#episode 4000

[bobbie-robron]

It looks like he won her in a raffle.

It’s literally a cameo (about six seconds) of Robert popping up in the pub with Katie on St. Patrick’s day at the tail end of the hour episode.

17-Mar-2005

[beeimu5]

[anghraine]

Speaking of my TOS watch, I've noticed that the writing for Kirk in particular has gotten sharply worse overall in S3 (also for other characters, but less obtrusively), yet when it's good, it's really satisfying.

I loved both Kirk and Spock in "For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky", for instance. It's a good episode in general (maybe one of the least awful about women in TOS) and a really nice McCoy episode as well, but I enjoy how Kirk and Spock are kind of confused about McCoy's marriage but ultimately willing to support their friend. And it ends not only w/ McCoy's cool wife surviving and becoming even more of a leader of her people than she was before (and this framed as unambiguously Good) but Kirk and Spock iirc assuring McCoy that they'll figure out the occasional detour to her colony so McCoy can visit her without leaving his career behind. And while Spock was a flanderized dick in "That Which Survives" (if in a way that can easily be read in K/S terms), it's got one of my favorite Kirk moments:

Kirk [to Sulu]: Your report covers all vegetation? Sulu: Yes, Captain. All vegetation is inedible. Poison to us. McCoy: If the Enterprise has been destroyed, you know how long we can survive?? Kirk [grimly]: Yes. [pause] I don't see any water, but there must be some to grow the vegetation. A source of water would stretch our survival. Did you see any evidence of rainfall?

Shatner doesn't overplay the moment IMO, but there's a quiet weight to him being The Starvation Expert of the team given uhhhhh his personal history—and also the fact that this episode is one of few that (in a completely different scene) explicitly acknowledges other TOS episodes.

[smeg-and-the-red]

one of my favourite RD inconsistencies is whether or not Kryten is waterproof

[sanders-sides-uncorrect-quotes]

TSS compilations need to stop popping up in my reccomended I don't want to be back in the fandom 3 years after I left in the year of our lord 2024 I think my brain would explode

[so-you-melted-22]

i might get an internship at the sturm der liebe set so guess what im fucking watching tonight

[aengelren]

the biggest review bombing in imdb history. it’s not that ratings there matter, it’s the fact that this is a man’s legacy & it’s being unfairly treated. if possible, go leave your vote here

[bittersweetresilience]

i've started another amv. stay tuned. for how long? don't ask me

[songsfordustmites]

I need to start watching sesame street from the beginning because only today have i learned that raul julia had a character on it. twas only four episodes but I still need to see him.

[timeforsomethrillingheroicsblog]

random writing question #42:

how focused are you on getting approximately the same amount of words per chapter? 

at what point do you decide what you have planned is too long and you’re going to have to split it into two chapters?

[thegreatphantomthief]

I'm definitely not the first person to make an analogy like this, but I find it so annoying when people go into the comment section a fanwork made of a ship and start explaining why they don't like it or why it's 'bad'

Like.... You come into my house, sit down among my family at my dinner table, grab two handfuls of food, eat it, and then tell me my cooking sucks?

[nsuyeula]

Rundown of the more interesting parts from the Necrits live stream with Christian Linke (Creative Director and Co-Creator of Arcane) :

There was a longer version of the Caitvi sex scene but they got bonked by the ratings people, and because it would have raised Leagues rating to mature, it got brought down to what we got.

The entire Caitvi sex scene was directed and animated by Fortiche with zero input by Riot. Christian says, "That was French people being French."

Riot making Arcane canon didn't change where they were taking characters or the story, it just made them more aware of how it would affect other Riot projects.

Christian refused to confirm exactly when the events of Arcane take place in the existing timeline.

The Arcane doesn't originate from Hextech. It is just one - in universe - interpretation of magic.

Christian doesn't view Viktor and Jayce's love as romantic, and that romance wasn't the intention when writing their relationship. However, by the way he talks, it doesn't seem he's against people shipping them romantically - just as a creative team, they were more interested in exploring a close, complex male friendship / brotherhood.

The 250-million dollar show budget number is not accurate as marketing is included in that fund. Fortiche's goal from the beginning was to bring the level of animation found in feature animated films to serialised content. While the show was very expensive for an animated series, it was way cheaper than an animated feature film because they try and work efficiently. As an example, Christian says how often in Hollywood, it's not uncommon for sometimes 40-50% of what is animated to end up on the cutting room floor while with Fortiche they try and keep it around 5%

Ekko's hair was changed from a mohawk to dreads because the artist who worked on him told them that black hair doesn't work like that (in reference to the mohwak), and here's how it would actually work.

Legends of Runterra affected Arcane in terms of giving the team inspiration for how the everyday street life is for people in the regions.

Caitlyn's LOR Tactical design (2021) and Warwicks VGU Voicelines (2017) were made to reflect what was going to happen in Arcane - production of Arcane just took a long amount of time.

They've said from the beginning that the only person who could ever defeat Viktor at the height of his power was Viktor himself. His story is about the glorious evolution, the pursuit of that, and what it actually means to remove these human elements until there is nothing left.

All projects Riot is working on - whether the MMO, Games, Written or Animated projects - are in talks with one another at all times.

Christian comments on how very few games have remain in service as long as League has, and because of its ever growing and evolving story, it's hard to bring everything together cohesively since everything was made at different times, in different era's, by a multitude of different people. So, while many things may be very cool creatively, it makes it impossible to successfully bring it all together more often than not. So for new projects, they are more focused on making something good and successful with the team and talent they have, even if it retcons or replaces content made in the past.

Christian pitched singing Heimerdinger.

Arcane's scripts for S2 were locked in before S1 was released, so they were not impacted by fandoms or online reactions. Christian thinks maybe some animation choices were influenced by things the animators saw online, but not the story.

When watching the premier of the final arcane episodes in LA - the entire 4000 seat theatre cheered when Maddie died.

The butterfly motif shared between Jayce and Viktor specifically was used to represent transformation.

Christian talked about how they don't think about really whether people will like something or not, but whether it's the right consequence for the story (this is in discussion to Caitlyn losing an eye). What makes a character likeable to an audience in his eyes is their decisions in the story; the choices that they make.

Continuing on from this, he comments on how the choices Caitlyn makes now are so different now compared to the beginning of the show. She is now willing to take risks and sacrifice parts of herself for people, for Piltover and for what is right.

When asked about Caitlyn's signature hat, Christian says that the team saw it as somthing that didn't really fit this version of Caitlyn they were writing and the person she becomes and that's why it was never incorporated into her designs.

Back in the beginning, when they were first working on Arcane, Christian would constantly going back to Jinx and Vi's original design artists & Riot August who was their champion designer to make sure they weren't messing anything up with these characters.

Christian goes on to tell an anecdote of when Paul 'Zeronis' Kwon was drawing the first concepts for Vi. This was back when Christian was in music. She didn't have a name at the time, but when Christian looked over Paul's shoulder at the art, he comments "she kinda looks like a Violet to me." They never spoke about it, but months later, when she became a serious character concept internally, she was gifted the name Vi. To this day, Christian doesn't know if his comment resulted in her name or if it was just a coincidence, but Violet became stuck in Christian's brain as Vi's true name. Riot August (who was in chat) then confirms that her name came from her tattoo, which came from one of her key design elements, being that she had the number 6 on her face. So, just a happy coincidence.

Talking about the tattoo. The tattoo was shrunken in size so, from a distance, it would look more like a beauty mark and the brain can more easily disregard it. One of the many things that they had to think about when translating the designs over as, is animation, you would be looking at a characters face a lot more than you do in league where the camera is situated top down.

As they were wrapping up the stream, Christian talks about how there always needs to be a bit of space between what content creators / content consumers do (pointing at Necrit) and what Riot does. He thinks it's good that there is space for criticism and a critical view of the things Riot does. In order to succeed, he believes they need to listen to their audience but also that they need to have their own vision, take risks, and be bold. It's a delicate balance in his eyes, and projects tend to fail when these two sides are too in cahoots.

He iterates that they are not trying to shove anything down anyone's throats. They are just trying to find what makes these characters cool, tell their stories, and be true to the regions they come from. With taking the characters from League to Arcane, it was important that they translate these stories and characters so they can hold up with the best storytelling in the world.

This circles back to the earlier point about retconning things and replacing past stories and content. He comments on how some characters are very outdated or too archetypal, but they still have an essence that people love about them.

Arcane was something Christian worked on for 9 years, and he was getting clearly emotional near the end. He also adds they're just getting started and he wants to make sure they do a good job with this IP and the characters we really love.

To those who are not happy with certain decisions, he's sorry they didn't hit what you personally wanted, but there is simply no way they can please everybody. While they are trying to make as many of the Riot / Arcane audience happy, they as the creators and artists need to follow their own compass, be the shepherds of this IP; that being creative is hard. They will keep doing that even if they sometimes have to ruffle some feathers.

He closes the stream by confirming that they are investing quite a bit in Noxas, Ionia, and Demacia for the next regions they explore.

[tanuandthetriplets]

Heartiest Thank You! | 4000 Subscribers Milestone | Triplet Parenting Stories - Episode 37

[jmdbjk]

Well...

I've always harped on their "chemistry" and its no exaggeration. They fit together so naturally. They are so very in tune with each other, when you are with that person and you feel like everything is right and it doesn't matter what you are doing, where you are going or if you are doing anything or nothing at all.

This episode was completely different than any of the previous episodes.

By the end of November they both knew what was going to happen and embracing the idea that they were about to "go in" and they were doing this together. They flat out said they were making memories to take with them while they served their military obligation.

Jimin and Jungkook clearly see themselves as just ordinary people living extraordinary lives, and they want to and expect to experience ordinary things.

The convenience store visit.

They ran like kids sliding on the ice, stomped in the snow, threw snowballs at each other, even though occasionally, Jimin's pragmatism burst their cozy little bubble:

Jungkook: "When it snows during our military service I think I'll recall this moment."

Jimin: "Right now, we're watching the snow from a hotel window but soon we'll have to sweep it up."

Ever the romantic, that Jimin...

Walking on the street with the general public, getting coffee, making their way to the train station... just like everyone else...

Yes, they had a crew with them, leading them and following them through the streets of Sapporo. But everything they did was ordinary.

When they are ordering food or drinks, their attempts at reading and speaking Japanese are endearing. They just dove right in. I love them. See? Don't let language be an obstacle when traveling in a foreign country!

I don't know if that's his personal little round furry money purse or if the staff used that for this trip's spending money and just handed it to him... but it was cute as fuck.

There is nothing pretentious about them. Yes they can whip out the black card to pay for expensive whisky but Jungkook took pleasure in choosing what he wanted himself, carrying his armload of 18 year old whisky to the counter and paying the $4000 for it himself at the distillery. He could have had someone else do it for him.

We saw these purchases in his refrigerator during his live on Dec. 8:

As ordinary as it was, there were still some very WTF moments that everyone has already pointed out:

That moment from the car ride on the way from the airport to the hotel at 11 o'clock at night, no seatbelts, Jimin practically sitting in Jungkook's lap and both smushed against the door. Jungkook looking like he is about to get lucky or just did.... man, I don't know what that was all about and how it stayed in this episode instead of getting edited out. I mean... there is a cut so we are not seeing the entire thing but what they left in was... ok?... I guess?

The train ride sequence (even though it was highly manipulated in post-production to wipe out all the other people)...

That culminates in this... we hope it ends up being a selca in the photobook. The moment was so sweet.

At the distillery, cosplaying their pickup lines at a bar...

Jimin's moment of clarity when he envisioned himself a girl dad and Jungkook thinking "uhhhhh... ok, Jimin, whatever you say"...

Gotta say though, Jimin envisioning himself a father at some point in the future was very sweet.

They reminisced a lot, talking about how much they and the other members have changed over the years and still remarking to each other how young they both look when back outside in the cold air, cheeks flushed from whisky and beer and a hot meal.

Their point of view regarding their looks, "they enjoy watching us gradually get raggedy and fat."

Yet, their age difference is exactly what makes them click. Jimin being older, caring, watchful, responsible in the early years, and Jungkook, so young, still socially awkward, always watching Jimin, always sticking close by him, learning how to maneuver the situations they faced in their profession. Through the years they evolved and matured personally and professionally into the men they are today.

If they had been same-agers, the outcome may not have been the same.

Again, props to the staff for everything they did to make this happen for Jimin and Jungkook. It appeared that some of the time they remained outside in the cold while Jimin and Jungkook were indoors eating or getting coffee.

This trip was their final trip before that "rite of passage" that every Korean male is obligated to fulfill. There was a poignant edge to a lot of this episode, in what they talked about, in the imagery. Jimin has always seemed to want to hang on to his "youth" and now he was about to cross that line and he knew it.

I also keep harping on the fact Jimin and Jungkook are together as we speak and I am thankful for that every day. I firmly believe they are thankful for each other, even if they are not same age friends.

Two more episodes.

[hinaypod]

Hi Nay Fundraiser 2024 (34% Progress)

We're still at 34%! We can't continue Hi Nay in 2025 if we don't hit our $4000 goal, since we never hit our 2023 goal.

DONATE AND SPREAD THE WORD TO HORROR PODCAST FANS!

Here's art from the 2023 fundraiser by the wonderful @eleidoscope with Kakampink Mari 🌺🧋

If you're curious what Hi Nay sounds like, the first episode's a good place to start, or our original teaser. You can listen to it on Acast, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts!

Part of the Rusty Quill Network as of September 2023!

Originally inspired by the Magnus Archives (which is no surprise to anyone who listens) but less British and more Queer and BIPOC and incredibly Filipino

[thankskenpenders]

Happy new year, everyone! Welcome to 2024, the year that will mark the 10th anniversary of Thanks Ken Penders. I'd like to go over my plans for the blog for this year.

First of all: in the very near future, I'll have a post with my thoughts on Sonic Dream Team, and I'm sure I'll write one last Sonic Prime review once the final episodes drop on the 11th. I've also been sitting on an unfinished piece about the Sonic LEGO sets. I wanted this to be longer and more detailed piece that not only reviewed the sets but also went into the weird disconnect between homogenized image of Sonic the Brand and the actual fiction it's based off of, but it'll probably end up getting cut down a lot just so I can put something out. Let's just say I did a fun little thing with one of the sets.

Second: yes, I would like to return to regular TKP updates this year. As I've said many times, I wanted to do this in 2023, but I've been suffering from creative burnout after finishing SLARPG and have generally been unable to focus on any of my creative goals this past year. I'm hoping that this year will be better and I'll be able to get back into the swing of covering Archie Sonic issues. Even doing one issue every week or so would be vastly preferable to continuing the hiatus. I'm still only halfway done!! But aside from burnout, my other main hurdle is that I need to reread my own archive to refresh myself on all these things after nearly three years away. This will take some time.

The thing is, though, this year I'll have an extra incentive to go back through my previous writing and brush up on all things Archie Sonic. Because you see...

I've decided that I want to make a video essay about Penders. The comics, the copyright battle, The Lara-Su Chronicles, everything.

The why

I've thought about doing this before, but I never committed to the idea. I was too busy with gamedev, or I thought it'd end up being too long, or I figured that there were already enough videos on the subject, or I just lacked confidence in my ability to put together a video essay. So I told myself it wasn't meant to be, and let the multiple YouTubers who have cited me as a source on their own Penders videos fill that void.

Recently, though, a few things have happened that have convinced me it might be time. For one, YouTube video essays/media retrospectives/etc. are just getting longer and longer. When Quinton Reviews is out here doing 21 hours of videos on Sam & Cat, a subpar Nick sitcom that only lasted one season, I don't feel so crazy for wanting to make a video about several hundred comic books and two lawsuits that'd be at least an hour or two long lmao. Admittedly, I've also been self-conscious about doing a long video essay like this as a trans woman who has yet to do any vocal training. But these days I feel like I see a lot more transfem YouTubers who have done little to no vocal training, and that's given me more confidence on that front.

But the big one was Hbomberguy's recent plagiarism video. As I sat there watching it, I kept thinking about the time I found a CBR article that was just a crude 800 word summary of my two previous articles on Penders, published by a CBR writer who's put out over 4000 articles since 2019. If I've already been plagiarized before, and my writing is so frequently passed around as a go-to source on Archie Sonic drama, then I wouldn't be shocked if there were YouTubers out there straight up just plagiarizing me. I don't watch other peoples' videos on Archie Sonic, so I'd never know! So if people are just gonna paraphrase me when covering these topics anyway, why not take matters into my own hands and make what I would consider to be the definitive video on the subject? If hacks like James Somerton and iilluminaughtii can churn out these shitty video essays and people will still watch them, surely it can't be that impossible to make my own, right? (And also, uh, Hbomb literally told me I should make the video lol. If you're reading this, thanks for the encouragement.)

The what, how, and when

So here's the plan.

Part of this video essay will be an adaptation of my Medium article on the recurring themes of Ken's Archie Sonic run, with its content touched up and expanded upon. There were a few things I skimmed over in the article because I didn't want it to get too long, but again, people are out here watching ten hour videos about bad Nickelodeon sitcoms now. I can get away with elaborating a little more. I can add a few paragraphs talking about the Chaos Knuckles arc, or throw in a little more historical context I've discovered in the years since.

After covering the comics, the back half(-ish?) of the video will be dedicated to the copyright battles and their ensuing controversies, trying to give an accurate picture of what actually went down, the sheer scale of how bad Archie fucked up, and what our takeaways should be. This will have some similarities to my New York Magazine article on the subject, but I'll be rewriting it from scratch. I REALLY had to keep things short for that article because I was already way over the expected word count, and my tone was a little more straight-laced than normal because I was trying to keep things Professional. I can riff more and insert more of my own opinions this time, like I normally would.

I'll inevitably have to touch on some of Ken's Bad Tweets when discussing things that have happened after the lawsuits, but I don't want the video to just devolve into a list of times people got mad at him on Twitter, so I'm gonna try to keep that to a minimum in favor of focusing on his actual work. Things like the Scourge the Speed Demon incident and his continued statements on certain characters' copyright statuses probably warrant mentioning, though. And finally, assuming that the book really does come out this summer, I would like the grand finale of the video to be about those first couple chapters of The Lara-Su Chronicles.

I don't currently know when this video will get done, but it'll probably be in the back half of the year, especially with me waiting for the book to either drop or get delayed yet again. But I've actually already started writing a bit of the script, and will keep chipping away at it for a while.

So, uh, yeah, look forward to that? Wish me luck?