#as for the trivia questions you have to go hunt down the posts

[transformativeworks]

AO3 Prompt Challenge All the prompts in one place!

We are reaching the end of the 15th anniversary celebration!

Here are the 15 different prompts, and the link to the Anniversary Collection. The collection will remain open until 1 Dec 2024! So you have a few more days to finish your fics!

Learning a Language together

Angel/Demonverse

Time Travel

Dreams

Parents

Working at the Same Office

Realizing They’re in Love

Pillow Talk

Roommates

Amnesia

Vacation

Masquerade

Enemies to Lovers

Witches/Warlocks

Spirits/Ghosts

Have fun!!

<3 Mod Remi

[aclosetfan]

Hellooo, here I am again, after all, you said I could bother you all I want with my random trivia that I have in the middle of the night so I will 😃 (Stop encouraging me if you don't I take it seriously and I won't stop anymore)

Just for the record, I read the fics and loved every one of them. Unfortunately I made up reading The Notion of Loss and re-read Till death do us part for the tenth time (that damn ending always kills me, you will pay for every tear shed 😡) that same night with a heart-wrenching soundtrack and it was the holy trinity that I I could sleep covered in my tears tonight. I force myself to suffer, I know, but... If I don't, who will? 😔

My question for today is something I'm pretty sure you've been asked before, but it doesn't hurt to try, does it? Could you talk about some of your favorite headcanons for a specific character or in general? (And if something has already been discussed here, could you name others, please?🥲) I know it's something that's already been used, but I really like it when the fandom comes together to believe in something collectively in a way that feels like the cartoon itself has already confirmed (CN would never give us that satisfaction, so what we have left is to hunt for our own survival)

By the way, what you said about not being able to leave the fandom is something that I think is very real to almost everyone inside. I really use the community as a place of comfort to hide from real life problems or even spend hours looking at random things like trivia or fan headcanons (Main reason for asking) and I think now I couldn't get out of something that it's already become a routine for me in some way, or even watching random videos and never remembering my comfort characters again, but anyway, just any outburst from someone who is going through a similar situation! 😊

About the new job and the delays...don't worry so much, we all take our time to adjust and for some it may take longer than for others! I think adapting is part of growing up and maturing and I know that there will come a time when you will feel stable enough to be able to focus your head on interesting new stories and plots, or writing bit by bit, I don't really know, I just know that with time everything will settle down and I'm sure that when you release a story or one-short again it will be amazing just because of your writing and plot that never disappoints. Well that was it, take your time, however long it is, and your 'comeback' in writing when you feel up to writing again and I will definitely be here to read everything from my favorite writer in the community!!!💗

Notes :

-Slightly jaded speech, I know, but I really hope that some of this text makes you feel somehow better ♡

-I know I write a lot, it's just that I get a little overexcited having someone to respond to the idiotic questions of the hysterical teenager that lives inside me 😔

- Any mistakes are just a coincidence that I know almost nothing of this language 😀 (If it's not readable I'll cry)

- The emoji thing was real.

aw thank you :))) your continued confidence in me is so kind. I hope I find time to write something soon. Anything, really! I miss writing and want to continue practicing. Also, I'm super happy that you read the fic recommendations. There are some crazy talented people in this fandom who have taken the time to write incredible stories. There are a thousand more out there, and I know some people I follow collect lists of fics, so if you want more, I'd sneak a look at some people's pinned posts. Pinned posts are sometimes the only way I find fics haha

To you're actual question, I have a lot of headcanons throughout my blog. Some are tagged, and some are not. Honestly, I couldn't remember my headcanon tags now! For the sake of not repeating myself too much, I'll give you three h/cs for the three girls :)

Bloss:

Follows rules until she no longer agrees with the rules, and then she makes new ones. Despite what people may think, Blossom isn't so caught up in the technicalities of right and wrong. She doesn't think black and white but is morally gray. She knows what right is, and she does what she needs to do to accomplish it, and sometimes that means choosing the lesser of the two evils and breaking a few rules.

Related to the top one, she has classic leader-martyr syndrome, but as she gets older, she burns out. I think it would be interesting if once she burns out, instead of quitting, she falls to second-in-command and pushes Buttercup to take over, but eventually has to take it back because of her ability to make hard sacrifices that BC lacks, and they both know it. Compared to Blossom, Buttercup is too overly-protective to make hard decisions.

Bad cheesy jokes and puns. She is not funny. No one thinks she's funny. She thinks she is, though, and believes her pep talks can move mountains (they cannot).

Butters:

Like I said, overly protective. When Blossom plays martyr, BC's there to catch her. Her over-protectiveness/toughness leads people to think she's intimidating and standoffish, but in truth, she's also the shyest sister. So, it's hard for her to make friends, but once she's your friend, you've got a ride-or-die for life. Despite how often she complains about things/people, she doesn't give up on others.

I also love her as a classic dude-bro. She loves watching sports, tracking sports statistics, and playing them. I don't think she'd be able to play on teams with normal humans, but given how many mutants pop up in Townsville, I headcanon there are superpowered teams, and she's in at least three of them. Idk which sports exactly, but 100% of the time, one of them is Roller derby.

In the show, she was prone to acts of aggression. I'd like to believe that when she grows up, she's mellowed out a great deal, but she's not at all cool like she hopes she is. If you're her friend, she's nosy, loud, and 100% in your business. If a doorknob pulls out her earbuds, she's 100% punching a hole in the door. Like, she's mellowed out, but she's "spice" for a reason.

Bubbles:

Blossom and Buttercup have 99 problems, and Bubbles is the cause of all of them :)) <3 she's a whirlwind of chaos and is always involved in some kind of shenanigans, which her sisters inevitably have to clean up. For all the problems she causes, she creates an equal amount of solutions. Things tend to work out for her. (I usually h/c Boomer as the same, but shit doesn't work out as well for him).

Her love life is dismal. There isn't much else to say. She's a girl who very much wants to fall in love, but she is not lucky with it. She doesn't understand that Blossom and Buttercup scare off 99.9% of all suitors. Down the line, this is a problem because she begins to think she's the problem, so Blossom and Buttercup have to bully people into dating her.

A nature nut, a cheerleader, a seamstress, a dog walker, a pet talker, and a lawncare enthusiast, she'd definitely be the jack of all trades in the family. She has more hobbies than she could ever keep up with, but she does just fine. Blossom might seem like the busy one, but Bubbles is more so. Unfortunately, unlike Blossom, she's horrible at keeping organized. Given all her odd skill sets, out of the three sisters, she's the most eccentric (and superstitious, but that's another h/c lol).

I hope these spark some interest!! I feel like these are pretty in line with my prior h/cs. I don't deviate from my characterizations of them often lolol

[ponyopk]

Character Lore: Grimoire Epitaph

Hello! I'm posting this from my computer back at home. I'm on kind of a pseudo vacation, bouncing back and forth from state to state. I noticed I've been quite lackluster on the character explanations, and I hope to make this the post that isn't that! This is one of my more recent characters, so I want you to give a warm welcome to...

...Grimoire Epitaph! This character uses concepts from one of my friends, so some things might not be entirely accurate. After this is posted, I'll have to check in with them and make sure that I'm correct. I'll get into this concept soon enough, but in a separate post. Grimoire, assigned male at birth, is from an alternate version of Earth. Growing up in South Carolina, Grimoire was an outcast, the type of kid you'd call "The Weird Kid." His dad, Gryphon Epitaph, was a general in the United States Military, and served to make the country a better place, a place devoid of corruption and crime. Everyday, he would wear an eyepatch. If you asked why, he wouldn't tell you, no matter who you are. But alas, you can't have a world without crime. A group of universal bandits, known as Sym Poachers, hunted down Gryphon, as he had something they wanted. They surrounded him. But he knew this day was going to come soon. Gryphon returned home, and told Grimoire about The Eye. Under Gryphon's eyepatch is an item that is sought after, by the before mentioned Sym Poachers. The item are Symbol Eyes, and they grant unmeasurable power. They can only be created by a certain individual, who is not my character. People born with them are not as strong, as someone who steals it, or has it passed down to them. Gryphon knew he was being hunted by Sym Poachers, so he gave Grimoire his Symbol Eye. It's a heirloom that was passed down, generation by generation, and it has been passed down for the last time. Grimoire inserts the eye, and it fits itself inside. As a result of the eye, she becomes paler. For extra protection, Gryphon bestows his eyepatch to Grimoire.

Gryphon tells Grimoire to run away as far as possible, and hesitantly, Grimoire follows his father's command. A while after this incident, Grimoire did some self exploration. He didn't exactly feel comfortable in his body, and so with the power of the Symbol Eye, she changed her body, to match with her visions. And on the topic of stylization, she puts a flower over her other eye, trims her hair, changes her hair's hue, and fashions her self some new and pretty boots.

...she also gave herself some pretty nails. For a while, she went by the name Grimdwell, but after some time, she decided to return to her name Grimoire, as she thought it was cooler. Trivia: In her first design, she had goggles, a pearl necklace, short sleeves, and a second, more transparent layer of clothing.

If it isn't already obvious, Grimoire is transgender, Male to Female. Grimoire is also pansexual.

Grimoire is a spin-off of one of my friends characters, Lulladora Burgers, who also has a Symbol Eye.

Grimoire's concept came to me while listening to the song C18H27NO3, by Team Grimoire. The artist's name is where she gets her name from.

Grimoire has a very confusing romantic and sexual life.

Grimoire is 662 years old.

In text where Grimoire is speaking, it is normally in all caps.

The name Grimdwell comes from me misremembering the term "Gloomdwell." There is a more powerful form of Grimoire, which is called Grimdark. This is a real word, and totally not a reference to a semi-obscure, 8000 page webcomic, which you can read at your own time. cough cough https://www.homestuck.com/story/3643 cough cough

Her eyepatch and eye flower were design choices, based off of beatmap backgrounds for C18H27NO3 in the rhythm game "osu!". (The backgrounds in question:)

[pureav-usa]

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[notmrskennedy]

Friendliness

A/N - ha so i just wrote this - no editing we die like men. here’s the alternate ending to my other post Likeability (this one is the more predictable one y’all will probably like whoops) if you’ve read the other one, just skip to the end it’s all the same in the middle 

Summary - The Team meets a very unfriendly scientist which Spencer’s taken a fancy to

W/C - 2.9k (whoops)

Warnings - Mild Anatomy/bones/etc discussion, a pinch and change of swearing

----

Luke is holding his stomach in his hands. He could usually pride himself on keeping his cool, keeping his head—and stomach—together during a case. He’d seen enough dead bodies that this shouldn’t have thrown him like he’d just sailed twelve foot waves in a dingy. 

But he is, after all, standing over a mass grave. Watching a too giddy scientist dig up the bodies. 

You’ve captured everyone’s attention, for various reasons. Rossi is vaguely amused by your joyous shouting of bones and your rat moustached assistant. Luke can’t tear his eyes away from the car wreck—are you supposed to swing bones around like baseball bats? Reid seems more interested in your bad jokes and coveralls than he is in solving the case. 

The rat assistant—Stewart Walsh—squeezes between Luke and Reid, scuttling like some kind of diseased turtle. “Doctor Y/L/N!”

You barely stop pouring over the mud covered pelvis in your hands to even acknowledge him. 

“I just thought you should know that Dr. Evanston just got here.”

You look up, toss the bone to him, and snort. “Tell him the soil samples are four miles due east from here.”

“What’s wrong with Evanston?” Luke asks to no one in particular it seems, waving Stewart off to run for a group of approaching nerds in coveralls. 

Ignoring the question or maybe Luke, you just turn back to your search. Elbow deep in mud, being nice must not have been on the to-do list. Reid leans over, hands in his pockets, and whispers, “Evanston stole one of her research papers. I thought he was going to get his teeth kicked in—“

“Skull!” you holler. Luke isn’t stupid enough to miss the glare reserved for the sheepish Dr. Reid.

He clears his throat. “Thoughts so far, doctor?”

“I’m thinking beetles,” is all you say before turning back to your skull. Luke might not know many scientists, but he doesn’t think that most of them look at human skulls like its the Mona Lisa. Like this fat piece of bone held the answers to the universe inside its empty eye sockets. 

“Beetles?” Luke coughs. Rossi just shakes his head. Pretends this isn’t a conversation he’s having. Reid is still studying you like Luke might study infiltration schematics. Stewart runs up, out of breath, very rose coloured. 

You’re eyes are sparkling as you wade over to them with a new radius bone in your hands. Everyone bends like they know what they’re looking at and you point along the edge of the bone. “It’s a subtle difference but these bones have been cleaned before being buried. My guess is carrion beetles. They’re very hard workers. And—“ you switch to pointing at the radial head— “minute scoring and kerf marks. These look pretty old, so I’m assuming we’re getting close to the bottom.”

“So our unsub dismembered his victims,” Rossi begins, “then cleaned the pieces?”

You nod and hand off the bone to a very blushing Stewart. “I won’t know for sure until I’ve had a chance to examine all the bones. There’s nothing definitive yet. What a hobbyist though, right?”

You chuckle to yourself and dive back into fishing out more finger and wrist bones. Luke turns, runs his hands over his face, and hikes a thumb over his shoulder. “Where did we find her?”

Rossi shrugs, “FBI easter egg hunt.” Luke blinks, while Rossi chuckles at his gullibility. “Come on, the doctor’s the best in the field. Good kid, I can tell.” 

“Y/N’s great,” Spencer absently adds on, too busy staring at you. You’re explaining different types of dismemberment to Stewart like you’re discussing the rain. Luke grips onto his stomach just a little tighter. 

“Y/N, huh?” Luke teases, momentarily forgetting the unsettling feeling in his gut about you. “You two, uh, friends or something?”

It’s Reid’s turn to stumble. “Yeah, but it’s—we’re just—we’re just—.” 

Rossi shakes his head, slaps Reid on the shoulder. “Oh yeah, just friends. So, tell me. Do you talk about dismemberment before or after you make out?”

#

JJ wants to beg Emily not to make her go down into the basement. You’re down there. She knows it’s childish to be this avoidant—you are just a person after all. A creepy, psychopathic weirdo that makes JJ’s gut churn. She gets why Spencer’s taken to you—shared love of science and random trivia. She does. But that doesn’t mean JJ enjoys the cold ass morgue, smiling along as you ramble. Most of everyone’s limited contact with you has involved random facts and Stewart’s too intimate knowledge of fracture patterns. 

There had been ten minutes of reassurance from Emily that you were, in fact, not a horrible person. Ended with JJ making the cold and dark trek down to the morgue. She couldn’t imagine working down here all day long. No one to talk to, no one to strategise with, no where to go. Maybe it suited you. No one would have to listen. 

“—don’t know what to do!” echoes across the bottom of the stairwell, the morgue’s doors cracked open. The distress breaks JJ’s heart. Your voice stops her dead in her tracks.  

“They don’t hate you,” Spencer’s voice comes after. Gentler, softer. “They—they just don’t know you yet.”

“They don’t want to, Spence!” and JJ winces with the words. It always hurt more when the truth came out in that tone. “I get it! You know? I work with human remains and don’t bring my people skills with me when I’m on the job, but—that shouldn’t matter!” 

JJ winces again, tries to ignore how those are nothing short of teary sniffles echoing through her ears. She leans back against the wall and has no idea what to do. Spencer had obviously been down here for hours. Knew you well enough to get the teary truth. What could she do now? Interrupt? 

She’d walked into hostage situations less freakin’ stressful than this. 

“You’re right,” Spencer soothes, steadfast and strong, “it doesn’t matter. This isn’t—“

“It’s not your fault,” you sigh. JJ doesn’t want to hear the strangled touch to your voice. Doesn’t want to hear the break. “They’re your friends and I’m just your—“ 

 “Doctor!” Stewart calls and JJ could scream. You’re his what? 

At least, it’s as good as any moment to intrude. 

“What, Stewart?” you snapped, already broken away from Spencer with wet cheeks and stained glasses. You wipe them off haphazardly with the tail end of Spencer’s sweater sleeve—JJ couldn’t help but smile, even if it’s a little strangled. 

Stewart jumps like a wet cat and tosses a bundle of files into your hands. “Beetles.”

One word snatches the tears from your face. Snatches you away from Spencer’s side for one of the dozen skeletons on the tables. There was no reason to think that she’ll get her report from you now. With a rib bone in one hand and contemplation in your features—JJ can’t decide how unnerved she is—you’re a little too concentrated. 

Stewart scuttles around you. A little too attentive. A little too cherry tinted. Yep. No reports to be had from either of you. JJ turned to Spencer instead, hoping that maybe he’d be helpful. Plastered up like a billboard, JJ knows that saccharine smile isn’t going to get her anywhere. 

“Spence?”

He hums, halfheartedly tearing his eyes away. “Yeah?”

“I need the latest report for Emily, but I don’t think—“

“I’ll—just a second, JJ.” Spencer grins, sugary sweet, and slips away. JJ doesn’t miss how he places a hand on your shoulder as he passes. How you barely even notice that quite intimate contact. She also doesn’t miss how Stewart’s face sours at the action, how his eyes narrow enough that Spencer feasibly should’ve noticed. 

Reports in hand a minute later, JJ leans over to Spencer. Elbows him in the arm. “Stewart seems pretty jealous. Any reason for that?”

Spencer shrugs. “Wouldn’t know a thing about it.”

#

Rossi doesn’t have an opinion. Everyone keeps asking—oh Rossi, you’re the wisest of us all, what should we do about poor little Y/N? He doesn’t know, doesn’t care. You are just some scientist who is doing a thousand percent better job than any other forensics ‘expert’ he’s had the pleasure of working with. 

Your lab doesn’t smell. You don’t smell. Is there anything more to ask for? 

But he does get the brute of having to make the trek down to the morgue—god, his knees alone—and receives most of the reports from the not as horrible as everyone thinks Dr. Y/N Y/L/N. Who is joyfully humming while squinting over one of the skeleton’s hands. 

“Hey, doc,” he calls and you look up at him with an adorable sort of grin. “Got anything new?”

“Sure,” you chirp. Hesitate to wave him over. “If you want the details, that is.”

Rossi shakes his head, pulls up a stool to sit next to you and your subject. “I like to have as much knowledge as I can. You never know what will lead you to your un-sub.”

You settle your elbows on the table, straighten a stray finger bone. The team shouldn’t be worried about you being a psychopath. You’re dedicated, careful, attentive. Rossi hopes that if he ever gets turned into human remains, you’re the one looking over him. There’s been more care put into one skeleton than into his three combined marriages. 

“You’re in luck,” you answer, “I’ve got a lot to tell you about our attacker. You’ve got time, right?”

Rossi nods, smiles. “Plenty.”

#

Penelope still hasn’t met you and that kind of pisses her off. You haven’t made it upstairs once? She flies into some dingy Wyoming hovel of a police station for like a week and no one’s thought to bring you upstairs? Rude. 

She’s sitting in JJ’s desk chair, waiting for her and Luke to get back from interviewing a potential lead—some ex-felon who fit your makeshift profile. Reid’s scouring over some boring geographical profile, trying not to get annoyed as she nervously—angrily—rants about the case to him. She knows he’s tuning her out, but her work’s been put on the back burner until someone comes up with something to give her. 

There’s only so much a computer can find and she’s no profiler. 

It’s about five minutes after Reid snapped and left to get a coffee refill, when she picks up a call from the desk. “Hello?”

Creaking metal and shuddering breathing comes first. “Set the scalpel down” comes second.  She swallows, silent, and panicking. What the heck is she supposed to do? Paying attention to those hostage negotiation seminars that she definitely didn’t go to would’ve come in handy right about now. 

Said scalpel clatters onto some metal table, followed by a strong, “You really don’t want to do this. Please put the gun down.”

Oh god, this is happening. 

“You just—“ a male voice snips, bellowing out, “YOU DON’T LOOK AT ME.”

“I do look at you, Stewart,” you plead just as JJ and Luke clamour through the bullpen’s door. Penelope puts the call on speaker, mutes it, and screams for them. 

“I don’t know what to do,” Penelope sobs professionally, “someone’s got a gun.”

JJ runs for Emily’s office while Reid returns heedlessly. Luke puts a soft hand on Penelope’s cold one and squeezes. Newbie or not, it’s appreciated as the man’s voice returns. “I’ve tried for so long to get you to—to just—just look at me! I’ve done so much!”

“I know, Stewart,” you ease and Reid tenses. Nearly drops his coffee. “It’s not your fault. You’ve worked so hard.”

“Yeah,” Stewart sobs; Penelope can only imagine how crazy this kid must be. 

“Did you leave all those bodies for me, Stewart?” you question and everyone holds their breath. Luke squeezes harder on her hand. Reid’s twitching like a rabbit’s nose, a death grip on his mug, frozen as a Michigan pond. 

Stewart sniffles. Probably nods. Penelope doesn’t know whether to run or sit or cry. She decides it’s probably cry, but instead her fingers start moving to record the call, trace the office origin. 

“It was a great puzzle, Stewart, it was really genius. It was a fun case to follow, you know that.” You swallow hard, metal tinkles through the speaker. Please, Penelope begs, don’t let them kill each other. I haven’t met the doctor yet!

“Why did you kill these girls, Stewart?” your voice is so gentle and lulling Penelope almost forgets that she’s listening to you try to save your own life. 

 “I wanted you to look,” he says, sniffles. “I wanted you. I want you, Y/N. I want you to love me.”

It’s either her computer beeping or someone falling through a table or a gunshot. She doesn’t know. She’s crying too hard to care. 

#

Tara doesn’t know when she started to run—probably just after JJ, Luke, and Reid barrelled passed her by the bathroom shouting about the situation—but she’s almost to the morgue doors, right on Reid’s heels. Lord almighty, she feels so stupid. She’d had enough little one on one chats with Stewart to know he was some sort of psycho in disguise. To know that something was wrong with that kid. No one could last more than three minutes with your grad student assistant without wanting to take an eyeball out—his or theirs it didn’t matter. She’d let herself believe you when you told her that all forensic anthropologists seem like that. That there was nothing to worry about. 

Nothing to worry about her ass. 

Luke’s the first to storm the morgue, expecting what Tara is: you, dead, on the floor with Stewart on the brink of killing himself. But they stop and they stare and Reid beams on with the absurd look on your face. 

You’re shaking with rage, pointing a gun at a very unconscious, crumpled, bleeding Stewart Walsh. Your teeth are bared in what Tara would consider out of a comic book—ludicrous and of someone who’s completely lost their mind. JJ makes the mistake of asking if you’re alright.

“Alright?” you chirp, feral and ravenous. JJ and Luke shrink back as you shout, “I lived in Honduras for three years! This isn’t even the worst thing that’s happened to me. It’s my third fucking kidnapping!”

“T-third?” Luke croaks. 

“Third!” you shout again and recklessly set your gun on the table. Spencer grins, which sets you off further. “I’ve been nice. I’ve been accommodating. But this is my fourth psychotic grad student! I fucking swear—!”

Stewart groans—thank god he’s alive—and Spencer, thankfully, rushes forward to catch you before you can take anything else out on the kid. Tara’s heard rumours about mysterious other instances of your being under arrest. Illegal transportation of goods was one thing, police brutality was another. The scalpel sticking out of his knee is bad enough. 

She helps Luke haul Stewart to his feet, reeking of desperation and a much needed psych eval. JJ follows close behind, closes the morgue doors behind them. But not before they hear your muffled sobs and Spencer’s smiling. 

“You got him, Y/N.”

“No, Spence,” you correct, and Tara can’t help but be proud, “I kicked the snot out of him.”

#

Emily is barely awake when she sees it. JJ’s soft breathing next to her is lulling by itself, let alone if you add in Rossi’s rhythmic snoring and Luke’s idle whispers of sleep talk. Emily could do with some sleep and maybe a few days off. They could all use a few days off, especially after coming to terms with the fact a grad student had killed 12 women just to get a little action. 

From a scientist who freely admitted to enjoying the company of bones over real people. 

Alive people. 

No wonder Stewart had done what he’d done. 

Emily turns in her spot, lays back against the wall of the airplane and the seat. After nearly five decades—she’s never thinking about that again—of plane rides, she can comfortably say she can sleep anywhere. With any amount of noise, or cold, or pain. 

But her eyes are accidentally open when she peaks around the seat cushion. Spies the Wild Dr. Reid in his natural habitat, reading some ridiculously long book and…carding his fingers through your hair? He’s got a lock curled up around his finger, gently twisting it as he reads. You’re sleeping—knocked the fuck out—in his lap, gripping loosely onto his leg. 

You deserve the sleep, Emily decides with a smile. You’d worked the hardest on the case, up for nearly four days with as little rest as you can manage. How Stewart managed to stay awake enough to attack you is beyond Emily. She’s missed out on a few hours just today and she’s losing the battle with her eyelids. 

No one ever asked her opinion of you. Probably didn’t have to. You were not the easiest to like, but you’d captured her respect and a bit of her heart when you’d said at the beginning of the case: “I’m an excavator by trade—I’m at archeological digs most of the time—so it’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that these ladies are murder victims. I don’t think I’ll sleep until I’ve got names for them. And maybe the murderer on my table.”

Emily understood the unease, the apprehension. Why everyone was relieved when you’d turned down the plane ride she’d offered you. How they all bit back groans when Emily had insisted. But they’ll have to get used to it, Emily thinks and she settles again. Because they’ll see you again. No doubt about it. The way you’re wrapped up around Spencer, how you hold tighter when the jet bounces a touch, says just that much anyway. 

[eyayah-oya]

At First Sight

It’s been a while since I’ve posted one of these blurbs, and I really liked this one. It’s got some OCs of mine that I created to be Wooley’s batchmates. More information on them can be found below the cut

Wooley groaned as the Corrie tugged his arms behind him and pulled out a set of binders. He wasn't even drunk or involved this time. He just happened to be nearby when Crys set off a bunch of glitter bombs (Wooley was pretty sure he got them from Torrent) and of course the Corrie assumed he was a part of it. Or just wanted the bragging rights among their batchmates that he got to throw Wooley into the drunk tank.

"Corin, you are a slimy bastard," he groaned. "I didn't do anything."

"Hmm, that's what you say. But you see, you Ghosts rarely do stuff by yourself. Therefore, that kid Jek is arresting had an accomplice. The closest Ghost was you," Corin said smugly.

Wooley sighed.

"I actually hate you right now."

"Don't stay things you don't mean, Wooley dearest," Corin sang.

"Ratio is my favorite now."

"Blasphemy! I have always been your favorite batchmate," Corin protested.

"Ratio isn’t currently arresting me for something I didn't do and didn't know anything about."

"If you want to lie, you need to get better at hiding your tells."

"I've been working on that," another vod's voice called. Wooley sighed. He knew that voice very well. And of course Lovely just had to happen by.

Corin closed the binders on his wrists and turned Wooley towards the Guard speeder where Lovely was leaning against the side.

And then they stopped.

Wooley glanced behind and couldn't help but grin. Oh. Oh that was delightful blackmail material.

Corin stood there, his bucket clipped to his belt so his curly blue hair went in every direction as it attempted to escape its ponytail. And he stood, absolutely dumbstruck, and stared at Lovely. His brother, the most flirtatious of the lot of them, was stunned silent by a pretty face.

Discreetly, Wooley swiped the keys off of Corin's belt and walked towards the speeder, Corin's hand sliding off of his back. He fiddled with the binders for a moment and then slipped them off and tossed them into the Guard speeder. He put his bucket back on and immediately took several holos of Corin's face.

"Is there a problem?" Lovely asked, walking towards Corin as he waved Wooley away behind his back.

"Puh uh problem? No, there's no problem," Corin stammered. "I'm Corin."

"Nice to meet you, Corin," Lovely answered. "I'm Lovely."

"You definitely are."

Wooley almost gave his escape away with a snort as he listened to his normally suave brother blunder through an introduction. He couldn't wait to show this to Mal and Ama. They would absolutely never let Corin live this down. Cyan would get a kick out of it, too.

As Wooley hopped into a speeder heading to the GAR barracks, specifically for the clones, he sent the holo to the Crimson groupchat.

<Wooley: Look at him. He saw one of my squaddies and made this face!>

<Ama: NO WAY!!! I DON'T BELIEVE IT!!!!>

<Ratio: Ha! Thank you Wooley. I am definitely saving that to get back at him for the prank he pulled last week.>

<Mal: That was Ama. But it's about time Corin got a taste of his own medicine.>

<Cyan: Lovely is really nice. Corin at least has good taste. If Lovely falls for him, though, I'm gonna have to question his taste.>

<Corin: WOOLEY YOU SON OF A BANTHA WHORE!!!>

Wooley just cackled.

Wooley’s Batch (AKA Crimson Batch)

Mal: The Oldest TM. He is gentle and kind and gives the absolute best hugs. He’s the kind of person you go to for a nice long cuddle with ice cream, blanket forts, and a movie to feel better after a bad day. He’s also got great advice. He was one of the five members of Crimson Batch that were sent to Coruscant as part of the Coruscant Guard.

Kye: He can be a bit of a grump. He is also the easiest to get with a prank, which the others do quite frequently. Kye also has the most infectious laugh, if you can get him to let loose. He’s also a Coruscant Guard.

Ratio: Ratio is happiest if he has a fully-charged datapad, a hot cup of caf, and a vod’ika curled up against him (usually Ama). Force save anyone who brings him a problem to solve before he’s had his morning caf, though. He likes to tease and joke around and holds trivia nights, which can range from fun little quizzes, to him info-dumping with his batchmates. He is also a Coruscant Guard.

Corin: Corin is a notorious flirt. He will flirt with anyone that he can get away with. Charming to the extreme and with a fun sense of humor to boot, he is very popular both within the Guard and with any Battalions on leave. He is also a massive troll. Wooley and Corin were really close before they were deployed and Wooley learned how to flirt from Corin. He fell head over heels for Lovely the very first time he saw him, and spent the rest of the war trying to come up with ways to woo Lovely. (Lovely is demi, so it took a bit of time and a lot of patience, but he was wooed.) Corin is a member of the Coruscant Guard.

Talla: He is very protective. He was one of the batchmates that was assigned to Commander Rill’s Company (also an oc of mine) along with Wooley, Cyan, Kita, and Maie. When they were captured by Separatists, Talla was sold to Trandoshans along with Kita and Maie. He protected them and they managed to survive until they were later rescued (this is soft! I couldn’t kill them. I just couldn’t). He’s fairly paranoid and warms up to strangers very slowly and rarely goes anywhere without his armor and several weapons.

Cyan: Cyan was rescued by the 212th along with Wooley (and Lovely and a few others, but I’m not focusing on them now). He’s really reserved and quiet, but will absolutely swear like a sailor with the people he’s closest to. He becomes really close with Miggs (a fellow trooper in the 212th) and they eventually say the riduurok after Miggs lost his leg on Umbara. They will eventually adopt a squad of cadets and raise them together.

Kita: Kita is pretty friendly and adapts well to being around other people. At least better than Talla. He was also rescued with Talla and Maie. He likes making friends and is definitely nowhere near as paranoid as Talla.

Maie: Maie is considered “Babey TM”. He’s got the Sad Tooka Eyes (which Wooley learned from him and used to great effect on the 212th). He is a little quiet and tends to stick close with the people he knows the best but is also interested in making new friends. He really wants to open a ranch or farm and just spend time out in nature when he doesn’t have to worry about being hunted.

And finally . . . 

Ama: Ama is the Youngest TM. Always. He loves practical jokes and making people laugh. He has probably perfected several comedy routines at this point and performs them every time he’s at 79′s with a new Company on leave. Loves sitting with Ratio and they like planning pranks together. Kye is their usual victim, but they also target the others as well. He was also sent to Coruscant as a Coruscant Guard.

Let me know if you want to learn any more about these guys! (I have done piccrew with them because I can’t draw) I love them a lot. If you made it all the way this far! Congratulations and thank you so much!! Crimson Batch will appear in my Long Fic (whenever I have time to actually write it).

ALSO!! FYI, Wooley falls between Kita and Maie, age-wise. He’s not the Youngest, but he is one of the youngest.

[artsbysakurachan]

A Kuro fan-theory in the Year of Our Lord 2021 because I am always late to the damn party!

I only caught up on Kuroshitsuji’s latest chapters in the last few months and this obviousness just smacked me in the face so I’m posting about it.  The speculation about who shot Soma.  Most have ruled out O!Ciel being the shooter because of his reaction when he and Sebastian find Agni dead and Soma seriously messed up.  He actually freaking cries which is not something the ‘Phantom Menace’ does very often (*bows* yes, thank you I did come up with that on my own, you’re welcome XD).  

But, O!Ciel is a cold-ass sunova-bitch who has killed people he likes before now, Doll, for example, so that’s not enough for me to rule him out.  Also, who killed Agni? Remember that Agni was killed while protecting Soma, which is when he’s at his strongest because he enters Samadhi when he’s defending his “God.”  So I seriously doubt any human could have taken out Agni in that state.  That leaves us with two non-human options because only two species of non-human have ever been introduced in the series.  Demons and Grim Reapers.

That narrows our options down to Sebastian (the only demon we KNOW is around) or a reaper.  We can narrow that down further by looking at reapers who are sticklers for the rules (not interfering with human lives/deaths) and those who like to bend those rules (I’m looking at you Grell Sutcliffe >_>).  Then there is the Undertaker who didn’t just bend the rules, he smashed them to bits with a freaking sledgehammer, jumped up and down on them just to be sure and torched whatever was left.  

I’m ruling out Grell because frankly, she has no motive and in fact, has a pretty good motivation stop whoever is behind the zombie apocalypse.  Why?  Because she freaking LOVES death and her job, that’s her motivation. What Undertaker and the Blue Oyster Cult are up to threatens to undermine the whole concept of death entirely and I’m fairly sure that Grell would not be down for that At. All. So, back to the heresy of suggesting O!Ciel shot Soma and Sebastian killed Agni.  Relax I don’t think that’s what happened but I wanted to walk through the possibility to show why people shouldn’t rule it out just based on Ciel’s emo arse.  So what did rule out O!Ciel and Sebastian for me?  

Soma was shot by someone with a Winchester .45 Revolver.  We’ve only ever seen O!Ciel use a revolver once!  When he pulled it out from under his pillow and put it to Sebastian’s head because he was woken up suddenly.

Every single other time that O!Ciel has a gun it’s a snub-nosed semi-automatic pistol, the same one he carries everywhere in a shoulder holster.  The sole exception was the one time he went hunting where he carried a hunting rifle which isn’t relevent because we can clearly see that Soma wasn’t shot with a hunting rifle.  

Side note: If there’s one thing I’ve learned today it’s that I know a lot more about guns than I thought I did.

But he could have taken the revolver to kill Soma right? Sure, but why bother when he has a better, more reliable and more easily concealed gun with him all the time anyway?  But more importantly, when you’re a survivor with PTSD who keeps weapons within easy reach of where you’re most vulnerable - the place where you sleep - you DON’T move them.  I cannot stress this enough.  You. Do. Not. Move. Your. Weapons.  Because you want the security of knowing that the thing you need to protect your life is exactly where it needs to be at all times. And I would know because I do this myself.  I’m an abuse survivor with an ex who can be somewhat unhinged and a woman living alone in a place where I don’t know that many people so not taking precautions would be stupid and potentially fatal.  I have weapons in strategic places around my house and in my handbag.  Not guns, you can’t just go out and get a gun in my country which is probably a good thing, but the same logic applies.  The weapon by my bed stays by my bed, the one in my handbag stays in my handbag and the others stay where they are placed so I always know where they are.  If you know someone in law enforcement or the military ask them about this yourself because you’ll probably find they do the same thing. There’s also the fact that O!Ciel and Sebastian had been staying at the town house for most of this segment of the story.  While there is likely a different gun under O!Ciel’s pillow in the townhouse, it’s one we haven’t seen so it’s unlikely that Yana would just pull that gun out of thin air because she likes dropping hints.  Her entire brand at this point is basically “this is a big game of iSpy.”  

So, here is what I think did happen.  I think R!Ciel took the gun from under O!Ciel’s pillow back at the Manor and used it to frame his twin because he’s a dick. R!Ciel fits all the requirements for the shooter.  He’s shorter than Soma and he’s someone Soma would recognise, or rather mistake for O!Ciel.  I’d bet money that R!Ciel also took one of O!Ciel’s spare eye-patches at the same time he took the revolver from his bedroom.   Then there’s the fact that when O!Ciel and Sebastian find Soma locked in with Agni’s dead body still blocking the door, Soma straight up clocks Ciel in the face!  How can it be more obvious?? Soma believes Ciel did it and he believes that because R!Ciel went out of his way to make him believe it.  I suspect he may even have left Soma alive so that he would point the finger at O!Ciel.

So the next question is who killed Agni?  I originally thought Undertaker but since when does Undy don a hooded robe and go around stabbing people when he’s super attached to that death scythe and his gimp outfit?

Seriously though, there is one clue and that’s height.

Trivia time: According to Yana, the official unit of measurement in Kuro is 1 Sebastian...

SERIOUSLY??? WTFAWREOIUJGEOGNOGAERKHBG!!!

*sigh*

Sebastian is 6′1 and Agni is roughly half a head taller than Sebastian, so 1 and 1/16th Sebastians? (Fuck you Yana XD). The person who kills Agni is nearly as tall as he is, around Sebastian’s height or possibly a bit taller.  That rules out Undertaker because...well...sorry Undy fans but he’s a short-ass at around 5′8-5′9 which means he only comes up to Sebastian’s chin.  Also rules out Grell who is even shorter at 5′7.  It rules out most of the main characters who are all shorter than Sebastian.  And that’s it, I’m stuck at this point, I don’t know who it could be and I got nothing.  THANK YOU AND GOODNIGHT! XD

[crimeculturepodcast]

Hispanic/Latino horror movies

In honor of Hispanic Heritage month, this week we talked about horror movies out of Latin American and Spanish speaking countries. There were some we couldn’t get to so here is the full list:

Spain

The Devil’s Backbone (2001)

Rotten Tomatoes: 92%

Audience Score: 89%

Google Score: 85%

IMDb: 7.4/10

Critics Consensus: Creepily atmospheric and haunting, The Devil's Backbone is both a potent ghost story and an intelligent political allegory.

Description: “Set during the last years of the Spanish Civil War, The Devil's Backbone is a Spanish gothic horror movie that follows Carlos, a young orphan boy who is deposited at Santa Lucia School among several other children who have been displaced by the conflict. Though he finds friends in the professor and the head mistress, he is plagued by a wandering spirit with a link to the violent caretaker's secret past.”

Trivia: The movie, which he wrote in college and was in development for 16 years, is strongly inspired by Del Toro’s personal memories, especially his relationship with his uncle, who supposedly came back as a ghost. It is also included among the "1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" edited by Steven Schneider. Although filmmaker Guillermo del Toro is Mexican, this film is set in the Spanish countryside (largely filmed in Madrid) that’s why it’s on the Spanish list. The Devil’s Backbone has all of the impactful elements of spirituality, horror, and the supernatural that come up again and again in Del Toro’s work. This film has been referred to as the “brother film” of one of Del Toro’s best known works, Pan’s Labyrinth. 

[REC] (2007)

Rotten Tomatoes: 89%

Audience Score: 82%

Google Score: 85%

IMDb: 7.4/10

Critics Consensus: Plunging viewers into the nightmarish hellscape of an apartment complex under siege, [Rec] proves that found footage can still be used as an effective delivery mechanism for sparse, economic horror.

Description: “Late-night TV host Angela and her cinematographer are following the fire service on a call to an apartment building, but the Spanish police seal off the building after an old woman is infected by a virus which gives her inhuman strength.”

Trivia: The movie was filmed chronologically in real locations (no sets were built for the movie). The actor’s were never given the script in its entirety and didn’t know what was going to happen to their characters until the day of filming. The movie is also a big inspiration for the horror survival game Outlast.

Considered The Blair Witch Project of zombie movies, REC had a lot of competition in the found footage style (it came out the same year as George Romero’s Diary of the Dead and the first Paranormal Activity movie). It more than holds its own among them, so much so that an American remake called Quarantine came out the next year. Director Jaume Balagueró keeps the movie disturbingly real and doesn’t fall prey to jump scare after jump scare.

Veronica (2017)

Rotten Tomatoes: 88%

Audience Score: 49%

Google Score: 80%

IMDb: 6.2/10

Critics Consensus: A scarily effective horror outing, Veronica proves it doesn't take fancy or exotic ingredients to craft skin-crawling genre thrills. 

Description: “During a solar eclipse, a teenage girl and her friends want to summon the spirit of the girl's father using an Ouija board. However, during the session she loses consciousness and soon it becomes clear that evil demons have arrived.”

Trivia: Based on the true story of 18-year-old Estefanía Gutiérrez Lázaro. I won’t go too far into it because we may do an episode on it in the future but if you want spoilers, watch the movie (if you dare).

Directed by Paco Plaza (same as REC), the possession theme is done over and over again in horror but this movie is a terrifying and fresh take. 

The Bar (2017)

Rotten Tomatoes: 88%

Audience Score: 55%

Google Score: 75%

IMDb: 6.3/10

Description: “In bustling downtown Madrid, a loud gunshot and two mysterious deaths trap a motley assortment of common urbanites in a decrepit central bar, while paranoia and suspicion force the terrified regulars to turn on each other.”

Directed by Álex de la Iglesia, it’s labeled as a horror-comedy. You can watch it on Netflix.

Who Can Kill A Child? (1976) - Tells the story of a happy couple, two English tourists who decide to vacation on a secluded island in the Mediterranean. There they discover – almost too late- that the island has been taken over by a group of murderous children.

The Baby’s Room (2006) - Featured on Six Films to Keep You Awake at Night. A new family renovates and moves into a grand old house. Nervous first-time mom installs a baby monitor but hears mysterious sounds on the other side. Once they install a high-tech video baby monitor, what they see chills them to the bone.

Sleep Tight (2011) - Apartment concierge Cesar is a miserable person who believes he was born without the ability to be happy. His self-appointed task is to make life hell for everyone around him, a mission in which he has great success. It has big home invasion/stalker vibes. 

Timecrimes (2007) - A man accidentally gets into a time machine and travels back in time nearly an hour. Finding himself will be the first of a series of disasters of unforeseeable consequences. It sounds like a “Happy Death Day” type of plot (but proceeding it by a decade).

Thesis (1996) - Angela is doing her thesis on the effect of violence in the media when she discovers a snuff film. This discovery leads her down a dark path where she must confront her greatest fears and question everybody around her.

Witching and Bitching (2013) - One article I read said it perfectly, “What Shaun of the Dead did for zombies and What We Do in the Shadows did for vampires, Witching & Bitching essentially did for the cinematic depiction of witches, albeit on a less visible scale.” Great pick if you’re looking for something a bit more lighthearted.

Mexico

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

Rotten Tomatoes: 95%

Audience Score: 91%

Google Score: 90%

IMDb: 8.2/10

Critics Consensus: Pan's Labyrinth is Alice in Wonderland for grown-ups, with the horrors of both reality and fantasy blended together into an extraordinary, spellbinding fable. 

Description: After the Allies invade Nazi-occupied Europe, a sadistic captain sends a troop of Spanish soldiers to flush out rebels,bringing his new wife and her daughter along on his exploits. While his family resides in the countryside, he leads his men on a murderous rampage, much of which is witnessed by his step daughter. In an effort to escape her reality she plunges into Pan's Labyrinth, a mystical world at the border of her own.

Trivia: Guillermo del Toro is famous for compiling books full of notes and drawings about his ideas before turning them into films, something he regards as essential to the process. He left years worth of notes for this film in the back of a cab, and when he discovered them missing, he thought it was the end of the project. However, the cab driver found them and, realizing their importance, tracked him down and returned them at great personal difficulty and expense. Del Toro was convinced that this was a blessing and it made him ever more determined to complete the film. Del Toro also repeatedly refused offers from Hollywood producers, in spite of being offered double the budget, provided the film was made in English. He didn't want any compromise in the storyline to suit the "market needs" (he even did the English subtitles himself). The film received 22 minutes of applause at the Cannes Film Festival and in 2007, it became one of the few fantasy films ever nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the Oscars. It’s another on the list "1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" edited by Steven Schneider with The Devil’s Backbone. It was on more than 130 top 10 lists in 2006. It is also the 5th highest grossing foreign language film in the US.

The Similars (2016)

Rotten Tomatoes: 95%

Audience Score: 49%

Google Score: 75%

IMDb: 5.9/10

Critics Consensus: A smart homage to genre filmmaking, The Similars is a fun and frightening film that balances socio-political issues with aplomb.

Description: A monstrous, once-in-a-lifetime thunderstorm strands passengers in a remote bus station outside Mexico City in 1968. As they listen to the radio, they realized that the storm has spread all over the world. As they look at each other, they also realize that everyone’s faces are slowly changing, and not for the better. 

Trivia: The film used make-up and special effects techniques never before done in Mexico. Director Isaac Ezban was influenced by B-movies of the 50s and 60s as well as TV shows and movies like “The Twilight Zone”, “The Thing”, and “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”.

We Are What We Are (2010)

Rotten Tomatoes: 72%

Audience Score: 48%

Google Score: 77%

IMDb: 5.7/10

Critics Consensus: We Are What We Are is elevated horror that combines family drama and social politics, with plenty of gore on top.

Description: After a family patriarch dies, his survivors are tasked with continuing the rigid family rituals that involve hunting meat, preparing it for consumption, and eating it. The “meat” in question is human flesh, since they’re a family of cannibals. With two detectives hot on their tail, the family of cannibals strains to maintain their family traditions in a modern urban environment.

There was an English language remake in 2013 (86% on Rotten Tomatoes) with Wyatt Russell and Odeya Rush (Lady Bird, Dumplin’, and Goosebumps)

We Are The Flesh (2016) - A joint French-Mexican production released in Spanish as Somos la carne, this post-apocalyptic nightmare involves a brother and sister who roam the land desperately seeking food until a kindly old man takes them in under the condition that they help him renovate an abandoned building. Oh, and they also have to have sex with one another while he watches. And after he breaks their will by getting them to do that, he makes them do all sorts of other things. This film was one of only four in Mexico to receive a “D” rating—which is reserved for subject matter that is considered extremely disturbing and/or pornographic.

The Witch’s Mirror (1962) - An abusive and cheating husband kills his wife so that he can be with his mistress. The woman’s godmother was a witch who originally tried casting a spell on a mirror to protect her from domestic violence, but the spell failed. Still, she is able to bring the woman back from the grave, and the two witches set out to destroy the evil woman-beater.

Here Comes The Devil (2012) - A married couple lose their children while on a family trip near some caves in Tijuana. The kids eventually reappear without explanation, but it becomes clear that they are not who they used to be, that something terrifying has changed them.

Chile

Downhill (2016)

Rotten Tomatoes: 60%

Audience Score: 22%

Google Score: 43%

IMDb: 3.5/10

Description: Deeply upset by the passing of his best friend, a professional BMX rider accepts to partake in a race in Chile. Everything goes as planned until he stumbles upon a man who is infected by a mysterious virus and becomes the target of local assassins.

Trivia: Filmed in 13 days

Post Mortem (2010)

Rotten Tomatoes: 88%

Audience Score: 61%

Google Score: 70%

IMDb: 6.5/10

Description: In Chile, 1973, during the last days of Salvador Allende’s presidency, an employee at a Morgue’s recording office falls for a burlesque dancer who mysteriously disappears.

Aftershock (2012)

Rotten Tomatoes: 39%

Audience Score: 24%

Google Score: 61%

IMDb: 4.8/10

Critics Consensus: Aftershock hints at an inventive twist on horror tropes, but ultimately settles for another round of mind-numbing depravity that may alternately bore and revolt all but the most ardent gore enthusiasts.

Description: In Chile, a group of travelers who are in an underground nightclub when a massive earthquake hits quickly learn that reaching the surface is just the beginning of their nightmare.

Trivia: Horror icon Eli Roth wrote and stars in this film.

To Kill A Man (2014) - An attack on his daughter leads a mild-mannered family man to take revenge on the vicious street thugs who have tormented him and his family for a long time.

Columbia

Out Of The Dark (2014) This is in English

Rotten Tomatoes: 24%

Audience Score: 22%

Google Score: 77%

IMDb: 4.8/10

Description: A family moves to Colombia to take over the operation of a manufacturing plant, soon they learn their new home is haunted.

Trivia: Starring Julia Stiles (10 Things I Hate About You, Dexter) and Scott Speedman (The Strangers, You) 

The Squad (2011)

Audience Score: 53%

Google Score: 82%

IMDb: 5.3/10

Description: After a secret military base ceases all communications, an anti-guerrilla commando unit is sent to the mountainous location to discover what exactly happened. The squad expects to discover that the base was attacked and taken over by guerrilla units, but instead find only a lone woman wrapped in chains.

Trivia: In one scene where the actors are shooting guns, one actor accidentally picked up a real gun instead of the prop and fired a real shot (no one was hurt).

Cord (2015) - On a post-apocalyptic world of never-ending winter, a sparse cast of outsiders live underground. Due to their unsanitary conditions, sexual contact has become dangerous. Masturbation has become the paradigm of sexual experience and an array of low-tech devices with this purpose has come into existence. In this bleak reality, a dealer of such machines a sex addict make a deal: she will allow him to experiment new devices on her body in exchange of pleasure. Soon however, their relationship goes out of control.

The Hidden Face (2011)

Rotten Tomatoes: 80%

Audience Score: 72%

Google Score: 86%

IMDb: 7.4/10

Description: Shattered by the unexpected news of their irreversible break-up, an aspiring orchestra conductor is puzzled by his girlfriend's mysterious and seemingly inexplicable case of disappearance. But, can he look beyond the facts?

Trivia: There is a Turkish version of this movie and a 2013 remake out of India called “Murder 3”

At The End Of The Spectra (2006)

Google Score: 83%

IMDb: 6/10

Description: A young woman who has become agoraphobic due to a traumatic incident is holed up in her apartment, she begins to suffer from hallucinations, paranoia and an obsessive neighbour.

Trivia: There is a Mexican remake called “Devil Inside” and there were once rumors of an American remake starring Nicole Kidman but that’s the end of that.

Uruguay

The Silent House (La Casa Muda) (2010) 

Rotten Tomatoes: 68%

Audience Score: 37%

Google Score: 63%

IMDb: 5.4/10

Critics Consensus: Shot in a single take, The Silent House may be a gimmick movie, but it's one that's enough to sustain dread and tension throughout. 

Description: A girl becomes trapped inside a house and becomes unable to contact the outside world as supernatural forces haunt it.

Trivia: The plot is supposedly based on a true story that occurred in the 1940s in a small village in Uruguay. With a budget of just six thousand dollars, it was filmed using a handheld high-definition digital single-lens reflex camera (the Canon EOS 5D Mark II), 2 handheld lamps, and a couple of lightbulbs over a time period of just four days. The claim that the movie was filmed in one continuous take are suspect. The Mark II camera can only record up to 15 minutes of continuous video at a time. Uruguay's official submission to the Best Foreign Language Film category of the 84th Academy Awards 2012.

Monos (2019)

Rotten Tomatoes: 92% 

Audience Score: 85%

Google Score: 69%

IMDb: 6.9/10

Critics Consensus: As visually splendid as it is thought-provoking, Monos takes an unsettling look at human nature whose grim insights leave a lingering impact.

Description: On a faraway mountaintop, eight teenaged guerillas with guns watch over a hostage and a conscripted milk cow. Playing games and initiating cult-like rituals, the children run amok in the jungle and disaster strikes when the hostage tries to escape.

Trivia: Moises Arias (Hannah Montana) and Julianne Nicholson (I, Tonya, August: Osage County) most of the other actors had never acted before. The movie draws inspiration from Lord of the Flies. Included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider. It was selected as the official Colombian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards.

Peru

The Entity (2015)

Google Score: 66%

IMDb: 4.3/10

Description: A group of students decide to study 'reaction videos' and are led toward an old film, hidden in the archive room of a cemetery. It appears that everybody who has witnessed the film has met an untimely demise under suspicious circumstances. When the students view the footage, they discover first hand, what the demonic spirit is capable of. Fulfilling the ancient curse of a woman cruelly killed during the Spanish Inquisition.

Trivia: The Entity has been billed as Peru's first 3D horror film and to have been loosely based on true stories. Review websites Flickering Myth and Nerdly commented that the movie suffered from being too overly familiar to pre-existing works (Blair Witch, The Ring).

The Vanished Elephant (2014)

Rotten Tomatoes: 89%

Audience Score: 72%

Google Score: 88%

IMDb: 6.5/10

Description: Crime novelist Edo remains obsessed with what happened to his fiancee Celia after she disappeared during an earthquake. When an enigmatic woman brings him photos that may help him solve the mystery, he senses he is being drawn into a dangerous game.

The Secret Of Evil (2014)

Google Score: 65%

IMDb: 5/10

Description: Video footage depicting a supernatural encounter is all that remains of a filmmaker and his crew who disappeared while exploring a haunted house.

When Two Worlds Collide (2016)

Rotten Tomatoes: 91%

Audience Score: 69%

Google Score: 93%

IMDb: 7.6/10

Description: An indigenous environmental activist takes on the large businesses that are destroying the Amazon.

El Vientre (2014)

Google Score: 81%

IMDb: 6.1/10

Description: Silvia, a beautiful 45-year-old widow, is obsessed with having a child and finds in attractive but naive Mercedes the perfect candidate to bear it. Silvia kindly offers her a job and a room in her house, and then manipulates her into seducing a young man named Jaime. They soon fall in love and Mercedes becomes pregnant. Silvia will do anything in her power to keep the baby, even if it means leaving a couple of bodies behind.

Argentina

Terrified (2018)

Rotten Tomatoes: 77% 

Audience Score: 65%

Google Score: 82%

IMDb: 6.5/10

Description: Paranormal researchers investigate strange events in a neighbourhood in Buenos Aires.

Luciferina (2018)

Rotten Tomatoes: 83%

Audience Score: 25%

Google Score: 69%

IMDb: 4.6/10

Description: Natalia is a nineteen-year-old novice who reluctantly returns home to say goodbye to her dying father. However, when she meets up with her sister and her friends, she decides instead to travel the jungle in search of mystical plant.

Francesca (2015)

Audience Score: 67%

Google Score: 73%

IMDb: 5.3/10

Description: Two detectives track a serial killer who has been targeting the impure. To catch him, they'll have to solve the case of a girl who went missing 15 years ago.

Cold Sweat (2010)

Rotten Tomatoes: 75%

Audience Score: 

Google Score: 58%

IMDb: 4.8/10

Description: The movie follows Román, who stumbles upon his ex-girlfriend Jackie, who has somehow gotten caught up in a torture cult run by two sadistic, old men. The aging political radicals have managed to put Jackie’s life in incredible danger. But when Román and his friend try to help Jackie out of her confines, the elderly psychos prove to be more than meets the eye.

Penumbra (2011)

Rotten Tomatoes: 50%

Audience Score: 26%

Google Score: 75%

IMDb: 5.5/10

Description: A woman desperate to find a tenant for her decrepit apartment apparently finds the perfect candidate, unaware of a sinister plot involving an imminent eclipse.

Venezuela

The House At The End of Time (2013)

Rotten Tomatoes: None 

Audience Score: 72%

Google Score: 91%

IMDb: 6.8/10

Description: Dulce encounters apparitions in her house and unleashes a terrible prophecy. Thirty years later, Dulce, now an old woman, returns to unravel the mystery that has terrorized her for years.

Trivia: Winner of the Audience Award at Gävle Horror Film Festival 2016 (Sweden). Not only is it Venezuela’s highest-grossing horror film, it’s also the most distributed film from the country. By August 2016 it was announced that the American studio New Line Cinema acquired the rights of the film to make a remake for the American public. Hidalgo is still at the wheel so its chances of success are high.

Ecuador

Cronicas (2004)

Rotten Tomatoes: 71%

Audience Score: 77%

Google Score: 80%

IMDb: 6.9/10

Critics Consensus: An unsettling and absorbing cautionary tale with John Leguizamo playing an unscrupulous TV reporter who uses the medium to further his own goals.

Description: Reporter Manolo Bonilla (John Leguizamo) goes to a jail in Ecuador to interview Vinicio Cepeda (Damián Alcázar, Narcos, Narnia), a hit-and-run driver whose crime incited a riot. After Cepeda tells him he knows where a murderer called the Monster of Babahoyo buried a young female victim, Bonilla posts bail in the hopes that he'll learn more about the crime. Bonilla finds the girl's body, but, as he nears the scoop of his career, it looks as if Cepeda might be withholding some key details.

Trivia: Inspired by a true story? As well as being both a Cannes and TIFF favourite, Cronicas is the official submission of Ecuador for the 'Best Foreign Language Film' category of the 77th Academy Awards in 2005, it was produced by Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) This is John Leguizamo’s first film in Spanish. He said he felt awkward talking in Spanish while acting, like he didn't know the language. 

English Language Horror

The Silent House (2011) This is in English

Rotten Tomatoes: 43%

Audience Score: 

Google Score: 72%

IMDb: 5.3/10

Critics Consensus: Silent House is more technically proficient and ambitious than most fright-fests, but it also suffers from a disappointing payoff.

Description: Sarah is working with her father and uncle to renovate an old family home to prepare it for sale. Long vacant, the house has no utilities, forcing the trio to rely on battery-operated lanterns to light their way. Sarah becomes separated from her relatives and soon finds she is trapped inside the cabin, with no contact with the outside world. Panic turns to real terror as the young woman experiences events that become increasingly ominous.

Trivia: Elizabeth Olsen (Wandavision) The plot is based on a true story that occurred in the 1940s in a small village in Uruguay. Contrary to the marketing's claim that the film was shot in one uninterrupted take, the entire movie was actually shot to mimic one continuous real-time take, with no cuts from start to finish, as a result the time span of the film's plot is exactly 86 minutes. It was shot in roughly 10 minute segments then carefully edited to hide the cuts.

Night of the Living Dead (1968) - This along with the rest of the Dead series are the work of George A. Romero, whose father is from Cuba.

Ash vs. Evil Dead - I love the Evil Dead movies and although this series wasn’t perfect (I’m sure die-hard fans will say it's far from it), I still think it kept to the heart of the main story. Bruce Campbell is obviously perfect and the addition of Lucy Lawless is amazing, it’s really Puerto Rican actor Ray Santiago that steals the show.

The Others (2001) - Directed by globally renowned Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar, The Others starring Nicole Kidman is a Spanish gothic horror movie that combines elements of the supernatural, psychological, and mystical. It focuses on the strange events that occur at the estate of a woman and her young children, plagued by spirits in the aftermath of WWII. It has the distinction of being the only English-language Spanish movie to be given the Best Film Award at Spain's national film awards, the Goyas. In total, the movie has seven Goya Awards, including for Best Director. Although it might not read as particularly “Spanish,” it was produced, written and filmed all in Spain, shooting in Cantabria, Northern Spain and Madrid.

[marauders70s]

Today my boss asked if I was into Harry Potter

Me, quietly reflecting that I (a) run a harry potter blog on a hellsite he probably hasn’t heard of, (b) was born in the generation where I was lining up at midnight for book and film released, (c) have multiple items of clothing (pajamas, sweaters, earrings, etc) that are hp themed, (d) had a 17th birthday party that was a horcrux hunt the same year my sister had her triwizard 14th birthday and my other sister had her acceptance to hogwarts 11th birthday, (e) had to remove my aspie ravenclaw sister from a free library trivia event because she was angry that she had the right answer to a trivia question that was marked wrong because the actual answer was wrong (number of Dudley’s bday presents) and she was furious we didn’t win on principle while the librarian stuttered she got it from a book, (f) have written multiple drabbles and fanfics about and maybe also five full length novels of 100k words about the Marauders, (g) own multiple cosplays about harry potter including a set of quidditch robes I handmade, (h) have been to LeakyCon, the all Harry Potter comic-con, (i) have been a presenter on multiple panels at LeakyCon, (j) have won second place with my family at the costume contest at LeakyCon (judged randomly by Pansy Parkinson? Like the actress? And Pavarti?) (k) have written ultra hard challenge trivia questions I lost some time back but still get random asks once in a while for the answer key despite having posted multiple times I’ve lost the entire document, (l) routinely break down my friends’ witchistory (e.g. what your life would have been like as a wix), (m) was on HexRPG for a while, the HP role playing site (yes, I’m serious), (n) have created graphics, flowcharts, and in depth essays about, and (o) have spent basically hours that could easily add up to months/years thinking and talking about harry potter with my family and friends ...

“Look, boss, for the sake of both our sanity, I’m going to say I’m pretty into Harry Potter, but for my dignity, I’ll say it’s a normal amount.”

“Oh my gosh! This is great! If you haven’t guessed, I’m a Ravenclaw! Bet you can’t answer this trivia question: what is Dumbledore’s full name?”

:) :) :) You test me....you fool

[amusement-spark]

Busch Gardens Part 4: Stanleyville and Jungala

For this review I will be combining a couple locations. In all I will be talking about Tigris, Sheikra, Stanley Falls Flume, and the Zambia Smokehouse. I am visiting this weekend where I will spend more time with the animals, performances, and the train, so I will have a separate post dedicated to those things.

First up, Tigris. Full disclosure, I love tigers. They are my favorite big cat and easily one of my favorite animals, so this might cloud my judgement of the ride slightly.

The queue before the ride is pretty simple with some atmospheric music, jungle plants, and fun facts about the ride itself and tigers in general. Even though I know this is impossible, I always get the feeling that there could be tigers lurking in the forest around the line. I’m sure some younger park goers have a similar experience. Up at the front of the line, the tv screens, in addition to showing normal safety information, have footage of tigers swimming and playing along with multiple choice trivia questions. Plenty to keep you interested for about 25 minutes. Luckily I have never seen the line for Tigris longer than 20.

Tigris is a roller coaster with two main special features. For one, the ride starts with a launch forward followed by an ascent backwards before the main portion of the ride begins. The second unique feature is what they call the "heartline roll," where the track spirals centered around your heart. Combined with the theming, I enjoy the feeling the coaster gives of being a tiger on the prowl, able to both stalk slowly and pounce at a moments notice. Tigris is contained basically on a single vertical plane, so rather than being jerked side to side, the thrills of Tigris come the changes in speed and the couple loops. Busch Gardens calls Tigris the “Tallest Launch Coaster,” at 150 feet, and I make sure to ride it every time I visit.

I love Tigris. It is something unique, always with a decently short wait, and a fun theme that, in my opinion, ties into the design of the ride itself, much like another one of my favorites, Cheetah Hunt. Tigris gets a 4.7/5.

The next ride in Stanleyville is the mighty SheiKra, the largest coaster at Busch Gardens Tampa. The queue takes riders through some stone ruins and up quite a few stairs on your way to the ride. Before entering the queue, you pass by where SheiKra drags through a pool of water, drenching all passers-by. A great way to help build anticipation for the ride. You really feel SheiKra’s power as it screams past. 

The biggest draw to SheiKra is the initial 200 foot drop at a steep angle, past 90 degrees. SheiKra, full of twists, and turns, and tunnels and splashes, is... fine. It’s fine. 

Yes that first big drop is incredible, but SheiKra’s massive size might actually work against it in the exhilaration department. Each of the three rows carries 8 riders, which makes the cars the widest in the park. When a ride like Kumba dives into a tunnel, it feel pretty tight, like a bat flying through a narrow opening. The width of SheiKra requires the tunnels and turns to be more open than the tight turns and gaps of the other rides at BG. 

SheiKra’s height and might make it very enticing, which also can make the line VERY long. Since every run can accommodate 24 riders, the wait is usually better than Cheetah Hunt or Cobra’s Curse. I would just advise riders to temper expectations just a little. Like I said, it’s fine. Just not my personal favorite. SheiKra gets 3.5/5.

Just a few steps from SheiKra is Busch Garden’s log flume, Stanley Falls. Quick story: when I visited last weekend and decided to ride the flume for the first time, it promptly broke down. We continued to move up in line as other patrons gave up on the ride. Once the ride got working again, about half an hour later, we witnessed an argument between a patron and one of the ride operators. There was a lot going on that day. It was hot, and a lot of people wanted to cool off by getting wet. So I will say the experience was memorable. The flume itself was... not.

If you’ve ever ridden a log flume ride at a smaller local amusement park, you’ve likely ridden one just like Stanley Falls. I wasn’t expecting the Mona Lisa of water rides, but I still feel like it was missing a little something extra. As far as log flumes go, Stanley Falls is decent. In the category of water rides at Busch Gardens Tampa, Stanley gets 4/5. But as a theme park attraction in general, Stanley falls a little flat: 2.5/5

Stanleyville is home to one of the major eateries at Busch Gardens, the Zambia Smokehouse. When I visited recently, I believe this was actually the longest line I waited in, and you know what? Actually worth it. I was pleasantly surprised. 

On the menu for main courses, the Smokehouse offers pork ribs, smoked chicken, brisket, and a pulled pork sandwich. We shared the ribs and the pulled pork and I thoroughly enjoyed them both. The sides are to be expected: fries, coleslaw, green beans, carrots. All the standard cookout fixings. I cannot stress enough how good the meat was. Easily the best theme park food I’ve had in years, and even some of the better ribs I’ve had recently. Around the Smokehouse there are signs talking about their cooking process and how they start firing the wood “before sunrise” and I appreciate having a food option that goes that extra step.

My only issue with the Smokehouse is that when you call an eatery “Zambia,” you might expect more than just american southern faire, but once you know what they’re serving, enjoy some old fashioned messy barbeque. They even give you wet wipes. Zambia Smokehouse gets a 5/5.

This whole section of the park is worth spending some time in. Come for the thrills, stay for the pork.

Splashes: 3.5/5

Wet wipes: 5/5

Launches: 4/5

Stanleyville (plus Tigris) gets a 4.2/5

[homeformyheart]

choices advent calendar - update!

*due to an unfortunate incident (which i can only blame myself) with my main blog, i don’t have access to my peaceinmidstofchaos blog anymore. so i’ll be continuing this event from this blog, while hoping that tumblr will fix access! i will start the reblogs from here starting december 21. fyi - @choicesmonthlychallenge​; @starrystarrytrouble​; @angela8754​; @aylaramseycarrera​; @lovealexhunt​; @iemcpbchoices​

i had this random idea to do something centered around an advent calendar - for those of you who may not have encountered this, typically it’s a calendar-style chocolate/candy/trivia-type reveal thing you can buy and gift someone. it lets them reveal something for each day of december that is a treat!

with the spirit of that in mind, i offer you - the choices advent calendar! for each day in december, i will go tag diving according to the choices books on the calendar below and reblog 1 fic/writing-related and 1 art/edit/aesthetic-related fan content that has fewer than 20 notes or 5 reblogs, whichever is less. all reblogged content will be fluff / sfw / feel-good / holiday, etc. to help keep our spirits up as we ride out the rest of 2020.

feel free to block the tags below if you don’t want these reblogs to clutter your dash - but i promise to keep it to 2 per day! additional details under the cut!

also, here’s the best part (i hope) - you don’t have to do anything! just follow the tags or my blog and enjoy walking down memory lane (or gaining content on your feed you’ve never seen before) every day in december!

how did you decide which books to feature since there are over 31 books?

i went through the booklist and grouped ones that made sense to put together (e.g., the freshman/the sophomore, and it lives anthology)

i removed holiday specials (since these are usually one-offs for specific series)

i removed 2020 releases and currently running series (e.g., open heart, etc.) since those would have the most recent (and to a certain extent, the most) content generated already and the goal is to promote content that didn’t get as much attention

i removed VIP books since not everyone has VIP or would have read the books and this would avoid spoilers (odds are there isn’t a ton of content either)

and i removed any series that i was aware of having a dedicated event in december (i.e., the elementalists)

what is the full list of books that didn’t make the cut?

Holiday specials

Home for the Holidays

The Elementalists (due to TE AW occurring in December)

VIP Books

2020 releases & currently running series – TRR/TRH, MTFL, Queen B, TNA, Rising Tides, Distant Shores, BOLAS, Witness, Baby Bump 1 & 2, Open Heart 1 & 2

how will you decide what content to reblog?

i’m going to go hunting through the tags, sorting by popularity and recency and paying attention to how many reblogs make up the notes. unfortunately, even if you have a ton of “likes,” reblogs are given more credit on tumblr in terms of the popularity of a post so i’m going to do my best to balance those with a ton of notes but few reblogs vs. those that have minimal notes to begin with but it’ll depend on what i find.

will you only limit it to 2 if there is a wide-range of non-written content (e.g, social media edits, fanart, edits, moodboards, etc.)?

i want to be fair to all the books so i’m going to do my best to limit it to 2. however, for books that seem to have less popular content or have multiple books in the series (e.g., HSS / HSSCA has a combined 6 books), i may make an exception.

are you going to be posting or reblogging content not related to the advent calendar?

i will do my best to keep that at a minimum since i want to give the content i find a chance to get noticed but i do have some things already planned and scheduled (e.g., potluck reveal and TE appreciation week).

what if i want to keep following your blog but don’t want all these reblogs clogging my feed?

first of all - i am humbled and appreciate you following my blog / wanting to keep following me, i truly am! 🥰 if you don’t want to see these reblogs, feel free to block the tags #choices advent calendar, #jens advent calendar, or #december X (whatever date it is).

what if i want to make sure i don’t miss any content?

feel free to follow my blog or the tags above! 😊 and thank you! you can also use these tags to search for these posts on my blog.

this is a great idea - can i also go tag diving and reblog old content that may not have gotten a lot of attention?

yes, of course! the more, the merrier! just let me know so i can support you and use the #choices advent calendar tag (feel free to create your own version of the other two) so we have at least one tag with all the reblogs 🤗

what if i have other questions?

use the askbox, comments on this post, or DM me! 🤗

[floralkittygambler]

Reposting for reasons

Response to Honest’s post here: Doing this to spread this awareness more as I know theres a bit of a rift in the critical community - plus I really fucking go on. Im PISSED and I do apologise however it NEEDS urgent addressing. I know people will hate me for it but Im used to hate and honestly? Hating rather than helping to solve the issue only furthers my fucking point here. So yeah this is so more people are aware (no offense to any of those involved in said rift either, but this is an important message. Thank you for understanding and if I can do anything to make all sides comfortable, then please message me and I’ll do my upmost.) “ More awareness of this is needed. Even if it’s your favourite, you can’t justify their shit but rally against another’s shit. Have people tell you you’re experiences arent real or invalid because, like Husk, people have - in real life - shipped you with someone you are far from comfortable with but you still treat them like a person. Because you have basic respect. And people force you to accept harassment, touching, stalking, advances for THEIR satisfaction. People use you for their fantasies. But you’re just a ‘tsundere’ for it. Or you have addiction issues but people think being with another addict will ‘save’ you because you’re apparently too incompetent to save yourself. Love isnt some magic fuckin cure so stop romanticising it as a fuckin saviour. It’s gross and fuckin creepy. Get stalked and have someone NEVER accept your no just because you show youre still decent enough to not treat them shitty or any different from anyone else. Try having someone way older or way younger (both in morally fucked up ways) advance on you and people encourage that. People you’re supposed to feel safe around.

People touch you when you pull away or show discomfort. Follow you home. Have pictures of you and wont accept you dont like them like that and it’s not ‘playing hard to get’ or ‘the thrill of the chase’. Fuck. OFF. In fact, Im not only disappointed in the fandom. Im disappointed in the entire team who some should know better from their OWN personal experiences - or at least the bare minimal of being a fucking adult. Im disappointed in especially females (sorry idk whether girl or woman is more appropriate here-) who statistically are more likely to have experienced something similar at some point in their lives think this is a cute gay moment. No. Angel is made out as a fucking predator - Im not saying he is, Im saying that his persistence is very fucking unwelcome like one. People like Husk dont need that fucking invasiveness. They/We need patience and someone on our level. Angel’s I know are the fuckin polar opposite - and some of them I know are very sexually harassing, including unwanted touching. It’s a shitty way to present gay people. Gays are fuckin people. Some are cunts and some arent. It’s a HUMAN thing. But considering the shit theyve been subjected to, presenting a gay as a victim only to also show them as a perpetrator is insulting! And for those Ive seen argue this about how people like AD wouldnt know how to express their love normally and whatnot? His pig. His best friend. He’s in his fucking 30s. There are literal real life criminals who get molested as kids and then go on to molest kids. Not all who grow up like that turn into nonces. Stop just fucking STOP justifying and romanticising this bullshit! I used to see the good in AD but now he makes me fucking sick. Especially with my verrrrrry fucking real traumas and connections. But fuck me, eh? Because this fictional guy matters so much more. Fuck real victims. And whilst we’re at it, fuck AD too when it suits your fetishes! Sarcasm aside, the fans and the team need to straighten up their abhorrent behaviour. Stolas. Fucking clearly having an affair, knowingly fucking up his daughter’s mental health and bribing a guy into sex who only wants the book and nothing more. He even has a fucking warning button over Stolas- Guys, how do you think any of this is cute? Even the team gross me out- I genuinely see potential and talent and it’s all gone to shit to satisfy horny teens, horny adults, and literally everyone who doesnt for the life of them understand being an adult is more than sex, drugs, violence and swears! I REALLY want to keep enjoying HB/HH but it’s getting harder and harder with such ignorant and bordering lazy creators (note: lazy as in wont do the fucking research or actually listen to real criticism and victims), such despicable fans (yeah, some HDers fuckin mocked that they triggered my ED, yet they had the fucking NERVE to support Angel’s potential ED AND laugh and blame me for me getting treated so badly for actually having the balls to call Angel and the teams hypocrisy. I got told to kill myself, that my problems arent real - oh but Angels apparently is! Which... They *are* but AD isnt real so technically only onlookers will suffer and not a drawing  - and they just excused their toxic behaviours. These people are like “aww poor angie babey!” yet fuckin INSULT sex workers. All this red in Hazbin yet it feels everyone and they mama colour blind. The issues are getting worse and fans are outright becoming EVIL, VILE, Vindictive little bullies - from kids to adults. You SHOULD be ashamed of yourself if you conduct yourself in such a manner. And you need to readjust your attitudes and behaviours because the only fuckers getting hurt are actual fucking victims. Ever been violated and been gaslit so much you STILL fucking question it’s reality? So you drown that shit out yet somehow it’s effects still hit you? Fetishise it. Make it your uwu gae couple goals, you’re no better than people believing Harley and the Joker werent toxic af. If this shit happened to you, most of you would actually SEE where we’re all coming from. Also, stop making gay a fetish - you’re like those creepy old men in the alley heckling lesbians to make out so they can wank off. Gays, no ALL the LGBT+ are fucking people too. So dont give me that bullshit then start turning everything just gay or just straight to mentally wank off to. It’s degrading and dehumanising. And yes, fiction does effect reality. You crush on a fictional character? Mourn one? Support one? Hell, fuckin jerk off to one - that’s affecting reality. Remember how in fiction all blacks were treated as villians? Look how theyre treated IRL. JAWS, great classic unfortunately their was a spike in shark killings over a fucking movie - the shark in the movie wasnt even real for the most part because they dont behave like that! (Also the animatronic was so shit they genuinely had so many issues - I think they even took to naming each one! Some fun trivia there!). Tiger sharks are more nasty than great whites as tiger sharks will hunt and eat a human. Great whites prefer seals and dislike human flesh, they just mistake us for seals. Hell, theres the toothless basking shark - theyre often SWAM WITH by divers for being so friendly. Yet Jaws made people think all sharks are bloodlusting over humans. Slenderman was created for a fucking contest and that influenced a stabbing (NOT Victor’s fault). Watch a horror movie that isnt based on a real life event and tell me that at least ONE has left you peaking over your shoulder. Stella may be a bitch - we dont know for certain - but try getting cheated on. Y’know what? Try growing up in such a broken home like Octavia. Yeah reaaaaaal fucking cute now, huh? Funny how as well y’all petition for male victims to be taken seriously then laugh when fictional males experience this abuse, further adding to stigma. You can be hit on by the hottest mf on the planet but if you arent interested, that should be respected! Also we’ve all been inspired by at least one fictional character so yeah. Yknow, since I was little Ive been fighting for sex worker and homeless rights. But HH/HB treatment of both leave a bitter taste in my mouth. I’ll still fully support sex workers and the homeless, but that’s the fucking effect this show is having. Bearing in mind I wont ever share everything Ive been through - and I shouldnt fucking have to in order to be believed and validated (obvs proof is required in a legal case but that’s a whole other topic). Why should I share MY fucking pain especially when you fuckers have belittled and triggered it more so? We have our rights to our secrets but fuck ME you lot NEED to start acting appropriately and like decent fucking humans. ‘iTs HeLl’ yeah and welcome to Earth- the team and yourselves live HERE. You obide by THESE rules. And as someone with beliefs (and a LOT of ancient fucking texts and studies on this shit) their Hell isnt even a proper Hell! It’s closer to purgatory and even then it’s not. Regardless, it’s a poorly built world with the lore consistently changing per episode and tweet, with many plot holes, and is apparently easy to get into - even via accidentally watching porn according to a stream. If youre gonna parade youre a fucking expert and research into demonology and use real believed figures, at least get THAT right. In fact, Lucifer and Lilith (and Stolas tbf) are ESPECIALLY risky as theyre a lot more complex than most easy access texts will tell you. Likewise, Stolas’s first introduction and main focus is sex. He’s one of the FEW Goetia demons that dont have some involvement in relationship issues at ALL. He’s known for astrology, crystals and herbs but hes also known to aid MONEY troubles (it’s lesser known but it’s true! HB Stolas is an insult to the Prince). Turning Vodou into something evil is vile considering it’s powerful and liberated slaves. Pentagrams are nothing to do with Satan, they’re magic based sigils. Upside down cross is the symbol of a SAINT. It’s just some edgy attempt to trick people into believing they know more than they do. Also you should NEVER dabble and doodle sigils without knowing the meanings or respecting what they behold. Vox and Val, real fuckin cute way to make them look like a stupid fucking highschool drama instead of a fucking SEX TRAFFICKER (note: real pimps often target YOUNG folks too - aka minors - and groom them into sex work. Theres different types of pimp. Viv has shown barely any understanding of ‘the game’ and its a fucking insult to injury. Yes we KNOW what a fucking pimp and prozzie are! We dont need to see it. We need REAL AWARENESS.) and a fucking scheming bastard of a CEO salesman botman. And yet even THEN lets go a step further and make some yandere wuv on boyfweind aboose! Fuck off- Now I love a good anime but these tropes are getting fucking dangerous now. And unrealistic to real love and relationships. Kids nowadays know fuck all on a healthy relationship (neither did the fuckin 50s tbf) and Im seeing more romaticism and glorifying abusive situations. Like the show ‘You’. Ok, there’s a fuckin bloke online who slaughtered innocents and kidnapped yet people commented how cute he is on his IG and that they want to be kidnapped or killed by him next. Dont believe me? Look up Peter Manfredonia Connecticut and the comments people left him and then tell me why shit like whats being presented in HH/HB ISNT fucking concerning - because it is. For a series about redemption, it’s brilliant at the opposite (Quote from the creator herself, Viv has posted that it’s influencing her bad choices. Even as a joke, proof’s in the pudding). And the overall focus on sex in the way Viv does is so immature and really creepy, and this is from an ADULTS perspective. From one adult to another, Im concerned as to why any of them think this is a normal fixation. Then again they’ve hired quite a large amount of dodgy folks and even a child. Most of this shit gets avoided with a basic background check like most companies run. I DO like Hazbin. Or the premise. I love some of the cast and spite the others. In Helluva, I just like a tiny portion of the cast. And I critique it so harshly because Viv DOES need a wakeup slap, grounding to reality, people who arent going to big her up or kiss her arse for once and shape her up to be the best she can be. The actually reach and even surpass her potential. And to reach where you need to be, there’s a lot of harsh lessons youll face. That’s life. Shes chosen one of the most HEARTLESS industries and if she blocks out critique as ‘hate’ then she’s not strong enough and wont last. It’s just another unprepped YanDev again (except I dont believe Viv to be a nonce. Even with her dodgy past and dodgy present, I think her perspective on sex and relationship with sexuality is FAR from healthy BUT I dont believe she’s a pedophile. Ive bled my fair share and so far, I just think her sex perspective isnt healthy or mature for her age. But there’s little to nothing to suggest actual noncery - dont worry about accusations there. But YanDev is totally a dirty predator. Just clearing that up). Viv NEEDS some harshness and stability if she wants to do things right. And it’ll make her fucking cry but if she loves these projects as much as she claims to, then you’ll sacrifice blood, sweat and tears for that shit. Even the strongest points are mediocre at best when properly observed. She CAN do more, but she’ll have to face the harsh music. Viv wont see this, but if she does, I dont care if it upsets her. Why? Because this is that much of an issue - something she’s cultivated - that she needs to take action and not ignore it or be secretive about it. She needs to grow up and get tougher skin. Im not saying this to cause her pain. In fact, I wouldnt waste my fucking limited time if I DIDNT care. Trust me, I have duties to be met at a certain quota every single day. I say this shit only because I give a shit and care. If we met, she’d fucking hate me. But people like me are good for shaping people up to their potential. And we arent always this ‘tough love’ either. But when someone needs that level of harshness to help themselves, we’re not afraid to lose people or cause upset if the results end up being the best for them. If she ever saw this, she needs to re fucking evaluate her message, her story, and those she’s choosing to welcome into her circle. And all Im seeing is one rookie mistake after the other. Her paid patreon discord. Just like the messages Honest has posted on her side of being harassed (not in Vivs fyi), Ive experienced shit and bullying and even stay silent on their for being attacked for a group I fuckin paid to be in and yet I feel isolated. It’s all arsekissing and ‘thank you viv’ (thats an actual channel-) and it feels like a place of borderline worship and people trying to appease her 24/7 whilst kicking others with different opinions down. There’s so many I love but I aint kissin yer fuckin arse. Ask the closest friend I have - we’re fucking raw and wont just side with each other just because. We’ll call each other out if we think they’ve fucked up and then help each other build themselves up better. Because real fuckin people who actually care wont just want to be adored by you. They’ll care enough to point out your bullshit and help you, even if they upset you at the time. They’re real and upfront with you. People like us arent always the easiest to be close to either because we arent afraid of upsetting someone if it’s in their best interest and to help them. Likewise, we dont go out looking for fights either. Most times, we’re fuckin soft bastards- All this shit listed is the fuckin surface level of the real life hell of this fandom. And unsurprisingly, those who experience little to no toxicity have always been higher on that popularity ‘food chain’ - enough admirers and shared opinions that people wanna arse kiss regardless of their OWN feelings as well as neutral perspectives. I’d say you’re the lucky fans, but you’re not. You’re sheltered, and that isnt always the best way to be sadly. As for the fans. If Ive upset you. Well... I dont care. Because many of you have actively sought me out and weaponised my traumas against me. You never cared about my feelings then. Why should I care about yours? Im not doing this out of malice. Im fed up of humans behaving so pathetically yet claiming to be high and mighty. Most of you have been arseholes to those in and out of the community. The victims and non-victims alike. Hardly any of you considered once my real suffering. You put a drawing over a life. Many lives. You had the audacity to tell me Im full of shit. Some even using my real traumas to make a mockery of me and those Im around with a very similar history. Some with traumatic histories that differ from my own. You hardly ever considered the real lives of those effected. So no, Im not sorry for having the fucking balls to this day to still stand up for our rights and give us a voice that’s long been stolen. Im not sorry for being a fucking victim. Im not sorry for saying what desperately NEEDS voicing. And Im not sorry for not conforming to you or any fandom just to belong. We deserve better than to constantly be your fuckin arse monkeys (well... the trope is butt monkey but yknow-) and to be mistreated, misrepresented and harmed by you. You’re no different to the school bullies who give speeches on anti-bullying day. And I hope every single one of you starts looking into yourselves and improving. PS: Depending on the texts you read, Lucifer is said to have been redeemed or to be redeemed. Fun fact to haunt yalls with~ “

[caranfindel]

Fic: Every hand’s a winner and every hand’s a loser

A fix-it fic for 15.10, “The Heroes’ Journey,” because never have I seen an ep more in need of a fix-it.

---

They end up borrowing a 4X4 Jeep Cherokee from Donna. The Impala wasn't made for snowy roads, let alone frozen tundra, they don't have enough credit to rent a car (fucking Chuck), and Sam refuses to take a stolen car through an international checkpoint. Which is ridiculous. It's Canada, not the Soviet Union; no one's even going to look. But Dean's not gonna argue. Sam's kind of messed up right now. Has been, since he shot God, since he spent a day and a half under Chuck's loving ministrations, since Eileen left. Since Garth pronounced them no longer God's heroes. Obsessively researching Alaska, spewing random facts about Utqiagvik and tundra, to distract himself from the shitstorm they stumbled into.

(Barrow is now known as Utqiagvik. Thanks, Sam.)

The thing is. The thing is that "between Barrow and Kotzebue" sounded like they'd be driving down a road from one small village to another, looking for you'll know it when you see it. But on further review, there's about a hundred million acres of frozen tundra between Barrow and Kotzebue. And no roads. Even Mapquest cheerfully suggests you can't get there from here. And Dean's supposed to be the man with the plan, but he can't wrap his head around a hunt whose lore is limited to you'll know it when you see it. He's having problems with get to Alaska and start exploring a hundred million acres of frozen tundra. Maybe that's why Sam is furiously researching Alaska itself. Because he's got to research something.

(And no, Dean is not interested in yet another verse of Sam explaining that the entire state of Alaska is not frozen tundra, and much of the area they're looking at is actually transitional boreal forest, thank you very much.)

Anyway. Scraping up some cash sounds like a good first step. So that's why Dean's lurking in the shadows a block away from a pool hall in Bozeman, Montana, counting his meager winnings. Of course he didn't count it in the pool hall, or even in the parking lot. He's not stupid. You never count your money when you're sitting at the table. Words of wisdom are words of wisdom, even when they come from Kenny Rogers.

Hustling pool was easier when he was younger. A guy in his 20s saunters in, cocksure, too pretty for his own good? (And that's not ego talking, he's heard it often enough, seen it in the eyes of potential marks who murmured that they were sure we'd be able to come to an agreement when it looked like he might not have enough cash to cover a bet, and damn he loved taking their money.) Yeah, everybody wants to take that guy down, and Dean always gave an Oscar-worthy performance in that role. But when you're old enough to look like you might know what you're doing, and maybe looking so down on your luck that no one wants to win the little bit of cash you've got in your raggedy pocket… it's just harder, is all. Especially without his wingman, since Sam declared himself unfit for the job and went off to plunder a couple of local stores for supplies instead.

Dean did okay, though. Even after putting aside half for his stake the next night, he's got enough for a couple of tanks of gas and a night in a hotel. Maybe four or five tanks, if Sam agrees to sleep in the Jeep. It's cold, but they've got decent sleeping bags and a big vehicle. It wouldn't be the worst night they've spent in a car.

They've actually… spent a lot of bad nights in cars. And abandoned houses. And worse. It sparks something in the back of Dean's mind.

That train of thought is interrupted by the arrival of the borrowed Jeep. It's late — well, technically, early — but they need to put some miles between them and the scene of the crime. Maybe he can catch a catnap while Sam gets them out of town. Dean moves to get in the passenger seat, but Sam hops out. Doesn't even trust himself driving right now, for fuck's sake. He even keeps a hand hovering over the Jeep, in case he needs the support if he stumbles, and it makes Dean see red.

"How'd you do," Dean asks, when Sam settles into the passenger seat.

"Not bad. Nonperishables, hot packs, but mostly medical supplies. Got some antibiotics, pain meds, bandages, stuff for stitches and splints"

"Thought you were gonna get some camping supplies?"

"Had problems at the REI." Sam pulls out his laptop and hunches over it.

"What kind of problems?"

Pause. "It's no big deal. We'll stop at a different one."

"Sam."

Sam sighs. "I couldn't get in, all right? There were security cameras and the lock, and I just…" He trails off and buries himself in his laptop, clearly miserable. Dean could suggest, again, that the mom and pop outfit they saw on their way into town would be easier to break into, but he knows Sam prefers raiding big chains. We're saving the world, Dean would say. Doesn't mean we have to be dicks about it, Sam would always retort.

(Are they even saving the world, right now? Or just their own asses?)

After a few quiet minutes, Sam speaks. "Did you know Will Rogers and Wiley Post were killed about 11 miles outside of Utqiagvik, trying to land their plane?" Because obscure Alaskan trivia is easier to think about than, well, everything else.

"No, I didn't know that," Dean responds, "because I've never even heard of Wiley Post."

"Early aviator. Charles Lindbergh type. The Utqiagvik airport was renamed after them."

"Naming an airport after two people who died in a plane crash? That's messed up, man."

"Oklahoma also has two separate airports named after the two of them. I think Will Rogers would probably appreciate the irony."

Oklahoma. The last time Dean was in Oklahoma, he was fleeing Texhoma with an old friend's blood still caked under his fingernails. He doesn't want to think about fucking Oklahoma. Instead, he slides back to that earlier thought, the one that pinged something. The fact that they spent so much of their life sleeping in really shitty places. That they weren't worried about mortgages and utility payments not because they were above all that, but because they never had the opportunity. That they haven't, in fact, been leading the charmed heroes' life, free from sweating the small stuff, that Garth described.

"Sam?" he says. "Do you feel like we've been living a charmed life?"

"No." Sam huffs a humorless little laugh and keeps pecking at his keyboard. "I mean, I didn't, for obvious reasons. But compared to now? I guess."

"Okay, but listen. I think I was right when I said we were cursed. The reason we're having problems now? It's not because Chuck was giving us something we never earned and he decided to stop. Everything we do, Sam? We fucking earned that. Blood, sweat, and tears, man. We trained and studied and practiced and earned every skill we have."

Sam looks up now, brow furrowed. "You think?"

"I do. I mean, how long did you practice lock-picking? Because I remember you asking Dad to buy you different kinds of locks to practice on. I remember listening to you clicking away in the back seat for miles. You did that, Sam. Chuck didn't give it to you."

"Okay…"

"And tripping over your own feet? Do you really think you can only walk a straight line bec ause Chuck made it possible? He didn't make us special, Sam. We made us special. And he's trying to take that away from us."

Sam gasps. "Job. He's pulling a Job on us."

"Damn straight." Dean smacks the steering wheel. Chuck and his Biblical reboots. "And we are not gonna let him do that."

"But how do we stop it?"

That's the question, isn't it? Dean drives for a couple of miles, deep in thought. "I say we go to Alaska anyway," he decides. "Even if we didn't lose our own luck, this might be a way to pick up some extra mojo."

"But remember what Garth said. There's always a catch. You know he's right."

"So? If we decide it costs too much, we just don't play. We can do that."

"Can we?" Sam chuckles. "Because, historically, we're not actually very good at that."

"We are now. Starting right now, you and I are good at anything we want to be good at it. And Chuck can screw himself."

Dean spots the sign for the scenic turnoff just in time, jerking the wheel to the right. "You all right bedding down in the car tonight?"

"Not the worst place I've slept," Sam replies, smiling. No, it's not.

The bed of the Cherokee is long enough, with the back seat folded down, but it's pretty narrow. It's fine. Dean's going appreciate being pressed up against his furnace of a little brother tonight. He wriggles into his sleeping bag, turns his back to Sam, and says "Okay, geek boy. Put me to sleep. Tell me something about Kotzebue." He drifts off to the tune of sled dogs and average January temperatures.

---

The title is, of course, from "The Gambler" by Kenny Rogers.

[apunkagamesin24-blog]

30+ Free Online Team Building Games

You’ve found our list of the best online team building games for remote teams.

Online team building is the intentional creation of relationships via online platforms. Online team building games are any games that you play online to help foster collaboration and team spirit with employees. Examples of these online games include Spreadsheet Wars, Online Office Games and Virtual Charades.

You can organize your own games for free or at low cost, and we also provide facilitated games via our online free apunkagames.

This list includes:

online games for remote teams

fun online team building games

free online team building games

virtual group games

virtual games to play with coworkers

So, check out the list!

List of Online Team Building Games

Online Team Building Bingo

Online Office Games

Murder in Ancient Egypt

War of the Wizards

Spreadsheet Battleship

Lightning Scavenger Hunts

Lexulous “Scrabble” Style Game

Guess the Refrigerator

“Can Your Hear Me Now?”

Five Clicks Away

Typing Speed Race

Chair Up!

Water Shots

Virtual Charades

Pub-style Trivia

Virtual Werewolf

We Didn’t Start the Fire

Spreadsheet Wars

A World of Risk

Sudoku Throw-down

Something in Common

Quick Draw

Truth or Dare: Remote Work

Jackbox Games

Yellow Submarine

Nintendo Game Night

Ten Strikes

The Ground is Lava

The Question Game

The Channel Closing Game

Below is a list of online team building games. From Bingo to Lightning Scavenger Hunts to The Ground is Lava, you will find games that are fun, free and easy to play with remote teams.

Online Team Building Bingo

One of the best starter online games for teams is Online Team Building Bingo. Bingo, a game played across retirement homes and summer camps everywhere, is familiar, fun, and works extremely well in the online format.

Here is an Online Team Building Bingo board you can start with:

You can “Right Click + Save As” to download the Bingo board.

You can freely distribute and use this virtual bingo board for internal use 🙂

To play Online Team Building Bingo:

Distribute the board to your team

Establish rules and a timeline to play

Track the results and award prizes

Pro tip: Amazon gift cards and bragging rights are usually sufficient prizes for successful online team building games.

Online Office Games (Most Popular)

Online Offices Games is a facilitated series of online games and challenges for remote teams. You can learn more about the various games included on our page for Online Office Games.

The challenges are specifically designed for remote teams and to help develop the essential skills for working from home. For example, each event starts with virtual icebreaker questions, then pub-style trivia and games like “Can Your Hear Me Now”, which is a game that emphasizes the precision of communication you need for working remotely.

It’s fun !!

Murder in Ancient Egypt (Collaborative)

One of our most popular online team building games is Murder in Ancient Egypt. This game uses mechanics of escape rooms, puzzles and problem solving and so encourages your team to work together. This murder mystery also has an interesting twist; the murder is actually a real mystery from ancient Egypt, and after your teams make their guess, our master storytelling will share the big reveal.

Murder in Ancient Egypt is a 90 minute, fully-facilitated event. We provide an energetic host to keep your team engaged, and a co-host that manages the technical aspects. The event is fun, challenging and perfect for groups that want to work both collaboratively and competitively.

War of the Wizards (RPG Game)

War of the Wizards is a collaborative storytelling game of wisdom and magic. The story start that a group of wizards have been at war since ages past, and no-one even quite remembers why. Your people become the wizards’ minions, working together to collect magic items, cast spells and overcome obstacles. For example, you may develop a strategy to leap over a wide chasm, or challenge an ogre to a battle of wits.

War of the Wizards is a little nerdy, and a whole lot of fun. You don’t have to be a Dungeons & Dragons master either; the game is simple to follow and fun to participate for all skill levels. The game lasts for 90 minutes, and is facilitated over video conference by our talented host.

Spreadsheet Battleship (Nostalgic)

If you grew up in the late eighties and early nineties then you will likely remember the energetic proclamation “you sunk my battleship!”

Over 20+ years later, it turns out that Battleship has a perfect format for online games. You can also play the game multiplayer, with three to 10 players or more if you are feeling audacious.

To play Spreadsheet Battleship, each player needs two things: a game board and the placement of ships. You can use graph paper labelled with letters and numbers for the game board, and either randomly assign battleship placement or let each player choose where to place the ships.

Spreadsheet Battleship game mechanics are a little like Go Fish. On each player’s turn, that player chooses another player and names a square on the grid like A-5 or C-10. The receiving player says, “you missed”, “you hit” or “you sunk my battleship!” depending on what happened. The next player then goes in sequence, which could be in order of age or geographic location.

Continue playing until only one player has ships remaining.

Lightning Scavenger Hunts

In the real world, we run scavenger hunts at some of the coolest locations in the world: like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC and Grand Central Terminal. Scavenger Hunts can be a fun way for your people to work together.

Virtual scavenger hunts are more difficult to find that team spirit with. You might have game mechanics that have your team searching Google, Wikipedia, YouTube and other sites, without really working together.

The solution for successful online scavenger hunts is to throw away the normal and adopt a lightning version instead. For Lightning Scavenger Hunts, fire off a rapid series of clues that have your team members dashing to find objects, solve clues and win points. For example, you could have everyone grab their favorite mug and award points to the best mug story.

The fast paced nature of Lightning Scavenger Hunts is what makes it work for online team building games.

Lexulous “Scrabble” Style Game (Free)

Lexulous is a free online game that is mode led after Scrabble. The main difference is that Lexulous has eight tiles in play at a time, and the value assigned to each letter is a little different.

The main similarities are that Lexulous looks pretty darn like Scrabble, and like me and my brothers: my mom loves them all equally.

You can easily include Lexulous in your options for online games to play with coworkers. You can keep track of points and total scores over a month, and award a Lexulous champion at the end.

Guess the Refrigerator (Quirky)

My refrigerator mostly contains fatty pork, 100% dark chocolate and pears. Your refrigerator may be different. A fun game we could play together is Guess the Refrigerator.

Guess the Refrigerator is similar to “Who Da Baby?” and other guessing games. To play, everyone submits a photo of the inside of their refrigerator to one point of contact. That organizer then posts the photos to a channel where all participants can study the contents and make best guesses at which refrigerator belongs to who. The players submit answers to the organizer, who then tallies up the scores and announces a winner.

Sharing an inside view of your refrigerator takes a degree of vulnerability, which is a factor that contributes to the success of great online team building games.

“Can Your Hear Me Now?”

“Can You Hear Me Now” is one of the most popular games we play as part of Online Office Games. You can play this game 100% online, and as part of a virtual conference call.

To play, name one person as the Describer and the other players as Artists. The Describer must explain to the Artists how to draw an item like a sunflower, kite or calculator using only geometric terms.

For example, you could say “draw a large square” and then “add a line at a 45 degree angle from the top”, but not “draw the letter E.”

You can play each round for as long as you like, and three minutes is usually sufficient. At the end of each round, the Describer gets one point for each Artist that guesses the object correctly, and each Artist that guesses correctly also gets one point. Tally up points and award cool prizes to the winner.

Five Clicks Away

Five Clicks Away is a logic game for online team building. To play, you select a starting topic and an ending topic, which you can decide on your own or randomly generate. For example, the starting point could be Blackbeard the Pirate and the endpoint could be grilled cheese sandwiches.

Each player must start on the Wikipedia page for the starting point, and in no-more than five clicks reach the end point. The idea is that Wikipedia has so many internal links that you should be able to follow a chain to reach the end point in less than five clicks.

Five Clicks Away is difficult to get started with, but as you start to understand Wikipedia’s structure the game becomes easier. Like “Can You Hear Me Now?”, the game is also a proxy for learning a useful remote work skill, which in this case is obscure research.

Typing Speed Race (Competitive)

One of my favorite online team building games is a Typing Speed Race with friendly competition. For the Typing Speed Race, you can use a free tool like typingtest.com and have each of your team members do a one minute challenge. Then, each person posts their test results to Slack, email or another platform.

The Typing Speed Race is a great way to encourage friendly competition with remote teams. You can make the experience more collaborative by doing a Typing Speed Relay, which requires forming your people into teams and then adding the cumulative score from each person to create a team total.

With the Typing Speed Race, everyone wins because typing quickly is an important skill for remote work.

Chair Up! (Positive Powerup)

Chair Up! is both my favorite pun-inspired name for a chair store, and also a fun and easy game for video conference calls.

The game is played over email, messenger or conference call, and is specifically meant to counter the doom and gloom that sometimes guides conversations. Whenever someone calls out “chair up!”, everyone must stand up and do something cheerful. For example, you could do yoga sun-salutations, clap your hands, laugh or have a small dance party.

Chair Up! is silly, fun, and an easy way to get started with online team building.

Water Shots

When you work from home, taking care of your health and fitness is especially important. You can do squats and eat well, and also make sure you drink enough water.

Water Shots is a game meant to fortify your team around healthy hydration. To play, you first choose a trigger, which could be “every time a pet comes on screen in a video call” or “any time someone says mute.” When the trigger happens, all participants must drink a shot of water, which could be a literal shot or a sip.

Team building games that focus on building healthy habits are a great way to support company culture and development with remote teams.

Virtual Charades

Charades is one of those games that nearly everyone plays at school or home while growing up. With this proliferation of Charades, Virtual Charades has the advantages of being fairly familiar while also being moderately fun.

To play Virtual Charades, prepare a set of links that go to Google Image pages or use a random image generator. On each player’s turn, that player must act out what they see in the image and the player’s teammates can guess each one to earn points. Rinse and repeat until you are all out of fun.

Here are some frustrating office words you can use as prompts for your game:

jammed printer

dry pen

empty stapler

squeaky door

full refrigerator

broken heater

company firewall

You can use other words too, but frustrating office words are a good reminder of why working from home is fun.

Pub-style Trivia

You don’t need a pub to play pub-style trivia, and beer and peanuts are also optional. Instead, you can play with at least two teams, a series of trivia questions, and positive attitudes.

Playing pub-style trivia online is similar to the in-the-pub version, with one crucial difference: you need an easy way for people to communicate. Instead of mumbling across a table, we recommend using vivirtual breakout rooms so that each team can discuss the answers openly. Each team can then submit the answers via a web-form and the host can award points as needed.

Pro tip: Playing virtual happy hour games like pub-style trivia give you a unique opportunity to include wildly different clues in the game. For example, instead of “guess that tune”, you could have players guess the tune, find it on YouTube and identify a clue at a specific time stamp. The internet is your virtual game oyster.

Virtual Werewolf (Team Favorite)

Werewolf is a game of cunning deceit and tactful manipulation, and the online version is much of the same. The game relies primarily on the spoken word, which makes it perfect for remote teams.

To play, nominate one person as the narrator and then randomly distribute the following roles to players:

Werewolf: a werewolf has two jobs: eat villagers, and survive to eat more villagers.

Villagers: these are the common folks in the game who have no special powers, but desperately hope to survive the night.

Medic: the medic can save up to one villager each round.

Seer: a seer can peer into the depths of another players soul to reveal whether that player is a werewolf or not.

Hunter: when the hunter dies, the hunter can point a finger at any other player and take that person down with them.

To play, first distribute the roles via private message or email the players in advance. For a game with five people, you should have 1 werewolf, 1 medic and 3 villagers. For each additional five people add 1 werewolf, 1 special role, and 3 villagers. The ratios are flexible, so can modify them to suit your needs.

To start the game, the narrator declares that “night has fallen” and all players must close their eyes and tap their knees or keyboards to create a pitter-patter sound. After a few seconds the narrator says “werewolves wake up”, and any players with the werewolf role must awake and choose a single victim via private message.

The narrator then puts the werewolves back to sleep and has the medic and seer wake up in sequence. During the medic’s turn to be awake, the medic can point to one player to save that player from the jaws of the werewolf. If the medic selects the same player as the werewolf, then nobody dies during the night. When the seer points to a player, the narrator can answer yes or no to whether that player is a werewolf.

After all special roles act, the narrator declares “the sun is coming up” and either the name of the player that the werewolves ate or that no-one was eaten if the medic chose correctly. All players can open their eyes, and then debate on who the werewolf might be. To end the round, all players vote on one player to eliminate from the game or can pass and wait until the next round. Any player that is eliminated either by the werewolves or by vote becomes a friendly ghost that is not allowed to speak for the rest of the game but may observe it in quiet frustration.

Repeat until the only remaining players are werewolves or villagers.

We Didn’t Start the Fire !!

We Didn’t Start the Fire is an online team building game inspired by Billy Joel’s song of the same name. To play, divide the attendees of your virtual conference call into groups of four or five people and then give the groups 15 minutes of prep time. During those 15 minutes, each team writes a verse of lyrics that follow the general melody of We Didn’t Start the Fire.

After the 15 minute breakout session, bring everyone back to the main virtual meeting and have the teams present their creation. Vote on the best one with thumbs up and cheers.

Spreadsheet Wars (Challenging)

Spreadsheet Wars may be my favorite game to play with coworkers. Like other games on this list, Spreadsheet Wars is a combination of fun and skill-building, which makes it perfect for remote teams and offices.

To play, use a collaborative spreadsheet program like Google Sheets and select a theme like “choose your own adventure” or “scrappy recipe generator.” Each team then has up to 30 minutes to build a tool that matches the theme. The best tool wins, and really everyone wins because you are getting better at using one of the most powerful free tools on the internet.

Because Spreadsheet Wars doesn’t rely on any specific video conferencing platform, you can use it for games on Webex, Zoom games, Hangouts and other platforms.

A World of Risk

Growing up, one of my favorite games to play was Risk, the game of global domination that meshes perfectly with my own aspirations. Risk is a game of cutthroat collaboration, friendly competition, resource management and other strategic dynamics that make it perfect for online team building.

The most flexible way to play a Risk-like game online is to use one of the many clones, for example Conquer Club, which provides a free browser based game.

Sudoku Throw-down

In the early 2000s, Sudoku took the world by storm; inspiring nerds everywhere to complete numerical logic games instead of the daily crossword. Today, you can play a version of Sudoku for online team building called Sudoku Throw-down.

Here is how it works:

Send everyone on your team a free game board from a site like Web Sudoku.

Challenge each player to complete the game board as quickly as possible.

The first player to complete the game board with 100% accuracy is the winner.

For Sudoku Throw-down, you can easily up the competitive spirit by including prizes for the top three finishers. I recommend nerd-friendly prizes like more Sudoku puzzles, science kits and white boards.

Something in Common (Icebreaker)

Something in common is an icebreaker game that works on video conference calls and similar. To play, first organize your attendees into manageable sized groups of four or five people and gently push them into breakout rooms. Each group has the goal of finding three similarities they have in common with other members of that group. For example, “we all have cats, no-one was born in Chicago and we loved Hamilton.”

For the next round, keep the same teams and add a restriction that you can’t mention locations or physical similarities. For the round after that, remove pets and preferences. The goal is to make the game increasingly difficult and encourage your remote team to deep dive into what they may have in common.

Quick Draw

Pictionary is a fun game where some people draw while other people guess what the drawing could be. The game includes elements of improv, creative thinking, competition and more.

You can play an online game that is similar to Pictionary:

Divide your people into breakout rooms.

Have each person in each room draw three clues. You can use this random word generator do return three nouns.

Teams accumulate 1 point for each drawing someone on the team guesses correctly. Teams get no points for any clues that players skip or do not guess correctly.

After 15 minutes, return everyone to the main room and compare scores.

You can play Quick Draw over Zoom, Webex and other virtual conference call platforms. You can also mix up the game and rules by varying the number of clues each person draws, and drawing verbs instead of nouns.

Truth or Dare: Remote Work Edition

Truth or Dare is a kind of NSFW game that is a fan favorite of students across Canada, America and other parts of the world. Truth or Dare: Remote Work Edition takes those popular game mechanics and optimizes for team building online.

Instructions:

One person starts by naming another player and saying the words, “truth or dare?”

The receiving person chooses either truth or dare.

The asking person then prompts the receiver with a question or action.

The receiving person responds and then prompts another player with the words, “truth or dare?”

Here are examples of prompts you can use:

Which website do you waste the most time on?

How many browser tabs do you have open right now?

How many unread emails in your inbox?

Make the noise of a dial-up modem from the 90s.

Show us one object within arms reach of your computer.

The major guideline for Truth or Dare is to keep the questions and prompts friendly.

Jackbox Games

A year or two ago I played Jackbox Games with Tasia, Ethan and some other close friends. The game prompted me to lie about “how many beers did you have last night?”, and that was game over for Michael “prefers tea” Alexis.

Still, Jackbox Games provides options you can use for online team building. The game options include trivia and similar, and the games have some unexpected and creative dynamics. To play, everyone logs into a website via a special URL.

Yellow Submarine (Unique)

When I lived in NYC, two dudes at the metro station would play the same two Beatles’ songs over and over. If the train was late and people were standing on the platform longer, sometimes the two dudes would stop playing for a bit. Neither of those songs was Yellow Submarine.

Yellow Submarine is also an online team building game you can play with remote teams. Here is how:

Each of your remote employees needs to craft a submarine. You can use paper, magazine cutouts, or nearly anything else to craft your ship.

Players get one point every time they show the submarine on a video conference call. You can hide the submarine in the background, have it float up from the bottom of the screen, camouflage it into your outfit, or any other incognito method.

You get one point each time you show the submarine.

If someone spots your submarine then you are out. You still get the one point for showing your submarine that time.

Continue playing until everyone is out, and then tally up the points and name a Yellow Submarine Captain.

The game mechanics work because the incentive is for each player to show their submarine as many times as they can. If you wait it out, then you may be one of the last players in the game but you will also need to catch-up on points.

Nintendo Game Night

A few years ago, video game cafes took the world by storm. The idea of going to play Mario Kart or Goldeneye 007 while someone delivers you nachos and beer was a strong pull.

You can host a Nintendo Game Night for your team by using an emulator. The emulator allows you to play games via most modern web browsers. Choose a game like Excitebike, Popeye or Ice Hockey and host a tournament to see who gets the most points. You should probably make the game night “bring your own nachos.”

Ten Strikes (Quick & Easy)

Ten Strikes is a fun icebreaker game, so it’s a good way to get to know new team members, or to build deeper relationships with existing teams.

Here is how to play:

All participants hold up 10 fingers.

The youngest person on the call goes first, and shares one true statement about themselves. For example, “I have a pen pal.”

Anyone that the statement is true for gets to keep their fingers up, while anyone that the statement is not true for puts one finger down.

If all of a player’s fingers are down then they are out of the game.

Play until only one player remains.

The strategy in Ten Strikes is to share facts about yourself that are unique enough that other players will not be able to say it is true of them and will have to put fingers down.

Pro tip: You can also play Five Strikes or Twenty Strikes. Generally the more fingers and toes you start with, the longer the game will go.

The Ground is Lava !!

Anyone who has either been a five year old or spent time with one has played The Ground is Lava. The entire point of this game is to avoid touching the ground at all costs. You can climb from a chair to the couch, to stepping on a book and similar to get to your destination.

The online team building version of The Ground is Lava for adults is exactly the same as the five year old version. Challenge your team members to hunt for specific objects around the house, like a favorite mug or photograph. Participants can scoot on chairs, beds, throw rugs and other barriers to find the objects and return to the video call. Anyone that touches the ground is disqualified from the competition, but everyone gets to share about the object they brought back.

The Question Game

The Question Game is a fun game that requires no prep or special equipment. To start playing, ask someone a question, and that person must respond with a question directed back at you or another participant. If you delay for five seconds then you are out. If you speak without forming a question then you are out too 🙂

Here is an example of how this game might go:

Ally: “It’s a beautiful day, don’t you you think Jackie?”

Jackie: “What do you think makes it beautiful, Michael?”

Michael: “Sorry, I was writing a blog article.”

In this example, I would be 100% out of the game. A more clever Michael would have said, “Sorry, what was that, Jackie?” and kept moving the game forward.

The Channel Closing Game

If your team members are on Slack or another messaging platform then starting to practice channel hygiene is important. Closing channels is a good way to avoid “Slack hovering”, which will increase productivity.

Once per month, post a challenge for team members to close out channels they are no longer participating in. We automate this message using Zapier, and include a prompt that you can copy and paste “/leave” to quickly leave channels.

You could keep track of how many channels each player leaves, and award points of prizes, but The Channel Closing Game is really one where everyone that participates wins. Closing down your excess channels is like the Slack equivalent of inbox zero. It just feels good.

Warning: The Channel Closing Game is kind of a productivity hack for managing remote teams that is masquerading in a list of great online team building games. I love it, and at least one of your team members will love it, but don’t pitch it too hard on the fun factor.

Online Escape Games

Escape games are a popular group activity in person, and are increasingly popular for online team building too. These virtual escape games provide opportunities for teamwork, collaboration, and developing team building skills. There are dozens of options to choose from, including free or DIY escape rooms, and fully facilitated ones.

Virtual Murder Mysteries

Virtual murder mysteries are similar to online escape rooms, but generally have more theatrical flair. Typically, you either download scripts and choose actors on your team, or hire an outside company to perform the murder mystery for you. These online murder mysteries tend to have fun themes that match holidays, entertainment and other interests.

Conclusion

Playing fun online games with remote teams is a great way to do team building and create meaningful relationships while working from home.

You can play the online team building games on this list, create your own, or check out other resources for more ideas. Be sure to check out our list of the best virtual team building activities, and our list of offline team building games too.

With online team building, the most important element is that you dedicate some time to games, because all work and no play makes for a pretty dull time.

FAQ: Online team building games

The following are a few common questions and answers about online team building games for remote employees.

What is online team building?

Online team building is any formation of relationships between team members that occurs via online platforms. For example, you can do icebreakers at the beginning of virtual meetings, or play online team building games.

What are online team building games?

Online team building games are any games that you play online to help foster collaboration and team spirit with employees. Virtual team building games and remote team building games are closely related.

What are the benefits of organizing online team building games?

Organizing online team building games is one way to increase morale and engagement with remote teams. At a basic level, games are a fun way for your people to spend time with each other away from work projects and the requirements of meetings.

What are some fun games to play with virtual teams?

Fun games to play with virtual teams include Virtual Werewolf, Lightning Scavenger Hunts, Water Shots and Chair Up! Of these four games, Werewolf is the best known, and Water Shots is my favorite.

How do you get started with online team building?

An easy way to get started with online team building is to allocate either an entire virtual meeting or at least a portion of one to playing online team games. You can organize some of the games on this list, or create your own to mix up the variety.

Is online team building location dependent?

No! One of the best features of online team building is that it is completely international. Generally, as long as a participant has an internet enabled device and a reliable WiFi connection they will be able to take part in the games and activities.

So, whether your people are in the US, Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Africa, South America or anywhere else, online team building can be a great choice for team engagement.

[frayedcobweb]

NaNo Prep Part 3 (Part 6)

Or subtitled ‘HOLY SHIRTBALLS IT’S NEARLY HERE!’

Alright, here I am again with some original content (partly thanks to a great post by @alexwillow​ that reminded me I am writeblr so my writing is welcome here. Sometimes I need that reminder). 

Part 6 only has one and a bit chapters because I seem to have stalled slightly in my epic stream of outlining awesomeness... But that’s okay because I think I can spin 50,000 words out of what I have. Looking at my writing to date, I tend to crank out chapters that are mostly around 7-10k in length, and as I have almost 12 chapters outlined this should see me through NaNo :) 

I think I have enough world-building done so that I won’t need to do toooooo much on the fly (you know, pausing the writing flow to think up the layout of a historical shrine or some other such thing that has stalled me in the past). What I might do between now and November 1st argh it’s so soon I’m freaking out slightly is go back over my outlines and see if there’s anything I can flesh out as trivia that I can draw on once the writing gets tough :D Woot, productive use of my time!

And now, forward into the outlining. (Part One can be found here, Part Two can be found here, Part Three can be found here. Part Four can be found here and Part 5 can be found here.)

Chapter 11 – Song of the Storm.

o   After her discussion with Keril, Alawin decides that it’s time to put all her cards on the table and ask Chaylish and Shashi for help. Chay realizes what she’s about to do and acting on intuition he derails the conversation and persuades Alawin that they need to have a good night’s sleep and talk about serious things the next day.

o   Chay sneaks away in the night and hunts for a time creature on the off chance he can confirm his suspicions about his apprentice. He finds a Burr and almost doesn’t bother trying to enchant it as the Burr are notorious for not being receptive to male hunters.

o   To Chay’s surprise the Burr-kind sees him and comes to him without hesitation. He is shown a very specific future of Shashi standing in the house of Tuil and talking to a bunch of people including one of the men from Shore. Chay realizes that Shashi is a spy.

o   Chay manages to act normal when he goes back to the group and starts cooking breakfast. He somehow (not sure how yet) gets Alawin away from the group, but only has time to tell her that she shouldn’t trust Shashi before Keril comes running up with Zelek saying that they have to get going because a storm is brewing.

o   Shashi gets suspicious and starts asking pointed questions about Keril’s haract and when they would begin testing it. Keril sees the look on Chay’s face and breaks into a full on rant about how Alawin has been a wimp about trying aerial manoeuvres in an untested craft. Keril baffles Shashi with bullshit and then pretends to berate Chay, Estra and Alawin, demanding that they use the coming storm to stress test the haract.

o   Shashi’s questions make Alawin realize that Chay was trying to tell her something more than that he just didn’t like Shashi. Playing along with Keril, Alawin plans to talk to Chay, but doesn’t have a chance as the group sets about breaking camp and checking that haract is flightworthy.

o   Once Keril declares the haract fit for testing, Alawin tries to talk to Chay, but Shashi keeps mucking around close to them. Alawin gets nervous that Shashi is working for Tuil and manages to secretly ask Estra to make a distraction to get some breathing space to work out what to do.

o   Fire? Lightning hits the haract? Keril tries out gentle manoeuvres at first but then tries a tricky one that gets mucked up wind/lightning? Come up with something awesome to go here.

o   The storm isn’t natural, Zelek, Alawin and Chay all sense that the crazy winds and lightning were caused by unfamiliar magic that somehow feels like when Alawin and Chay connect with Flaer time creatures to see futures. No much is known about time creature magic, but it is suspected by hunters that Flaer can manipulate the weather.

Chapter 12 – Tears in the Water.

o   The haract is blown high and out over the northern sea. Crashes into the ocean.

o   Zelek reveals something else that no one knew about skyverns and uses magic to cushion the impact and float everyone down into the water without getting hurt.

o   Estra, Keril and Shashi however land with the haract, apart from Alawin, Chay and Zelek and they are swept away from each other in the wild waves. 

o   Estra and Keril make it to land on the Pale Shore, northeast point of the land but Shashi doesn’t. (He is seen swimming away from them before getting lost in the storm, but Estra and Keril think he is caught in an undertow, they try to help, but can’t get to him).

o   In desperation Estra uses sequeia magic to pull himself, Keril and the damaged haract out of the sea and onto the shore. (The Pale Shore is pale because it is all white stones and there is a deep dropoff just offshore that causes the waves to break heavily in white foam.) They freak out when they realize that Shashi didn’t make it to shore, but realize there’s nothing they can do.

o    Not sure what happens in the middle here yet. Possibly fixing the haract and attempting to contact Alawin and the others (I’m coming up with some cool magical communication methods lol).

o   Alawin, Chay and Zelek wash up on a recurring sandbar near the Firth River, north of the Holdring called Firth’s Edge.

Woo! So, looks like the bulk of my NaNo Prep is done. NaNoWriMo here I come :) If anyone wants to add me as a NaNo buddy then feel free, my name is Bex3825.

Tagging @writingwordsanddrawingpictures @marewriteblr @bookishdiplodocus @vhum @fourohfourlifenotfound @brieflyhighangel @dove-actually @cawolters and @rhyseoshaughnessy (general disclaimer, if you’d rather not be tagged just let me know). I hope you all have enjoyed my NaNo prepping as much as I have enjoyed fussing over it lol. Stay tuned for excerpts once NaNo starts, because I found that was a great boost for me last year when the writing got tough.

Love you all, you fantastically creative and lovely bunch <3

[anneapocalypse]

Culpability and Inevitability in the Fall of Project Freelancer

or, Not Everything Is Carolina’s Fault Actually

Also posted on dreamwidth.

The Red vs. Blue Ultimate Fan Guide is a compendium of trivia, bonus material and behind-the-scenes information written by Burnie Burns and Eddy Rivas and published in 2015. It includes, among other things, profiles for the show’s major characters, including most of the named Freelancers. The character profile for Agent Carolina contains the following:

Carolina’s constant need for perfection drove her to disrupt the AI implantation process, which largely contributed to the implosion of Project Freelancer, and the disastrous consequences that followed.

This is false. Let’s talk about why.

First, we should probably establish what the “implosion” of Project Freelancer and those “disastrous consequences” were, because when we talk about the collapse of Project Freelancer, we are actually talking about several distinct chains of events that converge at specific points and coalesce to an extended disaster.

I will attempt to disambiguate those chains of events here. (I tried making a flowchart to make this clearer and it had about the opposite effect, so… we’re gonna stick with text, and simply note that these chains intersect with each other at multiple points.)

Chain 1: After the Beta fragment (Agent Texas) is generated spontaneously in the creation of the Alpha AI, Dr. Church tortures Alpha with scenarios of psychological stress to cause Alpha’s personality matrix to split, creating additional AI fragments. Meanwhile, he subjects his agents to a competitive ranking system to determine the order in which they will receive AI. Agent Connecticut has misgivings about the divisive nature of the program, and after digging deeper, learns what the Director is doing to Alpha. She turns to the project’s enemies at Charon Industries for help, and eventually defects from the Project, leaving behind a data stick for Agent Texas detailing what she had found.

Chain 1A: Agent Texas finds the data only after killing CT on an attempted retrieval mission. She partners with Agent York to storm the bridge of the Mother of Invention and find Alpha in hopes of saving him. In the process, York tampers with weapons controls, causing the Invention to crash.

Chain 1B: Influenced by CT’s death and by the purposeful suggestions of Sigma and Gamma, Carolina changes her mind about receiving AI, and is implanted with Eta and Iota. With the change in implantation order, Wash is implanted with Epsilon, who carries all of Alpha’s memories of being tortured along with some of the Director’s memories. Though Wash hides what he knows, the Director is suspicious, and decides to remove all other implanted AIs, effectively putting the entire project on hold. This decision is arguably what spurs the Meta into action (thus converging with Chain 3).

Chain 2: Dr. Church sends his Freelancers to steal intel and a Covenant Engineer from Charon Industries, all the while leading his agents to belief they are targeting Insurrectionists.

Chain 2A: Agent York, noticing that they seem to be on the wrong side of the law, begins to have misgivings about the program. This later leads him to partner with Agent Texas (converging with Chain 1A).

Chain 2B: Dr. Church makes an enemy of Charon CEO Malcolm Hargrove, who finds his way onto the UNSC Oversight Subcommittee and maneuvers his way to the position of Chairman, where he uses the power of the subcommittee to find evidence he can leverage against the Director.

Chain 3: After Maine is injured on a mission against Charon, Carolina gives him her AI, both to help him communicate and because she believes she can succeed without one. Maine is implanted with Sigma, who turns Maine into a vehicle for the Meta by which he means to collect all the other fragments and attempt to reassemble them and achieve metastability (branching off Chain 1). When the Director decides to remove all implanted AI, Sigma makes his move, and in the chaos following the crash (thus converging with Chain 1A), attacks Carolina and takes Eta and Iota. Later the Meta will hunt down and attack other agents in order to take their AI. The incidents involving the Meta draw the attention of the Oversight Subcommittee, giving Chairman Hargrove the evidence he needs to bring charges against Dr. Church (thus converging with Chain 2B).

Carolina is directly involved in a few of these chains.

So let’s talk about the consequences of her decisions.

Carolina gave away her assigned AI, Sigma, to Maine. There is no question that this had disastrous consequences. What we do not and cannot know is what would have happened if Carolina had kept Sigma. We cannot know for certain that Carolina herself wouldn’t have become a vehicle for the Meta. We really don't know how Sigma would have interacted with a different agent, and it's very possible things would've gone differently. But as long as Sigma was implanted in someone, it’s possible that chain of events would have had a similar outcome—at least similar enough to contribute to the project's collapse.

Carolina later demanded two AI, and received Eta and Iota. Neither those AI nor Carolina’s use of them had anything to do with the collapse of Project Freelancer. But this once again changes the implantation order, bumping Wash and South down the list. Delta tells us in season 6 that South was never meant to get an AI—that in fact denying her one was an intentional experiment. If we accept that as canon, Carolina’s actions didn’t actually change anything for South; the Director would’ve found a reason to bump her down the board, continuing to deny her her implantation.

But because of Carolina, Wash gets Epsilon. Because of Epsilon, Wash has a breakdown. And because of Wash’s breakdown, the Director suspects that he knows too much, and decides to halt the implantation process and remove all existing AI, effectively putting the entire Project on hold.

But here’s the thing: If Wash hadn’t gotten Epsilon, someone else would have. That we don’t know who is irrelevant—someone else would have. You think the Director was just going to harvest what he believed was a viable AI fragment and then not implant it in someone? Carolina’s decision made Wash very unlucky. But what happened to Wash was always going to happen to someone, and when it happened, that chain of events would have been inevitably set in motion. Epsilon's implantation probably would have had the same outcome for the project no matter who his host was.

As for Hargrove and Tex’s mutiny? Carolina had no effect on those. Hargrove’s grudge against the Director, CT's suspicions, and Tex and York’s eventual mutiny were caused by events the Director himself set in motion. Carolina had nothing to do with it. If the implantation order had remained as originally intended, Hargrove still would’ve made his way onto the Subcommittee, CT still would have defected to Charon, Tex still would have attempted to break Alpha out, and the Invention still would have crashed.

There is one person who “largely contributed to the implosion of Project Freelancer, and the disastrous consequences that followed.”

That person is the Director.

That’s really where all roads lead. It is Dr. Church who created Alpha, who created Beta; it is Dr. Church who tortured Alpha, creating the volatile personality fragments; it is Dr. Church who lied to his agents about their targets and used them to steal from a private corporation under UNSC protection; it is Dr. Church who implanted the agents who trusted him with untested technology that got most of them killed and harmed every last one of them.

The Director did that. Not Carolina. It is because of his actions that his project was ultimately doomed from the start. The Director set in motion every chain of events that led to the collapse of Project Freelancer. Carolina’s actions complicated the process and made two people close to her very unlucky, but what happened to Maine and to Wash would have happened to someone, and in the case of Maine, that someone might would have been Carolina herself.

And this isn’t even getting into whether Carolina could have known what the consequences of those decisions would be—which of course she couldn’t have. I’m just talking about causation here, foreseeable or not.

So much of the Freelancer arc is structured around highlighting Carolina’s mistakes. And she does make mistakes—mostly based on incomplete information and misguided priorities, information which the Director deliberately withholds and priorities which he deliberately encourages. Yes, Carolina made her own choices. And yes, some of them had negative outcomes.

Carolina was not responsible for the collapse of Project Freelancer, knowingly or unknowingly. The Director was.

And you know, it does get a little tiring when even her own writers won’t acknowledge that.