Mattyboy

ooh, so Roger already owns the Academy; I was figuring he was going to have to buy it. I felt Roger should reconsider taking that check. It'll make Thomas feel pride in his financial independence, and that money is obviously getting plowed into Liberty Academy renos either way. Delightful bit of progress, and Oliver's parents seem alright so far. I hope Janick is after the Jack of Spades in some useful way.

ugh did that slippery Jack of Spades slip away? The priority of getting the boys to safety was right, but I hope somebody is on that. yay for Hank Monroe getting that job that he needs and that needs him.

Hehe yes, Emmett had a lot more emotion than reason through that. He totally got that the tiger was a REALLY bad deal and he wanted out, but "no not that way, Finley." And he really likes Finley, except if it means he has to say he likes Finley. Fin is playing it pretty well though. Emmett will come around and realize Fin has in fact been giving him some space. It'll be interesting if Finley ever has to explain what he said to Steven, and what "you're part of my hoard" means in this context. And I agree, Steven doesn't seem to be a bad actor, really.

The FBI is assuming 53, but that implies 2 Jokers in the deck, which is interesting but unfounded. The Jack called his driver "Two" but it's occurring to me that Jacks can outrank Aces in euchre decks, which only have 24 cards. The "Two" doesn't fit that, but the Jack sure acted like he was in charge at Zia's. Tarot decks have 78, and stuff that trumps aces, but the suits are different. Anyhow, 53 of 54 is an assumption, not something we're sure about. EDIT: Oh I see our author said the 53, but that was in the comment section, so does that count as canon? p.p.s : @empath, there's hostages that need to be rescued, and readers that need catharsis, so hope the writing is going well.

I wonder if Penhurst's possibly upsetting news for Roger is that he's inherited the mantle of the Ace of Diamonds which is awful but comes with a little book explaining the deck and naming all the other cards. (Or he's a Joker if it's that kind of deck!, but some master key kinda thing). The upcoming farm situation is very tense. Empath usually signposts or foreshadows what's likely to happen next. But we have very little to go on re: the Jack of Spades, other than that he's mean and dangerous and well-resourced. So it's very hard to guess what's coming.

Yay! They got Oliver out! Also pleased to hear that Agent Kosiak has a small army working on this: that feels right-sized. The Jack of Spades had some ugly tricks up his sleeve, but kinda looks like Thompson and Janick are ready for this.

Russ has done very well in several cameos and supporting roles, it's good to see the ambitious step-up to leading POV. The localisms work well because they're organic, of course, but I look forward to being tret with more!

😆😆🤣 I think that's the old meaning, actually, except for the gay twist.

Fight Night at Burger Bills Undercard : weretiger vs dragon Main event: ? ? ?

You guess, @Celian? The rest of us are guessing, but I didn't think you had to. And annoying as it will be for Finley, it might be good for Emmett to have a talk with Steven about what's what. Something to be cleared up in that Finley clearly is seeing dragon in Steven, but seems like MORRTIMERs and the Legion classified him as something less-than-full dragon.

The balance between the evil and the people trying to do good is one of the things that drives this story. Nice to see the good guys racking up some points today. A whole lot of fantastically good happened for Thomas in this chapter, but now he also doesn't need to feel he owes Roger for the mortgage. Roger didn't seem to mind at all, but it's great for Thomas that he doesn't need to think that. Roger has been telling him that he's free, but it's sticking better coming from the bank guy.

I enjoy how no one's ever actually commented on or asked why Finley sometimes puffs out smoke that is not clearly connected to any external source.

Rizzo died as he had lived: completely fucking scoobied about what was going on

New Kid seems like it might have a proper ending, that girl that's been after Ryan but saw him dating Randy on Saturday outs them AND accepts them, and they proceed out and happy together. The last episodes seemed to be trending that way. Although time was dilating in that series, sort of. I think the last 30 or so episodes over the last decade are all in the extended Spring Break- it's almost as if it was narratively finished but the characters were still living. Ariel seems more of a problem; his whole almost-supernatural kinetic discharge thing maybe is so part of him that he's just meant to be a pure embodiment of teen anxiety. One narrative path out of that problem: Tyler comes clean about Sam and Matt and tells him about his history with Randy, and then Ariel demands to catch up to Tyler's body count over a couple of really porny episodes. That'd be one of the natural conclusions to the narrative arc . . . but would it be corrupting the story's central idea? If you take away the crazypants bundle of nerves from Ariel, what'd be left ? Comsie (who I'm sure you knew better than I did) seemed to be more interested in savoring the tension than in resolving it. So maybe it's right to just leave it poised where it is, sad as that may be.

If you ever wanted to branch out from Billy and Brandon: I don't know if it's possible or appropriate for someone to write Ariel and Tyler (from New Kid and Angel) out of the anxiety mess that Ariel's in on that terrible Monday, but if there's someone for it, it's probably you @MrM . They deserve the relief, but maybe it's not true to Ariel's character that he ever gets relief.

This continues to be your own unique voice @MrM, and very faithful to Comsie's legacy. That tension between desire and anxiety that Comsie's stories often explored is really well done here, in just the right way.

From the limited info we have on Grandpa Motts, it sounded like he owned enough real estate that I don't think he'd need a hotel in Chicago.

Well, Rizzo won't be missed. I'm a big fan of how far ahead of the game Janick seems to be (at the "farm" as well), even if he didn't anticipate the sniper. Roger may be about to inherit a chunk of money. The warehouse event also clears something up for Roger- some of the "old artifacts" might have had to choose between Roger and Rizzo at some point. It looked a lot like they preferred Roger, after that boss called Rizzo's business an infamnia. But now they don't have to choose, and the chain than might have linked up to them looks clearly broken. (And the FBI have this Deck of Cards stuff to figure out, which looks like a big job).

I don't have a ranked list of "I want to read more about ___________" for your great cast of characters, but Becky is not trending in the top group. Her shitty behavior and parenting would be not nearly so much an outlier in 1992 than it would be today.

Rizzo seems to have a "young punk" attitude towards older generations, and mentioned dangerous but not old, so Grandpa Motts being the Jack of Spades seems pretty unlikely to me. Although there might be some creepiness in Rebecca's family history that's triggering her nastiness; @empath seems to consistently provide understandable motivations for characters, although we haven't seen much yet on Rebecca. (I want to start calling her "Becky." In a sneering way.)

I filed that as a reference to muckraking journalism and William Randolph Hearst. I buy that it sure looks like Cottontail is John.

That afternoon moment from John Renkin sure felt like a turning-point, but sounds like there might have been some very strong headwinds there. Yes, that's a bitter note, alright.

I've been just fine riding the thriller-vibe in the other story, but it's a lovely anxiety reducer to know these characters survived the summer of '92. I was hoping for one more name that didn't get checked, but I've already commented about how Empath is handling that elsewhere.

Hehe, a Thanksgiving story full of Easter Eggs ! 🦃🥚🥚🥚

Might take a while (because Micah is in very bad shape) but I think Mary's up to it. I don't think our author introduced a little girl trying to make sense of The Secret Garden just as padding. This makes me realize something I like about this story. Empath is using a lot of familiar thriller and cop-show tropes for structure, and there's a lot of (deep) foreshadowing, but hasn't reproduced that stupid cliche of adults making "it'll be fine" promises they can't keep about cases like Micah's. This is set in the 1990s, but the underlying question of "how can you be good when you're working with institutions that aren't up for the challenges they face?" feels very current.