#also it's weird to me cause like.. not to imply anything wrt appearances having anything to do with gender but

[softgrungeprophet]

have now read (almost) all of wyatt wingfoot’s actual comic appearances, can say with great confidence: a lot of them are pretty bad

only one was so bad i stopped reading after like, one issue (that was earth X, an alternate timeline) though to be fair i also have not even bothered to read the most recent issue of slott’s run because that’s also bad, but i know generally what happens and my verdict is: it sucks

anyway my personally most-enjoyed wyatt appearances in chronological order:

-OG meet-cute in 1966 aka Fantastic Four #50 thru #61 which includes their first meeting, and wyatt’s adventure with johnny in africa... this is also the first appearance of black panther i think. it’s definitely dated but surprisingly tame compared to the 70s-80s comics and there are some real good moments... wyatt is immediately ready to throw the fuck down for johnny and he is tall and handsome.

Prefacing this with: I’m white, but I wanna point out some shit before I actually continue the list.

Here i have to note that anything from 1970-2000 has a 50/50 chance of coloring wyatt real badly, even in the digital recolors, with only a few exceptions. The worst offender is in the early 90s in Sensational She-Hulk but that is NOT on my list because it’s bad. Most of the comics on this list, especially as we get into later and better-done comics, do not have red skin because there seems to be a correlation between bad art and bad story, but there are a few sprinkled in here with questionable pink-to-red coloring choices, particularly around the issue 200-somethings of Fantastic Four, and in general around the 70s and 80s.

I also wanna add here that around 1973, after stan lee had stopped writing fantastic four, after repeated statements to do with wyatt’s Comanche heritage (aka a real tribe in OK), gerry conway introduced “Keewazi,” a completely fake made-up tribe which then completely supplanted all but a few mentions of wyatt being Comanche (that being like, a brief comment implying his dead ancestors were comanche but that he is “keewazi”) with only one exception for an errant “Konohoti” (also made-up and in a bad comic that i won’t be recommending anyway) Said conway comic is not on my recommended list, either, but it has a notable line in which wyatt says he feels like he’s known johnny since before he ever met him, which i think about constantly...

Also, (and this is from me googling things to get better understandings of IRL stuff, as i read my way through f4 comics, so it’s by no means an expert’s words and i am still just a white person trying to get context) there are many mentions of Wyatt being on the reservation, of his family living on the reservation, teaching on the reservation, the tribe’s land being taken by oil companies, etc. but Oklahoma does not have reservations the way other states do and has not for decades. It also sounds like Wyatt becoming chief based only on being the previous chief’s grandson is pretty unlikely, but that’s a thing in the comics too.

There are a lot of inaccuracies and stereotypes in almost all of Wyatt’s appearances that are pretty blatant even to white-ass people like me, but some are better about this than others, for sure. So, keep that in mind even with the ones I list as enjoyable.

OKAY

the rest of the list

i’m just kinda doing a semi chrono order rather than “best to worst” order

-there’s SOME stuff from Fantastic Four #269 thru #280 that i liked but i really could not tell you specific issues and the way wyatt and jen meet is really not well done. i remember kinda liking the arc about central city being transported to the future, in which wyatt has a pretty brief appearance... but overall I just really don’t like John Byrne’s writing so ehh can’t really recommend but some of it’s like, fine

-Marvel Fanfare (1982) #37 [B Story] is pretty cute and brief. involves a double date between reed/sue and jen/wyatt with johnny as the fifth wheel, and also time travel. and arm wrestling. It’s not heavy on Wyatt but it’s cute in general.

-Marvel Graphic Novel #18 (the Sensational She-Hulk) is like............. i’m VERY torn on this. i think overall it has a lot of fun elements but as always with john byrne there’s plenty of bad mixed in, both in terms of sexualizing shulkie, byrne thinking he’s funnier than he actually is, and a bad scene w/ wyatt but it has some really cute moments too. it’s a real mixed bag, man. the infamous “she-hulk carries wyatt under her arm” scene is from this one... long and short is “shield captures she-hulk and wyatt, and they bust out.” Less racist than wyatt’s appearances in the following sensational she-hulk run john byrne did after this, which is NOT SAYING A LOT because wyatt’s appearances in that comic run were pretty fucking offensive. if you like jenwyatt i guess read this, like, it’s fine, but... eh...

-She-Hulk: Ceremony (only 2 jumbo issues long) is another one I’m veeeerrryyyy torn on but RIGHT off the bat i will say it is worth more than the weight of all john byrne’s wyatt scenes combined. The pacing is kind of really weird, it’s got a lot of odd mystical native stereotypes in it... but it’s got really nice art though and mcduffie gives wyatt i think some of the most depth/nuance of any of these comics... he and jen are both equally important and treated as complex characters from the very first page to the very last... it’s one of those comics where i can’t say, “read it despite its flaws” because I just... don’t know. and it’s a comic which has had almost no impact on the works that followed, but at the same time it does have some really nice stuff for both jen and wyatt’s characters. this is the one where wyatt and jen almost get married and wyatt almost goes to law school. anyway I personally really liked it despite its flaws and it seems more researched than some other things but it’s definitely still lacking in some of its approach to indigenous stuff. dwayne mcduffie being black i think does give it a little something that it would otherwise lack, if it had been written by a white dude like all the other things.

-Marvel Graphic Novel #62 (Ka-zar: Guns of the Savage Land) based on the synopsis I read, I expected this to be bad but it was actually alright? I liked the art, wyatt’s handsome... BUT there’s a lot of weird condescending paternalism to it, wrt the indigenous groups and how they’re depicted, and i think that’s a pretty big, glaring flaw along with some of the usual caveats that come with anything relating to the savage land (including, you know, the name itself), but the rest of it is not half bad. ka-zar’s a jackass though. it’s one of the MANY stories wyatt appears in which feature an oil company as the bad guys (Roxxon in this case) but it’s one of the only ones that’s actually halfway decent.

-Marvel Super-Heroes vol 2 #5 (Treasure) short and sweet, features a sea monster, jen and wyatt on a little getaway together, and wyatt wearing heart-patterned swim trunks. almost forgot this one cause it’s easy to miss, but it’s really cute.

-Fantastic Four #394 was okay if i recall. this is when wyatt, johnny, jen, and some others go out to an archaeology dig and lyja stalks johnny. johnny telling wyatt he ought to bottle his charm and sell it... is good. everything with lyja... less good. jen, wyatt and johnny palling around... great. everything with lyja.... not great. a real mixed bag for me.

-Strange Tales vol 3 #1 i did not hate. if i remember correctly it has the same artist as guns of the savage land. it’s about the power of storytelling. i enjoyed this in particular because it shows wyatt’s grandfather as like... a human with interests beyond just being a Wise Old Man--he reads monster magazines! i liked that a lot. it’s still kinda... iffy in spots, especially with doctor strange involved, but it was still fun and i like when wyatt and his family get treated like human beings.

-Fantastic Force was actually pretty fun, I think. Wyatt is only in issues #12-16 so that’s all I bothered to read but it has this very amusing moment of wyatt saying how it’s unfortunate his and jen’s relationship wasn’t meant to work out but he treasures her friendship... while holding her hand after a date. starting on issue 12 there was some context missing but i didn’t really... care.... my reading style is plowing through random issues without ever reading the context and then going: idk what’s going on

-Fantastic Four vol 2 Listen. I know this comic is not “good” but I liked it and that’s what matters here. This is Franklin’s pocket dimension of the heroes reborn alternate universe... it’s definitely flawed, and i think it tries to cram a lot in for the sake of including classic characters, but i honestly really enjoyed it a lot and wyatt is not insignificant, though he’s not like, majorly important either. reading order gets a little fucking weird around issue 12 at which point you gotta also read issue 12 of the heroes reborn versions of avengers, iron man, and captain america. there are reading guides though, thank god. it’s fun, it’s a different take on the four that nonetheless has lots of small nods to the classic comics... a lot of people think it’s bad and like. i get why. but i think it was enjoyable and engaging minus the parts where i was forced to read avengers comics. wyatt’s actually only in issues 4-6 but i wound up starting from the beginning and reading the whole thing except the final issue cause that continued some new plot i didn’t care about from some other comic--it really breaks up in the end there lmao.... Relatedly, i don’t think heroes reborn: ashema is much worth the read; it’s like, fine, but wyatt’s five second appearance is kind of random and features tomazooma which means i immediately dislike it. like CONCEPTUALLY, wyatt piloting a mech is great. but... not that mech.

-Fantastic Four: The End. this comic... is... weird? it’s fine? i don’t know, i don’t think i’d go out of my way to recommend it but at the same time i didn’t hate it? so i’ll include it here. it’s an alternate future featuring some wild robo doom as the villain. wyatt runs an asteroid mining company for some reason. peter has a goatee. ben has like three kids with alicia. johnny rides the silver surfer’s board. it was... definitely interesting. and one of the comics in which sue has short hair, which is always a bonus for me.

-She-Hulks: (yes, with the plural) It’s a mini. I REALLY liked this. wyatt’s in like, two issues but I genuinely recommend the whole thing (it’s only 4 issues total) I really liked this comic, I thought it was a lot of fun and wyatt and jen’s interactions were really sweet. My biggest crits are that the author falls into the same “failing to write teenage girls” pitfalls as many, many marvel writers, and that stegman draws wyatt literally an entire foot too short. but i prefer this old stegman art vastly to his grungy current art. INTERESTING NOTE HERE is that wyatt’s appearances in this comic were published riiight around the same time johnny straight-up died in hickman’s fantastic four run, which is honestly fascinating to contemplate and also extra heartbreaking that i never got to see how wyatt found out considering he was almost definitely in the city when it happened. anyway. good, bittersweet as all hell on the she-hulk front, really enjoyable for me. i did not bother to read any of the hulk comics preceding it for context and i don’t think you need to, to understand it.

-Captain America Corps --This comic is.... something. wyatt is only in the last two issues in a minor role but the whole series is again only 5 issues and I honestly really enjoyed it? Though I think it tripped over itself in a few places. It involves time travel, captain america, an alternate 21st century which would be heavy-handed if it weren’t for trump. I think it gets its message a little tangled up in parts, especially near the end with the femazon whatever bullshit (so close to talking about white women’s privileges), but overall it was a fun little AU mini-series, with some flaws. it also implies that wyatt goes on to become the president which is the funniest thing i’ve ever read. he would hate that so much, man

-FF vol 2. not fantastic four. FF. just the initials. WITH A CAVEAT. Okay. Wyatt is in issues #3-4, 8, and 16. This one is a tough one, though.  This series. I like the art mostly. I like Wyatt’s scenes (tho i will pick a bone with mr fraction about wyatt’s supposed inability to pronounce french or know what to order at a french restaurant when he is multilingual and has gone to several french restaurants before) ANYWAY. Wyatt is really great in these appearances I think, charming, handsome, etc. The issues focusing on the kids, on interpersonal relationships, etc... i really like. But the rest. I do not like at all. The entire doom plot, I hated. Issue 16? Skip to the barbecue on the moon. I mean it. The bulk of issue 16 is a vastly uncomfortable, drawn-out fight scene between ant-man and doctor doom that just made me feel gross to read and just happens to be one of the only comics Victor has ever spoken Romani. So that’s... not great. The plot as a whole--I did not like it, especially not the stuff written by Allred, and I cannot recommend it unless you fucking hate doctor doom and want to watch him get beaten up for like literally 10 pages. That being said... again, the stuff with the kids? with bentley, and the moloids, and tong coming out, and the stuff with she-hulk and wyatt? I really really liked, and I thought was really sweet and fun. Oh also Wyatt looking at old man johnny and just knowing it’s him? chef kiss. So. definitely just. skip around. It’s a REAL mixed bag but there is some good stuff in there amidst the like...burnt peanuts.

-She-Hulk volume 3: wyatt is only in #5-6 and #12, really, with brief shots of his photo in some earlier issues BUT. I read the whole thing. It’s 12 issues total, and I really enjoyed it. The plot you think gets dropped does not get dropped, wyatt punches some demons in the face in the background, patsy is there... I really liked it. The art is a bit all over the place, and is not for everyone--it features Javier Pulido’s work for the majority, and I honestly... really like his work for its style and expressiveness but it REALLY is not for everyone, visually. Obviously Kevin Wada’s covers are gorgeous. The other artist who I forget the name of draws wyatt like... nigh unrecognizably, it’s really weird, and I don’t like his work as much but he does have some good spreads here and there. Colors are fantastic throughout. Again, really liked it. A little iffy on the secretary with the monkey.

-Fantastic Four vol 5 #11-12. These are the issues in which Wyatt gets shot by “hawkeye” and he and spidey hold an intervention for Johnny. I actually started with issue... 9 I think to just read the whole story, and I did enjoy that, though I will pick a fight over the idea that wyatt is a womanizer and would just toy with sharon who prior to this there was never any evidence they were romantically involved ANYWAY. I liked it. I felt feelings about Wyatt and Johnny, as well as the rest of the family. It switches to legacy numbering at one point and goes into:

-Fantastic Four #643-645 which is the rest of the story. I THINK 9-12 + 642-645 is everything.... Either way, I liked it a lot despite the fact that I’m really not a fan of Jesus Aburtov’s color work. Features the Heroes Reborn versions of the Avengers but like, empty, which was a fun nod.

-Hulk vol 4 #11 okay. wyatt’s not actually in this aside from jen reminiscing about her love life and showing like, two flashback panels of him. but. i really liked it a lot and i read the whole run based on the One (1) issue containing those panels. mariko tamaki has a great sense of humor and i found her fourth wall breaking to be actually funny sometimes instead of, like byrne’s, nigh intolerable. she also does some really solid character work for jen (which was later, of course, mangled by the avengers writers 🙄) the following she hulk series is a little less solid but i can imagine it was rushed because of the avengers comic, so, really, i’ll just blame everything on the avengers.

don’t read dan slott’s f4. i’ve read bad comics. i’ve read bad f4 comics. i’ve read bad wyatts. his run pings all of these. how do you write wyatt wingfoot out of character?! ask dan slott. oh, except #5′s bachelor party issue which I do think is fun and has wyatt in the background in a snazzy red tuxedo. #5 is actually my favorite issue of the whole run, which, to be fair, is not saying much. the first like, 2 issues and then issue 5 are really the most solid in there, and it just goes downhill from there.

cool.

anyway.

those are the comics featuring wyatt that i’ve enjoyed the most and coincidentally also the fantastic four and she-hulk comics i’ve read that i’ve enjoyed the most because the venn diagram of “fantastic four comics i have read” and “comics including wyatt wingfoot in some capacity” is a circle.

#nadia reads comics #this post is a bit of a long one but if you are curious... #comics #wyatt wingfoot

[itsbenedict]

No Driver’s License: Session 25 (aka We Ruined The Moon)

No Driver’s License is a Madoka Magica game I’m running for five players, using a homebrew of Yaruki Zero’s Magical Burst system. It follows five magical girls as they deal with an upheaval in the world’s magic system caused by some strange new three-eyed Incubators. They have to figure out what’s going on, who to trust, and how to put a stop to the cycle of despair.

I post session logs and omakes weekly, both as a reference for the players and for anyone who wants to follow along with the party’s misadventures.

[adventure log- read from the beginning]

[session 24 / omakes]

Last time on No Driver’s License: the party dealt with their fiery landlady, which was more of a hassle than you’d think. (Because the “fiery” part was literal.) Yukari sold some gold and had a mental breakdown, Sakura got chased across the city by a pack of wild animals, and the rest of the team did their best to keep those things from becoming full-fledged disasters.

But now that they’ve dealt with the immediate emergencies, and have some time to themselves... uh. Well, Yukari and Ibara have some plans to investigate plot stuff, but Sakura, Makoto, and Seina... decide to go to the moon.

I should stress that there isn’t anything important on the moon. I never hinted at anything being on the moon. The moon isn’t magic. None of the bad guys are on the moon, and they don’t need to use the moon for anything. They just decided to go to the moon, because what’s the point of magic powers if you can’t just go to the moon sometimes?

(thanks ciroton 4 important edit)

...Oh, and also something else happens this session. It’s, uh... well, I’ll let it take you by as much surprise as it took me.

So, the team is recuperating in their hotel room (a new one, less fancy, not being watched by the government at least for now). Ibara wants to follow up with that Joshuya Junko kid, the one who was with the SWAT team thing that arrested Yukari and her. Various plans are floated wrt contacting her, including- from Sakura- a plan to request a meeting in the guise of a love confession.

After more debate, the question of “why are we contacting Junko anyway” is raised, which leads to a debate about trusting the authorities and getting institutional support. Yukari waxes poetic about the expansion of civilization across the universe, and... then Sakura considers that they could go to the moon.

After Yukari begs Sakura not to vandalize the American flag on the moon, on the basis of it being a precious historical artifact, the team splits into two- half of them headed moonward with a ridiculous propulsion scheme, and the other two- Yukari and Ibara- deciding to pursue leads on Junko.

Let’s... start with the moon. The moon is, if not as important as what comes next, a bigger and more complicated endeavor.

So, Sakura and Makoto do some research together- Makoto earlier scored a 12 on her school roll, so she conferred a +2 bonus to their research roll to see if they could figure out the rocket science necessary to design a functioning moon rocket. They succeeded! (Of note: it was @defectivealtruist​, Seina’s player, who actually ran the numbers IRL, because apparently they know rocket science??? i made sure to double check with a couple other rocket scientists hey why do i know so many rocket scientists???)

So, with Sakura using magic to juice up a mentos and diet coke reaction to achieve the same thrust as rocket fuel- because yes, that’s how they’re doing this- which just leaves, uh... well, two issues. One issue is “getting enough diet coke and mentos to launch a fucking rocket to the moon”, and the other issue is “wait, so how do we ride this thing?”.

First things first: any problem of the form “we don’t have enough of material X” is solved by taking a small amount of material X, and getting the resident shrinky-growy technician Otsuki Orino to make it very big. Unfortunately... last we saw Orino, she’d had a severe emotional reaction to events at the Christmas party, and ran off without telling anyone where she’d gone.

Thankfully, Seina has her phone number.

However, she changes her tune a little after they tell her why- that they’re planning a trip to the moon.

So, with that apparently out of the way, the actual ship design becomes important. Thankfully, Makoto has an idea- and the idea is “use Mesmerizing Menagerie to conjure a magical space pelican, with built-in pockets for attaching diet coke bottles”. Which... works??????? Sure! Sure, that’s fine, y’all have a magical space pelican with soda bottle rockets embedded in its flesh. That’s not weird!

So Orino shows up, sort of nonplussed by the sight of this magic mutant pelican, but does her thing- gets up close, fixes her perspective, and backs up until it’s gigantic. Then... 

https://itsbenedict.tumblr.com/post/169943455239/maverick-ornithography-i-felt-like-i-needed-to

Problem now is... they can’t leave Yoshe unattended. They’ve been doing this project over at the greenhouse (Seina was guarding her, Sakura and Makoto came over here to meet up with her). If they all left, though, Yoshe would probably pull off whatever her mystery escape plan is.

They reassure her that no, they’re really just inviting her on a day trip.

They explain the plan- the pelican flies them to the upper atmosphere where flight no longer works, then they switch on the rockets.

Despite all this- and despite Sakura’s successful Heart roll to notice that she actually does very much want to go... she claims that she’d rather stay here. And... most of the team decides to bring her anyway.

Fortunately, Makoto insists on staying behind to guard Yoshe, as opposed to leaving Yoshe alone- and that causes Yoshe to change her tune pretty quick, because of course this whole moon hater charade was just a ploy to get them to leave her unattended, and between “be watched and go to the moon” and “be watched and don’t go to the moon”, she’ll take the former.

So they all pile into pelican mouth, and blast off! And... make some real checks.

So, apparently, a building-sized pelican that pokes over the trees attracts attention, of the magical sort. Seelenfaust is in hot pursuit.

Thankfully, Makoto’s got her Camouflage ability, and so- after Seelenfaust’s pursuit is diverted by a spray of Diet Coke rocket exhaust- Emiko loses track of the pelican and decides to stop at her orbital hangar rather than continue searching. They’ve shaken their tail!

So they land on the moon- but find that, whoops, the atmosphere is too thin for verbal speech, and they didn’t bring an Incubator. Seina has to do some work with her new telepathy ability to hook everyone up. There’s also the issue of “wait, did we bring Earth bacteria with us to the moon, thereby contaminating it?” And... the answer is “yes, you ruined the moon, but that affects you in no way whatsoever.”

So, they frolic, they jump around in low gravity, they write their names in moon dust...

And then Ibara realizes something.

It sure wasn’t airtight when it opened up to let them out on the moon!

So, of course, I wanted to have Yoshe witch out and have a fight on the moon- and Yoshe wanted to witch out and have a fight on the moon, because that’s exactly her plan, to have her physical body die and have her Soul Gem burn itself out trying to regenerate it, so that she’d become a witch and escape the cage and be teleported to safety by Kimiko.

Unfortunately for the both of us, the players are quick thinkers. Seina magics up an oxygen mask made of flowers to stabilize her, and then... uh, I hate that this made sense and worked, but they... crawled into the pelican’s gullet, and stuffed the tiny and unconscious Yoshe into the giant pelican’s windpipe, and thereby into its magically-oxygenated lungs. They manage to save her from dying, just barely.

Seina hooks Makoto up to Yoshe to check on her.

So... this incident has kind of ruined the mood. Makoto’s down in the dumps over almost killing Yoshe, and they’re about ready to go home.

...Except wait, while they were distracted, Orino disappeared.

Let me give you a brief rundown of Orino’s interactions with the party, from her perspective:

After being bullied into witching by Emiko, was brought back to life to see them making friends with her

Was invited to go witch-hunting by Seina, and went along with it for the hell of it

Was dragged in to a nightmare battle against the cannibals and two of the party’s witches

Yukari permanently injured her magic by stealing it to permashrink Yoshe, which was excruciatingly painful.

Was thereafter used as a scale tool for various trivialties

Was asked to guard Yoshe, who psychologically assaulted her and made her feel terrible

When she opened up about her past trauma at the Christmas party, had her boundaries trampled all over and received a promise that the Purification that dulled the pain of her trauma would be undone

These things, on top of other issues in her life that the party never looked into, because getting to know their scale tool was not on the list of priorities, appear to have culminated in a desire to go live on the moon and never leave or speak to anyone ever again!

In their search, they happen across... footprints, and a grave with a dried flower laid on it, implying that they’re not the first magical girls to think of going to the moon- but they don’t find Orino, and she’s faster than them with her ink wings. Unfortunately, it’s what she’s decided to do, so they don’t press the issue, and instead board the pelican to go home. 

It’s as they re-enter the atmosphere, and then re-enter range of cell phone towers, that they... get a text.

Wait, what the hell happened while they were gone? Let’s... rewind a little, to after they split up.

The answer to that is “ask Kaname Tomohisa”, but unfortunately they don’t know where Tomohisa lives. They know where he goes to school, though! It’s Ibara’s school (and the others’ school.) Unfortunately, it’s after school, so he’s not there. He’s at home, and they don’t know where that is. This calls for... Doing What Yukari Did Earlier When Makoto Ran Away! That is, breaking into the secretary’s office and looking up student records!

This time, they’re not in as much of a rush- and also, Ibara is here, and has that lovely wish of hers that makes authority figures get out of her way and let her do what she needs to do. She just... strolls in!

With a little less panic than the last time one of the team was here checking records, they look through things a little more thoroughly, to dig up dirt on their fellow students.

First, they get Tomohisa’s information- it turns out he actually lives a few doors down from Ibara! And... she never noticed. He probably nursed that crush for a while before Ibara turned him down in freshman year.

That info is good, but Yukari wanted her to get more than just that. She looks up Kimiko and Emiko.

*when Yukari and Makoto arrived in the city. the other three have already been living there.

They also search for mysterious disappearances.

Ibara prints out the relevant information, and has a brief conversation with the secretary- who, huh, is named Otsuki Okimi, and bears a resemblance to Orino. After confirming that this system doesn’t have logging, and there’s no need to destroy the computer to cover her tracks, Ibara takes the profiles to Yukari.

After Yukari takes a look, they move on with the plan to track down Junko by contacting Tomohisa. Ibara calls her family to ask about the Kanames, just in case.

She also texts her older sister, Chihiro- who hasn’t appeared in this story because she’s already gone off to college.

After slogging through a bunch of catch-up and small talk, Ibara finally gets around to asking her about the Kanames, and...

So, the recon via the Kazama family having been mostly a bust, they head over to Tomohisa’s house. Ibara... stays out of sight, while Yukari knocks.

Let’s see how that plan works out!

Ibara’s forced to come out of hiding and admit her presence- and while Madoka’s grandma is kind of confused by the lie, she recognizes Ibara and calls Tomohisa down.

So, they have to convince Tomohisa that they don’t intend to hurt Junko, first, but eventually they get her phone number.

So, then they start dealing with the text they got from Makoto about how Emiko and Seelenfaust found the greenhouse. Before using Junko’s phone number, they decide to scout for a new hiding place for Yoshe. Yukari does a thing where she does a prophecy wrt “if we hide her right where the rest of the group comes down, will that go bad?”, and gets 20% okay outcomes, meaning it’s actually not too hard to find a place for her. They eventually narrow it down to an abandoned lot with some shipping containers, and send the rest of the team the coordinates.

Anyway, remember Yukari said that some fate-of-the-world stuff happens? Let’s get to that. Yukari has Ibara text Junko.

(if you’ll recall, Erika Furudo is the fake name Yukari used on the stock exchange. having recently played Umineko, i am now side-eyeing zero super hard.)

So... they start trying to warn her about magic stuff, but she goes “yeah, I already know”. Which is weird. Apparently, she’s been in contact with the Incubators?

They decide to trust her, more or less, and try to use her to get in contact with the government.

They tell Junko that they have a way to keep Incubators from mindwiping people (which is to say, giving them Tama and Nishi’s secret, so that mind-wiping them would give away the game to the Incubators. Not that they say as much. They only hint that the Incubators aren’t all on the same side.)

They name a spot and nail down the arrangement. Which triggers... the fate of the world shit.

WARNING: Rebellion spoilers ahead, if you haven’t seen that movie yet.

IS WHAT I WOULD HAVE LIKED TO SAY.

Unfortunately for me, Yukari and Ibara both have unspent Hope point bursts. Hope fallout, in Magical Burst, allows...

They pick “you find a new friend”, and that means the Devil does not vanish on the spot.

Sakura... is more or less correct.

Yukari, then... pledges to help. She won’t just “not fuck it up”- if allowing this future to happen will end the Devil, end the Incubators’ magic... she will actively assist the Devil in her plan.

And now it’s Ibara’s turn to talk some sense into the Devil.

Yukari and Ibara tag-team the Devil, demanding that she stay and fight rather than reset the universe. They promise that hope still exists. Magical girls are those who grant the wishes of others.

Magical girls- ordinary, broken human beings- driving around the corpses of unspeakable alien horrors, copying their movements because they don’t know what else to do. That’s... No Driver’s License.

So, in summary: the players’ plan to change the course of history by using magic to fix the world... is incompatible with the original timeline of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and as they got close to the critical disruption- getting Madoka’s parents involved- they drew the attention of the Devil, who long ago stole the place of whatever being was responsible for magic, and has since been trying to make the universe run correctly such that she and Madoka meet again.

And now, rather than inevitably fucking up and pissing off the final boss... they’ve got the final boss on their side.

I... am not entirely sure what to do from here. I guess we’ll find out!

Next time on No Driver’s License: a full session of negotiating with the Devil.

#no driver's license #rebellion spoilers