was not like we didn’t know). There was no (i.e. less than usual) sense that this was a real town – no other people, the buildings mostly empty, not extraneous props, no mud or ambience. Everything felt staged and hokey.

9)    Walking out to confront 3 bad guys holding out the very powerful things they want with no back up close by…. is just dumb.

10) Why did the 3 bad guys already have the black lines on their faces when Nora only developed those after she had been possessed and controlled for many years? We know why, of course. Because this show is dumb. And is aiming itself at dumb people. And there had to be some clear visible indicator that these people were possessed.

11) The care bear stare. Using the totems in this way was always going to look dumb. It was always going to look like the care bear stare. Calling it that didn’t help.

12) The dialogue was worse than usual. It’s usually below par for a DC show, which is usually fairly weak, derivative and predictable. This was worse.

13) Sara answering, “what do you think?” to Ava asking if she meant what she said and just generally giving the shippers no payoff whatsoever. Again, it didn’t feel believable for someone to reply like that or to react so little to the ex-girlfriend she loves over the hours these events took place.

14) Darhk still being played for sympathy AND comic relief. I can just about handle one or the other. Not both. Not without him losing any semblance of what and who that character is supposed to be.

15) I didn’t like Sara’s hair in this episode. She always looked so cool in the other old west episodes. Her hair looked stupid here. I know I’m being petty. Fight me.

16) Once again we are left utterly confused as to the point of this story, the point of the show. So they fight demons now? That’s the new thing? Time travel is just a wacky backdrop and every day will just be a new soundstage? Or are we praising them for finding a way to make people’s lives better, for helping people? Because if that’s the only criteria they could be doing a hell of a lot more than that with a time ship. Only they’re not. And there was meant to be reasons for that. Reasons they never managed to fully represent, consequences they never managed to convey. It’s depressing to have to accept that The Flash represented time travel in a more coherent and serious way than the goddamn show that was meat to be about time travel.

Things I liked:

1)    Seeing Ava again. She looked great.

2)    Thank God for Nate and Zari. They are (still) wonderful additions to the team – funny, believable (mostly) (side-eyeing Nate a bit), good actors.

3)    The bit where Sara got up on the horse behind Ava. Because it was cool. And Ava saying this was her first time on a horse. BECAUSE OF COURSE IT WAS.

4)    Jax was underused but it was good to show they hadn’t forgotten him.

5)    The scene between Darhk and Sara was good.

6)    I was glad Sara did in fact get to use the death totem. But everything with the totems was underwhelming and dumb in this episode.

7)    Sara believing they weren’t “worthy” bearers, which of course reflects her own opinion of herself, and having to be convinced otherwise. It was poorly executed but I liked it as a theme. But I really didn’t like harking back to this idea of the Legends as screw-ups and losers. Outcasts, sure. Lost misfits, certainly. But they’re actually each highly successful, insanely gifted people. Not only does that attitude serve to do the show down it also serves to make anyone sitting on a couch watching these super-humans denigrate themselves feel really bad about themselves.

8)    Rip’s death. It was simply, abrupt and genuinely moving. It also actually had some sort of purpose that sort of made sense. So that was nice. Though of course we’re not going to mention that they now lack the main time drive of the main ship. One might think that would be important.

9)    Amaya leaving. I know I mentioned that above but it’s still true and fits better in this list.

10) Jonah and Zari as a ship. Why not? I think they’d be great together.

[lealinea]

11 for all your muses pls? If it's okay with you

Detailed writer promptsAccepting! (Specify a muse, or get one at random!)

11. what mythic deity do you think best embodies the core values of your character? how so?

Ava: Frigg (Norse)—someone seen as a mother figure who promotes family and love above all else. Ava is very family-oriented and loves very deeply and freely, so her obvious representation is the Norse goddess who shares those attributes.

Luna: Phoebe (Greek)—as a young woman with a very undervalued mind, Phoebe fits Luna perfectly and gives me that vibe of both intellectual and prophetic while still maintaining that air of dreaminess about her. She may be a bit kooky, but her thoughts and words are incredibly insightful and shouldn’t be ignored.

Thirteen: Aion (Greek)—the massive deciding factor between this one and Chronos was the fact that Chronos represents empirical time, and Aion represents unbounded time. The Doctor is certainly used to being outside the limits of all time and space, and very much has the rules bending to her command.

Mary: Ananke (Greek)—as the queen of necessity, Ananke is perfect for the practically perfect nanny of London. Mary Poppins is a very strict woman, but also one of deep wisdom. She predicts outcomes and dictates the fate of all who step into her path (which is why it is best to listen to her before you royally fuck up).

Miranda: Morrigan (Celtic)—known as ‘the phantom queen,’ Morrigan presides over war and sovereignty, much like the dragon lady herself. She is happy to fly about and observe her domain, and it’s also quite ironic that her presence symbolizes death and doom.

Diana: Athena (Greek)—it was only too easy to pick this one. Wisdom, craft, war, a calm temperament and not easily agitated, someone who fights for just causes only...it practically screams Diana. The ultimate protector deserves the title of the wise war goddess.