#I mean they do have a sleepover in that episode. which is worth like ten hand holds so.

[givehimthemedicine]

except for 3x3 which is a very near miss, El and Max hold hands at least once in every single episode they spend together since becoming friends

[sanoiro]

There is something about Trixie Season Three

I always knew I would be back for this third instalment I just never realised what would have happened between 3x23 and finally reaching a deal with Netflix for Season 4. I literally lost over a month from my life and before you say anything, yes it was worth it. 

There is something about Trixie Season 1

There is something about Trixie Season 2

3x01 - They're Back, Aren't They?

Trixie is not mentioned. 

3x02 - The One with the Baby Carrot

Trixie is not mentioned. 

3x03 - Mr. & Mrs. Mazikeen Smith

The first time we see Trixie in Season 3 is ironically in an episode that was shot in Season Two and is part of the four standalones that irked the fans for not moving the storyline. 

Trixie shows some great initiative by trying to smuggle herself to Canada and despite being overly worried for Maze, Miss Alien did manage to cross the boards and take part in the episode’s adventure... What also we need to remember is that Trixie was extremely happy that Miss alien was delivered back smeared with blood... 

3x04 - What Would Lucifer Do?

Trixie is not mentioned.

3x05 - Welcome Back, Charlotte Richards

In episode 3x05 we do realise that S3 will not be just about identity but also about accountability. In this episode, we also have the first real Season Three appearance of Trixie and apparently, the child’s proximity with Maze has brought some issues that are dealt with a Swear Jar... 

In this episode, we cannot say we see anything out of the ordinary although the word Mother-flunker will always stay with us but we do realise that like Trixie, Lucifer has to learn that words to hurt people... pity he wasn’t there for that pep talk otherwise it might have saved us a whole season. 

Now let’s move to the last scene with Trixie in the episode which holds some merit.

Chloe: Monkey, I want to talk to you about what happened today at school. Did you tell Miss Morgan to "go to shell"?

Trixie: I didn't technically break any rules. 

Chloe: You know what? Lucifer was right. The swear jar, it's it's a dumb idea. Mommy gave you a bunch of rules without explaining things. The real reason that we shouldn't swear is that bad words make people feel bad. And I know you don't want to make people feel bad, right? 'Cause the truth is if you go looking for loopholes, you'll always find them. And I can't force you to do the right thing. You'll just have to learn that on your own. So no more swear jar. Does the above sound familiar to you? 

Call me an overthinker as I know I am but take this as if spoken from Dad aka God. Lucifer was set to have certain rules but broke them and when they were reinforced he always sought for loopholes lie he did when he made a deal with Dad in 1x13 and Chloe was spared. 

God couldn’t make him learn, good from wrong as Lucifer always found loopholes but instead He also took away the Swear Jar or in Lucifer’s case, Hell. God never got down to Earth to drag His son back to Hell but he enforced a plan that made Lucifer on some degree learn on his own but without God being an active participant to that. Lucifer has the choice on what to learn, accept and eventually act. 

3x06 - Vegas with Some Radish

Trixie is not mentioned.

Many have noted where Trixie was in this episode and the truth is that Trixie could have returned to babysit or Chloe could have called a babysitter when she decided to stay with Linda at the penthouse. Contrary to popular belief parents sometimes do need a break from their children. 

3x07 - Off the Record

Here we have the HILARIOUS: ‘Child in danger?’

Then down the storyline, Daughter in Danger and Stolen From School...

3x08 - Chloe Does Lucifer

That episode always cracks me up especially Trixie’s actions. Painting a unicorn on Lucifer’s cheek and of course being the adult in how Chloe should open a conversation of flirting with a man. For some reason, her maturity here is a bit too much but at the same time endearing. What she also realises is that the show at the end of the episode is missing. 

The thimble as I mentioned earlier was a direct metaphor to Peter Pan’s thimble. The boy who refused to grow until he was forced to do just that. In 3x08 we do realise that although Lucifer refuses to grow up once again he knows that even by getting a Monopoly piece certain things will never be different because people might not change but heck they can pretend they have pretty well. Enter Trixie. In a way we see Lucifer and Trixie growing up and getting hurt together almost by the same people in Season Three. Namely Maze... 

3x09 - The Sinnerman

Trixie is not mentioned.

3x10 - The Sin Bin

Many can say Lucifer is a proud Step-Satan but in this episode, more things come to play. Trixie not only meets Charlotte but she also sets a date between her and her Daddy aka Dan. 

She is a perceptive child and for some reason a bit like Ella, although in a different way, she is attracted to the unusual and in her case to whatever has ascent from Hell... 

Now like in 3x08 she offers sound advice on how adults should act but she is also offering a very good line to Charlotte: You’re the Mum, you make the rules!

Following 3x05, rules are made by the parents they cannot always be explained but that does not mean it’s out of spite. Sometimes it’s out of desperation or love so that concept alone wants me to keep a closer eye on our dear Beatrice...

3x11 - City of Angels?

Trixie is mentioned 1 time. 

3x12 - All About Her

In this episode, we get to see that not only Trixie is obsessed with Miss Alien but also that she makes some good money from her art which reminds us that what she had drawn in Season 2. Uriel, the Devil and the Blade. In Season 3 in 3x12 we can see the first hint of that Amenadiel will get his wings back. 

For some reason, Trixie seems to know what is going to happen. Of course, we may say it’s but an easter egg from the production but speculating over a Miracle’s child is more fun don’t you think?

3x13 - Til Death Do Us Part

Trixie is mentioned two times. 

3x14 - My Brother's Keeper

In this episode, we see how close Trixie and Maze have become to the point that Maze words in 3x18 cause a lot of damage. What interests me most though is not how close they are but what Trixie has been taught from Maze.

That kid now knows the basics of how to survive and of course battle tactics. Sometimes I do wonder if whatever passed down to Trixie from Lucifer and Maze will come to play in any f the future seasons. 

3x15 - High School Poppycock

In 3x15 Trixie was used as a humorous addition to the story where Chloe stays up all night but we also witness the maturity of the child as well. She dresses herself and she got up and ready without waiting for her mother to do anything for her. 

You may say that for her age that’s a given but like in 2x15 we see that Trixie has a very adult-like logic and in most cases, reaction to a lot of things. Unfortunately, like her mother, she also bottles up a lot of her feelings and refuses to let anyone realise how certain circumstances affect her until it’s too late. Do keep that in mind for both Trixie and Chloe in Season 4. 

3x16 - Infernal Guinea Pig

Trixie is mentioned 1 time.

3x17 - Let Pinhead Sing!

Trixie is not mentioned.

3x18 - The Last Heartbreak

In 3x18 the episode does affect Trixie but the most notable thing we see is how a little human girl can affect a Demon. Maze was always unyielding to emotion until Trixie came to her life. Like Chloe and Lucifer’s insistence to not be a shoe the same happened with Maze and Trixie. 

Ten episodes later since 3x08 the same story plays again but this time in the subplot of the series. A character rejects its true nature for what they believe they are. Lucifer uses sex and enforces himself to act indifferent to Chloe and any remaining feelis from 3x06 while in 3x18 we see Maze trying to do the same. She acts out and her lashing out to Dan eventually reaches Trixie but more directly than Lucifer’s actions do reach Chloe. 

3x19 - Orange Is the New Maze

Trixie is mentioned 3 times.

3x20 - The Angel of San Bernardino

In 3x20, we see Trixie has mostly recovered from Maze’s harsh words and house abandonment. And yet in the following gif we do see that the child understand more than she is willing to admit which makes things a bit weird for my liking. 

Trixie appears to have known to a degree that Lucifer and her mother were close after her parents were separated and yet by the end of the episode she does not appear to hold any grudge against our Devil. 

And here is the thing Trixie is open to both her parents dating and being happy with other people and no matter what happens she always seems extremely loyal to Lucifer. Even in 3x08 she could see that Chloe and Lucifer  were good for each other and yet the fact hat she was there to care for her mother in that state troubled me, like a lot. 

3x21 - Anything Pierce Can Do I Can Do Better

Moving on to 3x21... Bottling up your feelings never ends well but in Trixie’s case, she just refuses to deal with the issue something that Chloe says it will take time. That alone gives us an opening on what might happen with the two characters in S4 but also poses a question that has not been explained so far. Why while Trixie was still mad with Maze, she accepted Marcus so easily after 3x20?

3x22 - All Hands on Decker

When 3x22 was aired and that scene came into play I was convinced that Trixie had been taken from the sleepover and had not willingly left. That might be true if we consider that A) There was a deleted scene where Marcus and Maze had a fight in LUX’s bathroom and that Marcus knew he would need a shield afterwards. Do not forget that Marcus had a silver tongue and could persuade people quite easily in order to get what he wanted. So I do believe that Trixie was forced to return home in 3x22. 

3x22 was also the last time we saw the child as the last two episodes were too packed as season and midseason finale’s often are. 

3x23 - Quintessential Deckerstar

Trixie is not mentioned.

3x24 - A Devil of My Word

Trixie is not mentioned.

3x25 - Boo Normal

Trixie is mentioned 1 time.

3x26 - Once Upon a Time

Trixie is not mentioned (aside from the lack of family in Dan’ s life) and does not exist.

Finally, I would like to add a thought concerning Trixie’s absence in 3x26 - Once Upon a Time. 

Chloe was born as a miracle but God’s decision to make her cross paths with Lucifer was made when John Decker was murdered when she was 18 years old. 

That means that Chloe’s Miracle status is not de facto the reason why Lucifer and Chloe were met. 

Following that logic, Chloe’s future and Trixie’s existence is part of God’s plan which we can speculate that is based on Chloe meeting Lucifer. That means in an extent that Trixie has a role in Lucifer’s involvement with Chloe which we should witness at some point in the next season/s. 

Why is that?

Because Trixie’s existence didn’t fit the original plan that had Chloe never meeting Lucifer meaning where God had no involvement, therefore, we can assume that Trixie is a product of God’s grand plan for Lucifer and Chloe on some degree. 

If all the above is true then why did God blessed Penny and John? 

Well, there are many different scenarios but I like to think that Penny’s infertility or difficulty to conceive had to do with a certain kind of ancestry* that made John and Penny incompatible and thus they needed a stronger angel, the Firstborn, to bless them. That’s, of course, a non-spoiler based speculation. We shall see I guess...

*That does not make Lucifer and Chloe related in any way. Lucifer in 3x01 has revealed that there are other celestial beings as well as supernatural beings that roam the Earth/Universe. 

This is the end of There is something about Trixie Season Three.

[seven-for-president]

RFA (including Saeran and V) reacting to MC who loves Yaoi? :)

Oh my God I´m just so excited to write this o(^▽^)o

_Yoosung_

° Yoosung was at your house to help you get your things for the sleepover at his parent´s

° he knew you were sort of an otaku, so he wasn´t suprised to find a bookshelf filled with mangas over mangas

° he himself only read some including his favourite LOLOL characters

° (I guess some sort of doujinshii)¯\_(ツ)_/¯

° “Hey MC, can I borrow a manga from your shelf?”

° “Sure go ahead. But don´t make a mess.”

° as every good fujoshi you kept your most precious copys in the very back of said shelf

° it was a habit Yoosung also hold ¯\_ʘᗜʘ_/¯

°  NOT good….

° “Hey MC what is this about?”

° you looked around and to your suprise he was showing you the cover of Ten Count No.5 (it´s the latest one available in my coutry XD)

° your emergency-yaoi-bells rang and you tried to take it away from him

° “Give that back you won´t like it, trust me!”

° but he held it out of your reach when did this brat get so damn tall?

° “Why do you want to hide it that badly MC?”

° “Because of reasons!” (;¬_¬)

° he then did the unavoidable and opend the book

° of course it was not a page with Shirotani and Kurose talking

° and of course it wasn´t one with Kurose in his childhood either

° it was one of those pages

°  if you want to know to what I´m reffering to please check out Ten Count chapter 27/28  o((*^▽^*))o

° with a bam he dropped the book on the grounf, now red as a certain character involved in the manga

° “M-MC, what is that? Don´t tell me all of theese contain such….. acts??”

° he was the definition of embarassment becoming alive at this point

° “No they´re not! You just had to pick one from the back, hadn´t you?”

° if you say it like that it sounds as if he´s at fault here…

° “I´m so sorry I won´t ever take one from the back again.”

° this poor boy is now shocked for live ヽ(＊>∇

° but hey MC can like what she wants anyway XD

° sometimes you have to learn the hard way Yoosung….

_Jaehee_

° Finalyyyy~ your long awaited package arrived~

° you said good bye to the postman and now held a big box full of new Yaoi-Mangas in your hands

° BEST.DAY.EVER!!

° as you opend the box the one copy you´ve waited for forever to be realeased in korea happen to be on top

° so why wait when you can enjoy it now  o(≧∇≦o)

° it was called The right way to write Love

° (personally I really enjoyed reading it)

° after your precious box was carefully put away under the bed of course you settled down on the couch and began reading

° when you finished the first story you were almost crying from all the sweetness    ⊂（♡⌂♡）⊃

° but the following one…. dear god forgive me for I have sinned for reading that

° let´s just say the focus was set on interhuman interactions and by interaction I mean in a physical way

° to summarise: it wasn´t something you would want your parents to see             ｡(*^▽^*)ゞ

° unfortunate she´s Mommy-Jaehee

° since it felt quiet alone in the house you turned on the TV to have some noises

° because of these noises you didn´t hear the door opening and Jaehee calling out for you

° your faced away from the door so you didn´t see her entering the living either

° “Hello, what are you reading MC.”

° because you´re a real fujoshi and your entire focus was on reading physical-gay-interaction (if you know what I mean) it was like she´s talking to a wall

° so she decided to just take a look at what captured your attention so much that you didnt notice her

° bad mistake….( ≧Д≦)

° “My gosh MC what are you reading? What are they even doing??!!”

° to say it was the shock of her life was an understatement XD

° you screamed. she screamen. the girl on TV screamed

° as quick as you could you closed the page and hid the book behind you

° blood was running from her nose and it resembled the colour of her cheeks

° “Let´s just not talk about this again. Ever!”

° a nod was all you could manage to do while going to your room and laughing like a mad man  ｡(*^▽^*)ゞ

_Zen_

° as always Zen was out off the house to practice his new play

° for you this meant you´ve got some special freetime which you always dedicate to your secret Yaoi-obsession

° this means: singing openings, watching anime, reading manga and fanfiction and of course and liking tons of fanart

° as your anime of the day you selected the masterpiece Junjou Romantica, season one

° while watching (let´s just assume MC is such a big fan she understands japanese) you also read the mangas because why the heck not ? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

° you  know how the second episode ends? Misaki quitting Virgin-Cub

° the same Thing happend in the manga, just a BIT more detailed

° you started hearing the intro-song for the 3rd time this day and couldn´t resist singing along

° while singing you kept the page you were currently reading open, to continue anytime

° but while singing and constantly turning the volume up the arrival of a certain actor remained unnoticed

° he always thought it was simply impossible to not notice him, but there you were, singing some catchy tune and reading some book

° his abnormal bid ego just couldn´t bear that….(҂⌣̀_⌣́)

° it was logical to him to pay you back for that

° standing behind you he coverd your eyes and took a look at the page infront of him

° remember what I said about the manga having more detail?

° you tried to struggle free and hide everything but it was to late

° “MC, what is happening there?”

° fuck, he saw

° “Eh…. you know, when two peoplelove each other they do interactions on a physical level..”

° “I know that! But These are dudes MC, dudes!”

° “Do you want me to become gay?”

° “What? No, of course not Zen.”

° is it to much to expect people to accept your likings? Yes? ok then I said nothing

° you had to explain a LOT to him but in the end he kind of accepted you liking this genre?

° still a bit disgusted tho

° but to distract you from this stuff he walks around shirtless a lot more than he did before, and to show you that he looks a dozen times better than those men    ( ° ʖ °)

_Jumin_

° you had to be careful, very careful…

° because every package that arrived was controlled by one of the security members

° that meant you couldn´t just order Yaoi-Merch online like you used to as a single

° the consequence was that you had to buy all of this stuff either at a shop or ask one of your friends to order it for you

° today you went out shopping and to your luck you were able to do that without any guards following you

° this was the perfect opportunity to stock up on mangas o(≧∇≦o)

° you returned to the penthouse with a bag full of precious new babys for your collection

°  back home, Elisabeth joined you on the big couch where all of the copys layed in a big mess

° she just purred like she didn´t care XD

° 1 houre later you already finished the first 2 volumes of Sekaii ichi Hatsokoi and started with the 3rd

° (if you wonder it´s the case of Onodera Ritsu No. 5)

° you looked at the clock and to your relief there was still an hour left till Jumin will come back

° so you cleaned up the mess you created, planning to continue reading after you´ve finished

° unfortunately you left the book on the couch with Elisabeth

° what was even more unfortunate, Jumin´s last meeting was canceled and to suprise you he didn´t send a text to warn you

° as you put the last bok away in the shelf you heard a scream, Jumin´s scream

° “ MC what is this Piece of junk doing here!?”

° no need to say it like that…¯\_(⌣̯̀⌣́)_/¯  

° “Jumin don´t shout like that you´ll scare Elisabeth.”

° rushing to the living room the worst case scenario already has happend

° he was reading the damn book, right on the page where you left of

° Takano forcing himself on Ritsu once again

° “Jumin, give me back my book, please.”

° to your suprise rather than angry or disgusted he looked more confused

° Thank God!

° “MC why would you read something like that? Do I not satisfy you enough?”

° great now he looked hurt.. but still this is way better than angry

° “What are you talking about? This has nothing to do with you Jumin I just enjoy reading it.”

° he looked like a little confused kid and than did the last thing you´ve expected

° “Jumin! What are you doing put me down this instant!!”

° “No.”

° apparently he had to make sure he still satisfied you for the rest of the day

° so it wasn´t even that bad that he foudn out about your no longer secret hobby

_Saeyoung/Seven_

° I saved the most strange one for him XD

° when he did the background-check on you he also took a look at your online orders

° and there he thought he already was the biggest Fujoshi Queen King…           (╬ Ò ‸ Ó)

° this being a critical hit on his ego he made up his mind to pay you back one day

° after you moved in with Seven and Saeran you stopped ordering online and bought every book your heart desired in the local bookstore

° because you just knew Seven would tease you nonstop if he found out about that obsession of yours

° little did you know Special-Agent 707 already had his masterplan ready…

° when you came back he wasn´t on his Computer, which was very unusual° instead he sat infront of the TV and it looked like he was waiting for you to return

° “Hey Seven what´re you doing here?”

° “Good you´re back I was waiting for you to come back and watch some anime with me.”

° you didn´t exactly know why but you already had a bad Feeling about this

° “Everytime we watch something it´s either disgusting or disturbing.”

° I´m only dropping the words Euphoria and Corpse Party here

° “But MC~ I know you´ll enjoy it this time.”

° Oh God this sounds so wrong

° you gave your okay to watch whatever it was with him

° but when you heard the first tune of the opening theme, you instantly knew what was going on

° but since you watched every freaking Yaoi, even if it was very strange/disturbing you were prepared

° personally, Ai no Kusabi disturbed me XD

° you somehow had the idea he already knew about you passion, so why not do the worst Thing to a Fujoshi? Spoiler

° “Did you know that they´ll cut Ricky´s dick off?”

° “WHAT??”

° he was shocked, and let me tell you to shock him is an Action worth a nobelprice

° MC used Spoiler, it was super-effective

° as if faced Medusa he was now turned to stone

° this means it was MC´s victuuriory

° he stayed like this until Saeran did the ice-bucket challenge to him XD

_V_

° he´s blind so I thought why not write about Drama CDs

° V had an appointment at the doctors to look after his eyes

° you stayed home because Jumin wanted to accompany him very desperately

° being a goog girlfriend you of course let him do that

° for you it meant that you could listen to your new CD over the sound system and without headphones

° said CD was called Kuroneko Kareshi no Nakasekata ( it means something like black cat´s boyfriend to cry for I think..) 

° because of V´s eyesight-situation he decided to focus on his other senses a lot more and invested in one of the best sound systems

° this was to your joy once again o(*≧□≦)o

° you didn´t understand much, but it didn´t matter to you since you were reading the translations at the same time

° did I mention it was really loud and you didn´t notice anything else? Good, Keep that in mind for now

°  one of the things that remained unnoticed was V entering the house

° the first thing he heardwas some strange, male moaning

° he thought you would be cheating an was on the edge of tears

° poor V(︶︹︺)

° but then there was another moaning, also from a male person and this seemed very strange to him

° he entered the livingroom, still unnoticed by you

° you then noticed him because he closed the door a LITTLE to loud which caused you to turn around in shock

° as quick as you could you turnd the sound system off to stop those noises

° “Oh, hey V. Is your appointment finished already? I used the System..”

° you were more than just relived that he didn´t bring Jumin with him in the flat

° “Listen, we won´t talk about that but if this is yout hobby than I won´t say anything. Just don´t let me hear it again OK?” 

° you gave your ok and hurried into the kitchen do prepare the dinner

° by this time V´s head and yours were as red as the tomatoes you were currently cutting

_Saeran_

° his brother dragged him away to do some fishing to “deepen their brotherly-bond”¯\_(ツ)_/¯

° that meant you had finally time to play the game you purchased last week

° after getting comfortable on the couch and putting on some headphones for better sound you hit the start button of Dramatical Murder

° you started right away with Noize’s route

° and of course aimed for the best ending possible

° as you played or red to be more precisely, the hours flew by

° I played Amnesia (the otome-game) and it really took some time to finish a route

° so after you played for like 6 hours straight it finally payed off

° that meant the good parts came, and they weren’t the only thing that did

° if you know what I mean

° you already saw some of the CGs online but damn

° unlocking them yourself and hearing the voice actors while seeing it was way more satisfying (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧

° so satisfying that you, however that is possible, didn’t hear Seven screaming that they’re back

° when Saeran couldn’t hear an answer from you he immediately thought the worst

° you finaly leaving him because of how fucked up he is  .( ˃﹏˂̵ )

° don’t think that my poor, precious baby I love you ( ≧Д≦)

° so he was more than happy to see you sitting on the Couch with some headphones on

° “So that´s why she didn´t hear us…”

° of course it was unacceptable that you ignored him

° he had to pay you back for that, that was a sure thing

° so he wanted to see what was more important to you than him at the Moment

° as quiet as he could, he walked behind you to take a look at your Screen

° he didn´t like what he saw….

° the next things happend in only a few moments

° he placed your headphones somwhere els and turned off the handheld-consol you were playing on

° after that you remembered laying on your bed with Saeran ontop of you and already pulling at your shirt

° “MC you were a bad Girl for playing These naughty games. So for that you must be punished.”

° and he did. the whole night.

This was so fun writing I had the fun of my life o(*>ωAlthough I lost the document 2 times

I hope you like it and enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing o(^▽^)o

[digital-strategy]

Welcome to Hot Pod, a newsletter about podcasts. This is issue 181, published October 16, 2018.

The state of Slate. Two seemingly conflicting ideas can be true at the same time. Here’s the first idea, which doubts a line of speculation I’ve been seeing a lot lately: Panoply’s divestment from the content business tells us relatively little about the future of the podcast business at Slate, its sister company under the Graham Holdings family. Here’s the second idea: there’s a lot changing at Slate at the moment, and I can’t tell you for certain what its podcast operations will look like this time next year.

Does this paint a worrying picture? Not necessarily. Let’s go over the notes.

Over the past week or so, the veteran digital media company has seen some turnover at the leadership level. On October 4, it was announced that Slate’s editor-in-chief, Julia Turner, is departing for the Los Angeles Times, where she will serve as the newly revitalized paper’s deputy managing editor for arts and entertainment. She will, however, remain as co-panelist on the Slate Culture Gabfest, which means that the podcast will mirror the Slate Political Gabfest in being a Slate podcast stalwart that features three main panelists who aren’t on staff. Deputy editor Lowen Liu takes over Turner’s spot for now.

Then, last Wednesday, Slate’s executive producer of podcasts, the NPR alum Steve Lickteig, announced that he, too, would be leaving the company, to become the executive producer of audio and podcasts at NBC News and MSNBC. (There, he will be joined by senior producer Barbara Raab.)

All this comes on top of the executive-level departure that was announced last month in tandem with the news that Panoply was laying off its editorial team: Jacob Weisberg, chairman of the Slate Group, was leaving to form a new audio company with Malcolm Gladwell, taking the audience-driving Revisionist History with them.

That these leadership exits are clustered is certainly eyebrow-raising, but any overtly glum narrative should be checked against the state of site’s actual podcast portfolio. And on that front, things seem to be quite good.

Consider that Slate has just wrapped up a very successful second season of its narrative documentary podcast, Slow Burn. Not only would I argue that it’s the best nonfiction narrative podcast of the year so far — yes, that includes Serial, In The Dark, and Caliphate, and yes, I’m aware it’s almost certainly recency bias — the sophomore season put up significant numbers. (Some of those numbers, apparently, came from White House aides.) I’m told that, as of Monday afternoon, the second season alone has seen 9.8 million downloads, with an expectation of beating 10 million by tomorrow. It was also an effective driver of subscriptions for Slate Plus, the site’s paid membership program, generating thousands of new members with its offerings of bonus content.

It’s worth noting that Gabriel Roth, previously a senior editor and editorial director of Slate Plus, will be taking up Steve Lickteig’s leadership role over the podcast team. Slow Burn was largely born out of the Slate Plus program, and I’m told that Roth was an instrumental part of the show’s development and strategy. He will hold a new title, editorial director of the Slate Podcast Network, and I, for one, am excited to see what else he brings into the mix.

Consider, also, that Slow Burn’s success comes on top of a well-oiled and sprawling show portfolio that most notably includes all of its Gabfest programming, The Gist with Mike Pesca, and Studio 360 (which it doesn’t own, but houses and co-produces in partnership with PRX-PRI).

That portfolio continues to grow: On Tuesday, Slate will launch its own daily news podcast (The Gist notwithstanding) called What Next with former WNYC personality Mary Harris at the mic, and the site also recently absorbed Karina Longworth’s popular history podcast You Must Remember This, previously housed at Panoply.

Again, two seemingly contradictory things can be true at the same time. In this case, you have dramatic shifts at the leadership level, but you also have a product line that appears to be stable, robust, and reaching for new heights. Take from that whatever conclusions you will, but for me, I’m tempted to put a little more weight on the latter.

The only way is pods [by Caroline Crampton]. How real is reality, really, when it’s captured on a microphone, edited extensively, and then bundled with narration before being presented to the listener?

That’s the Big Question prompted by The Brights, a new British podcast launching this week that presents itself as part of a curious sounding genre: “structured reality.” Behind the production is a producer named Sarah Dillistone, who happens to be the brains behind big British reality TV hits The Only Way is Essex and Made in Chelsea, as well as host Lydia Bright, who found fame as a cast member on TOWIE. (That’s the fun acronym for The Only Way Is Essex, by the way, in case that wasn’t clear to you.) The Brights will follow Lydia and her family over the course of 12 weekly episodes, which will supposedly reveal their everyday highs and lows. It kicks off on October 18.

“[Podcasting] just felt like a really exciting space to be telling this sort of story in this genre,” said Dillistone when we spoke over the phone recently. I had reached out to learn about how she is translating her reality television work into the seemingly more modest audio medium.

“When you go into a family house to film a scene, you have set up your cameras, the lights go on, you have to place people in the exact position for the shot, and then they talk about whatever story is going on,” she explained. “With the podcast, we walked in, popped some mics on, and that was it…It just felt so natural. I can just walk out the room, and life continues being recorded, without the pressures of a camera.”

In many ways, the traditional methods for making a storytelling podcast — identifying characters and scenes, collecting a lot of tape, shaping it into the desired narrative, and then recording narration to go around it — are similar to the methods Dillistone said she uses to create her structured reality TV shows. The difference now that she’s working in audio, she emphasized, is how much less of an intervention the process of recording feels. With no cameras or yells of “action” going on, “the environment just doesn’t change,” she said. “I think it’s completely different to the TV that I’ve made.”

The Brights also strikes me as a straightforward commercial proposition. Lydia Bright has nearly a million followers on Instagram — where she does plenty of sponcon — and appears fairly regularly in the tabloid pages. I’m sure that Acast, the podcast platform that hosts and sells ads for the project, won’t be struggling all that hard to find sponsors who want to follow Bright into podcasting as well.

In the accompanying press release, The Brights is strongly pitching itself as the world’s first ever reality podcast. But I don’t think it can stake claim on being the first “reality podcast” per se. After all, CBC’s Sleepover, Gimlet’s The Habitat, and maybe even something like Megan Tan’s Millennial arguably fall along design lines that are somewhat similar to what we generally talk about when we talk about reality television.

Where the podcast is distinct or unusual, perhaps, is in its focus on harvesting the profile of existing reality stars and the transference of the familiar reality TV aesthetic. Rather than Lydia Bright taking the route of other social media stars and building a generic interview podcast or similar to augment her #brand, she’s actually still doing the thing she’s best known for: goofing around and yelling at her family in public, but in your headphones.

The other chart. I spilled quite a bit of ink last week on the Apple Podcast charts, how they seemed more dysfunctional than usual, and how that complicates the way the industry is represented to the eyes of many newcomers. Apologies for quoting myself, but I posed two underlying questions: “What does it mean when the top of the Apple podcast charts, one of the first touchpoints for many newcomers, features more scams than authentic entries? What signal of values does the chart project to those experiencing their first glimpse of the wider podcast universe?”

Versions of these queries very much apply to the Podtrac Industry Publisher ranker, by the way, which is the other major node of industry representation that functions as a first touch for many newcomers — and which still gets cited as an authoritative picture of the “top end” of the podcast industry without much caveat.

As a reminder: Podtrac’s Publisher ranker continues to work with an incomplete sample. Which is to say, its list of Top Ten publishers only includes those who have chosen to participate in the ranking, and a good number of major players still have not. (The case is different for Podtrac’s podcast ranker, which purports to list shows regardless of whether they opt into Podtrac’s system.) I know nobody really clicks through when I link to my older columns — newsletter analytics, baby — but I wrote about those chart limitations two years ago.

Among the notable publishers that still do not participate in Podtrac’s Publisher Ranker: Gimlet Media, the Vox Media Podcast Network, Cadence13, and Stitcher. That’s not to say that they would all show up in the top 10 if they were included, mind you; I’m just making a point about what the ranker is actually telling you, and many of those noteworthy podcast shops remain excluded at this writing.

This should not be taken to mean that Podtrac’s industry ranker isn’t a helpful resource. I’ve come to find it really useful as a snapshot of the several major publishers that have opted into the list, and it’s generated some interesting questions for research: I, for one, am fascinated by why many companies in Podtrac’s top ten seems to cluster around the 5 million unique U.S monthly listeners mark. All I’m saying is that being “the third biggest publisher on the Podtrac” is far from being the “third biggest podcast publisher,” period — which is an interchanging I’ve seen used a fair bit.

In general, I’d counsel being wary of any industry analysis, ~thought leadership~, or self-congratulations using the Podtrac ranker that:

Doesn’t mention its incomplete sampling;

Doesn’t take into serious consideration the efficiency ratios of listed publishers — a publisher that needs 600+ shows to reach 5 million unique U.S. monthly listeners has a very different industry position than a publisher that reaches the same audience number with only 5 or 6 shows.

Put some nuance on it, y’know?

Locally sourced [by Caroline Crampton]. Repackaged radio content still makes up a considerable chunk of podcasts. Here in the UK, the BBC in particular does a lot of this — the majority of shows that you can see on its Apple page, for instance, went out as radio broadcasts first. Most of the time, they just get sandwiched with a new intro and outro bits. Occasionally, they slap on some extra material, but typically what you hear on the podcast is what you would have heard on the radio. Until the BBC’s recent shakeup to its podcast commissioning efforts (which I’ve written about in more detail here), this is how the corporation initially projected its influence through podcasting.

That was on my mind when I saw the announcement that BBC English Regions was planning to launch its own showcase podcast feed, called Multi Story. For the uninitiated, English Regions is the segment of the corporation that produces local and regional television, radio, and web content for England, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands. (Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have their own operations going on.) I assumed that the feed would be yet another basic radio repackage effort designed to broadly bump up the potential reach of the division’s 43 local radio stations. The project sounded like a budget-friendly way of getting local radio stories out through podcast feeds when individual stations, typically cash-strapped, might not have the time, bandwidth, or resources to produce original podcast content. And you know, I figured that was totally cool.

But when I listened to the opening of “Swallows,” the first episode dropped into the Multi Story feed last Wednesday, I realized that this was something far more than a simple repackage.

Veteran local radio journalist Becca Bryers, who serves as host and producer, had woven hand-picked excerpts of personal stories from various local radio documentaries into a contemplative, act by act structure. It’s vaguely reminiscent of the way a typical episode of This American Life is constructed. The show’s atmosphere feels purely suited to on-demand audio, from the scoring to Bryers interjecting dashes of her personal life experiences. Even more notably, the episode was largely stripped of any local radio promotional effort in favor of a clean, immersive, podcast-first listening experience.

“Local radio gets stories that perhaps some of the networks don’t, almost because they’re not able to, because at a local station you’re coming into contact with people on a really small level all the time,” Bryers told me. The idea of a digital audio project weaving these more lasting, timeless, personal stories together seemed the natural next step to her.

Development for Multi Story began around 18 months ago, when Bryers took that idea of weaving together timeless and personal locally sourced stories to the then English regions commissioner, David Holdsworth. After getting her to make a pilot, he commissioned a ten-episode first series of Multi Story, an out-of-the-box move for a BBC executive heading up a division that had no real track record with podcasting. It’s a stretch play that Bryers is grateful for. “I really appreciate that he took that chance on me,” she said.

Bryers sees Multi Story first and foremost as a chance to make a rgreat podcast rather than necessarily as a direct promotional tool for radio or the local stations that it draws on. “I don’t know if completely the aim is to increase the listenership for the radio stations,” she said. “Obviously you’d hope that it raises awareness of local radio in general…We think of it a bit like the Facebook pages that each of the local stations have. Originally the thinking with those was as a branding strategy for the station, whereas often now we see them as a separate entity, just another service that the local stations offer. Just because you use the Facebook page doesn’t mean you listen to the radio and vice versa.”

She used her contacts in local radio to find “producers who really get podcasting” at each station, who would then populate a farm system feeding her suitable stories. She also did a substantial amount of original reporting, gathering tape for “stories I’ve been working on for a while but haven’t found a place on the station.” With the pieces that had already been broadcast, she worked extensively to “reversion” them in a “podcasty way,” to avoid the sound being that of replayed radio. “That’s not to take away from the original broadcast,” she said. “I think that if you’ve got something that’s two people talking in a studio, there’s ways that you can lift that into a podcast style and put music under it, or give it more pauses, and breathing space.”

The result, I think, is something quite rare — a genuinely fresh piece of audio made partly from cuts of previous broadcasts. Bryers’ personal immersion in podcasting (she counts herself a massive fan of Ira Glass and Radiolab) and determination to do something different have allowed her to break out of the customary “BBC sound,” and hers is a template that others trying to squeeze more out of the BBC’s existing resources could do well to follow. “I’m genuinely passionate about doing this,” Bryers said. “I really hope that it comes across that it’s not just a ‘local radio thinks they should jump on the podcast bandwagon’ thing.”

Speaking of locally oriented media and podcasts…

The national local. Next Monday will see the release of Believed, an investigative series by NPR and Michigan Radio, the state’s network of local public radio stations. The podcast will examine the USA Gymnastics sex abuse scandal, one of the largest serial sexual abuse cases in American’s history. Michigan Radio reporters Kate Wells and Lindsey Smith will host the series. Here’s a great Elle write-up outlining the show.

Here’s something that this NPR-Michigan Radio collaboration is making me think about: this scandal was originally vaulted into the national consciousness by The Indianapolis Star, the Gannett-owned daily news organization in neighboring Indiana. Gannett, of course, also owns the USA Today Network, which recently launched its own nationally oriented podcast platform that intends to use Gannett’s ecosystem of local publishing entities as pipelines for potential investigative projects.

I bring Gannett’s national podcast initiative up to highlight what seems to be a noticeable increase in the trend of local-national podcast production partnerships. For some reason, my gut tells me that this isn’t a particularly new development, but I can’t seem to find very many similarly structured productions going back over the past four years. (In other words, hit me up with examples I totally missed.)

Anyway, here are two other contemporary productions that I see fitting into this mold:

(1) Gladiator, a limited series that debuted yesterday from the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team in collaboration with Wondery on the former NFL player Aaron Hernandez, who was convicted of murder and later took his own life in prison. This project continues Wondery’s strategy of partnering with local news organization to produce feverish, nationally eye-catching podcast programming that can be then packaged off as adaptation IP — see: the Los Angeles Times’ Dirty John, now an upcoming Bravo series starring the great Connie Britton. (Give! Connie! Britton! More! Roles!)

Speaking of which, the LA Times is apparently developing two follow-ups to the aforementioned Dirty John, or so the company announced at the recent NewFronts West event. Here’s some info for those projects, as described by AdWeek:

The first new podcast project, tentatively titled Big Willie, will follow a local street racing veteran and Vietnam veteran, examining his eccentric career and checkered legacy; the second, Room 20, centered on an unidentified car crash victim who has been in a coma for 17 years, will piece together clues about the man’s life.

Note that they are both true crime projects. True crime: if it works for them, it works for you.

(2) Last week also saw the release of Underdog, a new weekly podcast documentary from Texas Monthly and Pineapple Street Media tracking the closing days of the Democratic senatorial campaign of Beto O’Rourke — pronounced Beh-to, not Bey-to, as I learned from the first episode — as we crawl into the midterm elections.

Local-national production partnership aside, here’s why I’m in on this show. As I, armchair political analyst Nick Quah, told Fast Company:

[O’Rourke’s] fight with Ted Cruz is increasingly a stand-in for a bigger struggle about the heart of America… I know [O’Rourke] said otherwise, but he’s probably a viable 2020 [presidential] contender for the Democrats [if he wins]. I’d listen the crap out of a Beto-Cruz podcast.

But also: I remain fascinated by Pineapple Street’s continuing adventures with political media and podcasting. Underdog is a strictly journalistic product co-developed with a widely respected monthly, but Pineapple Street is also the shop that produced With Her, the official Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential election campaign podcast that’s essentially a longform political ad/branded podcast, and Stay Tuned with Preet Bharara, an interview show-slash-ideas platform for the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. There’s some line straddling here, but nonetheless, I’m very interested to see where else the boutique studio will take political podcasts, already a vibrant and saturated genre.

Midterms, everyone: it’s a mere three weeks away.

One last local podcast bite —

Last week also saw the final dispatch of WBEZ’s 16 Shots, which sought to document the Laquan McDonald police shooting trial in semi-real time. The production was the latest in a line of similarly structured efforts by MPR News with 74 Seconds, which followed the Philando Castile police shooting trial, and WHYY with Cosby Unraveled.

Betsy Berger, the station’s director of communications, tells me that they’re considering 16 Shots a success “from a journalistic perspective, as a partnership with the Chicago Tribune and critical acclaim.” She noted that it was promoted heavily on social media and through the station’s email newsletter, and that the project garnered more than 30 media placements. However, they declined to share download numbers.

This week in New York. Did you know that New York Magazine is developing not one but two new podcasts?

The Intelligencer, the new site that merged together NY Mag’s politics and business-focused Daily Intelligencer and tech-focused Select All sections, is working on something called 2038, which will “explore eight different visions of how we can expect to live in two decades.” It will be hosted by Max Read and David Wallace-Wells, and it drops tomorrow.

I wrote this up already, but now we have a thread: New York Magazine’s The Cut site is collaborating with Gimlet Media to produce a weekly “what’s happening in the newsroom” podcast, called The Cut on Tuesdays. It’s hosted by Molly Fischer, and the first episode dropped today.

These two projects add to Vulture’s ongoing interview podcast Good One: A Podcast About Jokes, hosted by Jesse David Fox, resulting a New York Magazine podcast portfolio shape that I suppose you can describe as “one-site, one-show.” For now, anyway. This marks the storied media organization’s second wave into on-demand audio; the first came in the form of Panoply partnerships, back when that company was still producing content and generally pursued a strategy of hand-holding non-audio publishers into the medium through Gabfest-style templates. That early wave resulted in the Vulture TV Podcast, New York Magazine’s Sex Lives, and the Grub Street Podcast, all of which are now defunct.

A disclaimer: I contribute to Vulture as a podcast critic, but I have no special insight into these matters. In fact, I didn’t even know these shows were in the oven! Freelancers and contractors, we are an afflicted kind, living in little wells with fleeting views of the sky.

Miscellaneous Bites

Eric Mennel, the co-creator of Criminal and a senior producer at Gimlet Media who hosted a recent season of Startup, is moving to NPR, where he will join the Embedded team. There, he will serve as a supervising producer tasked with making the podcast a “premiere franchise for serious journalism” whose work will be presented through various platforms.

The television adaptation of Crooked Media’s Pod Save America debuted on HBO this past week. Much like Texas Monthly’s Underdog podcast, it runs until the midterms, which means it’s a really limited series.

“Mississippi-based podcast aims to educate, impact local ears.” (AP)

via Nieman Lab