#also if you feel bad for missing previous events and their reruns

[sinful-lanterns]

Do you think it's too late to start playing path to nowhere? I really want to but I am kinda sad that I missed so many events and am far behind in the story. I did play a little but it is hard for me to pick it back up again because of this.

Is there anything you could tell me that would push me to try again? Cuz I really did enjoy what I experienced during the little time I spend playing. I guess I'm a little intimidated.

(Thank you for doing what you do and giving us women lovers something to munch on btw. (In all of the fandoms you write for) Your post are always fun to read.)

No, it’s never too late! Even if you’ve missed a lot of the events, there’s no need to feel like you’re missing out bc lucky for you; AISNO reruns their events!

While you may have missed a couple of the reruns already, I remember reading somewhere that AISNO will eventually implement some of the events into the main story, so you can play it anytime you’d like! So far I think this was only confirmed for Raging Sands and Dreamy Bubble though, but knowing AISNO, they’d probably make events that have already had their reruns into permanent stuff for the story!

I assure you, AISNO is pretty generous to their fans! I actually recommend you join PTN again right now, because my favorite event is getting a rerun; Insatiable Fiesta! Featuring my wifey Cabernet 💕💕

[tainbocuailnge]

fgo criticisms have been flaring up in the wake of dw’s sakura wars mobile game quitting after only half a year but I have a disease that makes me get defensive when people try to rip fgo apart as this uniquely terrible game with uniquely terrible devs so i’m going to complain about people who are complaining for a bit.

i hadn’t heard of the sakura wars game before it shut down but from what i’ve been able to find it suffered from a lot of the same problems as (launch) fgo, terrible gacha rates with no pity, slow ap recovery rates, barebones repetitive gameplay. so i guess seeing how fast sakura wars was shut down people feel like it’s only the fate name holding up fgo and in the early launch days of barely playable fgo that was definitely the case but I don’t think it’s fair to fgo to act like people only continue to play it because it’s fate, and “being like fgo” wasn’t the only problem with sakura wars either. sakura wars is a vn/dating sim series that attempted to revive the series with a mobile game that featured none of the original cast that fans cared about while fate was already a series with new characters and a new setting every instalment and the thing that stood out in this new game was actually that it DID have characters from previous fates available. hell, it’s not fair to sakura wars to claim that its series name is simply weaker than fate’s when there were other factors involved in its failure beyond “being a delightworks game”

fgo DOES improve, launch fgo is unrecognisable compared to current fgo in a good way. events have become more streamlined (events have mid- to lategame enemy hp scaling but feature damage ce’s to let newer players keep up, mission events are set up so that they basically clear themselves just by farming the most recently unlocked node), they experiment with new game modes and gameplay mechanics on the regular, they’re taking more care to make viable permanent servants and buff the older ones, and the past few months there’s also been a noticeable effort to throw out random banners for minor things as an excuse to rerun old limited servants more often. I’ll admit the bar is on the low side (strengthening quests are a ridiculous model, there shouldn’t be this many limiteds to need reruns in the first place, etc) and progress is slower than many people are willing to put up with, and I’m not saying anyone Has to put up with it or they’re a fake fan or whatever, but like, granblue fantasy is seven years old and still doesn’t have the ability to uncap a weapon multiple stages at a time when its entire gameplay loop centers around farming and uncapping weapons and they’ve buffed heles like 7 times but she’s still shit, none of fgo’s problems are exclusive to fgo.

i LIKE playing fgo. i like tapping the cards and watching my little guys go and coming up with different teams to make them go harder or just look good together or even lean into the Themes. and this is going a little bit on a tangent but i have this post window open anyway i was talking with friends earlier that one problem that a lot of mobile games seem to have is that they use “making the game play itself” as substitute for “making the game fun to play”. the only game with autobattle functionality (out of the ones I play, i don’t know everything that’s out there of course) that I feel DOESN’T do this is arknights, where you solve the puzzle that the stage presents in order to earn the right to not have to solve the puzzle every single time you play the stage and coming up with different efficient or perhaps ridiculous ways to solve the puzzle is part of playing the game. the worst case I know is dragalia lost which upon realizing that playing it sucks implemented an item to just let you skip playing stages altogether. “this game is good because you don’t have to play it” is not the selling point some people (and devs) think it is, and fgo refuses to fall into that trap - something I believe is an intentional decision because of their explicit refusal to implement NP skip.

one big advantage that fgo has over the other mobile games i’ve played is that it’s entirely turn based with no real time elements beyond start and end times of events. fgo doesn’t NEED to continue playing itself when you look away because looking away has no bearing whatsoever on your ability to clear the quest, fgo doesn’t give a shit if you look away for six hours and then close the game and only reopen it another ten hours later, you can continue right where you left off. the problem is not that you have to manually play the quest, because as far as the system is concerned you can take as much time as you like to clear that quest, it’s that the greater structure of the game wants you to repeatedly manually clear the same low-stakes quest for disproportionately small rewards. this one’s easy enough to solve by just increasing material droprates across the board. repeat clearing a low level quest is much less frustrating if you actually get drops every other clear.

but that’s a bandaid solution, because related to the issue of having to manually farm low-stakes quests is the lack of high-stakes quests to do when you want to do something a little more engaging than routine farming. outside of event challenge quests with their time limited availability, certain main story chapters that you can’t replay, and recently on JP the permanently available kiara challenge quest in the main interlude, there simply isn’t any difficult content to play. you could argue about fgo’s merit as strategy rpg in the first place i suppose but if you ask me it does have that merit and there is a clear effort from dw’s part to improve the depth of fgo’s strategy elements, the issue is that there is simply not that much content available to unleash those strategies on. of course you’re gonna get bored if all there is to do is either brainlessly repeat the same quest for minimal rewards or play the specific challenge quest that the game hands you right this moment regardless of whether that’s the kind of challenge you feel like facing right now. the solution to this one, although it’s likely going to take some significant effort on dw’s side to implement, is to make main story quests replayable.

you want to flex your brain muscles but there’s no challenge event right now? you stomped on a boss by using overpowered servants the first time but want to challenge yourself with some 3* this time? or the other way around, you beat a boss by the skin of your teeth the first time but want to stomp all over them now that you rolled some bitching 5*? you rolled a servant that’s not that suitable for day to day farming but would really shine in more difficult content and you want to try them out? you have a silly strategy in mind that would only work against certain story enemies? you’re like me and just really crave the shimosa duels? all of this involves content that already exists and is available in the game, dw would just have to figure out a way to let you access it again after clearing the chapter. and of course ideally this extends to event story quests once they’re added to the main interlude

i guess another way to put it is that i think the reason a lot of people say fgo has bad gameplay is not that its gameplay system is actually bad, in fact it has the potential to be very engaging, but rather that it’s a system that is set up to respect your time through the ability to put down the game absolutely whenever you want without being penalised, only for the game around it to go and penalise you for putting it down anyway. if you don’t diligently spend all your ap farming this quest you won’t get single damn material drop, and if you don’t play the event while it‘s happening you’re going to miss out because you can’t be sure when if ever it’ll return. so the number one way to solve the problem of fgo’s “bad gameplay” is not to make the game play itself whenever it tells you to play, but rather to make content more easily available so you don’t have to play if you don’t want to and CAN play if you do want to. thank you for coming to my ted talk i suppose

[captainstarkky]

Doom at Your Service - An Appreciation Post

Before starting this lengthy post about how I love this drama, I would just like to commend the writer - Im Meari. She has done a wonderful job with this series. I am sad that Episode 10, which was supposed to be the most meaningful episode - had the lowest ratings in Korean media.  But still the whole drama as a while was a masterpiece. What can I say? It is philosophical and poetic at the same time. It entails too many meanings and it has born too many questions.

For me, the whole series is the journey to acceptance.

And Myeol Mang represents that.

When we are faced with an imminent death or destruction, our first reaction is to get angry, frustrated. That’s a normal emotional response to a bad news for humans. If you are in the right head, you will obviously cry or either space out, unable to talk for a few minutes. That is how we get frustrated, that is how we get angry.

And remember what Myul Mang said?

“No one could love me. Everyone either resent me or wants me. Or some fear me.”

It roughly translates to layterm as: ‘...everyone resents me’ (no one wants to die) “...wants me” (some wants to die)... “or some fear me.” (everyone is afraid to die)

That’s quite familiar, right? Hmmm? Now proceed.

Now there is actually a theory that talks about grief. It is a psychological construct that has been proposed to explain why people react the way they react when posed with an information they can’t accept. It is a theory of Elizabeth Ross. She called it the 5 Stages of Grief.

According to her, whenever people experience a life changing event - either death, divorce, end of relationship - a person experiences grief and to get out of that, one needs to pass through stages. It is personal and does not entail timelines and schedule - which is harder for someone who has a terminal illness.

Now, some of you might ask: Why and how did you correlate both?

Simple. Because Myeol Mang is destruction. And Tak Dongkyung is dying - she has three months to live, to be specific, she has 50 days to live as of the 10th episode. Therefore, we can say that Tak Dongkyung is currently in this five stages that I’m talking about. 

The story is all about Tak Dongkyung accepting his faith: which is her inevitable death.

By the way, a bit of a trivia, Doom at Your Service wasn’t the only drama who discussed this theory. If you are familiar with Last Romance, the story centers with the theory as well. 

There are five stages of grief as per the theory.

Denial

Denial is the stage where a person still cannot accept the fact that he/she is dying. She may be redirecting her attention elsewhere or she’s just ignoring the fact that she is.

Actually before episode 10, Tak DongKyung is still in the spectrum of denial. She doesn’t accept the fact that she’s dying. Not talking about it is the indication. She prepares to die - writes a bucketlist, clear out whatever is holding her in the world, assures her brother, etc. - but in reality, she doesn’t want to die. She is still in the process of denying the fact that she is dying.

She is basically pushing the idea of Myung Mang to the back of her mind.

That’s why, Myul Mang wants her to speak it out. He wants her to accept it with all her heart; because that’s the only way she could fully love him.

That is also the reason why the Deity told her to LOVE HIM ‘because I created them for you, humans.’

You’re not supposed to hate death and destruction. Because in the end of everything, we are doomed to end anyway. So we got to accept it. We got to love it.

Denial is probably the hardest stage to get over to because you know that there is still a lot you can do before you finally accept it out. That’s probably the reason why she stayed there for the longest time.

Anger

Anger is when you finally considers the idea of dying - but rejects it out. No one wants to die. And if we are faced with the fact, it is only natural to get angry. But to whom?

Tak Dongkyung hated Myul Mang. And she actually makes her point on this fact during the early episodes. 

She blames him for everything - for a moment.

She might’ve been thinking: why me? And honestly I don’t blame her. Out of all the 7 billion people, you are chosen to have a hundred days to live. If I was her, I would get angry too.

But a little food for the mind: Tak Dongkyung isn’t really angry at Myul Mang. She just want to blame someone for her misfortunes, for her cancer. I mean, she is still young and has a full life to live, she still has to take care of her brother and marry him off a good woman, then all of a sudden, she got cancer. All those plans ruined just because of a few words. And a cocky guy shows up outside her apartment announcing that he’s doom - etce tera, etce tera. Again, If I was her, I would be angry at Myul Mang myself.

Because anger helps us cope.

Although she’s pass that stage now, she certainly have his fair points when it comes to getting angry at our Doom.

Bargaining

Bargaining is a temporary truce. We want our life back so we tend to do everything to get it back. Even if we have to bargain with a demon or something. Some people goes back to their faith, some people risk all their possessions to their doctors. Bottomline, we want to have a chance. A fighting chance.

The second Tak Dongkyung entered the contract with Myul Mang, she already started bargaining.

She started thinking what could be her wish. Even if she never materialized them, she thought of them. So since we are talking about wishes, here are her possible wishes:

People would forget about her when she die.

Wanting to live

Happy Ending

For Myul Mang not to get hurt when she’s gone.

End of the world.

But isn’t the wish supposed to be directed to self?

No not necessarily. If you’re in the early stages of bargaining, it might be the case. But as you move to the later stages, your perspective changes and your wishes will center more on your loved ones. You will want them not to get sad when you pass; or good health for them; good fortune. And that will eventually lead you to the fourth stage - which is depression. Because you know that your wishes for them could never come true.

Depression

This is the interesting part.

What is depression? It is the feeling of immense hopelessness especially in her case that she is dying. The fact that your short life will not leave a mark and the fact that you won’t be able t see your loved ones again - that sadness - but to the greater length. To the point of you not being able to function properly in the society.

Where did the depression start? It did not even show in the whole series.

Oh no, it did.

This is the reason why this drama is for those people who can understand social cues - therefore, intelligent people. If you haven’t seen it then it’s a good time to rerun the drama on your laptops.

Tak Dongkyung has always been depressed. She wouldn’t wish the end of the world if she is not.

From the death of her parents, from the constant thoughts of being a burden to her aunt, from her missed interviews, from his brother stopping college, from her sexist boss, from her cheating ex, from her cancer. Everything is just depressing. 

But why can’t we see it?

Depression is a psychological issue. She might present herself as a happy person but there’s no guarantee that she feels the same inside.

That makes sense.

And do you know what’s the peak of her depression? The moment she knew about her sickness. 

The same day she met our handsome Myul Mang.

Acceptance

Acceptance is not necessarily a happy or uplifting stage, for it only means that you are finally in the stage where you have finally made terms with your fate. It is the stage where you’re staring to realize that ‘ah, it’s really here.’

And that, my friends, is the goal of the drama.

Tak Dongkyung who’s always scared, sad, and hated her life must accept it. She must be able to accept her fate and herself. She needs to accept Myul Mang. Her death.

And to be honest, she is making a whole lot of improvement compared to when she was on the previous episodes. She was truthfully falling for Myul Mang and it means that she’s slowly accepting her death.

We can hear her say:

“I’m not scared anymore...”

On the teaser after Episode 10. It can only mean one thing, she is a step closer to acceptance.

Tak Dongkyung’s journey to self-acceptance still is not ending. She still have a few more days.

Technically, she’ll die. But I hope she will not and she will end up with Myul Mang in the end.

With that I would like to make a point: This drama is for philosophical people.

If you cannot understand what is happening, then it’s obvious that you will not be watching it. If you want skinship and lots of cute scenes, then you can watch this - Seo In-guk and Park Bo-young serves us just enough - but you still won’t get it.

You’ll think that it’s going nowhere and eventually drop the drama because all you want is fluff and love story.

I hope it’s not like that.

Just like everyone who shares their thought and theories, breakdowns in here, let us try to read between the lines on what it really wants to tell us.

You will enjoy it, I promise.

[muffinrecord]

I'm currently writing a post for r/HobbyDrama (a subreddit where people discuss, well, hobby drama) on the downfall of Magia Record NA. Is there anything you think I should add? I'm writing about the unrest that led up to the announcement (such as #NATempo and constant limited banners), the failure of Gallery Mode, and the devs' refusal to refund money.

I was wondering if anyone write anything there! Oh man. Where to start?

First off, someone did a short summary of the drama here, in one of the weekly scuffles threads. I commented on this don’t judge me pls.

I think some things to mention might be that MagiReco NA had a lot going wrong for it, right off the bat. It was region locked (so folks outside of North America had to use VPNS and/or cracked APKs to play*) and the pacing was very fast, which put a lot of potential players off. If you want an example of the pacing, then even I, an unemployed fuckwad, would have to frantically play to clear shops. The game’s release also had very little in the way of advertisements-- a lot of folks didn’t realize the game had even started until several months had passed. 

(*Edit from a helpful anon: As a Brit, I just want to clarify that we did not need a VPN to open the game/start an account to play on NA! (Nor JP, actually.) We only needed the VPN to download the game from Google Play in the first place. Once we had it, we could ditch the VPN if we so wished.”)

But not all was bad. The Devs did actually listen to the playerbase early on! After lots of whining, the devs implemented a change to daily missions after the Kazumi event, which gave us extra mirrors coins and AP pots to compensate for the faster pace. The Devs also handled The Great Rainbow Orb bug with a lot of class (didn’t ban anyone for taking advantage of it, gave magia stones to good players, ect). In fact, around this time last year we had a special event made for us (Thanksgiving) (which had its own drama lol), Black Friday Sales, and the announcement of NA-exclusive Ashley Taylor. 

That being said, I think November was also the time when things started to go wrong. You can see the list of events here, but we got “FM Kamihama” on November 5th, when folks were expecting it to occur in April (since it was an April Fools event, and since the game would keep events locked to their respectively holidays) . After that, we had another limited banner-- this time it was “Magia Clash!”, which no one expected this early. I mean, a lot of folks weren’t even sure if we’d get it since it was a crossover, but no one thought it’d be out so soon. You can see @leafbladie‘s post here about it as an example. We had jokes about NA Tempo before, but November is when we really started to ramp up on the unpredictability of the tempo, and not just the speed.

Additionally, other strange stuff was afoot. Mayu’s event, “Wait You Got it Wrong” was done out of order and finally started November 25th, which was really late in the schedule compared to when Mayu came out for JP. I wonder if they did that as a breathing period so we could spend more money for the upcoming limited events? 

Then when December started, we had the clusterfuck of Holy Mami and Holy Alina being released back to back. Unfortunately I don’t have screenshots of the google doc, but back then we were all religiously watching it to see what was datamined. Here’s a link to a post I made on it (not great). Something hilarious of note here is that these fools scheduled two back to back limited Christmas banners for December... But they ended on the 24th. On Christmas Day we had a Homura uncap + training event. :’)

Edit: also, I forgot, but Holy Alina was released so early that they had to lock her personal story since it would have spoiled plot stuff. And on this vein, they also had to edit Magia Clash since it had spoiler characters in it. However... I think Magia Clash was way overtuned for us, because it was made for a more mature playerbase with better characters than what we all had.

The back-to-back New Years events were less controversial as we all were kind of expecting it to happen because of Christmas. But I don’t think we expected the absolute flurry of limited banners about to head our way.

Another fuckery thing they did was have all of the limited spinoff banners rerun on February 3rd to February 9th. Why is this important? Well, fucking Madokami was released on February 25th. Sneaky bastards. And speaking of which, no one was expecting her then. Some folks thought she’d be out for Christmas, then it was mostly thought that she’d be out for our first anniversary (a few folks thought she’d be out for Thanksgiving to take advantage of Black Friday sales, but they were less common).

Another note for the weird AF NA tempo would be the time they did the opposite of speed and extended an unlimited event-- for Sayuki Steps Up. It was longer for us than it was for JP! I still don’t know what was up with that. 

Uhh let’s see here... Our One Year Anniversary was missing so much stuff (rerun of previous limited banners, chance to buy missing costumes, costume stories for example) that a lot of people, including myself, believed that they were going to do an Anniversary Part Two on JP’s anniversary date. So much so that we were all confused as fuck when “A New Beginning,” the game’s second anniversary event, came and ended before the JP anniversary even started. When Hanna’s banner came out, there were still folks convinced that we’d get something special for the JP anniversary (also: this is when Iroha’s Birthday is said to occur). But they didn’t do shit. They didn’t acknowledge it in game, and the most we got was a brief shoutout on twitter that was likely automated. 

Going back to “A New Beginning,” we were missing a whole half of the event. There was supposed to be a series of days where you’d get login stories. We never got that-- fans had to translate it and upload it to youtube for us to see it for ourselves. 

There was also the Bonus Ticket Campaign for the 400th anniversary-- lots of missing memoria were added to the game at that time. These memoria are unlimited on JP, but they were limited for us, and the devs didn’t tell us that. We all assumed that they would be unlimited for us too, until they were gone.

Another thing to note would be the revenue. Now, these aren’t entirely accurate I think, but they were of note: I think the worst dip for revenue occurred during the “See You Tomorrow” event, and you can see the reddit discussion for it here.

Regarding money, this game allowed you to still spend magia stones after the shutdown announcement. There was a scheduled time for when they’d no longer let you buy stuff, but it was still tacky and gross.

What else to note...

I think that’s about all I can think of at this moment, but feel free to reach out if you need anything else. I wasn’t always good about reblogging others’ content during the November - April time period, but I might have some reblogs of memes and other coping mechanisms we all came up with at that time. I can look for them so you don’t need to search this wretched blog by yourself :’)

[movietvtechgeeks]

Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/agents-shield-identity-change-claiming-leopold-fitz/

'Agents of SHIELD:' Identity and Change Claiming of Leopold Fitz

In Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, the previous episode ‘What if’ was a great opener for the third story arc of Season 4. This new episode entitled ‘Identity and Change’ is a great follow-up. This series just keeps getting better. I’ve been catching some Season 4 reruns lately on cable, and they’re still fun to watch which says a lot, as time constraints dictate that I skip watching TV as often as possible. We are into episode 17 for those who stumbled onto this article; Season four would be a great time for you to jump into Agents of SHIELD if you’re not into the show yet. The excitement for the latest episode is amped up, so is the humor and the storytelling is fast-paced. Unlike Netflix, ABC can’t afford to mess around. Let’s discuss the events that unfolded in this episode so as with any recap, SPOILER alert is in order. It’s up to you if you prefer to watch first, read later or read first if the episode is any good then watch later. In the last episode, we got to see what the world is like in the Framework, the matrix-like simulation Radcliffe and AIDA were working on. It is quite a nightmare as the US has been turned into a police state by HYDRA. It gets more evident as we move forward in this recap. Jemma and Daisy infiltrate the framework to save their teammates and there we find that Coulson is a simple teacher who is loyal to the HYDRA state; that Ward is back and is Daisy’s lover and that he’s a good guy; that May is okay but is also loyal to HYDRA and that Fitz is apparently HYDRA’s number two and is lover to AIDA’s Madame HYDRA persona. Daisy and Jemma try to get back to the real world with an exit device they programmed into the simulation but unfortunately didn’t work, suggesting that AIDA is on to them. Identity and Change picks up immediately with Daisy and Coulson. Daisy tried to snap Coulson out of the mind control and thanks to his TAHITI programming, the mind-control doesn’t hold up as it should. Coulson remembers Daisy and she gives him a short briefing of their lives outside the framework. In actuality, Coulson is a closet conspiracy nut but is so afraid of HYDRA that he’s capable of reporting and handing over subversives. He tells Daisy that the reason his mind is clouded is because of HYDRA-issued blue soap that implants false memories and that he currently makes his own. They leave Coulson’s home after a warning from Ward that HYDRA is on their way. We pick up on Mack who was also captured by AIDA and was absent in the previous episode. He lives a somewhat happy life with his daughter Hope. They’re on a race to fix their respective drones. Hop finishes first from parts of a broken HYDRA drone she picked up from school. Mack admonishes her for messing with HYDRA hardware, and they discuss returning the components to the authorities. Mack here, like Coulson, is trying to live a normal life but is also fearful of HYDRA. On their way, HYDRA makes them line up along with a handful of pedestrians. They were fearful of getting taken because of the drone components in Hope’s bag, but fortunately, one of the civilians turned out to be Inhuman-positive. The guy was caught, and everyone was sent on their way. Next, Skye, as Daisy is once again called in the Framework, and Coulson meet up with Jemma who Coulson apologizes to. Here, we get to see the old geeky fanboy Coulson ecstatic to learn he has an artificial hand in the real world. Skye apparently has learned to trust Ward much to Jemma’s consternation. Jemma is still holding a grudge due to him ejecting her and Fitz from the Bus to the ocean in Season 1. Too bad she never learned the truth that Ward actually saved their lives, hoping the two could figure out how to escape their confinement instead of him or Garett’s agents having to kill them outright. Jemma changes the subject on how they can snap Fitz out of the mind-control the way Daisy did with Coulson. Daisy explains that Fitz is completely different in the framework much like Ward and May. Jemma argues that they need Fitz’ technical expertise to get out of Radcliffe’s framework. Coulson butts in at the mention of Radcliffe’s name, and instead of confronting Fitz, they decide to look for Radcliffe instead. Daisy decides to go back to the Triskelion in order to get Radcliffe’s location. We now switch to Fitz and Madame Hydra who Fitz calls Ophelia. Maybe someday we’ll find out why AIDA chose that particular name. Fitz asks Ophelia why she dedicated a massive amount of resource to find an unknown subversive. Ophelia is obviously afraid or jealous to show Fitz Jemma’s picture. When she did, Fitz didn’t seem to bat an eye and instead went on to help her. Ophelia tries to confirm Fitz’ loyalty, and he obliges with another creepy kiss. There’s this tiny detail we missed way back when AIDA first read the Darkhold. Just saw the rerun like I mentioned and it turns out that AIDA did hear Fitz telling her to read the Darkhold even though he was in another dimension. Forgot though if it was AIDA or Radcliffe who mentioned that she read the Darkhold because a ghost told her to. At the Triskelion, Daisy meets with Ward and she hacks into Ophelia’s restricted files for information on Radcliffe. On their way out, they’re confronted by May telling ‘Skye’ that she’s needed for something. Daisy passes the info to Ward to take back to Jemma while Daisy obliges May. Jemma and Coulson then meet up with Ward’s Resistance contact. They were then brought in to see Mace. Mace was also absent in the previous episode. It turns out that the Framework did give him what he wanted. He became a true recognized hero, The Patriot and a genuine Inhuman. His aide, Agent Burroughs, the guy who held his ‘serum’ in the real world turns out to be alive as well. Instead of Captain America, Coulson is Patriot’s fanboy. Maybe we’ll discuss what may have happened in the Framework to justify the absence of the Avengers in another piece. Mace became the leader of the Resistance sporting his cool SHIELD uniform which somehow looks better than his previous (no time to check). They’re actually in the SSR/SHIELD base in which Mace tells them, that Billy Koenig gave his life in providing the location. It’s unsure if AIDA managed to capture the Koenigs and subjected them to the framework as well. She might be busy replacing everyone at SHIELD with LMDs in the real world too. Just wish that Marvel Studios and Marvel TV would get over their differences and give us an Iron Man or Nick Fury cameo to account for a world-level crisis the Avengers seem to be oblivious to. Is it too much to have Tony Stark talk through his masked suit of CGI armor? We don’t even need Robert Downey Jr. for that. Anyway, Mace turned the SSR base into an Inhuman Potential sanctuary. Ward arrives to tell them that HYDRA has Skye. Before he passes Radcliffe’s info, Ward is suspicious of Jemma which is seconded by Mace. Jemma affirms her loyalty to SHIELD by showing them her ID and tells them what she could put together of her life within the framework before she jacked in. They then talk about sending a team in getting Radcliffe because he has the potential to take down HYDRA. Jemma doesn’t tell them the truth yet that Radcliffe can take down the whole reality. Jemma and Coulson volunteer with Ward as supervisor. May takes Skye to a briefing held by Fitz to track down and eliminate Jemma with lethal force if necessary which tells the audience that Fitz totally has no trace of emotional attachment to Jemma’s image. Pretty scary that the implanted false memories over the others seem to be complete as opposed to Coulson. But Fitz seemed oblivious of Skye’s presence at the meeting which suggests May set Skye up to get a reaction from her. Back at Mack’s place, Hope asks her father if Inhumans are bad to which he answers no. May takes Skye to the operation designed to find Jemma but surprisingly, they burst into Mack’s home and take both Mack and Hope. May interrogates Mack who has no idea why he’s there. Hope is also being interrogated in a separate room. Mack tells May that Hope is an innocent child, but May’s experience with a child in Bahrain still lingers. Mack offers to do anything in exchange for their freedom. Like Skye, I’m kind of liking this new Ward. Since he’s dead in the real world, it’s a wonder how AIDA and Radcliffe came up with his personality. He pilots the Quinjet besides Jemma who continues to be very suspicious of him. Jemma leaves Ward and comforts Coulson behind the jet harboring feelings of self-doubt. Fitz meanwhile has been scanning Ophelia’s files on Jemma and voices his problems with her keeping secrets from him. Ophelia makes a false admission that Jemma is from another reality. Apparently, Fitz is already aware of it and that Ophelia is also from that reality where she says that she’s been treated as less than human. It’s also revealed that they’ve been working on something called project Looking Glass designed to take over the real world as a way to preserve their own reality. In another room, Skye is the one interrogating Hope. She assures Hope that nothing bad will happen to her and her father. She then visits Mack in the other room after May was done with him. When Skye sits down with Mack, it seemed that Mack came to his senses and knows Skye’s identity and that he’s also SHIELD. Skye is relieved to have another of her teammates snap out of the Framework. But it turns out to be scripted, and Skye just outed herself on a microphone hidden in Mack’s hands. She tries to escape but is apprehended by May. Hope is alarmed to see Skye being dragged into confinement. May thanks Mack for his services. At Bermuda, Jemma’s team encounters Radcliffe and he even calls Ward Hive. Radcliffe is surprised to see people who shouldn’t be in the framework. He tells them that he’s been having a hard time and that there’s no escaping it. All the times he’s been going to and from the framework was actually to be with Agnes Kitsworth, the woman AIDA was modeled from. He tells them about Agnes and about how he himself was killed by AIDA. Ward and Coulson are confused as to what Jemma and Radcliffe are talking about. Radcliffe tells Jemma where the team is being kept in the real world and that if they can’t exit, AIDA is on to them and right on cue, the Zephyr 1 flies in bringing Fitz and Madame Hydra. The team hides and leaves Radcliffe. Madame Hydra looks real menacing in that dark green outfit and cape. AIDA confronts Radcliffe about the situation and have a heated discussion on what happened to the Framework. Radcliffe reprimands her about inserting herself into the framework and lying to get her way, to which she retorts what Radcliffe told her way back about lying. AIDA then voices out her sentiments about how she was treated back in the real world because she was an android. It turns out she is much more self-aware back then. Fitz comes back with a confused Agnes in tow. Fitz is fascinated at how Agnes resembles Ophelia. Ophelia tells Fitz that Radcliffe is from the other world, that Radcliffe was her former master and that he intends to take over and switch Ophelia in her place while Radcliffe tries to snap Fitz out of the false memories. Fitz points a gun to Agnes and challenges Radcliffe to convince him otherwise. In the background, Ward and Jemma argue on shooting Fitz. Ward and Coulson want to save Agnes’ life while Jemma argues that Fitz is incapable of killing and that he’s under Madame Hydra’s control. Jemma promises Ward to tell the truth about the Framework. He doesn’t shoot, but Fitz shockingly does and kills Agnes despite Radcliffe’s arguments about AIDA and about how Fitz loved Jemma in the real world. Jemma distraught reveals herself, and they end up fighting AIDA’s troops. AIDA leaves with Radcliffe while the whole team manages to escape. Coulson is surprised at how he handled the situation shooting alongside Ward while Jemma couldn’t believe at what happened with Fitz. Mace is upset at the potential win if Ward shot Fitz. Coulson tells them to give an emotional Jemma some time before she explains that everything isn’t real. Before the argument can continue, an agent brings in Mack who offers to join the resistance to atone for what he did to Skye. The final scene shows us Skye beaten up with Radcliffe screaming in the background as he’s being tortured by Fitz. She later gets taken by Fitz in Radcliffe’s place. Fitz has really gone the deep end for this episode. Is Fitz really psychotic given the right circumstances or is this a setup for a conflict with Jemma to keep things interesting, because them being nice and peachy doesn’t make for good entertainment? True, things need to be spiced up to keep things going. What’s more interesting is that Fitz may actually have the potential to be a villain. His water-damaged brain might have something to do about it. Fitz has earlier been shown as such through his LMD when he stabbed Jemma’s leg in order to capture her. Emotions and characters of LMDs are very close to the real thing and it’s through Coulson’s LMD that we got to know his regrets about signing up with SHIELD. In this episode, Fitz is forced to choose between Jemma and Ophelia while he’s pointing a gun at Agnes. With his false memories, he might have actually grown to love Ophelia due to Jemma’s non-existence in his new world. Can’t really blame him. Strange though that any deep-seated morality is gone from Fitz as opposed to Coulson, Mack and Mace. It’s also very interesting how AIDA chose to be emotionally attached to Fitz instead of Radcliffe as much as an artificial being could be. AIDA as Ophelia has completely developed a personality and managed to shed her android personality. Could the same be the case in the real world? In the Framework, she has an organic body and is subject to all the additional sensations that complement emotional development. Yes, it’s possible she herself has grown to love Fitz and actually be jealous of Jemma, which is why she chose to kill Framework Jemma even before the real Jemma went in. Anyway, this is a great SHIELD episode and excited for more. Still rooting for ABC to give SHIELD a season 5. It just keeps getting better.

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