#factoide con video

[factoides-yajan]

Factoide #4228

(#4228) El himno oficial de la Armada de Chile, Brazas a ceñir Brazas a ceñir es el himno oficial de la Armada de Chile, compuesto por el suboficial mayor infante de Marina músico Luis Mella Toro en 1929, mientras se desempeñaba como guardia en la corbeta General Baquedano, probablemente inspirado en la canción inglesa Let's all go down the Strand, escrita en 1909 por Harry Castling y cantada por C. W. Murphy. La expresión "Brazas a ceñir" quiere decir que las velas deben orientarse correctamente en dirección del viento, para lograr velocidad óptima. En un sentido metafórico, el título sugiere que la Armada chilena está continuamente preparándose para entrar en acción o enfrentar la tempestad, con el trabajo mancomunado de su dotación. Aporte de Diego Villanueva

https://youtu.be/aNalxKwua6I  Let's All Go Down the Strand! la canción en la que se inspiró

[Publicado originalmente el 10 de Junio del 2023]    

[sgiandubh]

Hi!

Fitness Anon here…

On Friday S posted the „Hotel Highball“ video which was obviously recorded in Scotland, not in the US. 

So now „Miss I know it all“ aka Marple rushed to readjust her guessing game and sources about S’s whereabouts. Until the occurrence of this video she claimed he was still in L.A., but now she tells her audience he is back since Thursday… . Because she knows and has proof and facts. Sure? 🤔 It took only a video posted by the „ King of latergrams“ to doubt her own predictions? Is she so easy to unsettle? 

Hopefully right now these are better sources than the ones she claimed to have to indicate what S was up to this weekend and why he couldn’t attend the Con in Birmingham weeks ago. 

But she always keeps it vague so that she can adjust depending on the actual outcome so that it fits into her made-up storyline. 

So, grab your 🍿 and wait what’s up in her  crystal ball next. Perhaps she will also find answers there to the still unresolved question of his IG unfollows and his hair length in order to be able to place the recording of his latest booze video more precisely in time.

Dear, poor (returning) Fitness Anon,

You must have the patience of an angel and put up with me being awfully, rudely late, here. However, and one more time: all of the above, and then some more.

Key quote being: 'But she always keeps it vague so that she can adjust depending on the actual outcome so that it fits into her made-up storyline.'

The beauty of your submission is shining through, here. You sent this to me a week ago (and I do humbly apologize, it's been crazy and yes, life-changing, down here) and yet nothing fundamentally changed, on that page. Same old, same old, not even different. BS presented as factoids, calumny and libel (different things, but they cover it all) towards people that are perceived as personal foes. In my book, to despise someone is to ignore someone, not to actively ill wish on them. Yet the person (a he? a she? doubt is allowed) never got that memo and keeps on victimizing themselves.

At the end of the day, that page reads like an umpteenth season of The Young and The Restless: you can miss I don't know how many episodes, you'll always find your way back to a stalling script.

So, dear Fitness Anon, cue in another round of obsessive talking in circles about S, mendacity on top (Ashley Anon was evidence enough of that and I have to say I was a bit surprised). This, and copying even my mannerisms - hence my complete disdain.

PS: Despina Vandi Anon, you have been waiting for a very long time and I hope you could forgive me for that. This week's audio will be for you. But now, onwards to some cookery. I always found it supremely relaxing for the brain.

[the-rollerchloster]

Supernatural Then And Now Podcast: A 1am "Review"

Before I begin, and because I realise I'm opening myself up here, full disclosure:

I am a huge fan of Rob & Rich, and their existing Kings Of Con Podcast, and have a top tier sub on their KOC Patreon. I love their banter, I love their energy and I love their friendship.

I only heard about the Jessica Mason controversy as a result of the official announcement. After what I've read about her, I think she needs to seriously consider thinking for herself, and not just spouting out whatever opinion or theory is going to get her the most likes, because she has just alienated everyone with her flip-flopping. See this post by wigglebox for details on ways to POLITELY ask the producers of this podcast to remove her from staff.

I do not hate J*red P*dal*cki, but I am definitely concerned by his problematic behaviours, namely his proclivity for diverting attention back towards himself. Dude needs some therapy and a large helping of humble pie. If you can't handle my thoughts on that, go away, this is not the place for you.

I have now listened to both episodes with Jensen and J*red [Pilot and Wendigo], and so far I think the concept has a lot of promise. The writer seems to be used for bookending the interview/guest portion of each episode with factoids about the plot, the monster of the week, the lore, the cast/crew, etc. and (especially as a KOC listener) I could tell when R2 are scripted vs when they were getting by with bullet points to keep the banter on track.

Having J2 as the first guests are a great opening hook, although J*red really needs to learn how to let Jensen speak; both episodes are very heavy on his voice and tangents. If you struggle with him, please bear that in mind - take breaks and look after yourself. There was one part in ep2 where he does say "I wanna hear Ackles talk about..." so maybe he's (slowly) learning. The interview portion with J2R2 just seemed like good banter between friends. 

I am interested to see which guest they have for Dead In The Water, and how that R2 style will continue. It is also interesting to note that Rob & Rich both have executive producer credits on this project - a little tidbit that gives me a lot of hope.

I have to admit that I have been very nervous about this concept since it was mentioned a few weeks ago in a KOC patreon video. I was nervous about the direction the reflection on each episode would go, and I was nervous about who would be making the big decisions about it. It’s always going to be hard in this very passionate fandom to keep everyone happy, so only time will tell how true to the centre of the path this manages to remain. However, I think if they can appropriately replace the problematic writer before she gets too deep into contradicting herself and canon, then they're definitely on to something.

[found--family]

Kinda want people to ask Jensen more about the episode at the online convention this weekend but I don’t want him to be bombarded either. I feel like he’ll say he wants to leave it up to the fans whether Dean feels the same. My interpretation is that they’ve both been pining idiots for years ;)

You mean the DarkLight Convention? (Google tells me DLcon was November 7 +8.. are there more days to be added?)

Hey, if they're going to book an online con right after an episode like 15x18 airs they gotta expect to be bombarded with questions! 😆 Jensen isn't anywhere near as active on twitter/insta as Misha is so any content we get from him, beit in a livestream or interview or podcast etc. is a gift because it's only now-and-then.

But, while I haven't watched this whole video yet (and if there's more vids to this session someone please direct me), Jensen's not in it and the DarkLight website doesn't mention him (or Jared) in the line up. I wonder why that is? Does anyone know? Is there another livestream event coming up?

Misha on destiel going canon | Darklight Online Convention (2020)

I think ambiguity is good right now because it keeps us guessing; we don't want Jensen to spoil The Upcoming Big Reveal for Dean - though I don't think he would (plus a little doubt about our ideal ending makes the eventual emotional catharsis that much more satisfying imho)!

And even if he - or any other cast member - teased something jokey/potentially UhOh-OhNo about the Destiel endgame, I wouldn't be worried. I'd love to hear Jensen's behind-the-scenes insight on filming and how he's feeling about the fandom's mixed reaction to 15x18, but I have confidence in the story so far and everything we've been clued in on that the final 2 episodes will 1) have Dean's vocal response to Castiel's love confession, and 2) see Dean and Cas end up together. What can I say? This nightmare of a year is turning into somewhat of a dream and I'm hopeful.

I'm looking forward to the finale retrospective and what everyone has to say, hopefully it will include stuff about 15x18:

The series finale is slated to air on Nov. 19 and will be preceded by a one-hour interview special titled Supernatural: The Long Road Home, for which series creator Erik Kripke will be in attendance alongside the show's stars and executive producers. [x]

.. But that's PRE-finale stuff, and obviously they want to avoid spoilers, and Destiel-related stuff is going to be high on the Do Not Blab list. So I'd love a post-finale livestream thing with J2MA etc. where they can finally speak openly about the endgame plot and their characters and relationships. There'll probably be some post-finale interviews (written or filmed) and stuff shared on social media, but yeah I'd love another livestream thing with questions from fans once the finale has aired. I'd barter part of my soul for it.

(sorry, this ask has gotten away from me 😅)

Wouldn't that be wonderful though? For Jensen to turn around after the finale (after Destiel goes Full canon) and admit to playing into the lovestory in past seasons without having official confirmation that anything would ever come of it beyond ambiguity? We know Misha ships it (has for years) and there's factoids like him being given the cue to play *the jilted lover* for Cas in 9x06 with Dean, but the Jensen/Dean side of things ship-wise has been left up to speculation more than fact over the years (correct me if I'm wrong; gimme your behind the scenes intel!).

Anyway. I too want to hear what Jensen has to say about Destiel post-finale. 

[lifeisdabubbles-undersalmondean]

La Pomme ~ Chapter Seven

Pairing: Sam x OC (eventual Dean x OC and Dean x Castiel. And I mean eventual.)

Series summary: George is a casual French-Mistake-universe Supernatural fan living in no-COVID 2020, who's life is upended when she's suddenly launched between realities, two years into the boys' past (S13E22). What begins as an insane, immersive fan experience turns into more when Jack goes missing and George offers up her AU information to help track him down. Soon it's discovered that she and Sam may actually have history. But that's impossible, right?

Word Count: 11,800

Warnings: {smut, fluff, angst, show level violence, swearing, mentions of suicide} ***Detailed warnings will be tagged for specific chapters.

A/N: Following the events of my prequel Paradise and second story From My Eyes Off. Reading those first gives context but isn’t necessary to start this one.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sam, Dean, and Castiel had been stomping around the bunker determinedly for the past hour looking for Jack.

After getting back from being Michael's pack mule the evening prior, Dean had gone to talk to him, but he wasn't in his room. He searched a few other places and when he came up empty, he went to Sam and Cas. When they joined the search and all three came up empty, they began to worry.

"Anything?" Sam asked as Dean and Castiel both returned to the map table room from opposite sides of the bunker.

"Nothing," Castiel admitted with a defeated tone.

"No one's seen him since yesterday. The few people I saw either saw him in his room playing video games or getting food from the kitchen," Dean added, his tone was worried-angry. He couldn't help but mutter in annoyance, "Can't believe you let him get video games."

"So, no one saw him leave?" Sam asked for confirmation, ignoring his grump brother, and the two other men shrugged in hesitant affirmation.

"Alright, well let's regroup. We'll do a quick full sweep together, talk to everyone we see, and look for any sign of him or an explanation," Sam decided. "If that comes up empty-"

"We'll hit the streets. Let's start in his room; if he did leave on his own, maybe he left a note and I missed it." Dean reasoned before the three of them went to search together.

They spent the better part of 15 minutes tearing the room apart and had yet to find anything useful.

"There's nothing here, guys," Sam shook his head frustratedly, setting the mattress back down on the bed.

"Certainly no explanation for where he went," Castiel added dejectedly, closing the dresser drawer he'd been searching through.

"The problem is, there is something here." Dean gestured to the room and said, "all of Jack's stuff. It doesn't even seem like so much as a pair of shoes is missing."

"Haven't found his phone yet," Sam pointed out frustratedly as he tried calling him once more, "not that he's answering it."

As the three stood there watching him call again, the door started to open and they all turned hopefully. When they saw Tim-one of the camp refugees-stick his head in instead of Jack, there was a collective shoulder slump.

Tim was in his late 40s but looked much older. He had a 80s punk style, with torn up, oversized dark pants, a black and white ragdoll band shirt, and huge black boots. Tim completed the look with a short green mohawk attop his head, long ZZ Top, salt-and-pepper beard, a spiked collar and matching spike through his nose.

Dean didn't like him.

"Tim?" Sam acknowledged the man when he spotted the group.

Dean watched Tim's surprised expression closely as he addressed Sam, "Oh, hey, Chief! What's shakin'?" He looked at the other two men and Dean noted a slight sweat begin to form on his forehead. He gulped and asked, "Jack here?"

Sam frowned, "No. Have you seen him?"

Tim seemed nervous, "Uhh, not since yesterday. He let me borrow his headphones," he reached into his pocket and held up the pair of headphones, "so I was just returning them."

"When exactly did you last see him?" Came the gruff follow up from Dean as Sam reached out and took the offered headphones.

"Late last night? He was playing video games with that dumpy, frigid gal."

"'Frigid'?" Castiel questioned. He thought it was an odd choice of descriptor. Sam wasn't pleased with Tim's choice of words either, but for different reasons.

Tim nodded, "Yea, ya know, tall, blonde, cute face but real icy, like she's better than you even though she's got a little too much junk in the trunk."

Dean and Sam shared a disgusted expression before Dean asked, "Full of opinions about her body but don't know her name, huh? Stay classy, Timmy."

"I assume he's referring to George," Sam offered with an annoyed tone.

"There's a woman named George?" Dean wondered.

"She's new, from the camps. She's been... connecting with Jack," Sam explained vaguely to his skeptical brother, though it came out a bit wrong.

Tim shrugged nonplussed, "Never caught her name, but she's always hanging around the kid. A little too much if you ask me," Tim gave them 'the eyes' and Sam narrowed his in disbelief at what the guy was insinuating.

"Wait, so first this girl is frigid and now you're saying she's… what? Lusting after Jack?" Dean asked dubiously.

"She's not a girl, she's our age," Sam corrected and then added, "Also, I doubt she was doing anything inappropriate." He didn't want to say why he doubted it, because it was none of Dean's damn business.

Tim hesitated and then said, "Look, all I know is I came by last night to borrow his headphones and the two of them were on the bed playing video games. They looked awful close to me. And she seemed pissed when I showed up, like I was interrupting something."

Of course Sam was not inclined to believe this story. Based on his own personal experiences with her, he was almost positive it wasn't Jack she was interested in. That was even more true if she was the woman he'd dreamt about so long ago. Which she obviously wasn't considering she was from an alternate reality. And she was real, whereas the dream, of course, hadn't been. So, it made no sense and he hadn't really allowed himself to entertain those thoughts since he first thought about it.

And, to be fair, he had been very wrong about women in the past.

"Interrupting what, exactly?" Sam demanded to know.

"I don't know, Chief. But when I left, I heard her asking him if he was 'ready to go'," His eyes were wide for emphasis and there was a creepy smirk on his face.

"Go where?" Castiel asked quickly, missing the innuendo. Tim just bounced his eyebrows in response and the three men frowned and shared curious expressions. Sam's expression was more doubtful than the others.

After a long pause Dean asked dubiously, "Jack doesn't even know how to do that… right?" None of them knew, and there was an awkwardly long silence before they realized Tim was giving them all a strange expression.

"Need anything else?" Tim asked, inching away from the doorway, "I'm supposed to meet up with Jules for a hunt."

"Tell Jules you need to sit this one out and don't leave the bunker," Dean demanded. "We might have more questions for you later."

Tim nodded in understanding, starting to back out of the room again, "And just, by the way, she isn't from the camps."

"Sorry?" Sam asked in confusion. "She's not?"

Tim shook his head, "No, sir. As second in command of third-shift security detail, it was my job to know everyone. I'd never seen her until I came here. Figured she was one of yours," with a shrug, he left.

"Alright, well we need to find whoever George is. Now!" Dean started to leave and Sam stopped him.

"Hold on, you believe his story?" He asked with a frown. He realized he barely knew her but… he felt connected to her. Dean and Castiel looked at him for a reason not to and he explained, "Listen, I know her-kind of. I-I've seen her with Jack and there's nothing that-"

"So, maybe Punk Rock Douche is wrong about things being inappropriate, but he says he heard her ask Jack if he was ready to go, and now Jack's not here, so..." Dean shrugged and Sam nodded begrudgingly. He couldn't disagree with that logic, so off they went.

As the three of them searched for George they became increasingly concerned. Just as Tim said, none of the camp refugees knew her, other than to say that they'd seen someone matching her description 'lurking' or 'sneaking' around the bunker after they showed up. They didn't know her name, they all swore she didn't come from Apocalypse World, and they had no idea where she was staying.

Sam became more and more deflated the more people they spoke to. On one hand, he didn't want to believe a word Tim had said about her, because most of them were awful. And in the admittedly limited amount of time he'd spent with her, he found her to be nothing but pleasant. And charming... Adorable. Incredibly kind hearted, but intensely competitive in a way that amused him. Had his instincts about her really been this off? Was she that good at duping him? Or, he worried, was he that good at being duped?

On the other hand, if she really was from this reality and just snuck into their bunker and lied to them about it, why? Certainly dreaming about her made a bit more sense now that she was of his reality, but was that a good thing or a bad thing? A happy coincidence or Gabriel's weird attempt at a long con? Or had the dream been real after all?

Why was he so bad with women?

Jack's phone had been blowing up with calls from Sam for the last two hours, so George figured it was time to return it. He had let her borrow it the night before when she'd mentioned wanting to listen to music. Really, though, she was trying to get in contact with Rowena regarding her trip home. She'd heard hide nor hair of the crazy redheaded witch since she'd left her there weeks ago, promising to find a way to get George home "in no time." She'd been here so long now that she'd DONE LAUNDRY. More than once! And-fun fact-the 70+ year old bunker didn't have an electric dryer! She'd have to remember to add that little factoid to Wikipedia when she got back.

Truthfully, though, being there had been like the world's best vacation from her normal life. Other than missing her friends and inexplicably worrying about the wellbeing of her students, she felt amazing. The meds she typically took to regulate her anxiety and depression had been left back at home but surprisingly she hadn't needed them. Maybe because the situation was so crazy exciting she didn't have time to be anxious or depressed? Whatever the reason, her new environment was strangely comfortable.

However, she knew the longer she was there the more dangerous the situation became. So, when Jack and her started to become friendly, she spotted an opportunity to try and get in contact with Rowena. Using the ruse of wanting to listen to music, he let her borrow the phone and made sure to give her the headphones. Which, she now couldn't find. Considering she had no way to replace them, she was kicking herself for losing them.

She checked the nooks and crannies of her tiny room one more time before giving up. Hoping Jack would take pity on her, she grabbed his phone and headed for his room. As she walked the now familiar path, her attention was on the phone, checking the messages again. She let out a frustrated growl when she saw that there were still no replies.

Texting Rowena once more to let her know that she was giving the phone back to Jack and not to respond, she added, "But DO get back here and get me home. NOW! Please?" before deleting all the texts she'd sent.

As George huffed frustratedly, she turned the phone off and looked up finally. The second her attention wasn't on the phone, all the hairs on the back of her neck stood up and she got a sick feeling in her stomach. She was being followed. As she took a sharp turn toward the kitchen, she caught a glimpse of Dean-turned-Michael skulking behind her. Her heart started beating faster, all the blood felt like it drained from her body and a cold sweat broke out on her forehead. The thought that this must be what true terror felt like briefly popped into her head. Just as her vision began tunneling, she found the strength to move her wobbly legs and dart into the kitchen.

Unfortunately for her, there had been a small bunker party the night before; beer bottles littered the floor. She just happened to kick right into a small pile, sending three bottles crashing across the room. The echoing clangs made her feel nauseous and dread began spreading through her chest.

Nice and stealthy.

A large cleaver sitting atop a cutting board on the prep table caught her attention. Thinking quickly, she lunged for it and then flung herself back across the room to the entryway. She slammed clumsily against the wall with a clear, obvious thud. The cleaver was clutched against her heaving chest. Doing her best to catch her breath quietly, she tried to listen for his approach. Unfortunately, the loud, obnoxious sound of her own blood rushing was muting her surroundings.

Aftering standing poised and ready for attack for what felt like a crazy long time, George finally-slowly-peaked her head around to check the hallway. From her vantage point she could see very clearly down the left hall and hadn't seen anyone moving since she got there. Her breath was held almost unconsciously as more and more of the right hall came into view. Her grip tightened on the cleaver and she slowly raised it on instinct, but it didn't take her long to see that Dean-Michael wasn't there.

Maybe he passed me while I was panicking? It didn't make much sense to her but she hesitated to put too much thought into it. Every molecule of her body was screaming for her to run back and hide, but she knew she had to find Sam and warn him.

Lowering the cleaver quickly, she shoved her hand in her pocket and ripped out Jack's phone. She'd planned to text Sam a 911. Just happened to turn her head half an inch at the right time when she saw a flash of plaid and scruff flying at her from inside the kitchen behind her. The phone dropped from her hand in surprise and she swiped the cleaver on instinct.

Her reaction was surprisingly effective as the blade connected and sliced the underside of Dean's arm. Unfortunately, it also came too late; he was too close. He grabbed her hand with his good arm and twisted the weapon out of her fingers painfully. Using his grip on her hand, he easily flipped her around, wrapped his-now bleeding-arm around her neck and locked both arms together.

As she struggled against the tight chokehold, she tried to fight the panic that was building. Scratching and clawing as his arm and struggling to breathe, she tried to drop her weight. When he followed her down without loosening his grip, she tried lifting her legs up off the ground in desperation. To her shock, he easily lifted her back upright. Almost without thinking, George kicked her legs out. When they connected with the opposite wall, she pushed with all her might.

Dean stumbled backward. When he made contact with the wall behind him, she felt more than heard a deep, rumbly-perhaps annoyed-groan escape him. Unfortunately, however, his grip around her neck didn't loosen and her vision was starting to tunnel. Digging her nails hard into his arm, she felt him grunt in pain again but there was nothing more she could do. With the lack of oxygen, George's body started going limp as she quickly began passing out.

He finally let go, just before she was totally out, laying her down on the floor. She was vaguely aware of some shuffling noises, a long stretch of silence, and then her limp body was lifted up and tossed over his shoulder like a bag of rice. Mercifully, air was flowing into her lungs again but she couldn't focus on much. He was carrying her through the hallways, at a determined pace, for a while. Turning into a room finally, she was aware of lights being turned on and metal scraping against the floor.

The next thing she knew she was being set down unceremoniously in a chair. It was an ancient, mostly metal chair with an old, worn leather seat. Her head flopped forward limply. As she struggled to regain her senses, Dean used her weakened state to affix her arms and legs to the chair with handcuffs. Then he stuffed a folded bandana into her mouth and tied it around the back of her head.

Suddenly, she felt him sprinkling her with something wet. Slowly lifting her head up, she saw him approaching her with a small, shiny blade. Normally, she'd freak out but she was still recovering from the lack of oxygen. Mercifully, all he did was press the blunt side of the blade against the skin of her arm. When she noticed the curious expression on his face, she realized what he was doing. Assuming the blade was silver, she realized the earlier liquid had probably been holy water.

The stars dancing in George's vision had finally cleared when Sam appeared in the doorway. As he walked in, her eyes went wide and her heart stopped. She started shouting incoherently behind the gag and there was a loud clanking sound as she tried to lift her hands and wave him out. Sam froze, looking at her in concern, then looking at Dean questioningly, then back to her.

The sight of George tied to a chair with a gag in her mouth registered slowly for him. He recognized her sitting there, dressed in a long sleeve black ribbed Henley t-shirt and khaki shorts. It took a moment of looking at her-perhaps distracted again by the bright artwork on the pale skin of her thick thigh-to notice the handcuffs and gag.

He jerked his head angrily toward his brother, "Really, Dean?! I told you to go easy! What the hell is this?!"

George stopped screaming in surprise when she heard Sam call him Dean, "'Ah'ss-eeennnn?!"

Dean raised an eyebrow, glancing over at George, and shrugged indifferently, "She had Jack's phone. And she has a secret hideout in our bunker that we didn't know existed." Sam looked shocked and turned to look at her quickly, then back at Dean when he lifted his arm to show off a bandage and added, "And she attacked me with a cleaver!"

"I-'hawt-ooo-err-'IKE-UHL!"

Sam listened carefully and then gave Dean an exasperated expression, "She thought you were Michael, you idiot. Of course, she attacked you! She probably thought you were going to kill her." Still, Sam hesitated to let her out of the cuffs immediately. He had to be sure.

Just then, Cas walked in with a piece of paper in his hand, "Other than a few clothes and food wrappers, her room was pretty bare. Like, Sam's room but with slightly more warmth. I did find this though. It appears to be a spell of some kind." George raised a confused eyebrow, watching them closely.

"A spell?" Sam was starting to get concerned. He definitely hadn't expected her to be a witch. A witch working with Gabriel would explain the dream situation though, he thought a bit disappointedly. He ignored that for that time being though. If the dream had been real, it wasn't a can of worms he wanted to open just yet.

Cas nodded, "I'm having trouble figuring out what it means, I think it's written in code. From what I can tell, the intended effect is to debilitate something called a 'pull out game?'" There was a muffled groan from behind the gag, as all the color drained from George's face.

"What?" Sam asked, confused. Castiel passed the paper to Sam to inspect.

"Some kind of a sports term?" Dean muttered with a frown, trying to read it over Sam's shoulder. "What's W-A-P?" Another loud groan escaped her lips.

Cas shrugged, "It's hard to follow because the context jumps around. I'm still trying to decipher it. I think it mentions some ingredients: weed-which I believe to be a colloquial reference to the plant cannabis, a king cobra-doesn't specify alive or dead-and something called 'punani Dasani'." As Sam scanned the page his eyes got wider and wider, then he quickly looked away from it.

George was struggling against her bindings even harder now, "Iss 'ought a ss'ell, iss a soo'g!"

Sam set the paper down on the table and walked over to her, taking the gag off. Dean quickly swooped up the paper and started reading.

As soon as her mouth was free, George shouted, "It's not a spell! It-"

"What's a 'Kegel'?" Sam, Cas, and George all turned to look at Dean's confused expression with a concerned look of their own.

Cas answered, "It's a type of exercise for strengthening pelvic muscles." Dean still looked confused. Sam and George looked surprised that Cas knew that and he added, "I assume it's used as part of the ritual for the spell?"

"Oh my god, it's NOT a spell!" George cried, blushing from head to toe.

Cas narrowed his eyes, "If it's not a spell then-"

"It's lyrics!"

"Lyrics?" Sam asked.

"Yes! Lyrics; for a song!" All three of them looked skeptical.

"A song by who, Chris Brown?!" Dean asked doubtfully.

George suddenly looked offended, "What?! No! It was written by women!"

"Written by women?!" Dean's head tilted questioningly and he stuttered, "'Beat it up, catch a charge?' 'Not looking for a fight, but I'm looking for a beating?' 'I want to gag, I want to choke, I-'" Sam rolled his eyes and reached out, snatching the paper away from him.

George struggled against her bindings more, waving her hands in surrender, "Dude, I refuse to sit here and explain or defend consensual rough sex for you…" She paused and looked in deep thought for a moment before muttering, "though I may have written fanfiction about doing that exact thing, actually…"

Dean and Sam shared a strange look and she said quickly, "The point is: that," she indicated toward the paper Dean was trying to annoy Sam into letting him read again, "is just a rap song, by Cardi B. I've had it stuck in my head since I got here but I can't listen to it because it doesn't exist. One night it was driving me nuts, so I finally just started writing out the lyrics hoping it would help somehow. I'm not a witch," She assured, and then looked at Dean, "and I'm not a demon! Or anything that's bothered by silver. I'm not anything! I'm just human!"

"With interesting taste in 'music'," Dean mumbled with some air quotes.

"And by the way, yes, I one hundred percent thought you were Michael! I saw you coming down the hall and nearly had a heart attack. If I'd known it was-" she looked him up and down with a strange mix of appreciation, awe, and terror, "really you… Dean Winchester." She thought for a minute and then shrugged, "Well, I probably still would have hid, but I definitely wouldn't have tried to stab you."

The guys were quiet for a moment before Cas asked them, "What do you think?"

"I believe her," Sam said definitively and George's stomach fluttered nauseatingly. "I know she thought you were Michael. We've been talking about it around here for weeks and you've not been back that long."

"Well, it's still feasible she heard about it…" Dean said but his tone indicated that wasn't what he really thought. "I've still got a lot of questions, but I'm inclined to believe her on these so called 'lyrics' at least," Dean said, begrudgingly, "I mean, what spell have you ever heard of that says 'if he ate my ass, he's a bottom feeder'?"

"Christ," George closed her eyes tight. If she weren't so terrified she would laugh. When she opened her eyes again finally, the smirk on Sam's face made her stomach do flip flops, so she closed them again.

"Alright," Dean addressed her again, "So, where's Jack?"

George's eyes flew back open and she frowned, "Jack?" She looked at Sam confused and then asked, "What do you mean 'where' is he?"

Sam was studying her, reading her reaction, before answering, "We can't find him in the bunker. He's gone, but nothing else seems to be missing."

"Except his cell phone, which was missing until I found you," Dean added accusatively, picking Jack's phone up off the table and holding it up. "So, when did you see him last?"

George frowned deeper, a concerned expression on her face, "Yesterday, but not for long." She looked over at Sam and explained, "As he's been getting better at the games, he's been more interested in single player. And seeing as how I'd rather gouge my own eyes out with a melon baller than watch a teenageish boy struggle to play video games that I could beat in my sleep, we've been hanging out less. He usually only comes to see me if he's really stuck or when he wants to talk about something that's bothering him."

Dean's brows furrowed curiously as he wondered who this woman was that seemed to be getting so close to his brother and his kid. "Why did he come to you yesterday?" He asked gruffly.

"I, uh… went to him, to ask if I could borrow his phone and listen to some music. I ended up staying to chat for a minute because he was pissed when I found him."

"Why?" Castiel asked with concern.

George smirked a bit, "Because he couldn't get a good picture of Gyrados in Pokemon Snap?" Dean looked confused and highly annoyed about it; Sam couldn't help but chuckle.

"Is that… another ambiguous song lyric?" Castiel looked confused.

"No, it's just a challenging video game," George explained. "So, hang on, are you sure he's gone-gone? Maybe-"

With a frustrated sigh, Sam nodded and cut her off, "We're sure, unfortunately. Can you just walk us through yesterday, when you saw him?"

George was getting worried; was Jack really in trouble? Was this another Big Bad trying to kill them? Was she going to have to hide in a small space again?! Did she have time to pee first? Where the hell was Rowena? Half of her was ready to go home, now, even if it had to hogtie and yank the other half with it.

After collecting her thoughts for a minute she said, "Sure. It was late evening. I went to his room to ask for the phone and found him chucking a controller at the wall," She and Sam shared a smirk and Dean narrowed his eyes curiously. "We talked about him being pissed at the game and I told him no one can get a picture of that fucking impossible pokemon, so not to beat himself up about it. Then I offered to play something multiplayer with him to get his mind off it. We played for a bit but the zombies were overwhelming him." Sam had to hold back a chuckle at the fact that she didn't seem very sympathetic. "I could tell he was just getting pissed all over, so I pretended I was tired of playing and we turned it off. He didn't feel like talking, so I made an excuse about being tired and told him I'd bring the phone back today."

"Where were you sitting?" Dean asked matter-of-factly and Sam flinched at the question.

"Scusi?" George didn't understand.

"When you were playing together, in Jack's room. Where were you sitting?" He asked again.

She looked at him like he had two heads, "What?! Why does it matter where I was sitt-" Her breath caught in her throat a little when she realized why he might be asking the question. All the blood drained from her face save for the deep, angry flush in her cheeks. She could see Sam fidgeting uncomfortably out of the corner of her eye.

The question offended her deeply and made her feel shame she didn't deserve to feel. She'd been sitting on the floor, per usual, and even so there was nothing going on between her and Jack. She doubted he'd even call her a friend; she'd helped him out with the games and listened when he needed someone to talk to a few times. That was it. Period. But the mere fact that Dean had asked the question had now planted the seed in everyone's mind. Even though she's innocent, and even after they find that out, she feared the question would always be there. She'd never be able to have a normal friendship with Jack, now.

You moron! You aren't going to be staying long enough to have any kind of friendship with any one of them, what. are. you. doing?! Just answer his moronic, misogynistic question and get this over with already.

She took a deep breath and unclenched her jaw to answer him, "I wa-" but then stopped and thought, although, when are you ever going to get the opportunity to put Dean Winchester in his place again?

Then she shook her head emphatically and, hands gesturing noisily, said, "No, ya know what? Fuck that. I honestly don't think it's any of your fucking business what square footage of space my ass was taking up inside of a room you weren't in. And I know for a fact that if I had a penis you would not be asking me this question at all, which is both ergregiously misogynistic and heteronormative. Unfortunately for you, I have a strict rule against answering such questions, sooooo thanks and g'fuck ya'self." She just told Dean Winchester to go fuck himself. She was proud but also felt like she might vomit.

Dean's eyebrows raised high. His expression slowly went from shocked, to pensive, to mildly agreeable. With an amused smirk, he gave a quick nod, "OK, you might have a point. But, I wouldn't be asking the question at all if certain people hadn't expressed concerns about the location of your ass inside the room."

"Dean," Sam was really uncomfortable with this line of questioning; though certainly not as uncomfortable as she deserved to be. He felt sure that Tim's accusations were baseless, but Jack's life could be on the line and there were definitely things she hadn't been honest about. He couldn't let his desire to believe her negatively affect Jack or their ability to find him. Still, he didn't think it was necessary to humiliate her, so he interjected gently, "George, while you were hanging out, did you talk about anything that stood out? What was his mood like?"

George swallowed hard and blinked back the shameful tears, before answering quietly, "We didn't really talk about anything special. Game shit-talk, mostly." Purposefully omitting the fact that she spent most of the time peppering Jack with questions about Sam. It seemed unnecessary to mention it now anyway, since obviously Sam felt she was being inappropriate with Jack.

"Did he say he was going somewhere? Or ask you to take him out again like with Gamestop?" Sam followed up.

George shook her head, "No. The only place he talked about wanting to go was hunting with you all. He wanted to find Dean, of course. But he wasn't worked up, just normal complaining. It wasn't anything new or concerning."

Dean asked gruffly, "Did anyone else see you two together?"

She frowned at him, "What do you mean?"

"Can anyone corroborate that you were with Jack or that you left him, alone? And yes, I would ask that question even if you had a penis," He finished with a smirk.

"Dean," Sam growled, shaking his head in frustration.

George stared daggers at him before swallowing back her snarky reply and smiling politely. At this point, no hogties were necessary; she was ready to go home. She felt mortified and ashamed, so she'd play the game if it meant being done with this. After a moment of thought she said, "Uhm… no, I don't think so. Well, maybe Tim?"

All three men shared an intrigued glance. "Blink-18Tim?" Dean clarified.

George couldn't help a wry chuckle, nodding affirmatively, "After I left Jack's room, he bumped into me in the hall. He didn't see me with Jack but he saw me alone after I left him."

"Did he know you'd come from Jack's room?" Castiel asked.

"I don't know, maybe? After I left I turned the corner, bumped into Tim-dropped the damn phone like a clumsy idiot. He picked it up and handed it back to me and then…" Pausing, she rolled her eyes to the ceiling and let out a begrudging sigh, "Well, lets just say, he wasn't respecting my personal space despite repeated attempts to create distance. So, I didn't stay long enough to explain my comings and goings to him."

"I'm sorry," Sam apologized with another deep frown. He was starting to feel like a massive tool. And he made a mental note to have a chat with everyone in the bunker about sexual harassment in the hunt space.

She clenched her jaw and looked back at Dean, shrugging, "I'm used to it." That only made Sam feel worse but George continued on, "Anyway, Tim probably can't corroborate that I was with Jack but he saw me alone in the hallway around midnight… with Jack's phone. I don't know if that helps me here, or not, actually," She finished with a deep sigh. Unconsciously, she tried to lift a hand to run through her hair, only to be reminded it was handcuffed to the chair. She huffed and gripped the arms tightly instead before adding, "Listen, I don't know what kind of information you're trying to get from me, but I can tell you with complete and total honesty: I do not know where Jack is. And my vagina and I have nothing to do with why he's gone missing," That was directed at Dean, to whom she gave a pointed stare.

Ignoring her snarky decree of innocence, Dean asked slightly more nicely, "Did you see where Tim was going when you left him?"

"I didn't. He turned down the hallway toward Jack's room…" She trailed off, thinking back to that night, "but I can't say for sure where he went. Like I said, the guy was giving me the creeps, so I left quickly."

There was a dense silence in the room as the three men digested her story. They huddled together and murmured to each other for a moment.

"So, do we believe Creepy Tim or Lil Kim?" Dean asked sarcastically motioning to George with a slight nod.

Castiel was unsure, "I don't know…" He looked the woman over with a skeptical eye, feeling inexplicably uneasy in her presence but he couldn't figure out why. "Something about her is… unsettling me."

Sam frowned, "What? You think she's lying?"

"No, no, it's more… Well, truthfully, I can't explain it. I don't think she's lying necessarily, but I think there's more than meets the eye."

"Is that just a fancy way of saying she's hiding something? Because, she's definitely hiding something," Dean said definitively, glancing back at the paper with the lyrics again.

"She's answered all our questions so far," Sam defended. "Even the ones that some could construe as offensive."

"Jack's missing and she was the last one seen with him. Just because you're sweet on her, doesn't mean she's not evil," Dean sneered.

"Historically speaking, it would make her more likely to be evil," Castiel added helpfully and Sam looked deeply offended.

With an annoyed huff, Sam grumbled, "She's the last one to be seen with him according to Tim. Obviously, their stories don't match up. Look, I'm not saying there isn't something strange about her," with a glance back at her he lowered his voice, "and obviously she wasn't honest about where she came from, but I really don't think we know enough yet to say she's responsible for Jack going missing. And Tim is definitely on my radar now."

Castiel seemed doubtful, "I don't know. Do we now believe her over Tim? The people of the camp fought beside us against Michael. Against Lucifer! He's our ally, isn't he?"

Neither was sure how to answer that. Sam thought for a minute, remembering something. With a brow furrow, he looked back at George suddenly, asking, "What music did you listen to?"

George looked confused, "What?"

"You said you borrowed the phone to listen to music?"

George's eyes went a little wide and she sputtered, "Oh… right, yea, the phone. Music." With what she hoped looked like a calm shrug she explained, "I didn't actually get to. Jack broke the speakers on the phone and…" she paused guiltily, "I might have... misplaced the headphones."

"Misplaced?" Castiel asked curiously as the three of them shared another look.

George rolled her eyes in annoyance at herself and said, "OK, yes, I lost them! They were attached to the phone when Jack gave it to me but when I got back to my room, I couldn't find them..." She trailed off guiltily.

Sam, Dean, and Castiel looked at each other with urgency and Castiel nodded before turning to leave quickly, "Tim. On it."

George looked confused but remained silent, watching them carefully. Dean and Sam spoke quietly to each other.

"Tim brought those headphones back when we first saw him at Jack's room, right?" Sam asked, even though he knew he was right.

Dean nodded and said, "And she said when she dropped the phone he handed it back to her. Probably swiped them then."

"You thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I'm thinking Tim is at the top of my suspect list now and I'm pretty close to pounding on his face, yea," Dean and Sam nodded in agreement and then glanced over George again.

"What about-"

Dean shook his head, unsure, "I don't know, man. You seem to be pretty sure she's innocent and based on what we know right now, I'm inclined to agree with you… but there's still something odd about her. And Tim was right about one thing: she obviously lied about coming from Apocalypse World. No one knew her. And she was hiding out in that room we didn't know existed until today, which is honestly kinda creepy. So, where did your little stalker come from and what is she doing here?"

Sam rolled his eyes and said, "Why don't we just ask her?"

Dean thought about it for a minute and then shrugged, "Alright, I will." He turned away from Sam and back to George, looking at her curiously, "So, George." The look she gave him was very done and he smiled, "Perhaps we got off on the wrong foot-"

"Oh? To which foot are you referring? The one where you strangled me or the one where you all but accused me of sexually assaulting a teenager?"

Dean smirked and gave her an apologetic expression, "Both. Mostly the first. I wasn't trying to hurt you, exactly-"

"Yea, I get it. You were just doing your job," George sighed, still annoyed about the sexist insinuation about her relationship with Jack, but understanding about the interrogation. If Jack really was missing, she knew they had to 'work the case.' It's just, so far as she knew, Sam was the only one who had ever seen her and Jack together and to hear Dean tell it, there were some concerns about their friendship. It hurt her more than she wanted to admit to think Sam was the one with those concerns.

"Right," Dean nodded slowly and then asked, "So, how did you end up here? At the bunker."

George's expression went from annoyed to surprised and then nervous, "Uhh, what… what do you mean?"

Dean shrugged, "I mean, Sam said you told him you came from Apocalypse World?"

George glanced at Sam and then darted her eyes around the room nervously, "I don't know if I said it so much as he guessed and I didn't correct him, but..."

When George didn't offer any further explanation, Dean and Sam exchanged a glance and Dean said, "Yea, and uh… Jules said the two of you were close."

"She did?" That was interesting.

Dean nodded emphatically, "Oh yea! Said the two of you fought together in Apocalypse World. Said you killed a lot of those giant squid aliens together?" Sam had to force himself to not roll his eyes at his brother's ruse.

"G-giant squ-?" George's eyes went wide and she muttered, "Holy-I really need to pay better attention to this show..."

"What?" Sam's brow raised.

George cleared her throat and said, "Nothing! Uh, just… yeah, I-I guess if that's what Jules said then… yup, I-I… I did that?"

"That sounds like a question?" Dean asked with an eyebrow raise. "Did you fight and kill giant squid aliens or not?"

George paused and then said slowly, "Whatever Jules said is exactly, uh-what happened."

Dean had to fight to keep his face expressionless, so he paused before saying, "Right. Well, hey, in that case I want to extend my condolences." Dean looked down and Sam tried not to react to whatever his brother was doing. "She told us how you lost your half human-half giant squid alien husband to the fight."

Her jaw dropped in surprise and a quiet chuckle of absurdity escaped her lips before she could stop it. As she struggled to keep her expression from showing the immense confusion she felt, her mind was drawing a complete blank at how to respond to this information. Was this in the show?!

Sam also struggled to keep his composure, lifting a hand up to rub his nose oh-so-casually, hiding a smirk.

When she couldn't respond Dean encouraged-slowly, as he was also struggling, "That must have been difficult? Losing Flurbert like that."

George grimaced and started nodding slowly, still looking very uncertain. She wasn't exactly sure how to feel about losing her imaginary human-squid alien hybrid husband. "Ye-eah… always hard to lose someone…" Finally sputtered out of her mouth.

Dean's eyes widened quickly in disbelief that she hadn't cracked at 'Flurbert'. With determination, he pushed forward, "Jules said it was real recent, too." George made an exaggerated noise of sad agreement, trying desperately to control the I-think-I'm-going-nuts laughter that was bubbling up. She was kind of nervous that the struggle might make her vomit.

With a sad shake of his head Dean continued, "I can't imagine what you're going through. I mean, I just don't know how you're going to do it all alone."

George narrowed her eyes a bit and managed a confused, "Do… what?"

Sam quickly turned away as Dean explained, "Raise all the babies." Luckily, he'd realized what was about to happen a split second before Dean said it, otherwise his face would have given them away.

"The fuck?" George blurted.

Dean's expression was innocent and he explained, "Yeah, Jules told us about the pregnancy, too." Sam couldn't turn back around, he was biting his fist to keep from laughing.

George's face twisted into a nearly crazed look of disbelief and asked, "Sorry-Jules... told you... that I was an ex soldier in a war against, er-giant squid aliens... who is also pregnant by her dead... human-squid... alien hybrid husband?"

Dean gave her a little 'oops' face and asked earnestly, "Oh my god, I'm so sorry. Were you not announcing yet?"

George was silent for a long time before finally, unable to stop it, she burst into the most insane laughter she's ever experienced. Between gasps she managed to get out, "What-the-fuck-is-happening?!"

Sam and Dean shared an amused look. Dean looked proud of himself and Sam rolled his eyes at his dumb brother. He could have easily just told her they knew she wasn't from Apocalypse World, but Dean loved the drama.

"Did you guys get new writers or something, what the hell!?" George managed to squeak out before another round of laughter. The look the brothers shared next was one of confusion. As she calmed down, tears streaming down her face, she said, "Oh my lord, I've gone beyond Oz at this point. Giant Squid Aliens?! That's Star Trek, not Supernatural!"

"Supernatural?" Dean asked and Sam whipped around to her, suddenly serious again. George saw them looking at her suspiciously and her laughter died away. She knew she had no choice but to tell them the truth now.

"Wha-" Sam furrowed his brow at her and asked dubiously, "Are you a fan of Supernatural?" His face fell suddenly and he swallowed nervously, "Did Becky send you?"

"Ha!" Came barking out before she could help it. With a pensive expression, trying not to laugh again, she said, "Um… Well, yes to the first question; hard no to the second."

Dean was getting angry and growled, "Explain."

George took a nervous breath and said, "OK�� well, here's the thing: I wasn't lying about being from an alternate reality, I just was lying about which one I came from. When you ask if I'm a fan of Supernatural, I assume you're talking about the books. By Carver Edlund, right?" Dean and Sam both nodded affirmatively with a slight frown. "OK, so, I'm not a fan of the books. I've actually never read them because they don't exist in my reality," George looked guilty and paused again.

The brothers exchanged another confused look and Dean asked more than stated, "OK?"

"I'm confused," Sam took a step closer. "You're a fan of Supernatural but you come from an alternate reality where Supernatural doesn't exist?"

"I said the books don't exist…" George gave them a nervous smile, waiting for them to come to the conclusion on their own. They weren't, so she said, "Think back about six-ish years ago?"

Following her directions, Sam's face slowly went from confusion to disbelief and then shock. Dean's face did the same, on about a five second delay. George squeezed her lips shut to keep from laughing.

"Wait… Are you saying you're from that-that alternate reality where this is all a TV show?" Sam asked, extremely skeptical. Then again it certainly explained a lot of her little idiosyncrasies.

George winced guiltily and nodded, "Yeah."

No one knew what to say and they all felt equally as awkward suddenly.

"You think we're actors?" Dean asked finally.

George shook her head a little and shrugged, "I don't really know how to answer that question." A nervous laughter bubbled up and she looked queasy suddenly, "I'm in a new reality for fucks sake. When I first got here? I definitely thought you were all actors, yes. Which was incredibly embarrassing because I couldn't remember Rowena's real name-er, Rowena's actress' real name? You know what I mean. Anyway, it definitely took some convincing, to say the least, but I've been here a while now and I've kinda gotten used to it? I mean, I think I know that you're really Sam Winchester and you're really Dean Winchester and this is all really… real." With a pair of wide eyes, she let out a huff of apologetic frustration, "Still, it's not every day you're suddenly ON a television show. I still get embarrassingly nervous whenever I see another charac-person I recognize," she shook her head with a light blush. "Which is exactly why I was trying to avoid you all while I waited for Rowena to help me get back home. But then I kept fucking up and running into Sam and then I woke up in his room and then Jack found me there and-and-and then he found me in the kitchen and he looked so sad; I had to help! What was I supposed to do?! And then Gamestop and Sam had a beard and things just spiraled! I-I-I-" He near breathless rambling stopped short when she met Sam's sweet eyes and her blush darkened.

"She woke up in your room?" Dean asked with a curious look to Sam.

Ignoring him, Sam quickly interjected, "Er-Rowena? What does she have to do with all this? Does she have Jack?"

George shook her head vehemently, "Nono, no! I told you, my being here has nothing to do with Jack being missing. I'm not part of this story, I don't belong here; I'm just… like one of those little fish that stick to sharks. Just looking for a safe place to hang out, maybe mooch a little bit of food here and there, until I can get back home to my reality. I'm not here to mess with anything. In fact, I think it's best for everyone if you let me go back to my hovel and consider me not here! Just pretend I don't exist because I'm definitely not supposed to. Here, that is."

Sam frowned for a minute and asked, "How do you know?"

"Know what?" She asked in confusion.

"That you aren't supposed to be here?"

"Oh, well funny you should mention that. To add some glitter to the glue I've obviously been sniffing-if I may borrow a phrase," She shot a smirk to Sam. He furrowed his brow in shock, remembering having said something similar when he was without his soul some eight years prior. She then grimaced and finished apologetically, "I come from the year 2020."

Both the boys looked yet more stunned and exchanged dubious expressions. Even Sam was starting to feel worried about this woman's mental health.

"Those lyrics I wrote down? They're from a song that was just released a few months ago, which is why I can't listen to it here. All the shit you're going through right now-Michael, apocalypse world? Ya, all of that has already happened for me. On the show, I mean."

It hit Sam hard suddenly just how much she knew about them-him, and it felt like he'd swallowed cement. He was ashamed of all the horrible things he'd done, the pain he'd caused so many people. It wasn't reasonable to expect a partner to be understanding about any of it, which is partly why he'd been reluctant to pursue relationships more and more.

But he'd been really hoping that maybe she was meant to be part of h-the story, so he asked anyway, "But... how do you know this is supposed to happen? That you aren't supposed to be part of… the 'story?'"

George guffawed and said, "Look, I'm admittedly behind on watching these last few seasons-and maybe I wouldn't be considered the world's biggest Supernatural fan-but I'm pretty confident that I was never actually on it," She finished with a definitive nod. Was it her or did Sam seem strangely disappointed.

"OK, tell me something only a fan of Supernatural would know," Dean said dubiously.

She narrowed her eyes in doubt, "Like… something just about major events or something personal? I-I know you killed Hitler?"

The two men quickly looked at each other in shock and then Sam shook his head, "Wait, that does not count. He tells that story to anyone who'll listen."

"I know you can lift Thor's hammer!" She replied back to him, grinning at the memory. That was pretty hot.

Dean turned to his brother with a smug smirk, "You were saying?"

"Something more personal, then?" Sam asked sheepishly.

"Uuuuhhhh…" George was frozen, unsure how to answer until finally she blurted, "OK, how about I know 'Carver Edlund' is really 'Chuck Shurley' is really motherfucking GOD with a capital G! Huh? Or, ooh! How about Sam's imaginary friend person? I can't remember his name, but he was some kind of being called like Xanadu or Zanzibar or-"

"A zanna," Sam choked out, all the air missing from his lungs suddenly.

"Sure, right! A zanna! Honestly, I mostly remember that episode because of the mermaid. It was sad when she was killed; I love mermaids." Sam looked nauseous and Dean suspicious, but both their eyes were wide. The three of them were all staring at each other, unsure what to say.

Finally, Sam gulped, "Dean, no one knows about Sully."

"I don't know Sam, I'm just not convinced. A time traveling superfan? C'mon! She could have gotten this intell from... anyone…"

George thought for a minute and then said, "Well I know a few more personal things but it feels kind of… icky telling you about yourself like that." Dean and Sam exchanged nervous glances and then she said, "How about the fact that-in my reality-Castiel is played by a different actor because Misha Collins was murdered? And that, while the official word was robbery-gone-wrong, I think the three of us know the cause of death was a bit more Supernatural than that, hmm?" She looked at the two of them pointedly, with a small, sardonic smirk.

That one shook both of them and they looked very guilty, especially Sam. Then, looking at Dean, she kept going, "Like I said I'm not the biggest fan but if we're talking most recent seasons: I know you had the mark of Cain for a bit. I know you stabbed Death with his own scythe and released the darkness who started as baby Amara and then grew up real fast. And I also know you were kinda, sorta feelin' her for a while-no shame. She was hot," Dean gulped and George began listing off factoids like it was a grocery list, "I know she brought your mom back to life. I know that Sam got kidnapped and tortured by the British Men of Letters. I know they tried to kill you both but obviously they didn't know who they were fucking with and it didn't go well for them… I know that stuffy psychopath Ketch 'died'," she air quoted, "but then came back with some bullshit twin story which I don't really remember why because I was only half paying attention and I personally still think Ketch is a tool, but that's neither here nor there." She paused and Dean made a nod of agreement at her last comment, giving Sam a curious look. The young Winchester could do little else but blink rapidly and panic internally. Neither one could wrap their heads around this.

With a head shake and a frustrated eye roll, Dean asked, "So, let me get this straight, not only do you come from an alternate reality where Sam and I are just two douchey, Polish actor dweebs, but you're also from the future of that reality?"

"Well... I think only Jared's the only one who's Polish, but…" George shrugged helplessly, "essentially, yea." The deafening, dumbfounded silence returned.

Dean frowned and he asked slowly, "To do what? And how did you get here?"

George winced and deep sighed, "Yea, still working on all that. Honestly, I hadn't even thought about the 'why' of it; I was more focused on a general 'wtf' and 'how do I get out of here before I fuck it up and get the show canceled or something.' As for how I got here, I couldn't tell you. One minute I'm in my apartment, getting ready for a date, and-"

"Oh, a date?" Sam asked, a little too sharply, standing at attention. Dean snickered at Sam's doofy, fake innocent expression.

George nodded off handedly, "Yea, this guy I met online. We were supposed to meet up for the first time at Marin Headlands Park for a hike to watch the sunset." She finished wistfully, as though it was incredibly romantic. Sam and Dean looked at each other, eyebrows raised.

"Let me get this straight. You 'met' a guy online-so basically a stranger-and he asked you to go to a secluded, wooded area alone with him at dusk?" Sugar coating wasn't Dean's forte. "Can I get 'what is a thousand red flags' for $500 Alex?"

She narrowed her eyes defensively at him. "He's not a stranger, he's… he's… he's LuvsToHike79!"

"Oh my God," Dean's voice went high and Sam made an "oo, not good" face. Pulling his most smug 'told ya so' look, Dean held out his arms to an imaginary audience, "might as well be notaserialkiller19! No question that loser was going to club you over the head, drag you back to his basement, and chain you to the floor."

As George struggled to remember the guy's real name, she could feel her cheeks begin to burn. After a moment, she decided that she would not be accepting questions or comments regarding her barely-there love life from Jared Padalecki or Jensen Ackles…or Sam or Dean Winchester for that matter!

"Says the 'loser' who nearly suffocated me, carried me to the dungeon in his secret bunker, and handcuffed me to a chair?" Lifting her wrists demonstratively, the handcuffs clanged loudly against the metal armrests. Sam looked like he wished the floor would swallow him whole while Dean nodded his head in resignation at her point. "The point is, I was in my apartment and then… something strange happened, like loud music and a big shove, and then suddenly I was in the library with Rowena. After she dropped the alternate reality bombshell, she said she'd been casting some spells to help boost the power and keep the rift open for you guys to be able to get back. Somehow I came through the rift, too? When she left me in that hobbit hole-which by the way she conjured out of thin air. It was really cool-she promised to come back after she was able to ensure your safe return. That was nearly a month ago," She finished with an annoyed smile. "She certainly lives up to her reputation and I can't tell if that's comforting or incredibly annoying."

"Why not both?" Dean offered with a knowing smirk.

Before anything else could be said, they heard erratic footsteps approaching. All three of them turned to see Castiel leading a very reluctant and struggling Tim into the room. Tim started elbowing and slapping at him and, in frustration, Cas shoved him hard. George let out a yelp of surprise as the guy went crashing to the ground inside the dungeon. He landed at Sam and Dean's feet. Looking up at them slowly there was a panicked expression on his face.

He gulped when Dean grinned like a cat about to eat the canary, "Hiya, Tim."

Tim scrambled to his feet and tried to bolt but Dean tripped him. He stumbled and then turned around and swung at Dean hard. Dean dodged the punch and landed one of his own into the guy's gut. There was a loud clanging sound as George instinctively tried to bring her hands to her face in shock. When he started trying to get up again, Castiel elbowed him in the back and he crumpled to the ground with a disoriented groan.

Sam quickly picked up the keys to the handcuffs and walked over to her, "We're probably going to need that chair back now."

"Happy to oblige," George nodded enthusiastically and yanked on the handcuffs that were holding her down. Sam unlocked her hands and ankles in record time and she vacated the chair quickly.

"Sorry about that, we just have to be careful, you know?" He apologized, nervously watching her move away from the hot seat and toward the desk in the corner of the room. "Are you hurt?" Sam asked with some concern when she rubbed her wrists absentmindedly.

She shrugged and stopped, "Actually, no. Just habit."

"You get handcuffed a lot?" Sam joked, sounding relieved, while moving to help Dean haul the guy into the chair.

"Only when there's a safeword involved," She assured with a wink.

Sam let out an "Aheh!" and some silent chuckles followed as he locked the cuffs on Tim's wrists and ankles. George couldn't see his face but she pictured he was blushing and it made her smile.

Dean, who'd secured Tim on the other side, stood upright again. He gave both George and Sam a bemused once over, then said aloud to himself, "Yea, it's all starting to make sense now."

George's smile dropped and she asked curiously, "What?"

Dean chose not to answer. Sam finished snapping the cuffs and then stood upright, just as Dean tossed a flask of holy water at Tim. His skin sizzled and he was alert again suddenly. Growling in pain, he struggled against his bindings fiercely and his eyes flashed black. George shivered in shock, goosebumps covering her entire body.

Whoa, that's intense.

Sam turned toward George and warned, "So, this," He motioned toward Tim, "might get a little..."

"Intense?" She filled in the blanks, watching Dean set the flask down and pick a knife up off the table next to her. He gave the blade an appreciative once over that made her gulp. Nodding before Sam could even answer, she headed for the door, "Well, then, that's my cue."

Sam followed behind her a bit, walking her out. When they were almost to the door, they heard the demon formerly known as Tim comment, "Letting the chubby little slut go, hmm? Did she tell you where she's hiding Jack, yet? Someone do a thorough check between her legs?"

While Dean adjusted his grip on the blade and took a step forward, Sam unholstered his gun, cocked it, and aimed lazily, "Would you like to repeat that, Timmy? Didn't quite hear you."

The menacing timbre of his voice gave George goosebumps, yet she was barely paying attention, glaring at Tim with a white hot rage. After a beat, she forced herself to relax and cleared her throat.

Her finger raised in the air, as she took a step forward, looked at the demon with a polite smile, and began sweetly, "First of all, wow are you obsessed with my body. Sorry not sorry: even if you weren't a demon, hard pass. Second, you can aim all that tired slut shaming at someone who actually gives a shit, because it ain't me. Third," Sam lowered his gun, watching her take another step and gave Tim an expression of such pity that it made even Dean uncomfortable, "what kind of demon takes a shot at the Winchesters and misses? Hmm?" Dean, Sam, and Castiel watched, stunned and confused. They were poised to step in if she got too close as she took another step toward the suddenly confused demon and continued, "Oh wait, I know!" She placed her hands open on either side of her mouth and shouted, "EVERY OTHER FUCKING DEMON who's come before you, TIM! Far, far better demons than you. Meg? Dead. Abaddon? Dead. Alastair? Lilith? Ruby? You guessed it: dead. Well, OK, there was Yellow Eyes," she admitted, feigning resolve.

"Nope, actually, we got him too," Dean interjected helpfully, thoroughly enjoying this. Plus, as endearingly irritating as he found her, watching a confident woman verbal bitch slap a demon was hot. He could tell from the look on his brother's face, he felt the same.

George acted mock surprised, "Ope! You don't say! I have a hard time keeping track." She looked back at Tim and said, "You know, these guys have killed so many demons, that where I come from there's an entire wikipedia page just listing name after name of all the demons who came for them and died trying. I'm sure you realize that a lot of them were smarter than you. Yet for some reason, you, Tim-or Krampus or whatever the fuck your demon name is-"

"I-It-It's actually Cleetus…" Came a pathetic stutter.

George's neck snapped back and she shared a 'wow' face with Dean. After a moment she said sarcastically, "Catchy. Yet, I've already forgotten it. Tim, you actually thought you were going to be different, huh? Thought that you were going to be the one to finally get them, right? That your name wouldn't end up on that list? Yet, your cover story is some played out all-women-are-whores BS, accusing me of trying to seduce Jack and kidnap him or something? Really? Your big play was a poorly constructed red herring? That's it?" The look of pity was back and Dean was almost feeling bad for the guy. "You thought if you wanted it bad enough that you'd actually pull it off, hmm? Well, buddy, I've seen every episode of America's Next Top Model and I've got bad news: 'wanting it more' gets you squat."

"No kidding, otherwise Natasha would have won season 8 like she should have," Dean chimed in matter of factly.

George's adrenaline was pumping at this point, so she was unable to process the absurdity of that statement coming out of Dean Winchester's mouth-especially since he was wrong; Jaslene was far superior. The look on Sam's face alone nearly broke her, but she pushed forward and made a mental note to address it later.

With a shrug she continued, "Now, sure, you infiltrated their bunker, bravo! But, I'm looking around and seeing: you, special little demon snowflake you," Sam wondered if George had the urge to boop the man on the nose, as indicated by her tone in that moment, "helplessly tied to a chair. And I'm seeing both of them," She held her thumbs out at both brothers smugly, "decidedly not tied to chairs. Oh yea, and holding weapons." Then she pointed to Castiel and said, "Also, not only is that guy an angel but I think he's also kinda the dad of the kid they're looking for and boy does he look pissed." Castiel was quick enough to mask his confusion with the rage he was feeling and she continued, "Sure, he's not currently holding a weapon, but honestly I don't even think he's going to need one, do you?" She gave Tim an exaggerated grimace and motioned around to the room, advising, "Tim, look at your life. Look at your choices."

The demon, whose brow was suddenly damp, watched her with a confused, somewhat deflated expression and began to say, "Well, I-"

Cutting him off, she began to step backwards away from him slowly, "Anyway, I'm gonna go ahead and take off now. It's one thing to watch pretend torture on TV but another thing to see actual torture. So..." She let her words sink in before she turned around and started heading for the exit again. The demon looked nervously between the three men, who were all looking particularly puffed up and menacing by that point. Tossing up a peace sign as she left, she called out, "Better luck next time, Tim!"

The four of them remained in stunned silence for an incredibly long time before Dean finally said, "OK, if you insist, I'll say it: That was hot as shit."

Sam gave him a disapproving frown for his phrasing, then nodded begrudgingly in agreement.

“For the record, Natasha should not have won that season. Jaslene was the superior model," Castiel added, giving Dean a pointed look, almost unconsciously unsheathing his angel blade and stepping toward Tim.

Oddly, Tim nodded enthusiastically and agreed, "Yea, Jaslene was way bet-"

"Can we focus please?!" Sam said in exasperation. Dean and Castiel looked like scolded children with matching apologetic expressions.

When Sam turned away, Dean grumbled quietly to Cas, "We'll talk about it later."

"There's nothing to talk about. Jasle-"

"Guys!"

[dccomicsnews]

Directed by: Cathy Yan

Written by: Christina Hodson

Starring: Margot Robbie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Rosie Perez, Chris Messina, Ewan McGregor

Review by: Eric Joseph

Summary

Somewhat capitalizing on the success of 2016’s Suicide Squad, Margot Robbie returns as Harley Quinn in an ensemble tale that kind of functions as a solo adventure all at the same time. The Clown Princess of Crime may share the screen with several other DC favorites, sure, but it still feels like it’s her movie in the end. Think of how Steve Rogers remained the central character in Captain America: Civil War amid guest stars galore, and you have somewhat of a decent parallel here – albeit with a much smaller cast, of course.

Unfortunately, Birds of Prey didn’t rake in the box office dough it should have, but we can only hope that more people discover it once the home video release hits shelves. In my view, this film turned out much better than I’d anticipated, so I’m going to tell you why it’s worth your time and money. Questionable marketing, costume choices, and an unnecessarily long title that should have been simplified to “Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey” in the first place were likely the biggest factors contributing to financial shortcomings, although there’s nothing we can do about any of those at this point.

Basically, the story follows Harley Quinn, Huntress, Black Canary and Renee Montoya as they call come together while the villainous Black Mask and Victor Zsasz hunt the human MacGuffin that is Cassandra Cain. I won’t spoil why they’re pursuing said child in case you haven’t seen the picture for yourself, but that’s the gist of it.

Positives 

The greatest positive to mention is that of the gal whose name is included in the title itself: Harley Quinn. Like I said, this is damn near a Harley solo film, although I can’t complain too much because Margot Robbie simply knocks it out of the park. It’s as if Suicide Squad were the appetizer and Birds of Prey is the main course. Her performance is spot-on, and I can tell she put a lot of effort and research into every onscreen decision she made while inhabiting the character’s skin. My guess is that she’d just begun reading the comics while filming Suicide Squad, and then read a lot more in the time since. I know for a fact that she’s become a fan of the source material, and it really shows.

In fact, I must say that the rest of the main cast did commendable jobs with the roles they landed – even if some of those portrayals were questionable. Well, any missteps when it came to characterization weren’t their fault, as actors just play with the scripts they’re given. We’ll pick up on that point when we get to the “negatives” part of this review, alright?

Actually, it could be argued that some gripes can be tolerated when the end product turns out so well. The narrative itself unfolds in nonlinear fashion, yet it comes across as quite smooth. It’s a far cry from the editing nightmare that was Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice‘s theatrical cut, that’s for sure.

If anyone deserves a round of high fives, it’s 87eleven, the stunt team who choreographed the stellar action sequences. There’s a very good reason why the fight scenes are on par with John Wick films – and that’s because the same talented folks just mentioned worked on those. Here’s hoping they’re brought aboard for more DC projects in the future, particularly anything having to do with Batman.

K.K. Barrett and his production design crew also warrant a tip of the hat. I’m aware that they wanted their Gotham City to look different and more realistic, but it’s my belief they achieved something closer to the comics than anything lensed by Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder. Not meaning to knock what those guys did, but their Gothams simply looked like everyday major cities. Gotham City is a character unto itself, and that’s something I haven’t seen portrayed to the fullest extent outside of the Tim Burton-Joel Schumacher era and the Gotham TV series. But here, we’re transported to Black Mask’s nightclub, an eerie amusement park and otherworldly pier that look like they were plucked from Batman: The Animated Series, with daytime romps through the city forcing me to recall something like the Burnside borough from the comics.

And when it comes to supplemental content, WB sure didn’t skimp on that for the Blu-ray release. I recommend checking out “Birds Eye View Mode” for your second viewing of the feature presentation, as it is essentially a video commentary, behind-the-scenes tour, and pop-up video-style factoid dropper all rolled into one. Beyond that, there are featurettes that delve into production design, stunts, costuming and much more.

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Negatives

Okay, here’s where I have to get dead serious.

My first airing of grievances has to be directed at costuming. That particular department may have wanted to avoid skimpy spandex outfits and “onesies” as they put it, but not many characters in this movie are recognizable to readers of comics. Although most people flocking to theaters don’t actually read the books, the core audience will kickoff the snowball effect of advance poor word of mouth without fail, and that definitely happened well before opening weekend this past February.

Now, I’m not saying Mary Elizabeth Winstead had to run around in a singlet as if she were going for a swim, but they could’ve figured out some sort of tactical gear akin to the blueprint laid by comic book artists. If other movies in the genre can do it, why couldn’t this one? And when she finally does don the black and purple complemented by a white cross, it’s in a tracksuit-type whatever-it-is that looks like it was ordered online and arrived several sizes too big. You see, this is what grinds the gears of diehard fans. If their familiar getup is supposedly so impractical and unfavorable to women, then Harley Quinn and Black Canary wouldn’t be cosplayed ad infinitum worldwide, would they?

Now, I’m not going to do likewise for every other character – save for Harley, who couldn’t even wear her familiar red and black color scheme – but there’s a reason why I singled out Huntress: I’d been waiting years for her to come to the silver screen. Not only that, but both the Birds of Prey and Arrow TV series had already struck out when it came to her costume, so that’s why I had high hopes for this. And to be clear, I have no criticisms of Ms. Winstead herself; the casting department found the right actress. It’s just that they missed the mark with her gear.

As for poor characterization mentioned earlier, I can’t fathom how Black Mask and Cassandra Cain got so f—ed up. The former would be more aptly described as “Black Mascara” and the latter is not the disabled hero who once took up cape and cowl as Batgirl in the comics. I’d go as far to say they could’ve called her “Jimmy Olsen” and it wouldn’t have made a difference. Really, why mess up them both when every other major character in this production was pretty much nailed from a writing standpoint? But that’s Hollywood, baby, and they know better than you or I.

Verdict

In the case of Birds of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), the pros far outweigh the cons. Trust me when I say this film is a must-see for fans of Harley Quinn and DC Comics in general, so do yourself a favor and pick it up on whatever home video format you prefer. It’s insane, R-rated fun on the same level as Deadpool, so fingers remain crossed that this finds the larger audience it deserves.

Blu-ray Review: Birds Of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation Of One Harley Quinn) Directed by: Cathy Yan Written by: Christina Hodson Starring: Margot Robbie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Rosie Perez, Chris Messina, Ewan McGregor…

[vkelleyart]

OMG HABLAS ESPAÑOL??? AHFHSHDUEUQBDYWHDY no sé, me emociono que mi artista favorita hablé mi idioma natal :'''3, también quería aconsejarte sobre hablar y escuchar español, podrías ver (si es que tienes tiempo) series, películas y videos en español y cuando estés sola hablar en voz alta en español, al menos eso es lo que hago para mejorar mi inglés porque vivo en México y no me comunico con nadie en inglés y así mejoro mi pronunciación (creo).

❤️❤️ Yay! Estoy tan contento de que este pequeño factoide mío me esta conectando con tantos usuarios de Tumblr que hablan español! lol

Muchas gracias por tus consejos - son exactamente lo que necesito oir. Antes, yo veia muchos más programas de televisión en español, pero por alguna razón, me paro. También leia novelas en voz alta en español, pero estoy seguro de que me volví perezoso porque eso también cesó. Ahora que estoy escribiendo una novela gráfica en que mis personajes aveces hablan español, Debería tomar en serio tus consejos! Gracias por compartir tus pensamientos conmigo! Lo aprecio muchísimo. :)

Translation:

Yay! I’m so happy that this little factoid about me is connecting me with so many spanish speaking Tumblr users!

Thanks so much for your advice - it’s exactly what I need to hear. Before, I’d watch a lot of spanish language television programs, but for some reason, I stopped. I also read spanish novels aloud, but I’m sure I got lazy because that practice ceased as well. Now that I’m writing a graphic novel in which my characters occasionally speak Spanish, I should take your advice to heart!

 Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me! I appreciate it so much. :)

[am-molloy]

20 Facts About Me: A.M. Molloy

Hello everyone! Welcome back (or to) my blog.

Today I thought I would share with you all 15 random facts that you may or may not know about me. These factoids may not have to with my writing life, but they’ll help you understand who I am as a person. So! Let’s take a dive into my life.

If you didn't know this already, I have a cat named Sorren. She is my soul-kitty and the love of my life. We’ve barely been apart the 11 years she’s been in my life. I wasn’t going to accept any job abroad unless I could bring her.

I love to travel. In fact, my first big travel was to a summer camp in China when I was 15, way back in 2004.

So far, I’ve been to (in order), China, America, Japan ( x3 ), Korea, (x3 ), Belgium, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Hong Kong, and Thailand. Being Canadian, I’ve obviously been to Canada, though I haven’t travelled as much within my own country. I do plan on visiting more countries soon, but for now, I’m planning another return visit to Japan for my upcoming summer vacation.

I am a 2nd-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, although it’s been a few years since I practiced due to financial issues. I would love to practice again, especially as I live in Korea now, but now is not the right time for me. I still have all my equipment and remember most of my forms so perhaps someday!

Side note, back in the day when I did practice, I used to go to competitions and would usually win first or second place. Usually first for forms and second for sparing. I rarely got lower and if I did it was for sparing. Forms were my strong suit.

I used to be an animator. I went to an art school studying animation and graphics and working in my field after graduation. Though if I’m being honest, I was never the best at animation. Still, art was more my thing. So when I worked for Contendo, I eventually gravitated towards mostly audio work and eventually becoming their Senior Audio Editor. I still do art, but it’s now for fun rather work. And let’s be honest, the art I did for Contendo isn’t what you would have expected me to be doing. At Contendo we made training videos for oil and gas companies.

Below is my super old demo reel, and I have improved since 2009 But this is to just show you what I used to do. I was by far the best but I enjoyed doing it all the same.

Note: The video is from my old YouTube channel from college. I do not use that channel anymore. If you want to see more up to date videos and life in Korea, check out my actual YouTube channel: Canadian Abroad: A.M. Molloy.

I have a total of 11 tattoos! (So far). Below is a slideshow from my very first tattoo (the tribal dragon when I was 17) to my latest, number eleven done this year in Korea (Sorren).

I am fluent in English, French, Spanish and I can speak intermediate Japanese (taught myself) and beginner Korean (also teaching myself).

My dad is French (from Quebec) so I learned English and French growing up in my household. I majored in Spanish at university and spent a semester in Spain as an exchange student.

I used to do a lot of cosplay, but I haven’t done so in years. I haven’t cosplayed very much and I reused the same cosplay for many cons (and halloween costumes) but I still enjoyed doing it all the same. I can’t sew so I always had help making them. I still appreciate a good cosplay from other cosplayers.

I love photography, though I’m still learning. I’m far from good but I’m getting better every day. I mostly take iPhone photography shots because I don’t always lug around my Nikon D3200. Honestly, with a bit of practice, anyone can make iPhone pictures turn out great. Featured below are a few of my favourite shots taken with my iPhone 8.

I have a wall of all my shots but my favourite will always be of my best friend, Leila, holding the Polaroid picture I just took of her. The picture of her holding the picture (INCEPTION) was also another iPhone shot.

I made my own language/culture because reasons. Mostly RP though. The language is called Hikaran and is spoken by a race on the planet Spira. I go into full length on said language and people in a previous blog post, so please, go ahead and check it out!

Admittedly, I made most of this up during math class in high school. It’s safe to say I’m not very good at math.

Anyway, instead of going into full detail here (because it’s in the blog post), I’ll just leave this popular Hikaran saying here:

While on exchange to Spain back in the summer of 2016, I met and shook hands with the queen of Spain in what I call a happy accident. One day I was walking around my school and taking a stroll around town and I noticed a blocked road a crowd starting to form where there usually isn’t. So, naturally, I had to get up front to see what was going to happen. Turns out the queen of Spain was in town and she took time to shake hands with people and I got lucky enough to be one of them. Moral of the story: when you see a tent or a barricade and people starting to gather where there usually isn’t, get up front because awesome things are gonna happen.  Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture with her, but I do, however, have a picture of her. (Pictured above).

Back in high school, when it was time for graduation photos, we were told we could bring an item, like a soccer ball or baseball bat, if we wanted for our pictures. Being the cat-obsessed weird person that I am, I legit brought my cat, Marbles (AKA Mibs) in a duffle bag (it was open) to school for my picture. Needless to say, I was the talk of the school for bringing a cat haha.  I lived super close to my school so I took my picture and brought her straight home. She hated going to school but was a good girl and took an amazing picture. 

I’m a huge Harry Potter fan. Literally grew up with it. I was in the 6th grade reading the first three books because that’s all that was published at the time. When the first Harry Potter movie came out, I’ll never forget the experience. It was amazing and I loved every bit of it.

PS: I’m a proud Gryffindor. I also have many friends from all of the houses, but most of them are from Slytherin.

I grew with Pokemon. I was around when it was all first released and Pokemon Red was my first ever game I owned to go with the first ever consul I opened, Nintendo Colour. I buy every game, still collect cards, and I used to watch the anime. Pokemon will always have a special place in my heart.

My new all time favourite game is Life is Strange all other games in said franchise. THAT GAME IS MY LIFE, YO. I mean, if you noticed on fact number 5 that one of my tattoos is Life is Strange themed.

My favourite author is Rachel Vincent.

Literally, anything she writes is golden to me.

My favourite series of hers will always be the Soul Screamers series. I still can’t believe how she ended that series. Love it! I just get so invested in each world that she creates that I feel like I’m right there with the characters and I don’t know what to do with my life when I finish each book.

If you love reading, I highly recommend checking her out.

The origin of my author name: A.M. Molloy is basically the initials to my given name, Alex Molloy. However, in person, I prefer to be called Mina. Mina is my Korean name and to be honest, I was never fond of Alex. Since I live in Korea, everyone here calls me Mina. It makes me happy to hear people call me Mina. :3

My novel is in its third round of edits and beta reader stage. One of my beta readers created SOUTH’s very first meme! I’m so in love with it that I’m sharing it here.

So, my university had this mini ball pit kept in the student center. Once during a society meeting at my university, my friend and I decided to completely organize the ball pit into a rainbow. It literally took us forty-five mins straight but we did it! And then no one wanted to sit in the ball bit for like a week because they didn’t want to mess it up so we had to mess it up again so people would use it again.

During my second visit to Japan, I had the pleasure to meet a real sumo wrestler. It was an honour. I wish I could have seen an actual match but this was still awesome all the same.

I loved volunteering at my university for many things, but my favourite was being an NSO Leader. My last year at uni I had the privilege to be on the best team, Yellow Team, and had the most amazing crew. It was truly the best experience. I loved helping all the newcomers to UPEI and I would do it again in a heartbeat if I was still in school.

Well, you’ve made it this far! Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed learning a bit more about me. For now, this concludes my new post, 20 facts about me.

Take care.

— Mina (A.M. Molloy)

[lauralcoxcmu]

Three Reasons Junk News Spreads So Quickly Across Social Media

After reading the abbreviated article Three Reasons Junk News Spreads So Quickly Across Social Media from the Oxford Internet Institute (https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/blog/three-reasons-junk-news-spreads-so-quickly-across-social-media/), I understand a bit more about what I was seeing on social media throughout the 2016 Election and more recently, the 2020 Election.

Reason 1: Algorithms

Algorithms control what we see across social media. They choose and filter the content that we see based on our views about topics, personal preference, and political affiliation. These algorithms are suppose to "deliver content in a manner that is designed to maximize users’ engagement with the content and time spent on the platform." Unfortunately, these algorithms are evolving and the content we see on our social media is now very focused on the political party we prefer and the news that we see now is increasing peoples biased opinions. People are not choosing what we see or more importantly, not see. The algorithms are causing junk news to spread at an alarming rate. We saw this in the 2016 Election. Take for example the gun control topic. Hillary Clinton proposed gun reforms with bans on assault weapons and stricter background checks. Donald Trump called gun control a failure and wanted to lighten background checks and increase concealed carry permits so Americans could defend themselves. The way the algorithms work meant Clinton supporters saw positive messages about her proposed actions regarding guns and more messages about how Trumps plan was ill-conceived and dangerous with strong opinions against Trump. Trump supporters saw positive messages about his plan to increase concealed carry permits and facts that backed up his platform and more messages about how Clinton's plans for stricter gun control would not work and would harm the American public. Because of the different content each person sees, it increased our negative opinions about the candidate that we did not support because we did not receive equal content for both parties. The scary part is the junk news gets spread faster because the algorithm apparently does not take into consideration fact checking and references on the news that is being disseminated. I could post an article that Clinton was secretly a spy for another country and Trump was descendant of space aliens. Put enough convincing "factoids", and the junk news spreads. Here is a link to an article about the pros and cons of algorithms (https://www.amplimark.com/pros-and-cons-of-the-social-media-algorithm-age/)

Reason 2: Advertising

The main reason social media is free is because they are selling us as products. Social media makes money from ad revenue, which is targeted to each user based on their personal preferences and activity. My Facebook newsfeed use to have tons of ads on various products and services they thought I would be interested in. In the past several years I have edited out the ads for most part, and now I see very little. I still get the targeted ads based on my recent search patterns and links to animal videos and articles, but I finally seemed to remove most everything else. YouTube is were I get caught in the clickbait videos. The algorithms have learned that I will click on hot-button videos for various popular topics. This is why junk news is spreading faster each year. We want to believe the information we read and see is accurate, but content can be exaggerated, misleading, and wrong, but if that junk news is seen and shared by more and more people, then the news spreads, sometimes at an alarming rate when it goes viral. Ads are also being used against us. The ads can contain simple messages about corn flakes or messages that mislead us and manipulate us into believing something is true. You get someone famous to state they like or believe in something on social media, and because of their status, more people will believe the message the famous person is trying to advertise, whether its true or not. Here's an article that discusses advertising (https://smallbusiness.chron.com/examples-manipulative-advertising-11668.html)

Reason 3: Exposure

This goes back to what I said about my removing of ads and various links on my Facebook to limit what I see. Think about people of a particular political party. Most people tend to choose to view information about their preferred party, which increases their opinions about their candidate. Republications don't want to hear about the crap Democrats are spouting and conversely Democrats do not want to hear about the crap Republications are spouting. Regardless of the political party you affiliate yourself with, social media will expose you to news that you may feel is relevant to you. The news you see does not have to be true, because anything can be posted online and if more and more people believe what they are reading, and then they spread it to others, and so on causing the junk news to spread rapidly. We expose ourselves to what we want to see on social media. A good example for me is how I read the local news. I typically do not watch the news on TV, but I chose instead to read the news on WXYZ's app. I only click on stories that catch my eye. I'm basically self censoring the news that I want to know about. I use to click on stories about freeway shootings, but now they are becoming so prevalent, I honestly just sigh and move to another article. It's not that I don't think that this is a serious issue, because it is. It's scary knowing that just driving on a freeway in Metro Detroit could mean you could get shot. I just get depressed about reading about yet another incident and I choose to read about something else instead.

In conclusion, businesses and individuals need to be aware that all things on the Internet are not true. Junk news spreads just as easily as real news, but tends to spread faster because junk news tends to appeal to our sensationalistic side. We gravitate to those stories that get a rise in us, and depending on strongly you feel about that particular piece of news is how loud we talk about it's message. This has lead to more and more violent confrontations between people that believe the polar opposite of the topic; race relations, politics, gun control, privilege, etc. Social media has allowed "soap boxes" for anyone who feels they have a message. We need to strongly consider what we post for the world to see, because once it's out there, there's no going back. I had an acquaintance that truly believed cats were dangerous and spread disease based on information she was exposed to on the Internet. While it is true that cats can carry diseases and can be vicious, this is the rare exception, not the norm. Here is a mild example of why she believes this to be true (https://wildlife.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FactSheet-FeralCats_FINAL-1.pdf). While this concentrates on the negative, the very end shows how to avoid this simply be keeping cats indoors and getting them vaccinated. We need to educate ourselves about what we are reading and understand that because the Internet says something is true, does not mean that it is. The algorithms are changing how people and business's think which is causing junk news to perpetuate more. As a society, we need to change the algorithms to expose all of us to a variety of news and topics and not just what it feels we want to see. We need to remember that before social media, new tended to be more accurate because where we could learn about the news and events was fact checked and mostly accurate (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/radical-ideas-social-media-algorithms/). Hopefully we as a society can learn from the mistakes that are currently being made and curb the spread of junk news.

[factoides-yajan]

Factoide (#4215) Si rotas recursivamente los segmentos de una imagen, terminas rotando la imagen en sí

[Publicado originalmente el 28 de Mayo del 2023]    

[yeonchi]

Kisekae Insights #10: A quick look into Parker’s enemies

In the last instalment, I took a look at a couple of Hiroki’s enemies. Now, let’s take a look at a couple of Parker’s enemies. Once again, these enemies are Time War-era enemies based around the people I’ve encountered. In my real-life context, these enemies have less significance compared to the ones I introduced in the last instalment.

Minnie Xia and the JIMPS

In the project:

The JIMPS are a group of five talented strategists from Parker’s unit during their time in primary school. JIMPS is an acronym derived from the first letters in the members’ names – Josh, Ivy, Minnie, Paige and Sam. Sam was a late addition to the team and they also had an honorary sixth member, Lin, from the other unit, but her initial will not be included in the acronym for the sake of simplicity.

Parker was the main strategist for his army, but when the JIMPS were introduced to replace his role as strategist in a campaign, he begins to feel a sense of inferiority that there are people who are better strategists than he is. He allows the JIMPS to lead the next campaign while having Hiroki work against them in order to sabotage them. Parker proceeds to lead the following campaign without the JIMPS, but his insubordination is reported back to his army’s commanders. The commanders state that they only wanted the JIMPS to lead the first campaign as a test of their skills; Parker would have been the strategist for the second campaign regardless.

Parker is disciplined for his actions, but his rivalry with the JIMPS would continue, particularly against Minnie Xia, who he saw as his biggest rival. They were good friends in the past, but Parker became jealous of Minnie’s intellect upon learning that she was part of the JIMPS.

When Minnie negotiates an alliance with a distant army, they accept on the condition that she defeat Parker in battle. Minnie takes the JIMPS and her army and challenges Parker and his army to battle, but it is revealed to be a trap from the distant army, who were plotting to get them out of the way by having them destroy each other. Parker and Minnie work together to defeat the distant army and they become close comrades.

Later, after fighting off the Salacians and invading their kingdoms, Parker and Minnie are pitted against each other again thanks to Squid Girl, who was working with the Master and the Salacian Army to split Parker and Minnie’s army. Minnie invites Parker for a final battle, but during the battle, Minnie’s treachery is revealed as Salacian Army troops ambush Parker’s troops, forcing Parker and Hiroki to flee.

Eventually, Parker sides with the Date Army, led by Doctor Eggman (while still claiming to fight for justice) and with the JIMPS disbanded, Minnie establishes her own army, the Sanada Army. After gathering troops from across the land, the two have one final showdown at the Sanada main camp. During the siege, Parker leads a mobile unit into Minnie’s base with the help of a defector from the Sanada, but this was part of a plot to lure Parker into a trap. Parker is defeated and captured by Minnie before being executed the next morning.

A few months later, Hiroki goes to Minnie for help when he is faced with Girl Power and the Teiro Army. He believed that deep down, Minnie never hated Parker as much as he thought she did and Minnie reveals that despite Parker’s rivalry and disrespect for her, she did what she did because she wanted to be like him, and so she joins Hiroki’s army and helps him reform the JIMPS. They disband again soon after Girl Power and the Teiro Army’s defeat.

IRL context:

In Grade 6, my teacher established a group similar to the “JIMPS” and it was made up of five smart kids from my class. As far as I can recall, they did work that was a level above the rest of us. There were four Asian kids in my class and three of them were in the group; the fourth one was me, so I thought the teacher was having a go at me for not being smart or something. Out of nowhere, I decided to start a little rivalry with “Minnie” and challenged her at various things we did in class. She didn’t really answer most of my challenges or respond to them in any way, but no matter what I challenged her at, “Minnie” would somehow beat me at everything.

Some more context between “Minnie” and myself; in Prep (and possibly Grade 1 and 2) my mum used to chat with “Minnie”’s mum as part of her friendship group, but the latter eventually dropped out because I eventually stopped seeing her chat with them. We were in different classes from Prep to Grade 2, but from Grades 3 to 6, we were in the same class. I had a bit of a crush on “Minnie” in Grade 6, but nothing really came out of it. We went to different secondary schools and the last time we, or rather, our families, met was in the middle of Year 9 when we saw each other at a Chinese restaurant on a Saturday afternoon.

The Kikuchi Clan

In the project:

Miranda Dawkins was a Time Lady, an adopted daughter of the Doctor and the empress of the universe. After she sacrificed herself to save the Doctor, she regenerated into a baby and the Doctor left her in the care of the Kikuchi family in the late 90’s, who would name her Ayaka.

By the time she got into her secondary school army, she became aware of her heritage and history and so, she formed the Kikuchi Troupe and began her second attempt at conquering the universe. When Hiroki discovered that the Kikuchi Troupe were conspiring to overthrow their secondary school army, Ayaka began an uprising and the Kikuchi Troupe became the Kikuchi Clan. It was then that Parker began pursuing them with the help of the Doctor and the two would become arch-nemeses.

A short summary of the Kikuchi’s involvement in the stories included an invasion of Equestria, an invasion of the land that nearly led to it being nuked and an invasion from a parallel universe that involved them creating super-soldiers from the DNA of that universe’s Hiroki and Hideko Kimihara, a girl with Asperger syndrome.

Ayaka died when the Doctors and Parker foiled her plans and defeated her, but she chose not to regenerate and be a prisoner in the TARDIS. Her body was burnt on a pyre, but part of her survived and soon enough, she was resurrected. The ensuing events were very confusing as it involved lots of things happening at once (trying to rewrite that story during the lockdown was jarring for me), but the Kikuchi were defeated again and time was rewritten so that those events never happened (paradox machines were involved).

When the Harmony Signal was fired at the end of the Salacian Time War, Ayaka and a number of Kikuchi officers were accidentally purged to another universe. They eventually made their way back to the main universe and attempted to create super-soldiers again, only to be defeated.

IRL context:

“Hideko” was in my secondary school for a little under two years. Her locker was in a different location to the rest of our cohort and sometimes, I would have to go there because she wanted me to do some work with her. That was how I became acquainted with “Ayaka” and her friends. “Ayaka” was a bit of an otaku and pegasister, so when we were friends on Facebook, I used to tag her in a lot of stupid shit. Eventually she got fed up and blocked me, and that’s what inspired me to put her as an enemy in my stories.

A couple of factoids; “Ayaka” did a music video cover of SNSD’s The Boys with a few other Asian girls, of which she was the only white girl in it (I forgot to download the video back then and it’s gone); and currently, she does cosplays at cons.

So that’s a quick overview of some of Hiroki and Parker’s Time War enemies. You’ll hear more about our other enemies when I eventually cover them in the middle of other instalments.

[daleisgreat]

Not for Resale: A Videogame Store Documentary

I have been following the work of gaming personality/author/collector/podcaster/YouTuber, Pat Contri for several years now. His line of ‘complete’ guide books that review every NES and SNES game have provided ample bedtime reading for me for well over a year. When I recall him first mentioning on his podcast that he teamed up with director Kevin J. James to executive produce a documentary on independent videogame stores, I instantly made a mental note to put their film, Not for Resale: A Videogame Store Documentary (trailer) on my radar. I pre-ordered it soon enough and wasted no time in devouring the BluRay and its extra features shortly after it arrived in the mail a little over a week ago. I have always had a soft spot for the independent/”ma and pa” game stores. I was fortunate to have one in my town in my childhood years where I first dabbled in trading in awful GameBoy games, but spent hours there perusing and trying out games on their multiple kiosks. Since then for about the last 15 years a small regional chain opened up here that specializes in retro games, but also has some new games and plenty of clothing/figures and other gaming related merchandise. There is just that intangible local comradery that is more welcoming there than the nationwide chain, GameStop.

Not for Resale captures that spirit of the indie game store by interviewing several independent game store owners that are featured throughout. Hearing their stories on what inspired them to start up their own game store and how long they have been in the business all had their own powerful DIY stories and a lot of them put a lot of stock into why they prefer physical games over digital. The production values for these interviews stands out with artistic B-roll, a pleasant ambient soundtrack dominated with smooth piano melodies and multiple camera angles making the interviews more dynamic. The theme of physical over digital came across to me as the thesis in Not for Resale with the interviews branching off on that topic in multiple directions. I was able to relate with them on many of those facets with some key argument points being addressed such as rural communities and military bases with limited to no Internet access, having actual ownership of a physical game compared to buying the ‘license’ of a digital game on a storefront that is not guaranteed to always be online among other factors touched on throughout. The not-so-desirable effects of collecting physical games are also touched on like when Greg Miller states being primarily a digital game supporter by justifying it of being not a fan of clutter. Other interviews state expected downsides of physical game collecting such as a gradually slimming retro game market and wear and tear taking a toll over the years on physical games and systems. One of my favorite scenes in the film is a collector trading in his complete American Saturn collection and him having a constructive back and forth with the clerk on how it was tough to let go, but he was moving onto marriage and the next step of his life.

Eventually Not for Resale pivots to game preservation and has some fascinating interviews with Videogame History Foundation members Frank Cifaldi and Kelsey Lewin. Both have a tremendous amount to offer, with Cifaldi especially being featured throughout on the importance of physical games and why they must be preserved. I liked how they tracked down the portion of the National Archives that has a videogame wing and showcased what they have in their vault and they touch on how they have a long way to go. Another informative scene is how the doc covers conventions and how Kelsey and Cifaldi state how imperative it is to reach out to collectors at retro game cons in order to chronicle and preserve as much material and rare prototypes as humanely possible. Another notable little highlight of this film for me was how an exhibit at a retro games convention has an early-to-mid80s model bedroom (complete with vintage woodgrain wallpaper) that I had to pause multiple times throughout and think to myself, “yeah, that was my childhood.” As much as I relate and am on board to the positives of physical games that Not for Resale hits on, I am relieved this is not a total dump on digital games and the filmmakers make sure to give digital games their proper due with them being huge for the rise of indie games and making game development for the latest systems accessible to nearly anyone. There is a well done scene interviewing the developers at Psyonix (pre-Epic acquisition) on their success story with their digital game Rocket League and how important it was for them to eventually have a physical copy on the shelves. They tracked down the founders of publisher, Limited Run Games who state why it is important for them to reach out to small indie game developers and get their games that launched first only as a digital game and get them out on a physical disc.

If I were to make any nitpicks with the documentary they had to deal with the subtitles. I love subtitles and am glad they are there, but whoever was in charge of them I feel is not familiar with some of the obscure platforms covered in Not for Resale. Certain instances being the ‘Ouya’ subtitled as ‘Uvio’ and Sega’s kid-friendly platform, the ‘Pico’ subtitled as ‘Peko.’ I love it when films go above and beyond for having the bonus features and commentaries subtitled, and sadly Not for Resale has neither. Again, I am splitting hairs and when my only qualms with this BluRay is with the subtitles then that is saying how well-rounded the rest of the package is. Speaking of the bonuses, Frank Cifaldi, Kelsey Lewin and Pat Contri do a roundtable session that a couple of quotes are pulled from in the documentary, but nearly their entire 41 minute discussion is available in the bonus features. The same treatment also happened to Greg Miller of Kinda Funny Games with a 14 minute extended interview with him touching on how the Master System’s Ghostbusters got him into games and why he prefers digital over physical games. There are two audio commentary tracks. One with director Kevin J. James and cinematographer Thomas Chalifour-Drahman and another with James and Pat Contri. I listened to the track with James and Contri and they unsurprisingly have a constant rapport of insightful factoids from the production such as highlighting favorite interviewees and how they surprised game store owners with their level of production equipment. I tend to be a fan of documentary commentaries by their sheer nature, and this one did not disappoint.

If you dear reader have been trending towards more and more digital gaming purchases only or are a younger game player who have not had the experience of going into a game store that is not a GameStop then be ready for some require learning. Not for Resale tremendously encapsulates a culture of gaming that should be celebrated and not forgotten. It does not overstay its welcome and you will have a whole new understanding of this slice in videogames in a brisk 86 minutes that will stick with you for years to come. Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs 3 12 Angry Men (1957) 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown 21 Jump Street The Accountant Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie Atari: Game Over The Avengers: Age of Ultron The Avengers: Infinity War Batman: The Dark Knight Rises Batman: The Killing Joke Batman: Mask of the Phantasm Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice Bounty Hunters Cabin in the Woods Captain America: Civil War Captain America: The First Avenger Captain America: The Winter Soldier Christmas Eve Clash of the Titans (1981) Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special The Condemned 2 Countdown Creed Deck the Halls Detroit Rock City Die Hard Dredd The Eliminators The Equalizer Dirty Work Faster Fast and Furious I-VIII Field of Dreams Fight Club The Fighter For Love of the Game Good Will Hunting Gravity Guardians of the Galaxy Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 Hercules: Reborn Hitman Indiana Jones 1-4 Ink The Interrogation Interstellar Jobs Joy Ride 1-3 Major League Man of Steel Man on the Moon Man vs Snake Marine 3-6 Merry Friggin Christmas Metallica: Some Kind of Monster Mortal Kombat National Treasure National Treasure: Book of Secrets Pulp Fiction The Replacements Reservoir Dogs Rocky I-VII Running Films Part 1 Running Films Part 2 San Andreas ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Shoot em Up Slacker Skyscraper Small Town Santa Steve Jobs Source Code Star Trek I-XIII Sully Take Me Home Tonight TMNT The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2 UHF Veronica Mars Vision Quest The War Wild Wonder Woman The Wrestler (2008) X-Men: Apocalypse X-Men: Days of Future Past

[hungry-weirdartist]

Dear Evan Hansen Headcanons Part 2

(a/n:hey eurus again im so grateful for all the feedback i got for the part 1 and its just awesome thank you so much!!!also enjoy this thing and you can send in prompts for headcanons or stories for deh,heathers,bmc if you want,if you dont want its fine but anyway here it is!enjoy!-eurus)

>zoe

-evan and zoe are bffs and zoe tells evan embarrassing stories about connor and then once connor comes zoe just screams like CONNOR EVAN KNOWS ABOUT YOUR BEDWETTING

-she and alana are study buddies and when they have a study sessions,it starts productive then it ends up with  them making out(they still get good grades)

-zoe loves astronomy,she has like, seven science fair projects about it

-she is very happy that she gets to connect with connor again and connor actually acts like a good older brother and zoe is very happy when that happens

> alana

-she is the only one who knows connor is smart because once alana was filling out a math factoid sheet and she asked herself the questions and con con was in the room and he answered them all correctly and she shows him respect because of this incident(ps:he told her not to tell anyone about that)

-she makes gifts for everyone ,usually sweaters(evan has an acorn and a tree sweater,zoe has some galaxy sweaters,jared has gaming sweaters, connor has a “censored” sweater and a “parental advisory sweater” and heidi has some pretty patterns and heart sweaters and she wears them everywhere )

- she is overworked and stressed but whenever shes with the group she gets destressed cause friends r great

-she is the bestest friend anyone could have and the squad was really supporive when she came out as lesbian

>THE INSANELY COOL JARED KLEINMAN

-GAYYYY(once evan called connor and jared gays instead of guys and they looked at each other like “hes right)

-my hacker son has seen all the computers of the squad and he knows all of them on a deep level because he has seen everything

-this guy always wins at video games and he always brags about it when he does(YEAH THE KING OF MARIO KART IN THE HOUSE   )

-lastly,my boy is very very sociable,you might think hes nervous but hes an extrovert as heck

                                                       -END-

(a/n:hey hope you enjoyed this and this was really fun to make so if you want, recommend some more stuff for me to write about and i love my kids,they are so precious so yeah byeeee -eurus)

[t-oresama]

“Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America” by Jeff Ryan

Synopsis: In 1981, Nintendo of America was a one-year-old business already on the brink of failure. Its president, Mino Arakawa, was stuck with two thousand unsold arcade cabinets for a dud of a game (Radar Scope). So he hatched a plan. Back in Japan, a boyish, shaggy-haired staff artist named Shigeru Miyamoto designed a new game for the unsold cabinets featuring an angry gorilla and a small jumping man. Donkey Kong brought in $180 million in its first year alone and launched the career of a short, chubby plumber named Mario. Super Mario tells the story behind the Nintendo games millions of us grew up with, explaining how a Japanese trading card company rose to dominate the fiercely competitive video-game industry.

Published: 2011; republished in 2012 (Penguin Group) Genre: Non-fiction, biographical, pop-culture Rating: 4 out of 5 Reader Review: The day has finally come. I’m finally doing a review for this book. I have to write this to believe it for myself because this book took me about two years to finish. Yes, two years for a book less than 300 pages. As with many books nowadays, I found this one at the library, my place of work. I skimmed through the book and took a vested interest in it. But rather than check the book out, I asked for it for Christmas and received it in December 2015. So yes, just about two YEARS. The reason for the length in time? I usually don’t do non-fiction. It’s not for lack of trying, and I do have non-fiction books in my possession, but I’ve always loved fiction for its ability to go all-out, create worlds and characters and situations beyond our wildest dreams because it’s not real; anything is possible. With non-fiction, it’s all facts and automatically trapped within the confines of reality. There isn’t much mind-wandering to be done with that. None of this is to bash non-fiction or those who admire it just as much as I do fiction. And despite my views on non-fiction as a genre, I persevered and stuck with this book until its end because of its subject matter and main character: Mario.

Video game history in itself is unlike anything else because, compared to other types of entertainment such as TV, movies or sports, video games are the newest form with the exception of the internet. Not even half a century old, many people who were around to play the “first” video game (Pong and the first surge of arcade cabinet games) are still alive today. It’s a young market, and its growth has been, as a whole, exponential and hard to ignore. It’s to the point where all forms of entertainment mentioned above have included video games at some point; there are cartoons and movies based on video games, there are TV shows dedicated to TALKING about video games, websites like Youtube are catering more to the gaming community, and just recently a marching band performed the Legend of Zelda theme song at a grand football game. So to read about how this all essentially started was fascinating. Now, I’ll try to stay unbiased as always, but I must say that as the great 21st century console wars go on, I’m Team Nintendo. I’m not exclusively Nintendo, but I’ve always been drawn to their bold, colorful and positively fun games rather than Playstation and X-Box’s direction of gritty “adult” action titles. There’s pros and cons with all three consoles, and I know Playstation and X-Box have done some things better than Nintendo. Like my preference with fiction and non-fiction books, that’s all I mean to express here: a preference. And I’m sure there’s books like “Super Mario” that go as in-depth with Playstation and X-Box’s histories (in fact, Playstation’s history started thanks to Nintendo, as they backed out of a deal with Sony in an admittedly scummy manner, prompting Sony to drop the idea of collaborating with Nintendo in favor of making their own console: the Playstation). But Nintendo is a unique specimen because this book doesn’t just talk about Nintendo’s history, but makes it quite clear that Nintendo IS video game history. They are the grandfathers of video gaming as we know it today. Nintendo has 10+ years on Playstation and X-Box, and it’s all thanks to Mario, their mascot still as synonymous with gaming as Mickey Mouse is to Disney nearly 40 years later. And that is the hefty goal of this book- to showcase Nintendo from its humble beginnings to their growth to now (well, to 2012, when the book was last updated).

“Super Mario” starts not just with the release of the NES/Famicom or the hiring of Shigeru Miyamoto, the father of Mario, but with the formation of Nintendo itself, when it was a trading card company... in 1889. So, how did it go from cards to electronics almost a century later? That’s what author Jeff Ryan breaks down for the reader. The book is separated by five parts with five chapters per segment. As this is a book depicting Nintendo’s development over the years, its parts are sequential and correlate to (almost) each new game console Nintendo has created and Mario has taken part in: The Donkey Kong arcade cabinets, the NES/Famicom, the SNES/Super Famicom, the Nintendo64, and the Wii. Each chapter, Ryan states, is named after a Mario game (’Mario’s Party’, ‘Mario’s Brawl’, ‘Mario’s World’) and just the fact that there are enough Mario games out there that Ryan could use 25 of them without repeating is pretty telling of Mario’s success. At times I felt the names were distracting or too much of an attempt to be ‘punny’, simply because some names had nothing to do with the subject matter. ‘Mario’s World’ is about the N64, and ‘Mario’s Kart(ridge)’ is about the Virtual Boy. It might just be because I’m doing a review, but finding events in a book to go back to is not easy when the chapter name and subject don’t correspond to one another.

Throughout the book, there are certainly parts that come off more as talking about Nintendo’s history rather than Mario’s  but Mario is ingrained in Nintendo electronics; there really is no separating the two, nor a way to talk about one without the other. And in the world of video games in the 1980s, where the rules were not yet made and the potential limitless, reading about seemingly small and minute decisions Nintendo made with Mario with nothing to go off of but instinct was amazing, especially when you read about the subsequent payoff of those decisions a few paragraphs later. There was a reason for Mario’s name, there was an idea that they wanted him to be not just a mascot but a character that wasn’t defined by one game/genre of game but could easily adapt to any situation (similar to Bugs Bunny), and there was even a reason to Mario’s design, stemming from both graphical limitations of the arcade cabinet and simply from laziness. Because no one was challenging them in the beginning, the risks were both high and low. Some choices Nintendo/Miyamoto made for the world of Mario stemmed from real life (such as the idea of the Chain Chomp enemies, created from a dog on a chain that would attempt to chase Miyamoto as a child). If they didn’t come from real life events, they came from a blend of business (Kirby, the pink ball-like creature in the Kirby franchise, was named after the last name of the lawyer who helped Nintendo during a lawsuit over Donkey Kong’s name) and culture (with Wario being named for the Japanese word “Warui”, meaning “bad”). I found all of these little factoids interspersed through the chapters, between talks of schematics for games and the reception of said games, really cool simply because I’m a lover of the useless fact. It got to a point when even stuff I didn’t think was done for a reason was, indeed, done for a reason (”Color theory links purple [Nintendo Gamecube] to feelings of royalty... Dreamcast had chosen white with neon orange highlights: orange was the color of happiness. Sony’s... Playstation 2 was black with distinctive blue piping: blue is the color of intelligence... [The XBox’s] black came with hints of green. Green is the color of renewal... These weren’t accidental choices.”).

As you can probably tell, reviewing non-fiction isn’t exactly my forte. Giving my opinions on facts is a little strange. So let me get to a part I can always critique: the structure. Obviously it has to go in chronological order, so on that it does an A+ job. But in the beginning of a majority of the chapters, before picking up where the last left off, Ryan does this really weird intro where he talks about pop culture and Mario’s presence in it. Sometimes it correlates with the timeline of the chapter (he talks about the Super Mario Bros. Super Show in a chapter also taking place in the early 90s, for instance), but sometimes it doesn’t. It’s detached from the timeline and just serves to talk about how impactful Mario is: “Mario garners 1,500,000 search results when you type in ‘Mario Cake’ on Google! Mario is on hundreds of T-shirts! Mario was painted onto a sponsored Nascar racecar and won its first race!” Those are all great achievements and serve the purpose of showing how big Mario is even today, but they’re just dropped in the beginning, Ryan brags about Mario for about 3 pages, and then the first line of a separate paragraph will be in bold, indicating that the singing of the praises is over and we’re back to the timeline again. It’s distracting to the point of being annoying sometimes. Why did all of these accolades have to be spread out through openings of various chapters? Why not just have a chapter dedicated to his pop culture impact? It just makes no sense when, for some of these intros, all Ryan is doing is literally listing things Mario has been in or on. 

And I feel the need to point this out, because despite the cover pictured above looking how it does, my copy has the words “with a new chapter” written in the top pixelated cloud. Ryan originally published this in 2011 (hence why it stops at talking about the Wii), but added this new chapter at the beginning of 2012. And what is this new chapter about? Well, to start, it’s titled “Mario’s Misfortunes”. And it’s about just that: it goes in month by month talking about the missteps and stock hits Mario and Nintendo took in 2011. We go from singing high praises to shooting him off his pedestal with a Nintendo Zapper. I feel similarly to this chapter’s inclusion as I did with the “bonus chapter” included in “The Bane Chronicles”: I hate it. Hate it hate it hate it. Yes, it’s factual, and yes, it was a pretty dismal year for Nintendo, but to end the book made to present Mario and Nintendo’s rise from underdog to top dog on that? On THAT? It’s so utterly depressing. And suddenly Ryan inserts himself in the book, in this additional chapter, addressing the audience directly and giving a solution to this “crisis” that no one asked for: “It’s time for a Mario theme park,” he declares. I’m still so baffled by this whole last part. He details it to even the specific location of this imaginary theme park and why it makes sense to put it there. I can’t honestly figure out why this exists other than to serve as a pitch, but we, the ones reading it, are not the people he should be pitching this to. It honestly made me irritated when I first read it. This is a book that, up until now, has been written in grounded facts (although, if you look on websites like Amazon where this book is sold, many Nintendo connoisseurs have been quick to point out some inaccuracies in the book as far as release dates and timeline happenings). Why, now, do we need it to veer from fact to opinion? “Because it’s an updated chapter” is not an excuse. I found something so smug about it, as if Ryan was saying “Well, if I was running the company, I’d do this. Dummies.” It was a chapter that really didn’t need to be. Nintendo is still up and running in 2017, and doing pretty spectacular in comparison (without a theme park, too, however I hear that one is actually in the works), and at this rate they’ll continue to exist. It’s pointless to add commentary for one year and then stop. If you commentate on 2011/2012, why not 2013, 2014, and so on? You set yourself up for failure by adding on to an already-complete book. If you really want to say more, just make another book ten years from now. Dummy.

Admittedly, I found the first half of the book more interesting than the second; that may be why my bookmark was lodged in page 116 for months and months. What I found so enjoyable about it was simply the history. The first half of the book is the start-up, how things came to be, how the public first reacted to the concept of “home gaming consoles”. Hands down my favorite story in the book was about Nintendo fighting a lawsuit from Universal who owned the rights to King Kong and argued copyright infringement against Nintendo for their similarly-named ape. That alone is a wonderful standalone story about Nintendo and just a good lesson for big companies trying to claim people “stole” something when it’s all within fair use. But then the second half starts to become more familiar territory. The N64, the Gamecube, the Wii... us millennials were around for all of that. Maybe not as game reviewers or commentators, but we saw the progression happen right before our eyes as players. It’s nostalgia-inducing, sure, and there are neat behind-the-scenes pieces about how Super Mario 64 was made as the first successful mainstream attempt at 3D graphics and why they made the Gamecube purple (really, I think I’m the only one that found that so totally enthralling), but it felt more like a recap at times than anything new and interesting (I know that’s not necessarily the point of a book chronicling Nintendo and Mario). I will say this, though- The second half, especially five years after this was written, makes for good comparison between then and now. Ryan points out that Nintendo like to keep to themselves and are weary about releasing things like mobile games; he even quotes the late great Satoru Iwata in talking about how Nintendo isn’t doing enough to meet the demands of the huge online demographic “nowadays” (2010). Fast-forward to now, and the WiiU and Switch both heavily encourage online play, and Mario exists in a mobile phone game. It’s like opening a time capsule and seeing what’s changed now to what it was back then. It’s an unexpected enjoyable treat at the end (thanks, last 40 pages of the book!) 

"Super Mario” is an easy, interesting read showcasing a history that is still so young, one has to wonder if you can really call it a “history”. I can guarantee that there are things you didn’t know about Nintendo or Mario in this book, and whether you’re just a casual gamer or a Nintendo fanboy/girl, you’ll find a reason to like this book and keep reading, as I did. While I had to force myself to read the book sometimes and was kind of critical of it in here, I enjoyed it. I learned a lot, looked at some game and consoles in my home in a different light, and I gained a lot of respect for Nintendo, for Ryan who took (I’m assuming) months to research all of this, and for the everlasting Renaissance man, Mario himself.

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Golden Goose Zapatillas El ganso de oro es a menudo enfermo

La noción de que el oro de los tontos vive también significa que el oro tradicional es una posibilidad de poder ser poseído. Así como el que hay en verdad es. Alrededor hay una pequeña cantidad de increíbles potenciales para ganar dinero en todo el mundo, específicamente como hubo clientes que atacaron a Zapatillas Golden Goose Baratas ersonas más antiguas hace años, por lo que hay personas comunes que están creando grandes cargos de recursos financieros en línea mientras hablamos. La introducción del video de 41 segundos de 'The Rapunzel' tiene un enfoque humorístico: el nombre completo del personaje tradicional y la 'cosa del cabello' que se desarrolla en una historia. Al usar el texto, los enlaces de URL abiertos a varios diccionarios y el escáner están protegidos para cualquier tipo de factoide de un minuto. En realidad, es importante permitirles tener un sitio único y profesional, para que los clientes potenciales recuerden a los clientes después de compararlo con Golden Goose Zapatillas tros agentes de cobertura. Las compras guían su sitio real y también aseguran que refleje sus otros esfuerzos publicitarios a los mensajes. En el caso de que esté listo para par, póngase en contacto con una empresa de rutinas web de calidad. Asegúrese de que todas las personas muestren que puede haber muestras que indiquen su esfuerzo en función de sus gustos y sueños. Teddy Roosevelt dijo que su peor preocupación por los estados era que el gobierno importante pagaba en base a negocios populares. Esto es de lo que Free Operate es de lo único. Franklin Roosevelt me ​​dijo que los asuntos económicos relacionados con la salud son verdaderamente transmisibles. En los tiempos de hoy se han convertido en una mayor prevalencia hacia el control. Jim utilizó eso simplemente más. Varios de sus tiendas actuales que se publicaban parecían ser grandes franquicias, y comúnmente recibía una referencia del hecho de que las tiendas se relacionaban con todas las demás tiendas dentro de esa franquicia en la comunidad. Otro ganso de oro en línea. Esta vez, al principio, Golden Goose se encontró con todos los demás Golden Goose en línea. Ahora su sitio puede tener dudas sobre ser visible en mi artículo. En realidad, ni siquiera todos escanean la revista, ya que esta empresa come para contratar esta tarea (en áreas extremas). Así que si ese es tu problema hay una superación para ello. En términos básicos, usted forma parte de uno vinculado a los anunciantes gratuitos. Sin lugar a dudas, no su audiencia seleccionará a una de estas personas, sino a las personas reales que lo lograron porque son compras típicas. Lo que al mismo tiempo es un lugar notable cuando necesita poner consumidores. Golden Goose Deluxe Brand ncluso los de menor tamaño viajan de una manera que consume tiempo. Y de lo que realmente está empezando también. Los principales números de este internet en particular que harían efectivo se incrementarán extremadamente durante los próximos años. En este momento, a menudo es una ocasión absolutamente maravillosa para elegir participar como parte de Internet Promocional. La crisis pecuniaria mundial se traduce en que la gente tiene que cerrar otras formas de ganar dinero, ya sea con un complemento de los salarios principales específicos o cuando necesita reemplazar un trabajo significativo que ya habrá perdido. ¿Así como el lugar donde la mayoría de la gente comienza su búsqueda? En apariencia en el uso de las ofertas de negocios netos!

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Golden Goose Baratas El ganso vital es a menudo enfermo

El hecho ineludible de que la vida del oro de los tontos también sugiere que hay mucho oro en el cual se puede sufrir también. También seguramente lo hay. Existen increíbles posibilidades particulares para ganar dinero a través de la red. Tiene que hacerlo, ya que en ese momento éramos nosotros quienes alcanzamos el verdadero metal precioso de plata hace años, por lo que en ese momento hay personas comunes que generalmente son y obtienen grandes umbrales de dinero. recursos en línea Golden Goose Zapatillas ronto. La introducción de la reproducción de video de 41 segundos de 'The Rapunzel' ofrece un enfoque humorístico para ayudarlo a mencionar la mención del personaje clave y, en general, lo que está sucediendo en la historia. A lo largo de todo el texto, la página de inicio está abierta para ayudarlo a que varios diccionarios y visitantes estén preparados para un factoide de muy pocos minutos. Es importante para que pueda tener un buen sitio de fabricación único, de hecho, los nuevos clientes potenciales recuerdan a los clientes después de compararlos con otros agentes de seguros. El producto revisa su sitio más popular y también asegura que esta herramienta refleje sus otros esfuerzos de publicidad como mensajes. Siempre y cuando no esté a la altura, encuentre una empresa de rutina de calidad en la web. Asegúrese de que le muestren que usted tiene que ver con muestras relacionadas con sus tareas y necesidades. Teddy Roosevelt dijo que su peor trauma para los Estados Unidos era que un buen gobierno se hubiera implementado con importantes negocios. Lo anterior es toda la vocación libre. Golden Goose Baratas ranklin Roosevelt dijo que los problemas económicos son genuinamente transmisibles. Pronto serán una epidemia asociada con el control. Jim aprovechó eso a veces más. Un poco de cualquier tienda que fluye en franquicias grandes y experimentadas, y muchas veces terminará obteniendo una referencia de esa tienda, todas las demás tiendas con respecto a esa empresa en el lugar. Otro ganso de oro en línea. Esta vez, al principio, nuestro ganso dorado en línea colocó un particular ganso dorado en línea. Ahora es posible que tenga dudas respecto a ser visto personalmente en mi artículo. No se considera que todo el mundo visite el documento, ya que esta empresa contiene la recompensa (en todas las áreas). Tal vez ese sea tu reto allí sea considerado como una alternativa a cuándo. En términos básicos, el mercado presente en uno asociado a los anunciantes gratuitos. Por supuesto, no todos querrán obtener una buena opinión, pero, sin duda, la gente que lo ha hecho lo ha hecho simplemente porque estaban comprando. La idea es y un lugar beneficioso para permitirles poner códigos de cupón. Incluso los más leves comienzan por mucho tiempo. Y esta lata es simplemente demasiado pronto también. Los números que se apresuran hacia ese Internet para ganar dinero duramente ganado aparecerán enormemente durante los próximos años. Sí, sin duda fue una ocasión maravillosa e importante para participar en Internet Promocional. La actual crisis financiera personal del mundo debería decirle que muchas personas tienen en efecto la posibilidad de permanecer para que gane dinero, ya sea complementando sus ingresos Zapatillas Golden Goose Rebajas rincipales o para que pueda reemplazar un trabajo específico que se ha perdido. ¿Y / o dónde comenzar a hacer la mayoría de los clientes iniciar la búsqueda distinta? ¡Mirando la oportunidad de negocio de world-wide-web!