Mattyboy

😆😆🤣 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.

Hehe, they're almost having "that conversation" but not quite there. The sparrows are hilarious and it seems like they can see a lot.

I love the contrasting and different characters you keep introducing! Your story includes plenty of jerks and assholes, but also people like Robert Fenton and John Renkin certainly have flaws, but who want to be good, and want to try for better for both themselves and the people around them. There's thriller-grade action in the story line, which is certainly attractive as well, but the different ways people try to be good is wonderful.

I think around here, quite a few people who are labelled or who label themselves beta readers are doing both alpha and beta jobs by your definition, and in particular making comments on structure and narrative arc (especially in longer ongoing serials). I was unaware of the term "alpha reader" before your post, but I followed your example and looked it up and, yes, some people make that distinction. I think beta reader as it's commonly used around here is more analogous with a beta test (the last testing and modifications before it goes out to the public) rather than alpha-is-first-stage and beta-is-second-stage.

Whoever it is that Riz has been calling, who doesn't think he's capable of fixing this, isn't necessarily going to go after the rescued boys. Way too public and too hot for one, even before Sam publishes anything. And I think Riz said at one point that no one else wanted his "books" anyhow. This may be a line of business that the old artefacts are happy enough to wash their hands of. In the past Roger was able to defend them in court because they had enough layers of cut-out to maintain plausible deniability. I'd guess that Riz is in a lot more danger than Micah.

I'm impressed again with how you wrote this. And incredible amount of high-drama happened in about 10 minutes at the end of chapter 12, and only we as readers saw it all. So that was excellent that Janick and the others had to spend some time on cleanup, and just finding out what happened in the other places as it was all going down. Good for Qian Chang recognizing that he needed to talk to a professional, that kinda brought home the real side effects of all that thrilling action in chapter 12. That was wryly funny from Roger admitting that he only knew 3/4 of the people that he'd brought into a hot crime scene. This will be fun when Melissa figures who Juan's mom is. I hope Janick thinks to assign a guard to the Mack household as well.

I'd be happy to comment too, but Wildone can probably cover this

Ah, Ok, glad I haven't missed anything. That story about being hot enough to melt snow at MORRTIMER camp, and having a brother named Bomb, there seem to be some puzzle pieces on the table that Emmett or even Jake could maybe put together.