AP2 DRAFT 5, CHAPTERS 26-27 COMPLETE!

What!? Only two chapters in September? And the blog post didn’t get done until October!?

I was previously doing five chapters a month! What happened?

Well, these two chapters are more complex now. In earlier drafts all the characters were together in one spot as the finale unfolded. Kim thought this was a problem, since some characters were just kind of reacting to things instead of participating. Y’know, like Krillin in Dragon Ball Z.

I was resistant to change these chapters, since splitting up the characters is what I did in the previous book. I don’t like repeat performances. (And it would be a lot of work, too.) 😄

But change it I did! Now there are characters in three locations, all dealing with different challenges. It’s a better way to do things, but it isn’t easy. All three groups eventually need to converge again, so I have to space things out PERFECTY. It would be silly for one group to finish their challenge and then take a nap until it was time to meet up. URGENCY! 😱

Okay, here we go: spoilers for Hollow Knight: Silksong and Supernatural season 9.

Hollow Knight: Silksong – It took seven years to make this game, and boy does it show. The platforming is nuts. Areas and enemies are many and diverse. There are tons of bosses. And the variety of music that playing during it ALL is amazing.

But I’m not done with it yet; this game is TOUGH. It requires much reflexive fingerwork. And I can’t risk damage to my precious hands. So whenever I start to feel the slightest tinges of pain in my joints, I quit playing.

Otherwise I’d have totally beaten the game by now! 🤥

Improvements over Hollow Knight: Hollow Knight is the first game, in case you forgot. It had some problems, and I’m glad to see some of them have been dealt with.

EARLY GAME – The first Hollow Knight game took a big risk with the first main area: it was boring at first, but became amazing later. It was called the Crossroads, and it was a standard cave area full of basic bug enemies. As the name implies, it is a hub, and it leads to many different zones. The problem is, only ONE adjacent zone is accessible to your character at the start. The other ways are all dead ends. So for many first time players, you could be wandering in this absolute snooze-fest of an area for hours.

Silksong fixes this. The first area, Moss Grotto, is straightforward and fun. You fight some caterpillars; can explore some quick secret areas; and fight an easy boss. You can’t get lost yet, and the game ushers you forward to new areas and challenges. There are some sealed or difficult ‘roadblocks’ in these first areas, but they’re along the main path that you’re traveling anyway. So you make note of them and move on. (Like the big ant dude guarding Hunter’s March. Yes, I saved that place for way later.) 😅

HEALING – Hornet can heal SO much faster than Hollow Knight. The Hollow Knight guy had to stand on the ground while you held down a button and he would get back one pip of health at a time. Hornet’s heal, called bind, is just a button press. She will then stop and heal for THREE pips of health. Even in mid-air. It’s great.

This is balanced, however, by bosses doing more damage to her. A fair trade!

QUESTS – There was no quest user interface in Hollow Knight. A bug would tell you to do something, and you’d better remember it or else. It took me years to even find the real final boss of the game because there was NO quest for it written down in the game. You just had to stumble upon the answer, or check the internet.

Silksong has a quest interface. Nothing fancy, but at least I know what to do and where to go after I take my many breaks to avoid getting hand cramps. 😦

BAD THINGS THEY SCREWED UP – Yep, sometimes sitting alone working on something for seven years gives you tunnel vision. I should know.

COMPASS – There is a limited amount of space for equipping tools—your passive abilities. This by itself isn’t a problem. The problem is that you still need to make room in your slots for a basic COMPASS. Y’know, the item that lets you know where on the map you are. 😣

LACK OF BOSS REWARDS – Don’t get me wrong, some bosses give you great stuff. Bell Beast gets you fast travel. Trobbio gives you a mirror that damages enemies with EXPLOSIONS every time you heal.

But most bosses give you jack. No items. Just the privilege to move to the next area. And NO boss gives you money. Shoot, most basic ENEMIES don’t carry any. And you NEED money in this game: Most rest spots and fast travel stations won’t unlock unless you pay up. And shops have giant lists of upgrades and goodies to buy for premium prices.

The lack of cash is baffling. But I think I know what happened with the items. This game started out as DLC for Hollow Knight. Then, apparently, the developers had so much fun making content that the DLC became a full game. And the length of the game kept growing throughout these seven years. And a longer game needed items to be spaced FURTHER apart than they were in the shortened version of the game.

But the game is still great. And yes, not every boss and moment needs a tangible reward for your character.

SUPERNATURAL SEASONS 8 – 9

Yep, I got Netflix back. Let’s see, where was I? Ah, yes! The bros were going to close the doors of Hell forever by passing three trials described on ‘Word of God Tablets!’

Season 8, Taxi Driver – OH dang, I took a bread right before an amazing episode! Get this: The entire cast of Taxi reunites as guest stars on Supernatural! The bros are called to New York, where Simka is being haunted by Latka’s ghost. Zounds! I never thought that I’d see Christopher Lloyd and Danny DeVito working together again, but it all happened for real!

No, none of that happened. Instead, the boys find out that Bobby was put in Hell by mistake. A grim reaper taxi driver tells them about it. And ‘getting an innocent soul out of Hell’ just so happens to be the second trial. 😐

Yes, there are a lot of convoluted things lining up in order for this story to work. I’ll forgive it, in order to see Bobby ONE LAST TIME. For real, surely. And I guess Dean’s vampire buddy is trapped in Purgatory forever. Or at least until next season. I’m not sad to see that one go.

Pac-Man Fever – Gotta be kidding me. Charlie is back, too? I hope I’m not the only one annoyed by her. And once again it seems like the entire episode was written by Felicia Day in order for her character to look amazing. ‘Why of course I can suddenly handle a firearm like an expert! Stupid boys!’

I don’t even remember the video game reference that the title refers to. What a shame. Oh, wait, no, it’s a Wolfenstein-type game inside Charlie’s mind. Whatever. 🙄

The Great Escapist – Oh man it’s the guy from Revenge of the Nerds! Well, it’s not Taxi but it’ll do. What was that Nerd character’s name? Booger? Well now his name is Metatron. Quite an improvement.

Clip Show – Metatron wants to close not only Hell, but Heaven too. And the final trial is… to CURE a demon? Well, what better way to try a cure than to dig up Abbadon, the invincible Hell Knight! I’m sure nothing will go wrong!

Sacrifice – Abbadon, the invincible Hell Knight, escapes. 🙄

This leaves Crowley as the only available demon to be ‘cured.’ He is injected with Sam’s blood for many hours, but the boys chicken out at the last minute. (Sam will die.) Hell is not closed, but at least all of this has purified Sam’s body of all demonic influence. I guess he won’t be chugging blood again.

Oh, and Metatron, in true Tri-Lamb fashion, pranks Castiel: Instead of CLOSING Heaven, he ejects every angel other angel but him OUT of Heaven. And Castiel loses his powers. (Insert annoying nerd laugh.)

SEASON NINE –

I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here – All the angels are running wild on Earth! But what’s this? Sam is sick again for some reason! Dean prays to all the angels and then one, Ezekiel, agrees to possess Sam to heal him all up. But Sam can’t know, or he’ll eject Ezekiel. So Dean must now lie to Sam constantly. Got all that? Because every episode for a while is going to hinge on the drama of Sam almost finding out about Dean’s dirty secret. 🤣

Devil May Care – Crowley is still in the bros’ car trunk from last season, so they put him in their newly-discovered dungeon. (Yes they still have their Batcave fortress.)

Abbadon is also still loose, and she wants to take over Hell. She has a different approach than Crowley, though: she wants warriors, not deal-makers. So she tells some of Crowley’s demons to ‘upgrade’ their hosts. It’s pretty funny. They all possess military dudes with grenades and sniper rifles.

Of course, the boys are no match, forcing the angel Ezekiel to emerge and toast all demons with angelic might. Sam remembered nothing while Ezekiel was in control of his body and is all like ‘what happened? How did we win?’

And Dean just goes ‘I’m that awesome I guess!’ 😎

I’m No Angel – Castiel is homeless now, and he hangs out with some bums.

Slumber Party – Charlie’s back!? AGAIN? See, it’s because the Men of Letters’ fortress supercomputer is broken. And it’s powered by MAGIC. And only Charlie can figure it out, of course.

Luckily, this episode gets good when Charlie knocks over a sealed jar and unleashes the Wicked Witch of the West. Yes, the one from Wizard of Oz. Turns out the stories were based on ol’ Frank’s real-life experiences in another dimension. The witch runs wild, blasting people with spells and searching for a key that will open a portal to Oz.

The witch actually KILLS Charlie, but Ezekiel pops out of Sam to revive her. Dean acts dumb as Sam is baffled. Gotta have this angel drama once per episode, I told ya.

But also luckily, DOROTHY was sealed up with the witch. So she stabs the witch to death with the stiletto heels of her ruby slippers. Then Charlie and Dorothy run off to Oz together.

Y’know what? I liked this episode. I wouldn’t say no to another Charlie episode if we get some more Oz goodness.

Wait, why was this episode called Slumber Party?

Dog Dean Afternoon – People are getting killed by monsters, and the only witness is… A DOG? 🐶

No problem. All ya gotta do is use an ancient Inuit spell to give Dean the ability to talk to dogs! Yes, dogs! And pigeons, too! Actually, it’s EVERY animal.

It sounds dumb, but it ends up being pretty funny. The villain turns out to be a shaman that gains the powers of the animals he eats. He makes good use of the chameleon to sneak up on Sam by hiding in front of some gaudy wallpaper.

Sam is fatally wounded, and the angel Ezekiel appears once again to save the day.

Look, let’s just skip ahead a few episodes. The angel is eventually removed; Sam gets mad at Dean for lying; Kevin the prophet is killed; the bros have endless angst. 🙄

First Born – Dean goes off on his own for a bit. He teams up with Crowley to find the First Blade. This is yet another amazing superweapon that can kill the next level of bad guy that they need to kill. And who has it? Why, none other than Cain. Yes, the first murderer—not the dragoon of the Kingdom of Baron.

Actually, Cain has the MARK which makes the First Blade deadly. He gives this mark to Dean after watching him fight, but the blade itself is on the bottom of the ocean. Crowley goes to find it because he can walk around on the bottom of the sea I guess?

But the mark has a price….

Sharp Teeth – Garth is back!? I forgot that he ran off last season. I don’t even think he showed up in person then; the bros just said ‘He’s watching Kevin.’ Turns out he became a werewolf during a hunt and has been hiding this whole time. AND also got married to a werewolf and is living with their wolfy pack.

I sure wasn’t expecting this. I WAS expecting most of his new ‘family’ to be evil though. Dean even makes a joke about it at some point.

The Purge – Now we’re back to monsters of the week. This time it’s a fat-sucking creature from Peru or something. I’m sure it’s a real myth, but there’s no way I’m going to look it up. 🤢

Captives – Kevin’s ghost is now haunting the fortress, and tells the bros that no one can get into Heaven with Metatron in charge. Wow, they really should go take care of that one of these weeks, huh?

But for now it’s off to the local storage facility, where Kevin’s mom is being held prisoner by one of Crowley’s flunkys!

I gotta tell ya, the bros are acting REALLY dumb this season. They’ve been falling into traps laid out by every suspicious character they meet. What happened to testing everyone with holy water and silver? C’mon, guys!

Blade Runners – This one reminds me of the Star Trek: the Next Generation Episode ‘The Most Toys.’ In this episode Dean is kidnapped by a crazed collector of rare items. The collector has the First Blade already, but Dean’s Mark of Cain completes the set! But before he can add actor Dean Cain to the collection, Dean’s Mark of Cain activates the First Blade and he goes all Doomslayer on the dude. (Chops off his head with mad glee.)

Now it’s suddenly like I’m reading Berserk. Fight the urge, Dean! Don’t let the murderous rage kill all your friends! You know how it goes. 😫

Let’s skip ahead again.

Bloodlines – I didn’t like this one, but it’s too silly not to mention. There are TONS of guest stars here. It takes place in Chicago, where multiple monster gangs are plotting against each other. We’ve got vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters—it’s like an episode of Wednesday. (I’ll review season two of that show next month.) 😉

But this is too much. There’s a Romeo and Juliet story going on. There’s a plot about a normal kid trying to get revenge for his murdered girlfriend. Honestly, this feels like an experimental pilot for a new series.

And the ending drags on forever: the couple talks about their future; the normal kid gets a phone call from his secretly-hunter-thought-dead-father. No idea what they were thinking with this one.

King of the Damned – Abaddon is killed by the First Blade. It’s truly thrilling: Abaddon uses Jedi force magic to hold Dean against the wall, but Dean is propelled by the FURY of the blade to strut forward and slay her.

Yeah, it’s pretty silly. (Or so I thought.) And Crowley’s son is also transported from the past to the present. Hm! I guess that’s neat.

Stairway to Heaven – Angels start exploding, saying ‘This one’s for you, Castiel!’ It’s all a plan to get the angels on Castiel’s side to abandon him.

But the real secret of this episode is when Crowley busts Dean out of the dungeon (He’s too bloodthirsty so Sam locks him up.) and they go to a diner.

Do You Believe in Miracles? – I got tricked. Metatron is defeated and jailed in this episode, but the ending reveals what the price was for using the First Blade:

Dean has been transforming into a demon, and I didn’t see it.

First of all, the ‘silly’ force battle with Abbadon. I thought that Dean resisting the demonic energy was a cop-out, but it was really because he was BECOMING demonic himself.

Then, the diner. Dean orders a cheeseburger and DOESN’T eat it. Demons don’t eat, and this is a MAJOR clue, but I just laughed it off as a joke.

You know how it usually goes: the heroes order their food, then they get a vital call and have to leave their entire meal on the table. Funny, right?

But Crowley was suspicious at this point. HE was the one that suggested Dean order something. Then he saw that Dean didn’t eat it, even reminding him of the untouched meal at one point.

And it is Crowley we see at the end, welcoming Dean to his new life as a demon.

Now THIS is a finale.

But… I need to finish up Wednesday season two and now Ranma 1/2 season two and Rorouni Kenshin season three.

Wait for me, Supernatural! I’ll leave you on the table for now, but I’ll return! 😅